Nebula Dreaming
~School Trip~

All the skies are grey
And the teacher's gone
All we've done is walk
Can we make it on our own?
                                                                   (-Sing to the Tune of California Dreamin')

Kay'dee sighed as her static charge, fuelled by her growing panic, fried the help terminal once again. Without much hesitation she opened up the hatch with the toolkit she always had on her and repaired the damage. 
"Maybe someone else should take over." Wi'oks said, pragmatic as usual.
The look Kay'dee gave the pale reptilian would have frozen most people but Wi'oks quietly returned her stair and stood his ground. In the end Kay'dee stepped down and flung her hand sup.
"Good luck to whoever wants to try." she called flippantly.
Xi'pi wondered if she should step up. She always had a hard time taking the initiative but she knew she'd be able to get the program working. And if not she could probably figure it out herself without letting some computer calculate for her. But before the pale blue reptilian programming student could step up, Wi'oks had already rebooted the terminal. 
"I could use some spiritual guidance." he said to Ug'ha.
The fourth member of their study group, a religious student scowled and answered: "We wouldn't be in this mess if we'd just stuck with the rest of the group." and gave Kay'dee an angry look. 
Kay'dee just shrugged and didn't feel a hint of guilt. The rest had followed her willingly when she'd spotted the antique computer equipment. Laptops were things of a distant past, so large and impractical. But they had been a fashion statement with unlimited potential. 
Ug'ha sat down cross-legged and concentrated his thoughts inward. Letting himself detach from his body, his essence entered the cyberspace that was all around them. The infinite stream of data permeated everything and within seconds he was into the terminal mainframe and started opening up the programs so Wi'oks could rewrite them. 
After some time, Wi'oks stepped down and tapped Ug'ha's shoulder to let him know he could retreat. Shaking his head, the monk looked up and asked:
"So?"
"It seems our school already left." Wi'oks shrugged.
Xi'pi fell completely silent, Ug'ha stoically kept quiet and Kay'dee had a little freak out.
"They're gone? They left us? Didn't they do a head-count?!"
"What are we, toddlers?" Ug'ha sneered.
"Maybe one of the teachers stayed behind to look for us." Xi'pi offered.
"Didn't look that way." Wi'oks quickly broke that sliver of hope, "But we can get home on our own. We can pay for a place on one of the ships. And if there are none we can always call someone from the school and see what they can arrange. We're pretty much adults anyway."
Kay'dee wondered about that. But she was the youngest student in the group at 17 and did feel like she was a bit behind the others. Even the shy Xi'pi didn't seem overly worried. But then she'd probably just follow Wi'oks and go along with whatever he wanted to do. 
Ug'ha looked straight at the others, who fidgeted under his cold and direct stare. He was the eldest in the group and felt responsible. The girls, he noticed, were especially stressed. So he took the lead quite abruptly.
"Let's go check with the spaceport first. They can probably tell us more."
At that exact moment, Kay'dee noticed a couple of students with a similar look walking on the other side of the road. She ran after them, causing Ug'ha to swear and Xi'pi and Wi'oks to chase her so they didn't lose her in the crowd.
"Wait!" she called and the reptilian students turned around.
"Hello, I'm Kay'dee. We lost our school. Where are you guys headed?"
Looking closer she noticed that the other students were slightly different. They had a mane of hair in their neck for one. But they did seem to understand her. It was one of the girls that answered: 
"I'm Anne, we go to Carramba High School at the Rookery."
They talked a bit more until Anne suggested getting one of their teachers. A red-headed woman who was referred to as miss Kenobi appeared and cryptically told them:
"Oh, I know of your school. I'm acquainted with your director." and then muttered, "Or I will be. Whatever works. What time is this again?"
Before Ug'ha could object however, Wi'oks nodded and said: "If we could hitch a ride and wait for our parents to come for us at your school we would be thankful."
"That shouldn't be a problem. We have room aplenty."
Xi'pi smiled, Kay'dee started an animated conversation with Anne about fashion, courses and boys and Ug'ha decided he could just keep quiet and see where this would take them. When it led to an underwater biodome where they were quizzed, probed and prodded he was a bit concerned. But all the cyberspace around him seemed to be waiting anxiously for something big to happen and he decided to stay.
"Why do you suppose they took our dna?" Kay'dee asked.
She'd been pretty pleased to see they were actually happy with her charge and seemed to put her on top of their list. She didn't try to consider what that list was for. In fact she'd been having a lot of fun with Anne and her friends on the flight back to Carramba.
"They have really fun courses here." she said to Xi'pi, "I wouldn't mind staying here for a while to take up Coddling Codexes. The name is just so cute. And do you think my level of computer programming would be enough to get into Synthetic intelligences?..."
"You might do better in robotics." Xi'pi answered, surprising the others that she'd already memorised the entire course-list but it had been easy with her analytical mind ability. "Meditation Tech should be something Ug'ha might like to take a look at. And they have a course on Advanced Coding too."
"It seems like we'll be staying." Wi'oks probed.
"Something is going to happen here and I think we're meant to be here." Ug'ha said.
"That sounds so ominous." Kay'dee shivered, "But I so want to stay."
"We need to wait until we get word from our parents anyway." Xi'pi pointed out.
"I was just checking." Wi'oks shrugged.

Candidate Story for Carramba high Cyber Court Clutch
Stories continued on the individual pages.

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 ><>< STORY ><><
Kay'dee >< Ug'ha ><  Wi'oks >< Xi'pi

><>< STORY2 ><><
Du'ral >< El'il >< Jam'le >< Va'xes

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Lantessama Isle
Background images from Deitydiva