Knowing Rift 5 was that close to Earth made Mark nervous. Earth was his home, and all that remained to defend the planet was the Earth Spaceport.

Sure, it was a space-based version of an aircraft carrier with pulse cannons, laser turrets, and TRDs. It lacked singularity drivers, the only weapon proven to dispatch a Destructor ship quickly, though at significant cost. All other weapons, TRDs included, required a lot of shots hitting the same location. Not an easy accomplishment against a moving target.

From Thulark, there would be no time to return to Earth to defend it if something were to come through that rift, and losing two Sentinels in the attack on the Destructors meant there weren’t any currently unassigned Sentinels.

When Mark didn’t come to bed right away, Annabelle, Rayven, and Ra’ki checked on him. Each donning an oversized nightshirt, as was the rule since the incident.

The incident in question happened when Annabelle walked into his office naked. Sure, it was in the middle of the night, but time matters not when dealing with issues on other planets. He was on a call with Angela, fortunately not a conference call, but she felt so embarrassed that she vowed to never enter his office naked. The others agreed to follow her lead.

The door from the bedroom came in beside his desk, and the door to the common area came in beside the throne.

Mark wasn’t on a call when the trio entered. He was pacing around, which is something he did when he was thinking. Something was bothering him.

Annabelle asked, “What’s up?”

Mark broke his reverie. “Rift 5 is in the asteroid field between Earth and Mars. With us here at Thulark, Earth is unprotected if something comes through that rift.”

“True, but that rift didn’t just suddenly appear, it’s probably been there for thousands of years—maybe millions. Nothing has come through it so far.”

Ra’ki then pointed out, “Actually it’s quite possible that rift has been used before! From what we were taught, there was a race of short people with grey skin and enormous eyes that had saucer-shaped ships. Similar to the Destructors, but much smaller and sleeker. They called themselves the ‘Norn’, and they were the ones that originally told us about the rifts. We’ve never encountered them again, but they used the rifts to travel from their home world to another planet they protected. They were the ones that told us the rifts went one-way. Even they mentioned that they learned about the one-way rifts from the Colonials. Some ancient civilization that seeded life on habitable planets.”

Rayven then realized as she pointed at everyone in the office. “Some, or all of us, could simply be the results of the Colonials and that’s why we are all similar, yet different!”

Annabelle then had an epiphany. “What if the Norn had come through the rift and then crashed on Earth… maybe that’s what happened at Roswell, or what they’re keeping secret at Area 51?”

Mark laughed. “I guess both ideas are valid possibilities!”

Ra’ki asked, “What is Area 51?”

“It’s a top secret government base in either Nevada or New Mexico, on Earth. There’s been rumours that aliens crashed on Earth and that the government had recovered their ship and the bodies. And they have been doing experiments trying to reverse engineer their technology.”

“That’s awful! Do you think any of the aliens are still alive?”

“I don’t know if the rumours are even true, but if they were alive, I doubt they would still be. Those rumours go back more than seventy yahren. Just to be sure, I’ll have Cricket do some intensive scans of both areas and see if she can detect anything.”

Annabelle walked around the desk and sat on the edge in front of Mark.

He leaned in and kissed her while she cupped his face in her hands and said, “Either way, I don’t think that rift is an immediate threat worth worrying about. If you think it’s an issue, dispatch a Sentinel to watch over it. Right now, you have three horny girls that want you to come to bed!”

Mark smiled as he looked up into her eyes and gave her a kiss. They then all got up from their seats and went through the side door into the bedroom.

Just to play it safe, Mark told Cricket to dispatch Poseidon’s Sentinel to Rift 5. The Poseidon and Cleito didn’t need to be attached to Sentinels all the time.

Following the girls out of the office and into the bedroom, they all slipped off their oversized nightshirts and then worked as a team to remove Mark’s clothes.

With all the attention from the girls, Mark’s cock was already stiff and ready to go. As he stood there naked, the three girls knelt on the bed with their asses and pussies directed at him.

“Hmmm, so many choices!” He started with Annabelle on the right, dragging his fingers and the head of his cock across her ass, pausing briefly to apply the slightest bit of pressure at her wet slit. He then repeated the process with Ra’ki in the middle and then again with Rayven on the left. Leaving a trail of precum and pussy juice across the three women.

As he reached Rayven, he slipped just the head of his cock into her waiting pussy, causing her to moan with pleasure as her cock hardened beneath her. He then slid out and across her ass and over to Ra’ki, again repeating the same procedure and finally over to Annabelle.

With Annabelle, he slipped in and out twice before fully sheathing his cock in her luscious pussy. She groaned with approval as the other two girls looked on in anticipation.

After a couple of strokes into Annabelle, he repeated the same thing on Ra’ki, giving her several good thrusts before moving on to Rayven.

As he sunk deep into Rayven’s pussy, Annabelle flipped over onto her back, spread her legs wide and guided Ra’ki’s hand to her pussy.

Ra’ki knew exactly what to do as she curled her thumb under and slipped her fist deep inside Annabelle.

Rayven was enjoying Mark’s attentions, but warned that if she didn’t get her cock into something soon, she was going to make a mess all over the bed.

Annabelle maneuvered herself over so she could lie under Rayven and suck on her cock. Ra’ki redirected her ass towards the group and Annabelle sank her fist deep inside the slippery black pussy. Because of Ra’ki’s reptilian body, she actually went further than her wrist; she went in almost to her elbow.

Just then Rayven tensed and began unloading her pent-up cum into Annabelle’s mouth. Annabelle happily swallowed her lover’s load as she continued to get fisted by Ra’ki.

As Annabelle began to cum, she withdrew her forearm from Ra’ki’s pussy.

Rayven took up the reins and thrust her forearm deep into Ra’ki.

Ra’ki screamed in orgasm from the unexpected pressure.

Seeing Ra’ki and Annabelle enjoying their orgasms pushed Mark over the precipice as he began emptying his balls into the sexy devil.

Once everyone had cleaned up, they reset the bed and were all asleep in no time.

Mark woke up the next morning well-rested from the previous night’s activity. He extracted himself from between the sleeping beauties, made his way to the washroom and then to his office.

As he was drinking his coffee, he realized Annabelle was right. The rift wasn’t an immediate concern, and there would soon be a Sentinel watching over it. So he began talking to Cricket about a possible new weapon to use against the Destructors… something as destructive, but a bit more controllable.

The singularity drivers used a super-accelerated heavy projectile that did a lot of damage just on its own, despite creating a temporary pocket of supergravity. The singularity then compromised structural integrity as it crushed the ship, containing any outward explosions caused by the fuel and energy systems inside the ship. When the gravity pocket disintegrated, all the contained energy got released, destroying whatever was left of the ship and anything nearby.

As they unfortunately discovered.

One problem was that the electromagnetic barrels were 250 metres long. A bit too big for anything other than a Defender or Sentinel. The barrels themselves were longer than an Explorer. Plus, with the gravity pocket, you wouldn’t want to fire a weapon like that very close to a planet, so it wouldn’t be practical to add them to orbital structures.

The super-dense Mazjik material formed the shells, rendering them nearly indestructible armour-piercing rounds. Ten metres long, two metres wide, very heavy projectiles that broke apart after impact to release their payload.

What they needed was something smaller that would fit on an Explorer-class ship.

Mark then asked Cricket, “How much smaller could we make either the shells or the barrels, yet still keep up enough mass to get past the shields and hull? Then, rather than creating a singularity, they could release TRDs into the interior of the ship. Thus eliminating the devastating explosion and more or less destroy the ship from the inside out.”

“We could make miniature versions of the drivers with Explorers in mind. We could shorten the barrel down to 125 metres and make the shells about 5 metres long and 1 metre wide, so roughly half the size. As for making them mass-driven TRDs, that’s actually a great idea. TRDs turn everything black as it destroys, allowing anyone to track the spread and give them time to abandon ship.”

“I like it! Each Explorer probably wouldn’t be able to carry many shots though.”

“Actually, just like the singularity drivers, the shells actually construct themselves in the barrel. It would take roughly fifteen centons to construct a new shell in between shots… if the ship has enough matter in storage.”

“All this time they thought they only had four singularity shots, they actually had an unlimited supply! That’s funny, but I could see why that information would be kept from them. If they knew they only got one shot, they wouldn’t waste them!”

“The singularity shells are much bigger and quite a bit more complex, they take nearly a centar to construct between shots.”

“I like the idea of the new weapon, let’s put one barrel on each side of the underbelly bay?”

“With the shells only one metre in diameter, the barrels themselves would be two metres in diameter, they will easily fit on each side of the landing bay. With an Explorer-sized ship, they would be fixed barrels though, not mounted on a turret.”

“The shells are still guidable though, right?”

“No, they aren’t. That would take considerably more time to construct. Even if they were given lateral thrusters for guidance, they wouldn’t have that much effect at the speeds they will be travelling.”

“OK, so fire and forget. Maybe as a safety, can we put a self-destruct on those and the singularity drivers? Say we miss a target, I don’t want it continuing until it hits something else, like a planet or a bypassing ship. How about self-destruct if it doesn’t hit the target?”

“Sure, that should be easy enough.”

“Good! Put them on the Defenders, Explorers, Sentinels and the Guardians, but put them on turrets on everything but the Explorers. On the Poseidon and Cleito, still keep the singularity drivers, just in case of dire emergency.”

Mark then thought back to something Ra’ki had said last night. “Cricket, do you know anything about these Colonials?”

“Possibly! Ra’ki’s account of the Colonials sounds similar to a mission by the Mazjik called the ‘Colonial Project’. Their mission was to locate habitable planets and seed them bipedal intelligent life to see if they could survive. The project launched using thirteen Defenders on a ten yahren mission. Two of them never returned from the inaugural mission and they were listed as lost in space after entering nebular clouds and never coming out. The remaining ships did countless missions, but eventually they were all lost in space. It is possible they found, or stumbled upon, a rift and they could never return!”

“So, how long ago did that project start?”

“They began the Colonial Project almost three million yahren ago.”

Mark coughed in surprise and almost choked on his coffee. “Three million yahren! So it’s possible that life on Earth came from the Colonials?”

“Not all life, as there is evidence of life from long before that on Earth, but it’s very likely that human life came from them.”

Mark then thought for a second. “If they did seed humans on Earth, why wouldn’t we be more advanced?”

“The protocol for planets that already had animal life on them, was to seed intelligence that was more animalistic in nature and let them evolve. Past experiments showed that seeding refined bipedal species lacking technology didn’t last very long in a world dominated by animals. On planets with mostly plant life, they would’ve seeded a refined bipedal species.”

“Hmmm, so all of the ships were eventually lost in space. Therefore it’s possible that the Mazjik may possibly still be alive out there somewhere? They would’ve left long before the dying sun sterilized them on your home world.”

“It is possible. Unfortunately, the Mazjik were just in the process of terraforming a planet solely for their colonization, but it was still more than a yahren from completion when they abandoned Mazjorca. All the other experimental planets were visited for monitoring. That was it, they never interfered with their experiments, well they weren’t supposed to anyway. One ship made contact with your King Atlas.

When they realized their sun was dying, they admitted that technology had been given to the Earthlings. They thought that might be the most advanced and civilized place for them to move to. What they hadn’t expected was how warlike it was. So they saved the Atlanteans, who were about to be attacked, and went to the unfinished planet. Living in orbit until the planet was habitable. It wasn’t actually called Atlanterra until after they settled on it.”

Mark thought back to a radio show his dad used to listen to. “Now we know the rest of the story…”

Just then, a notice popped up on his computer saying the Cleito would arrive around noon today.

He felt an almost nervous anticipation that he would finally get to confront Sebastian in a situation that he controlled.

Mark got up and wandered out to the common area, where everyone was sitting around in groups, talking about a variety of topics and drinking their morning beverages.

Seeing Mark exit his office was a signal, as they all got up from their seats.

Annabelle had informed him of ‘the signal’ after it had become routine. She had told him that when he exited his office on the Poseidon. It was a sign that he was all caught up with everything happening in the universe. He had a plan for the day, and it was now time for breakfast!

Mark originally laughed when she told him that, but then had to admit that it was a fairly accurate assumption. Besides, you can’t delay the most important meal of the day for long.

The group made its way to the cafeteria and got in line for a breakfast of waffles, bacon, eggs, and toast with juice and coffee.

Adam had joined them for breakfast and, of course, the topic of the Cleito arriving with Sebastian and Hawker came up. Everyone was curious about what the plan was for those two?

Mark said, “I really do not know. I kind of want to put them both on trial here at one of the native settlements in the mountains. However, since very little of the original population exists, I don’t think it would do justice. Plus, they are recovering well. Do we really want to dredge up old memories?

So I’m thinking, once they’re officially in our custody, we will escort Hawker back to Silica and turn him over to the Silicans for punishment. Then we’ll return Sebastian to Atlanterra for punishment. Once that is done, I want to get back to Earth and start trying to clean up the place. I’ve read the reports from Earth and we seem to have plateaued with the world peace enrollment. There’s still no sign that the countries abstaining are ever going to join of their own accord. Personally, I’m in no rush. People are moving into the areas we now protect, so eventually they’re either going to give in or try something stupid. Then we will step in.”

Liyana asked, “What’s the next plans for Earth?”

Mark said, “Well, we’re still not rolling out world peace worldwide, it’s still by request or if major violence breaks out somewhere. So the next items on my to-do list are to establish ourselves as the go-to resource for disaster relief efforts. I also want to step up our recycling efforts to try and get some of the world’s pollution under control. There’s a lot of technologies that I think we can safely distribute to places that their own countries aren’t helping with as much. Mostly just providing food, water, washrooms, showers and recycling centres to provide communities access to clean drinking water, food and to promote good hygiene. At least to start, who knows, we may eventually just provide full outreach centres for those communities. Seriously, we could provide communities in the middle of nowhere with one of Solara’s camping kits, and it would be a big step up from what they currently have.”

Ra’ki smiled, “I like this, you really are the good guys, helping whoever you can, regardless of recognition or compensation. Just to do the right thing!”

Annabelle said, “No, it’s just doing what the other childish, self-absorbed countries in the world, should’ve done a long time ago.” She then put on a haughty face and said, “No, let’s spend billions of dollars and resources to find more efficient ways to kill each other rather than helping those in need!”

Ra’ki was confused. “You mean there are leaders that irresponsible?”

Annabelle said, “Yes unfortunately! Some of them donate loads of money to organizations that promise to help the world, but few dollars actually make it to the needy, it’s wasted on administration. I could understand doing that if they’ve got a surplus and they’ve already taken care of everything in their own countries. Sadly, most of them don’t even do that. So the veterans that defended their way of life and the elderly that helped build the country and economy, are often the ones that get bypassed for any funding!”

“Now, now don’t get too riled up, we will try to right some of those wrongs, it’s just going to take time.” Mark said as he wrapped her in his embrace.

Annabelle relaxed in his arms. “I’m sorry, it just makes me so mad that most of the world leaders are so incompetent. I’m so happy we have you!”

Liyana said, “Yes, considering your background, you still amaze me that you’ve just taken this all in stride. You literally have the undying support of several billion citizens on seventeen planets now. I can see why the Mazjik were drawn to your bloodline, you’re definitely one of the most benevolent leaders there is.”

“That’s why everyone thinks he’s a god!” Rayven said with a smile.

Mark shot her a look.

“I know! Gods aren’t real!” She laughed as she held her hands up defensively before returning to eating her breakfast.

“So, if gods aren’t real, do you guys worship anything?” Ra’ki asked out of curiosity.

Solara said, “We celebrate and praise the sun as without it there would be no life at all, but I wouldn’t say we worship it.”

“Even with the Colonials you mentioned, many of the planets they encountered already had life on them in some form or other. They were seeding intelligent life, so I guess they would be about as close to a god as anything. Even they were mortal and they would not have been able to seed life without a sun.” Mark added.

Everyone looked at him with confusion, so he felt compelled to explain. “I did some digging into the ‘Colonials’ that Ra’ki mentioned. I think they might have been the Mazjik! About three million yahren ago, they launched several Defenders for what was called the ‘Colonial Project’. Their primary mission was to search out and seed intelligent life on habitable planets, but they also did experiments in actually terraforming planets. Atlanterra was the first planet terraformed from an unusable rock that was in the right orbit around a yellow sun.

Cricket thinks that maybe they stumbled upon these rifts and couldn’t find their way home, but continued their mission indefinitely, as they eventually lost all the project ships. Now before you say anything, yes, Earth was one of their experiments, but they broke a cardinal rule about giving away their technology, and the original Atlantis resulted from that!

They revealed the technology gift when they realized their own planet was doomed. They decided Earth might be a planet they could move to since they already had some of their technology. However, a war was inevitable, so they moved on. Fortunately, the Atlanteans had responsibly used the technology gifts, so that’s why they saved them.

They didn’t realize their dying sun had sterilized them until after they settled on Atlanterra.”

Adam looked at his wrist device. “I must return to the bridge. Thank you for making breakfast educational, my King.”

Everyone laughed as they finished their breakfast and disposed of their plates and utensils as they left the cafeteria. They went for a walk around the ship, taking the long way to the gym. Giving breakfast a chance to digest before participating in a morning workout, followed by some sparring. Then it was off to some showers and to relax for a centar or two until the Cleito arrived.

A little over two centares later, the Cleito dropped out of FTL near Thulark. Mark was waiting on the bridge with Adam when Commander Northrop called.

He looked upset as he said, “My King… Commander… I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”

Before Mark could ask, Adam spoke, “What’s the news Grant?”

Grant straightened up. “The bastard killed himself! It looks like he bit into his wrist, severed a major artery and bled out. He did it when we announced that we were just about to arrive at Thulark. We have him in a medibay, but the technicians don’t expect him to recover. We still have Hawker though.”

Just then Grant looked off to the side, nodded, then returned to face them. “I’ve just been informed that the medibay has declared Sebastian dead. We will transfer his body into a burial pod for you.”

Mark looked disappointed. “Thank you Commander, it’s unfortunate that he was such a coward! Transfer Sebastian’s body and Hawker into the holding cells on the Sentinel and leave it here for the Poseidon. Commander, you and the Cleito have earned some well-deserved R&R, make your way back to Atlanterra to get a new Sentinel, and once you get there, I want you and your crew to take a sectar off. We’ll take care of Sebastian’s remains and Hawker.”

“Thank you, my King! Be safe!” Grant saluted and started issuing orders to move Sebastian’s body and Hawker to the Sentinel before the call disconnected.

A few centons later, the Cleito separated from the Sentinel, and they headed back toward Atlanterra, proceeding at sub-light speeds until their FTL drive was ready to go again. As they moved away, the Poseidon moved into position and docked with the waiting Sentinel.

Mark and Adam made a quick call to Chancellor Shireen to inform her they had Brian Hawker in custody, and that they were bringing him back to Silica so they could put him on trial.

Chancellor Shireen asked what happened to his Federation partner, and they told her he had killed himself.

She laughed and called him a coward. Then surprisingly said, “I wouldn’t be opposed to Hawker falling out of an airlock. It would save them the time and cost of putting him on trial. Couldn’t the Federation just keep him? After all, it was a Federation planet they had attacked.”

After a brief discussion, Mark agreed to give Hawker a two-door cell on the Thulark Spaceport. If they changed their minds, he would be transported back to Silica.

Before going down to give Hawker the news, Mark and Adam sat down to go over some of the surveillance footage that Cricket had flagged from their sectar long trip from the Cantara rift. The holding cells had library access, so they had both spent a lot of time going through what was in the library.

Hawker seemed impressed that a nobody from a backward planet had taken on the role and responsibilities of a king. Despite this, the king calmly and intelligently handled everything thrown at him repeatedly. The Federation had advanced significantly during his brief reign.

Sebastian always had an excuse, saying if he had the same support Mark had, he could’ve done just as good a job. Hawker just argued that he didn’t think so... there was just something about Mark that made him think he was, in fact, on a different level than anyone else he had ever known, especially after reading about the Magellan discovery.

Even Sebastian admitted he wasn’t sure how Mark had done that. He also admitted to a few other things Mark had done that he wasn’t sure he could have.

Every time Hawker said Mark was a better leader than Sebastian, just infuriated the prince even more, and eventually it came to where they wouldn’t even talk to each other as they waited in their adjacent cells.

Their surveillance review ended when they saw the method Sebastian had used to kill himself. He literally bit deep into his wrist, ripped open an artery, and bled to death. His medibots notified the medical techs, but the damage was beyond instant repair and he had lost too much blood. It took less than a centon for the medical techs to get there, but Sebastian had already stopped moving and the pool of blood kept expanding. They stopped watching when the technicians took him away.

Medibots could repair cuts, scrapes, and other minor health issues, but not major traumas.

The medibots Mark possessed connected directly to the AI, and he had many extra medibots integrated into the lattice tattoos on his body. They could repair pretty much anything up to being decapitated or being shot in the heart or brain. Well, not repair exactly, but they could stop any bleeding and hopefully sustain him until he could get medical attention.

After seeing the surveillance, they decided Brian Hawker could wait for a bit. Adam was going to arrange for Hawker to be transferred to the Thulark Spaceport, while Mark returned to the royal quarters to inform the group about the change in plans.

Everyone felt disappointed by Sebastian’s cowardly demise. Though happy that he was no longer a concern to worry about.

Astra, however, wished to see Brian before they left.

The group made their way down to the starboard bay to wait for his transfer over to the spaceport.

When the guards escorted Brian into the hangar and toward the shuttle, Astra walked up and kicked him in the balls.

Brian dropped to his knees, clutching his crotch, and his face twisted in agony.

“I can’t believe you just left me there to die, you pile of feces!” She shouted. “Fortunately, I’ve got some new friends that appreciate me for my technical skills... and I’m sure my quarters are far better than yours will be. Enjoy the rest of your life!”

She then turned away and stormed out of the launch bay as everyone else turned to follow, except Mark, Adam and the security.

Mark said, “Brian Hawker, through video evidence and first hand accounts, you have been found guilty of genocide against the innocent people of Thulark. Chancellor Shireen, of your home planet, Silica, has requested that the Atlantean Federation handle your incarceration. Since we know the genocide was an accident and you did make an attempt to defend fellow space travellers from attack, I feel compelled to be a bit lenient, as such, you are sentenced to life, with no chance for parole for ten yahren, to be served aboard the Thulark Spaceport. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Brian stared at the floor, still cupping his crotch. “I sincerely apologize for the accident at Thulark. Please tell Astra I’m sorry for deserting her. I will accept any punishment you deem appropriate. If there is any way to continue research in my cell, maybe I could continue to develop and design technology for the Federation?”

“How fire walled are prison terminals?” Mark asked Cricket.

“All prison computers are setup with normal library access, so they can get news, watch videos, and take some basic courses, but they also have an assortment or writing, drawing and design programs, and they can request specialty programs. It gives prisoners a sense of purpose and can often be used to trade for a reduction in their sentence. They do have communications, but the communication time is limited, recorded and monitored.” Cricket replied.

Mark turned back to Brian and said, “Prison terminals have a variety of writing, drawing and design programs, plus you will still have access to all the usual stuff available through the library. Then, for anything you design, the Federation has full rights to and if your designs are worthy, they can be traded for time off your sentence.”

He simply said, “Thank You, your majesty!”, as security led him into the shuttle for transport to the spaceport.

Having never been to a Guardian yet, Mark accompanied the prisoner transport, as Adam said he was going to get the Poseidon ready for the trip back to Earth.

As he boarded the shuttle, he sat across from Brian, who had a security person on each side of him, with another sitting beside Mark.

Soon the shuttle was flying out the starboard launch bay as Brian looked out the windows at the intimidating and colossal Defender/Sentinel ship they had just departed from.

He then turned to Mark and said, “From what I have read and seen in your library, you have come a long way in a short time and I am very impressed. You take risks, yet every move you make seems to be well calculated. If the Silican government had allowed us to take some risks, we would never have done what we did. We never intended to harm anyone, well at least I didn’t. I know Sebastian didn’t like you at all, but I think deep down he realized that, despite your background, you were actually a far better leader than he was. Dare I say, you’re a far better leader than any other leader I have ever read about. By the way, thank you for allowing me to continue to design technology!”

Mark looked at him and said, “You are an intelligent man, Brian, it would be a shame to let your intelligence waste in prison. I’m sure you have all kinds of designs you want to develop in your head, show me what you can come up with.”

Brian asked, “If I may inquire, what kinds of technology are you looking for that will be of value to the Federation?”

Mark thought for a second. “I honestly don’t know. Right now I would say the two top items on my wish list would be how to travel faster than FTL and how to communicate when we are in FTL. The Federation is so vast even with FTL it can take sectares to get from one side of our space to the other, and while we are in FTL we can’t communicate. We perform comm stops regularly to get updates and allow people to communicate.”

Brian smiled, “I’ve already got some theories on the faster than FTL stuff, and if my theories work, then you wouldn’t need to communicate in FTL.”

Mark smiled. “Show me what you can do!”

Soon they were approaching the Thulark Spaceport. It was an impressive-looking ship, with lots of people milling about as there were a couple of transports currently docked and unloading.

The far end of the spaceport contained the security barracks and training facility, which is where the shuttle went to land. More security personnel met them, who then took possession of Brian Hawker and led him to his new home. Mark accompanied them down to see the cells.

The guards gave Brian a two-door cell; beside the desk was a clothing synth locker, and the desk had a drink dispenser. The near side of the room had an open toilet, sink and mirror on one side of the door and an open shower on the opposite side, so the entrance wall provided a bit of privacy.

The cell also had a towel and toiletries dispenser, but the system knew what was recycled. If you hadn’t recycled your toothbrush, cup, or clothing, the system wouldn’t give you new ones. Also, to prevent wasting water, the shower only worked for a few centons each day. Then, to give people some socializing, there was a central cafeteria and workout area, so you got to leave your cell twice per day.

Seeing the two-door cell though, Mark couldn’t help but think what was going through Sebastian’s head. Surely he should have realized he would’ve ended up in a two-door cell. Pressing the button to get sucked out the airlock surely would’ve been a less painful, and probably quicker, death than biting his own wrist and bleeding to death!

Curious, Mark asked the security personnel if someone could accidentally eject themselves from the cell. They assured him that someone couldn’t accidentally push the ‘room service’ button. They explained that the first time you pushed the button, it turned red and began a two-centon countdown. Then the button would turn yellow for two centons, and if you pressed the button then, it would notify security and do a five centon countdown and then turn green for one centon. If you truly wanted to eject yourself, you had to press the button while it was green; otherwise, the process would cancel and reset.

It also truly was a room service button; if you ejected yourself, the room reset itself, although anything in your computer was then archived and removed from that terminal.

Seeing the prison facility on the Guardian, it seemed fairly humane and civil; everyone had their own rooms and prisoners had pretty much everything they needed to keep their sanity. The only thing they didn’t have was conjugal visits, although there was access to porn on their terminals. It was just limited to pictures and only for a few centons.

Mark then took a quick tour of the Guardian and talked to some visitors and staff before returning to the Poseidon.

Soon after his return, they were leaving Thulark and heading back to Earth.

Three sectons of sports, sex, and workouts later, they were finally back in orbit around Earth.

The news of Sebastian’s cowardly demise made it into the news, but was merely a minor story. It seems like everyone in the Federation was just glad he was gone.

Mark and the girls were getting impatient as they came out of FTL, and it seemed to take forever before the shuttles started leaving for the surface. Everyone was eager to get back home, since they’d been away so long.

They waited in the shuttle for the announcement to depart. They immediately launched into space and headed for the surface. A few centons later they saw Atlantis on the horizon and the protective statues as everyone started getting giddy about returning.

Soon they were touching down at the palace and giving Astra and Luna a quick tour of the residence, giving them the opportunity to choose their rooms.

Having switched to living on Atlantis time, they realized it was nearly lunchtime. Everyone voted to go to a restaurant for some Earth food and discuss whether to work off their lunch over a round of golf or at the survival park.

As they reached the front desk of the palace, Ally informed Mark that there was a message for him.

Mark thanked her as he read it. It was from Jacob Marsbe, the recycling guy. It just said he’d appreciate a time to sit down and go over plans for rolling out his recycling system.

Mark tapped his wrist device, and within microns, Jacob answered the call.

“My King! It is good to hear from you. Thank you for calling!”

“Nice to hear from you Jacob, I’m guessing you’re on Atlantis and I’m back as well. Where and when would you like to meet?”

“If now is a good time, I can be there in 30 microns.”

“That works for me. We’re just going out for lunch. Join us. We can talk and eat.”

Sure enough, 30 microns later, Jacob came floating down in the hover elevator.

Since Ally had overheard their plans, she suggested a bar in the entertainment district which had an excellent lunch menu.

They all thanked her for the suggestion as they walked out of the palace.

It was a ten-centon walk out to the entertainment district, and all the bars seemed to be busy and noisy, so they were reconsidering going to a bar for lunch. The one Ally suggested was busy also, but they offered Mark the use of one of their semi-private rooms, which was much quieter and more conducive to having a productive meeting.

Since Jacob had been on Earth for two sectons, he investigated how cities around the planet managed garbage and recycling. That led him to make quite a few tweaks to his design.

The recycling system was now modular, with separate collection and conversion units. Similar to stun guns, each bin had a unique identifier. The bin owner could see the location of each bin and see statistics on how much trash it had collected. Each customer could also choose the colour of the bin and put their own logo on it. The top outer edge of the bin was full of holes so cameras, lids, fences, or other things could be mounted.

He made two versions of the collection bin. Both easily shipped since they were single-use construx.

The hopper versions could go in any enclosure as long as it had 4 distinct metal sides and a metal bottom. It would conform to the size of the enclosure, so it could fit top-load, side-load, or rear-load garbage trucks, or even basic dumpsters if they wanted. The other was also a construx, but it made a basic bin 1 metre high, 1.5 metres wide and 2 metres long. People could use these universally as community or building dumpsters or even mount them into a pickup truck bed.

Jacob also included safeguards that would notify the owner if someone placed human remains or explosives in the dumpster, even concealed within other items. They could then contact the local authorities to investigate. It also would not allow people or animals to breach the upper force field that protected the conversion layer. The owner could then temporarily deactivate the unit, thus preventing the evidence from being removed from the bin, except by authorities.

The beauty of the entire process was the material teleports. Garbage appeared to decompose rapidly, but was actually being converted into a super-dense black material. The conversion facility then teleported this material for storage until it could convert it into something else.

Trucks could drive under the overhead bin conversion modules, which then converted and dumped the preset amount of matter back into them. Making them modular and locking them to a specific matter conversion type prevented governments from taking garbage and turning it into gold or diamonds. Jacob wanted true, usable materials that were in high demand, but nothing that was rare or super valuable.

From his research, he figured plastic pellets, glass pellets, dirt, sand, gravel, wood chips, and for metals: iron and aluminum ingots. Specialized conversion units turned matter into various sizes and types of wood, including paper, and also created various types of grains. He also made units for creating oil and gas and one that converted garbage into electricity, but eventually decided against them. He didn’t want to contribute to the planet’s pollution by creating more oil and gas, and he didn’t want to compete with the power cell business.

Mark asked, “You’ve put a lot of work into this, even more since the last time I talked to you. Do you have a business plan for how you want to roll these out?”

“I’m an engineer and inventor, I don’t want to try and run a business. I just want to live comfortably.” Jacob said with a sigh.

Mark said, “I think I can get you some help to run the business, but have you given any thought on how you want to get these units into service?”

“I was actually thinking rather than selling the units, we could give them away for free, or for a nominal fee. Then, just take a percentage of their collection and conversion fees. The units are set up to provide real-time collection and conversion stats. Each unit could auto-invoice whoever is running the recycling station.”

“I like it. We’ll get it up and running in no time.” Mark said with a laugh.

Jacob smiled. “So, who do we need to talk to for help?”

Mark said, “Henry and the breakfast club. If they have room, maybe they’ll even give you office space in their building. Let’s eat first and then we’ll go talk to them.”

The rest of the lunch conversation was pretty casual. It was mainly the girls discussing some things they could take Luna and Astra to for the afternoon. Survival Park, Poseidon’s Garden, Lunar Adventures, the zoo, and the ranch were among the places they discussed. Astra and Luna thought the Survival Park would be a blast.

After lunch they left the bar and split into their own groups.

Annabelle said she was just going to go to the ranch and relax. It had been sectares since she saw her parents, so she caught a lift to the ranch. Rayven accompanied her.

Gyges, Athena, and Gaderius all wanted to go to the Survival Park also, so they went with the rest of the girls.

Liyana was going to go back to her office to work.

That left Mark and Jacob to walk through the entertainment district and out to the office.

During the walk, Jacob said he was moving to Atlantis and had actually bought an island lot in the Ampheres region. He had already had a house designed, and it was just waiting on the contest period. So far there had been no contest since the other lot on the island was currently unowned. If all went well, he should be able to build and move in on Friday. Then spend the weekend unpacking his storage pod.

That was the way interplanetary moves happened. You rented a storage pod and packed your belongings into it. Once it was closed up, the contents went into a sort of stasis where nothing could move and get damaged. You couldn’t ship anything organic in a storage pod, and they didn’t allow plants and pets to be transported off planets.

They collected and loaded the storage pods onto transports or freighters, then shipped them to the destination. They offloaded the storage pods like luggage, then stored them on the spaceport or down at the port until they could deliver them to their final destination.

It didn’t take long to walk around the ring; they could see the communications array by the time they got to the stadium and several centons later they were entering the office, which was now teeming with employees.

They had totally overhauled the office; the bottom level sounded like it was a call centre and the upper level was open to the lower level and had offices all around the exterior.

After briefly talking to Amelia, Henry came down to meet them and then escorted them upstairs. The girls still shared an office, but Zack was nowhere to be seen.

Mark asked, “Where’s Zack?”

Henry just shook his head, “Zack’s on leave right now.”

“He got arrested!” Beth added.

“Arrested? Zack? What did he do?” Mark asked incredulously.

Cass said, “He broke up with that guy he was seeing and, in rebound, he got in with a group of people that met here from around the world. Some people in the group were those activist wackos and they tried to start up a pride parade.”

Mark now realized what had happened and said, “I would have thought Zack was smarter than that. He should have known the Federation doesn’t allow public bellyaching and crap like that, that’s just people with soapboxes.”

Those kinds of parades were illegal in the Federation. Just like how news agencies couldn’t mention skin colour, race, sexuality or religion in a headline. You can’t openly have a parade or inconvenience people to promote any of those things either.

Most people judge you on your attitude, actions and personality, and don’t care if your skin colour is blue, black, white, red, green or purple, or if you’re heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transexual, pansexual or asexual… but forcing your views on others and inconveniencing people… that grows angst and hatred. Protests and parades do more damage than good for the cause… people don’t like to be inconvenienced!

Henry then tried to get the meeting back on track by asking, “I take it you’re wanting to start another business? Do I need to bring in one of the other programmers for the meeting?”

“No, this should be a fairly straight forward business and I think Jacob here has already built the database and stuff he needs. What he’s needing is an online presence and some business guidance.”

Henry said, “We can help him with his accounting and the girls can setup a website for him. What kind of business is it?”

“Recycling!”

Henry smiled. “You mentioned that back when we were in Calgary. You’re finally going ahead with it, eh?”

“Yeah, Jacob here is the guy that actually invented the recycling machine, so more or less it’s going to be his business, or in partnership with you guys.”

“So we’re going to need what? Land acquisitions, recruitment, sales and marketing people?”

Jacob looked like a deer in the headlights. Unsure what to say or do.

Mark took the reins. “I’m almost thinking of doing it like the world peace system, put it out there and municipalities can request a site to be setup in their city. By letting the municipal governments take the lead on it, they will deal with all the land and taxes, in fact most of them will likely just put it where the current garbage dumps are and we can literally build the new recycler using their old garbage and store what’s leftover for future use.”

Henry asked, “So how would we make money then?”

“We charge a flat fee for the tonnage in and out. As far as I know there’s no such thing as free garbage disposal. The city pays wages to the people that collect, transport and then manage the collected garbage. So there’s already fees involved, plus if they can sell raw materials, it’s free money for them so it’s a win for the city and income for us. Waste disposal then becomes a profit centre, rather than a cost centre.”

Henry then thought about it, “So it’s pretty much just an accounting position, read the reports given by each unit and send bills?”

Jacob finally spoke. “Actually the system can automatically send an invoice on whatever schedule we want and send a copy to our accounting department as well. I think the biggest jobs will be coordinating and overseeing the installation of each location and possibly the collections of the invoices. If we give them a running total of the tonnage processed to date, any fiscally responsible business owner should be able to budget to pay us.”

Henry laughed. “Fiscally responsible?! Not very many governments on this planet would even meet the definition of responsible, let alone fiscally responsible!”

Then, after thinking about it for a micron, he said, “Or, we setup our own accounts and we manage the conversion side of the business and send them their share of the profits. It’d be a bit more accounting and administration work, but it increases our involvement with using Federation technology!”

Mark felt intrigued and exclaimed, “I like that idea! They can keep 100% of the collection fees, then the conversion business is one of our companies.”

Jacob said, “Actually, if we controlled the conversion and sales side, I could simplify the process so we could literally build one big conversion building. Orders could be placed online and the order numbers could be sent to the truckers. Then when they arrive at the facility, they would provide their order numbers and be directed to an empty bay where their order will be filled. By having a centralized system controlled by us, we can provide a wider range of conversion products as we don’t have to worry about governments abusing them.”

Then the website will more or less advertise the capabilities of the recycling system, and it would be nice to have charts showing the tonnage collected. Then it also needs to have a form to request an installation and in that form it should ask if they already have a site, ideally an existing garbage dump, as we could then recycle and reclaim their current garbage and turn it from an eyesore into something better, plus it would give us a lot of material to convert.

The site was also now going to need to have a customer database and ordering system. It would also need to operate in every currency around the world.

The girls looked at each other and said they would get a start on it. Jacob just had to get them the list of products that could be sold from the converted garbage. Everyone was also tasked to think up names for the recycling business.

With that process started, Mark excused himself from the meeting and told them to message if they had questions.

Mark wandered back to the palace with no further plans for the afternoon.

When he got to the palace, he went straight to his office and sat behind his desk. His mind was still thinking about the recycling business, even though he would not have much, if anything, to do with it.

Liyana peeked her head into his office. “So how did the meeting go?”

Mark laughed and said, “Jacob is going to need a lot of help! He doesn’t know much about running a business, nor does he want to. I think he’ll more or less setup the first few locations and then he’ll gladly let someone else take the reins. He can sit back and collect royalties and continue to tweak his design. The recycling business I think will take off quick. See? We’re making another step towards cleaning up the mess they’ve created!”

As she walked into his office and sat down on one couch in front of his desk, she smiled. “I like helping the planet, got any other ideas in your mind about to how to help this out?”

“Of course! We could create ocean skimmers to clean up all the plastics and junk floating in the oceans, we could go into Africa, Haiti or any third world country and give them fresh water and food. In fact we don’t even need to stick with third world countries. I know the government of Canada has done little to nothing to keep promises they made to help all the indigenous tribes with clean drinking water. We could help them out and probably everyone isolated in the far north of the country.”

“It sounds like the ocean one would be the easiest. No one controls it, so we could just do it. Is there anything I can do to help any of that get started?”

“I don’t know, how do you think you can help?”

“Well, I have a warm, wet pussy you haven’t fucked in quite a while! I’m sure it can make you feel better and it may help your focus?”

Mark laughed, “I would definitely feel better, but I’m not so sure if it’ll help me focus. If anything, I think my mind would keep thinking about your juicy pussy.”

Liyana pulled her dress up a bit and spread her legs open, exposing herself to Mark’s purview. She lightly ran her fingers up and down her slit, not pressing hard enough to part the lips. Even with the light touch, her finger had a slick string of pussy juice that spanned from her fingertip to her clit.

As his cock was getting harder by the second and straining his pants. He moaned. “Mmmm, that looks delicious.”

Liyana dipped her finger inside and then brought the wet finger to her mouth. She licked it clean. “Mmmm it does taste good.”

Mark got up from his desk and walked around to the couch that Liyana was on. He got down on his knees and kissed slowly up the inside of her leg, before reaching her sweet honey slit.

He gently kissed her swollen clit as he used his fingers to expose her inner pinkness, which glistened with her juices.

With her inner slit now exposed, Mark pushed his tongue deep inside her. Extracting as much of her sweet nectar as he could with each lick, then flicking her clit as he returned for more.

Liyana must have been enjoying his ministrations, as within a few centons she tightened her thighs around his head, as she flung her head back in orgasm.

Unable to move his head, he gladly kept his mouth over her slit with his tongue deep inside her.

When she eventually relaxed her thighs, Mark looked up at her and smiled with his face coated with her cum.

Seeing him in that condition prompted her to sit up and lick his face clean. They then exchanged positions, removing Mark’s pants and releasing his cock from its confines.

As he sat down, she stroked his cock with both hands as she kissed the head and licked the precum off the tip. She tried to deep-throat it, but couldn’t even get half of it into her mouth. She decided to just lick the head while using both hands to masturbate him.

Feeling his shaft harden in her hands prompted her to wrap her lips around his cock head and lick his slit until he moaned and came down her throat.

After swallowing his load, she straddled his lap and guided his cock deep inside her. Once fully engulfed in her warm depths, the couple kissed passionately, with no urgency to end what they were doing.

Mark helped Liyana remove her dress and then her bra. Fondling and sucking on her sensitive nipples, which were so pale against her fair skin they would be difficult to see from any distance much further than the few inches to his face.

Mark’s suckling brought the pale nipples to hard points in his mouth.

Liyana groaned and gyrated her hips, moving just enough to keep Mark hard.

That continued for several centons.

Eventually, her gyrations turned to full thrusts as she worked herself up and down his full length.

Mark grabbed Liyana’s ass and lifted her up as he got up off the couch. He turned her around and dropped her on the couch.

Liyana smiled as she flipped over onto her hands and knees with her ass pointed to Mark. Her lustful eyes looked back at him over her shoulder.

Seeing her invitation, Mark positioned his cock at her gaping hole and slid in until his balls bounced against her clit. He then fucked her with long, forceful strokes. Each stroke making his cock head brush against her womb.

Liyana could feel his shaft get even harder. “Cum for me, my King! My pussy is yours.”

Mark couldn’t hold back any longer. He groaned and thrust deep into her, pulling her hips back against his groin to get into her womb. He released a torrent of cum directly at her sensitive cervix.

The hot sensation triggered another orgasm as her pussy pulsated and massaged his cock, to get every drop of cum from him.

As Mark withdrew from her depths, Liyana remained in that position

She kept her eyes closed, her head on the seat, and her ass in the air. Her pussy gaping obscenely wide open as Mark could see the pool of cum deposited inside.

Neither of them had noticed that Annabelle had come into the office. She put her hand over Mark’s mouth and her finger over her own mouth. Signalling him to be quiet.

Annabelle covered her hand in saliva and a few drops of Mark’s cum as she moved behind Liyana. Then, in one swift move, she shoved her entire fist into Liyana’s gaping pussy.

Liyana shrieked at the unexpected intrusion as she fell forward flat on the couch. Looking back to see Annabelle smiling.

Annabelle furiously fisted Liyana’s cum-filled pussy, making a sloshing sound and creating a white froth around her wrist. It didn’t take long before Liyana was cumming hard on Annabelle’s hand. Her body spasming and pussy contracting, holding Annabelle’s hand firmly inside.

After she relaxed a bit, Annabelle pulled her hand out with an audible pop.

Liyana curled up into a ball holding her pussy, but she was laughing.

Mark and Annabelle sat down on the couch beside her.

Annabelle’s unexpected entrance into the office prompted Mark to ask, “I thought you were going to your parents?”

“I did, but they weren’t home. Apparently they flew to Alberta to help Jason out with a trail ride. They should be back sometime tomorrow. So I visited with Lydia, Imaren and Mahasin for a bit. The girls are doing well and have already joined the regular school curriculum, they’re just doing it all online.”

“So what were you two talking about before I interrupted?” She asked, trying to guide the conversation back to something non-sexual.

“Now that the recycling business will soon be operational, we were discussing other ways we could help the planet.” Liyana answered, still cupping her pussy for protection.

“Cool! So what ideas have you come up with?”

Liyana thought for a second, then looked at Mark as she couldn’t remember it all.

Mark said, “First step is we’re going to clean up the oceans and those garbage gyres. Then I was thinking we could help out some of the poorer countries needing fresh water, food or shelter. I also thought about all the unfulfilled promises from the Canadian government to provide clean drinking water to the indigenous tribes. We could probably help many of the isolated northern settlements as well.”

Annabelle shook her head affirmatively and said, “Those sound like great ideas, it’ll go a long way to helping out this planet.”

Mark smiled. “Yes it would. Which is why I think it should be your idea!”

Annabelle was confused. “My idea?”

“Yes, similar to the late Princess Diana, this humanitarian work is a perfect agenda for a queen and pretty much right up your alley. I think it would go a long way to boosting your profile.”

“Why don’t you want to do it?”

“Despite the fact that I was born here, I think most people on this planet now view me as an Atlantean, rather than as a fellow Earthling. I think they also see me as more of a military leader. Whereas you are still a bit of an unknown to most, but are a genuine Earthling. Projects like these would build your public profile as a global humanitarian. Plus, with plans to start a family, you’re literally doing this for future generations on Earth.”

“Do you really think it’s wise to have me travelling all over Earth doing humanitarian work?” Annabelle said, with worry in her voice.

“You won’t be alone, I’ll be there to support you as much as possible. Any events or ceremonies, outside of Atlantis, will see you protected by shields, drones, security personnel and anything else we have to protect you. Besides, I just said it should be your idea, I didn’t say you needed to do the work.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, it’ll mostly be press releases, news interviews and some public appearances for ground breaking or ribbon cutting ceremonies right?”

“Mostly! So, do you want to be our humanitarian figure head?”

“Liyana will help me when you’re not around, right?”

Liyana jumped in immediately. “Of course I’ll be there for you! I’m already known as an Atlantean ambassador, so it fits with my job description. I’ll be your goodwill ambassador and can do some of the field work for you.”

“Ok I’ll do it! So how do you propose we clean up the oceans? Cricket created a kraken, maybe she could create another robotic creature?”

Mark shook his head. “That is likely what we’ll do, but the kraken was designed with defence in mind. Since the gyres are mostly micro plastics and other debris, not all of which floats on the surface, we’re going to need a fleet of machines cleaning and filtering the water. Fortunately the currents contain much of the gyres, so we only have to worry about a few areas. I’m almost leaning towards whale type machines, huge filters to clean the debris out of the water as they swim through the area. Then for the seafloor, maybe some sort of bottom feeder or suckerfish.”

Cricket then spoke up, “Actually based on Jacob’s laser recycling technology, coupled with the sizeable areas we are talking about, they’d have to be swift moving and we’ll need quite a few of them. My research shows there are five major garbage gyres in the world’s oceans.”

Mark laughed. “That’s what I’m talking about! Sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads!”

Annabelle burst out laughing, recognizing the reference to the old Austin Powers movie.

Cricket then continued, “Actually sharks would be ideal candidates for the cleanup creature designs. They are swift and predatory. They would patrol their area and eat up garbage, even though they wouldn’t actually have mouths.”

Mark was all smiles. “I like it! How soon can you have our autonomous cleaner sharks in operation? We should also build some sort of self-destruct into it. We can’t have an autonomous cleaning shark getting trapped.”

Liyana then smiled and said, “So where should we do your announcement speech?”

Annabelle thought for a second and said, “We should probably do it at the ocean, but I need to figure out what we should say. I can’t just say, ‘We’re going to clean up the oceans.’”

Mark smiled and said, “No, you can’t just say that. I think you should start with something like, ‘After seeing many other planets in the Federation and then seeing how much garbage this one produces, I began thinking about future generations of everyone on this planet.

Around the world, many governments and corporations are lacking good, responsible leadership. Allowing cities and corporations to dump waste into our waterways, sending it downstream or out to the ocean.

Since resuming our position on this planet as one of the most technically advanced and responsible civilizations, we will do our part to help Mother Earth combat years of neglect and abuse by nearly every country in the world.

As such, I would like to announce that Atlantis will undertake many projects to help clean up this planet. My first project has already begun. We are deploying autonomous cleaner sharks to patrol the garbage gyres in the world’s oceans. Though they resemble sharks, they only destroy things that are not natural. They don’t even have mouths and will also clean anything from the surface down to the ocean floor. They’ll also be bright white, with a blue Atlantean symbol on the dorsal fin. To prevent confusion with regular sharks.

Part of the technology that makes this possible is from a new recycling company that will launch soon to help revolutionize garbage collection. Cities and towns might want to watch our website for that announcement!’”

Annabelle stared at him in amazement. “Wow, you just thought that up right on the spot like that! How do you do it?”

Mark laughed. “Actually doing humanitarian speeches like this is pretty much a cookie cutter template. Explain the problem that’s been created by governments or corporations. There’s no shortage of those. Then explain how and why we are going to solve their problem for them. By solving a known problem, people can’t dispute our claim and it also rallies people to support our cause.”

“You make it sound so easy,. Your template seems to make some valid points and yes, there’s no shortage of problems created by governments. When will people open their eyes and start voting in responsible people?”

“Governments are just like unions. They all become a cancer to productivity eventually. Fortunately they can be voted out of office. If they actually have a proper electoral system indicative of the population and not a system as biased and messed up as Canada’s.”

“Yeah it’s pretty fucked up! I’m amazed we haven’t been contacted by the Western Canada separatists to help them establish their own country.”

Mark laughed, “I know, I’ve almost been expecting them to call at any moment. Although I don’t know if the actual citizens would want that?”

“Yeah they’re pretty reliant on oil and gas, unlike us. How would you handle something like that?”

“That’s easy, they’re one of the cleanest oil producers on the planet. As long as there is a demand for it, you might as well make money from it. For getting the product to market, we could build indestructible pipelines with little to no impact on the environment.

If we wanted to, we could start a new company and go into the tanker business. We’d be able to transport the product anywhere in the world in no time. Plus, we’d be considerably safer, faster, and more environmentally conscious than shipping by tanker. No chance of us running aground and spilling oil into the ocean.

The enormous challenge to helping form a new country would be the currency conversion and coming up with a plan to phase in our technologies without causing mass unemployment. Although the healthcare industry and public transit services would be irrelevant almost immediately. Actually, any unionized staff would likely throw a hissy fit. Their union would cease to exist.”

As he thought silently for a second, and then laughed, “They’d need to build a LOT of new golf courses!”

Annabelle then asked, “So what would converting Alberta into a federated region be like?”

“The first step would be to put basic Federation services in place. That would effectively make healthcare, public transportation and many building maintenance people irrelevant. Healthcare would be free to all and any public buildings such as schools would be reconstructed using construx so they become self-sufficient, safe and can be easily modified to meet enrolment requirements. Then the lift system would quickly phase out the public transit system, and I think the phone and cable providers might have troubles competing with a Federation run communication network that’s free. Well, maybe not cable providers so much as North Americans are pretty lazy and spend way too much time watching television. But you introduce an efficient public transit system like ours and pretty soon any business related to traffic, parking, vehicle sales or maintenance, roads, etc would all be irrelevant in no time.”

Annabelle pondered what he said, “It’s all ripples, introduce one little thing and the ripples affect more and more people.”

Mark said, “That’s why I’ve been very picky about what technology to give people access to. Many of the technologies that we now take for granted as Atlanteans could easily affect hundreds, thousands or even millions of jobs, directly or indirectly!”

Annabelle then looked to get the topic back on track. “So where should I go to make my announcement about the ocean cleanup?”

Liyana said, “There’s a number of things we can do, we could just go to the beach as it would be quick and easy. We could also visit one of the garbage gyres floating on an ocean and record the segment from the ramp of the shuttle. We could also cloak the shuttle and go to one of those areas where they are actively dumping waste directly into the waterways.”

Mark said, “I think we should avoid doing the cloaked shuttle in someone else’s space. I would suggest one of the other ideas.”

Annabelle said, “Let’s do the one floating over the ocean.”

Moments later, Maren met them as they exited Mark’s office. “Cricket said you needed a lift.”

Annabelle laughed. “Yeah we need a lift out to one of the floating garbage zones in the ocean.”

Maren asked, “Do we know where they are?”

Mark said, “Yes, actually there are several major ones around the world. The garbage tends to all end up fairly concentrated with how all the currents work. I’m sure Cricket can guide us to one of them.”

It took a while to get there, but Cricket guided them to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. A very large, visible concentration of garbage was floating on the surface.

Liyana set up her portable camera. They opted not to do it as an AFNN broadcast since it really didn’t pertain to the entire Federation. Liyana didn’t do her intro spiel, and they just recorded Annabelle and her speech. It took a couple of tries for her to get it right, and then once she finished, Cricket used a drone to disintegrate a large patch of garbage floating on the surface.

The drones would work for floating debris; sharks were primarily for everything that wasn’t floating, but people just needed to see that something was being done.

Then they returned to the palace. Liyana made some edits, and they posted the press release on the Atlantis website.

The next day, Annabelle received hundreds of emails through the website, thanking her for taking on the cleanup of the oceans. There were only a couple of negative ones, but they were so poorly written that they were just chalked up to uneducated people trying to cause problems.

If you can’t even spell or make cohesive sentences, no one is ever going to take you seriously!

After going through her fan mail, Annabelle was in a good mood and eager to do more.

Mark suggested checking in with the breakfast club and Jacob to see how close the recycling business was to launching. They hadn’t seen the Breakfast Club at the pavilion, so after they had finished their breakfast, they walked out to their office.

They ran into Cass and Beth on the bridge, so they turned around and walked back to the meal pavilion with them. This time, though, they just grabbed some coffee and sat down with the girls. Both women felt a bit depressed. When Annabelle inquired about the reason, they revealed they had arrested Zack again. That group of activists he had gotten involved with wasn’t giving up its push to create a pride parade. This time, however, they tried to paint a rainbow crosswalk on one bridge and faced arrest for vandalism.

Mark asked, “Do you have someone else to work on the backend programming, since Zack was obviously having issues?”

They admitted they had a new programmer who had moved here from Atlanterra. Beth said he was ‘next level’ with the stuff he could do; he just needed more help on the front-end stuff. Cass teased Beth about giving him a lot of personal attention, and Beth was blushing.

It had also helped that they had moved to hosting everything on Atlantean servers instead of Earth-based servers. Everything was faster, more reliable, more scalable, and way more secure.

When the conversation turned to Jacob’s recycling business, they invited Mark and Annabelle to come back to the office with them, as they were supposed to be sitting down with Henry and Jacob to go over the new recycling business and choose a name. They had been holding a contest for their staff to suggest business names, with the winning submission receiving a weekend at one of the Lunar Adventures hotels.

They were going to decide on the name this morning, finalize the logo and website, and they were hoping to do the launch soon after.

The girls quickly finished their breakfast, and the foursome started walking back to the office. As soon as the office came into view, the conversation came back around to what to do about Zack.

The girls really didn’t know what to do. They had been best friends since they were kids, but it was almost as if he was someone else now that he got involved with that group. His work had become very shoddy; he rarely even came to work anymore and, when he did, he just constantly complained about the Federation suppressing their freedom of speech. Cass and Beth even mentioned how they wished they’d taken Mark’s initial advice and built their own houses.

It sounded like Zack had gone off the deep end with the brainwashing that those activist groups do, but Mark didn’t really know what to say about it.

Fortunately, Annabelle had an experience to tell. “My bridesmaid, Lindsey, had an older brother that had gotten involved with a bad crowd. After numerous arrests, he didn’t change his ways and just became toxic to be around. I remember mom and dad even telling me not to go to Lindsey’s house because it wasn’t safe and to invite Lindsey to the ranch if we wanted to play. They had tried to do an intervention and even therapy, but it didn’t work and they eventually had to disown him for the good of the family. It’s been years now, I’ve never heard the family ever mention him since and I don’t even think they know where he’s at or if he’s still alive. It was a tough decision, but it made the rest of the family more cohesive because of it. I don’t think you’re at the point of disowning Zack, but he needs to be sat down and talked to. If he continues down the path he’s on, you may have to make a tough decision.”

They eventually reached the office, and Cass rushed inside the meeting room, where raised voices could be heard.

Zack was yelling at Henry about supporting an oppressive regime and how he wants to refocus HIS company, and that they were going to cut off Internet access to the Federation and so on.

Annabelle had kept Mark outside the meeting room, and as Jacob showed up for the meeting, Annabelle suggested he stay out as well.

Cass pushed Zack down into a chair and yelled at him to stop it!

He settled down, and then he cried. Beth then entered the room and stood beside Cass, as he asked why they were not supporting him?

Cass simply stated. “We would support you, if you were making sense. All this stuff your new friends are trying to do is not even an issue in the Federation, so they’re manufacturing a cause to give them purpose. You need to stop and think... you’re smarter than this!”

A centon later, Zack seemed to have calmed down a bit, so Annabelle, Mark and Jacob entered the meeting room.

Zack immediately stood up and started ranting and raving at Mark about the Federation suppressing his freedoms and that HIS company would no longer do work for the Federation or give them Internet access.

Mark thought to Cricket, “Can you limit his access to all our systems?”

“Are you asking if I can or are you asking me to do it? I can and will.”

“Please remove his access to all systems immediately, if he wants to redeem himself he’s going to have to start at the ground level.”

Mark stared at Zack and firmly stated. “You don’t own this business—I do!”

Zack then said, “When we first asked you where you wanted the office, you said it was our business now, so we could set it up wherever we wanted. That makes it our business!”

Mark said, “True, I said that, but I was referring to it being your business to run. The business ownership is still in my name; you don’t sign the pay cheques, and it isn’t your money supporting this company! So, no! You can’t stop doing business with the Federation, nor cut off Internet access. In fact, effective immediately, I am placing you on medical leave. You have two sectons to change your attitude or you’re fired. I’d highly recommend going to see a psychologist or finding some new friends.

Didn’t you hear what Cass just said? You’re smarter than this! Your new friends are trying to make an issue out of something that’s not an issue in the Federation. That will never work! If you, or your friends, want to live in a place where those sorts of issues exist, so you legitimately have a cause to support, you are welcome to move there, but it’s not in the Federation.”