Chapter 21: The Downside of Talent III

-Earth, July, 2014-

A year passed rather quickly and the day of departure for the adventurous youths came. After thorough deliberation they chose to find their luck with a mercenary group, leaving for a space station in the Triangulum galaxy.

Michelle and Alex were stopping by at the Strono household to wish the young man’s grandparents and mother farewell. Although the relationship between them was still strained, they could at least talk like normal people. His father instead was nowhere in sight not even bothering to see his son off.

The Dolce family also had some issues due to her daughter’s drug habits and her parents weren’t the greatest supporters of the relationship with Alex, but all of them could trust each other and talk friendly and not estranged. Michelle went to see them off alone for that reason, saving her boyfriend from unnecessary scornful looks.

Along with their friends, they traveled to Schwechat, the largest space port in Austria.

What once was a normal airport for planes was completely rebuild into a futuristic colossal metal block, from which rows of space shuttles either entered or left. To say it was only a building gave this monstrosity of shimmering silver not enough credit. The whole structure could be described to be a sentient being as an AI controlled and regulated everything happening inside and outside the walls. It opened the right runways whenever needed and operated all systems essential for earthlings, tourists or I.F. personnel to reach their desired locations.

Five hover cabs came to a standstill in front of the main entrance, letting a group of twenty humans out. All of them looked young and energetic, without a hint of worry on their faces. Standing at the forefront a young, chestnut-brown haired woman was holding the hand of a man with similar hair color, while looking at the uncountable flying vehicles leaving the port with an excited countenance.

“Come on, guys! Don’t be so slow, how come you all need twenty minutes to unload a car?” remarked Michelle impatiently to her back.

“Yea, yea, some of us can’t use telekinesis yet, like you esteemed, ingenious couple, so stop rushing Michelle!”

“We are already at the port, just a few more hours and we are in outer space. Keep your space addiction at bay!”

“Exactly! And we still have an hour to wait! Why are we already here?”

“Stop shouting and finish this already, otherwise the AI drivers are going to want more cash, you fools!”

As soon as the words left, the now flustered, woman’s mouth numerous blaring replies in the form of complaints could be heard thrown back. She pouted but kept the profanities at the tip of her tongue, as the last person was right. She could wait with the teasing and fighting, a regular occurrence in the friend’s group, or they would really spent the next hour here.

Chuckling Alex took his, under her breath mumbling, girlfriend to the side, with some friends and lit up a joint. They waited a few more minutes and finally could walk to their gate after stocking up on snacks when the munchies hit them.

The ship they rented orbited above the troposphere, as it was too massive to safely descend into the lower atmosphere. So the group had to take a small shuttle to board it.

The vessel was ginormous, in comparison to normal humans, easily ten times the size of New York’s Empire State Building. From outside it reminded them of an elegant, silver men shoe, but sleeker with a pointy, sharp tip. The bridge was situated where the shoelaces would be tied together five enormous ion propulsion boosters were built onto it’s heck.

On the side of the ship’s frame the name, Whistling Blade, was painted in an artistic calligraphy style.

Once on board Michelle couldn’t help but squeal in excitement making all her friends distance themselves from her. Space travel was expansive but that was only the case if one wanted to visit distant, foreign planets, everyone could visit the near outer space of one’s own home world. So a reaction like Michelle seemed a bit over the top, at least for the moment.

Alex and his mates left the overly curious girl to her exploring and introduced themselves to the ship’s captain, Crah’ton’da. The alien was of the Muttmos species, a golem like race, that had stone like skin and levitated a meter above the ground. They were a rather small, peace-loving civilization and due to their natural resources they reached the solar system rank and were able to reduce the amount of citizens they had to contribute to the federation’s army.

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“We can take you all as far as Bastoro Nat, a space station at the edges of the Triangulum galaxy. Afterwards we will go deeper into space with a client so you will be on your own.” explained the floating rock face, “Oh, and before I forget! Space travel is dangerous and we have never fought together before, so in case of an emergency stay in your rooms, huddle up and if shit really hits the fan and we can’t defend the ship by ourselves…. Well, let’s just say you should make a move before all of us are dead. Got that?”

The group of friends, who just now realized the Crah’ton’dan, in front of them, had no clue that he was talking to a bunch of teenagers, were rooted to the ground, speechless.

‘Not even ten minutes on board and they are throwing death flags around? Maybe we should have taken a low-level company instead?’ was what each and everyone of the young adults thought.

Alas, it was already too late and the boisterously laughing captain was already on his way to the bridge. What Alex and Michelle already knew but never realized the gravity of, was that, space travel always came with the risk of death, even high class companies couldn't always defend against attacks and only areas around wormholes and important planets were absolutely secured. Everywhere else caution was advised. A secret kept away from the general public to not appear incompetent.

So the first thing they did was grab Michelle and plan an emergency strategy in one of their rooms. She was rather dissatisfied to be stopped from looking around the ship but could only agree after understanding the danger such a scenario posed.

Like this the journey into unknown worlds started, albeit on a bit of a sour note.

-Vienna, Strono household-

After Alex and Michelle left Kazimierz and Irena talked to their daughter discussing if they should ask Mrs. Natpiea for advice. The former tutor was still working at Vizbourne but due to her falsifying Alex’s first semester’s report, she lost any chance she had to be promoted in the next decades. She didn’t mind but the Stronos felt extremely guilty and ever since she gave up reasoning with her disappointing disciple the contact between them became less and less regularly.

In the end they decided against it and just hoped that their little genius would return with the ambition to strife towards a better future.

Kazimierz was one of the people suffering the most from guilt. He felt like he hadn’t helped his grandson enough thorough his childhood. As an inept he couldn’t wield Force consciously and with Alex’s talent he outgrew him in weapon mastery in just two years, making all his effort to master different kind of techniques useless.

Right after the family noticed Alexander’s drug abuse he collapsed, thinking he failed in his role as guiding grandparent. Kazimierz stopped training and wallowed in self pity, needing a long time to get over his failure. Only with recent events he built up the strength to hope again. Irena was a bit better off as she never really cared if Alex was strong or famous or neither, she just wanted him to be happy. She feared for him when she learned about the drugs but after seeing her grandson becoming a bit more stable again she calmed down, knowing he would balance his life with time.

His mother, ridden with guilt about the betrayal of her son’s trust, developed anxiety over the years living between the two sides of the family. Even though she knew that it would never be as before she wanted to make the father-son pair talk peacefully again, but neither of them took a step forward as both were stubborn and thought themselves to be right. She could only watch as her once happy, loving family lost the father position for most members and she herself was shunned from her parents somewhat.

She did everything in her power to make it up to everyone, earning her back the trust she had once lost, but her attempts to improve her husband’s standing were futile. With her being the only one to speak to him, she functioned as messenger, unfortunately such an emotionally stressful life led to her anxiety manifesting in the end.

And the villain in question, Harald, never once apologized over the years, making the rest of the family take a stand against him. He still provided for his son and the rest and took all the hate directed at him nonchalantly, as if he just didn’t care what anyone else besides him thought.

With awful family issues like that they all had to work together to solve them but if that would ever happen was questionable.

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