Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 15

Once the beds were started, they sat down with Roberta and talked.

All of them had been kidnapped from Carthas, by the Prince and his friends. Carthas was a decent sized city about 12km south of the crater lake. She got depressed thinking no one ever came looking for them?

Mark said, "They probably did look for quite a while, but that the cave was shielded and scanners wouldn't detect them in there. I'm going to look into how they could've taken her without anyone knowing."

Roberta said that Taissia had been there the longest and seemed to be their favourite, since she had the biggest boobs. Quite often all three of the guys took turns with her and she would be brought back to the cell covered in their cum.

Roberta had been there about 6 months and that two other girls had also been there, but they never saw them again about 2 months ago, figuring they must have been killed.

She tried to remember their names, but all she could remember was one started with an S and the other started with an R. She didn't know how old they were, but guessed they were about Maisie's age, they were only there a day or two each.

After about half an hour, Taissia was out of the medibed and Roberta went in. It was still estimating Maisie's recovery at 10 hours.

They sat Taissia down and had her go through her story.

She had been kidnapped from her room in the middle of the night, almost a year ago. She also wondered why no one ever looked for her?

After they had raped her a few times, they started bringing younger girls in. She started being slutty for them and pretending she liked it. Hoping it would draw their attention away from the younger girls and it may have made their abuse less frequently, but they all got abused.

In total, since she had been taken, there had been 8 different girls. Taylor, Summer, Katie, Roberta, Sorscha, Robin and Maisie, but sometimes they wouldn't be brought back. They all hoped that they had got away, even though they knew they probably didn't.

Liyana had been doing some searches as they were talking, she had pulled up all the missing person's reports of every name Taissia mentioned. All the girls were between 10 and 15 and all had seemingly disappeared, without a trace, from Carthas in the past year.

She pulled up a bunch of news reports about the missing girls. After the first three girls had gone missing, security was everywhere in Carthas and there was an increased number of drones there too, but girls still went missing and security had no clues. There were no signs of struggle, no signs of forced entry, nothing! They seemed to just vanish... sometimes during the daytime and sometimes at night and from all over the city.

When the others got back after they had returned the boats, they were brought up to speed with the situation.

Mark had forgotten to ask Maren why she was back so soon, but Annabelle didn't, "Maren, how come you're not at your parents?"

Maren explained, "The surprise was on me! Mom and dad booked themselves a star cruise to Neptune and a couple of other outer planets."

Roberta was out of the bed fairly quickly as well, so Mark took them upstairs and had Jeff make supper for everyone.

When they asked if they could go home, Mark said they could, but to wait until Maisie was recovered.

As they were eating, Mark got wondering, "What did they do with the Prince?"

Liyana said, "They would've escorted him to one of the holding cells in the basement, until it was safe to transport him to the orbital prison."

Mark said, "I don't remember him being transferred out, do any of you?"

Everyone shook their heads, as Mark jumped up and ran downstairs to the holding cells, but all he found was an empty cell.

Immediately he asked, "As the Prince, he must have had the ability to make changes to the palace, correct?"

Angela answered, "Yes, I suppose he would have, up until you became King. Why?"

Mark said, "If I knew my days were numbered and there was a high chance I'd be at least temporarily held at the palace, I would've built in some escape tunnels from the cells."

Angela said, "There's nothing but forest and mountains for kilometres around this place. The Prince is not a rugged man like you, I doubt he could survive out in nature with no supplies, plus he would be detected if he was on the surface."

Mark said, "Cricket has there been any craft, other than the senators in this area in the past two days?"

Cricket said, "No, they all landed and took off from the landing pad, nothing else until you reach Carthas. The last known location of the Prince's ID was in the palace basement, but I see no trace of him right now."

Mark said, "His tunnels hide him, so he could literally be hiding under the palace in a room with no door."

Mark thought about it and extrapolated, "I bet the island cave is his escape plan, he has food synths, network access and isn't detectable by the identification system. If I was in his shoes and the cave was a safe place from everyone looking for me... I'd probably hang out in the cave for a while and watching the news to see if they're still looking for me. Then when they come to the conclusion that I must have escaped the planet somehow, I'd contact a friend and have them pick me up some place where there is regular shuttle traffic and then make my getaway."

"Cricket, have we got a drone out at the island cave now?"

"I have two of them, one just outside of the cave relaying signals to one inside the cave. The Prince is not there right now."

"Can you access the construx of the tunnel to see where it goes?"

"Yes I can! The tunnel from the palace cells does appear to lead to the island cave, but on the prison wing of the cave is another tunnel that leads to Carthas and then branches out to dozens of other tunnels underneath the city, I can see the construx structure, but I can't see if anything is in the tunnels."

"Monitor the cave, he has to go through there to get to the Carthas escape tunnels. Bar the Carthas tunnel just before it branches off to other tunnels under Carthas, and don't let anyone but me open them. Once he shows up in the cave, notify me and let's try to trap him there. Hopefully he hasn't escaped yet. Keep a vigilant eye on his ID and if it pops up, even for a second, notify me."

Mark then told everyone his new theories about the Prince's escape plan, "He has tunnels that lead all the way to Carthas and then splits up numerous different directions.

He was probably able to go directly into people's homes via the tunnels, abduct the girls, then seal off the tunnel behind him as they took their prey back to the cave.

You are undetectable inside his little tunnel network, so if he was going right into people's homes, that would explain why their last known ID location was their house and why any security outside the house wouldn't have seen anything."

After they had finished eating supper, there was still a few hours until Maisie was recovered, so Mark invited Jeff to discuss changes to the palace.

They already had a design for the senator wing, which was pretty much what was currently there just relocated between the hotel and the senate chamber, including their eating and lounging areas on the ground level, so they wanted to discuss changes to the layout of the ground level and sub-level of the palace.

So they were going to move the kitchen from it's current location to an area more central to the hotel and put the restaurant on one side and the lounge on the other, they also were going to have a deli, a sub shop and a couple of coffee shops, just to spread things around a bit and give people some faster food options. Then they were going to add a bath house and spa at the bottom of the west wing and they were going to have roughly a dozen meeting rooms of varying sizes, with a couple of the bigger ones able to be divided, so they could size to the event.

They were also going to add some gas fire pits out on the patio and Mark wanted to also add a gas fire pit on the patio of the royal suite. The royal floor was already one level higher than the rest of the hotel so that area would be locked off to the general public anyway.

Solara went to work redesigning the hotel, while Mark and Jeff called for a staff meeting in the dining hall.

There really wasn't much for staff and they were pretty much all associated with the kitchen, except for two hostesses, a couple of janitors or maintenance people and a couple of landscapers. This was the first time many of them were meeting Mark.

Mark got up in front of them and said, "Thank you for coming! I know I haven't met all of you yet, but I want you all to know that I am just a normal guy and don't have expectations of being waited on hand and foot. In fact, you probably won't be doing a whole lot of waiting on me anyway, as I will not be living here full time like previous monarchs."

Many in the room got worried looks on their faces, until one of the kitchen guys spoke up, "So what do we do when you are not here? We aren't going to just be hired for a few weeks a year are we?"

Mark smiled and looked at Jeff, "Be honest with me please, how busy are your actual jobs outside of the few weeks the senate is meeting here?"

Another guy spoke up, "Sometimes it's downright boring. I'm thankful to have a job, but sometimes it feels like I'm just being a drain on taxpayers."

Mark smiled, "As I suspected... I don't like wasting taxpayer money!

I've been talking with Jeff, Senator Marsbe and my advisers and I have proposed to them, the idea of turning the palace into a hotel resort to keep it busy year round. More or less I want to take the palace from being a drain on taxpayers to a profitable venture.

What do you guys, and gals, think about that idea? Don't be shy, be honest!"

After it seemed like everyone was too scared to say anything, one girl spoke up, "I like the idea of being busy, some days it just seems like the day is crawling, because we are bored. I also think it will be nice having a variety of people around here, but I think we may need to hire more people."

Mark smiled, "I hope so, we're going to need some concierge services, we might actually have to have someone man the boat house, I'm also considering building a golf course here and maybe developing some hiking or horse riding trails around here.

Think about it tonight and let me know your thoughts in the morning after we all meet and have breakfast and if you have any ideas for what amenities and services we should offer here... I'd love to hear them!"

Sensing the meeting was over, Jeff stepped in and told everyone to be there at 8am tomorrow morning for breakfast.

Mark then stuck around and talked to some of the staff and it seemed like they were getting a bit more comfortable around him, so hopefully he'd get some good feedback tomorrow.

Maisie still wasn't out of the medibed, so Mark gave Taissia and Roberta a room in the royal wing, but they didn't want to be alone so they ended up staying with T'Soona since she didn't take up much room in a king size bed by herself. Mark also moved Angela to the royal wing, since the rest of the palace was now vacant.

After the girls and T'Soona had went to bed, everyone else convened on Mark's patio in the hot tub, it had been a bit of a taxing day and everyone just needed to soak away the tension. No one voiced it, but if the Prince showed his face right now, any one of them would gladly cut his balls off and shove them down his throat.

Despite all the nude flesh, no one was really in a horny mood, so after soaking for a bit, one by one each of them retired to their rooms, until it was just Rayven, Annabelle and Mark. Even then Rayven excused herself, saying she was going to go sleep on the couch in the medibay, so that someone was there for Maisie when she woke up.

Mark and Annabelle slipped into the big comfy bed and Annabelle was soon sound asleep.

Mark, however, was having a fitful sleep. There was just too many scenarios for capturing the Prince to contemplate. He was just hoping he was hiding out in the tunnels and would eventually pop-up in his cave where they could trap him.

Just as the sun was coming up, Mark woke up with an idea, "Cricket, since you're now tied into the construx he used to create his tunnel system, what type of material did he use to block the ID signal?"

Cricket replied, "It looks like he made himself a conductive shield, the caves are 10cm of rock on the inside, then 1cm of solid copper that is conducting a small electrical current."

"On Earth that's called a Faraday shield or cage. Cricket, we can detect ID's through natural rock can't we?"

Cricket replied, "Yes we can, well for at least 100m of it anyway."

"Good! Can you kill the electrical current and convert the copper to rock? Maybe then we can pickup his ID signal, without tipping him off that we're on to him."

"Will do, it's going to take a while, as there is literally 100s of kilometres of tunnels to modify."

Mark got out of bed and decided to go get coffee, he arrived to find Rayven and Maisie in the dining room eating a breakfast of eggs, toast and orange juice.

Seeing Maisie up and about brought a smile to Mark's face as he gave Rayven a good morning kiss and then said, "Good morning Maisie, you're looking a lot better today, I'm sorry for what happened to you."

Maisie stood up and hugged Mark, "Thank you for saving me!"

Mark replied, "I'm just glad we got there when we did! We'll get you back home after the others wake up and eat."

She then sat down to continue her breakfast, as Mark fixed a couple of eggs and some toast. Mark was just finishing as Jeff showed up and they decided to go with an old fashioned pancake breakfast for the staff. Now that Rayven and Maisie had finished their breakfast everyone went to task to get breakfast going for everyone else.

They dug out some skillets and setup the cooking stations. Rayven took over the scrambled egg station, Mark was manning the bacon station, Maisie took care of the toast station and Jeff was flipping pancakes.

As people came in they could just grab a plate, dish up, then sit down at a table and eat. They were very surprised to see Mark working in the kitchen and actually serving them.

Around 8am, Mark started the meeting, "So did everyone think about the palace changes I proposed last night?"

Despite that some were still eating, almost everyone nodded their head.

"A show of hands, who is in favour of changing the palace into a hotel resort?"

Everyone in attendance put up their hands, so then Mark asked, "As I suspected, now I hope you guys thought of some services and amenities we need to add to this place. Rather than everyone shouting at once, why don't you put up your hand, then stand up when you speak? Who wants to go first?"

Jeff went first just to start things off and inform the staff what he and Mark were thinking about for eating amenities, "I say we have a full scale restaurant and a lounge with a large kitchen in the middle. Then scatter a sub shop, a deli and a couple of coffee and dessert shops around the place to give people options for eating."

Mark smiled as he acknowledged the additions, "I like it! We also need to add a bath house and spa! Who'a next!"

A young man stood up and suggested an arcade for the kids. Then a woman suggested a playground for the kids. Someone else then suggested either a floating water park or water slides. Someone then suggested a skate park, then hiking trails, trail rides, movie theatre and more.

Once they got going, most everyone had contributed at least one idea.

After about an hour there wasn't as many ideas being put forth, so Mark announced, "You guys are awesome, there was a lot of good ideas put forth. Unfortunately not all of them will be possible, but give us some time to come up with some designs and plans.

In the meantime, if you think of other ideas, just stop by the front desk and whoever is there can collect them for me."

A little while after the meeting had ended, Cricket announced that she had completed the tunnel reconstruction and had found the remains of the other missing girls, so at least they could give closure to the families, and a judge could see the last few memories from the medibots.

That was one advantage to the medibot system, if a person died for any reason, the medibots would stay with every bone. Then whenever the bone got discovered, a judge would be able to see where, when and how they died as well as the last few memories, which usually meant they knew or saw the faces of their killers.

There was still no sign of the Prince, but Mark was pretty sure they were still hiding out somewhere shielded. As his last location still showed as the palace.

He had kept with his original idea of barring the island cave exit and barring the tunnel just before it branched off beneath Carthas. So the bastard could go anywhere from the palace cell, to the cave and even the 10km down the Carthas tunnels, but not actually ever reach an exit.

Mark told Cricket, "Disable the construx, I don't want him being able to manipulate it. We must be missing something... send two drones into the tunnels from the palace end, keep them separated so that one is always able to communicate, then map the tunnels and record everything they find."

It took less than half an hour until Cricket informed Mark that she had found the Prince and three of his friends.

Mark announced to the group that he had located the Prince and three of his friends. He was just putting together a plan to trap them.

Cricket explained, "His tunnels went further than I had realized. Your idea of mapping and scanning with the drones paid off!

Halfway to the crater island was a natural cave that his tunnel to the island cave went through. In the natural cave, he had used a second construx to build another tunnel and a huge underground hangar inside the mountain, which is why I couldn't find them before."

Now that it was natural stone rather than his conductive shield, they could clearly detect 4 ID signals in the cavern, one of which was the Prince. He also had a couple of shuttles in there.

Mark had Cricket find the shuttle exit and turn it to sold rock, so they couldn't fly away.

The next thing he had her do was use the drones already down there so they could see and hear what they were saying and doing. He then suggested she send two more drones to continue mapping and scanning his tunnels.

Although, if at any time they all left the hangar, she was to bar the hangar entrance, trapping him away from the shuttles and what was likely a shitload of evidence of his nefarious activities or their backup retirement plans.

Eventually he and his friends will realize that we know everything and they will likely do something desperate and stupid.

Speaking of stupid, mere moments after giving the instruction to bar the hangar if they left, Cricket announced, "They've left the hangar and it looks like they're headed to the cave."

Wanting to surprise the Prince, Mark asked Maren to fly him out to the crater island.

Everyone said he wasn't going alone, so Gyges was going with him. Just in case they needed backup.

Gyges also called the security station in orbit and they were dispatching security to the crater island as well.

Within a minute, Maren had Gyges and Mark at the island, the other security ship was still a minutes or two away.

Mark and Gyges traversed their way down the steep path to the entrance, which positionally was directly below where the path started.