Chapter 145

“Hello, John ... I’ve been expecting you,” Athena said, greeting him with an enigmatic smile.

He groaned and toppled over onto the flagstone path, too exhausted to even stand.

The radiant girl hurried to his side and dropped to her knees. “You’ve pushed yourself to the brink of exhaustion!” she fretted, giving him a stern frown of disapproval. “John, you’re not some over-eager thrall; there could be very serious consequences if you burn yourself out!”

“Had to help ... Jade...” he mumbled, not sounding the least bit contrite.

Athena harrumphed with frustration, then made a gesture with both hands. An elongated disc expanded before her, then swept towards herself and John, covering them completely.

John could only blink in surprise as he was transported from the garden to her bedroom. “When did you learn how to do that?”

The statuesque girl ignored his comment as she fussed over him, deftly stripping off his clothes before removing her own demure outfit and slipping into bed beside him. She cuddled closer and guided his head to rest on her wonderfully soft bosom, then pulled the covers up over them both.

“No talking ... just rest for now,” she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. “Get some sleep and we’ll talk later...”

The soft radiance from Athena’s body enveloped him and John felt his eyes grow heavy, lulled into a seductive sleep by the attentive guide.

It was dark in the Observatory, with only a faint glow from the floor lights around each doorway offering any illumination. Barely visible in the gloom, a group of intertwined forms lay in the middle of the massive bed, the six sleeping women snuggling as close to the man in the centre as possible.

“Maybe we should just let them rest?” Sakura asked, darting a worried glance back at her companion. “They’re all exhausted and obviously need time to recover.”

Calara nibbled at her nail, torn with indecision. “I’d love to let them sleep until they wake naturally, but...”

“But the clock’s ticking and we need to capture the thrall fleets?” Sakura finished for her, raising an eyebrow.

The Latina’s face fell, her feelings hurt. “You’re making it sound like that’s all I care about. I’d never do anything that might harm John or the girls just to retrieve fleet assets!”

Sakura quickly embraced her and gave her a comforting squeeze. “I wasn’t criticising you, I promise. Taking calculated risks to help secure our ultimate victory is a very sensible approach. I understand how high the stakes are and I know you hate having to remind us all the time.”

“Thank you, I’m glad you understand,” Calara said with a relieved smile. Her eyes flicked back to the darkened room and she added, “What I was actually going to say is that John planned to return to Genthalas to heal Vestele Waephyra. If he’s going to make it back in time to help her, he’ll need to depart in the next half-an-hour to get there when she arrives.”

“I think we should wake John up and let him make the decision,” the Asian girl agreed. “He can always get some more rest on the flight to Genthalas.”

“Good idea,” Calara said, giving her a decisive nod.

She started to tiptoe into the room, but Sakura gently held her back. “Let me. I won’t disturb the others.”

Deferring to their resident ninja, Calara gratefully stepped aside. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, little sister,” Sakura said, blowing her a playful kiss.

Calara stifled a relieved giggle, then watched as her companion crept into the room. Sakura didn’t make a sound as she padded silently around the Observatory, circling the entire group before approaching John’s pillow from behind.

She knelt down and pressed her lips to his pointed ear. “John, can you hear me?” she whispered under her breath.

He began to stir, a frown appearing on his face as he roused from his dreams. “Athena?” John murmured, before focusing on the beautiful pair of almond eyes gazing down on him. “Ah, Sakura ... are you okay? Is everyone alright?”

Sakura planted a tender kiss on his forehead. “Everyone is fine and the rest of your ground team are still asleep. More importantly, how are you?”

Being careful not to disturb Jade, he freed an arm and rubbed at his face. “I’m okay ... just really tired. I’ve got a nasty headache and feel hung-over, but I guess that’s to be expected.”

She nodded in confirmation. “Rachel said you started tapping into your own life force.”

“Really?” he asked, before grimacing at the loudness of his own voice. “I didn’t realise I’d pushed myself that hard.”

“We wanted to let you sleep it off,” Sakura whispered, glancing pointedly towards the door where Calara was waiting. “But you need to leave for Genthalas soon if you’re planning to heal Vestele Waephyra when she arrives. We got the impression that her condition was critical and she wouldn’t survive much longer.”

“Damn!” he cursed, attempting to sit up before immediately regretting his actions. “How long was I asleep?”

“Four hours ... It’s just turning six,” she quietly replied. “We thought you might want to get some more rest on the flight over there.”

John looked up at her, his look of indecision even more pronounced than Calara’s had been a minute earlier.

Alyssa tilted her head up to kiss him on the cheek, revealing that their hushed conversation had woken her too. “Kythshara will still be waiting for you when you get back, handsome. While you’re busy dealing with the matriarchs, the rest of us can search for Mael’nerak’s lab, locate his Soulforge, and track down the Hyper-warp Gate.”

“Yeah, I guess ... I just wanted to help with the search,” John said with regret.

“Actually ... we’ve already found Mael’nerak’s palace,” Sakura admitted, unable to hold back her excited grin any longer.

“Really?!” John blurted out, sharing a startled glance with his blonde matriarch.

“We scanned the city and cross-checked with the images from the Nexus files to pinpoint its location,” Sakura eagerly elaborated, before her expression fell into a rueful frown. “We also found the spot where we think the Soulforge should be located ... except it’s no longer there.”

Jade had also stirred after hearing all the excited voices, and between her and Alyssa, they helped John sit upright.

“What do you mean? Where is it?” he asked, rubbing at his temple to ease his splitting headache.

Realising that the stealth mission had been compromised, Calara strode across the bed to kneel in front of him. “You must be starving; why don’t you have some dinner and we’ll give you a quick debrief? All the food is already prepared, it just needs serving.”

The answering rumble from John’s stomach confirmed his eager acceptance of her plan. “Thanks, honey. I’m starving.”

“Yeah, I bet,” she said with a fond smile.

Nudged awake by her matriarch, Rachel quickly moved to straddle John’s lap. Holding him close, she softly whispered in his ear, “Let me take the pain away...”

“Thank you,” he murmured, resting his head on her shoulder as waves of healing energy swept over him.

John shivered with relief as she eased his migraine, the tension quickly fading away to a dull ache.

Rachel looked at him with concern. “That’s the best I can do, I’m afraid. You pushed yourself much too hard and you need to sleep to fully recover.”

“I will,” he agreed, giving her a grateful kiss.

Calara stood up and offered him a hand as the tawny-haired doctor slid off his lap. “Do you want to debrief the rest of us on the Kythshara mission?”

“I expect Alyssa filled you in on most of it?” he asked, glancing at the blonde.

“I kept them up to speed as we stumbled into one disaster after another,” she replied with a wry grin, slipping her arm around his waist.

Jade sprang to her feet and darted in to snuggle up to his unoccupied side.

Looking at her gratefully, John said, “I’m feeling a lot better now. I should be able to walk on my own, honey.”

“I know, Master,” she said with an adoring smile. “I just wanted to be close to you.”

Dana, Helene, and the twins were up now too and they all followed Calara as she led them to the dining area in the Officers’ Lounge. When they arrived, they found Jehanna and the rest of the Nymphs setting serving platters on the table, adding to an already impressive feast.

“Wow ... who cooked all this?” John marvelled, admiring the spread of exotic dishes.

“I wish I could say it was me, but this was all their doing,” Jehanna said, giving the catgirls a broad smile.

“These are all Maliri dishes we learned from the kitchen staff at Saelihn Immanthe,” Marika said, looking at him affectionately. “We were going to wait and surprise you, but then you rescued Jade, and we wanted to thank you for saving our sister.”

“That was really thoughtful,” John said, touched by all the effort they’d gone to. “It all looks delicious.”

Betrixa pulled out his chair and eagerly beckoned him over. “Come and eat! You should try the Orym Vayra first!”

They took their places around the table and John tried a forkful of the meat dish, which had a sprinkle of green in the sauce. It was delicately spiced, like a mild curry, and the vegetables added a pleasantly fresh aftertaste.

“Oh wow ... this tastes amazing,” he enthused, genuinely impressed by her cooking.

The cheetah catgirl beamed at him with pride. “I made that!”

“I love it,” he said, pulling the overjoyed Nymph in for a kiss.

John and the girls all tucked into the banquet, trying as many of the different dishes as possible and making appreciative noises for the cooks. The food was excellent and everything the Nymphs had prepared was very tasty.

“I guess I should probably go first,” John said, taking a sip of his House Holaris wine. “After we discuss the mission, you can tell me about everything you’ve discovered on Kythshara, then we’ll decide what to do next.”

“Sounds good to me,” Calara agreed, sitting forward in her seat. “So where did it all start to go wrong?”

“We couldn’t provide the correct security access code,” John said with regret. “We could’ve avoided so much trouble if we’d got that right. The defence grid around the planet was just as deadly as you predicted.”

“Well, at least the gun emplacements survived intact,” the Latina said, giving him an optimistic smile. Her brown eyes twinkled with avaricious glee as she added, “I feel a gratuitous bit of requisitioning might be in order.”

“It is one of our traditions,” Alyssa said with a smirk.

“We flew really close to one of them on the way in, to see what they were equipped with,” Calara said, turning to look at their Chief Engineer. “Each emplacement is carrying two primary guns and six secondary. The primary guns are huge, at least 50 metres long, and must hit hard enough to threaten a Progenitor Dreadnought. You saw firsthand how effective the smaller turrets were...”

“Yeah, they tore us to pieces,” Dana said, looking glum. “The Raptor got totally fucked up.”

“That was my fault,” Jade said, her face falling. “I’m so sorry that I put all of you in danger.”

John shook his head. “You had no way of knowing you’d react like that. This isn’t the first time you’ve been back to Kythshara since the Achonin War and nothing like this happened when you were still with Mael’nerak.”

“What actually did happen to you, Jade?” Helene asked, her voice filled with concern. “You seemed to be fine, then you froze and looked terrified.”

“It was awful...” the Nymph said with a shudder of revulsion. “I could feel the runes crawling over my heart ... they were trying to make me betray you, Master.”

“So you locked them out of your mind?” he asked, beckoning the traumatised girl to him.

Jade hurried over to sit sideways across his lap, then sighed with relief as John encircled her in his arms. “I wasn’t going to let the Achonin do anything that might hurt you or your mates. I just clenched myself up and fought them off with everything I had!”

He stroked her hair and said quietly, “You managed to hold out for a long time, my loyal little Nymph. I’m sorry we accidentally made it harder for you.”

She snuggled into him and began to purr with contentment. “But you saved me, Master ... just like I knew you would.”

John kissed the top of her head. “I’d never let anyone take you away from me, Jade.”

“I know...” she said with a breathy sigh.

He hesitated for a moment, then continued, “Actually, there’s something important I need to tell you. The Achonin infiltrated the memory stacks in your mind and inserted the roots of their glyphs there, so they’d be hard to detect by Mael’nerak. I think when he wiped the records of your old personalities, the presence of those runes must’ve inadvertently damaged your mental architecture.”

“So that’s why I was able to remember the time I spent with the pirates in my past lives?” she asked, before suddenly blinking in surprise. “Oh! Those memories are gone! Or ... most of them are ... I think.”

John cupped her face and met her curious emerald gaze. “Jade, I had to wipe out your memory stacks to make sure I left no trace of the Achonin Glyphs. The few remaining memories from your time with previous masters are those that spilled over into the rest of your subconscious. I couldn’t risk removing anything from there, because I didn’t want to accidentally tamper with your personality.”

“That was a sensible precaution,” Jade agreed, nodding thoughtfully. Her face shadowed with regret as she added, “Are you sure that there’s no way you can retrieve anything more from my memory stack? If the presence of the glyphs interfered with Mael’nerak’s attempt to erase my memories, there might still be useful information dating back to the Achonin War.”

“Quite sure,” John said with certainty. His voice turned solemn as he continued, “I wasn’t going to take any chances this time ... so I removed the entire repository from your mind. If anything ever happens to me, it’s no longer possible for you to archive your personality. Even if you choose someone else as your new master, you’ll stay as my Jade for the rest of your life.”

She stared at him in stunned silence, her mouth falling open with shock.

John flinched when he saw her reaction, then quickly said, “I’m sorry I made such a big change to your mind without asking you first. It was an emergency and there wasn’t enough time to-”

He was unable to finish his sentence as Jade straddled him and showered his face with kisses. “I love you ... so much ... Master!”

“I love you too,” he said with relief, before laughing as he got caught up in her enthusiasm.

Pulling back she gazed at him in awe. “So I’ll really stay as me, forever?!”

He nodded and ran his fingers through her long silky hair. “You can still continue to develop and grow, just as you have been doing, but now you’ve got lots more room to expand your subconscious. You can never be used as a spy again and you’ll never be forced to take on a new master. You’re now totally free to become whoever you want to be.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she leaned forward to give him a tender kiss that was filled with heartfelt gratitude.

The rest of the girls oohed and aahed, watching the pair with breathy sighs. When John and Jade finally parted, her sisters took it in turns embracing Jade and murmuring their warmest congratulations.

Rachel brushed the moisture from her eyes and smiled at them both. “I had lots of questions for you about Jade ... but you just answered most of them.”

“Is there anything you still want to know?” John asked, stroking Ailita’s back as she hugged her big sister.

“There is one thing that I’m curious about,” the xenobiologist replied. “If Jade was able to block you, Alyssa, and Helene out of her mind, does that mean that she’s the most powerful telepath out of all of us?”

John thought about her question for a moment, then shook his head. “I suspect Mael’nerak designed Nymphs to have innate resistance against unwanted telepathic intrusion ... which makes sense considering the role he created them for. Jade’s a natural psychic anyway, but I’ve enhanced her so much since we got together, I doubt even a Progenitor could force his way into her mind against her will.”

“But not vice-versa?” the brunette asked with interest.

“We can test it right now,” John suggested, before patting his Nymph matriarch’s thigh. “Honey, are you able to read Rachel’s thoughts?”

Jade glanced at the young doctor, who frowned in concentration as she attempted to resist the fluttering telepathic contact.

“No, Master,” Jade admitted, after a few seconds of trying. “Not without her permission.”

“Interesting...” Rachel said, giving the Nymph a grateful smile. “So she’s phenomenally strong defensively, but relatively weak as an offensive telepath.”

“I think Alyssa holds the crown there,” John said, glancing affectionately at the blonde.

“That’s Queen Alyssa to you, commoner,” she joked, holding herself with haughty aloofness.

“Excuse me a minute, Jade,” John said, sliding the Nymph from his lap.

He grabbed the grinning teenager and tickled her relentlessly, until Alyssa’s infectious giggling had the rest of the girls laughing too.

“Have mercy, King John!” she finally begged him as she writhed on his lap. “I renounce my throne!”

“That’s not necessary,” he said, helping the flushed young woman sit upright. “But maybe I should make you a nice crown...”

Alyssa heard his lewd thoughts about everything he’d like to do to her while in full monarchical regalia, and her blush intensified. “Whatever his majesty desires...” she purred, her cerulean gaze turning smoky with lust.

John returned her kiss, then glanced self-consciously at his grinning audience. “Well, I think we’ve covered everything that happened to Jade. What next?”

“The Raptor getting wrecked?” Dana suggested, her tone forlorn.

“Yeah ... that was really unfortunate,” John said with regret. “Hats off to Alyssa for managing to safely land us on Kythshara, especially considering how much damage the gunship sustained. I’m amazed we all survived the crash in one piece.”

She shrugged modestly. “That was mostly down to incredible engineering more than piloting skill. The Null-Inertia Gyroscope that Sparks fitted was the real star of the show; it took all the sting out of the impact, even when I face-planted the Raptor in the street.”

“I saw that the Collective retrieved the wreck,” Calara said, looking at John with interest. “Are you planning to repair it or replace it? We definitely need some kind of dropship; the Raptor’s been invaluable for troop deployment, fire support, and fighter cover.”

“What do you think, Sparks?” John asked the redhead. “Can we salvage it?”

“We probably could,” she mused, tapping a finger on her chin. “But aside from sentimental reasons I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. The Raptor got totally fucked up. It’d probably take us longer to diagnose and repair all the busted components than to just scrap the whole thing and build something completely new. Besides, the Raptor is still a T-Fed ship at heart, built around a titanium chassis. If we started from scratch, I could build us a custom gunship using state-of-the-art tech.”

“Sounds good to me. Can you design a prototype?”

“Yeah, of course!” she agreed, perking up immediately.

“Excellent, thank you. We can review your designs when I get back from Genthalas, then once we’re all happy with it, we can put it together.”

“Awesome! I’ll get started straight away!” Dana eagerly agreed.

“So you’re definitely returning to Genthalas?” Calara asked, looking at him with interest.

John let out a heavy sigh. “I really wanted to stick around and investigate Kythshara, but I can’t just sacrifice Vestele Waephyra because I want to explore Mael’nerak’s homeworld. I’ve got a few other important tasks I need to do at Genthalas anyway, so I haven’t really got any choice.”

“Erm ... John?” Dana interrupted. “The Raptor’s trashed, so how are you planning to get back?”

“I’ll have to take Larn’kelnar’s shuttle,” he replied, quickly turning to Alyssa when he felt her shiver on his lap. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you to step inside that ship again. I’d like you to stay on the Invictus and oversee operations on Kythshara. I’ll take the Nymphs with me and leave the rest of the girls here.”

Alyssa looked torn between her desire to accompany him and her revulsion at the thought of going anywhere near the Progenitor shuttle.

“Alright, but only if you promise not to get in any more trouble,” she finally conceded, snuggling into him and squeezing him tight.

“I promise,” he said kissing the top of her head.

Rachel looked at him in confusion. “Won’t you need me to heal Vestele?”

“I’ll load up the Nymphs and they can top her up,” John explained. “I’ll be able to heal Vestele easily enough, but I need to feed her a second time anyway, to reinforce her connection to the network.”

The brunette blinked in surprise.

“What?” he asked, bemused by her startled response.

“It’s nothing really. I was just expecting to heal her for you, then when she woke up, you’d discuss it with Vestele and confirm that this was what she really wanted.”

John leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “No, that’d be a waste of time.”

She raised an eyebrow at his blasé response.

“Vestele already gave her consent to become part of our psychic network and this is just strengthening her connection to Edraele,” John patiently explained. “Besides that, she’s a Maliri ... and if I’ve learned anything about the matriarchs it’s that they embrace the genetic conditioning like it’s etched in stone. I could give her the direst warnings I can think of, but nothing will dissuade Vestele from doing everything she possibly can to restore her youth and rebuild her family line with me.”

Tashana gave him a fond smile. “That’s very true ... you are quite the catch.”

“I don’t particularly like the overpowering effect I have on the Maliri, but I can’t really do anything to stop it,” he said with a helpless shrug. “Being with me makes the matriarchs blissfully happy, so trying to prevent that would be counterproductive. The simple fact is that I need their full support to rally their Houses for the Progenitor War.”

“You can be very persuasive, John,” Jehanna said, looking at him speculatively. “There’s nothing stopping you from appealing to the Maliri people directly.”

“That might work, but why take the chance when the matriarchs can already guarantee the full co-operation of their Houses. In the long-term I want to make sweeping changes to Maliri society, and having the existing administration and bureaucracy working with me, is the most efficient way of going about it. The absolute last thing I need is having to personally oversee the activities of hundreds of planetary governors.”

Irillith quirked an eyebrow and her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Goodness me, I never thought I’d see the day that mighty Baen’thelas embraced realpolitik.”

“There are too many lives at stake for me to do anything else,” he said grimly. “Ultimately, I always need to act in the Maliri’s best interests, even if it sometimes makes me feel uncomfortable.”

“Heavy is the brow that wears the crown...” Calara said softly. “I’m starting to see how true that is.”

Alyssa gave him a sympathetic kiss. “It must be simply awful being doted on by a harem of beautiful Maliri noblewomen.”

“Don’t get me wrong, all the new matriarchs are lovely girls and it’s been a real pleasure to get to know them,” he said, smiling at the pleasant memories. His expression shifted into a bleak frown as he continued, “But would you honestly be happy about feeling obligated to sleep with someone like Fleet Admiral Buckingham?”

That wiped the teasing grin from her face and Alyssa shuddered with revulsion as she shook her head.

“To put it in perspective, I have it on good authority that Emandra Holaris and Vestele Waephyra are actually far worse than Buckingham ever was. They were both sadistic monsters who have personally tortured and murdered hundreds of their own people ... and don’t forget that they did the same thing to their daughters. In all honesty, the thought of getting intimate with either of them makes my skin crawl.”

“I’m sorry, John,” she apologised sincerely. “I know how much you enjoy spending time with the Young Matriarchs and it’s easy to forget about Emandra and Vestele because you try not to think about them.”

“Apology accepted,” he said, giving the blonde a reassuring hug.

“If Vestele’s as bad as you say, why even bother trying to save her life?” Dana asked him with a puzzled frown. “Can’t you just let the mean old hag die and pick someone nice to replace her?”

“I’ve thought about doing exactly that,” John admitted. “But switching matriarchs to someone who isn’t even from the Waephyra line would cause a considerable amount of upheaval in her House. Not only that, but Vestele has over a century of experience ruling as matriarch ... and nobody I pick as a replacement would be able to run that House as effectively as her.”

“Which means it’s quicker and easier for you to influence her personality instead,” Rachel concluded. “No matter how personally distasteful you find it.”

“Yeah, basically.”

The girls all went quiet as they put themselves in John’s position and tried to rationalise whether they could go through with it themselves.

“I think we’ve got a bit sidetracked and we’re running short of time,” John said, eager to change the subject.

“Can you tell us more about the pyramid you found?” Sakura requested, taking the hint. “Was it definitely a trap for Progenitors laid by Mael’nerak?”

“I think he rigged the whole system as a trap,” John replied, glancing out the window at the beautiful green planet they were orbiting. “The Mists of Loralar would drive any thralls insane, so a Progenitor invading in his dreadnought would be forced to retreat or lose his entire crew. It was designed to lure a Progenitor into going down there alone.”

“I thought Progenitors didn’t care about the welfare of their thralls?” Jehanna asked as she listened avidly.

“That’s very true, but I doubt a Progenitor would be happy about having to pilot his flagship himself, especially while the crew goes berserk with terror. If he carried on regardless, the dreadnought would fly headlong into the planetary defence grid, and I can guarantee you those big guns were designed to make that a really bad idea.”

“So the dreadnought retreats, but a Progenitor’s ego would never allow him to back down and run away,” Calara pondered aloud. “So he tries to sneak in using a cloaked shuttle.”

“And now we know that the gun emplacements can track cloaked ships, so he’d get the same reception we did,” Dana said, grimacing as she hugged her girlfriend.

“Correct,” John agreed. “But even if the defence grid wrecked his shuttle, the Progenitor could probably make it safely to the planet’s surface using psychic abilities. The pyramid was pouring off psychic energy like a beacon, which would draw him in like a moth to a flame. He’d realise immediately that he needed to shut down the power generator to deactivate the Mists, which would be the only way he could be rescued by the thralls in the dreadnought.”

“And everything about the pyramid was designed to feel reassuring to a Progenitor,” Tashana interjected. “From the murals on the walls to the colour scheme inside ... it would all put him at ease.”

“I definitely felt that way,” John admitted. “After we easily destroyed that first wave of robots, I was starting to feel overconfident ... which I’m sure was the intention.”

“So then the Progenitor thinks he’s in no danger and strolls headlong into that ambush ... and loses all his psychic abilities, just like we did,” Dana said, her eyes widening. “Then that crazy fucking robot tears him to pieces!”

John gave her a curt nod. “If I’d been on my own, there’s no way I could’ve survived. The only reason I’m still alive is because you girls were there as well.”

“But the Mists would ensure that any normal Progenitor would be on his own,” Alyssa concluded. “You have to hand it to Mael’nerak ... it was an absolutely lethal trap.”

“It’s tragic that you were forced to destroy the pyramid,” Sakura said with a heavy sigh. “We could’ve lured in Progenitors in exactly the same way, then you, Alyssa, and Jade could’ve finished them off while they were stripped of their abilities.”

Calara drummed her fingers on the desk, then shook her head. “We might’ve been able to kill one or two, but the cost would’ve been far too high. This trap was designed to eliminate a solitary Progenitor that had roamed into Maliri territory ... and it would be extremely effective for that purpose. However, we’re facing a large scale invasion by Xar’aziuth’s forces, which could potentially include simultaneous attacks by multiple Progenitors from several directions. The amount of devastation their thrall fleets would cause to outlying Maliri systems before they reached Kythshara doesn’t bear thinking about.”