The Odyssey was in orbit of Avalon, the kilometre long, state of the art Avali dreadnought sized exploration and embassy ship was aligned with the equator of the white and grey coloured moon of the Avali homeworld. Valaya, the blue gas giant it orbited, was a splendid backdrop against which the ship passed for a third of every orbit.
The orbital space above Avalon was crowded, there were sixty orbital stations ranging in size from small micro-g laboratories to converted asteroids and the anchor stations for the moon's four space elevators. Then there were ships of all shapes and sizes in motion, coming, going, docking, descending in and out of the atmosphere or circling in parking orbits. Despite all of this clutter and activity the Odyssey was out in an orbital track it had nearly all to itself, making it stand out against the rest of the traffic. It was the largest ship in orbit and floating in a designated spot reserved for Illuminate vessels. So unlike the various smaller military and civilian vessels orbiting together in flocks, it was alone except for a few attendant ships unloading supplies, a couple of Illuminate registered shuttles and a small personal yacht belonging to the Director of the Resource Directorate.
Ral'ya watched it get closer with big wide eyes, pressed up against the window at the front of the shuttle with the rest of her pack. Gav'da, Sorsh and Yangar her brothers and Sig'ta her sister. The boys were playing Void-Bricks on a tablet together and Sig'ta was dozing against her but Ral'ya was too excited to sleep or play games!
They were going to visit the Odyssey themselves!
Their nursery had won tickets in the lottery, one pack of kits would get to visit the famous ship and Ral'ya had led, bullied, hounded, thrown a tantrum and dragged her pack to be at the top of the scoreboard; to be the ones chosen to go. The parent pack who ran their nursery had set the challenge, the pack who would be chosen to go would be the one who scored highest at the end of the week!
Ral'ya’s pack had excelled, their grades were the highest in all three school tracks, they'd been top of the board in hunting and sports and they had even managed to grab the top slot in hobbies and outside interests. Now it was really happening, they were on a shuttle, in space, Darellen City and their home nursery was behind them on the surface! They were being escorted by a full complement of nursery guards. The five strong pack of special forces Avali in their armour, ceremonial outfits and high-tech helmets didn't like kits being taken so far from their nursery and the shuttle had a squad of five escort fighters.
“Guys look we are nearly there, Sig'ta wake up,” the fluffy, downy, white and blue avali shook her sister then waved a hand at her brothers, “Look we're passing the security cordon, it's the Odyssey!”
Sorsh dropped the tablet and pushed up next to his sisters to stare out the window, “There! It's the Momentum!”
Curving up from beneath the massive ship was the navy blue and gold vessel that was Captain Selenu's personal shuttle. It's long, swept back spars across its central body looking like feathers and the green glow from the engine a brilliant splash against the dark of space. It raced away from the Odyssey and then leapt into warp once it was clear of the ship, vanishing in a whirl of light.
“That was so cool,” Gav'da breathed, “Did you see the feather spars, what are they for?”
“I read about this,” Ral'ya chirped excitedly, “Captain Selenu built the Momentum herself, it's all proprietary tech and those spars are energy interface points for the sublight drives and energy converters.”
“Where did you read that?” Sorsh demanded with a chirp, “That wasn't in the info on the Odyssey we had to read!”
“It was in the supplementary data, the pack biographies on each crew member,” Ral'ya replies, “It was all there for us to read.”
“You really like this pack?” Sorsh said, “Like seriously sis we didn't have to read all the background stuff.”
“I wanted to,” she chirped, taking her brother's hand and squeezing it, “I want us to be like them, top of their nursery, graduating into a speciality training programme where we get to make a difference.”
“We will sis,” Sig'ta chirped, “We’re here, we're going to get to meet them, the Trail pack?”
Ral'ya was about to reply excitedly but the Lieutenant in charge of the shuttle chirped loudly to get their attention, “Kits return to your seats please, we're going to be docking shortly.”
“Yes Lieutenant,” they chirped and obediently headed for their chairs and strapped in. Ral'ya couldn't wait until they were adults, the nursery guards were even more uptight about their safety than the packs who taught them and cared for them as parents and teachers! Even this trip from one part of Avalon to the most technologically sophisticated space ship in the whole Illuminate fleet had come with a ton of rules and procedures, kits going on field trips happened all the time but their guardians wrapped them in a ring of steel and cotton wool every time.
Still, for this trip it was all worth it! Turning to snuggling up against Yangar she pushed her face up against the window and watched the Odyssey slide closer and closer! This was going to be an awesome day!
The shuttle didn't take long to dock, Sig'ta was interested to see how the hull of the great ship slid open seamlessly like a parting curtain of liquid. Then they were inside and the light thump of docking latches made the shuttle shiver and Lieutenant Ferln, Corporal Sal'an and Corporal Hant were running checks on everything before they opened the airlock.
Unlike her sister and brothers she didn't mind the nursery guards being overly cautious. She'd read enough stories to realise that pirates, aliens, criminals of all kinds would go to great lengths to kidnap Avali children. Sure they were probably safe here on the Odyssey but being complacent just because you thought it was safe was how you wound up with disasters. Like twenty years ago when the crew from a desperate Independent colony had stolen an entire shuttle full of eggs when it was transferring from an orbital station to the surface.
The Illuminate special forces had got the shuttle back, stealing eggs was an abhorrent crime but it only went to prove you couldn't be complacent. Also Sig'ta thought the guards uniforms looked so cool, a lot of it was ceremonial, patterned cloth wraps and trailing cloaks in orange, white and yellow. But under that was a full body suit of white armour and the helmets were smooth and showed no sign of visors or openings. Hearing was an Avali’s first strength so the nursery guards had helmets that didn't have external ports for their eyes. Sure they had internal screens and sensors optimised for Avali vision but the external look was so good! To most aliens it would look like they were being attacked by scarily accurate blind warriors!
Following her siblings through the airlock and down the short corridor she was surprised at the luxurious lounge waiting for them. Back home at the nursery, shuttles boarded straight into the shuttle bay, but this looked like a very fancy reception room, probably for welcoming visiting dignitaries. Waiting for them where two Avali and Sig'ta crowded in with her siblings as she recognized them! The blue and white avali with an orange stripe was Chantelle Trail! Next to her was an Avali with orange and teal feathers, his yellow stripe and the lack of bands across the top of snout indicating he was male and could be none-other than Taran Trail! Ral'ya was giving them her rehearsed thank you speech, thanking them for the opportunity to see the Odyssey and to learn from such a skilled pack.
Sig'ta listened politely but was a bit disappointed Firi wasn't here. She'd watched the footage released on the nexus about the Trail packs time researching the civilisation of small bunnies on Babupekkakerok and watched in awe Firi's death defying orbital plunge in nothing but a suit of armour! She'd also signed up for as many sessions on the nursery artificial reality portal as she could get away with so she could play out the AR version of the dive herself, it was amazing!
“We’re very glad you are able to join us,” Chantelle Trail said with a smile, “Now as I'm sure you're aware this is a working field trip, the Odyssey is preparing for its next deep space mission; you will all be helping my pack with administrative tasks and prep work which will be a good chance for us to show you what a day is like in the life of a diplomatic pack like ours.”
“Do we get to work alongside Seinu?” Ral'ya piped up excitedly and Sig'ta was right there, chirping excitedly.
“What about Firi?”
Chantelle smiled, “Yes you'll get to work alongside all of us, we've studied your nursery records and got plans for all of you. But first Taran is going to take you all on a tour, so stay with him please.”
“Wait, you're not staying?” Sorsh asked the lieutenant and her squad as they moved back toward the shuttle. She paused and regarded the children then lifted her blank helmet off and smiled.
“You’ll be graduating in less than a year, the Odyssey and the Trail pack will have charge of you for the next week, we trust you all to behave and do the nursery proud, we'll be back in six days to escort you home, until then obey Captain Selenu and her pack as you would your teachers or me.”
The lieutenant nodded to Chantelle and headed into the shuttle, Sig'ta watched the door close then hurried after the rest of her pack as they fell in besides Taran. The teal and orange avali led them away from the docking lounge and into an elevator.
“Now for this tour I'll be taking you into parts of the ship that may otherwise be restricted during your week with us,” Taran said with a smile, “We’re going to start with the engine room so any questions?”
This set off a flurry of questions from her whole pack and Sig'ta was just as eager as her brothers and sister.
“How do the defence pods work”
“What sort of reactor core do you have?”
“Is it true your AI is unique?”
“Do you have hydroponics?”
“Can we see the snow-biome dome?”
“Where was Captain Selenu going?”
“Can we see the bridge?”
Taran listened, ears twitching in several directions at once before he patiently started to answer each question; thankfully avali hearing was more then up to the job of listening to the cacophony of chirps and understanding each Question.
“It’s not the bearings,” Ki explained to Ifelse, taking the cover back off the device he was talking about. He pulled the central housing out and pointed at the interlocking mesh of metal struts, pipes, aerogel clips and ceramo-metal ball bearings, “This is the fifth one that's failed in seven months, but the bearings work fine.”
“Are you sure?” Ifelse asked, the small holographic jakub clambered up the equipment and waved a paw at the bearing assembly, “The error code is the same, the bearings are seizing.”
“I’m telling you its…” the black and white avali paused as two other avali clambered through the ceiling hatch and into the junction where four maintenance tunnels intersected one another: the junction gave access to the web of machinery that filled the space between decks that kept the Odyssey running.
Ki had turned this one, like all the others on each deck into a sort of makeshift workshop, it was a lot more comfortable to bring things back here where he could sit upright and work on them without carting them all the way to the maintenance bay. The two young Avali, however, were unexpected; he wasn't due to spend time with any of them for another couple of days.
Ki was fascinated by them however, they were thin but not in an unhealthy way just still developing. At fifteen avali years they were halfway through growing their adult wing-feathers and filling out but unlike him at that age they were healthy, well fed, if anything Ki had been surprised how plump they were compared to what he and his pack had looked like at their age. Of course once they were deemed old enough to work at fifteen cycles (avali years) his pack had been turfed out of the nursery and expected to start working and since then he'd never been back.
On Avalon the nurseries raised Avali until sixteen cycles with a further programme of adult adaptation training, work placements and even higher education placed at university. Ki had received none of that, his colony couldn't afford it, once you were old enough your pack had to start contributing and he'd not been allowed near kits since. Now here he was with kits living on board with them, it was so weird but also so great!
The boy had white and grey feathers bisected by a maroon band, the girl was white and cream with an orange band. Ki ran his eye over the biographical data projected on his visor and smiled at them.
“Yangar,” he pointed at the boy, “And Ral'ya,” he nodded, “What brings both of you down here? Aren't you supposed to be working with Selenu?”
“We were given free time,” Yangar said, “The captain got called away by a call from the surface, we saw the hatch open and were curious.”
“Well, welcome,” Ki said with a grin, “I’m happy to see you both, but Ifelse and I are working. You are welcome to join me if you like but I need to continue with this job.”
The pair of young Avali chirped at each other then nodded, Ki had them sit down on either side of him, “So as you've seen the deck above us is what we call the Avalon dome, plants, actual snow, the temperature in the dome and the residential deck is -20c, which is a bit warmer than the average, the whole snow thing is pretty new, the Odyssey class ships are one of the few to use this outside of private yachts.”
Ki patted the heat exchanger whilst letting Ifelse clamber up to perch between his ears, “Now this is one of the fancy heat exchangers we just installed; an upgrade to deal with an overheating problem but they keep breaking down.”
He glanced back and forth at the two kits, “Lets see if you've absorbed your basic engineering courses, can either of you work out why its not working?”
The two kits started to examine the machine, asking Ki questions and working together to examine the whole heat exchange system. They also made use of Ki's tools to run current through the system and test it, checking to see how the mechanical and electronic components worked. Ki was happy to let them get on with it, watching and listening to them discussing theories and ideas as to what had caused the heat exchanger to fail. He wished he’d got this chance as a kit to work with adults who had the time and energy to help develop and practice skills.
In his colony the adults had cared, but they didn’t have the time to coddle and play, it was get to work and do your bit or the colony could fail. “So,” Ki said, “You’ve had half an hour, what is your verdict, why is it failing?”
“Uhm,” Yangar shifted, his ears wilting a bit as he glanced nervously at his sister.
Ral’ya straightened up, she was clearly turning into their pack leader and she chirped firmly, “Nothing, there is nothing wrong with this machine, it does everything it is supposed to do.”
“Correct,” Ki said with a smile and had to hold back a laugh when Yangar sagged in relief and Ral’ya smiled triumphantly, “Follow me and I will show you what the issue is.”
It was a short crawl through the maintenance tunnels to reach the junction the heat-exchange unit had been removed from. Lying on his back Ki made sure both kits could see and pointed at the vacant space, “You are right there is nothing wrong with the heat-exchanger, but the ceramic bearings that roll through it carrying the heat away are of a different design.”
He pointed to an exposed metal chute, “The chutes that carry the ball bearings out of the heat exchanger and to the cooling unit are about three microns too small. It’s not much but there is no tolerance so if you get a bearing that has expanded just a little bit more than normal it sticks and the whole unit backs up and shuts down.”
“Oh,” Yangar wiggled closer to the unit and peered at the lengths of silver metal, “Is that really it?”
“Yup,” Ki chirped, “It’s not an uncommon thing, the engineers have upgraded one piece of machinery and not considered the surrounding peripherals that plug it into the unit properly.”
He grinned at the youngsters, “Who wants to help me program the maintenance bots to replace all seventeen kilometres of heat exchange tubing across the entire ship?”
The kids looked at each other excitedly and chirped, “Can we get the rest of our pack? We all wanna help!”
“Sure,” Ki waved them back towards the hatch, “Go get them and meet me in the central maintenance bay in twenty minutes.”
They chirped and scrambled off and Ki smiled, laying on his side to check over the wiring for anything else that might have needed updating. He didn’t want to go to all this trouble only to have missed something. It was going to be fun showing the kits how to program the drones and run the replacements. It would be a fun project for them.
“Iko,” Seinu said as he sat behind his desk and brought up a holographic image of a planet, “A temperate world in the AHR-Alpha system, galactic designation AHR-77250048 or to translate the local name Marvellous.”
He smiled at the kits and switched holograms to an image of a bipedal species with large ears, ossicone like horns and thick fur covering their bodies. They had thick thighs clearly designed for running and long tails that ended with blade-like scaled tips for additional balance.
“The Ikori, Marvelonians or Calaros in Galactic Standard as they are often known, started out as hunters, their speed needed for racing across the wide plains and prairies of their world. Their world never really developed trees, just large fern like shrubs and tall grasses so speed over long distances was essential for hunting the creatures that served as food.”
Seinu smiled around at the young pack, “These days though whilst they retain their hunter heritage they are a tech savvy species on par with the Avali but where we developed technology that helps elevate our pack structure and co-operation they specialise in quantum spatial manipulation, their technology to make things bigger on the inside is utilised in quite a lot of Avali ships and stations.”
Seinu turned the hologram around slowly on its axis, “Now, I gave you all my preliminary reading material on the Ikori and as you know I am off to their world for a diplomatic conference. It is a yearly event between Avalon and our trading partners,” he met the eyes of each kit, “Now you’ve had a couple of days to read and plan what things do you think I should do to prepare for this meeting between aliens?”
Ral’ya, Yangar, Gav'da, Sorsh and Sig'ta whispered together and Seinu did his best not to eavesdrop, it was hard with Avali hearing but he tilted his ears back away from them and tapped his claws on his desk gently until Ral’ya put her hand up.
“We have… a few thoughts but there is a question we think we should ask first.”
“Of course,” Seinu smiled, “The task I set you was to pretend you were preparing for this conference, you’ve all shown an aptitude for quick thinking so let me hear it.”
“Why are you so hot,” Sig’ta blurted out then blushed, ears wilting back as her siblings laughed and hugged her. Seinu shook his head and flicked an ear in their direction and Sorsh sat up, getting control of his giggles to speak up.
“What she means is, you radiate heat, your body is giving off warmth, about 5 degrees, this is not normal for Avali, our comfortable temperature is -25c, this is likely to be noticed and should be included in the pre-prep work we send to the conference host.”
“Well spotted children,” Seinu smiled, “That observation alone means you have passed but to answer your question,” he reached up to his throat and pulled on the beaded necklace he wore, it went sloooorp at the back as the large copper spike embedded in his slime pulled back out.
“As you know I have a very advanced augmented body, I am not quite like every other Avali you may meet, so I wear this, cold temperatures are bad for my augmented body. My nanites and an EPP can mitigate this but to take the load off my guardian nanites I have started wearing these, the spikes warm up and the composition of my body circulates the heat around my unique physiology but this causes me to radiate heat.”
He handed his necklace over so they could examine it, the copper spike reached nearly all the way to the other side. Gav’da shuddered as he fingered the spike, “It is so hot to the touch… and doesn’t it hurt?”
“Not at all,” Seinu took it back and stretched it back over his head, letting the spike slip back into his neck, “I barely feel it these days, but you are very correct, including this in the biographical information about me is important. Who can tell me why? Sig’ta?”
“Ah,” she stood shook out her wing feathers self-consciously, “It is important to tell your hosts because a security agent scanning you when you arrived might be expecting a normal Avali with the standard body temperature, they could accuse you of being someone impersonating Diplomat Seinu and cause an incident.”
“Correct,” Seinu smiled, “There is more to being a diplomat than just the talks; there is a whole world surrounding people in my profession, we have to move through it and one of those is making sure the host of an event is aware of anything odd that could cause a diplomatic incident.”
He nodded toward Sorsh who sat up straight before answering, “Another reason we thought of is it shows a level of trust which is important to garnering trust and friendship.”
“Very good, my augmented body causes much gossip, it is good to let our allies know I have a non-standard biology but that is all they need to know.” Seinu then grinned wide, showing off his teeth, “But now I have answered the query about my odd physiology. You still need to report on the rest of the conference preparations.”
The youngsters all glanced at one another and buckled down to take Seinu through their plan. It was a good presentation, they had absorbed the data they had been presented with and come up with a coherent idea for how to position the Illuminate interests in trade with their allies. They made proposals of what trade areas they could make concessions on, what items and trade proposals the Illuminate was really interested in and what room to manoeuvre and negotiate the pack would have.
It was all presented through a series of slick charts, visuals, holograms and Ral’ya leading her pack, explaining each step, each item and what their position would be. Seinu listened with a smile, nodding his head occasionally or raising his ears which caused the young teenage Avali to hesitate and glance at her siblings before ploughing on with their presentation.
“Very good,” Seinu said with a smile as the presentation was brought to a close, “Very good everyone,” he smiled warmly, “There are a few points I would do differently and you have I think neglected your understanding of macroeconomics if you think Avali tungsten carbide is only worth that much but the concessionary proposals are quite good.”
He stood up from behind his desk and moved over to the pile of bean-bags off to one side and motioned for them to join him, “Now then shall we do the next bit over here? Usually after I present a proposal to my family we sit down and hold a pack-song to discuss the ideas, now we are not in the same pack but whilst you are with us we are your assigned guardians so shall we?”
The kits scrambled over and joined him on the beanbags, draping themselves against one another and getting comfy as Seinu tossed holograms into the air and started to chirp, walking through the steps of their plans, highlighting errors, issues or mistakes and listening to their shy but growing in confident replies as they worked together as one to offer suggestions and ideas. It was nice and they were smart, enthusiastic and full of ideals which was great. Now Seinu just had to test that knowledge of theirs and show them how to apply themselves, it was going to be a fun afternoon. It also had the added bonus of letting him practise some of the new methods and ideas he'd been shown in his new reading material from the Directorate. Having a group of external viewpoints and watching how the kits planned was a valuable training tool for him as well.
Ral’ya hurried through the snow with Sorsh by her side, her feet crunching over the fresh powder, leaving three toed footsteps behind her. The residential dome her pack had been assigned was smaller than the Trail packs but had the same lay out. A ring of tents sitting in the snow like they would have in the wild on Avalon with a central public lounge, communal sleeping and bathing rooms and then individual private rooms for each pack-member.
Ducking through the fabric with Sorsh right behind her she slid to a stop, shaking snow out of her wings and looked at Gav’da, Yangar and Sig’ta who were impatiently waiting for them.
“Where have you two been!” Gav’da chirped and hurried over, “We called you twenty minutes ago! Ki says we need to join him on the maintenance deck. He has something special prepared for our last day.”
“Sorry,” Sorsh chirped, “We were in a lesson with Chantelle about pack organisation and logistics, it went on forever. She loves to talk.”
“Never mind that now,” Ral’ya chirped, “We are here so let's go! Did he say what he has prepared for us?”
“He didn’t say, just that we had to head down there as quickly as we can,” Gav’da said, “And that was nearly an hour ago! Come on, we don't want to keep him waiting any longer.”
“Well come on then,” Ral’ya led the way back out of the tent and chirping and shouting at each other the young pack raced across the snow and exited the residential dome back into the main corridors of the ship. It was a bit of a journey, a long elevator ride down and across the length of the ship to the maintenance bay that Ki had turned into his own work space. The five young avali tumbled out of the elevator and set off looking for Ki but the bay seemed empty, they stood around near his workbench frowning.
“Well he said to meet us here, I am sure he’ll be here soon,” Yangar said and then pointed, “Oh hey look an MMF poster, isn’t that the UM58 poster?”
“Yes!” Sig’ta pushed her brother out of the way and half climbed onto the desk, “And it’s signed! How did Ki get that, were they at Warfaisser do you think?”
“Probably,” Ral’ya sighed, “Imagine being able to see MMF live! I am still so pissed they wouldn’t let us go to Voilcrow to see them live! Can you imagine what hearing them live would be like?”
“It’d be great,” Gav’da enthused, “But not as fun as seeing you two pine over Rowi, you know he’s taken!”
“We can still dream,” Sig’ta chirped, “They say on the nexus he still attends Avali gatherings with his pack, so there is a chance to encounter him at a pack gathering.”
The boys laughed and leered at their sisters, “As much chance as Sorsh bumping into D.”
“I think D is cute,” Sorsh chirped, “He’s so exotic looking with those antlers and hooves, everyone wants to get to know D better but he is so private about his personal life.”
“Well I think you are all barking up the wrong tree,” Yangar laughed, “The one to go after is clearly Sher, he’s their pack leader, if he picked our pack for fun we’d all get a good night out of it.”
“I wonder if Ki has any more MMF merch,” Sig’ta said as she peered up at the poster, “If he has spares we gotta get one and…”
She cut off as Ki walked through a door and started to walk towards them, all five of them could hear his conversation, “Thanks for calling me directly about this Mekari, I'd have been happy talking to Sawi about it I know how busy you are,” he paused listening to a reply and laughed warmly, “It’s very kind of you, it was mostly a hunch but I sent Sawi a message asking if you’d have the specs,” he paused, listening to the person on the other end talking, “Yeah no I agree, it is just Seinu’s doctor suggested he use the Sleriki warming bands without actually thinking of how I would do maintenance.”
He spotted the kids and raised a hand in greeting but continued with his conversation, “Of course Seinu ordered a bunch and he’s already broken one of them messing around with it,” he laughed, “Oh I had no idea Rowi and his pack commissioned them! It’s good tech, keeps Seinu at the right temperature,” Ki paused mid sentence to listen and smiled, “Oh really I had no idea, that's great they did that for you, awesome thanks for the tech specs, the hospital only sent me a locked file I can print from, I needed the full spec to do proper maintenance, thank you and speak soon.”
He hung up, tapping the side of his visor and looked at the five silent, wide eyed, quivering ears and excited kits, “What?”
“YOU KNOW MEKARI!” Sig’ta screamed in excitement, bouncing up and down, “You were talking to him, I heard his voice, that was Mekari, MMFs chief! I’ve read all their files, people don’t think it’s important to know more than the band but if we know their support team then we stand more chance of finding out more about them and this is totally one of those occasions! Mekari is MMFs tech chief!”
“Sig’ta shush,” Ral’ya barked, “You can nerd out about MMFs team later and you are ignoring the important thing your research has revealed! Ki was talking about Rowi, as if you know him like on casual every day terms!
“Oh,” Ki’s ears canted back a bit in embarrassment, “We just do, ah my family worked with his family the Ouakkia pack when building the Odyssey at Protion and you know Seinu is friends with Sher they got stuck in a lift once then we went to Babupekkakerok to do that exposé on the Vampire Bunny species.”
“Oooooooh,” all five kits went, each one hitting a different note and yet managing to ring out in perfect harmony, dark eyes wide, ears up, a whole new level of excited teenage worshipfulness brimming in their attitudes. Ki stood frozen like a deer in headlights, not prepared at all for this level of excitement but was saved by a hatch slamming open with an almighty CLONG!
The kits jumped and spun around as with a roar three figures spiralled into the maintenance bay from outside. The boosters on their armoured suits expelling flame as they spiralled around one another; two smaller suits of grey and orange orbited in a helix pattern about the central white and pink Avali suit. They flew overhead, trailing clouds of sparkling white smoke before they broke formation and came around to land in front of everyone.
The kits burst into cheers, whooping at the sight as Firi and the twins removed their helmets, the two vampire bunnies looking bright and excited, their eyes shining just as warmly and energetically as the teenage Avali. Firi took charge, sweeping the kits up in her bombastic enthusiasm, she had just got back from the training centre with the newly qualified Cri and Cal and had a whole day of very much not approved by Selenu activities planned for the kits' last day aboard the Odyssey.
Smiling happily and keeping an eye on them just in case Firi went too overboard, Ki sat down at his workbench and started to read the schematics Mekari had sent him for Seinu’s warming accessories. He needn’t have worried Cri was with them and he was even more level headed then Selenu. As he read through the technical manual his hands were dancing over a keyboard, ordering the inventory system to unpack some of Seinu’s spare MMF merchandise from storage, he now had the perfect going away gifts for the kits when they headed back to the nursery tomorrow.
It was going to be a loud, long noisy day from what Firi was excitedly declaring but it was worth it to see the youngsters and the twins smiling.