Cowboys and Aliens

50. Rift Jumpers

The next morning Mark woke up with Maren cuddled up to him; they had some fun when they went to bed last night, resulting in both of them getting a good night's sleep.

Mark extracted himself from bed, trying not to wake the sleeping bunny. He went through his morning routine, returning to the room after getting a cup of coffee from the kitchen. Opting to sit at the desk in the room, looking at the display, and talking to Cricket silently rather than going down to the bridge.

He went through his daily reports and then the extrapolated Garedon reports; every municipality now had outreach centres or hubs, and people were now getting treated on the ground rather than being shuttled into orbit. The Space Station would go online late this afternoon, and the MEDs were in full production. In fact, all Sentinels were having their factory bays cut down to 2 kilometres and then reallocated the space into a fabrication workshop with two MEDs.

Mark had considered putting those machines in all medical centres, but that made little sense since we would use it for non-Federation treatment only, so only Space Stations around associate planets, CityShips, Sentinels, Defenders and Explorers were getting them. That thought soon had Mark realizing he didn't have a Sentinel allocated to Virgohn yet.

Sure, the CityShip was a converted Sentinel, but it wasn't a ship they could assign to the planet since it was leaving on a mission, so Mark had Cricket move the Sentinel from Rift 5 to Virgohn. The Sentinel at Earth could handle anything coming through Rift 5, and since Cricket could now predict rift activity by the turbulence of the gasses, they had some lead time to send the Sentinel that way... hopefully before whatever it was came through.

Maren awakened as Mark was standing naked at the clothing synth, getting his clothes for the day.

Throwing off the covers, she turned over on her knees, pointed her ass towards Mark and began playing with her pussy.

The sound of Maren stirring prompted Mark to turn and look at the bed; his cock immediately sprang to attention as he abandoned the clothing synth and walked over to the edge of the bed.

Mark positioned his cock at her wet nether lips and pressed the head against them. After sliding the head of his cock up and down her wet slit a few times, he applied some pressure as her pussy opened with a smack and allowed his cock to slip deep inside.

Maren moaned, "This is the best way to wake up, throw the covers off, turn over and get fucked; no foreplay or anything required!"

"I couldn't agree more! Seeing a beautiful woman masturbating while pointing her pussy and ass directly at you; the sight, the sound and the scent... it's sensory overload for the guy. Then once your cock gets that hard, there's only one thing you can do about it... cum! What better way to cum than by fucking the woman that caused the situation."

Maren laughed as she moaned, "Less talk! More fuck!", as she continued to rub her clit; Mark obliged as he pumped his cock in and out of her wet pussy.

It didn't take long before Maren was in the throes of orgasm as Mark followed, erupting hot cum deep inside the bunny.

As Mark extracted himself from Maren's cum-filled quim, she fell forward on the bed. "That was definitely the best way to wake up!"

"I couldn't agree more, my sexy bunny! Shall we have a quick shower and go to breakfast?"

"A shower is a great idea. As much as I like the thought, I don't want to be leaking cum in my uniform all day."

Mark picked the naked bunny girl up and carried her into the shower, giving her tender kisses along the way.

They selected their clothes from the clothing synth, got dressed, and joined the others at the eating area for breakfast.

***

Derek's crew were already up and eating; Liyana and Gyges were there also, and Liyana had a freshly fucked look on her face. Mark and Maren dished up and then joined them at the table. As usual, the breakfast discussion was about the plans for the day.

During his daily reports, Mark had thought about everything they talked about last night and decided that now that they had the capsules, they could simplify the process even more. They always called the new countries anyway, so instead of arranging meetings, maybe they'd just tell them all they could do was turn on the medical scanning to identify infected people and then provide vaccine capsules to treat the infected. Then if they asked about joining the Federation, tell them an ambassador would be in touch within a day or two.

Mark informed everyone that he had already sent messages to 6 of the 7 countries he and Liyana had already visited, informing them of their new vaccine capsules. He hadn't told Maclondia since they had their own vaccine and weren't sharing it with anybody, or even their own citizens!

They were going to distribute the MEDs they had between the 6 countries to get them started, then they would return with more until the country had enough treatments to cover the number of infections that were detected. The Sentinel that had just arrived was currently being retrofitted with the new fabrication workshop and two MEDs. So production would go up to 8.6 million capsules per day as the Sentinel and the Space Station became operational later today.

Derek also told Mark that more of his crew were going to be arriving throughout the day. With the additional crew, and reducing everyone's roles to delivery people, Derek and Mark called Kaleb from the bridge to ask about the status of the recruitment of people to do the security training and staffing of the Space Station, before dismissing the personnel that were already there.

Kaleb confirmed they had a full roster of volunteers for the Garedon onboarding and that they were finishing preparations at Atlanterra and would leave once the Virgohn Space Station came online, in roughly 6 hours. He agreed to allow the other volunteers to return to their previous posts, liking the fact that Derek and his crew were going to stick around and help.

After ending the call with Kaleb, they made a ship-wide announcement for all the staff, thanking them for their service and informing them they were free to return to their previous posts since the Space Station would be online in hours and personnel were inbound to take over onboarding Garedon. They then contacted the permanent crew of the Atlantia to assemble in the senior officer's quarters.

Part of the discussion last night was about what to name the CityShip. Derek had suggested 'Heart of Gold' as an homage to Mark's favourite book, but no one else liked it, including Mark, because it didn't sound like a city name. Another person then mentioned the name 'Atlantia' and everyone said that sounded fine.

As they returned to the senior officer's quarters, Derek asked his crew to split into 6 teams of two to deliver the treatments to 6 of the countries that had requested help. Cricket instructed the second cargobot to deliver the pallets to Bay P21 for distribution because of its proximity to the MEDs. The Sentinel had arrived and was now producing capsules. It just didn't have any built up supply at the moment. The cargobots there were working on the same instructions as the ones on the Atlantia.

The pilots went off to move their respective shuttles to Bay P21, whereas the others were going to split up the pallets.

To aid in calling the multitude of countries back, they had Cricket redesign one of the retail shops near P21 into a call-centre. Mark, Liyana, and Derek were going to go make the calls while the crew were making their deliveries.

It didn't take long for the 6 shuttles to split up the MEDs and they were soon out for delivery. The rest of the day, the personnel that had volunteered all left and more of Derek's crew arrived. The delivery crews even started making some calls as Mark, Liyana, Gyges and Maren began visiting countries that had requested to meet about joining the Federation.

Since the Space Station would be online in a few hours, becoming the new base of operations. Mark had Cricket upgrade the medical bay on the Space Station with 10 MEDs. Eventually they would reduce the number of MEDs, but it was matter they could reclaim when they were no longer needed, so why not boost production? 10 MEDs would give them significant production and remove the need for the Atlantia to stick around.

Derek was wisely using this time as training missions to get to know his crew and see who worked well together, but they could begin their adventure that much sooner once all his crew arrived.

***

Late that afternoon, the Space Station came online and several large personnel transports arrived with all the volunteers for onboarding Garedon. The crews got settled into the Space Station and they set up the medical landing bay on the lower side of the station for the capsule sorting. Landing bays for emergency services made for a perfect base of operation because, like an outreach centre, they had a map of the entire world they were orbiting on the wall; Cricket highlighted the countries they were helping and overlaying numbers of capsules delivered versus the number of infections detected for each country.

They estimated there were over a billion people currently infected with the virus. Even with the drastically increased capsule production, it was still going to take a few months to eradicate the virus world-wide. Mind you, those numbers also accounted for the scenario where every country on the planet requested the Federation's help, which hadn't happened yet.

So far only 61 countries had requested help... less than half the planet.

With the Space Station online and the virus quickly becoming controlled in Garedon thanks to outreach centres in every municipality, now they would begin the onboarding process. The mass fabricators were all manufacturing and assembling non-lethal weapons. They would distribute those weapons to all law enforcement across the country; as that was happening, the security drones would be in passive mode, then once all the non-lethal weapons were delivered, the drones would become active.

At that point in time, they would begin the accelerated security training and partnering senior Federation security with local personnel. Within a few months Garedon would be a full Federation member, and then they could start working on some smaller countries that will hopefully vote to join the Federation.

Being one of the largest countries on the planet, Garedon was a pretty influential player around the world. That what remained of their economy was pretty much back to normal now. Simply the glow feature itself was mostly responsible for the faster recovery. As Mark had suspected, anybody glowing green was given a wide berth, and they were getting treated simply to be around their friends and family.

Every politician should have moved their offices into an outreach centre by now, and they would have access to all the services the Space Station provided. That included advisors to aid with implementing new technologies and doing things the Federation way.

Part of the onboarding crew included a lot of engineers and architects to rebuild public buildings and schools and to give homeless people shelter. They all worked out of the Space Station and all the request forms and stuff were all on the computer network, which is why it was vitally important that all politicians move their offices into an outreach centre.

All the architects and engineers worked as a team on the space station, most of the personnel would work on the cities, while the others took care of all the smaller towns and villages, which likely only had a couple of schools and maybe a community centre or two.

Most of the planet was now revering Garedon for bringing the Federation to Virgohn, as they also watched with great interest as they transitioned into the Federation. Mark monitored the world news sources just to see what the general feelings were toward the Federation, most of it appeared to be quite favourable although there were a few negative articles as well; almost exclusively from countries where the citizens did not have many freedoms.

The crews that staffed the Space Station rocked with their tasks. Mark suspected many of them, or at least the senior management, were the same people that helped onboard the other planets that had added since Mark took over.

Mark hung around for a few days, handling some ambassadorial meetings, but in all honesty, the Space Station crews handled everything. He was just hanging around until Derek and his crew were ready to depart; all of his crew had arrived. He just had them doing exercises and getting to know people.

One of the bright spots on Derek's crew was MJ, short for Mary Jane. She and Derek had known each other their entire lives, but had lost touch. Apparently thick as thieves growing up on Caprica, but drifted apart when both of their parents died in the same accident. They ended up living with their respective grandparents until they graduated, then they both joined the security service right out of high school; but Derek had advanced so rapidly that they hadn't seen each other since.

When Derek's name was mentioned as leading this new mission into the unknown, tentatively called the Rift Jumper Expedition, although it was up to Derek and his crew to come up with its official designation. MJ was one of the first sign-ups, although she was on Maaku helping them with the transition into the Federation and only arrived a couple of days ago.

Derek softened considerably once MJ showed up, but still had the respect of everyone. Derek reminded Mark a lot of himself. He asked nothing of anyone that he wouldn't do himself. He also did a lot of things himself rather than delegate tasks to others. It was almost as if MJ completed him.

With the Atlantia ready to depart, they notified everyone that tomorrow morning at 10:00 would be their departure day. Kaleb and the other Generals were going to attend, Liyana was going to handle the AFNN coverage.

That night Annabelle and the rest of the gang came to Virgohn and spent the night on the Space Station. Those hyperspace gates were indeed revolutionizing space travel.

***

The next morning, Mark and the gang were on the Atlantia meeting with the crew and talking with Derek, MJ and his other senior officers. They would represent the Federation, but they couldn't actually help anyone join the Federation because there was no way to connect them to the communications network. They also didn't want to leave technology floating around out in space disconnected from the Federation, so they couldn't build a hyperspace gate and just leave it there on the off chance that one day the network might connect with them.

Instead, they would leave potential allies a desktop hologram AI, they could ask questions and learn about the Federation and it would notify them if the communication beacons ever found that area of space. That was one advantage of the communication and sensor network that everyone just seemed to forget about. They no longer needed ships in orbit or a huge communications tower on the surface to communicate with the Federation network.

On the other side of each rift, they would release dozens of seeding ships to deploy sensor beacons in an ever-expanding pattern around the rift, with each sensor being able to talk to multiple other sensors. Six of the seeding ships would go straight out from their drop zone solely to increase the range for each rift.

If the sensor beacons ever met up with sensors connected to the Federation network, they would automatically begin communicating and, if they detected habitable planets, they could deploy a Defender to go investigate. Habitable planets meant no planet would ever get overcrowded, so regardless of whether the planet had humanoid life, they would build a hyperspace gate near it, solely for routine visits and in case of an emergency. Mark vowed there would never be another Cantara if there was anything they could do about it.

Also, since Virgohn, or at least part of Virgohn, was joining the Federation, the gate they had moved to the planet would now remain indefinitely. So they were building another gate near Braga and one near Hytros.

Originally they were going to avoid Hytros, since they weren't friendly to the Federation, but the planet would still be over 2 days of FTL away from the gates at Neptune or Marnot; even though they monitored the space around Hytros, once they were building a gate near Braga, they also gave Hytros its own gate as well. Who knows? Maybe they would eventually come around if there was easy and quick access to the rest of the Federation. After all, they haven't seen the expanded Federation, which was now counted 19 planets.

Just before noon, they started the ceremony. They used a court for the ceremony; all the crew were standing on the various rows of seats, while Kaleb, Mark, Annabelle and Derek were standing on the court. There was a commemorative plaque off to the side, containing the names of all the crew, the name of the ship, and there was an image of the ship along the top. They kept the name Rift Jumpers simply because the name was already part of the lexicon.

There were two commemorative plaques made, one was on display during the ceremony and would remain with the Atlantia, the other was going into a new exhibit at the museum in Acropolis.

Liyana live streamed the event for AFNN, and the recording would also be on replay at the museum. It was a simple brief ceremony, with Mark, Annabelle and the Generals all wishing the expedition good luck.

Once the ceremony completed, the Atlantia departed for the Cantara Rift, which they would reach within 2 days of FTL, then they wouldn't hear from the Atlantia until they hit Rift 5, which was near Earth. There was no set time to be spent at each rift, but barring any hostile encounters, they would need to stay at least a month just to allow the sensor beacons to expand outwards and hopefully detect something. If they found something, then the return timeline could be considerably longer, or if it was hostile, it could be almost immediate.

***

With the Atlantia away, and everything on Virgohn now being handled by the personnel on the Space Station, they did not really require Mark to be there, so Liyana suggested he resume his coronation tour and visit the remaining Federated planets. They still had Maren's shuttle; with the gates, they could just travel in the shuttle and stay on the surface of each planet.

From Virgohn, the first stop would be Arias, then Olympia, Librus, Geminus, Tauron and finally Caprica. With the hyperspace gates and 6 planets to visit, they could complete their tour of all the Federation worlds, eliminating weeks of time spent in light drive; plus by the time they wrapped up the tour, the gates at Hytros and Braga would be complete and they could go visit those as well.

Liyana had already contacted the Senate Heads of each of the planets. They would only spend 1 day at Arias since it was a smaller, sparsely populated planet, but the other planets were all Earth-sized and they would spend 3 days at each of the other planets, except for Caprica, which was the second most populous planet and the hub for this part of the Federation. They would spend 5 days there.

Arias was an agricultural planet, sparsely populated and more Venus-sized, but everyone seemed to be satisfied with how things were going around there. They were especially happy that the hyperspace gates were going to bring more tourism, and that they had seen several luxurious resorts, golf courses, casinos, and other attractions popping up all over the planet.