You woke up late into the evening, seemingly to what was loud shouting and voices all around you but in reality everyone was sleeping. Your head ached from being woken up during REM sleep, you reached towards the side of the bed where the light switch was but it was apparent that nobody was awake to be making all the noise you had just heard. It was a loud roar of several different voices, from seemingly different angles all around you. Soon enough after a brief silence had occurred, they started up once again, but this time you were fully awake to hear them. You began to focus, trying to decipher what was being said, what each individual channel of voice and sounds was saying but it was impossible as they simply overlapped one another the moment you began to try to focus on just one of them.

Whenever your head seemed to move onto one of the girls, a different channel of voice echoed into your head louder than the rest, but there was one voice which was clearly more apparent and sounded a lot more defined than the others. When you turned your head to Nova who was still fast asleep at your side, a channel of sound seeming to emanate from her became louder, as if you were reading her thoughts or her thoughts were being directly projected into your head. It was the terrazine exposure you thought to yourself, its effects had finally set in during your sleep. From one perspective, one side of your emotions said that this was completely cool but the other and the more frightening prospect was equally apparent.

It wasn't long before Nova caught on that something was amiss, even in her sleep she could determine that something wasn't quite right. She groaned, her arms tightened and realized that you weren't lying down next to her, or in bed at all for that matter. Nova shot up into an alert upright position in bed, the sheets rapidly thrown across the bed causing a sudden gush of wind to be blown across the room. To her surprise you were sitting down at the edge of the bed, not wanting to wake the girls by asking vocally, she projected her thoughts directly into your mind while maintaining a focused and worried gaze upon you. Your hands were clasped tightly over your ears, in a futile attempt to block out the sounds you were hearing which were actually the thoughts and dreams of the girls. Nova's message came into your head crystal clear, it was louder and more apparent than the other channels and it also seemed to quieten down the other thoughts.

Nova crawled rapidly across the bed on her hands and knees when she realized that you were in discomfort, wanting to know what the issue was. As she got closer she began to realize that your PI had increased, noting that she felt a stronger sensation and presence of psionic energy as she got closer to you. She grabbed you with both hands around your shoulders and leaned in against you, you were now at least a PI 5 which meant that you could with relative ease teep into the minds of others. However, something was wrong, in other cases of PI 5 such as Delta or Shae, they had to concentrate and required some degree of effort (albeit insubstantial amounts) in order to teep into the minds of others. You were experiencing issues similar to Nova, who had issues not teeping into the thoughts of others. Whether or not that meant that you were now anywhere near Nova's level was unclear for now, but it remained highly improbable that it was the case.

Nova quickly fetched a bed gown from the side of the room and put it on before wrapping her arms around you and proceeded to carry you outside. In the commotion, Nova had managed to inadvertently wake up Shae in the process who quickly got out of bed and got the door, Delta was still fast asleep in her bed. "What's wrong with him?" Shae asked in a sincere tone, rare for Shae as she seemed to always be disinterested with most things. Nova didn't quite know where she was going, but knew she had to get to a less densely populated area of the ship away from the quarters areas. "I'm not 100%, but I think it's the terrazine kicking in" Nova quickly said as she moved with purpose through the dimly lit corridors of the ship. The idea was that Ghosts train their whole lives to try to control their teeping abilities, most of whom gained their abilities much earlier on in life which also meant that they were more accustom to being able to control and process incoming thoughts. Very rarely did anyone manage to experience this later on in life without the aid of external forces such as exposure to terazine to increase PI rating.

Nova need to give you an immediate crash course in how to control the thoughts of others and channelling them out, or in other words quietening them down to more bearable levels. A class which is generally taken during the first semester of Ghost academy. Every Ghost has their own unique way of managing to quieten down incoming thoughts, but there was a more widely accepted way, but it required a degree of effort and know how in order to accomplish. Nova needed to get you to a less densely populated area in order to allow you to have some breathing space, away from all the bombarding thoughts which would otherwise flood the minds of teeps. There were of course other physical options available such as psionic padding to literally decrease the amount of incoming thoughts.

As you got closer to the other end of the ship, towards the bridge and Captain's lounge areas; things got substantially quieter, there were still several channels of thought being passed through the air, but definitely substantially less than that was present in the dormitory areas. Nova pressed you tightly against her chest, resting her head atop of yours while Shae watched on. "Is it quieter now?" Nova asked, even though she knew the answer. You nodded, "Is that what it's normally like for you guys?" Nova shook her head reassuringly "And that's why we're here, away from everyone while we try to control this better" Nova was concerned, deep down she had fears that perhaps you had gone further than just 1 magnitude higher on the PI scale, a result which was apparently common amongst people who were exposed to terrazine.

Several hours passed, and at this point it was early dawn according to shipboard time. Your progress was slow at first, as it turned out that the theoretical applications weren't as fast acting as more practical activities to reduce and block incoming thoughts of others. However, up until now your practice area only had four, maybe five different channels to block out juxtaposed to the hundreds that would be present in the dormitory areas. Nova had decided that even with the progress made, for now you should remain on this side of the ship in order to get rest as the area also wasn't very densely populated throughout the day either. Either way, the ship was supposed to arrive at Korhal at around midday to afternoon today so in either case staying aboard this densely packed ship shouldn't be much of an issue for too much longer. The two of you got some well-deserved shut eye in before midday, falling asleep on a large couch in the centre of the Captain's lounge which wasn't occupied. Shae returned back to the room in order to make sure Delta doesn't freak out when she wakes up with nobody in the room.

As the ship began to come into orbit over the now sparsely populated Korhal, Shae was specifically asked to wake the two of you who were sealed in the Captain's Lounge as even the most fool hardy Marine refused to get within an arm's reach of Nova let alone knock on the door. Not sure what type of mood Nova was in, even Shae approached the cabin door with relative caution, opening the door with upmost levels of care so as to not prematurely wake the two of you with a horrible screeching sound which was sure to infuriate Nova which would jeopardize just about everyone on the whole ship. Luckily, Nova's body clock was fairly in check and was already in the process of waking up by the time Shae was getting to the door.

Shae ducked her head cautiously into the intentionally darkened room as all the lights had been dimmed or turned off completely. "Uhhh Nova?" Shae called out into the room, much to her surprise Nova was already upright and standing, pacing towards her which would have surely made anyone else who wasn't in the same position as Shae, fall backwards in shock. Nova's hair was lazily brushed aside to either side of her face, light puffy bags were formed underneath her emerald eyes and she lacked her trademark light pink lipstick or eye-liner. Nova was not in the mood, but knew that things had to be done, and in particular that today was supposed to be a big day for her, moving back to Korhal and all other duties expected of her today.

As Nova lazily stumbled her way across the bridge of the ship towards the nearest bathroom of some sort, her attention was diverted towards what was now the surface of Korhal. With the sun peeking over from the far edge of the planet causing an intense glare of sunlight to enter the cabin of the bridge. The intense brightness caused Nova's drooped eyes to squint and give her even more reason to want to make the hasty dash towards the bathroom even faster. Splashing the cool water over her face rapidly woke her up from her half asleep state, she looked up at the mirror in disappointment when she released she had developed rather shallow bags underneath her eyes which weren't normally present, in fact she had been keeping a rather tight sleeping schedule and abiding by it for the last few weeks or so.

As the battlecruiser drew closer to the surface of the planet, you awoke to faint image of the planet forming off in the distance, seen through a gap which had been made when Nova left the room. It was still rather loud but at least it wasn't as bad as last night you thought to yourself as you began to get up in search of Nova and the girls. Nova's psionic presence was rather immediate and apparent, it didn't take very long at all to sense where she was amongst the other "normal" terrans in this part of the ship. As Nova ducked her head out of the bathroom, it became apparent that only one of you managed to get enough sleep last night, even though it was you who ended up getting less sleep than she did. Nova smiled and came in for a hug, which ended up being more of a tackle as the Nova was particularly glad to see you, her arms flailed about and wrapped around you tightly. She was slightly taller than you were, which was most apparent when she fully stretched out her back, elongating her figure which she often didn't do around you.

The two of you proceeded towards the landing bay area of the cruiser, where your belongings were stored in the cargo hold area. Holding hands, Nova was particularly pleased showing her emotions which was fairly rare in such a public setting with a broad smile across her face and her cheeks lighting up to a light pink. It was apparent that she was very happy that you had apparently went up a PI rating last night, even though the experience on your behalf wasn't as extravagant as you had hoped it would be upon being able to read the minds and thoughts of others. Psionics was particularly intriguing, one such trait was that it didn't exactly matter what was in the way between you and your object, it mattered a heck of a lot more the distance between and as such if there just so happens to be densely populated within short confines, the experience was deafening even for more experienced ghosts.

The huge battle cruiser came to a landing on the planet's surface in a make-shift air dock located relatively close to your new residence. The gigantic reinforced cabide forged neosteel access ramp which shielded the cargo bay lowered slowly onto the dock's floor with an audible thud which echoed out across the dock. Mal was already there and waiting, opting to take a much faster and smaller ship in order to get there rather than the large and bulky battle cruiser ride which Nova had offered but declined. A series of awaiting transports were present, upon Mal's request for all of your luggage and what not as your residence was still some distance away from the dock. Delta cried out "So where are we staying!" despite the fact that the entire surface of the planet was rather smooth as the aftermath of the terraforming of the planet was still apparent. Mal turned his back away from you, off in the distance a series of sky scrapers were present, which were tall enough to be seen from all the way back here. The air was clean and clear, but the sky was tinged a deep pink and red as the afternoon carried on into the evening. "The one on the left" Mal said with a smile across his face, expecting a response which was bound to happen. Everyone's eyes lit up, even though it was barely visible from here; you all knew that it meant that a sky scraper was to be your next home.

"Now, technically since you two are all err, a thing and all, technically the tower should go under his name" Mal pointed at you "Me? What, no no no I thought it would go under Nova's" But Nova looked back at you and shook her head "We're not married yet, we're just engaged" placing a large degree of emphasis on yet. "Well, sooner or later it's gotta happ-" you cut Mal off "Well since we've essentially got to name it right now, and right now it's her tower, and her name is still legally Nova Terra, can't we just settle for Terra Tower?" Nova pulled a face, as it reminded her of Terra tower back on Tarsonis, her family's residence there was also a tower. "Whatever, we can name it later I guess, oh! Before I forget though, Nova you have several meetings lined up which must be met before the sun goes down today" handing her a tablet with a list of what seemed to be to-do actions which made her eyes roll. "Can they wait until tomorrow" Nova asked with an annoyed tone, Mal's response was a quick and sharp "Nope, all to be done today".

Nova took another look at the list, most if not all of them were related to the Academy which also meant that she wouldn't be able to check out the tower with the rest of you until much later in the evening. "I'll uhh, leave you guys to it then" Mal said while looking at Nova, expecting a response but he didn't get one. Hauler had been standing in the background silently watching on, Nova turned around and requested a medivac dropship transport from here to Ursa which was only a few minutes away at most. Before boarding her transport, Nova made everyone get a piece of her mind about being tied away to a list of duties that she was expected to complete by angrily stomping her way up the ramp. "Are you sure you don't want me to come with' Nova?" You asked out of courteousy but Nova wasn't in a talking mood. You directed the girls away to the rather large mound of possessions while you go had a talk to Nova briefly before joining them.

"Nova? Are you okay?" you asked as the darkly lit cabin of the medivac concealed whatever was inside. Suddenly, something popped into your head and realized that Nova was changing as she was still in her night robe and gown before boarding the ship. Out of the darkness Nova giggled slightly as she sensed how awkward you felt, she lit up her suit which made her visible. Nova approached you while placing her hair tie back in her hair "I'll see you at dinner" you asked but she shook her head "I don't know when I'll be home tonight, if I come home late don't stay up for me, kay?" You nodded in agreement but couldn't give her the promise that you wouldn't stay up waiting for her. Nova was fairly relaxed and carefree about the girls, she knew that she wasn't their actual mother (Which is particularly the case with Shae as she is only a few years younger than either of you were). Nova was careful about enforcing rules or boundaries upon either of them as she knew that they were both old enough to take care of themselves, particularly since they were also both ghosts which meant that both of them were very mature for their age.

While Nova was away tending to Academy duties, you and the girls had the task of moving as much of your belongings into the new residence building. Delta wanted an entire floor to herself, which would normally seem unreasonable but there really wasn't many reasons as to why her request was unreasonable. What would Nova say in this situation you thought to yourself, she was much more firm and logical with things like this. "You can have a floor to yourself, but we're still having one floor dedicated to all our bedrooms" You said calmly to Delta but she was already too busy pressing all the floors in the elevator wanting to see each and every one of them before getting to the top. It wasn't the tallest sky scraper in the city, but it was still largely overkill for what your family needed you thought to yourself. The first two floors or so was largely for the support staff of the tower, the next three were combined into one large floor which contained various trees and shrubbery to give impression of a large garden area was present inside the tower. The other 25 floors were largely empty blank canvass which could be adapted to meet whatever your family wanted. The top five floors were also yet again merged into a large function and formal dining area.

The myriad of support staff present the whole process of unloading the transports was substantially faster than anticipated. You tried to remember names, seeing as you would be seeing them a lot more often now but Shae insisted against it, saying that it was unwise to build bonds and relationships with workers. This was where your upbringing began to clash with what was reality at present, your parents had always taught you to be humble and to be generous and catering of others, but Shae's adamant tone and stance on the matter changed your mind for the moment. It was rather awkward as the night fell quickly but everyone was still wide awake as coming off of ship board time meant that it felt like it was only about midday.

As the girls began sorting out their own bedrooms, you stared out the large panes of glass which were present across the side of your room. You were about 15 floors up from the ground floors or so, rather close to the top of the tower peering down onto the empty streets. They were lit fairly well with new, state of the art street lights onto the newly paved black cement streets and lighter grey sidewalks. Various road crews were still out this late into the night working diligently expanding the road networks beyond the city limits were virtually non-existent. The entire planet was being built over from scratch, infrastructure and all; As such there wasn't exactly a huge quantity of civilians yet or people in general for that matter, mostly just business contractors and their families as well as figures of government and the human services.

The air was clean and clear, you could see the various stars of neighbouring systems and the suns of distant galaxies. You turned away from the windows to check up on how the rooms of the girls were coming along, it was the first time the two had their own rooms as they for whatever reason had opted to share one room in the previous house even though there was one or two spare. Shae's room was very simplistic with very few decorations, It was literally her bed, and her possessions spread out across the room with various shelves in a very organized manner, sorted by categories. In stark contrast Delta's room was organized chaos with her things wildly sporadically spread across the room. You wanted to tell her to clean up her room, but it would have sounded awkward as she had literally just "decorated" it to her own likings and to her own convenience.

As the long night dragged on you had begun wondering when Nova was coming home. It was the middle of winter, the temperature here was much milder here than home for winter. The sun was particularly slow to rise, having significantly shorter periods of daylight than usual during the planet's furthest rotation around the sun. Nova had discussed her wanting for an armoury and shooting range for her tower, which wasn't exactly possible or practical to have on a floor, which meant it must be underground. Going back out to the elevators which were present in the far end of each floor you noted that there was indeed an option to go underground. You elected to visit the reception floor first, to ask what was down there before paying a visit.

Your presence seemed to alarm the well-dressed people at reception, you had also unintentionally teeped into their minds as you drew closer to them. "Hey, uhh what's in the basement?" you asked as an open question without directing your attention on any one of them in particular. Before they could open their mouths or mutter out a response to your question you had managed to determine the answer for yourself. Nevertheless you let sat through their jumbled up responses as a list of different things was presented to you detailing what was in the basement. Upon being asked if you needed anything else you had decided against doing so as it felt like you were torturing them into giving you answers as it was clear they were overly trying to give a good impression about themselves.

As the day went on it was more apparent that Nova wasn't coming home, she called earlier to say that she'll be home late, once again reiterating to not stay up for her but you were going to try your very best to keep awake. Both the girls tuckered themselves out exploring and running about the tower, even Shae showed her rare playful side as she chased Delta up and down the tower, causing all sorts of mayhem and scaring the staff. It was the most fun either of them had in a while, so you didn't want to stop either of them, after all even you wanted to check out the other floors but so far you had only sorted out the basement areas. It contained a large underground firing range as well as a relatively large armoury which had just about enough to supply a small army for a few days. It surprised you how large it was, but figured that if Nova had her way it would have been even larger than it was.

As the evening drew closer, the staff had prepared dinner, a drastic change from what used to be back at home. They served three main meals a day, as if it were a hotel and they were very meticulous about it as well, arriving on the dot at the times a day with an assortment of dishes. They supplied more than enough food at each meal, back at home their proportions would easily feed you all for an entire day. You had specifically instructed them to cut back on the serving sizes which were rather over the top, your instructions were seen sooner than you expected as dinner began rolling out.

Nova made it very clear that with her presence things were going to be different in the Ghost Academy. As her new position of Dean of Psionics, her level of authority was one short of the director himself. Her position of Dean was to overlook the entire training regime and programme of Ghosts both current and future. Upon her arrival back at the academy she stepped through the doors with an air of change. Nova made it a point that she don her suit and plating even in her office, a far cry from the formal wear which her predecessors always wore. Nova always saw it as out of place that Sarco was almost never seen in a suit, it almost suggested that he was never a ghost himself. The idea of the suits in the first place was to gain a sense of commonality between them, a uniform which made nobody special, everyone was equally placed, with the only determining factor involved was the individuals PI rating.

Technically however, Nova wasn't to be officially recognized as the Dean before her inauguration ceremony, which she wasn't particularly fond of as it would mean a large function and most probably a ball gown which she hadn't been in since her fifteenth birthday ceremony. Nova also had a fresh take on the instructors, as the change in Deans also meant a chance to change and swap around the instructors where she see fit. Nova wanted Shae as the head of physical training, during Shae's time at the academy she was most notably known for managing to almost completely incapacitate Sergeant Hartley which virtually nobody could do, let alone Shae in her first year. Nova remembered her encounter with him during her time at the academy, figuring that it would be a bitter encounter for her to do it face to face she opted to simply send her assistant with the message.

Nova also made a bold move by also removing her head instructor of psionics from her position, opting to do it herself to get herself closer to the students, being able to get a deeper understanding of each individual student by firsthand account was important to her. It gave a perspective which could not be done by simply reading up on an individual's papers and documents. More importantly it allowed her to decide who was ready for graduation and who clearly wasn't despite achievements and accomplishments they may have. In a matter of hours Nova had managed to tip the academy upside down with changes on her very first day, by now she was feeling the effects of a poor night's sleep she had last night. Nova stood up at her desk and peered out her window to what was left of Tarsonis, and in particular where her residency lay at present in the ruins of what was Augustgrad. The planet had a strange metallic sheen to it, as the sun's rays seemed to reflect off of the planet's surface in certain spots where surface smelting occurred, whereby the surface of the planet was superheated to level the remains of fallen and destroyed buildings.

As night fell Nova realized that she had stayed awake for far longer than she expected, Korhal had a fairly regular day night cycle which meant that she had been awake now for almost 24 hours post having a poor sleep the night before. She opted to go home even though there was still much to be done in terms of getting things in order, not that there was anything physically preventing her from getting up and leaving, much less a person who had the authority to tell her otherwise. Back at home things were silent, most of the staff had gone home and now the few souls who watched over the residence during the night shift were present, much fewer than the periods during the day. For the most part you had spent the last few hours trying to stay awake by pacing back and forth on the upper floors, particularly around the large tables that were present in the formal dining area. But even you had given way by now, you lay passed out on a chair with your head in your arms hunched over the table with a note.

As Nova reached home, walking in through the large glass panel doors of the reception floor the various people who were still diligently working away in during the night shift all stood to attention. Nova skipped all the pleasantries, opting to simply teep to find out all the details she wanted to know, she was surprised to find out that you were apparently slumped over a table in the upper floors. Nova wondered if you were drinking, but figured it wasn't in your character as she proceeded hastily towards the elevators at the far end of the building. She was happy with all she had seen thus far, but she was particularly curious as to the reports of you being slumped over on a table in the top floors so she skipped all the other floors in between in order to investigate. As the elevator came to a halt in the top floor her eyes immediately drew towards the ceiling which had a huge glass dome surrounded by four large pillars which seemed to flow from the four corners of the building and extended out onto the roof before arcing inwards.

Much to her relief Nova figured you simply just fell asleep trying to wait up for her, to her surprise she found the note in your hands as she tried to pick you up off the table to bring you back to bed. "Wake me up if you haven't had anything to eat" it read, which reminded her that she only sparsely ate throughout the day, opting against eating what could only be described as nutritional gruel that the cafeteria served at the academy. In her mind it was on par with if not worse than MRE's which she particularly despised the taste of. Nova bit her lip, she didn't want to wake you up but at the same time she didn't exactly want to go back downstairs to the staff and ask for them to make her a meal either, she settled with the former. Nova wasn't sure how to wake you, but then she figured a much simpler way, a poke to the nose which was bound to wake you.

Nova removed her glove and gauntlets before pressing softly against your nose with her index finger which had immediate results. Your face immediately cringed out of discomfort which made Nova giggle with laughter, knowing that it was a sure fire way to wake you from a slumber. You went to open your mouth, but Nova quickly butted in with "Nah ah ah, teep". You smiled but your attention quickly turned elsewhere suddenly, something wasn't right, you weren't sure what it was but something definitely wasn't right. Nova's face of glee quickly turned to one of concern when your attention quickly snapped away from her. You quickly got out of the chair and raced towards the elevators, Nova kept pace "Will! What is it?" To be honest you weren't quite sure what it was which gave you a grave feeling, but something inside you said you should quickly get to the girls in their beds.

As the elevator reached the dormitory floor your attention darted towards Shae and Delta's rooms which were side by side next to each other, with Delta's closer to the elevator than Shae's. You sprinted towards Delta's room, opening her door to find her fast asleep with seemingly nothing out of the ordinary which was then when your head seemed to move on its own towards Shae's room next door. Nova was already there and kicked her door in. Shae lay flat on her back in bed, with her head tilted back towards the wall revealing an awfully straight neck. You placed your hand against her forehead which revealed a high fever, her moans along with fast and shallow breaths made Nova run outside and back to the elevator which had a direct link to the staff below, but she didn't want the ambulance, they were too slow for how desperately she needed them, she wanted a medivac right here, right now. Her condition was worsening, as she began sweating despite the cool night and only wearing a shirt and pants, you quickly went to turn on the lights and open her balcony doors to allow the air to get in. "Shae are you okay?" you repeatedly asked but by now she appeared to be delirious but still didn't move her head.

As the medivac touched down outside Shae began shouting and screaming, flailing her arms in the air and covering her face, but still she didn't move her head. Her thoughts were all over the place, but something told you that she was screaming out against the lights of her room which made you shot up out of her bed and turned out the lights which reduced her screaming to deep moans of pain. By now she was sweating profusely, causing her pillow and sheets to be wet to the touch with her sweat. As the medics came in through her door they asked you to roll her over onto her side as they pulled out a fairly sizeable needle. They were going to perform a lumbar puncture into her spine to retrieve CSF, suspecting the cause was Meningititis based on her symptoms displayed and what Nova had described to them as they were coming.

You cringed as the needle went into her spine, Shae cried out in discomfort as it went in which only made things harder for you to bare. Nova saw the amount of dedication you had to her, wanting to constantly be at her side. Was it jealousy she was feeling? She thought to herself but quickly put it to the back of her mind as the results of the CSF came back. "Is she going to be okay?" you asked desperately to the medic who was standing in the door way, she nodded her head "But she's going to have a rough few days ahead of her while it clears up" your attention quickly reverted back to Shae who was receiving IV fluids along with a series of injections containing a virtually every variety of antibiotic they had.

(My Notes) Wasn't sure how to end this chapter, was also deciding on whether or not this chapter should be split into two separate ones but figured there wasn't an exact point where the chapter diverted or split well enough for me to want to split it. Further notes is that I do expect that the end is near for this story, as my ideas become fairly limited in what I can really come up with for now (may change) but I hope to further put a larger degree of time and effort into my other story (Nova came knocking) as this one feels as if I'm forced into limiting my creativity with as it's gone on for so long, and the characters in it are so developed that there really isn't that much wriggle room available for me to move. As always if you have a positive or negative response to this chapter or any of the previous ones feel free to drop a line.