Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 07

After about 15 minutes, everyone except Solara and the girls were accounted for in the lobby as the lodge began to transform. The structural process of the walls only took a few minutes, ending off with the new clear force field top. All of the other stuff inside the rooms and the basement took longer such as wiring the electrical, lights, the PTACs, the beds, the washrooms, etc.

Once the upgrade had been completed everyone was wandering around looking at things, while Kat was taking pictures to update the website.

The courtyard was an awesome addition, and somehow felt completely new since it was now surrounded by the lodge, and the fact that it was now warmer than outside just made it seem surreal. Also by not having the gym and workout area and open to the lobby just made it seem that much bigger.

There was a crash that came from inside the kitchen so everyone came running. They found Maria lying on the floor in front of the cooktop with a potato near one hand and a pan near the other.

While Kat and Sofia attended to Maria, Mark and the others looked around the new kitchen. It now spanned the width of the wing, the walls and floor matched the rest of the lodge with the wooden log look and wood plank floor. Both sides of the kitchen appeared identical in design, probably so that two people could work together if required, the only difference was one side had black appliances and the other side had white.

On the right side of each counter was a double oven with a large section on the bottom and a smaller section on top. Beside it was a decent sized solid cooktop, with an exhaust fan above it. Beside that was a wooden cutting board counter with a sink that had one of those spring-spray faucets. Below the cooktop and prep area was a bunch of square cupboards with windowed doors that appeared to hold a different type of pot, pan, casserole dish or cake pan behind each one. The wall above the prep area had rows of magnets holding up knives and other utensils and a few hooks hanging other items. At the right end was a terminal that looked like a food synth and then a cupboard that had various other tools such as blenders, mixers, crock pots and stuff that was larger and not used as frequently.

As Maria came to, they gave her a glass of water and then helped her to her feet so she could explain what had happened.

She had discovered the food synth terminal and had figured out how to make a potato and other items. Then, when she was looking over the cooktop, she noticed the cabinets underneath with the pots and pans. She took one of the pans out and closed the cabinet and then when she opened the door to put the pan back there was another pan already there. When she realized she would never have to do wash dishes again she must have fainted.

After everyone had a quick laugh at her expense, Maria said, "I love this! All of you leave, this is my playground, let me play!"

Solara smiled, held up her four hands and said, "Wait! Maria you probably don't realize what being connected to the Federation network means for a kitchen. I mean, you can continue to cook your own creations and we should probably show you how to upload your recipes, but let me show you what is now at your fingertips."

Solara then guided everyone to the terminal on the counter. She demonstrated how to search and browse recipes and how to save recipes to the favourites list. Since they typically did soups and sandwiches for lunches, they found a soup that looked good, and when Solara selected it, she was then prompted for the number of servings. Maria said 20 servings, so Solara set it to 20 servings and then pressed the MAKE icon just like on the drink dispensers.

Suddenly the recipe, which had been adjusted for the number of servings, displayed on the wall above the prep area and the food synth started putting the ingredients into bowls and pushing them out onto the prep counter. Even the spices were pre-measured into little bowls. All you had to do was follow the preparation and cooking instructions and, if baking was required, it would even set the temperature and start the oven, it even set automatic timers so you didn't under or overcook anything.

With Maria's mind totally blown, they left her to get acquainted with her new kitchen. You could see the gears turning in her mind by the size of the smile on her face and the sparkle in her eyes.

About an hour after the lodge upgrade was complete, everyone was drinking coffee in the new courtyard and the reporters were still looking around or chatting and drinking their own drinks, as a black SUV came driving up the lane.

Since it didn't trigger any alarms, Mark was satisfied it was unarmed as it stopped in front of the lodge. A man in black jumped out and opened the rear door for a man in a very nice suit and a briefcase.

The man walked into the lodge and stopped at the edge of the courtyard and announced, "I'm John McAlistair, the Minister of National Defence, I'm here on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office."

Most of the reporters grabbed their microphones and cameras, wanting to record whatever the Minister was there for.

Joe asked, "Welcome! What brings you to our ranch?"

The Minister looked at all the news crews and stated, "I'm here because you are harbouring illegal aliens and a wanted felon. We're here to take them in."

Joe laughed, "Well, that ain't going to happen!"

Just then they heard thrusters outside as a shuttle landed behind the black SUV on the driveway and, of course, the reporters wanted to record that as Liyana and Gyges exited the craft and made their way into the lodge.

Liyana said, "Good morning, my King, and to you as well Joe and Kat," as they grabbed cups of coffee and sat down at the table.

Kat did the introductions, "Liyana and Gyges, this is John McAlistair, the Canadian Minister of National Defence, he says he's here to take in the girls for being illegal aliens and then to take Mark in as well, because he's a fugitive."

They both laughed as Liyana said, "Good luck with that!"

John said, "You can't mock me, I'm the Minister of National Defence for one of the most powerful nations on this planet! If you don't hand them over I'll take you all in for obstruction of justice and bring you all up on those charges as well!"

Liyana smiled and said, "You guys haven't even figured out how to sneak onto a ranch that built a security system out of some spare parts from a crashed cargo ship using basic science! What makes you so powerful?"

John stated, "Canada is one of the most advanced nations on this planet and we are a nuclear power!"

Mark said, "Well that would be stupid to risk a nuclear attack on your own soil to try and get rid of less than a dozen people who aren't bothering anybody!"

John demanded, "Well then surrender yourself and hand over the aliens!"

Mark said, "It's never going to happen!"

Liyana then spoke up, "Hey I just thought of something for the next live broadcast, that might wake up this planet!"

Liyana asked, "Kat, can you grab your phone, I want to do another broadcast."

As Kat got her phone, Liyana sat down beside Mark and indicated she was ready.

'People of Earth, my name is Ambassador Liyana of the Atlantean Federation, this is my second broadcast using your social media, but something has recently come to my attention that I need to clarify.

I recently met with a senior government official of this country and was ordered to turn over the 'illegal aliens', who have done nothing to cause anyone any reason for alarm. We obviously declined!

We are but one of a few spacefaring civilizations that we have encountered in more than 2,000 years of exploration among the stars. So far we have only encountered one species that is not very friendly, but who knows if there's more? It is only a matter of time until another alien race finds Earth, hopefully it is not one of the bad ones for your sake. Your Earth based weapons would be fairly useless against a real planetary threat.

While we will not give our technology to a planet that is not part of the Atlantean Federation, we do provide protection around planets that cannot defend themselves from these other species... despite the fact they are not part of the Federation.

We will be leaving for Atlanterra soon and will be taking a television crew with us, so they can broadcast what life is like on another planet, as well as the coronation of our new King.

Our embassy will be operational within a couple of days, so I would like to reiterate that this ranch, and the family that runs it, are under the protection of the Atlantean Federation, any attempts to harm them could be considered an act of war. A war this planet would have no chance of winning... Earth needs friends!'

Kat turned off her broadcast, then shared the video so it could be posted to some other sites.

The Minister sat down in a chair, "So you're serious about the other races out there? The bad ones?"

Liyana said, "Unfortunately yes, we have encountered them three times. We won two of the battles."

John asked, "What about the third?"

Liyana looked sad as she spoke, "It was our first encounter with this race and it was a planet we hadn't discovered yet.

We happened to be passing through an area of space, when we detected the presence of a planet that could potentially sustain life. We went to investigate and found the planet already under attack, they weren't completely defenceless, but they were no match.

We sent a drone to investigate, and found the attackers were a race of living machines, that seem to just have a vendetta against other sentient beings. They inject people with this sort of living technology that grows and eventually takes over their body, they've never identified themselves, so we just call them Cyborgs.

We destroyed their ship, but they had enough ground forces, that they had injected almost everyone on the planet. We stuck around for a few days trying to help out, but whatever they inject you with is tough to remove and eventually either drives the host mad and they end up killing themselves and often others. Everyone eventually dies.

After losing many of our own people on the surface, the decision was made to withdraw.

Since then, whenever we encounter one of their ships, we keep our distance and monitor it, hoping to one day find their home world, although many speculate they don't actually have a home world. Eventually they either attack us or find a habitable planet. If they find a habitable planet, we do a quick scan to see if they have the technology to defend themselves and, if not, we destroy the ship the second they begin their attack. A couple of the federated planets were found from following those ships.

Liyana then spoke into her comm, "Maren, can you please put the Rylen IV video from the security training program onto a holocube and bring it in?"

Maren answered, "Yes Ambassador, right away."

A couple of minutes later, the sexy little bunny came in. She gave the holocube to Liyana and then gave Mark a big kiss and sat down in his lap.

"Watch!" Liyana said as she placed the holocube on the table and pushed the button on top.

Everyone watched what was roughly a 30 minute video showing the battle already in progress, when their ship had arrived, the footage from the drone they had dispatched to the surface, then the destruction of the attacking ship and the aftermath, the madness, the death and the eventual withdrawal.

Just about everybody in the lobby had tears in their eyes and lumps in their throats when the video ended. Everyone just sat there silent and in shock.

The Minister finally spoke up, "This information changes things, I tend to agree that, if your story is true, we could use some friends."

Liyana suggested, "If it helps plead your case, take the holocube and show it to whoever you need to. Believe me, we are friends! We do not want to be foes with our ancestral world!"

The Minister collected himself and said he needed to go talk to some people. He then apologized for the intrusion and said they shouldn't have anymore problems.

As he was walking out the door, he turned and asked, "Would it be OK to send a couple of people with you to Atlanterra?"

Liyana said, "I can't see why not, but they need to be ready to go whenever we decide to leave, and we don't know how long it'll be before we come back."

He gave them his card and said to contact him before they left.

After the men left, Liyana, Gyges and Maren got a tour of the new lodge, but as soon as they all sat down around the new courtyard fire pit, Liyana got a message about the embassy and said she had to return to the orbiter.