Project - Prometheus Ch. 45

"That's... fucking hot!" Natasha breathed as she rubbed her lithe body.

"So... are you," Aesha got out as Willem settled into a groove quickly, taking her good and hard.

"Oh, fuck me!! I want to see you cum, Aesha!" Natasha giggled as she kept playing with herself, her hands migrating down to her pussy.

Aesha would be fulfilling the woman's wish soon, as she was on the verge of hitting that peak. The combination of everything that had happened had worked her up to the point where it wouldn't take much to set her off. With Willem plowing her hard as he was, it was only a matter of time before she went over the edge. She could tell that Willem was close too, as his grunting and breathing had become quite erratic over the last minute.

Willem kept slamming his cock into her little crevice, stretching Aesha out with each thrust. She was still really tight, a fact that was putting additional pressure on Willem's cock, putting him on a hair trigger. The man wanted to explode, but he wanted Aesha to get there first, so he held on. Moment's later, he felt Aesha vibrate and knew that her orgasmic wave had hit her.

A long, low moan escaped Aesha's lips as the ecstasy that smashed into her overrode every fiber of her being. Her pussy clenched hard on Willem's dick, but not hard enough as he pulled out, his cock erupting as he did. Willem pointed his cock at Aesha's ass, painting it with the thick ropes of fluid that came out of him. He gripped the edge of the couch to steady himself, as his mind was blown by the intensity of his orgasm.

Another cry pierced the air, and the pair of lovers looked over to Natasha who was jittering and jolting this way and that. They both then grinned at the young woman, glad to see that she truly did find what they were doing erotic. Aesha then slowly slithered forward, her face eventually coming to Natasha's feet.

"Ummm... yes?" Natasha got out as she huffed, trying to catch her breath.

"Enjoy yourself, did you?" Aesha asked and Natasha nodded vigorously. "Would you like some more?"

"Wait... you want... more?" Natasha gasped, thinking that the woman was joking.

"Yes! Is that so hard to believe?" Aesha queried.

"It's just... not everyone is... into wanting... more," Natasha said to her.

"My people are not... prudes? I think that's how you humans say it?" Aesha asked, and both Willem and Natasha nodded. "You expected me to be one?"

"Most aliens that come around here... they don't bother with us humans. They think they 'lower themselves' mingling with humans like that," Natasha stated.

"It's true. Many alien women and men turn up their noses at humans. Call us an 'inferior race' and often go to great lengths to prove it," Willem agreed.

"Not my people! To us, humans are a boon to the galaxy! In fact, I find many humans, most attractive," she purred as she fixed both of them with bedroom eyes.

"So I've noticed!" Natasha chuckled as she gave Aesha a similar look. "How long do you have before you have to head back?"

"A few hours, at least. I have my comms set to ring for any incoming calls. Until I get one..." Aesha smirked sultrily.

"Oh, we are going to have so much fun!" Natasha giggled as she popped to her feet. She then took Aesha's hand, then Willem's, leading them over to her currently unused bed.

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Several hours later, as night had set in, the crew of the Darkstrider were now sitting in a deputy post not far from the gates of Tanith's Gully, discussing their next attack. The discussion had devolved into an argument, with everyone trying to put forward a tactic that would catch the Confeds off guard. While everyone had good ideas, none of them could agree on a solid plan with which to execute it.

"I've said it once, and I'll say it again; a frontal assault on the Confed fleet is suicide! The only way a direct attack will work is if we manage to magically drop in on their aft! We would lose too many ships for any direct attack to be effective!" Inari huffed, tired of reiterating the same point over and over again.

"Surely there must be some way we are able to take on such an adversary! There is no way that they would be able to hold us like this indefinitely!" Captain Min argued, trying to find a solution.

"There isn't one! Even with your ships and the Darkstrider combined, it's not enough firepower to make a dent! The only chance we would have is what I said earlier, or if we have a planetary cannon powerful enough to hit the ships in orbit!" Inari rebuffed, her anger rising.

"ENOUGH!" Alex boomed, stopping the chatter instantly. "We need to come to a proper agreement and strategy, or those Confeds will overwhelm us while we still debate the specifics!"

"The man is right. Coming to a unanimous decision has to happen fast, if we stand any chance of bringing that Confed fleet down!" Korsa agreed, supporting her man.

"You got my vote on that! With those constant bombardments, I'm not sure how much longer the shield will hold," Natalya stated, reminding everyone that they were on borrowed time.

"I thought you said that the shield would hold against a sustained bombardment!" Jenque protested.

"It will, but not indefinitely. Against constant bombardments, a shield system needs proper time to recoup. Sadly, the Confeds have been throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us, without much respite between bombardments," Natalya replied.

"Which is the standard Confederate plan when dealing with an enemy with strong defenses. Throw everything possible at them to whittle down their defenses, bit by bit. Once enough of a dent has been made, then launch an attack which would be capable of overwhelming said defense. The moment the defenses are down, then they will make their strike," Zuzanna replied.

"A favored tactic of the fleet commander?" Daved wondered, knowing it was Zuzanna's dad who led the fleet.

"It is. The man has a lot of patience and takes no issue with waiting an enemy out. As far as he's concerned, time is on his side and, more often than not, it is. You can't wait this sort of commander out. The only way you can defeat him is to do something unexpected and while he's recovering from said move, go on offense," Zuzanna told the group.

"You expect us to launch an attack at a fleet, where they outgun us by at least ten to one, and find a way to throw them off their game?" Priya scoffed.

"Daruisz Walczak is great at playing things his way, by his rules, at his pace. If you keep playing things his way, he will always win. The only way to win is to change the game and play it at your pace. Adapting to a fast-paced strategy has always been his weakness," Zuzanna finished.

"And how do you propose we take such a man by surprise? It's clear that he's in the commanding position here and would see any attack coming," Dagan stated, not liking the odds as they were.

"I think there might be something that could work. Might," Gloria stated as she looked around at the group, before looking up at her son.

"Ma, you're not suggesting..." Matthias protested, looking uneasy about that look she had on her face. Before either one could say any more on the matter, alarms went off in the station, alerting everyone that they had incoming.

"Damn it! Everyone, to your stations! Pilots to your ships!" Daved called out, using the town loudspeaker to rally its defenders. As the crew rushed out of the deputy post, the crew there got a call from Taal'ani, which Inari picked up.

"Talk to me, Talon! What do we got?" Inari asked as they all raced for the Darkstrider.

"Same makeup as the initial attack, but they added a wing of corvettes to help with this one! Starting up the ship and we should be ready to go the moment you get here!" Taal'ani told Inari.

"How long?" Priya wondered, keeping pace with Inari's long strides.

"Eight minutes before they're in torpedo range!" the Fel'caan woman stated.

The group breathed a small sigh of relief, as they were not even a minute away from the ship. They could hear the engines priming as they ran through the gate and saw the exhaust from the ship as the engines were brought online. They raced up the ramp, with Inari bolting straight for the Banshee, as Priya went straight to the bridge and the pilot's chair.

Kasumi, Alex and Shazza went with them to help with managing their ships and to help with tactics. Matthias and Gloria joined them, as did Korsa and the Artucian women. They could have gone to the flight pods to help with the drones, but Jaesa, Stanley and Delilah were already piloting all four of them, with Jaesa handling two of them.

"Captain Johnson, are you there?" Priya queried into the comms.

"That I am, Darkstrider! The Mjolnir is ready for action, as are the rest of the ships in the defense force!" the man replied, his voice brimming with enthusiasm.

"Captain Min, are you ready?" Inari asked as she hopped into the pilot seat of her Banshee.

"Indeed, good Captain Sunara! We are powering engines and weapons!" Dagan responded, eager to get the fight going.

"Excellent! Nats, can you get the shield team to open it up?" Inari asked.

"Already done! Our exit is in sector B nineteen!" Natalya replied.

Priya smiled as she got the Darkstrider airborne and guided it to the now widening gap in the shields. The rest of the Prodosian defenders were on her heels, following her out as fast as they could. They all screamed out, the shield closing behind the last ship as they plotted an intercept course for the incoming fighters, bombers, and corvettes.

"You'd think after the last attack went so badly that they'd get the point that trying to get past us is a fool's errand," Priya scoffed.

"Well, it appears that they've smartened up and tightened up their tactics! Fighters bearing down on us at one o'clock!" Inari called out as she banked away from the Darkstrider to engage the fighter wing. The drones banked with her, the AI's assisting the captain in her attack.

"Watch it, babe! Corvettes are mixed in with those fighters!" Priya warned, as she moved in to help.

"I see them! Concentrate on dropping those corvettes! I'll handle the fighters!" Inari told her girlfriend.

"Copy!"

The lot of them engaged the attacking ships, with only Dagan and his ships hanging back as they waited for the bombers to show up. The battle was fairly even, with the Confederate pilots dropping a few Prodosian fighters. It seemed to the man that these guys weren't resting on their laurels this time and had brought their A game to this engagement.

"Where are those bombers?" Dagan groused as his ship sat nearby, waiting for the bomber wing to arrive.

"Sir! We've got incoming!" the helmsman of his ship, Eureka, called out.

"Shields up! Take evasive action!" Dagan bellowed as he strapped himself in. The ship turned as fast as it could, but it was still too slow as torpedoes slammed into it. The Stalwart listed to the side as the concussive force of the attack knocked everyone aboard off their feet. Dagan was glad that he was sitting, as he was one of the few who was still upright when the ship recovered from the hit.

"Damage report?" Dagan called out, hoping it wasn't too bad.

"Most of the damage was absorbed by our shields, but the concussive blast knocked us about and out of defensive positions!" the helmsman reported.

"Those bombers?? Where are they?!?" the captain bellowed, hoping they hadn't gotten past them.

"They got through and they're making a run on the town!" the tactical officer said out loud.

"Get after them!!" Dagan yelled, and the crew hopped to, hoping to at least reach the bombers as they reached firing range.

The five ships under Dagan's command looked like clunky freighters, but they were secretly well cared for machines of war. While the men and women under Dagan's command were scoundrels, smugglers and the dregs of society, they were all seasoned combatants. With the hardware Dagan had, they were a veritable fighting force to be reckoned with.

As long as Dagan didn't try to pilot any ship, they were all good. Dagan could shoot, brawl and charm with the best of them, but the only thing he couldn't do was fly. The man had tried, but he crashed nearly a dozen ships before giving it up. This was why he went looking for people to join his crew, as it wouldn't do well to crash every ship you tried flying.

"Are we close enough to take them?" Dagan asked anxiously as he watched the bombers close in on Tanith's Gully. While the ship's engines were strained trying to catch them, none of them could lock on before the bombers unleashed their payload. The missiles they launched went straight for the dome shield protecting the town, ready to destroy it.

"Tanith's Gully, brace for impact! I repeat, brace for impact!!" Dagan yelled over the line, trying to warn the residents and deputies that were on the ground inside. The missiles impacted the dome, doing enough damage to turn the dome a translucent yellow, but the dome held, thank God!

"Sir! We are in range of those damned bombers!!" the tactical officer informed the man.

"What in the hell are you waiting for?? FIRE AT WILL!!" Dagan commanded and his crews were all too happy to oblige.

Laser bursts and torpedoes erupted from the fully armed freighters, screaming towards their targets. The bombers must have noticed, as they turned tail and hightailed it away from the town of Tanith's Gully. The lasers missed their mark on the initial volley, but the torpedoes had already locked onto their targets and were homing in on them. Several bombers detonated in large explosions, their own ordinance going up with them.

"Some damn fine shooting, but don't let up!" Dagan enthused, happy to see the Confeds take more losses. Half the bomber wing managed to evade their attacks as they pulled away from the slower freighters, much to the smugglers' chagrin.

"Damn it! Can't seem to catch a break with these guys!" the gunnery officer griped as he kept firing his cannons, hoping an errant shot might hit a bomber or two.

"Save the batteries' energy! Something tells me that we're going to need it!" Dagan stated.

"Captain Min, report in! We didn't see what happened with the bombers, so I assume you were successful in keeping them from the town?" Inari called in over the comms.

"Sadly, dear Captain Sunara, that is not the case," Dagan told her.

"Explain!"

******************************

"Aw damn it! Nats, can you confirm the damage done to the shields?" Inari asked as she listened to Dagan Min's report, hoping the damage wasn't critical.

"Checking now! What?? Jesus Christ!!" Natalya cursed.

"How bad is it, babe?" Alex queried, praying it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

"The shields took enough of a pounding to where it won't hold for much longer! The damage done by the torpedoes was enough to bring it down to less than thirty percent! At the rate that the fleet has been firing on the town, it was only a matter of time before the shields dropped!" Natalya explained.

"How long do we have?" Inari questioned, hoping they still had a few hours.

"The next volley will drop the shields, as the damage taken is too much to regen its integrity in time!" Natalya huffed.

"Fuck!" Alex swore. "Jaesa, how long before the next volley from the fleet is expected?"

"Twelve minutes, sir," the AI responded.

"Looks like we need to come up with a new attack strategy in less than twelve minutes. Thoughts?" Korsa asked out loud.

"Well, I have an idea. It might not work, but if it does, I think it could turn the tide of this engagement," Matthias offered, commanding everyone's attention.

"What's the idea?" Kasumi wondered, ready to take anything at the moment, even really stupid ideas.

"The idea is simple. We open a gate behind the fleet, catching them off guard and taking their focus away from the town," Matthias stated.

"Why didn't you put this idea forward before?" Shazza questioned, a little miffed that such an idea wasn't brought up sooner.

"We were under attack before I could bring it up, and... it's risky. Neither mom nor I have been able to make a gate that big!" Matthias questioned.

"You, as a Daskein, that makes sense. But Gloria, who is a Tahrkein, should be able to manage something that big," Alex murmured as he thought about it.

"Das-what?" Matthias asked.

"Daskein. It's a term for someone who uses the Aether as a surface user, as opposed to a Tahrkein, a deep user of the Aether," Shazza told him. She explained what each one was as briefly as she could, since time was a luxury they didn't have.

"Hang on a sec, hang on! If there are enough users of the Aether together, they can form a link to one another! The one who controls it can use everyone's power as though it is their own, albeit temporarily," Gloria stated, as she remembered something from the teachings that were left behind by her ancestors.

"Hold on a sec, back up! Are you saying that we can link our energies, so that we can open a gate large enough to get the Darkstrider through, and get the drop on the Confederate fleet?" Kasumi questioned, still wrapping her head around the concept.

"Basically, yeah!" Gloria told them.

"How often have you done this?" Shazza queried, a bit dubious about linking with another person like that.

"Umm... a gate that large--" Gloria started, looking a bit nervous.

"I meant linking, not a gate," Shazza clarified.

"Oh! I've done it with Matty here dozens of times! It's just a matter of ensuring that control is maintained and that everyone is on the same page about what they want to happen," Gloria explained.

"If you lot are going to do this, you need to do it now! We have seven minutes until the Confeds open fire on the town!" Inari told them, trying to get the group to hurry up.

"Negative, captain. We have ninety seconds before they start another salvo," Jaesa stated in correction. "Sensory data is showing that their guns are warming up and getting ready to fire."

"Fuck! Are we going to do this, or watch our friends get killed?!?" Inari demanded.

"Gloria, take us through it. We need to put those bastards on the defensive for once!" Alex told her, deciding for everyone.

Everyone else there either sighed or nodded, as the big man was telling the truth. Since arriving at Prodosia, the crew had been doing nothing but reacting to everything that had happened. They had taken initiative a few times, and it landed them with big wins that tipped the scales in their favor. They only hoped that whatever Gloria was going to do would be enough to see them alive after this whole thing was over.

"OK! Everyone who can use the Aether, gather around! We need to be close in order for this to work," Gloria told the group. They did as she asked and stepped close to where they could all reach out and touch one another. Once they were like this, Gloria then reached out and called to the Aether, beckoning it to come to her.

The Aether answered, surrounding her in a cerulean nimbus of energy. Alex saw this and had a good idea of where this was going. He called out to his own powers himself and his violet energies manifested itself around him. Shazza, Kasumi, Natalya and Korsa all saw this and embraced their own powers, respectively. Gloria saw this and was more than a little awed by this display.

"The others? They are awake?!?" she breathed.

"Others? What others?" Kasumi wondered.

"I will talk about this later, but right now, focus your energies!" Gloria told them, keeping the focus in the here and now.

"That's not a problem. What we need is something to focus them onto," Natalya stated, surrounded her emerald energy.

"Put your focus on me. Imagine that your energy is contained in a bucket of sorts. Now, imagine that you are going to pour the contents of that bucket into mine. Don't worry about if it will hold it all. It will; I just need you to concentrate on doing that," Gloria told them.