Three Square Meals Ch. 129

"What's wrong?" Irillith asked, noticing the flicker of emotion.

He held them close and quietly replied, "Have you heard the Terran expression about absolute power corrupting absolutely?"

The twins nodded, listening intently.

"Well, I'm accepting absolute control over the Maliri and that's a lot of temptation. If it was up to Edraele, she'd have me bedding an endless supply of very eager, very beautiful, and very fertile Maliri girls," he murmured, releasing Tashana so he could run his hand over her curved stomach. "You look stunning like this... and I can't deny how much I'd love to give in to temptation, but I don't want to ever feel like I'm taking advantage of the Maliri. Can you two help keep me grounded?"

Tashana trembled at his gentle caress and let out a soft moan. "If you're worried any of us would ever have second thoughts, you're very much mistaken..."

Irillith smiled indulgently at her sister, before focusing on John. "It might have been wiser to ask Shan when she didn't have a tummy full of your cum."

"True," he conceded, caressing Tashana's swollen belly. "But she reminded me just how beautiful the two of you are going to look when you're pregnant."

"I know how concerned you are about being there for all of your children... and it seemed strange at first, but now I think it's a wonderful idea," Irillith said with a poignant smile. "I wish we could've seen our father every day."

Tashana nodded, her eyes welling up. "I hadn't really thought about it like that before... but I can see why it's so important to you. We loved him so much, just as our children are going to love you."

"Thank you," he said, hugging them both fiercely. "I'm glad you understand."

There was an awkward silence in his mind, then Edraele asked, *John... I'm so sorry if I've been making you feel uncomfortable. Do you want me to stop trying to tempt you?*

*No, honey,* he replied with an affectionate smile. *You know how much the idea really turns me on... I just don't want to start abusing my position.*

She laughed at his confession, her delight quite evident. *Oh, that is a relief! I shall act accordingly, my Lord...*

He patted the twins on the back and said, "Why don't you two take the evening off? You didn't get a chance to relax and recover with the bed shattering."

Irillith stretched and glanced at Tashana, the two sisters conducting a telepathic conversation.

"What time are you coming to bed?" Irillith asked, trailing her fingers across his chest.

"I won't be too late. We'll be picking up Jack and Mateo in a couple of hours, then I'll get them settled in and have an early night. I need to get my body clock back to regular hours after the battle with the Kirrix upended everything."

Tashana glanced down at her swollen stomach. "Do I need to do any preparations so I can learn how to Spirit Walk?"

John shook his head, brushing the backs of his fingers across her curves. "Just rest... I'll take care of everything."

She bit her lip, then gave him a tender kiss. "I love trusting myself to you completely. It makes me feel so safe and protected."

Irillith darted a wry smile at her sister. "When you're supercharged like this, there's not much in the galaxy that could actually stop you."

"That's not really what I meant... but that feels good too," Tashana admitted, her violet eyes sparkling as she looked at John.

"You're a very powerful woman," he said, savouring her newfound confidence. "And you're only going to get stronger..."

"Don't stay up too late," she requested, giving him an adoring look. "I want to fall asleep in your arms tonight."

"I'll be there," he promised, kissing her goodbye.

Alyssa clasped Helene's hand, then beckoned the twins with the other. "Come on ladies, time for bed. I need a nice cuddle with you three."

Helene glanced at John with regret. "I know I asked to spend the rest of the day with you, but I am feeling quite tired. Would you mind if I went with Alyssa?"

"Of course not, honey. I'll assist Dana with any shaping she needs until we rendezvous with the fleet."

Alyssa froze and blurted out, "I already offered to do that for her. I think you should have a chat with Calara before we meet her family... let me go and help Sparks."

John shooed her out the door. "Nope. After the amount of energy you burned through this afternoon, you must be dead on your feet. Bed... now."

She paused, then lowered her eyes submissively. "Yes, John. Whatever you say."

He gave her a look filled with suspicion. "That should be music to my ears, but now I'm worried you're up to something."

"Just following your orders like a good obedient matriarch, my Lord," Alyssa said with a grin, her blue eyes alight with mischief.

John playfully swatted her on the rump as she flounced past, making Helene and the twins laugh as they followed her out of the room. Leylira and Marika were there on the Bridge, the two catgirls engrossed in holo-simulations, but they looked up curiously when they heard the laughter. John smiled at the Nymphs as he accompanied the girls to the grav-tube and they waved back before returning to their training.

*Are you sure you're feeling alright after what happened in the shuttle?* John asked the blonde as they descended in the red anti-gravity field.

She turned to meet his look of concern. *I'm not going to lie; it was really horrible finding out like that and I have no intention of stepping foot on that ship again... but I'll be okay. Nothing snuggling up with Helene and the twins won't fix.*

*Don't stay up chatting,* he cautioned her. *You already strained yourself after all that rune-shaping this afternoon. You must have pushed yourself to the limit blasting through the hull so soon afterwards and you need to rest.*

*You're right, I'm exhausted,* she admitted, stifling a yawn. *Don't forget to speak to Calara, she's on the Combat Bridge.*

*Is she upset?* John asked, giving her a parting kiss.

Alyssa stepped out onto Deck Three with her three companions. *No... she's just got a few things on her mind. Calara's with Neysa at the moment and distracted by teaching gunnery skills, but you should talk to her before she sees her father.*

*Will do,* he agreed, waving the quartet goodbye as he descended out of sight.

He was tempted to head straight to the Combat Bridge to find out what was troubling Calara, but decided to trust in Alyssa's judgement and see the brunette later. John set an alarm on his watch for 8:30 pm, allowing himself half-an-hour to speak with Calara before their rendezvous with the Terran Federation fleet. Leaving the grav-tube on Deck Seven, he strode along the corridor to the Engineering Bay, where he found Dana stooped over her workbench.

"Hey, Sparks," he called out when he entered the room, not wanting to catch her by surprise.

The redhead looked up from her work and rewarded his gallantry with a warm smile. "Hey yourself."

"I thought Rachel would be here with you. Is she in Medical?" he asked, glancing around but seeing no sign of the tawny-haired doctor.

"She said she was synthesising cures for those diseases and all the stuff she needs is there," Dana explained. "Did you want to talk to her about something?"

"No, just making conversation," he replied as he crossed the workshop to join her. "I sent Alyssa off to bed to get some rest, so I'm here to help you with any shaping you need."

Dana looked shifty as she reached for her holo-viewer. "Err, it's okay. I don't mind waiting for Alyssa..."

He gave her a pointed look. "I know you two are up to something, but after the evening I've just had, I really don't care what it is. Tell me what you need and I'll make it."

She gave him a guilty smile. "Sorry. It's nothing bad, I promise."

John shrugged and patted her on the arm. "I know. You think I won't approve, so you were waiting to surprise me when it's finished, hoping I'll be so impressed I won't object."

Looking startled, she nodded. "Err... yeah."

"We better finish it then, so you can impress me," he said with a wry grin.

Dana giggled and kissed him on the cheek. "Okay!"

She picked up the holo-viewer and separated out the list of components, her nimble fingers flying over the interface, as she concealed the end result of the project. After nodding with satisfaction, she handed him the tablet.

"Here you go... I need one of everything on that list. If you want to be super-helpful, there's a second section; I need a dozen copies of all those parts too."

John glanced over the various shapes she'd requested, taking note of the precise measurements. "I'll get right on it," he murmured, walking over to the ore crates while studying the schematics. "How many times do you need this shaped?"

Dana leaned back against her workbench and watched him gathering materials. "As tough as you can make it without straining yourself."

"How about twenty-shaped?" he muttered, concentrating on the psychic manipulation. "Is that okay?"

"Perfect," she said quietly, studying him with a pensive frown.

John fell into the soothing repetition of shaping Crystal Alyssium over and over again, strengthening the crystal lattice every time he forced it into a new shape. After reaching the nineteenth iteration, he propped the holo-viewer on a nearby ore crate and started working his way down the list, creating the required parts. One of the curved pieces made him pause, especially when he reached the next item on the list. He floated the two matching parts together in the air and formed a perky metallic bust, the curves suggestive and pleasing to the eye without being outright pornographic.

"Sparks, I seem to recall us having a conversation about this..." he said, raising an eyebrow as he studied the synthetic cleavage.

"Yep. I said I'd have a chat with Little One and sort out the details for her new chassis. We did and she liked my design..." the redhead said with a playful ring to her voice.

"Of course she did," John said with a wry chuckle, shaking his head in resignation. "I take it the second set of parts makes the rest of the cleaning bots equally well endowed?"

Someone hugged him from behind, pressing an even larger pair of wonderfully soft breasts into his back. "You can't really blame them for wanting a set like that, they do look quite lovely."

"Oh, hey Rachel," he said in surprise, recognising her charming, well-spoken voice. He glanced over his shoulder to look at the brunette. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Hello, John," she said, standing on tiptoe to greet him with a tender kiss. "You were so engrossed in your work, I thought I'd sneak up on you... but you don't jump out of your skin like Sparks does."

"That's because it was a very pleasant surprise," he said, turning to face her and placing his hands on her hips. "I hear you've been working on creating samples of your cures."

She nodded, her sharp grey eyes studying him intently. "I'd nearly finished when Alyssa contacted me. She said that Dana was worried about you and asking for my professional assistance. Apparently, the way you saw through their cunning subterfuge 'freaked her out', so I'm here to assess why you're being more perceptive than usual."

"Hey!" Dana protested from across the workshop. "That's not what I said!"

John grinned and ignored her objection. "More perceptive than usual? I'm deeply offended, Sparks."

Dana pouted at her girlfriend. "Just wait... I'll get you back!"

Rachel nodded but kept her focus on John. "It must have been awful to see Alyssa react that badly in the shuttle; is that what's troubling you?" she asked, her voice gentle and sympathetic. "Or was it discovering the true nature of the black metal that you're finding unsettling?"

He looked at Rachel in surprise when she abruptly shifted the conversation topic, then turned to frown at Dana. The redhead had her back to him now and was intently focused on her workbench, finding the device there incredibly fascinating.

Grasping his hand, Rachel tugged him towards the door. "Let's go sit down in Medical and have a chat. There's a distressing lack of chairs in the Engineering Bay..."

"Don't you need a therapist's couch?" he asked, smiling as he followed her across the workshop.

"We could make do with one of the hospital beds?" she suggested, a twinkle in her eyes.

"Sounds good, Doctor," he agreed, playing along.

They left Engineering and walked the short distance to Medical, where Rachel opened the door and ushered him inside.

Instead of sitting in the chairs, she guided him to one of the beds and patted the pristine white sheet. "Okay, hop on."

He smiled, thinking she was just joking, but she shook her head and patted the bed more insistently.

Too weary to object, John lay down on the bed and gave the brunette a pained smile. "Please don't ask me to tell you about my mother..."

Rachel paused, her eyes flashing with a flicker of emotion. "Don't worry, I won't ask you about Jessica."

"What is it?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

The brunette leaned down and gave him a gentle kiss, her lips soft and warm as they pressed against his. John relaxed and cradled her in his arms, his hand lightly cupping her head as he returned the kiss. It was a wonderfully languid and unhurried moment, the kind of comfortable intimacy shared between two lovers with a very long history together.

John let out a contented sigh when she ended the kiss. "I like your approach to therapy, Doctor."

Rachel sat on the bed beside him and stroked his hair. "I enjoyed it too," she said fondly. "Very much."

"You were right earlier... about Alyssa and the black metal," John admitted, looking up at her. He could sense that his blonde matriarch had finally fallen asleep, so he felt free to be more candid than usual. "I've never seen Alyssa so disturbed before... whatever she can feel from the black metal must be truly horrific."

"I saw her react in a similar way to the psychic echoes on the Legacy," Rachel confided, her brow furrowing at the distressing memory. "She's normally so confident and composed... it was shocking to see her fall apart like that."

"Thank god we didn't keep the dreadnought," John muttered, shaking his head at the thought. "Imagine how she would've reacted if she'd been trapped inside that monstrosity."

Rachel gazed at him in silence for a long moment, indecision flickering in that penetrating grey stare. "Yes... it was fortunate you gave that ship to your father. He is accustomed to those vessels."

He nodded, his thoughts automatically turning to Rahn'hagon. Like pieces of a dreadful puzzle, the disturbing revelations about the black metal interlocked with John's knowledge of his father's past and the snippets of conversation they'd had together. Rahn'hagon was very familiar with Progenitor dreadnoughts, having constructed his own, along with a vast fleet of thrall ships for the Randarai Empire... sacrificing untold millions of thralls in the gruesome, agonising process. Recognising that simple fact was horrifying enough, but John's eyes grew wide as he recalled Rahn'hagon's expectation that he would follow in his father's footsteps.

"He wanted me to do that to the Maliri!" he blurted out in shocked disbelief.

Watching the emotions play out over his features, Rachel looked at John with sympathy as he made all the connections and his face twisted with revulsion. "I'm sorry, John."

"You already knew!" he exclaimed incredulously, then sagged on the bed. "Of course you did... you must have figured it out straight away."

Rachel nodded, her fingers lightly brushing through his hair. "You were too upset earlier to talk about it. I normally would have let you make the connection yourself, then discussed it with you at the appropriate time... but we have guests joining us shortly."

"This wasn't something in my father's distant past," John muttered, looking appalled. "He expected me to brutally murder millions of Maliri... and actually had the gall to be furious that I hadn't!"

The brunette didn't reply, she just caressed him and listened.

"I actually liked him!" John exclaimed, his lip curling with disgust. "I thought he'd changed... that maybe the years of solitude had made him regret what he'd done... but he's still the cruel monster he's always been!"

After a moment's hesitation, Rachel said quietly, "Actually... I think your instincts about your father were correct."

John looked up at her incredulously. "You can't be serious! The man's a murderous psychopath!"

"Your father is not a normal man, he's a Progenitor, who was forced to wage genocidal wars for millennia," she clarified, her grey eyes watching him intently. "Rahn'hagon has lived for over twenty-thousand years... and his perspective is very different from our own."

"How can you defend him after everything he's done?" John asked, his eyes blazing with anger. "I should have killed that sick bastard when I had the chance!"

"I'm not defending him, just telling you what you already know," she said, her expression neutral. "Rahn'hagon has changed since he broke free from Xar'aziuth's control... but his primary motivation is now to stop Xar'aziuth at any cost. When you're facing a god-like monstrosity that's overseen the deaths of trillions... perhaps the deaths of millions is a sacrifice he's prepared to make."

"Well I'm not!" John snarled, jerking upright in the bed. "What kind of sadistic freak feeds women who love him into some nightmare machine that sucks out their soul?! Progenitors are a fucking blight on the galaxy! I'm going to destroy every last one of those vicious bastards!"

Rachel looked directly into his eyes, her demeanour calm and unruffled in the face of his fury. "And are you still worried that you might turn out to be like other Progenitors?"

"No, of course I'm not!" he said indignantly. He paused and looked at her in surprise, then continued in a quiet murmur, "Don't be ridiculous..."

"I try not to be," she said with a gentle smile.

John wrapped her up in a fierce hug, squeezing her tight. "Thank you."

Rachel returned his embrace, revelling in the warm feelings it invoked.

"You're amazing," he whispered in her ear. "How do you turn something so horrific into an epiphany that makes me feel better about myself?"

She didn't reply right away, but when she did, there was a hint of trepidation to her voice. "Please don't ask me that..."

Pulling back, he looked at her with concern. "Why not? What's wrong?"

The brunette had trouble meeting his gaze. "Because I'm worried you'll think I'm manipulating you. I know you so well, I can usually predict how you're going to react to points I make. By making the association between your father and a Progenitor dreadnought, I knew you'd make the connection with the black metal. You naturally responded with horror and outrage, which I was able to deflect into the realisation that you could never be like the other Progenitors... addressing a long-standing worry of yours."

"Intelligence... the double-edged sword," he said with sympathy, remembering the phrase she'd used in a prior conversation. "Did you predict that I'd react to your confession with respect and admiration, or were you worried I'd be horrified?"

"Unfortunately, I'm not infallible," she replied, with a cautious smile. "But whatever the outcome, I wanted you to know that I'll always act with your best interests at heart. I'll never try to manipulate you into something you don't want to do... only try to look after your emotional wellbeing."

"You don't need to try to justify yourself, honey," he said, stroking her back. "I'd never expect anything less than the purest of motives from the Angel of Terra. I'm incredibly lucky to have such an intelligent and caring girl like you on my side."

Rachel sighed with relief and snuggled into his embrace, the tension gone from her shoulders. "I never thought I'd meet someone like you. I always thought I'd have to hide my intellect in case I intimidated the man I was with... but you're not like that at all. It's so wonderfully liberating being with you and you keep proving yourself time after time."