Three Square Meals Ch. 070

Her curiosity piqued, Sakura asked, "Special in what way?"

John walked over to the weapon racks, and replied, "She can't use guns."

Sakura frowned, and replied, "She certainly doesn't seem like a pacifist to me, and that tiger form she has is absolutely terrifying! Shinatobe was very lucky Jade didn't tear her in half."

He retrieved a pistol from the weapon rack and checked to make sure it was unloaded, before picking up a bundle of ten-millimetre magazines, and walking over towards the range. As he did so, he agreed, "You're right, she's quite lethal with her shapeshifting forms, and has no problem fighting in the gunship." He looked thoughtful as he added, "Nymphs are artificial lifeforms created by the Progenitors, and they built some kind of mental conditioning into Jade. If she even thinks about using a weapon, it seems to cause her physical pain. "

"How strange," Sakura murmured. "I wonder why the Progenitors added that limitation? Maybe they were worried about a slave revolt?"

"But why let her fight in shapeshifted forms, or in spaceships? The Maliri were slaves too, but they don't have those kind of limitations," he replied with a puzzled frown. Shrugging helplessly, he placed the magazines on the shooting bench, and continued, "Anyway, whatever the reason, she's not keen on wearing armour either, so I try and keep her out of harm's way."

Sakura nodded, and couldn't help but think back to Shinatobe's fight with the Jade tiger. She replied quietly, "That's very wise."

John studied her with a hint of a smile forming on his lips, and he asked, "Surely you're not after another spanking already?"

She laughed at that, and her eyes sparkled as she said, "Not right now."

John let her little indiscretion pass, and beckoning her over to join him, he said with a reassuring smile, "We'll have you trained up with assault rifles in no time, but we'll start with pistols first to let you get familiar with firing on a range. Mastering squad tactics might take a little longer, as you'll need to build up some experience."

"That sounds like a sensible approach to me," she replied agreeably, as she walked over to join him. Glancing down at her swollen belly, she raised an eyebrow and added, "This might prove a bit of a problem though, especially when we start training with swords."

John smiled, and reached out a hand to stroke her rounded stomach. "We'll just have to work around that, but I'll need to keep you topped up so you can finish going through the Change. I was thinking that when you're full like this, it's probably a good idea for you to spend a couple of hours practicing in the firing range. The vast majority of our combat shooting tends to be while we're standing or kneeling, so I'd like you to focus on those firing positions. Once your tummy goes down, we'll get geared up and do some sparring. How does that sound?"

"Three sessions a day?" she asked eagerly.

He chuckled, and replied, "If you think you can handle six hours shooting, and six hours sparring a day, I'll be happy to train you."

Sakura looked him in the eye, and he could see her unshakeable resolve as she gave him a firm nod.

"Good girl," he said approvingly. "Let's get started with the rules for safe gun handling first."

They spent the next hour going through the safe use of firearms, followed by the rules for range safety, and finally stripping and assembling the pistol. Sakura listened to him carefully, a serious, intense expression on her face as she hung on his every word. When he was confident that she understood and had memorised his instructions, and could assemble the weapon effortlessly, they stood at one of the lanes. He hit a button on the wall-mounted console, and with a whir of servos, a target dummy sprang up downrange.

"Alright, just gently squeeze the trigger," he told her as she aimed the pistol at the target.

The pistol felt comfortable in her hands, a certain familiar weight to it that she knew she'd experienced before. As she looked down the sights, her mind suddenly drifted, and she found herself reliving one of Shinatobe's old memories again.

***

Shinatobe watched from the terrace overlooking the patio, as the beautiful young trophy wife wrapped her arms around her lover's neck and kissed him passionately. The couple were taking advantage of the balmy evening on Merianas IV, and were about to take a naked dip in the lothario's hot-tub. The assassin's target was slightly tipsy, and she accidentally spilled some of her chilled champagne down her lover's back, causing him to gasp in shock and pull away from her. He shivered with the cold while the woman giggled mischievously, and when he laughed and made to chase after her, she squealed and darted away.

Using the smartlinked targeting scope built into her bionic eye, Shinatobe took careful aim at the young woman. Taking into account wind velocity, the range to her target, the drop from the balcony, and the foot-speed of the giggling girl, the assassin squeezed the trigger. There was a barely discernible hiss as the tranquiliser pistol fired, and the dart soared out and hit the blonde in the neck. She stumbled woozily, then dropped to the floor, her champagne flute rolling out of her limp fingers.

"Jocelyn! What's wrong?!" the man cried out as he knelt down by the unconscious woman's side.

Vaulting over the terrace balcony, Shinatobe dropped lightly to the floor, barely making a sound as she landed. Deactivating her Nanoweave suit, she flickered into view as the light-bending field dissipated, then prowled towards her crouching victim. Drawing her sword with a long protracted motion, she deliberately made the blade create a long chilling note as she pulled it from its scabbard.

The man looked up, and his eyes widened in fear when he saw her approaching. It only took one glance at her sinister black sword, for him to realise that the terrifying ninja had a much darker fate in store for him. He stumbled away from the girl with a startled cry, falling backwards onto the patio in his desperation to escape. Scrambling to his feet, he turned and fled, abandoning his lover to the black-clad assassin stalking after him.

Shinatobe stepped over the prone girl, ignoring her for the moment as she glided after the terrified man. She could have ended it there and then, but the Tetra-cola executive had been quite specific in his instructions for this contract. The cuckolded husband was determined to exact a terrible vengeance on his wife's lover, and he'd made two requests: the finale was to be protracted, and it was to be excruciatingly painful.

She swept through the patio doors into the house, activating the thermal imaging in her bionic eyes. Moving purposefully, Shinatobe followed the panicked footprints that she could see highlighted in orange, against the cold, tiled floor.

"Not bad for your first shot," someone said, the comforting baritone drawing Sakura from her reverie.

***

"Try and aim for centre mass," John suggested helpfully. He patted the middle of his chest, and smiled at her as he added, "Right here."

Blinking a couple of times as she adjusted to the disorientating change in surroundings, Sakura gazed down the firing range at the target dummy. She could clearly see where the ten-millimetre round had hit the polycarbonate figure, evidenced by the blackened gunshot wound where her shot had struck, just a few millimetres away from the carotid artery in the neck. At least, that's where the vein would have been, if the dummy had a blood supply to carry a paralyzing poison around its body.

She blinked at John owlishly, then nodded as she replied, "Okay, I'll aim for the chest next time."

Narrowing his eyes perceptively, John asked, "You just had another memory flashback, didn't you?"

Sakura nodded, but was hesitant as she replied, "The first one in the kitchen was about fighting with swords... This one was about firing a tranquiliser pistol."

He looked at her with concern, and asked, "Do you want to stop and take a break?"

"No, I'm fine, honestly!" she protested in a hurry, giving him a bright smile in an attempt to convince him she was unshaken after reliving the disturbing memory.

With a flash of insight, he glanced down the range again, noting the blackened mark on the target dummy's neck. Looking into Sakura's unsettled brown eyes, he said, "That neck shot was the best place to land a tranquiliser dart, wasn't it?"

She nodded, and replied quietly, "Yes, I believe so."

He squeezed her shoulder with his hand, and said warily, "I'd like you to talk to Rachel, and ask her to give you a check-up. If there's something serious behind these flashbacks, then I want to know what it is so I can fix it."

Her eyes twinkled now as she asked him, "Still fixing your wounded little bird?"

John stroked her back, and replied, "Just trying to make sure you're safe and well. You're part of our family now, so you'll have to get used to me being over-protective."

"It's alright, I like it," she said, blushing slightly.

Sakura turned back towards the firing range, and did her best to steady her racing heart as she aimed the pistol at the target again. Gently squeezing the trigger, the pistol kicked in her hand, and the bullet hit the dummy just above the sternum.

"Nice," John said, smiling at her when she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "You can spend the rest of the morning practicing with that pistol and going through the rest of those magazines. When you're confident using a pistol, I'll train you with the XR75 rifle."

"Sounds good," she agreed with an eager grin, taking aim again and flipping the selector switch to semi-auto.

***

"I see what you mean, Faye. This place is breathtaking," Irillith murmured, as she floated high above the Invictus' digital network.

"Just wait until you see inside!" Faye gushed, as they drifted lower to the gleaming spires that represented her Progenitor-based hardware.

They were currently surveying the myriad nodes that made up the cyber space infrastructure of their home, and the purple sprite had brought her Maliri Creator to a very specific location: her new server, which had been modelled on the original Nexus hardware designed by Mael'nerak.

Unlike the drab featureless digital fortresses in a Terran network, the Progenitor server was made up of dozens of shimmering towers, linked together on slender platforms. The entire construction seemed to shift as if possessed of a will of its own, never presenting a portal that could be hacked for more than a few seconds, before it was on its way once more. The structure was covered in an iridescent dome, which partially reflected the light, making the towers inside seem hazy and indistinct.

The madly shifting structures paused as they recognised Faye's digital presence, and an oval doorway spiralled open in the dome, allowing them entry. The purple sprite offered her friend her hand, and squeezed it reassuringly as they floated through the portal. Irillith looked around her with wide eyes, as what had appeared to be a relatively compact digital castle was now revealed to be a colossal maze of data archives. Intricate webs of data streams wove throughout the interior of the cyber-castle in a kaleidoscope of bright colours, before converging in dozens of processing exchanges.

Irillith marvelled at her surroundings, truly taking in the scale of the place, and with mouth agape, she exclaimed, "It's so much bigger on the inside!"

"I know! I haven't been able to figure out how that works yet," Faye confessed with a grin.

Taking a closer look at the data streams and computation apexes that webbed through the cyber-castle, she began to recognise some of the technology driving the Progenitor fortress. Some of it was so advanced, it had only been considered far-fetched theory. Polymorphic processors, Multidimensioned Bit-Matrix Insertion Busses, Omniphased data caching, Recursive block adaptor layering, Multimodal optimizations, Rainbow grid tabled ultra-resolution analog coprocessors, Pathfinding multi-index channels, Regressive correlators with continuous update capacities, the list seemed endless.

"This technology is incredible!" Irillith gasped in wonder.

"Home sweet home," the purple AI replied with a mischievous smile.

Shaking her head in amazement, Irillith stared up at the shifting towers above her head, where the roaming heavy defences were located. Each tower was a bastion of lethal hunter-killer programs, manifesting in the form of sinister weapon barrels that were illuminated by an eerie red glow. She shivered at the thought of trying to break into a place like that, with those terrifying floating fortresses attacking from all sides. Heavily armed Data Sentinels glided past her silently; black, angular, and toting huge multi-barrelled rotary cannons, they were ominous with their forbidding presence. The Maliri girl was exceedingly glad they were friendly. Or at least, non-hostile.

"So, what do you think?" Faye asked, her adorable face shining with excitement.

Finally locking eyes with the fluttering purple girl, Irillith replied, "You're right. If we could replace all the hardware on the ship with this Progenitor tech, the Invictus would be impregnable."

Nodding eagerly, Faye said, "It would take a lot of work, but it'd be worth it!" Her face turned down into a cute frown as she added, "We'd have to take most of the ship's systems offline to upgrade the primary hub, so we'll have to wait until we're in drydock."

"It would definitely be worth it," Irillith agreed. "Especially installing a new server to power the Invictus' external Gateway."

"That was what I was thinking too! Then perhaps a few more in key locations around the network to act as additional lines of defence," Faye said, as she nodded with enthusiasm. She looked at her creator quizzically after a brief pause, and added, "So what plans did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking about something on a considerably smaller scale, but we could start implementing my enhancements immediately," the Maliri girl explained, as she thought about her own security ideas.

"Tell me all about them!" Faye exclaimed, her shimmering wings vibrating in a blur. "I'd love to help!"

***

They reconvened for lunch at one o'clock, with everyone excited by the work they'd started that morning. John strolled into the Galley with plates stacked high with a variety of different sandwiches, while Sakura followed after him carrying a big bowl of salad. They'd been the first to finish for the morning, so had gone up to the kitchen to prepare food for everyone. John had put her in charge of slicing up the lettuce, and she'd handled the knife deftly, reducing the vegetable to bite-sized portions without recalling any more memories.

John sat down on the chair at the head of the table, making room for Sakura to kneel in front of him so she could enjoy her own tasty repast. She blushed slightly as she went down on her knees, feeling slightly embarrassed.

*Every girl here wishes they were you right now, me included. There's no need to feel shy,* Alyssa said to her telepathically, her voice warm and reassuring.

Flashing her a grateful look, the Asian girl smiled at John, then disappeared under the table.

John helped her with his trousers, then sighed as he was engulfed in a hot, eager little mouth, her velvety tongue gliding along his length. Stroking her head with one hand, he raised the other as he looked around the table, and asked, "May I make a suggestion, girls?"

"Of course," Calara replied, while looking at him curiously. "What did you have in mind?"

"Let's skip the daily status updates, and keep it a surprise for the presentations when you're done. Sound reasonable?" he asked, glancing around at the faces all turned in his direction.

When everyone nodded their agreement, Calara said, "Actually, there's something I wanted to mention that probably needs investigating." She smiled at John as she continued, "I was so keyed up to tell you that I'd be looking into your mother's disappearance, I forgot to bring it up before."

"Ah, right. The DNA reader?" John asked her, as he realised what she was referring to.

"That's it," the Latina agreed, turning to look at Dana and Rachel. "I tried to close the airlock in the Raptor, but the DNA reader didn't recognise me!"

Dana blinked in surprise, and said, "I can run a diagnostic, see if it's on the blink."

Rachel studied the olive-skinned brunette, and shaking her head at her redheaded friend, she said, "I don't think that's what Calara's referring to." She looked into the Latina's eyes, and continued, "You suspect your genetic code has been modified again, don't you?"

"Yes, that was my first thought," Calara replied, glancing at John.

All eyes turned to him now, and he held up both hands defensively as he joked, "You're all mighty quick to blame the DNA-modifying Progenitor in the room!"

The girls all laughed at that, and Alyssa gave him an affectionate smile as she said, "You do have a certain amount of history in that regard. What've you been up to?"

He frowned as he glanced down at the raven-haired temptress worshiping his cock, and said, "I admit I've been thinking about pushing the boundaries a bit with Sakura, but I honestly hadn't really planned on making any enhancements to the rest of you."

"That sounds awfully vague," Rachel noted with a wry smile. "Perhaps I'd better run some tests on all of us."

"What were you going to do to Sakura?" Jade asked him sounding quite fascinated.

"Nothing crazy, just helping her get a bit stronger and quicker for melee combat," he explained as he looked down and gazed into the dark-brown eyes staring up at him.

She sucked powerfully, the hunger and desire he could see in her eyes reflected in her technique. It was tremendously exciting to know she was so enthusiastic to receive his Gift, and being able to just relax and enjoy himself brought his climax on swiftly. He held her head with both hands, caressing her lovingly as she gulped down long spurts of cum, eager to empty his quad of every last drop.

Their audience waited patiently for him to finish, and a glance around the table when he helped Sakura to her feet afterwards revealed plenty of flushed, excited faces. He got dressed again, then helped her onto his lap, where he held her protectively while stroking her huge tummy.

"I so wish I was you right now," Dana said to Sakura with a sigh of lament.

Alyssa smiled at her, and said, "You're already being lined up for another two weeks of special attention, Sparks! Spare a thought for the rest of us, you greedy girl."

"Yeah, but that's ages away," Dana said, looking forlorn.

Sakura looked her way, and said agreeably, "I don't want to be selfish. I did enjoy getting lunch and dinner rather more unconventionally yesterday..."

With an impish smile, Alyssa said, "I'm sure we'll be able to accommodate you there."

Calara caught John's eye and asked off-handedly, "What are you up to this afternoon? I wondered if you'd be up for a sparring session?"

"Definitely!" John agreed, smiling at the thought. "It's been far too long since our last bout."

Her brown eyes flashed with excitement, and she gave John a challenging look as she said, "I have a feeling Sakura's going to be wearing you out when you start all that sword training, so you won't be much use to me then. I hope you're going to make this fight worth my while!"

He grinned at her, and replied, "I think you can count on me to put you through your paces, Commander."

"I can't wait to see you fight!" Sakura gasped, looking at him with excitement.

Shaking his head, he said firmly, "Not until Rachel's checked you over. If there's a problem, I want to know about it immediately."