Talosian Chronicles 1: Olympus (21 page)

Ian grinned, “I don’t see a problem with any of that. When do you want to start?”

“You said you were going to be meeting with my folks later today about the treatment for Daddy. I think we’d like to see what happens with that first,” Tara said. “Stephanie and I would also like to see Doctor Williams, if we could?”

“I told Beth that you would like to see her today, she said to go down whenever you wanted to, and she’d be able to see you; after all, she isn’t all that busy right now,” Ian said.

“Go down? As in, down to the base?” Stephanie asked.

Ian tried hard not to laugh. “Well, that is where the main clinic’s at.” He turned to Oly. “Oly grant them access to the main level and guide them to the med bay please.” He turned back to the three. “Officially, you’re still civilians. Once you take the oath, you’ll be cadets and assigned quarters in the base near the main hangar. Don’t worry about being underground, hell, half the time you won’t even realize it. However, you will still have some duties up here. We can’t just have you all up and disappearing, so you’ll need to show your faces from time to time. Now, I have a meeting coming together right now, but if you have any more questions, feel free to ask if I’m not busy. Beth or any of the girls can answer questions too.”

The three stood and Ian stood with them, “Welcome aboard,” he said as he offered them his hand. All three shook it, and were smiling as they left.

“Those three are going to be a hell of a team one day,” Ian said to Oly after they’d left.

“Sir, the senior officers are gathering in the conference room,” Oly said.

“Well then, let’s go get your engineers on their way,” Ian said as he led the old hologram out of the room.

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C
indy took a full load of engineers up to the ship to begin the human portions of the repairs. She would stay up there for a week, in case there was an emergency and someone needed to be flown out. Beth also insisted that she be allowed to send one of her three nurses for the same reason.

The report by Oly that the ship was now safe enough for the engineers to go up and assist in the remaining repairs brought excitement to the rest of Ian’s staff. Everyone was in better spirits once they learned of the progress. Many of the departments expressed a strong desire to get up there so they could begin their real jobs.

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A
couple of weeks ago, Elias came to Ian with a problem. One of his better workers was having a hard time with a drinking problem. Ian’s first concern was for the family; were they safe? Was the man in question abusing them?

Elias assured him that wasn’t the case and the man wasn’t that kind of drunk. Elias hadn’t mentioned it before, because the man, Luke Belden, was controlling it. However, the last few days Luke had been showing up to work drunk, and Elias had sent him home to sleep it off.

After discussing it with Elias, and consulting Beth, Ian decided to approach the family about getting some help for Luke. He tried to be gentle about it, but if Luke refused help, Ian would have to let him go. Neither Elias nor Ian wanted to do that.

Ian presented the family with a few options, and tried to make sure the family knew that his concern was for them, and not ‘the project’. After talking it over for a couple of days, Luke and Lara agreed to meet with Ian and Beth to deal with the problem once and for all.

Finally, it was time for the meeting with Luke and Lara. Without preamble, Ian and Beth led Luke, Lara, and Tara to the elevator that would take them down to the base. Tara’s eyes got huge as she realized what Ian was doing.

“Luke, Lara, what I’m about to show you, and tell you about, is a very important secret. I think the reasons will become obvious once you know what the secret is. I know you will have a lot of questions, and not a little disbelief. That’s normal, and only to be expected at first. But I do ask you to give us the opportunity to explain what you are about to see, and what’s really going on,” Ian said. “I will also swear to you that every word of this explanation will be the truth.”

“That’s some lead-in, Ian. I thought we were here to discuss sending me to rehab?” Luke asked, for once, mostly sober.

“Luke, conventional rehab offers treatment only for the chemical dependency. We can go one better than that,” Beth said as the elevator doors opened on the main entrance lobby for the base.

“Holy SHIT!” Luke said as he stepped out of the small car. “Where did all this come from? When did we build it?”

“You didn’t build it, Luke. However, it was started about the same time work began on the surface. We’re currently about two hundred feet below ground. This is where all those people that show up and seem to disappear actually go,” Ian said, carefully and slowly guiding the gawking couple toward the med bay.

“What’s... Why is this place here? Are you part of some secret government agency or something?” Lara asked, sounding a little scared.

“This base, and the community we’re building on the surface, is in no way connected to any government on the planet. All of this is just us, no one else. About four thousand years ago...” Ian began the story of the crash of the Olympus, and how the old computer had found him and why.

They’d been walking slowly, and Ian was talking fast, so by the time Ian got to the ‘why’ they were in front of the doors to the main hangar. He typed in his command code and the big doors slid open to reveal the rows of Hornet fighters, and other space craft built in the base. There was also plenty of activity; people working on the craft, or equipment associated with them. There were also a few maintenance drones floating around on their counter-grav fields.

“We’re not aliens in the sense that we are from another planet. We’re as human as everyone else. However, we do have ancestors that, while they were also human, were from another planet,” Ian finished.

“By ‘we’, you mean you, Jenny and the others... right?” Lara asked nervously.

“The most obvious sign of our heritage is a lack of certain types of body hair. There are a few other signs, but they’re not as noticeable,” Beth explained. “Which brings us back to why we’re here. Talosian medical science is roughly a thousand years ahead of Earth knowledge. I can actually cure your alcoholism, Luke, not just treat the symptoms.”

Luke looked thoughtful for a few minutes. “Ian, I feel I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the past couple of months. I knew you had some secrets; hell, who doesn’t? I never expected anything like this.” He looked around again before focusing on Ian.

“However, I do know how national security works and all that cloak and dagger stuff. With what you’ve shown us, there’s no way you can take the risk that we’ll tell anyone. We can never leave now, can we? If we tried, you’d be forced to kill us to protect this secret. By letting me bring my wife and daughter, you’ve insured our cooperation.”

Ian shook his head. “Nope, not true. Yes, it may appear that way, but it isn’t. Your word is all that I need. I’ve gotten to know you as well, and I know that, once you really get to see what we’re doing here; what the real mission is, you’ll gladly help us. That’s just the type of person you are.

“Yes, I did hide this from you, I’m sure you can understand why. Eventually, I’d like to tell everyone on the surface the whole truth, but that can’t happen yet. We do still have some secrets, mostly to do with weapons systems and the like. But from now on, and with those exceptions, we won’t hide anything from you. If you have a question, ask. Unless it deals with something classified, you’ll get an answer or an explanation why. You and your family are in no danger from us,” Ian said, looking Luke right in the eye.

“What if we try to leave?” Luke asked.

“If you want, I’ll drive you to the airport myself,” Ian said firmly.

“No threats, no insurance that we’ll keep our mouths shut?” Luke asked.

“I took you into my confidence by showing all this to you. I honestly don’t believe you would ever knowingly betray that,” Ian said.

Luke was silent for a few moments, just looking at Ian. He turned to Beth, “So, Doctor, what’s this about a cure?”

Beth led the Beldens back toward her offices, with Ian and Tara following behind. “That was a close call,” Tara said softly. “I’ve never seen Daddy like that before.”

Ian chuckled, “Just wait until you tell him your plans on bonding with two people, one of them another girl.”

Tara shuddered. “I hope he doesn’t get as scary as he was just now. I think I’d run.”

“He would never hurt you, Tara, always remember that. His ‘scary face’ is a way to test the truth of a situation. If you look away or worse yet, run away, he’ll never believe you’re sincere,” Ian explained.

“Really, so you weren’t lying to him?” Tara asked.

“I’m not a monster, Tara. There will be times when I might have to be tough on people, but this isn’t one of those times. I honestly believe that your father would die before he betrayed my trust in him. Like I told him, that’s just the type of person he is,” Ian said. “All of this is to protect lives, not threaten them. Our whole purpose is the safety of this planet; your parents are part of that. He also trusts me not to take advantage as well.”

“Maybe I’ll understand better later, to me, it just looked like you took a hell of a risk with him and Mom,” Tara said.

“Tara, look around, why do you think all these people are here? I mean, why do you think none of them have run off to tell the government about this place? They would get a hell of a reward for this information. So why doesn’t anyone do it? No one is being held against their will, there are no guards,” Ian asked. “Why haven’t you done it?”

“The easy and quick answer is Kyle and Stephanie, but there’s more to it than that. Getting the government in here would just fuck everything up, and they would never believe there was an alien threat to the planet.

“They would use the weapons to take over the rest of the planet and capture all the oil fields. Helping you is the right thing to do. I do love my country, but the government is another matter, besides, that reward they’d offer would most likely be a bullet in order to make sure you didn’t tell anyone else,” Tara said. “But I do have to wonder; what’s in it for you? Why are you doing this?”

“As you said, it’s the right thing to do, and I’m the only one the ship will accept as Commander. But I also get to live the way I want to live, and love who I want to love. Material goods aren’t really an issue anymore. I’d like to help the rest of the world get to this point; to have the freedom to finally make their own decisions for themselves. But mostly, I just want to keep everyone alive long enough that my dream can eventually become a reality,” Ian said. “Sounds pretty self-righteous, doesn’t it?”

“Actually it sounds like a good dream. But now that you have the weapons to enforce it on others, what will you do?” Tara asked.

“Protect the planet. If I forced my dream on others, I’d be no different than any common dictator. I consider us a branch of the military this planet doesn’t know it has yet. The primary function of the military is to defend. I might try to assist progress in subtle ways, but not by force of arms,” Ian said.

“I knew there was a reason I couldn’t picture you as the world domination type,” Tara said “Come on, let’s catch up to my folks.”

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“S
o young lady, I assume you’ll want to learn how to fly one of those fighters out there?” Luke asked.

“Yes, Daddy,” Tara said. “As well as learn how they work.”

“Well, you’re eighteen, the decision’s yours, but I think you should give it some thought first, you’ll be leaving Kyle behind,” Luke suggested.

“That’s something I wanted to talk to you and Mom about, but it can wait for a little while. Have you decided to accept Doctor Williams’ help?” Tara asked.

“Yes, we have. She was just telling us how the whole thing’ll work. Luke will have to stay down here for a couple of days, but we can come visit as often as we want,” Lara said.

“Are you ready to get started, Luke?” Beth asked.

“I think I should check in with Elias first, just to make sure I can take a few days off,” Luke said.

“Elias is currently away on personal business. However, he did approve time off for you,” Ian said smiling.

“No! Elias knows about all this too?” Luke asked. He looked slightly hurt.

“Yes, Elias has known just about everything from the beginning. He even had a hand in getting the design for this place worked out. He thought of things the architect didn’t,” Ian said smiling. “Don’t feel bad, Luke, he was bound by the same thing you are. He just couldn’t tell you.”

“What about Laura and Stephanie?” Lara asked.

“Laura, has known as long as Elias has, but Stephanie, Kyle, and Tara, found out last night,” Ian replied, smiling hopefully at the girl.

She gave him a ‘gee thanks’ look. “It’s part of what I want to talk to you about later, Daddy.”

“Sweetheart, this is starting to sound pretty important. If it’s alright with Beth and Ian, I think we should get it taken care of now, don’t you?” Luke asked her.

Tara looked resigned, and touched her ear. “Kyle? Stephanie? Could you guys come back to the clinic? I need your help.”

She nodded to herself as she received the answers. “This concerns them as well Daddy. But before they get here, there are a few things you need to know about Talosian culture. You see, Talosian society doesn’t have the bias’s we do about relationships. They just never had them.”

“Okay, I can understand that I guess, I don’t approve of homosexuality, but I do feel it’s not any of my business anyway. So what has that got to do with you?” Luke asked.

Lara sat next to him and took his hand. “Luke, our daughter likes boys and girls. What she is trying to gently tell you is she has fallen in love.”

Luke snorted, “She didn’t need to tell me that! Hell! Anyone could see how she acts around Kyle and...” He stopped and looked thoughtful. “... and Stephanie. You’re in love with both of them. That’s what you’re trying to tell me.”

“Yes, Daddy. That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Tara said softly.

About that time, there was a minor commotion outside the office, followed by a polite knock on the door. It opened to reveal a sweating and panting Kyle and Stephanie.