Three Square Meals Ch. 070

"The Greys will love seeing you like that!" Alyssa said with a smile, as she burst out of the walk-in wardrobe. Throwing a set of clothes and boots onto the crumpled duvet, she waved a blushing Sakura goodbye as she rushed out the door, adding, "Clothing is optional, but these should fit you okay."

John turned and jogged down the corridor with Alyssa running by his side. She was wearing leggings, a belted long sleeve top and suede ankle boots, and somehow managed to look effortlessly sexy despite the ungodly hour. They stepped into the grav-tube, and she blushed demurely as he admired her, biting her full bottom lip as she looked at him under thick lashes.

John gaped at her in amazement as they rose in the gravity-field, and said, "I can't even remember the last time you blushed like that. Are you alright?"

The statuesque blonde laughed gleefully, and replied, "I thought I'd give the shy maiden routine a go. You seem quite taken with Sakura when she does it."

He laughed with her, shaking his head, and said, "You're so naughty, you little vixen."

"Only because you love it," she replied, giving him a salacious wink as she sauntered from the grav-tube.

Remembering that they were supposed to be in an emergency situation, John darted up the illuminated steps to the Command Podium two at a time. Faye was sitting on his Command Console waiting for him, and she smiled in greeting as she brought the Sector Map into focus in the centre of the Bridge.

"Alright, what's the sitrep?" he asked her, as his eyes focused on the blinking red light on the lower edge of the map.

"That's the emergency beacon. It looks like the Ashanath ship was ambushed and interdicted by a Drakkar cruiser," Faye said, pointing at the warning light. The sector map showed two projected flight paths: a yellow one for the merchant, and a purple one for the raider ship that had intercepted them. She frowned as she added, "It's not looking good."

The girls had started rushing to their stations, and Rachel asked, "Want me to try hailing them?"

"Yes, please," John replied, staring at the sensor signals on the holographic map.

He recognised that area of space, having used the trade route that passed through those systems himself. It was a common route for traders travelling between Ashana and the closest border station in the Maliri Regency, the Genkiri trading post. The Grey ship had been ambushed just inside Terran Federation territory, along the border with the Ashanath Collective.

"Where the hell are the border patrols?" he muttered as he gazed at the map.

Calara looked his way, and replied, "They were probably moved into position as reserves for the Dragon March. Buckingham pulled in a lot of ships for his ill-fated invasion."

"I'm through to the Ashanath ship," Rachel announced.

The viewscreen flickered for a moment before the holographic image of the Ashanath Bridge appeared before them. The commander of the Ashanath freighter looked just like the rest of its race, and John had no idea whether it was male or female, vaguely androgynous as their species were. Its thin body was covered in a silvery jumpsuit, and it stared at him with huge black eyes set in its oversized bulbous grey head. Despite the fact that the Grey was running for its life, it appeared quite calm, but John had enough experience dealing with these aliens to know that it was probably terrified.

While its tiny mouth didn't appear to move, a whispery, unemotional voice echoed around the Bridge as its translator device said, "This is Trader Cadanari. We are under attack by a Drakkar vessel."

"This is John Blake, Commander of the Invictus. We picked up your distress beacon and we're on our way. We'll be with you in... eleven minutes," he said, pausing for a second as Alyssa supplied him their flight time. Glancing at the sector map, they were still too far away to make out any details of the battle, so he added, "How bad is your situation?"

"We have nearly lost our shields, JohnBlake," Trader Cadanari replied in its neutral voice, the creature's grey face not moving a muscle.

Even with the monotonous delivery from the translation device, John was sure he could pick up the undertone of fear in its voice. As the Drakkar considered the Ashanath to be a delicacy, he could only imagine how frightened Cadanari and his crew were.

"Try and avoid being boarded as long as you can," he urged the Ashanath merchant. In a sudden flash of inspiration, he added, "Drop your cargo if you have to, it'll make you lighter and give you a better chance of avoiding them until we can get there."

The Ashanath merchant stared at John blankly, and when he looked into its eyes, those two impassive black pools were completely unreadable to him. There was some movement from Cadanari's crew in the background, and after a couple of seconds pause, the trader stated, "We have done as you advised, JohnBlake. Our cargo has been ejected."

"We'll be with you soon, Cadanari, hang in there," he said reassuringly.

Glancing at Alyssa, he asked, *Can we make it in time?*

*We're ten minutes away. The Drakkar will probably be able to shoot out their engines and dock a dropship with them by then,* Alyssa replied, and the look she gave him was grim.

Before he ended the call, John said to Cadanari, "Pull your crew away from your airlocks, and lower every blast door you've got. Try and keep yourselves sealed in a pressurised area. If you get boarded, we'll take steps to intervene."

"As you command, JohnBlake," the Grey whispered in its strange voice, before closing the comm channel a moment later.

Alyssa arched an eyebrow, and said, "This should be interesting..."

The Invictus surged forward, powering through hyper-warp as it closed on the duelling spacecraft. When they drew closer to the alien vessels, the sensors began to show more detail, finally able to discern the class and size of the hunter and the hunted.

Identified as a freighter, the Ashanath ship was a large silver-coloured disc, which John knew was constructed from the Aluminium alloy laced with Etherite crystals that the Greys preferred. The Drakkar cruiser appeared much like the others they'd seen before, bulky, predatory, and festooned with spikes and weapon barrels. This ship was a different colour though, and instead of the black Onxyium armour the Raiders had used, grey slabs of armour plating were held in place by purple-coloured ribbing.

The shiny grey saucer tried to make evasive manoeuvres, but it had already taken several hits and lost one of its engines. The Drakkar bore down on it, firing pulsating violet streams of Beam Laser fire as they charged after the Ashanath. There were two more bright explosions, and the merchant ship began to drift, the last of its engines destroyed.

"Looks like the Drakkar are moving in to use a tractor beam," Dana said, squinting at the map. She looked up at John in alarm, and added, "I like the Greys, I don't want them to get eaten!"

"Still six minutes away," Alyssa said with a worried frown.

They were powerless to intervene at this range, and were forced to watch helplessly as the Drakkar cruiser closed on the incapacitated Ashanath saucer. Once the two ships were within close range of one another, a hazy purple cone was projected from the raider vessel, locking on and arresting the forward motion of the merchant ship.

"The Drakkar have launched two dropships," Calara announced, pressing a couple of buttons on her console, and highlighting the smaller ships with glowing red rectangles.

"They'll be able to dock before we arrive," Irillith said, staring at the holographic system map.

John nodded, and glancing at Rachel he said, "Put me through to the Greys again, please."

Following his orders obediently, the brunette hailed the Ashanath ship once more.

As soon as Trader Cadanari appeared on-screen, John said urgently, "You're about to be boarded by dropships. As soon as they attach to your airlocks, I want you to open them. Don't let the Drakkar destroy your airlock doors, OK?"

Cadanari managed to look slightly perturbed, and he blinked a couple of times, which for the Ashanath was the equivalent of gaping at John in horror. "I do not believe that would be a wise course of action, JohnBlake," it murmured in its eerie voice. "Surely we should delay the Drakkar from boarding for as long as possible?"

"Have you dropped all your bulkhead doors?" John asked bluntly.

"We have followed your instructions to the letter, JohnBlake," the impassive alien replied.

John leaned forward, and said, "This will save you a lot of hassle, Cadanari, I promise."

After a long pause, the Ashanath merchant replied, "We shall adhere to your request."

The Grey closed the comm channel, and Dana looked at John curiously as she asked, "What are you up to?"

He winked at her, and replied, "You'll see."

"The cruiser has detected us on their long-range sensors, they're moving to engage," Calara warned him as she studied the menacing alien ship.

John nodded, and narrowing his eyes, he said, "Take them out as quickly as you can, but avoid a core breach. We don't want to catch the Ashanath in a reactor meltdown."

Jade had been watching the dropships, and she announced, "Both Drakkar dropships have docked with the freighter!"

John glanced at Irillith, and said, "Do whatever you can."

The Maliri girl nodded, then closed her eyes, relaxing back into her padded seat.

"Powering up shields," Dana said, pushing the sliding control on her Engineering Console all the way to the right.

"Arming weapons," Calara added, hitting the buttons to slide back the armour plating in the hull and feed power to their Beam Lasers.

Turning to Rachel, John said, "We might as well try hailing them."

After trying repeatedly to hail the Drakkar cruiser, the brunette shook her head, and informed him, "They're refusing to answer."

"Thirty seconds until we drop out of hyper-warp," Alyssa warned them. Glancing at the Nymph flying the ship, she added, "Get ready, Jade."

"It's okay, I know what to do," the green-skinned alien girl replied confidently.

The seconds ticked by, and Alyssa said, "Approaching interdiction range in five seconds."

"Four."

"Three."

"Two."

"One."

Several things seemed to happen at once when Alyssa's countdown ended, with Jade dropping them from hyper-warp, before the Drakkar could force them from it with an interdiction.

At the same moment, Dana grinned and said, "Irillith's knocked out their shields!"

"Message from Trader Cadanari," Rachel said, her hand pressed to her headset. "The two Drakkar boarding parties are attempting to break through the first bulkheads."

The Drakkar cruiser continued to charge towards the Invictus, having no idea how badly outmatched they were. The white assault cruiser seemed equally eager to get to grips with the grey and purple vessel, and leapt forward as Jade increased their engines to maximum power. It took just over ten seconds for the two ships to close to Beam Laser range, but Jade didn't bother to dodge, she kept on a direct heading towards the besieged Ashanath freighter.

Virulent purple beams slashed out from the Drakkar ship, striking the Invictus' shields and sending purple ripples over the shimmering surface. Their weapons should have been able to sustain those focused beams of energy for several seconds, before having to shut down to vent the excess heat, but they winked out after barely a second. That was because Calara returned fire at exactly the same moment, and the blistering barrage she fired back was truly devastating.

The Invictus' twelve front-mounted Beam Lasers opened fire, with the azure columns of energy targeting specific points on the Drakkar vessel. Unfortunately for the Drakkar, Dana had previously scanned their cruiser-class vessels with an active scan, identifying the locations of all key systems. Calara had seen those scans, and she had an excellent memory.

Four blue beams slashed straight through the enemy Bridge, gouging it cleanly from the ship. The other shots made precise, glowing incisions in the cruiser's hull, taking out their port and starboard power relays, and shutting down all power to the Drakkar ship. Left a lifeless hulk, the doomed ship rolled past as the Invictus bore down on its next targets.

It only took ten seconds for the overheat warning symbols to disappear from the weapon loadout display, so the weapons were ready to fire when they closed with the freighter. The grey and purple dropships looked like bloated ticks attached to the silvery skin of their Ashanath host, and it was now time to eradicate the parasites. Calara caressed the weapon controls, and bright blue beams of light slashed into each dropship, neatly severing them from the hull of the freighter. She carved the blades of energy through the Drakkar vessels afterwards, vaporising each dropship in an instant.

With the two dropships cut from the merchant ship, both airlocks experienced explosive decompression, and a score of four-armed bodies were blasted out into space. John watched the Drakkar raiding parties as they sailed away, the raiders thrashing violently for a while before falling still.

"Take that you ugly fuckers!" Dana cheered, having developed quite the distaste for the four-armed species, after nearly being killed by them on two separate occasions. She grinned at John, admiration in her eyes as she added, "I thought the Ashanath were fucked! Thanks for rescuing them."

Calara hadn't forgotten how close she'd come to ending up on a Drakkar's toothpick herself, and she nodded her full agreement with Dana's sentiments.

John smiled at the redhead, and replied, "We better check there's no Drakkar left. Can you run an active scan on the freighter please."

"Will do!" she replied cheerfully.

Glancing at Rachel next, he said, "Please contact the Ashanath again, I want to check they're alright."

She smiled at him, brushing her tawny-brown hair from her eyes as she replied, "We're already being hailed by Trader Cadanari."

Rachel connected the call, and he nodded to her gratefully.

"We owe you our lives, Johnblake," Cadanari murmured, its ghostly unemotional voice robbing the words of the sincerity the alien creature felt.

John smiled at the Ashanath merchant, and replied, "You're quite welcome, Cadanari."

"We spaced all the Drakkar," Dana interjected, giving John a thumbs up.

He nodded to her in acknowledgement, then looked at Cadanari, and said, "You can reseal your airlocks now. We scanned your ship, and we cleaned out all the raiders."

"Our deepest thanks to you, Johnblake," the merchant whispered, and seemed to visibly relax. His huge black eyes swept around the Bridge, and Cadanari began to blink rapidly when he got a good look at the girls. His eerie voice floated around the Bridge as he said quietly, "Oh, goodness."

John fought down a chuckle, coming to the conclusion that Cadanari was probably male judging by his reaction, then said, "I made an alliance with your High Council, and I always intended to honour it."

"I have seen your statue in the Trader's Emporium on Ashana, and heard the story of your victory against the Drakkar," Cadanari said, focusing his black-eyed stare on John once more. "Unfortunately the Drakkar have become more aggressive of late, although I had not expected to see them in Terran Federation territory."

"The Terran Federation has been a bit distracted with the Kintark War," John replied. "I'm sorry you were attacked."

"There is no need to apologise, JohnBlake. Our thanks once again for your assistance," Cadanari replied and reached over to close the comm channel.

"Wait!" John called out, causing the Ashanath merchant to stop before cutting him off. "Do you want us to call a rescue team and wait until they arrive?"

Cadanari gave the vaguest hint of being grateful as he replied, "There is one already inbound to our position. Thank you for alerting them to our predicament. Farewell, Johnblake."

With that the Grey closed the comm channel, leaving John to smile at Rachel, and say, "Well done calling that in, honey. Nice initiative!"

"That wasn't my handiwork," Rachel replied, a smile forming on her lips as she pointed to Faye.

The purple construct looked at John, and said, "You guys were all really busy, so I thought it'd be a good idea to contact the nearest Terran Federation ships and ask for help. I guessed you wouldn't want to hang around for the cleanup operation. The freighter Thetis, has altered course and will be here in just over two hours."

"Great thinking! That'll save us plenty of time," he said gratefully, meeting her luminous purple gaze.

Faye gave him a gleeful grin, her iridescent wings fluttering in the light.

"Can we go back to bed now?" Dana asked, miming a fake yawn.

The yawn proved infectious even though it was for comedic purposes, and several of the girls started yawning, as well as John.

"Good call," he agreed, rising to his feet as he watched Jade activate the Tachyon Drive, and launch them into hyper-warp once again.

The Nymph got out of her chair, and said, "On our way again, and we only lost about half-an-hour with that rescue."

Sakura had been spellbound as she'd watched the entire battle, standing behind Alyssa's chair on the Command Podium. The blonde rose from her seat and linked arms with her, giving the raven-haired girl a warm smile.

"Your first encounter with the Ashanath and the Drakkar," Alyssa noted as they walked down the steps from the Command Podium. She added wryly. "Let's just say that our first battle with the Drakkar didn't go quite so smoothly!"

"What happened?" Sakura asked, turning to look at the blonde, and listening attentively.

"Well we didn't have Faye to keep an eye out for ambushes, so it was a disaster from the start..." Alyssa replied, as they strolled towards the grav-tube. As she continued her tale, she glanced flirtatiously over her shoulder at John, and added, *After I've told Sakura a nice bedtime story, you can give her a nightcap to help her sleep. How's that sound?*

John watched the lithe young women sashaying down the steps ahead of him, and he thought it sounded like an excellent idea.

***

"Morning, John!" Faye whispered to him, dutifully giving him his morning wake-up call as he'd requested.

His eyes drifted open and he found himself staring at the AI as her holograph loomed over him only a few inches away. Smiling at her, he raised his head, and mimed planting a kiss on her lips before resting on the pillow again.

"Hi, Faye. Nice to see you this morning," he said, greeting her in equally as cheerful a manner.

Faye's eyelids were fluttering, and she seemed incapable of speech for a moment while her custom programs went into overdrive. She finally managed to get herself under control, then smiled at him as she said, "That was wonderful, thank you."

"You're very welcome," he replied playfully. "I assume it's nine o'clock?"

The purple AI nodded, but didn't move, still gazing at him from only inches away as she replied, "Your wake up call, just as you requested."

Alyssa had started to awaken, and she looked relaxed after the lie-in that morning.

John smiled at her as he extricated himself from Irillith and Sakura's arms, and whispered, "Stay in bed, beautiful. You girls earned a nice rest after the action last night."

She looked at him quizzically as she read his mind, then smiled back as she said, "That's a lovely idea. I'll help too!"

The two of them climbed out of bed, dressing quickly as they padded out of the room.

When the other six girls eventually woke up, it was to the tantalising aroma of a cooked breakfast. They sat up quickly, and gratefully accepted plates from Alyssa before tucking into the serving platters of food that John offered to them. He balanced a huge stack of pancakes and syrup in the platter on his left hand, while his right was weighed down with bacon, eggs, sausages, and hash browns.