Ta1Ta Chapter 15

- The Ta'ainvel -

- By Khan -

15.

A few weeks went by and Jonas received his promotion.
Charlotte brushed up on her knowledge on flying and was
soon training with a simulation of the actual pilot
controls. The Humans were both very excellent pilots their
force commander reported to Jante.
A few more weeks went by with little break in routine
and finally, at four p.m. a Monday afternoon, Charlotte for
the first time walked into the bridge as a member of its
crew.
Jante had unconsciously avoided having Charlotte
anywhere close to Ayshala but now he realised that he
hadn't wanted Ayshala to be able to react to the fact that
he loved a Human, another woman.
Now she walked towards where the two, Jante and
Ayshala, stood near the central. The floor was completely
bare, as all three chairs were down in the airlocks beneath
them, red rings where the command stations used to be, and
all of them had a clear view of each other.
Ayshala studied Charlotte with frank curiosity, softly
sniffing the air. She glanced at Jante, and then did what
Jante had hoped for all along but never imagined she would
do.
She stepped forward and embraced Charlotte.
"Be welcome Charlotte," she said warmly to the startled
woman.
"Charlie, call me Charlie," was all Charlotte could
produce.
Ayshala stepped back a little behind Jante and waited.
"Well Charlie. Now you are here. Now you are a pilot.
Nervous?" Jante looked sideways at Charlotte.
"No I'm not nervous at all. Of course I am nervous you
daft cat. Its not every day I get to work as pilot on a
starship."
Ayshala raised an eyebrow at the word 'cat' and several
of the other people working on the bridge turned to look
with amusement at their new commanding officer.
Jante cleared his throat. "Yes, well. Shall we get on
with it then?"
Ayshala responded by speaking a code into her
communication device, then saying "Initiate pilot system,
new functions. Proceed with start-up."
The rear hatch opened with a hiss, letting the command
station rise into the bridge and thud into place.
"Configure system for three pilots, Commander Jante
e'Darin, First pilot Ayshala b'Fairn and Second pilot
Charlotte Westings," she continued.
Charlotte responded to the computer asking her to take
her place at the command station. She sat and placed her
hand on the scanner and the computer reported it had
registered the new pilot. She stepped off the chair and it
sank back into the floor.
"Right, that's that. Now we have two hours left on this
shift, then we're off duty, all three of us," Jante said.
"I'll miss the bridge, I'll admit that," Ayshala said.
"Even if we had the same routine on the way to earth, I
still loved to pilot this oversized tub. Now the
astrogation computer does all the piloting."
"True, its not a fitting place for pilots to spend
their time off the bridge but what can we do," he replied.
"Nothing, for eight more years."
Jante contacted the other ships and received reports
that they also had closed down the pilot section of their
bridge. They had also begun to train a third pilot as they
found the system a clever one. To split the ship's
responsibilities on three was easier on the pilots as well
as on the people living in the ship. On the other two
ships, however, the commanders had decided to retire and a
message soon came to Jante that the commander of the
Handrillian had also decided that her time was up. The
three former starship commanders were still respected and
obeyed but they were no longer sought out for orders.
A year passed and Jante decided it was time to do
something about his and Charlotte's relationship. One night
he took her to the restaurant in the rear dome and after a
pleasant evening asked her to be his Mate.
"Oh, I thought I was already mating with you," she said
with a wry smile.
"You misunderstand. Being someone's Mate is in your
society called being married."
She happily said yes and that night they became Mates.
The ceremony, Jante explained, was ancient and had been
conducted in nearly the same way for thousands of years. He
said it was a return to nature of sorts, a primal mating
ritual.
There was a small garden beneath the Sanctum that was
reserved for this ceremony, a meadow with wild flowers and
several stands of trees. The garden was allowed to grow as
it pleased and was in the eyes of the Ta'ainvel a holy
place.
That evening Jante took Charlotte to the garden. He
took her just inside the doors and removed all she was
wearing except her overall. He carefully let out her hair
that was tied into a bun and allowed it to fall over her
shoulders, then removed all of what he was wearing himself,
except his blue overall. When she looked up she gasped. The
ceiling of the room was five yards above her and made of a
transparent material and through the ceiling she could see
water. The central lake of the Sanctum lay just above and
Jante had opened the huge hatch in between to emit
starlight refracted by the ever-shifting waves of water.
The result was a ghostly light, but not frightening, that
played over the meadow and the trees.
He let the claws of his right hand extend and told
Charlotte to stand still. When she stood there silently
looking at him he swiftly raked his claws beneath a
startled Charlotte's chin. As the overall slid off her in
shreds he quickly made sure he hadn't touched her with his
claws.
Whispering into the darkness he said, "I know you don't
have claws, so just tear the overall off me."
So she did, ripping open the zip that ran down the
front. He stepped out of the overall and leaving it by the
door, and after removing both his and her underwear, took
Charlotte's hand and walked naked across the starlit
meadow. He took her to a spot at the centre of the large
room and motioned for her to sit down. He gave her a small
knife and then lightly cut Charlotte across her cheek with
a claw.
She understood and did the same with the knife. Jante
touched the blood in Charlotte's face and traced out three
lines running down and halfway underneath his own chin with
it. She did the same. He then leaned forward and gave her a
kiss, putting a clawed hand around her neck. With his Mate
in his arms, Jante lay down on the starlit grass.
The ceremony would be simple, he had said, and it was.
When the lights in the Sanctum above started to come on
and lighten the dark meadow, Jante woke from his sleep
beside the naked Charlotte. He gently roused her and took
her hand walking towards the doors out of the garden.
They reached the doors and found two neatly folded blue
overalls lying by the wall.
"There is another part of the ceremony but that is now
more symbolic than needed. There was a Watcher, a person
who saw to the two Mates and that they were not disturbed
by anyone, or anything. Now their task is simple, take the
old overalls and replace them with these new ones."
Jante bent down and picked up the smaller one for
Charlotte, then put the other one on.
"Ayshala asked to be Watcher," he continued, "do you
mind?"
"No, I don't mind. I've know Ayshala long enough to
love her as a sister," Charlotte replied smiling.
She got into the tight overall and when she noticed a
stripe of gold threads tracing the joint between her hip
and her left leg from the small of her back to the crotch
of the overall, she asked about it.
"I have one as well," he replied and pointed to it.
"Its a sign of our union, a sort of wedding ring you Humans
would say."
Outside they found their things as they had left them
and put those on as well. They walked hand in hand through
the lighted corridors towards the bridge.

Reference: relationships-rescue.blogspot.com