Three Square Meals Ch. 081

Devereux had seen the Invictus in action and she drew in a sharp breath at the thought of getting her hands on some of that technology. "What's he offering in exchange?!"

"I take it I have your permission to offer up the heatsinks for trade?" Charles asked, his tone cautious. "They're classified at Ultra-level clearance at the moment."

Waving a hand dismissively, Devereux nodded as she replied, "Yes, of course. I'll put that in writing as soon as we've finished the call. Now, what tech will he give us?"

"John said that he's willing to make a very appealing trade, but wouldn't go into specifics," Charles replied, recalling his friend's playful demeanour on the call. Sounding thoughtful, he continued, "I know he's acquired a state-of-the-art Power Core and FTL drive from the Ashanath. He wouldn't trade them before, but I suspect he's had a change of heart."

Devereux's eyes gleamed at the thought of all the political capital she would gain from a sudden boon in highly-advanced alien technology. Her current swell of support would surge into an unstoppable tsunami of backers, all clamouring for a change in leadership - she could almost feel the Fleet-Admiral's insignia on her epaulets.

"You've excelled yourself, Charles!" she said enthusiastically. "This could mean an exponential increase in our fleets' capabilities! Just let me know when he'll be arriving and I'll arrange a meeting with John so that I can oversee the technology trade."

Charles gave her a coy smile. "I'd love to be able to do that, Lynette, but John said he'll only deal with me. Don't worry, I'm more than happy to broker the trade myself."

Lynette's eyes narrowed as she studied the Vice-Admiral. "Is that right? How fascinating..."

He nodded and spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture. "It must be because of all those years of service together on the Invictus. A man develops a special bond with a fellow officer when they've served for that length of time - just like you and me, Lynette. I wish I could hand the whole deal over to you to organise, but don't worry, I'll be sure to make a timely announcement about all the new technology I acquire to the Admiralty."

Devereux studied the man intently for a moment before responding. This was a bold move from Charles and one that was uncharacteristically shrewd. He was an intelligent and dedicated officer, but she'd never seen him play political games like this before.

"Alright, Charles, what're you after?" she asked, not having the patience for dancing around any further.

He leaned back in his chair and smiled wolfishly. "With Lynton's happy demise and Norwood's desertion, we seem to have a few vacancies in the upper echelons of the Admiralty. I'm sure if John heard of my recent promotion, he'd be so pleased for his old comrade-in-arms that I'd be able to secure an even better deal with him. Of course, we'll be busy celebrating my promotion as soon as the deal is done, so I'd need to ask a favour from you. If you could inform the Admiralty about the new tech we just acquired, I'd really appreciate it."

Lynette was quiet for a moment as she pondered Charles' offer. He was a capable officer and while he'd only served as a Vice-Admiral for a couple of years, by trading the Invictus to John Blake, he'd managed to build up a considerable amount of political capital for himself. She quickly calculated the level of support she'd need to push for his promotion, mentally ticking off all the Admirals she knew would back her, or could be counted on by calling in favours. It was well worth pulling out all the stops to be able to claim sole credit for this deal.

"Well played, Charles," she finally said with a laugh. "I'll pull some strings... You should hear the good news by tomorrow."

He grinned at her in delight. "I really appreciate this, Lynette. I'll be sure to show my appreciation if you should ever need my support in the future."

The two officers exchanged knowing smiles, before Devereux said, "It was a pleasure speaking to you. Good luck with the tech trade tomorrow."

Charles saluted her and said, "Likewise, Lynette. I'll call and give you the good news as soon as the deal is completed."

"I'll look forward to your call, Admiral Harris," Devereux said, giving him a sly smile as she returned his salute.

Nodding to her gratefully, Charles ended the call and his image winked out a second later. Lynette Devereux leaned back in her chair, finally allowing herself a delighted grin. If all went according to plan, this tech trade could be the catalyst for change she desperately needed.

"Fleet Admiral Lynette Devereux," she said aloud. It had a nice ring to it.

A soft chime on her comm interface interrupted her moment of celebration and she frowned in irritation when she saw the origin of the signal. The secure call was coming from Buckingham's flagship, the Retribution of Zeus. She was tempted to ignore the call, but she sighed and swiped her hand across the name.

Devereux managed to summon up a warm smile of greeting for the bearded man whose image appeared before her. "Ah, Edwin, it's so good to see you. I hope you're well?"

Admiral Edwin Caldwell gave her a pensive nod. He sounded worried as he replied, "Lynette, we need to talk..."

***

John nodded thoughtfully as he walked down the Raptor's loading ramp into the Ashanath docking bay, with Dana at his side. He'd been quiet for the last thirty minutes, only responding with monosyllabic answers as the redhead had enthused about the technical marvels they'd just discovered in great detail.

"Hey, are you actually listening?" she finally asked, nudging him with an elbow.

He smiled at her as he replied, "Give me a second and I'll summarise everything you just told me: When you install the new Power Relays, we'll be able to make full use of the Progenitor Power Cores, increasing their effective output by another fifty percent. The new Progenitor Power Couplings will let you push more power to each weapon hardpoint, letting us take full advantage of the new heatsinks we're hoping to pick up tomorrow. The Capacitors will make our armour even more resilient to laser fire and if you hook up more to the Power Core, we can store more power to cope with peak demands."

"The immediate gains when we upgrade everything will be swapping the Invictus' Beam Lasers to Photon Lasers, which will double their effective damage output. You're planning to boost the rate of fire for the Pulse Cannons and increase the damage of the Nova Lances. Finally, you'll be able to incorporate all this new tech when you upgrade our rifles."

"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, although you skipped all the fun technical details," Dana conceded, looking impressed. "You really were paying attention!"

"Sorry I seemed a bit distracted, Alyssa gave me a few interesting things to think about," John said with a lopsided grin, as they reached the docking bay's deck.

"That's no problem, you got the important bits," the redhead said, pulling off her Paragon helmet and shaking out her long auburn hair. Turning to smile at Jade, she added, "The first thing we'll do is build a bunch of new maintenance bots for Faye - we need at least eight more. They'll be able to help us construct the sixty-four Photon Lasers we'll need for the Invictus."

John looked at her in surprise. "Are you starting straight away?"

"We might as well, as long as you're up for it, Jade?" Dana replied, raising a quizzical eyebrow as she glanced at the Nymph.

"You know you can always count on me, Grand Engineering Overlord," the green-skinned girl replied playfully.

"Actually, I might need to borrow our lovely Nymph for a bit," Alyssa replied from above their heads, taking everyone by surprise.

She descended in a soft white glow, landing lightly on her feet beside the startled trio.

John removed his Paragon helmet, then pulled the blonde into his arms and gave her a kiss. "Hey, beautiful," he said with a grin.

"Welcome home, handsome," Alyssa replied, glancing behind him pointedly.

Picking up her particular emphasis on the word "home", John turned around to follow her gaze up at the Invictus, then blinked in surprise. The battlecruiser's hull was spotless once again, every laser burn and impact crater swept clean, the armour sparkling white once more.

"You got that done quickly!" he remarked, amazed at how fast she'd repaired the ship.

Shrugging nonchalantly, Alyssa replied, "It's a bit of a patchwork of quad and quint shaped plates now, but that doesn't really matter. I wanted to get it all finished, because you know what they say: 'All work and no play makes Alyssa a dull girl'." She glanced up at the small silver disc that was about to land next to the Invictus and continued, "And now it's time to play!"

She took John's hand and started pulling him towards the Ashanath shuttle, so he fell into step beside her as Dana and Jade followed in their wake. The door to the silver saucer swung open and once a short flight of steps dropped down to the deck, a couple of familiar faces appeared. Sakura left the shuttle first, then turned around to offer Rachel a hand down the steps. The brunette looked exhausted and she couldn't help yawning as she turned to wave at them.

"Are you alright?" John asked, jogging over to the weary girl.

Rachel nodded and gave him a tired smile. "I'm fine, just a bit sleepy."

She didn't protest when he scooped her up in his arms and he frowned as he said, "I thought I said not to overdo it?"

Stifling another yawn, Rachel replied, "I know, but I needed to take full advantage of the opportunity to practice. I can't exactly go to the Training Dojo and start regenerating someone's lacerated spleen."

Sakura waved goodbye to the Ashanath pilot, then strode over to join them. She stroked Rachel's arm and said in wonder, "She was amazing, John, I wish you'd seen it." She smiled at the brunette and added, "How many Ashanath did you heal, Rachel? It must have been at least three hundred..."

"I don't know, I got a bit lost in my work," the doctor confessed, giving John a guilty smile.

Alyssa brushed her fingers through the teenager's silky brown hair and said, "Well, she managed to tap me out of energy and that takes some doing."

"Bedtime for you, young lady," John said firmly to Rachel, turning and walking towards the Invictus.

The rest of the group followed after him, with Dana hurrying to his side so she could check on her girlfriend. Rachel gave her a reassuring smile and the redhead relaxed, seeing that she was fine, just tired. They rose up in the blue glowing field of the anti-grav tube before stepping out onto Deck Two and making their way towards the bedroom.

"We'll let Rachel have the main bedroom, so she can get an uninterrupted sleep," Alyssa said to Sakura. "Why don't you get a shower in your own room? I'll join you in a couple of minutes, once I've freshened up."

The Asian girl blushed furiously, her rich brown eyes darting to Alyssa. The blonde winked at her when Sakura didn't make any objections and their Security Chief darted into her bedroom as they passed her quarters.

John turned to speak to Alyssa and he just caught the tail-end of those furtive glances. He looked at the blonde curiously as Sakura disappeared into her quarters. "What are you two up to?"

"It's nothing to worry about," Alyssa said with a grin. "I'll tell you all about it later, I'm just going to cheer up Sakura."

"Is she alright?" John asked with concern.

Alyssa smirked at him and replied, "Oh yes, she's wonderful."

Confused by Alyssa's teasing replies, John just chuckled and rolled his eyes, knowing he'd have to wait until later to find out whatever was going on. Strolling into his bedroom, he walked across to the bed accompanied by Dana, while Alyssa and Jade peeled off towards the bathroom. He placed Rachel down gently on the edge of the bed and with Dana's help, they quickly got her undressed and tucked in under the covers. John joined Dana in dropping down to the Combat Bridge, where they removed their Paragon armour before returning to the bedroom. The redhead stripped in a flurry of clothes, then snuggled in behind her lover, kissing her shoulder as they spooned together.

"I'm very proud of you both," John said softly, leaning down to kiss each of the girls in turn. "You were amazing today, thank you."

"Thanks, John," Rachel murmured, giving him a loving, drowsy smile. "It felt incredible helping so many of the Ashanath."

Dana just grinned at him and replied, "What're you thanking me for? I should be thanking you, I had a fucking awesome time! Best of all, now I get to spend weeks sucking the Quantum Flux Cannon schematics out of your quad!"

John couldn't help guffawing with laughter at that piece of delightful imagery, accompanied by Rachel's chuckles and Dana's giggling. He smiled back at her and said, "I'm looking forward to that too, but we'll have to wait a little while. I need to focus on Tashana first."

Far too happy to even pretend to pout, Dana just wrapped her arms around Rachel and beamed at him in response. He sat down on the side of the bed and stroked their hair, watching as the brunette's eyes grew heavy and she fell into a deep sleep. His soothing touch had calmed Dana too and she blew him a sleepy kiss before closing her eyes and drifting off as well. John stopped for a moment to savour his feelings of protectiveness towards the beautiful young women, before slowly rising from the bed so that he wouldn't disturb them. Turning to walk towards the bathroom, he saw that Alyssa and Jade had already finished their shower and were now drying themselves off.

"Sorry, handsome," Alyssa said, smiling apologetically. "We waited a while for you, but we started turning into prunes."

"If you'd like someone to wash your back, I'm happy to have another shower," Jade said, giving him a hopeful smile.

The blonde wagged a finger at the Nymph and said, "We've already kept Sakura waiting."

"Go on, I'll be fine," John said with a grin. "I am capable of taking a shower on my own once in a while."

The two girls gave him a quick kiss goodbye and Alyssa gave him a playful smack on the bottom as he strolled into the shower cubicle. Thoughts of the identical Maliri twins soon danced alluringly through his mind and he felt an illicit thrill as he wondered exactly what they had in store for him. The fact that they were sisters added a whole new thrilling element to the equation and while he had no intention of pushing them into anything they weren't ready for, he couldn't help but fantasise about it anyway.

Despite his words to Alyssa and Jade, showering alone in the huge cubicle just made him miss the feel of soapy, nubile bodies surrounding him. He decided that it was an experience he'd try to avoid from now on.

*So spoilt...* Alyssa purred, loving every second of his thoughts. *Don't worry, I'll make sure you always have a shower companion in the future. You do know you only have to ask? You'll have eight eager volunteers whenever you want some company. Nine if you count Faye, but I'm not sure how much slippery fun you'll be able to have with her.*

John felt like he should probably make some half-hearted protest at independence, but in the end, he just sent her a grateful telepathic smile. *I'd really appreciate that. Thanks, beautiful.*

Turning off the water with a wave of his hand over the shower controls, he stepped out of the cubicle and quickly dried himself off in the auto-driers. Walking quietly back into the bedroom, he smiled when he saw that Dana and Rachel were still fast asleep, the girls looking quite adorable snuggled up together in the pristine white sheets. Turning to head for the walk-in wardrobe, he nearly ran into Alyssa as she bounced out of the room wearing a very perky cheerleader's outfit.

*Hey, handsome!* she smirked at him telepathically, rustling her pom-poms in his face.

Suddenly her quips about cheering Sakura up began to make sense and he grinned at her as she winked at him. The blonde turned around and flounced out the door, giving him a flash of her white panties under her exceedingly short blue skirt as she did so.

*I think I could use some of that team spirit too,* he suggested, as she disappeared from sight.

When he didn't receive an immediate reply, John turned towards his wardrobe again and nearly bumped into Alyssa as she bounded through the door.

*Hey, handsome!* she smirked at him telepathically, rustling her pom-poms in his face.

John blinked at her in shock and he saw the delight on her face as he finally realised what was going on. *I thought I was having one hell of a déjà vu for a minute!* he admitted, with a wry grin.

He paused to admire her spectacular body in the revealing cheerleader's outfit and suddenly realised exactly what he was about to miss out on: Alyssa and her Nymph twin enthusiastically ravishing the exotic Asian girl.

*Yes, all your naughty thoughts about Tashana and Irillith gave me the idea,* Alyssa replied, giving him a knowing smile. *Sakura saved my life, but she won't accept my thanks for it, so I've decided to blow her mind to show my appreciation.*

John reached out a hand to brush his trembling fingers across Alyssa's bared midriff. He couldn't remember his cock being so hard before, and it throbbed in the air with anticipation as he imagined watching the three girls together.

Alyssa leaned into his hand and gave him a teasing grin as she said, *I'd love to invite you to join us, but you probably shouldn't keep Tashana waiting any longer. She's in her bedroom at the moment and really does need to talk to you.*

*But- I thought... what about Irillith?* John asked, quite bewildered.

*Oh, she's up on the Bridge chatting with Calara,* Alyssa replied offhandedly, while arching an eyebrow at him. *I said that Tashana's in the mood to share - her feelings. Why? Whatever did you think I meant?*

John rolled his eyes as he realised he'd been duped and he chuckled quietly as he pulled the blonde in for a hug. "I'll get you back for this, you little vixen. You know that, right?" he whispered to her before stealing a kiss.

*Mmm, I'm counting on it,* Alyssa replied. She sounded confused as she added, *But why are you telling that to Jade? This was my idea, she was just a good girl and followed my requests.*

The Nymph slipped her right hand from its pom-pom and traced it down his jawline as he gaped at her in surprise.

"Did you really not suspect that it was me, Master?" she whispered to him softly, looking positively delighted. "I've been closely watching Alyssa's mannerisms to make my imitation of her more authentic. The next time we get together for a threesome, I don't want anything to break the illusion that you have two of Alyssa serving your every desire."

"You had me completely fooled," he admitted in a hushed voice, shaking his head in admiration. He gave her a tender kiss before continuing, "Sakura's a very lucky girl."

He could feel the Nymph's soft skin heating up in his arms as she stopped suppressing her natural reaction to his close presence. Jade gave him a final kiss, then bounded out of the bedroom to catch up with Alyssa and spring their surprise on the unsuspecting Asian girl.

John almost felt sorry for Sakura, knowing she'd need every ounce of her enhanced endurance to survive the dual Alyssa tornadoes that were about to ravage her. He smiled at that thought as he finally walked into his wardrobe and picked out some comfortable clothes. The one problem with being teased like that was being left with a double-set of blue balls, his easily-led quad gearing up to feed lots of slim tummies. He quickly threw on a t-shirt, then took much more care with his trousers, trying not to jostle his taut balls unnecessarily.