Three Square Meals Ch. 127

"Ah, I thought you might have overheard that," he said with a chuckle. He pulled Marika and Leylira closer and continued, "When did you decide to assign specific roles to the Nymphs?"

"I discussed it with Jade while you were busy with Dana," Alyssa replied, stroking Betrixa's back and receiving an enthusiastic hug from the cheetah catgirl in return. "We'll eventually train the Nymphs to do all those roles, but we figured this was the quickest way of filling in the gaps Faye left behind."

"It's a good idea," John said, glancing over at his Nymph Matriarch.

Jade's tentacles were snaking back into her body after feeding the girls and she was currently kissing Dana to give the redhead her share. *I assigned them roles based on their personalities. Marika and Neysa are more reserved, so I suspect they'll make better gunners. Leylira and Betrixa are aggressive and unpredictable; they'll be excellent pilots.*

He thought about the four distinctive catgirls and found himself in agreement. *Yeah, I think you're right.*

*Thank you, Master,* Jade replied, pulling back from Dana and smiling at her fondly. "There you go, kitten. A nice full tummy."

Dana stretched, letting out a contented sigh. "Mmm... that tasted so good!"

She zipped up her jumpsuit, then bounded up the steps to the Armoury to put on a Paragon suit. John shared a smile with her as she passed, then closed his eyes and concentrated on his psychic network. The five Terran girls, the Maliri twins, and Jade were now brightly illuminated in his mind, his cum in their stomachs establishing an active connection with him.

"You forgot Helene," he said, looking at Jade in surprise.

"She asked me to give her share to the others," the Nymph said, flicking a glance towards the aquatic girl.

"I won't be fighting in the battle," the teal-hued beauty explained. "The more you give to the rest of the girls, the longer you can continue to heal them if they get in trouble."

The conversation was interrupted by a quiet chime from the Tactical Station and Calara hurried over to check the message.

She slid into her seat, her eyes scanning through the update from Little One. "John... four of the Tachyon Lances and the last 30 metres of the Singularity Driver rails haven't been checked."

"That still leaves us the new Tachyon Cannons, 36 Tachyon Lances and the Nova Lances, right?" he asked, with a worried frown.

"Those should be more than enough to deal with the Kirrix," Calara said confidently. "I'll deactivate the rest until we've been able to check them too."

He nodded, then glanced up at the Sector Map floating in the middle of the Bridge. A huge fleet of ochre-coloured insectoid warships was inching towards them, the enormous Kirrix dreadnought at the centre. While he could see the full composition of their fleet in exceptional detail, the Progenitor Stealth Generator kept the Invictus completely concealed from their sensors. The white battlecruiser was parked directly in front of the Kirrix fleet at a higher elevation and the alien ships would soon start passing directly below.

"Damn... look at them all," he muttered, staring at the Kirrix armada.

"54 hive ships, 60 drone carriers and a dreadnought," Calara said quietly. "The Kirrix must have been planning this offensive against the Trankarans for decades."

John glanced up to the Armoury. "It's nearly time, Sparks."

"Be right there!" she called back, bounding down the ramp, now fully-geared in Paragon armour.

John looked around the Combat Bridge at the girls, who had all taken their stations. "All ready?"

He received confirmatory nods from the crew, their expressions serious now on the cusp of battle.

Turning to Dana expectantly. "It's up to you now, honey. Time to save those Trankarans."

She nodded, a hard edge to her blue eyes. "Time to fuck up some bugs."

The golden coronas around her pupils flared with a supernatural light, the dazzling radiance bathing the Bridge in a warm yellow glow. The overhead lighting began to flicker as she gathered her will, zephyrs of psychic energy curling around her arms as she poured more power into the astral construct forming in the path of the onrushing Kirrix.

John watched the tactical holograph and saw the moment that the singularity ripped into existence. The Quantum Omni-phase Scan Array depicted the artificial black hole on the map, the circumference of the onyx sphere surrounded in a flicking golden aura. The gravity well was displayed in concentric circles, the astral hazard disrupting hyper-warp travel for thousands of kilometres in every direction. When it appeared, the Kirrix fleet looked like it had slammed into a brick wall, the massed ranks of hive ships and drone carriers violently knocked out of hyper-warp and brought to a juddering halt.

"Fire at will, Captain," John ordered Calara, not taking his eyes off the alien forces.

"Their shields are down and it'll take the Kirrix a few seconds to react to the ambush," the Latina said to her apprentice gunners, Marika and Neysa listening attentively. "I've set the Tachyon Lances to cycle in succession rather than fire together, because anything more than a single shot will be overkill."

Her finger caressed the trigger, launching a rippling salvo of tachyon beams at the stunned alien fleet. Blue pulses scythed through the engines at the rear of a hive ship, detonating all three propulsion systems in rapid succession. Her hands moved the targeting reticle with the confidence of an elite gunner, walking laser fire through the massed ranks of Kirrix vessels. In less than ten seconds, she'd fired all 24 Tachyon Lances from the Invictus' underbelly, immobilising the same number of insectoid warships.

"Time to move, Jade!" she called out to the Nymph.

Jade shoved the throttle forward, then jammed her flightstick to the left. "I'm rolling the Invictus so Calara can hit them with the guns from the topdeck," she explained to Betrixa. "By the time she's fired those, the gun batteries on the underbelly will have cooled and be ready to fire again."

The blonde catgirl watched in fascination as their six engines roared to life and the Invictus leapt forward on the offensive. It began an elegant roll, retro-thrusters blazing on the starboard flank to rotate the white battlecruiser.

"It takes a second for Tachyon Lances to gather energy before they fire, so you need to take that into account when firing at a moving target," Calara stated calmly, while raining destruction on the bulbous, ochre-hulled ships.

The Kirrix had started to react to the ambush, the hive ships scattering to escape, while the drone carriers tried to retaliate against an invisible foe. Sickly green neutron beams lashed out into space, the insectoid gunners attempting to fire at the origin point of the blue tachyon beams. Despite their best effort, they missed the Invictus by kilometres, the battlecruiser travelling far faster than they could have ever anticipated.

Jade jerked the flightstick back to its starting position, halting the Invictus' roll mid-rotation, then pushed the flightstick forward. She executed an elegant horizontal dive that kept the Kirrix ships facing the underbelly and the Invictus' most deadly array of guns.

"Now... why did I do that?" the Nymph asked her trainee pilot.

Betrixa pointed at the holographic fleet. "Because we were going to fly past them! Now Calara can keep shooting at the ugly ships as we circle them!"

Jade smiled and nodded.

The battle now looked like a vast wheel, with the Invictus circling its hapless prey on the rim, while salvos of blue laser pulses and the green neutron beam retaliation formed dazzling spokes at the centre. Each exchange of fire meant more explosions amidst the Kirrix formations, engines blown to pieces by incredibly accurate barrages.

"Their shields are up now, but a burst from a single Tachyon Lance can still punch through and take out a hive ship's engines," Calara informed the two catgirls.

She raked fire over a drone carrier, causing undulating waves across its shields until they disintegrated under the strain. The tachyon beams blasted through chitin plating, carving huge furrows through the bulky engines at the rear of the Kirrix capital ship until it was rocked by a massive explosion.

"You need to hit Drone Carriers with four Tachyon Lances to overload their shields," she said conversationally, hamstringing the enormous vessel and leaving it marooned in space.

"Active scan results are coming in," Alyssa called out, her eyes flicking up to the holographic map. "The hive ships and dreadnought are packed with Trankarans... but there are none in the drone carriers so far!"

"Tag all ships that can be safely destroyed," Calara said, her gaze sweeping over the battlefield.

"What are all those little things?" Neysa asked, pointing towards the mass of red contacts pouring from the incapacitated drone carrier.

"Drone fighters," the Latina replied. "Jade, bring around the bow; I want to show your sisters the Nova Lances..."

The Nymph pilot nodded, rolling the Invictus again and pulling back on the flight stick so they were now pointing towards the centre of the Kirrix formation. Calara targeted the closest drone carrier and cored through its shields and armour with a volley of pulsed beams. One of the tachyon blasts ruptured the power core, ripping apart the capital ship in a devastating explosion that enveloped all the fighter wings the carrier had launched.

"Oh wow!" Neysa gasped, gaping at the destruction.

"Are you going to shoot that big one?" Marika asked, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.

"No, that's the dreadnought... that's our primary target," Calara explained to the tabby catgirl. "We'll be boarding that soon."

"But it's getting away!" the Nymph protested, her instinctive feline urge to chase fleeing prey kicking in.

Calara gave her a reassuring smile. "We'll take care of it soon. I'm letting it put some distance between itself and the rest of the fleet first."

Leylira nodded eagerly. "To let them think they've got a chance of escaping before you pounce?"

The Latina shook her head. "I want them out of neutron beam range from the others. When we start the boarding action, I don't want to risk any Kirrix ships repairing their guns and firing on us."

"Those ships are shooting at each other!" Betrixa exclaimed, pointing excitedly at a pair of drone carriers that were exchanging broadsides at point blank range.

John flicked a glance at the Maliri hacker, whose eyes were glowing with an ominous violet light. "Your handiwork, Irillith?"

She smirked, but it was clear her focus was elsewhere. "Of course."

Calara had switched the weapon control configuration so that the Tachyon Lances were now activated by the buttons on the grip and the Nova Lances were linked to the trigger. She held down her finger, preparing the potent weapons to unleash their firepower.

"It takes three seconds to charge up the Nova Lances," she said, pointing with her free hand to the camera views on the topdeck that showed the prow. A blazing sphere of energy was gathering at the bow as vast amounts of energy were pumped into the deadly weapons. "The Invictus needs to be pointing at your target; the Nova Lances can only pivot 30 degrees."

She tapped the trigger again, firing a coruscating blast that slammed into a previously untouched drone carrier. Its shields were overwhelmed in an instant, the incandescent column of energy punching a 100-metre-wide hole through the flank of the capital ship. Calara slashed the unstoppable beam along the length of the drone carrier, carving the huge craft into two smouldering chunks. They split apart, explosions rippling through what was left of the two-kilometre superheavy carrier.

Neysa gaped in astonishment at the devastated Kirrix behemoth. She turned to look at John, her expression one of utter disbelief. "You want to train me to do that, Master?!"

"Absolutely," he replied, his tone sombre. "I think Calara will probably start you out on the Tachyon Cannons first, but eventually we'd like all of you fully trained on the Invictus' full complement of guns. If Calara's overseeing a fleet battle against thrall forces, we'll need you to take over all the shooting for her."

The four Nymphs looked awestruck as they watched Calara systematically dismantle the Kirrix fleet. As soon as the hive ships were all immobilised, she carved her way through the drone carriers, hammering them with precise volleys from the Tachyon Lance batteries. Soon the area of space surrounding the gravity well was strewn with wrecks, a sprawling sea of ochre debris stretching for hundreds of kilometres.

Hordes of drone ships desperately tried to stop the Invictus' rampage, the ovoid fighters the only vessels in the Kirrix fleet that were capable of matching their speed. The insectoid pilots gave up attempting to use their targeting computers, which stubbornly refused to acknowledge the nimble battlecruiser as a valid target, forcing them to fire their neutron cannons manually. Thousands of drone craft fired streams of neutron bolts at the Invictus, the ferocious green storm hitting the unshielded hull in endless waves... and were harmlessly absorbed by the capacitors connected to the armour plating.

"As you improve with your aim, you'll be able to take out fighters with short bursts," Calara said, switching the weapon controls to the defence grid. She opened fire, engulfing the Kirrix swarm in a deadly tsunami of tachyon bolts. "Until then, there's no shame in just firing non-stop and strafing your fire across your target. The objective is always to kill the enemy as quickly as possible... efficiency comes later."

"Could I try?" Neysa asked in a hushed voice.

Calara nodded and pointed to the empty station across the Combat Bridge. "I'll divert Tachyon Cannon fire control to that console. Only shoot when there's no chance of hitting a capital ship with a stray shot." She glanced at Sakura. "Can you supervise please?"

"Of course," the Asian girl agreed, striding over to join the eager catgirl, who stared wide-eyed at the targeting matrix that appeared before her.

Switching her weapon controls back to the Tachyon Lances, Calara continued dismembering the Kirrix fleet. Marika was content to just watch, alternating between observing her instructor and gazing in fascination at the carnage the tactical officer was unleashing. When the Invictus had destroyed every last drone carrier, Calara started sniping the bulbous power regulators on the flanks of the segmented hive ships, knocking out their neutron beam batteries so that they were left defenceless as well as immobilised.

John stared intently at the Hive Queen's flagship, following its desperate attempt to flee the destruction. "Calara, the dreadnought's nearly clear of the gravity well."

Dana waved her hand, dismissing the singularity, then another rent in space appeared directly in front of the fleeing dreadnought. "That bitch isn't going anywhere!"

"Nearly done..." Calara murmured, squinting at the targeting matrix and neutralising a hive ship with a burst of tachyon pulses at extreme range.

Alyssa turned in her XO chair and reached out to touch John's arm. "I've been checking the active scans and run a headcount of the prisoners. There's approximately 20,000 Trankarans being held in each hive ship," she said quietly.

"Goddamn," he muttered, looking up at the scattered Kirrix cruisers. "We counted 54 hive ships... so we're looking at over a million civilians?"

"Plus all the ones in the dreadnought," she replied, her cerulean gaze flicking to the retreating flagship.

"How many are likely to be infested?" he asked, grimacing at the thought.

"Dun Hergrun was one of the first Trankaran worlds the Kirrix invaded, so they were there for weeks," Alyssa replied. "We do know they left several days ago, according to the security recordings Warden Brokurlun retrieved from the planet. My guess is the Kirrix retreated as soon as they'd captured the last Trankaran colonists; they would have been in a rush to escape to their own territory after the civil war started."

Rachel turned in her chair to face them. "It's difficult to give you a precise figure. I'd estimate that it takes a hive lord approximately one minute to infest each colonist, so allowing for rest periods and collecting more batches of eggs from a broodmother, they can probably get through around a thousand prisoners per day. I doubt they had enough time to infest all the Trankarans before they left, but they've been travelling for four days since then."

"I think we have to assume at least 75%," Alyssa said, considering the numbers involved. "That would mean roughly 15,000 per hive ship, with a thousand clutches of eggs hatching per day."

"So at least 54,000 Trankarans are going to die every day for the next two weeks?" John said in a hushed voice.

The blonde and brunette exchanged a glance, then Alyssa replied, "Don't forget about the civilians they've captured in the dreadnought; that pushes the number up to about 60,000."

"What about the medical facilities on the Maliri and Trankaran fleets? Have they got the capacity to treat that many people?" he asked with concern.

"They'll be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers involved," Rachel said quietly. "John... if we want to save all the civilians, we'll have to stay and help. The maintenance bots can keep my treatment centre running 24 hours a day... so we can treat at least 25,000 Trankarans daily."

"Two weeks..." he muttered, rubbing at his temples. "We can't afford to lose that much time..."

"I know," Rachel said softly. "I'm sorry... I can't think of any alternative solutions."

His expression hardened, then he strode over to Calara's side at the Tactical Station. "Take down the dreadnought. Every minute we waste means more deaths."

She nodded, her gaze flicking to the enormous Kirrix capital ship. "I can cripple it easily enough, but do you want me to take out the Power Regulators? If I do, the lights will be out and you'll have to break through every door as you fight your way inside."

"It sounds like you have something else in mind?"

"I'll need to drop the cloak and raise shields," she replied, tightening her grip on the weapon controls.

"Do it. I think you've done a comprehensive demonstration of how powerful a cloaked ship with a huge tech advantage can be."

Calara tapped the relevant glyphs on her console, activating the Invictus' shields as soon as power was diverted away from the cloak. "Thank god Larn'kelnar played games for the last six months instead of just attacking. He could have swatted any fleet in this quadrant without even scratching his dreadnought."

"It was beneath him," John said quietly, feeling a cold shiver run down his spine.

He felt exactly the same way about fighting the Kirrix... and sharing anything with Larn'kelnar was deeply disturbing.

Alyssa slipped her gauntleted hand into his, drawing his attention. *You're nothing like him, John. You never were and you never will be.*

John gazed into her enchanting cerulean eyes. He only wished he could share the absolute conviction he saw there.

The Invictus rocketed away from the colossal starship graveyard, leaving behind an endless sea of ochre-coloured debris surrounding scores of devastated Kirrix hulks. It had taken Calara just under ten minutes to annihilate the fleet, eviscerating 60 drone carriers and their squadrons of fighters, while leaving the hive ships marooned and helpless. Jade angled the battlecruiser's bow so that they were on an intercept course and quickly closed the distance on the retreating Kirrix flagship.

Calara opened fire first, taking advantage of the Tachyon Cannons extended range to strafe pulsed beams across the dreadnought's six immense engines. She fired the gun batteries in sequence, being careful not to hit the Kirrix warship with too much firepower in case she accidentally cored through the hull. The blue energy blasts caressed the curved dome of the shields again and again, sapping them of strength as they tried in vain to withstand the onslaught.