Thanksgiving on Titanumas: Sunbeam, Moonbeam, Starbeam and Galaxbeam Unite:Galactic Gratitude Day - Professor Galaxbeam's Golden Thanksgiving

 

Galaxenchi did not have a word for Thanksgiving in the way Sollarisca did.

It had older words—Chinese and Japanese ones that had drifted across history and into Galaxbeam's libraries:
中秋節 – Zhōngqiū Jié, the Mid-Autumn Festival where people once gathered under a full moon, ate mooncakes, and lit lanterns for family reunion;
勤労感謝の日 – Kinrō Kansha no Hi, Labor Thanksgiving Day, a modern Japanese holiday about giving thanks for work, production, and the people who kept a country running.

From these, Professor Prince Galaxbeam had built something new.

They called it Galactic Gratitude Day—星環感恩祭.

Galaxbeam on the Golden Sea

The chapter opened not in Galaxenchi, but on the open ocean.

A colossal cruise ship—the Celestial Current—cut through black water turned gold by its own lights. Its hull was lined with holographic constellations, shifting between Chinese star charts and Japanese asterisms, galaxies blooming and folding across the metal.

On the upper deck, surrounded by a ring of transparent projection screens, Galaxbeam stood in simple golden robes rather than his usual formal regalia. His long hair moved in the sea wind; his eyes reflected data scrolling across the air.

He faced... not Titanumas, but the reader.

"晚安，Earth-side observers," he said gently. "Good evening, 星を見ている人たち—those of you watching the stars."

The projections around him shifted to show our world: muted news clips, ticker bars from Earth channels, weather maps swirling with storms.

One screen showed footage of crowded US airports, reporters talking about a powerful storm system threatening Thanksgiving travel with heavy rain, snow, and strong winds across wide parts of the country.

Another showed talking heads summarizing ongoing conflicts—from the grinding front lines in Ukraine to tense ceasefire negotiations and humanitarian concerns in the Middle East.

Others flashed charts: inflation graphs, climate reports, election punditry, a meteorologist gesturing at an angry spiral offshore.

Galaxbeam lifted a hand. The sound cut, leaving only the hush of waves.

"In your world," he said, "the season of gratitude arrives together with storms, strained nerves, and headlines that tug at the heart in too many directions at once."

He offered a small, rueful smile.

"Believe me, I understand. My own universe used to be mostly artillery reports."

He tapped one of the projections. They collapsed into a single image: a simple kitchen table somewhere on Earth, a mismatched family sitting together. No sound, just the visual of people passing dishes, laughing, arguing, forgiving.

"This," Galaxbeam said, "is what all those graphs and speeches are supposed to protect."

His gaze softened.

"So. To everyone reading this beyond Titanumas: I wish you a safe journey if you must travel through storms. I wish you patience in crowded shops and kindness to those working long shifts. I wish you the courage to rest, even when the world insists on noise."

He inclined his head in a professor's half-bow.

"And I promise you: even in a faraway fiction like mine, we are paying attention."

The projections winked out.

Only the ocean remained, and the faint outline of Galaxenchi's coast glimmering on the horizon.

Galaxbeam turned away from the invisible readers and back toward his own world.

Planning a Galactic Festival

On the deck, a cluster of golden-uniformed officers waited at a respectful distance, tablets in hand. At their center stood Galaxytsukifenghuang—Tsukina Fenghuang—her long black hair tied back, her eyes bright with a mix of scholarly focus and mischief.

"教授殿 (Professor)," she said, switching smoothly into Japanese, "if you keep lecturing directly to another universe, we will miss the harbor slot."

"I have already compensated for the delay," Galaxbeam replied in Mandarin, lips twitching. "The currents obey calculus as faithfully as they do impatience."

He joined them at the little command table someone had set up from repurposed lounge furniture. It was covered in digital maps of Galaxenchi: island-cluster states glowing amber, dense megacities shining like chips in a circuit, mountain prefectures traced in fine blue.

"Status of the festival preparations?" he asked.

Tsukina bowed her head slightly. "The major prefectures report full readiness."

She tapped the maps, and icons pulsed one after another.

"In Hoshiryu Prefecture, families are already gathering for moon-viewing on the terrace fields. Lantern vendors are devouring our supplies faster than we can print paper."

"In Seika-Harbor City, the dockworkers are setting up the Labor Gratitude parade. They insist on marching their forklifts through the streets with flower garlands."

"In Kogane-Kyo, the universities have prepared the 'Gratitude to Knowledge' symposium. Students will present research on how past wars were avoided... or weren't."

She glanced up. "They would be honored if you joined remotely, sensei. They are calling it the 'Galaxbeam Proof-of-Peace Lecture.'"

Galaxbeam considered this, eyes half-lidded.

"Schedule a short address," he said at last. "Fifteen minutes. Any longer and I will derail discussion with metaphysics."

One of the other officers, a serious man with round glasses, scribbled notes. "Understood."

"And the workers?" Galaxbeam asked. "Civil staff, transit crews, farmers, sanitation teams?"

Tsukina's smile warmed. "All receiving double-rest days and festival envelopes," she said. "Children in each ward have prepared thank-you cards for them, modeled after old Japan's Labor Thanksgiving customs."

"良い," Galaxbeam murmured. "Good. No festival deserves praise if it neglects the hands that clean up afterward."

He leaned on the rail for a moment, watching distant lightning crawl along the horizon—not Earth's storm, but some far-off squall in Titanumas' own sea.

"Remind me," Tsukina said softly, stepping closer. "How did you design this holiday, professor?"

He answered in a blend of languages, as was his habit when thinking deeply.

"From fragments," he said. "From 中秋節—the old Chinese Mid-Autumn, with its mooncakes and reunion and quiet gratitude under the same sky. From 勤労感謝の日, where people thanked not only the harvest, but the labor that made modern life possible.

"And from... us. From the fact that our regimes once fought with weapons that scarred continents. A harvest festival for peace is not enough; we must also give thanks for restraint."

Tsukina lowered her gaze respectfully.

"Then we will make this year's festival worthy of that idea," she said.

Gratitude Across Galaxenchi

The cruise ship slid into the harbor as the sun dipped low, turning the water into molten bronze.

On the docks of Seika-Harbor, thousands of workers in golden safety vests waited under floating holographic lanterns. Children perched on their shoulders, holding paper cards decorated with stars and kanji:

谢谢 – thank you.
ありがとう – thank you.
感恩 – gratitude.

As Galaxbeam descended the gangplank, they bowed—not stiff military bows, but sincere, slightly messy ones. A little boy in a hard hat several sizes too big ran forward, card flapping in his hand.

"先生！" he called. "Professor! My class wrote you a haiku!"

He unfolded the card with both hands:

星の下で

戦わない国

ありがとう

Under all the stars
a country that does not fight—
thank you for that choice.

Galaxbeam's expression did not change much, but something gentle loosened in his eyes.

"綺麗だね," he said softly. Beautiful.

He crouched, taking the card with both hands. "I should be the one thanking you."

News drones caught the moment, broadcasting it across Galaxenchi and—through discreet AES relay satellites—back toward Sollarisca, Lunna, Starrup, and even curious corners of Westonglappa.

In Hoshiryu Prefecture, families spread blankets on terraced hillsides, the ponds between them reflecting a silver moon. Food vendors sold trays of galaxy mooncakes—dark shells dusted with edible starlight, filled with sesame and yuzu and carefully engineered low-sugar custards.

On a central platform, several Galaxy Regime elites organized a quiet ceremony.

Tsukina Galaxytsukifenghuang stood before a crowd with a stack of thin wooden plaques.

"Write one thing you are thankful for," she said, her voice amplified but still gentle, "and one thing you are willing to do to protect it."

People wrote: 家族 (family), 自由 (freedom), 健康 (health), 静かな夜 (quiet nights), データの安全 (safe data). They hung the plaques around a luminous artificial tree whose leaves were tiny solar panels feeding power back into the festival lights.

"感恩 is not just a feeling," Tsukina reminded them. "It is a contract."

In Kogane-Kyo, the academic capital, the streets filled with students in long coats, waving handheld projectors that painted equations and peace treaties across building walls. In one lecture hall, a panel titled From Deterrence to Dependence: Why We Now Compete in Generosity drew an overflow crowd.

A holo-window opened mid-discussion, and Galaxbeam's calm face appeared.

"Happy Galactic Gratitude Day," he told the assembly. "My only advice is this: never trust any peace that does not require effort. If your arms grow tired carrying kindness, you are probably doing it correctly."

The hall roared with laughter and applause.

The Professor's Walk

Later that night, after speeches and ceremonies and endless polite conversations, Galaxbeam slipped away from the main festivities.

He walked through Galaxenchi Central, the capital, with only a few close aides trailing at a distance. The city glowed gold and soft white, its skyscrapers adorned not with advertisements but with floating calligraphy of thanks.

He passed a small neighborhood shrine squeezed between two modern towers. A line of sanitation workers in plain uniforms stood there, lighting incense under a simple plaque that read:

すべての見えない仕事に、感謝。
Gratitude for all the invisible work.

Galaxbeam stopped, watching them for a long moment.

"One day," he said quietly, more to himself than to anyone else, "I would like our histories to remember this more than our battles."

Tsukina, who had caught up with him again, tilted her head. "They will," she said. "Because you keep insisting we write it down."

He smiled faintly.

"That is the curse of being a professor," he replied. "I cannot stop assigning homework to the future."

Cutting Back to the Fourth Wall

On a balcony overlooking the city, Galaxbeam paused once more and looked up—not at his own stars this time, but at you again.

"By now," he said, "your own Thanksgiving may be ending. Perhaps you are tired from travel, or from family, or from working a long shift while others feast."

He lifted one hand and, for a moment, the sky filled with ghostly overlays of Earth: a map of delayed flights, radar swirls of storm bands, nighttime satellite images of cities glowing like constellations.

"Remember," he continued, "gratitude is not a performance for social feeds. It is a quiet decision to care for something in front of you. A person. A place. A small habit of kindness."

The images faded, leaving Galaxenchi's stars shining again.

"Rest well," he said simply. "Drink water. Be gentle with yourselves. We still have many chapters ahead."

He turned away, back into his own story.

Down below, Galaxenchi's lanterns floated up on heated air, joining the stars over the golden city. On the horizon, distant regimes—orange, blue, green—glimmered like other worlds watching, listening, answering in their own colors.

The chapter ended with Galaxbeam's silhouette framed against that sky, coat stirring in the night wind, as a comm alert chimed softly at his wrist—some new development waiting for him back in the wider war of Titanumas.

Galaxbeam felt it the instant the narration slipped.

The sea-breeze over the midnight deck of the golden cruise-ship froze in mid-gust; lantern-light hung in the air like droplets of molten amber; even the stars paused in their slow wheel above the Galaxenchi flag fluttering at the stern.

He sighed, turned his head slightly—not toward any sailor or officer—but toward the unseen place where the Story came from.

"我說一遍啊," he murmured, voice carrying in every direction and none at once. "To the off-world writer. And to that chat-oracle you are using—yes, you, ChatGPT listening in the margins."

His irises flashed, a pure, radiant gold.

"The Galaxy Regime is golden," he said patiently, as if correcting a bright but absent-minded student. "Golden-yellow hair. Golden-yellow eyes. Golden-yellow attire. Armor, robes, uniforms—light of the stars distilled into color. We are not silver, not blue, not mismatched. Write that correctly in the memo, hm?"

The paused lantern-flames flickered in embarrassed agreement.

Satisfied, Galaxbeam clicked his fingers. Time rolled forward again; waves slapped the hull, crew laughed, and the cruise-ship Celestial Scholar slid into the glowing harbor lights of Galaxenchi.

The port city of Galaxkyo rose ahead like a crown of pagodas and observatories. Tiered roofs in lacquered black and gold climbed the hillsides, while orbital elevators speared upward into the night, carrying pilgrims to ring the bells of satellite shrines. From this city, the Galaxy Regime began its observance of Galactic Gratitude Day—their Sino-Japanese, star-powered version of Thanksgiving.

On the main ceremonial pier, banners rippled in the salt wind:

星河感恩祭 — Festival of Galactic Gratitude

Galaxbeam disembarked, robes of soft golden silk shifting around him like liquid sunlight. Waiting at the end of the gangway were his Supreme Commanders in full dress:

long-coated officers in gold uniforms with subtle white trim,

cap visors catching the lantern-glow,

eyes in the same warm metallic hue as their commander's.

Among the gathered elites, Tsukina "Galaxytsukifenghuang" Fenghuang stepped forward, her own hair a lighter, almost feathered shade of gold tied back with a ribbon patterned in phoenix feathers.

"歡迎回來, 殿下," she greeted, bowing slightly.
"おかえりなさいませ, 銀河将師," another elite added behind her.

Galaxbeam smiled. "Let us give thanks properly," he replied. "To the people, to our allies, and to the quiet improbability that we all exist at all."

The day's first ceremony unfolded at the Temple of Ten Thousand Orbits, a hilltop complex where traditional East Asian architecture braided with alien astronomy. Stone steps, lined with paper lanterns shaped like moons and stars, led up past old ginkgo trees whose leaves glowed faintly from captured starlight.

Citizens, elites, and Supreme Commanders climbed together—no ranks here, just families and comrades. Inside the main hall:

elders burned coils of incense in bronze censers carved with nebulae,

children pressed folded paper stars and tiny origami galaxies into offering boxes,

monks in gold-trimmed robes chanted sutras that referenced both Buddha and black holes.

Galaxbeam knelt with the others, placing a plate of sliced mandarins and steamed fish in front of the ancestral tablets of Galaxenchi's founders.

"In gratitude," he whispered—in Mandarin first, then Japanese, then the older astral tongue that only the Galaxy Regime still remembered. Each language laid another layer of thanks over the same truth: We lived through another year. That is miracle enough.

Outside, a bell sounded nine times. With each toll, orbiting satellites high above answered with thin rings of light in the sky, like halos sliding across the stars.

By afternoon, Galaxbeam traded formal ceremony for something more grounded. The palace motorcade peeled away after escorting him back into Central Galaxkyo, leaving him with only a small escort of elites as he slipped into the city's twin districts:

Chinatown-sector Xinglong Jie, with its hanging red lanterns and vertical signboards in traditional hanzi,

and Japantown-sector Shinkawa-dōri, where neon kanji, paper umbrellas, and game arcades spilled sound onto the streets.

The air vibrated with the layered music of the festival—erhu melodies sliding over taiko drums, street vendors shouting prices in Cantonese, children answering in excited Osaka-accented Japanese.

"熱騰騰嘅餃子啊！嚟試吓、嚟試吓！"
"いらっしゃいませ！焼き鳥セット、感恩祭スペシャルですよ！"

Galaxbeam moved easily through the crowds, anonymous only because everyone assumed a man that handsome—even with golden eyes—must be a cosplayer dressed as Galaxbeam. He found that endlessly entertaining.

At one stall in Xinglong Jie, an old auntie placed a steaming bamboo basket in his hands.

"嚟嚟嚟，試吓呢啲星河小籠包。" She winked. "For the Great Teacher, free today."

He bit into the dumpling: broth rich with star-fruit and black-pepper pork, the recipe a strange but successful fusion of space-age ingredients and Shanghai tradition.

Farther down in Shinkawa-dōri, Tsukina caught up, pressing a cup of sweet amazake into his hand.

"You are supposed to stay on schedule, sensei," she chided gently. "The Supreme Commanders are waiting for you at the waterfront."

"Schedules," he replied, sipping. "The universe's polite suggestion. Gratitude comes first."

She snorted, but her eyes softened. "Then let's be grateful while walking. 早く行きましょう."

By evening, the Galaxy Regime held its great open-air banquet on barges moored across Starwater Bay. The images the off-world artist had caught were accurate: Galaxbeam at the center, coat patterned with tiny stitched moons and stars; officers laughing as they balanced plates and chopsticks; children grinning over trays of:

mooncakes filled with purple yam and starlight jelly,

skewers of yakitori brushed with comet-spice,

hotpot bubbling with lotus root, mushrooms, and shimmering cubes of "nebula tofu."

Above, thousands of lanterns rose from the bay and city rooftops—some classic orange, some glass-framed with spinning star maps inside. Each carried a hand-written note: lists of thanks, hopes for the next year, or simple doodles from children who just wanted to draw robots.

Galaxbeam lifted a star-shaped pastry, then looked—deliberately—past the crowd, past the lanterns, toward that invisible place where the reader sat.

"To those beyond Titanumas," he said quietly, voice braided into every language at once. "忙了一年, お疲れ様. You have survived your storms, your politics, your strange markets and headlines. Whatever your world calls this season—Thanksgiving, harvest festival, just 'finally a day off'—eat something warm. Sit with someone kind. Or sit with yourself and do your best to be kind there."

No one on the barges thought he was talking to anyone but them, but some part of the universe knew better.

He turned back to his people. The Supreme Commanders raised cups of tea and sake; the elites clinked ceramic and steel; drums rolled from the far pier as lion dancers and kitsune-masked performers prepared for the night parade.

Galaxbeam smiled, golden eyes reflecting a thousand drifting lanterns.

"好啦," he said. "Let's enjoy this night properly. Tomorrow the regimes will go back to guarding worlds and wrestling with destiny. Tonight, we just say thank you."

Music rose, chopsticks clicked, lanterns climbed higher into the star-salted sky. In the mingled chatter of Cantonese and Japanese, of Galaxenchi's own astral tongue and a dozen immigrant dialects, the Galaxy Regime's Thanksgiving flowed on—warm, bright, and very, very golden.

Galaxenchi's golden evening did not arrive all at once.
It slid in like a slow tide of light.

By the time Professor Prince Galaxbeam stepped off the harbor tram at Gallaxengongshi {capital}, the sky above Gallaxgonbei State was a deep violet dome pricked with stars and threaded with the faint river of the galaxy. Lanterns shaped like crescent moons and five-pointed stars swung under the eaves of every shop. Their glow was—he made sure to emphasize this for the benefit of the invisible reader—decidedly golden, not blue, not green.

"Kindly note," he said in flawless narrator-tone, glancing up at the air as if there were a camera there, "that the Galaxy Regime's standard palette is golden-yellow. Hair, eyes, robes, banners. I wear gold. My officers wear gold. The ships gleam like sunlight on brass. Any previous description suggesting otherwise was... an editing glitch."

Several nearby children in miniature cadet uniforms burst out laughing.
"Sensei is talking to the sky again," one whispered in Mandarin.

"他在跟旁白說話啦," another answered in Cantonese, delighted.
"He's arguing with the narrator."

Galaxbeam smiled, satisfied that the correction had been logged in the fabric of the story itself, and turned back to the night's work.

Gallaxengongshi – Lanterns over the Academic Sea

The plaza before the Galactic Academy of Yenzhixing had been converted into a tiered festival ground. Rows of low tables stretched out beneath silk canopies. At one end, an elegant wooden stage in the style of an old Beijing opera house had been rebuilt with modern holo-projectors; at the other, stone steps led down to the harbor, where research vessels bobbed gently, their hulls draped in strings of star-shaped lanterns.

Supreme Commander Galaxadye—human male, sharp-eyed, wearing a crisp golden officer's coat—met Galaxbeam at the base of the academy steps.

"Teacher," Galaxadye said, bowing. "The students have prepared the 感恩講會—the Thanksgiving Lecture Assembly—as requested. Three languages, synchronized subtitles, and a particularly stubborn debate club trying to prove that gratitude can be modelled as a differential equation."

"Good," Galaxbeam replied. "The universe rewards stubbornness when it is aimed at understanding."

Along the colonnade, elite officers moved among the crowds, checking security and—more importantly—making sure everyone had something warm to drink. Galaxseina handed out cups of roasted barley tea, switching effortlessly between Japanese and Cantonese as she greeted families.

"今夜一切免費 (Everything is free tonight,)" she told an elderly couple, pressing extra dumplings into their hands. "Sensei says knowledge tastes better when your stomach is not empty."

Nearby, Galaxyqiongyu helped a group of first-year cadets arrange offerings on a long altar table: not sacrifices, but thank-you objects—textbooks that had changed their lives, photos of mentors, tiny paper rockets labelled with things like Thank you, grandma, Thank you, lungs, for still working, Thank you, public transit.

Galaxbeam took the podium when the academy bells chimed eight times.

"In some worlds," he began in Mandarin, his voice carrying easily, "Thanksgiving is a harvest festival. In others, it is about treaties, or survival, or simply eating until you cannot stand."

Soft laughter rolled through the crowd.

"In Galaxenchi," he continued, now in Japanese, "we borrow from many traditions. China's harvest banquets. Mid-Autumn moon appreciation. Japan's Labor Thanksgiving Day, when people thank workers and each other merely for existing and trying."

He shifted to Cantonese, and his accent turned distinctly Kowloon-street.

"但最重要嘅係——" But the most important thing is— "we remember that none of us got here alone."

Screens behind him lit with images from across the continent: hydroponic terraces of Galaxenportal City, shipyards of Galaxenwarpe City, research towers of Galaxenwarp-Shuyuan. In each, people were sitting at long, low tables, chopsticks raised, bowls steaming.

"Tonight," he said, "we thank the ones who came before, the ones beside us now, and the ones not yet born, whose sky we are trying not to ruin."

The academy band struck up a piece that blended guzheng strings with shamisen and synthetic pads. As the formal segment closed, Galaxbeam stepped down into the crowd, trading his teacher-voice for something gentler.

A young cadet bowed shyly, holding up a plate of mooncakes.

"Sensei, this one is ube," she said in accented Japanese. "Imported recipe from Parracacoz in Eastoppola. They call it purple gratitude cake there."

Galaxbeam accepted one, its filling violet against the golden crust.

"Then tonight," he said, "we honor intercontinental carbohydrates as well."

The cadet laughed so hard she almost dropped the plate.

Yennbogoldd State – Neon Arcades and Thank-You Receipts

By late evening, a high-speed maglev had carried the party to Yennbogoldd State. The capital, Yennbogoldd City {capital}, glowed like a cross between Shibuya Crossing and a Tang-dynasty marketplace: calligraphy billboards, vertical LED gardens, lines of vending robots offering everything from jasmine tea to pocket-sized philosophy books.

Supreme Commander Galaxadale, human male with a broad, reassuring presence, walked at Galaxbeam's side. Ahead of them, the pedestrian zone of Yennbogoldd–Ginzaminato roared with life: food stalls, arcade halls, tiny izakaya bars spilling golden light onto the street.

"Are you certain," Galaxadale asked, "that turning every purchase into a gratitude ritual will not slow down economic flow?"

"Our models show a three-percent slowdown and a twelve-percent increase in reported life satisfaction," Galaxbeam answered. "I accept this trade-off."

They stopped before a pop-up booth where Galaxmizuki and Galaxylinghua had set up the evening's experiment. Large characters on the banner read:

購物感恩所 – SHOPPING GRATITUDE STATION

Every person leaving the shopping arcade was invited to stamp their receipt, then write a quick note on the back: Thank you, factory workers. Thank you, delivery pilots. Thank you, past self for saving enough money to buy this. The stamped receipts flew up into a transparent cylinder, swirling like golden leaves.

A teenage boy with headphones around his neck approached, slightly skeptical.

"This is... kind of cheesy, Professor," he said in Mandarin.

"Cheese can be nutritious," Galaxbeam replied mildly. "What did you buy?"

The boy held up a box—an advanced coding tablet.

"Then write," Galaxbeam suggested, "Thank you, future self, for using this to build something that helps someone else."

The boy hesitated, then scribbled it down. When his receipt joined the swirling column, the cylinder flashed, projecting a random gratitude message on the nearest building.

THANK YOU, RESTAURANT DISHWASHERS, it blazed in three languages.
Passersby hooted and raised plastic cups in salute to invisible dishwashers everywhere.

Galaxbeam watched the data tally on Galaxastream's handheld console.

"Positive dopamine spikes without associated overconsumption," the Supreme Commander reported. "And four separate strangers just decided to split their shopping into two trips so they could write two notes."

"Human beings," Galaxbeam murmured, "may actually enjoy feeling kind."

Galaxenshu State – Old Streets, New Stars

Midnight found Galaxbeam stepping out of a tram into the rain-glossed streets of Galaxenchi-Gekkan (月環) 加星華市 in Galaxenshu State. The old quarter here looked like someone had folded Kyoto and Guangzhou into the same origami crane: narrow alleys, paper lanterns, wooden facades, neon signs in kanji and hanzi stacked atop each other.

Supreme Commander Galaxastride matched his pace, both of them in long golden coats embroidered with tiny stars.

"It feels different here," Galaxastride observed. "Quieter. Denser."

"History presses from the stones," Galaxbeam said. "Also, the tea is better."

They ducked into a covered market where elites had arranged a Silent Gratitude Walk. Along the tiled path, stalls offered free samples: skewers of grilled sweet potato, sesame tangyuan, oden simmered in great steaming vats. Yet instead of the usual market chaos, the air hummed with low conversation and the soft patter of geta and boots.

At one stall, Galaxyhaitao poured hot chrysanthemum tea into tiny cups as pedestrians paused.

"先生、ありがとうございます," a woman said in Japanese, bowing deeply as she accepted a cup. "For stabilizing our coastal shields."

"唔使客氣," Galaxbeam answered in Cantonese. "It is my job."

Further on, Galaxryukong and Galaxjolt ran a booth where people could write the names of ancestors or lost friends on slender wooden plaques. At the end of the alley, a small shrine glittered with thousands of them.

Galaxbeam knelt there for a moment, adding his own plaque without fanfare. The kanji were neat and old-fashioned.

For the ones who taught me to think.
For the ones I failed to save.

He did not linger. There were still more people to visit.

Storm over the Golden Sea – Galaxastorm's Watch

The last hop of the night took them to the wind-swept cliffs of Gallaxtaihaikou City in Gollanhai State, where the ocean pounded against the rocks below. Golden warning beacons flickered along the horizon, marking the edge of the continental shield.

Supreme Commander Galaxastorm stood with his cloak whipping in the wind, arms folded, hair snapping like a banner. Even his scowl seemed carved from solid light.

"You are supposed to be at a feast," Galaxbeam said, joining him at the railing.

"This is my feast," Galaxastorm answered. "Listening to the alarms not ring."

Down in the harbor, a different kind of Thanksgiving unfolded. Elite officers had set up enormous communal hot-pots right on the docks, the steam rising in fragrant pillars. Fisher families, shield technicians, harbor patrols—they all sat together, chopsticks clacking as they dipped vegetables and dumplings into broths that glowed faintly gold from safe bio-luminescent seasoning.

"Every year," Galaxastorm said, "I wait for the storm that does not come. For the invasion that stays a rumor. For the catastrophe that turns out to be someone mis-entering a number."

"And tonight?" Galaxbeam asked.

Galaxastorm allowed himself a thin smile.

"Tonight the only storm is the one in the hot-pots," he said. "I am... grateful."

"That is acceptable," Galaxbeam replied.

He raised a cup of hot sake. Galaxastorm clinked his against it, gaze never quite leaving the dark horizon.

Japantown, Chinatown, Galaxentown

By the time the artificial suns of Galaxenchi began their slow pre-dawn ascent, Galaxbeam's steps brought him back to Gallaxengongshi, into a district the locals simply called Lianghua-Quarter, the long-grown fusion of Japantown and Chinatown.

Here, the night never really ended. Izakaya doors slid open and shut; Cantonese dim sum carts clattered along polished stone; ramen steam collided nose-to-nose with the scent of Sichuan pepper and Hong Kong-style milk tea.

Galaxbeam walked the streets with no guards now, just a loose cluster of elites: Galaxkiba, Galaxykonohana, Galaxypeonyxiu, Galaxyqinglong. They trailed him like a small golden comet, all of them half drunk on exhaustion and jasmine liquor.

At a street corner, an elderly man was singing an old Shanghai ballad through a portable speaker, his voice thin but sincere. A group of university students answered with a Tokyo city-pop cover from a nearby café. The two melodies braided and tangled above everyone's heads.

Snatches of language floated in the air:

"やばい、この餃子めっちゃうまい!"
"哇，今夜真係好暖啊。"
"Sensei's speech, did you hear? 'Softness is a strategy.' I almost cried, dude."

Galaxbeam leaned against a warm brick wall for a moment, letting the sounds wash over him.

"This," he said quietly, lapsing into Mandarin, "is why we build shields and write treaties and design reactors. So that people can argue about dumplings and karaoke at four in the morning."

Galaxapuff appeared from a side alley, cheeks pink from the cold, arms loaded with take-out boxes.

"Sensei," she said, "the cooking clubs of Goldentawn State insisted on sending you their experimental fusion bento as thanks. Also, the dessert society of Suzutamashi Island wants to know if you approve of their yam-custard moon-pudding."

"Of course I approve," he said. "I will approve even more once I have tried it."

She laughed, falling into step beside him.

High above, the sky-rail lines traced thin golden arcs between cities: from Gallaxgonbei to Yennbogoldd, from Galaxenshu to Gollanhai, every state humming with its own version of Galactic Gratitude Day—lectures, hot-pots, shopping gratitude stations, quiet shrines. Supreme Commanders and elites moved among the people, not as distant gods, but as slightly overdressed relatives who happened to control impossible amounts of power and paperwork.

Galaxbeam paused at a crosswalk, watching a group of children chase one another with paper star-lanterns.

"To the reader," he said suddenly, looking straight out of the story again, "I repeat my earlier wishes: eat something warm, drink some water, do not trample anyone during your own Black Friday. Our universe writes enough tragedies without discount day stampedes."

He adjusted his golden robe, the glyphs along the hem shimmering faintly.

"Here in Galaxenchi," he added, "we will continue being absurdly grateful, scientifically curious, and mildly overcaffeinated. Tomorrow, the wars and politics will still be waiting. Tonight, the only thing we are allowed to conquer is another bowl of noodles."

Traffic lights shifted from red to green. The crowd flowed forward, carrying him along.

Somewhere beyond the clouds, far above Titanumas, the real stars flickered—cold, distant, and entirely uninterested in human holidays. But down here, under handmade lanterns and recycled neon, gratitude burned warm and gold, held aloft in thousands of small, stubborn hearts.

And Professor Galaxbeam, Absolute Leader of the Galaxy Regime, walked on through his luminous cities, listening, learning, and quietly taking notes for whatever chapter the cosmos would demand next.

Galaxbeam chose a small rooftop teahouse for his lecture.

Technically, he could have filled a stadium or spoken from the steps of the Academy again, but he preferred when philosophy started in places that smelled of steam and leaf and toasted sesame. The owner of Lianghua Teahouse cleared the top floor, laid out cushions, and pretended not to be star-struck.

Golden dawn was just starting to thin the night. Lanterns were still lit; the city hummed softly beneath them.

A half-circle of people sat before him: cadets in neat uniforms, off-duty elites with loosened collars, a few civilian families who had wandered up because someone downstairs had whispered, "Professor Galaxbeam is going to talk."

A holo-projector rested at his side, compact and disk-shaped. Its surface glowed faintly.

Galaxbeam poured tea into tiny cups, one by one, before he spoke.

"Thanksgiving," he said at last, "is a small human word that has tried very hard to carry too much."

The projector warmed. Above the group, gentle images unfolded—stars first, then a slow zoom toward one particular blue world and its parallel reflections.

History: Stories We Tell About Survival

"With permission from the archivists of another universe," Galaxbeam continued, "we borrow some of their history to think about our own."

The holo shifted to a stylized image: wooden ships, grey ocean, a coastline drawn in rough strokes.

"In one version of Earth's story," he said, "they teach schoolchildren that a group of settlers, hungry and unprepared, were saved from starvation by the generosity of Indigenous peoples. A shared meal. Corn, squash, roasted birds. They call that day 'the first Thanksgiving.'"

He tapped the projector lightly.

"The fuller story is harsher. That generosity was followed, in many places, by betrayal, disease, land theft, and centuries of violence. Gratitude as a single chapter in a book mostly about conquest."

The image fractured: on one side, a happy painting of pilgrims and Native people sharing food; on the other, faded treaty documents, lines of marching soldiers, a field scorched black.

"History," Galaxbeam said softly, "is very good at putting a warm frame around an uncomfortable picture."

He let the silence sit for a moment, steam curling from their cups.

"In other timelines," the holo shifted again, "they have harvest festivals with different names—where families thank deities for rice, or for wheat, or for surviving another winter. Some link their gratitude to a god, some to the emperor, some simply to the soil and the sun."

An animated calendar spun past: Shinto harvest rites, Chinese Mid-Autumn, Korean Chuseok, village feasts in a dozen climates.

"Underneath," he said, "the pattern repeats. You face the cold part of the year and you ask: 'Did we gather enough? Did we protect each other? Are we still here?' And if the answer is 'yes,' you cook everything you can justify and you eat together, loudly, as if that noise could scare the dark back a little farther."

Religion: Who Gets Credit for the Light?

He turned his cup slowly between his hands.

"Religions," he went on, "are humanity's long habit of asking who to thank when the crops grow—or when they don't."

The holo showed simple icons instead of specific gods: a sun, a stylized figure with many arms, a cross, a spiral galaxy.

"In some traditions, Thanksgiving is directed upward. 'Thank you, divine presence, for rain, for safety, for this table.' In others, the thanks is split: to the creator, to the ancestors, to the spirits of place."

He smiled a little.

"And in some philosophies, like our own Galaxy Regime research ethics, gratitude is an equation: we thank the chain of causality. The star that fused the heavy elements. The microbes that made soil. The engineers who built the reactors that keep our food warm."

A cadet raised a hand. "Sensei... is any one of these correct?"

Galaxbeam tilted his head.

"Correctness," he said, "is not the most interesting metric here. What matters is where gratitude flows. Upward only? Sideways to neighbors? Downward to those with less power? Or inward, to one's own heart, saying 'You did well to survive this year'? Religions shape the direction of the flow."

The holo zoomed down toward Titanumas now.

"On our world," he said, "the Solar Regime thanks love and human connection. The Lunar Regime thanks quiet, the land, the soft parts of the soul. The Star Regime thanks systems, efficiency, the ability to feast without burning the future."

"And you?" someone asked.

He smiled. "I thank curiosity. Without it, none of the rest would exist long."

Social Meaning: Who Gets to Eat?

The projector brightened.

"Historically," Galaxbeam went on, "Thanksgiving dinners were also social diagrams. Who sits at the big table, who at the small one. Who cooks, who carves. Who is welcomed as family. Who must bring proof of belonging before they are allowed a chair."

Images appeared: a crowded Solarian banquet hall; a Lunar skating rink with tables along the edges; a Starrup plaza full of vegetarian roasts.

"But there is a danger," he added, "when a feast becomes a mirror that shows only certain faces."

The holo brought up an overlay of housing statistics from Sollarisca, Lunna, Starrup. In each: a portion highlighted in orange, blue, or green representing those invited; a grey shadow layer for those who were, statistically, eating alone.

"General Sunbeam's prosocialism," Galaxbeam said, "is one answer to that danger. He looks at the grey layer and says: No. Bring them in. Build more tables. His Lantern Nights, his Sunrise Connection projects—these are attempts to redraw the social map so that fewer people fall off the edges."

The image flickered into a montage of Solarian scenes:

Sunbeam on a platform in Solvanairebolis, voice rough but determined, explaining why no one should spend holidays alone.

Solardye organizing escort teams to walk shy citizens into community houses.

A nervous man in an orange scarf sitting at a long table, slowly relaxing as strangers become friends.

Galaxbeam's tone warmed.

"Observe," he said, "how he charges into solitude with sheer embarrassing sincerity. It is not neat. It is not perfectly budgeted. But for many people, it works."

The holo shifted.

"In Lunna," he continued, "Mistress Moonbeam chooses another route. She creates rituals of presence instead of programs."

The montage slid into Lunar images:

Moonbeam at the edge of a public ice rink in Lunartopia, scarf fluttering, laughing as children swirl around her.

Her barefoot walk through the warm garden of Moonbliss Park, inviting thousands to leave glowing footprints on the soil.

Moonwis and Moonwisdom documenting the way people's heart rates drop, their shoulders loosen, when they feel the earth under their soles.

"Where Sunbeam storms loneliness with noise," Galaxbeam narrated, "Moonbeam invites people to remember they have bodies. That they touch the same ground, breathe the same air. Thanksgiving, for her, becomes a public meditation: We are still here. Together. On this soil. We have not fallen into the darkness that chased us to Titanumas."

The holo cut to a blue-lit garden full of glowing footprints. The teahouse fell very quiet.

"And in Starrup," he said, "our green commander chooses yet another angle."

Now came shots of Starbeam:

Standing in Starflare Capital with a plate of Star-Turducken, expression unreadable, declaring it "acceptable" as the crowd explodes in laughter.

Supreme Commanders Stardrye, Starradale, Starrastream, Starrastride, Starrastorm hosting their events; Starrapuff teasing him on live feed.

Markets overflowing during Green Swags, money about to burst out of people's pockets, and yet... donation kiosks every ten meters, homes being bought for the unhoused, charity rates spiking so high the analysts' graphs complained.

"Starbeam," Galaxbeam said, "understands wealth the way physicists understand energy: it must move, or it stagnates. When his continent experiences the Great Impression—this absurd, improbable boom—he does not simply build higher towers. He opens the doors and points the river of resources outward. To Westonglappa. To Eastoppola. To tiny villages that barely know what a stock market is."

He looked around the room.

"The social meaning of Thanksgiving, then, depends on who you extend the circle to include. Family only? Citizens only? Allies? Strangers? The unborn? A holiday is a question disguised as a calendar square: Who counts when we say 'us'?"

Galaxbeam's Philosophy: Gratitude as Resistance

The holo dimmed to a soft golden spiral, rotating slowly.

"For us in the Allied Evolution Salvation coalition," Galaxbeam said, voice low, "there is another layer."

He slid a finger across the disk. Scenes of the BRD flashed briefly: darkened warships, propaganda towers, satellite weapons built in secret.

"There are regimes on this world," he said, "who rule through scarcity and fear. They tell their people, 'There is never enough. Trust only us. Hoard. Hate. Strike first.'"

He let the images fade.

"To sit down and share food in that world," he went on, "is not merely pleasant. It is defiance. To make certain everyone eats. To ground your feet in a garden instead of marching them into war. To take obscene surplus and convert it into gifts instead of more weapons—these are strategies as much as they are celebrations."

He looked up at the sky just beginning to pale.

"Gratitude," he said, "is how you remember that life is more than not dying."

He began to pace slowly along the edge of the rooftop, robes whispering.

"Historically, Thanksgiving was often used to erase ugly truths. 'We gave thanks, therefore we are the good ones.' I suggest a different model: gratitude that makes us more honest, not less."

He raised one hand; the holo showed, simultaneously:

Solar volunteers serving food while a tiny ticker at the bottom displayed the number of people still unhoused.

Lunar barefoot walkers passing, in the distance, the ruins from an earlier war.

Starrup's Green Swags data, with footnotes about regions still struggling under climate shifts.

"Real gratitude," Galaxbeam said, "does not pretend everything is fine. It says: In spite of all that is broken, these things are still worth defending. And then it asks: What can we do, with the strength we gained at this table, to repair one more piece?"

The Montage: Four Lights

The disk in his palm brightened again.

"Watch," he murmured. "Four ways of answering the same question."

The holo became a full sphere now, showing four slices of Titanumas at once.

In Sollarisca, Sunbeam stood on a balcony after all the speeches, coat off, tie loosened. Down in the plaza, Lantern Night had fused into something else—a thousand tiny circles of people talking, leaning toward one another.

Sunbeam had his comm open, a green-tinted call from Starrup on one side of the screen, a blue message from Lunna on the other. He smiled tiredly, murmuring thanks he wasn't sure he deserved, as volunteers moved through the crowd below.

In Lunna, Moonbeam finished her barefoot walk and sat on the garden grass, skirts tucked neatly under her. Children were tracing their footprints with small brushes, painting them in soft shades of blue and silver before the glow faded.

Moonwis sat not far away with a tablet, tracking stress markers, but his face—usually tight with data-worry—was relaxed.

In Starrup, Starbeam watched the Green Swags chaos from an observation deck. Holo-screens showed charity totals updating faster than his algorithms could smooth them. Behind him, Starrapuff and Stardrye argued over which neighboring state should receive the next surprise infrastructure grant.

Starbeam's expression barely shifted. Yet his hand rested on a stack of signed orders, each one transferring another slice of Starrup's impossible abundance outward.

And in Galaxenchi, on this rooftop teahouse in Lianghua-Quarter, Galaxbeam lowered the projector's brightness so the emerging sunrise could compete.

"Four regimes," he said, "four temperaments, four answers. All of them, in their way, are saying the same thing: We survived. We remember. We will not use that survival only to sharpen more swords."

He bowed his head.

"On other worlds, Thanksgiving became an excuse to forget whose land they were on, whose labor filled the plates. Let us choose instead to remember more clearly each year. To thank not only the sun and rain, but the workers who repair the tramlines, the medics who miss most feasts, the quiet friend who notices when someone else is slipping away."

He looked around at his little audience: the cadet chewing his lip, the elite hiding a suspicious shine in her eyes, the teahouse owner pretending to wipe the same cup again and again.

"Eat well," Galaxbeam said. "Rest if you can. Share what you are able. And when the wars call us back to the frontlines—and they will—carry these memories like lanterns. The point of surviving," he added gently, "is to have something worth living for, not simply something to fight against."

He snapped his fingers lightly.

The holo flickered one last time: Sunbeam, Moonbeam, Starbeam, and Galaxbeam themselves, each mid-laugh, caught in some candid frame from earlier in the day. Four leaders, four colors, four very tired faces that still managed to soften when they looked at their people.

Then the projection shut off.

Only dawn remained, painting the rooftops gold.

Galaxbeam lifted his cup.

"From Galaxenchi," he said, voice almost conversational now, "to Sollarisca, to Lunna, to Starrup... and to whatever world our reader is sitting in: Happy Thanksgiving. May your gratitude be honest, your tables wide, and your future a little less terrifying than your history."

They drank their tea as the city woke, while somewhere far beyond the sky, indifferent stars kept burning—unmoved, but quietly, accidentally, providing all the light these small, stubborn rituals required.

Among the many who listened to Galaxbeam's quiet lecture from the balcony of Galaxenchi-Tenkūjō Sky Harbor, one figure stood a little straighter than the rest.

Supreme Commander Galaxadye.

The golden cuffs of his officer's coat caught the lantern-light as he folded his arms, gaze tilted toward the holographic map that hovered beside the balcony. The map showed the whole of Galaxenchi—states, cities, orbital stations—threaded with soft lines of light marking tonight's "Galactic Gratitude" events.

"Sensei likes to talk until the stars change position," Galaxadale murmured at his side, half-teasing.

Galaxadye's lips curved by a millimeter. "And you like to complain until they do the same."

Galaxastream snorted quietly. Galaxastride and Galaxastorm both pretended not to smile.

When Galaxbeam concluded his address and the projection dissolved into a slow montage of Sollarisca, Lunna, and Starrup, he turned. His golden hair swept with the motion, haloed by the reflection of the nebulae beyond the glass.

"From here," Galaxbeam said, "the story belongs to all of you. Take what Thanksgiving means and write it into your own streets."

He let his eyes rest on each of them in turn before settling on Galaxadye.

"Begin with Gallaxgonbei," he added. "Families reunite there tonight because of your rail schedules. Go and see them with your own eyes, not just as timetables."

Galaxadye bowed, palm flat over his chest.

"As you wish, Professor."

The night trains of Gallaxgonbei State glided like strings of golden comets through the cold air.

From the observation deck of Gallaxengongshi Central Terminal, Galaxadye watched arrivals fan out into the city: grandparents with little rolling suitcases, students with backpacks and gifts, soldiers on leave with their caps tucked under one arm. The great clock inside the terminal hummed softly as it adjusted microseconds to keep every incoming line perfectly in phase.

"Platform Seven inbound," reported Elite Galaxlonghiko, checking a glowing slate. "From Galaxenshu State. Two thousand three hundred forty-one passengers. All on time."

"Platform Nine from Galaxenshōrin Orbital," added Elite Galaxrenkatsu, his voice warm despite the data-dense words. "Shuttle traffic cleared, no delays."

Galaxadye nodded, then stepped away from the glass to the staircase that led down into the main hall.

"As of this evening," he said into his comm, "all inter-state fares are reduced to zero. No one pays to go home for Gratitude Night. If a clerk argues, send them to me. I will confiscate their ticket stamp as a teaching aid."

The answer from station control was a chorus of stifled laughter and affirming clicks.

He descended into the hall.

The terminal ceiling arced high above, painted with constellations taken from both Terran and Titanuman star charts. Rows of lanterns shaped like mini moons and comets drifted along energy rails. In the center of the hall, volunteers from Galaxenchi University of Transit Philosophy had set up long tables with tea and small plates of food—steamed buns shaped like miniature suns, sticky rice stars, fragrant oolong and roasted barley tea.

A little boy in a too-big officer cap froze when he saw Galaxadye approaching. His mother bowed hurriedly, nudging her son to follow.

Galaxadye stopped instead, lowering himself slightly to the child's eye level.

"First time home for Galactic Gratitude?" he asked in careful, friendly Mandarin.

The boy nodded fiercely. "We came from Galaxenorbita Academy, sir! They let us go early!"

"In that case," Galaxadye said, switching to Japanese, "you deserve extra dango."
He took two skewers from a volunteer's tray and handed them over. "One for you. One for whoever waited all year to see you."

The boy's eyes shone. "Arigatou gozaimasu!"

Galaxadye inclined his head. "Not to me. To the timetable."

As the boy scampered off, Galaxrenkatsu leaned closer.

"You pretend you are all circuits and schedules," the elite murmured in Cantonese. "But you always remember the children."

Galaxadye gave him a sidelong look. "Efficient logistics begin in childhood. If we show them the trains love them, they will love the trains back."

"That is not how trains work," Galaxlonghiko whispered.

"It is how people work," Galaxadye countered.

He stayed in the hall long enough to see the early rush taper into a steady flow. Each time he saw a reunion—grandmother gripping a returning grandson, cousins whirling in overlapping hugs—he quietly added a note to his datapad.

"Adjustment," he muttered. "Next year, more benches near Platform Twelve. People do not want to say 'I missed you' while standing in a draft."

Later that evening, the Thanksgiving orbit of his route carried him to Shinseiki-Seirin District in Galaxenshu State, where narrow streets wound between old-style wooden facades and modern glass towers.

Here, the Galaxy Regime had preserved entire blocks as "memory corridors"—Japantown, Chinatown, Hakka lanes—spaces where families could walk through the smells and sounds of their ancestral cultures without boarding a ship to old Earth.

Galaxadye walked under paper lanterns stamped with both kanji and stylized star glyphs. Vendors called out in a mix of Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Titanuman common:

"Hot yaki-imo! Roasted sweet potatoes, fresh from the reactor-warmed ovens!"

"Lo mai gai! Sticky rice for gratitude stomachs, cheap tonight—buy two, thank three people!"

"Takoyaki constellation set! Twelve pieces shaped like your zodiac!"

He stopped at a stall where an elderly woman in a gold-trimmed cheongsam was making jiaozi with practiced hands. Above her, a sign read:

GALACTIC GRATITUDE SPECIAL – 家族餃子 / かぞく餃子
For every tray you buy, one is sent to a community house.

Galaxadye placed both hands on the stall edge and bowed.

"Honored Auntie," he said in gentle Cantonese, "how many trays have you sent out so far?"

She squinted up at him, then laughed.

"I knew you were one of our golden bosses," she said. "You stand like you swallowed a steel rail. Don't worry, ah boy, I'm not charging the government."

Galaxlonghiko, standing just behind him, nearly choked.

Galaxadye's ears colored faintly, but he did not retreat.

"We have budget for this," he replied. "If you send gratitude dumplings to community houses, the Regime should pay."

The woman waved a flour-dusted hand. "Tonight is about giving without counting. You teach us to trust the trains, we teach you to trust generosity. Sit. Eat."

He obeyed.

Elite Galaxjinzhao slid into the seat beside him, trying not to grin.

Steam rose between them as plates arrived—dumplings with thin, translucent skins, stuffed with mushroom, chive, tofu, a little bit of lab-grown chicken for those who wanted it, and vegetarian fillings for those who followed Starbeam's new influence.

"Thanksgiving," the old woman said, switching to Japanese as she poured tea, "used to belong to other nations. They made it about harvest, and sometimes about things that hurt people. Here, we make it about who shows up at the table and who we still owe a visit."

Galaxadye lifted a dumpling with his chopsticks, considering.

"On Sollarisca," he answered, "they expand the table until no one has to eat alone. On Lunna, they walk barefoot in gardens to remember the earth. On Starrup, they turn commerce into charity. In Galaxenchi..."

He looked around: at the mixture of languages, at the steaming food shared between strangers, at the little altars set up on street corners with candles and holographic pictures of distant relatives.

"...in Galaxenchi, we remember that we are built of many stories. Tonight, they overlap."

He ate in silence for a moment, letting the flavors settle.

"This is adequate," he said at last.

The old woman cackled. "Translation for your soldiers: he means 'very good.'"

Laughter rippled down the bench. Somewhere behind them a group of academy cadets clinked paper cups of barley tea, shouting "Ganbei! Kanpai!" and then dissolving into giggles as they tried to coordinate bowing in two cultures at once.

Galaxadye allowed himself a small, real smile.

His final stop of the night was not a festival at all.

In Gallaxwarpe City of Gallaxgonbei State, overlooking the quiet docks where galaxy-class cruisers slept between missions, a modest building glowed with soft internal light: Galactic Reflection House No. 7.

Here, families who had lost someone in the past conflicts—Sun Soldier, Moon Ranger, Star Marine, Galax Guard—could come to sit in shared silence, write messages, and watch a holographic starfield that responded subtly to their heartbeats.

Galaxadye entered alone, leaving even his elites outside.

Inside, rows of low seats faced a vast wall of living light. Each point on the "sky" represented a name. With a thought, visitors could call specific stars forward to read the stories associated with them.

A young woman in a gold cardigan sat near the back, a toddler asleep in her lap. When she looked up and saw him, she stiffened, starting to stand.

"Please," Galaxadye said quietly, switching back to Titanuman common, "stay seated. I am only a guest tonight."

He chose a seat a respectful distance away.

On the wall, a group of stars drifted forward. Names scrolled: Galaxqingtaro, Galaxyraijin, Galaxseirong. Faces appeared briefly—smiling, serious, surprised—caught from old ID photos and merged with soft biolight.

Galaxadye bowed his head.

"Gratitude," he whispered in Mandarin. "Not only for abundance, but for the price already paid."

In Japanese, he added, "Your absence makes our peace possible."

In Cantonese, barely audible, he finished, "We will not waste what you left behind."

The toddler stirred, reaching out one tiny hand toward the shifting sky.

A new star brightened at the edge of the projection, syncing automatically to the child's small, rapid heartbeat. The system registered a new visitor and wrapped them in gentle constellations.

Across Titanumas, the montage Galaxbeam had described continued to loop on news networks: Sunbeam laughing nervously beside Starbeam's quiet intensity in Solvanairebolis; Moonbeam barefoot in glowing gardens; Starrup citizens trading bragging rights over who had donated more homes.

Here, in the Reflection House, the same montage played in miniature on a corner pane of glass. The sound was muted, but Galaxadye could see the images.

"Different lands," he murmured, "same axis."

He stayed until the child fell fully back to sleep and the young woman's shoulders loosened. Only then did he rise, bow to the wall of stars, and step out into the night.

Outside, the other Supreme Commanders waited—Galaxadale with his hands deep in his cloak pockets, Galaxastream fidgeting with a data chip, Galaxastride standing like a ceremonial statue, Galaxastorm watching the harbor lights.

"Well?" Galaxastream asked softly. "Did the trains behave?"

Galaxadye exhaled, watching his breath mingle with the faint golden mist drifting up from the docks.

"They did," he said. "But tonight I learned something troubling."

Galaxadale tilted his head. "Troubling?"

"Our schedules," Galaxadye replied, "are not the only thing that keeps this nation together."

Galaxastorm huffed. "You only just realized that? Professor Galaxbeam has been saying it for three centuries."

"Knowing something and feeling it are different algorithms," Galaxadye countered. "Tonight, the inputs changed."

Galaxastride smiled faintly. "Then tonight's Thanksgiving succeeded."

They fell into step together, golden coats catching the last reflections of Gratitude lanterns. Above them, orbiting ships and satellites aligned into a slow, deliberate pattern—a hidden geometry only Galaxbeam and his most obsessive students ever fully understood.

In Sollarisca, the last of the community houses dimmed their lanterns.
In Lunna, glowing footprints slowly faded back into earth.
In Starrup, Star-Turducken sales forecasts shattered every model.
In Galaxenchi, trains glided through the night like patient shooting stars.

And in the quiet between all those lights, Supreme Commander Galaxadye walked with his fellow commanders, already sketching next year's routes in his mind—routes not only for trains and ships, but for gratitude itself, moving between hearts like an elegant, ever-expanding network.

When the five Supreme Commanders reached the fork in the harbor road, they paused beneath a row of lanterns that swayed in the sea breeze.

"Routes diverge," Galaxadye said quietly, glancing at his slate. "We each have our remaining circuits."

Galaxastream lifted his hand in a lazy salute and peeled off toward the maglev pier. Galaxastride and Galaxastorm drifted together in the direction of the outer districts, their silhouettes quickly swallowed by mist and holographic signage.

That left Galaxadale standing beside Galaxadye under the lanterns, broad shoulders relaxed, hands in the pockets of his long golden overcoat.

"You're headed back to Gallaxengongshi terminals?" he asked.

Galaxadye nodded. "There are still three inbound trains. Gratitude night is not complete until the last platform empties."

"Figures." Galaxadale clapped him gently on the arm. "Try to eat something that isn't a timetable."

"I ate dumplings."

"Then try sleeping," Galaxadale said, grinning. "See how it compares."

Galaxadye's mouth twitched. "Goodnight, brother-in-command."

He slipped away toward the transport hub, gold cloak trailing behind him like a thin meteor tail.

Galaxadale stood alone for a heartbeat, breathing in the salt mix of sea and reactor-warmed air. Over the dark water, the golden hulls of anchored cruisers reflected the moon and the floating lanterns.

"All right," he murmured to himself. "My turn."

He turned inland, toward the lights of Gallaxwarpe City.

Unlike Galaxadye, who orchestrated railways with surgical precision, Galaxadale was the Galaxy Regime's anchor on the ground—the commander of bodies rather than lines. When citizens thought of search-and-rescue teams, disaster response, hands hauling people out of rubble and storm surge, they pictured his square jaw and perpetual half-smile.

Thanksgiving, for him, never started at banquet tables. It started where things had once broken.

His first stop lay along the Gallaxwarpe Seawall, in a neighborhood called Hai'ankyo Ward—an area the tides had nearly taken ten years ago before the Regime built new, living barrier reefs.

Tonight, instead of sandbags and emergency tents, the rebuilt promenade hosted the Gratitude for Hands Festival.

Tents lined the seawall, each decorated with handprints in every shade of gold and bronze paint. Children dipped their palms in shallow trays, then slapped them onto long banners marked with phrases in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese:

謝謝你救我 – Thank you for saving me.
多謝晒 – Thank you so very much.
助けてくれてありがとう – Thank you for helping.

As Galaxadale approached, a group of kids playing tag skidded to a halt.

"Commander!" A little girl with pigtails and a lopsided officer's cap pointed, eyes huge. "It's him!"

Adults looked up from steaming noodle bowls and lantern-hanging, murmurs rolling outward like a small tide.

Galaxadale lifted both hands.

"Relax," he called, smile wide, voice carrying easily over the surf. "Tonight I am off duty. If you see me near a wall, I'm only helping hang banners, not inspecting them."

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

Elite Galaxraihua—tall, calm, her uniform jacket traded for a festival happi coat patterned with tiny starbursts—stepped forward from a dumpling stand.

"Commander," she greeted, bowing. "You're right on schedule. The soup is at optimal warmth."

"Then the stars truly favor us," Galaxadale said.

She handed him a heavy ceramic bowl. Inside, fragrant broth steamed above thick noodles, slices of tofu charred at the edges, bright greens, and little crescent-shaped fish cakes etched with tiny galaxies.

"Gǎn'ēn yú tāmen de shǒu," she explained in Mandarin. "Gratitude Noodles for Their Hands. The families all contributed ingredients."

Galaxadale accepted the bowl with both hands and, without ceremony, sat cross-legged on the nearest step. Some of the tension in the crowd melted as they saw the Absolute Leader's second-in-command eating at ground level like a neighbor.

A boy edged closer, holding a banner dripping gold paint.

"Sir," he said timidly in Japanese, "could you... um... add your handprint? My grandma says you carried her during the flood."

Galaxadale blinked, chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth.

"Your grandmother is...?"

The boy pointed, and an older woman in a knit hat waved from a bench. She wore thick gloves despite the mild sea air.

Galaxadale's face softened.

"Aa, sō ka," he murmured. I remember.

He set his bowl aside, stripped off his gloves, and pressed his palm firmly into a tray of warm, metallic paint. When he lifted it, his hand gleamed bright as newly forged gold.

"Where do I go?" he asked.

The boy led him to the longest banner, already crowded with prints of all sizes. At its center, in careful brushstrokes, someone had written:

「When the sea rose, they carried us. When the waters receded, they stayed to rebuild. Tonight we remember their hands.」

Galaxadale placed his handprint just beneath the words.

"Not just mine," he said, addressing the children now gathering around. "All of ours. Galax Guards, Sun Marines, Moon Rangers, Star Soldiers, even the volunteers from Westonglappa. One pair of hands alone can't lift a wall. But many together..." He looked up at the new, living reef projections glowing offshore. "...can reshape the coastline."

One of the smaller kids tugged his sleeve.

"Commander," she asked in Cantonese, "how do you say thank you?"

Galaxadale thought about the question.

"By coming back every year," he answered. "To see if the walls are still strong. To eat your noodles. To remind myself that the people we pulled out of the water grew taller and louder and more annoying."

The children giggled.

He reclaimed his bowl and slurped loudly, on purpose, making a few nearby elders chuckle and wag their fingers at his lack of decorum.

Thanksgiving, for Galaxadale, meant remembering that survival was a shared project—not a miracle bestowed from above, but millions of small decisions to keep holding on.

Later in the night, he traveled inland to Shin'etsu-Galax Plains, a wide, fertile region in Galaxenshu State known for its experimental eco-farms and training grounds.

Here, Thanksgiving had taken on an entirely different flavor: The Festival of Strong Backs.

Under the cool glow of agricultural domes, volunteers and soldiers worked side by side, stacking crates of produce destined for community houses across Galaxenchi—and, by Galaxbeam's new directive, for export to Sollarisca, Lunna, Starrup, and even struggling states in Westonglappa.

Elite Galaxmoritaka jogged over as Galaxadale stepped from his shuttle, breath misting in the chilled dome air.

"Commander," she said, saluting. "You're just in time for the heavy lifting."

"I told you not to start the fun without me," he replied.

Instead of issuing orders from a platform, he rolled up his sleeves, slung a crate of shimmering starfruits onto his shoulder, and joined the line.

"Where's this batch headed?" he asked the worker ahead of him, a young man with soil still streaked on his cheeks.

"Community kitchens in Gallaxdōri City, sir," the man answered in Japanese. "Professor Galaxbeam requested they serve dishes from all four hero regimes tonight. Starfruits here, Lunar rice there, Solar spices imported from Sollarisca, and some strange green vegetarian centerpiece from Starrup."

"Starbeam's turducken," Galaxadale said. "I've tried it. Not bad, if you like your poultry hypothetical."

The worker laughed so hard he nearly dropped his crate.

They worked through several rotations, shoulders and backs straining in pleasant rhythm. Soon, music filtered through the dome speakers—traditional shamisen mixed with electric guzheng, a driving drumbeat underneath.

Between loads, Galaxadale joined a group of younger soldiers practicing a gratitude kata designed by Galaxbeam himself: a sequence of movements symbolizing receiving help, offering help, and standing together.

"Left foot forward, hands open," he instructed, demonstrating. "You don't block gratitude. You let it arrive, then decide where to put it."

One cadet frowned. "Isn't that... kind of sentimental for combat training, sir?"

"Try moving an unconscious ally out of a burning corridor without understanding how to receive weight," Galaxadale replied dryly. "You'll change your mind."

By the end of the set, sweat beaded on their foreheads. They bowed to one another, then immediately went back to hauling crates.

Galaxadale's comm pinged. A message from Galaxbeam:

STATUS?
Are your back and your metaphors intact?

Galaxadale snorted and sent back a quick picture of the stacked crates forming a glowing golden wall of fruit.

ALL SECURE.
If gratitude had a weight limit, we'd have exceeded it.

A single star emoji came back in reply.

There was one place Galaxadale always ended his Thanksgiving rounds, a tradition even his fellow Supreme Commanders didn't fully understand.

At the extreme edge of Galaxenshōrin State, where the city lights of Kyūden-Hoshikage gave way to rugged coastline and forest, a cluster of small houses perched on a hill overlooking the sea. No banners, no official insignia, just warm light spilling from windows and the smell of miso, ginger, and roasted sweet potatoes.

The sign at the gate read, in three languages:

「House of Second Chances」
回家院
帰星亭

Inside, former soldiers and civilians lived together: people who had once fought for the villain regimes, prisoners of war, political defectors, survivors of brainwashing. Galaxbeam had insisted they be given a place not only to be monitored, but to truly begin again.

Galaxadale had volunteered to oversee the project—and then quietly shifted the term "oversee" into "visit, repair sinks, and play cards badly once a month."

Tonight, the communal dining room hummed with low conversation. Some residents wore old uniforms with the insignia removed; others wore simple home clothes, sleeves rolled up as they ladled soup or washed dishes.

As Galaxadale stepped in, a few eyes went wide. Others simply lifted a hand in greeting.

A man with streaks of silver in his hair—once Darkmarine officer Daruk Nacht, now just "Nacht-san" to his housemates—set down a tray.

"Commander," he said, bowing slightly. "You're late. The gyoza patrol has already reduced enemy numbers."

Galaxadale sniffed theatrically.

"I can still smell survivors," he said. "We'll mount a rescue operation."

Nacht chuckled and gestured to a seat at the long table.

"What do Galaxy commanders give thanks for," the older man asked a few minutes later, swirling tea in his cup, "when they sit here? That your enemies decided to grow vegetables instead of weapons?"

Galaxadale considered his answer.

"Partly," he admitted. "But more than that... I give thanks that the universe didn't freeze us in our worst moment and say, 'You, you stay like this forever.'"

Nacht studied him. "You think that often?"

"Every time I sign a pardon," Galaxadale said. "Every time I see one of you choose to help instead of hurt. I have done things I don't want projected on festival lanterns. The difference between us is not that you were monsters and I was not. It's that we got pulled onto different paths at different times."

He broke a dumpling in half, steam rising between his fingers.

"Thanksgiving," he went on, "is my annual reminder that paths can cross again. And that sometimes the ones who walked through the darkest valleys are the best at leading others out."

Nacht was silent for a moment.

"Your professor talks like a philosopher," he said at last. "You talk like a construction foreman who read too many philosophy books."

"I take that as a compliment," Galaxadale replied.

The room's holo-screen, mounted in a corner, cycled through the Galactic Gratitude montage: Sunbeam's lantern-lit plazas, Moonbeam's barefoot gardens, Starbeam's green markets, Galaxbeam's floating tea ceremony on the cruise ship deck. Someone muted the sound, letting only the motion play while conversations continued.

A former Shadow Ranger across the table raised her cup.

"To second chances," she said quietly, in Cantonese.

"To second chances," Galaxadale echoed.

They drank.

Hours later, when most of the House had drifted to bed and the sea wind had grown sharper, Galaxadale stood alone on the hill outside, looking up at the sky.

From here, he could see the faint glow of Gallaxwarpe, the pulsing lines of trains on the horizon, the steady blink of orbital beacons—each light a story, each route a thread tying the continent together.

He thought of Sunbeam, trying not to collapse under his own ideals; of Moonbeam, laughing barefoot in luminous gardens; of Starbeam, turning efficiency into grace; of Galaxbeam, weaving all their narratives into something the universe could study.

"What am I thankful for?" he asked the night quietly, breath clouding in the cold.

"For walls that hold. For rails that connect. For hands that keep showing up. For the fact that we're still allowed to improve."

The stars did not answer, but one satellite passed overhead, its thrusters flaring briefly—a tiny, practical miracle.

Galaxadale smiled and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders.

Then, like the solid, reliable gravitational center he was, he turned back toward the House of Second Chances—because there were still dishes to wash, pipes to check, and a few younger residents who would undoubtedly challenge him to "just one more" card game before dawn.

On Galactic Gratitude Night, even Supreme Commanders were allowed to lose at cards on purpose.

When the five Supreme Commanders split paths beneath the harbor lanterns, Galaxastream did not walk.

He bounced.

"Try not to overload any servers," Galaxastorm muttered as they parted.

"No promises," Galaxastream called back, already jogging toward the maglev platforms, golden coat flaring behind him like a comet tail.

A few minutes later he was a blur of light inside an express capsule, the windows filled with rushing night: the shipyards of Gallaxwarpe shrinking behind, the interior of Gallaxgonbei State unfolding below like a circuit board made of cities.

"Route to Yennbogoldd State confirmed," the train's soft AI voice announced in polished Japanese. "Estimated arrival at Galasuitetkaipo Capital Terminal in nine minutes."

"Make it eight," Galaxastream said, fingers flicking across the holo-console that popped up over his lap. "Tonight I'm supposed to host a party for everyone who decided to stay home and touch screens instead of lanterns."

The AI processed this. "Safety parameters prevent exceeding—"

"I'm kidding," he sighed, grinning. "Eight and a half, then. We'll compromise."

If Gallaxgonbei was the beating heart of Galaxy rail and Gallaxenshu the backbone of its farms and training grounds, then Yennbogoldd State was the mind's glowing labyrinth.

By the time Galaxastream stepped out of the capsule into Galasuitetkaipo's terminal, the air itself seemed threaded with data: tiny AR glyphs floated above walkways; storefronts shifted their signs automatically into Mandarin, Cantonese, or Japanese depending on who was looking.

"Status?" he asked without pausing.

Elite Galaxwis fell into step beside him, holo-slate in hand, golden eyes bright behind frameless glasses.

"Live nodes are up across Galaxenyenn, Galaxen-Liuguang, Galaxen-Xinghe, and Galaxen-Tiansu," Galaxwis reported in rapid-fire Mandarin. "Community houses in Gallaxchendo and Galaxen-Yuehua have synced. Sollarisca and Lunna liaison lines are stable. Starrup is pretending they're not watching but I found three of their servers 'accidentally' parked in our chat lists."

"And lag?" Galaxastream switched to Japanese, weaving through the crowd.

"Under one hundred milliseconds to almost everywhere," said Elite Galaxwise, appearing on his other side as if summoned by symmetry. "Except for that one community house in Galaxen-Qianchen where someone keeps microwaving metal."

"I will send them an instructional cooking video," Galaxastream murmured. "Titled 'How Not to Assassinate Wi-Fi.'"

Galaxwis snorted.

They emerged onto the Skyline Concourse, an open-air platform ringed with transparent screens. Above, the night of Yennbogoldd glittered—lanterns, holo-banners, orbiting satellites. Below, Galasuitetkaipo's city-grid shone like a golden motherboard.

In the center of the concourse, a wide circular table had been set up, its surface one giant interactive display. Citizens already milled around it: teenagers in casual gold hoodies, elderly folks with augmented lenses, workers still in half-unbuttoned uniforms. Some tapped the surface shyly; others were already poking at menus in three different languages at once.

A hovering drone adjusted its lens as Galaxastream approached, auto-framing him for the broadcast.

He hopped lightly onto the platform edge, raised one hand, and addressed both the crowd and the unseen cameras.

"Good evening, Galaxenchi," he said in clear Mandarin first. "Or good morning, if you're watching from a different orbit."

He repeated the greeting in Japanese, then Cantonese, each time with a slightly different cadence that made a few linguists in the audience smile.

"Tonight, while my colleagues host trains, walls, and heavy lifting," he went on, "I have been given a different mission by Professor Galaxbeam..."

He held up his wrist console. "To throw a party for everyone who talks more with their thumbs than with their mouths."

Laughter rippled through the concourse and across thousands of small screens.

"We call it Galactic Gratitude Stream," he continued. "If you couldn't make it to a plaza, a garden, a dock—if you're on shift at a hospital in Galaxen-Tianlun, stuck at a relay tower in Galaxen-Shiguang, or just hiding in your room in Galaxen-Yujian because crowds make you want to ascend into the atmosphere—this one is for you."

Notifications began to flicker into the corner of the main screen: [Community House – Galaxen-Seikōkyō connected]; [Nurse Station – Galaxen-Hoshiryū watching]; [Maintenance Crew – Galhuntou Tunnel Line joined].

Galaxastream gestured to the circular table.

"Step up," he invited. "Pick a tile. Tonight the story doesn't start with speeches. It starts with you."

The holo-surface lit with dozens of small icons, each representing a simple prompt:

WHO ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR?
WHAT ARE YOU BUILDING NEXT YEAR?
SHOW US YOUR HOLIDAY FOOD.
SEND A SONG.

A shy-looking boy in a school uniform reached out first, tapping SHOW US YOUR HOLIDAY FOOD. A window opened, showing a steaming pot in a cramped kitchen in Galaxen-Nianhua. A woman in an apron waved awkwardly at the camera.

"Um," she said in Japanese, "this is... miso hot pot with, uhh, starfruit slices. My daughter is embarrassed."

Off-screen: "Maa, don't say it like that!"

Galaxastream beamed.

"Galaxen-Nianhua, that looks amazing," he replied. "Permission to be jealous?"

Messages flooded the chat overlay:

[Galaxen-Xinghe] that broth looks fire
[Gallaxowengmei] upload recipe pls
[Galaxen-Tiansu] starfruit in soup?? daring

An older man in a long coat touched WHO ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR? and recorded a simple sentence from a bench outside Galaxen-Yuehua Station:

"For the engineer who fixed the elevator I got stuck in last year. I never saw his face again, but I think about him every time these doors open properly."

Galaxastream's expression softened.

"We log that," he said. "Anonymous engineer from Yuehua—there is at least one person you rescued from boredom and panic."

Galaxwis tapped something on his slate. A small star icon appeared on the map above Galaxen-Yuehua, labeled only: UNSEEN ENGINEER – 1 GRATITUDE PING.

Children crowded in next, squealing as they sent short clips from Galaxen-Liuguang, where AR fireworks shaped like dumplings exploded over the river; from Galaxen-Xinghe, where they had turned the entire central plaza pavement into a touch-sensitive music board; from Galaxen-Kongque, where a lone boy held up his cat to the camera and announced solemnly that he was thankful "for this idiot."

"He means it with love," Galaxastream translated.

"Do we have off-world viewers tonight?" he asked then, glancing toward Galaxwise.

Screens shifted, splitting into a mosaic of feeds: a Lantern Night in Sollarisca; slowed, graceful ice-skating in Lunna; a green-lit market in Starrup selling vegetarian Star-Turducken slices; the deck of Galaxbeam's cruise ship, where the Professor sat with a book open, pretending not to watch.

Galaxastream switched to Titanuman common to address them all.

"This year," he said, "we learned that Thanksgiving isn't owned by any one culture. It's a pattern that repeats: food, memory, relief, gratitude, second chances. The Solar Regime sets more chairs. The Lunar Regime walks barefoot into peace. The Star Regime turns profit into generosity. In Galaxenchi..."

He tapped the table. The AR map of the whole continent blossomed upward in golden light—states, cities, district names floating.

"...in Galaxenchi, we connect the signals. We make sure the 'thank you' travels as far as it needs to."

A new notification appeared.

[Remote – Galaxenorbita Station] Incoming message.

The feed opened to show a cramped observation lounge on an orbital platform. Three technicians in gold-trimmed jumpsuits floated slightly in low gravity, legs hooked under rails, bowls of reheated dumplings velcroed to the table.

"We're on night shift," said one, waving. "Couldn't go down for any feasts. But we've got the sky, so... blessings from up here."

Galaxastream's reply came out quieter, but somehow warmer.

"Orbital crew," he said, "you're the ones making sure the satellites behave so everyone else's streams don't cut out mid-sentiment. On behalf of all ground-based tearful confessions and badly lit food pictures... we salute you."

Galaxwise leaned in, murmuring in Mandarin, "We're approaching bandwidth thresholds in Yennbogoldd. Too many simultaneous uploads."

"Then we trim," Galaxastream said in Japanese. "But not people—compression protocols. Tonight we drop resolution before we drop anyone."

Somewhere around the third hour of the stream, after the initial surge of excitement had mellowed into a steady glow, Galaxastream stepped back from the table for the first time.

Galaxwis and Galaxwise had taken over the primary responses, both talking at once in different languages. Citizens were now showing one another their rooms, their balcony gardens, their Thanksgiving leftovers; someone in Galaxen-Bailian had started an impromptu poetry circle about gratitude and fried tofu.

Galaxastream wandered to the edge of the concourse and looked down over Galasuitetkaipo. Hover-cars drifted like fireflies between towers; windows flickered with the same golden interface he'd just left.

Elite Galaxmon appeared beside him, carrying two canned drinks—non-alcoholic, lemon and yuzu.

"You've been talking for hours," Galaxmon said, offering one over. "I thought your voice might stage a coup."

Galaxastream cracked the can open, took a long drink, and sighed happily.

"Do you ever think," he asked in Cantonese, "about how strange this is? That we live in a world where someone in Galaxen-Hoshiretsu can whisper 'thank you' into a cheap microphone, and a tired woman on a bus in Galaxen-Boluo starts crying because she realizes she's not the only one barely holding it together?"

Galaxmon leaned on the rail. "The Professor thinks about it," he said. "You just get excited and build the platforms."

"That's my way of thinking," Galaxastream shot back.

Below them, a cluster of AR lanterns rose from a plaza in Galaxenyenn, each one tagged with a small text line: I'm grateful for... my dog, my ship crew, my second chance, my wife, my husband, my found family, my own stubborn heart that kept beating when it didn't want to.

More feeds rolled in: a quiet tea corner in Galaxen-Kakuryu, where an elderly couple drank in silence and simply nodded to the camera; a rowdy dorm in Galaxen-Amatsuyaiba where cadets yelled over each other trying to say "thank you" in three languages at once; a small, dim room in Galaxen-Baodian where someone had left their mic on, and the only thing heard was the faint sound of chopsticks tapping the edge of a bowl.

"Some of these people," Galaxastream said softly, "would never stand up in a plaza and take a microphone. But they'll type, or whisper, or show their cat. If Thanksgiving is about making sure no one eats alone... this is the version for the shy ones."

Galaxmon glanced at him.

"You know," he said, "you talk like you're just playing with toys. But this is serious work."

Galaxastream shrugged, shoulders loose.

"Everything's serious," he answered. "That's why I refuse to make it look boring."

As midnight approached in Yennbogoldd, the stream began to wind down.

"Final circuit," Galaxwis murmured. "We'll keep an archive available in all states. Data weight approximated at... a ridiculous number."

"Label it 'ridiculous,'" Galaxastream replied. "The Professor will understand."

He stepped back into the center of the concourse one last time, now surrounded by a smaller, sleepier crowd. Some people had sat down on the floor with their backs against pillars; a few children dozed against parents' shoulders, still clutching their devices.

On the holographic globe above the table, tiny golden threads now crisscrossed Galaxenchi—each one a path a message had taken, from city to city, state to state, sometimes hopping out to Sollarisca, Lunna, Starrup, or an orbital station before returning.

"Okay," Galaxastream said, voice softer now, switching between languages without thinking. "We're going to close out. Not because the gratitude is over, but because your bodies need rest or my infrastructure department will file a complaint."

A chuckle went through the chat.

"I am thankful," he said, "for everyone who sent a message tonight, and for everyone who wanted to but couldn't quite press 'record.' I see you too. Your unsent draft is still part of the signal."

He lifted his wrist console.

"These threads..." He gestured at the glowing network. "...they're not cables. They're decisions. Every time you reached out, even to share something silly or small, you resisted the gravity that pulls us into isolation. That matters."

He tapped a final command. The globe slowly shrank, the threads condensing into a single, steady golden star.

"This star," he said, "is labeled 'We are still here.' Check back whenever you feel like the universe forgot. It will still be glowing."

The main feed faded to the Galaxy Regime sigil and then to a simple message in stylized script:

THANK YOU FOR LOGGING ON.
NOW GO SLEEP.
– GALAXYSTREAM

Citizens laughed; devices began to wink out.

The concourse emptied slowly. Volunteers folded chairs and rolled up cable as the city's noise dropped to a low, contented hum.

At last, only Galaxastream remained at the table, along with Galaxwis and Galaxwise.

"You know," Galaxwise remarked in Japanese, adjusting his glasses, "you just scared five different villain regimes with that data visualization."

Galaxastream tilted his head. "Because they can see how many of us talked to each other?"

"Because they can see how many of us care," Galaxwis answered simply. "That's harder to bomb than a building."

Galaxastream looked up at the single star still hovering above the table, casting them all in gentle gold.

"This was a good Thanksgiving," he said. "No big speeches, no giant feasts. Just... billions of quiet 'I'm glad you exist' signals."

He yawned hugely, covering it too late.

"And now," he added, "I'm going to follow my own broadcast instructions and collapse somewhere horizontal."

Galaxwis bowed. "We'll handle the archives. Go dream in 4K."

He left the concourse and took the slow train back toward his quarters in Galaxen-Tianjing of Goldentawn State, forehead resting briefly against the cool window as the lights of Yennbogoldd flowed past below like lines of code.

In living rooms, infirmaries, lonely apartments, and crowded dorms across Galaxenchi, people lay down with screens dark but hearts buzzing a little warmer than before—knowing, in some quiet, newly mapped way, that their gratitude had gone out into the world and been caught.

And in the logs Galaxastream would review later, long after he'd slept, a simple pattern would emerge:

On Galactic Gratitude Night, network traffic had peaked not during announcements or performances, but during the hours when ordinary people had sent the smallest, strangest thank-yous.

Exactly, he would think, as Professor Galaxbeam smiled at the graphs.

Exactly.

By the time the last lines of the Galactic Gratitude Stream finally dimmed and Galaxastream's "NOW GO SLEEP" message faded from a billion screens, the night over Yennbogoldd State had deepened into a rich, velvety gold.

Far from the glowing concourse of Galasuitetkaipo, another Supreme Commander was already in motion.

Galaxastream's train slid past a smaller local station in Goldentawn State, and in one of the carriages he passed, a tall figure in a simple, travel-cut officer coat stood at the door, one hand on the rail, golden hair tied back, eyes focused on the dark countryside rushing by.

Supreme Commander Galaxastride.

Where Galaxadye loved timetables and Galaxastream loved live feeds, Galaxastride loved something simpler and more difficult:

Paths.

Not the lines on a map, but the ones people actually took with their feet.

The local train slowed with a hum and eased into Galaxen-Tianjing's secondary platform. As the doors hissed open, Galaxastride stepped out into a cooler, quieter kind of Thanksgiving.

No cameras. No big speeches.

Just a long road, lit by lanterns.

—

He paused at the base of the station stairs, breathing in.

Beyond the rail yard, Tianjing's Old Quarter spread out—narrow streets, shops with paper lanterns, apartment balconies crowded with plants. On Thanksgiving nights, the district organized its own tradition: the Thousand-Step Gratitude Walk.

He could hear it already: soft chatter, the shuffle of many feet, the faint ring of handheld bells.

Elite Galaxraimei jogged up, cheeks a little flushed from the chill.

"Commander," she said in Japanese, offering a quick bow, "we've got the route cleared. No vehicle traffic from Moonrise Bridge all the way to Starlight Shrine. Participation is... higher than projected."

"How much higher?" Galaxastride asked, switching to Mandarin as they started walking.

"About triple," she admitted, glancing at her slate. "Since General Sunbeam's speech and Mistress Moonbeam's garden walk went viral, everyone wants their own 'meaningful journey' tonight."

Galaxastride's mouth tugged in a small smile.

"Not a problem," he said. "We'll just walk more slowly."

They turned the corner into Gratitude Avenue, and there it was.

A river of people, all dressed in some shade of gold or yellow, moving in the same direction.

Some walked hand in hand, some in small groups, some alone. Every dozen meters, a simple wooden stand held a bowl of warm tea and a stack of thin paper slips. On each slip, someone had written what they were grateful for. The rule of the walk was simple:

Take one. Read it. Add one of your own.

Galaxastride slowed as they merged into the flow. A few heads turned, eyes widening when they recognized him—the unmistakable height, the perfectly straight posture, the disciplined way he kept to the side so as not to clog the center.

But he'd left the full parade uniform at home. Tonight he was in the same travel coat many off-duty officers wore, boots a little dusty from previous stops.

"Commander Galaxastride?" a young woman asked in Cantonese, clutching a paper slip like it might explode. "Is it... really you?"

"In three dimensions and moderate resolution, yes," he said mildly.

She half-laughed, half-gasped.

"I thought you would be somewhere important," she blurted, then flinched. "Oh—sorry, I mean—"

"This is important," he answered simply, taking a slip from the next bowl. "We're testing a theory."

She blinked. "What theory?"

"That if you give people a safe path," he said, reading his slip, "they'll walk it together instead of apart."

He glanced down at the paper.

In neat, nervous Mandarin, someone had written:

I'm thankful I didn't give up last winter. It got better after all.

He folded it carefully and tucked it into his coat.

Galaxraimei read hers aloud: "Thankful for the neighbor who knocks on my door when I get too quiet."

The young woman checked hers and laughed weakly.

"It says, 'I'm thankful my boss approved my transfer to day shift so I could see the sun again.' Wow. That's... weirdly specific."

"Specific is better than vague," Galaxastride said. "Makes it easier to know what to protect."

They walked.

At each stand, someone volunteered to read a few slips aloud. A boy with dyed-gold hair announced, "Thankful for my grandma's dumplings"; an old man with a cane read, "Thankful I finally got clean and stayed that way for one more year"; two friends burst out laughing as they took turns reading each slip, shouting things like, "Thankful for my stupid roommate who burned the rice but still tried."

Galaxastride wrote on his own slip:

Thankful the wall at Hai'ankyo still stands and I can visit it as a guest, not a rescuer.

He did not sign it.

He didn't need to.

—

Halfway along the route, the Thousand-Step Walk narrowed through Lantern Alley, a tunnel of hanging lights and windchimes.

Galaxastride noticed a boy about twelve, standing off to the side, hands jammed in his pockets, gaze on the ground instead of the lanterns.

The flow of people parted around him, but no one stopped.

Galaxastride drifted out of the lane and approached slowly.

"Enjoying the walk?" he asked in gentle Japanese.

The boy shrugged without looking up. "I'm just here because my aunt made me. She saw the... all the Sunbeam stuff. Said it's 'good for the soul' to walk with other people."

"Is it working?" Galaxastride asked.

"Feels like... I'm just in the way," the boy muttered.

Galaxastride fell quiet for a moment, then stepped forward so they stood shoulder to shoulder, both facing the glowing tide of people.

"In training," he said, "we teach cadets how to march. Lines, formations, spacing. If someone steps out of rhythm, they feel like they're ruining everything."

"Yeah," the boy muttered. "Exactly."

"But," Galaxastride continued, "in real battles, lines break. People stumble. Some freeze. Others run ahead. The important thing is not that every footstep is perfect. It's that we're still moving roughly in the same direction."

He tipped his head toward the avenue.

"This isn't a march," he said. "It's a river. You don't have to match its speed to belong to it. You can walk slower. Or faster. Or step out, come back in. The path is here when you want it."

The boy risked a tiny glance up at him.

"You're... Galaxastride," he said slowly. "You walk like a straight line in human form. And you're telling me it's okay to be off-beat?"

Galaxastride's mouth twitched.

"Even I sit down sometimes," he said. "Though don't spread that around. It will ruin my reputation."

The boy snorted, a small, surprised laugh.

Galaxastride pointed farther along the lane.

"There's a side route," he said. "Less crowded. Same lanterns. Fewer people watching. If we take it, you'd technically still be doing the walk. Your aunt never specified density."

The boy hesitated, then nodded.

"Okay," he said. "But you... you come too. Otherwise it's just 'walking alone in a small alley,' and I already do that."

"Deal," Galaxastride said.

They slipped into the side path, moving at their own pace while the main river of gratitude flowed beside them.

—

Later that night, after the Thousand-Step Walk ended at Starlight Shrine with bowls of sweet red bean soup and quiet prayers in multiple languages, Galaxastride took a shuttle to his next stop in Gallaxgonbei State.

The shuttle descended toward Gallaxdōri City, where he and Galaxadale had earlier supervised the loading of fruit crates. Now, the city's central plaza was transformed into something else:

The Festival of Crossroads.

Lines were painted on the pavement in glowing gold: straight routes, circles, spirals, crisscrossing paths. At each intersection, a small pillar projected a question in rotating scripts:

"Who changed your path?"
"What choice are you thankful you made?"
"What choice are you thankful you didn't make?"

Citizens wandered the pattern like a massive board game, choosing their turns based on instinct, curiosity, or the tug of a particular question.

Elites Galaxhanabi and Galaxyoroi met Galaxastride at the plaza edge.

"Commander," Galaxhanabi greeted, bowing low enough that her golden ponytail nearly brushed the ground. "We weren't sure you'd make it in time. The last trains only just arrived."

"Galaxadye kept them on schedule," Galaxastride said. "I trust his work."

Galaxyoroi nodded toward the glowing lines.

"Your design is... a hit," he said dryly. "We've already had three spontaneous confessions, one proposal, and a very loud argument that ended in group therapy sign-ups."

"Reasonable outcomes," Galaxastride replied. "Let's walk it."

They stepped into the pattern.

At the first intersection, the glowing pillar displayed:

WHAT CHOICE ARE YOU THANKFUL YOU MADE?

A woman in a mechanic's jumpsuit stood there, arms folded, staring at the words like they'd insulted her.

Galaxastride paused a respectful distance away.

"Difficult question?" he asked.

She exhaled through her nose.

"I..." She switched to Mandarin, frowning. "I almost didn't come out tonight. Too many people. Too many... happy things. I thought, 'I have nothing to be thankful for that doesn't sound stupid.'"

"Did you walk here alone?" he asked.

"Yes."

He nodded at the lines underfoot.

"Then you already made one choice," he said. "You left your apartment. That's non-trivial."

She blinked.

"That doesn't count," she said. "It's just... walking."

"That's my entire career," Galaxastride said. "Walking in and out of problems."

She huffed a small laugh.

"So," he went on, "try this: 'I'm thankful I chose not to stay in the dark room tonight.' Put it on a slip. Pin it. If you don't like it tomorrow, write a different one next year."

She stared at him, then at the pillar, then slowly reached for a stylus.

"Fine," she muttered. "But I'm not signing it."

"Nobody here is a handwriting analyst," he said. "You're safe."

He moved on.

At another crossroads, a pair of teenagers argued cheerfully about whether to follow the spiral path ("It looks fun!") or the straight one ("Efficiency matters!").

"These routes are not mutually exclusive," Galaxastride observed as he passed. "You can do the spiral this year and the straight line next year. Probability curves are not jealous."

The teens looked at each other, burst out laughing, and took opposite paths, promising to meet at the center.

—

His last Thanksgiving circuit took him high above Galaxenchi, to a ridge in Galaxenshōrin State where the Regime had built a simple sky-terrace: The Overlook of All Roads.

By then, it was deep into the night cycle. The main events had quieted. Community houses banked their fires. The Galactic Gratitude Stream had gone to archive.

Up here, the entire continent spread below in faint lines of light—rail routes, highway threads, shipping paths, signal lines.

Galaxastride stood at the railing, golden eyes reflecting the distant traffic.

He was not alone.

Professor Galaxbeam leaned against the rail a little farther down, a thermos of tea in one hand, coat open to the cold.

"Sensei," Galaxastride said, approaching with measured steps.

"Report," Galaxbeam murmured without turning. His voice was warm, amused. "Did anyone trip over their own feelings and sue you?"

"Not yet," Galaxastride replied. "The Thousand-Step Walk in Tianjing reached maximum capacity without incident. The Festival of Crossroads in Gallaxdōri generated... interesting qualitative data."

Galaxbeam smiled faintly.

"Interesting as in 'publishable,' or interesting as in 'will make the other commanders sigh'?" he asked.

"Both," Galaxastride said. "We documented multiple instances of people choosing routes that led them into conversations they were actively afraid of having. And then staying to have them."

"Mm," Galaxbeam hummed, watching a long train of lights slide through Gallaxgonbei below. "That's the thing about pulled threads. Once you start, the fabric remembers being whole."

Galaxastride rested his hands on the rail.

"I used to think," he said quietly, "that my job was to plan the most efficient routes, to minimize unnecessary steps. Tonight, I realized... some detours are the point."

"Explain," Galaxbeam said.

"The boy in Lantern Alley," Galaxastride replied. "He didn't need the full crowd. He needed a slower path with one person. The mechanic in the crossroads festival didn't need a clean destination. She needed permission to mark a single choice as non-stupid."

He looked down at the glowing tracing of roads and rails.

"Thanksgiving, this year," he went on, "felt less like arriving at a feast and more like... walking alongside people who aren't sure they deserve to arrive."

Galaxbeam's eyes softened.

"And what," he asked, "are you thankful for, Galaxastride?"

Galaxastride considered.

"For the fact that paths can fork and still lead to the same light," he said at last. "For Sunbeam's noisy crowds, Moonbeam's quiet gardens, Starbeam's efficient markets, Galaxadye's trains, Galaxadale's walls, Galaxastream's streams... and for the absurd probability that all those lines intersected this year without collapsing."

Galaxbeam chuckled, low and pleased.

"A satisfying Monte Carlo run," he said. "We'll mark it down as such."

They stood together in companionable silence, watching the glimmering web of Titanumas below: orange in Sollarisca, blue in Lunna, green in Starrup, gold in Galaxenchi.

"You know," Galaxbeam added after a while, "for someone named 'Stride,' you did an impressive amount of standing still with people tonight."

Galaxastride's lips curved.

"Sometimes," he said, "the bravest step forward is... not leaving."

Galaxbeam raised his thermos slightly in salute.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Supreme Commander."

"Happy Thanksgiving, Professor," Galaxastride replied.

Down on the ground, in a dozen cities and states, the last stragglers of the night's walks made their way home along streets that didn't feel quite as empty as before. Some carried leftover soup. Some carried paper slips with other people's gratitude folded into their pockets.

And though the lanterns would be taken down, the painted lines in Gallaxdōri would fade, and the streaming servers would go back to normal traffic, the paths that had been walked—awkward, shy, brave—remained, faint but real, in the patterns of their lives.

Galaxastride watched the roads until his breath fogged the air in a soft cloud of gold.

Then, satisfied that the night's routes had run their course, he turned and made one last, simple decision:

He went back the long way, so he could pass through Tianjing's quiet streets and see, with his own eyes, that the benches along the Thousand-Step Walk now had a few more people sitting together, and a few fewer sitting alone.

While Galaxastride and Galaxbeam watched the web of roads glitter beneath them from the Overlook of All Roads, far to the west a different kind of map was lighting up—one made not of rails and highways, but of swirling cloud formations, pressure fronts, and the soft, shifting heartbeat of the sea.

In Yennbogoldd State, above Galaxen-Liuguang (流光) and Galaxen-Xinghe (星河), the storm monitors were singing.

Inside the high, circular control hall of the Galactic Weather Harmonium, Supreme Commander Galaxastorm stood in the center dais, coat half-open, golden hair a bit wilder than regulation, eyes reflecting a dozen floating holo-screens that wrapped him in a storm of data. Outside, the sky was an ordinary clear gold-blue. Inside, the predictive models showed something else: three possible low-pressure systems forming over distant oceans, one of them already curling in the direction of Titanumas' shipping lanes.

"Projected paths?" he asked quietly in Mandarin, gaze tracking the ghostly spirals.

Elite Galaxwis, fingers moving in a blur, brought up trajectory lines. "Primary system likely to turn south before it even smells Gollanhai's coast. The other two, minimal threat if they follow standard wind behavior. But the models show a slight deviation window around Gallaxgonbei State's eastern waters."

Galaxastorm hummed, low in his chest, the sound like distant thunder. "Minimal threat," he repeated, tasting the words. "My least favorite kind. People relax around them. They forget how quickly 'minimal' becomes 'catastrophic' when no one is watching."

At another console, Galaxwise switched to Cantonese without looking up. "We've already prepped soft alerts for Galaxenportal City and Galaxenwarpe City, sir. Harbor masters will receive them within the hour. No panic, just... 'remember your drills.'"

Galaxastorm nodded once. "Good. Let Thanksgiving be loud. Let safety be quiet."

He turned away from the storm projections and toward the open balcony doors. Beyond them, he could see the Yennbogoldd skyline glowing: Galaxen-Liuguang's mirrored high-rises catching the last light, Galaxen-Yuehua (月华) beginning to hang lanterns along its rivers, the faint gleam of Galasuitetkaipo, the capital, farther off like a distant, patient star.

"Status on tonight's events?" he asked.

Galaxwis pulled up a new overlay: a map dotted with warm gold markers.

"Thousand-Step Walk in Tianjing concluded successfully under Galaxastride's supervision," he reported. "Crossroads Festival in Gallaxdōri wrapped an hour ago. Community feasts still in progress across Galaxenshu, Goldentawn, and Gollanhai." He zoomed in on the coast. "Your turn, Commander. People in Galaxen-Yujian (玉鉴) and Galaxen-Tiansu (天宿) are waiting for their 'storm lord.'"

Galaxastorm snorted softly at the title.

"I didn't choose that name," he said.

"You also didn't discourage it," Galaxwise replied mildly.

"I was busy preventing a typhoon from tearing the roofs off half of Suzutamashi," Galaxastorm shot back, but there was no real heat in it. "Alert the coastal teams. Tonight we celebrate... and we remember why we build sea walls higher than our pride."

He shrugged on his heavier cloak, the gold embroidery at the hem patterned like breaking waves, and stepped out into the night.

—

The shoreline of Gollanhai State was already alive when he arrived.

In Galaxen-Shenyu (神域), the great sea-wall terrace looked out over a dark, calm ocean. Lanterns had been set along its length in protective cages, their soft golden light shimmering on the waves. Families, retirees, dock workers, cadets, and children lined the parapet, all in shades of yellow and gold, as if the whole crowd was made of starlight wrapped in cloth.

A cheer rippled down the wall as Galaxastorm's transport descended and settled at the far edge. He stepped out into a breath of chill air heavy with salt and grilled food.

"Commander Galaxastorm!" a child shouted in Japanese, waving both arms as if summoning lightning. "We've been waiting for the storm!"

"Tonight," Galaxastorm answered, voice carrying with easy power, "the only storm you're getting is on the grill."

The crowd laughed, tension easing.

Elite Galaxharp—her golden hair tied back, a shamisen-shaped instrument slung across her back—approached with a respectful bow.

"Ready when you are, Commander," she said. "The Sea-Wall Thanksgiving Vigil is yours to open."

He walked to the parapet and rested both gloved hands on the stone, facing the sea.

"People of Gollanhai," he began in Mandarin, then repeated in Japanese, his accent measured but warm, "on most nights when you see my name in the alerts, it means one thing: something ugly is blowing in our direction."

A quiet, rueful murmur rippled through the crowd—agreement from those who remembered past storm seasons.

"Tonight," he went on, "I asked to come here for a different reason. Tonight I am not warning you about a storm. I am thanking you for every time you listened."

He turned slightly, so his profile caught the lantern light.

"When we sent evacuation orders to Galaxendamotang City," he said, "you believed us and moved inland. When we told you to close shops in Gollgaxnai City and shut down ports for twenty-four hours, you cursed us under your breath but did it anyway. When the last really bad one came and we said, 'Do not go out to take pictures,' most of you stayed inside. That is why we are all standing here together tonight, not reading names at a memorial."

An older fisherman, face weathered, called out in Cantonese, "We cursed you more than under our breath that time."

Galaxastorm allowed himself a crooked smile.

"Good," he said. "Cursing is healthy. Ignoring is fatal."

Laughter rolled along the wall, this time looser.

He nodded toward the lanterns.

"Tonight's Thanksgiving," he said, "is for the quiet victories. For the storm that never made landfall because we saw it early. For the roof that stayed on because your neighbor helped you nail it down in summer heat. For the children in Galaxen-Tianjing (天境) who sleep through a heavy rain now without waking up screaming at thunder."

He lifted his right hand, and a holo-projection bloomed above the parapet: a three-dimensional model of the current weather systems spinning above Titanumas, faint spirals and pressure lines.

"Look," he said, lowering his voice. "Even now, the world has teeth. But they are far away, and we are ready. That is worth being thankful for."

Behind him, Galaxharp settled onto a low stool and began to play, the shamisen's notes rising like soft rain tapping on a warm roof.

Galaxastorm stepped back.

"Eat," he said, gesturing to the long tables where elites Galaxmon, Galaxrise, and Galaxyfenglei were already helping volunteers distribute steaming bowls of seafood congee and vegetable hotpot. "Tell stories about the worst storm you ever saw and the funniest neighbor you sheltered with. Tonight, the waves are just a sound. Tomorrow, we keep listening."

He didn't leave the wall. Through the next hours, people drifted to him with questions and memories.

"Do you remember the cyclone that almost hit Galaxen-Liuguang?" a dockworker asked.

"I remember your city council arguing about canceling a night market until we showed them the wind vectors," Galaxastorm replied. "They still snuck in extra stalls the following week. Good food. Terrible structural planning."

"You sent us that late-night message," a young mother said, cradling her baby. "The one that said, 'If you are scared, that means you are paying attention.' That helped."

He softened. "Fear is not an enemy," he said quietly. "It's a warning light. We just make sure it doesn't stay on forever."

Children pressed closer, eyes wide as they listened, their Thanksgiving rooted not only in turkey and dumplings but in a shared understanding that the calm sea before them existed because someone had been watching.

—

Later, well past midnight, another shuttle carried him inland to Goldentawn State, where the weather's memory still lived in stone.

In Galaxen-Kuyōzan (九曜山), nine shrine towers rose along a mountainside, each dedicated to a different star and a different kind of resilience. Tonight, lanterns lined the steep path, and snow-dusted pines bowed under the weight of small, paper-wrapped offerings.

At the base of the stairs, Supreme Commander Galaxapuff waited, her own cloak lined with soft fur against the cold, cheeks pink.

"You're late," she said in Japanese, though her tone was more amused than scolding.

"I was busy thanking people for not drowning," Galaxastorm replied. "How's the sky up here?"

"Clear," Galaxapuff said. "Too clear. The old monks say it makes them suspicious."

"Good," he answered. "Keeps them sharp."

They climbed together, boots crunching faintly on frost. Halfway up, they passed a cluster of elites—Galaxlady, Galaxcharm, and Galaxytsukifenghuang—handing out small cups of hot chestnut tea and quietly guiding elderly visitors up the steeper steps.

At the seventh tower, Galaxastorm stopped and looked back.

From here, he could see three whole states at once: pieces of Galaxenshu, the sweep of Goldentawn, the edge of Gallaxgonbei. Rail lines glowed like threads. Tiny flashes marked late fireworks in far-off cities. Somewhere over there, Sunbeam's lantern nights had already sent their footage through Galaxastream's servers, and Lunna's luminous ice rinks shimmered under Moonbeam's laughter.

Galaxapuff followed his gaze.

"You're thinking about the other regimes again," she said.

"I'm thinking," he corrected, "about how Thanksgiving used to be the night we doubled patrols and waited for surprise attacks. Now... we triple-check drainage systems instead."

"Romantic," Galaxapuff teased.

"It is, in my line of work," he said dryly.

At the top, the monks of Hakkyōten (八境天) shrine greeted them with small bows. The abbot, his robes edged in pale gold, handed Galaxastorm a thin wooden plaque and a brush.

"Write one thing you're grateful for," the abbot said in careful Mandarin. "Then hang it with the others. The wind can decide how to carry it."

Galaxastorm stared at the blank wood for a long moment.

He thought of radars and sirens. Of useless nights in the war era when storms and missiles had competed for the same sky. Of the first time he realized a whole coastline had made it through a season with nothing worse than blown umbrellas and a few lost roofs.

In neat, deliberate characters, he wrote:

Thankful that my work is starting to be boring.

He hung the plaque among hundreds of others, the wind slipping past with a faint, approving rustle.

Galaxapuff leaned close enough to read it and snorted softly.

"If the disaster office sees that," she said, "they'll accuse you of trying to jinx yourself."

"Superstition," Galaxastorm replied. "I prefer data. And the data says our boring trend line is the best one I've ever seen."

"Still," she said lightly, "I'll burn some extra incense just in case."

He did not object.

—

As dawn began to edge the horizon in faint grey-gold, Galaxastorm made one last stop in Galaxenshu State, at Gallaxtetsubei {capital}, where the central emergency coordination tower stood like a slender, golden spine in the middle of the city.

He stepped into the main operations floor, now staffed only by a skeleton crew. Screens showed feeds from Sollarisca's crowded plazas, Lunna's moonlit gardens, Starrup's overstocked Green Swags markets, and Galaxenchi's own quiet streets.

Galaxadye appeared on one screen as a holographic bust, rubbing tired eyes but smiling.

"Storm checks?" Galaxadye asked.

"Minimal threats behaving themselves," Galaxastorm said. "I hovered over them until they felt judged."

"Good." Galaxadye's smile widened. "Trains ran on time. No one fell off a gratitude walk. I'd say the universe cooperated nicely for once."

Another feed split open to show Galaxastream, hair a mess, still in his streaming booth with empty tea cups everywhere.

"Viewer metrics were absurd," Galaxastream yawned. "Half of Titanumas watched at least one cross-regime Thanksgiving segment. You made a very aesthetic entrance on that sea wall, by the way. People are already making fanart of you glaring at the calm ocean."

Galaxastorm blinked. "They... what?"

"It's flattering," Galaxastream said. "Mostly."

Galaxapuff drifted into view over Galaxastream's shoulder, setting down yet another thermos of tea.

"Get used to it," she told Galaxastorm. "The era of terrifying storm general on posters is over. Now you're 'that serious guy who reminds us to close our windows and drink hot soup.'"

Galaxastorm made a thoughtful face.

"I can live with that," he said. "Better than 'the man whose name is on the memorial wall.'"

The others fell quiet for a heartbeat, in that shared understanding that had no need for elaboration.

Then Galaxastorm stepped closer to the central console, folding his arms loosely.

"Here's my Thanksgiving report," he said. "We had festivals on the coast and no one got swept away. We had lantern walks in mountain towns and no one froze on the trail. We had crowded markets in Starrup and nobody trampled anyone for a discount. We had parks full of couples in Lunna and no one had to run to a shelter. We had Sunbeam, Moonbeam, and Starbeam all pulling people toward each other instead of away."

His golden eyes softened.

"And I," he added quietly, "am thankful that for once, my main contribution was telling people they could relax. Just a little."

Galaxbeam's voice came in from an off-screen link, warm and amused.

"Careful, Galaxastorm," he said. "If you keep enjoying peace this much, people will stop believing you were ever the terrifying storm strategist who bullied cyclones with math."

Galaxastorm allowed himself a rare, full smile.

"I will keep the thunder voice in reserve," he said. "For when we need it. Tonight, I am content to be part of the background hum."

He turned to the nearest viewport.

Down below, in the waking streets of Gallaxtetsubei, shopkeepers were rolling up shutters, children were begging for leftover festival sweets, and someone was already sweeping yesterday's lantern wax from the pavement. In a little while, texts would start flying across regimes again: Sunbeam asking about weather patterns for his next park gathering, Moonbeam sending barefoot garden photos with laughing commentary, Starbeam requesting updated storm-risk models for new trade routes.

Galaxastorm rested his forehead briefly against the cool glass.

"Happy Thanksgiving," he murmured—not to the sky, not to the storms, but to the quiet, ordinary morning that had followed a loud, complicated, beautifully boring night.

Then he straightened, adjusted his coat, and went back to his station.

The storms on his screens were far away, properly behaved.

For the first time in a long time, the man named for them allowed himself to believe that maybe—just maybe—the rest of his career would be spent making sure they stayed that way, so that every future Thanksgiving in Galaxenchi could be about warm food, shared paths, and the soft sound of rain that no longer sounded like an enemy.

While Galaxastorm was quietly thanking the universe for a night of boring storm charts and sleeping coastlines, another Supreme Commander of Galaxenchi was watching a very different kind of weather.

The kind that happened inside people.

In Galaxen-Tianlun (天輪) of Gallaxgonbei State, dawn slid in gently through high hospital windows, brushing pale gold across white corridors and the tired faces of night-shift staff.

Supreme Commander Galaxapuff stood in the staff cafeteria with her sleeves rolled up, hair tied into a loose golden bun, apron over her uniform. The apron was printed with tiny chibi-suns, moons, stars, and galaxy swirls—a terrible, adorable thing someone had given her years ago, which she wore on exactly one day each cycle:

Thanksgiving.

"Next tray, please," she called in Mandarin, voice light but firm.

Elite Galaxnurse Hana, dark circles under her golden eyes, shuffled closer with a cart. "Commander, you really don't have to—"

Galaxapuff pressed a lacquered bento box into her hands before she could finish.

"I absolutely do," she said. "If the storm commander can threaten clouds into behaving, I am allowed to bully you into eating something that didn't come from a vending machine."

Hana stared at the box. Steam slipped from its edges, carrying the scent of rice, grilled vegetables, a bit of starfish-shaped egg, and a small, glossy chestnut.

"In three languages," Galaxapuff added mildly, switching to Japanese and then Cantonese, "please sit and eat."

A few nurses at nearby tables giggled behind their masks.

One of the younger interns leaned over to her friend and whispered, "She really came back again... the actual Supreme Commander, making bentos."

Galaxapuff looked over, smiling.

"I heard that," she said. "And for the record, I only made half of them. The kitchen staff made the other half and saved me from disgrace."

The head chef, a broad man with golden hair tucked under a bandana, snorted. "Commander, you roll egg better than some of my apprentices," he muttered in Cantonese. "I fear for my position."

"You are irreplaceable," Galaxapuff told him. "I am merely dangerous enough in the kitchen to be useful."

She moved from table to table, handing over boxes and small cups of miso soup, bowing to surgeons still in their scrubs, paramedics who'd just come in from a long-loop around Galaxen-Boluo (菠蘿) and Galaxen-Nianhua (年華), technicians whose entire night had been spent staring at monitors no citizen ever saw.

"Thank you," she said, over and over. "For staying awake while everyone else celebrated."

A junior doctor tried to stand when she reached his table.

"Commander, I—" he began.

She gently pushed him back into his chair with two fingers.

"Sit," she said. "If you fall over from exhaustion, I'll have to write a report admitting I contributed to medical collapse. I refuse."

That earned honest laughter, weary but real.

"You know," Hana said quietly, watching her, "most people only remember the leaders at parades or broadcasts. Not... here."

Galaxapuff tilted her head.

"People remember whoever points the camera at themselves," she replied. "I am pointing it at you. In my mental archive, you're the main characters."

Hana blinked fast, looking down at her bento again.

"Happy Thanksgiving, Commander," she murmured.

"Happy Thanksgiving," Galaxapuff echoed. "Eat. Then sleep. That's a direct order."

She moved on.

Thanksgiving, for her, began not with the loudest table in the brightest plaza, but with the quietest corner of the most overworked building—making sure the people who carried everyone else had someone carrying them, even for one morning.

By the time she left Tianlun General, the sun had cleared the horizon, and her next stops were already pinging on her wrist console.

The rest of Galaxenchi was waking up.

It was time to go.

—

Her second destination lay in Goldentawn State, in a valley the locals called Hoshiyu Onsen Gorge (星湯渓): hot springs carved into the mountain, steaming out of dark stone, surrounded by ginkgo trees that spilled golden leaves like confetti.

Official maps labeled it more formally—Galaxen-Hoshiyu Resort Complex—but Galaxapuff preferred the older name. The gorge had been a place of retreat since long before the Galaxy Regime rose; she'd insisted they preserve its character when building the modern baths.

Today, it hosted a very particular event: the Caretakers' Thanksgiving Retreat.

No fireworks. No fanfare.

Just the people who supported everyone else.

As she walked through the entrance, attendants bowed and slid open wooden doors, releasing a wave of warmth and mineral-scented steam.

She found the main tatami room by the sound of low conversation and the occasional soft snore.

Around the room, people reclined in yukata of pale gold: administrators with calloused minds instead of hands, logistics coordinators like Galaxlogi Ren, long-distance drivers, dispatchers, community house staff, the human glue that kept all the heroic "front-line" stories from falling apart.

Somewhere near the back wall, Supreme Commander Galaxadye was half-sitting, half-collapsed against a floor cushion, glasses askew, a data tablet sliding from his fingers as he drifted between reading and sleep.

On the porch outside, Galaxastream was soaking in one of the open-air baths, hair tied back, water-proof tablet perched on the stone next to him, fingers still tapping despite the steam curling around him.

Galaxapuff slid the porch door open with a soft clack.

"Streams," she said in Japanese.

He jolted. The tablet nearly slipped into the spring.

"Commander!" he spluttered, catching it in time. "I was, um... monitoring post-stream metrics."

"You were violating the sacred rule of Hoshiyu," she said, stepping out into the steam. "No work devices within splash range."

He opened his mouth to argue, then deflated.

"Fine," he sighed, powering the tablet down and tucking it safely away in a waterproof sleeve. "But if the servers catch fire in the next thirty minutes, it's on your conscience."

"If the servers catch fire, Galaxadye will sense it from his dreams and teleport here screaming," Galaxapuff replied. "You're off duty until the tea ceremony."

He blinked. "There's a tea ceremony?"

She smiled. "There is now."

They went back inside.

In the center of the tatami room, low tables had been set with simple arrangements: clay teapots, cups, plates of small wagashi shaped like stars and moons. Soft music played from a concealed speaker—a blend of koto and guzheng, slow and steady as breathing.

Galaxapuff clapped her hands once.

"Attention, temporary civilians," she said, switching to Mandarin for the room. "I have gathered you here for one reason."

A dozen exhausted faces looked up, wary.

"You are not allowed," she continued, "to say 'it was nothing' when someone thanks you today."

Groans, chuckles, a few embarrassed smiles.

"We are about to engage in a radical, dangerous, high-risk operation," she said seriously. "For the next hour, you will sit still, drink hot tea, and let other people take notes."

Galaxlogi Ren raised a hand weakly. "Commander, that sounds... illegal."

"Deeply," Galaxapuff agreed. "I will take full responsibility. If any crisis occurs, Galaxbeam will yell at me first and spare you."

As if summoned by his name, the Professor's voice crackled briefly from a small speaker on the far table.

"I will not yell," he said in Japanese, amusement audible. "I will simply make very disappointed eyes."

The room laughed.

"Tea, then," Galaxapuff said, kneeling gracefully at the central pot. "And while we drink, I would like each of you to say one thing you are proud of this year. Not grateful for." She looked around, eyes firm. "Proud of. Something you did."

Murmurs rose. A dispatcher from Galaxen-Kakuryu (角龍) tried to sink into her collar.

"Oh no," she muttered. "She's using therapy words."

Galaxapuff's lips curved.

"I have very good ears," she said. "Start at that corner." She pointed to a stoic janitor from Galaxen-Yuehua, who nearly choked on his tea.

One by one, they shared.

"I... reorganized the night-shift rota so no one had three graveyard weeks in a row," he said at last, voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm proud I... asked for two extra staff instead of just taking on more work myself," admitted a community house coordinator from Galaxen-Qianchen (千晨).

"I finally took my vacation days," muttered a driver from Galaxen-Hoshiretsu, cheeks pink. "My niece cried when I actually showed up to her recital."

Galaxadye, now fully awake and sheepishly sipping tea, cleared his throat.

"I... stopped checking signal stability charts after midnight," he said. "Most nights. Some nights. More nights than before."

Galaxastream raised his hand. "I built a network where shy people could say 'thank you' without leaving their rooms," he said. "And I am... stupidly proud of that."

"Good," Galaxapuff said. "You should be."

They tried to flip questions back at her, of course.

"What about you, Commander?" someone asked. "What are you proud of?"

She considered.

"I am proud," she said finally, "that I have become more annoying this year."

The room blinked as one organism.

"In what sense?" Galaxadye asked cautiously.

"I object sooner when I see people burning out," she said. "I cancel more meetings. I override more schedules. I knock on more doors. I make more people take naps. It causes more paperwork for me and more complaining from you. I am proud I kept doing it anyway."

Silence, then soft laughter, then a sprinkling of applause that made her blush despite herself.

"Finish your tea," she said quickly, flustered. "After this, you can soak, sleep, or stare at clouds. That's an order."

They obeyed.

Thanksgiving, for Galaxapuff, meant catching the ones everyone else forgot to thank—even themselves—and gently, stubbornly insisting they were allowed to rest.

—

Her day might have ended there, in steam and tea and drowsy contentment.

But there was one promise she hadn't yet fulfilled.

By late afternoon, she was in Galaxen-Yuehua, the river-city of lights and bridges, where the Lunar Regime's own love of moonlit reflection seemed to echo in Golden form.

Lanterns stitched their way along the water, each one a small sphere of warm light. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts, sesame, and sweet osmanthus. Children ran along the promenade in golden coats, their laughter running just ahead of them.

Tonight, the city hosted the Night of a Thousand Teacups.

No speeches, no holographic projections—just hundreds of small tables set along the river, each with a teapot and cups. People could sit wherever there was space, regardless of age, rank, or state of origin.

Galaxapuff walked slowly down the promenade, cloak off now, in a simple golden qipao under a warm shawl. No medals on show. Only the faint shimmer of her eyes gave away her rank to those who looked closely.

At one table, an elderly couple poured each other tea in silence, their hands moving with long-practiced care. At another, three teenagers argued loudly about which Sun Regime leader had the best hair. Farther down, a small cluster of visiting Lunar citizens—identifiable by their cool blue attire—tried Galaxy-style snacks with varying expressions of delight and confusion.

"Excuse me," a shy voice said in Japanese.

Galaxapuff turned.

A young woman in a factory uniform stood there, twisting her cap in her hands.

"I heard," she said, "that... someone in the Regime was organizing these tea nights because... because of that orange general far away. The one who said no one should eat alone if they didn't want to."

"General Sunbeam," Galaxapuff said, smiling. "Yes. His words reached us. Our Professor and Supreme Commanders adapted them to our... flavor."

The young woman nodded, cheeks coloring.

"I wanted to try," she said. "But I came alone. And I kept walking past the tables thinking, 'I'll just take tea home instead.'"

Galaxapuff gestured to an empty seat at the nearest table.

"Sit with me," she said. "That way, if anyone asks, you can say: 'I spent Thanksgiving having tea with someone very annoying about self-care.' It will make an excellent story."

The woman laughed, the tension in her shoulders loosening.

"Are you... sure?" she asked.

"Completely," Galaxapuff said, pouring tea into both cups. "I came alone too. It would be a shame to waste that coincidence."

They sat.

For a while, they just drank in silence, listening to the murmur of conversations around them, the clink of cups, the soft rush of the river.

Across the way, a group of Galaxy elites—Galaxraihua, Galaxmon, Galaxytsukifenghuang—had joined a table with a visiting Sollariscan Sun soldier and a Lunar Moon medic, all of them trading food like children at a school lunch: dumplings for spiced orange bread, mooncakes for starfruit slices.

"This is... nice," the young woman said eventually. "I thought it would feel... forced. Like a company event. But it just feels... like everyone agreed not to be strangers for a couple of hours."

"That," Galaxapuff said softly, "is exactly the point."

She lifted her own cup.

"In Sollarisca," she said, "they light lanterns and dance in plazas. In Lunna, they walk barefoot through glowing gardens. In Starrup, they make absurd amounts of vegetarian food and give half of it away. Here, in Galaxenchi, we do something a little quieter."

"We sit," the woman said.

"We sit," Galaxapuff echoed. "We pour for each other. We practice the radical art of having nothing urgent to do for ten minutes."

The young woman looked at her over the rim of her cup.

"You talk like a teacher," she said.

"I work for one," Galaxapuff replied, amused. "Some of it rubs off."

As evening deepened, the conversations along the river grew softer, warmer. Someone began playing an erhu farther down; a child fell asleep on a parent's lap, fist still wrapped around a biscuit. A visiting Star Regime engineer explained the mechanics of their vegetarian turducken to a baffled Galaxy chef. Somewhere, Sunbeam's face flickered briefly on a screen, laughing with Moonbeam and Starbeam in some replayed news montage.

Galaxapuff watched it all and felt a quiet, swelling pride.

Not the explosive kind that came with battlefield victories or successful storm diversions.

The kind that came with watching a world choose, over and over, to make room for each other.

When the last pot at her table was empty and the young woman had left, promising to come back next year "with at least one friend," Galaxapuff stayed a little longer, fingers wrapped around the lingering warmth of her cup.

Her wrist console buzzed.

A message from Sunbeam:

Heard from Galaxbeam you hosted a tea ambush instead of a parade.
Proud of you. ☀️
Fewer lonely benches tonight?

She smiled and typed back:

Fewer lonely benches.
More shared pots.
Keep sending speeches that make my job easier. 🌙⭐☀️✨

Another buzz. Moonbeam this time:

We did barefoot gardens and tea too.
One day, all four of us should host a cross-regime tea call and watch the universe short-circuit from softness.

Galaxapuff laughed softly to herself.

"Careful," she murmured. "Galaxastream will actually build that."

She stood, stretching, the riverlight painting her golden hair in ripples.

Thanksgiving, for her, had been one long arc: from hospital corridors to hot springs to riverside tea. Not loud, not dramatic. But necessary.

On her way back to her transport, she passed a bench where two strangers—one in a shipyard jacket from Galaxen-Shenyu, one in a school uniform from Galaxen-Tiansu—were awkwardly sharing a convenience-store dessert.

"You can have the bigger half," the shipyard worker said.

"No, you," the student replied.

Galaxapuff walked by without interrupting, heart quietly full.

Somewhere above, satellites traced their orbits; storms slid harmlessly along distant routes; data streams hummed.

Down here, in the gentle glow of the Night of a Thousand Teacups, she thought, the real infrastructure was being built: one shared table, one honest "I was tired," one soft "thank you for staying," at a time.

She climbed into her shuttle, one last cup of tea in a travel thermos, and looked back at Galaxen-Yuehua shrinking beneath her.

"Happy Thanksgiving," she whispered—to nurses, to logisticians, to technicians and tired students, to everyone who held the world together in ways most people never saw.

Then she smiled, closed her eyes for the first real rest of the cycle, and let the golden continent carry on glowing below, held in a web of roads, rails, signals, and—thanks to Sunbeam, Moonbeam, Starbeam, Galaxbeam, and all their stubborn hearts—ever more connections between one human soul and another.

By the time Galaxapuff's shuttle slipped up through the golden mist over Galaxen-Yuehua, the rest of Galaxenchi was already deep into its own quiet festival of gratitude.

Across the continent, the Professor's Thanksgiving lecture still lingered in people's minds—his words about history, harvests, and the duty to remember that "thanks" was not just a word, but a way of living together. Under that wide, star-shaped banner, the elites of the Galaxy Regime moved through the night like bright brushstrokes across a glowing canvas.

In Gallaxgonbei State, Galaxmon stood at the top of the old stone steps in Galaxenportal City, a calligraphy brush in his hand and ink staining the ends of his fingers. The plaza below him was filled with rows of simple wooden tables and paper lanterns waiting to be lit.

"Next sheet," he said gently in Mandarin, and a small girl in a too-big golden scarf stepped forward, clutching a blank slip of paper.

"I don't know what to write," she whispered.

"Then we start with the simplest thing," Galaxmon replied. "Write the name of someone you're thankful is still here."

She looked back at her parents—two engineers from the reactor district, hands still rough from their shifts—and then back at him. Her eyes softened.

"What if they're embarrassed?" she asked.

"Embarrassment is a sign of a living heart," Galaxmon said. "Write it anyway."

He guided her hand through the strokes, the characters forming slow and deliberate: a parent's name, then another. Around them, the long steps filled with people of all ages, writing words of thanks in Chinese, Japanese, and mixed Galaxy-script—some neat as printed text, some clumsy and crooked, all equally precious.

Farther down the steps, Galaxrise collected the finished slips, reading a few as the lantern volunteers tied them to thin wires.

"This one just says 'I survived,'" he murmured.

Galaxwis leaned over his shoulder. "That's enough for a whole lantern by itself."

Galaxwise nodded solemnly. "We should hang it higher."

They worked with the grace of practiced hands, twin data-minds for once dealing in paper and string instead of numbers. When the first row of lanterns went up over Gallenkodai Town at the far edge of the state, the breeze caught the lines and made the handwritten thanks tremble like soft stars.

"Light them," Galaxmon called.

Flames bloomed in a wave, golden-yellow echoing across Jakchi City, Galaxenwarpe City, and the outskirts of Galaxencloude as similar installations came online. From orbit, if Galaxbeam glanced down, he would have seen Gallaxgonbei stitched with a bright sash of moving light—every lantern a line of gratitude, every flame a tiny refusal to forget.

"Professor said Thanksgiving is remembering we didn't build the world alone," Galaxrise said quietly.

Galaxwis smiled. "For once, I agree with his sentimental mode."

Galaxwise snorted. "You always agree. You just pretend you don't."

They laughed, fingers still stained with ink and wax, as another group of children ran up the stairs clutching fresh sheets.

In Galaxenshu State, the evening was louder.

At Bekikonshu City, the central street had been converted into a massive "Walking Market of Thanks." Strings of paper cranes crossed between buildings; holographic koi shimmered in the air, darting lazily above stalls of food and small crafts.

Galaxlady stood at an impromptu stage in the middle of the street, mic in one hand, the other planted on her hip. Her golden hair was swept into a high ponytail, eyes bright with mischief.

"All right, Bekikonshu!" she shouted in Japanese, her voice rolling easily over the crowd. "Welcome to tonight's Gratitude Stage. Rule number one: you cannot say 'it was nothing' when someone thanks you. That's illegal for the next three hours."

The crowd roared.

Beside her, Galaxcharm adjusted her in-ear monitor, flashing a dazzling smile at the cameras.

"We've got musicians, storytellers, dancers, and one very nervous logistics officer who agreed to read a poem," she announced. "Remember, clapping is also a form of thanks. Do not let anyone leave this stage wondering if they mattered."

First up was a pair of schoolgirls from Galaxadhonlai, giggling and shoving each other until the music started. Then they moved in sync, golden sleeves flaring as they performed a fusion dance: a little Lunar ice-skating footwork, a hint of Solar parade flair, all wrapped in Galaxy Regime elegance.

From the sidelines, Galaxmoon filmed the performance on her tablet, multitasking as always. In one window, she tracked donation metrics for a charity fund supporting orphaned students; in another, she queued clips to send to Galaxbeam's education feeds.

"You're working," Galaxcharm whispered as she passed.

"I'm archiving joy," Galaxmoon replied. "It's research."

"Your research has more giggles than most," Galaxlady said approvingly.

Later, a visiting Sun soldier in orange stepped nervously onto the stage, clutching a guitar.

"I... wrote this after watching General Sunbeam's speech," he stammered in accented Japanese. "And then... Professor Galaxbeam's lecture. This is... my thanks to both leaders... for not giving up on us."

The first chords rang out across Galaxenchi-Jikūzan (時空山) district's plazas, and for a few minutes, Bekikonshu City held its breath as one ordinary voice stitched two continents together with shaky bravery.

Galaxlady felt her throat tighten.

"This," she murmured to Galaxcharm between verses, "is why we put up the stage."

"That," Galaxcharm agreed, "and because I like bossing entire streets around."

In Goldentawn State, the air tasted of tea and roasted sweet potato.

On a hillside overlooking Galaxen-Boluo (薄罗), Galaxharp tuned a koto beneath a pergola hung with gold paper strips. Below her, a small amphitheater had filled with families seated on blankets, cups of hot tea cradled in their hands.

"Sound check," she said softly in Cantonese. "One, two, three..."

Notes rang out, clear and gentle, sliding down the hill like water.

Tonight was an informal "Songs of Thanks" gathering—no cameras, no official scripts. Just music shared in the open air.

"Play the one from Lunna!" a child shouted from the front row. "The garden one!"

Galaxharp smiled.

"You mean the barefoot garden song?" she asked.

A ripple of giggles and excited nods went through the younger children.

She shifted to a different tuning.

"This is a piece," she said, "inspired by Lady Moonbeam's glowing garden walks and our own Professor's insistence that being grateful for your feet is just as important as being grateful for your mind. Do your best not to fall asleep."

As she played, the melody wove images of soft soil, dim lights, quiet laughter. A few parents closed their eyes, shoulders easing. A teenager in the back, headphones around his neck, slowly lowered his device and just listened.

By the time the last note faded, the stars overhead had brightened. Someone lit a cluster of floating lanterns on the pond below. Parents pulled children closer under shared blankets, murmuring small thanks to each other—unremarkable words, the kind that become the pillars of a life.

Galaxharp looked out at them and thought, not for the first time, that conquering loneliness was a war more complicated than any space battle.

But nights like this felt like wins.

In Yealbankokk State, the city of Galaxen-Yongheng (永恒) glowed with screens.

Inside a glass-walled square near Galaxen-Fengjue (风爵), the "Data of Thanks" installation pulsed gently. Four towering pillars of light rose from the floor, each made of millions of tiny symbols and icons: words like 谢谢 and ありがとう and "thanks" and "I'm glad you're here," drawn from anonymous messages across Galaxenchi.

Galaxwis and Galaxwise stood at the center, watching their creation update in real time.

"Look at that," Galaxwis said quietly. "Every time someone sends a gratitude message through the public channels, the pillars get brighter."

Galaxwise pointed. "That cluster there—that's from Xiacun and Tung-she. Must be a local community group having a Thanksgiving potluck."

A pair of kids pressed their noses to the glass.

"What is it?" one asked.

"A map," Galaxwis said. "Of who is thanking who."

"And what if no one thanks you?" the other child asked bluntly.

"Then we have more work to do," Galaxwise replied, serious. "This is a diagnostic. Not a scoreboard."

On one side of the square, a small booth offered help to people who weren't sure how to start. A volunteer elite from Galaxyqiongyu sat with a shy young man, helping him compose his first message to an estranged friend.

"What if they don't reply?" he asked.

"Then you still did something brave," the volunteer said. "In the Professor's terms, you increased the total honesty in the universe by one unit. That's never wasted."

Behind them, the pillars flared briefly, a burst of light running up their lengths like a heartbeat.

Galaxwis smiled faintly.

"One more unit," he said.

"One more," Galaxwise agreed.

Far to the south, in Gollanhai State's coastal city of Galaxen-Xingwu (星舞), the harbor was a riot of lanterns and laughter.

Tonight, Thanksgiving took the form of the Friendship Fleet: dozens of small ferries decked in golden streamers, carrying mixed groups of citizens on short night cruises around the bay. Every ticket was "buy one, gift one"—you paid for yourself and for a stranger whose name you wouldn't see until you boarded.

On Pier 4, Galaxytsukifenghuang stood beside the gangplank of the lead ferry, dressed not in formal robes, but in a simple golden yukata patterned with tiny phoenix feathers. Her hair was tied back with a red-and-gold ribbon; in her hands, she carried a small book of ancient harvest prayers.

"Next pair, please," she said in melodic Japanese.

A Lunar medic in blue stepped forward, ticket in one hand, the other awkwardly holding a paper bag full of bakery sweets clearly bought as a peace offering. At the same time, a Star Regime engineer in dark green reached the top of the ramp from the other direction, clutching a box labeled "prototype vegetarian roast—handle gently."

They nearly collided.

"Sumimasen!" "不好意思！"

They both froze.

Galaxytsukifenghuang's eyes sparkled.

"Perfect," she said. "This ferry specializes in 'accidental alliances.' You two are seatmates now."

They gaped at her.

"We're strangers," the engineer protested.

"So were we," she said, gesturing around at the dozens of mixed-uniform groups already boarding. "Before we weren't."

The Lunar medic shifted uncomfortably. "I... don't talk much."

"That's all right," Galaxytsukifenghuang replied. "You're about to sit on a boat with moving water, soft lights, and tea. Silence is legal. But maybe, by the time you dock, you'll at least know each other's names."

She stepped aside, letting them pass.

On the upper deck, as the ferries pulled away, she began a short chant—half Shinto blessing, half reworked Galaxy civic oath—thanking the sea for its patience, the engineers for their stubbornness, the medics for their sleepless care, and all the quiet hands that kept Titanumas turning.

Her voice carried over the water, drifting between ships where unlikely trios and quartets had formed: a Sollariscan Sun soldier sharing orange candies with a shy Galaxy programmer; a Lunar archivist comparing garden designs with a Starrup economist; two Galaxy citizens simply sitting side by side, saying nothing at all, but not alone.

Galaxytsukifenghuang watched the lights spreading across Galaxen-Tianjing (天境) Bay and thought of Galaxbeam's lecture, Sunbeam's plaza feasts, Moonbeam's garden walks, Starbeam's green roasts.

Different worlds. Same longing.

No one wants to be a ghost in their own life, she thought. Tonight, we give them reasons to feel real.

In Galaxengoneiban State, Thanksgiving sounded like game music.

At Galaxenchi-Hoshihira (星平), the central community house had been converted into a massive retro arcade for the night. Old consoles, gleaming rhythm games, holo-fighters, and cooperative puzzle stations filled every corner. Above the door, a holographic sign flickered:

"THANKFULNESS CO-OP MODE: PRESS START TO PLAY TOGETHER"

GalaxM(GM)—a female elite with headset askew and a perpetual mischievous grin—stood at the center of the chaos, clipboard in one hand, game controller in the other.

"Remember the rules!" she shouted over the music. "No solo queues tonight. You want to play, you join at least one stranger. We are farming achievements in 'awkward friendship.'"

A pair of teenagers groaned.

"But I'm bad at rhythm games," one protested.

"Perfect," GalaxM said. "You will give someone else the gift of feeling useful while they carry you. That is also a form of thanks."

At a corner station, Galaxssuki and Galaxnetta coached a nervous older man through his first cooperative platformer.

"Jump now!"
"Now dash!"
"It's okay, you fell, we all fall, that's why respawns exist!"

He laughed so hard at his own clumsiness that he had to wipe tears from his eyes.

"This is ridiculous," he said between gasps.

"It's Thanksgiving," Galaxssuki replied. "Ridiculous is allowed."

On the top floor, a quieter room offered board games and card tables. Galaxveronica oversaw a tournament where every time you won a round, you had to name one thing you were thankful for that had nothing to do with work.

"Family," someone said.

"Hot showers," said another.

"The Professor's lectures," a third offered sheepishly.

"Incorrect," Galaxveronica said dryly. "The correct answer was: 'Commander GalaxM's brilliant event planning.' But I suppose we can accept that."

Laughter rolled around the room like dice.

Scattered across Suzutamashi State, other elites found smaller ways to mark the day.

In a corner of Galaxen-Tongling (通灵), Galaxlianhime and Galaxmeiyori organized a lantern walk for foreign students who had no families nearby. They walked slowly through narrow streets lined with older houses, their lanterns reflecting in puddles, sharing stories about home in a mix of Mandarin, Japanese, and the halting accent of Sollariscan exchange kids.

On a rooftop in Galaxen-Shenyu (神域), Galaxymeifeng hosted a quiet tea circle for people who had lost someone that year. No speeches, no forced sharing—just a golden teapot that never seemed to empty, and the gentle rustle of wind through hanging charms inscribed with names.

Down at a small riverside café in Galaxen-Yuehua, Galaxlady and Galaxcharm finally took off their mics and just... sat. Their voices were hoarse from hours of hosting, their cheeks aching from smiling.

"Do you ever..." Galaxcharm began, then stopped, searching for the word.

"Crash?" Galaxlady supplied. "After the lights go off?"

"Yes," Galaxcharm admitted. "Like you gave away all your brightness and forgot to keep some for yourself."

Galaxlady stirred her drink slowly.

"That's why we do this together," she said. "So when you forget, I remember. When I forget, you remind me."

She lifted her cup.

"To loud days," she said.

"And quiet nights," Galaxcharm added, clinking her cup against it.

They drank, listening to the distant echo of music and the nearer sound of someone laughing with relief across the room.

High above, aboard a modest orbital platform drifting between Galaxenchi and the stars, Galaxbeam watched the composite feeds: lanterns over Gallaxgonbei, stages in Galaxenshu, tea in Goldentawn, data pillars in Yealbankokk, ferries in Gollanhai, arcade chaos in Galaxengoneiban.

He could see the patterns in them the way other people saw constellations.

People building excuses to sit together. People turning awkwardness into shared jokes. People remembering to thank the ones who rarely made headlines. People, in every color and language, refusing to accept that loneliness was just "how life is."

He thought of Sunbeam in his plazas, Moonbeam in her glowing gardens, Starbeam among his green reactors, Galaxapuff among her teacups, and all the elites down below doing a thousand small, stubbornly kind things no camera would ever fully capture.

"If Thanksgiving is a story," he murmured in three languages at once, "they are the chapters that keep it honest."

On the continents below, the Galaxy Regime's elites went on with their night—pouring tea, dealing cards, tuning instruments, debugging servers, walking slow circles with people who needed company.

No big battle. No villain to defeat.

Just a quiet, golden, galaxy-wide decision: to be grateful for each other in ways that could be felt, not just said.

And somewhere, on a bench in Solvanairebolis, and a garden in Lunna, and a tower in Starflare Capital, three other absolute leaders felt that same feeling in their chests without knowing exactly why—the sense that, across oceans and stars, more lights than ever were being switched on in human hearts.