Goodbye and Hello

The rest of the day was pretty normal, not many people around and no further incidents or conflicts. The day was primarily moving stuff from the house and ship to the lodge.

When they came in for lunch, Kat informed Mark that his phone had been ringing all morning. Since he never carried it with him anymore, he just left it in the office. When he looked at his phone, he saw that all of the calls were from the same number and although his call history showed they had called 8 times, there was only 1 voicemail.

He checked his voicemail and found that the one voicemail was from Alice, his ex, and the message was simply, ‘Call her!’

Not really wanting to call her, even though Kat said he should, he did instead did decide to make a call. He called his phone provider and closed his account. He had an old phone with no contract and a pretty basic plan, but he decided that he didn’t really need to waste money paying for a service he no longer used, besides everyone he wanted to talk to, he could reach by radio or through his new wrist comm device.

After lunch, he and Joe went out to do some landscaping and mowing. The grass wasn’t growing anymore so there wasn’t much to cut, but there was a few patches they wanted to deal with before the snow flies, it was a decent enough day to get it done and the snow could come at any time. There wasn’t any snow in the forecast, but since when does Mother Nature follow what the weather forecast says she’s going to do?

So Mark walked down both sides of the lane, using the trimmer to get the areas under the fence line, and Joe used the tractor to mow the ditches along the highway and then along the lane. Just as they had put away the trimmer and mower, the kids returned home and everyone came in for some hot chocolate.

As they entered the lodge, Kat informed Mark that since he cancelled his phone, Alice had resorted to calling the ranch.

Mark asked, “So what did you say to her?”, almost scared to hear what the answer was.

Kat summarized, “I told her that you weren’t interested in talking to her and, thanks to your new job, she no longer fit into your life.”

Mark laughed, “So how did she take that?”

Kat faked a smile, “She didn’t! She’s on her way out here, it sounded like she was driving when she called.”

Mark groaned, “For fuck sakes!”

Solara and the girls came up from the basement, having just finished moving the last of the sex machines over.

After she got her cup of hot chocolate, she informed everyone that she could deconstruct the house anytime and asked if anyone wanted to come and watch?

So everyone topped up their hot chocolate mugs and walked over to the house, where Solara told everyone to say their goodbyes before she pushed the button. Since the house hadn’t even existed for one month yet, no one really had any memories or anything to say.

Watching the house go was a weird experience, the house started losing its colour, like it was rapidly rotting, and it soon collapsed into black piles that continued disintegrating, until there was no trace that anything had ever been there. It even restored the grass and land to the exact way it was before the house was built.

Now that the house was gone, the plan was to move the ship out of the hangar and park it in the middle of the clearing by the visitor centre as a tourist attraction. They had already cleaned out the ship as well when they were moving everything over to the lodge.

They had closed the door to the cockpit, but it had a good sized window in it, so people would still be able to look into the cockpit, they just wouldn’t be able to touch anything.

Everyone backed away as the ground opened up and Cricket flew the ship out, and turned it around so the back was toward the visitor centre and landed it on a pad that appeared beside the facility. The ship was still cloaked, so the public couldn’t see it, but they could hear the lateral thrusters firing as the ship elevated itself out of the hangar and once the ground was closed up again, she disabled the cloak and then maneuvered the ship over to the facility and lowered it down onto a landing pad that seemed to build itself as the ship was landing on it.

Then an information board appeared that had the specs of the ship, the passenger list and the date of the crash. It also acted as a memorial for Marco. As Cricket shut down the ship, she lowered the cargo ramp to allow people onboard.

The group then took a quick tour of the visitor centre, since they hadn’t actually gone over there yet. Kat explained that she had given their spare card machine to Liyana for use at the visitor centre, but that she needed to remember to setup a separate account for the visitor centre and get its own card reader. Joe liked that it was making money for the ranch using land the ranch wasn’t using anyway and that people were no longer interfering with the ranch business. They were concerned that they would eventually have to take over staffing it, once everyone left to go to Atlanterra, so Kat made herself a note in her phone to look for staff.

The visitor centre and parking lot was still packed with people, so they didn’t spend long looking around the centre. Crowds just weren’t their thing, so they started to walk back to the lodge.

During the walk, Solara informed them that the hangar was now deconstructed and the tunnel now went all the way to the visitor centre, exiting into the staff room on the lower level.

Just as they were just getting back to the lodge, they saw an SUV driving down the lane with realtor graphics on it.

Even though they saw the vehicle coming, they all went into the lodge anyway, so Alice did not have a welcoming party waiting for her.

After parking the Audi, she came in the lodge door and stood there, like she was expecting some greeting or acknowledgement that she was there. Alice always had been a bit of a self-centred, self appointed queen of everything.

Since it had been a bit cool outside, everyone had settled on loungers around the fire pit to drink their hot chocolate. That was one nice thing about the drink dispensers, there was no waiting to get a hot beverage!

When Alice looked like she was going to blow a gasket from being ignored, Kat finally acknowledged her by simply saying, “Hello Alice.”

Alice returned the greeting and then walked into the courtyard.

Upon seeing Mark’s new look, she asked, “Mark, can we go somewhere to talk in private?”

Mark shook his head no as he said, “I can’t honestly think of anything we could possibly have to talk about! Besides, I’m not about to start keeping secrets from my royal advisors or my fiancé!”, as he really stressed the fiancé part.

“Fiancé? We’ve just gotten divorced and you’re already engaged? So you were cheating on me before!”

Mark looked at her sternly, “No! You were the one doing the cheating! I waited until after I moved out to the ranch, before I had sex with anyone else. So get off your high horse! There is nothing we have to discuss.”

Alice looked like someone had slapped her, after being publicly admonished for her infidelity, in front of everybody, “Who is your fiancé? Do I know her?”

“Yes, you do,” Annabelle said, as she entered the courtyard with her hot chocolate and sat down in the lounger beside Mark.

“Annabelle! You’re fucking a teenager? Are you two OK with this?”, Alice almost shouted, as she looked at Joe and Kat.

“He’s got my blessing!”, Joe said as Kat added, “Mine too!”

“He’s old enough to be her father!”

Annabelle straddled Mark on the lounger and kissed him, “I’ve been a bad girl daddy, you may need to spank me later!”

Mark raised his eyebrows at her, “I think you may need more than just a spanking!”

Alice’s face was multiple shades of red. You could almost see the steam coming out of her ears, “Well, I hope you’re happy when you reach my age and he’s going to be a decrepit old man.”

“I promise to love and cherish you for the next couple of centuries and give you many heirs to your throne.”

“Thank you, my future Queen!”

Alice turned and stormed out of the lodge and you could hear the tires squeal as she left down the lane.

Mark smiled, as he asked, “Do you think she got the hint that she doesn’t fit into my life anymore?”

Kat laughed, “Maybe! We’ll have to wait and see. I sure hope she enjoyed the 5 hours of driving for that tirade!”

Annabelle asked, “Future Queen?”, as she raised her eyebrows and cocked her head slightly.

“Well, the possibility is still on the table,” Mark said with a smile, “you will have to become an Atlantean citizen though, I can’t be seen dating a common Earthling.”

Annabelle pleaded, “Speaking of which, the weekend is coming and we’ll be leaving for Atlanterra soon. Can I please go into the medibed?”

Rayven said, “That might not be a bad idea!”

Mark agreed, but since the ship was now a tourist attraction, they would have to wait until the visitor centre was closed for the night to use the medibed. Currently the visitor centre hours were 9 to 5, so it wasn’t too much of a burden on the orbiter personnel that were temporarily manning the centre.

As soon as the visitor centre closed for the night, Mark and Rayven escorted Annabelle to the medibed in the ship.

They both gave Annabelle a kiss, as she lay down in the medibed. Rayven then closed the canopy and started it up.

Annabelle was only in the chamber for about half an hour, and when she came out, it didn’t appear that anything had been done.

Mark handed Annabelle a glass of water, while Rayven read the report, “Annabelle had the Atlantean gene, but was not a descendant of royalty. She was in perfect health.”

Mark jumped at the opportunity to earn some brownie points, by saying, “I already knew you were perfect, but I’m glad you are now on the Federation health plan!”

Annabelle was all smiles, as she gave Mark and Rayven both a kiss and a hug.

Mark then asked Cricket, “Does Annabelle have a wrist comm now?“

Cricket said, “Yes she does, and it’s activated!“

Mark then tapped his wrist and did the ‘Add Contact’ thing Maren had shown him, and then proceeded to add both Annabelle and Rayven to his contacts, as they both added each other as well.

Annabelle’s stomach grumbled, which prompted them to return to the lodge, since it was about supper time.

Once back at the lodge, Mark and Annabelle went around to Solara, T’Soona, Laruun and Candy and added their contacts to their wrist comms. The girls had forgotten they even had the wrist devices as, without an active connection to the Federation network, they were pretty much limited to just your health statistics.

Supper was grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, which seemed to satisfy everyone’s hunger.

During supper, Kat indicated she wanted to try the medibed as well, so after supper, Rayven, Joe and Kat went to the ship, while everyone else decided to relax and watch a movie.

Joe came back and said Kat was going to be out in just under 3 hours, so he sat down and watched the movie with everyone else. It was a long movie and as it was ending, Rayven escorted Kat into the lodge.

Kat was also of Atlantean descent, but not royalty. She looked like she was the same age as Annabelle, in fact, she looked like Annabelle’s twin!

Joe had an immediate bulge in his pants at seeing the new Kat, but unsure if he could handle her tonight and since it was bedtime anyway, Joe said, “What the hell, it’s likely going to take a bit longer because of my age, but I was going to bed anyway, so either way I’ll get some rest.”

Rayven and Kat accompanied him to the ship and got him in the medibed. The medibed estimated the time to completion at 10 hours, so they went back to the lodge. It was going to be a close call to see if Joe would be out of the bed before the visitor centre opened up.

The next morning at the workout, Joe still wasn’t out of the medibed. Solara went to check on him and said there was still over an hour remaining, but he would be out of the medibed about a half an hour before the visitor centre opened at 8am.

Rayven had decided to join the workout today. Having everyone in the lodge, made working out so much more convenient than it was with the house. Although the workout today seemed easier for everyone today, which they attributed to the medibots in their bodies.

As they were finishing their showers, the smell of bacon came to the forefront, causing stomachs to grumble, making everyone accelerate the drying and dressing process, so they could go eat.

During breakfast, Mark got a message from Liyana, saying the embassy was now ready for occupation, and that she would be down soon to pick him and the girls up. Right as everyone was finishing breakfast, Solara brought Joe in and everyone had to do a double take. The change was as drastic as Mark’s, not quite to the extent of what the royal protocols did, but Joe looked like his old military pictures, a lean mean fighting machine that looked about 30 years old.

Joe sat down and ate a couple of plates full of food, prompting Kat to comment about the food budget going through the roof. As everyone laughed at the comment, Maria reminded her, that they didn’t have a food budget anymore!

After that they did the chores, as the kids got ready for school.

While the men were busy doing the chores, Liyana and Maren had come down and were talking with Kat in the lodge, pecking at what was left of breakfast.

Once the chores were done and the kids were off to school, Liyana suggested the girls and Mark should come up to the embassy, so he can go through the citizenship course and get that started.

It was a welcome distraction, since Joe and Kat had been eyeing each other up and were likely going to spend the day fucking their brains out.

As they were walking out to the shuttle, Mark asked with a bit of worry, “What if I don’t pass the citizenship course?”

Liyana had a shocked ‘I-never-thought-of-that’ look on her face, until Maren just laughed and said, “You’ll do fine, my King. You are a true royal, just follow your instincts,” as everyone was getting buckled into their seats.

Mark had never actually seen the inside of the shuttle. It had about 7’ of head clearance, so Mark didn’t have to duck or slouch and there were 5 seats with 3-point harnesses on each side of the shuttle, facing inward, and there was an opening to the front area where there was two seats for people to pilot the shuttle.

Maren did her quick pre-flight checks and lifted into the air. Once hovering, she flipped one switch to raise the landing gear and another switch to lower the wings, then pushed the throttle forward and pulled back on the yoke.

Through the windows you could see the Earth rapidly shrink. It was an odd sensation, as the elevation rise you feel in an airplane wasn’t there, in fact you barely felt any movement whatsoever, due to the inertial dampeners.

Within a few minutes they were out of the atmosphere and weightless.

The first thing that came to Mark’s mind was to sell any stock in companies researching space flight, as there was no way any company on Earth was going to be able to compete against riding in a craft like the shuttle, that could make numerous trips to and from space in a single day!

Maren turned the shuttle parallel to the Earth, so they could view the Earth out the port side windows. After a minute, she turned again and flew past the International Space Station, which looked very archaic and flimsy, compared to their technologically refined shuttle.

She then turned again and in front of them, at a much higher orbit than the ISS, was a beautiful gleaming white space station that looked like a huge aircraft carrier.

The embassy dwarfed the ISS in size, at over 500 metres in length, 150 metres wide and roughly 100 metres tall.

“Whoa that’s a big ship!” Mark said, “How many people do you have on that thing?”

Liyana answered, “The embassy should have about 50 personnel, consisting of maintenance, communications, medical, ambassadors, general workers and a few security, but it’s not a ship since it has no engines, although it does have lateral thrusters for orbital adjustments.”

Since it was on most of their minds, Solara asked, “So what’s going to happen when we land?”

Liyana explained, “It’s a pretty simple process really, once we land, you follow the arrow. Depending on your history with the facility and the information provided by your medibots, you may get sent straight through, or you get directed to a security booth, where they verify your identity, and then ask your reason for visit, trip details and duration, etc.”

Mark asked, “What if someone doesn’t have medibots?”

Liyana said, “Everyone has medibots as soon as they get on a shuttle or go into any Federation building on any planet, they are circulated through the air. If you already have medibots, they just add themselves to your crew. Otherwise, they are programmed with the identification that you provide when boarding a shuttle and begin scanning your body, so we have all sorts of information by the time you reach the embassy.”

Laruun asked, “What if people don’t want the medibots?”

Liyana stated very frankly, “We do not force them to get on the shuttle,” then continued with her previous outline.

“Once they have confirmed your identity, they explain the instructions for citizenship testing and where the library is. Until you pass the test the only thing you can access is the library and laws on any terminal. So most people will just wander around the embassy, or go to the library to study the laws, if they are travelling elsewhere. When you think you know the primary laws well enough, you can go to a testing centre.”

Mark asked, “So what happens if a person fails the test?”

Liyana explained, “There is a 3 strike rule, you can fail the test up to 3 times, before they deny you access, then you must wait a year before you can try again. The medibots will be with you forever, so it is not like you can bypass the system and pretend to be someone else. To tell you the truth, if you have medibots, the crew of the shuttle know who you are as soon as you are aboard. So, if you have failed 3 times in less than a year, you won’t even make it on to a shuttle.”

Just then the shuttle touched down in the hangar, the ramp lowered and everyone started to exit. It wasn’t much of a hangar, it was more like an over-sized garage that could probably hold 2 or 3 of the shuttles, if their wings were folded up. The big thing was the clear force field that looked out across the huge landing deck with the moon in the background. It was a beautiful sight.