Talosian Chronicles 1: Olympus (18 page)

“One night, when we were both seventeen, my parents caught us kissing, and my father beat me up pretty badly. He broke my arm and jaw and by the time I was released from the hospital, Andrea had been sent to a finishing school. After I’d healed, my Father took me down to the army recruiting office and told me to sign up, or not bother to come home.

“By the time I got out of the military, Andrea was already on her second marriage. I ran into Laura again, one night while I was out drinking my troubles away and we fell in love. I’ve never actually told her about Andrea and I, but she knows something happened between us.

“Andrea has had a horrible life. She’s been divorced four times and is becoming a lonely, embittered woman. We’ve invited her to visit us of course, but she never stays very long. The last few years, she just said she can’t get away.” Elias deflated. “I can’t help but feel that I’m responsible for the hell her life has become. I took advantage of her when she was young.”

“I think you need to talk to Laura about it, Elias. Maybe between the two of you, you can think of something to help Andrea. Hell, invite her out here for a visit if you want. But you need to understand that you are not responsible for what was done to either of you. You cannot be held to blame for the actions of narrow-minded fools. I can see in your eyes that you still love her. Talk to Laura, call Andrea, and fix this before it hurts her anymore,” Ian advised.

“Do you think you could use another doctor? Andrea is a licensed nurse practitioner,” Elias asked.

“Oh hell yeah! If you can talk her into coming out; put her ticket on the company card. But you do understand, even if she doesn’t want the job, she’s still welcome,” Ian said.

Elias nodded agreement and acceptance, “There is another issue I think I should mention. I sure as hell didn’t want to handle it the way my parents did, so maybe you can give me some more advice?”

Ian chuckled. “Aren’t you supposed to be giving me advice on girls?”

Elias chuckled too. “Well, I would but you understand our new way of life better than I do. Besides, you seem more like a very mature adult then you do an eighteen year old kid.” He sighed. “It’s my daughter Stephanie and her boyfriend, Kyle.”

“Okay, I don’t see an issue there, unless you don’t approve of Kyle?” Ian asked.

“No, he’s a great kid. What’s got me confused is that if I didn’t know better, I’d say that Kyle was also dating Tara Belden, and Steph is perfectly fine with it! Hell, the two girls are best friends, and if it wasn’t for Kyle, I’d be wondering about how close of friends they really were,” Elias explained.

“Maybe all three of them would like to be together. There’s nothing wrong with that either, But I can see where some folks in the community would have issue with it,” Ian said.

“Possibly, maybe I should have a talk with the kids. Try to get them to keep it under control or something,” Elias said.

“Or, since they are all considered adults now under Talosian law, We could let them in on the secret since they’re so hot for the new ‘video game’ anyway, let them climb into a real cockpit,” Ian suggested.

“Ian, I just don’t know if they are all mature enough for that yet. Being a fighter pilot is a lot of responsibility,” Elias said.

Ian smiled. “All of them are either my age or older, Elias. I know Kyle and Steph from school, we weren’t close friends, but from what I’ve seen of them, they could handle it. I don’t anything about Tara though. Is Tara Belden lass mature than Steph and Kyle?”

“No, if anything, she the most mature of all three of them, I’m worried more about Steph than I am about the other two, she gets so sensitive about the smallest things sometimes,” Elias explained.

Nodding, Ian continued. “Well, I’ll talk to Beth and Janet about it, but maybe we should take the Beldens down to the base to treat the alcoholism instead of up to the ship. Once we tell them the truth, maybe the kids can convince them of the rest. It might help to have you there for that, Luke trusts you like a brother.”

“I don’t know; Luke is very protective of his little girl. I think he likes Kyle and wouldn’t have a problem if the two dated... but I have no idea how he would feel about what the kids want.”

“We’ll just have to make sure he’s in a position where he can’t get out of control if he takes it badly. I’ll tell you what, I’ll help you talk to the kids. We’ll get the kids up to speed tonight, and then work on a strategy for the Beldens,” Ian suggested.

Elias nodded, “Okay, I’ll go let Steph know, then go have a word with Laura about Andrea. Why don’t you stop by right after dinner?”

“Okay, I’ll bring one of their future commanding officers with me. Probably Talena since she has more knowledge about how things work with these kinds of relationships.”

“Okay, see ya later then,” Elias said as he walked away.

––––––––

“I
still have a hard time understanding the societal bias against perfectly normal relationships. I mean, how can people stand to let someone else tell them who to love?” Talena said as they walked over to the Johnson’s trailer. “Maybe I should talk to...uh, sorry, never mind.”

“Is something bothering you, Little Kitten?” Ian asked, gently brushing her hair back from her face.

“No, Ian. Nothing’s bothering me,” she said flatly.

Ian wanted to pursue this with his young friend, but they had arrived at Elias’ house.

“Come on in, Ian, Talena, we’ve been expecting you,” Elias said as he answered the door. “Tara is here too, I didn’t even have to ask them to get her over here; Steph asked if they could come to dinner.”

Ian chuckled, “Well, tonight’s discussion should really take them by surprise then.”

Elias led them into the living room area and got them something to drink. “Ready?” He asked.

“Let’s do this, but before you do, how’d your talk go with Laura about Andrea?” Ian asked.

Elias smiled. “I’ll be going to pick her up from the airport tomorrow night. I think Laura is more excited than I am about it.”

Laura grinned over her shoulder as she walked down the hall to the kids’ rooms. Shortly, three bewildered teenagers followed her back into the room, and sat wherever there was room.

“Elias asked me over to talk to you guys about something you might not want to admit. Now, before you freak out, I want you all to know, that no matter what, no one is going to judge you on your answers as long as they are honest. Understand?” Ian asked.

All three of them looked a little startled and somewhat scared, but nodded.

Ian grinned at them. “Okay, here’s what we know and/or suspect. Kyle and Steph are common knowledge, but we believe that Kyle and Tara have fallen in love. So have Stephanie and Tara, are we correct so far? Remember, no one is going to get mad, or yell, or punish any of you - as long as you answer honestly.”

Kyle swallowed hard but sat up straighter. “Yes, Ian. You’re correct.  Both Steph and I have fallen pretty hard for Tara. We thought we were being pretty circumspect about it though.”

Talena gave a snort. “Oh, puh-lease! We all know about it, Kyle! Just the way you look at each other is a dead give-away. But what you didn’t know is that none of the other kids seem to be bothered about it either. I’m just surprised that none of the ‘adults’ have caught on.” She glanced at Elias and Laura. “Well, more of them anyway.”

Elias cleared his throat. “Uh, Laura and I would like to know if everyone is okay with this, no one is being forced or anything?”

Stephanie blushed brightly, and Kyle almost chuckled. “No sir. Steph and Tara actually got together, but made sure I was okay with it first. My only issue was that I wanted to meet Tara first, and make sure she wasn’t going to hurt Steph.”

“Um, no offense, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but what business is it of yours who we love?” Tara asked softly.

Ian’s grin grew even larger. “Absolutely none! Except for the fact that we might have a way for you all to be together without having to hide it; that is, if you’d be interested in something like that.”

“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say we would be interested,” Stephanie answered, somewhat sarcastically.

“Well, there are a few things you need to know first,” Ian said, and launched into the story of Olympus. As he finished up, he looked at each of them. “I’m willing to accept all three of you as pilot trainees, but you’re going to have to help us figure out how to break the news to Tara’s parents. You didn’t bring your parents out here did you Kyle?”

“No sir,” Kyle replied shaking his head. “I moved out on my own last summer after I graduated. I was hoping to ask Steph to move in with me eventually.”

“Hold it, you’re trying to tell us that there’s a huge starship on the moon, and there’s a base underground here?” Stephanie asked. “I don’t know who sold you this bill of goods, but I have a bridge you might be interested in.”

Tara snickered at her lover. “Talena’s a great person, and more mature than just about anyone I could name, but is she an alien? No way.”

“Oly?” Ian asked as he smiled at the disbelieving kids.

The hologram appeared beside the chair Ian was sitting in. “Yes Commander?”

Stephanie was just staring at him, while both Kyle and Tara jumped as soon as they saw him simply appear.

“The three young cadets here don’t believe a word I just said. I was hoping you could display a hologram of the ship for them so they could see what it looks like,” Ian asked.

“Certainly Commander,” The old computer replied. A small hologram of the ship appeared above the coffee table and even Laura, Elias’ wife seemed intrigued. “The Heavy Cruiser, F.S.S.
Olympus
,” Oly said proudly.

There was silence in the room as the three young people tried to absorb what they were witnessing. Finally, Tara spoke first. “This is real isn’t it? I mean, you’re not trying to pull something over on us are you?”

“So, that’s where you’ve been sending all the people that seem to show up, then just disappear,” Stephanie said.

“Why would I lie to you? I’m letting you in on our secret so you three can be together. However, there are some conditions on this information,” Ian started to explain.

“You need pilots for the fighters she carries,” Kyle said, pointing to the ship. “The game system you built is actually a flight simulator, and you want the three of us to go aboard to learn how to fly them for real.”

“Well, the game system isn’t really that close to an actual flight simulator, but we’re working on it. However, you are correct; we do need more pilots. So far, we only have two; Talena and Cindy. But I want you to know you don’t have to be fighter pilots; there are plenty of other positions available if the idea of becoming a combat pilot isn’t to your liking,” Ian said. “As I was saying though, this information is a secret. You can’t tell anyone.”

“I’ve got a million questions, but I’ll hold off for a bit if you’ll answer the first one?” Stephanie asked.

“Go ahead,” Ian replied.

“Why are you telling us now?”

Elias cleared his throat to indicate he wanted to answer the question. Ian nodded to him to go ahead. “I asked the Commander to speak to you three tonight. If you hadn’t asked if Tara and Kyle could come to dinner, I would have asked you to invite them over. It’s becoming obvious to Laura and I how you feel about each other. If it’s obvious to us, it’s got to be obvious to everyone else as well.

“If it were just two of you, I doubt I would have said anything at all, but since Kyle and Stephanie are known to be together, and it’s becoming obvious that Tara is getting close to both of them as well. I thought it best to ask the Commander and Talena over to speak to you tonight. I doubt if anyone would say anything about Steph ‘dating’ another girl, but I know someone would have words to say about all three of you.”

When he didn’t continue, Kyle turned back to Ian. “I guess I’m a little slow, but I don’t see how this secret affects our relationship.”

“Talosian culture is very diverse and liberal. It allows for same sex and multiple partner relationships, as well. However, the community here has no idea who we really are, or what we are really trying to do, and even if they did, I don't think they would be able to accept a relationship between the three of you. So, if I take you down to the base, and get you going on flight school, you three can be together, and no one will say a word,” Ian explained.

“But what about collage, and our friends and...” Stephanie began only to have Kyle interrupt her.

“Did you say down to the base, as in underground... here?”

Ian grinned. “Yes, underground here. That’s where the people have been disappearing to, not to the ship. The ship was severely damaged and is currently being repaired by special robots. You’ll understand more by morning.”

Tara turned to Talena. “Are you really from another planet?”

“Well, not exactly. I was born on a space station, but I’m not from here so I guess the question is still valid,” Talena answered.

“No one’ll care if we love each other?” Stephanie asked. It was obvious she had been the most worried about someone noticing.

“If they do, then they would be in the wrong. Ian is bonded to Beth, Cindy and Jenny. I'm sure they would let me join them as well, if I wanted to,” Talena said.

“Join them? As in... sleep with them?” Stephanie asked.

“Well, I didn't actually have sleeping in mind, but I imagine that would eventually happen,” Talena replied, grinning.

Ian looked at Talena in surprise. “I didn't know you thought of us that way, sweetheart. But that's something we can talk about it later.”

“Would you mind if we discussed it before giving you an answer? I don’t want to make a decision without talking to them first,” Kyle asked.

“Son, that - if nothing else - tells me you are off to a good start in a multiple partner relationship. Granted, I don’t know much about them, but even in a traditional relationship like I have with Laura, communication is the most important tool. Use it well, and often,” Elias said.

“Of course you should talk it over first. I know you probably have a thousand more questions, but I can honestly say that most of them will be answered tonight while you sleep,” Ian said.