Cowboys And Aliens Ch 33

Silica

The Sentinel was to reach the asteroid field just after supper time on Atlantis, so after supper, Mark and Annabelle waited in his office so Cricket could do the virtual bridge thing again.

Right on schedule, Cricket darkened the room and enabled the virtual bridge.

Annabelle watched in amazement, she had, of course, been on the bridge of the Poseidon, but the virtual bridge of the Sentinel was much more immersive as it was just like looking out into space, with a couple of displays in front of you. The display on the right showed there were three ships in the vicinity, two Empire warships remained in addition to the Star Hunter.

It appeared that they had taken a page out of Mark's book by building ships closer to the resources, probably a suggestion from the Silicans or whoever was advising him, because Mark didn't think Sebastian was smart enough to think of that on his own.

The Star Hunter was a sleek looking ship, it appeared to have a huge weapon down the centre and then the triangular ship body on each side actually extended past the weapon, creating a two pronged arrowhead look with each wing curving slightly downward. There was a landing bay about halfway on top of each side that almost looked like an automobile hood scoop, so there was a good chance the ship had fighters.

The ship itself was about a kilometre in length, 500 metres wide and about 75 metres high at the rear, where the engines and the bridge that connected the three parts of the main ship body. The ship then narrowed to only about 5 metres high at the very front of the sides. It indeed looked very intimidating, like a bird of prey swooping in to attack.

Just as the Sentinel deployed some cloaked drones to go investigate, the Star Hunter turned and jumped away.

Mark and Annabelle were both confused, was it simply coincidence or had the Star Hunter actually detected the cloaked Sentinel and fled?

Knowing they were in no threat from the Empire warships, they moved closer and scanned the ships. It appeared that both had been abandoned, so either Sebastian, or whoever was advising him, realized the weak ships weren't worth the effort. They didn't even appear to be booby trapped.

Cricket, then said she detected a life-form emerging from beside the engine ports at the very back of one of the ships. They must've hidden there to avoid being detected.

Realizing that person might have important information, Mark tried communicating with the ship, but to no avail. So they watched the being as it moved around the ship, hoping it would eventually go to the bridge and then they could try communicating again.

While they were waiting and not knowing where the Star Hunter had gone, they started a file on the Star Hunter ship, including that it had some sort of adapted planetary defence weapon in the centre. The file was sent to every Federation security ship and there was an FWB issued for it. They weren't sure of its capabilities, so they instructed everyone to stay cloaked and, if seen, launch all fighters to monitor it from a distance and notify General Marsbe. Do not attack until the ship makes the first move, if it was shielded, concentrate the attack on the engine ports. They also weren't sure if the Star Hunter could detect cloaked ships or not.

Mark called Captain Kôté and instructed him to tell the Maaku that there were two abandoned ships at the asteroid field that they could come and retrieve and that one of the ships had a life-form on it.

With the being not moving toward the bridge, Mark left Cricket to try and communicate, if they ever got there, as Mark and Annabelle left the office to talk to the rest of the group. The Sentinel was going to manufacture a seeding ship and send it off in the direction the Star Hunter went, but holding little hope they would find the ship. Sebastian was obviously being advised by someone a lot smarter than he was.

If the being hadn't made it to the bridge by the time the seeding ship was launched, the Sentinel was going to return to Maaku, in case either Sebastian struck there or the Agonoids returned. In the meantime Mark was going to take the Poseidon to visit Silica and hopefully find out more information about this weapon that Sebastian now possessed.

As they sat there waiting, Mark and Annabelle studied the star charts they had received from the Maaku. There were 8 habitable planets they had discovered. The charts highlighted Maaku, Athos, Thulark, Trayak, Kompf, Ardent, Magellan and Silica, the charts also showed a number of other planets, but based on their distances from a sun, they likely were not habitable.

All the while they were looking at the star charts, Annabelle had a huge smile on her face. She was finally going to visit a new planet that wasn't part of the Federation. It didn't go unnoticed by Mark as he was also smiling, but for a different reason.

They called Commander Topos to inform him that they would leave tomorrow morning after breakfast, and then sent a message to Commander Northrop and Captain Kôté, telling them the plan and timeline to visit Silica. By giving Adam advance notice, he could then contact all the regular ship personnel, so they could return to their posts prior to leaving.

After talking to Adam, Mark sent a message off to General Marsbe informing him of his plan to visit the other planets the Maaku had found, just to make sure everything was OK, since they didn't know what the Empire had told the Maaku. Once the message was sent, Mark and Annabelle left the office to tell the rest of their group. Everyone asked if they could go and Mark said, "Of course! Although Annabelle should probably stay here, just in case something happens to me. Someone needs to lead in my absence."

The look on Annabelle's face was shock, but Mark couldn't contain his smirk as he looked at her. Annabelle then realized he was teasing her and promptly punched him in the arm, causing everyone else to start laughing. They would be leaving in the morning for Silica and then the Maaku home world. Everyone would be going this time, except Laruun and Marta.

So that night everyone went and watched the Acropolis versus Ampheres soccer match. It was a good back and forth game that ended up in a 2-2 tie, which resulted in a lot of discussion and speculation about the upcoming playoffs as everyone made their way back to the palace to go to bed.

As they reached the bedroom, Annabelle checked her health stats, which now indicated that she was pregnant. Mark and Rayven both gave her hugs and kisses before giving her a good fucking, making sure Mark filled her pussy with cum as Rayven fucked her pussy also, but pulled out and came in Annabelle's mouth.

They cleaned up a bit, reset the bed and were asleep in no time.

Mark was awake at his usual time. He slipped out from between the slumbering beauties and went to his office for his coffee and to peruse his daily reports.

There were no new developments at Maaku or with Sebastian and his Empire or with the being on the empty ship.

The single being on the ship got Mark thinking... if most of the Maaku returned home, unless the Silicans were actually helping and supporting him or he had found another supportive planet, he would pretty much be limited to just the one ship, which also got him wondering how many of those construx devices he had in his possession. The only saving grace was that, without Cricket, he couldn't create ships using the Mazjik material.

With those questions on his mind, he sent a message off to Captain Kôté and Commander Northrop to make sure they asked those questions when they talked to, or met with, the Maaku. Commander Northrop wouldn't receive it until they exited FTL near Maaku around noon Atlantis time, but Captain Kôté might be talking with Grand Master Morlan or the other Maaku.

Unfortunately Mark would be unavailable at that time as the Poseidon would be in light drive, stopping just once per day for communications as was now standard procedure.

Mark asked Cricket, "

We know it

'

s 7 days to reach Maaku, how long is it going to take to reach Silica?

"

Cricket answered, "

Silica will take 14 days to reach, and before you ask, yes I

'

ve created more seeding ships and have sent them off in the directions of every habitable planet the Empire have found.

"

Knowing the others would soon be up, Mark left his office and went downstairs, where he found most of the gang was up and around already. As soon as the last person was up they went for breakfast, kissed Laruun and Marta goodbye, and then Maren took everyone up to the Poseidon.

Once on the Poseidon, everyone started in with workouts and sparring. With the exception of Athena and Gaderius, everyone was soon in their normal routine of workouts, sports and sex. Although Athena and Gaderius were soon into that routine as well.

During the trip, Mark received daily reports from Ambassador Treena of the Cleito.

President Zyton was indeed oblivious to what the Empire had been doing all this time, however it was primarily just Norlgar, and subsequently Ragnor's group, that were the troublemakers, the rest were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing, which was peacefully exploring the stars.

They had contacted the Silicans and the story about Sebastian capturing the technicians was a lie. They were the technicians and senior management from the company that designed most of the planetary defence weapons as well as the ships the planet did have, one of the most powerful and influential companies on the planet. When they heard he had those construction devices, they were the ones that offered to help Sebastian build and develop his fleet. They had all sorts of ship and weapon designs already prepared, they just didn't have a way to manufacture ships.

The Silicans were actually worried that the Empire might attack them as the company was one of the big critics to the current government for not using their technological prowess to assert their influence across the universe. Plus being the designers of their planetary defence weapons, they realized they could've easily built in an override, so they could disable them if they wanted.

All in all, the Maaku were considering joining the Federation. They were already a global community with a single government and their civilization and laws were fairly similar to the Federation. They did have antigrav technology and much of their transport and longer distance public transit was by shuttles and they utilized small scale nuclear power plants to provide energy to homes and businesses. Most personal transportation was still by hybrid electric/fuel vehicles, although the fuel they used was a naturally occurring gas.

The big advantages for joining the Federation were security, construction devices, the autonomous lift system and, of course, decent space ships. The other big plus was a much better communications network and public transportation to other planets, as while they did have a few trade agreements with a couple of the planets they had discovered, they didn't have any public transportation or tourism.

The being on the ship, turned out to be a Maaku technician that maintained the engines, named Terren. The crew of the two ships, that were left abandoned, had joined Sebastian on the Star Hunter. Terren had stolen one of the new fighters from the Star Hunter and went to the abandoned ship, he didn't go to the fleeing ships for fear that Sebastian was going to destroy them, so he hid by the engines hoping that the other Masters would eventually come to the asteroid field.

Fortunately the ships were allowed to return, so there might actually be a thread of compassion left in Sebastian or his advisers.

Having actually been onboard the Star Hunter and seeing some of the systems, he was able to provide much more information than anyone else could. He was familiar with their light and sub-light engines, both of which were modified versions of the Maaku engines, but the Silicans had boosted the range and speed by about 20%.

He didn't know much about the weapons systems, since that wasn't his department, but he knew that the power system for the primary weapon was actually bigger than the engines themselves. Other than that, he told them that the ships were constructed from titanium and that they were using a prototype shield system the company had created. They weren't sure of its real-world effectiveness, but apparently it withstood whatever weapons they used for testing.

The Maaku had taken the stolen fighter and were doing their own analysis on it, but Cricket had managed to get a scan of it as well. The fighters had basic laser weapons, as well as ballistic guns, but they did not have shields.

Two weeks of workouts, sports and sex later they found themselves coming out of FTL beyond Silica's moon.

Surprisingly, they weren't hailed right away, in fact they weren't hailed until they were past the nearest moon's orbit, "Unknown ship, identify yourselves and state your intentions."

Adam answered the hail, "This is Commander Topos aboard the Poseidon of the Atlantean Federation. We recently discovered your planet and just thought we would stop by and say, 'Hi,' to our galactic neighbours and would welcome the chance to sit down with your leaders to discuss possible trade and tourism opportunities."

They got a reply back almost immediately, "Poseidon, your ship is being targeted as a precaution, please remain in orbit while we relay your message to the appropriate personnel."

Adam answered, "Thank You!"

The audio only hail disconnected at that point, as the three of them sat around the boardroom and talked while the view of Silica was visible from the boardroom windows. From orbit, Silica looked a lot like any other habitable planet, a mixture of green and brown land masses, with blue oceans and white clouds or snow covered mountains, the planet was slightly larger than Earth and had three moons orbiting it.

Not knowing how long it would take to get a response, Adam left to return to the bridge, leaving Mark and Annabelle to talk. While they were waiting, they asked Cricket if there had been any new developments with the Maaku. There hadn't been. After about half an hour, they received a response from the Silicans saying that they would welcome a meeting in their capital city, but that they were also expecting the Maaku, who should be arriving at any time.

About an hour later, the Cleito exited FTL and joined the Poseidon in orbit. Moments later, a shuttle carrying Ambassador Treena, President Zyton and Grand Master Morlan were landing in the port side landing bay of the Poseidon.

After some brief introductions, Mark, Annabelle, Rayven, Liyana, Solara, Gyges, Gaderius and Athena boarded the shuttle and proceeded down to meet in the capital city of Tiber.

Silica was a very advanced, very clean planet that didn't appear to have much, if any, pollution. The planet was pretty much identical to Earth with the atmosphere, temperate zones, land to water ratio, etc. The planet wasn't as populated as Earth, with only about 4 billion citizens, but they, at least, had put away all their differences and progressed to having one global government.

When they approached the city, they could see they had their own version of the lift system and just like every major city, the tallest buildings were in the city centre. They could also see the massive planetary weapons dotting the landscape, with each weapon looking like an observatory, with the barrel of the weapon pointed straight up into the sky. Mark guessed each of the weapons reached close to a half a kilometre into the sky and they all appeared to have their own nuclear power plants.

The government building was a huge round building that reminded Mark of the senate chambers on all the planets, but it looked a lot more sleek and futuristic, completely white, with dark windows on each level. Around the base of the building was 10 circular landing pads numbered 0 through 9, all elevated above the ground and connected to the main building by a short walkway and there were two elevators, between each walkway, to transport people to each of the levels.

They were instructed to land on pad 2, where they could see a small greeting party waiting for them, complete with armed security.

Mark asked, "

Cricket, I know I ask this every time, but you have drones with me right?

"

Cricket answered, "

Yes, there are 4 drones in the shuttle with you.

"

As they landed and the shuttle ramp was lowered, President Zyton took the lead and exited the shuttle first, followed by Morlan, then Gyges, Athena and Gaderius and the Mark and his entourage.

The President Zyton and the Silican leaders obviously knew each other as they approached, bowed and shook hands. President Zyton then took over the role of introducing everyone else to Chancellor Shireen and Minister Horsman.

The Silicans were a very tall race. Mark estimated the shortest guard there was probably around 7'6", but the other two guards as well as Chancellor Shireen and Minister Horsman were closer to 8' in height.

They were a very pale race, not quite albino, but close with just a slight pink hue to their skin. Other than their height and pale complexion, they looked human.

Minister Horsman had grey hair and a beard with steel grey eyes. He looked fairly fit and had kind of a rugged war hero type look to him.

Chancellor Shireen looked like a pale version of Cleopatra. She had black shoulder length hair, the straight cut bangs, blue eyeshadow and ruby red lips. She was wearing an elegant emerald green dress that matched her eyes and was slit up the sides of her legs and parted down the front, joining well below her ample bosom.

From Mark's height it was tough not to stare at her cleavage, as Annabelle squeezed his hand to get him to refocus his attention as they were led into the building and took an elevator up to the top floor.

There was only one room on the top floor and it was built like a parliamentary assembly. There were rows of seats and desks around the perimeter and in the centre of the north side of the room was the throne and there was a desk and chair on each side of it.

Then a few steps lower and directly in front of the throne was a large round table that could probably accommodate 20 people or so.

Minister Horsman led them all in and directed them to sit around the central table, guiding Mark to sit directly across from the Chancellor, as President Zyton sat on Mark's left, with Morlan at his side and the rest of Mark's group sat to his right, with the two ambassadors sitting closest to the Chancellor and the Minister.

As everyone was getting settled, President Zyton got the meeting started by apologizing on behalf of the Maaku for losing the tech company to the Empire.

Shireen smiled, as her cohort explained, "Your people had nothing to do with our people leaving, it sounds like each of us had a person or group of people, all with differing views from their respective governments. They all happened to find each other and they've started their own gang."

Mark then said, "It just unfortunately happens to be a well armed gang."

Shireen then spoke, "Sadly, that does appear to be the case. So what shall we do with this gang?"

President Zyton said, "I think we should go after them and take them out!"

Mark laughed, "No, what you mean is that the Federation should take them out! From what I understand, Silica doesn't have a space force and the Maaku ships, no offence, are no match for a shielded ship with powerful weapons, so that only leaves the Federation ships. The problem is that we do not use our power in that way, we are a peaceful people and we will act in defence, but we will never initiate an offensive attack that will cost lives."