Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 09

When the throttle was pulled all the way back and you were stopped, the AGCs kicked in. Then you pushed the landing gear button to lower the landing gear and you pushed the wing button to fold the wings in to the body of the shuttle. You simply pressed the yoke forward to lower yourself to the ground and, once on the ground, you pressed another button to lower the ramp.

Joe, Kat, Annabelle, Elisha, Gerald and two government agents were there waiting when they exited the shuttle.

Annabelle came up and gave both Mark and Maren kisses, and then Mark hugged Joe and Kat and greeted Elisha and Gerald. Then turned to greet the two government agents, an older gentleman with a very pronounced limp and a younger man.

"Hi, I'm Mark Phoenix," he said as he extended his hand to shake.

"Hi Mark, I'm Ben Jeffries from the PMO and this is my assistant Kyle. May we accompany this trip to the embassy?" the elder gentleman said.

"It is unexpected, but sure, no problem!" Mark said and then turned to face Annabelle, "How come you aren't in school?"

Annabelle said with a big smile, "I talked to my teachers, they've given me all the assignments up until the Christmas break, so I can go to Atlanterra with you. They all agreed that this was too big an opportunity to miss."

Mark smiled at the beautiful teenager, as Maren waved her arm toward the shuttle and said, "Shall we get going then?"

Mark announced, "Before we get going, I would like to inform you that one of the requirements, to visiting the embassy, is that you will be permanently identified by the Atlantean Federation. The process is harmless, but is not reversible and will remain with you for the rest of your life."

Kyle asked with a worried look, "What if I don't want to be permanently identified?"

Mark instructed, "Then don't get on the shuttle, the process is unavoidable as it's literally in the air on the shuttle, the embassy or any Federation ships or buildings. So the only way to avoid it is if you don't breathe. If you want to leave, speak now or forever hold your peace."

No one indicated they wanted to leave, so Mark left Maren to do the flying and strapped himself into one of the jump seats in the back.

Annabelle asked, "So has anything exciting happened?"

Mark calmly replied, "Nothing major! The Chinese launched a nuclear missile at us, and we had a little run-in with some US fighter jets on the way to pick you up."

"A nuclear missile?" Ben asked with a shocked look, "We heard something was launched from the Pacific Ocean and detonated in space, but the trajectory was pretty much straight up, didn't cross anyone's airspace and the ISS was on the other side of the planet."

Mark stated, "Yeah, well it was a nuke and it was aimed at us."

Kyle asked curiously, "What happened?"

Mark said, "After getting some good closeup pictures of it, it blew up."

Kyle was flabbergasted, "A nuclear missile blew up in your face and you just say, 'it blew up'! Did it do any damage?"

Mark said, "Not really, the shields turned red, the place shook for a few seconds and I think I heard someone say a couple of glasses got broke in the restaurant."

Ben was shocked as well, "And then you had a run in with US fighter jets?"

Mark laughed, "Yeah that was my bad. Maren was teaching me how to fly this thing and I hadn't enabled the cloak."

Kyle asked, "What happened there?"

Mark replied, "After Maren figured out how to communicate with them. They said we were violating their airspace and wanted us to follow them in and land."

Kyle asked, "So what did you do?"

Mark smiled and said, "Well after telling them we were unarmed and that we had places to go and people to see. They opened fire on us! They couldn't penetrate the shields, so I just thanked them for their time and told them to keep the air secure from real threats. Then we left, it's not like they could keep up with us."

Ben stated with concern, "So in the course of one morning, you've taunted not one, but two superpowers?"

Mark laughed, "Yup, I wanted to fly over Russia on the way to the embassy, to complete the set," then added, "but Maren said no and that's why I'm relegated to passenger status!"

Maren laughed from the cockpit as they were leaving the atmosphere. As soon as they were weightless, Mark announced, "Congratulations everyone, you've just joined the elite club known as astronauts."

"Amazing!" Ben said as everyone else just had big grins on their faces.

Mark continued his announcement, "We'll be arriving at the embassy in a couple of minutes. The process is simple, follow the arrows and answer the questions, when you get to the security booth."

Maren just then spoke up like a tour guide, "If you look out the port side windows you will see the International Space Station or ISS as it is called. The vessel will be 109 metres long by 79 metres wide, whenever it is supposed to be completed. It was launched in 1998 and has been populated continuously since 2000. Currently there are 6 people living aboard."

Mark smiled as everyone looked out the port windows toward the ISS.

A minute later, Maren spoke up, "If you'll look out the starboard windows you will see the Atlantean Federation Embassy. The embassy is 500 metres long, 150 metres wide and 100 metres tall. It currently has a crew of 50, but has 400 rooms available for rent."

Seconds later they were skimming across the landing deck of the embassy, headed toward the open garage.

They touched down and the ramp started to lower. Everyone exited the shuttle and was standing in the garage as Maren did her post-flight checks and shut down the shuttle, then exited last. Then she opened the door and led the party down the tube following the arrows.

Everyone was in awe at being able to look out into space and across the landing deck of the embassy. Annabelle said the tubes were like a people sized version of a Habitrail.

They followed the tube until the security booth. Maren and Mark were directed straight through as Annabelle went first, Elisha went next, then Gerald, Kyle, and finally Ben.

Taryn closed up her booth, exited and gave Mark a hug and kiss. Annabelle walked up, put her arm around Mark and said, "She's a fox! Hi, I'm Annabelle," as she extended her hand to shake.

Taryn seeing Annabelle's arm around Mark, "Hi, I'm Taryn. I take it you and Mark here are an item?"

Annabelle nodded the affirmative, then Taryn whispered, "Lucky girl! He has an incredible cock!"

Annabelle smiled and whispered back, "Yes he does," as she then leaned in and kissed Taryn. That was when Mark noticed that both girls had a sparkle in their eyes, like they instantly had this unspoken bond.

Liyana introduced herself to Ben and Kyle, since they were new and then offered everyone a tour of the embassy.

Mark whispered to Annabelle just loud enough for Taryn to hear, "I bet their tours aren't half a good as Taryn's. I seriously doubt they're going to end up in the bath house fucking a fox."

Taryn turned and looked at Mark and Annabelle, with a huge grin on her face, as she whispered, "I'm still walking a little funny, since you stretched my pussy open!"

Annabelle snickered and whispered, "He does have an impressive appendage!"

Gerald was digging out his camera as Elisha was asking how the tour was going to go, but Ben said, "No cameras!"

Mark looked at Taryn, smiled then said, "Liyana, you give Ben and Kyle a tour. Taryn and I can give Annabelle, Elisha and Gerald a tour."

Liyana asked, "Taryn, are you OK with giving a tour that's going to be recorded and then broadcast to the planet?"

Taryn's eyes went wide and she looked a bit scared, so Mark stepped in, "I'll give them the tour, I've only taken the tour once myself, so Taryn will just be along as my resource."

Liyana asked, "Elisha, are you OK with Mark doing the tour?"

Elisha exclaimed, "Sure, getting a tour from the King himself, would be awesome!"

While Gerald was getting his camera ready, Mark asked if he looked OK. Taryn smiled and said, "You look fine, my King," while Annabelle gave him a thumbs up.

"Where would you like to start the tour?" Mark asked.

"Let's start the tour from here with the camera trailing behind us viewing down the street," Elisha suggested.

"Sounds good to me."

When Gerald indicated he was ready, Elisha began her spiel, "I'm Elisha Romanson from Global News Calgary, we are currently aboard the Atlantean Federation Embassy orbiting Earth. We should be honoured to be given our tour by none other than the King of the Atlantean Federation, Mark Phoenix. Thank you for giving us this tour today."

"Thank you for coming Elisha. We look forward to showing everyone that we are a peaceful civilization only looking to help improve the lives of people everywhere."

"So tell us a bit about the embassy."

"The embassy is roughly 500 metres long, 150 metres wide, 100 metres tall and has a crew of 50. There are 400 rooms available and a number of amenities, if you want to spend a day or two, and we'll soon be offering scheduled trips to other Federated planets. We are currently standing just past the security booths, you go through after your shuttle has docked."

"Is it true that once we go through the security booth, we are now permanently identified by the Atlantean Federation?"

"That is true, the Federation doesn't use passports, so we just record the information from your identification into our system, when you go through security, any subsequent trips to the embassy you wouldn't need any documentation and you'd be sent straight through the express lane.

By entering any Atlantean Federation ship or building, you become permanently identified by the Federation, it's a harmless process, but will remain with you for your entire life, if you happen to change your name, just show documentation saying you've changed it and we can update our system."

"How did I get identified and what if I didn't want to be identified?"

"You cannot avoid the identification process as it is circulated through the air you breathe. If you do not wish to be identified, don't get on a shuttle."

"So this embassy... it looks like a shopping mall?"

"Heh, I said the same thing when I first saw it, but it's actually more like an orbital resort, since there's really only one store and it's just a gift shop."

"What kind of amenities are available at the embassy?"

"In addition to the usual embassy services such as citizenship, immigration and travel, there is also a library, a restaurant, a bar, a movie theatre, a medibay, a park with a lake and a Zero-G park."

"For the purposes of this tour, we'll zig zag our way down the street to introduce you to all the amenities."

"To the right are the offices of the ambassadors, councillors and security. You can go there to discuss becoming a citizen and relocating to another planet. You can also book trips or vacations to other Federated planets. They are kind of a mixture of citizenship services, travel agents and concierge."

As they walked across the central corridor, Gerald indicated he wasn't going to record the entire tour, just each of the amenities as they were going to have to trim everything down to fit within a couple of minutes.

The group decided to skip the library, convenience store and gift shop since it really wasn't anything special and continued on to the restaurant.

"Here is our restaurant, it's got pretty good food from what I've eaten so far. It's all from food synths."

"What are food synths?"

"More or less they are synthetic food. Atlanteans don't kill animals for food, well someone may have at one point in time, but once they can sample the structure of the food, the synths can then recreate it. Most food you literally can't tell the difference between the synth version and the real thing. Last night I had a steak sandwich and I seriously doubt I would be able to tell a synthed steak sandwich from a real one, which says a lot considering I'm from Alberta."

"So synthed food tastes just like the real thing? What about the nutritional value of synthed food?"

"It would be identical to the original sample they copied from. So you could have steak every night if you wanted and no animals would be hurt in the making of your meals."

"We'll have to order something later, I'm curious about it now. Technology like this could solve world hunger."

Biting his tongue, Mark didn't say that world hunger could likely have been solved decades ago, if governments didn't waste so much money on military peacocking. The group then walked over to the medibay and setup.

"Here is the medibay. Come and lie in one of these medibeds and they'll fix whatever is wrong with you, in fact it may even fix some things that have gone undiagnosed, such as cancer, diabetes, tumours, ulcers, arthritis... whatever. Health care in the Federation is free to all."

The group looked in at the movie theatre, but it was just like the ones on Earth so they chose to skip past it. Then looking across at the gym they decided to skip over it as well.

They quickly glanced in at the bar, since it was at the end beside the park.

Mark said, "This is the bar and it's pretty much the same as the restaurant, except they have numerous pub type games to play, lots of sports to watch and of course some virtual gaming booths."

Gerald panned the camera around and Elisha asked what the Japanese looking place on the corner was.

"That is the bath house. Unfortunately you can't go in with a camera, it has a steam sauna, hot tubs, showers and baths. I've personally only used the baths, but they are amazing. You pick the temperature, they fill up fast and the water never gets cold! Then when you're done the tub actually cleans itself!"

The group then walked out to the middle of the park, where there was a small bridge spanning the narrowest part of the lake. Gerald panned around and saw some people playing beach volleyball, many people swimming in the lake and there was some virtual golf booths over in the corner of the park.

"I can't believe you have a whole park with a lake in space!" Elisha stated.

"Yeah the park is a nice place to hang out, you can play beach volleyball, hover board or swim in the lake. It's also a nice place to just go and stargaze... or watch the International Space Station float by!" as Mark pointed to the side.

Gerald panned and watched the ISS float by.

"That little thing orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes, so it goes by us quite frequently," Mark said.

Gerald continued to pan around the park and then settled on the big geodesic dome on the far side of the lake.

"What's that big thing on the other side of the lake?" Gerald asked as he pointed to the Zero-G Park.

"That's the Zero-G Park! If you ever wanted to float around without gravity, it's kind of cool! They have free float times, but they also hold games in there, such as Capture the Flag, Laser Tag, etc. There is a cost to that for non-citizens and there's also an age limit, but I'm not sure what the cost is or what the age limit is."

"So the embassy is now open for business?" Elisha asked.

"Yes it is, we're researching ideas for the best way to implement the shuttle service, but in any case, the website is where you will find information, schedules and forms for the shuttle service."

"I would like to thank you for giving us this guided tour of the Atlantean Federation Embassy, and we'll keep an eye on the website for more information. This is Elisha Romanson, signing off from the Atlantean Federation Embassy, which is now open for business."

Mark looked at Taryn, "So... how did I do?"

Taryn smiled, "Not bad, for your first time," as she gave him a kiss.

Then Annabelle gave him a kiss, "So have you guys tried fucking in the Zero-G Park yet?"

Taryn explained, "It's more difficult than you think it is. You can't use your hips so, as a girl, you are pretty much a fuck toy that he has to move up and down on his cock using his arms, then when he cums, if it's not inside you, it floats all over the place. It's not worth the cleanup!"

Elisha overheard the conversation, "So Mark, have you slept with all the women on this embassy already?"

Mark looked admonished, "Not all of them!"