Chris headed towards the twin's room carrying one of the communication devices. He was tired of only being able to talk to the whole group in 30 minutes intervals. Sure he could talk to his mum or Jania like normal but if they were all going to be living together they needed a better solution. He knocked on the door.
"Come in Chris, we were just about to call you." It was Jania, not the boys who called him in.
"Chris, Chris, Chris we have a present for you" the voice was coming from a drone but Chris could tell that it had to be Null.
"Hi, how did you know it was me?"
"We can see through walls remember anyway here's a present". Null then handed Chris an earring.
Chris wasn't sure how to feel about someone who can see through walls. What about his privacy? But beyond that, he didn't know what to make of the earring he was presented with.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Put it on silly, come on I think it will look cute on you" The earing was Jania idea and she wanted to see it on him. She took the earring out of his hand and put it onto him. "So can you hear me?" she asked mentally.
"Yes, I assume this is different to the other device?" Chris show them the communication device he had brought for Null and Infy to fix.
"This hopefully won't have a time limit. Today when we took off the band we could hear the sound of everyone's soul link via the device. We have programmed in yours, Jania, Lisa, and our exact soul links into this device. This means, in theory, it should act as if we had a normal link." Infy Explained over the link. "It will use your body heat to charge and you can only connect to the people already programmed in and even if we update it they must all be psychically sensitive as we can't link two non-sensitive souls together."
"That boring Infy, so Chris want to play a game? What did Jania call it? That Right it is called Truth or Dare." Now that Null could communicate with both Jania and Chris he didn't want to waste time talking about boring technical stuff. The 4 of them played Truth or Dare, Would you rather and told ghost stories well into the night.
The next day Lisa was waiting for the teenagers and tweens to arrive for the meeting with a smile on her face. She knew that none of them got much sleep last night and was looking forward to teasing them.
"Oh, it looks like you all had a big night"
"We talked all night, did you know that Chris has gotten to." Before he could finish Chris had run over and put his hand over Null mouth. Null just looked at Chris like he was an idiot and continued. "second base, whatever that means but Jania seemed interested"
"I did, with Kiyeta apparently" Lisa replied. "Maybe next time you all decide to talk all night you turn off your link with me?"
Chris wished he could just find a hole to hide in. first he had tried to silence a mental link by covering the mouth of a mute boy. Secondly, he just found out that his mother had heard everything they spoke about last night. He swiftly channelled that embarrassment towards the correct target. Jania had also come to the same conclusion.
"Null and Infy! what did you do?" they both chased the boys down the hall.
"Well, she could have turned off the link if she didn't want to listen." Was Infy only defence.
Lisa chuckled to herself. She was happy that the children were getting along. She could have turned off the link but she was hoping to find out more information about the 3 new children she had somehow adopted. She wanted to make the best decision for everyone, so she needed the most accurate information. Well, that was her justification for not turning off the link but in reality, she was just enjoying the gossip.
That day they all had yet another meeting to discuss the future. Many topics were discussed by the end a general plan was finally agreed upon.
The council's judgment that they couldn't make first contact until humans met the criteria had limited their options. The first stage of their 10-year plans was education and training. Vark had offered to teach Null and Infy rune magic. Bolat would educate them on galactic politics and warfare.
He also suggested they form a mercenary unit and apply for missions from the mission board to gain experience and Zallium.
Jania and Chris would be given access to educational material in the way of galactic warfare. While Lisa would be allowed to indulge her scientific curiosity and learn some of the easier Dwarven scientific principles and theories.
Stage two was to gather resources and allies. War was coming both Zero and Vark were adamant about that fact. At this stage, they would create a jump portal and go hunting for rare resources and try and find some allies to assist with the future battle. The dwarves had mentioned that rare resources could be sourced from unranked or tier 10 planets without needing the approval of the other races. You just had to deal with the local fauna and flora by following appropriate council guidelines. These planets and the local asteroids would be used for the next stage.
The third stage was to gear up, they needed to have an army worth of equipment to supply the humans once the war started. This was the stage Lisa was most concerned with. She knew that wars require logistics and personnel. It could not be rushed and needed proper preparation and planning. This would require a large effort in designing and building a drydock that could be hidden from prying eyes.
Chris had argued for the need of gaining human allies. He had argued that if we turn up with an army of ships and aliens in tow, that we would also be seen as an enemy. Lisa also wanted to gain more human allies, but she was thinking about it from a personal point of view. They would need more social interaction if they wished to keep their sanity. Lisa, Chris, and Jania were used to living with other humans and she was already missing interacting with other adults and wasn't sure how long she could last.
ideas were floated on how they could bypass the council ruling and gain access to more allies but most of the ideas just weren't practical or feasible so a decision on the topic was postponed until they had gathered a better understanding of the galaxy. With a rudimentary plan in place, they all retired back to their room and waited for the arrival of their new home ship.