Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 34

The meeting with Patrick at Durham took longer than expected, so after Patrick and his city planner showed them where to build their outreach centre. Similar to Carston, the site they were giving them to build, was atop the ruins of an old fort that was destroyed during the Great War. It was a much larger site than the one in Carston, and the more they talked to Patrick, the more they were leaning toward Durham becoming the central city for the Federation, so they decided to build one of the larger outreach centres there, since it was a logical choice for a Federation hub from a logistics standpoint.

They started the construction and went to dinner. The restaurant was actually quite decent, it was down on the pier and featured mainly seafood, but they also had lots of other produce and vegetables, so there was something for everyone.

After the meal, they walked back and although the outreach centre wasn't quite done, the outer shell was complete, they went inside and gave Patrick a quick tour, even though they couldn't actually go into some of the other areas yet. He and his men were astonished at the speed of the construction and all the advanced technology.

Promising to meet them tomorrow morning, they left the building and returned to the Poseidon.

Upon returning to the Poseidon, they called Kaleb and asked him to organize a transport of security and personnel to staff the outreach centres on this planet. He also started the construction of 4 more Sentinels, which were going to be sent to each of the planets the Empire had found. He wasn't sure of the status of the other planets, but they would know soon enough.

Mark had a restless sleep that night, considering the various options for Ardent and speculating of what to expect from the other planets that the Empire had found, but never really did anything with. He did however have their Sentinel deploy a drone dropper over the planet to begin distributing security drones.

The next morning, they returned to Durham with a second shuttle full of people to staff the outreach centre. Patrick saw the shuttles fly in, so he soon met up with them at the outreach centre. They gave him a more in-depth tour, now that everything was operational. He was even more impressed to see the public already in the facility and using the services.

After seeing the bustling outreach centre, Patrick suggested a change of plans, "Rather than going to visit the largest cities, maybe we could bring them here, so they can see for themselves. Plus it would give everyone a chance to sit down and talk."

The outreach centre did have a couple of the 50 passenger shuttle bus lifts on the roof, so Cricket piloted one as they visited 10 cities in the central region, collecting the leaders, and then visiting the 2 settlements that Patrick knew from the other side of the mountains. Then they headed back over the mountains and across the other inland sea to the western region, visiting 12 more cities with their leaders eagerly boarding the shuttle bus for the trip back to Durham.

Once back at Durham, everyone got a tour of the facility and were amazed that the public was wandering around as happy as could be, talking about all the wonders they had seen. Apparently word had gotten around that the medical centre in the outreach centre could cure anything, so there was a lineup of people waiting for medibeds, while many others were telling people about the free food that was available.

One of the innovations that Commander Northrop and the crew of the Cleito had made on Maaku, was the creation of autonomous outreach centres. They featured public washrooms, showers and recycling on the main level, along with a communal meal pavilion they had redesigned for the locals to organize their own communal meals, with the food synth menus only having a selection of basic meals with easy to follow recipes that anyone could follow. It still only operated during the breakfast and supper times and whoever volunteered to organize each meal was the only person that could activate the food synths, although the drink stations were public access at any time, offering water, milk, juices, teas, coffees and hot chocolate. They even had a donation box so the volunteers received some compensation.

The second level of the outreach centre featured the transit stop, library and a holographic concierge to identify people and allow them access to the transit and library. Then the bigger outreach centres offered all the amenities, including being the hubs for space transports. More or less they created a hub and spoke network of outreach centres that significantly reduced the amount of time and personnel needed to get a planet started on their probation period, plus got the population thinking and working more as a community, rather than for themselves. The main staffing requirements were security, which even then was mostly supervising existing local security.

Another interesting feature they had made was that in lieu of the missing amenities on the second level, they had created some office spaces and meeting rooms, so the town council could relocate their offices into the outreach centres. Making them more accessible to the public, and giving them access to computers and the communication network so they could talk to the leaders of other cities and to their governors. The computers, of course, offered guidelines for efficiently running a city the way a federated planet would. Then, depending on the footprint of the building, they could always build higher to add more offices.

Finally, to ease the strain on the community from having to care for criminals, the levels below the surface were a prison, one that was far more secure than anything the locals could build, plus it was more sanitary for the prisoners and each cell featured a clothing synth which provided scrubs, a bed, a sink and a toilet, as well as they were provided basic food and water without taxing the local community. Each cell also included library access, so they could read the laws, learn about the Federation and there was a language course that was available for free to help people learn the common language, in case they natively spoke something else.

When they finally got the leaders into one of the meeting rooms, Liyana did her Federation spiel for all of them and they were all eager to welcome an outreach centre in their city.

The meeting room featured a wall that could display various maps. By default it displayed the map of the town or city, but they could also zoom out to show the surrounding area and region, and out to display the world. The city map showed a two dimensional view of the city with lines representing the roads and as they zoomed out, they eventually saw the regional lines and dots with names representing municipalities.

Martin Jameson, the leader from Wardington, the largest city on the western coast, asked what all the coloured dots on the regional and world maps were for, since they had never seen such an accurate map of their world, nor had they ever seen a complete map with all the islands in the ocean.

Mark explained, "The dots represent population centres the Federation is considering building outreach centres. The red dots indicate the largest cities where we want to build the larger outreach centres, like this one. The blue dots are medium sized cities and the green dots are small towns, villages and islands, which would get the smaller outreach centres. The larger centres with the red and blue dots will eventually also get a transit service to get people from various points in the city to the local outreach centre."

As expected, all of the leaders knew of Benjamin, but few had ever met him and no one had anything good to say about the man. Most called him a war monger, and none recognized him as the leader of their world, which brought on the questions of what the Federation hierarchy was.

So Mark explained the political hierarchy, "Towns, villages and cities have mayors as their top ranking official, anything they can't handle, they would relay to the regional governor, then anything they can't handle, they would relay to their senator, who then make decisions as a committee. Any issues the senate committee can't decide, get presented to the king and queen, which is rare. There would likely be 4 to 6 senators total for the entire planet. All positions are elected by the general public and we offer our voting system via our libraries."

Patrick then got a huge smile, "So you would be the ruler of our world?"

Mark said, "In a manner of speaking, Yes, but there's a lot of levels of government before I get involved, unless it's a security issue, which is the only part of the Federation that I directly oversee."

Martin and many of the other leaders, just had big smiles as well, "I'm OK with that, it just means that Benjamin will NOT be our leader."

Mark then said, "No he wouldn't. I'll visit with the eastern region tomorrow, I think we'll do kind of the same thing there as we have done here, since this seems to have worked out pretty well. Does anyone know any good leaders in the eastern region?"

Richard, the leader from Portland, a city near the delta of the Green River, said he knew several leaders in the eastern zone, so he offered to go along and introduce them tomorrow.

One of the other leaders then asked, "How long does an elected position hold that office?"

Mark said, "That is to be determined by your senators, but the Federation does recommend 5 years between elections."

Everyone liked what they were hearing, so each of the leaders had been given a construx device, with instructions to place it on the lot where they would like the outreach centre built and press the button. It was suggested that the lot be located centrally to the city and it had to meet certain size requirements. The button simply notified Cricket that the device had been placed, she would then scan the lot using a drone and design the outreach centre, then begin construction of the building at night, when there was no one around.

That night, before heading back to the Poseidon, they visited the two inhabited islands and met with the residents and setup autonomous outreach centres. They then went to all the other islands and setup outreach centres there also, at least the islanders could now get to a city for services they didn't have on the island.

The next morning, they met up with Richard in Portland, then went and picked up a dozen leaders of the largest cities in the eastern region and transported them to Durham where Liyana gave them the spiel and, as expected, they all wanted an outreach centre in their city. So just like the leaders from the previous day, they were all given construx devices and told to just place the device on the lot they were allocating for the outreach centre and then push the button. The centre would be built within 48 hours and those with the larger outreach centres would hopefully be staffed soon after.

As with the central and western leaders, most of the eastern leaders did not care for Benjamin's leadership style. There was however a few leaders that did support Benjamin, mainly because their cities had agreements to supply raw materials or manufactured parts for his war machines. Although they realized with the Federation, those war machines were now useless.

Once the leaders had been returned to their cities, Mark and the group returned to the Poseidon and organized teams for all the other shuttles. Each shuttle was given a different region and their mission was to locate and meet with the leaders of those population centres, find out the name of the town or city and find a location for the outreach centre, drop the construx and push the button.

That deployment would begin tomorrow morning, while they were meeting with Benjamin in Carston.

That night Annabelle, Rayven and Maren had a party in the bedroom with each pussy receiving a couple loads of cum each, followed by the traditional cleaning of the leaking pussies by tongue.

The next morning they had their breakfast and briefed the personnel that would be going in the second shuttle to staff the facility in Carston.

They reached the centre in Carston around 9:00 that morning. Benjamin must've seen them land on the roof as he, and the same entourage from the other day, walked down to the facility shortly after they had landed.

As promised, they gave them a tour of the facility, concluding in meeting room by the offices and eventually looking at the world map on the wall.

Tom, the city planner noticed names popping up beside some of the dots, so he asked, "Why are those names showing up?"

Mark explained, "Those names just mean that someone from the Federation has met with the leader of that population centre, given them the presentation and they've begin the process of having their own outreach centre constructed."

That was the moment when Benjamin flipped out, "What? Everyone is getting an outreach centre and your technology?"

Mark stood there with a passive expression on his face, "Of course, this was all explained in great detail, during the presentation we gave to you a couple of days ago. We have many teams that are meeting and working with city planners and leaders all over the world. We should be ready to hold elections in a year to a year and a half."

Jack, the Mayor, said, "That was all explained in their presentation," as Benjamin turned and punched him right in the face, "That is for subordination, one more outburst from you will see you executed!"

Benajamin looked very angry as he turned toward Mark, "I am the ruler of this world. There will be no elections, dismantle all of those other outreach centres, in fact I want you to dismantle this one also, then leave and never come back."

Mark shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said, "Actually we can't. Just like you, the other city leaders have seen the same presentation and like what we are offering, that's why the outreach centres are being built all over the place," as they continued to see names appear on the map, "We will announce the election date one year from the date that we complete enrolment. We will also explain what the process is for anyone wishing to run for each position. Then on election day, the general public will be able to choose whether or not to join the Federation, as well as their Mayor, Governor and Senator. As we've seen on numerous planets, as long as the leader has been a good compassionate leader, they're usually elected for the position they decide to run for."

Benjamin then shouted, "Guards, kill them!"

As the two guards drew their weapons, Mark just waved his hand and they all fell to the ground paralyzed, as Benjamin looked around in horror. Mark just looked sternly at the shaking man, "Any threat against me could be construed as a declaration of war... a war you would have zero chance of winning. Do not make the mistake of trying that again!"

Jack, the city planner was just sitting there with a bloody nose and a big smile on his face, "How does that feel! Not so high and mighty now huh!"

Benjamin went to punch Jack again and he just fell down paralyzed like his guards.

He then turned to Mark, "Thank you for putting him in his place. Many of us have wanted to do that since he proclaimed himself the president, but with his guards around all the time, anyone that disagreed with him would be shot, so no one did anything."

Mark then told the Mayor, "I suspected that was the case a couple of days ago, that's why I said it would take a couple of days for the facility to complete. We went off in search of a better leader and found one in Patrick of Durham and Michael of Wardington. Their outreach centres have been fully operational for over a day now.

Speaking of which, this one is now operational as well. The offices in this building are for the Mayor, City Planner, a Judge and some administration staff. I do not want to see this man having an office in this building. If he's so popular, he can run for election like everyone else, and the public will determine whether they support him."

A couple of minutes later the guards were starting to come around as Mark asked, "Do you men understand what I have said? My suggestion to you is to protect the Mayor, because as of now, he is the highest ranking official we recognize in this city. I do not want to see you taking orders from this pathetic excuse for a leader."

They nodded their understanding as they waited for Benjamin to recover and then escorted Benjamin and George from the building. In fact they all exited the facility and found that quite a few people had seen Benjamin and George escorted from the building by their own security and determined they no longer had any influence as they cheered and shouted profanities at the red faced men.

Mark leaned in to speak to the two outcasts, "I guess you weren't as popular as you thought!"

Then Mark turned and spoke loud enough for them all to hear, "Please return to what you were doing and leave these men to re-establish their lives. Just know that you are free of their oppression, but it is very unbecoming to oppress them in the same manner, no matter how much they deserve it. Jack and Tom will take care of this city to the best of their abilities and with our support."

At that proclamation, the gathered people soon returned to their previous activities, as the two men were set free and stormed off. Jack and Tom then excused themselves to go speak to the city staff and instruct them to pack up everything and move it to their new offices.

Two days later, Benjamin was arrested trying to steal one of the warships he had created. The warships got disarmed and retooled for other purposes, most of them becoming fishing vessels. George however had taken to his new reality by opening a law firm, the public didn't seem to have much of an issue with him as they did for Benjamin.

A week later, transports started arriving from several planets carrying people to help with security training and with staffing the outreach centres.

With everything well underway on Ardent, Mark decided it was time to move on to the next planet, which was actually a moon named Kompf.

Less than a day later they were at a small moon orbiting a huge blue gas planet, it reminded Mark of Marnot and the tryst he had with Flora, Amy and Rose.

As expected, they weren't hailed upon their arrival, so they proceeded with scanning the surface.

The scans showed an abundance of life and the climate appeared to be almost entirely rainforest. What they didn't detect though, was any civilization!

Mark made a call to Zyton and asked about Kompf.

Zyton just laughed, "Kompf is a jungle moon, it has lots of wildlife on it, but we never did find any civilized life. We just counted it as one of our planets, because it was habitable and the inflated number sounded more impressive! The Federation obviously doesn't need to inflate numbers, but going from 3 to 4 sounded more impressive to us. How did it go with Ardent?"

Mark filled him in on the events at Ardent and it turned out that they had gotten a weird vibe from Benjamin also, which is why they were in no rush to return, but he was glad they did something about Benjamin.

So with that information, they decided to just leave Kompf natural and proceed on to Thulark.

A couple of days later they were approaching a Venus-sized blue and brown planet, that appeared to be mostly wasteland or desert although there were patches green and a few large seas and some oceans. The planet also had a small moon, that did appear to be habitable, but there was currently just plant life on it.

Just like Ardent, they weren't hailed, so they proceeded with planetary scans.

Within seconds of the scan reports starting to come in, the scanner technician gasped and covered her mouth, which brought everyone's attention to her station as she then redirected her display to be on the main display board above the bridge.