Cowboys and Aliens

The Alliance

The trip back to Atlanterra seemed to take less and less time each time they went, Cricket's updates to the star charts really were paying off! An unexpected side effect of the sensor and communication beacons.

Whenever they stopped to communicate, there were messages from either Annabelle or Liyana about the wedding.

They created the invite list, which included Samira, Angela and Kaleb from Atlanterra, and Annabelle invited two friends, Tracy and Lindsey from school, who she also asked to be her bridesmaids. They also invited Elisha and Gerald.

Rayven was going to be Annabelle's maid of honour and T'Soona was going to be the flower girl. They told Mark to think about who would be his best man and groomsmen and get back to them.

Her two friends both accepted and their families decided that Atlantis would be a perfect place for a summer vacation. They were even more excited when Annabelle told them that they were going to get a private shuttle ride out and would be staying in the palace.

They should have known, but by inviting Elisha and Samira, it was soon in the news that the royal wedding was happening in Atlantis on the first weekend in August and apparently pretty much every transport from every planet in the Federation was booked solid almost immediately... so much for it being a tentative date!

Most of the senators from around the Federation said they were going to be coming in for the wedding with their families. Suddenly it turned from a small ceremony, into a huge deal and Liyana was having the time of her life as wedding planner. After all, it was going to be broadcast across the stars.

Cricket had also assigned some technicians to repair the Pegasus, which was the name of the crashed cargo ship at the ranch. It was being retrofitted with stalls for the horses in the cargo hold and was going to be given to the ranch for their use since they would possibly be flying back and forth between the ranches with horses. Since it was for ranch use, the girls had been packing stuff from the lodge into the cargo ship. Joe and Kat were planning to relocate to Atlantis on July 3

rd

.

Liyana informed Mark that most of Atlantis was in the midst of elections for their first elected officials and other town council positions, including electing its first Senator. She was supervising the elections and helping to run the city in the interim. She had been pretty much acting as the Mayor of Acropolis up until that point, but she didn't want to officially run in the election as she wanted to remain as an adviser to the King.

Finally they reached Atlanterra and they had roughly one day to prepare. It's not that they figured they really needed to prepare, but they had to hope for the best, prepare for the worst! They had kept two of the Sentinels and sent all the others off to their assignments, so to look even more intimidating, they were going to have all 5,000 of the autonomous drones detached from the Sentinel and cloaked, so the numbers would look more daunting when they were revealed.

Sitting around and waiting was the worst part, but Mark talked Gyges into being his best man, and Kaleb and Adam agreed to be groomsmen, he just needed one more, so he sent a message to Bentiri.

Moments after the message had been sent, they received a report from the scout ship saying they had just entered the last jump. They sent the scan details and jumped back to Atlanterra themselves, they would arrive well before the other ships.

The ships were quite interesting looking, kind of an oversized XB-70 airplane type design. Painted grey with a red bird logo with six stars around it... possibly a flag of some kind?

The ships were about 50 metres long and maybe 5 metres high, they appeared to have a crew of 5 and no landing bay could be seen, not that there was really space for one. The fuselage of the ship didn't have a very big diameter, so the interior was likely very submarine or airplane like.

They had two sets of wings, one up front that went out about 3 metres on each side, then a larger rear set that spanned about 10 metres each side, so they were probably capable of atmospheric flight.

There were laser weapons on the sides and wings, and what looked to be two larger weapons or possibly missiles mounted on the underside. There also appeared to be a swivelling weapon turret on the top.

The ships didn't appear to be much of a threat, but they were still an unknown, so no risks could be taken.

As the Poseidon and the returning Destroyer got into position, an announcement was made to cloak the fleet as they were calculated to arrive within the next hour.

While they were waiting, Mark asked Cricket, "

How many jumps did they have to make to arrive here?

"

Cricket responded, "

Thirty-two!

"

Right on time, the six ships emerged from light travel directly in front of the Poseidon.

Mark said, "Open communications with all of them please!"

A second later a human looking man appeared on a display and immediately ordered, "We have you outnumbered, surrender while you can!"

Mark laughed, which surprised the other man, "Good! You speak our language, would the rest of you please join the conversation? I don't want to have to rely on word of mouth."

Then the display widened and six human men were looking back at Mark, "That's better! How about we talk peacefully first? You may not realize it, but you are in no position to demand our surrender."

The man laughed back, "We have 6 ships, you only have one! Surrender or die!"

Mark smiled and replied, "The fact that you only detect my ship tells me how woefully unprepared for this engagement you are!"

Sensing that Mark wasn't even the slightest bit worried, now had him confused, "What do you mean?"

"You think this is a surprise attack on us, don't you?" Mark asked.

The six men looked confused as to how to respond to that.

Mark took the lead, "Let me enlighten you. It took you 32 jumps to reach our planet on a direct line, which means you likely got some bad misinformation from a traitor named Sebastian," as a picture of Sebastian was displayed on the screen, "since we have known you were coming for quite a while, we have actually been following you through your jumps and have detailed scans of your ships. Because of those scans, I'm fairly confident that just this one ship could easily defeat all six of you, let alone the other ships I have with me, that you have confirmed you can't even detect."

Mark nodded and Commander Topos gave the order to reveal the fleet.

Mark turned to the men, "How many ships do you detect now?"

The men all nodded to someone off to the right of the screen and suddenly their eyes went wide and Mark asked, "Well?"

The leader looked quite embarrassed and humble, as he mumbled, "Over 10,000."

"Good! You now realize the futility of your situation, now if YOU will surrender your ships, by docking in the landing bays of the ship behind you, we will escort you back to your planet and have a little talk with your leaders."

"Dock in the landing bay? All of us?" he asked incredulously.

"Sure! Your little ships will fit quite easily." Mark said, as the Sentinel pulled up behind them.

The leader gave the order, "Turn around and dock please."

As their ships turned around their eyes went wide and their jaws dropped as the massive Sentinel was stopped in front of them with 6 landing bays outlined in blue to accept their spacecraft.

Mark said, "Commander, please dock the Poseidon on the top of the Sentinel. You will see where."

The Poseidon moved forward and above the Sentinel, as an area on top at the front lit up and looked like it was a perfect fit for the Battlestar, leaving the landing bays still exposed for usage if needed. Once it got close it auto-docked with the Sentinel.

Mark then went to a door that was at the end of the main central corridor just in front of the engine area. Behind that door was an elevator that came down near the front of massive factory bay, and then curved around each side of the construction bay, so you could watch ships being constructed, although nothing was currently being constructed.

They followed the corridor around to the bays where the ships were landing. Each bay was 100 metres wide, 50 metres high and 50 metres deep, so their ships actually looked pretty insignificant in each landing bay. A security detail went to each landing bay to wait for the prisoners to exit their craft.

Slowly each of the craft opened a door and the occupants emerged with their hands up and they were all guided to Bay #1, which happened to be the ship their leader was on. Upon seeing Mark, one man pulled a gun, but Mark just waved his hand and the man fell to the floor paralyzed, as the rest of his squad looked on in horror.

Their weapons were taken from them and one of them was handed to Mark. Mark looked it over, then aimed it out towards space and fired. It was a basic projectile gun using a propellant that seemed fairly similar to gunpowder. Mark laughed as he tossed the gun into the pile with the rest of their weapons and waved his hand and the guns dissolved into nothingness.

Mark then looked at the prisoners, who were all still standing with their hands up and eyes scared, and said, "You can put your hands down, it's a long trip back to your planet."

Mark held up his hand and then spoke through the speakers in every ship, "Thank you my friends, I know it wasn't much of a threat, but you all performed perfectly. You may now return to your assigned duties. We are going to escort our guests back home to speak with their leaders. Be safe!"

Mark then said to no one in particular, "Let's take our guests home."

The ship began to turn and when it was away from the planet it engaged the light drive.

Mark then looked at the scared men and said, "I'm hungry! Would you like something to eat?"

The leader, still surprised that they hadn't been whisked away to holding cells after their man pulled a gun, answered, "Ummm sure, I could go for something to eat."

The others in the group nodded their heads as well, as the downed man was picked up off the floor by security.

Cricket reminded Mark that they needed to identify them all for tracking purposes. Mark noticed they were wearing tags around their necks, so he asked, "I see you all have tags around your necks, is that your identification?"

The leader nodded so Mark held out his hand and asked to see it, so the leader took off his tag and handed it to Mark, it said, 'A Hermosa' so Mark asked, "I take it Hermosa is your last name? What does the A stand for?"

"Arthur," the man replied, then asked, "Marcus isn't dead is he?"

"No! He'll be fine in a few minutes. Since you seem to be the leader of this group, we need to sit down and have a little chat," Mark said as he handed the ID tag back to Arthur, "but first, introduce me to the rest of your team."

Arthur then introduced Mark to each prisoner and the man that was paralyzed. Once everyone was introduced, Mark suggested they get something to eat as the paralyzed man was just starting to regain control.

Since the Sentinel was intended to be staffed, there was a cafeteria near the front where the elevator from the Battlestar came down, so Mark led them there, while Adam called the kitchen and had them send enough sandwiches for 35 people to the Sentinel cafeteria.

When they reached the cafeteria, they were all given glasses of water as the kitchen staff showed up with a variety of sandwiches.

As they each grabbed a couple of sandwiches, Arthur asked, "Aren't we going to be kept in cells?"

Mark said, "I haven't decided yet! Why don't we sit down and talk for a bit? We already know a lot about your planet as we have had two ships orbiting it since you left, but help me fill in a few gaps and confirm some of what we've already discovered. If you are informative, then maybe we can do something about your quarters, but whatever the result, you aren't going to be in here for long and then you'll be home."

Mark asked Cricket, "

How long will it take us to reach their planet?

"

Cricket replied with an air of smugness, "

8 days! I figured out a way to speed up the light drive, the Sentinels are the only ships that currently have the new drives

."

As if Mark knew what was going to happen, Arthur asked, "So how long will it take for the trip home?"

Mark answered without pause, "Roughly 8 days."

Arthur's eyes went wide, "Wow, Sebastian said it would take about a month for the trip."

Mark said, "Yeah that traitor has probably told you a lot of lies to try and make himself look good. I really hope your people turn him over to us, in exchange for us giving you and your ships back."

Arthur said, "It's not like we had much of a choice, besides if you wanted to, you could have let us attack and then, justifiably, blown us to bits. What would you like to know?"

Over the next hour, Mark asked all sorts of questions, which Arthur and the other captains answered without hesitation.

Questions like: What is the name of the military they represent? What was the purpose and goal of their planned attack? What is your most dangerous weapon? Who are your enemies? What is your society like? What is the government like? What is the political layout of your planet? What is the extent of your space exploration and trade? How many people on your planet?

Surprisingly, the only question they hesitated on was, 'What technology did Sebastian give you?'

Eventually Arthur admitted, "I don't know if I know everything we got, but we got laser turrets, pulse cannons, stun guns, some devices for construction and anti-grav disks... there may be more, but I'm not aware of it. The biggest thing he gave us was a cargo ship and three shuttles. Two of the shuttles we are using, the cargo ship and the other shuttle, our scientists are trying to figure out how they work and adding weapons to them.

I just know that about a month ago, the shuttles and cargo ship suddenly said communications were connected and when we asked him about it, he told us all about you."

Liam, one of the other captains spoke up out of the blue, "He said, he was the King of your people, but that an outsider, who I'm guessing is you, lied to gain the throne and then banished him!"

Everybody federation person there laughed, then Mark explained, "Well the only part of that entire statement that's true, is that I was an outsider. Everything else is a lie."

Arthur said, "What is your version of the truth then?"

Mark explained, "The bastard was never a king, and he was only ever a prince, because the last king married his mother, who was a commoner. Suspicions are that after his mother passed away, he killed the king, but it has never been proven.

Since there was no known heir, he played the part well and they eventually gave him the throne. Once he had the throne, his demeanour changed and all he did was tax and punish people so that he and his friends could do whatever they wanted and live in the lap of luxury. However, because he didn't have royal blood, he really had no power and our civilization grew stagnant.

Fast forward a hundred years or so, and I was found by accident on their ancestral world and I DO have royal blood, therefore I became the rightful heir and was more or less forced into becoming their king. When they finally got me to Atlanterra, the bastard made not one, but two attempts to assassinate me, killing several security and some of his own men, before fleeing with two shiploads of technology."

Arthur was skeptical, "You were forced into becoming the king?"

Mark laughed, "Believe me, I was just a cowboy looking to retire in the mountains, I had no intentions of ever becoming a king."

Arthur asked, "How were you accidentally discovered?"

"I just happened upon an Atlantean ship that had crashed, up in the mountains, 10 years earlier. When I lay down on one of the beds, the computer took a blood sample, identified my royal blood and woke the ship up, which turned on the communications, like what happened for you guys, and grabbed everyone's attention.

From that point on, governments and their militaries have been causing me nothing but problems, but I was able to outwit them until the Atlanteans got there. When the Atlanteans found out I had royal blood, it somehow conveniently ended up on their news that a true heir had been found. More or less the population declared me king and started revolting against the prince, long before I accepted the position or even got to Atlanterra for my coronation."

Arthur laughed, "That actually makes sense! No offence, but you certainly don't look or act like any king I've ever seen! Most are pompous, arrogant, narcissistic dictators. You seem rather normal."

Mark laughed, "Thanks, I try! I have good advisers that help me with the position."

Rayven then laughed, "We don't help that much, he rarely ever delegates people to do things, he just does it himself!"

Robert, one of the other captains, said, "He also told us you only had six ships and that they were several hundreds of years old and that only the two big ships had serious weapons, but they only had 4 shots!"

"That was true, because he was not of royal blood and has no military knowledge. Since I do have royal blood, and grew up on a planet that was strife with military conflict, I was not only able to create several new shipyards, but I also made several upgrades and improvements to all existing infrastructure. Seriously, anything he has told you is most likely a lie!"

Arthur nodded, "I'm beginning to see that!"

"Why don't we go for a tour and then you can go spar, play sports, watch a movie or whatever."

They all looked surprised as Arthur said, "What? You're going to let us roam freely around the ship? We're not going to be locked up?"

Mark asked, "Would you prefer being locked up?"

They all shook their heads no, then Arthur asked, "You aren't worried about security?"

Mark laughed, "No! You aren't Atlantean, so you will be monitored constantly and you won't be able to access anything critical and if you try to harm anyone outside of a designated sparring area, you will be incapacitated, like Marcus was, and you WILL end up in lockup."

Adam, Mark, Rayven and Gyges took them for a tour of the central section of the Battlestar and showed them where all the amenities were, ending up on the lower level near the gyms.

Deltar was in the sparring area when Mark and the group walked by, "Want a rematch? Or are you still scared little man?"

Mark laughed, "I'm not scared of you, you pussy! But I haven't time for a rematch right now."

Arthur laughed, "I can't believe you let him talk to you like that!"

Mark pointed to the wall that said, 'People Spar... Titles Don't!'

Arthur asked, "What does that mean?"

Adam then explained the whole story about the big fight and how the motto came to be. Then said, "Once you step through the doors into this area, there's no titles, everyone is equal."

Liam asked, "You beat that big guy?"

Deltar overheard the comment, "He got a lucky shot in."

Mark laughed, "Lucky? I put you on your ass three or four times!"

All three men laughed as the visitors just watched the scene, Arthur finally reiterated, "Definitely not like any king I've ever seen!"

They eventually led them back to the Sentinel's crew quarters, since there wasn't anyone currently assigned to them, and they all got assigned rooms. They all thanked him for the rooms, since they were more comfortable than what was on their ship anyway.

Liam said, "I still can't believe you are letting us roam free!"

Mark looked at the men, "You can't return to your ships, but you are not a threat to us, you were just following orders based on misinformation from a liar. That is why we chose to try and resolve this peacefully, we already suspected the source of your misinformation."