Chapter 28 - The girls struggle with his big weapon. So do the raiders!

John stretched contentedly after enjoying a relaxing cuddle with his girls. He looked over at Jade, and saw that her stomach was still emitting softly glowing green lines, that spread out over her body and curved along her limbs.

“So that was new.” he spoke to her with a smile, then frowned curiously. “Did you even have any idea at all you could do that?”

“No.” the Nymph said, shaking her head with a puzzled frown. “I just felt a strange tingling sensation when you took me that way and then ... well you saw the result!”

“I felt a little more than a tingling sensation the first time he took my ass!” Alyssa laughed, with Dana and Calara bursting into fits of giggles.

“Well you do seem to be full of surprises!” John spoke to Jade warmly, opening his arms, and she shifted wordlessly into the warm embrace with a contented purr.

“So does that mean you can just grow a copy of John’s cock whenever you feel like?” Dana asked, biting her lip coyly at the thought of being sandwiched between Jade and John.

Jade tilted her head to the side, grinning eagerly. “I don’t know, but I’d like to try and find out!” she said.

She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes filtering out the distractions and concentrating hard. Her brow furrowed as she focused intently on making her body grow another replica of John’s impressive cock. After a couple of hushed minutes though, Jade blew out a sigh and opened her eyes.

“It’s no good.” she said wistfully, making a ‘tsk’. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to form my body into that shape.”

“That’s a relief!” John smirked haughtily. “You won’t be replacing me that easily, little Nymph!”

The girls laughed at the joke, diving towards him as one and burying him under a pile of nubile flesh, cuddling and tickling him in equal measure. Finally managing to extricate himself from the impromptu assault by the appreciative young women, John glanced at the ship’s chronometer on the wall. They still had a couple of hours to wait until the Greys launched whatever it was Dana had them constructing, and his mind began to shift to tactical planning for the upcoming confrontation with the Drakkar. The girls sensed his shift in focus and they sat around him on the bed, waiting to follow his lead.

“So what’s the plan then?” Alyssa asked him curiously.

“First, I need to know what Dana’s got the Ashanath working on at the moment” he stated.

“They’re going to automate a freighter and modify it to tow a string of decoys.” The redhead explained. “I’ve given the Ashanath instructions on how to hack the transponders so that it’ll look like a nice fat convoy of freighters and civilian transports.”

“I thought hacking transponders like that was highly illegal?” Calara asked with a raised eyebrow.

“For civilians it is.” John replied. “But we’ve been given the go ahead by the Ashanath High Council to react to an emergency situation. For all intents and purposes, we’re above the law.”

“Well you’ve got no objection from me.” Calara said, then grinned evilly. “The Drakkar won’t be able to pass up a juicy target like that! Especially after the Ashanath starved them of targets over the last couple of days.”

“So we lure them in with another tempting target.” John stated with a nod. “It’s a good plan. Calara, can you look at the system charts and find me a selection of good ambush sites.”

“Yes, Sir,” The Latina purred with just the hint of a seductive tone, before standing up to go.

“I’ll come along too!” Jade said, eager to see where the cunning Latina was going to set the trap.

The Latina and the Nymph got up and disappeared into the bathroom to take a shower, the sound of splashing water soon accompanied by soft feminine giggles.

Dana, Alyssa and John exchanged glances and laughed, before returning to the discussion at hand.

“We took a few hits in that last battle.” John addressed Dana, turning serious once more. “Is it going to be difficult to do repairs, if this Onyxium element is so rare?”

The auburn haired girl looked at him in surprise, her eyes glinting happily. “You really were paying attention during my presentation!” she said overjoyed.

John chuckled amusedly. “If my science teachers had looked as hot as you, I’m sure I would have found the subject far more compelling!” he said.

Dana preened at the compliment and laughed along with him.

“In answer to your question, I do have a little Onyxium to spare and certainly enough to fabricate enough Invictium alloy to patch the hull.” Her mood then turned serious. “If we do take major damage though, we could be in trouble,” she said regretfully.

“That reminds me,” Dana continued, remembering something important. “If you aren’t busy right now Alyssa, I could do with your help to test something?”

“I’m completely at your disposal!” Alyssa grinned, bowing regally.

“I’ll come along too,” John said, standing up. “I’m intrigued to find out what this test involves!”

They got up to go and have a shower, saying farewell to the other two girls coming out of the bathroom, both of them eager to get up to the bridge.

Not long afterwards, Alyssa and John were being led by Dana down the grav-tubes to Deck 9. They walked down the corridor, past the new ship defences and the redhead stopped at the entrance to the cargo bay, hitting the button to open the robust set of double doors.

“The cargo bay?” Alyssa asked curiously. “What are we doing down here?”

“Aha!” Dana said, turning and spreading her arms theatrically, as she led them over to the far side of the vast room. “All will soon be revealed!”

A few dozen five foot cubed containers were stacked together neatly and a large exotic piece of machinery loomed over them where it was positioned nearby.

“This is called a Psi-Shaper,” Dana said with a flourish of her hand. “The Greys use them to manipulate the metal they use to construct and armour their spacecraft. I asked if they could spare one, so they gave us this to use.”

John and Alyssa approached the odd looking piece of equipment, taking a few steps around it as they studied its bulky base and robotic arm that ended in a group of emitters. It looked very much like a conventional crane, but the emitters and otherworldly sensor array clearly marked it as being of alien design.

“I embedded Etherite crystals in the Invictium alloy, so that we could armour the ship using the Psi-shapers they have at the Ashana shipyard,” Dana explained. “However if we’re off having adventures somewhere. light years from Grey Space, we’ll need to be able to do field repairs ourselves.”

“Intuitive thinking.” John said, impressed. He frowned then, and nodded with his chin towards the device. “How do we use it exactly, anyway? I don’t see any obvious controls on that thing.”

“We don’t,” Dana said with a grin, tilting her head to point to Alyssa at her side. “She does.”

“Me?” The beautiful blonde asked in bewilderment. “I’ve never been that good with machinery.” she said doubtfully.

“Councillor Rathus seemed convinced you’d have no problem with it,” Dana stated with certainty. “And it needs to be you, because it’s operated by Psionic waves.”

Alyssa looked slowly back at the device, her expression somewhat doubtful.

“Ok,” Alyssa said dubiously, looking cautiously at the Psi-shaper. “So, what do I do with it exactly?”

“The Ashanath engineers said that you just have to visualise the form you want the metal to shape itself into and think that at the Psi-shaper controls.” Dana said, pointing to the psychic sensor and display attached to the bulky base of the device.

“John, we need a block of Invictium.” Dana said, turning toward him, with her hands on her hips. “How about putting your manly arms to work, big guy, and bring me some?” she asked playfully.

John chuckled, shaking his head, and walked over to the crates she directed him towards. He looked inside and saw a dense looking block of shiny black metal. It glistened in the overhead lights, the tiny Etherite crystals embedded in the metal reflecting the light.

“That’s the one!” Dana called out when she saw him look back at her for confirmation.

He tensed his muscles and picked up the heavy looking metal ingot, and then paused, looking down at it. He was surprised to find it weighed much less that he thought it would. He scooped it up under his arms and strolled back over to Dana.

“Perfect!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Can you drop it down over there please?” she asked politely.

John walked over to the spot the perky redhead had indicated, positioned just under the emitters on the robotic arm. He dropped the ingot and it made a deafening clang as it struck the floor.

It really was much heavier than he had initially guessed, John thought as he narrowed his eyes.

“Ok, this is just a spare piece,” Dana spoke to Alyssa reassuringly. “You can use it to practice with and then move onto a large section later, when we need to make some proper armour plating.”

Alyssa nodded dubiously, turning to study the shiny black block of metal that John had dumped unceremoniously under the Psi-shaper.

“Try making it into a flat piece like those armour sections over there,” Dana said, pointing to several large armour plating panels that were stacked neatly on the far side of the ore containers.

“Just think the shape at the machine?” Alyssa asked with a raised eyebrow, looking askance at the odd looking alien equipment.

“Yep, it should be as easy as that.” Dana said encouragingly.

Alyssa closed her eyes, imagining the shape of the armour plate in her mind and letting it solidify into a clear image. She opened her eyes and then concentrated on channeling her thoughts through the machine.

The sensor on the machine began to glow a soft pink and the crystal clear image of the armour plated panel appeared on the display. The emitters on the Psi-shaper began to glow the same ethereal colour and the shiny block of onyx coloured metal rose from the ground, beginning to slowly elongate and flatten out, moving like a black viscous liquid as it oozed into the new shape. It spun gently in the air as it solidified, before lowering to the ground.

John looked at the slab of metal with his eyebrows raised, while Dana hopped gleefully in place, clapping her hands at Alyssa’s performance on her first try.

“That was brilliant, beautiful! Well done!” John said, impressed to see her handling the device so comfortably.

Dana walked over to the armour plating panel and lifted the edge of it up with a groan. John darted over to give her a supporting hand and Alyssa walked over too, eager to take a look at her first piece of mind-sculpture.

“Thanks!” Dana said to him with a grin, as he held up the Invictium armour plating easily.

The redhead then turned back to scrutinise the panel, unclipping a small scanning device from her belt and carefully examining every cubic inch of the armour plate with an in-depth scan. As the scan continued and data streamed through the holo-display, Dana’s eyebrows kept creeping higher.

“You did an awesome job, Alyssa.” Dana said in amazement. “The Ashanath said that for the first few tries, their engineers sometimes leave behind bubbles in the metal, or the shape is slightly warped, but you seem to have been able to get it spot on.”

John gave Alyssa a proud hug and she beamed at him happily.

“That’s quite a relief actually.” Dana said with a cheerful smile. “If you hadn’t been able to get this working, we would’ve been pretty screwed!”

“Now she tells us!” John chuckled, shaking his head.

“What will you use that armour plating piece for, anyway?” Alyssa asked Dana curiously.

“Umm ... nothing really,” Dana said with a guilty grin. “I thought you might mess up your first try, so I gave you something small to play with. This was just a practice piece.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence!” the blonde said sarcastically, pushing her friend playfully.

“Well, we could still turn it into something useful,” Dana said, looking at the piece of metal speculatively. “After all, considering how he dispatched most of the Drakkar, John here is quite the swordsman. Why not turn it into a weapon for him to poke things with!”

“Ha-ha, very funny!” John said dryly, grabbing the redhead and beginning a vigorous session of tickling as punishment, with Alyssa laughing at the squealing redhead’s misfortune, until the feisty engineer begged for mercy.

“I’m serious!” Dana gasped, wiping the happy tears from her eyes when John released her from his gasp. “Besides, I can’t think of anything else practical to do with it at the moment.”

“Ok, one sword coming up!” Alyssa said with a grin, looking forward to putting her psychic talent to the test.

John and Dana stepped clear of the Invictium armour plate, while Alyssa went to stand by the machine again. The beautiful blonde closed her eyes and imagined a simple sword shape in her mind and then concentrated on the machine. The sensor glowed a soft pink again and the adjacent display showed the image of a plain black sword with a flat crossguard. The black armoured panel lifted slowly off the ground and then began to fold in on itself, narrowing down and elongating as the metal formed the blade, crossguard and the hilt, all of which were depicted on the display. The newly forged sword rotated lazily in the air for a moment, before coming to rest on the ground.

“That was quite a bit harder!” Alyssa noted, frowning suspiciously.

“Really?” Dana asked innocently.

“Maybe you’re getting tired?” John asked with concern, laying a heavy reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Do you need to rest?”

“No, I’m ok.” Alyssa said, smiling and waving away his worries. “Try it out, see what you think!” she urged him excitedly.

John walked over to the now inanimate sword and picked it up off the floor. He hefted it in his right hand, testing the weight. The weight of the big blade was just about manageable, but the balance seemed off somehow.

“You forgot to put on a pommel honey.” he said, realising what the problem was.

“What’s that?” Alyssa asked him curiously.

“It’s a counterweight for the blade and goes on the end of the grip.” he explained.

“Ok, I’ll have another go!” the blonde girl said enthusiastically. “Put it down and I’ll reshape it again.”

“Could you make the grip a bit longer too, so I can hold it with two hands if I need to?” he asked starting to get into the custom forging of this new weapon.

“And make it more elaborate!” Dana said excitedly. “A blade fit for our mighty champion!” she said with a grin.

Alyssa held her hands up in surrender and laughed. “Alright, alright! Instead of me guessing at what to make, why don’t you search the holo-net for something you have in mind and I’ll have a go at copying that?”

“That’s a great idea!” Dana chirped. “You two wait here a minute, I’ll be right back!”

John and Alyssa watched the redhead sprint over to the loading lift and then begin to ascend up into her workshop.

“So, what should we do while we wait?” Alyssa said coyly, facing John and trailing a fingernail over the muscles in his chest.

John smiled and pulled her into his arms. The beautiful blonde purred happily as he moved in to kiss her, luxuriating in the wonderful touch of his firm, demanding lips against hers. They lost themselves in their passionate embrace as she moulded her body against his, losing all track of time, as she surrendered to his probing tongue and his firm hands that followed the contours of her curves.

“Hey you two,” Dana said with a playful smile as she moved up beside them, grinning. “Sorry to interrupt, but you didn’t look like you were planning to stop anytime soon.”

John and Alyssa reluctantly broke apart and then turned to the redhead, sighing contentedly.

“I’ve been doing some searching while you two were busy,” she smirked, then beckoned them over. “Take a look at this bad boy!” she exclaimed excitedly.

She flipped the trusty holo-reader around that she held in her hands and showed them a rotating 3D image of an ornate black sword, that looked like it was straight out of a high fantasy illustration.

“Where did you find that?” John asked dubiously.

Dana laughed. “It’s funny you should ask,” she said with a grin. “I created a 3D model using this picture for inspiration.”

She pressed a couple of buttons on the holo reader and then held it out for him to see. It showed a picture of a barbarian warlord wielding a long steel blade, standing protectively over a couple of scantily clad barbarian women.

“Uncannily accurate right?” Dana laughed.

“You’re incorrigible,” John laughed along with her.

“That picture is pretty hot,” Alyssa admitted, admiring the curvaceous girls in their fur bikinis and getting some wild ideas in her head for the future, before nodding. “I’ll do my best!”

John placed the crude black sword back on the floor under the Psi-shaper emitters and then they all stepped back, giving Alyssa plenty of room to work. Dana brought up the 3D image of the blade on the holo reader again and held it up for her friend to study.

Alyssa stared at the impressive looking sword for a long time and then turned to focus on the Psi-shaper again. The psionic sensor array began to glow a bright pink and the image of the blade appeared on the display, rotating slowly. Nothing else seemed to happen for a long moment, until Alyssa let out a long groan as she focused intently on the Psi-shaper, baring her clenched teeth. The Ashanath machinery began to creak ominously but after a heart-stopping pause, the emitters at the end of the arm began to glow with the same bright pink as the sensors.

The rough sword rose off the floor and after trembling for a few seconds folded in on itself, forming a black glistening bar of metal. Alyssa held her head in both hands, her brow furrowed with concentration and ever so slowly, the metal began to reshape itself to match the image of the sword on the holo reader. The bar of Invictium flattened, extending out to form a long sharp blade that was nearly five foot in length. The crossguard elongated, with the quillons turning back towards the point of the sword and shaping into dagger-like claws that flanked the base of the blade. The blade pirouetted slowly in the air before silently coming to rest on the ground.

Alyssa groaned, wavering slightly and her companions darted to her side to steady her.

“Hey! Take it easy there honey,” John spoke soothingly, sounding worried. “Are you alright?”

Alyssa took a deep breath and then blew it out slowly. “That was a ‘lot’ harder.” she said, glancing at Dana, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Is there something you aren’t telling me Sparks?”

Dana had trouble meeting Alyssa’s eyes and stared down at her feet, her booted foot twisting and turning on the toe as she looked shifty as hell.

“I was just curious!” she admitted, rushing through her confession. “The Ashanath said reshaping Etherite alloys got more difficult every time you did it.”

“Dana...” John rumbled disapprovingly.

“They mentioned Etherium got stronger if it was shaped twice!” Dana spoke up quickly. “I just wondered if it could be reshaped three times!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Alyssa asked, looking confused.

“I thought you might find it easier if you didn’t know,” the redhead said guiltily.

“Well I guess I’m ok, so there’s no harm done,” Alyssa said with a smile, rolling her eyes, before turning to John.

“Why don’t you pick up the blade and let me know what you think. After all that effort, it better be worth it!” the beautiful blonde girl laughed.

John left Alyssa standing steadily next to Dana and walked over to the glimmering black blade. He knelt down and picked it up tentatively, the jet black claymore looking sinister and foreboding where it lay on the floor. He tested the weight and balance of the newly forged weapon in his hand, finding it finely balanced, as though it was an extension of his own arm. He turned it back and forth and admired the dark lustre of the razor sharp blade. The tiny innumerable flecks of Etherite caught the light and reminded him of the blackness of space, the unending void twinkling with infinite stars.

Taking an easy grip with both hands, he performed a few experimental slashes and heard the satisfying sound of the blade whistling, as it cut cleanly through the air. He had an excited lop sided grin on his face as he walked over to show the girls the new sword.

“Wow...” Dana murmured breathlessly. “That looks absolutely awesome!” she gasped appreciatively.

Alyssa smiled at him happily, proud of her work on the Psi-forged blade and his delighted reaction to the new weapon.

“You’ve done an amazing job on this, but I’m not sure how practical it’s going to be hauling it around with me,” John said, holding the nearly five foot long weapon in front of him carefully.

“I could make you a scabbard for it with not much trouble,” Dana said with a smile.

She held out her hand for the sword, ready to take it up to her workshop to check the measurements for a scabbard. John handed over the weapon hilt first and when she had a firm grasp of the grip, he let go. The blade clanged noisily to the ground as soon as he released his hand, the redhead dropping it awkwardly, point first to the deck.

“This thing weighs a ton!” Dana exclaimed in surprise, struggling to pick it up with both hands, as the razor-sharp point gouged a big divot out of the steel decking on the cargo bay floor.

“I think you’re getting used to your new found strength.” Alyssa said with a smile, as John retrieved the Invictium sword from the straining girl and lifted it effortlessly in one hand.

“Let me carry this for you, fair damsel,” he said with a courtly bow.

“My thanks, Sir Knight!” Dana said dipping in a curtsey and fluttering her eyelashes at him.

Alyssa’s laughter echoed around the cargo bay as they walked over to the loading lift to head up to the engineering bay. They travelled up on the slow moving lift with the girls talking avidly about recreating the scene from Dana’s picture.

“You quite like us dressing up for you, don’t you John?” Alyssa asked, smiling at him coyly as she listened in to his wandering thoughts about scantily clad amazons.

“Can’t a man have any secrets?” he retorted with a laugh.

“When we have some time, I must dress up in my business suit for you,” she declared, then shivered with excitement as he started thinking about ravishing her over his desk in the Commander’s ready room.

“I could barely take my eyes off of you in that outfit!” Dana said, her eyes sparkling wickedly.

“You cut an exceptionally fine figure yourself, the last time you played dress-up,” John said with a salacious grin as he remembered the heart stopping moment the redhead had appeared in his bedroom dressed as a naughty schoolgirl, making her flush with excitement as she remembered the night of fiery passion.

“Where do you want it?” John asked in a seductive voice as the loading lift came to a halt in the engineering bay.

Dana gasped excitedly, looking up with an expectant gleam in her eyes, and then groaned in disappointment, when she saw him waving the sword in the air with a grin.

“Oh, very funny,” She laughed sarcastically, then pointed to a workbench. “Just over there on the workbench is fine,” she smirked, then added. “And that applies to either weapon!”

“Maybe later,” John chuckled.

He left the heavy sword on the workbench for her to size up later and then jogged to catch up with the girls who waited for him patiently at the doorway. They walked arm in arm to the grav-tubes to go up to the bridge.

John stepped out on to the command deck first and saw Calara sitting in the tactical station, with Jade hovering nearby. They were gazing up at the system map and looking at a string of stars a fair way out from the Kappa-Indarran system. The local system was highlighted in an adjacent hologram and he saw that the Invictus was currently orbiting Ashana.

“Hey you two,” John called to them. “Have you had any luck with finding us any ambush sites?”

“Calara has found three places we could attack from,” Jade said eagerly. “We’re just discussing which one would be the most effective.”

“Sounds like we’re in luck then,” he said, approaching them and leaning against the tactical station as they examined the sector map. “What have you got for us Calara?”

“Well the first option is a wide, tightly packed asteroid belt,” the brunette explained, shifting the holographic focus to the system map with a swipe of her hand. “It’s been fully strip mined, so there’s lots of hollowed out asteroids and abandoned mining equipment that will hopefully help mask our approach.”

“That could definitely work,” John said. “What’s the second option?”

“There’s a planetary nebulae over there,” Calara replied, pointing at a dark red star on the stellar map. “Which is actually a dying red dwarf star. It’s throwing out lots of radiation and magnetic fields, so we could definitely launch an ambush undetected, but if the shields get knocked out we could be in trouble.”

“I think we’ll have enough to worry about with the Drakkar, without having to avoid environmental hazards too,” John said cautiously. “What’s our third option?”

“There’s another ice planet in this system over here,” Calara said, moving the sector map to focus on the system she had in mind. “It’s surrounded by dense rings of ice fields. Our shields will take some damage flying through that, but energy weapons will be a lot less effective due to the refraction effect of the ice particles that fill the area.”

“That could be good too,” John agreed. “We can rely on our Mass drivers to inflict damage, while they’re restricted purely to their beam weapons.”

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking,” the brunette said, nodding soberly.

“Have you got any particular preference at the moment?” John asked, fascinated to find out what the cunning Latina might have in mind.

“I’m leaning towards the first option, the abandoned asteroid field in the Gomeisa system,” Calara said thoughtfully. “I’ve checked and it’s completely deserted, so we wouldn’t have to worry about civilian casualties either.”

“Yeah that’s good, I don’t want to put any civilians at risk,” he agreed. “Ok, it seems we’ve made our choice,” John said decisively. “The asteroids at Gomeisa it is.”

He turned towards Alyssa, who was already reaching for the console. “I’ll hail the Ashanath Council,” she said and winked at him.

John laughed at her fondly. He sometimes forgot how she was constantly reading his mind.

“I’d like to ask them something too...” Calara said cryptically.

Vermogrok the Voracious sprawled in the command throne on the bridge of the Drakkar Cruiser. He stretched his four muscular arms contentedly before hunching forward to stare at the sector map in front of him, watching the cluster of signals move slowly across the Gomeisa system. His underling, Lieutenant Drikog stomped up beside the throne, grinding his teeth with annoyance.

“It’s been nearly a week since I last feasted!” Drikog grumbled. “When are we going to get some more action?”

Vermogrok’s stomach rumbled as he remembered the mouth watering taste of the delicious Grey flesh. He and his fellow Drakkar had been taking full advantage of the unending buffet of pathetically weak aliens and he congratulated himself on his cunning for joining up with Overlord Okug on this most rewarding of raids.

“Remember how we boarded that last freighter and devoured every last crew member?” Drikog grinned toothily and starting to drool at the memory. “These Greys are only small, but after we hunted them all down, there were plenty to fill our bellies!”

“Patience Drikog, we will feast again soon!” Vermogrok replied, masking his own irritation at having to wait around on Overlord Okug’s orders. “I have found us a new banquet!”

“Your pod brothers must be so envious of you!” Drikog said to Vemogrok admiringly.

“They would be, if I hadn’t eaten them all!” Vermogrok said, then threw his hammer shaped head back and barked a burbling laugh, his tooth filled maw snapping up and down with glee.

Turning his attention back to the signals, more details about the convoy were starting to appear, as the sensor probes they had embedded in asteroids around the sector gathered more data. It looked like some Ashanath Freighters and passenger liners according to their transponders.

“Behold Drikog! That convoy has passenger liners!” Vermogrok exclaimed, his bulging eyes gleaming with excitement as he began to drool.

“We will gorge ourselves until we burst!” Drikog chortled. “You have done it again mighty one!”

“Set a course for Gomeisa!” Vermogrok bellowed at his helmsman.

“Yeah Warboss!” the helmsman replied with a toothy grin.

“Overlord Okug is calling us.” his first mate grunted.

“Put him through...” Vermogrok snarled with irritation.