Derek sighed as he glanced at the television in the corner of the cafe, which was once again showing Isaac’s little “lesson.”

  That had happened four months ago, and they were still talking about it, with “they” being what felt like every group that could talk about it. It wasn’t constant; it hadn’t consumed the news cycle … not anymore, but it was nevertheless being talked about to excess, when there’d long since been nothing new to discuss.

  Which led to him getting quite a few looks lately.

  Sure, Isaac’s hair was darker, skin paler, and if one looked closely, the green of his eyes appearing more like a gemstone than flesh, and actually looked younger than Derek due to all the “faffing around” Derek had done at Level 0 … but other than that, they looked pretty darn similar and constantly being approached, knowing that whatever he would be asked to do, he would not be able to do it …

  It was a damn good thing Derek was just about ready to leave, with Mimi, Ye-in, and maybe Atticus, with the latter’s participation a question they sought to solve today.

  As for their surroundings … there was a small town at the foot of Olympus Mons, serving the needs of the students studying at the local branch of Akashic Academy. And in that town was a cafe with suspiciously good privacy wards, which had left it pretty much perfect for this kind of conversation.

  Even if none of the information they were about to discuss was actually harmful, per se, they all liked their privacy, and between the ball and Isaac’s following antics, there were more eyes than usual on them.

  “Yeah …” Atticus said, following Derek’s gaze. “Those are never fun. But you’re going to be away from them pretty soon.”

  “So, you said that you can play the part of pilot,” Mimi threw in, addressing Atticus. “With [Skills], or just skill?”

  “I mean, I can’t really use any of it much,” he admitted. “People don’t really like racing antics in Sol, but I’ve gotten to try everything out.

  “Basically, I’ve got a kinesthetic sense of vehicles, can do most speed and turn radius calculations, I can buff anything going fast with magic, even if it’s a vehicle, and I have a cooldown [Skill] for instantly changing my vector.”

  “Is there a speed or mass limit?” Mimi asked, pulling out a folded piece of paper Derek recognized as at least part of the blueprints for the Dragonfly, jamming her finger down on a textbox in the corner. “Could you move a ship that heavy?”

  “As long as it’s not moving at more than sixty percent of light speed,” Atticus answered after a long moment of thought.

  “When are we ever going to get that fast?” Ye-in immediately asked, aghast, a split-second before Derek could.

  Atticus shrugged. “Probably never, but it’s not like we know the future. Weird shit happens all the time.”

  Ye-in turned on Derek at that. “I guess you’ll be the one who lands us in that shit, eh, captain?”

  That, in turn, drew an exaggerated wince from Mimi. “But please keep the ‘shit’ metaphorical.”

  “Not too many cesspits or sewers in outer space,” Atticus pointed out, earning him a relieved sigh.

  Though Derek was sure there was a way to create a “crappy” situation if he really tried, but why the hell would he? Better to put that mischievous part of his brain to work on finding alternatives or something … there were probably assholes out there who deserved a good prank or two.

  “As long as no one blows up the toilets in the Dragonfly, I’m happy,” Mimi added, giving them each a firm stare in turn.

  Yeah, that’d probably take some doing of the deliberate sort, Derek thought. The ship’s armor and superstructure were made up of various alloys of extraordinary durability, and while the inside was made up of the more “normal” material that was truesteel, which was, uh … well, it was an alloy that perfectly matched the “usual” qualities of steel and was used to make most of the things that were once made from steel.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  According to the history books, it was also considered to have the “essence” of steel, but it was a steel that could be used in something meant to be used by the superhumans that populated the world nowadays.

  Anyway, moving on …

  Derek threw both Mimi and Ye-in a questioning look, receiving twin nods in turn. That was settled, then.

  “So, Atticus, would you like to come along with us? As the Dragonfly’s pilot?” he made the offer he’d been considering making for a while.

  “I …” Atticus swallowed, a clear play for time that wound up being insufficient as the next thing out of his mouth was “Uh …”.

  A shudder seemed to go through him as he gave himself something like a mental slap, probably trying to figure out … well, something.

  For a long moment, Atticus met Derek’s eyes with an intensity that bordered on frenzy.

  “Absolutely. When? I can have everything I need in an hour!”

  Holy … there was probably a story there, but Derek didn’t feel like pressing, especially since he was fairly certain he knew what it was.

  “I still need to evolve my [Class],” he said. “A week, maybe. But you can move into the Dragonfly now, and you can take that time to make sure everything’s just right for you, while we still have a yard slip.”

  “I guess that works too,” Atticus replied, deflating slightly, then perking up. “Actually, can I take the ship out to practice? Couple of lightmonths outside the heliosphere? I’ve got [Alcubierre Bubble] …”

  “I’ll take you,” Mimi said, then turned to Derek. “We should probably try to have at least two people on the ship if we take it out, in case of emergency.”

  “Sounds good,” Derek said. Though in practice, one of those people should typically be either him or Mimi, as they were the ones with the repair abilities.

  “Now, that that’s settled, I think we should probably share our other abilities,” Ye-in suggested. “I’m Level 50, [Skydance Sentinel], I specialize in three-dimensional movement and speed, also, I can use [Forceful Nebula] and [Absolute Ward] to throw up a shield, but neither’s going to last long.”

  Derek nodded. He knew both of those. The former was mostly about providing her footholds that didn’t require her to keep using her forcefields as footholds and kept the worst of enemy fire off her, while the latter provided temporary invulnerability that could be extended to others, but did not stop sufficiently powerful redirection, in fact, trying to ram with it would likely result in her bouncing off, rather than dealing damage.

  “I can learn basically anything, but I’m still learning,” he then announced. “Right now, I can play engineer, and can do the work of the navigation and fire control computers in my head.”

  Atticus let out a low whistle.

  “Also, I’m currently learning magic.”

  “I’m the engineer, I’ve got [Skills] for that, plus spatial engineering and magic, and some for emergency repairs,” Mimi said. “And I can fix anything with duct tape, that’s why Cargo Hold C is full of it.”

  Sometimes, it felt like the [System] was having a little bit too much fun with [Skill]-creation, because there was no other possible reason for something like [Mythos of Duct Tape] to exist.

  “Also, you should probably get to the Dragonfly soon, just so that you can fast travel to it,” Mimi added.

  Because while ships were generally not valid targets for that, ships in yards were, as long as you had been aboard them at any point in time, you could teleport to them regardless of which one they were at … assuming said yard was within the zone in which fast travel worked. Which didn’t feel like something that needed to be said, but unfortunately, history had proven that it did, in the stupidest possible fashion.

  The “incident” had started out relatively normally, with someone trying to teleport to a ship that was beyond the bounds of the teleportable, failing, and choosing to ring the alarm rather than thinking things through.

  Now, there wasn’t something like the “department of fast travel” or the like, but enough persistence had resulted in the authorities finding out something was “up,” and the recipient of the call had wound up having not only a lie detection [Skill], but also been quite eager to figure out the “mystery.”

  But their [Skill] had confirmed that there was someone trying to teleport to a ship they had been on before, that was currently in a shipyard, and that there were still fast travel charges left …

  In the end, that person had asked all the questions that they were supposed to ask. Which were all the questions that needed to be asked … save for the one that had been dismissed because the ones making the list had thought no one could possibly be that stupid!

  Also, the intrepid “investigator” had failed to try out if they could fast travel, or, if their charges for the week had been used up, ask literally anyone in earshot to make the same test …

  Oh, it hadn’t taken long for some supervisor or other to figure out what had gone wrong, but by then the message about the non-existent “emergency” had already started to ripple outwards, crossing agency boundaries, rapidly transforming into an immense hydra of misinformation that had to be disproven over and over and over again until it eventually hit the news.

  Though the news had wound up disproving it in the same segment that reported on the “issue” by having a reporter use fast travel to “travel” from one end of the studio to another.

  All told, an embarrassing mess.

  At least Derek’s crew was small enough that he knew them all directly, and had been able to reassure himself that they all had good heads on their shoulders.

  “I’m heading back to the academy,” he made his goodbyes. “I don’t want to keep you here any longer than necessary.”