Chapter 3: Loneliness in a Soggy Galaxy
The next day the classroom was bright and well-lit by the natural light beaming in through the seamless windows that acted as walls for the room. The class was full, which was an unusual sight this late in the year. Ash walked in and sat next to Leekoqåtii. She quickly stood up and changed seats. She chose a spot with no empty seats around.
The teacher, Mrs. Gallero, stood up and addressed the class, "Your thesis projects are due today. Please take out your SecureSubmission sticks and insert them into the slot on your desk."
Immediately, three students felt compelled to raise their hands in hopes that they could ask a question.
"I see some hands raised, but I know you are not asking to submit it another way. As I've said countless times, the SecureSubmission stick saves me the hassle of scanning for plagiarism and AI-generated content."
The hands went down.
All the students submitted their projects as requested. Mrs. Gallero continued, "Thank you, and with that, we will continue with the presentation part of your thesis projects. Let's go ahead and begin with..." She scanned her notes and called out a group of students to go first. The presentation component acted as a high-level overview of the project. Each group had a different focus, even though they were all astronomy-themed. Extraterrestrial farming, overcoming solitary space travel, the possibility of wormholes, and so on.
It became time for Ash and Leekoqåtii to present, and they walked to the front of the class. Ash inserted a stick into the front desk. The room darkened and a screen behind them illuminated with magnificent images of various solar systems they had been studying.
Leekoqåtii began addressing the class. "There is no shortage of solar systems to investigate. We knew this would be a daunting task, so instead we created some rules to narrow our focus. First, the solar system had to be within a 'soggy' galaxy, one with lots of water. Second, the solar system's star had to be the right age. Third, it needed to have rocky planets nestled within the 'goldilocks' zone from the sun; not too close to burn up, and not too far to freeze. And last, any planets within the proper distance must be emitting a cocktail of gases and water vapor. With those rules in place, we focused on three solar systems. Of the three, EJ.372 was our favorite." She continued to discuss all the wonders of the solar system and its potential for life. Ash must have looked quite funny staring at her, and he always fell into a trance listening to her speak. He missed his cue to begin. She called out for him again, "Ash, you have the calculations, right?"
He shook his head to wake himself up. "Yes, I do. Um, yes. And, thank you Lee, I mean Leekoqåtii." Her eyes rolled with a half-smile as she stepped to the side to allow him the floor. "To determine the gases emitting, we had to run several scans which relied on public domain access from the ISA and their bank of data." A long, hand-written mathematical equation displayed on the screen. "As you see here, I ran the scans of EJ.372 through this equation, and it confirmed our suspicion of water vapor." He paused with a smile but looked out to see confused faces. "Oh yes, um, the equation returned a series of color codes which indicated the presence of a wide spectrum of light nearby some of the planets." Still blank stares. "Rainbows, you know when water reflects the true nature of light, it's a spectrum of colors." He looked to Mrs. Gallero and could see her nodding in agreement with a huge smile on her face. He continued his presentation of the equations he used to determine all of the gases within the solar system and how they related to potential life.
Their presentation ended with a faint, forced applause from the students. After class, Mrs. Gallero asked for Ash and Leekoqåtii to join her. She congratulated them on their job well done with the presentation. "It looks like you two work really well together. This must have taken a long time." Leekoqåtii wrapped her arms around herself and looked down. Ash agreed with Mrs. Gallero. "I'm going to write you two a recommendation letter and send it straight over to the ISA." They both thanked Mrs. Gallero and left the classroom.
Ash turned to Leekoqåtii with a smile. "Isn't this great, imagine, maybe we'll be able to work together. Then you won't need to leave, you can stay here, and we can see if there's an us."
Her face was blank, "No, I'm not staying, I can't. And even if I was, there's no us, I've said this before."
"Lee don't do this. I can see the way you look at me, we could work. Just give it a—"
"Stop, just stop. I'm not doing this again." She turned around and walked away, disappearing into the crowd of students. He called out for her, but she did not respond.
During the last few weeks of school, the classroom grew increasingly empty. The students felt they didn't need to attend class anymore after their presentation was done. However, Ash attended every day, hoping Leekoqåtii would show up. She never did. She stopped replying to his messages. The class size dwindled. He sat alone all the way up to the last day.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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