Three Square Meals Ch. 029

"Better safe than sorry," Alyssa said, smiling back at him.

She began to feather the retro thrusters as the slowly moving asteroids began to loom closer, not using them for more than a second at a time, in tightly controlled little bursts. The Invictus turned slowly and pointed directly into the heart of the asteroid belt, gradually losing speed as Alyssa braked by using the front mounted thrusters. She had set the course perfectly, so they were able to slowly coast in on a straight line, eliminating the need to use side mounted thrusters for asteroid evasion purposes.

Abruptly, the tactical map began to light up as the passive sensors came in range to detect a number of vessels in orbit around the nearby gas giant. They stared at the tactical map with bated breath, hardly daring to move, as they waited to see what lurked in the Kappa-Indarran system.

"Hey, you were right!" Jade congratulated Calara happily. "They're definitely using the Kappa-Indarran system as a base!"

"Look! They've set up a helium refinery and some kind of temporary dry dock!" Dana exclaimed, intrigued by the design of the structures.

"Is that what I think it is?" Calara asked John, pensively. "It looks like they're accompanied by two more cruisers as well!" she said in dismay.

"Yeah, that's a Drakkar battleship alright," John growled as he stared at the huge vessel, confirming Calara's worst fears. "How the fuck did they sneak that into Grey space?"

"That battleship is huge!" Alyssa said, casting him a worried glance. "It's got to be nearly fifteen hundred metres long!"

"Yeah, I know..." John said remorsefully. "There's no way we can take that in a stand up fight."

"Dana, are the sensors broken?" Jade asked suddenly.

The redhead shot a worried look at her console and rapidly ran a diagnostic routine. "No, everything checks out fine. Why do you ask?" she asked with concern.

"Then, what is that odd glitching was over there..." the Nymph said, pointing to an area of the tactical map behind the current location of the Drakkar battleship.

"What do you mea-" Dana said, before cutting off abruptly. "What the fuck is that?" she swore looking at the tactical map in shock.

They all peered intently at the tactical map, trying to make out the flickering image. It was faint and only appeared for one second out of every ten, but now that Jade had spotted it with her sharp eyes and pointed it out, they were now very aware of the ghostly ship that appeared to be haunting the Kappa-Indarran system. The ship was vast and jet black, only really noticeable against the darkness of space because of the absence of stars in that blackness, rather than being able to actually make out its profile. A deathly quiet descended on the bridge as they stared at it with wide eyes.

"John, who flies a ship like that?" Calara whispered, as though afraid to disturb the tense silence.

"I've never seen or heard of anything like that before," John replied in a hushed voice.

"Well I think it's a fair bet that something that looks that evil isn't going to be friendly," Alyssa said softly with a worried frown.

"That ship reminds me of the Invictus," Jade offered helpfully.

John's abrupt laughter broke the tense mood on the bridge like a thunderstorm clearing the air.

"Well at least we know where the Drakkar got the tech for their armour," Dana said. "I knew there was no way they came up with that on their own!"

"If whoever is flying that ship is advanced enough to come up with radically enhanced armour, we probably don't want to find out what their weapons can do," Calara said grimly.

"Yeah, agreed. A ship that size is likely to be armed to the teeth," John said ominously.

"So what do we do now?" Dana asked him curiously. "Tell the Ashanath 'sorry they're too tough for us' and then give up on the alliance? I'm kind of fond of my new toys," she said with a grin.

"No, I don't think so," John replied with a wry smile. "But we're going to have to come up with something creative. Our chances of defeating them in a ship battle have just crashed from very slim to none."

"Have you got anything in mind?" Calara asked eagerly.

"Well, we could try luring them to the remaining asteroid that's still filled with explosives," he said dubiously. "Dana, are you able to fabricate more explosives if we need them?"

Dana looked thoughtful for a moment and then replied: "Sure, but I'm a little short on raw materials. If we can stock up, I could produce as much as we need. Well within reason of cour-"

"Something's happening with the black ship!" Jade blurted in alarm, cutting Dana off and pointing at the tactical map.

They watched transfixed as a spiralling circle of energy appeared in front of the massive ship, casting a ghastly pale shroud over the sinister black hull and briefly illuminating its sleek and angular lines. The light moved down the length of the ship, rotating slowly around the hull as it went, and appeared to be erasing the terrifying craft from existence. A few long seconds later, the pallid nimbus of light winked out, and then the otherworldly ship was gone. The girls all looked to John, who shook his head, equally mystified.

"Oh! I think I know what that was!" Dana exclaimed, her eyes open wide in amazement.

"You do?" Alyssa said bemused. "Ok, who's flying it?"

"No, not the ship, silly! That strange pale light!" Dana grinned, her face alight with her excitement. "I think they just generated their own wormhole!"

"No way. That's impossible," Alyssa said curtly, having studied all the current attempts at wormhole generation when training to be a Navigator. "It's all only theory and you can't stabilise them!"

"There's lots of species out there with tech way more advanced than ours," John said gently, surprised at Alyssa's vehement rejection of the idea.

The blonde looked suitably chastened and she turned to the redhead. "I'm sorry Sparks, I had to learn all the navigator stuff verbatim in a crash course and I guess some of it stuck a little too well!"

"Don't worry about it," Dana replied and shrugged dismissively as though it was already forgotten. "But I'm fairly certain that's what we just witnessed. What I'd give to have technical schematics of a wormhole generator!" she added, sighing wistfully.

"If that black ship can generate wormholes whenever and wherever it likes, that explains how they brought the battleship here to Grey space, along with all those cruisers!" Calara said suddenly, struck with inspiration.

"Oh, well done Lieutenant!" John said approvingly. "That makes far more sense than any of the possibilities I've had running through my head."

"The remaining ships don't seem to have black hulls. Well except that one in the temporary drydock, but that's only half complete," Jade noted as she continued to stare at the tactical display.

"Wow, you're on fire today!" John said to the Nymph appreciatively.

Calara zoomed in the tactical map to show the Drakkar battleship and cruisers in detail. The battleship was absolutely enormous and at double the size of the Drakkar cruisers, it was triple the size of the Invictus. The front of the battleship sported row after row of beam lasers and then on the flanks, the massive fifty metre long barrels of heavy bore cannon jutted out from the hull. Atop the spine of the ship was rack after rack of missile ports, that would be capable of launching an overwhelming barrage of high explosives.

One of the cruisers looked to be the same size and configuration as the ones they had previously faced, but instead of the purple ship being covered in black armour plating, the way the last ones had been equipped, this vessel was encased in dark grey plates. The cruiser in the drydock looked to be in the process of being upgraded to black armour, but only the front half seemed to have been upgraded so far.

John narrowed his eyes as he studied the ships currently stationary in orbit around the gas giant. "If they're using the drydock to replate their ships, maybe we can do something about your Onyxium shortage Dana..." he said, grinning wickedly.

"Are you suggesting we steal from the Drakkar? John, I'm appalled!" Alyssa said, her eyes gleaming as she held her hand over her open mouth as if shocked.

"Oh wow! That's a great idea!" Dana said eagerly. "That mystery ship must be their source for the ore as well! Maybe they've just dropped off a new batch?"

"What do you think Jade? Would you be able to sneak us in there to pull off a heist?" Alyssa asked the Nymph eagerly.

"Oh, yes! Please let me try, John!" Jade started bouncing up and down, barely able to contain her excitement.

"Are you sure you can get us in there undetected?" he asked, his voice turning serious.

"They'll have no idea we're there, I promise!" she grinned, her emerald eyes sparkling in the light.

"Alright then, but we're still going to have to do something about the battleship though," he said, studying the zoomed in view of the Drakkar command ship, deep in thought. "If we're going in with the Raptor anyway, maybe we could do a spacewalk and plant explosives on critical places on the hull. You said you could create as much explosives as we need, right Dana?"

"True, but that's going to take me quite some time to fabricate and we'd need to do a supply run to stock up on the various chemicals I'd need." she said doubtfully.

"It's not like you to be negative," Alyssa said perceptively, narrowing her eyes. "What have you got in mind?"

"I might have a much quicker way of achieving the same results," The feisty redhead replied, grinning malevolently.

***

"I'm not sure this is a great idea..." John said, narrowing his eyes as he glanced at the feisty redhead.

"You worry too much!" Dana said, standing up on tip-toe to give him a peck on the cheek.

They were standing at the back of the roomy cockpit of the Raptor gunship, as Jade skilfully brought them gliding in towards the Drakkar shipyard, drifting along on minimal power. Alyssa was sitting to the Nymph's side in the co-pilot's chair guiding her protégé on how best to approach, whilst minimising the chance of detection.

"It feels weird wearing body armour!" Dana said excitedly, as she twisted and turned experimentally in the heavily modified Phalanx armour suit, her helmet tucked under her arm.

"And you're definitely sure you need to come with us?" John said doubtfully, concerned about having Dana go anywhere near the battleship. "You can't just contact us on the communicators and guide us through what we need to do?"

"No, afraid not. If we're going to overload their power core, It's going to be too complicated for me to walk you through it," she said, accompanied by an apologetic shrug.

"We should have had you practicing in the firing range with Calara these last few weeks," he said with a frown.

"I'm not too bad a shot actually," she reassured him, adding a cheeky wink. "All those handguns I designed for the Diablo's weren't going to test fire themselves!"

"I'll take your word for it, but a fully automatic railgun is quite an upgrade on the pistols and SMGs you had in your old workshop. I still want you to let me and Alyssa take the lead. We've had a lot of experience fighting as a team now," he said sternly.

"You got it boss!" she replied with a mock salute.

John laughed lightly and then turned his attention back to the gorgeous women flying the ship.

"That's right, just bring us in nice and gently," Alyssa said encouragingly. "Head towards those containers over there first."

Jade nodded and coaxed the Raptor around to slink ever closer to the small group of containers, situated near the Drydock framework that the Drakkar had constructed. They passed around the rear of the partially refitted enemy cruiser and it towered over them, blocking all light from the Kappa-Indarran star. They waited pensively until their gunship left the shadow of the Drakkar cruiser and then continued onwards to their target. Jade brought them in very close to the containers, before halting their forward momentum with the judicious use of retro-thrusters.

"That was perfect!" Alyssa said proudly. "I couldn't have done any better myself."

Jade beamed at the blonde with delight and then turned to look at John. "I kept my promise!" she said happily.

"You were amazing!" he agreed, stepping forward to lean over the back of her chair and give her an upside down kiss. The Nymph giggled cutely and kissed him back avidly.

"Come on," Alyssa said with a laugh. "You can fuck her brains out later, but we better get on with this first!"

John nodded and placed his black armoured helmet back on his head. He glanced up to the icon in the top right, enabling external speech and audio pickups. Alyssa donned her helmet too, and they waved Jade goodbye as they left the cockpit and activated the elevator in the corridor outside.

"I need to get some grav-tubes fitted in here," Dana said thoughtfully. "And a Tachyon drive too. It just didn't seem important when we had so much more critical things to do first."

"The Ashanath seem very happy with us at the moment," John said with a smile. "I'm sure they'll be glad to assist with the refit."

The door to the elevator swished open, leading out into the Raptor's main level. John led the way, and the two girls followed him to the large storage compartment at the back, which contained the airlock collars to either side of the gunship. They strode into the large room and walked over to the port airlock. John activated the inner airlock door and then he and Alyssa stepped through, and sealed the door behind them.

"These suits are definitely vacuum sealed, right Sparks?" Alyssa asked, sounding a little worried, which was most unlike her.

"Don't worry, you're perfectly safe. When I upgraded the suits with the magnetic field generators, I had to install a faraday cage in between the inner and outer protective layers to keep you safe. I made sure the body armour was fully sealed then," Dana said reassuringly.

Alyssa turned back to John and put her hand on his shoulder. "Be careful, alright?" she said, sounding uncommonly concerned.

"I'll be fine, this isn't my first spacewalk!" he said, the wide grin on his face carrying over with his speech. He unclipped one of the safety wires that were attached to the wall inside the airlock collar and attached it to his belt. "Just hit that red button when you need to reel me in," he said, pointing at the glowing red button above his safety wire.

Alyssa nodded as John approached the outer airlock door and hit the button to open the portal. Overhead warning lights began to flash ominously and a sombre computer voice spoke up. "Outer airlock door activated. Airlock will be compromised in five seconds." Alyssa resisted the strong urge to dart over and hit the button to cancel the airlock opening and mentally counted down from five. "Decompression begun," the computer voice said, as the air was sucked from the room.

The outer airlock door spiralled open slowly, leaving John and Alyssa to look out at the stunning vista of stars unimpeded.

"It's breathtaking!" Alyssa said, standing by John's side and looking out in awe.

"I'll take you for a proper spacewalk sometime," he promised. "When we aren't surrounded by bloodthirsty Drakkar preferably!"

"I'll hold you to that!" she said affectionately.

John looked out at the dozens of containers stacked nearby. Jade had done a really excellent job and brought the Raptor's hull to within five metres from their target. The containers looked to be generic five foot cubed ore storage units, similar to those that they'd used to transport the Tyrenium only a month ago. He leaned out of the airlock and then gently pushed away from the collar, drifting easily towards the orderly rows of containers.

The first box he came too had a metallic grey glyph stamped in the middle of the lid. He took hold of the lid and pulled, but found it was sealed tight. Bracing himself, John tugged at the side of the container, applying his newly discovered strength, and the lid crumpled then tore free. He looked inside and saw dozens of shiny metallic bars that had the familiar grey glint of steel. He moved on to the next container, pulling himself along with his hands and saw an identical metallic grey glyph. Sure enough, when he ripped off the lid, he found more steel bars.

Having confirmed what the metallic grey glyph meant, John moved along the row of containers, finding the exact same copies of the glyph on all of them.

"Ok, haul me in honey, we need to move on to the next batch of containers," he spoke to Alyssa.

She pressed the button on the wall and he felt a gentle tugging on the safety cord as he was pulled back into the ship. As soon as he reached the airlock, Alyssa grabbed his arm and guided him inside. A few seconds later, the Raptor thrust forward and began to glide smoothly on to the next stack of containers.

"How did Jade know we were ready so fast?" he asked Alyssa curiously. "I didn't hear you use the voice-comms."

"I thought it to her," she replied. "It's actually slightly easier to send my thoughts to Jade telepathically than it is with Dana and Calara."

"Nymphs are latently psychic," John reminded her. "Perhaps that makes a difference?"

"That makes sense," Alyssa agreed, before pointing out the airlock. "We're here!"

John looked out and saw that Jade had pulled the Raptor right alongside another row of containers. He leaned out the airlock and saw grey glyph after grey glyph on the lids in front of him, so he stepped back inside next to Alyssa. "They're all steel, better let Jade know to move on," he said to the young woman at his side.

A few seconds later the Raptor pulled away again, eased forward by the gentle and sparing use of the manoeuvring thrusters. He looked out at the next set of containers, seeing the grey glyphed lids as they approached. "Keep going," he said to Alyssa and the Raptor continued past the containers without stopping.

Starting to wonder if they might have guessed incorrectly about the mystery ship supplying the Drakkar with ore, he leaned out again to take a look at the next batch of crates. Instead of the grey glyph, these ones were topped by a black rune. "We've found them!" he called out to Alyssa triumphantly. "There's too many to bring in through the airlock though, so tell Jade to bring the tail of the Raptor around to face them."

Alyssa nodded as he stood back from the outer airlock doors and sealed them shut. As soon as air had been pumped back into the airlock collar, he opened the inner doors.

"We'll bring them in through the loading ramp at the back of the gunship," he told Dana, who had been waiting inside the ship and listening to the conversation between him and Alyssa.

"Sure!" Dana said excitedly and walked over to the big loading ramp that made up the back wall of the room when sealed.

John and the two girls secured themselves with safety wires and then Dana hit the button on the wall, that would begin the decompression of the room. Warning lights flashed and the computer advised caution, before the air was finally sucked from the cargo storage area. When they were standing in a vacuum, she hit the button to activate the loading ramp and it swung open slowly, revealing the twenty neatly stacked containers.

John grabbed another ten safety cables, unhooking them from the wall. Not wasting any time, he walked forward to build up some momentum and then stepped lightly off the deck to float smoothly over to the rows of containers. He took a cord from the bundle in his hand and then clipped it to the handle on the side of the crate. "Ok, start winching them in," he said to Dana, his voice transmitted clearly to her helmet.

She was standing at the wall panel and once Alyssa had gently tugged the cables and identified the correct one, Dana pressed the appropriate button to start hauling it in. John went down the row, attaching cable after cable until he's used up the entire bundle. He hung on to the last container, and then drifted back to the Raptor as Dana winched it back.