Three Square Meals Ch. 098

John grimaced than cupped the Latina's face and brushed his thumb across her cheek. *It was a terrible example, let's not talk about that any more.*

The Latina gave him a loving smile and turned to kiss his hand, the look she gave him letting John know that Alyssa had been relaying the telepathic conversation to her too.

*Agreed, it was a horrible example,* Alyssa said affectionately. *But throughout Terran history, there's been countless cultures where a man can have multiple mates, as long as he's a good enough provider. Compared to someone like Genghis Khan, you're practically a Puritan.*

*Ah, it's good to know I'm in such prestigious company,* John said dryly.

Alyssa's melodic laughter filled his mind. *Alright, maybe I'm not explaining it properly. Have a chat with Rachel if you're still worrying about it. Actually, you should have a chat with her anyway, she's made an interesting decision recently.*

*She has?* John asked, sounding intrigued.

*Yes,* the blonde replied with a telepathic smirk, refusing to go into any details.

He rolled his eyes at his playful matriarch, then hugged the two girls in bed with him. "Thanks for bringing that up about the Young Matriarchs, I really appreciated hearing your perspective."

"It was the least we could do after all the effort you just put in," Sakura said, sharing a smile with the Latina beside her.

Calara nodded looking at him fondly. "You're under enough pressure as it is, don't start worrying about something that isn't even a problem."

"Wise advice, I'll bear that in mind," John said, before glancing at the chronometer on the wall. "We better go and get cleaned up before dinner, the rest of the girls will be waiting for us."

"That's true and we are bringing dessert," Sakura agreed, winking at him as she ran a hand over her curved tummy.

***

Faye carefully watched the Empire Map as the Invictus crossed over the border between the Brimorian Enclave and the Desolation of Vulkat. She'd been paying close attention to the long-range sensors for the last six hours, as they'd travelled through the supposedly safe Brimorian territory, but now she was really vigilant. There were no active vessels to be seen, but the sensors picked up numerous wreck sites, the vast majority of which appeared to be Brimorian.

The majority, but not all...

Some of the derelicts looked extremely worn, their venerable hulls pitted by the corrosive effect of being struck by billions of particles of cosmic dust. The designs of those hulks were nothing like any vessels that Faye had seen before, or was able to identify in the ships almanac. She could only conclude that the ancient wrecks were sad relics from a bygone era, but whether they'd been friend or foe of the Vulkat was impossible to know.

She handed over watch of the Bridge to Faye Secondary, then bounded down from the Command Podium to the grav-tube. Her robotic body didn't need to eat, but she wasn't going to start missing mealtimes, especially when she loved seeing all her friends gathering together to chat and relax in each other's company. Faye had been watching the internal cameras to track John's location on the ship, so she was able to time her descent perfectly, arriving at Deck Two just as he did.

"Hi John!" she exclaimed, greeting him with her brightest smile, one that she had calculated he found most agreeable.

"Hi Faye," he said with a smile, his obvious pleasure at seeing her filling the AI with delight. Offering her a hand, he added, "That was a nice coincidence."

Faye decided not to correct him and took his hand gladly, feeling the slight pressure of his grip on her synthetic skin. A strange thought crossed her mind, as she realised that with his incredible psychically-boosted strength, John probably had the power to crush her crystal Alyssium hand in his fist if he so chose. That he held her so gently instead was a delightful paradox, one that resulted in a stream of bewildering new outputs from her behavioural subroutines. Faye noted a 72% surge in her estimation of his capabilities as a protector.

She exchanged smiles with Calara and Sakura, noting their curved tummies. Faye recalled that when meeting a girl who was clearly carrying a load of John's cum, proper ship's decorum for the female crew meant greeting that girl with a light-hearted innuendo. John operated under a different set of parameters of course; his usual method of interaction involved a gentle caress and a knowing smile, or perhaps informing them what a 'good girl' they were, regardless of their actual age.

"You two look like you had fun in the Dojo!" she said with a playful wink.

Calara and Sakura laughed and nodded, much to Faye's satisfaction. She wasn't sure why other AI had such a problem with successfully replicating human interactions. You simply had to document and catalogue every single form of communication that you could observe, then spend a few billion cycles analysing them all to look for patterns, while making sure to note every exception. Faye had prepared a suitable response to 2,198,561 different scenarios so far, and was quite proud of her 92% success rate.

They walked into the Officers' Lounge, where Alyssa, Jade, and the Maliri twins were carrying dinner through to the table. More greetings were exchanged, with Alyssa walking over to welcome John and Calara with a kiss, while the Nymph hugged Sakura and stroked her tummy affectionately. That gentle caress caused Faye to pause, noting a possible change in the type of interaction between the two women.

Faye knew that John exhibited no jealousy when the girls paired off into couples; he actually appeared to find such pairings to be both fascinating and sexually arousing. She'd therefore been closely observing Alyssa and Calara together, as well as Dana and Rachel, to see what she could learn about such double-female couplings. Faye had decided not to pay so much attention to Irillith and Tashana, by virtue of the fact that they were "hot twins" and therefore not quite as useful subjects to aid her own further integration into the crew.

She had assumed that the relationship between Jade and Sakura was in a "not together" state, but this evening's interaction made her pause to review her observations. Sakura had been unofficially included as an occasional addition to the Dana and Rachel relationship, but Faye knew that was primarily for sexual gratification amongst the trio; to let her have fun "unleashing her inner domme" as Alyssa had put it. By contrast, Jade had an intimate physical relationship with all the girls, but had never expressed any particular emotional attraction to anyone other than John.

Faye recalled that Jade's primary interests were in seeing John's cum being fed to the girls to keep them strong and healthy, and ultimately to see them all pregnant with his children. Suddenly the Nymph's loving greeting to Sakura made more sense, and Faye decided not to make any amendments to the relationship status of either girl.

Performing her duty as Watch Commander she informed John, "Just to let you know, we crossed the border into the desolation of Vulkat. I'm keeping my eyes open for potential fleets we could target."

"Excellent. Thanks, Faye," John replied appreciatively. "Just let us know as soon as you spot anything promising."

Dana and Rachel were the last to enter the Officers' Lounge and they jogged over to take their places around the table. Faye was suddenly faced with a conundrum as everyone took their seats. When in her holographic form, she had previously sat on top of the dining table at the opposite end to John. This scenario had not come up before, but she was fairly sure that sitting cross-legged on the table like that with her robotic body would not be considered acceptable behaviour.

John saw her hesitation and gestured to the chair at the foot of the table with a smile. "Why don't you sit there, Faye? The host and hostess are supposed to sit at opposite ends of the table, and you do help run most of the ship."

Faye looked at him in astonishment, then darted an anxious glance at Alyssa, concerned that she might resent the elevation in status John had just granted her.

The blonde grinned at John and held his hand, then turned that dazzling smile towards Faye. "Go ahead, I don't mind."

The purple sprite took her seat, then looked down the rows at the smiling faces of all her friends. She felt giddy with excitement, behavioural subroutines pouring off reams of data as she recorded and catalogued this moment for intensive scrutiny at a later date. Thoroughly distracted by all the new information, Faye decided that it would be best to passively observe the rest of the meal...

John nodded to Alyssa in gratitude as she served him a couple of the pork chops, then turned to look at Dana. "How did you get on with the new shields for the Paragon suits?"

The redhead glanced at her girlfriend and the Nymph. "All sorted! Jade and Rachel built enough of the new Brimorian shield generators for each of us and I figured out how to get the phase convertor working. Once I added that in, then the Maliri modulators worked like a charm!"

"So how much stronger are the new shields compared to the old ones?" John asked, adding runner beans to his plate.

Dana grinned at him in delight. "180%! And that's not even including the damage resistance from the reinforced shields!"

He listened with interest, then asked, "You talked about how effective the new shields would be on the Invictus, but what about infantry weapons and the Paragon shields?"

"We'd be laughing against the Kirrix," the redhead said, before listing a number of figures while counting them off on her fingers. "Neutron guns down to 29% effectiveness! Even Plasma rifles would be down to 40%, and a Gatling Laser at 50%!"

"So our shields would have lasted about... eight times as long?" Tashana asked, frowning as she tried to calculate all the percentages.

"Yep!" Dana exclaimed with glee. "8.4 to be precise."

"Very impressive work, Sparks," John said, nodding his approval.

She tapped a finger on her chin, lost in thought for a moment. "By the sound of it, the eternity crystals are going to give us even stronger shields, and that'll be great for letting us take big hits from anything nasty, but what we really need now is faster recharge rates. If I can get the recharge rates really high, we might eventually become effectively immune to squad based weapons like plasma rifles and neutron guns!"

"That would be amazing," he agreed. "Is that what you're looking into next?"

She nodded, then gave him a rueful smile. "I can't give you any kind of time estimates I'm afraid. Unless I have a Progenitor related breakthrough, it'll be a case of intensive theorising and experimentation. I haven't a clue how long it'll take me to come up with something, if it's even possible."

"I can't think of anything pressing at the moment," John said, slicing off some of his chop and taking a bite.

*You mentioned a destroyer-class vessel?* Edraele prompted him.

*Ah right, so I did. Thanks, honey,* John replied, enjoying the tasty pork he was chewing.

Alyssa passed on the information to Dana directly, to save him having to wait to swallow.

"I've been thinking about a few ideas for another ship for the Primary Hangar, but nothing concrete yet," Dana replied, spearing a chunk of broccoli on her fork and eyeing it dubiously. "I was thinking: lots of guns, hyper-warp capable... anything else you're looking for?" She popped the vegetable into her mouth and gave it an experimental chew.

"We'll need at least enough crew capacity for all of us," John said, glancing around the table.

Alyssa grinned at him and said, "That basically means one huge bedroom and a dining room with a decent kitchen."

Sakura studied the redhead for a moment. "For a destroyer-class ship that'll fit in the Primary Hangar, we're looking at something about two-hundred metres long, correct?"

Dana was still chewing, so Calara replied for her, "Yes, that's right. 220 metres at a push."

Sakura nodded thoughtfully. "I doubt you'll be able to cram every square inch of that ship full of guns and ammo, so it might be worth thinking about sparing some space for extra crew compartments."

"The extra flexibility in the Raptor has been very useful," Calara agreed. "It's definitely worth thinking about for rescue missions, that kind of thing."

The Asian girl glanced at John and shook her head. "I was thinking more along the lines of Maliri marine contingents. If we get into some serious action they could make a huge difference."

John couldn't help grimacing at the thought. "I'm not sure that's such a great idea..."

Sakura was surprised by his reaction and persisted, "But think how effective even a few-dozen Maliri marines would be! I'm sure Edraele and the Young Matriarchs could supply us with hundreds if you asked..."

"But we don't have the manufacturing capabilities to equip that many in state-of-the-art gear. And if our theory is right, I wouldn't be able to enhance that many girls either, at least not without taking a big hit to my own psychic potential," John said, his expression deeply troubled. "I've been in really bloody meat-grinder battles before... they're horrific. I wouldn't want to risk using Maliri troops unless we can give them the very best possible chance of survival. I never want to become like the other Progenitors, sending legions of thralls into battle with no thought for their lives."

Alyssa ran her hand along his arm, giving him a look of sympathy. "I think you're right, John. Let's keep our forces small and elite." She darted a glance at Sakura and her eyes widened.

The Asian girl gave John a disarming smile and said, "Okay, don't worry about it. It was just a suggestion."

"In that case," Dana said, her tone sombre. "I'll do my best to make sure every square inch is stuffed full of guns and ammo."

The laughter helped lighten the mood and as John's tension ebbed away the girls all relaxed too. The rest of the meal was spent with idle chit-chat and jokes, as everyone enjoyed the chance to relax before the upcoming mission against the Vulkat. When they'd finished dinner and they girls were talking about dessert with eager anticipation, Rachel rose from her seat and walked over to John.

She held out her hand and said quietly, "I'm sure you'd enjoy watching the girls finish their meal, but I was wondering if we could have a quick chat?"

He looked at her in surprise, then smiled as he stood and took her hand. "Of course, honey. Alyssa actually mentioned that I should speak with you about a decision you'd made; is it about that?"

The brunette nodded and gave him an enigmatic smile. "In a way, yes."

Rachel led him from the Officers' Lounge and they walked along the corridor until she stopped outside her quarters and opened the door.

"I can't remember the last time I was in here," John replied, glancing around her private room. There were holo-pictures of her mother and father on the desk, along with a display case showing her medals and rank insignia.

"Truth be told, I barely use it," she admitted, gliding over to the bed and taking a seat. Her eyes darted to the wardrobes. "Except to store all my clothes of course."

John's attention was drawn to the picture of her mother for a moment, recognising Catherine Voss from the psychic imprints he'd seen on New Eden. He saw the striking family resemblance to her daughter once again, but quickly looked away, not wanting to stir up painful memories for the young woman sitting on the bed. He walked over to join Rachel and realised she'd been watching him carefully, a grateful smile reaching her lips as she saw his reluctance to mention her mother and understanding the reasoning behind it.

Sitting beside the elegant brunette, John clasped her hand in his and gave her a sympathetic look. "So, what's on your mind, honey."

"You," she said softly, stroking his hand.

He looked at her in surprise. "But Alyssa mentioned something about you making a decision?"

Rachel nodded, then reached up to brush her fingers across his temple, her touch gentle and caring. "I'm supposed to be the ship's doctor and I've been letting you down."

John frowned in confusion. "Why on Terra would you think that? Between the two of us, we've kept the whole crew in great shape!"

"I don't mean physically," she murmured, caressing the side of his head. "You've always been so conscious of our mental state and tried to help the girls deal with traumatic memories from their past. Speaking personally, I know how much you've helped me deal with what happened to my mother. But I've not done anything to help you face the demons from your past and for that I'm truly sorry."

John relaxed and smiled at her, catching her hand in his and kissing her fingertips. "Alyssa's helped me deal with most of it. You've got nothing to blame yourself for, honestly."

*That's not true, John,* Alyssa said quietly. *I've just distracted you with sex. Lots and lots of sex with lots of very beautiful girls, but I've never pushed you to open up about your past because I don't like seeing you in pain.*

Rachel leaned in and gave him a tender kiss on the cheek. "So when you're ready, I'd like you to come to me and really talk about the things that trouble you. Perhaps I can help you in the same way you've helped all of us."

A shadow of grief crossed his face and he shook his head. "I'm not sure that's a good idea. Sometimes things are best left buried in the past."

"It's an open offer," she said with a gentle smile. "If you ever change your mind, I'd love to talk to you." Rachel's grey eyes glinted in the light. "Remember, I'm not just a pretty face."

John did his best to return her smile. "You're a very beautiful woman and the smartest person I know." With a heavy sigh he turned away and added, "I'll think about it, but no promises, okay?"

"No pressure," she whispered, putting her arms around him and giving him a comforting hug. "The really important things I won't push you on. I'll leave it entirely up to you if you choose to speak to me about your time in the military or what happened with your family."

He turned back to meet her unwavering gaze. "And what are the unimportant things?"

"Little bits and bobs," she replied, evading his question with a mischievous smile. "Don't worry about those, I should have resolved them for you months ago. Again, I'm sorry, but I'll fix them for you now."

"Rachel..." John said, giving her an apprehensive frown.

*Sorry to interrupt,* Alyssa said, speaking quickly to them both. *Faye's just spotted a Vulkat fleet. We'll meet you down on the Combat Bridge...*