Jade stepped out of the grav-tube then jogged down the ramp into the Combat Bridge in a smooth loping run, greeting the girls with a warm grin.

"Welcome back, stranger," Irillith said to her with a smile.

The Nymph trailed her green fingers down the Maliri girl's arm as she breezed past and took her place at the Pilot's Station.

"Hi!" Faye said with a bright smile. "Do you want to take over as Pilot?"

"Yes, please," Jade replied, taking a firm grip on the Invictus' flight controls. A quick glance at the Tactical Map revealed that they were racing back into the brutal battle, now that the Raptor and the Valkyrie were safely aboard. She glanced at the brunette to her right and asked, "What's the plan, Commander?"

Calara was staring intently at the holographic depiction of the ongoing conflict, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her brown eyes flicked over to meet Jade's emerald gaze. "The Drakkar still have three black-armoured battleships and another eleven similarly-equipped cruisers. We'll eliminate them to take the pressure off the Ashanath."

Jade studied the Tactical Map with her sharp emerald eyes, then nodded as she decided on their flightpath. Her hand brushed over the console and their route and target were highlighted on the map. "We'll take out that group of four cruisers first, they're on our way to the closest battleship."

"Excellent, thank you," the Latina replied, but she sounded distracted. Her focus was on the steady stream of telepathic orders she was passing to Alyssa, who was relaying them to the Ashanath fleet via the telepathic command web. Calara glanced at Faye, who was standing patiently beside her Tactical Station and continued, "I've got my hands full coordinating the Ashanath - their forces are in complete disarray. Can you assign more avatars to the Invictus' weapons?"

Faye nodded, smiling helpfully at the brunette. "Of course! Which batteries would you like me to take over for you?"

"All of them," Calara replied, bringing up the security panel listing weapon access rights. Her fingers danced down the list, swiping over each in turn: Gauss Cannons, Heavy Cannons, Nova Lances, Singularity Drivers, all adding to the Pulse Cannons and Beam Lasers that Faye already had permission to fire. "There, you have full access. Do you think you can handle them all?"

"I won't be anywhere near as effective as you, but I'll do my best!" Faye squeaked, shocked at the amount of trust the brunette was placing in her. She smiled as she added, "I spent dozens of hours reviewing the weapon test in the Maliri asteroid belt, just in case you might need my help someday."

Calara smiled at the purple girl, knowing how dedicated she was to improving her effectiveness. "I thought you might've done. Please take care not to hit any Ashanath!"

"I promise I'll be extremely careful!" Faye said earnestly. She allocated five of her avatars to the weapon controls, then changed her mind and assigned all of them, splitting their responsibilities between port and starboard gun control where possible. Fluttering over to Jade, she added, "Would you like me to fire the Singularity Drivers for you, too?"

Jade smiled at her and replied, "That would be great, actually. It means I can pay more attention to avoiding incoming fire."

"Hey everyone," Dana called out in a subdued greeting, as she stepped out of the emergency grav-tube's blue anti-gravity field.

The girls smiled or waved at her as she limped down the ramp into the Combat Bridge.

"Are you alright?" Tashana asked, leaping from her chair and striding over to offer the redhead a helping hand. "You're covered in blood!"

Dana frowned and waved her away, then realised the Maliri girl was just worried about her. She gave her an apologetic smile and gratefully accepted her assistance, putting an arm around Tashana's shoulder and hobbling over to the Engineering Station, where she slumped in the chair. She laughed as she admitted, "I might feel knackered now, but I can't wait until tomorrow morning. I'll be on top of the world!"

"What do you mean?" Tashana asked, before suddenly squatting down next to the redhead when she spotted the ragged gouge in her armoured thigh. She looked at Dana in alarm and gasped, "You should be in medical!"

Dana shook her head, then smiled at the Maliri girl, holding her hand as she replied, "John already patched up my leg, I'm just feeling a bit wasted. He's healed me before but I had a full night's rest to sleep it off last time."

Tashana nodded, then gave the tired Terran girl a relieved smile before returning to her own seat.

"One minute until we're in range of those cruisers," Jade said to Faye, watching the Invictus' long fire arcs draw closer to the nearest Drakkar on the Tactical Map.

"Save the Nova Lances for the first battleship," Calara murmured, while closely watching a group of Ashanath cruisers as they executed her orders.

The four silver discs fired a salvo of red laser beams at a Drakkar battleship, then used their tractor beams to slingshot themselves behind the wrecks littering the battlefield. They neatly dodged the answering fire by using the derelicts as cover, the Drakkar's purple beams slashing harmlessly into the battered hull of a crippled black-armoured Drakkar capital ship. This particular vessel had been one of Vekrok's personal retinue, until Calara had torn it apart with Heavy Cannon barrages.

"One minute, twenty seconds until we're in range," Jade corrected herself, smiling at the purple sprite.

***

As the inner airlock doors opened up, Sakura shouldered her rifle before drawing her twin ninjato. She smiled at the comforting weight of the grips in her hands, but her smile faded as she remembered exactly why they felt so familiar. After letting out a sad sigh, she glanced at the perfect replicas of her parents' faces that were etched on each of the pommels, reminding herself of the righteousness of her cause. Defending the weak against the abuses of the powerful had always been her primary motivation and she wasn't about to falter when the Ashanath urgently needed her protection.

Closing her eyes for a second, Sakura felt a sudden rush as she enabled her psychic speed, then darted out of the airlock and sprinted into the corridor beyond. She felt sharp, focused, and alert, running lightly on her feet as she rapidly closed on the Drakkar forces. They appeared as red dots on her overlay map, spreading out like some kind of insidious virus to infect the body of their host.

Travelling at such blistering speed, it didn't take her long to reach the first of the Drakkar's victims. A grey-skinned Ashanath lay sprawled on the deck, his black eyes now lifeless, his mouth open in a scream of agony that had finally been silenced with his death. His small body had been stripped to the bone, the Drakkar even devouring his silver jumpsuit in its haste to consume him.

The sounds of fighting reached Sakura's ears and she sprinted faster, knowing that every second she delayed meant more deaths she could have prevented. Running at full tilt down the corridor, she prepared her body for a quick change of direction. The map showed her that the closest predators were in the next room to her left and when she'd nearly reached the open door, she raised her right arm and activated her Paragon suit's anti-grav stabiliser. The focused gravity field helped slow her speed enough to let her safely make the sharp turn and she raced inside, blades held at the ready.

Unfortunately, she was too late to save the Ashanath in there; the five Drakkar busy gorging themselves had already killed their victims. Sakura briefly considered leaving the slobbering monsters until later, focusing instead on saving more of the living. However, she concluded that these Drakkar could always move on elsewhere to attack more of the Ashanath crew, so it would be more efficient to just dispatch them now, rather than hunting them down later.

The first of the helmetless monsters seemed to be moving in slow motion as she charged, its bloody jaw opening wide to take another bite out of the Ashanath's mutilated torso. Sakura breezed past the brute, reversing the grip on her right ninjato and plunging it down through his lime-green cranium. The perfect edge of that sparkling white sword slid straight through its skull, skewering its brain, with her vicious twist afterwards severing arteries and instantly slaying the Drakkar in a gout of blue blood.

Sliding the blade free, she spun over to the next, neatly slicing through its sturdy neck with a backhanded swipe of her left sword. The results of the Drakkar autopsy were superimposed over each creature on her heads-up display and for the third Drakkar who was the furthest on the left, Sakura decided to test the accuracy of that data. She plunged both her swords into its back as it hunched over its victim, the three-foot blades aimed precisely at the centre of each of its two hearts. Driving the weapons through the Drakkar's torso proved surprisingly difficult, the black armour they were wearing turned out to be quite resilient. Still, it was no match for octa-shaped crystal Alyssium and she punctured both organs with perfectly placed thrusts.

Sakura placed her booted foot on its back and tugged at both weapons, tearing them free with the tortured squeal of metal on metal. She kicked off from the armoured alien's back, using that momentum to propel herself backwards and spin through the air towards the two remaining Drakkar. As she backflipped between them, she drove her blades through their temples, lobotomising the pair before skidding to a halt.

Viscous blue blood dripped from her blades, each droplet slowing as it left their razor-sharp points.

She paused to watch the first of the Drakkar topple forward in slow motion, its bulging eyes rolling upwards, just as the second Drakkar's head started to tumble from its neck. The final three all wore similar looks of stupefied disbelief as they pitched forwards, the entire group of five all slain in the space of as many seconds. Sakura smiled with satisfaction, then rushed away in pursuit of the next pack, eager to dispense justice to the rest of those malevolent beasts.

Her booted feet had already left the room by the time the blue blood droplets began to hit the floor.

***

Rachel jogged down the corridor after Alyssa, occasionally checking the overlay map for an update on the Drakkar's location. She trusted that the data the Ashanath were feeding them was accurate, otherwise they could end up blundering straight into an ambush.

*We'll be fine,* Alyssa said confidently, the blonde setting a quick pace as they ran after the invading Drakkar horde. *At this pace, we should make contact in fifteen seconds.*

They reached a crossroads with silver-panelled corridors stretching away in three new directions, the feral howls of rampaging Drakkar reaching their ears. Another quick glance at the overlay map indicated that their foes had headed right before spreading out, so the girls dashed into that corridor, weapons raised and at the ready. The lights were flickering in that section, cutting out every couple of seconds and plunging them into darkness, before springing to life again. The strobing effect set Rachel's nerves on edge and she was tense as they walked briskly down the passage.

The corridor turned left and the lights flickered again, just as Rachel caught her first glimpse of the nightmarish scene beyond. Several black-armoured Drakkar were crouched on the deck, chewing on small grey bodies in pools of dark-red blood. Beyond them, the rest of the pack could be heard braying and barking with the thrill of the hunt, as they chased after their fleeing Ashanath prey.

Alyssa swept into the corridor, her tone grim as she said, *Switch to thermal imaging.*

Rachel did so immediately, bathing the corridor in blue hues, with the Drakkar themselves highlighted in bright red.

*Start stripping their shields with your Justice Laser, eleven o'clock, low,* Alyssa ordered a moment later.

The brunette slowed her pace as she aimed her laser rifle at the torso of the closest Drakkar on the left, flicking the power level on her weapon to the second setting. She squeezed the trigger, sending a long stream of laser bolts into the squatting alien, her laser fire appearing bright red in her helmet's thermal imaging view. The heat indicator on her HUD began to creep up as she blasted its energy shield, circular waves rippling outwards from the point of impact in the centre of the beast's back.

It took several seconds of sustained fire before the shield finally winked out, enough time for the Drakkar to whirl around and reach for its brutal-looking gun with two hands. It roared at her in anger as it started to raise that broad-muzzled weapon, the laser bolts bouncing off its armoured carapace ineffectually.

Rachel had just started to lift the long barrel of her weapon to fire at its exposed head, her gun glowing orange with the heat venting off it, when she heard a familiar-sounding gunshot beside her.

"VrmPkaow," Alyssa's railgun purred, the hyper-accelerated twenty-millimetre slug hitting the Drakkar dead-centre in its hammer-shaped head.

The creature's scarlet face exploded in a gratuitous shower of warm red blood, spraying the walls behind it as it crashed over on its back. The red quickly shifted to blue in Rachel's heat sensitive thermal imaging, the blood cooling as soon as it hit the walls. The rest of the feeding monsters turned to look at the headless Drakkar in shock, before spotting the Terran girls and scrambling for their shields and weapons.

*Twelve o'clock. Use a higher power setting, we need to speed this up,* Alyssa said to her decisively.

Rachel moved her thumb to the power-selector switch, notching it up to three. She began to fire in short bursts of much brighter laser bolts as she lit up the next one on her left, flares of light arcing over its shield as the shots hit home with much greater strength. The heat levels spiked up alarmingly as she watched the Drakkar warrior frantically grab its gun. Its shield died with her final burst, the laser bolts sizzling through its ugly head and melting a big hole out the other side, leaving her safe to breathe a sigh of relief.

However, the barrel of her laser rifle was now shimmering in a bright crimson heat haze and the thermometer in her HUD was well into the danger area. Rachel knew it would take a couple of seconds before the heatsinks could finish cooling the weapon enough for her to shoot again, leaving her and Alyssa critically exposed to the rest of the shielded aliens.

She darted a concerned look to her right at the remaining two Drakkar and gasped to her squadmate, "Look out! My gun's overheating, I can't-"

Her words died on her lips and she blinked in surprise as the closest one on the right lifted off the ground with a startled yelp. It waved its four arms in the air as it tried to regain some sense of balance, before abruptly tipping forward as it sailed towards the second shocked alien. The Drakkar's armoured frame whistled through the air as its torso smashed into its podbrother's head, the levitating alien crying out in terror as it was used as a mallet to batter its companion. Again and again it crashed down, caving in the other alien's battlesuit with the thunderous impacts. When the second one was a bloody smear on the ground, the flying Drakkar was suddenly torn in half, spraying blood and ichor all over the corridor.

Rachel glanced at Alyssa in shock as the blonde cast aside her impromptu cudgel with a dismissive flick of her hand.

Alyssa gave her a playful wink before setting off after the rest of the pack. *Like I said, we'll be fine.*

***

John strode purposefully down the corridor, watching the rest of the Drakkar react to the sound of heavy bodies crashing to the ground behind them. Unlike the half-dozen helmetless warriors which he'd just caught feeding and neatly decapitated, the other twenty members of the horde were still fully armoured. They turned to engage him in slow motion, having no idea what they were facing and foolishly eager to fight as he advanced towards them. Their four-armed bodies were completely covered in glossy black battlesuits, with the integrated shielding providing total protection from the Ashanath's laser pistols.

The five-foot crystal Alyssium sword that John clenched in a two-handed grip was no feeble laser pistol.

His first upswept blow caught a still-turning Drakkar below its lower right arm, and he felt the tug on the blade as it bit deep into the black carapace. The psychically forged sword acted as a fulcrum for his herculean strength, channelling that titanic force as he carved through the monstrous alien. Shearing diagonally upwards through its torso, his blade tore free through its left shoulder in a massive fountain of gore.

From John's perspective, the thick blue blood fanned out in a languid azure arc, following the path of his gleaming blade as he rushed onwards to the next enemy. To the Drakkar, John was moving so fast that he swept through them in a blur, remorselessly striking down one warrior after another. Not knowing what had just hit it, the Drakkar stood there in dumb incomprehension as it began to slide apart along that neat line of incision, both hearts neatly cut in half.

The next Drakkar warrior was to John's left and had been grabbing at a wounded Ashanath with its lower hands, while removing its helmet with the upper set of arms in preparation for its first bite. John's sword whistled down, chopping through those clutching limbs, and drenching the terrified Grey in a deluge of blood. He drew the blade back to his left, then sliced through the dismembered warrior above the waist, neatly chopping him in half.

Some kind of glowing projectile flew past his shoulder, a purple contrail tracing it back to the barrel that had fired it. The rest of the Drakkar ahead of him had levelled vicious black rifles in his direction and were trying to track him with their shots as he darted from one side of the corridor to the other, cleaving warriors as he did so. The furious hail of glowing bullets intensified as several Drakkar sprayed the corridor on full-auto, reacting in terror as he systematically hacked the group apart.

A wild shot from a huge calibre rotary cannon managed to clip his left bicep as he ducked to one side, jarring him with the concussive impact. The round had a shocking amount of stopping power, blasting a divot out of his armour and drawing blood from his exposed flesh beneath. John reacted by impaling the next Drakkar through the chest with a double-handed thrust, the blade driving straight through its armour and out through its back. He lifted it off the ground effortlessly, its body shuddering as it was hit by rounds from its comrades, sprays of blue blood gouting out behind it.

Pausing for a split second, he levelled his sword at the ten warriors blazing away with their guns at him, aiming at the largest concentration of hostile warriors. Channelling his will through his blade, the impaled Drakkar was launched forwards on the crest of a telekinetic wave of force, sending the dying creature careening down the corridor. It knocked down most of the bulky aliens like bowling pins, with only two still left standing on either side.

"Damn, a split," he muttered to himself in irritation, while running full tilt towards the two horrified creatures.

John's sword whipped round in a lightning-fast curve, neatly decapitating the first, before he used his momentum to bring him around to the second. It raised its metal shield to try and ward him away, but it was unable to move quickly enough to stop him. He could see its look of terror through the red-tinted faceplate as he casually batted the reflective barrier aside, then drove his sword into its gut in an upward stroke. The blade sliced through its body and punched through its brain from below, flooding the Drakkar's helmet with the accompanying rush of blood.

"That's the spare," he said in quiet satisfaction, as the two Drakkar keeled over, crashing to the ground.

Hauling his sword free, John strolled down the corridor towards the rest of the pack. The Drakkar floundered on the floor in their heavy armour, still reeling from being smashed backwards by a foe moving so quickly that he appeared like a vengeful white blur. His glistening blade left arcing trails of blue blood in the air as he stepped from one to another, sword rising and falling as he swiftly executed the remaining warriors where they lay.

After plunging his blade into the forehead of the last of the Drakkar, John loped away down the corridor in pursuit of the next group. A score of broken black shells lay in mangled heaps in the corridor behind him, the entire battle having taken less than thirty seconds.

Phenomenal strength and speed, matched with flawless technique... there were only a handful of creatures in this segment of the galaxy able to stand against this Progenitor ascendant.

***

Purple streaks sailed over Sakura's head as she slid across the floor, the Drakkar ahead of her caught by surprise as she ducked underneath his rain of shells. As she slid past another Drakkar marine, she gritted her teeth as she hacked through its armoured leg, her arm jarring with the impact from her right ninjato. The massive alien cartwheeled through the air behind her, lifted off the ground with the force of the strike from her blade. She dug the heel of her boot into the ground, abruptly stopping her slide and using her body's momentum to flip herself up to her feet. Landing lightly, she skipped forward a step then stabbed downwards with her twin blades, impaling the last of the group through its armoured helmet.

She yanked her swords free as she landed, the seven-foot-tall Drakkar marine dropping his black weapon before tipping over backwards, hitting the floor with a booming metallic crash. With no enemies left standing, she glided over to the legless Drakkar that was writhing on the ground and howling in agony. Sakura had seen what this pack had done to the Ashanath they had already caught, so she felt no sympathy for the black-clad creature as she shoved her right ninjato through its throat. She had to thrust hard to drive her blade through the thick armour, her arms starting to tire after carving through so many of those bodysuits to get to the foul aliens beneath.

With that creature's death, it was the end of another group of ten. The red dots that had fanned out from the first Drakkar dropship had now all been removed from the overlay map, so Sakura quickly searched for the next pack of invaders.

"Thank you for saving us," a whispering voice said to her, startling Sakura out of her single-minded focus on hunting down the Drakkar.

She glanced across the silver-walled room at the three Ashanath huddled in the corner, the diminutive creatures staring at her with their huge black eyes. The profound gratitude on their faces was obvious, even for the normally impassive grey aliens - it wasn't really that surprising, considering that they were about to be eaten alive by the Drakkar until she intervened. Still, it was a moving moment for Sakura - the first time she had actually saved another life purely by her actions alone. Those three Ashanath hardly atoned for the hundreds of victims amassed by Shinatobe, but it was a good place to start.

Bowing to them, she replied, "You're quite welcome. I've eliminated the rest of the pack, so you should be safe now. Stay out of sight though, until you're given the all-clear."

"We will do as you command," the Ashanath replied, in its quiet eerie voice.

A second Ashanath stepped forward and asked, "What is your name? We would like to know the name of our saviour."

"My name's Sakura, I'm with John Blake and we're here to stop the Drakkar," she quickly explained.

The alien gazed at her intently and said, "We will never forget you, SakuraBlake. Thank you."

She was about to correct the Ashanath's mistake, but smiled at him instead. Saluting the Grey with her right blade, Sakura bounded towards the door, rushing after the Drakkar that had flooded into the Legacy from the next closest dropship. She had a good three-hundred metres and four decks to traverse before reaching the next entry point, so she sprinted at full speed down one of the main spinal corridors that connected the sections of the ship. Glancing at her overlay map, it looked like the next group had largely stuck together, clustered in a mass of at least fifty Drakkar going by the red dots.

She wondered why that could be, until Alyssa's voice reached out to her telepathically. *You're approaching the Ashanath barracks. Irillith's just added a key, with labels for locations on the ship.*

Sakura checked the map again and when her eyes flicked to the blinking blue light, the map quickly refreshed with names for each area. Sure enough, the section she was running towards was flagged as the living quarters, with the Drakkar congregated near the Barracks. She could only imagine what kind of slaughterhouse the Drakkar had turned that into and she braced herself for more terrible scenes of carnage.

The Ashanath had installed grav-tubes in the Legacy and she recognised them immediately as the inspiration behind Dana's upgrades to the Invictus. Darting into the silvery tube, she began to sink down in the slow-moving field, travelling far too slowly considering the urgency of her situation. Reversing her grip on her two swords, she used them as climbing picks, driving the tips into the silver wall of the grav-tube and rapidly increasing the speed of her descent.

It didn't take her long to drop down the four decks to the barracks and she kicked off the back wall of the grav-tube to propel herself into the broad corridor. She started in surprise when she saw the damage that corridor had sustained and it quickly became clear that she'd stumbled into the aftermath of a pitched battle. The walls had been raked by laser and heavy calibre weapon fire, and while there were a few dozen Ashanath corpses lying on the ground, they hadn't been eaten. The silver-armoured Ashanath soldiers had been left where they'd fallen, the Drakkar too busy fighting with the rest of the ship's complement of Grey Marines to stop for a snack. A handful of Drakkar had been killed too, having taken hits from what appeared to be a heavy laser.

The battle still raged ahead of her and Sakura darted towards the sound of combat with swords held at the ready. There was an open set of double doors ahead on the left, with sizzling red laser bolts flying through and hitting the wall beyond. She could hear the battle roars from the Drakkar accompanying the heavy booms of their weapons as they returned fire, the invaders having forced the Ashanath back to the Barracks in a fighting retreat. Most of the Ashanath shots were at chest height, so she crouched low before peeking into the room.

The Drakkar were involved in a furious gunfight with the surviving Ashanath Marines, who'd been driven back into a last stand. This part of the barracks had once been some kind of galley, with the diminutive silver-armoured creatures using the solid metal blocks that formed the dining tables for cover. The Drakkar weren't bothering with such subtleties as finding cover, relying instead on their force shields, hand-held reflective barriers, and thick armour, for protection from the storm of laser bolts.

An Ashanath marine with a Heavy Laser fired at one of the closest Drakkar, coring a glowing red hole through the black-armoured warrior. As the four-armed monster keeled over, his squadmates returned fire, eager to finally get their revenge on the Ashanath who'd killed several of their pack. The purple energy bolts from their weapons blasted big chunks from the poor Grey soldier and he didn't even have a chance to scream as he was torn apart.

*There's hundreds more Ashanath crew hiding in the kitchen. They fled to the Barracks looking for protection from the Drakkar,* Alyssa informed her solemnly. *The Ashanath Marine Captain tells me that his forces are down to forty men and near breaking point. If you can't stop the Drakkar, it'll be a massacre.*

Sakura nodded, understanding what was needed of her and gripped her twin ninjato firmly with each hand. Her arms felt numb after all the non-stop combat and she wasn't looking forward to hacking her way through another fifty suits of armour. *I won't let them be slaughtered,* she replied grimly, taking a deep breath to prepare herself.

*I know,* Alyssa replied affectionately. *By the way, John wanted you to have a gift.*

Sakura arched her back and let out a shocked scream as Alyssa poured a vast torrent of psychic energy into her, flooding every fibre of her being. It felt like she was in the eye of a tornado as a wonderfully refreshing surge rushed through her body, goosebumps prickling along her limbs. Her fatigue was swept away in an instant, with deliciously cool shivers shooting up her spine as she cried out in ecstasy. The tingling ran down her arms, rejuvenating her tired muscles with the crisp chill of a fresh winter morning.

At some point she had clenched her eyes shut and when she regained her senses and opened them once more, she found the Drakkar and Ashanath staring at her in stunned disbelief. The Drakkar seemed to be crouching for some reason, while the Ashanath cowered behind their cover, only the bravest daring to peek their heads up to see what was happening.

Movement caught her eye and she gaped at her hands in wide-eyed astonishment. A gentle flurry of ice crystals now shrouded her armoured fists, her gauntlets glowing with a soft white aura. The deathly silence was broken by a cracking sound - like a glacier shearing in half - as ice swept up her blades, riming them in hoar frost.

*Please thank John for his wonderful gift,* she murmured, eyes glinting with a chilling inner glow.

*I'm sure he'd prefer it if you thanked him yourself,* Alyssa purred in reply.

Sakura smiled as she twirled the two frozen ninjato in her hands then stalked into the room, the Drakkar backing away from her in terror.

***

Warboss Magaruk's eyes darted around the Tactical Map, now as fearful of the Drakkar on his own side as he was the Ashanath. It seemed some form of madness had descended on the Clan leaders in their massive battleships. One after the other, they had inexplicably started turning against their own side in the middle of this swirling battle.

Backstabbing and betrayals were part-and-parcel of Drakkar life, with Clans seeking payback for decades-old grudges - but to turn on your own in the middle of a major battle like this was unheard of! Maguruk would admire their bold opportunism, if it wasn't for how disturbingly close the fight with the Ashanath had become. The Ashanath by themselves wouldn't be too much of a problem, but that terrifying death ship kept tearing through the Drakkar forces, disintegrating battleships and cruisers alike with contemptuous ease.

His four hands shook with fear as he gripped the Command Table, watching as the Invictus sent a pounding cascade of Singularity Driver rounds into Overlord Yokug's battleship. Out of all the capital ships equipped with black armour from the Dark One, It was the last vessel still intact, the dreadful white battlecruiser having hunted the rest to extinction. Magaruk couldn't tear his eyes from the image as Yokug's immense vessel was obliterated by a continuous stream of explosive shells. After the previous displays of freakishly accurate shooting, the gunner appeared to be toying with Yokug's flagship as if mocking him, spraying shots seemingly at random over its entire length.

"Boss! Overlord Gezkag's turned against his own Clan!" his Navigator yelped, pointing towards another section of the battlefield.

Magaruk turned his frightened bulging eyes to look at Gezkag's battleship, then gaped in shock as he watched it open fire on an escorting cruiser. He knew for a fact that Gezkag's own son was commanding that cruiser, yet the battleship ripped it apart like an alpha podling turning on the runt of the spawn.

"Grey bombers are launching torpedoes!" the Drakkar at Tactical cried out in warning, frantically blazing away at them with the laser point defence.

Magaruk quaked with terror and roared at his Helmsman, "Hard a-port!"

Both hearts in his mouth, Magaruk watched as his cruiser turned towards the incoming torpedoes, which were heading straight for their port flank. There were a couple of huge explosions as their laser point defences cooked off two of the approaching warheads, but there were too many to destroy them all. Retro-thrusters flared along the length of his cruiser, bringing it about in a desperate manoeuvre. They turned just in time to fit through the gap that had opened up, with the rest of the torpedoes missing them by mere metres.

Magaruk's sense of relief was short-lived as his cruiser was shaken by a salvo of beams, red warning lights sounding off around the Bridge.

"Shields out!" the Engineer wailed.

At this point, Magaruk didn't care how tasty the Ashanath were. No meal was worth this kind of grief, no matter how delicious!

***

Engineer Batiri adjusted a dial on her console with a thought, diverting the Ashanath cruiser's energy flows back to the weapons, re-enabling them once again. Sounding pleased, she said, *Shields are restored to sixty-three-percent. We are ready to fight.*

Leader Linnaeus didn't respond straight away, he was still awed by the radiant goddess that had appeared on the Ashanath command web. The curvature of her body was absolutely magnificent and the brilliant white aura seemed to enhance her exquisite globes, rather than obscure them.

*Do you wish us to engage in the battle, Linnaeus?* Navigator Cadimus prompted him impatiently.

Rousing himself from the entrancing spell cast by the exotic astral temptress, Linnaeus said to the radiant goddess nervously, *Alyssa, our shields are partially restored. We are now able to initiate combat once again.*

Alyssa turned to face him so that he was no longer looking at her from behind. Linnaeus felt tinged with sadness as one set of perfect spheroids disappeared, but the sensation was fleeting as he was presented with another pair of marvellous orbs. The glowing Terran girl adopted an odd facial expression as she looked at him. Her smile was lopsided and she raised her left eyebrow as she watched him staring at her. How curious.

*Join the formation of three cruisers harassing the battleship at heading one-four-zero, Linnaeus,* she said, with a flirtatious grin. *Spread out and snipe at the Drakkar using the wrecks as cover, we're trying to keep casualties to a minimum.*

*We shall do so at once,* he replied, passing the order on to Navigator Cadimus.

His cruiser rotated smoothly, turning about so that they were facing towards the three Ashanath cruisers hiding behind several black-hulled derelicts. Navigator Cadimus increased their speed and they began to close the distance on the massive Drakkar battleship, which was attempting to swat away its various attackers with salvos of Beam Laser fire. The sprawling battle had taken a terrible toll on both sides, breaking up the fleets into lots of smaller engagements and Linnaeus' newly-assigned target had lost all its escorts. With the bulk of the battleship's weapons forward-facing, it was relatively easy for the nimble Ashanath cruisers to strike unopposed at the rear, while the cruiser that had gained the battleship's focus ducked out of sight behind cover.

Tactical Officer Pallari took careful aim at the Drakkar vessel as they came into range, then fired their complement of Beam Lasers at the target. The battleship's already-weakened shields flickered dangerously as they were struck by those eight red beams, provoking it into turning towards its latest tormentor. Navigator Cadimus rotated their cruiser to starboard and they slid into cover, hiding from the battleship's fury.

Leader Linnaeus felt a surge of relief as he watched his crew in action. They seemed calm and confident now, happy to be part of the well-coordinated Ashanath counterattack.

***

John brought his sword around in a broad two-handed slash, neatly cleaving straight through the Drakkar's hastily upraised metal shield, then slicing through its armoured head.

"Are you alright?" he asked the cowering Ashanath, who had stumbled to the ground in its haste to flee from its four-armed pursuer. He offered the thin creature a gauntleted hand to help him to his feet.

"I am unharmed JohnBlake, my thanks for your rescue," the Grey replied, accepting John's assistance and swiftly standing upright. His bulbous head turned to look back out through the black door into the gloomy corridor beyond and added, "My five companions... we split up near the Drive Room, when we fled from the Drakkar. I can hear them - they are being chased... hunted..."

"Don't worry, I'll save them," John said with a reassuring nod.

He spun about and ran for the door, checking his map for the intersection near the Drive Room. Four Drakkar had come that way until he'd caught up with and killed them all. He could see two more groups had split up along the other corridors, consisting of a group of three and a group of five Drakkar. Reasoning that the group of five would have started hunting the largest group of Ashanath, he sprinted down that junction in frantic pursuit.

There were still dozens of red dots scattered deeper inside the ship, the Drakkar having spread out as they chased after the fleeing Ashanath. He was methodically catching and slaying them all, but it was taking him time, even aided with his enhanced speed. Every minute the Drakkar were catching more of the fleeing Ashanath and he knew every second was precious, with more lives hanging in the balance.

As he ran down the corridor, he felt the stream of eldritch energy from Edraele flicker out, abruptly cutting off his psychic speed. He'd grown used to hearing Drakkar howls and roars dragged out in slow-motion, so it felt jarring to return to normal again.

*I'm so sorry, John,* Edraele apologised, sounding absolutely exhausted. *That's all the power I can give you.*

*Don't overdo it!* John said in alarm. *You don't have to push yourself that hard to help!*

*It's alright... felt good knowing I was helping save lives,* she murmured faintly, her voice growing drowsy.

*You did a brilliant job! Dozens of Ashanath are alive because of you. Get some sleep, honey, you've really earned it,* John said soothingly.

*Love you...* she mumbled, and then like that she was gone, curled up with the equally exhausted Young Matriarchs.

*Don't worry, handsome. I've still got plenty of juice left!* Alyssa announced cheerfully, while simultaneously flooding his system with psychic energy.

John shivered at that thrilling sensation, his psychic speed re-activating once more. A Drakkar's hunting cry dragged out as his perception of time distorted, confirming that he was moving at a far faster pace than his unwitting foes.

*Fantastic, thanks beautiful!* he exclaimed as he raced down the corridor, seeing from the map that he wasn't far behind the Drakkar.

Rounding the next corner at breakneck speed, he finally sighted his quarry. The five Drakkar had chased the Ashanath into the reactor core chamber, the jagged door currently left wide open behind them. The Greys were now trapped, and he could hear the hulking marauders cackling with laughter as they gloated at the success of their victorious hunt.

John charged towards the group, sword drawn back in preparation.

***

Alyssa strolled along beside Rachel with her Punisher rifle slung over her shoulder, following after a pack of Drakkar soldiers who were fleeing in terror. Every so often, one of them would stop to shoot at her, but she would block his shot with her handy piece of portable cover. She glanced at her impromptu shield, wincing when she saw that it looked a little worse for wear. She blocked a flurry of shots heading their way that blasted more holes in the bullet-riddled Drakkar corpse, before casually tossing it aside.

Making a deft gesture with her left hand, she grabbed a fresh one, the Drakkar ahead of them lifting off the ground in her ghostly telekinetic fist. It shrieked with terror as it desperately tried to aim at the glowing sorceress, but Alyssa casually batted aside its weapon with a contemptuous backhander, then snapped its neck with an elegant twist of her fingers.

"That's better," she said conversationally to Rachel, who was walking along by her side. "They do insist on making a ridiculous amount of noise."

Rachel turned to look at her and suggested, "Perhaps they don't like being scared shitless before you kill them?"

Alyssa adopted a thoughtful look before a frown appeared on her beautiful face. "No, I don't think that's it. They definitely seem to enjoy playing that game with the Ashanath, so it's only fair that they get to have a turn being chased."

The brunette laughed, shaking her head as she observed, "You're enjoying this far too much. Aren't we meant to be the good guys? What happened to merciful deaths and all that?"

"Well, they're really nasty bad guys, so that means I can pretty much do whatever I like to them and not feel bad about it. It's awesome!" Alyssa replied with a grin.

She summoned up a glowing white lance of telekinetic energy, then launched it down the corridor, punching a huge hole through the back of one of the petrified Drakkar soldiers. Her psychic missile went on to skewer the two in front of it and all three crashed face-first onto the ground.

"Nice shot," Rachel noted wryly with a smirk.

"Thank you kindly," Alyssa replied, using her right hand to tip an imaginary hat in her friend's direction. She released her grip on the floating Drakkar and let her temporary shield crash to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Rachel smiled at the blonde, then quickly checked the map, searching for red dots. "That was the last of the Drakkar from that dropship. All the rest are over by Sakura towards the front of the Legacy, or at the back near the High Council. Which way should we go next?"

"Sakura's having fun, so we'll leave her that last lot," Alyssa replied, scrutinising the map herself. "All the ones at the back have spread out, so we better head that way and help John."

Rachel nodded her agreement, a look of concern on her face as she said, "There's a big group heading towards the High Council. We better hurry if we're going to save Ularean in time."

Alyssa stepped over the punctured Drakkar corpses, then broke into a swift run, Rachel easily keeping up with her as they sprinted down the corridor towards the rear section of the ship. The blonde Matriarch could hear the brunette's thoughts racing through her mind, and she glanced at her knowingly, switching to telepathy while they ran.

*Do you really want to know?* she asked, glancing to the left at her tawny-haired friend. *Half the fun is the surprise when you find out - I wouldn't want to ruin that for you.*

Rachel smiled, having grown used to Alyssa's ever-watchful presence in her mind. Her smile faded into a frown as she admitted, *It's just that Dana's had her third helix activated now and you know what they say when there's a disparity between the power in a relationship. Things are great between us at the moment and I don't want anything to ruin it. I guess I'm just curious what John has in store for me.*

*Sparks has totally fallen for you, you've got nothing to worry about,* Alyssa said comfortingly as she loped along the corridor, deftly avoiding the brunette's unspoken question.

Up ahead of them, they could see an abrupt change in the structure of the ship and they faltered for a moment, slowing down at the intimidating sight. The shiny silver Ashanath construction ended along a jagged line, where it met forbidding onyx walls illuminated with dark crimson lighting. The two Terran girls gave each other bashful grins, realising how silly it was to be scared of what essentially amounted to black walls with red lights.

Rachel walked over the join into the original section of the Legacy, glancing around at the gloomy surroundings. *I don't think much of the Progenitor taste in decor.*

*Thank God we didn't leave John in charge of refurbishing the Officers' Lounge!* Alyssa agreed with a grin.

The brunette couldn't help giggling at that. *It certainly would've set a dramatic tone for breakfast at the dining table!*

Alyssa laughed along with her, then took a quick glance at the overlay map. *We'd better pick up the pace, the nearest group are one-hundred metres ahead of us and a bit to our left. John's lower down and over to the right - he's busy chasing another group at the moment.*

*Sure, lead on,* Rachel agreed, holding her Justice Laser rifle at the ready.

*I suppose I better hold my gun too,* Alyssa said with a smile, as she unslung her Punisher rifle and started jogging down the corridor. *It's bad form if I don't even pretend to be scared of the Drakkar.*

Rachel shook her head with amusement, then said, *We got interrupted earlier, we were talking about psychic powers.*

Alyssa shot her a teasing grin and replied, *Ah yes, so we were. Sakura certainly seems pleased with her Cryokinesis.*

*Wait! She can do what now?!* Rachel blurted out, as they followed the corridor around to the left.

There were at least a dozen Ashanath corpses scattered around the floor, the small, frail skeletons having been picked clean by the ravenous Drakkar. Alyssa and Rachel carefully stepped around the sad piles of bones, sharing a grim look as they headed deeper into the brooding black core of the Progenitor vessel. Their light-hearted conversation ended as they heard the sound of howling Drakkar ahead of them now, the insatiable monsters hunting their next meal.

Irillith's overlay map hadn't led them astray yet, so they ran swiftly down the corridor, eager to prevent any more Ashanath from sharing the same fate. The next set of rooms were filled with huge capacitors for the Progenitor Power Core and the Drakkar were chasing the Ashanath around the enormous machines in an attempt to corral them and start their next feast. It was obvious from the way the red dots had fanned out on the map, that the pursuing Drakkar were herding the fleeing greys straight into the waiting arms of a second group.

Alyssa stepped through the jagged-edged doorway, her jokes and banter forgotten with the urgent need to rescue the Ashanath from the impending slaughter. She glanced over her shoulder to watch Rachel enter the room behind her, then gasped as a white-haired Maliri girl rushed through the door behind them, her face stricken with terror.

"Wait!" Alyssa cried out to the blue-skinned woman as she ran into the room, then blinked in shock when she rushed straight through Rachel's armoured form.

Immediately realising what she was seeing, Alyssa turned to watch the psychic echo as the girl fled across the room. The Maliri sobbed with fear as she ran, before being thrown violently through the air and landing in a crumpled heap on the ground. It was clear from the awkward angle of her head that her neck had been broken with the impact. Alyssa felt a chill run down her spine as she felt the reverberation of terror the girl had experienced in her last moments.

"What's wrong?" Rachel asked, reaching out to place a comforting hand on Alyssa's shoulder.

Alyssa turned around in a daze as more psychic echoes began to appear. She saw one Maliri girl fiercely berating another, when the capacitor they were standing beside suddenly exploded, incinerating both of them in an instant. The blast had only just dissipated when a trio of young Maliri women brushed past her. Alyssa whirled around to watch them, sensing the initial tremors of pain beginning to build, forecasting their imminent and excruciating deaths. They walked calmly across the room, before abruptly clutching at their chests with strangled cries of agony. Their faces were masks of torment as they pitched over, once beautiful faces draining of life before Alyssa's shocked eyes. The three girls convulsed in their death throes until their withered husks slowly faded away.

"Alyssa! What is it?!" Rachel asked again, shocked to see her friend suddenly looking so pale.

The blonde shivered and turned away from the horrible sight, murmuring, "This place has a long memory. Lots of terrible things happened here..."

Rachel studied her for a moment, before asking with concern, "Are you sure you're alright to continue?"

Alyssa nodded stoically and lifting her chin to meet the brunette's worried gaze, she replied, "I'll be alright. Let's go save the Ashanath - this place doesn't need any more ghosts."

She turned and ran after the Drakkar, trying her best to ignore millennia of horrific deaths playing out before her eyes.

***

Leader Linnaeus felt a surge of relief as the red beams from his cruiser slashed across the flanks of the battleship. With the aid of the other three cruisers in his formation, they had finally worn down the Drakkar's shields and their Beam Laser salvos were finally striking home.

*Excellent shot, Pallari,* he praised his Tactical Officer, watching all eight beams carve into a section of the hull already scored with multiple hits. There were deep glowing trenches carved in that armour now, the energy weapons having melted almost all of the way through that plating.

*It is easy when they are distracted by the rest of the group,* Pallari replied graciously, but Linnaeus could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

Engineer Batiri had been studying the Tactical Map, watching as the tail-end of the battle unfolded before her eyes. *There seems to have be a dramatic shift in our fortunes, Linnaeus. I have not seen our forces lose a ship for several minutes.*

Linnaeus glanced her way and explained, *JohnBlake's associate is providing leadership and tactical guidance to our fleet.*

Batiri turned to look at him with her huge black eyes, admitting, *For a moment I believed all was lost.*

Before Linnaeus could reply, Cadimus' shocked voice echoed through their minds. The frightened Navigator blurted out, *The Drakkar are launching dropships!*

Linnaeus responded immediately, ordering, *Move away from the battleship to give Pallari a chance to shoot them down.*

*They're everywhere!* Cadimus cried out in panic.

When Linnaeus looked at the map again, he felt that same sense of fear. Dozens of Drakkar dropships were racing away from the wounded battleship, but more were pouring out of the wrecks around them. Not all the Drakkar vessels had been instantly obliterated in reactor core explosions and some had been left mortally wounded, incapacitated but still partially intact. It seemed that the Drakkar had been waiting for a moment to strike and with the Ashanath so close to their ships, now was that time.

***

Faye fired the Nova Lances, unleashing the colossal energy built up in the turbulent spheres of white energy at the front of the Invictus. The maelstrom of fire converged on the prow of the grey Drakkar battleship, then slashed diagonally across, leaving a glowing, haphazard rent as she disintegrated the front third.

"Damn!" she exclaimed with frustration, watching as the beam flickered out a few seconds later. Glancing at Calara, Faye frowned as she continued, "I don't know how you can completely vaporise them in one shot! You make it look so easy!"

Calara turned away from the chaotic Tactical Map for a second and gave the purple sprite a reassuring smile as she replied, "You just need more practice. You've improved a great deal with the Pulse Cannons."

"I'll have to spend more time analysing your shooting!" Faye replied, looking eager at the prospect.

The brunette nodded and said, "You've got lots of targets to practice on with the Singularity Drivers now. After that last sweep, there's several battleships without shields you can shoot at."

The Invictus had charged through the turmoil of the battle, slashing left and right with Beam Lasers and stripping the shields from the Drakkar Capital ships. Those ships were now exposed and vulnerable, but their frantic headlong plunge had come at a price.

"Our shields are fucked again," Dana said, grimacing as she looked at the shield status display. "Their new tactic of 'spray and pray' seems to be paying off."

The lights had gone out completely now, showing that the wild Drakkar shooting had knocked out the Invictus' own shields. While the scattered beams didn't have enough focused strength to blow out any more capacitors, there were more melted furrows in the hull on the exposed bow, where the battlecruiser had already lost a couple of capacitors. The armour was still highly reflective, robbing those otherwise destructive beams of much of their power, but they were taking damage now, with several more furrows marring the once-pristine hull of the Invictus.

Jade nodded her sombre agreement. "It's much harder to dodge incoming fire when they're just firing spreads of shots like that. I think they've given up trying to aim properly."

"I want you to hold position out of range of their guns," Calara cautioned the Nymph. "We've got a massive range advantage with the Singularity Drivers and Nova Lances, so we can just pick them off without exposing ourselves to more damage." Turning to face Faye, she continued, "You'll still be shooting at extreme range, so be very careful to line up your shots. They're big targets, but we can't afford to hit any Ashanath. Watch the flight vectors of the Grey's ships and try not to let them sail into your fire."

Faye's luminous eyes were wide as she said, "I'll take extra care to make sure I don't miss!" She allocated three avatars to calculate the trajectories of all ships on the path towards the closest Drakkar battleship.

Dana smiled at the brunette as she said, "Good plan! We better not fuck up the Invictus. John's already going to be pissed at us for trashing the Valkyrie and the Raptor."

"I was only hit by one missile!" Jade protested, already apprehensive about his reaction when he saw the gunship. She knew he'd blame himself for exposing her to danger.

"You've got nothing to worry about," Irillith said soothingly. Her violet eyes flashed over to the redhead as she added teasingly, "He's going to be far more annoyed at Dana for nearly getting herself killed."

Dana deflated in her chair, nodding with a glum expression on her pale face. "Yeah, he's gonna be furious when he sees the state of the Valkyrie."

Irillith winced, giving her twin a guilty look before saying, "I was only joking, Dana. Please don't be upset."

Tashana darted over to the redhead and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as she said, "I'm sure he'll be more relieved you're okay than anything else. I haven't known him long, but it's obvious how much he cares about you."

Dana smiled at her and she opened her mouth to reply, but was suddenly interrupted by Jade's startled gasp.

"We've got lots more contacts!" Jade cried out in warning, cat-like eyes widening in surprise. "Drakkar dropships appearing all over the place!"

"Fuck me... there must be hundreds of them!" Dana murmured, staring at the new sensor contacts that had sprung up like weeds all over the battlefield.

Calara leaned forward in alarm, her brown eyes flashing back and forth as she took in the sheer number of Drakkar boarding ships. Her brow furrowed with worry as she knew the right course of action they should take to help the Ashanath, but it would mean exposing themselves to considerable danger.

*I agree with you,* Alyssa thought to her an instant later. *The Ashanath will lose the other half of their fleet to boarding actions if you don't intervene. I've seen what happens to the Greys after the Drakkar get their hands on them - you've got to save them from that.*

"Take us in, Jade," Calara said firmly. "We need to bring all our guns to bear if we're going to clean up those dropships."

"We're going in!" the Nymph replied, her emerald eyes gleaming with excitement as she thrust the throttle forward.

The Invictus' huge engines flared with a blazing orange glow, as the battlecruiser plunged into the chaotic battle once again.

***

The gunshots left purple trails through the air as Vekrok's elite guard unloaded on the locked doors. They were deep within the ship now and had chased the last few of the little grey runts into this room, before the door had abruptly closed behind them. Whatever the door was made of, it was tough as old boots, because they'd been blasting it for five minutes and it still hadn't buckled.

"Bahh, get outta my way!" he grunted, barging his way past his men and knocking several of them flying. "You lot are fucking useless!"

His bulging black eyes studied the imposing doorway, looking for possible weak points. Its entire surface was a pitted mess, covered in deep craters from the powerful rounds that had slammed into it. None of the shots had penetrated yet, but there were definitely a few places that looked in bad shape.

Dropping his black swords on the ground with a dull clatter, Vekrok grasped his two maces in matching two-handed grips, then activated the power fields on both weapons. A glowing crackle of energy shrouded the head of each mace, with a deep humming sound filling the corridor. Raising both weapons back, his upper arms brought the first mace across from the right, hitting the door with a massive booming crash. No sooner had he pulled the mace back to swing again, than his lower arms swung in the second mace from the left, battering the doorway with another deafening impact.

Back and forth those two weapons worked, pummelling the besieged portal with hugely powerful blows. It didn't take long for the door to start creaking ominously as Vekrok smashed enormous dents into its surface and after the ninth blow, the upper half of the door split down the side with a horrible shriek of protest. As the door caved in, Vekrok was finally able to see into the room.

It was a huge black chamber - a control room of some kind - with scores of Ashanath cowering on the far side behind onyx consoles. Amongst those feeble aliens were nearly a dozen in white dresses, which he knew were the leaders of those pitiful creatures.

"You're fucked now," he gloated, wrenching the smashed doors apart. A few red laser bolts streaked across the room in his direction, but he laughed at their pathetic weapons. Vekrok stepped backwards and picked up his two discarded swords, before turning to look at his men. "You can eat the rest, but capture the bosses in white. I need them alive!"

His elite bodyguard howled with glee, their lime-green faces twisting into terrifying expressions of hunger through the red-tinted faceplates of their black armour. They poured through the door, eager to start feasting on the scores of terrified Ashanath within, Vekrok following them in as his men charged towards the cowering Ashanath. Surprisingly, the nine white-robed leaders were standing there with their eyes closed, probably so scared out of their minds that they didn't want to see the Drakkar coming for them.

Vekrok grinned in anticipation, but he suddenly heard a faint whisper, somehow sounding clear in his head despite the raucous battle cries from his men.

*Sleep... It is time to rest...* an eerie voice murmured to him, the quiet voice strangely compelling.

Staggering on a couple more steps, Vekrok's toothy jaw opened in a long yawn, his bulging eyes drooping as he started to get drowsy. All around him his men were slowing to a halt, or just putting down their weapons and squatting down on the floor to sleep. He tried to shrug it off as long as possible, but that voice was everywhere, filling his mind with irresistible thoughts of slumber.

***

Alyssa and Rachel caught up with the chasing group of Drakkar just as they were herding their Ashanath prey into the second group. The Terran girls could see the looks of fear on the small, silver-clad Ashanath crew as they nearly ran into the Drakkar waiting for them, whirling around and looking at their pursuers in horror.

*Start on your left and work your way towards the middle,* Alyssa ordered Rachel, flinching as a Maliri ghost screamed in terror, her face hollowing out as the life force was remorselessly sucked from her body.

*They're fully armoured, I won't be able to punch through with the Justice Laser,* Rachel replied, as she took cover behind a console and aimed at the first Drakkar on the left-hand side.

Alyssa handed over her Punisher rifle and a couple of spare magazines. *Use this as well. You're strong enough to carry both, but don't bother with headshots. Shoot high-powered bursts at centre mass.*

The brunette nodded grimly, accepting the Punisher rifle and steadying both weapons on the console in front of her, one in each hand. Aiming the Justice Laser, she opened fire on the first of the Drakkar. Sizzling blue laser bolts struck its protective force field, ripples undulating outwards from the impact for a couple of seconds, before the shield was overwhelmed. She immediately squeezed the trigger on the Punisher rifle, shooting her now-shieldless foe.

"VrmPrrrkaow!" the railgun barked, sending a trio of twenty-millimetre slugs into the back of the Drakkar's black battlesuit. The heavy calibre bullets punched huge holes through its torso, showering the Ashanath and Drakkar beyond in a deluge of blood.

Not bothering with any finesse, Alyssa simply reached out with a pair of huge telekinetic fists to grab the closest Drakkar. Taking a firm hold of his legs to anchor him to the floor, her second fist gripped him around the torso, then began to tug at his chest. His armour was strong and offered some resistance, so she focused more intently and jerked upwards, ripping him apart in a jet of blue gore. The creature's four arms flailed wildly as it screamed in agony, before she tossed his mangled torso aside and reached for another.

She worked through the group methodically, doing her best to concentrate on the Drakkar and ignore the deaths of hundreds of Maliri around her. The women had died in so many different ways, from accidents to deaths in combat, but by far the worst was seeing the vital young women have the life force sucked out of them. She did her best to ignore the Maliri death throes as she waded into the Drakkar, dismembering the aliens as quickly and efficiently as she could manage.

Pulling them apart was taking too long, so she summoned up a glowing white sledgehammer with a huge, sharply-angled head, and started battering her way through her black armoured foes. The ghostly mallet rose and fell, pounding bloody rents through their armour as she smashed them into the ground with her telekinetic weapon. The Drakkar were stunned by their attacker's sudden appearance, but they finally reacted as Alyssa started tearing them apart, while Rachel hit them from the other side with her two weapons.

The handful of survivors from the first group started firing back, joined by the second, who ignored the Ashanath that had collapsed on the ground in fear.

Alyssa ducked back around a blocky capacitor, seeking temporary respite from the purple bullets that zipped overhead. As she got ready to knock the Drakkar down with a wave of telekinetic force, movement off to her left caught her eye. She gasped as she turned to see a squad of armoured women in an intense gunfight with several armoured Maliri.

The sinister weapons sent streams of dark-red bolts into their foes, overcoming what appeared to be shields, before punching into the Maliri's armoured bodies. Both sets of women wore full body armour, the style eerily reminiscent of the very suit of Paragon armour she wore herself. Alyssa could see the faces of the Maliri's attackers through the clear visors of their helmets and she gaped at their yellow skin and flaming red hair. Her eyes widened as she saw someone stalking towards them, someone she'd seen several times before...

"Alyssa!" Rachel cried out, as the blonde girl stopped killing the Drakkar. More shots sailed around them, the Drakkar intensifying their fire. "I need you! What's happening?!"

***

John finished off the second group of Drakkar, narrowly saving the terrified Ashanath from the hungry beasts that had removed their helmets and were about to tuck into their victims. He watched the Drakkar marine's head sail across the room, the armoured helmet turning cartwheels in slow motion and sending out sprays of blue blood.

He was about to help up the shocked Ashanath when he heard the first resounding crash echoing from deeper in the ship. A quick glance at the map showed him that the lead group of Drakkar had reached the Ashanath High Council in the spot Ularean had chosen for them. It didn't take him long to realise that the Drakkar were trying to break inside and he bolted from the room without a backward glance at the pair of Ashanath he'd just saved.

As John sprinted down the corridor towards the High Council's safety room, he heard more of those crashes, the noise stretched out in long moments as he raced to help Ularean.

***

Something felt naggingly wrong to Vekrok about having a nap in the middle of a fight, especially when his quarry were only a few dozen metres away from him.

*You feel so weary. You have had a very busy day and it is time to recover your energy,* the voice continued relentlessly.

Vekrok glanced around him, seeing that he was the only one still standing, the rest of his men having all fallen asleep. His heavy eyes settled on the Ashanath in white robes ahead of him, seeing the blood streaked over the face of one of them. That blood was so delicious. He knew it would trickle down his throat as he gorged himself on their leaders, filling his belly with their scrumptious grey flesh. He just needed to torture their secrets out of them first.

*There is plenty of time for that later. You must sleep now, instead,* the voice continued, reverberating slightly with fear.

That brief tremble in the whispering voice was enough for Vekrok to break free of the insidious mental compulsion and his eyes snapped open as he woke. "You sneaky little shits!" he roared indignantly, charging across the room at the Ashanath that had ensorcelled his men.

He thrust forward with his sword, impaling the blood-soaked one through the stomach. Not enough to kill the bastard, but just the right amount to leave him writhing in agony and break the spell they'd put on his men.

Ularean's eyes flashed open, his mouth open wide in a shrill scream of pain as Vekrok stabbed him in the gut. The rest of the High Council's eyes flashed open too, gaping at Vekrok in horror as they shared Ularean's pain through their telepathic connection.

"Try and control me like a puppet? That's what happens," Vekrok gloated, yanking out the sword and letting Ularean collapse on the floor in a blood-soaked heap.

***

Alyssa stood paralysed with the intensity of the psychic echo she was now experiencing, staring in a mixture of awe and fear at the man in her vision. This dreadful imprinted moment had been dredged up from an archaic past, but it was from a time she had witnessed briefly before in the Nexus files...

Mael'nerak's stern face was contorted with rage, his black goatee framing a mouth twisted with fury. Swirling vortexes of jet-black psychic energy whipped around his arms, the storms of energy matching his furious temper. Ghastly tendrils shot out from his fingers, spearing the yellow-skinned redheads through the chest. Their tortured cries of pain matched the terrible expressions of agony on their faces, as he lifted up nearly a score of the armoured women in his supernatural grip.

The black tentacles pulsated sickeningly, with bulges travelling down their lengths towards Mael'nerak's fingertips. It took several agonising seconds for the women to die, horrific moments that Alyssa shared with the psychic imprint left etched into the room. With a strangled cry, she collapsed on the ground, overcome by the brutal intensity of such torment.

"Alyssa!" Rachel cried out, ducking behind the console and darting to her side.

The brunette rolled her limp body over, but her rush of relief to see she was still alive was tempered by the realisation that Alyssa was unconscious. Rachel dragged her further back behind the blocky capacitor, quickly activating the HUD comm interface in her helmet, while firing her Justice rifle at the Drakkar in an attempt to hold them at bay.

***

John sprinted down the corridor towards the broken doorway, his heart lurching in his chest as it became obvious that the Drakkar had broken through into the High Council's sanctuary. He could see black-armoured bodies on the ground inside the room, so it looked like the Ashanath had made them pay dearly for storming into the room. He just hoped he wasn't too late...

Abruptly his enhanced speed faded away and he heard a Drakkar's deep roar of anger reverberate down the corridor, the bellow sounding normal now.

*Alyssa! What happened? Are you out of energy?* he asked in a rush, as he ran towards the open doorway. Bizarrely, the Drakkar lying on the ground started to stand up again, dispelling his illusion that they were dead.

He charged up to the doorway and stared in shock at the biggest Drakkar he'd ever seen, the massive creature towering over Ularean, who was lying in a heap on the floor. The Drakkar's sword was dripping with blood, making it obvious what had happened to the Ashanath Senior Councillor.

Even more alarming, there was still no response from Alyssa. He was about to try reaching out to her again, when the comm interface in his HUD crackled to life.

"John! We're in trouble!" Rachel screamed, her fearful face showing her acute distress. "Alyssa blacked out! She said something about seeing ghosts!" Drakkar weapon fire sounded shockingly loud in the background as she flinched away from those shots.

John was truly conflicted, knowing that to leave the Ashanath alone with the Drakkar was abandoning them to a horrible fate. Then again, it was Alyssa and Rachel in trouble. It took him less than a second to make his decision and he began to turn away, giving the Ashanath a look of profound regret.

"I'm out of psychic energy, it'll take me a few minutes to get there!" he said decisively.

Sakura's holographic face appeared a second later as she spoke, Rachel having called them both for help. "I'm already on my way! I'll be with you in half that time!"

Rachel blinked in shock when she saw the inner glow from the Asian girl's eyes, but she shrugged it off quickly. "We're pinned down by at least ten Drakkar shooting at us! Please hurry!"

Realising that there was nothing he could do to help and that he would have to place his trust in Sakura to save the women he loved, John strode into the room. He glanced at his HUD to increase the audio amplifiers on his Paragon suit and thundered, "Drakkar! Is killing unarmed Greys the best you've got?"

The hulking monstrosity whirled around at the deafening noise, his hideous hammer-headed face glaring at the impudent upstart that had dared to challenge him. When he saw the Terran in his glistening white armour with his shiny sword, he laughed mockingly, the snide laughter echoing around the room.

"Show me what you've got, Terran!" Vekrok boomed, brandishing his twin swords and maces with relish.

***

The Invictus barrelled through the raging battle, gun batteries blazing. Faye's team of avatars were doing an admirable job, firing the Pulse Cannons and Gauss Cannons at the teeming swarm of dropships. As the ugly, vicious looking vessels exploded around them, she fired the battlecruiser's Beam Lasers and Heavy Cannons at the remaining Drakkar capital ships. A battleship was hit in a dozen different places, the azure beams dragging along its length as the Invictus raced past.

Unlike the far weaker Ashanath weapons, the Invictus' Maliri-based beams raked straight through the armour, melting the superstructure beneath too. Faye's salvo lacerated the battleship's port flank, burning away over fifty metres of armour and leaving a gaping trench in the side of the vessel. The subsequent barrage of Heavy Cannon shells punched into the hull without any armour to slow them down, finally detonating deep inside the ship. It exploded in a crimson inferno, scattering a million pieces of wreckage outwards on the cataclysmic blast wave.

This section of space was awash with hulks of the fallen and swathed in a sea of debris, making flying through it extremely treacherous. Jade rolled the battlecruiser to the left, pulling up sharply to avoid the burned-out wreck of an Ashanath cruiser. As the Invictus swept by the blackened disc, the rear of a Drakkar battleship slowly tumbled into their path. This section of the vessel was all that remained of the huge angular vessel, after a magazine explosion had blown it to bits. Pushing down on her flightstick and pulling back on the throttle, Jade narrowly avoided crashing into the shattered derelict and pointed the battlecruiser towards the next big cluster of dropships.

There was a fierce impact that made the Invictus tremble and Jade blinked in surprise as she exclaimed, "Hey! I missed that wreck! What hit us?!"

"Heavy Cannon shells," Dana said with a grim frown. "We took two hits to starboard. The armour's fucked, but still holding."

*Alyssa, order the Ashanath cruisers and battleships to regroup with the destroyers. We need them covering each other with point defence,* Calara thought to the blonde. *Destroyer group fifteen in section 'J-47' needs to turn on a heading of oh-eight-nine, to link up with cruiser group six.*

She waited for a couple of moments, surprised when her girlfriend didn't immediately respond with a confirmation of those orders.

*Alyssa? Are you there?* she asked again, but there was still no reply.

Calara felt a tremor of fear at the lack of response from her lover. She darted a nervous glance across the Combat Bridge and asked, "Dana, can you try hailing Alyssa via her helmet HUD? She's not responding to me."

The redhead glanced at her in surprise and her eyes widened in alarm when she attempted to contact Alyssa via telepathy, but didn't receive a response either. She sat up straight and her nimble fingers danced over the engineering console as she attempted to contact Rachel instead.

The brunette's frightened face appeared a moment later and Dana blurted out, "We lost contact with Alyssa! What's happening?!"

Rachel grimaced and they all heard a flurry of shots race over her head. She looked away from the holo-cam and the sound of her Justice Laser firing back filled the Bridge, quickly followed by the bark of a Punisher rifle. A Drakkar's agonised roars confirmed the effectiveness of her shooting.

Focusing on the camera again, the brunette exclaimed, "Alyssa's unconscious! She was seeing psychic echoes on the Legacy - ghosts of all the people who died here! I think it was too much for her; she must have been overwhelmed by it!"

"Where's John and Sakura?!" Dana blurted out, gripped with fear for her lover. "They shouldn't have left you alone!"

Flinching from another fusillade of shots, Rachel replied, "They didn't! Alyssa was slaughtering the Drakkar before-"

Her reply was cut off as she screamed in pain, the comm channel ending abruptly.

"Rachel!" Dana screamed, half-rising from her seat in an instinctive reaction, wanting to run to her lover's aid.

A warning alarm echoed around the Bridge, shocking an already stunned crew.

"What's that alarm mean?" Tashana asked looking around at the other girls for an explanation.

"We've been hit by docking harpoons!" Faye wailed, wringing her hands in worry. "I'm so sorry! I was supposed to be firing the Pulse Cannons at the Drakkar, but I was so worried about Rachel and Alyssa, I got distracted!"

Jade shook her head and replied, "It's not your fault. I was just as distracted as you were and I flew straight through them."

Calara blinked and shook her head to try and focus, gripping the weapon controls and taking over the Pulse Cannons. The Invictus had flown right through a group of three Drakkar dropships, the brutish vessels promptly hitting the battlecruiser with docking harpoons and reeling themselves in. She opened fire immediately, managing to hit two and shredding them with a torrent of blue laser bolts. The third had already pulled itself inside the Pulse Cannons' firing arcs and a couple of seconds later, it clamped onto the hull.

"Oh, fuck me!" Dana exclaimed, paling at the thought of being boarded by Drakkar again. She leaned over her console in a panic and blurted out, "They're on Deck Three! Outside the Simulator Room!"

Turning to look at the crew, Calara said curtly, "We need to repel boarders! Dana, you're in no shape to fight. Try and get in contact with John or Sakura and find out what's happening on the Legacy. Jade, stay up here and keep us away from any more trouble. Tashana and Irillith, you're with me!"

Irillith had been using a Drakkar Battleship's Beam Lasers to fire on its own dropships, but she shook herself out of her hacking trance and back to full awareness on the Invictus' Bridge. Rising from her seat, she reached for the grip of her Punisher rifle with her right hand, while holding up her left hand to stop Calara as she started for the ramp. "Let me and Tashana handle the boarders."

The Latina turned to look at her in surprise. "We haven't got time for this, we need to move now!"

"You can still make a big difference to the battle by manning the Invictus' guns and saving the Ashanath from being boarded. Faye's good, but she can't match your shooting," Irillith said earnestly.

Calara shook her head, protesting, "You two can't face them alone! There must be about twenty in that dropship!"

The Maliri girl started up the ramp, saying over her shoulder, "Leave the invaders to us. We'll have Faye helping on the Sonic Cannons."

Tashana patted Calara on the shoulder as she rushed past on her way up the ramp, falling into step beside her sister. They entered the grav-tube up to the bedroom at the same time and were whisked up to Deck Two in a couple of seconds. When they walked out, Tashana darted a nervous look at her twin as she said quietly, "It might have been sensible to bring Calara along. Drakkar have a reputation for ferocity and we're going to be massively outnumbered."

Irillith turned to look at her as they jogged along the corridor, her eyes glowing with an eerie violet radiance. The light shining from her right eye flickered as she winked at her twin.

***

Sakura's booted feet barely touched the ground as she practically flew down the Legacy's silver tunnels. She didn't even react as she sprinted full tilt into the older section of the ancient Progenitor vessel, not having time to waste with such trivialities as being afraid. Her own reserves of energy were nearly tapped out and she knew she had to reach her friends before she exhausted it all.

She didn't need to rely on the map now; in her heightened state, the cable of light linking her to Alyssa guided her in. Moving like a heat-seeking missile, she powered through the corridors, drawing ever closer to her target. The doors to the room ahead of her were wide open and she stormed inside without hesitation, charging into a room filled with massive old machinery. Her path led straight through the huge obstacles that were blocking the way, so she kicked off the ground, using thrusters from her Paragon armour to launch herself through the air.

Her speed had done its job getting her there in time, but she deactivated it now, needing the last of her energy for the fight to come. A terrifying crack announced her presence to everyone in the room, as her swords were sheathed in a swirl of ice crystals. She held the twin swords fully extended ahead of her, diving through the air as she descended on the group of Drakkar who were looking around in confusion.

The Drakkar looming over Rachel had no time to react as Sakura's ninjato punched through its torso, skewering both hearts with her frost-coated blades. She let her momentum carry her with him as he toppled over backwards and when she pulled her swords free, his brittle, frozen armour shattered with that effortless withdrawal.

Rolling forward, she kicked off from his chest and plunged the twin ninjato through the foreheads of the Drakkar's two closest companions. Their faces froze in horror, dying in an instant from a truly lethal case of brain freeze.

The rest of the Drakkar backed away from her now, terror in their eyes as Sakura twisted her blades free with a splintering crack. There was a chilling intensity in her answering smile - cold, dispassionate justice dispensed to the guilty. Her ninjato twirled in her hands, leaving white trails in the air as she advanced on them, promising a frozen death to any who dared oppose her.

Unwilling to face this pitiless killing machine, the Drakkar fled for their lives, some even dropping their weapons in their haste to flee.

Sakura stopped her pursuit and watched them rout, then spinning around, she hurried back to her fallen companions. She skidded to her knees beside Rachel, panic on her face as she saw the blood over her right shoulder and the mangled, blood-soaked state of her helmet.

"Rachel!" she cried out in alarm, gently turning her bloodied helmet to check on her.

The brunette gave her a wan smile and muttered, "Shattered clavicle... John's going to have his work cut out healing me." She saw Sakura's worried eyes fixated on the right side of her head and added reassuringly, "The second round smashed the helmet but deflected and didn't penetrate... I'm alright."

Sitting back on her haunches, Sakura breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Thank God you're okay."

Rachel tried to sit up but failed despite a gallant effort. Sakura gently lifted her and the brunette fell into a hug with the Asian girl. Her voice throbbed with emotion as she whispered, "I was so scared. Thank you for coming for me..."

Being careful not to jostle her wounded shoulder, Sakura murmured quietly, "You're my friend. You saved my life, I saved yours - it's just what we do."

***

Faye had already prepared the defences by the time the Maliri twins arrived. The security doors were down, the fortified cover raised, and the turreted Sonic Cannons were deployed and pointing down the Deck Three corridor. One of her avatars was waiting for them, nervously raising herself up on tiptoe as she peered towards the reinforced door that now blocked the passageway.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here!" she gasped, turning around to face them, having tracked the sisters approach in the security cameras.

Irillith squatted down on the left of the hall, with Tashana copying her and dropping behind the right barricade. "Are they through yet?" Irillith asked, checking the status of her railgun.

Shaking her head, Faye replied, "Not yet, but you'll hear the breaching charges when they-"

A thunderous retort boomed from just ahead of them, making the floor vibrate with the impact. The tremor that raced through Tashana was not from the explosion, but from fear, and she tightened her grip on her pistols. Faye's giggle made her glance at the purple girl in surprise and she wondered what the AI could have possibly found amusing about the situation.

"I'm sorry," the purple sprite apologised. She looked from one confused Maliri to another and explained, "Their breaching charge didn't penetrate the hull! The Invictus' armour was too strong!"

"Did the blast take out the dropship?" Tashana asked, with a delighted grin on her face.

Irillith shook her head before the sprite could reply, saying, "It's a shaped charge, designed to punch through a hull. They'll still be there I'm afraid."

They had to wait another thirty seconds before there was a second explosion and this time Faye's worried frown warned them that the Drakkar had blown through the armour.

"That's my cue," Irillith said with a wicked grin of anticipation.

Her glowing eyes flared brighter and she peeled her astral form away from her body, so that she was standing before them. She wasted no time in running away down the corridor, her shimmering electric-blue figure passing straight through the bulkhead without pause. The door was sealed to the simulator room, but that was no obstacle to her ethereal presence, so she swept through it and almost ran headlong into the Drakkar.

The creatures gaped at her for a moment before they raised their evil-looking rifles, opening fire at her spectral form. Purple rounds zipped through her body, leaving faint trails in the air as they went on to hit the steel door, blasting huge holes through it. The black-armoured monsters ceased firing to stare at her in dumb incomprehension, wondering how she seemed to be able to completely ignore their purple bolts.

Irillith gave them a terrible smile as she raised her hands, deadly lightning dancing around her slender fingertips. Rather than just pouncing on the closest one and frying him in his armour, she splayed her fingers wide, then sent a crackling field of electricity towards them all. She shrouded the entire group in the sparking cloud, blue zephyrs arcing up their multitude of limbs. The Drakkar swatted at them fearfully, then shrank away from her as she strode through the group towards the back of the room. They tracked her with their guns, wondering what she was going to do next.

That was when the door behind them opened and the shooting began.

Irillith's electrical cloud had shorted out the Drakkar's protective energy shield, leaving them horribly vulnerable to the penetrating power of the Punisher weapons. The twins aimed for headshots, firing single, well-aimed shots and dropping three in the first second. When the twenty-millimetre slugs hit the back of the Drakkar's helmets, their heads simply exploded, the armour unable to prevent the massive stopping power of those hyper-accelerated rounds.

It took a couple of seconds for the Drakkar to react to that initial assault, during which time, over half their number were already dead. As they whirled around, there was a dull whumping noise and the biggest Drakkar in the middle of the pack was hit by a grenade, fired from the integral grenade launcher in Irillith's Punisher rifle. The explosion instantly killed him and shredded the two Drakkar standing beside him, while knocking the rest sprawling with the force unleashed by that detonation.

The flurry of railgun and pistol shots resumed after a momentary pause, slaying the rest of the writhing marines with single, precise shots to the head. The massacre had taken less than twenty seconds and when the twins ceased firing, there were twenty-two dead Drakkar lying headless on the ground.

Faye popped into existence in a purple flash, then quickly looked around for any signs of life. Her look of relief told the sisters everything they needed to know.

Tashana lowered her pistols, the barrels shimmering as the heatsinks vented the excess heat to cool them again. She stared at the carnage in the room beyond, her eyes widening at the brutal slaughter they had unleashed on the Drakkar. Something nagged at her about this fight and it wasn't just the raw carnage - she felt a pang of regret when she looked at the dead aliens.

"Are you alright?" Irillith asked, putting her arm around her sister's shoulders.

"We're just like the Maliri Thralls in all those images I discovered," Tashana said quietly, looking down at the weapons in her hands.

Irillith hugged her sister and shook her head, saying, "We're not part of some tyrannical conquest, we were protecting the weak against invaders. We aren't mindless Thralls, John's made us so much more than that."

Tashana turned to look at her sister, studying the violet radiance beaming from her eyes with awe. She found herself in complete agreement with her twin.

***

Leader Linnaeus had watched aghast as Alyssa had suddenly cried out in torment, then vanished from the command web. The Ashanath Captains in the sub-plane were shocked at the abrupt loss of the wondrous astral goddess in their midst, leaving them leaderless once more. Combined with the sudden terrifying appearance of the swarm of Drakkar dropships, chaos reigned amongst the Ashanath now, their morale broken.

He trembled in fear, watching as Drakkar dropships seemed to appear from everywhere on the Tactical Map. They poured out from the wrecks of cruisers and battleships, or launched from those vessels still in the fight, surrounding his battered ship from all sides.

*Which way should we go, Linnaeus?!* Navigator Cadimus asked in a panic, seeing dropships in every direction.

*Link up with the other cruisers, but watch out for that battleship!* Linnaeus ordered, still very much aware of the huge Drakkar capital ship that lurked just on the other side of the wreck they were using as cover.

Cadimus spun their silver disc-shaped cruiser around and flew towards the nearest two Ashanath cruisers, while being very careful about not exposing them to fire from the battleship. However, the fourth cruiser was not as cautious as it fled from cover, dashing to rejoin the other two cruisers in its group.

The Drakkar battleship turned ominously, scores of retro-thrusters firing on full thrust to rotate the massive vessel. As soon as the fire arcs for its forward beam array overlapped the fleeing Ashanath ship, it was lashed by over a score of purple beams. They vaporised the shields, overloading them in a split-second before lancing through the ship, blasting big holes through its hull. The Power relays were incinerated by those glowing streaks of energy and the perforated hulk lost all power, veering away until it slammed into another wreck in a shower of debris.

Tactical Officer Pallari fired away at the pursuing dropships, but they were small targets and hard to hit with the point defence grid. Even when the shots hit home and knocked out the shields, the black-armoured dropships shrugged off most of the laser fire, rushing on undaunted. There were five chasing after them and Linnaeus knew that if even one were to successfully breach their hull, his entire crew would end up eaten alive!

They neared the other two cruisers, but their situation was just as perilous, with incoming dropships approaching from all sides. Linnaeus felt despair threaten to overwhelm him as the Drakkar swarmed towards them, unstoppable in their reflective black-armoured ships. The cruiser trembled as it was speared by a docking harpoon and he knew they were only minutes away from being devoured.

Just when he thought all hope was lost, an incandescent white blast lit up the Tactical Map with a brilliant surge of light, making him turn away as his eyes recovered from the flare. The Nova Lance beam heralded the return of the Invictus and the white battlecruiser clinically eviscerated the battleship that the Ashanath had been slowly whittling down.

No sooner had the light from that blazing column of destructive power faded, then the map was crisscrossed by bright blue Beam Laser fire. The beams swept around the three surviving Ashanath cruisers, in what Linnaeus would have normally categorised as wildly reckless shooting. However, when the lights on the map dimmed, the silver discs hadn't been so much as touched. The same could not be said for the Drakkar however. The black dropships were just gone - instantly annihilated by the devastating power of the Invictus' beams.

When Linnaeus glanced at the Tactical Map again, the Ashanath cruisers were sitting alone in a torrid sea of debris, every Drakkar ship within Beam Laser range had been blown away. He watched the white-hulled vessel sweep on through the battlefield, bring terrible ruin to the surviving Drakkar forces.

Slumping back in his seat, he thanked the maker for JohnBlake and his crew, overwhelmingly glad that he helped save them from Drakkar raiders only a few months ago.

***

Vekrok let out a howling battle cry, then charged towards John, covering the thirty-metre gap in a surprisingly short time. Hyper-aggressive and ferocious, the Drakkar Grand Overlord launched straight into a blistering assault, stabbing out with both swords, intent on skewering him where he stood. John leapt to one side, narrowly avoiding being impaled by the terrifying black blades, each one of the crackling weapons as long as his crystal Alyssium sword.

Vekrok skidded to a halt then rounded on his opponent, both maces swinging for John's head, their flanged tops crackling with energy. John narrowly sidestepped one, then hurriedly parried the second mace with his sword, but the Drakkar was incredibly strong and John's eyes widened as he struggled to meet the strike from the mace. The tip of his sword wavered as their weapons clashed and Vekrok grinned as he easily overpowered him. John barely avoided tripping over one of the bodyguards as he was forced to skitter backwards, the elite soldiers just starting to wake from the psychic slumber that the High Council had induced in them.

The hulking Drakkar laughed dismissively, maces pulled back and at the ready, while his swords twirled around in flashy figure-of-eight pattern. "Scared, little Terran?" he sneered mockingly. "You should be! I'm Grand Overlord Vekrok, the fiercest and strongest of all the Drakkar! I've slain hundreds of far mightier opponents than you!"

"You talk a good game, I'll give you that," John said defiantly, but there was a tremor of uncertainty in his voice.

The massive Drakkar lunged forward and slashed with his swords, forcing John to hurriedly block one blow after another with desperate two-handed parries. The ringing clash of the blades pealed around the room and John staggered backwards with the force of each blow.

Chuckling to himself, Vekrok goaded his opponent, grunting, "So puny and foolish. What madness possessed you to challenge me to a fight?!"

"You'll find I'm full of surprises!" John retorted, but his bold words rang hollow.

He stabbed forward clumsily and Vekrok swiped down with a mace, effortlessly blocking the attack. His second mace swung for John's head, forcing him to duck beneath the blow then scamper backwards, the wicked slashes from the Drakkar's huge swords missing him by inches. Vekrok grinned mockingly, his fang-filled maw a terrifying sight.

The Drakkar bodyguards had quickly backed out of the way to make room for the combatants and they cheered on their boss, braying and hooting with laughter. Vekrok took lazy swings at John, making him dart around, dodging frantically for his life to the amusement of the crowd. The colossal Drakkar raised all four arms in the air, letting out a thunderous roar as he showboated for his retinue.

The Ashanath cowered in the corner of the big room, temporarily forgotten by the malevolent crowd in their lust for battle. The diminutive aliens watched with fearful eyes, knowing that their fate rested on this hopelessly one-sided duel.

John was forced back again and again by thrusts from swords or mighty overhead blows from the maces. He was panting now, tiring with the exertion, his sword looking heavy in his hands and the tip drooping under the strain. By contrast, Vekrok seemed tireless and full of energy and they could both tell that the end of the battle was fast approaching.

"Watching you dance around all day is tiresome, pathetic Terran," Vekrok sneered. His face twisted into a dreadful grin of anticipation as he licked his slavering jaws. "Perhaps you'll taste better than you fight. It's time to end this laughable duel."

The Drakkar leader let loose a ferocious roar then rushed forward, stabbing out with both swords to gut his exhausted opponent.

John smoothly sidestepped the reckless thrust, his sparkling white blade whipping upwards and shearing straight through Vekrok's overextended right wrist. Black sword and dismembered fist sailed through the air with the force of that blow, before landing with a heavy clang in the now deathly silent room.

Vekrok staggered backwards in shock, staring at the bloodied stump of his lower right forearm in horror. "What the fuck?!" he snorted indignantly, his face grimacing with the shooting pain.

Dropping his facade, John stood straight and tall, calm and confident as he watched his reeling opponent. He glanced down at the blood blue dripping from the tip of his sword, then met Vekrok's stunned gaze. "I agree, it IS time to finish this."

He glided towards the injured behemoth, sword held in a relaxed two-handed grip. Vekrok loosed a defiant, blood-curdling roar, then brought his maces down in a dual-overhead smash, while jabbing forward with his remaining sword. John dodged to the left to avoid the black blade, his sword sweeping up high to block both mace blows with a booming crash. The titanic force behind the strength of that parry smashed the Drakkar's arms backwards, leaving Vekrok's hands feeling numb. He gaped in shock as John whipped his sword down in a white arc, neatly severing another black-armoured fist.

It was the Drakkar's turn to scramble backwards now, howling with the pain. His maces waved around frantically in an attempt to protect himself, his bloodied stumps spurting blood all over the floor.

"If I'd had enough energy for psychic speed, I wouldn't have bothered with the theatrics," John said conversationally as he strolled forward. He smiled at the Drakkar as he confided in him, "I had a bad experience with another Drakkar swordsman. I didn't want to underestimate you, so I spent the last five minutes studying your fighting style."

He took a couple of quick steps forward, lunging with the tip of his blade. When Vekrok attempted to parry, John swept past him, the sword strike just a feint. With Vekrok's mace arm blocking awkwardly in front of him, John was able to slash upwards with his blade, hacking through the bicep of the monstrous creature's upper right arm. The mace and limb arced through the air, narrowly avoiding hitting one of the aghast Drakkar henchmen in the face.

"No one fights like this!" Vekrok balked incredulously, while staggering backwards. He took a wild swipe with his last mace, but John smacked it aside with a languid sweep of his blade.

"You see, there's a fair amount of predictability in the way you fight. You favour lunges with your swords and overhead blows with your maces," John explained, before glancing at the scattered limbs. He gave the Drakkar Overlord an apologetic smile and added, "Or at least, you did."

Vekrok let out a strangled cry of disbelief as his three drastically-shortened arms flailed about impotently. "You aren't a Terran! What the fuck are you?!" he snorted, bulging eyes wide with terror.

"I'm a Progenitor," John said quietly, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at Ularean's crumpled form. "The Ashanath are my allies and I'm not happy you attacked them."

He stalked forward, white blade at the ready once more. Vekrok could see his doom fast approaching and he charged forward in one last desperate attack. John moved swiftly to reposition himself, darting to the left on the Drakkar Overlord's exposed flank. He easily avoided the mace as it clanged into the floor, then he drove his sword point-first through Vekrok's helmet, skewering the monstrous alien's brain. He tore the blade free in a shower of blue ichor, then sidestepped as Vekrok toppled over, crashing to the ground with a mighty boom.

The Drakkar bodyguards in the room stared at John with terrified eyes, backing away from him as they made to flee from the room.

John turned to look at them, sword tip pointing in their direction as he said sternly, "Surrender now, or I'll slaughter every last one of you."

The creatures froze, paralysed with fear, but quickly did as he asked, dropping rifles and shields as they placed their four hands on their armoured heads.

Striding across the room to the Ashanath High Council, John crouched down next to Ularean. There was a ragged wound across the Senior Councillor's thin abdomen and his white robes were soaked with blood. Ularean's grey face had a very unhealthy pallor to it and John didn't need to be a doctor to realise the Ashanath leader needed urgent medical assistance.

"JohnBlake... you saved us..." Ularean managed to whisper, huge black eyes staring up at him.

John smiled at the critically wounded Grey and replied, "Of course, your people are my allies, Ularean." He glanced at the nasty wound, and added, "Let's get you patched up, then we really need to have a chat."

Ularean's laughter was thin and warbling as he replied, "Yes, we have a lot to talk about..."

***

"Get us the fuck out of here!" Warboss Magaruk roared at his helmsman, shaking the terrified Drakkar crewman in his desperation.

He flung him towards the console as there was another blast in the Bridge, the Engineer's Console exploding in a shower of sparks and frying the Drakkar at the station. A smell like cooked Tirrac eggs filled the Bridge and Magaruk wrinkled his nose in disgust. He'd always hated eggs!

He counted only eight cruisers fleeing for the Nav Beacon, with his ship the only one equipped with the Dark One's armour. While his cruiser might have been clad in that special reflective plating, that didn't mean they were invulnerable to laser fire. The pitiful remnants of the once unstoppable Drakkar fleet fled from the calamitous battle, relentlessly pursued by swift Ashanath destroyers.

While having all his cruiser's weapons front-facing was a great idea when on the attack, it was a terribly bad idea when trying to run away. The smaller ships were able to hammer them remorselessly with laser cannon fire and with most of his cruiser's capacitors blown out, those shots were causing a distressing amount of damage.

Still, they were faring better than some of the Drakkar captains in regular armour and he watched one of the other cruiser's engines explode under that hail of destroyer fire, slowing them down dramatically. More of the Ashanath destroyers caught up with it now and began to pepper the straggling ship with laser cannon blasts. Magaruk laughed at their misfortune, glad of the distraction for the vengeful Ashanath destroyers. As the old saying went, you didn't need to be fast enough to outrun a rampaging Brutasaur, you just needed to outrun your friends.

Eyes glinting evilly, he stomped over to his Tactical Officer and thumped a heavy fist down on his console to get his attention. He would have smacked him around the head, but a concussion might have upset his aim.

"Shoot that cruiser!" he snarled, pointing at another Drakkar ship that was ahead of them on the port flank, just inside beam laser range. Its shields were out, but other than that, it was largely unscathed and wasn't far from escape.

"You want me to fire on our own side, when we're running for our lives?!" the Tactical Officer balked incredulously, fearing that his boss had lost his mind.

Magaruk's eyes narrowed in anger, his hands clenching into fists. "Shoot out its engines..." he muttered, showing an impressive amount of restraint in stopping himself from throttling the imbecile. That would have to wait until later.

He saw the light of understanding appear in his gunner's eyes, his jaw snapping up and down in laughter. A few seconds later, he opened fire with their port Beam Lasers, the shot slicing through the cruiser's two starboard engines and dramatically slowing its speed.

Whirling around, Magaruk yelled at his Navigator, "Hard to starboard and get out of range of that cruiser, just in case they try and shoot back! Then bolt for the beacon!"

The Navigator did as he was ordered, swinging the nose of the angular black cruiser around to the right and away from the badly crippled cruiser. Magaruk watched it limping on towards the Nav Beacon, so close to escape. The Ashanath realised it too and he cackled with glee as the destroyers peeled off his tail to descend on the hamstrung cruiser. The Greys knew as well as he did, that their shots would have a much greater chance of stopping the steel-hulled ship from escaping.

His surviving Bridge Crew cheered in triumph, their four arms waving madly in celebration as they veered away from the Ashanath forces, now free to make their escape. Magaruk gave them a fang-filled grin, relishing the feeling of relief that they'd be able to survive this massacre and live to feast on Ashanath flesh another day.

That was when his world turned upside down - literally, in this case. There was a deafening crash as his cruiser collided into something out there in the blackness of space. Magaruk sailed through the air with the impact, slamming into the front wall of the Bridge and bouncing back to collapse on the floor in a stunned heap. It took a long moment for the room to stop spinning, but when it did, he wondered why he was in so much pain and why he couldn't move his legs.

When he looked down with groggy eyes, he saw that a support beam had collapsed across him, crushing his legs under its immense weight. He pushed at it feebly with his four arms, but it was far too heavy for him to move alone. Doing his best to block out the pain, he twisted around to look for help, but the rest of the Bridge Crew hadn't fared any better in the impact. His Helmsman had been skewered through the chest when he fell on a broken cabling pipe sticking through the wall and his Tactical Officer had snapped his neck when he was violently thrown across the room in the crash.

Magaruk's attention was drawn by the flicker of the Tactical Map as it blinked on and off intermittently. Highlighted on the map were a squadron of Ashanath destroyers, eagerly racing towards his battered ship.

"No!" he roared in horror. "I was so close!"

He stared at the map in disbelief, wondering what they could have possibly crashed into.

***

In a sinister onyx chamber lit by dark-red lights, a black-cowled figure stared at an intricate Tactical Map, showing detailed technical readouts of every vessel in the system. He chuckled as he watched John Blake's gaudy white ship gallivanting about, mopping up the last of the Drakkar forces. It took another five minutes to eliminate the last of the Drakkar, leaving the Invictus and the tattered remains of the Ashanath forces triumphant on that blood-soaked battlefield.

Making a sweeping gesture with his hand, he replaced the Tactical Map with an incredibly detailed overlay of this sector of the galaxy. The various half-baked "Empires" were highlighted in a variety of colours, with the major players depicted by three-dimensional pieces. His hand moved back across the map from left to right, ignoring the Enshunu and the Maliri, before pausing above a representation of the Drakkar.

He flicked the unspeakably hideous four-armed warrior with a finger and it toppled over with a crash, the note ringing with an air of finality, before the piece faded from view. Next, his fingers moved over the image of an unbearably ugly, bulbous-headed Ashanath and he flicked that over too. The thin alien tipped over on the board with a similarly final-sounding thump, before disappearing from sight. His incredulous laughter echoed around the gloomy chamber, light from the holographic map casting eerie shadows about the room.

"What IS he doing, Ailanthia?" he asked his Matriarch, sounding quite bemused.

Ailanthia had been standing silently by his side and she turned to look at him in shock. In the thousands of years she had served her master, he had never once addressed her in such a way. Slave - of course, Matriarch - often, but never by her actual name.

"My Lord?" she asked him tentatively, never having seen him act this way before.

He removed his black cowl, dropping it to his shoulders and revealing his handsome features. "No matter," he replied, his lips quirking into a smile - another rarity. He appraised her for a moment with a discerning eye, before turning on his heel and striding for the door. He clicked his fingers as he did so, adding in an imperious tone, "Come, Ailanthia, I feel like celebrating..."

Her angular eyes widened further and she scurried after him obediently. Other than her periodic feedings to maintain her youthful vigour, this was yet another startling first. What was going on? He'd never expressed that kind of interest in her before! Her heart skipped a beat at the prospect, a smile lighting up her beautiful light-green face. She had dreamed of this moment for eons and she was determined to make it one her master would remember forever.

Practically walking on air, Ailanthia eagerly followed her master into his bedroom.

***

John strode into the generator room, eyes darting around as he looked for the three girls.

"Over here!" Sakura called out to him, stepping out from around a huge piece of machinery. There were half-a-dozen Ashanath standing with them, watching proceedings with their unblinking black eyes.

He jogged over to join Sakura, giving her a warm smile as he approached. Alyssa was still unconscious on the floor, while Rachel was propped up against the ancient capacitor. She looked up at him and saw the expression on his face when he laid eyes on the nasty wound in her shoulder, coupled with the blood splattered all over the right side of her helmet.

"I'll be alright, it looks much worse than it is," she said, in a futile attempt to calm his fears.

John wasn't so sure and he knelt beside the injured girl, reaching out to cup the side of her head. "I'll heal you as fast as I can, but we need to get you out of here," he said with concern. Glancing up at Sakura, he added, "Can you help Rachel? I'll take Alyssa."

"Of course," the Asian girl replied, crouching down beside the wounded brunette.

"I can walk, there's no need for that," Rachel objected, trying to get up on her own and grimacing with the effort.

Sakura smiled at her stubborn friend as she gently restrained her with a firm hand, ignoring the doctor's protests. "I'll activate the emergency evacuation protocol in your armour and guide you out. Just rest, there's no need to exert yourself," she said kindly.

Rachel looked like she was going to say something but she changed her mind, shifting into a comfortable position and waiting as Sakura activated the Paragon's evacuation functionality. The body armour locked into place, keeping Rachel steady, then slowly rose from the ground. Sakura checked she was comfortable then nodded to John that they were ready.

She watched as he picked Alyssa up, effortlessly cradling her in his arms then asked him, "Why not use the evacuation functionality on her armour?"

"It's okay, I'd rather carry her," he replied, looking at the unconscious blonde with concern. Turning to the Ashanath he added, "We're heading back to the High Council. You'll be safer there if you want to come with us."

"Thank you JohnBlake," one of the silver-garbed aliens replied. "We greatly appreciate your offer of assistance."

The group set off across the room, heading back the way John had entered. The footing was treacherous, with the floor awash with blue blood and they picked their way around the mangled Drakkar corpses, their twisted bodies showing horrific injuries. John studied them as he walked by, eyebrows climbing as he saw the brutally smashed remains of a Drakkar battlesuit. The black carapace had been absolutely pulverised, looking more like a crumpled soda can than a formidable piece of body armour.

He glanced at Rachel and asked, "I assume this was Alyssa's handiwork?"

Rachel nodded, her gaze dropping to the blonde in his arms as she replied quietly, "She's getting so much stronger. Until she was incapacitated, she was tearing them to pieces."

He paused for a second to study the devastation around them, the scattered limbs, the battered bodies... It looked like a vengeful god - or more specifically goddess - had unleashed her wrath on the Drakkar. Looking thoughtful he continued onwards through the door, leading them back towards Ularean.

Sakura walked alongside him, matching his pace and she glanced his way curiously. "Why are we heading back to the High Council? Shouldn't we be evacuating the Legacy now, so Rachel can recover?"

John glanced at the brunette floating along beside Sakura and replied, "Ularean's very badly hurt. I'm worried he's not going to make it without medical intervention and there are no medical staff with the High Council."

Sakura glanced at Rachel's ravaged shoulder and said dubiously, "I'm not sure how much help she'll be in this state."

"I'll be okay," Rachel murmured, getting drowsy now that the adrenalin had worn off. The anaesthetic that Sakura had given her - with the young doctor's guidance - had helped numb the pain of her injury.

Changing the subject, John met Sakura's brown-eyed gaze and said earnestly, "Thank you so much for saving them both. I wouldn't have been able to make it in time and the High Council would have been slaughtered if I'd tried. I don't know what I'd have done if..." His voice trailed away and he shuddered at the thought of losing either of the young women that meant so much to him.

Sakura blushed at the intensity of the look he gave her and replied, "You never have to thank me for helping to protect the girls. I owe all of you too much for that."

John smiled at her affectionately, and said, "You don't owe us anything, but you really came through for me today." He studied her for a moment, then added, "You and I need to talk when we're back on the ship. There's a few important things we need to discuss."

She returned his smile as she replied eagerly, "Definitely! Thank you, by the way."

"You're very welcome," he replied, giving her a brief nod as their eyes met.

They walked in companionable silence for the next couple of minutes, sharing brief glances and smiles as they did so. John was following their progress on the overlay map and he could see they weren't far from the room where the Ashanath High Council had sought sanctuary. He looked down at the unconscious blonde is his arms, Alyssa showing no sign of rousing from her comatose state.

"Athena... Can you hear me?" he called to the blonde, watching intently for any sign of a reaction.

It took several moments before her eyelids began to flutter and her eyes slowly opened. The white radiance behind those orbs was faint though, a pale shadow of the normal gleaming intensity.

"John..?" she whispered, her voice sounding weak and very distant.

He breathed a sigh of relief, then asked urgently, "Are you both alright?"

Her chin moved a few millimetres in a barely perceptible nod. "We just need... rest."

Glancing at Rachel with a worried frown, he faltered for a moment before asking Athena, "I'm really sorry to ask this, I know you're weakened at the moment, I was wondering..."

"Take what you need... we have plenty," Athena murmured, before her eyelids drooped and she fell asleep once more.

John watched her for a little while, but she showed no signs of stirring. They finally reached the plundered doorframe where Vekrok had smashed his way into the High Council's sanctuary, the splintered remains of the jagged-edged doors lying broken on the deck. The surviving Drakkar had gone now, taken to the brig by the Ashanath soldiers who had been guarding the council. Their suits of body armour and sinister black weapons lay where they had removed them, piled up on the floor.

One of the white robed Ashanath glided across the room to meet John as he approached, greeting him with a bow. "Thank goodness you have returned, JohnBlake. Ularean grows weaker by the moment," Councillor Talari said in his whispering voice. He turned to look at Sakura and continued, "Is this Terran your doctor?"

John shook his head, hesitating for a second as he had no idea which of the council members this was. "No, Councillor... The girl beside Sakura is our doctor. Her name's Rachel."

"But she appears grievously wounded," Talari replied, his voice modulator managing to convey his distress. He suddenly realised the reason behind John's hesitation and added, "I apologise for not introducing myself. I am Councillor Talari."

John gave him a rueful smile and said, "I should be the one apologising. We'll talk in a moment, Talari." He turned to look at Sakura and continued, "Could you help Rachel down, please. I need to attend to her."

The Asian girl immediately did as he asked, cautiously guiding Rachel down to the black surface of the floor. She was careful as she laid her down and deactivated the evacuation protocol on her Paragon suit, but the shift in position was still enough to awaken the brunette.

"Just give me a second to get my bearings," she said groggily, trying to sit up and fumbling for the medical pack on her waist. "Where's Ularean?"

John knelt beside her, placing Alyssa down on the ground, then restrained Rachel with a gentle hand. "Lie back and rest, honey. You can help Ularean in a minute, but I need to take care of you first."

"Sure," she agreed amiably, lying back onto the onyx surface. "I've got a shattered clavicle and a-"

"Shh, I know," John murmured, placing his right hand on her chest, while staring intently at Alyssa. Without taking his eyes from the blonde's face, he said to Rachel, "This might feel a little strange..."

The mental compartments in his mind still showed a white glow emanating from Rachel, the connection between him and her still active. She'd taken a terrible wound to her shoulder and the injury was illuminated in red, giving him all the information he needed to restore her body to perfection. He began to draw psychic energy from his sleeping matriarch, watching her face for even the slightest hint of distress. The flow began as a slight trickle as he experimented with pulling power from Alyssa, but he quickly ramped that up when she seemed unperturbed by his actions. He heard Rachel gasp, but didn't look her way, keeping his intense focus squarely on Alyssa.

"How remarkable," Talari murmured, watching as the torn tissue and bone in Rachel's shoulder began to regenerate, rebuilding her shattered body before his very eyes.

John nodded but remained silent, using his psychic might to restore and rejuvenate the teenager's body. It took roughly ten seconds to finish healing her, and he threw a quick glance at Rachel to confirm she was alright. Her flawless bronzed skin was visible beneath the jagged rent in her Paragon armour and she gave him a lovely smile in gratitude, looking serene and happy.

Returning her smile, he intensified the flow of eldritch power, massively ramping it up to ever greater orders of magnitude. His attention was back on Alyssa then, so he couldn't see Rachel's expression, but he could certainly hear her reaction.

"Oh my God!" Rachel yelped, back arching as her body surged with energy.

She felt like her body was wrapped in soft cotton wool, but her nerve endings were suddenly so hyper-sensitive that the gentle tickling sensation was totally overpowering. The psychic energy rolled through her nervous system, making her body feel like it was coming to life for the first time. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she let out an ecstatic moan, quivering helplessly as she rode the crest of a climactic wave for what seemed like an eternity.

Rachel convulsed against John's hand, crying out as he applied his will to her body. He focused on enhancing her genetic code, his intent providing the framework for the powers he was gifting to her. This work was subtle and very different to anything he'd tried before. He felt some resistance, although it wasn't coming from Rachel but from deep within himself instead - almost as if this was forbidden knowledge that should never be shared. He ignored that perplexing sensation, driving ahead with his plans for her and providing very specific instructions to the third helix of her DNA.

When John abruptly throttled back the psychic energy he was pouring into her body, Rachel was left panting and breathless on the floor. "What did you do?!" she gasped, staring up at him in awe.

Satisfied that Alyssa seemed none-the-worse for wear after the swift withdrawal of such a huge volume of eldritch power, he turned to look at Rachel once more. He smiled at her and replied, "I just put you on an equal footing with Dana."

Rachel blushed, realising that Alyssa had told him about their earlier conversation. She was about to reply when she gaped at his face in shock. A dark supernatural aura appeared around him, temporarily obscuring his features in shadows. Her natural reaction was to recoil from that fearful shroud; it was horribly disconcerting the way it obscured and confounded her senses, but in seeing it, she instantly knew his species. He was a Progenitor.

Reminding herself that it was just John she was looking at and to stop being silly, she reached out to touch him, sensing that aura and getting a feeling for his wellbeing. Species: Progenitor - slightly fatigued... lightly wounded; laceration to left bicep. She looked around with wide eyes, gazing up at Sakura who knelt beside her. The beautiful Asian girl was swathed in her own shroud and when Rachel touched her fingers to Sakura's chest she was able to read that aura too. Species: Enhanced Terran - fatigued... otherwise unharmed.

She moved to stand up, gratefully accepting John's hand as she rose to her feet. Talari was standing nearby, his small mouth open wide in wonder. He didn't resist or flinch away as she slowly brought her fingers towards him, gently brushing them over his arm. Species: Ashanath - elevated stress levels... otherwise unharmed.

"This way, honey," John said encouragingly, beckoning her towards Ularean, who lay crumpled on the floor.

Rachel turned to look at the Senior Councillor and even though she wasn't well versed in a Grey's anatomy, she knew he didn't have long left. Ularean's breathing was shallow and laboured, his white robe soaked with blood from the vicious sword wound to his abdomen. John had crouched down beside Ularean and she followed his lead, kneeling down beside the Ashanath leader. She reached out to place her hand on his bloodied torso, intent on getting a reading from his aura. Species: Ashanath - mortally wounded; severe damage to small and large intestines, internal bleeding, punctured spleen.

"Do you know what you need to do?" John asked, reaching out to place a supportive hand on her shoulder.

Turning to face him, she looked at him in astonishment and blurted out, "You mean I can-?"

"I think he'd prefer it if you did it instead of me," John replied with a wry smile.

She caught his meaning then laughed, nodding her agreement. Focusing on Ularean again, she instinctively knew what she needed to do to save him. As she focused on the Ashanath's torn body, a misty glow pulsed out from her hand on the Senior Councillor chest and began knitting the flesh back together again. Toxins had been released into his body from the ruptured intestines, so she flushed those from his system, cleansing and purifying him as she worked. There were startled gasps from the gathered councillors as she slowly closed his ragged wound, repairing his body and saving him from the critical injury.

"You have healed me, RachelBlake!" Ularean gasped in wonder, his eerie voice sounding stronger now already.

Rachel smiled at him, then suddenly yawned, feeling overcome with exhaustion.

John caught her in his arms as she slumped backwards. "I'm so proud of you, honey. You were amazing!"

"I can't believe you gave me the ability to heal," Rachel mumbled, gazing up at him in adoration.

He smiled at her and said gently, "Get some rest now, you need to sleep. Your body still needs to recover after I healed you earlier."

Rachel nodded, leaning into him for support. He held her in his arms, stroking her back soothingly as her eyelids grew heavy and she fell fast asleep. Turning to look at the Ashanath Senior Councillor, John watched him sit upright, colour returning to his cheeks - or at least a less unhealthy grey pallor.

"The same goes for you too, Ularean. You should get some rest after having such a traumatic injury healed," John said, his voice kind and sympathetic.

"It appears I am in even greater debt to you, JohnBlake," Ularean replied, accepting assistance from Councillor Talari, who helped him stand.

John gave him a magnanimous smile. "We'll have a talk later and I've got a couple of favours to ask. After that, we'll call it even."

Ularean paused for a moment, turning slowly to look at the gathering of Councillors. There seemed to be some kind of silent telepathic conversation passing between them all, but he eventually turned back to face John again.

The leader of the Ashanath bowed slowly, his huge black eyes focused intently on John as he said, "We are your humble servants JohnBlake. Whatever you ask of us, we shall do our utmost to facilitate."

***

"Jade's already on her way," Calara said, greatly relieved to see John's face again. "We've swept the battlefield clear and the Drakkar threat has been completely eliminated in the Ashana system."

"Excellent work, Commander," John said, giving her a tired but deeply appreciative smile. "I'll look forward to seeing you soon."

"Likewise, Admiral," she said with a grin, blowing him a kiss before closing the comm channel. She glanced at the Tactical Map again, eyes darting from side to side, double-checking in case there were any more dangers lurking amongst the broken sea of wreckage.

Irillith squatted down beside her and said soothingly, "You can relax now, Calara. It's time to switch off that busy brain of yours. We won."

The Latina glanced at Irillith in surprise, then slumped back in her seat, blowing out her breath. Suddenly her Paragon helmet felt stifling, and she pressed the button to unseal it before quickly pulling it off. Shaking out her hair, she tilted her head back and took in big lungfuls of fresh air. Irillith copied her, removing her own helmet, then reached up to stroke Calara's lustrous brown mane.

Calara stared out at the forlorn battlefield, filled with hundreds of shattered spacecraft, each one a tragic tomb for the crew within. Barely thirty-nine of the Ashanath's cruisers were still operational and they were down to their last seven battleships, every one of which had sustained damage of some kind. She hadn't had a chance to count the destroyers yet, scattered as they were, but she knew they'd lost well over half their number. It might have been a victory, but the cost had been horrific...

"So many lives lost," she murmured, eyes welling up as she gazed at a burned-out hulk that used to be a shining silver battleship. Her voice quavered as she added, "Maybe I could've done something different; come up with better tactics..."

Shaking her head, Irillith turned Calara's face with her hands, gazing into her eyes as she said fiercely, "The fact that ANY of those ships survived is miraculous! They were outnumbered two-to-one by a greatly superior force. The Drakkar ships were tougher, they outgunned the Ashanath, and their forces were vastly better in a boarding action. You're probably the only person in the galaxy capable of snatching a victory in the face of such impossible odds!"

"So why does it feel like I failed them?" Calara asked wretchedly, a tear rolling down her cheek.

Irillith opened her arms to the girl, pulling her in for a tight hug and whispering comforting words in Calara's ear.

Tashana had removed her helmet as well, then watched and listened to Irillith with her mouth open in shock, marvelling at the compassion she was displaying. She jumped when Dana reached out and gently pushed up her chin to close it, then whirled around to see the redhead standing beside her.

Dana gave her a tired smile, then leaned in to whisper in Tashana's ear, "I still like to tease your sister, but she's changed beyond all recognition from the woman she was when we first met her. She's really lovely now, just like you."

The Maliri girl looked up at the redhead with wide eyes, then embraced her in a rush, suddenly overwhelmed with affection for her newfound friend.

***

John shared a smile with Sakura as the white hull of the Raptor slid past the window set in the outer airlock door. They both heard the docking clamps locking into position and ten seconds later, the gunship's door began to spiral open. John nudged the button to open the Legacy's airlock and when it had slid up into the ceiling, they saw Jade waiting on the other side, giving him a beaming grin.

"You're a sight for sore eyes, honey," John said to her, nodding towards Sakura to go first.

He followed the Asian girl inside the Raptor and Jade bounced over to his side, unsealing his helmet and removing it so she could give him a tender kiss.

"I'm so glad you're all safe!" the Nymph exclaimed, glancing with concern at the unconscious girls and reaching out to stroke Sakura's arm too. She looked at their tired faces and continued, "Come and have a sit down in the cockpit. I'll have us back at the Invictus in a couple of minutes."

She hit the button to close the airlock door, the Legacy's airlock sealing automatically behind them. Leading the weary group up to the upper deck via the grav-tube, she darted through the cockpit to take her seat and disengage the docking clamps from the Legacy. John carefully placed Alyssa in one of the chairs, then pulled the sword from his back so he could sit down too. Sakura did likewise with Rachel, then sat opposite him with her twin ninjato across her knees.

All three weapons were painted in blue blood, gruesome evidence of the brutal combat they'd all seen. Sakura's nimble fingers moved down the hilts, tracing the faces of her parents on the pommels.

"They'd both be very proud of you today. I know I am," John said quietly. "You saved a lot of lives."

Sakura looked at him with a sad smile on her face as she said, "Thank you, that's very kind of you to say." Letting out a rueful sigh, she added, "But I think I'll ask Alyssa to remove their images from my swords."

Nodding his understanding, John asked, "You don't want them to see what we have to do to save people?"

Shaking her head, she raised the blood-soaked weapons for him to see and replied grimly, "No, I don't like seeing them covered in blood, blue or otherwise."

He looked at her in surprise, then couldn't help smiling despite the macabre nature of the conversation. "We can speak to her about it tomorrow. I'd offer to do it myself, but she's far better at psychic shaping than me."

She nodded to him gratefully, giving him a little smile in return.

John glanced to his left through the cockpit window, looking at the Invictus for the first time after the battle. He frowned and rose from his seat, walking over to take a closer look.

"Did you get boarded?!" he exclaimed, spotting the black armour of a Drakkar dropship still attached to the battlecruiser's sparkling white plating. Or at least it had been the last time he'd seen the ship. Now the hull was pockmarked with laser scars and there were a couple of disturbingly big craters where the ship had been hit by some kind of large ordnance. He frowned as he added, "I thought I asked everyone to be careful?"

"I think I'd better let Calara fill you in on the details," Jade said, glancing his way and giving him a guilty look.

"Hmm, okay," John said disapprovingly, before giving her a reassuring smile and leaning down to give her a quick kiss.

Jade looked immensely relieved that he wasn't upset with her and she expertly docked the Raptor in the Secondary Hangar at the back of the battlecruiser. John saw the rest of the crew gathered by the double doors, waiting for them with smiles on their faces. Dana was being propped up by Tashana, the redhead still exhausted from being rapidly healed not much more than an hour ago. John returned their waves, then walked back to his seat to place his sword on his back and gently pick up Alyssa.

They all walked down the loading ramp, the girls in the Hangar running over to join them. After sharing a few awkward hugs while carrying the blonde in his arms, he eventually laughed and said, "Ladies, please! I'm just as overjoyed to see all of you, but could we put Alyssa and Rachel to bed first? Then I can give each of you a proper hug!"

Everyone agreed that was an excellent idea and they started walking back towards the express grav-tube at the back of the Hangar. Faye fluttered along at his side, a strangely conflicted expression on her cute purple face. She was clearly delighted that they were all back safely, but she looked distraught to see Alyssa and Rachel incapacitated like that.

"Faye, can you bring us into orbit of the planet, please," John asked her gently. "The Ashanath said we're welcome to use their shipyard so we can undergo repairs, but there's no point flying to the drydock yet. We'll need Alyssa's help with the repairs and she'll be asleep for a while."

She met his gaze, her luminous eyes fixed on his face as she exclaimed, "I'll set course immediately!"

John smiled at her and said, "Thanks, honey." He paused for a moment before entering the grav-tube, studying her worried face before he added, "There's no need to look so upset, everybody's fine."

She nodded, but the pensive expression didn't quite leave her face. She kept her gaze on the unconscious girls as she waved him goodbye and left in a purple flash.

John stepped into the blue glow then whooshed up to Deck Four in the accelerated anti-gravity field. He waited for Sakura and when she walked out behind him, he said, "I hate to wake Rachel up again, but it'll be easier and much faster to get her out of her armour that way."

"That makes sense," she agreed, glancing down at the sleeping brunette cradled in her arms.

Dana uncoupled herself from Tashana, then stepped forward and said, "Let me!" She deftly removed Rachel's Paragon helmet, then leaned in to give her a tender kiss. She smiled as she whispered in her ear, "Wake up sleeping beauty."

Rachel's eyelids fluttered open and Sakura gently lowered her to the ground. The brunette was still in a half-asleep daze, so Dana put the helmet back on her head and helped the Asian girl guide her over to an empty armour equipping frame.

"I'll hold Alyssa for you," Jade volunteered and when John nodded, she slid her hands underneath the slumbering blonde, freeing him to remove his armour.

He stepped into the only man-sized frame, then stood still as he pressed one thumb to his palm to unlock the armour and the other to activate the robotic arms. As soon as they pulled away the armour plating, he stepped out of his armoured boots, then said, "I think Alyssa will be out for the count for the rest of the night. We'll have to remove the armour for her."

It took longer to do so, but eventually the entire group was stripped of armour and they made their way up to the bedroom. John tucked Alyssa up in the bed once they'd removed her jumpsuit, with Rachel and Dana cuddling up with her.

Kissing the brunette and redhead in turn, he said, "You were both amazing today. Get some sleep and we'll talk more tomorrow."

"Thanks, John. I love you," Rachel murmured.

"Yeah, me too," Dana agreed with a lovely smile.

Both of them were worn out and they fell asleep almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

Turning to look at the rest of the girls, he said, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I could use a shower before bed. Anyone care to join me?"

Obviously they all did and he grinned as he watched acres of luscious flesh appear as they quickly stripped off. Jade was first in, with Calara and Sakura hot on her tail. Irillith lagged behind though, shooing Tashana on with a smile when her twin waited at the bathroom door. Sensing that she wanted to speak to him alone for a moment, John looked at her quizzically as she finished removing her clothes.

"I'm not Alyssa, so I can't tell you what Calara's feeling right now, but she was really upset after the battle. She took the Ashanath losses to heart, so it might be a good idea to talk to her about it. I tried my best, but you're much better at handling these kinds of situations than I am," she said self-consciously, violet eyes staring at him intently.

John appraised her for a moment, before pulling her into his arms. He caressed her cheek and said, "You're an amazing girl, Irillith. It's wonderful to see how much you've flourished since you joined us. Thank you for looking out for Calara like that, I really appreciate it."

She blushed a dark shade of blue, unused to such effusive praise, but she gave him a grateful smile nonetheless. "I love all the girls; they feel as close to me as sisters. I didn't do anything the rest of them wouldn't have done."

"And I love you," he agreed, his hands wandering lower to cup her gloriously pert cheeks. He gave them a firm squeeze before spreading them a few millimetres, making her quiver with arousal. Giving her a flirtatious grin he added, "I'll find a nice way to reward you for being so considerate. Something we'll both really enjoy..."

Irillith bit her lip and moaned at the thought, melting into his arms. "I can't believe how much you've corrupted me," she said with a lusty groan.

"Are you saying you don't like it?" he teased her, enjoying seeing the wanton look in her eyes.

She quickly shook her head, then blushed again at her lack of propriety. "I love it!" she hissed, leaning forward and kissing him passionately.

When he kissed her back, she bit his bottom lip, her violet eyes flashing dangerously. It hurt, but she hadn't bitten hard enough to draw blood. At least not yet. He reached up to take a firm grip on her long white mane, then pulled back, forcing her to release him. It was a careful balancing act to not use enough strength to really hurt her, but enough to remind her who was dominant in their relationship.

"I might need to restrain you for my own safety," he mused, leaning forward to kiss her exposed neck. "You seem wild and in desperate need of taming."

Her eyes fluttered and she groaned again, the sound in her throat turning into a whimper as he grazed her slender neck with his teeth.

Turning her around, he slapped her on that delicious blue rump, drawing a startled squeak as he said, "Come on, time for a shower. We'll definitely be resuming this conversation again very soon."

"I can't wait!" she said with a delighted laugh, having thoroughly enjoyed the teasing and flirting.

The other girls were waiting for them when they entered the shower and it didn't take long to get everyone wet and soapy. John scooped Sakura and Jade into his arms, then sighed with happiness as Calara and the twins joined them for a slippery group hug. Closing his eyes, he revelled in the delicious sensation of five pairs of soft hands gliding over his tired muscles. He hadn't realised how tense he was after all the stress of the battle, but under their tender ministrations, he felt all that just ebbing away.

"What's your plan for tonight, Master?" Jade purred, her emerald eyes glinting with excitement. "Do you wish to take each of us in turn, then feed Tashana?"

The chorus of excited gasps let him know that they were all enthusiastically on board with the Nymph's excellent suggestion. Reopening his eyes again he said, "That sounds like a splendid idea but I'm afraid duty calls first. I need to debrief Calara after the battle."

The Latina visibly tensed, but nodded her agreement, as did the others with some reluctance at having to wait. He felt Irillith gently pat him on the bottom, which he assumed was her tacit show of approval for finding an excuse to speak to Calara.

"Shall we start without you?" Sakura asked, with an arched eyebrow.

He pulled her in for a kiss then replied, "Definitely! I want you all nicely warmed up for when we come to bed."

The girls laughed with delight at his blatant lust for them, showering him with kisses as the water cascaded over the group. They all rinsed off after that, then dried themselves before returning to the bedroom. Jade, Sakura and the twins climbed into bed, eager to get started, while John strolled into the walk-in wardrobe with a slightly apprehensive Calara following in his wake.

She leaned against the doorframe, watching him hunt through Alyssa's expansive collection of clothes until he found what he was looking for. He handed a slinky bathrobe to the Latina and she looked surprised as she held the alluring garment up to take a better look. A smile crept onto her face and she slid it over her stunning figure.

"Interesting choice of outfit for the debrief," Calara whispered to him, trying not to wake the three Terran girls sleeping in the bed.

John nodded his approval as the black silk moulded to her mouth-watering curves, then put on his own dressing gown and said sombrely, "We're doing this strictly by the book, Commander."

She stifled her laughter, then followed him out of the bedroom, linking arms with him as they headed towards the grav-tube at the end of the corridor.

"Where are you taking me for this debrief, Admiral?" she asked him curiously, as they stepped into the blue anti-grav field.

"My Ready Room," he replied, leading her out onto the Command Deck. "We can have some privacy there and it's nice and comfortable."

Faye greeted them both with a friendly wave, smiling at the couple as they walked down the ramp and across the Bridge. Calara's eyes gleamed at the prospect of some time alone with John and there was a bounce in her step as they walked into his Ready Room. He guided her over to the sofas then patted his lap in a clear indication for her to sit. She gave him an eager grin, then sat across his lap while crossing her wrists behind his neck, licking her lips in anticipation of some passionate kisses.

John wrapped his arms around her, then picked up the remote to activate the holographic interface. Calara looked at him in confusion as he pressed a number of buttons, until a recording of the battle appeared on the Tactical Map before them.

"Oh! You really do want to do a debrief," she said in disappointment. Glancing down at her figure hugging bathrobe, she added, "When you asked me to wear this, I thought you had something else in mind."

He smiled at her and gave her a tender kiss before explaining, "We really do need to review the battle, but I can't help the fact that you're so gorgeous." He slipped his hand inside the robe and caressed her toned stomach suggestively. "I promise I'll try not to distract you too much."

She looked positively ravishing as she laughed and her eyes sparkled as she gave him a glorious smile. Turning her head to look at the Tactical Map, she asked, "Alright then, what point did you want to start from?"

Seeing that she was relaxed and calm now, John withdrew his hand from her robe and placed it semi-respectfully on her firm thigh. He watched her face and said, "We'll start right from the start, beginning with your plan to use the gravity-well generators and luring the Drakkar into the minefield."

Calara looked at him in surprise, then sounded confused as she said, "Okay, but you were there for that part. Why do you want to begin there?"

John studied her face and said sombrely, "I want you to go through our preparations for the Battle of Ashana and the combat itself. Take your time, but let me know if there's anything we could've done to improve the outcome for the Ashanath."

She was a very intelligent girl and it only took a couple of seconds for her startled look to be replaced by a perceptive one. The Latina met his probing gaze and said pensively, "You've been talking to Irillith, haven't you?"

"Yes, and I think this will be a useful exercise. I'd like you to indulge me please, Commander," he replied, his tone firm and authoritative now.

Calara nodded obediently, conditioned by years of training to respond to her senior officer's orders. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said with regret, "Unfortunately, the Ashanath had rather limited resources at their disposal. I spent as much time as I could, reviewing everything that their High Council had sent to us, but I still can't think of a better way to cripple the Drakkar fleet on their approach. Anything more elaborate would have taken too long to prepare, what with such a tight timeframe." She let out a melancholy sigh, then continued, "I just wish they'd told us about the Legacy. If I'd known they had a Progenitor ship at the outset, I could have integrated it into their forces. The outcome could have been drastically different."

John nodded his agreement, and asked, "How would you have used it in the battle?"

She picked up the remote and looking eagerly at the map, she cycled through the recording until she stopped at the instant they had first seen the Legacy. She studied it for a moment, then replied, "With the range of its primary weapon, the Legacy would have been best placed behind a full screen of destroyers, cruisers, and battleships. I would have saved a quarter of the mines and spread them in front of that formation, then taunted the Drakkar into charging by firing at them from beyond their Beam Laser range. Hitting the minefield would have caused chaos and confusion amongst the Drakkar forces, setting them up as sitting ducks for concentrated and well-focused fire."

"How about the Ashanath's telepathic command web?" John prompted her.

She shook her head remorsefully as she replied, "If only we'd known about that from the beginning. I could have coordinated the entire battle from the start." Letting the recording begin, she began pointing out how she would have rapidly redeployed the forces to fully exploit the Drakkar's reckless charge.

John let her talk it through, prompting her now and then to keep her mind ticking over and fully focused on the various possibilities. He didn't doubt for one moment that she'd done the absolute best she could with the time and resources available to her, but it was that nagging doubt that was bothering her. In her drive for a perfect victory, he knew she was blaming herself for everything the Ashanath had kept concealed from her during the battle.

They talked for over an hour and he could see the bottled-up tension easing from her shoulders as she spoke. Finally, they reached the end of the battle and she turned to stare at him, suddenly going quiet.

He gave her a tender kiss, then looked into her eyes and asked, "Do you feel better?"

She nodded as she gazed at him. "Yes, much."

Watching her beautiful face as she studied him, John asked, "What was the point behind that exercise?"

Calara took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. She was quiet and serious as she replied, "That I shouldn't blame myself for things that go wrong in a battle, which were outside my control. It's easy to be overly critical with the benefit of hindsight, but we simply didn't have access to all that information at the time."

He nodded, his expression grim as he said, "If the Ashanath had told us about the Legacy beforehand, it would have been a game-changer. They didn't though and that was their mistake, not yours."

She looked relieved then gave him a sad smile. "It's hard knowing how different things might have been, but there's nothing we can do about that now."

His face was shadowed with guilt as he said, "I wish I could shoulder the entire burden of command myself and spare you from all this. It's not fair of me to burden you with it, but the simple truth is that your tactical skills far outmatch my own. Letting you coordinate their forces gave the Ashanath their best shot at survival."

The Latina leaned in to give him a tender kiss and said, "We all have our part to play. Please don't feel bad for letting me help you."

Brushing her cheek with his fingers, he marvelled, "You're an incredible woman, Calara. What you accomplished here today was absolutely astounding. Just remember that a billion Ashanath on their homeworld are safe now because you stopped that invasion fleet."

Calara's smile widened and a look of contentment formed on her face. She laughed as she said, "It's not every girl who can say she's saved two homeworlds from catastrophe!"

John laughed along with her, hugging her fiercely now. She turned to straddle him, her kisses growing more passionate as he pressed her against his chest.

When they finally separated to take a breath, John said with a smile, "I think it's well past time for bed."

She nodded, her face inches from his as she stared into his eyes. "We haven't discussed all the damage the Invictus sustained, or how I allowed the Drakkar to board us yet," she said, a hint of a smile teasing her lips, undermining her otherwise serious expression. "I might need to be punished for my negligence on duty."

"It's a good job you all survived unscathed, or I'd be very cross," John agreed, stroking her taut cheeks. "Although, I still need to reprimand you for such reckless disregard for my ship."

Calara shivered with lust, remembering the last time he'd been so dominant with her in front of an audience. Staring out at the raging storm on Oceanus while being roughly fucked and spanked to the pealing of thunder, then crying out in ecstasy as lightning arced across the sky... Even just thinking about it now was thrilling - she couldn't remember ever feeling more alive!

She grinned at him as she said eagerly, "I'll go and get the girls! You set up the storm simulation in the Training Dojo!"

***

John stretched as he awoke the following morning, being careful not to jostle Tashana and Calara who lay fast asleep beside him. He was relieved that his right hand was no longer feeling numb and a smile crept onto his face as he remembered the wild antics the previous night. After the girls watched the Latina experience multiple orgasms as she took an energetic pounding and a stern spanking, they'd all insisted on having a turn.

Tashana had had that same lustful need in her violet eyes as well, but that certainly wasn't how he planned on having their first time together. She seemed to instinctively know that and had been happy to climax on Jade's eager tongue instead as she watched him ravish the other girls one after the other. He'd been profoundly thankful for his enhanced Progenitor stamina by the time Sakura had sprawled insensate on the matting and he'd cried out with relief as he unloaded his fevered quad down Tashana's throat.

He leaned down to plant a fond kiss on his beautiful bedmates' tousled heads and as he did so, his sharp ears pricked up as he heard furtive whispering coming from the bathroom. He craned his head forward to look down the bed, but from this angle he couldn't see who was talking. He did spot Faye though. She was sitting cross-legged in the chair at the foot of the bed, chin propped on her hands as she gazed away into the distance, a pensive expression on her face. Carefully untangling himself from Calara and Tashana's smooth, toned limbs he crawled down the bed before padding over to join the distracted purple girl.

"Morning Faye!" he greeted her in a cheerful whisper, squatting down beside her.

"Oh, hi John!" she replied after a start, giving him a beaming smile. Her gloriously happy expression faded as quickly as it had arrived and she peered at his left arm, sounding anxious as she inquired, "Does your arm feel better this morning?"

He glanced at the gunshot wound he'd sustained in the previous day's fighting. In truth, he'd forgotten all about it after cleaning it in the shower; it hadn't been a deep gash and there wasn't much pain. As he looked at his arm now, his skin was smooth and unbroken, fully recovered as he regenerated overnight.

"I'm in great shape, honey. Nothing to worry about, I promise," he said with an exuberant grin. He wanted to give her a reassuring hug, but unfortunately such a simple thing was impossible for a holographic girl, no matter how convincingly real she seemed.

Faye smiled at him and exclaimed, "I'm so relieved you're okay!" Her voice faltered then as she added, "It was so awful seeing you covered in blood. Dana and Rachel too..."

There was giggling coming from the bathroom now, but John ignored it as he stared at Faye with concern. "Let me just go and get dressed, then you can talk to me about what's upsetting you. There's also a few other things I'd like to discuss, especially our pre-battle liaison yesterday," he said with a smile.

The purple girl blushed, then reached up her hand to stroke his face. He couldn't feel her digital fingers tracing his jawline, but the look of yearning in her luminous eyes was very real.

"I'd really like that, but we can catch up later, there's no hurry," she said gratefully. Glancing towards the bathroom, a knowing smile crept onto her face as she added, "There's a couple of very appreciative girls who want some attention this morning."

"There's definitely something bothering you," John insisted. "I don't like seeing you get upset like this. What's the matter?"

She smiled at him, the tension easing from her face as she replied, "I was just being silly. You're all healed up now and perfectly fine. There's nothing to worry about, I promise!"

"You're sure?" John said uncertainly. "As I said before, my door's always open for you. You can grab me any time you need to discuss anything, okay?"

"I remember," Faye said with a nod and an affectionate smile. More giggles reached their ears and she glanced that way and grinned. "Don't keep them waiting!"

He chuckled and stood up straight, before turning back to glance at the bed. The girls were all still fast asleep, including Alyssa who lay serenely with her hair fanned out in a golden halo on the pillow. John padded around the bed to check on her, but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling rhythmically with every breath. He had a good idea who was making all the noise in the bathroom, but seeing who was still in bed removed all doubt via a process of elimination. Tashana was now being cuddled by both Calara and her sister, while Sakura and Jade were intertwined together.

There had been no word from Edraele yet this morning, but he assumed she was sleeping off over-exerting herself during the battle. Rather than waking her by calling to check see she was alright, he decided to leave her to rest peacefully. If she still hadn't contacted him by the afternoon, then he resolved to try rousing her then to make sure she was okay.

He heard the splash of water and curiosity finally getting the better of him, he walked across to the bathroom and strolled through the door. Dana and Rachel were in the huge new bath together, foamy bubbles up to their necks as they whispered in each other's ears. They both squealed with delight when he arrived.

"We're so fucking horny!" Dana gasped, before letting out a sultry groan as Rachel moved her hand somewhere very intimate.

Rachel nodded, eyes narrowing with concentration as her fingers plunged into her girlfriend. "You better shut the door so we don't disturb the others. I want to hear you make her moan like the naughty little slut she is!"

John quickly shut the door behind him, astonished at their lewd behaviour. "What's got into you two this morning?" he asked them in amazement.

"You will be," Rachel purred as she increased her pace on the redhead, making her arch her back and gasp.

Not needing to be told twice, he climbed into the massive new bath that they'd added in the last refit. It was big enough to comfortably fit ten, so with just three of them in there, it felt like being in a swimming pool - a lusty, foamy one at least. As soon as he'd sunk into the bubbles, Rachel pulled her fingers from Dana, making the redhead gasp. They both surged across the tub like water nymphs and planted a deluge of wet kisses on his cheeks and face.

"Wait a second!" he said with a laugh. "I love the enthusiasm, but what's got you two in this state?"

"You healed us both," Rachel murmured, moving around to nibble at an ear lobe. "We've slept it off and we're full of life this morning."

Dana writhed against him, her slippery breasts sliding against his chest. "That means we desperately need a good fucking!"

"As you might imagine, I'm also very grateful that you saved Dana's life," Rachel added, licking the pointed tip of his ear and making him shiver.

"Plus, you gave both of us fucking awesome new abilities!" Dana grinned, her sky-blue eyes flashing with lust. "I'd want to hump you into oblivion just for that, let alone all that other stuff."

John grinned at them both. "I had been planning on having some intimate one-on-one time with each of you. You're good girls and I know you'll both be emptying my quad this morning, but how you do it is up to you. Together or separately, it's your call."

Dana and Rachel looked horribly conflicted, drawing back a few inches to stare at each other as they tried to make up their minds. He could see the unspoken conversation passing between them as they both tried to decide what they wanted.

In the end, he put his arms around Rachel's waist and pulled her over his lap, positioning his cock against her pussy, then sliding her down his length. She was very wet for him and wonderfully tight, gripping his shaft like a fist as he pushed his way in. Her groans of delight harmonised with Dana's groan of frustration as he impaled himself fully inside Rachel's stunning athletic body.

"Take your time making your mind up, but you both looked far too tempting now you're this turned on. I needed to be inside one of you while I waited," John explained, a satisfied smile on his face as he felt Rachel grind against him.

"How come she gets to go first?" Dana whined, before shooting Rachel a guilty look. "Sorry babes, I'm just super horny!"

"I understand, I'm sorry you have to wait," Rachel murmured, undulating on John's lap and rubbing her breasts against his chest. She linked her arms around his neck and gave him a tender kiss, before saying breathlessly, "I love you so much."

"I love you too," he replied, keeping his right hand on her waist, while wrapping his left around Dana and pulling her in close. "Same goes for you, Sparks. I love you both."

"Me too," she moaned, eyes fluttering as she kissed him.

They melted against John, both giving him soft kisses as he alternated between each girl's lustful lips. He loved seeing the blissful expressions on their faces and he relaxed back against the edge of the bath as Rachel rode him at a languid pace.

"How about this for a plan," he suggested, seeing that the two teenagers were thoroughly distracted now and incapable of making any kind of decision. "We make this one about Rachel, then I'll spend the rest of the morning with you, Dana. The two of us need to review the Valkyrie anyway."

The redhead's lustful haze vanished in an instant and she gave him a guilty look, her full lips turning down into a worried frown. "I'm sorry I nearly got myself ki-" she started to apologise.

"Shh, I'm not mad at you," John said, placing his index finger on her lips and silencing her apology.

She relaxed immediately, then opened her mouth and sucked his finger inside, swirling her tongue over it suggestively as she increased the suction. He couldn't help groaning and his cock flexed inside Rachel, making her gasp.

"Oh, he liked that," she said, flashing a naughty grin at her lover.

He laughed and nodded, then slowly pulled his finger from Dana's mouth and helped guide her behind the brunette. She understood what he wanted her to do and she snaked both hands around the other girl, one sliding down her toned belly to find her clit while the other reached around to massage her proud breasts. Rachel moaned as Dana swept her hair out of the way and began to kiss her neck, the redhead darting John a mischievous look over the sandwiched girl's shoulder.

"There, that's better," John said, taking a firm hold of Rachel's hips and guiding her up and down his rigid length.

"This feels amazing," she agreed, sagging forward and just revelling in the combined attention from her lovers.

He smiled at her as he said, "Now I've got you as my captive audience, maybe we should talk about your new healing abilities. I hope you're not upset with me for not asking your permission first?"

She sat up straighter, doing her best to concentrate despite Dana's eager fingers. "Are you kidding? I couldn't have imagined anything more incredible! I only became a doctor to heal the sick and injured and now I can do it by thought!"

Rachel planted a flurry of grateful kisses on him, smothering any of his attempts to reply.

Dana giggled and said, "You aren't going to get much sense out of her like this, she loves her Gift even more than I do. Just fuck her senseless and you two can chat later."

John pulled the overexcited brunette back a few inches, looking into her stormy grey eyes as he said intently, "You know this is the first time I'll be filling your womb since we found out how fertile you are?"

She let out a low moan, her expression softening as she gazed into his eyes. Straddling him this way she was sitting a little taller, providing a spectacular view of the smooth upper slopes of her breasts and her beautiful face as she gazed down at him in adoration.

"I can't wait to feel you filling me," she panted with a breathy moan.

He nodded his agreement and began stroking her up and down his cock, the soapy water splashing around them the only sound now. They stared into each other's eyes, both of them focused on only one thing. Rachel's breathing came in shallow gasps as Dana continued to caress her lover, turning her on even more. The redhead began whispering softly in her ear, but with John's enhanced hearing he could hear every word she was saying.

"You're going to look so fucking hot when he knocks you up," Dana crooned, rubbing Rachel's clit at the same pace that John was driving into her. "Maybe that would be the perfect time to introduce me to your Daddy? When we're both nine months pregnant with huge bellies. How do you think Mister Voss would react to meeting your girlfriend like that?"

"You're so bad," Rachel hissed, but John felt her pussy contract tightly around him.

Dana grinned at John as she began to pick up the pace, bringing Rachel ever closer to a thunderous climax. She pulled back the hand tweaking Rachel's erect nipples, then sucked on her first two fingers before sliding them down the brunette's toned back. "Maybe honesty's the best policy?" Dana asked playfully. "We could tell him we're both marrying the same huge-dicked, four-balled alien, who plans to use us both as prime breeding stock? Would that go down better?"

Rachel was teetering on the edge now, eyes having trouble focusing on John as Dana pushed all her buttons. The water was slopping about as he bounced her on his lap, using her gloriously tight pussy to get them both off. Suddenly the brunette gave a startled shriek and John felt Dana's two slender fingers penetrate Rachel's ass, through the thin membrane separating those digits from his cock. Rachel spasmed violently, her pussy clenching down on him and squeezing rhythmically as she came.

It was enough stimulation to make him join Rachel in her release and he drove all the way inside her as he began pumping her womb full of sperm. She arched her back, crying out in pleasure as she climaxed, her delicate surgeon's hands holding his shoulders tightly as her belly began to expand to carry his load.

"Yeah, that's it beautiful, milk his balls," Dana purred, stroking John's pulsating cock through her girlfriend's clenching ass. "If you get him turned on enough, he'll put a baby in your tummy."

Everything the naughty redhead was saying was pushing John's buttons too and he moved his hands to cradle Rachel's rapidly expanding abdomen. Her smoky eyes widened as she saw the look of pure lust on his face, before they screwed tightly closed as her climax intensified. Of course, he managed to control himself, but the temptation to impregnate her was delicious, greatly intensifying his own orgasm.

Eventually his quad was thoroughly emptied of spunk, the contents now hugely rounding Rachel's engorged tummy. As they panted to regain their breath, Dana placed her hands over John's while he cradled that heavily swollen belly. Rachel placed hers there too and their fingers both caressed his as he held her possessively.

"Soon," he told them both, meeting one set of searching eyes after another.

Their answering smiles were radiantly beautiful and he felt a tremendous feeling of contentment, knowing they were looking forward to that moment as much as he was. They cuddled together for a few minutes, before a sleepy-looking Sakura wandered into the bathroom.

"Oh! Sorry guys, I just wanted to use the loo," she mumbled, turning around to use the ensuite in her quarters. She grinned over her shoulder as she added, "Looks like I missed out on some fun!"

The trio in the bath laughed and nodded, reluctantly separating and climbing out of the tub. John and Dana helped Rachel out with the extra weight she was suddenly carrying around her midriff and they had fun drying her off while stroking her cum-packed belly.

When she was quite certain that she was dry, Rachel kissed them both then said, "I'll go give Tashana some breakfast while you two take a look at the Valkyrie."

"Thanks, honey, and thanks for this morning too. I had a great time," John said, giving her an appreciative smile.

"Any time!" she replied with a radiant smile, before she sauntered out of the bathroom, her rounded abdomen swaying from side to side.

Dana had gone quiet now and was looking worried, so John grabbed her and tickled her remorselessly until she begged for mercy in fits of giggles.

"Come on, Sparks. I'm sure it's not as bad as all that," he teased her. "Go and get dressed, then I'll meet you at the grav-tube."

She nodded and bounced out of the bathroom, rushing off to get ready. He smiled as he watched the exuberant redhead leave, then strolled into the bedroom after her. The other girls were starting to stir now, with Tashana already moaning between Rachel's splayed thighs as she hungrily sucked out her breakfast. Irillith was stroking her sister's mane of white hair, her azure face looking flushed with arousal as she shared her twin's state of lust over their bond.

Alyssa was still asleep, with Calara wrapped around her protectively. John walked over to check on them both and asked, "I take it she hasn't stirred yet?"

The Latina shook her head, a frown appearing on her gorgeous olive-skinned face. "No and I'm starting to get worried. I've never seen her in this deep a sleep before."

"She was out for the count after bonding with Edraele," John reminded her. "But I don't think we need to start worrying just yet. When I spoke to Athena yesterday evening, she said they just needed rest."

Calara nodded and visibly relaxed, cuddling the blonde with a smile. She glanced up at him and asked, "Unless you need me for anything, I'd like to stay with her until she wakes up, as long as that's okay?"

He nodded as he reached out to gently stroke her hair. "Have a nice lie-in, you've totally earned it. Assuming Alyssa wakes up this afternoon, we'll all go and have a chat with Ularean."

"I'm sure that'll make for a fascinating conversation," Calara said with an arched eyebrow.

"Won't it just," John agreed. He turned to see Sakura and Jade watching Tashana lustily going to work on Rachel and added, "Would you girls mind preparing some breakfast for everyone? I'd do it myself, but I'm going down to the Launch Bay with Dana. There's no rush, have a lie-in first, but maybe in an hour or two?"

"Of course, I'll be happy to!" Jade said with a beaming smile, as she prowled across the bed to join him. "I was at a bit of a loose end this morning anyway."

Sakura followed after her, nodding her agreement. "I'd love to help. I'll do some training in the Dojo afterwards, but that can wait."

Pulling them both into his arms, he smiled as he said, "You were both incredible last night."

Jade grinned at him shamelessly and replied, "Not as magnificent as you, Master! Watching you ravish your pride one after the other was awe-inspiring; I felt so proud to be mated to such a titan. Then when it was my turn..." She shivered with delight, her cool, dark-green flesh warming beneath his fingers.

By contrast Sakura blushed furiously, still shocked at how much of a thrill she'd got from being roughly spanked as he pounded her from behind. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "I can't believe how much I loved it. Thank you."

He grinned at them both, pleased by both of their reactions. Glancing from one to the other, he stroked their backs as he said, "I'm trying to get some time alone with everyone to catch up. We need to review the battle as a team, but I want to wait until Alyssa's awake before we do that."

"I always adore spending time with you," Jade said earnestly. "Just let me know whenever you wish to speak to me."

Sakura darted a friendly glance at the green-skinned girl, then smiled at John. "I think what our eloquent Nymph just said sufficiently sums up my feelings on the matter. We definitely need to talk and I'm really looking forward to it."

With that they broke up their three-way hug and John strolled into the walk-in wardrobe to get changed. He put on practical clothing, unsure whether he'd be getting hands-on with the mech or not, but erring on the side of caution anyway. Wearing some rugged combat trousers and boots he pulled on a t-shirt, then re-entered the bedroom to check on the Maliri girls.

Tashana was still busy, with a euphoric expression on her face as she finished the last of her meal. Her tummy was rounded now with all the cum she'd just slurped out of Rachel and he reached down to gently stroke the gravid curve. She moaned appreciatively at his touch, glancing up at him with glazed eyes.

"I'm not sure if you girls heard me talking to the others?" he asked the twins, before leaning down to give Irillith a kiss.

Her violet eyes flashed lustily as she replied, "You enjoyed ravishing us last night, and you want to speak with each of us individually?"

He grinned at her and said, "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."

She sat up and kissed him soundly, before murmuring, "I'll look forward to 'speaking' with you too."

John laughed at that, then kissed Tashana on the forehead, her flushed lips still fully occupied. Waving everyone goodbye, he strolled from the door to find Dana fidgeting nervously outside her quarters. She was wearing form-fitting but functional overalls, with a tool belt emphasising the flare of her hips.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he immediately apologised, offering her his hand to hold as she fell into step beside him.

"That's okay, I understand," she said distractedly. "You're fucking a lot of girls; keeping everyone happy takes time."

He stopped and pulled the anxious girl into a hug, wrapping his arms tightly around her. "I meant what I said before, honey. I'm honestly not mad at you for what happened in the battle. You scared the shit out of me when you nearly died, but I don't blame you for that. We were field-testing a new bit of hardware in the middle of an intense warzone; it was a terrible idea that was bound to end in disaster. I only allowed it because the situation was so dire!"

He could feel Dana relax in his arms and she hugged him back, saying, "I know, but you asked me to be careful. I just didn't want to disappoint you, not after you placed so much trust in me."

"You never disappoint me, Sparks!" John said with a laugh. "Come on, let's go take a look at the mech, then we can chat about how we can upgrade it."

"Okay!" Dana eagerly agreed, slipping her hand back into his and squeezing it as they walked along the corridor.

They stepped into the red glow of the anti-gravity field, then dropped down the Invictus' decks until they reached the bottom level. Walking out onto Deck Nine, John hit the button to open the double-doors into the Secondary Hangar. The reinforced doors slid wide open, revealing the sparkling white Raptor, along with the ugly black crater where the upper spinal turret used to be.

John grimaced at the sight and said, "Fixing that might be a problem."

Dana looked relieved at his reasonable reaction, then said thoughtfully, "Building a new Pulse Cannon turret actually won't be too hard. We can construct a replacement in about four hours."

"I meant the crystal Alyssium armour plating," John said, nodding towards the white hull of the gunship. "I'm not sure Alyssa is strong enough to reshape it enough times to make it fully reflective and that's a big area to replace."

"She shaped the metal for your sword eight times, that ought to do it," Dana said, tapping a finger on her chin. "Although I'm not sure how many times Athena reshaped the original plating. Irillith thought at least eleven, but she lost count at the time. You know, because of being upset about Jade and all that."

"Yeah, I remember," John replied grimly. "Still, I'm really glad Athena did it. Whatever blew that turret apart probably would have killed Jade if that armour wasn't so tough."

"It was a heat-seeking missile," Dana clarified for him, nodding her agreement. "If Athena had half-assed the job, Jade would've been fucked - and not in the good way."

John chuckled despite the macabre humour, then asked, "Is there anything we can do to make the Raptor better protected against missiles in the future?"

The redhead thought about it for a moment, then replied, "Flares don't work that well with spaceships, not with the amount of heat generated by the engines and lasers. It's too hard to generate that amount of thermal conductivity in a small, deployable package, at least enough to fool a missile's sensors. Our best bet would be another upgrade to the Pulse Cannons, but that's dependent on tech to smooth out the heat dissipation, so that they can fire in one continuous stream. Even the targeting computers would struggle to miss then!"

"Maybe the Kintark have more sophisticated heat-sink tech on their elite ships?" John suggested. "The Terran Federation might have found something when they salvaged the wrecks from the Battle of Regulus."

"Yeah, good thinking!" Dana said, nodding approvingly. "We've got a shitload of tech we could trade for that."

"Then we can always hope for a Progenitor equivalent..." John added, turning to look at her now. "If it doesn't come from me, there's always the Legacy. I'm planning to take you on a tour around the old sections of that ship and see if anything jumps out at you, as long as you're okay with that idea?"

She frowned at him then before replying, "But if we do that, it probably means I'll have to spend several days on my knees with your cock down my throat. I'm trying to watch my figure and you packing my belly full of your heavy loads is going to wreck my diet."

When he saw her disapproving frown, John thought she was being serious for a moment, but he laughed hard as she gave him a playful grin. "You little imp! You had me going for a minute."

Dana giggled and shaking her head she replied enthusiastically, "I'd fucking love it! A chance to see ancient Progenitor tech in a real Progenitor ship?! You'll have to drag me out of there!" She winked at him and added, "Plus all the blowjobs are the sweet-tasting, spunky icing on a really fucking tasty cake!"

"Ah, I love you, honey," John said, pulling her into an affectionate hug. "You really are awesome."

"Likewise," Dana agreed, grinning at him in delight.

They strolled past the gunship and crossed the Secondary Hangar to the new set of double-doors on the far side. John hit the button and ushered Dana through into the vast Primary Hangar in the newly expanded middle section of the Invictus. He looked around the enormous space as they walked across it, then glanced at Dana and saw she was doing the same, her mind obviously whirring.

"Any further thoughts on what to do with all this room?" he asked, stopping in the middle of the colossal space. The Hangar was two hundred and fifty metres long, running the entirety of the recently inserted mid-section. "You could easily fit a Terran Federation destroyer in here."

She smiled at him and said, "To be honest, I haven't had much of a chance to think about it, not with all the frantic lead-up to the battle."

"I must admit I don't like the idea of fighters," John said, his expression bleak. "They're far too frail and the thought of losing Maliri crew every battle would be horrendous."

"Yeah, I totally agree," she said, reaching up to give him a quick kiss. "If we had a bunch of Maliri pilots aboard, you'd end up fucking all of them. It would tear you up if any of them got killed in combat."

"No fighters," he said firmly.

"No fighters," she agreed. Turning around to look at the enormous space she continued, "That still leaves us a bunch of other options. We could turn this into a huge drone bay, maybe get Faye to operate them in battle. There's plenty of ways I could configure them to be offensive or defensive in nature too."

"That sounds promising," he said thoughtfully. "Any downsides?"

"They'd be about as frail as fighters, so we'd probably end up losing a bunch of them in the kind of frantic battles we've seen lately. That would mean setting up some kind of manufacturing area to build replacements and mining asteroids to gather the raw materials, unless we just ask Edraele to stock us up every time we're in Maliri Space. Hauling all that shit around will affect the Invictus' flight characteristics though and we'd lose most of the space in the Cargo Bay."

John frowned and said, "Yeah, I'm not too keen on that idea either. We tend to be rushing around all over the place and I don't want to lose time mining. The Invictus' manoeuvrability saves us from taking a lot of hits, which also ultimately saves us wasting too much time on repairs."

"So a tentative 'maybe' on drones, but probably not?" she asked, giving him a smile.

"Sounds about right," he said with a grin. "Alright, what else?"

"We could turn this space into more gundecks," she said with a gleam in her eyes. Turning around with her arms spread wide, she added, "Just imagine a pair of Quantum Flux Cannons in here. We'd really be able to tear some shit up!"

He looked at her in confusion and asked, "Quantum what?"

Dana stopped turning and blinked at him in surprise. She frowned for a moment, then replied quietly, "That's the name of the gun the Legacy was equipped with. I don't know how I know that, but I just do."

John reached up to cradle her head with his right hand, gently stroking her temple. "Looks like there's plenty more secrets locked away in that amazing mind of yours."

"Only because you stuffed them in there," she said with a grin.

"Can you blame me?" he asked, smiling at her affectionately. "You're gorgeous, I'll take any chance I can get to give you a good stuffing."

Dana giggled at that and gave him a tender kiss. "And I'll take it any way I can get it," she replied with a flirtatious smile.

He laughed and gave her a quick hug, before looking around at the Hangar once more. "So it sounds like the 'more gundecks' option gets a hearty seal of approval from my Chief Engineer. It does seem like a great use of space to me and I know Calara would approve."

"Which just leaves us with the original option you mentioned," Dana said, slipping her arm around his waist and joining him in gazing out at the vast space. "We leave this space as a Hangar and I design us some kind of custom destroyer-class ship. Once I come up with the plans, I could send them to Edraele and have her engineers build the bulk of it for us. We'd just need to roll in to Genthalas, slap a bunch of armour on it and then away we go. No refit time needed for the Invictus and we get a brand-new ship to fight with us."

"That actually sounds pretty good. How powerful could you make it?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

She grinned at him, her eyes sparkling as she warmed to the idea. "A custom designed warship? Shit, that thing would be unbelievably awesome! I'd keep living quarters to a bare minimum and just make it all about the guns." Her eyes widened at the prospect and a lopsided grin appeared on her face as her mind whirred.

John was quiet too as he mulled over the idea, putting his arm around her shoulder and rubbing it absent-mindedly. Eventually he turned to her and said, "I've been thinking about this for a while now and it seems pretty obvious to me that we've got all the Progenitor tech locked away in my mind and yours. So, what do we do when we finally unlock it all? Do we build another one of those sinister black ships?"

"Or make our own, compact, improved version?" Dana said in a breathy whisper, the golden corona around her pupils flaring with excitement.

John nodded, staring into her eyes. "Yeah, exactly."

"Holy shit! Being with you never gets old!" she gasped, hugging him tightly.

He laughed at that, returning the exuberant girl's hug and said, "I'm relieved to hear I'm not boring you."

"Never!" she said gleefully. "Plus, if I keep slurping down your cum, I'll never get old either!"

They both shared a laugh and grin at her joke.

"Alright, so it sounds like we've got some good options for the Hangar. Let's go take a look at the Valkyrie," John said, taking her hand and leading her across the vast room.

She bounced along at his side, practically skipping with joy. They shared wide smiles as he opened the door for her and she darted through and over to the Launch Bay door so that she could open it for him in return. He winked at her as the door opened before him and strolled through the big double doors and into the mech's launching bay. Glancing up at the Valkyrie in the maintenance gantry, he stumbled over a step, his happy grin fading from his face.

"Jesus Christ!" he cursed vehemently when he saw the state of the mech.

Practically every square foot of the thirty-metre-tall warmachine was covered in impact craters from laser cannon hits. The lamentable state of the armour plating would have been bad enough, but the Valkyrie's right arm was buckled, fingers ripped off the hand where the Punisher Gatling had been torn from its grip. Finally there was the head. John's eyes widened when he saw the extent of the damage it had sustained. It was twisted awkwardly to one side, with a hideous rip through the right temple where the docking claw had torn its way through. One look at that ragged wound made it abundantly clear just how lucky Dana had been not to get chopped in half.

"Yep, you're grounded, young lady," John said sternly to the crestfallen girl.