Stonerager Chronicles - Ch. 05 (Beta) (Patreon)

Stonerager Chronicles

By 2Charlie

This is a science fiction series that happens to include occasional erotic scenes. If you have not yet read previous chapters of this series, I highly recommend going back to do so before you read this chapter.

This is a Beta Release. This story may undergo final editing before general release.

All characters in this story are of the age of majority.

Chapter 05

*****

Dutch put the finishing touches on the ‘06’ he had hand-painted on the droid’s chest and back, giving him an easy way to identify which one of the damned things he was looking at. He’d done the same with the other five, beginning with the two he’d salvaged from Ganymede, then the four additional units that he’d had Prime synthesize for him. Standing back to appraise his handiwork, he was satisfied – at least for now.

Checking his small pocket pad, he noted that his next task was almost ready – he’d had Prime create a new command chair for him to mount on the new bridge – what used to be simply called the flight deck now housed much more than just the flight controls, hence, the rebranding as ‘the bridge’. He had planned to mount it behind and between the navigator and helmsman positions, He had spent a few days considering his options for redesigning the bridge to accommodate new functions, and he opted to add a science station, an operations station, a weapons station, a communications station, and an engineering station.

Admittedly, he did not yet have the necessary crew to man each of the stations, on even a single shift. However, if his luck continued as it had thus far, he figured that his crew would likely grow larger over time. He had a basic modification in mind and was working with Prime, Pheebs, and the droids to execute the changes.

For just a brief moment, he felt his balance shift slightly beneath him, but only just. The inertial dampeners worked wonders, he had to admit it. Dutch looked again at his list, trying to find other matters that could be handled away from the bridge, intentionally trying to keep from going there. Pheebs was training D’narius and Jjin’tira the basics of the control surfaces at the helm and navigator’s stations. She was putting them through a series of maneuvers designed to help them accelerate the pace at which they learned the nuances of piloting the Odyssey. Not wanting to be a distraction or make the new crew members nervous about the potential for mistakes, he was keeping himself busy elsewhere.

“Prime, can you interface directly with any of the droids as needed, or are they perpetually autonomous beings that you instruct?” he asked the ship’s AI.

“I am able to assume direct control of any or all of the droids in an emergency, Captain. However, I believe that would be a relatively inefficient use of my time. Instead, I have taken great care to upgrade their data processing pathways in anticipation that you will require more of them than their original design specifications envisioned.”

“Good to know,” Dutch replied, opting to hold off on the hand-over-hand down in the propulsion plant in favor of spending some time with Prime designing a new crew uniform. The old Project Daedalus jumpsuits just didn’t seem to fit the requirements anymore. In fact, he really wanted to transition to two-piece uniforms – something that made going to the head a bit easier, if nothing else.

Scanning through some visual suggestions that Prime had presented for his review, he identified simple black trousers with colored piping along the seams as a good choice for the uniform bottom. He wavered between utility soft shoes and boots for the footwear, finally compromising with boots that offered support and protection while having flexible soft soles. For the upper body, a simple dark-colored tunic would suffice, with a black zip-up utility jacket, with piping and colored shoulder boards, as well as elastic wrist and waistbands. A pair of soft, thick black socks wrapped up the outfit.

Looking at the total package, he requested Prime to synthesize the uniform in his size, with the piping and undershirt in a burgundy color. Moments later, the new wardrobe was ready. Not even bothering to look around, he proceeded to strip down to his boxers and try on the new uniform. Looking at his reflection in the nearby viewscreen, he was pleased. He would probably need to come up with rank devices and a ship’s insignia, but for now, it was enough.

The ship shuddered hard, coming about in a turn tight enough to strain the inertial dampeners, then twisted again, shuddering under an impact. Fuck this, he thought, racing for the bridge. As he was passing through the final hatch to the bridge, the ship’s 1MC squawked, with Pheebs tightly saying, “Captain to the bridge.”

“Report,” he prompted tersely as he stepped onto the bridge, walking up to stand next to Pheebs.

She glanced at him, one eyebrow raised in appreciation of the new look, then began to give him an update. “Captain, we were performing advanced tactical maneuvers when an alien vessel emerged from a dense part of the asteroid belt nearby and opened fire on us.”

“What type of weapons, and did we sustain damage?” he asked, looking at the various displays, but seeing no red telltales.

Alisia sounded from the operations post, “Energy weapons – some sort of particle beams, but our shields shunted them aside easily enough. Shields remain firm. No damage, sir.”

The Odyssey shuddered again as the other vessel fired her weapons once more. “Hit on our port aft shield, sir,” Alisia called out, “Still no damage.”

“I have weapons lock on them, sir,” Jjan’tira called out from her position. “Shall I return fire?”

“Hold your fire, Jjan’tira,” Dutch ordered, pivoting to the helm. “D’narius, do we know who they are?”

“The ship’s configuration roughly matches that of an Oo’lan’Drag vessel,” D’narius responded, “These are a heavy-grav species of humanoids who typically mine asteroids. I’ve not heard of them being in this sector before.”

“Did we do something to provoke them?” Dutch asked the bridge at large.

Pheebs answered him crisply, saying, “We were engaged in simulated combat maneuvers, but had not yet performed any live-fire exercises.”

The Odyssey shuddered again, more violently this time, rocking beneath Dutch’s feet. “Jjan’tira, can you get a lock on that ship’s weapons?”

“Ay, sir. Lock established,” she called out quickly, her attention fastened to her readouts.

“Disabling fire only – take out their weapons,” he ordered.

Quadruple beams of energy lanced away from the bow of the Odyssey as her plasma weapons were discharged, intersecting

 with the nose of the alien craft, producing a blossom of plasma and an explosion, after which the other craft veered away lazily.

“Direct hit, sir. They’re moving off,” Jjan’tira reported.

“Shall I lay in a pursuit course, Captain?” D’narius asked, hands ready on her controls.

“Negative. Pheebs, engage Stealth screens. Alisia, maintain a track on them. D’narius, keep our distance, but trail that ship. Pheebs, monitor for any outgoing transmissions and get Prime to assist you if they are encrypted.”

Walking over to Jjan’tira, he patted her shoulder. “Good shot, Jjan,” he told her, making her smile at the compliment. Turning to the rest of the bridge, “Good work, all of you. Now let’s figure out why the fuck those assholes opened fire on us. If it’s something we did, let’s figure that out so we don’t accidentally do it again. If they were just being assholes, we’ll deal with that soon.”

Stepping over to the science console, he tapped on the interface to wake it. “Prime, give me what you have from collected data sources about the…. what the fuck did you call them, D’narius?”

“The Oo’lan’Drag, sir,” she replied.

“Right, the Oo’lan’Drag. I need data.” Dutch waited for a moment, then began reading the data dump that filled his screen.

He’d not gotten far when Pheebs called out, “Sir, I’m picking up a transmission from the Oo’lan’Drag vessel. It’s in the clear, and the lingua-code is translating it in real-time. They’re calling for assistance, reporting hostile contact.”

“Understood. Let me know if they receive any response,” Dutch replied, then turned back to his console. “Prime, please analyze available tactical data. Do the Oo’lan’Drag ships represent a threat to the Odyssey?”

“The iShan’tal and Terran databases both contain references to Oo’lan’Drag Hammerheads, which rely on their massively dense hulls to shield them from weapons fire while they ram their enemies, usually when close to some celestial obstacles such as asteroids, or near planetary atmospheres, or in one case near the accretion ring of a black hole.”

Checking the nearby NAV display, he noted their proximity to the asteroid field, especially a few larger asteroids.

“Prime, analyze their strategy. What weapons combo does Odyssey possess that could negate such an attack?”

“Captain, my analysis indicates that three options are immediately evident. One – you could strike them with devastating force using a High-Energy-Density Plasma Torpedo. Two – you could disable their propulsion. Three – you could redirect them using the ship’s tractor beam to repulse more. Alternatively, you could tractor them and drag them around until they disengage.”

“Any records of any negotiated peace with these guys?” Dutch asked, opening the topic up to more than just Prime.

“The iShan’tal do not negotiate, as you know,” D’narius offered.

“Well….,” Alisia began, only for D’narius to cut her off.

“That was one time, and only in extremis. These crude beings do not pose the same level of threat that the Terrans did.”

“Well, I’m not normally a shoot first and ask questions later kinda guy,” Dutch pointed out, ignoring the odd look D’narius shot him, “so let’s be ready with some options, but I’d like to try talking with these fuckers before we decide to lay waste to them.”

D’narius and Jjan’tira looked back at him in dismay, then at each other. Shrugging, they returned their focus to their consoles.

Pheebs moved over to stand by him, leaning in close to whisper in his ear, “Nice uniform, Captain Stud, sir. Got one of those for me?”

Grinning, he looked over at her. “I was just testing it out – not 100% sold on it yet, and I still need to figure out a few details. As soon as I do, I’ll be glad to see you and the others wearing one like it.”

Alisia spoke up at that moment. “I am picking up a responding transmission.” She punched a finger at her console, and they could all hear the transmission on the ship’s speakers.

The garbled nonsense was quickly sorted out by the lingua-code. “Do not engage. Support is on the way.”

Pheebs moved back to her post, and quickly reported, “Sir, I am picking up strange gravimetric readings near the Oo’lan’Drag ship.”

Prime added her analysis. “The anomaly appears to be a transportation conduit, similar to a jump gate, but gravity-based.”

“Fuck, that sounds like an artificial wormhole,” Dutch mused, shaking his head in bewilderment. “The strain on their ships from transiting it must be incredible.”

Pheebs called out, “Two Oo’lan’Drag Hammerheads are emerging from the portal, Captain. Bearing 290 by negative 30.”

“Any signs they can detect us?” he asked.

Alisia analyzed their movements before shaking her head. “Negative. They seem to be deployed in a standard defensive formation, facing away from the damaged ship, but none are advancing in our specific direction.”

Dutch paused for a moment to consider his options. “Qui audet adipiscitur,” he muttered, then raised his voice. “Prime, can you open a channel on the frequency the Oo’lan’Drag vessels are using, and then tie in the lingua-code so there’s no doubt that they’ll understand me?”

One heartbeat later, Prime beeped. “Comm channel open, lingua-code patched in.”

“Oo’lan’Drag vessels, this is Captain Stonerager of the Alliance Starship Odyssey. Explain your aggression in this sector.”

His crew turned and looked at him in confusion for a moment. Pheebs made a lewd gesture indicating big balls, and they quietly snickered and returned their attention to their stations.

“You are the intruder here Stonerager. You must answer to us, the Oo’lan’Drag Dynasty, not the other way around.” The translation even managed to convey the tone of arrogance in the reply.

“Wrong, asshole. Per the terms of the Treaty of Ganymede of 3120, this sector of space is declared as unaligned territory, open to free use and free navigation. You are in violation of that treaty and are guilty of committing an act of war. Stand down and withdraw, or be destroyed,” he bluffed, though completely ready to carry out his threat if they chose to call him out.

“Their vessels are turning toward our general direction, but not dead on, sir,” Pheebs informed him, a slight edge to her voice. “They must be attempting some crude form of signal triangulation.”

“It’s not crude if it works, Pheebs,” Dutch remarked, then turned forward. “D’narius, move us off to starboard a thousand kilometers but keep us facing those ships. Once we have repositioned, drop Stealth Screens.”

“Aye, sir. Moving us to the designated location in T-minus ten… five… and, we’re there. Dropping Stealth,” she informed him, and he observed the Oo’lan’Drag ships immediately re-orient themselves to face the Odyssey.

“Stand by on the tractor, Pheebs,” he called out. “Be ready to capture the ship on the right – D’narius, I’ll want to drag it into the other ship – let them experience a taste of their own tactics.”

“Too bad there’s not a small moon around here,” she quipped with a smirk.

“I heard that, and I’ve already apologized for it,” he reminded her.

“An apology I quite enjoyed, sir,” she reminded him. “I’m not sure you can expect the same outcome from this encounter.”

Shaking his head, he stated, “Open the channel again, Prime.”

“Channel open, Captain. Lingua-code tied in,” the ship’s AI responded.

“Last warning, shitheads. I’ve been nice so far, but if you press this matter, I guarantee I’m going to ruin your day,” he threatened, confident that they would not be impressed.

Today was the day he made his presence known, he thought. Today was the day he started to turn things around. One way or the other.

The speaker crackled, the lingua-code translating faster now. “Puny asshole, prepare to get hammered.”

On the display, the two bulky vessels surged forward, bearing down on the Odyssey, clearly intending to ram her.

Stepping up to place a hand on D’narius’ shoulder, he swept his hand across her field of view, directing her as he spoke, “Dee, bring us up and over the one on the right – Pheebs, grab him with the tractor as we pass – Jjan’tira, hit them in the engines as we approach. D’narius, once we’ve grabbed them, continue your swoop down and loop us back up towards the one on the left, from underneath her. Bring us toward him at point five light speed,” he pointed at the speed indicator, “then push us up to point seven as we drag the first one toward the other one. We’ll do this like when I attacked your ship – veer off at the last moment while Pheebs cuts the tractor, and then we’ll let physics do the rest.”

“I don’t want to destroy them so much as heavily incapacitate them, Jjan’tira,” he explained, hoping she understood the difference. “But just in case, be ready for a second strike with the plasma torpedos. Target their engines. Again, I prefer them disabled, not destroyed, if we can.”

Jjan’tira nodded and made the preparations as requested.

“And… go!” he commanded, letting D’narius pilot the Odyssey as he’d ordered. The Oo’lan’Drag Hammerheads tried to continue to face the Odyssey, but she was too fast and agile, quickly outpacing their maneuverability.

As planned, Jjan’tira fired plasma torpedoes at the engines of the right-hand Hammerhead, disabling them. Pheebs grabbed the wounded ship with the Odyssey’s tractor beam. The immense drag placed upon the Odyssey barely slowed the ship, so powerful were her engines. D’narius looped beneath the second Hammerhead, then swung around while picking up speed, heading straight back toward the second vessel, dragging the hapless first one in her wake. At the final moment, Pheebs cut the tractor beam and D’narius swerved the Odyssey, passing within meters of the Hammerhead, their ship’s shields fluorescing with the proximity. An eyeblink later, the disabled Hammerhead slammed into the other Hammerhead at seventy percent the speed of light, and the collision was decidedly inelastic.

Bringing the Odyssey around again, D’narius resumed a holding position one thousand kilometers out, observing in dismay the catastrophic damage she’d just delivered upon the Oo’lan’Drag ships.

The damaged ship had collided with the other ship at a right angle, more or less, and the second ship was torn in two. To its credit, the first Hammerhead – the one that had been used as an improvised weapon – was mostly still intact, her bulkheads mostly still capable of holding an atmospheric seal, not venting into open space as the other vessel was doing.

Pheebs looked over at Dutch, hesitating only a moment before reporting her readings. “The second Hammerhead suffered major damage, and only pockets of atmosphere remain in the vessel. I count upwards of fifty of her crew vented into space.” She paused, checking her readouts before continuing her report. “The first Hammerhead is dead in space, but largely intact – the forward hull of that ship must be incredibly dense!”

Alisia called out from her station, “The mining vessel is rapidly closing on the demolished Hammerhead. They appear to be attempting to rescue the remaining crew.”

“Jjan’tira, maintain a target lock on both vessels. I may need you to destroy them, but let’s see how they respond now. Prime, open that channel.”

The ship’s AI beeped, indicating the comm channel was open.

“Oo’lan’Drag vessels, you will stand down from all hostilities,” he announced in a firm tone, waiting for the lingua-code to translate before he continued. “I will allow you to collect survivors, but then we will discuss what comes next. Any defiance will result in your immediate destruction.”

Getting no response, he assumed they understood and would comply.

Alisia turned to look at him. “Captain, before you began communicating with the Oo’lan’Dang, you whispered something I did not recognize.”

“Qui audet adipiscitur,” he repeated. “It means Who Dares, Wins. It was the motto of the Special Air Services of the British Army back in the twentieth century on Earth. I’ve been thinking of adopting it as our motto.”

“And your lie regarding the Treaty of Ganymede?” she asked, still puzzled.

“Alisia, I called it the Treaty of Ganymede of 3120 - that was close to the year you were attempting to carry out your secret mission, as best I can guess. Now, tell me this – who’s to say you failed? Did you ever communicate back to your Battle Masters one way or the other with the outcome of your quest?”

“The talks had not concluded before the attack on your system,” she responded, still not understanding where he was going with this.

“What if – hypothetically speaking, of course – the Terrans had proposed a cooperative alliance with the iShan’tal? Would your Battle Masters have gone along with it?” he asked her.

Her brow furrowed slightly. “That was not the original intent, but I suppose such an outcome might have been negotiated, if the Terrans had proposed this.”

“So – again, hypothetically speaking – if they had done so, were you authorized to negotiate on behalf of the iShan’tal?”

“I believe I had sufficient discretionary authority to do that, but not much more,” she replied, very curious now where Dutch was going with this line of thinking.

“Very good!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands as if the answer were obvious.

“I don’t understand,” she replied, still appearing to be very confused.

“That’s what you did. You achieved your mission. Congratulations, Ambassador. The Terrans and the iShan’tal arrived at a compromise, the Treaty of Ganymede of 3120 outlines the terms for the peaceful co-existence and cooperative alliance between the Terran Empire and the iShan’tal Hegemony. Sadly, your communication was jammed during the attack. However, at our earliest opportunity, we should endeavor to inform your Battle Masters of the outcome of your mission.” Dutch folded his arms across his chest, looking very satisfied with himself.

D'narius and Jjan’tira both looked back at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. Alisia’s face was going through several contortions as she attempted to work through the permutations of what her Captain had just claimed.

Pheebs looked over at him, and then at the others. “Our new uniforms will be ready momentarily,” she informed them, handing a new jacket to Dutch. He examined the jacket. It had four bars across each shoulder – indicating his rank of Captain – with the Odyssey ship’s logo on the right sleeve at the shoulder, and the SAS Shield with the “Who Dares Wins” motto emblazoned on the left sleeve at the shoulder.

Removing his other jacket, he donned the new one, adjusted the fit, and zipped it up. It felt right.

*****

“Does that look about right?” Dutch asked Alisia. The monitor above them was displaying the most recent rendition of the treaty papers.

“That is almost correct,” she muttered, reaching out to make a few minor changes, then stood back, scrutinizing the results one final time, before she turned to him. “There. That should suffice.”

“Prime, please print that onto whatever media the Terrans would have used for such a formal agreement.”

The synthesizer on the bridge hummed, and a stack of papers appeared within it. The Treaty of Ganymede of 3120 was signed, sealed, and made as official as possible. The terms of the agreement were simple – each side was accorded continued possession of established territories as of the time just before the final battle within the Sol System, both sides were committed to a mutual defense pact, and all other space was considered ‘free for use, and open for peaceful navigation’.

Now they just needed to socialize this treaty to all major players in this arm of the galaxy, establish it as de facto law, and – eventually - get a copy of the treaty communicated to the Battle Masters who’d authorized it and hope they took the bait.

Turning to look at him, Alisia could not help but ask him, “Dutch, what made you come up with this bold idea?”

“Fake it ‘til you make it,” he quipped in response, still grinning at his own cleverness.

“I’m sorry.  I think I misheard you,” she replied, uncertain of his response.

“It’s an old Earth phrase,” he explained to her as he turned to scan the readouts on the display above the science station, “but essentially it means to act as though the outcome you desire was already in place until it becomes the truth. Another old saying suggests that if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.”

“So, through deception, you mean to change the narrative, and encourage the iShan’tal to agree to this treaty even though they no longer fear the Terrans,” she surmised, finally putting some of the pieces together.

“Partly true, yes. But a big part of my plan is to box them in – make it so that everyone else thinks that this treaty exists between Terrans and iShan’tal and that the final battle was stopped short – the iShan’tal did not completely eradicate humanity, as they had reached an accord.”

Turning to his first officer, he observed, “Pheebs, it looks like the two surviving Oo’lan’Dang vessels have about completed their rescue missions. Query: if we open a jump portal, can we tractor the damaged vessels through the portal with us? Or, in the case of the mining vessel, can it follow us through?”

“I believe either is an option, yes Captain,” Pheebs replied after consulting her data banks. “We must instruct Prime to maintain the portal long enough to allow the other vessels to cross the event threshold. This is not without risk, however. A homicidally motivated enemy could potentially open a portal within ours – we’ve seen the outcome.”

“True,” he admitted, “though the Oo’lan’Dang do not seem to possess jump technology. Still, a similar outcome could occur if they were to activate their wormhole drive – we’ll need to keep a sharp lookout for that.” Pacing over to stand behind the navigation station, he put his hand on Jjan’tira’s shoulder. “Be ready with decisive force should we determine they are trying to spin up their Grav-drive.”

Turning to pace back to the center of the bridge, he called out to the ship’s AI. “Prime, would you please have droids One and Two bring my command chair to the bridge and install it? This standing shit gets old after a while.”

*****

The Odyssey hung in geosynchronous orbit above the Oo’lan’Dang home world, having transported the mining vessel and Hammerhead back to the system via jump portal. The captains from the Oo’lan’Dang ships had been decidedly reluctant to accept assistance from Dutch, but he had insisted, telling them that, technically, they were ‘under arrest’ for their breach of treaty, and must be brought before their home magistrate where their fate would be decided. He spoke to them as if the treaty was widely known and all were expected to adhere to its terms, which was precisely the outcome he was striving to engineer.

The Oo’lan’Dang Prime Minister’s image filled the main view-screen on the bridge of the Odyssey. Groff T’chark, a particularly squat and swarthy-looking creature, broader than tall, and looking as if he’d spent his formative years chewing through iron ore, was definitely not read in on the terms of the treaty. However, upon demanding to see an electronic copy, he made a grand show of reading it over, making several grunts and guffaws at the terms of the treaty, before finally putting it down.

“Captain Stonerager, I’m afraid I do not see the stipulation within this document that you claim our mining vessel violated,” T’chark rebuffed, defiantly attempting to maintain his ship’s innocence of any wrongdoing.

“Minister T’chark, if I may direct your attention to section 4, subsection C, paragraph 3, under the terms of “Free and Open Use”, the treaty clearly stipulates that all territories not claimed by the Alliance were intended to remain open for use by all. Your mining vessel was within their rights to be mining in that region.”

Standing from his command chair, he smoothed his jacket and took a step toward the screen. “That much is not in dispute, However, when your mining vessel fired upon my ship while we were conducting freedom of navigation exercises, they violated the “Free and Open Use” clause. When I ordered them to cease fire, they refused, and I disabled their weapons.” Pausing to let his words – or their translated equivalent – sink in, he continued after a brief delay, deliberately talking over whatever the minister had been about to say.

“Technically, I would have been within my rights as an Alliance Warship, under the terms of the treaty, to blow your mining vessel to hell. I restrained myself. When your hammerhead vessels entered the system and made their hostility clear, I took measures to demonstrate the folly of their decisions.” He paused again as if intending to let the minister respond, only to cut him off again, privately amused at how the old troll’s eyes bulged out in offense.

“After allowing the two surviving vessels to complete rescue and recovery operations, I promptly returned them here, as per the law of the open void, and am placing them before you so that you may take the appropriate punitive measures against them that their actions have warranted. This concludes my obligations to you, sir. Unless, of course, you wish to object to and withdraw from the Treaty of Ganymede?”

Minister T’chark appeared to sputter in consternation, then reviewed a data pad that had been brought to him, no doubt a scan readout informing him of the estimated capabilities of the Odyssey to defend herself. After a moment’s hesitation, the minister appeared to slump, and his tone changed significantly when he finally spoke. “Captain Stonerager, I must apologize for the actions of these captains. They shall be punished for their violations of the Treaty of Ganymede. I shall broadcast a fleet-wide reminder of the terms of the treaty in order to avoid any future, shall we say, mistakes. Will that meet with your Alliance’s satisfaction?”

Holding back a grin, Dutch maintained his grave expression and nodded his head slowly. “Yes, Minister T’chark, I believe that will be sufficient. Let us both hope that our two peoples can return to their peaceful coexistence, and I look forward to our future cooperation and trade. Your systems are part of my patrol route, so I shall see you again within the next few cycles, I am sure. Odyssey out.” With that, he closed the transmission, ending the communication.

The bridge crew gave a collective sigh of relief, with Alisia in particular shaking her head. “Stonerager, if there had been more men of your caliber during our conflict, I shudder at the consequences.”

“Darlin’,” he swaggered over to her with a huge shit-eating grin on his face, “if there’d been more men of my caliber back then, there might have been no conflict. I have no interest in restoring any ‘empire’ – I wish to return my species’ rights to explore and learn more about this galaxy of ours, not lead a new age of conquest.”

Bending over her, he kissed her softly on the lips, lingering for a moment. “I have no wish to be the enemy to beauties such as you and your sisters.” Making his way from the Operations station to the Nav, he kissed Jjan’tira, then stepped over to the help to kiss D’narius, then finally rounded things out by kissing Pheebs.

As he returned to his command seat, Jjan’tira asked aloud, “How fucking long is a cycle?”

*****

As he allowed Pheebs to resume training operations with the new crew members, Dutch made his way down to the engineering section of the Odyssey. The Tao station had done some impressive expansion down here, he thought to himself. This was no longer the claustrophobic crawl space he recalled from the early construction days in orbit above Earth. Instead, all of that had been replaced by an impressive chamber with heavy circuitry, fluid piping systems, plasma conduits, various control interfaces, mimic buses, and a massive reactor that most definitely was not part of the original vessel.

Peering into the reaction chamber via one of the observation ports, Dutch had to shield his eyes against the blue-white glare of the self-sustaining nuclear reaction happening within. As best he could discern from studying the technical manuals, this chamber encased a tiny star, its energy generation harnessed to supply the Odyssey with virtually inexhaustible amounts of energy. The biggest challenge he saw was the ability to deliver that energy in a manageable way to the various systems that consumed it.

He had come down to this part of the ship to visually confirm what his technical manuals had hinted at. This chamber was built to survive – to harness – the blast from a nuclear furnace. The rest of the ship might be more susceptible to damage, but this space was hardened. A full-on nuclear strike against the Odyssey might leave her crew severely radiation burned, if the shields were overcome, or dead if the ship’s hull integrity were sufficiently compromised, but this chamber would survive a plunge into a star’s chromosphere.

Shaking his head at the technological capabilities the Tao must have possessed, he found himself wondering again what had happened to them, and why the iShan’tal did not seem to possess this level of engineering capability. He found his thoughts returning to the automated station that had done so much to change not only his life, but potentially the fate of his race, and through him, that of others as well.

“Prime, do you have any data buried within you that could allow us to communicate with the Tao station that performed the refit on the Odyssey?” he asked the ship’s AI.

“I can find no information in my data banks that provides me a means by which to communicate with the Tao station, Captain. That does not mean that we might not be able to simply hail the station if we were to return to its location,” the ship’s AI informed him.

“Okay. We’ll reserve that as a secondary option for now,” Dutch decided, tamping down his disappointment. “Instead, I think we need to establish another target system to spread the tale of the Treaty of Ganymede. I am eager to spread this news in the hopes that we can draw out the Battle Masters who sent Alisia to seek a truce and convince them that it's still a good idea.”

“Captain, I’ve been reviewing D’narius’ logs from her time as commanding officer of the K’vetch, and there were some non-human societies that she interacted with from time to time. It is quite possible that she can suggest a target system based on her prior interactions with them.”

“Prime, in your analysis of her interactions, were any of them friendly, or dominating? How would you describe them?” Dutch was wary of the nature of those interactions, and uncertain how D’narius might view them in retrospect, especially if there had been strained relations between the systems in question and the iShan’tal.

“The logs merely mention them as resupply points, with very little detail about any additional interactions – no indication of whether or not her crew took shore leave, for example,” Prime informed him.

Fuck it, he thought, she’s either crew or she’s not. And if she’s crew, I have to trust her enough to ask.

“Pheebs, how much longer until you knock off for the day?” he asked her via the ship’s intercom. He needed to get Prime to work on some sort of comms badge or handheld communicator, like that old science fiction show he recalled from his youth…

“Wrapping it up now, Captain. We’ll debrief over dinner. See you in the galley in a few minutes,” Pheebs responded crisply.

“Prime, check your data from all current sources. Identify any worn or carried communications devices we might be interested in adopting aboard Odyssey. Summarize and have findings ready for me after I grab some food.”

“Yes, Captain,” the ship’s AI replied.

Dutch made his way up to the galley to find his crew was already there. Jjan’tira was working with Alisia to put together something that smelled good. Pheebs and D’narius were sitting across from one another at the table.

Pheebs grabbed him and pulled him down for a kiss. “The crew is doing quite well, Dutch. We’ve gotten in a little target practice, and we’re in an asteroid field with Prime scooping up some resources to replenish our spent munitions.”

“Good. That about covers my questions about how training is going. I assume that you're going to commence cross-training the triplets in alternate roles soon?” he asked, grabbing himself a sweet tea before joining them at the table.

“That’s the plan,” Pheebs confirmed, taking a drink of his tea. “I want everyone to be proficient at each position on the bridge so that we can alternate assignments when a full crew isn’t required.

Chuckling at her cheek, he rose from the table and poured another glass of tea for Pheebs, before turning to the others. “Dee, Al, Jjan – can I get you something to drink?”

D’narius raised her eyebrow at the nicknames, amused. “I would be fine with tea, thank you.”

Jjan’tira turned from whatever she was working on at the stovetop to cast a smile his way. “Tea sounds wonderful! One for me as well, please.”

“Make it three,” Alisia replied as she pulled a tray of buns out of the synthesizer.

Dutch grabbed a gallon-sized pitcher from the refrigerator and three tumblers from the cabinet, adding ice to each from the ice dispenser before returning to the table, pouring a glass of tea for each of the ladies, then setting the pitcher down and taking a seat.

Alisia came over to the table and began setting plates at each place, followed by napkins and utensils. She returned a moment later with a tray of condiments, and a large basket of fries. Jjan’tira joined them a moment later with a platter filled with hamburgers.

“Burgers and fries! I can’t remember the last time I’ve had these,” Dutch marveled at the food. “This is a treat. Where’d you come up with the idea for this?”

“Pheebs suggested it, and Prime gave us the basics on the individual components and trimmings,” Alisia explained, with Jjan’tira nodding her head while she was chewing on a mouthful of fries.

Dinner was a pleasant throwback to days long past for Dutch, while at the same time being a fresh new experience for his partners. When they had all eaten their fill, he helped them clean up the galley and then suggested they retire to the more comfortable seating in his quarters.

Pouring each of his partners an after-dinner glass of wine he’d had Janice synthesize, he sat down with them to discuss their next steps. “I’d like to continue our travels by visiting another system, a non-human system if you know of any, where we can spread the word about the Treaty of Ganymede. I want to continue to spread the word about this treaty, as well as talk up the Alliance, so that eventually word gets back to the Battle Masters. In the meantime, Alisia, do you have a means by which to communicate with the Battle Master who prompted your visit to the Terrans in the first place? I’d like to reach out to him at some point soon, and was hoping you could broker a private audience with him?”

“I will work with Prime to reconstruct a secure communications device to facilitate the initial conversation, Dutch. As soon as that can be made ready, I will inform you, and we can reach out to the Battle Master.”

“Very good,” he nodded, turning to look at the other clones. “D’narius, do you or Jjan’tira have any suggestions as to the next system that we might visit?”

“I’ve been giving that some thought, Dutch, and I might have a few ideas,” D’narius told him, steepling her fingers in thought. “There are a few options from which to choose. Some are widely traveled traders, which would be a logical choice to spread the word about the Alliance and the Treaty, and another option would be one of several races that are following in the Terran’s footsteps, showing the potential for being a future threat to the Hegemony. There are compelling but different reasons to visit each, I think.”

“What about any human systems – do these traders interact with the humans that the iShan’tal overlooked after shutting down their jump gates?”

D’narius was silent for a moment, a look of discomfort suddenly crossing her features. Warily, she glanced at Jjin’tira but offered nothing.

After a pause, she steeled her nerves and answered Dutch. “Not very many, no. Most of the Terran systems did not fare well when they were isolated. The only species to have any interaction with the remaining Terran settlements was the Noraxi Syndicate, a highly organized society of criminal thugs and slavers. The iShan’tal has been keeping an eye on them of late, concerned that they may require an… intervention.”

The galley went completely silent. It took Dutch several seconds to realize that all the women were staring at him. He realized his fists were bunched tightly and his muscles were unbelievably tense. His jaw was clenched, and a vein was bulging out in his forehead. It took a tremendous effort for him to relax himself.

He now had another purpose – perhaps a more immediate one. Slavery had been something his ancestors had engaged in, but modern humanity – at least, in Dutch’s era – had evolved well beyond owning other beings. It appalled him to think that a starfaring culture embraced such a disgusting practice in the present. It made sense that they would choose to predate upon lesser species, or those lacking the capability to adequately defend themselves. But the image in his head of humans – who had so recently been a starfaring race themselves – being scooped up and sold at auction into a life of unimaginable horrors had nearly sent him into a blind rage.

Exerting more than a small amount of self-control, Dutch forced himself to speak in a calm voice as he asked D’narius, “Do you know of any Terran colonies that are regularly targeted by the Noraxi Syndicate?”

Turning to the nearby console, she pulled up a star chart and zoomed in on a cluster of stars that he recognized from childhood as the Orion constellation. Zooming in on the brightest, she pointed at it, saying, “There is a Terran colony on the 5th planet orbiting this star.”

Dutch blinked at this, saying out loud, “Humans on Rigel 5, no shit.”

Turning to D’narius once more, he asked her, “Have you ever encountered the Noraxi? Did you have to fight them? How would you describe their weapons and defenses?”

“Slow down!” she urged him, a slight worry in her eyes. “No, I’ve not had to combat them. I’m not sure I’d have wanted to try it on my own. Their ships are huge. Of course, Odyssey packs quite the punch, plus you can always toss a moon at them…”

“Hey now, you saw how effective that was against the Oo’Lan’Dang Hammerhead,” he reminded her.

“We should probably review data available on their ships to find alternative options,” she advised, suddenly looking very serious. “Their ships can transport thousands of slaves at a time. I don’t think you want to pulverize one of their galleons if they're carrying a hold full of slaves, no matter what species they might be.”

“Agreed,” he nodded, turning to Pheebs. “Beginning tomorrow, I want combat drills devised to simulate combat against these Noraxi ships. I want to develop strategies against those galleons before we encounter one.”

“I will task Prime with performing a detailed analysis of all available data on the Noraxi vessels of all types and devise initial encounter recommendations,” Pheebs commented, as she typed commands into the interface of her tablet, her fingers a blur.

“Now, Captain, about our sleeping arrangements…” Alisia began, looking a little sheepish.

“Right,” D’narius cut in. “We were discussing things today, and we wanted to propose a matter to you and Pheebs regarding intimacy and sleeping.”

Dutch’s eyebrows attempted to crawl into his hairline as he sat back and folded his arms across his broad chest, nodding at them to continue.

Alisia resumed her train of thought, “It’s just that we thought that perhaps we should cycle through evenings with you, rather than engage in nightly orgies.”

Jjan’tira added, “Not that we didn’t enjoy the orgy – we most definitely did!” she assured him, blushing furiously.

D’narius picked up where the others had left off. “It’s just that we’d also like to have some time to spend with you, or perhaps with you and Pheebs, individually.”

Pheebs cut them off, “Of course. Would you each prefer your quarters, or would you prefer to double up, or triple up?”  

The clones looked at each other questioningly. Jjan’tira spoke first, “I’ve never had quarters of my own. On an iShan’tal vessel, we were all assigned to crew’s berthing, which usually hosted up to a dozen per berth.”

“Even as the ship’s commander,” Dnarius added, “I shared a stateroom with three other officers.”

“Well, we’ve got plenty of quarters to spare for now,” Pheebs pointed out, “so if you each wish for private quarters, that can be arranged.”

Alisia nodded, adding, “I’d like to try a private room - we can always group up if it’s too uncomfortable.”

*****

While Pheebs was getting the other women settled into their individual quarters, Dutch sat down with his tablet to work on an idea. He’d noticed an item listed in the ship’s technology database from the Tao, something called a ‘personal shield’. The device looked to be a wearable shield generator designed to defend against kinetic or energy weapons. He’d seen a footnote indicating that the shield could be shaped into overlapping layers, like old ring mail armor.

Dutch was interested in taking it to a different level altogether. Instead of creating simple overlapping layers, he looked at adding ridge lines to the armor – something capable of doing damage to an opponent. He recalled seeing photos of ancient gladiator armor from Earth’s past, leather straps fitted with spikes to shred an opponent with whom the wearer was grappling.

His thoughts were interrupted by Pheebs entering their quarters, walking over to the sofa where he was sitting, and sitting down next to him. “Want to tell me what’s on your mind, Dutch?”

Setting the tablet aside, he turned to look at her, asking, “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she cooed, reaching to unzip his uniform jacket, “that ever since D’narius mentioned the Noraxi Syndicate, you’ve seemed uptight and closed off. I’m just trying to understand what’s got you upset, and whether or not I need to be concerned.”

“It’s a lot to wrap my head around,” he told her, removing his jacket and handing it to her. Setting the jacket aside, she knelt at his feet and started to loosen his footwear, preparing to remove them. “The iShan’tal have deprived humans of the ability to travel beyond whatever systems they happened to have colonized, but have not prevented other species from preying upon them. I’m still struggling with whether I want to forge this alliance with them or find a way to end them. But, in either case, I am not going to stand by and allow slavers to continue to enslave humans. We had a better destiny in our future back when you and I were still in the past. I want to do my best to restore that legacy, assuming humanity hasn’t completely devolved.”

Finally managing to remove his soft-soled boots, she began tugging at his belt, intending to get him undressed.

Dutch gently took her by the hands and coaxed her to sit back down, then he stood and removed his pants, shirt, socks, and boxers as she watched him silently. When he was finished, he picked up his clothes and took them to the recycler, then asked Janice to synthesize a fresh uniform for him, which he placed into his closet, along with his boots.

Turning back to her, he moved toward their bed, asking her with a grin, “Are you going to join me? You’re a bit overdressed.”

With a mischievous smile, she got up and quickly disrobed, recycling her things and joining him in their bed. He took her in his arms and pulled her close, just holding her at first.

Running a hand through her hair as he held her around the waist with his other, he asked her, “Have I mentioned to you today just how beautiful you are?”

Smiling at him, she shook her head. “Not that I can recall, no.”

“Well, I must have been stunned into silence by your lovely eyes,” he told her, just before he leaned over to kiss her deeply.

She returned his kiss eagerly, wrapping a leg around him as she pulled herself closer, eventually rolling him onto his back so that she could sit astride him.

Reaching down between her legs, he took hold of his hardened manhood, rubbing the head up and down her moistened quim, preparing them both. As soon as he felt sufficiently covered in her slick juices, he lodged the head of his prick into her entrance and began to gently glide up into her.

Not satisfied to wait, Pheebs lowered herself down onto Dutch, engulfing him with her warm, velvety essence, letting out a long moan of pleasure as she did.

Dutch was amazed at her tightness and warmth as she sat atop him, just holding still for a moment. Then, she began to rise and drop on him, keeping her eyes closed as she did, biting her lower lip in her pleasure.

Reaching up with both hands, Dutch took hold of her marvelous breasts, gripping them firmly and rubbing her hard nipples with his thumbs. Leaning up to her, he took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked it hard, nipping at it with his teeth, This brought forth a hiss from Pheebs as she picked up her pace. He could feel the walls of her pussy quivering, alternately gripping and releasing him as she bucked on him.

Reaching down, Pheebs began to rub furiously at her clit as she shifted hears and started sliding back and forth on him, rocking her hips as she fucked him. Dutch could feel her moist walls clutching at him tightly now, beginning to squeeze hard, and then she was cumming. Her head thrown back, she let out a loud wail as she convulsed around him, her juices bathing him as they flowed from her.

As she began to come down from her orgasm, Dutch shifted beneath her, rolling them both over so that he ended up on top. Without missing a beat, he continued to plunge his cock in and out of her, railing her into the mattress beneath them as he fucked her with all of his strength. Pheebs wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to him for dear life, caught up in an ongoing orgasm, moaning with pleasure as he pounded her for all he was worth. Eventually, he felt that tingling in his balls, and letting out a roar, he fired off jet after powerful jet of his cum deep inside of her, filling her full until the extra was running back out of her.

Eventually, he slowed his pace and lay still on top of her, both of them struggling to catch their breath. Shifting to one side, Dutch rolled off of Pheebs to lay beside her, wrapping his arms around her, and holding her until they both drifted off to sleep.

*****

Dutch walked onto the bridge and came to a stop, looking around in mild amusement. All four of his female crewmates wore their new uniforms but with a twist. Pheebs’ jacket had three thick stripes on the shoulders, but the remainder was identical to Dutch’s uniform. Alisia’s jacket had two thick stripes with a thin stripe in between on each shoulder, and the piping on the jacket and trousers matched the color of her tunic, which was a bright blue. D’narius’ jacket also had two thick stripes with a thin stripe in between on the shoulders, and her piping was the same color as her tunic, which was gold. Jjan’tira’s jacket sported two thick stripes on the shoulder, and her piping and tunic were also golden-hued.

When Dutch observed their wardrobe, he did not comment, merely raising an eyebrow before looking to Pheebs for an explanation.

Pheebs grinned, having known he would be curious, and explained, “The shoulder stripes are indicators of rank – mine as first officer being a commander, Alisia’s and D’narius’ indicating their rank as that of a lieutenant commander, and Jjan’tira’s rank being a lieutenant. We were following old Earth naval ranks for those.”

“I see,” Dutch nodded sagely, maintaining an even tone. “And the different colors?”

“Ah, yes. Well, you see,” she explained a bit more demurely, “those we patterned after that old science fiction series you told us about. I accessed our Earth entertainment databases and was able to sort out what each color assignment conveyed. Burgandy, such as on our uniforms, is for the command crew. Blue is attributed to life sciences, and gold is aligned with technical or engineering trades.” She bounced a bit and smiled, saying, “I liked the idea, so I stole it.”

“So you stole it…,” Dutch repeated after her, pausing for a moment to think about it, then added, “Well, there’s probably no one left alive to recall any of that stuff, so let’s agree that you simply gave it new life.”

“Oh, and before I forget, check this out,” she added, pulling a handful of small, shiny golden oval-shaped objects from her jacket pocket, placing one onto the left breast of her jacket, then giving one apiece to the others. “Prime informed me that she had identified something you’d asked her to research last night, and I had several synthesized this morning. These are our new com badges.”

“No kidding!” Dutch was impressed, turning his over once or twice in his hand before simply placing it against the upper left breast of his jacket, where it seemed to magically adhere to the material. Tapping his comm badge, he heard a quiet chirp, and he called, “Dutch to Pheebs,” and then grinned like a kid on Christmas morning when her comm badge chirped. “Hot damn, they work!”

“Yes Captain, of course, they work,” Pheebs noted, looking at him with a straight face. “What point would there be to have a comm badge that did not work?”

“What indeed,” he muttered, shaking his head with mild amusement as he thought back to his childhood. Clapping his hands together, he turned to the others and began to issue orders. “Alisia, engage the ship’s Stealth Screens. Jjan’tira, plot us a course to the Rigellian system – bring us in toward the outer edge. D’narius, as soon as you have your course, please engage our jump drive, and let’s giddy-the-fuck-up!”

“Giddy – the what now?” she asked him, puzzled by the expression.

“Giddy. The. Fuck. Up,” he repeated slowly, deadpan. “It means get going. Sorry, I grew up on a horse ranch. Giddy up is something you say to a horse when you want him to go.”

“Apparently, I must now learn this horse speak,” she mumbled as she turned back to her console, making the ship ready to ‘go’.

The crew carried out his orders quickly, and he denoted a shift in the ship’s ambient lighting from daytime white to blue. Looking at Pheebs with a question in his eyes, she simply shrugged.

“I figured it would be nice to have a visual cue to remind us when we have stealth screens engaged,” she told him with a self-satisfied grin.

“Good thinking. I like it. Thanks for taking the initiative,” he replied, turning his view back forward as the Odyssey leaped through its jump portal to the Rigel system.

“Alisia, please scan the system,” he requested quietly, keeping his eyes on the forward viewscreen. “Let me know if you detect any sign of Noraxi ships. Jjan’tira, can you overlay the system on the forward screen? I’d like to see where we are relative to Rigel 5, please.”

Jjan’tira worked her console, and a moment later, an overlay of the system and its planets appeared on the screen, along with a few other objects that seemed to be vessels in the vicinity of Rigel 5 and scattered elsewhere throughout the system.

“Captain, I am detecting what appears to be local intra-system traffic only – no signs of Noraxi vessels,” Jjan’tira reported.

Alisia turned to face him. “Captain, I am monitoring multiple broadcasts - both visual and audio - emanating primarily from Rigel 5. There appears to also be a significant amount of ship-to-ship and ship-to-planet communication, most of which appears to be simple telemetry and systems comms in nature.”

Dutch turned to his first officer, “Pheebs, can you analyze the capabilities of our sensor buoys, plot out a placement that would provide the most effective coverage of this system, and then overlay their positions on the screen?”

It took her only a moment to comply with his request. Looking at the display on the viewscreen, Dutch noted that she’d left sufficient overlap so that no single loss would significantly degrade the ability to detect and track objects throughout the system.

“D’narius, while we’re getting the sensor net set up, I had something I’d been meaning to discuss with you,” Dutch divulged to his helm officer.

Swiveling her chair to look at him, she nodded, “Of course, Captain. What can I help you with?”

“When I first encountered you and Jjan’tira on your vessel, what was the intended function of the gear you were wearing?” he asked her.

“Ah. Yes.” She thought about her response for a moment, then answered, “So, the encounter suit had multiple functions. It was a uniform designating individual rank and role. It was also armor, capable of resisting most kinetic or sonic weapons. It clearly did not provide adequate protection against your energy weapons. It was also capable of protecting the wearer against the vacuum of space for a limited amount of time if properly sealed. Before you get worried, it would not have mattered, given the explosions and suddenness of decompression that we suffered. Why do you ask?”

Dutch scratched at his beard absentmindedly. “I have been considering creating something like that for boarding party missions – I discovered a personal shield generator design in the Tao data repository but would like to combine it with something similar to what you and your crew were wearing when we first encountered you. I was wondering if either you or Jjan’tira would like to take point on that idea, and generate some proof-of-concept renderings for us to evaluate together?”

“I can do that,” D’narius replied, pleased to be given the opportunity to demonstrate her innovative capabilities. “If you would please forward the personal shield generator data to my console, I can work on it now while we are dispatching the sensor probes.”

Pulling up the schematics on his tablet, he swiped them toward D’narius, and they transferred to her station. “Done.”

Pheebs turned to Alisia, asking “Please confirm you are ready to receive probe telemetry.”

“Standing by, Commander. You may launch your probe network,” Alisia responded, keeping watch over her operations console.

Turning back to her interface with Prime, Pheebs entered the launch command, and they all observed a half-dozen flashes of light as the probes were launched and sped away from the Odyssey.

“Pheebs, prepare a spread of signal jamming probes – if and when the Noraxi vessel shows up, we want to be capable of shutting down their communications and isolating them until we’re done with them.”

“Understood, Captain. I’ll kick off that task now,” she confirmed, turning to another interface to pull up the probe inventory and program another half-dozen as signal jammers.

“Excellent. And now we wait,” Dutch muttered, sitting back in his command chair and observing the telemetry.

Dutch opened up his tablet and began scouring through all available data on the Noraxi ships – there were a few known hull classes – scouts, destroyers, and slave galleons. He gave cursory attention to the various weapons and defensive capabilities of the first two classes – he would likely destroy any that did not immediately stand down or retreat. It was the latter hull type that occupied most of his attention. The galleons were beasts – bristling with weapons, but not heavily shielded. They relied significantly on their close-in weapons systems to intercept any guided ordinance, and their hull was dense enough to absorb most kinetic or directed energy attacks.

Using Prime’s tactical analysis as a guide, he opted to program their torpedoes to fly in erratic paths, to help defeat the targeting systems behind the close-in defenses. Additionally, he swapped out the payload of a subset of his torpedoes with something that reminded him of giant shotgun shells – directed explosive devices packed in cylinders half-filled with hyper-dense carbidium pellets – which would likely shred the hull of the galleon like wet tissue paper.

Finished with that project, Dutch began to review the technical schematics behind his ship’s directed energy weapons. This was the first time he’d really reviewed his offensive capabilities with some understanding of what he expected to face. The Tao had equipped Odyssey with multiple levels of energy weapons, ranging from simple high-energy plasma beams to ion emitters, and then there were the big fucking guns – the quantum particle cannons.

Thus far, they had limited themselves to only using low-end weapons. These had been effective at precision damage-dealing, allowing them to effectively disable the Oo’Lan’Dang mining vessel’s weapons systems. During his previous encounter with D’narius’ ship, he had peppered the Kvetch with a combination of plasma fire and kinetic rounds. He had not yet needed to use the ion emitters or quantum particle cannons.

The cannons electromagnetically agitated sub-atomic particles to a heightened level of excitation, overcoming their nuclear properties of repulsion to temporarily bind them in an impossible state – or at least, impossible according to the laws of physics as Dutch had learned them centuries prior - such that the particle clusters each were ridiculously unstable. Slam these particle clusters against a target at multiple times the speed of light, and the combined delivery of the blast resulting from the sudden release of binding energy and the impulse delivered by the tiny fraction of atomic mass moving at trans-light speed was sufficient to change the orbit of a small moon, if not simply put a big fucking hole in it.

Dutch was positive that none of his current adversaries possessed this level of devastation, but he wondered to himself how that could be, given that the Tao had still been overcome at some point in the distant past. Was it possible that they had simply been unwilling to use such a devastating weapon, even as a last resort? If so, then the iShan’tal had never needed to copy it, as its use had never been observed.

He felt no similar compulsions, especially where slavers were involved. Still, he wanted to hold these weapons in reserve, hoping to keep them secret, as his weapon of last resort.

He devised a series of tactical approaches designed to dismay and confuse the enemy, overwhelming them with too many angles of attack to effectively defend against. In one maneuver, he would leverage the Odyssey’s FTL drive to suddenly put his ship at point-blank range, where he would grapple his opponent with the tractor beam, ostensibly preventing it from rotating fresh shields into play. He would then use a layered assault pattern to defeat its CIWS defenses, and then disable targeted systems. He wanted the Noraxi vessel damaged, but not destroyed.

Having prepared three sets of attack patterns, naming them Alpha One, Two, and Three, he then set about creating defensive patterns, which he would name Omega One, Two, and Three. Each of the omega patterns was designed to defeat a different sort of counterattack, with Omega-Three adding in a tactic he’d learned from terrestrial military history involving the use of sensor ghosts to fool targeting systems. Aviators had used them in the century before his birth to confuse ground-to-air and air-to-air missiles, calling them ‘wild weasels’. He would throw in drones equipped to be ‘wild weasels’, employing sensory confusing technology designed to mimic the Odyssey, confusing the targeting systems of the enemy with multiple ‘ghost targets’, making it less likely that they could hit the actual target.

Satisfied with his preparations for the moment, he sent them to D’narius’ console so that, when ordered, she could execute the patterns quickly, guided by the HUD on her viewscreen.

With nothing else to do for the moment, Dutch informed Pheebs that he was going to go make dinner and that the crew should join him in the galley at the top of the hour. Prime could keep the watch while they ate, as she would later while they rested.

*****

Alisia had requested to join Dutch and Pheebs after dinner, suggesting that she was feeling a little needy. A little needy, indeed, Dutch reflected as he sank his thick cock balls deep into her throat again, loving how her drool was hanging off of her chin, her tears running down her cheeks. Her moans, when he let her breathe, were loud, as Pheebs plowed her from behind, sinking the artificial cock she was wielding as deeply as she could into the ginger clone's vagina.

Pulling out for a moment to let Alisia catch her breath, he leaned down to her, wiping her chin and checking to make sure she was truly enjoying herself. She met his gaze with a fire in her eyes, nostrils flaring as Pheebs fucked her hard from behind.

“Put that… fuck stick back… into my throat… ohmygod!!! and don’t… you dare… pull out again… until you’ve… oof!  fed me… my dessert!!!” she panted and gasped, as she was driven to another orgasm by Pheebs.

Kissing her deeply, he straightened up and did as she’d demanded, ramming himself balls deep into her hungry gullet, feeling her swallowing around him for all she was worth. Reaching one hand forward, she began to massage his balls as he slowly stroked in and out of her throat once more, making sure to let her breathe periodically. Looking up, he saw Pheebs watching him with glee as she continued to hammer away at the other woman’s pussy, the faux cock she wielded making obscene squishing noises from the foamy juices that were coating its length. As he watched, Pheebs stuck a thumb into her mouth, then reached down and worked it into Alisia’s winking asshole, then began to fuck her in the backdoor with her thumb as she continued to rail her pussy without mercy.

The whole scene was enough to get Dutch right on the edge, and when Alisia began to squeal and jerk beneath him as one of her biggest climaxes yet shook her, he gave her the load she’d demanded. Jet after jet of his seed erupted down her throat until he withdrew and sprayed a few jets of his cum across her already messy face.

At the sight of this, Pheebs removed her thumb, grabbed the clone by her hips, and flipped her over onto her back. Withdrawing the strap-on from her swollen snatch, Pheebs crawled up and began to lick Alisia’s face all over, lapping at her drool, tears, and Dutch’s cum as the other woman held her eyes closed and moaned.

Seeing Alisia’s pussy gaping wide open after the sustained assault that Pheebs had waged on it enticed Dutch, and he moved over to where he could get his face down to her pussy and began to feast upon her delicious juices, sucking her meaty lips into his mouth and probing his tongue as deep into her as he could.

After only a few moments, Alisia reached down to weakly push at him, far too stimulated to enjoy further contact in that area for the moment. Lifting himself away from her, he surveyed the two women again, deciding that Pheebs had not received sufficient attention yet.

Moving behind her, he lined his cock up with her entrance and inserted himself into her in one swift stroke. Beginning to fuck her rapidly from behind, he reached forward to grasp at his swinging breasts, grabbing them and squeezing them hard as he pounded into her as deeply as he could.

“Ohhhhh, gaaawwwddddd!!!” she screamed, planting her face on Alisia’s chest so she could reach back and spread her asscheeks for Dutch, giving him clear access to hammer away at her cervix. “Fuck me, you fucking stud! Rail me hard! Fill me with your seed! Give it to me!!!”

Suddenly, Pheebs latched on to one of Alisia’s overly sensitive nipples, sucked it as hard as she could while biting it, sending her into another writhing, screaming orgasm. The sight of all of this was enough to tip the scales for Dutch once more, and he sent a flood of his seed down into Pheebs’ depths, triggering one final orgasm for her.

Collapsing on the bed, Dutch lay there panting, as Pheebs tossed the strap-on aside and crawled over Dutch to lay on his other side. Wrapping one arm around each of his beautiful lovers, he closed his eyes and lay there, until sleep overtook them all.

*****

Dutch was just pulling his boots on, and the girls were getting dressed nearby when a claxon sounded.

“All hands, alert! All hands, alert!” Prime announced over the 1MC ship’s intercom. “A Noraxi vessel has just jumped into the Rigel system.”

Showtime!

*****