Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode Seven: Homecoming #8

The game was basketball, and the opponents were from a couple of towns over. This was their arch rival, and even though neither teams were very good, it was well attended. Kleppie followed his parents through the doors, looking around to see how the school had changed.

It hadn't. The posters on the wall were new, but the trophies in the case were from seasons of long ago. The school's glory days were over. The battered lockers in the drab hallways, the principal's office just to the right when you walked in—all the same.

His parents were greeted by a handful of friends, and Mom trotted Kleppie around for them. They clapped him on the back and congratulated him. He shook hands and nodded politely to a half dozen questions.

Overwhelmingly, the people were strange to him. He should have perhaps expected that, but he hadn't. He'd been gone, what? Six years. The kids he knew were all graduated and gone. They'd become adults, but they didn't have kids of high-school age yet.

"Kleppie! Kleppie!" a voice called through the crowd. He craned his head to see. It was Mindy, with a couple of friends.

"Go," Mom prompted. "You should catch up with them."

Not that I've ever been close to any of them, he thought. But he nodded and headed their way.

Mindy introduced him around. "You guys remember Kleppie?" she said. "This is Beth, Janet, and Kevin."

Kleppie shook their hands. Beth and Janet both had been cheerleaders, he discovered, but he didn't recognize them. Kevin he knew all too well—a football player and rich kid that thought he was better than everyone else.

Kevin was wearing a suit and had the beginnings of a gut. "Been announcing the football games in the fall for KCVI," he said as he shook Kleppie's hand. "So, I've been on TV too."

"We saw your interview when you were on that spaceship," Beth put in. "Very exciting."

Kevin's face hardened at being upstaged. Kleppie took a vicious joy in being the bigger man and not pointing it out. "It was nothing."

A small crowd was forming around them.

"Did you know that woman well?"

"Cheyenne?" he asked, addressing the crowd. He gave a laugh. "You could say that. I served under her, was in the gunner's seat when . . . well, you know."

"In the gunner's seat?" Mindy squawked. "But—"

"She fired the missile that prevented a nuclear war," Kleppie said. "I merely aimed it." He winked at her and gave Kevin a smirk.

"Amazing," Kevin said, trying to recover. "I should have you down to the station for an interview."

"Sure, I'm in town for a few days." Kleppie faced the crowd again. "It really wasn't anything. I did what I had to do. We all did. That's what it means to serve. That said, I am proud of what we did, how things turned out. It was an amazing mission."

The loud speaker made a noise as they turned the system on and warmed it up.

"Game starting in five. Best find seats," Kevin said.

"Come sit with us," Mindy, Beth, and Janet said in unison. Kevin didn't look too keen.

Kleppie shrugged. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mom and Dad sitting with a clump of their friends. Mom would understand. Dad wouldn't care. And it beat sitting with one of Dad's friends and conversing in grunts. "Why not?"