Deadlines

Mark asked, “We need to leave immediately? Does the embassy have weapons yet?”

Liyana answered, “They are not fully installed or operational yet, but we can leave a fighter or two here to defend the embassy. We really must leave right now!”

The urgency and worry apparent in her voice, now had Mark starting to get worried, “Why? What’s going on?”

Liyana explained, “The prince has found an ancient law, that hasn’t been used since before we left Earth over 3,000 years ago, but he’s invoked it and has put a timeline on your claim to the throne. We need to leave right now if we are to reach Atlanterra in time for you to make your claim to the throne.”

Mark enquired, “What’s this law he has found?”

Liyana said, “The law states, once an heir has been found, and there is no presiding royalty, he has until midnight of the full moon to claim the throne at the palace. Fortunately, you have one of the more influential senators in your corner and she fought for you and got the senate to agree!”

Mark was amazed, “I do? Who?”

Liyana smiled, “Senator Marsbe, she’s the older sister of the recycling guy you’ve been talking to.”

Mark asked, “What did she do?”

Liyana explained, “The prince was claiming that, because it was an Earth law, it was referencing an Earth full moon, which has already passed and therefore would forfeit your claim to the throne.”

“Senator Marsbe convinced the senate that, since there was no palace on Earth and that the palace was now on Atlanterra, the law now referenced the full moon there. The full moon happens in 5 days and it takes just over 4 days in light drive to reach Atlanterra!”

Mark looked torn, “Wow this couldn’t have come at a worse time. I haven’t even got one site setup yet as a template that the others can follow.”

Cricket piped up, “Don’t worry Mark, the kids will do fine, we’ve got a network connection between Atlanterra and Earth now so we’ll be able to help them. I’ve also notified Annabelle, Solara and T’Soona ... Maren should be picking them up anytime now. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to wait for the government guys.”

Liyana said, “I need to go do a few things on the embassy before we go. I’ll see you on the orbiter,” as she ended the call.

Mark and Rayven tidied up the residence and went downstairs, when they saw a small SUV pull into the parking lot.

Mark and Rayven went out to meet the vehicle and saw it was Elisha and Gerald. Elisha said that Annabelle had called her immediately after she got the notice and she picked up Gerald on the way.

Mark instructed them to park in the underground parking, as it would be safer for the vehicle, since they didn’t know how long they’d be gone.

They got parked, loaded up their bags and packed everything to the roof. Within a couple of minutes the shuttle touched down, everyone boarded and they were off again.

Maren must’ve really been moving fast, as they were flying past the embassy in no time.

Maren soon announced, “If you look out the port side windows, you will see the orbiter we originally arrived on, it is a Battlestar class ship that’s 750 metres long, 100 metres wide, 50 metres tall and has a crew of 250. Its designation is Poseidon, named after the father of Atlas, the first King of Atlantis.”

Mark hadn’t even seen the orbiter, so even he was looking out the window! It was difficult to see since it was mostly black, but the ship looked massive and almost predatory. It definitely conveyed that, ‘you don’t want to fuck with it’ look!

The Poseidon was a mixture of black and white, making it blend perfectly blend in with the stars behind it. The bridge was clearly toward the nose of the ship, mounted closer to the top with a window that wrapped around, so they could see 180°. It almost looked like the ship was smiling.

In all honesty, the ship looked a lot like the Battlestar Galactica in the original series, except the outer shell was black with white stripes and looked completely smooth. It had the larger front section, which was shaped like the head of a snake, then the thinner body section with white dots scattered along the main body and then the large engine section.

There were two landing bays, one on each side of the ship, slightly lower than the body and each about 50% of the entire length of the ship. As they got closer, you could make out that the three broken white stripes down the thinner body section, were actually windows for the living quarters.

Along the top of each landing bay was a huge gun of some sort, and they looked like they could possibly swivel. The barrel of each of those guns were probably 250 metres long. It also looked like there might be numerous gun turrets bristling the top, bottom and sides of the body.

Maren didn’t loop around the ship to give everyone a better look, she went directly to the port side landing bay, and as they got closer you got a sense of the scale of the ship. The shuttle seemed very small and insignificant as the landing bays were 10 metres high, 25 metres wide and roughly 400 metres long.

As they disembarked, Liyana, Laruun and Candy were there to greet them.

After hugging the three girls, Mark looked out the hangar toward the Earth ... which suddenly disappeared.

Liyana saw the look on Mark’s face and explained, “They just powered up the light drive, we’ll be on Atlanterra in four and a half days.”

Liyana told everyone to leave everything here and they could come back and get it later, after they locate their quarters.

She explained, “The only guest quarters on a Battlestar or Destroyer are the prison cells, but fortunately, staffing the embassy had left them with a number of empty quarters. It was just taking some time shuffle some personnel around, so your quarters aren’t scattered all over the entire ship.”

While they were waiting for quarters, Liyana took them on a tour of the ship, beginning with the bridge.

She introduced Mark to Commander Topos, who immediately bowed and said, “Welcome to the Poseidon, my King.”

The Commander then apologized, “Sorry for the rush, but that bastard really is pulling out all the stops. I know I have only had a couple of short interactions with you, but after what he just said to me, I can already tell that you will be a far better leader than he has ever been!”

Mark was intrigued, “What did he say?”

The Commander paused for a second, as if he was contemplating saying something. Finally he said, “When the senate decided that the law should be based on the palace on Atlanterra, he contacted us ... and ... most of us senior officers have been told we will be stripped of rank and court-martialled, if we bring you to Atlanterra.”

Mark was upset, “I’m sorry for putting you in this position and I appreciate everything you are doing for me. I never meant for this to happen.”

The Commander smiled, “That’s exactly why we are helping you! You didn’t ask or intend for any of this to happen! Yet considering everything that has happened, in such a short period of time, you have time and again demonstrated the traits of a calm, calculated, decisive and strong, yet compassionate leader. Something the Federation has been sorely lacking for centuries. This is fate speaking loud and clear!”

Mark smiled, “Well, I again thank you for your support. I’m looking forward to working with you. I’m not sure if it would be appropriate or not, until I officially become king, but I’m sure you have ideas about better ways to do what you do. Once I become king, I’m going to have a steep learning curve, I’m going to rely heavily on the people in certain roles to give me their input, rather than reading a report from a bureaucrat.”

The Commander smiled again, “I would appreciate the chance to sit down and talk with you. It’s true I probably shouldn’t talk to you until your coronation is official, but I’m going to be court-martialled anyway, so why not?”

Mark laughed, “Good point! Once I become king, I’ll make sure your courts-martial are quick and just!”

The Commander’s eyes went wide, so Mark admitted, “I’m just joking! You have nothing to fear from me.”

The Commander then laughed, “My apologies, I’m not used to a politician having a sense of humour.”

Liyana then cut in, “Commander, I’m sure you’ll notice that Mark is a very different type of leader than anyone we’ve ever seen, but we should get on with the tour, until their quarters are ready.”

For the next hour, Liyana took the group on a tour of the ship. It was mostly a lot of walking, due to the size of the ship, but it was a lot like the embassy. She showed them where medical was, the cafeteria, the store, the library and where the gym, showers and sports facilities were.

On the ship, the fitness activities were the biggest and most used areas. It kept people entertained and fit, there was a running track that ran around the entire lower level and there were workout areas scattered around the ship, the central area was open to all three levels and housed two gymnasiums, two 30x60 metre artificial turf arenas, one 30x60 metre arena with a hardwood floor and two racquet sport courts.

Senior officer quarters were toward the front of the ship, engineering and maintenance was near the rear of the ship and everyone else was somewhere in the middle.

The tour ended in the landing bay where they had started. Now that they had a chance to look around, the landing bay itself was brightly lit and they could see how it worked. The large rear opening was for landing, then there were various openings along the sides where ships could launch, so you could launch a lot of ships in a short period of time if you had to.

Most of the bays facing the underbelly of the ship had normal shuttles, but also a few slightly larger shuttles, that more or less looked like combination shuttle versions of emergency vehicles, there was red ones, blue ones and yellow ones. Then there was probably a hundred or more fighters facing the exterior openings.

The fighters were like a small one-person airplane. There was a bucket seat with a W-style yoke with buttons on the top of each handle and trigger style buttons on the front of the handles. There was some more buttons on the central part of the yoke and there was a pedal for each foot.

The fighters themselves were blue and had the fold up style wings like the shuttles. The lasers were mounted on each side of the cockpit just above the section of the wing that didn’t fold up and the pulse cannon was positioned in front of the cockpit, almost looking like the blower of a funny car. The engines were under and behind the cockpit seat.

The fighters themselves were small, with the wings down they were about 5 metres wide, with the wings up the bodies were about a metre and a half wide. The main body was a little over 5 metres long and were about 2 metres tall to the top of the tail fin. The landing gear was like a plane, with fixed tires for the rear and a single swivelling tire on the front. Presumably so the fighters could be pushed around by hand in the landing bay or during construction. You could tell they were designed for both space and atmospheric use, as you could see the lateral thrusters on the aileron of each wing, on the rear elevators and on the tail fin, which looked like the entire thing turned rather than just having a rudder.

The tail fin sported the Atlantean Federation logo in white and, when Mark sat in one, his name and rank appeared below the cockpit canopy.

One of the comments Liyana had made during the tour, was that they were lucky to have a Battlestar or Destroyer for the trip or they wouldn’t have been able to make it with a civilian transport. When Mark asked why, she explained that they weren’t nearly as fast as a Battlestar or Destroyer, so trips between Atlanterra and Earth would be roughly 7 days travel time on a civilian transport versus 4.5 days on a security ship.

When Mark asked about civilian transports, she explained that there were several types of transports. Some basic ones were more like planes, trains or buses, but with small rooms instead of seats, and little in the way of amenities, the bigger ones were more like ocean liners, with large private rooms with washrooms and showers, entertainment areas, movie theatres, restaurants and bars, arcades, gyms and stuff like that.

With the tour over, they all grabbed their gear and Liyana led them to the group of rooms that were near the bridge. They weren’t all together, but they were all in the same vicinity.

Their quarters were the basic private quarters everyone else had, which were all long narrow rooms with an exterior view. The door entered on the right end, with a washroom on the right behind where the door opened, then beyond the washroom was a twin bed against the left wall, then the far wall with the window had a desk and the clothing synth locker.

After claiming their rooms, everyone realized they were hungry. Their internal clocks were all out of whack, being on the ship with absolutely no references to anything. There was no suns, no planets, or anything to look at, just the empty black expanse of space with streaks of white passing them by.

Liyana messaged the Commander and led them to the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was easy to locate, you just had to find your way to the upper level. The bottom level was all fitness, sports, medical, and showers. The middle level had the store, library, movie theatre, arcade and other small games like poker tables, chess, table tennis, darts, shuffleboard, etc, then the upper level, which had a clear view to the outside had some virtual golf booths, the cafeteria, the bar and a park-like area with benches and faux grass.

The bar did have a ‘two alcoholic drinks in 20 hour’ rule, you had to pay for alcoholic drinks and you could not buy drinks for others. Water and non-alcoholic drinks, you could have as many as you wanted for free.

The Commander met up with them and asked, “Would you care to join me for dinner?”

Mark said, “We would be honoured, Sir!”

Mark was impressed, the meal could easily match most 5-star restaurants on Earth. Everyone loved the food and as they were eating dessert, Mark asked, “So, is there anyway to void this ancient law he has invoked?”

Liyana answered, “No, my King, since we left Earth, there has never been a period where there wasn’t a presiding royal without an heir to take the throne. The throne has always been seamlessly transitioned from one royal to the next.

From what we can tell, the law he’s invoked was created by the second king of Atlantis, who they suspect killed his brother, Atlas and all but one of his sons, who they were never able to locate. They then created the full moon law and the second king was able to ascend to the throne.”

Mark then realized, “So that missing son was likely my forefather!”

Then she continued, “Mind you we’ve had very limited contact with our ancestral home, which is pretty much the only other place, in our known universe, that we could even hope to find a king. I’m just glad you were the first one identified, over thousands of years, there’s probably thousands of people on Earth that have the genetic marker of your forefather, my King.”

Mark looked annoyed, “Enough with the my king stuff! I’m not the king yet and even when I am, you know I’m not hung up on titles and protocol.”

Liyana said, “That was fine back on the ranch, but I can’t do that, MY KING. Protocol needs to be followed, even if you don’t like it. It may not mean much to you, but in a hundred years or so, when the next king, your son, succeeds you, you wouldn’t want people getting punished because they forgot the protocols around royalty.”

Mark nodded, “That makes a lot of sense, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Thank you! But I’m still not going to punish someone for being frank with me or telling me I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, damn well tell me why, don’t just blindly do what I say.”

Liyana said, “We can’t do that either, if you say something, we have to do it. The only people that can argue points with you is your advisers.”

Mark smiled at Liyana, “Congratulations! You just got promoted to my adviser!”

Liyana looked astonished, “Thank you, but I will not accept until after your coronation and you have had a chance to meet some of the current advisers. You may find other advisers with more experience that you like better!”

Mark smiled, “How many advisers am I allowed?”, then he leaned in to whisper into Liyana’s ear, “and is their pussy as tight as yours?”

Liyana blushed, “My King,” then smiled as she leaned to whisper in his ear, “I’m not sure my pussy is tight anymore after what you and Rayven did to me!”

The rest of the dinner conversation was quite relaxed and light hearted.

The Commander acknowledged, “The more I see you and the way you interact with others, the more I want to get you back as fast as possible, so we can get rid of the bastard. I wish I could make the ship go faster.”

After dinner, most of them relaxed in the library for a bit, then decided to go to the gym to do some sparring or play a game of something. When they got to the gym most of them got picked up for a game of volleyball, but Rayven and Mark decided some sparring was in order.

Rayven was a fast learner and had been getting better and better. It helped that she had previous martial arts training on her home world as a kid as it was becoming more of a challenge to beat her, but he always did.

After several matches and Mark winning them all. A big guy that had been watching them, suggested Mark spar against a real opponent rather than picking on a girl.

Mark explained, “I am her instructor, I’m not picking on her.”

Rayven suggested, “Would you like to spar with me?”

Mark expressed his concern, “Rayven are you sure about this? Just so you know, when I spar with you, I’m not going full out.”

Rayven said, “There’s medical right next door. Let me try!”

Mark said, “As you wish.”

The fight was very back and forth for a few minutes. Rayven got some good strikes in and then the brute got some good strikes in, unfortunately about 5 minutes into the battle, with both of them bleeding quite a bit, Rayven made a small mistake with her footing, which threw off her balance and she couldn’t avoid the haymaker the brute threw. She went to the ground hard and didn’t get up, but was still breathing.

The fight had drawn a bit of a crowd, so the medics picked her up and had her in a medibed toot sweet.

Once she was being cared for, the brute said, “Your turn?”

Mark smiled, “It hardly seems fair, I’m rested while you’ve been working hard for the past few minutes to beat my student.”

From behind the brute, an even bigger brute walked onto the mat. “Well, then maybe we should fight instructor to instructor?”

Mark smiled, thinking it would be nice to not have to hold back for once, so he agreed.

Liyana came out of the crowd and went to Mark, “What do you think you are doing? That guy is Deltar, I know that means nothing to you, but he’s been the Federation fighting champion for the past 5 years! They call him Deltar the Destroyer!”

Mark said, “I haven’t had a chance to spar full out in years, and definitely not since being restored. Don’t worry about me! There’s medical next door in case I screw up.”

At that, Mark stepped onto the mat, there were people stacked deep all around the entire mat and even people up on the upper levels, since the gyms spanned multiple levels.

Deltar looked like a minotaur and stood about 7’ tall, his arms were bigger around than Mark’s legs were, he actually made the guy Rayven fought seem small.

Mark was fairly confident that his smaller size would be an advantage in speed and he could wear the guy down, until he made a mistake and then capitalize.

The first minute or so was them getting a feel for how each other moved, they both traded a few punches and kicks. Each studying the other’s muscles and stances for tells. Deltar seemed confused by Mark’s fighting style as he had never fought someone using capoeira.

The pace of the fight picked up a bit, but Mark was still holding back a lot, and just doing simple redirection and counter moves, more so than offensive moves.

Deltar was goading him on, trying to draw him into a trap, unfortunately Mark bit on one and was punched squarely in the head and knocked back and down. The crowd was chanting, ‘Deltar, Deltar!’

Mark picked himself up off the mat and things went back and forth for the next several minutes, both trading harder punches and kicks than before. After about 5 minutes, Mark felt he knew enough about his opponent to do an actual counter strike. Deltar came in with a punch fake that turned into a back kick. Mark dropped to the ground using a Rasteira do Chão move, or sweep from the floor, which swept his leg, knocking him to the ground.