She was warm and comfortable under the solid blue sheets of her bed. She wasn't happy, though, because someone had rudely woken her up. Mihoshi, already dressed in her blue and white Academy uniform, was annoyingly poking her ribs through the comforter with a slightly worried look on her face.
"Come on, you need to get out of bed!" she implored. "Please!"
Kiyone, also dressed and standing near the door of their dormitory, wasn't having any patience today. "Forget that Lene, if she wants to sleep in, that's her decision. Let's go, Mihoshi."
"No! If she won't go, neither will I!"
"You stolta, what kind of logic is that?" she asked Mihoshi in a chastising tone. "If we don't hurry up, we'll be late, but I'm not going to get… what's that word? Oh, I'm not getting avergosad again, understand?"
Since when did Kiyone still speak Renoiran? She hadn't heard her speak that language since when they were still in the Galaxy Police Academy five years ago. But now that she thought about it, what was she doing here again? What was going on?
"Well something can't be right with her," Mihoshi said, turning back to her in the bed. "She never skips courses. Maybe she's sick?"
"If she is, I'm not interested in getting whatever she has," Kiyone answered. "Just call the nurse and let's get to class already!"
Before this back and forth could begin another cycle, a sudden tremor shook the room they were in, and the lights flickered on and off.
"Kut'sa!" Kiyone yelled. "What was that?"
"How can a space station even have an earthquake!?" Mihoshi asked, ducking for cover.
In the panic, she was about to throw off her sheets and say something, but she felt a throbbing in her head, and suddenly, she found herself in a different place entirely. She was no longer in her dormitory bed but was being quickly dragged along the ground through a dim alley. Mihoshi was pulling her by the shoulders while Kiyone was in front of them in a gunfight with a group of pirates. For a brief second, she could barely make out a woman dressed in striking signature black and red garbs being escorted away by a couple of pirates.
Ryoko Balta, the pirate princess? She wanted to ask what she was doing here, but she also wanted to know what she was doing here! And… where is that blood trail coming from…?
"How is she doing!?" Kiyone yelled to Mihoshi comms as she shot one of the pirates in the chest. "Is she breathing!"
"Yeah, but she's not doing very well, Kiyone! She needs medical attention!"
"The Yagami will have to do. We're getting out of here!"
As they fled, she could hear Ryoko Balta's calm but commanding voice echo from a distance.
"I want them brought back to me. Alive."
A Galaxy Police Complex Prequel… Academy Days!
Chapter 1 — No Time Like the Past
An asteroid field in a lonely part of space was set alight by explosions and three ships brazenly speeding through it. The red Galaxy Police cruiser Yagami was in front, being shot from the back by two grey, smaller ships. Seated inside the Yagami's bridge, Kiyone and Mihoshi were frantically operating the controls as they struggled to put some distance between their pursuers.
"Come on, Kiyone, make it go faster!" Mihoshi said. "GP ships are supposed to be able to run circles around pirate ships! At least that's what they told us!"
"The navigation computer is processing the route through the asteroids as fast as it can," Kiyone said. "If we go any faster we'll hit something!"
"Can't you fly manually?"
Yagami, the assistant AI module that represented the entire ship, sprouted from the bride's ceiling to answer. "I would not recommend manual flying in such a dense cluster of asteroids! You'll hit something eventually!"
Mihoshi shook her head. "We face danger every day, it's our job! Don't worry, I'll fly. Mihoshi cocked her head slightly. "That's okay! I'll fly!"
Kiyone saw Mihoshi press a button on her side of the bride's control console to bring up the manual steering wheel and speed levers. Immediately, she smacked Mihoshi's hands away and took the controls herself, sliding them toward her side of the bridge.
"My cruiser," Kiyone insisted as she began flying. "Use the weapons and try and hit something."
"Do we even have rear-mounted weapons?" Mihoshi asked.
"I am equipped with one rear laser battery," Yagami answered.
"Why only one!?"
"GP ships are designed to pursue, not be pursued. In case it is pursued, the recommended countermeasure is to escape by using superior speed."
Just as Yagami finished speaking, a stray laser hit the shields and rattled the vessel.
Kiyone furled her eyebrows and grunted. "I'll have to give some suggestions to the ship designers."
The continued shaking eventually shook Mitsuki awake from her confused dream. She was in the ship's small medical ward, atop a bed with a large pillow that, to her surprise, was slightly soaked with blood, her blood. Instinctively, she ran her hand over her head and felt the gauze bandana wrapped around it, as well as the place where she had been wounded— a spot on the back that made her wince in pain when she touched it. She looked down and found she was still wearing her uniform, dirty and ripped as it was. Had they really been so short on time that they couldn't even put in her something more comfortable?
She could only remember tiny fragments of what happened. She was with Mihoshi and Kiyone on a SIFO mission when they ran into Ryoko Balta doing… something. Then, there were gunshots and an explosion behind her, and then… nothing. Her thoughts were cut short by another rocking of the ship. She didn't know what was happening but injured or not, she wasn't about to sit around and not help.
Mitsuki got up off the bed and immediately felt dizzy as she tried walking toward the door. With the cameras inside the medical ward, Yagami noticed her and soon sprouted inside the room.
"Ms. Tsukushi, I recommend that you don't exert yourself. Please get back in bed."
Her response was immediate. "Not a chance. Those two obviously can't do anything without me." She said, chuckling at her remark.
"Mihoshi, you need to hit the target if we're going to get out of this alive!"
"I'm trying as hard as I can!" Mihoshi whined as she quickly pressed the trigger operating her turret. "It's harder than it looks."
"Just imagine you're playing video games!"
While they argued, they heard the door leading to the bridge open up. Mitsuki, still clutching her head, staggered into view with a confused look on her face.
"Hey," she started weakly. "What's going on? What… happened?"
Suddenly, the Yagami was hit again, and she was thrown off her feet and fell to the floor.
While Kiyone hardly glanced at her, Mihoshi took a look a Mitsuki, pathetically laying on the floor with a weak, confused, and vulnerable look on her face. Something inside her ignited up when she saw her friend, usually extremely confident and strong, in such a sorry state; she felt pity for her, but within that pity was a spark igniting a powerful desire. She wanted to protect her, keep her alive, and nurture her back to who she was supposed to be. Mihoshi understood what she wanted and directed it toward the dogfight; only by surviving it could she be able to do anything for Mitsuki.
She had to survive, for her. She had to win, for her. She could not fail her!
Mihoshi took a deep breath and focused back on the screen she was using to aim the ship's rear batteries. There was no feature for aiming ahead of targets, but she didn't need a computer to help her with that. All of a sudden, she felt like she just knew where to shoot, and so, she did.
One of the pirate ships had fired an anti-ship missile toward the Yagami, but Mihoshi's shot immediately hit the warhead and detonated it before it could gain any distance between it and the ship. The explosion engulfed the pirate ship and cause an even bigger explosion within. Soon, there was only one bogey chasing them.
"Great shot, Mihoshi!" Kiyone complimented.
"Yeah…" Mitsuki concurred from a distance. "But why are we…?"
Suddenly, another explosion rocked the ship as the remaining pirate ship scored yet another hit on the Yagami.
"We've lost shielding, and I am unable to recycle enough energy to restore it," Yagami announced grimly. "We may not survive another hit."
"I'm on it!" Mihoshi said.
Mihoshi unleashed another barrage on their assailant. She scored several hits on the ship's frontal shielding. It almost seemed ready to shatter with another barrage, but when Mihoshi pulled the trigger again, Kiyone suddenly jerked the Yagami to the side to avoid a large asteroid, sending Mihoshi's volley wide."
"Sorry!" Kiyone sad. "Try again. I'll keep it straight."
"Right!" Mihoshi responded enthusiastically. She lined up her target again, but when she pulled the trigger, nothing happened.
"Uh, Yagami!?" Mihoshi cried out.
"It seems you've used up too much high-density anti-ship plasma earlier. I can't fire anymore," Yagami said.
"Missles?" she asked curiously.
"I'm not equipped with ports to fire missiles from the rear."
"What now!?"
Kiyone looked at the pursuing ship through the bridge's rear cameras and glanced forward at the path she was taking. "I'll deploy a flare."
"And then what?" Mitsuki asked from a distance.
"Just trust me," Kiyone answered. She pressed a button on the side of her console to unveil one of the bridge's newly installed rear seats. "Get strapped in, I'm going to give the ship everything it has!"
"Were you hit on the head, too?" she asked cynically as she sat down and fastened herself in place.
Kiyone punched the Yagami's throttle level as far up as it could go, sending a ripple through the ship as it suddenly increased in speed. Within seconds, they were approaching another large asteroid, but the pirate ship fired another barrage, with one laser hitting the ship's rear.
"We've been hit!" Yagami said in a panic. "Rear sections reporting moderate heavy damage. Ms. Makibi, if you're going to do something, I suggest you do it now!"
"We will survive!" Kiyone said definitely. "Hang on!"
She pressed the button to deploy the flare, and behind them, a bright light engulfed the pirate ship. Without even seeing what would happen. Kiyone jerked the ship's steering as counter-clockwise as it can go, violently forcing the ship to port and it bending its hull to avoid another large asteroid. The Yagami barely made it, its top hull scraping the asteroid as it avoided a collision.
The pirate ship wasn't so lucky. Its blinded crew was moving too fast to suddenly turn port as the Yagami did. It collided with the asteroid at full speed, the force of the impact immediately causing the ship to crumple like tinfoil and implode.
"Yeah!" Kiyone yelled in triumph. Immediately, she unfastened herself and jumped up from her seat, and so did Mihoshi. Without a word, they both hugged each other tightly as they could, words alone being insufficient to express the joy and camaraderie of surviving such a life-or-death ordeal. Mitsuki also joined in celebrating, patting both of them on the shoulders after unfastening herself.
"Not bad," she told them jokingly. "'Course, credit where it's due. I believed in you two, so of course you weren't going to mess up."
"You're ruining it," Kiyone said in a chipper tone.
"Okay, I'm sorry!" she said in a rush as she hugged both her and Mihoshi. "You two did a great job."
Their celebration was unfortunately short-lived. Suddenly, the lights on the bridge flickered and went out. Dim emergency lights replaced them, and Yagami sprouted out from the ceiling, his eyes repeatedly dilating and contracting with worry.
"I'm detecting a rapid decrease in energy output. The engineering compartment was hit by the pirates"
"What!?" Kiyone said in surprise.
"Well don't tell us, you bucket! Fix it!" Mitsuki demanded angrily.
"Um… the auto-repair module is not responding in engineering. It might've been damaged, too. I can't do anything about that. Oh my… my systems can't run on emergency power. I'm undergoing shutdown."
"Please don't leave us, Yagami!" Mihoshi cried out. "We need you!"
"I'm sorry, but I don't have power. Perhaps you can fix the engines manually. There is… a… manual in… engineering," Yagami said lazily as his energy kept draining. "I'm sorry. I'm…sorryyyy…"
The lights in Yagami's eyes cut out. They were on their own now.
"We've got no choice," Kiyone said, shaking her head. "We need to fix the ship ourselves. Come on. Engineering."
Mihoshi was the last to leave, taking the time to pat Yagami on his cold face plate. "Don't worry, Yagami. We won't fail you!"
She caught up to the others in the hall right outside the engineering section. Kiyone looking at a panel next to the closed door and mumbling something about warnings for "low air pressure". Without giving her the time to say it out loud, Mihoshi carefully maneuvered past her and Mitsuki and enthusiastically pressed the button to open the door.
"Let's fix this th—"
Immediately, Mihoshi was swept from her feet and sent hurtling toward the hole in space where the engines used to be. Kiyone dived forward into the room to grab Mihoshi's feet and stop her from getting sucked out into space. To keep herself anchored, she pivoted her body and slammed herself into one holographic display table in the middle of the room, her legs anchoring her in place. Even as she did this, she could feel herself being tugged toward one side of the table from the force that was pulling Mihohsi into space, and she quickly turned to Mitsuki.
"The gel!" Kiyone yelled. "Turn the gel on!"
"Right!"
The space-sealant gel would normally be automatically activated, but with only emergency power, it had to be done manually from the control console on the inside of Engineering near the door. Mitsuki summoned the courage to leave the safety of the hallway and entered Engineering, where the console was mere meters away. Crawling to avoid drag, she moved as fast as she could to the console, but when she stood up, Kiyone yelled again.
"Your right, watch your right!"
Her warning had been too late. One of the cabinets in the far side of Engineering had broken from the suction force and all its contents flew out into the open, and a large, thick instruction book on the electric systems struck Mitsuki square in the head. It may have been slightly painful under normal circumstances, but for her, this second hit on the head in one day sent her into a woozy that forced her to the floor.
"Mitsuki! Get up!" Kiyone yelled as loud as she could. She could feel her body gliding faster against the table she was anchored to. "The gel! Gel!"
Powering through the pain, Mitsuki got up on her knees, just enough height to reach the console without getting dragged into space. But the dizziness hadn't fully gone away yet, and in her eyes, the console's words and symbol blended into an unappetizing purée of blue and white.
"I can't… see!" she complained. Without waiting for Kiyone's response, Mitsuki began randomly tapping at the console to make the gel activate by chance. All she managed to do was turns the lights on and off and change the holographic display color from blue to pink.
"Mitsuki! Hurry!" Kiyone yelled again.
"I'm getting cold!" Mihoshi whined. "Turn the gel on before I get hypothermia!"
"I'm trying!" Mitsuki said, annoyed. "Which button is it!?"
Her continued attempts managed to activate the spare surprise birthday confetti, most of which got stuck on Mihoshi as it flew toward space. Kiyone had lost too much ground to the vacuum was swept from her anchored spot. Before she and Mihoshi could get sucked out, Kiyone managed to hook her lower legs against the display table.
"For the love of Tsunami, Mitsuki, press something!" Kiyone begged. "Please! We're going to die!"
"Damn it!" Mitsuki yelled. Despite pressing all the buttons on the console, the gel wouldn't activate, but as she glanced back at Kiyone, her eyes wandered toward the large, blurry pipes with a green outlining the upper walls of the room. Of course, that was the piping for the gel!
She drew her gun and shot rapidly at the piping, which was large enough to get hit by her unnaturally shoddy aiming. The holes leaked out green gel which spilled out into the floor and was sucked toward the breach, but Kiyone's legs had given out and both she and Mihoshi barreled toward it as well.
Soon after contacting the extreme cold of space, the gel suddenly hardened and covered it entirely just as Mihoshi and Kiyone collided with it, painfully banging against each other in the process.
"You're welcome…" Mitsuki said as she breathed heavily. The next moment, she grabbed her forehead and went to all fours on the ground with a painful headache.
Kiyone had wanted to put Mitsuki back in the medical ward, but without power, it was no better than setting her in Mihoshi's room, which she decided to do instead. While it was lacking in now-useless medical equipment, it was the largest living space on headquarters and had a "homely" feeling thanks to Mihoshi. While Mihoshi handled moving their patient. Kiyone went back to the bridge to open up communications. Even on emergency power, they could still use the superluminal communication array to contact Galaxy Police Headquarters. It would only be a matter of time before they came to the rescue.
Kiyone sat down and started operating the console to open up communications, but after a few seconds, she immediately realized that something was wrong. She began typing quickly on her console to confirm her suspicions, and when she did, she slammed the console with her fists.
Mihoshi had laid Mitsuki down on a large couch with a temperature reader stuck in her mouth. Upon beeping, she pulled it out and sighed.
"Fever, I thought so. Getting hit twice in the head isn't good for you."
"Is it bad?" Mitsuki asked.
"No, you'll be fine if you just rest for a few days."
Kiyone let herself into the room with tightly clenched fists, attracting their attention.
"Did you contact Headquarters yet?" Mitsuki asked. "I'll feel a lot better as soon as we get off this drifting piece of target practice."
Kiyone didn't answer immediately. The look Mitsuki found on her face made it seem that she almost didn't want to tell the truth, but she did so after taking a deep breath.
"The superluminal communication array was damaged when the ship scraped against that asteroid. It can't be used."
Mitsuki shot up from the couch in a panic. "We can't contact them!?" She immediately regretted her movement, as her headache came back and forced her back down on the couch.
Kiyone nodded. "Our only option is radio waves, which will take too long to reach anywhere at just light speed."
"Then… what are we supposed to do now?" Mihoshi asked.
Kiyone sat down on a nearby chair, folding her hands as she delivered the uncomfortable truth.
"Assuming no one will pick up the radio waves, our only hope is to wait. Airi was the one who authorized the mission; she knows where we went. So, if enough time goes by and they don't hear from us, she'll send someone to search for us. Then, maybe, just maybe. They'll find us."
"How long is that supposed to take?" Mitsuki asked.
"My guess is at least a week, but there's really no way of knowing."
"Won't Ryoko Balta be looking for us? What're the odds they find us before the Galaxy Police?"
Kiyone sighed. "High. But I wouldn't worry too much about that. Even if we get captured, we knew Ryoko Balta likes to do things the 'right' way, I'm sure we'd just get swapped and let go."
"But what about Yagami?" Mihoshi asked. "They always told us these ships are super advanced, and if pirates managed to capture an intact one…"
"Then we'd basically have no future in the Galaxy Police," Kiyone finished for her.
"Great, so they might as well just shoot us anyway," Mitsuki said morbidly.
With nothing to do, the three women found themselves idle in Mihoshi's room, with Kiyone and Mihoshi sitting in chairs adjacent to the couch Mitsuki was resting on. They were right next to an oversized TV that Mihoshi had somehow acquired for the express purpose of playing Earth television and movies. Mihoshi was aware that, theoretically, they could use the emergency power to turn it on, but Kiyone would never let her use up their limited supply of power that way. Some time passed as they had little to do or say, and Mitsuki's droopy inactive eyes seemed almost ready to call it quits for a while when…
"How are you feeling, Mitsuki?" Mihoshi suddenly asked her, startling her back to awakeness. She pointed at the gauze bandana. "Does your head still hurt?"
"Uh, a little bit, I guess."
"Do you even remember what happened?" Kiyone asked.
Mitsuki shook her head. "I know we were doing some mission and there was an explosion. That's it."
"We were trying to arrest Ryoko Balta," Kiyone explained. "We had gotten a report from Junichiro and Amane that she was spotted on a satellite in the Eiko System, so Airi ordered us to investigate. The information was right, but we got spotted and had to escape. Someone threw a grenade and you hit your head as you fell down."
"So it wasn't the grenade? I just fell? That's embarrassing, honestly…"
"You should feel lucky. It wasn't that big of a cut in your head. Now that I mention it, you want to try taking that bandage off? The bleeding should've stopped by now."
Without a word, Mitsuki grabbed the gauze and ripped it off her head. Mihoshi leaned back to inspect her wound, nodding with satisfaction at a lack of bleeding.
"You're okay!" she said happily as she patted the wound itself. Immediately, Mitsuki yelped in shock and covered her head.
Or… almost," Mihoshi corrected.
"You bubblehead," Mitsuki said, sighing. "I can't do this. We're going to spend at least a week doing this routine? We have absolutely nothing to do!"
"Then let's talk about something," Kiyone suggested. "People didn't always have the technology to keep themselves entertained."
"Please don't ask me how my day's been," Mitsuki requested.
"I won't."
"Good. Now, what do you want to talk about?"
"I…" Kiyone began uneasily. "I don't really know."
"How do you think Tenchi and the others are doing on Earth?" Mihoshi asked. "We haven't heard from them in a while."
"Assuming he hasn't had a mental breakdown after three years of them living with him and Washu hasn't killed him yet, I'm sure he's doing fine. Come to think of it, he should've graduated from school by now."
Mihoshi nodded. "You know, I still remember when we graduated from the Galaxy Police Academy. That was such a great day. They served so much good food there, I couldn't get enough of it!"
"And I couldn't get any," Mitsuki complained. "Thanks to a certain someone."
Mihoshi chuckled. "You're still mad about that? I've told you I was sorry over twenty times that day!"
Another minute of silence passed before Mihoshi again came up with something to talk about. "You know, Kiyone, it's funny that I've never asked, but why do you always wear that headband? I've never seen you without it on before. Not once."
Mitsuki got up from laying on the couch. "You know, Mihoshi, you're right. Take it off, Kiyone! Let's see your forehead!"
Kiyone scoffed. "You can use your imagination. I'm not hiding anything."
"Take it off!" they demanded again.
Realizing there was no use trying to dissuade their curiosity, Kiyone shrugged and reluctantly reached for the headband. With both Mihoshi and Mitsuki's undivided attention, Kiyone slowly raised it above her forehead, through her teal hair, and took it off. Their silent awe as they finally saw her without it on almost made Kiyone blush with embarrassment. Was it that big of a deal for them? They seemed as though like they were looking at her taking all of her clothes off!
Once she took it off, Kiyone stared at the headband. "I've had this years before I joined the Academy. It belonged to someone I knew on Renoir. Édouard—he was… a friend of mine."
"Ohh, so he was your lover!?" Mihoshi asked inquisitively.
"No!" Kiyone answered. "No, it wasn't like that. We just knew each other. We were almost like family."
"Family… you know, who are your family?" Mitsuki asked. "You never talked about them while we were in the Academy."
Kiyone rapidly shifted her eyes away from Mihoshi and Mitsuki and down toward the table. She exhaled unnaturally, and she unconsciously tapped on it to distract herself. After a moment's silence, Mihoshi spoke up.
"Do you… not want to talk about it?" she asked worryingly.
Kiyone stopped her tapping and looked up at her, taking a big swallow before speaking. "I don't need to tell you who I used to be. You know I used to be a thief, but I never told you the whole story. We never had that much time to ourselves."
Sensing that she had hit a sensitive topic for Kiyone, Mitsuki decided to skip to her next question. "Yeah, I never really asked why you became a police officer. When we met, you didn't seem like the kind of person that would be interested in that kind of career. What happened?"
"Well, it's a long story. Complicated."
"Did you forget that we're going to be stuck here for at least a week? We have plenty of time!"
Mihoshi stood up in excitement. "Yeah! And you know, I never really explained why I became a Galaxy Police officer. Let's try something: we'll all take explaining how we go to the Galaxy Police Academy. Kiyone, let's start with you, then I'll go, and Mitsuki can go last!"
Kiyone couldn't help but admire how serious Mihoshi was becoming about this. A part of her wanted to turn down the offer; it was a part of her past—one she always found disgusting— that she had always kept buried and locked without a key deep in her memories. Yet, another part of her felt a sense of excitement about letting it out for the first time, and she was genuinely interested in learning about why Mihoshi wanted to become a Galaxy Police officer, and Mitsuki too for that matter.
"Alright!" Kiyone said enthusiastically. She got up and walked to one of the cupboards to the side of Mihoshi's room, the one that she remembered stored all of Mihoshi's junk food and candy. Without thinking too much about it, she scooped up as much as she could and dumped it all on the table for the three of them to liven up the storytelling.
They could all feel it: this was going to be an exciting week or more aboard the Yagami. She could almost smell the nostalgic air of the academy days seep into the room as they were about to get started.
Kiyone sat down and began her story. "For me, it all started when I was eighteen. That was back when I still lived on Renoir, in Chambrae. All it took was one decision to change my entire life…"
Preview of Next Chapter
Kiyone: "Brace yourselves, because my chapter is up next, and it's going to be entirely in my native language!
Mitsuki: "Oh no, she's actually going to do it…"
Kiyone: Une garota senza aminitri de sa familia viver traiasca un petite uma arici. Dar cette via non quelle cea pe esta destina, de Galaxy Police fornira o cale mai melhor."
Mitsuki: "Kiyone, please just speak Juraian before I get another headache. I'm sure the readers can use their suspension of disbelief."
Kiyone: "You're aware we're actually speaking English, not Juraian, right? The next chapter of Academy Days!: "The Girl Who Dared to Dream."
"And in case you haven't noticed, this is unquestionably a prequel to Galaxy Police Complex!"
Author's Note: This is probably what you weren't expecting.
The idea for a prequel to Galaxy Police Complex is something that I've toyed with for some time as I considered how to flesh out Kiyone, Mihoshi, and Mitsuki further than what I can do in the main story, and that's important for me because while Galaxy Police Complex is, by all means, a story told from an ensemble cast of over seven characters, I've always considered these three women to the story's star characters. They have strange chemistry together and balance each other out: Kiyone is simple and direct, Mihoshi is abstract but unique, and Mitsuki is sarcastic and elaborate.
While I could've probably made the story of Academy Days! as a series of episodes within Galaxy Police Complex, I've decided to make it a separate story in the same canon to emphasize that it's not required reading. Despite it being a prequel, you don't need to read this story to understand Galaxy Police Complex. Of course, since you're already here, I hope you do so anyway and learn a bit more about these characters and how they came to be where they are.
I'm also trying something different. This is not an OVA series, just a book with chapters in it. For that reason, chapters (not "episodes" as in Galaxy Police Complex) will be limited to no more than 5000 words each. That way there won't be such a dramatic waiting period like with the other series, and I can tell less complicated and shorter stories. Who knows, if I like this format more, I might even make the switch for Galaxy Police Complex.
Fun fact, the story's title is an homage to another Tenchi Muyo! Fanfiction named "Vacation Days", which I highly recommend. The reason I added the exclamation point was to emphasize a more laid-back, nostalgic, and sense of fun that comes with the kind of story I'm trying to write.