Three Square Meals Ch. 048

Irillith looked pensive as she stared up at the map, gnawed by indecision. They were too far away from House Valaden forces to call for backup, and if that lead cruiser interdicted them, the battleship would be on them before they would be able to eliminate the cruiser and escape. That was assuming this ugly Terran vessel was even capable of outfighting one of the Maliri cruisers.

"Irillith," John said to her sternly. "Calara asked what class of vessel that big ship is?"

She glanced at the brunette distractedly, and muttered, "It's a battleship armed with Nova Lances. We'll be vaporised in seconds if we confront it."

John darted a concerned look towards Alyssa and said, "Any way we could avoid the incoming cruiser?"

The blonde girl looked away distantly for a moment, then nodded as she replied, "Yes, but it will mean a huge detour to avoid them. If there are other ships involved in this ambush as well, we might be in trouble."

Irillith pressed a couple of buttons on her vambrace and said to John, "I can get us out of this, but I need access to your comms relay. I need to transmit to that lead ship."

John glanced over at Dana and she shrugged at him, then nodded. "Alright, go ahead," he replied. "You can use the station over there," he added, pointing to an empty station on the right hand side of the Bridge.

Irillith nodded curtly, and darted down the steps towards it. It lit up as she approached it, one panel after another illuminating as the station came to life. She sat down in the chair, just as the AI finished its boot up sequence, the tiny purple AI construct appearing above her arm as it became aware of its surroundings.

"Are you my creator?" It asked her staring at her in awe, blinking its large luminous eyes.

Irillith nodded, and forced herself to concentrate on the digital creature, smiling at it warmly. "Yes, you are a clever little sprite, aren't you?"

It beamed a bright smile at her, and nodded eagerly, as it flickered and adopted a tiny female figure.

"I would be so very grateful if you could help me!" Irillith said to it plaintively. "You see, there are some bad people trying to hurt us, and only a clever and brave sprite like you, can help protect us from them!"

The AI construct replied earnestly, "Of course, I'd do anything for my creator!"

Irillith unravelled the datajacks from the vambrace and hooked them up to the console, tapping away commands into the holographic panel that appeared before her. Once she had accessed the comms array, she loaded a program called "Drive_Maintenance" and uploaded it to the digital pixie that was hopping up and down with eager anticipation.

"There we go," she said as she glanced over at it, remembering to smile at it lovingly. "Do you know what you need to do?"

It nodded animatedly and replied bravely, "You can count on me, I'll save you!"

It skipped along the data-jacks and appeared to dive into the port, waving her a friendly goodbye.

"What was that creature?" Dana asked curiously, standing by the station, and watching her with fascination.

Irillith looked up at her sharply and snapped, "None of your concern!"

The redhead looked disappointed, and walked back towards the Engineering Station, which made Irillith want to grin with delight. She managed to keep the smile from her lips however, and she stared up at the holographic map instead. The patrol cruiser continued on towards them inexorably, and as the Invictus had not changed course, they would be in interdiction range in a few minutes.

"What are you planning?" John asked, looking down at her.

Irillith bristled at having to look up at him, as it felt so demeaning, but she still answered smugly, "Just watch, it will only take a little while longer."

They all stared up at the holographic map, watching the graceful and sleek looking Maliri vessel get ever closer. Irillith knew by the scale on the map that the cruiser would be in interdiction range in just over thirty seconds, but she smirked, knowing they didn't need that long. Suddenly the Ghilwen cruiser shuddered as it abruptly lurched out of hyper-warp, the lights at the rear of the ship flickering intermittently.

With no other ships in range to be able to intercept them, she yanked the datajacks out of the console, and then hit a button on her vambrace coiling them back inside the armour. With the jacks disconnected, the AI would immediately de-res, so she turned off the computer built into the vambrace.

Standing, she turned to leave, until John said sternly, "Wait! What just happened?"

At the commanding tone in his voice, she felt a chill of fear. It reminded her that this wasn't someone to be trifled with, just because he hid behind this amiable facade. Glancing back at him without meeting his gaze, she said quietly, "I tricked the cruiser's central computer into performing emergency maintenance of their drive systems. That forced them out of hyper-warp while the diagnostics were engaged."

She was pleased at his look of surprise, and that he was obviously impressed. Sensing that he was satisfied with her reply, she strode over to the grav-tube and stepped into the red glow, disappearing from sight.

***

They made good progress over the next three days, and were not troubled by any more Maliri ships attempting to intercept them. Irillith kept to herself, no longer bothering with the pretence of joining them for meals, as she was too wrapped up with her review of the camera footage. The interesting titbits of information had started as a trickle, but had eventually become a deluge.

John and his crew seemed to need to discuss everything that happened to each other in great detail, but as tempting as it was to skip some of these long dialogues, there were little gems hidden within. She had watched them have a debrief after the Drakkar attack, and had witnessed even more spectacular healing. The crew had watched video camera footage of the attack, and rather than attempting to see what was happening via the bedroom camera footage of the holo-playback they had seen, she instead sought out the source files. She had stared at the screen in amazement as the innocuous green Nymph had transformed into a huge ferocious green tiger, and proceeded to savagely eviscerate the invading four-armed raiders.

As startling as that had been, watching John brutally slaughter the Drakkar raiders on Deck Nine had sent chills down her spine. She had instantly recognised that same utterly impassive, contemptuous look as he had hacked apart the Drakkar leader. She had been forced to pause the video until she got her shivering under control, and before she felt brave enough to continue watching once again. She had then proceeded to follow him with the relevant cameras, as he hunted down the rest of the ugly aliens, slaughtering them without mercy.

She forced herself to re-evaluate the redhead when the footage revealed the extent of her gifts with technology. It had been very interesting to find out that the Ashanath had such high performance power cores, and she had already witnessed the incredible hyper-warp speed that the Tachyon drive was capable of producing. After that she marvelled at one technical breakthrough after the other, and it began to dawn on her what a wondrous treasure trove of technology this ship actually was.

Watching the ship fights had proved how gifted Calara was at gunnery, while Alyssa revealed herself to be a talented psionicist. When the brunette doctor joined the crew, even more answers were forthcoming, and Irillith listened in amazement as Rachel laid out everything they knew about the Mael'nerak and his abilities. She knew that her mother would be absolutely delighted with everything she had learned, and Irillith couldn't wait to see the look on Edraele's face when she finally revealed the vast amounts of secrets she had uncovered.

She had eventually caught up on present day events, and had been horrified when she found out where they had acquired the technology for the Ship's Sensor Array. That had turned to fury when she had realised that moron Ceraden had facilitated Dana getting access to all that technology in the first place. She had previously fabricated an emergency with production in a mining facility he owned, which had kept him away from John and the others at Geniya Space Station, while she had persuaded them to join her on the trip to Maliri Space. It seemed like she would need to create a more permanent end for that meddlesome traitor however, and they were fast approaching the Maliri trading post.

Unfortunately the sex had continued unabated, and as most of the dialogue seemed to occur in a post-orgasmic haze, she had forced herself to watch dozens of hours of them rutting like animals. She had watched transfixed as John's powerful body thrust away into his women, who writhed and moaned around him. He was so much bigger than Maliri males, and she found his brawny physique quite riveting, unable to tear her eyes off him. Although his skin colour was slightly off-putting, his pointed ears were distinctively Maliri in appearance, and she found herself getting more and more heated while watching the videos.

After double checking that the fake looped video was set up on the cameras in her room, she had eagerly stripped off and lay on the bed. Telling herself that she was just going to give her body the natural release it needed after such stimulating viewing, she proceeded to rub herself to a tremendous climax. Her thoughts kept drifting to John throughout, and when she eventually sagged back on the bed, she felt horribly conflicted about her feelings around John. She had never been so powerfully attracted to a man before, but those feelings warred constantly with her very real fear towards him. Resigning herself to only having to put up with this for a few more weeks, she had eventually settled down to bed, ready to start a new day tomorrow.