Three Square Meals Ch. 049

He grinned at her and said with a raised eyebrow, "And yet, here it is anyway."

She laughed and handed him the second magazine. "Looks like mister impatient wants all his presents at once. That's an integrated 25mm grenade launcher, and the magazine for that bad boy has a ten round capacity."

Taking the second magazine, John carefully inserted it into the second magazine slot in front of the trigger guard. He hefted the weapon, bringing it up to his shoulder and aiming down the firing range.

"This feels great!" he exclaimed eagerly. "No extra weight compared to the old rifle, and it feels good in my hands."

She nodded at him, smiling confidently as she said, "I worked closely with Alyssa to make sure it was well balanced and light enough for us girls to use, and she was happy with the final version."

John glanced at the top of the Punisher railgun and noted, "No scope though?"

Dana shook her head as she replied, "I've smartlinked the rifles, so you'll see the targeting reticle in the helmet GUI of your armour. If you aren't wearing your helmet, you can use this instead."

She handed him a set of wrap around glasses, which looked to be made from the clear crystal that she had enhanced. When she saw him looking at them curiously, she nodded and said with a grin, "Yeah, clear crystal for the glasses. No chance of breaking them if you sit on them by accident."

He chuckled and put the glasses on, immediately noting a similar GUI to the one built into the Phalanx body armour. He aimed down the range, and as he moved the barrel around experimentally, the targeting reticle moved accordingly. He noticed that at the end of the firing range, half concealed behind a thick armour plate, an unwitting target dummy stood there waiting patiently. On the far wall, behind the dummy, layer after layer of heavy armour plating had been installed.

Smiling at her curiously, he asked, "What's up with all the armour plating?"

She gave him a wicked grin and said teasingly, "I felt fairly confident you'd like to try firing it, so I got the bots to help me take some precautions. What do you think, would you like a go?"

John nodded enthusiastically and said, "Definitely! Probably best to leave the grenade launcher though, right?"

Dana looked tempted for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah I don't want to waste time rebuilding the range afterwards. Stick to the standard railgun for the moment, but make sure you don't miss, okay?"

"Alright, I'll do my best," he joked. "I'm guessing that with all the armour plating down the range, this beast packs a punch?"

The redhead gave him a wicked grin, and gestured with her right hand for him to proceed. John smiled at her and raised the weapon to his shoulder aiming for a headshot on the target dummy.

"Go for a chest wound," Dana suggested, and when he glanced her way, he saw that she was wearing a pair of wrap around glasses too. She tapped them and said, "Tuned in to your railgun, so I can see what you're aiming at."

He nodded, impressed and aimed down the range again. This time he aimed at where the chest of the target dummy would be, hiding behind the armour plate.

"VrmPkaow!" the railgun barked as he pulled the trigger.

The 20mm slug blasted a huge hole through the armour plating, then smashed into the target dummy that was cowering behind it. The dummy went flying backwards, slammed into the layers of armour plates behind it, and then crashed to the floor in a shower of polycarbonate chunks.

"Fuck me!" John exclaimed, looking down at the rifle in awe. "The stopping power on this monster is incredible!"

Dana grinned at him and said, "You like?"

He laughed and nodded, saying admiringly, "I can't believe how much more powerful it is!" He then looked thoughtful, and added, "You might want to put a sound suppressor on it though, it's a lot noisier than the first railguns."

Dana smirked and said, "It already has one. Trust me, you don't want to fire this weapon without it. Come on, I'll show you why you want to be VERY careful when you shoot this inside a spaceship."

John flicked the safety on the railgun, unloaded, and put it down on the table, then followed after the redhead and the rest of the girls as they strolled down the firing range. When he caught up with them, he could see the shocked looks on the girls' faces as they alternated between staring at the target dummy, and the ruined armour plating behind it.

The 20mm slug had ripped a huge hole through the first set of inch-thick titanium plating, before going on to hit the target dummy. He had hit the dummy dead centre in the torso, and the round had blasted a dinner plate sized hole through the unfortunate target's chest. Finally the round had slammed into the armour plating beyond, and left a two-inch deep crater in the titanium, the impact leaving cracked circles spiralling outwards from the impact site.

John gaped at the damage inflicted by the single round, and said in awe, "That's insane! How did you get it to hit so hard?"

Dana smiled at him proudly, and said, "The new crystal-forged rails built into the barrel are about ten times more resilient than Titanium. That means we can finally unleash the full power of the Ashanath power core I built into the stock, and the boost to Lorentz force makes the rounds hit about five times harder than before. The awesome heatsinks we swiped from the Kintark let the weapon quickly vent out the excess heat that builds up, and even allows you to fire up to twenty rounds on full-auto. When you use full-auto, the safeties will make you wait about five seconds to let the heat dissipate before you can fire again."

John looked amazed, and he picked her up in his arms and gave her an affectionate hug. "Spectacular work, Dana, thank you!" he exclaimed, and gave her a big kiss.

She swooned in his arms, kissing him back passionately, and she had a big dopey grin on her face when he finally let her go. "It was worth all the hard work just for that kiss!" she said gleefully.

John and the others laughed, and the redhead smiled, then beckoned them back to the other end of the firing range. "I've got something else to show you. I want to earn another kiss just like that!" she said exuberantly.

They followed after her, and when they were all safely out of the range, she walked over to the weapon racks at the back of the room. She hit a button which opened up the shuttering, and as the metal panels drew back, they could see several more of the Punisher railguns sitting in the racks. Dana ignored them however, and stepped over to the section of the racks that held a wide variety of pistols.

She picked up a broad muzzled heavy pistol that was approximately fifteen inches long. It looked huge and menacing in her hand, and she grinned as she handed it over to him.

"This is the heavy pistol variant. It fires the same 20mm saboted ammo as the rifle, but doesn't pack quite the same punch. Sorry about the length of the barrel, I couldn't make the rails any smaller," she explained as she passed him a magazine. "The mags hold eighteen rounds."

John carefully bounced the pistol in his hand, nodding appreciatively at the light weight. Even when he slotted in the mag, it didn't feel much heavier than the regular heavy pistols he had in the weapon locker up in his room. He remembered the surprising selection of finely crafted handguns she had built back on Karron, despite the crude nature of her custom built workshop. Now she finally had access to tools that let her truly harness her abilities, he marvelled at the superb quality of the pistol in his hand, truly the work of a master gunsmith. He walked back to the firing range, and holding the pistol in his right hand, he aimed down the lane.

"Oh, wait a sec, let me get you a couple of fresh target dummies," Dana said, and hit a couple of buttons on the wall mounted panel beside her. Two more dummies were raised into position, hiding behind the armour plating.

John sighted down the lane, steadied, and fired off a single round. It punched through the armour plating and slammed into the target dummy, blasting a huge hole in its chest. When he stepped to the side a little so that he could look around the armour plate, he saw only a small impact site where the round had finally hit the plating against the back wall. Still, the devastation wrought on the target dummy was impressive, and he grinned excitedly as he glanced over at Dana.

"The pistols can fire on a three round burst setting as well. Do you want to give that a try?" she asked him eagerly.

He nodded, feeling the same sense of excitement, and aimed at the second target dummy. Pulling the trigger the pistol barked loudly, and the rounds ripped through the first armour plate before literally cutting the target dummy in half. It fell to the floor in two separate pieces, with polycarbonate fragments scattered like confetti behind it.

"Oh yeah," he said in a low voice, a broad smile appearing on his face.

Alyssa laughed and exclaimed, "I almost feel sorry for anyone who tries to fuck with us when we're carrying these."

John walked over to the table, unloaded, flicked the safety on the Punisher heavy pistol, and put it down carefully. He walked over to Dana, who was watching him eagerly, holding her breath with anticipation. Sweeping her off her feet, he dipped her backwards, and proceeded to kiss her soundly, as she moaned with excitement while their lips moved together. When he finally let her back up again, she looked quite flushed and fanned herself with her hand.

"Phew!" she gasped breathlessly. "I've never been kissed like that before!"

John grinned at her, and the girls laughed at the delighted expression on Dana's face. She giggled, giddy as a schoolgirl, and smiled at them all joyfully.

"How many of them did you make?" Calara asked the blushing young woman curiously.

"Ten each of the Punisher rifles and pistols," Dana replied helpfully. "I've stocked up the weapon lockers around the ship."

John looked thoughtful and said, "We should probably keep the old variants as well, just in case we need silenced weapons. They might come in useful."

Dana smiled, and shook her head as she said, "I thought the same thing at first, but then I had a brainwave. I created a low power mode, which is toggled with a thumb selector switch. Low power mode cuts the power down to a fifth, and makes the Punisher railgun behave like the old XR 75 versions: silenced, with much lower armour penetration. That means you won't have to risk stray shots punching through a ship's hull, and you can take out unarmoured targets silently."

He walked over to the Punisher railgun he had put down earlier, and picked it up off the table to take a look at the low power selector switch. As he lifted up the rifle, the small light on the grip flashed green again. "I spotted that light earlier. What is it?" John asked her curiously.

The redhead winked at him and said, "DNA reader built into the grip. It can scan through armoured gauntlets."

John shook his head, as he marvelled at her ingenuity. "Thanks again for the amazing presentations you two," he said to Rachel and Dana gratefully.

The other girls all nodded their agreement, and the brunette and redhead glowed with the praise.

"Now I don't know about you, but I'm famished!" John said exuberantly. "let's go and get some dinner."

They laughed at his loudly grumbling stomach and headed up to the Officers' Lounge.

***

The next several days passed by quickly, as the Invictus made steady progress into Terran Federation territory on their course towards the Core Worlds. John focused on training with Yamamoto, who was unamused at not having seen him for practice in over a week. John had pre-warned the taciturn man that he would be unavailable, but that seemed to have done little to assuage his bad mood. Their duels were long and arduous now, as John's skill with a blade had vastly improved from his initial tentative steps on Oceanus. Yamamoto still got the better of him every time however, but John was determined to beat the man someday and find out what had caused him to have such a sour disposition.

Dana threw herself into materials research, determined to find a way to introduce Onyxium to the reinforced crystal compound. She was suspicious of their unfriendly Maliri guest however, and kept a viewscreen permanently active on her console, so she could monitor Irillith's activities. The blue-skinned woman seemed content to stay in her quarters, and when she wasn't sleeping, she cleaned her gear, practiced some strange Maliri calisthenics, or made periodic visits to the ship's Galley for her meals. The motion tracking sensors and cameras in the corridors verified her movements, so Dana felt assured she wasn't up to anything.

Rachel kept the redhead company in the Engineering Bay, as she devoted her own time to further researching the genetic code in the DNA sequence samples she had acquired. With all the intensive study recently, she felt confident that she was beginning to gain a much greater understanding of the more subtle genetic modifications the Progenitors had made. She marvelled at the radically advanced knowledge they must have had on DNA manipulation, and it saddened her to think of such marvellous understanding of the building blocks of life, being abused for such evil purposes.

Jade still had plenty more shapeshifting practice to do, as she experimented with changing into some of the more bizarre creatures mother nature had to offer. Although two ton animals were her limit at the moment, she was finding it easier to adopt those forms.

Calara decided to begin her investigation into the dozens of high profile kidnappings that had plagued Rachel's home planet, New Eden. Information on the murder of Rachel's mother was scarce, but there were several other kidnappings that had ended in the murder of the victims, when the families couldn't or wouldn't pay the ransom demanded.

That left Alyssa, who practiced juggling storage crates in the Cargo Bay, to try and develop more control over her telekinetic ability. Moving objects that weren't laced with Etherite crystals was surprisingly tricky, so she focused on improving her precision with their telekinetic manipulation, rather than just attempting to lift heavier and heavier objects.

Irillith steered well clear of them all, just staying on Deck Four, and searching with the video cameras in the Engineering Bay. She was desperately looking to see if she could pick up any clues as to the exact whereabouts of the technical schematics server, and she was certain that the redhead had placed it somewhere in her Workshop. With Dana and Rachel in the Engineering Bay almost all the time, getting an opportunity to hack her way in was going to be problematic.

It was with some amusement that she saw the redhead watching the looped feed of activity that Irillith had set up. She smirked as the gullible Terran was duped by the VI system embedded in the fake video feed. It carefully manipulated the images, and made the illusory replication of Irillith perform a series of varied actions so as not to draw suspicion.

Safe in the knowledge that she could continue her surveillance undetected, Irillith continued to study Dana and Rachel's activity in the Engineering Bay. She watched closely for any potential lapses in security, when she might be able to seize an opportunity to sneak in, and plunder their prized archive of schematics.

***

The entire crew were up on the Bridge when they arrived in the Procyon system, and even Irillith had joined them on the Command Deck, as she was curious to see what this important detour was all about. The star in the centre of the system map shone brightly with a fierce white glow, clearly illuminating the single habitable planet in its orbit.

New Eden was a spectacular gem of a world, with a fresh, clean atmosphere, and a habitat that was perfect for Terrans. As a Gaia-classification planet, it was one of a tiny handful of highly sought after destinations for the rich and famous within the Terran Federation. As one of the wealthiest people in the Federation, it was to be expected that Henry Voss would have a residence here.

John glanced over at Rachel, and found her staring pensively at the holographic representation of New Eden. The beautiful green orb floated above them on the Bridge, looking serene and peaceful in the blackness of space that surrounded it. "When did you last visit?" he asked her gently.

Rachel looked up at him and said sadly, "Just over two years ago now, and I haven't spoken to my father in all that time. His estate is just outside Avalon, which is New Eden's capital city."

Calara stood from her Tactical Station and walked over to stand beside the tawny haired girl. "I've spent the last few days going through what happened with your mother," she said in a quiet voice, as she reached out and placed a comforting hand on Rachel's shoulder.

"Did you find any leads?" John asked, looking down at the Latina.

Calara nodded and looked up at him as she said, "I was only able to access news reports, and not the actual police files on the cases. The kidnappers seemed to be highly organised and extremely well informed. They hit the richest families, taking spouses or children, and then seemed to vanish with their victims. A day after each kidnapping, a ransom demand would be issued anonymously."

"Extremely well informed..." John said, his eyes narrowing. "You think they had informants?"

She nodded firmly and said, "Yes, that would be my best guess. I'd suggest investigating the following to look for the leak: Security contracting firms, to see if there might be a common link between private protection companies used by the families involved. Local traffic authorities, as they might have been forewarned about security entourages travelling along sky lanes. Finally, local law enforcement. A corrupt cop might have been tipping the kidnappers off about potential targets."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said, "Let's start with the police. If we take a look at the police archives, we might be able to find some more clues."

"Bringing us in for a close geo-synchronous orbit near Avalon," Jade said over her shoulder, and they watched as the holographic representation of the planet grew larger on the system map.

John turned to look at Irillith, and said in a pleasant voice, "We could use your help, if you're as good with computers as your mother says you are."

Irillith frowned and said, "What are we doing here exactly? Has someone been kidnapped?"

He paused for a moment before answering, and said, "Rachel's mother was kidnapped and murdered ten years ago. We're investigating, and going to bring the kidnappers to justice."

The blue skinned Maliri woman looked incredulous, and she balked, "You're wasting our time with something that happened a decade ago?! What makes you think I'd lift a finger to help you?!"

John studied her for a moment before he replied, "We aren't leaving until this is resolved, so the sooner we wrap this up, the sooner we can be on our way. It's in your own interest to help us, if you want to leave quickly."

Irillith ground her teeth, and she bristled with anger as she said frostily, "Fine... I'll help."

He bowed his head to her courteously and said, "Thanks for your gracious offer of assistance."

He could feel Alyssa's amusement as she said, *You handled our guest very nicely there.*

John turned his chair back towards the rest of the girls and flashed a brief smile at Alyssa, before he said, "I want Alyssa, Calara and Rachel with me. Dana will stay with the Invictus, and Jade can fly us to the surface in the Raptor. Let's get geared up everyone."

The girls nodded obediently, and even Irillith caught herself doing the same, responding to the commanding tone in his voice. As John and his entourage walked over to the Briefing Room to get ready, she scowled and stalked off towards the grav-tube.