Chapter 52

A few centons after the Poseidon and Norn ship had left, the second Destructor ship came out of the nebula. It had definitely sustained heavy damage from the Norn, but was obviously still operational.

This time Mark didn’t target the central section, just testing to see if it was as effective hitting elsewhere on the ship.

The result was the same; the projectile penetrated deep into the ship, but it took a few more centons than before until the ship disintegrated, so the trick to destroying them was from the inside out, but the closer to the centre the better.

Seeing how a single Sentinel could safely take out a Destructor, even without a precision hit, Mark decided they only needed one Sentinel patrolling each rift, so he re-assigned the other Sentinel to Earth, with plans to send it toward the Norn rift—if the Norn shared their location.

Cricket disconnected the virtual bridge and slowly reduced the privacy windows to allow their eyes to adjust to the daylight. They then walked back out to the fountains, where Liyana found them.

After getting Liyana caught up with the events that just happened, she called the Norn and did a segment with them, asking about the rifts and the Destructors. Hoping that maybe something would be said that might make the Earth’s governments take off their blinders.

Once the Norn ship had settled into orbit, Mark started receiving messages from various governments asking about the new ship. Likely because it looked drastically different and didn’t proceed directly to the space station, there were also several demands they be included in any negotiations and again that they didn’t need the Federation’s protection and oversight of Earth.

Mark started wondering how the other governments were coping with the added space traffic. Surely they had to know when ships were coming and going, but he had heard no reports of ships being contacted by anyone other than Atlantis personnel. Maybe the governments of Earth had silently conceded that space security was something best handled by Atlantis?

In fact, it was possible that governments had realized there were a lot of advantages to having Atlantis on the planet again. They had asked Atlantis to help with building a habitat on Mars and then asked for transportation to the red planet.

Mark couldn’t understand why they would even bother with trying to colonize Mars anymore. It wasn’t a very hospitable planet and there were many more viable, and established, planets in the Federation, which several thousands of citizens from around the planet had already emigrated.

Wasn’t the whole idea of colonizing Mars to provide an alternative for people to eventually relocate as a way of dealing with Earth’s overcrowding? Oh well, let the simpletons have their experiments, they may have simply wanted to confirm their research before abandoning it?

Mark realized that the mere presence of Atlantis had caused a lot of fluctuation in the stock markets and had a profound impact on a lot of companies.

They had spent how many billions of dollars to entertain the colonization of Mars, or passenger space travel, and here comes along a civilization that makes all of that research obsolete and no longer feasible. Even the manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles and the crazy notion that wind or solar power would solve all their power pollution.

They had tried to minimize the effect on existing businesses, but the space travel and colonization was unavoidable, mostly because there wasn’t any viable alternatives already on the planet, although several companies had spent billions trying to develop the technology, but when they were calculating, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per passenger and here comes along someone who can take you into space, to the moon, or even to another planet for the price of a simple vacation.

Except for devastating those companies, the biggest impact so far had been the manufacture of power cells, which revolutionized the world and now made electric vehicles and machinery affordable and practical as they didn’t have to worry about recharging batteries. That technology was Mark’s announcement to the world that Atlantis was going to have a significant global impact. Plus, it was cleaning up one of the dirtiest and most planet damaging industries on the planet, not just the mining and manufacturing, but the eventual disposal—another testament that people just don’t use their brains and will believe whatever the soapbox speakers say.

Mark snapped out of his reverie when Cricket notified him that the Norn were now in orbit and they were going to be landing at the port in the next few centons.

The entire group wanted to witness the first contact with the Norn, so they all went to the transit stop and ordered a lift to the port. Fortunately, with the entire gang going, the lift was full enough that they didn’t stop to pick up additional passengers.

A half a centar later they were arriving at the port, where there was a bunch of Earth reporters already there. Upon seeing Mark and Annabelle at the terminal, they immediately rushed to them and started asking about the new ship that was in orbit.

That confirmed others were, in fact, monitoring space traffic around the planet. It also meant that most news organizations probably had people actually living on Atlantis now.

The onslaught of the reporters kept security busy as they slowly made their way to the spaceport side of the terminal. They could eventually leave the reporters behind when they exited the lower level of the terminal out onto the spaceport landing zone, where a small silver flying saucer ship was landing.

They gave the ship a wide berth as it landed, and then approached the ship as a section on the side of the ship split apart, with the lower section creating a ramp to walk down and the upper section making the opening large enough for people to exit the craft.

The Norn were definitely a short species; they looked just like the aliens did in many of those old movies. They were a little over a metre in height, with smooth grey skin, the oversized head and the large black almond-shaped eyes. They only had 3 extra long fingers and a thumb, and their feet looked fairly large compared to their bodies.

The three Norn that exited the ship all looked identical, except for the clothes they were wearing, which really were nothing more than togas.

The Fleet Commander and Mark simultaneously bowed to each other and then they took turns introducing the people with them to the other party, with the Fleet Commander was an Ambassador and a Protector. The Fleet Commander wore blue, the Ambassador wore white, and the Protector wore black.

As they turned to walk back towards the terminal, they could see the crowd of reporters inside the terminal, which were being kept at bay by security.

Mark suggested meeting at the senate chamber, which had some very nice meeting rooms large enough to accommodate both groups.

Seconds later two lifts were descending to the ground, Mark, Annabelle, Rayven and Liyana boarded one lift along with the Norn, and the rest of Mark’s gang boarded the other.

Cricket then flew both lifts directly to the second level of the senate chamber where they exited and went inside.

During the flight, Cricket had notified Mark that many governments had contacted him regarding his meeting with the Norn, and most of them said that we should allow them to take part in any meetings with new alien races.

Once they landed at the senate chamber, Liyana made a recording.

They introduced the Norn and asked if they would entertain a meeting with world leaders from around the planet?

Junga agreed, but only if they held the meeting on Atlantis where they felt safe. The ambassador then regaled them with their history with this planet. They had visited the planet at least once every hundred orbits, hoping to meet the Mazjik. The last visit to the planet had been many orbits ago and that one of their landing craft had encountered problems and crashed on the surface, but before they could recover the craft, the humans had surrounded the ship. They had tried to approach, but had been fired upon.

They had agreed to hold the meeting on Monday at the senate chamber in Acropolis and the invitation was open to all nations to attend. That would give all nations a few days to rearrange their schedules to attend the meeting.

They broadcast the recording on AFNN and put on the Atlantis’ website so the rest of Earth could access the recording.

After the interview, they talked about a variety of subjects, one of which was where the Norn came from and lots about what they knew of the Mazjik.

During those frank discussions, the Norn light-heartedly laughed about the upcoming meeting with the other government leaders. They knew they were going to be asked to share their technology, which they weren’t about to do. Not sharing technology with a civilization that was not ready, was a universal rule and from what they knew about Earth no one, except the Atlanteans, were worthy of anything other than a cordial meet and greet.

The rest of the meeting was casual. The Norn agreed to share their star charts, in exchange for the Atlanteans seeding their space with sensor beacons and allowing them to use them for communications and security.

Once the Norn showed where their space was, they redirected the Sentinel that Mark had temporarily reassigned to Earth in that direction, but it would take almost 90 days to reach their space.

With that meeting over, the Norn had returned to their ship to await the 3 days until the meeting.

They spent the rest of the day shopping for swimwear for the party at Jacob’s lake house tomorrow.

Even with clothing synths, there were still clothing stores. They were just like the clothing stores on the rest of the planet; the difference was that they just had mannequins with one of each suit and there were demo tags with a picture of the suit, that you could take to the change rooms, which contained a clothing synth that would create clothes to try on that was automatically in your size.

When done trying clothes on, you simply discarded them into the recycling bins and anything you wished to purchase, you would take the tag to the checkout and pay for it. Once paid for, the code on the tag could then be activated once, so once you got to a clothing synth you could click ADD and then scan the code. That piece of clothing would then appear in your wardrobe.

The one bonus to that system was that if you gained or lost some weight, the purchased clothing would auto-size itself for your current body when created.

By the end of the day, everyone was ready for the party tomorrow with new swimwear. There was a free swimsuit that was included in everyone’s wardrobe, but the free clothes available to everyone were very basic.

Saturday morning, everyone met at the pavilion for breakfast. The big topic of the day was about what time they should go to Jacob’s place, since he hadn’t said when to arrive. His instructions were to come Saturday and that they would have a barbecue at night.

So they decided it that if they were going to be there all night, maybe they should go over right after lunch, that way Jacob wouldn’t have to feed everyone for two meals.

As if Jacob could sense their indecision, he messaged Cass and said they were welcome to come over after breakfast.

Of course, because he messaged Cass, everyone started asking her if she was going to make her move today? She said she had an idea in mind, but that she was going to play it by ear. Beth just had a smile on her face, obviously aware of what Cass’ plan was.

Knowing that it was OK to come over, and that they were going to be spending the day at the lake, most of the group went to get all sweaty at the Survival Park before heading to the lake.

So after breakfast they all went to the transit stop and ordered lifts. Mark, Annabelle, Beth, Eric and Cass were going to Jacob’s place, while everyone else ordered a lift to Survival Park and would come out when they finished.

Because Wettering Lake was just south of Acropolis in the Ampheres region, about halfway to the port, it didn’t take but a few centons before they were approaching the lake.

Wettering Lake was the largest lake in Atlantis. From the sky the lake appeared mostly round, with a big island in the middle, but also several smaller islands as well, sort of shaping the lake like a doughnut. The edges, though, had lots of little fingers and bays and it was fed by the Llissus River from the north and there were several small streams that led away to the southeast and draining into the ocean on the eastern shore.

It really was a very scenic lake. There was a thick forest of trees surrounding the entire lake and it was significantly more hilly on the southern edge of the lake, almost mountainous in some areas.

Soon the lift started descending over the lake, but they were not heading toward a shore, but one of the small islands in the middle of the lake. One advantage of lifts and technology. You could literally build anywhere as you didn’t need a road or utilities.

The island wasn’t big, but it also wasn’t small either, a little over 200 metres long and about 150 metres wide, with two small inlets that created their own little private bays. Jacob’s house was on one of those bays.

Jacob’s house was a big V-shaped single level house, with a massive patio on the lake side, complete with a few colourful shade sails, an outdoor faux fire pit, a large hot tub, an outdoor kitchen and bar, and a short path that led down to his private dock. With Atlantis being on Earth, more and more houses had built kitchens into their designs—a must-have if you weren’t living in a large community.

The dock itself was about 3 metres wide and extended about 12 metres out into the water. Off to the left side of the dock, was a covered boat lift that was holding up a very nice-looking ski boat and the front of the boat lift was a shed of some sort. The right side of the dock had two jet skis on floating docks. At the very end of the dock was a large patio table with an umbrella in the middle, a few lounge chairs and a diving board.

As the lift descended toward the roof of the house, Jacob was there to greet them. Annabelle then said the others were going to go to Survival Park for a bit first to work up a sweat before coming out to the lake, Jacob then added that Henry and Amelia would not be arriving until after lunch.

He gave them a quick tour of his house and property. The small island was split into two heavily treed lots and there was a small waist-high fence that split the two properties. There was a walking/biking path through the trees around the rest of his side of the island.

Once the tour was completed, it was already quite warm out, so they used the bath house off the side of the patio to change into their bathing suits and then convened at the end of the dock with some beverages, just soaking in the beautiful scenery and looking out towards the rest of the lake where they could already see a few boats out on the water. Unlike a normal lake elsewhere on Earth, it was much quieter as the electric boats and jet skis made little noise; it was just the sound of the hull slapping against the water.

Jacob, Mark and Eric were looking over the ski boat and jet skis, as the girls put towels on the lounge chairs and were sunbathing face down with their tops untied.

Beth waved a bottle of suntan lotion in the air and said, “Oh lotion boy!”

That got the guys’ attention as they stopped looking at the jet skis and Eric took off to attend to Beth’s request.

After he took off, Mark noticed Jacob was watching intently and slightly nervous.

Mark whispered to Jacob, “The other day, you said that you liked someone at the office ... is it Cass?”

Jacob nodded yes, so Mark grinned deviously, as Jacob’s eyes got big and was shaking his head no. “Jacob, I’m sure Cass could use some lotion as well, you don’t want her getting sunburned do you?”

Cass looked up from her lounger and said, “Yes, please!”

Jacob nervously went and kneeled beside Cass’ lounge chair, Eric handed the bottle over and as he continued to rub the lotion into Beth’s back as Mark got some lotion and rubbed it on Annabelle.

Jacob nervously applied a little suntan lotion and rubbed it on her skin, his shorts visibly tented. Jacob was watching Eric for reference ... he really wasn’t very experienced with women.

Once Jacob had coated Cass’ back, Eric asked for the bottle back and drizzled a little lotion down each of Beth’s legs. He then rubbed the lotion into her calves and slowly working his way up her legs, spending extra attention making sure that Beth’s inner thighs were well protected from the sun.

Jacob drizzled some lotion down Cass’ legs, handed the bottle to Mark and then began the same actions. Cass had an enormous smile on her face as her chin rested on top of her hands as she faced the house.

As Jacob finished below Cass’ knees, he worked a bit higher. Cass’ grin got even bigger as she nonchalantly spread her legs slightly wider for him.

Eric then asked for the bottle back as he undid Beth’s strings and moved her bottoms out of the way. He then drizzled lotion all over her ass and began to rub it in. Beth’s hips raising slightly each time his hand rubbed down her crack and between her legs.

Jacob gulped at the scene in front of him as Eric handed the bottle back to him.

Cass, sensing his hesitation, reached down and untied the strings to her bikini bottom and moved the fabric out of the way. Jacob just stared at Cass’ bare ass, but with her legs spread the way they were, her rosebud and pussy were exposed to him.

Jacob drizzled some lotion on her ass and handed the bottle to Mark before rubbing it around her firm ass cheeks. Staring intently and biting his lip as his hands rubbed both ass cheeks and when kneading them outwards, it exposed her ass and pussy even more.

As Jacob stared at her sex, Cass had looked back and caught him staring. Jacob then snapped out of his reveries when Cass’ hand went under her body and rubbed her clit.

Just then a timer went off on Beth’s phone as she said, “Flip!”

Annabelle, Beth and Cass all flipped over, their swimsuits now expunged.