WSP 052

  The Spirit of Collaboration

  For once, Blue had in front of her a design that she hadn’t been the primary driving force behind. Yes, it was true that Vaughan often handled a lot of the finer engineering details of the designs, but all the previous ships she’d been a part of had been primarily her choices on display. But on the designs in front of her, she’d only had a relatively small part to play.

  She was holding the designs to the space station. If talks went well, this would be the finalized design, at least for all the major sections and systems.

  The design was modular, and intended to be expandable with additional modules in the future should they be desired. Every segment was either a metal cube or a metal rectangular prism. Each of these segments were multi-layered, with even more layers than the Moonshot since the station segments needed to be able to last; they needed to be able to take several hits just in case. This, fortunately, had the side effect of making it easier to keep the air inside the station; more layers of separation meant fewer leaks.

  The central component of the station was to be a cube with airlocks on all six sides. Blue was not the biggest fan on the “agreed-upon” circular double-layer design, since it was rather narrow and not all that efficient in making sure air wasn’t wasted, but she had to admit it was simple to build compared to what would have been her personal choice, and most humans probably wouldn’t have much difficulty. Plus, once the station segments were attached to the airlocks, they would remain open the entire time with a few exceptions.

  The central cube was intended to be a place of “foot traffic” even though people wouldn’t be walking in zero gravity all that much. With that in mind it was a mostly empty room with customizable storage on every wall, as well as a smooth section intended to display things. What needed displaying, Blue had no idea, but if things did need to be displayed the central room was probably the best place for it.

  Two airlocks on the central room were set aside—one was to always be empty, in preparation for future ships that could dock directly airlock-to-airlock. However, for ships that didn’t have the ability to dock, that was what the other airlock was set aside for: the “hangar” module.

  The hangar module was a simple, almost empty module that was much larger than the others, because it needed to hold a Moonshot. This module was larger than the others, but also mostly empty on the inside as it was supposed to hold ships. It was barely large enough for a single Moonshot, but could hold multiple smaller ships. The main doors were a larger version of the normal airlock. The major flaw with this design was that every time the doors had to be opened all the air in the hangar would be released to space, and that wasn’t recoverable. Thus every ship that entered the hangar would be required to bring tanks of compressed air to make up for the losses they incurred. This would eventually become unnecessary, but they had to work with the current ship designs somehow.

  Most modules besides this were “standard” rectangular prisms with an airlock on either end, intended to be placed around the central room in four radial spokes. There were two laboratory segments, one for general use and the other specifically for biological research, such as growing plants and the like. Two segments were to be living quarters, which were little more than just beds strapped to walls, with each room capable of hosting four occupants. There was an additional storage segment, mainly for housing food and extra canisters of compressed air, though Colored crystals would be there as well. The most important of the “standard” modules was Crystal Control, which housed the crystalline systems necessary to keep the ship running. One person would always need to be in here, making sure the air restorer was working. Various fan blades across the station would ensure the air was circulated, and these would be tied to the same arcane device that ran the air restorer itself. Since this device always needed to be active, it also controlled the station’s primary light, which would always shine and help ships find it with ease. What counted as the station’s “engine” was also situated in Crystal Control, though it was just a slightly better version of a Skyseed drive, able to push in one direction with only a tiny amount of force. The station would only move at a snail’s pace, but that was all they needed to make sure their orbit didn’t decay into Ikyu. Navigation windows were also located here to make it easy to go from taking a reading to adjusting the station’s heading.

  There were two other modules that Blue was somewhat surprised got included in the final design. The “living room” for people to relax in, and the observatory. Not that Blue was complaining, those two modules were among the most interesting, but they were somewhat unnecessary and she had expected them to be cut to lower construction costs. But no, the Crown had insisted on the “living room” so the astronauts wouldn’t be cramped in an entirely utilitarian space, and the blimps had insisted upon the observatory. The living room was largely just a place with a bunch of couches, books, and a big window directed at Ikyu’s horizon. The observatory only had one airlock, for the other side had an extremely large telescope instead of an exit to another module. The design was impressive—the observatory would be taken up in a collapsed state, but once in space it would extend the telescope to its full massive length. Structural integrity problems kept such a device from being made on Ikyu, but in space no one had to worry about supporting it against gravity. It would have a magnification orders of magnitude stronger than any telescope currently on Ikyu, surpassing even Wanderlust’s capabilities. Who knew what they would see out there?

  Honestly, that was the part Blue was the most excited about, being able to see the planets in even greater detail. Maybe they could finally notice some distinctions in the stars, too? They had started noticing a few fuzzy objects in the sky they were calling “nebulae” as well, but no one had any idea what these were, only a handful could even be seen without a telescope. But they were everywhere, and lots of new stars were already being discovered, who knew what a very strong telescope might find? She had to thank the blimps for pushing for it.

  Blue’s deepest reservation was with the engine. It was tiny, pathetic, and not balanced particularly well. On one hand, that meant it likely couldn’t tear the station apart with a random jerking motion, the thing could only move slowly. On the other, it was not placed in the center of the station, and as more modules were added, the balance of the station would shift and the engine would alter it differently. When moving the station it was most assuredly going to make it spin uncontrollably. Current intentions were to just have an Orange Wizard on the station at all times who would slowly spin the station down. Everyone insisted that the station would not be able to spin up fast enough to be a problem. Blue still didn’t like it, it wasn’t neat, and the behavior would be somewhat unpredictable.

  That said, it wasn’t intended to be used that often. They were placing the station in a somewhat higher orbit and there was nothing they had to avoid up there. The station would, however, have to rotate itself to allow the Telescope to point at all areas of the sky. The original plan for this was to just have Orange Wizards push various parts to reorient the station very slowly. However, Blue was pretty sure they could accomplish it with reaction wheels. But that hadn’t been approved yet and would involve gutting out the design on the central component… she was unsure that would go through at this point. They might just choose to live with awkward implementations.

  Plus, using the reaction wheels on a large object whose mass distribution could continually change, that would be difficult. The interplanetary ship would be easier in that regard, as it wouldn’t keep getting larger with time.

  The station would not start out with all these modules. It wouldn’t even have enough to be habitable at first. But it was going to get assembled very quickly with three different nations working tirelessly on it.

  Despite it all, it looks like we’re cooperating rather well.

  ~~~

  Xanava was nervous.

  Mikarol had been making a lot more Skyrippers lately.

  She had been training a lot of people in how to use them. Mostly people who had excellent military careers. This was a dramatic change; after all, she’d been chosen specifically because she was unsuited for military work. But ever since she’d fired that sunfire stone at the Rigid Plague, there had been a shift in the Empire’s attitude. She needed to train people to use the ships, and clearly use them for war.

  What she didn’t know was why it was such a big deal. The southern campaigns weren’t causing any problems, and she didn’t really see a use for the Skyrippers besides sending messages, and they already did that extensively. Messengers also didn’t need to be career soldiers…

  Mikarol was building up to something. And if that something leaned heavily into space technology, she might have to get involved with it.

  She didn’t want to be involved with it. She didn’t even want to fire the sunfire stone. But she was the only one who had had the skills required to pull it off, and there hadn’t been anyone to shoot back at her. At least, that’s what she told herself, but they hadn’t known the Rigid Plague’s capabilities, so…

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid politics,” Xanava grumbled as she leaned against her personal Skyripper. She wanted to take it out for a spin just to blow off some steam, but no, she was technically “on duty” and couldn’t just fly off anywhere. To think, back when she was still a test pilot she would never have dreamed of just taking a ship out for her own reasons, but now it was commonplace. She could just go to space. Just because she wanted to, as long as she was back in time for whatever her duties were.

  Right now, that was waiting for the idiots currently flying up there to come back. If they didn’t come back in time she went up to go get them. All trainees had distress lights on hand, so she should be able to find them if they hadn’t perished. Eventually.

  That said, several of them had just vanished without a trace. Xanava knew most of them probably crashed and burned, but there was the thought in the back of her mind that some might have taken the ships and run.

  Or just. Tried to go as far as they could and couldn’t figure out how to get back to Ikyu. Some of them were glory seekers like that.

  But this was the Empire, so a few lost soldiers and ships weren’t a problem if there was a greater benefit to be had. Which, apparently, was a standing space-capable army.

  “I was told you were busy training.”

  Xanava turned to see her visitor. She immediately stood to attention when she noted it was the Thaumaturge, her rainbow hair flowing out the back of her helmet. “They’re up in the sky, ma’am!”

  “Are they now…?”

  “If they don’t return in twenty, I go get them. Until then, I wait.” Xanava was very sure to keep her face displaying a simple view of Ikyu from space. It was related to the task at hand and wouldn’t give the Thaumaturge any reason to get upset. The Thaumaturge had suddenly started going around and talking to people a lot more. Rumors were starting to swirl. Even Xanava, who tried her absolute best to keep her head out of such things, knew she was suspected to be the Emperor’s Successor for… unclear reasons.

  Perhaps all this space war preparations were her doing…?

  “I have come here specifically to talk to you, our star astronaut.”

  Oh no. “Why would you need to concern yourself with me?”

  “You’re having doubts.”

  Friggin Silent Legality, bet you’ve been keeping close watch on me. “I assure you, ma’am, I will do my duties to the best of my ability.”

  “Oh, no doubt about that. It’s just that I have the power to alleviate some of your concern, so I figured I should. First of all, you are not in any danger of being sent to war, not only would you not be all that useful in direct conflict, but at this point it would be very unreasonable to risk your skills in that way. It is far better for you to train others.”

  …Is she literally just here to assure me? What even… I guess I have no idea what crazy things go on in her head, I’ve never even talked to her before today. Just know her by reputation. “That is… a relief, yes.”

  “I thought so. But you do deserve to know a little more. War is, in fact, coming. And it will be a glorious one. It may seem, at first, that we are preparing for a lot of losses… rest assured, most of this is just for show.”

  “...Huh?”

  “We could easily win without Skyrippers. But we want to make a point of achieving a great victory with them so the people will rally behind further development in the space sector. The goal is not to create better weapons of war, but to use spacecraft as weapons of war so we are free to develop better spacecraft that are not necessarily weapons of war.” The Thaumaturge looked deeply into Xanava’s face. “You will be a very important part of that new order, Xanava. The world in which the great space station is built.”

  Xanava was silent.

  “Not as much of a relief?”

  “Well, it means I’ll get glory…”

  “You can be frank with me, Xanava.” The Thaumaturge locked her hands behind her back. “The world is changing. You should not be afraid of speaking your mind to those over you.”

  That’s technically an order, great, that’s just… great. “I guess I’d rather not have the pressure.”

  “I understand. But you are also the best pilot we have, and that’s not likely to change. And, furthermore, you aren’t a warrior, which will be very helpful in the future. It may not be what you want, but it is what has been dealt to you. So… I believe the phrase is ‘deal with it.’ “

  Xanava was silent again.

  The Thaumaturge actually chuckled. “We all have our roles to play, even if we may not want them.” She turned and started walking away. “I will likely return when you least expect it. Maybe one day I can learn who you really are under that extremely fake mask of politeness you’re struggling so desperately to maintain. And, perhaps, then you will get to know me.”

  Xanava stared at the place the Thaumaturge had occupied for several minutes after that. She wasn’t sure what to make of her at all.

  ~~~

  “All right! Here it is!”

  Krays ran to the table Blue and Vaughan were working at in one of the laboratory’s many experimentation rooms. She all but slammed a glass sphere onto the table. Inside the glass sphere was a little spinning metal disc inside two rings of metal. Both the rings and the disc could freely rotate thanks to nearly friction-free Colored Crystal joints.

  Krays rolled the ball.

  The central disc remained upright.

  “Gyroscope!” Krays said, gesturing at it excitedly. “Finally, a level we can use in space!”

  Blue levitated the sphere in her telekinesis. She rotated it to the side; sure enough, the interior remained in the same orientation. “Neat. Though I wonder…” She attempted to move the interior specifically, and the central disc started wobbling. “Right, we’ll need to make sure no one grabs it wrong.”

  Vaughan scratched his beard. “Looks like you’ve made up for your previous level’s failings. All it took was some outside assistance!”

  “Still can’t believe we didn’t think of it,” Krays said. “We’ve done lots of experiments with spinning things.”

  “We were fixated on using it for stabilization,” Blue pointed out. “And while, yes, it can do that, it’s still a pain to manage. But I guess we just never really put two and two together and decided ‘ah, yes, orientation! That’s what it's good for measuring and controlling!’ Even Auburn’s wheels aren’t exactly like this, they check for precession.” Blue continued rotating the gyroscope around in the air. “All you have to do is spin this thing up before takeoff and it’ll tell you your orientation without any fancy Magenta weirdness.”

  “Great work, Krays!” Vaughan said, slapping her on the back.

  “Turns out the cure to idiocy is cool airships.” Krays put her hands on her hips and grinned smugly. “Now, just so you know, I want to be on that airship when it goes to the Wilds.”

  Blue rolled her eyes. “Be my guest, as long as you aren’t needed for some critical space thing. Since that will be after we go to the moon again, you should be fine.”

  “Yes!”

  “Why do you want to go, anyway?”

  “Hmm, can’t the genius figure it out?” Krays tapped her chin. “Do you really need me to spell it out for you? Perhaps get you a handwriting practice page? Oh, wait, you don’t have hands.”

  Blue stared at her blankly.

  “Look, you all got to go out and do a bunch of crazy things lately, I’m starting to look like a nobody. And we can’t have that! It’s Krayz’ turn for an adventure! …Also I want to bring Darmosil along so we can go hunting in a distant land together.”

  “Ah, a romantic getaway…” Vaughan said, gaining a wistful expression.

  “And we will make Jeh feel extremely awkward with our every breath. It’ll be great. In the same way that stabbing a wild animal on a hunt is great.” Krayz smirked. “You know, Jeh could hire herself out as ‘professional prey for sport’ since she can’t be killed…”

  Vaughan and Blue glared at her with intense fury.

  “Whaaaat? Of course, it’d be by choice, she’d probably make a ton of money…”

  “Don’t you go sticking ideas in her head,” Blue grunted.

  “Fine, fine, but what if… she thinks of it herself?”

  “If there’s any evidence that you had something to do with it…”

  “You’ll what? Lecture me?” Krayz smirked. “Please, I’m immune to that, you should know this, berry-brain.”

  “Berry-brain…?”

  Vaughan scratched his beard. “I’m sure I could set the Sourdough twins on you. We might not be adepts at revenge, but they’d come up with something.”

  “Hmm, good point, they’d probably find a way to make my glass come out looking like it was grilled or something. Speaking of the twins, I hear they had a very important meeting~!”

  Blue tensed. “That’s supposed to be secret, how did you find out about that?”

  “Jeh has loose lips around people she trusts. She trusts me. Terrible idea, of course, but it is what it is. Poor girl didn’t even realize she’d said anything.”

  Blue sighed. “And here I thought Seskii would be the biggest security risk… turns out she’s one of the most reliable at keeping information where it needs to be.”

  “But the twins… went to the moon, met some princesses, the Emperor of Mikarol, and now the woman closest to ruling the entire world.” Krays leaned forward on her arm and smirked. “So, wanna start taking bets on if they’ll actually do it?”

  Blue raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m thinking they might.”

  “Okay, so, if we actually take their ‘rule the world’ desire seriously, that means they would have to have authority over all of Ikyu; that would mean taking over all the major powers. This is impossible for several reasons. First of all, multiple nations will never tolerate being under the same flag; Kroan and Shimvale are not going to be happy if there’s any single authority over them. The blimps will outright refuse the idea of being ruled, the Angler Hegemony is inaccessible, and there are the other places we have minimal to no contact with. I doubt the demons in those supposed dark lands will be amiable to the idea.”

  Krays smirked. “Meanwhile, I’m seeing themselves becoming an integral part of the Space Program. They already help out by doing little tasks around the lab, did you know? They’re forging connections with powerful people, and when they grow up will no doubt be a part of this program’s bureaucratic management. You and I both know they’d do a good job even as they are now, it’s just that Seskii’s impossible stamina means we haven’t had to hire anyone else. So in a few decades when space travel is the power that makes the world turn, they’ll be in a position to influence it.”

  “That wouldn’t be ruling the world,” Vaughan pointed out.

  “But it is something of great weight they could do.”

  “Well… er… yes.”

  “So the little adorable golden children are going to turn this space endeavor to their own benefit. And then once they have that power, turn it to gaining more power.” Krays tapped her head. “And with all the crazy stuff that’s been going on, they may be able to capitalize on some crazy discovery. We gari have lifespans of about two hundred years, you know, they’ve got time to let it develop.”

  Blue rolled her eyes. “Very few gari actually live that long, it’s like saying humans have a hundred-year lifespan.”

  “How like you, fixating on a tiny technical detail and missing the point.”

  “I get the point, they have time and they’re in a place in history where they have opportunities.” Blue frowned. “Sandy said something similar…”

  “Hah!” Krays clapped her hands together. “So the psycho secret lady agrees with me!”

  “She counseled them to not seek power though.”

  “And they won’t stop, obviously.”

  “True.”

  Vaughan scratched his beard. “Let’s be honest, there are worse people who could be ruling over us.”

  “Yeah, like our current rulers,” Krays said.

  “Krays!” Blue gasped.

  “What? Blue, we know the princesses. I know Tenii. She’s not gonna throw me in the dungeon for questioning her regime.”

  Vaughan frowned. “Wyett’s king, though…”

  Krays put a hand on Vaughan’s back. “Vaughan, buddy, friend, pal… Wyett’s essentially her puppet.”

  “That doesn’t sound…”

  “It’s right,” Blue confirmed. “Tenii hasn’t had much time to talk to me, but Via has, and she can confirm it. He doesn’t… do much besides brood.”

  “Oh.” Vaughan nervously adjusted his collar. “I suppose I’ve just been trying not to think about the current state of our leadership.”

  “Kroan is rocky,” Krays said. “Even with the whole ‘secret threat’ somewhat resolved, it’s not stable.”

  Vaughan got a faraway look in his eyes. “...What will happen to us, then?”

  “Honestly?” Blue said. “Probably pack up and go to Mikarol’s Space Program. They’re not in any danger of falling apart right now.”

  Vaughan looked out the window. He could see a few houses of Willow Hollow from his vantage point. “...I’d miss this place.”

  “Yeah. …I would too.”

  Krays rolled her eyes. “Analytical softies. What will they come up with next?”

  ~~~

  “Claire, can you help me with this…?”

  Claire looked up from the book she was reading. A few of the words were giving her difficulty, which had put her in a sour mood, so she gave Enrique a glare of fury. “What?”

  Enrique either didn’t notice or didn’t care that she was in a bad mood. “I don’t… understand what we’re being asked to do in regards to the space station.”

  “We’re being asked to carry stuff up there and attach it together. Don’t worry, I’ll handle the complicated parts.”

  “But there’s something about a ‘permanent presence’ up there…”

  “That just means someone’s going to have to stay up there to make sure the air cycles.”

  “But… is that going to be me?”

  Claire groaned and put her hand to the bridge of her nose. “It will be if the blimps decide you’d be the best for the task.”

  “O-oh…”

  “Worried about not living down here anymore?”

  “It’s so rough out there though…”

  Claire sighed. “The moment you think the blimps are going to ask you to do something you don’t want to do you get annoyed, is that it?”

  “N-no of c-course not they know best they always know best! I just…”

  “Oh boy, you’re impossible…” Claire rolled her eyes. “Just say you don’t want to do it already.”

  “I… I’m not like you. I always want what they want!”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “No!”

  “It’s impossible because the blimps disagree with each other at times. You couldn’t want what both of them wanted if they contradicted each other.”

  Enrique furrowed his brow. “I… I can’t be…?”

  “Nope.”

  “How… horrible…” Claire thought she saw tears forming in his eyes before he walked off. She made no effort to follow him.

  Staying on the space station, huh…? Claire put her hand to her chin. You know, that might not be so bad. Will keep me away from these idiots, will get to see a lot of people from a lot of places… would certainly be a lot more interesting than basic space missions. Might end up getting placed on the interplanetary ship when we finally get around to that…

  Of course, it wasn’t in her power to choose who got assigned to the station.

  The blimps would choose whoever was most suited for the task.

  However, she suspected that that would be her. How fortunate for her that she was qualified. And, now that she thought about it, fortunate for Enrique.

  Sometimes things just had a way of working out.

  With her mood considerably improved, she returned to her book.

  ~~~

  Krays was in the back of the combination bakery, glassblower’s, and blacksmith’s shop, carefully measuring a square plate made out of a rubbery plastic material. She’d already determined that it wasn’t going to be useful as a better airlock sealer, but it was a fascinating material nonetheless. Making more data tables about strange materials might reveal some kind of hidden purpose. Or maybe it would just be another one of the thousands of materials she’d run tests on at this point.

  She was surprised at how good she’d gotten at this. Her glassblower’s training had prepared her for working with a handful of unusual materials, but with that handful were the skills required to uncover and understand basically any material she came across. Material strength under various forces, density, give, smoothness, reflectivity… everything had its own unusual set of properties. Even Colored Crystals, though she didn’t usually need to do research on those as they were essentially the most studied material in existence.

  She did very little work as a glassblower, these days.

  She stopped her work as she realized this.

  “Hey, love of my life and bacon vacuum, can you come here?” She called.

  He poked his head into the back of the shop. “Yes?”

  “I don’t do much glassblowing anymore, do I?”

  “Not unless an order comes in, no, and the kinds of orders that do come in are the simple ones since the Space Program outsources manufacturing to Axiom for the big things.”

  “Huh…” Krays put her hand to her chin.

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Not really?” Krays admitted, tapping her hip. “I haven’t made any art pieces or jokes lately, just… materials science. Didn’t even realize I hadn’t done any projects for fun in a while until just now.”

  “I noticed. You seemed to be having fun so I wasn’t bothered.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Still…” She looked around the room at all the sheets and lumps of unusual materials, only a handful of which were glass. It was a mess. “I’m not really a glassblower anymore, am I?”

  Darmosil smirked. “You were always more of a competitive snarker.”

  “But they don’t pay me for that.”

  “Guess that means you must suck at it.”

  “Nah, I blow.” She clicked her tongue, glancing at all the papers she had of data in front of her. “I guess my job is to make these, now.”

  “What happens to them after you make them?”

  “Blue stores them in the cabin, refers to them when she has to for designs, stuff like that. Hand them out when she gets requests for them.”

  “Hmm. Shouldn’t they be in the Academy Library?”

  Krays snorted. “I’m not a wizard, I don’t publish things, and Vaughan doesn’t have the time to go over all the data and write it up with his seal of approval. Neither does Blue.”

  Darmosil scratched his chin. “And what of the wizards at the lab?”

  “Pfft, those losers? I wouldn’t trust them to serve food in a pig sty.”

  “Implying you trust Blue and Vaughan, I see, I see.”

  “Implying that wasn’t self-evident, I see, I see.”

  Darmosil locked his hands behind his back. “You know, you could probably get wizard certification. You have skill with Blue magic.”

  Krays waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not actually apprenticed to anyone, the only other way to get certification is to go to the Academy, and that’s far away.”

  “Takes less than an hour to get there with a Skyseed these days.”

  Krays paused. For the first time, this absurd conversation seemed to have a realistic point to her. She put her hand to her head and sat down. “Great eights, you’re right, it’s actually feasible now.”

  Darmosil sat down next to her. “You could sign up as a student. Given your experience you no doubt would breeze through the early courses, probably get on a fast track given your connections to the Space Program and the Princess. Then you could put your name on things.”

  “...That’d still take years.” Krays shook her head. “And a break from you! Hah! That’d be…” She couldn’t keep up the insult train. “...That would suck. You’re the blacksmith, you’re still needed.”

  “True, weapons need forging.” Darmosil crossed his arms. “But you could come back regularly. Not every day has classes, you know, and Jeh can just take you back and forth. You could come to see everyone every week. In fact, you could probably justify it as research and business or something, considering your position in the Space Program. The Crown might even pay transport costs if Jeh isn’t available for some reason.”

  “Hmmm…” Krays scratched her chin. “I don’t know…”

  “I don’t know either. But at least now we’re thinking about it, eh?”

  Krays smirked. “You’re not. Please, you, a wizard? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I try not to.”

  Krays laughed. “Liar.”

  “You have me red-handed.”

  Krays snorted. “Your comedy is sinking into the mire like a dying rat.”

  “Your sense of humor has lost its edge over the years.”

  Then, naturally, the passionate kissing began. It was honestly a miracle it’d taken this long to start.

  ~~~

  Riikaz and Tenrayce ate lunch together in the main banquet hall of the palace. Which was decidedly over the top, but they only had to set one end of the table, and they figured they should use the room for more than just the grand banquets that didn’t happen all that often.

  Plus, it was an opportunity for them to catch up on what was going on outside the specific meetings held with the Memory.

  “The space station appears to be shaping up nicely,” Riikaz said as she violently stabbed and started cutting the hunk of grilled meat that was on her plate.

  Tenrayce picked at the assorted greens on her plate. “It’s certainly progressing, the design is mostly settled upon, though a few people have physical concerns. Mostly Blue, but even she says that they can be overcome even if the design is not altered. Or so she thinks.”

  “Looks like Mikarol pushing us to stop arguing was just what we needed.”

  “They really are suitable allies,” Tenrayce said with a nod. “The blimps of Descent, less so, but they at least seem honest in constructing this space station. Somehow, though they have the least industry to draw on, they can still churn these things out…” She frowned. “They clearly have secrets.”

  “Obviously.” Riikaz sat back, continuing to talk while she chewed her way through some gristle. “Even Sandy’s little society seemed to find them worth noting. Even so, it’s all progressing smoothly. The station is getting built, the Rigid Plague is gone, Shimvale has been remarkably quiet, and Sandy’s society is no longer such a direct threat.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Tenrayce said, narrowing her eyes.

  “She was being honest.”

  “With someone that old and experienced, we would never be able to tell.”

  “Her actions speak of her intent. The agreements she tried to make and did make…”

  “Are indicative of a woman who knows how to play the complicated game and easily set up a strawman goal while hiding her true intentions utterly.” Tenrayce angrily stabbed a green bean. “It’s far better that we didn’t make any agreements with her, it would have been falling into her web of lies.”

  “...I believe she expected the talks to fall through, no?”

  “That’s what she said.” Tenrayce folded her arms. “I will never trust someone with that much charisma. You can’t. The mere fact that she has the capacity to manipulate people on such a grand scale means trust is simply not an option.”

  Riikaz raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me, but aren’t you able to manipulate people?”

  “Yes. You are close to me and know my true intentions, so you can trust me. But you are correct, by my own criteria, foreign diplomats should not trust me. I truly believe they shouldn’t, especially because I most assuredly do not have their best intentions in mind.” Tenrayce leaned forward on her elbows. “But unfortunately, I do not have the charisma Sandy has, so I have to work from the background, standing behind the face of power. She has us far outclassed in that. Of us, only Via has that kind of charisma, and you know her.”

  “I think she handled herself rather well out there,” Riikaz said.

  “She… did.” Tenrayce returned to her green beans, relaxing a little. “The fact that she made a secret agreement…”

  “The price is worth it.”

  “If Sandy keeps up her end of the bargain.”

  “We know the agreement is no longer a secret if she betrays us.”

  “True…” Tenrayce paused. “Our prisoner is proving to be useful. While Henry is very resistant to all our efforts to extract information, Winerik will just let information slip in exchange for things like sweets.” A haunted expression crossed her face.

  “Tenrayce…?”

  “There is something wrong with that girl. She spent centuries living as a building. We have her in an arcane vacuum so she can’t use her ancestry. She will sometimes sit perfectly motionless with her eyes open for hours. She’s also clearly not used to talking, even though she knows a ton of languages, everything sounds rough coming out of her mouth.” Tenrayce shivered. “That girl’s mind… I’d say it’s been ruined. She doesn’t even act like she’s alive a lot of the time.”

  Riikaz shook her head. “Sandy… how could she have ever thought doing such things to people was conscientious?”

  “The ends justify the means, obviously,” Tenrayce said.

  “Surely there has to be a limit.”

  Tenrayce was silent.

  “...Tenrayce?”

  “It’s a paradox, Mom. See, we know what she’s doing is wrong. But is that knowing?” She suddenly stood up and turned to look at one of the hall’s great stained glass windows. “She targeted us because we were uncovering their existence, and uncovering their existence would potentially lead to them being unable to act to protect the world from self-destruction. In the scales of justice, she was trying to trade one kingdom for the world itself. It just so happened to be our kingdom she was trading.” She looked down at her hands. “And yet, would we not do the same? Trade a city for the kingdom, should it be necessary.”

  Riikaz frowned. “Tenrayce, I thought…”

  “I know she’s wrong, Mom. It’s in the very core of my being. But I can’t come up with a logical reason why and it’s driving me insane. Why don’t the ends always justify the means? Where’s the line in the sand drawn?”

  Riikaz frowned. “I… have never been very in tune with the spiritual side of life, but I do believe that’s Dia’s job to find out.”

  “We’re rulers, Mom, we need to make decisions for our people. We can’t just search the scriptures and go ‘oh, wow, look at this, it tells us exactly what we need to do!’ No, it doesn’t, those words are for the normal people, the average life, the life where you’re the soldier marching into battle, not the one forcing people to be soldiers!” She clenched her fists. “All those words say about making really tough decisions is to trust Dia and lean not on spirited wisdom. Well, I don’t hear Her words coming down to instruct us, do you?”

  “Tenrayce… that’s not how it works.”

  “Obviously not.” Tenrayce turned back from the window and fixed her mom with a very tired expression. “...And so I have to figure out when the ends justify the means. And so do you.”

  “I know…”

  “You do but you don’t. You, Mom, live by your heart and your instincts, following whatever feels right. I have to know. I have to think things through.”

  “Why think through what you know you’re not going to be able to solve?”

  For a moment, anger flashed across Tenrayce’s face. It vanished extremely quickly and she let out a long, drawn out sigh. “That’s… that’s fair. Blue was actually talking to me about… not being able to rely completely on her mind.” She put her hand to her chest and breathed out. “I… know that what she’s doing is wrong. And that… I can trust that.”

  Riikaz put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t sound confident.”

  “...I’m not.”

  Riikaz pulled her close.

  Tenrayce, for the first time in several months, let herself cry. She was soon bawling her eyes out on her mother’s shoulder.

  “You’re shouldering such a burden…” Riikaz stroked her hair. “And I was part of some of it… I am so sorry.”

  ~~~

  Alexandrite walked into the meeting significantly later than the rest of the Wizard Space Program.

  “...and so,” Big G said, finishing his report, “the mines are performing better than they ever have been, injuries have dropped, and with so many more people coming in, we keep getting more hands to work. I have to say, this Space Program has been exceptionally good for the further development of this town’s industry.”

  Lila nodded. “That’s great to hear. Though, it would be best if there could be no injuries… but I know it’s dangerous work, digging that deep under the ground.”

  Big G nodded. “We try our best. It is still a marked improvement. The air restorer alone…” He shook his head. “But we’ve already discussed that many times. The small Orange field conveyors are proving to be a great help as well.”

  “We didn’t invent those,” Vaughan pointed out. “Just brought them to your attention.”

  “Still, the benefit is notable.”

  “True…”

  Lila nodded. “Anyway, the next item on the list, we’re still waiting for Margaret…”

  “Actually, I think we have a new item on the list!” Seskii said, gesturing at Alexandrite. “Come on big buddy, I can see it on your face, you’ve got big news that you can barely keep in!”

  Alexandrite chuckled. “This much is true. Yes, I do have news. As you all know, we have been digging a tunnel from the Western shore of Kroan down to the depths of the ocean in cooperation with the anglers. With assistance from Benefactor, that tunnel is nearing completion.”

  Jeh lit up. “We can go to the bottom of the ocean soon!?”

  “Perhaps. What I am aware of is that Gronge has designed a craft to traverse the great temperature differences and come to the surface. He has made his intention to visit us known far in advance due to the difficulty of sending messages… currently.”

  Vaughan suddenly stood up straighter. “Gronge? The great Wizard Gronge? Coming to visit here?” He put his hand to his forehead and started shaking it. “What does an angler even need? Food? Is he even going to be able to eat anything through the ship? Does he need to sleep?”

  Lila chuckled. “Calm yourself, Vaughan, I am sure he will understand that we know nothing of his ways. He knows nothing of ours, after all. Communication between our peoples is necessarily limited, slow, and only a handful of individuals have access to the information.”

  “I can assist a little,” Alexandrite offered. “I have been steeped in his particular mannerisms from his letters for… quite some time. He cares little for official procedure or niceties, he primarily cares about satisfying his curiosity.”

  “That’s the impression he gave ya, anyway,” Keller said, tipping back his hat. “People often aren’t what they seem like in letters, y’know.”

  “...True…” Alexandrite gained a faraway look in his eyes. “I’m about to meet a man I’ve been working for for… over a decade. My…”

  “Gonna be quite a surprise, huh?” Seskii grinned.

  “How’s he going to talk to us…?” Blue wondered.

  “Probably by writing, if I had to guess,” Alexandrite said.

  “Huh…”

  “Well, I need to plan a party now,” Seskii said, grinning. “Angler party… this should be fun!”

  Lila beamed at her. “I have no doubt you’ll do great. Alexandrite, was there anything else?”

  “Just the announcement. I mean, he wants to see all of our work, but that goes without saying.”

  “Of course, of course. Now, onto our next topic. Margaret has not returned. She left to Mikarol for… reasons relating to national security.” She glanced at Keller. “She has not yet returned. We are currently assuming she’s fine, just held up in Mikarol, but we need to discuss what to do if she takes much longer…”

  ~~~

  Margaret watched Sandy plunge a shovel into the ground in the depths of a dead forest in Vraskal.

  “Rather… unassuming place,” Margaret said.

  “If you really want to keep things secret even from a society of secret keepers, you pick somewhere completely random that only you would be able to find,” Sandy responded. “This place has no personal connection to me, but it does have a very large boulder nearby made of rock not normally found around here. Furthermore, the land is useless for growing crops and far from any river, so society would have no chance of cropping up here. Have to take that into account when you want it to remain hidden but findable for thousands of years.”

  “You sure think far ahead.” Margaret glanced around. The darkness of Vraskal seemed far more potent when there were no signs of civilization. “You sure you didn’t want any of your people here?”

  “A good chunk of them wouldn’t be able to resist the allure of such power, or currently disagree with my decision. Can’t risk it, and I don’t want to cause division by singling out who I trust. You’re only here to make sure I keep up with the bargain.” Sandy stopped digging and fixed her with a grin. “Not thinking about taking the power for yourself, are you?”

  “Heck no.”

  “Thought not.”

  “You could easily stop me if you tried, anyway.”

  “True.” Sandy plunged the shovel deeper into the ground.

  “Can’t you, like, grow plants through the dirt or something?”

  “I could.” Sandy plunged the shovel in again.

  “Then why…?”

  “This is a monumental moment. Let me dig.”

  Margaret put her hands up in the air and went to lean up against a dead tree. She briefly wondered why the dead tree was even here. They couldn’t grow in the darkness, and if this had been here since before the Second Cataclysm, why hadn’t it rotted away or something? Living things could exist in the darkness, something should have taken them down…

  It didn’t make sense. As Sandy dug, Margaret investigated the tree. She peeled off some bark, revealing very dry and crumbly wood on the inside. She placed her hand on the exposed wood. It felt… warm. Trees did not feel warm.

  “Um…” Margaret pointed at the tree. “Sandy?”

  “It’s cursed.” Sandy didn’t even look up from her work.

  “I thought…”

  “It doesn’t matter what you thought, it’s cursed. I’m not explaining the details.”

  “Should I be… concerned?”

  “No. All it’s doing is maintaining the death so long as the darkness remains. One day, the darkness will dissipate, and it’ll crumble to dust. Until then, it remains here, rooted in place. Dead, but unable to rot away.”

  “...That would imply…”

  “Yes, it happened to spirited too.” A haunted expression came across Sandy’s face. “We ground those to dust long ago. They were dangerous.”

  Margaret stared at her with wide eyes.

  “You used to follow Eyda. I believe the effect was derivative from her.” Sandy plunged the shovel in extra deep, all but throwing the dirt into the sky.

  “...Tell me, please. What do you know of Eyda?”

  “Knowledge of Eyda is exceptionally dangerous,” Sandy said.

  “I have no desire to follow her any longer.”

  “True…” Sandy stopped digging for a moment. “We are very fortunate she occupies herself with places beyond. Curses are rare. I can only think of a handful. The darkness of Vraskal. The leviathan rage. The demons themselves. The demon lands…” She shook her head. “All of which bring violence, suffering, and torment.”

  “But what is Eyda?”

  Sandy was silent for a moment.

  “Sandy, I want to know.”

  “I know you do. This isn’t the usual case, where I know and won’t tell you. I don’t actually know for sure. She’s real, that’s for sure, but her influence is a distant one. But she is the only so-called Goddess I am sure actually exists. Is her power as absolute as your old faith claims? I doubt it, but I have also seen enough to know I stand no chance.” Sandy looked to Margaret with intense eyes. “So I keep my head down and make sure everyone else keeps their heads down as well. We do not want her noticing Ikyu.”

  Margaret nodded. “I… yes. I agree.”

  “Good. I hope I can trust you to fight for that goal if things go sideways in ways we can’t expect.”

  Margaret narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going to be your spy on the inside.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to use the information you’ve been given and follow your best judgment. I just happen to think you’ll act in my interests if it comes to it. Am I wrong?”

  Margaret folded her arms and closed her eyes. “...It’s almost like you are cursed.”

  Sandy laughed bitterly. “This curse is of my own making.”

  At this point, her shovel hit something. Still refusing to use any of her abilities, she dug the dirt out around it. Then, with her bare hands, she picked up the black cube and lifted it into the air.

  “Hello. It’s been a while.” Sandy stroked the uppermost face. “We’re going to have to say goodbye, now.” She turned to Margaret. “Let’s go. Back to Willow Hollow.”

  “You know, this entire time I was wondering if you’d betray the agreement.”

  “The thought has crossed my mind. But no, I’ve made my choice already. No use backpedaling now. Time to save the world from myself.” She winked with a cheerful smile on her face.

  ~~~

  Blue was having problems. Problems with efficiency.

  Would the space station work? Yes. It would.

  Was it as good as she would like? No. Not at all. But the major problems she had identified she didn’t see any solutions for.

  First, the obvious one. Every time a ship used the hangar module, the air inside the entire module had to be vented into space. All of it. That was a huge waste. The only solution they currently had was to design future ships that could interface directly with the station, which meant all past ships were eternally stuck in “wasting air.” There had to be a better way to deal with it…

  The solution would be quite simple if Blue could just figure out how to easily pump air out of a room. But actually creating a vacuum was difficult; the best way was to forcibly slide two different Colors of crystal past each other, shoving all the air out of the way as it moved. The only issue was that there would be a ship in the room at the time they needed to pull the air out, and you couldn’t just slide a crystal wall past that. Plus, a crystal wall that large would be quite a pain…

  Bellows simply took too long and didn’t actually create that good of a vacuum. Pepper had written to Blue about that, the “airless” jars Blue had made to test plant breathing all that time ago hadn’t really been all that airless. They just had a lot less, and in a room as large as the hangar module that was still a huge waste of air.

  The problem was, when you tried to pull air out of a room, the pressure always sought to put the air back. What Blue needed was some kind of air valve that would actively suck air through it… which she had, for low levels of pressure difference, but no design she or anyone else had come up with was able to keep pulling air until there was nothing left. The best design was a one-way Orange field which used a rather intense amount of will to make sure anything that entered it could only pass through one direction. Even this did not evacuate rooms of all their air, and it tended to produce violent exhausts from all the force it was applying.

  Blue was sure there had to be some kind of clever workaround here. But all she came up with was “apply more force for a longer time to create more vacuum.” It was really bothersome. Air was a valuable commodity up there, there had to be a way not to waste it. Perhaps surround the entire station in a force field? But that would just be like another airlock, and a far less reliable and predictable one at that…

  The other issue was, once again, controlling the station’s position, velocity, and orientation. Which was a problem almost entirely because the station was going to change size, shape, and weight distribution regularly. The drive did not need to be powerful, but they did need to be able to control it, and Blue couldn’t figure out how to reliably do that. Her best idea was to weave the entire station with a Magenta network similar to what the Seeker had, which could certainly handle the unusual weight distributions so long as it knew what they were.

  Which was the major issue with that idea. It had to know the weight distribution. For a ship like the Seeker, which varied its weight in predictable ways and had various sensors to give information when the unpredictable occurred, the Magenta network could be created with precision and contingencies for most cases. For the space station, no one had any idea what the final weight distribution or design would be like, and there were talks considering that it might just keep expanding in size indefinitely. How could you design a Magenta network that could handle updates like that?

  Of course, even this was pie-in-the-sky dreaming. The space station did not have a Magenta network, nor would it. All the maneuvering would have to be done by hand. It did look like Blue’s insistence upon adding reaction wheels for higher precision and rotation control were going to go through, but those were still going to induce unusual rotations that would have to be felt by pilots, and pilots were going to have a difficult time properly reorienting a structure that large.

  But unless Blue could figure out some clever trick they were just going to have to.

  Blue was not one to admit defeat easily, but as she rammed her face into her desk and groaned, she seriously considered it. Even if she did think of something at this point, modules were being constructed. There wouldn’t be time to incorporate anything.

  I wonder if we’re trying to go too fast here… Blue thought. Then again, the Moonshot was definitely slapped together rather hastily… Maybe this is just how progress is accomplished.

  Blue heard the door to her room open. Suro poked his head in. “Blue? You good in here? It’s been… well not the longest you’ve been cooped up in here, but…”

  Blue rammed her head into the desk again and whimpered. “It’s not workiiiiiiing…”

  Suro glanced around at all the crumpled-up pieces of paper, discarded pens, and stacks of paper haphazardly thrown about. “I can see that…” He jumped up onto the desk next to her.

  Blue sighed, not lifting her head up from the table. “You’d think I’d be used to this by now… no use griping, complaining, there isn’t always a solution, my brain isn’t always big enough when there is one…”

  “Just because you know something doesn’t mean you know it. It’s very easy to know how you’re supposed to react to things. It’s another matter entirely to actually do it.”

  Blue lifted her head from the table and furrowed her brow. “How… annoying.”

  “Especially for someone like you, who can learn academic things without repetition.”

  “Meeeeeh,” Blue grumbled. Then she groaned. “Oh, look, it’s me doing that complaining moping thing I know isn’t any good about the complaining and moping. Agh. The feedback loop goes all the way down.”

  “Something that helped Lila out when she was trying to change quickly was to realize… you don’t change quickly. Let these things take time. Give yourself a break.”

  Blue snorted. “Like I’m not arrogant enough already.”

  “There’s such a thing as overcorrecting, you know.”

  “True… true…” Blue sat up and looked down at her papers for a moment. Then she got up and went to leave the room. “Thanks, Suro. Let’s go outside and do something else.”

  “I’m pretty sure that something else should be sleep. It’s almost sunrise already.”

  “Oh. …What are you doing up? And at the cabin!?”

  “The kids woke me up. Wasn’t getting back to sleep, but Lila did, so I came down here.”

  “That’s not a small walk.”

  “Eh, it doesn’t seem so long to me anymore.”

  ~~~

  Jeh walked into the entry hall of the Cabin. “I’m baaaack!”

  There was only one person in the room.

  It was Sandy. Lounging on the couch. With a black cube in her arms.

  “...Where’s Vaughan and Blue?”

  “Had a mysterious messenger tell them they were needed in town,” Sandy said, stroking the cube with a strangely forlorn expression. “I decided I’d rather do this with just you.”

  Jeh shuffled her feet awkwardly. “Um… I still don’t remember you or anything about…”

  “And I don’t expect nor desire you to. Still.” Sandy sat up, placing the black cube on the ground. It flickered in its unnatural manner. “It means something to me.”

  “...You better not have some kind of ploy.”

  Sandy shook her head. “The cube you see before you really is the cube that stores my ancestry. A bit odd to call it an ancestry since I’ve never passed it down, but terminology is a social construct anyway. All you have to do is touch it and clear it, and that’ll be that. If you want, you could do that now and tell me to get out. I don’t even have any people nearby, if you were particularly inclined, you could probably capture me at this point.”

  “...Why would you do that?”

  Sandy smiled—there was no hint of smugness or superiority in it this time. “I actually believe I can trust you.”

  “...Huh.” Jeh locked her arms behind her back. “I mean, I guess… I’m not planning on turning you over or anything.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you, like, want anything from me?”

  Sandy sighed. “Things that you can’t do. You… aren’t her, or at the very least you’re so far removed it would no longer mean anything.” She folded her arms. “Did you know, one of the things she was proud of was her inconsistency? She would often talk about hearing about things she’d done in the deep past that she’d forgotten about, feeling like she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything like that. And yet, clearly, she did. And she took this as a point of pride, that she was continually changing, continually shifting…”

  “That seems weird.”

  “It was. And I never really got to see it, seeing as I didn’t know her for long from her perspective.”

  Jeh looked at her hands. “Is that… why I don’t feel like her?”

  “I think… something different’s happened to you. She may have changed a lot over the many, many years she lived, but there was one thing that never changed. She never, ever, rejected her gloves. They were part of her in such a fundamental way she would even cut off her own hand to regenerate them the moment they were destroyed. They were a source of stability and constancy for her. And yet, here you are, not wearing them.”

  “I don’t really… like them,” Jeh said. “I used to be afraid of them, but… now they just don’t feel right.”

  Sandy nodded. “I wonder if…” she shook her head. “No, no, that’s just idle speculation.”

  “Well now I’m going to be curious for the rest of my life.”

  “You’ll eventually forget. You may not be her, but you do share her traits.” Sandy pointed to her head. “Your brain is not large enough to store a ton of memories. Your memory isn’t the greatest to begin with, and once you start storing up a few centuries’ worth, things will start fading even if you don’t want them to. She’d come to terms with this long before I met her, but you’ll have to go through it eventually.”

  Jeh nodded. “Thanks. Is, um, there anything else I should know about my body here? Dangerous things that might be hidden in it?”

  “Your regeneration manifests from eleven different points, one in the back of your neck, and one in each of your fingers. If all eleven of these are sealed at once you cannot regenerate until you are released. Your punching magic has limits in terms of power it can unleash, but as far as I know not in terms of effect, you just have to experiment. So far as I know your regeneration is absolute, utter, complete.”

  “...It’s not an ancestry, is it?”

  Sandy frowned. She shook her head. “No… you… are unique, as far as I know.”

  “Do you know what I am?”

  Sandy shook her head again. “I’m afraid not, your origin was already a legend when I was born. There were no black cubes and no Jenny before the First Cataclysm. Then, after, there was both a Jenny and black cubes. We are fairly certain you and the first cubes share an origin. Jenny herself thought so. But she did not remember.”

  “...Am I of Eyda?”

  Sandy tilted her head. “Why would you think that?”

  “When we were fighting Uriah… I saw secrets of his, and one of them was that the First Cataclysm… was related to Eyda. And she let Uriah survive…”

  Sandy stood up and turned her back to Jeh.

  “Sandy…?”

  “Before the First Cataclysm, there is also no sign of Eyda. None. But Jenny and I fought many demons… some of them knew what she was. But given their hostility, I can’t believe she was part of their plan. It is possible you can trace your origin to Eyda, or are related to her in some way, but you are not of her. If anything, you are a natural foe of hers.”

  Jeh nodded slowly. “Right. Well. Um. I have no idea what I’m going to do with this information.”

  “I hope you’ll use it well. And remember… it is very, very good that Eyda doesn’t care about Ikyu. We should keep it that way. If it seems like you have to poke a sleeping bear to get answers… I’d recommend not doing it.”

  Jeh clasped her hands and nodded with resolution. “Got it. I’m not like Blue, I don’t need answers. I can live without them.”

  “Good.”

  “I do have an answer I’d like though.”

  “I may or may not answer.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Sandy froze.

  Jeh waited patiently.

  “We… had a falling out. A terrible one. The kind that severs the connection so that it can never be rebuilt.” She shook her head. “I won’t say more than that.”

  “Okay.” Jeh stretched her arms. “Well, I suppose we might as well do this now…” She walked over to the cube and removed her bear mitts and placed her hand on it.

  It flashed.

  Sandy held up a Red Crystal in her hand as the cube flashed. Part of it started to blacken… but then it stopped.

  Sandy’s smile did not falter. “And so it is done…”

  Suddenly, her fake cat ears clattered to the ground.

  “Eh…?” Sandy flicked her tail, reaching down to grab them.

  She froze.

  She’d just flicked her tail!?

  She glanced to the side, seeing her long, fuzzy tail, twitching slightly as she held it perfectly still. She could hear it shifting through the air. Her ears… she touched the top of her head.

  Fuzzy. Pointed. Ears. That perked up when touched.

  Sandy turned to Jeh with wide eyes.

  Jeh smirked. “I asked it to give you back the power you had when you were with Jenny.” Jeh slid the cube back over to her. “Here, you can have this back.”

  Sandy’s lower lip started to quiver.

  “Sandy…?”

  Sandy, leader of the great nameless society, a woman who could keep her emotions under lock and key on a whim, a schemer who traded lives and kingdoms… could no longer hold it in. She burst into tears and kneeled down to Jeh’s level, pulling her in close. “Th-thank you… I’m… I…” Words failed her.

  “You’re… welcome?” Jeh felt more than a little awkward, but she didn’t push her away.

  For a while, they just sat there. Jeh thought, at first, that Sandy was just making incomprehensible sobbing noises… but after a time, she could make out words whispered in a rush.

  “Jenny, I’m so sorry… I wish… I’m so sorry… Why did it have to be that way…?”

  Jeh felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up.

  Seskii was there, laying a hand on both of them. She was smiling warmly, but her eyes were sad.

  “They’re going to be back soon,” Seskii said, helping Sandy up. “You should probably go.”

  “Y-yes…” Sandy said, wiping her eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry, Jeh, it…”

  “It’s okay,” Jeh said. “I bet you can’t do that… ever, basically.”

  “Y-yeah…” Sandy shook her head. She picked up the cube. “Well… you let your kingdom know the threat is gone. We may never see each other again… but I hope we do.”

  “You too,” Jeh said, giving her a thumbs up.

  Sandy held out one of her hands. She smiled as a miniature cat shot out of her hand, danced into the air, and exploded in a shower of sparks. “The kitty kitty beam…” She laughed, shaking her head as she left the cabin.

  Seskii crossed her arms. “She’s tried so hard to sear that soft heart of hers.”

  Jeh looked up at her. “I think it’s nice she isn’t completely horrible.”

  “I agree,” Seskii said. “But often… strong convictions and a soft heart can lead to desperate, terrible decisions. Like ending the world to protect it.”

  ~~~

  SCIENCE SEGMENT

  How do you get all the air out of a chamber?

  Answer: you don’t! Even in the depths of intergalactic space there’s about ten hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. Granted, this is more “nothing” than things we’ve created here on earth, even our best vacuum chambers aren’t that good.

  There are two major reasons we can’t make a perfect vacuum. First of all, gasses like hydrogen and helium are small enough that they can fit through gaps between larger atoms, meaning they can leak in and out of completely sealed containers. It really is quite annoying. That said, this process is slow, so if you’re not maintaining your vacuum chamber for very long you can get around this, especially if you have thick dense walls and structures with fewer holes for the atoms to pass through.

  Once you get to really low pressures, however, we start getting contamination from the walls themselves. See, most materials aren’t actually pure and have atoms of other sorts in them. Since we do almost all manufacturing on Earth, materials get contaminated by air in the atmosphere. This atmospheric gas usually remains snugly packed in the material, but once part of that material is exposed to an area of very low pressure, it’ll start outgassing. Basically, the gas gets sucked out of the material and thrown into the vacuum chamber. This can actually be a very useful process if extracting the gas is what you want. But in the case of a vacuum chamber, you really don’t want that.

  Keep in mind that both of these processes only involve absolutely tiny amounts of gas over relatively large amounts of time. For a near-vacuum worthy for experimentation, these effects are usually negligible.

  As for the actual how of getting the air out of a vacuum chamber, it’s remarkably simple. Just create a valve that moves air only one way. The Wizard Space Program already has this, that Orange valve that shoves air molecules through it is really effective (though they currently have it a bit… violent). With more precise engineering that’d probably do everything they’d want. What Blue wants is a clever trick that doesn’t involve “more power and more time,” but more power and more time is generally how we actually create vacuum chambers. A lot of our best designs are just “spin close-packed fan blades really really fast for a long time with no gaps.”

  There are a few weird tricks. Cryopumps cool down the air to absurdly cold temperatures, forcing the air to solidify, where it can then be removed physically. Chemical pumps use chemical reactions to create solids out of the air. Ion pumps use electric fields to ionize gasses and then move them with MAGNETS! You can also design materials that just grab onto gas and won’t let it go (until really low temperatures). All of these tricks are a bit advanced for the Wizard Space Program, and furthermore aren’t particularly useful when you’re trying to clear out a hangar.

  So, sorry Blue, but more power and more time it is. Though maybe figure out how to get the exhaust from that Orange valve to be a little less energetic.

  Of course, we would love to have access to their Colored Crystal material. They can create far better vacuums than we can with that, considering that hydrogen and helium can’t diffuse through it. Though, fun fact, there is still some air in the crystals to outgas in most cases. Such a shame that they can’t just slide a wall of Colored Crystal across the hangar due to the ship being in the way. (And the issue of such a large crystal probably gaining a mind.)