Galactic High

“Morning everyone!” Jack greeted the gathering students once he came down from his shower, having ensured he’d get his in before the others. “Any news?”

“Hey Jack! Doesn’t look like it.” Alora turned around and smiled at him. “For once!”

We’re getting some feel-good headlines covering the rebuilding efforts. Chiyo waved him over. Including more footage of the memorial service Clan Bharzum held.

“About time things started looking up!” Nika grinned. “Now we’re stable living, we can work on some proper homestead improvements with the fabricator!”

“Gotta get enough initial power to get it running first!” Sephy warned. “Then we gotta build ALL the solar panels! I got my hands on a template we can use that shouldn’t be too complicated. Not the most efficient, but easy to make and set up, it’s mostly just clipping things together.”

Utilities will still need some overall budgeting, especially water, Chiyo cautioned. But everyone’s got their hands on various water containers, so they can fill up when we get to school. But as far as initial energy goes, we have the powerstones and the engine from the cargo drone.

“The solar panels won’t be able to cover the fabricator on their own, but it’ll still make things much easier,” Nika added. “I believe you wanted to get a cryptomining rig setup at some point, Sephy?”

“Yup!” Sephy grinned. “Gonna need a lot of work though!”

“If we can agree that we at least need solar panels first, maybe we should sit down tonight and plan what we prioritise with the fabricator with the resources we have,” Jack pointed out. “Whatever secures our basics first before we go for the more complicated stuff. Also, we need to plan room assignments for this stuff, assuming we still have space.”

“Good idea, Jack.” Alora nodded. “The solar panels will take some time as it is. I guess improving rainwater collection would help with the water until we can syphon it from the grid.”

“You can use the fabricator for things other than home improvements, too!” A voice called out, as Hessia, one of the insectoid seamstress enthusiasts, spoke up. “You’ve got a lot of cloth and fabric just sitting there - I could fix your curtains or get you some new clothes suitable for your build, Jack.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking you up on that offer.” Jack grinned. “But I can live with hand-me-downs and charity bins for now while we get the homestead set up.”

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind us all sitting down tonight and making these kind of plans. Chiyo sighed. With what we’ve recently been up to and with what Clan Bharzum gave us, we shouldn’t need to take up any dangerous jobs for a while.

“I agree.” Nika nodded. “It’ll be good to cool things down, but I don’t want us to lose our edge. We’ll need income at some point, and we’ve got some new toys to play with!”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the animals at the sanctuary again and doing some work there.” Jack shrugged. “But maybe once we’re ready, we can talk to Mr Sparrel about that investigator that might be able to help me, if you guys are up for it.”

“Sable Krynn,” Sephy reminded him. “And I’m definitely in! I’ve always wanted to meet her!”

“We’ll all join you, Jack.” Alora chuckled lightly. “But though I understand you wish to try and return to your home realm, there are many positive things about living here that you have not had the opportunity to experience! Once the city has returned to normal, we must show you them!”

“You’ve gotta see some of our sports!” Nika grinned. “Even wilder than deathball!”

Some of the food courts specialise in exotic delicacies! Chiyo added.

“And we’re totally going to the Cathedral of Merriment when we can!” Sephy grinned. “I know Vaal told you about it! He’s promised we can go with the team budget when Arlox and Kizzarith can make the trip!”

“It sounds so good I’m just wondering how it can inevitably go to shit.” Jack chuckled dryly.

“There’s plenty of good to be found here,” Alora reiterated. “You might learn more if you go to therapy like High Priestess Cornelia tried to set up for you. She knows you lied the last time she asked about it.”

“Nah.” Jack shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I don’t need that crap. It’s not going to solve anything.”

“If you say so.” Alora nodded, disappointedly. “Though that does remind me - the Sect of Esin offered free first aid training and encouraged us to give it a try. It could be fun as well as useful!”

“I’m up for that.” Jack shrugged. “God knows I’ve been shot, stabbed and burned enough times to have a reason to learn it. I know a tiny bit from my time with the Scouts but I keep worrying about remembering the wrong instructions and making things worse. And that doesn’t even take into account other species…”

“Then when we get back I’ll book us a group lesson.” Alora smiled at the nods from all around, as the rest of their residents came down to join them, indicating that they could head to school soon. “Basic healing is a good skill for anyone to know, especially with what we do. This will be a great time to recuperate from the last few weeks and relax some more!”

*****

“Oh great, prefects right on point again.” Nika groaned as the sight of their school pyramid appeared on the horizon. They were earlier than usual in order to take advantage of the facilities, but already there were queues forming due to the heightened security.

Most likely due to the Emerald King cultists, Chiyo reasoned. There are videos of them showing up everywhere; it’s got a lot of people worried, despite their apparently benign nature.

“Benign my ass.” Sephy snorted. “They’re up to something.”

“I think you’re right,” Jack added. “There are religions and cults on my world too, and the ones that try and recruit this aggressively are usually the worst. Some have ended really badly…”

A prefect drone hovered close to the group before staring at them with its camera.

"Discussions about unauthorised groups are prohibited on school premises.” It beeped aggressively. “This will be reported."

“Are you fucking serious?” Nika growled. “We’re not even allowed to talk about it?”

“Just what we need at the start of the week…” Alora sighed. “I’ll bring it up with the School Council. I understand they’re just being cautious, but this is excessive.”

The students inched closer to the front of the queue, being careful not to bring up spicy topics around the patrolling security bots as they scanned the students for any unauthorised individuals or suspicious contraband.

“Well, Killer Kush won’t be coming back here.” Jack chuckled under his breath at seeing the new measures. “Though at least if he does, it won’t be to come after me. That Gandalf disguise of his was something else…”

Looks like we’ve got a lot more prefects on duty than usual, Chiyo noted. Rena’s up there too, we’d better lay low for now.

“You do know I have a grenade launcher I have yet to try out, right?” Jack joked, earning several chuckles from the others. “Are the drow around?”

Unfortunately not. Chiyo shook her head in amusement.

“I know you’re joking, but best not to clue them in on what they don’t know you have,” Nika noted. “Just in case.”

“Alright.” Jack nodded more seriously, knowing she was right as Rena noticed their arrival, the Vulsta narrowing her eyes at Jack before being called to another group of students.

“They do know about my flamethrower though…” Jack muttered under his breath, with only Sephy overhearing, giggling next to him.

"Please present all magical, electronic and cybernetic devices for inspection." A prefect droned as they got closer. “Failure to comply will result in disciplinary action.”

“You, hand those glasses over for inspection!” A prefect called over to Chiyo. “We’ll inspect and return them once cleared.”

“You!” Another prefect called, pointing at Sephy. “My scanner detects unauthorised software, please step aside for manual inspection!”

“Your weapons need to go on the conveyer belt!” Another pointed at Nika.

“Sorry Glenphyranix, please submit yourself to arcana analysis!” Another called Alora over.

“I guess I’m good then,” Jack called out sarcastically as he moved to simply walk past.

“Frost,” the expected ice-cold voice of Rena called out. “Come here.”

“What do you want?” Jack asked, irritated. “Need to inspect my balls?”

“Your weapons and magical equipment will suffice.” Rena narrowed her eyes, as she waved some kind of handheld scanner around him.

“You can scan them, but you’re not keeping them,” Jack allowed, moving his arms slightly away from his blaster. “Just get this over with.”

“That is acceptable, provided you act within the school’s rules and regulations.” Rena nodded, as she waved the scanner around him. There was an uncomfortable silence for several minutes as neither said anything to the other, before Rena finally spoke.

“I wish to know of your first encounter with the Cult of the Emerald King. You met one of their first street preachers several days ago. What area was this in, and what were you doing there?”

“None of your business,” Jack retorted, not willing to tell Rena anything about their job gone bad. “My friends and I were simply out for a walk.”

“I fail to see what you gain from withholding information from me,” Rena asked, with a hint of…confusion? “I wish to stop this cult’s influence from infecting this school by targeting vulnerable students. By pinpointing its origin point, I can aid the efforts to prevent its spread.”

“Hmm.” Jack thought, split between denying the annoying Vulsta out of spite, and recognising the genuine concern. He thought back to his conversation earlier, before deciding to cooperate. “Alright, we encountered them in the area around where EdaGro and EdenNet have a border to the north. There were a few of them and a woman handed us a leaflet and a box of nutri-bars. She was pretty insistent.”

“Do you still have the leaflet, or one of the nutri-bars?” Rena asked. “May I have it, if you do?”

Jack shrugged, looking through his blazer pockets before digging up one of the nutri-bars he had packed and forgotten about the moment Mr Sparrel had bought them snacks, distrustfully handing it over to the Vulsta. “Enjoy.”

“While the school considers this contraband, I am willing to overlook this particular violation of the rules. Your cooperation is appreciated, Frost.”

“Can I go now?” The human asked, deadpan.

“You may.” Rena nodded, and Jack wasted no time in joining his friends on the other side.

Rena looked at the strange barebones packaging with green tint and sighed in relief that Frost was cooperative this time. The nutri-bar would need to be analysed, but narrowing the initial spread of the cult would be key to investigating it. Still, it was still a shame that she and Frost were not on good terms, though perhaps things would improve…

The group finally made it up the magical elevators to their level and made it down the mostly quiet hallways to their lockers, before Nika spoke up. “I can’t believe they’ve taken these security measures this far over just some dumb cult.”

Perhaps they’ve done something we don’t know about? Chiyo theorised.

“Maybe, but it would have shown up on the news or maybe I would have heard of it on the Ghostnet.” Sephy shrugged. “Either way we’re probably going to get an assembly on it by our out-of-touch headmaster. I really hope we’re watching the films again!”

“I don’t know if that’ll be the case, though I do know the homeroom classes are merged again this week,” Alora told them. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they try and get whatever lessons they can back to normal.”

“I wouldn’t mind another history lesson.” Jack grinned before suddenly having a thought. “Would Mr Sparrel know about Malakiel and some of the other weirder stuff we’ve encountered? Maybe we could ask him? ‘Know thy enemy’ and all that?”

A lot of that kind of information is usually kept secret, and only gets shared if there’s an existential threat, Chiyo pointed out. For example, Malakiel is considered a high-level threat but not a particularly dire one like the Killer Klown is. There’s more interest in buying and selling information to adventurers seeking their bounty than by sharing information in mutual defence.

“Sparrel would probably tell us what he knows.” Sephy shrugged. “Though I don’t think much is confirmed about Malakiel, aside from their bizarre plots and schemes that put the gods’ fear into people. All that’s known for sure is that they’re hostile. You saw it yourself.”

“Yeah.” Jack nodded, thinking. “We took out his relay with Devil’s Daughter, but they have other ways of targeting us.”

We shall need to be careful and on alert, Chiyo agreed. Though I dare say we should be better prepared if we do anything dangerous. We’ve been too reckless lately, even if the fabricator is a fine reward.

“We’ll get some training in then.” Nika nodded. “A Milk Run or two, maybe play temporary auxiliary for a militia or go out monster hunting?”

“I’ll keep an eye on the job board.” Sephy shrugged. “Though it is mostly a bunch of trivial missions and requests for help with the rebuilding efforts. I think Karzen and Bentom wanted to recruit a few of the others to actually do a few of those, they felt bad for that old woman who needed help moving a fridge and ended up doing it themselves!”

“That’s a good thing!” Alora pointed out. “Though I’d be worried if they took something they couldn’t handle, we had problems like that when we started. I’ll have a word with them later.”

“I wouldn’t mind volunteering to help out the clean-up efforts, if that’s what they’ve been doing,” Jack spoke up. “Especially with the Temple of Hope and what they’ve been up to.”

“Meh.” Sephy shrugged at that idea, though the rest were interested. “Though I guess we’ll need stuff to do while the fabricator does its thing.”

“We can start planning now.” Nika shrugged. “If we’re still in the lecture theatre we can sit down and relax while we do it too!”

“Good point,” Alora conceded. “Let’s go.”

*****

“I’ve got no more announcements, but I must say, I am so glad to see more of you alive and well!” Mr Sparrel chirped up, smiling at the students. “As the headmaster made apparent to you all, he expects regular class to resume at the beginning of next week, where lessons shall be doubled up to make up for lost teaching time for the following two weeks!”

“Oh that is gonna fucking suck…” Sephy whispered.

“Do they mean what I think they mean?” Jack whispered back.

“Yeah.” Nika groaned. “Double the lessons for two weeks, and I bet they’ll cut the breaks as well.”

At least we have money and supplies to last us a few months, Chiyo added. But you’re barely going to have time to sleep!

“Then we get the house chores we need done, done,” Alora whispered back. “The Squa’Kaar are on top of food production, we just need to get our utilities sorted, then we can prepare for two weeks of hard school.”

“At least it won’t involve us getting shot.” Jack sighed. “But damn, that’s messed up! Do we get weekends?”

“Yeah, we get weekends,” Sephy noted. “And yeah, it’s super rough when they do this. But we always party hard when it’s over!”

Any student still unable to make it will still have to go to remedial lessons, though depending on how many there are this is usually extended over a much longer period of time and is less intense, Chiyo added. But with the entire school body this is a kneejerk ‘course correction’. It’s brutal, but the corporate sponsors expect deadlines to be met.

“If it’s any consolation, I doubt the double school will be literal,” Alora pointed out. “You think the teachers want to be here longer than they need to? They might just give us extra homework instead.”

“Oh, wow that’s sooo much better!” Sephy snorted with sarcasm.

“Better get your rest in now while you can then!” Nika grinned, as Mr Sparrel played around with the video they’d be watching.

*****

Okay, it says here that we should ensure there’s enough space for the output, Chiyo told the others as she read the fabricator instructions. Do we know how big the parts for the solar panel are going to be?

“I can’t imagine it’ll be huge based on what we’re putting in,” Jack reasoned. “Though, should we put a mattress or a sheet down so it doesn’t immediately smash on the ground or something?”

“I’ll get some of the spare fabric.” Nika chuckled. “You’re right. Knowing our luck I wouldn’t put it past the fabricator to shit it out like diarrhoea!”

“Nika!” Alora sighed at the crudeness. “We should also keep the room clear until we get an idea of the size of what we’re making. Perhaps get some good shelving in here and get a production line going?”

“Let’s see what we’re working with first before we hit up space-IKEA,” Jack suggested.

“Alright!” Sephy exclaimed, clapping her hands together in glee. “The schematic is installed and it’s detected the required raw materials. Can I hit the button?”

“Go for it!” Alora nodded enthusiastically. “But we’ll need to monitor the energy drain before we set up a queue.”

“Starting now!” Sephy prodded the button, causing the fabricator to let out a loud beeping noise to signify the start of something, before quickly settling into a high-pitched whine that was much quieter than Jack had anticipated, muted by the casing. Quickly checking, he could see and was glad that Dante wasn’t negatively affected by any possible high pitches he couldn’t perceive himself.

It's fascinating watching the material being layered. I've read about these things, but seeing one in action is something else, Chiyo observed, as she looked through a glass viewport.

“A bit slow though.” Nika shrugged. “Though I imagine something more defined like this takes time.”

Given the intricacies of a solar panel - cells, wiring and protective layering - it’s quite impressive that this should only take a few hours instead of days, Chiyo pointed out. I only hope we have enough power to sustain it, though simpler, less complex projects should be easier and shorter.

“We’ve got to get the power issue sorted first, but once we do we can get so much done!” Sephy pointed out. “But we need to make sure the wiring is stable and it’s all connected well. We’re going to need you for that Chiyo since we can’t exactly touch the live wires!”

“Then once we’ve done that, we can see how much power we get from one panel,” Jack added. “Then crunch some numbers and work out how many we’ll need overall.”

“It’ll still be a lot,” Alora cautioned. “That’s not to mention the raw materials we’ll eventually need for it.”

“So we get as many supply runs to the scrapyards as we can get away with,” Nika proposed. “We’re going to need the raw materials eventually. Once we’re confident in using this thing we can leave it to go and make the bigger stuff when we’re at school.”

It doesn’t change the fact that utilities are still going to be a problem, Chiyo pointed out. We have a path to becoming self sufficient with basic utilities, but we would still need a lot of solar panels, and water collection still isn’t the most reliable, even if we get the best rain collection system we can, and that’s far into the future. If, however, we’re able to improve what we get from the grid…

“Easier said than done, Chiyo,” Sephy pointed out. “I’ve been looking everywhere for how we might access the Gloom Paths, and I haven’t found anything reliable we can use yet. I’m thinking of just trying to get access to the utility companies themselves, but it’s locked tight.”

“We’ll do what we can for now with the information we have.” Alora nodded. “Rayle says there might be heavy rain in a few days, so with luck it’ll fill the hot tub up at least.”

“About time we get to use that damn thing!” Nika grinned.

“And though we’ve got credits and supplies from Clan Bharzum, they won’t last forever,” Alora warned. “That’s not to say we haven’t done well, but aside from the fabricator we only got a bunch of microwave meals from the Shaskasaki Heist, and we were lucky to get a few weapons, junk and old people stuff from our night of hell last week. Money is going to be an issue again in another month or two, so after the next few weeks are over and things get back to normal…we should consider another Run.”

“YES!” Sephy grinned.

“But, that won’t be for a while, and only if we need to.” Alora pointed out. “Though two of the weeks are going to be double school, we have a lot of downtime! Let’s make sure we use it wisely, and even more importantly make sure we enjoy it! Places are going to be opening up again, and I want us all to go to the waterpark!”

That would be great! Chiyo exclaimed. Plus, Jack still owes me a date!

“I haven’t taken him out either!” Nika grinned.

“Nor me!” Alora chucked.

“Neither have I!” Another familiar voice called from the living room. “And Luvia wants to dig her claws into him too!”

“Dammit Vanya! It’s complicated enough as it is!” Sephy called back, while Jack held his head in his hands out of sheer embarrassment.

“Alright, I’m changing the subject,” Jack finally told the girls the moment he had recovered enough. “With enough Solar panels we’ll be able to run this thing more often. What do we use this for next?”

“Probably the shuttle,” Nika pointed out. “I was hoping to cannibalise what’s left of it and use the cargo drone’s engine and power source as a much safer and more stable propulsion system. The scrap metal can be repurposed here for a chassis at least.”

“The crappy system currently on the shuttle can be used as a power source for our district until it dies out,” Sephy reasoned. “We saw first-hand how dangerous it can get.”

“Could that hook system from the cargo drone be used on a shuttle?” Jack asked. “Like, getting bags of loot out, or if we need to extract ourselves?”

“They could!” Nika nodded. “Good idea, though we’ll need to mess around with the potency of those things. Nothing says ‘botched run’ more than leaving vomit behind as DNA evidence.”

Making the shuttle comfortable would not be a priority but still very welcome! Chiyo added. Seats or mattresses, and good storage space for anything we take with us.

“We’ll need to fine-tune it to be easy to pilot,” Sephy added. “And make sure it’s stealthed up as much as possible.”

“We’ll keep it as a side project,” Alora noted. “Keeping the homestead running is also important. I would propose we set up a good food pantry that’ll help us keep food edible for longer.”

“We can also beef up our security,” Nika noted. “Especially when we get enough power we won’t need to worry about our draw. Motion sensors, cameras, more turrets. Hell, we could probably fix up the weapons we’ve got and distribute them since we don’t need to worry about spare parts.

Don’t forget that much of this place is rundown, Chiyo added. No offence, Alora, but it would be great to have some proper furniture and fix stuff up. Part of the reason why our utilities are so inefficient is because of the old piping and wiring, after all.

“Of course we can always use the fabricator to make some money on the side if we need it,” Sephy added. “Though that can take time away from home projects. I still want to get my crypto setup going!”

“Can’t wait!” Alora grinned, looking back at the fabricator. “Though let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. This thing isn’t even 1% done yet!”