Three Square Meals Ch. 069

There was a chorus of happy sighs and beaming smiles at his warm praise, and they looked delighted by his impromptu speech.

"Yeah, that never gets old," Dana said as she gazed at him with a dreamy expression.

Sakura looked a bit forlorn, knowing full-well that she'd slept through the entire battle and hadn't been able to contribute anything. Alyssa felt her disappointment over their empathic bond, and she glanced at her and said telepathically, *You'll get your time to shine, don't worry.*

The Asian girl nodded, then gave her an appreciative smile for her kind words.

Alyssa turned to look at John next, and arched an eyebrow as she said, "You weren't too bad yourself, with your little Nova Lance intimidation stunt. I'm amazed that worked."

Calara looked relieved as she said, "If it hadn't we'd have been in big trouble. Caught between the traitors and that Kintark fleet, the Damocles and the rest of my dad's battle group wouldn't have stood a chance."

John grimaced as he said, "Yeah, but I wish the Progenitor hadn't seen that. He must have watched the whole battle, starting with Calara cutting the Kintark strike craft to pieces, right up to one-shotting that battleship."

"I can't believe he'd just vaporise Gabrielle Lynton like that," Rachel said quietly. "I know Edraele said that Progenitors don't care about their thralls, but that was awful!"

Calara looked grim as she said, "Not only that, but the power spike when the black ship opened fire was frightening. It was total overkill against Lynton's shuttle, but I dread to think just how much damage a beam like that would do to a big ship like the Invictus."

"Shit! That power spike!" Dana blurted out, her eyes going wide. "I forgot in all the excitement, but we -did- see what that kind of beam can do! The Progenitor must have fucked up Santini's dreadnought! I saw exactly the same kind of off-the-scale energy surge just before the Sword of Sif lost its shields!"

"The same kind of power as a Nova Lance?" John asked, looking worried.

Calara nodded, and replied grimly, "At least. The shield banks on a dreadnought are much more powerful that a battleships, but if Dana's right, the Progenitor knocked them out in a single shot. Not only that, but they still had enough power to destroy the Sif's Singularity drivers as well."

At the mention of those fearsome weapons, the acquisitive gleam had returned to Dana's eyes, and she pleaded, "Come on! I've been good, put me out of my misery, please!"

John chuckled, and glancing at Irillith, he said, "I think we've made her wait long enough. So what did you discover aboard the Thor?"

Irillith rose from her seat, then walked over to retrieve the remote for the holographic projector. She paused when Faye said brightly, "Hey, I can do that for you!"

The projector sprang to life, then quickly coalesced into the first of the schematics that Irillith had acquired while foraging around the Thor. This clearly wasn't the blueprints for the singularity drivers, but proved just as interesting, as the full technical readout of the dreadnought class vessel began to rotate above the desk.

Both Dana and Calara leaned forward, studying it in fascination.

"Wow, they've built five monster power cores into that bad boy!" Dana blurted out, as she examined the vast amount of power relays supplying energy to the massive spacecraft.

"I'm not surprised, just look how many weapon batteries they've built into that ship," Calara remarked, pointing with a slender finger at the bristling topdeck. "Beam Lasers, Heavy Cannons, Laser Cannons, Gauss Cannons, Missiles, the firepower the dreadnoughts can bring to bear is incredible."

"Why didn't they use all that in the battle?" Jade asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. "They just seemed to hang back and use the Singularity drivers."

"They were acting as command vessels," Calara explained distractedly, as she continued studying the schematics. She was looking at them with a more critical eye now, and with an altogether darker purpose, as she searched for vulnerabilities in the dreadnought's design.

Still looking confused, Jade asked, "Couldn't they command, as well as hit the Kintark with all those guns?"

Calara tore her eyes away from the slowly rotating image, and then gave Jade her full attention as she replied, "The Singularity drivers have double the range of Beam Lasers or Plasma Cannons, so they could sit back and pick off exposed ships, without exposing themselves to return fire. If things had turned really nasty they would have engaged fully, but a ship that big with so many guns would have drawn a huge amount of incoming firepower.

A command vessel shouldn't be intentionally putting themselves in that position unless in a dire emergency, as the impact to the battlegroup as a whole if they'd been destroyed would have been disastrous. You probably saw how ineffective Santini's and Lynton's battlegroups were, until we stepped in and took control."

"Until -you- did," John said proudly.

She gave him a slight smile in acknowledgement, but seemed unwilling to want to steal the limelight from the other girls. Instead, she glanced at the slowly turning image of the dreadnought, and said, "The Terran Federation lost two of these behemoths in a couple of days. I think you're right about them wanting to seek a peace deal, or at least a truce to consolidate their losses."

"Two?", Jade asked curiously. "Only the Sword of Sif was destroyed."

"Admiral Norwood defected and took his dreadnought over to the Kintark," Calara reminded her. She glanced at Irillith then, and said, "Handing over the Thor to the Terran Federation will make a huge difference. They've still got three dreadnoughts and the Zeus, but losing another would have been a crippling blow."

John grunted as he said, "The Admiralty weren't particularly appreciative when I spoke to them, they were more interested in trying to get the tech from the Invictus. I'm sure they'll come round, when they take a minute to think about what we did for them."

Rachel looked at him with concern, and asked, "Should we be concerned about how they'll react? Will they make a move against my father to try and coerce you into handing over technology?"

Alyssa smiled as she interjected, "No, I don't think you or Calara have anything to worry about on that front. John gave them a good talking to about it."

Both girls murmured a quiet but grateful thank you to him, and he smiled as he said, "Actually Jack had some very interesting things to say about that. It seems our growing reputation would make it extremely difficult for the Admiralty to try anything against us. We should still keep our guard up, but I think we should be safe from any attempts to take the Invictus from us by force."

Irillith frowned as she added, "I'll have to work on improving our digital network to make it completely impervious to Terran intrusion. I doubt they'd be able to try anything, as we've already upgraded our defences significantly, but we can always do more."

"I've come up with a bunch of ideas for that!" Faye chipped in. She smiled at Sakura as she continued, "Plus I thought of a few ways we could prevent unwanted intruders!"

"We'll have to get together to talk about it," Sakura said, nodding enthusiastically.

"We've got a bit of a journey ahead of us, so there'll be plenty of time for training and upgrades," John said, looking around the table at the girls.

Each beautiful woman looked thoughtful, as they mused over various research projects and training that they'd had to put on hold with all the recent fighting. He had plenty to keep himself busy too, and he was eager to start training Sakura, as well as practice his own growing abilities.

Dana cleared her throat, and said, "Yeah, I've got a shitload of stuff I need to do. Anyway, let's see the new guns!"

Irillith glanced at Faye, and the purple sylph blinked her eyes, changing the holographic image before them. The dreadnought faded from view, only to be replaced by what looked like a huge, heavy calibre cannon, which they all recognised from the Terran ships they'd seen in action.

"I found the schematics for the Terran Heavy Cannons," Irillith explained, when she saw Dana's momentary look of confusion. "They aren't much use for us as they are, but you might be able to adapt the design somehow."

Dana nodded, but she had a resigned expression on her face as she said, "Yeah, I could buff the everloving crap out of them, definitely enough to make them useful, but our problem is weapon hardpoints. There's a limit to how many guns I can slap on the Invictus."

The Maliri girl nodded, and replied, "I understand, but I'd be letting you down if I didn't 'requisition' everything I could get my hands on." She smiled as she waved her slender blue fingers in the air.

"Good policy," Alyssa agreed with a grin. "Steal everything that isn't nailed down, right John?"

He arched an eyebrow at her, and replied, "I wouldn't have phrased it quite like that, but we more than earned it. Besides, the more powerful we become, the better chance we have of stopping the Progenitor, which helps the Terran Federation in the long run."

"I was thinking about that actually," Calara said soberly.

John glanced at her, and asked, "What's on your mind?"

"Let's go through the rest of the tech, and we can discuss it afterwards," she said, meeting his curious gaze for a moment. He could see the look of worry in her eyes, which left him with a sense of foreboding.

Turning to look at Irillith, he said, "Go ahead, honey. Did you find anything else?"

She smiled at him, then nodded as she gestured to Faye. The image changed once again, to a much smaller weapon about the size of a Terran Laser Cannon, the scale on the holograph revealing it to be ten metres long.

"Oh, cool! Gauss Cannons," Dana remarked, studying them with interest.

"Anything useful there?" Irillith asked with a hopeful smile.

The redhead nodded, a look of razor-sharp focus on her face as her eyes darted back and forth over the weapon schematic. She seemed totally absorbed in her analysis, but her voice was clear as she replied, "It's a similar idea to the railguns I built, using magnetic fields to accelerate a projectile towards a target, but the application is a little different. The Punisher railguns use a magnetic rail, like the Mass Drivers I based them on. A gauss weapon uses electromagnetic coils along the barrel that are activated in sequence to accelerate an object along its length. The Terran Federation design is a bit limited, but the ideas behind it are interesting."

Faye waited until Dana glanced away, giving her an eager smile of anticipation. "Yeah, we've teased her long enough," Irillith said to the helpful AI when she looked her way for permission to proceed.

The Gauss Cannon schematics faded away to be replaced by those for the Singularity Driver. It was a massive weapon, measuring nearly half a kilometre in length, and requiring the vast bulk of the Dreadnought they were mounted on to absorb the tremendous recoil. Dana squealed with excitement, then half stood from her seat so she could take a closer look. Her eyes flashed back and forth, almost seeming to glow in the reflected light of the hologram as she committed it to memory. She sat back down then with a happy sigh, closing her eyes as she pictured it in her mind, and examined every facet of the design.

"Now this is fucking awesome!" she exclaimed, a look of delight on her face.

John glanced at Calara, leaving Dana to enjoy herself for the moment, and asked, "What do you make of the Singularity Drivers, Commander?"

She smiled at him, then replied, "A direct upgrade to the Mass Drivers, Rear Admiral. Essentially the Singularity Drivers are a rapid firing, longer range, more potent improvement." Her smile faded though, as she added, "Unfortunately they're nearly as big as the Invictus, at just under five-hundred-metres in length. The Mass Drivers are 'only' two-hundred-metres long, so if we didn't have Dana, I'd tell you they were impossible to fit on our ship."

Everyone turned to look at the redhead, who had a slight frown on her face as she mumbled, "Yeah, I'll have to give this some thought." Dana opened her eyes, then looked at John as she continued, "Even if I can miniaturise the tech enough to make use of the Mass Drivers' hard points, we'll be stuck in drydock for several weeks. The Invictus is built around those guns, and stripping them out and replacing them would be a right bitch!"

He nodded, and replied, "Alright, we'll just have to see if we can fit the time in somewhere. I'm planning on returning to Valaden with Tashana, then staying for a few weeks anyway, as we have to upgrade the Power Core and Tachyon Drive. We can always extend our stay if we need more time."

"I'll try and have something figured out for you by then," she said, with a confident grin on her face.

John looked at Irillith and said, "Excellent work acquiring those blueprints, you showed great initiative finding them. I'm not sure the Admiralty would've been quite so keen to hand them over."

"Well, they can go fuck themselves," Alyssa said, her eyes narrowing with annoyance. "We bailed them out of deep shit, and the way they spoke to you was totally out of line. It's a good job you're the one in charge, not me!"

He could feel the anger over their bond, and he guessed that she wasn't just seething about the way they'd spoken to him, but also by the veiled threats they'd made towards Calara and her family. Her fierce, passionate expression was strangely exciting, and he was reminded by that old adage about anger and arousal being closely linked.

*You look beautiful when you're angry,* he told her, meeting her intense gaze.

It was like a switch had been flipped in Alyssa, and her expression abruptly changed to one of lust. Her bright blue eyes sparkled with excitement, and he could feel how turned on she was as she said, *We need to wrap this up!*

*Soon, beautiful, soon,* he said to her in a soothing voice, and she nodded slightly, giving him a smouldering look.

Turning to look at Calara next, he asked, "You wanted to discuss fighting the Progenitor?"

The Latina nodded, and leaning back in her chair, she replied, "I've been thinking about the Progenitor, his ship, and the Drakkar. Or more specifically, him giving them the Onyxium armour plating."

John remembered those black armour clad Drakkar ships well, and how close the battles they'd fought with them had been. He looked at her questioningly, and asked, "Alright, you've got my undivided attention. What's on your mind?"

She turned in her chair, watching the stars of the Terran Federation drifting by as they raced through hyper-warp. Not meeting his gaze, she said, "You consider the Terran Federation an ally don't you?"

He nodded as he replied, "They're probably the closest allies we have at the moment, except for Edraele's House Valaden forces, although I'm not sure how a Maliri fleet would feel about aiding us. I'm not sure how much we can trust the Ashanath to help us in a sticky fight."

*You won't have a problem with regard to my forces,* Edraele told him. Her tone was regretful rather than proud when she added, *They know better than to even think about disobeying an order from Edraele Valaden.*

Calara was oblivious to his telepathic conversation with the Maliri Matriarch, so she continued speaking as she stared out of the window, "As close an ally as the Terran Federation are, you're still reluctant to give them access to any tech."

"We've been over this, honey," he said in a gentle voice. "As much as I'd like to help them out, I'm worried they might still be a threat to us. At the very least from other easily corrupted traitors like Lynton."

She spun the chair around to look at him again, and smiled as she said, "It's okay, I understand. That's not the point I'm making." Staring into his eyes, she continued, "Now, remember how you feel about sharing your tech, and then think about this Progenitor giving the reflective armour to the Drakkar..."

John's eyes widened as he saw where she was going with this line of reasoning, and said, "He only gave them a poor imitation of the tech he has available!"

Calara nodded, and replied, "We have to work on the assumption his ship is immune to laser fire."

"Fuck!" Dana blurted out.

"Yes, exactly," Calara said, glancing her way. "The Invictus has gone through a huge firepower upgrade recently, but it's ALL laser based weaponry. If we got in a fight with the Progenitor, we might be able to strip off his shields, but we'd only have the Mass Drivers to actually hurt him."

Dana gave Irillith a grateful smile, and said, "The Heavy Cannon and Gauss Cannon schematics might be a lot more useful than I thought. I'll have a good look at improving them too."

"It looks like we'd best try and avoid any direct confrontations with the Progenitor until we know what we're up against and can develop some effective counters," John mused thoughtfully. He looked around at the sober faces around the table, and with a wry smile he added, "On that happy note, does anyone else have anything they want to discuss?"

Rachel made eye contact with him, and replied, "I gave the formula for the stem cell inhalant I developed to Commodore Hochberg, as well as the formula for the skin regeneration enzyme. I realise we could have sold them for a huge profit to one of the pharmaceutical companies though, so I hope that was okay?"

He smiled at her as he stared into her apprehensive grey eyes, and said, "Don't worry, you made exactly the right call. Those people needed that treatment immediately, and besides, it's not like we need the money. You helped a lot of people today, Doctor, I hope you know how proud of you I am."

She looked relieved, and smiled at him happily as she basked in his praise. Dana nudged her with a playful elbow, and the two shared a warm grin.

John looked around at each of the girls, and seeing that no one else wanted to raise anything, he said, "I think that about wraps it up, and I'd like to suggest an evening of celebrating in bed. Any takers?"

The girls all stood immediately, and began moving towards the door, giving him lusty glances as they did so. He helped Sakura off his chair, her stomach nearly flat again as her body fed hungrily off the rich meal she'd enjoyed at lunchtime.

Alyssa took her hand, and having read his mind, she purred, "We'll get started without you."

John turned his chair to look for Calara, who was standing waiting for him on his left, having been forewarned by the telepathic blonde. She smiled as she asked, "You wanted to talk to me?"

He rose from his chair, and walked over to take her hand. The door to the Briefing Room slid quietly closed a moment after Alyssa and Sakura walked through, leaving John alone with the gorgeous Latina.

"Yes, I wanted to be honest with you about something," he said, his voice troubled.

She froze in alarm, and asked, "What's the matter? Is it something to do with my family?!"

He shook his head, and replied, "It's nothing like that, don't worry."

Calara relaxed straight away, trusting him implicitly, but she looked curious as she asked, "What is it then?"

He leaned back against the desk, pulling her with him, and said, "You know I spoke to the Admiralty?" When she nodded, he continued, "Before I talked to them, I had a disturbing chat with Edraele. She warned me that they might be very interested in your gunnery skills, and even more so in your tactical command of the Terran fleet against the Kintark. Just as she predicted, Admiral Weber started asking me who was commanding those ships, and wanting to 'debrief' you."

"What did you say?" she asked him, her dark brown eyes big and round as she stared up at him.