Chapter 13
The morning dawned without an earthquake to be felt and everyone was feeling hopeful that they had fixed the problem. Doctors Centi, Summa, Sven, and Ali headed out to the possible volcanoes and Lion-O made a call to New Thundera to see how things were going. The time difference meant that most were sleeping back on their home planet but the crew in the Control Room updated him as much as possible while passing along that the medical patients would be arriving within the hour. Lion-O was pleased to hear it and promised to call back later.
"Things seem to be moving along," he said to Cheetara.
"Good to know," she smiled.
"Should we get some breakfast? I'm starving," the lion told her.
"You're always hungry," she chuckled.
"This is true," Lion-O smirked and pulled her in for a hug and a quick kiss. The two then headed out of Mwende's office and down to the breakroom. Panthro, Ben-Gali, and Pali were eating in relative silence; a lot on their minds.
"Your folks should be landing back home very shortly. They promised an update as soon as they could," Lion-O announced to the reptile.
"That is excellent news. Thank you Sir," Pali smiled for the first time in a long time.
"Where is President Mwende?" Cheetara asked.
"He had breakfast with the good doctors before heading over to Russia. My guess is that he wanted to talk to Kostoff in person," Panthro told them.
"Probably didn't want their phone call intercepted. Did he leave any instructions? I feel pretty useless sitting around," Lion-O admitted.
"He didn't. Probably figured we'd want to talk to home and see how things were going," Ben-Gali said.
"I do need to call Third Earth and check up on them. Tygra is worried that if the evacuations need to continue that we'll fall far behind in housing for the winter," the King relayed.
"Not sure what we can do about it. Perhaps Ben and I can come up with a way to heat the spaceships without having them run their engines and clog the air with exhaust," Panthro suggested.
"Good idea," Cheetara nodded before tucking into her toast.
"I concur. We can't be poisoning the atmosphere while we're trying to handle the new population. Speaking of new population, I think we all need to talk policing. The ThunderGuard can't handle the influx and we'll have to try to be welcoming. This will be a very scary experience for most of the people who will be joining us on New Thundera and Third Earth," Lion-O pointed out.
"Excellent point Sir. Though I cannot speak to the others of Mars, my people were welcoming to me. Of course that is not to say there weren't bumps in the road but I think overall it was good for everyone," Pali spoke up.
"Yes the adjustment period could be tricky for all sides," Ben-Gali admitted. Just then their breakfast was interrupted by the phone on the wall ringing. Lion-O got up and answered it. The phone call was short and then he turned to the group.
"Mwende will be landing shortly. I guess his trip to Russia didn't go well since he wasn't gone long," the lion frowned.
"We better hope that something came of it. Especially if it turns out the planet is still stable and can be lived on," Cheetara said.
"Agreed. We don't want anyone to have more trouble. What worries me is that someone could have produced more of those earthquake machines," Panthro shook his head.
To Be Continued…