Three Square Meals Ch. 059

John listened carefully as she spoke, and said, "That seems like a comprehensive summary. What's your conclusion?"

She glanced at him, and looked guilty as she admitted, "I created a subroutine to simulate the way Nexus thinks while guided by its primary directives. I executed it fifty thousand times, and the conclusion was the same for all but one hundred and seven outcomes. That's a zero point two percent margin of error."

"You've been running a subroutine that hates Terrans?" John asked her, sounding worried.

She nodded, but blurted out in a rush, "I deleted it, I swear! Irillith can check to verify I'm telling the truth."

"Alright, and what was your conclusion?" he asked her with some trepidation.

Faye was calm and confident as she replied, "I believe Nexus decided to take advantage of its victory over the Battlegroup to launch a counter attack. I think it already had little respect for Terrans, and the destruction of that fleet will have reinforced that opinion. It would only take the precautions that Irillith mentioned if it felt it was in any danger from Terran Federation forces, and I'm sure it's well aware of the Dragon March offensive stripping away the defensive fleets around Terra.

If I thought like Nexus, and viewed Terrans with contempt, I would move my primary hardware to the toughest ship under my control, just to avoid potential mishaps on the journey. I would only stop to eliminate any surviving Terrans after that battle if I was still waiting for something at that point, perhaps for construction to be completed in the shipyard. However, once I launched my fleet towards Terra, I'd ignore all distractions until I reached the Sol System. Once I was there and had achieved Unity, whatever that means, I'd proceed with my mission to end all humanoid life on Terra as quickly as possible."

As she reported her findings, Faye was careful to do so in an unemotional voice, to make it clear that she definitely didn't harbour any feelings of hatred towards Terrans. Unfortunately the clinical way the purple sprite did so, made her conclusions all the more disturbing. After all, she was discussing the potential genocide of over ten billion people.

Irillith didn't have the same sense of connection to the Terran Federation as John, so while he looked at the purple AI construct in alarm, she nodded with a smile on her face. "That's an excellent piece of analysis Faye," she said approvingly. "Your conclusions all fit with everything we know about Nexus so far."

"Thanks!" Faye replied, looking delighted, back to her chirpy self once more.

Her cheerful tone snapped John out of his startled state, and he studied Faye as he said, "I agree with Irillith, and I think you're probably correct. In that case, we have to hit the biggest ship Nexus has, and destroy the Primary server, which should shut down its entire fleet in one go."

"While being shot at by thirty five ships?" Calara asked him, her expression dubious.

Dana nodded, and said, "The Invictus is tough as old boots, but we can't take that kind of a beating."

Jade grinned at them, and said, "I'll just have to dodge a lot."

John smiled, and said encouragingly, "That's the spirit!"

Calara gave him a worried glance and asked, "What happens if we do manage to destroy the command ship, but the Nexus primary isn't on board?"

He looked at the tiny purple fairy that was fluttering in the centre of the room, and said, "I'm going to put my faith in Faye. I think she's correct, and we just have to make sure we hit the right target." He turned to look at the girls, and continued, "We're stuck in an impossible situation, with ridiculously high stakes at play. We can't predict everything in advance, and we'll have to just react the best we can when we catch up to Nexus. I have faith in all of you, not just Faye, and I know we'll be able to save Terra."

His bold confidence in them settled the girls down, and they smiled at him, looking greatly relieved. Only one of them didn't share that sense of relief, and that was because Alyssa knew what he was really thinking.

He looked at Calara and said, "Thanks for all your hard work on this. Knowing what we're up against will make a huge difference." The Latina smiled at him, and he turned to Faye next as he added, "The Tactical Holo-suite was a brilliant idea, well done."

"I'm so glad you liked it!" she said joyfully.

He nodded, but looked grave as he said, "Please don't take risks like that Nexus subroutine again, not without consulting Dana or Irillith first. I want you to promise me you'll be more careful in the future. We would have had no way of fixing you if you'd been corrupted by that program."

Faye looked chagrined, and she replied, "I'm sorry, I just wanted to be helpful. It was the only way I could think of to give us a good idea what Nexus was up to. I promise I won't do it again."

"Thank you," he replied, smiling at her. "I still want Irillith to check you over though, just to be on the safe side."

"Sure!" Faye agreed immediately.

He rose from his seat, and said, "I believe we have a new laser weapon to test? Shall we proceed to the firing range?"

Dana grinned at him, and sprang to her feet as she exclaimed, "You're going to love it!"

He laughed, and gestured for the girls to proceed as the redhead skipped towards the doorway. Alyssa stood up slowly, and he waited for her as she glided over to join him. He could immediately see the concern on her face, which she was no longer bothering to hide, now that the girls had left the room.

*You think we're fucked, don't you?* she asked him, her tone neutral.

He dropped his upbeat facade, finally letting his worry show on his face, and he opened his arms to her. She immediately moved to him, and he wrapped her in a tight embrace.

*You heard Calara; thirty-five to one!* he replied, sounding deeply troubled. *Every fibre of my being wants to turn the Invictus around and get you girls as far away from this shitstorm as possible.*

Alyssa looked up at him, and asked in that same neutral tone, *So why don't you then? We could run to Maliri Space, bolster Edraele's fleets with our best tech, and then smash any AI that tried to come for us.*

He stared into her piercing Cerulean eyes, his face anguished, as he replied, *I can't just abandon ten billion people. I hate to expose all of you to this much danger, but we have to try to stop Nexus and save Terra.*

Her face lit up with a lovely smile, and she said, *I know, and that's one of the reasons why I love you.* Paraphrasing his moral boosting speech she added, *Don't give up hope, I'm putting my faith in you, too.*

John laughed and flushing with embarrassment said, *God, I hope it didn't sound that corny when I said that to the girls.*

She winked at him, and said, *They all knew what you meant, don't worry."

He grinned, and squeezed her tighter as he said, *Thanks, beautiful, you always make me feel better.*

*I love perking you up,* she replied as she enjoyed feeling his arms around her.

Someone clearing their throat impatiently drew their attention to the door, and they saw Dana waiting for them with a frown on her face. "Come on you two! Don't you want to see the new laser rifle?" she asked incredulously.

"Sorry Sparks," John apologised, releasing Alyssa from his grasp. "I can't wait to see what your devious mind has come up with now!"

Dana bounced on her toes, a beaming smile on her face, and said, "It's my finest work yet!"

Alyssa slipped her hand into John's, and they strolled out of the Holo-suite, following after the incredibly excited redhead. They watched Dana disappear from view as she dived into the grav-tube, and he smiled at Alyssa as they walked after her at a brisk pace. Stepping into the red gravity field, they floated down to Deck Seven, and found the redhead waiting for them at the door into the firing range. She nipped inside when she was sure they were following, and John stopped politely to wave Alyssa through before following her inside.

The girls were waiting for them there, standing and watching Dana with amusement as she fidgeted impatiently. John was about to make a light-hearted joke, but his jaw dropped when he saw the weapon beside her. She had placed the new prototype laser weapon on the table, propped up on a stand to display it more prominently, and he gaped at it in awe.

"Holy fuck..." Alyssa managed to gasp similarly enthralled.

The rifle was big, at least fifty percent longer than the old Punisher railgun, but where that was brutal and menacing, and very definitely Terran in construction, this new weapon was something else entirely. It had the look of a bullpup weapon, just as the others had been, but there were no obvious magazine slots. The barrel and housing of the weapon were glossy white, constructed entirely from Crystal Alyssium, and it caught the light, gleaming with a soft radiance.

In the broad stock of the rifle was a large circle, dark around the edge with a white disc in the middle, set just behind the grip. The trigger guard and hand grip were moulded into the frame of the gun, in keeping with the sleek and refined aesthetics of the weapon. The barrel itself seemed to be made up of an upper and lower half, separated by a black line that led from the circle in the stock right up to the muzzle. Finally, there were vents on the upper barrel housing, and six small, smooth spherical plates evenly spaced along the length of the lower housing.

Dana's nervousness had evaporated now, and in a calm, steady voice, she said, "May I present the Justice Laser Rifle."

She turned to her side and pressed a button on the side of the weapon, then stepped back to give them a clear view. The button flashed twice, pulsing with a soothing green radiance, and there was a soft hum as the Justice rifle came to life. A blue light flared up on the far edge of the disk at the back of the gun, then suddenly split in half, blazing around the circumference of the circle. The twin lights left two bright trails around the disc before reuniting and surging up the length of the barrel.

The rest of her audience hadn't seen the weapon power up yet either, and she smiled with satisfaction as everyone stared, looking equally impressed. "I've incorporated every piece of relevant tech we've collected so far into this rifle," she explained to the onlookers. "Miniaturised power core from the Ashanath built into the stock, Kintark heatsinks for cooling, Maliri focusing crystal for the lenses, and my ultimate material to make the barrel extremely durable and resilient to overheating."

She picked up a Paragon helmet from the table, overlooked by her audience in their excitement, and she held it towards John with an inviting smile. "Want to give it a try?" she asked him indulgently.

He took the helmet from her, and carefully pulled it on, noticing while he did so that Dana was putting on her smart-linked glasses again. He turned towards the Justice rifle, his heart racing in his chest, and carefully lifted it off the stand. A second light on the grip flashed green, once the built-in scanner had read his DNA.

"It's so light!" he marvelled, expecting the big weapon to weigh much more than the Punisher rifle. In fact it probably weighed less than half as much.

Dana gave him a sly smile, and pointing towards the spherical plates built into the barrel, she said, "Maliri anti-grav devices. The Crystal Alyssium frame is light anyway, but those drastically reduce any perceived weight of the weapon."

As he held the rifle, he noticed that the ammo counter on his HUD had disappeared, and was now replaced with the number one. He walked over to the firing range, and asked, "I see the ammo counter has gone. What's this new number?"

She grinned at him, and replied, "The HUD display will switch depending on the type of weapon you're holding. When you're using a Justice Laser rifle, you effectively have infinite ammo, but you have to watch the heat levels instead. If the barrel and focusing mechanism get too hot, the safety overrides will kick in and won't let you fire again until the heat has been vented." She walked over to him, standing on tiptoe so she could look over the rifle, and pointed at a sliding selector switch just above the hand grip. "See that switch?"

John tilted the rifle to take a closer look at where she was pointing, and said, "Yeah, I see it."

"You can use your thumb on that bar, or change it via the helmet HUD, whichever you prefer. It controls the aperture on the muzzle, and the number represents the power of the laser bolts you'll be firing. The higher the number, the stronger the intensity. More powerful shots generate greater heat, so you'll have to spend more time waiting for the heatsinks to lower the temperature," she explained patiently.

Dana stepped backwards, giving him plenty of room, and he raised the rifle to his shoulder at the ready position, and sighted down the range. She had set up a variety of target dummies for him to aim at, with a standard hard-foam humanoid target on the left, and a mocked up Drakkar in the middle, hiding behind a single thin panel of Titanium armour plating. Finally, on the right hand side was a robotic chassis with several thick Titanium plates protecting a hard-foam target. The dummy was propped up on a blocky-looking metal rectangle.

"So what's all this?" he asked her, nodding his head towards the different target dummies.

She rubbed her hands together eagerly, and replied, "Okay then! The first one is just a regular target dummy, but the hard-foam it's constructed from does a good job of modelling a Terran body's resilience to weapon hits. Why don't you give the Justice rifle a try?"

He placed the targeting reticule right in the centre of the dummy's chest, and holding his breath he carefully squeezed the trigger. The Justice rifle murmured, "Psshew," but while the sound accompanying the shot was muted, the bright-blue laser bolt was anything but subdued. The shot hit the dummy in the torso, and burned a fist sized hole straight through the target.

"Alright, now hit it with full auto," Dana urged him.

John aimed at the dummy again, and held the trigger down, just as his beautiful young gunsmith had instructed. A relentless stream of blue laser bolts blasted into the target dummy, firing in rapid pulses of energy. He strafed the shots all over it, melting off limbs, and then neatly searing the dummy in half. There was almost no recoil as he fired, letting him continue to place extremely accurate shots even when firing on fully automatic.

When he released the trigger, the point where the body had been chopped in half was glowing orange, and smoke was rising from the melted chunks on the floor surrounding the devastated target. More interesting however, was the fact that the heat levels had barely risen at all, with the heatsinks easily cooling the barrel to keep the temperature stable.

"So I could keep firing like that non-stop?" he asked the redhead, his eyebrows climbing.

She grinned at him, and said, "Yep! That would have been incredibly useful against the Fulmanax, but most other enemies we've fought have been armoured to some degree." Pointing at the middle target, she added, "Try shooting that one now, using the same setting."

John aimed at the titanium plating, and when he squeezed the trigger, the shot did cut through the armour plate, but the damage to the dummy behind was greatly reduced. He dialled up the power setting to two, then glanced at Dana, who nodded her approval. When he fired again, the sound was louder, and the bolt from the Laser rifle flared with much more intensity. He blasted a big hole through the metal plating, and the shot hit the dummy in the arm, melting through its elbow.

"Unload on it, and watch the heat levels," she suggested with a smile.

He inflicted identical levels of devastation on the second dummy that he'd wrought on the first one, punching big glowing holes through it, and cleanly melting off limbs. The heat indicator began to slowly rise as he savaged the target, and he stopped firing before it would have to vent automatically.

"I wouldn't normally fire non-stop like that, but it was very impressive," he mused, as he watched the temperature bar quickly lower back to normal.

"The option's there, just in case we need it," Dana replied with a shrug.

Irillith stared in shock at the smoking remains of the target dummy, and exclaimed, "I can't believe how much more powerful it is compared to my old laser rifle! Mine used to do comparable damage to the level one setting, but I'd have to keep pausing to let it cool down."

Dana gave her a playful wink, then pulled a Punisher pistol from the holster around her waist. "Now, keep an eye on the next target," she forewarned her audience.

John looked down the range, and studied the target dummy in the last lane. It was sitting on that mysterious rectangular object, and was protected by a couple of thick sheets of Titanium plating. He'd seen the Punisher pistol effortlessly penetrate armour this thick before, so he expected the twenty-millimetre slug to smash straight through the layers of plating.

Dana aimed at the right side of the dummy then pulled the trigger, and the pistol barked, "VrmPkaow." However, the hyper-speed slug seemed to bounce of some kind of invisible field, and the slug was harmlessly deflected off to the side. The twenty-millimetre round smashed into the thick layers of armour plating which lined the sidewalls of the firing range, leaving a huge crater. There was a slight rippling in the air in front of the target dummy for a few seconds afterwards, then the vibrations dissipated, and everything looked normal again.

"That behaved just like the shielding on that spider-bot!" Jade exclaimed in surprise.

John looked to Dana for confirmation, and asked, "Is she right? Is it shielded?"

Dana grinned, and said, "Yep! Although the Punisher rifles have incredible stopping power, especially against armour, that's fuck-all use if we can't even hit the target." Glancing at the Laser Rifle in his hands, she added, "Try shooting it with the Justice rifle."

Aiming for centre mass, he opened fire, and the laser bolts punched into the shield, causing it to flare brightly. Blue rings began to pulse out around the protective dome, and in a matter of seconds it flickered and died, letting the staccato stream of laser fire burn into the armour plating. Unfortunately the armour plating was thick, and it prevented the shots from penetrating.

He stopped shooting and frowned at the target, disappointed to see that he hadn't been able to punch through the dummy's simulated body armour. It was pock marked with charred gouges, but the dummy was completely unscathed.

Dana saw his frown, and winked at him, saying, "Now crank that bad boy up to three!"

He chuckled, but did as she asked, pushing up the power selector switch until the number three was clearly displayed in his HUD. He aimed at the heavily armoured target, and lightly squeezed the trigger. A thick blue laser bolt blasted out of the rifle, and instantly breached the armour plating, melting a glowing fist sized hole through the Titanium. The shot went on to burn straight through the dummy, setting it on fire around the smoking crevasse in its chest. The heat indicator in his HUD spiked significantly, so he tapped away on the trigger, only firing in short bursts.

The dummy was soon reduced to a smoking ruin, and he stopped firing to let the heat vent out. He studied the charred wreckage in the firing range, then turned to Dana and grinned.

She laughed when she saw his expression, and said, "Yeah, a man after my own heart. Pretty fucking awesome, right?"

John looked down at the glorious piece of destructive art he was cradling in his arms, and said, "Dana, you were right; this is your finest work yet. Infinite ammo, no recoil, can take out shields, and can punch through thick armour. Fucking awesome sums it up perfectly!"