Three Square Meals Ch. 095

"What now, Galen?" Andrew asked, his tiredness making him short-tempered.

Galen leaned forward and replied, "I think we should investigate the comms beacons."

Camilla immediately shook her head. "We can't leave Port Medea undefended."

"Fine, then you two stay, I'll take the Antaeus and check it out myself!" he replied, gritting his teeth.

Andrew fixed him with a steady stare. "You'd be ignoring a direct order from your Commanding Officer; Maddox would have you on charges of deserting your post the moment he heard about it. That's twenty-years hard labour, buddy. Don't do it."

"Fuck Maddox!" Galen snapped, his temper boiling over. "Just sitting here like this is crazy!" There was a chime from his console and he saw it was an internal message from the Bridge. "Yes, what?" he demanded curtly.

"We've just picked up Commodore Maddox's forces on our long-range sensors," Commander Hoplander informed him, with a hint of smugness in her voice.

"Alright, I'll be right there," Galen replied, cutting off the call.

Andrew gave him a relieved smile. "See, nothing to worry about." He winked at his friend and added, "But you're going to have fun making this up to me and your crew!"

***

John slapped the 10mm crystal-tipped magazine into his Quantum rifle, checked the safety, then slung the weapon over his armoured shoulder. Reaching for his gleaming crystal Alyssium sword, he locked it into position across his back, the magnet sheath holding it securely. All around him, the girls were busy loading and powering up their weapons, their athletic bodies encased in resilient Paragon armour.

"Alright ladies, let's go," John said, striding over to the express grav-tube that would take him down to the Secondary Hangar.

He felt that sinking feeling in his stomach as he rapidly descended in the red anti-gravity field, the drop through four decks taking only a second. Opening the concealed door into the hangar, he strode out, heading for the big double-doors that led to the largest room on the ship. With a whir of hydraulics, those heavily reinforced doors slid open and he stood aside as the girls marched through, their weapons at the ready.

Just as he was about to follow them into the hangar, a dark-green figure strode past him, standing out glaringly amongst all the white. He turned to look at Jade in surprise, the nude Nymph waving at him with a bright smile on her face.

"Jade? What are you playing at?" he asked, frowning at her in disapproval. "I thought I told you to stay out of the way, this is going to be dangerous!"

"I know, that's why I decided to come along too," the Nymph explained, as though the answer was obvious. "I can't help keep the girls safe if I'm hiding on the Bridge."

"But we haven't had a chance to train you with any weapons yet," Sakura protested. "And you're naked!"

Jade glanced at Irillith's Quantum Rifle and wrinkled her cute nose in distaste. "I'm still not really a fan of guns and armour just gets in the way."

John stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I appreciate you want to help, but don't you remember the fight with the assassins or those robots? I don't want to see you get torn up like that again."

"I won't be," she said confidently. "I'm different now, remember?"

She turned and slinked into the room, her lithe form disappearing in a dark-green aura. The obscuring haze expanded as she grew in size, her body hunching over as she shifted shapes. When the verdant shroud faded away a second later, John and the girls gaped at her in astonishment.

Dana rapped her knuckles on the thick armour plating that covered the Nymph's gigantic feline form, her gauntlet making a metallic clang. "Woah! That's awesome, Jade!"

The Jade tiger winked at the redhead, then stretched and yawned. She bared a set of enormous fangs and claws that were shrouded in a crackling surge of blue electricity.

John walked up to her and ran his gauntlet over the tiger's armoured flank. Aside from the colour, he was unable to tell her dark-green plating apart from a piece of Invictus armour. "How tough is this stuff?" he asked, walking around to look into Jade's huge feline eyes.

*You've been taking good care of me, Master,* she purred with satisfaction, nuzzling her heavy head against him affectionately.

"That doesn't answer my question," he insisted, narrowing his eyes with concern.

*We could ask one of the girls to shoot me with a Quantum rifle to find out?* the Nymph suggested, not sounding fazed in the slightest as she gave him a toothy feline grin.

He frowned and said sternly, "This isn't the time for jokes, Jade."

*I wasn't joking.* She turned to stare at him with her big, trusting emerald eyes. *You've been concentrating on making me more resilient... would you really leave me vulnerable to an infantry weapon?*

He hesitated, torn between his doubts and the kernel of truth he felt in her words. Glancing at Tashana, he held out his hand. "Could I borrow your pistol please," he asked the startled Maliri girl.

She handed it over without question, her eyes widening when John then pointed it at the Nymph. Jade stood patiently before him and his finger wavered on the trigger as he aimed at her armoured leg. There was deathly silence in the hangar as the girls all watched them with trepidation, but try as he might, John couldn't do it.

Alyssa plucked the Reaper pistol from his fingers and patted him on the arm. "Let me," she said, shooing the Nymph away and backing off a couple of steps.

Jade bounded away a few dozen metres, not appearing to be encumbered in the slightest by her body armour. She turned sideways on, presenting a huge target for the blonde.

Aiming for Jade's hulking armoured haunches, Alyssa squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of blazing blue laser bolts into the tiger's flanks. When their eyes had recovered from the brilliant glare, the Nymph's plated form was completely unscathed.

"Holy fuck!" Dana gasped, jogging over to examine her friend. "There's not even a scratch on her!"

Jade gave them another toothy grin. *That tickled...*

John had been bracing himself to rush to heal her and he finally relaxed, gaping at the Nymph in wonder. "Well I'll be damned..."

Alyssa tossed the Reaper pistol back to Tashana and smiled at him. "Jade's right, you don't do things by halves."

Shaking off his shock, John blew out his breath, then glanced around the broad open space to get an idea where best to set up his forces. He noticed the white crystal Alyssium floor, and nodded his approval. "Good thinking, reinforcing the deck like that."

"It was Tashana's idea," Alyssa said, winking at the blushing Maliri girl.

John nodded distractedly. "Alright, let's set up an oblique crossfire." He pointed off to his left. "I want Dana, Rachel, and Calara over there, guarded by Sakura." Turning, he pointed to the right. "Then Irillith and Tashana over there, guarded by Jade. I'll stay in the middle to protect Alyssa while she Spirit Walks."

The girls fanned out, with the fire teams taking up position then readying their Quantum rifles. Sakura drew her swords and sheathed them in frost, while Jade got ready to pounce on anything coming out of a portal that might threaten the twins.

John pulled his long white sword from his back and glanced at the blade. Flickering blue flames curled around the hilt, then surged up its length, dancing and coiling with a fierce hunger.

He nodded to Alyssa and said, "Whenever you're ready, beautiful."

***

Captain Skotari frowned at the signal patterns on the System Map, watching as the odd clusters of ships approached the Iota Leonis system. He spotted the transponder code for the commodore's ship, the heavy carrier, Medusa, leading the returning Terran Federation vessels.

"Maddox is such a stickler for rules and formations," he muttered under his breath. "Why is his fleet scattered around like that?"

"Perhaps he's off-duty," Commander Hoplander suggested, brushing some of her grey-streaked brown hair away from her tired face. "Those ships left at two in the morning, so the Commodore must have been awake half the night..."

Galen decided to ignore the barbed edge to her comment and leaned back in his Command Chair. "Hail the Medusa, Lieutenant Serrano. I'd like to find out what happened on the border."

"Yes, Sir," the young communications officer replied, his hand going to his headset.

There was an awkward silence on the Antaeus' Bridge, as the crew there were obviously waiting for Galen to cancel the alert and let them go to bed.

"They're still not responding, Sir," Lieutenant Serrano replied, frowning in confusion. "We should be able to contact them directly at this range, the signal wouldn't require a Comms beacon to boost it."

"Keep trying," Galen replied, leaning forward to tap his console and call the Thanatos and the Hesperus. When Captain Fowler and Captain Tovaskaya appeared as holographs, he gestured towards the map and the ships approaching their system. "Are you two seeing this?"

"I've tried hailing them, but we're getting nothing but static," Tovaskaya replied, frowning in confusion.

"Same here, maybe they've just got a busted hyper-warp comms modulator," Fowler added, stifling a yawn.

Tovaskaya shook her head. "I've tried speaking to the Plutus too, but got the same thing."

"Two ships with broken comms modulators...?" Fowler muttered sceptically, then suddenly tensed, his eyes widening in alarm. "They're being jammed!"

Just as he spoke, the Antaeus tactical officer turned to look at Galen from his station, "We're picking up more signals, Captain!"

Galen stared at the System Map again, watching in shock as dozens more sensor contacts started to appear at the outer-edge of their sensor range. Dozens became scores, scores quickly became hundreds, until there was a vast mass of ships racing towards the Iota Leonis system.

The leading edge of the Terran forces finally reached them, dropping out of hyper-warp as they neared the system's gravity wells. Galen watched as the Medusa was displayed as a three-dimensional image, his breath catching when he saw the blackened plasma scar scorched across the armour plating covering the engines.

The holo-screen crackled for a second, before displaying a system-wide broadcast. Commodore Maddox's terrified face appeared, his hair ruffled, peaked cap nowhere to be seen. "-still being jammed... Oh thank God!"

"What happened, Commodore?!" Galen blurted out.

"It was a trap! We had to run, there were so many of them!" Maddox replied, visibly quaking with fear. "They were jamming us in hyper-warp, we couldn't warn High Command! We need to call for reinforcements!"

"The comms beacons are down, Sir," Tovaskaya informed him, her eyes wide with shock. "We can't reach High Command either!"

Maddox's mouth opened and shut, but no sounds came out as he stared at her in horror.

***

Alyssa focused her will inwards, peeling away her ethereal form and stepping away from her body. She could see John and the girls in the astral representation of the hangar, everything hazy and slightly indistinct which was typical of her forays into the ethereal realm.

Broadening her senses, she expanded her perception of the astral plane, stepping outside the confines of the Invictus. Alyssa knew that she would need to shift her mind into the Ashanath's sub-plane, like she had done in Ashana, but there was a problem... Previously, she'd been drawn towards their Command network like a magnet, by hundreds of desperate Ashanath minds clamouring for her assistance. This time however, the Greys weren't expecting her.

As she mulled over how to locate the Ashanath sub-plane again, she was aware of faint movement to her right, spotting it in her peripheral vision. When she whirled around, she could see nothing there, just an insubstantial vista stretching away to infinity. Alyssa got the same sensation again but from her left this time and whipping her head about, she scanned the featureless horizon. Far away in the distance, she spotted what looked like swirling vapours that made the view a little hazier. She felt an itchy, creeping sense of dread that made her skin crawl - it was a sensation she'd experienced before in one of the terrifying nightmares...

Suddenly the mists seemed to advance in a surge, halving the distance between her and the horizon. Alyssa jumped in fright, staring at the roiling fog as it lurked ahead of her. Standing alone in this sprawling plane, she could hear the thump of titanic footfalls echoing in those murky depths, and she shuddered as she remembered the clawed horrors that attacked them last time. It felt like whatever was creating or powering that dismal grey blanket of clouds was gathering its strength for another burst, and sure enough, a few moments later, it rushed closer again, drawing frighteningly near.

Remembering how these monstrosities had hurt John, Alyssa narrowed her eyes and centred herself, gathering her will inside her. She summoned up a trio of shining energy lances which hovered above her head, each one throbbing with the amount of psychic power she'd pumped into them. Listening intently, she focused on the direction of the hefty pounding sounds and unleashed the incandescent missiles, launching them into the fog. When she heard a shriek of pain a second later, Alyssa allowed herself a wicked smile and threw her arms wide, shattering the telekinetic lances. The echoing cry of pain became a thunderous bellow of agony, and something huge toppled over, making a vast swathe of mist billow with the massive impact.

The fog slowed its implacable advance, wavering slightly as if recoiling in shock. Alyssa realised she only had a few seconds to act and would have to flee back to her body, or risk being enveloped in that ominous grey shroud. Remembering that telepathy was supposed to have no range limitation, Alyssa recalled how touching the Ashanath leader's mind had felt and called out, *Ularean!*

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw mists blanketing every direction, surrounding her and swelling in strength for what would be one final push. Fighting down her panic, she wondered if she could even reach her body now, when suddenly she felt the Ashanath leader's psychic presence reaching out towards her. Closing her eyes, she followed Ularean's mind like a beacon and stepped out of the Primary Astral. With a gasp of relief, she staggered into the familiar and safe environs of the Ashanath Command Web, to see a cluster of startled Ashanath standing nearby.

Ularean stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment. *Alyssa! How wonderful it is to see you again! I heard your call, but how did you-*

Alyssa rushed over to him and wrapped his frail body in a fierce hug. *Thank you, Ularean! Thank you so much!*

***

More of Maddox's fleet lurched into the Iota Leonis system, appearing in ragtag groups as they fled from the wave of Kintark ships. The carrier group arrived first, quickly followed by several squadrons of destroyers, the ships appearing largely unscathed on the holographic map. As Galen gaped at the holographic map, half of the cruisers appeared, trailed by only two of the battleships, the third's absence filling him with a dark sense of foreboding. He glanced at the incoming sensor contacts to look for the missing Caerus, but there was a long gap between those two trailing battleships and the leading edge of the Kintark forerunners.

As soon as each Terran ship arrived, they set course for Port Medea, their engines flaring as they were ramped up to full power. The fleet began to fall back, intending to huddle within the protective net of Beam Laser turrets surrounding the space station. As if it was throwing open its doors in greeting, the Terran Federation starport opened all its fighter launch bays and unleashed swarms of Rapier strike craft. They blasted out of the bays, leaving orange ion trails behind them as they rushed to provide escort for the capital ships.

Shaking off his petrified state of panic, Maddox wiped his sweaty brow with his jacket sleeve and stared at the holo-screen. "All ships! Defensive formation around Port Medea!"

Galen's cruiser was already stationed near the starport, so he watched and waited as the bedraggled line of Terran warships inched closer on the map.

His helmsman turned around and pointed a finger at the next group of sensor contacts approaching the outer limits of the Iota Leonis system. "Sir, that contact's reading as the Caerus!"

Leaning forward in his chair, Galen felt a surge of hope as the five ships he'd assumed to be Kintark pursuers turned out to be the missing Terran battleship escorted by four cruisers. They jumped in-system and were displayed on the holographic map, his joyful grin freezing when he saw them.

The thousand-metre-long battleship was ablaze with eerie green flames, a dozen tell-tale craters stitched across its flank where it had been struck by plasma missiles. He had no idea how the crew had managed to make it into hyper-warp, let alone keep the vessel flying, burning as it was. The ship powered up its engines, two of the four glowing a bright orange. The third guttered out and died, while the fourth exploded, spraying debris in a broad arc behind the ravaged vessel.

He watched as the burning capital ship limped for the safety of Port Medea, its four loyal escorts dropping back to try and screen the crippled vessel. Galen couldn't help glancing at the approaching wave of Kintark ships, then winced when he saw just how close those enemy vessels were. The Caerus must have just escaped in time, cresting at the very edge of interdiction range of the pursuing Kintark.

Then the first Kintark ship appeared on the map - a cruiser by the size of it - its iridescent green armour glinting in the light from the local star. It was joined a second later by two more cruisers, the three ships immediately charging forward in pursuit of the fleeing Terran Fleet. The Kintark began arriving in waves, the initial ships all cruisers, but it didn't take long for their capital ships to arrive too.

The Kintark didn't use any light carriers; they relied on bigger, bulkier carrier-class ships. It took a minute for the first pair of those to arrive, but when they dropped out of hyper-warp, they immediately launched waves of green heavy fighters. As the strikecraft formed into attack wings and moved to engage the Terran Rapiers, a wave of bombers barrelled out of the carriers, intent on picking off the stragglers from Maddox's fleet.

Fighter wings were the first ships to clash, with the Terran strikecraft slicing through the Kintark ranks. The initial wave of Kintark fighters were massively outnumbered by the sizeable Terran CAP forces from Port Medea, reinforced by a huge swarm of strikecraft from Maddox's fleet. Galen had been expecting to see the lizard fighters torn apart in a hail of Gatling Laser fire, but he was shocked to see that the map showed no casualties after the first pass.

He was about to ask his Chief Engineer if there was some kind of problem with the display, but his words died on his lips as he continued watching the battle. The Kintark pulled around to begin a frantic dogfight and he saw several rapiers blown to pieces seconds later in a series of bright red explosions. More Kintark carriers began to arrive on the outskirts of the system, disgorging more of their lethal green cargo, and soon it was the Terran ships that were outnumbered. Those numbers skewed dramatically in the Kintark's favour as the dogfight progressed, with Rapiers dying in droves, while the lizards barely seemed to be taking any casualties.

"We're getting torn to pieces out there..." he said in a hushed voice, shocked by how grotesquely one-sided the dogfight had become.

Commander Hoplander was obviously staring at the same vicious melee, because she muttered, "Have the Kintark got elite fighter-pilots or something?"