Cowboys and Aliens Ch. 35

Everyone then made their way to the showers to clean up before deciding as a group what to do next.

Six days of workouts, sports and sex later they were approaching Thulark.

During the short trip, Astra and Ra'ki had become part of the group and both girls frequently joined them for sex. They got to know both girls quite well. When Astra said she had skills, they learned that she had graduated near the top of her class in school and went through university as an engineer, but after numerous failed attempts to get hired on at Hawker Technologies as an engineer, she did manage to get hired on as an administrative assistant and eventually caught Brian's eye.

She had only been working there about a week before Brian, Sebastian and Team One left and Brian asked her to join them. Seeing it as her chance to go off into the stars, she readily agreed.

Being a fellow engineer, Solara and Astra could often be found dreaming up projects and had become very good friends.

During the first comm-stop, they had contacted Luna and talked for a bit. Annabelle apologized for not taking her with them and when they informed her that they were heading to Thulark, which was about halfway to Silica, she was going to grab the next transport and meet them in Elavon on Thulark.

Surprisingly, even though it had only been a couple of weeks, Thulark looked completely different. The soil must've been very fertile and the minor radiation from the impacts mustn't have had much of an impact on the terrain. Considering the first time they saw the planet, it was pretty much all browns and blues with patches of white for the snowy mountains and patches of green where the vegetation was, now it was mostly greens, blues and whites with a few brown patches.

To boost their economy, Commander Topos told all personnel that they could have the day to spend on the surface and that they would be leaving tomorrow morning. An impromptu day off proved to be quite popular, as everyone flocked to the library to look at all the services Thulark now offered.

They found that Thulark had grabbed on to the role of tourist destination with their slogan of 'Adventure is waiting!', specializing in outdoor activities. They now offered camping, trail rides, hiking, skiing, sky diving, hang gliding, zip lining, water skiing, wind surfing, surfing, boating, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, rock climbing, off-roading and more. They still didn't offer hunting yet though, as they wanted to give the animal population a chance to recover, just like the people, much of their population was wiped out as well.

As they flew above the surface of the planet, on their way to Elavon, almost the entire planet looked green, and many of the impact craters had actually filled with water or were filling with water. They could see construction visible along many of the lakes they saw. The landscape looked very unique with the large, almost perfectly round lakes scattered all over the planet.

As they touched down on top of the outreach centre in Elavon, they were soon met by Sam and Gwen. They looked positively radiant with happiness. Luna's transport hadn't arrived yet, so they sat down and talked with them in the meeting room. Everyone noticed there were hundreds of dots on the world map now.

Mark pointed to the map and said, "It looks like development here is going well!"

Sam said, "That would be an understatement! When the craters started filling with water, and the surface started regrowing vegetation at an unprecedented rate, we instantly became one of the vacation hotspots in the Federation. Construction crews came in from all over and started digging along the edges of the craters to allow the water to flow out and into existing river systems. Now there's resorts and towns being built around the new lakes, and because we have such a sparse population there's lot of outdoor adventure companies!"

Mark smiled, "So it looks like Thulark is doing OK!"

Gwen said with a smile, "Thanks to you and the Federation."

Sam then asked, "Did you ever find out who attacked us?"

Mark said, "Actually we did! We're not sure if they're still alive or not, but we found the remains of their ship and we were able to recover some video evidence from their bridge logs. What happened to Thulark was, in fact, an accident, they were actually trying out some new technology on your moon and the system malfunctioned. I realize that's not a valid excuse for attacking the planet, but I can promise that if they are still alive and we ever catch them, they will be brought to justice."

A message came through on Annabelle's wrist from Luna, so they adjourned their impromptu meeting and wandered out into the busy hallway. Since they were the transportation hubs, the outreach facilities were pretty much open around the clock and housing the offices of the mayor and other town officials, they were in much closer contact with their residents.

As they were exiting the meeting room, a shuttle full of people was just arriving. Luna was easy to spot due to her height, as she ran to hug her sister, then gave Mark, Annabelle and Rayven blistering kisses.

They spent the rest of the day in Elavon, being right by a lake that was unaffected by the attacks, the mountain lakes were the hot spots for fishing, but the prime fishing spots were actually towards the far end of the lake away from the city. The city end of the lake had busy beaches, water skiing, wind surfing, paddle boarding and stuff like that. So they were happy just to don some swimming suits and spend the day down at the beach.

At the end of the day, Luna returned with them to the Poseidon and claimed the room beside Astra's, though she didn't use it as she ended up spending the night in the royal bedroom with Mark, Annabelle, Rayven and Astra.