Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 130

Chapter 130 - Boring Beach Trip

Atlantis’s original location on Lantea had been within a bay towards the more tropical end of the planet's sole continent. That had been for a handful of practical reasons, and a whole bunch of recreational ones. 

During the early stages of the Wraith war the council had decided to move the city to a position over the deepest and least tectonically active part of the ocean. With the general idea being that if worst came to worst and the Wraith were able to fight through all the system defenses, they would sink the city. And then use their functionally endless supply of drones to winnow down the Wraith’s numbers for as long as it took.

That the council had given up on that tactic after only a year and started planning a full evacuation was something Eventus had always thought was, well, kind of stupid. Not the least because the only thing the Wraith could have done that had a chance to actually get to them was drop a moon on the planet.

Which they had actually tried, and was where the system's asteroid belt had originated from.

Horrible war decisions aside, the move had meant that the artificial beaches of Atlantis’s bays had gotten a lot less Lantean friendly outside of the designated days when they would turn on the shield to blunt the waves and heat up the waters to temperatures that didn’t leave you shivering. Though that last hadn't exactly been needed once they’d sunk the city since the Wraith’s bombardment had handled heating the ocean in the general area around the city without any input from them.

China’s beaches didn’t really hold a candle to the ones his people had put together of course. The sand’s mineral content was off due to small bits of industrial runoff. There was an over abundance of algae from fertilizer runoff. And there was the distinctive scent of burning hydrocarbons particulates in the air.

On the up side, there were a lot more people willing to run around in creatively skimpy swimsuits.

“You know.” He mused as he watched the four serving girls play their third match of beach volleyball. “I really didn't expect them to come along when I suggested spending a day at the beach.”

“The security supervisor insisted.” Xiaoyi interjected dryly, causing Eventus to glance over at the sunlounger next to him where the plunge swimsuit clad woman was relaxing with a book. 

“I remember.” Eventus said, the oddity of that still standing out. “He didn't see the need to risk exposure with further uncleared people when they were perfectly capable of handling the equipment setup and food preparation duties.”

He supposed that made some sense given they were at an unoccupied private beach instead of one of the more public ones. However they hadn’t had any problem with him being around the mix of normal people and badly disguised security officers yesterday, so it left him wondering if there wasn’t more to it then that.

“I can send them back if you'd like?” Xiaoyi asked in an almost hopeful tone only to glance over at the portable grill that had been set up and grimace. “Though I should probably warn you, it's been over twenty-five years since I last grilled anything, and my father did most of the work then.”

“The last time I grilled anything was over two hundred years ago.” Eventus admitted, the memory of that complete and utter boondoggle of a mission still fresh after all these years. “And I'm sorry to say the jackalope was only barely edible.”

Which meant it would have probably given most humans a rather bad case of food poisoning.

“A jackalope?” Xiaoyi repeated in seeming confusion.

“Think of a capybara sized rabbit with six inch long horns.” Eventus told her while holding his hands out to exemplify the creature's general size. “They ended up becoming something of an invasive species across a lot of planets in Pegasus.”

Active Stargates generated various extraneous effects that drove most types of wild animals and insects away from the general area, but that kind of thing was only of marginal use when you had humans purposefully dragging those things through.

“I suppose I’ll have to keep in mind then that you shouldn’t be allowed to cook.” Xiaoyi teased with a small smile.

Eventus shot her a look of faux hurt. “I’ll have you know I can follow a recipe just fine. And I don’t even get distracted and forget the time while waiting for things to be ready.”

An endemic problem across most of his people, and not just with cooking either.

“Isn’t that the bare minimum?” Xiaoyi inquired, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

Pushing himself into a more upright position, Eventus offered an embarrassed grin. “You’d really think so, but we didn’t go out of our way to invent a way to synthesize fully made meals for nothing.”

“So your people were bad cooks?” Xiaoyi guessed, sounding more than a little amused at the thought.

“Absolutely horrendous.” Eventus confirmed with a nod of complete seriousness. “The only real exception was the small group of people who dedicated themselves to that sort of path. And they’re the ones who created new dishes for the synthesizers.”

“I believe I remember reading about something called Lantealoaf?” Xiaoyi floated questioningly.

Eventus’s shoulders slumped. “An absolute curse on our legacy. It was basically our equivalent of ration bars, and yet somehow so popular a dish that each city had its own equally bad tasting version of it.”

Xiaoyi tried to choke back a laugh for a moment before giving in and breaking out in giggles.

“Well.” She finally got out once she pulled herself back together. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”

“Doctor McKay and his team liked it too.” Eventus groused at the recent memory. “It’s at the point I’m starting to wonder if it’s just me that’s the problem.”

Reaching over Xiaoyi patted his thigh consolingly. “It’s all right, you make up for your bad taste in other ways.” Her eyes traced their way up his swimtrunk clad body to focus on his stomach before a teasing smirk graced the corner of her lips. “Like having chiseled abs.”

Pouting, Eventus turned an over-exaggerated look of disappointment to her. “I’m more than just a Roman god you know. I’m also rich, and good with small–”

A missplayed volleyball suddenly smacked Xiaoyi in the face, cutting Eventus’s words off mid sentence as he was left holding back his own laughter at the angry look the woman turned the rapidly approaching group of players.

“Apologies miss Shen.” Zou Fu said, bowing down to pick up the ball. “It seems the angle was bad with my return.”

“It’s all right.” Xiaoyi returned in an overly sweet tone. “I realize control can be a bit difficult for people taking the rear position like you.”

There was a distinct tension in the air between the two women that left Eventus once more feeling like he was missing something.

“It’s as good a time to stop for lunch as any I suppose.” He interjected to calm things down. “I’ve been looking forward to trying those grilled pork skewers you mentioned.”

“I’ll get started on them right away then.” Qin Su chirped happily, grabbing Zou Fu’s arm and dragging the other woman off towards the grill.

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Author’s Note: We’re about two chapters out from the vacation arc being over, after which I might take a week break to get everything in the next arc in a row. Next chapter, we finally have Xiaoyi's revenge.