Chapter 25

The last time the Poseidon was around Earth, they had cloaked the Defender, but now that Earth knew about the Federation, and no doubt Elisha had mentioned the Defender in her reports, Mark and the Commander agreed there was no use in hiding any longer.

As soon as they had dropped out of light drive, Annabelle messaged her parents saying they were back and they’d be at the ranch soon.

Everyone was eager to get back to the ranch, so Maren made sure the shuttle was ready as soon as the Poseidon was in orbit, but because of its size it was still further out than the Embassy was.

The flight to the ranch seemed to take forever, even though in actuality it took about 15 minutes. Maren landed the shuttle on the roof of the visitor centre, and everyone took the underground tunnel to the lodge.

It was only 7AM local time, so they were just in time for breakfast.

Over breakfast, Joe, Kat, Jason, Maria and Sofia were asking many questions about life on other planets, although Annabelle had emailed her mom numerous times while she was away, so they did already know about the major events such as the assassination attempts, the trips to Atria and Savann, and the death of Laruun’s parents.

Things had been busy around the ranch, with all the publicity, the barn was now full up with boarders and they had people staying at the lodge almost every weekend or at least visiting for lunch or supper as Maria’s cooking was the rave of the region. Apparently she had been well using some recipes and cuisine she had found on the Atlantean food synth network.

The visitor centre and campground, on the far side of the pastures, were still receiving hundreds of visitors each day and, despite it being winter time, the campground was still being booked.

The weekends were also busy with riding lessons and training. The new barn and indoor arena were sure helping, since they didn’t have to deal with the snow and cold.

When the conversation came around to how long were they going to stay and what goals he was hoping to accomplish on this trip, Mark had realized he hadn’t really thought about the length of stay this time, “Annabelle is going to stay here until she graduates, but I honestly don’t know how long I’m going to stay this time, I still have 8 federated planets and 4 non-federated planets to visit, plus if we ever find that bastard I could take off at any time. My best guess is I won’t be here for more than a few weeks.

On this trip, though, there were a few goals. One goal was gifting the stun guns to Earth, starting with local law enforcement. The second goal was setting up the recycling system for the city of Calgary.”

Joe asked, “Should we be expecting more government people to show up?”

“I don’t think so, since they now have easy access to the Embassy or to meet at the office in the city.”

After breakfast, Mark and Gyges went out to help Joe with the chores. The others stayed inside where it was warm and drank tea or coffee with Kat and Maria, while Annabelle, Jason and Sofia got ready for school.

The chores didn’t take very long anymore; the horses were turned out, their feed troughs filled, and the stables cleaned. With the 3 of them, it took less than 30 minutes.

They returned to the lodge just as the kids were leaving for school, so Mark gave Annabelle a kiss before she left and then continued inside where it was warm and the coffee was hot.

Kat asked, “What’s everyone’s plans for the day then?”

Joe asked Solara if she could do some work around the ranch. He wanted to convert the other Gator and the tractor away from fuel and he had a bunch of other things that he wanted to talk to her about. T’Soona volunteered to help.

Marta had never seen snow before and she wanted to go out running in it, so Laruun suggested running up to the high lake where she could show her where they had crashed.

Mark said he was going into the office and Rayven was going with Mark. Between Annabelle and Rayven, after what happened to Mark at the cave, at least one of them was near Mark at any point in time.

Liyana and Gyges said they wanted to head back to the embassy just to check in on things.

With that decided, Maren took Liyana and Gyges back to the embassy, as Rayven and Mark just got in a lift at the visitor centre and were soon on their way to Calgary. The lift service between the city and the ranch was to be the primary method for getting to the visitor centre, with the lift transporting several hundred people both ways each day.

Less than 30 minutes later, the lift was landing on the roof of the office and there were 5 shuttles landing right behind them.

They went downstairs and saw the second floor had about 60 people waiting in it.

A woman approached them and immediately recognized Mark, if not by the cowboy hat, by the name and designation on his shirt.

She smiled and said, “Welcome back Mr. Phoenix, I’m Cindy and if you need anything just ask!”

Mark smiled at the girl and shook her hand, “Nice to meet you Cindy, what’s going on here?”

Cindy explained, “A week ago many of the countries cancelled our ability to use the airports, so we’re using the office as a terminal to get people up to the embassy. We just have these 48 people left for today, and I think there’s another group for tomorrow morning, after that I think they have to go through the visitor centre at the ranch.”

“Really? Thank you, Cindy! It looks like you’re doing an awesome job of coordinating everything!” Mark hid his concern with a forced a smile, “It sounds like I need to meet with Henry.”

Mark went to the hover elevator and down to the main level. He saw there were quite a few official looking people in the reception area. He said, ‘Hi’ to Amelia just in passing, as he placed his hand on the dot and the door to the office space slid open.

There were only 3 desks in the office area, so he introduced himself to Alison and Tim, guessing the empty desk was probably Cindy’s. He then talked to the breakfast club for a couple of minutes until Henry peeked out of his office and waved him inside.

“Mark, it’s good to see you, sorry you had to see this mess. Several airports cancelled our deal a few days ago, so we’re trying to figure out a solution.”

Mark said, “That’s easy, we use the office or the visitor centre at the ranch like a terminal, until we can find some place else. Maybe we could get some land just outside of the city and build our own airport. It just has to be close enough that people can take a taxi or transit to get to it without costing a lot.”

Henry laughed, “I don’t think that’s going to work either. Did you see the people in the reception area? They all showed up this morning and they want to talk to you.”

At that moment, Amelia announced over the intercom, “Mr. Phoenix, some people are here to talk to you.”

Mark smiled, “Speak of the devil! Do you want to come to this meeting?”

Henry nodded his head and said, “I think this is more of a meeting for the King of the Federation, than our companies.”

Rayven decided she should probably stay out of that meeting as well, as Mark went to the reception area where several government people were waiting, and asked the group, “Is it ok for all of us to meet at once or do we need to take turns?”

After a few seconds, “Since no one answered, and this is an impromptu meeting, let’s all use the boardroom,” as he waved them through the door.

Once everyone had taken a seat around the table, Mark said, “You obviously all know me, but I don’t know many of you. So let’s start by going around the table to introduce yourself and who you represent.”

The guy with the US flag on his uniform spoke up, “Why is there a big warship orbiting our planet?”

Mark was annoyed at the abruptness and tone, “That’s my ship ... and it goes where I go! Now that the Federation has a presence on this planet, there will always be at least one ship in orbit. If you would prefer, I could tell them to turn the cloak on, but the ship is still going to be there. Get used to it!”

Looking to diffuse the situation, the Mayor of Calgary stood up as their spokesperson, “Mr. Phoenix, the people around this table represent the Canadian, US, British, German, Japanese and Australian governments and they’ve more or less insisted that you either release your technology to them or you have to leave.”

Mark laughed, “Not going to happen! Our laws prohibit us from releasing our technology to any non-federated planet, but the plan was always to lease our technology worldwide, but control of it has to be maintained by the Federation.”

He then looked at the mayor as he said, “We just wanted to use Calgary as an example for the entire world, to show how clean and safe a city could be!”

Another man stood up and introduced himself as the representative of the Prime Minister’s Office and said, “Then I guess we have to ask you to pack up and leave.”

Mark looked around the room and stared at each of them, then in a calm voice he asked, “This doesn’t affect the ranch, does it? It’s just this office and the businesses?”

The man replied, “Correct! It does not involve the ranch.”

Mark breathed a sigh of relief, “Good! Messing with the ranch would be a big mistake!”

The US rep stood up and stared at Mark with his hands on the table, “Is that a threat?”

Mark stared back at the man, but in a calm voice said, “You can call it what you want. The Federation’s position towards the ranch was decided before I became the King, but I fully support it.”

After watching the tense interaction between Mark and the American rep, the PMO rep meekly asked, “So you’re not upset about being asked to leave?”

Mark relaxed a bit, but remained standing, “Upset? Of course I’m upset! We wanted to work WITH YOU to slowly integrate some of our technology into your lives without disrupting employment and your economies. To allow YOU to take the lead in making the world safe and clean.”

The federal rep sat back in his chair and stared at the table, realizing he just bit the hand that was going to feed him.

Mark then laughed, “Asking us to leave Canada just inconveniences us for a few days while we relocate our office. Our companies are going to continue in some form or other. We’ll just work with the countries that do actually want to help the planet.”

The US rep stood up and slammed his hands down onto the table and was almost yelling as he said, “No! We are asking you to leave our planet!”

Mark stood up with a look of anger on his face, leaned on the table and stared at the American. For effect, Cricket darkened the windows slightly, as he said, “Thousands of years ago we left, because we were being bullied ... just like what you are doing right now! We didn’t want to fight, so we left. Things have changed a bit, we will never bow to bullying again, we are here to stay!”

Then after a pause, he leaned forward and explained, “We were here long before your feeble countries even existed! Atlantis was once the most advanced civilization on this planet ... all we are doing is resuming OUR place on OUR ancestral planet.”

Then he paused and looked at everyone in the room, before looking at the US rep and saying, “I hope your egos and economies can handle it!”

All the leaders seemed to be shaken slightly from the tense interaction between Mark and the US rep, no one wanting to interject.

Then without waiting for a response he stood up and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I suddenly find myself with a lot of tasks on my schedule! I’m sure you can find the exit.”

Once Mark was gone, the windows returned to their original transparency.

As he was leaving the boardroom, he heard one rep say, “Are we going to regret this?”, and someone answered, “I think so!”

“Cricket, monitor what they say!”

The Canadian rep smiled at the US rep, “I told you to be careful what you ask for! So how does it feel, now that you are no longer a superpower?”

The US rep said, “The US is still the most powerful country in the world.”

The other government reps all laughed, which only infuriated the US rep, as the British rep said, “They laughed off a nuclear attack at point blank range and they obviously don’t consider you, the Chinese, the Russians or anybody on this planet a serious threat. Plus, they hold an overwhelming technological advantage over everyone. If push comes to shove, my money is on them! If you choose to attack them, you will not have our support!”

The Japanese rep was sitting quietly, just watching everything throughout the entire meeting, and finally spoke up, “I’m actually looking forward to a peaceful world with a single benevolent superpower. Imagine what we could accomplish if we didn’t have to spend money on security, military or wars...”

Then he looked around at everyone and settled on the US rep, “I would be very cautious about antagonizing someone that could very well be the saviour of our world.”

The US rep retorted, “You’re acting like he’s a god or something, he’s just a man!”

The Australian rep asked, “When he was angry, did the room seem to darken to anyone else?”

The Mayor sighed, “So it wasn’t just me! Something tells me, he is NOT someone you want to be on the opposing side of ... maybe he is a god?”

At that statement, the men got up and left the building in silence.

Immediately after that meeting, Mark told Cricket to send a message to Liyana and Maren and inform them of the relocation.

Mark came through the office door, where Henry and the staff were standing around discussing things.

Henry could see that Mark was upset, “So how did the meeting go?”

Mark looked at all the staff, smiled a big forced smile then let it abruptly fade, “You’re all fired!”

Everyone had a completely shocked look as Mark laughed.

Mark sat down and said, “Seriously, you’re fired ... but so am I! The government of Canada has told us to pack up and leave because of peer pressure from other world governments! Which is probably why we’re no longer able to use the airports!”

It still shocked Henry, “Seriously? After all we’ve done! They didn’t even give us 30 days’ notice?”

Mark replied, “In all honesty I was so mad, that I didn’t ask them about 30 days notice, but since they demand that we leave not just from Canada, but from Earth, I will not give them additional time to harass us or come up with additional fees and taxes and whatever else they might throw at us.

So we must run some numbers and come up with a severance package for each of you. The company has been running for less than 2 months and we really don’t have the same need for local currency as before and fuck if I’m going to pay the city any property taxes! So we’ll get you all a decent severance package.”

Henry said, “Seriously? We have to leave Earth?”

Mark said, “No, they want us to leave Earth, but we aren’t going to! I just need to find somewhere to move to, maybe it’s to the embassy, or maybe we setup a floating hub like on Atlanterra ... I don’t know at this moment.”

“I’ll go run some numbers and get back to you,” Henry said, as he shuffled off to his office.

Beth was staring at Mark and he could almost see the tears in her eyes, so before they jumped to conclusions, Mark pointed at the breakfast club and said, “I need to talk to you three in my office!”

The four of them, plus Rayven, went into Mark’s office and he moved the slider to turn the privacy on.

Mark smiled at the scared teenagers, “Don’t worry! You guys are coming with me! We just need to figure out the next step.”

The trio visibly relaxed as soon as he said that. Which prompted Rayven to ask, “What is the next step?”

Mark shook his head, “This was a kind of shock to me too! I’ve got a couple of ideas, but I need to think about them a bit more. Whatever I do, you three are going with me!”

Then after 30 seconds, he smiled and added, “You guys should pack up your belongings, we’ll move the office to the ranch and you guys can work out of there, until we figure something more permanent out.”

Beth looked at the floor, “We’re already packed, our lease was up last month, so we moved into the residence upstairs. I’m sorry we didn’t ask.”

Mark smiled, “It’s OK ... I knew. I just wanted to make you sweat ... besides, it makes moving more convenient!”

Cass then asked, “So what options are you considering?”

Mark thought out loud, “The Embassy isn’t convenient and after what they just told me, I don’t think we’ll be welcome anywhere, so I think we need our own physical presence on the planet. I was thinking about one of those floating business hubs like on Atlanterra, unless we can find an unoccupied island somewhere?”

Zack said, “Didn’t you say your cousin ended up on an invisible research outpost that was an island? Although something floating doesn’t strike me as being very permanent.”

Cass shrugged her shoulders and nodded in agreement, then Beth gasped and her eyes got wide, “You could recreate Atlantis!”

Mark’s eyes widened, “Hmmmm, I kind of like that idea ... I’ll look into it! First things first though, you’re going to need to contact all our security customers, tell them what’s happening and that they’re going to continue to get the same service, we’re just moving our office.”