Irillith Valaden walked confidently into the Docking Bay that housed the TFS Invictus, decommissioned a number of weeks ago and since serving as the vessel of her new 'master', the Progenitor John Blake. Two anti-grav sleds trailed behind her. One held her luggage from her quarters on her personal Cruiser, since she'd be moving to the Invictus as part of her role as 'Intelligence Officer' aboard the ugly Terran warship. Though the odd white armor was more appealing to the eye than the normal dull gray Titanium, Irillith had to admit. The second sled held something even more valuable than her wardrobe and various pieces of gear: the incendiary device for the Fulmanax nest assault. Even with power off and not primed, Irillith still checked that it didn't clip any corners during the trip.
John Blake himself was waiting for her, dressed in a simple t-shirt and combat trousers like some ordinary T-Fed grunt out of uniform. There was still that instinctive dread when she looked in his general direction, and Irillith was convinced on some level that John Blake could be truly terrifying when roused. But his gentle behavior and downright soft attitude ever since they'd met and interacted made it rather hard to take him seriously as a threat.
"Irillith," John nodded, his baby blue eyes focused on her from his classically handsome face. Irillith reflected that she certainly could have done worse in terms of Progenitor masters, if she was doomed to require one. John Blake was at least pleasant to stare at and pretend to be a vapid airhead over.
"Commodore," Irillith acknowledged.
"Follow me into the Cargo Bay, I presume that one of those is the bomb," John said, nodding at the two sleds behind her.
"Indeed," Irillith agreed.
They took the short detour from the airlock entrance to the opened Cargo Bay. John Blake, to Irillith's shock, casually lifted the crate holding the incendiary device and mag-locked it into a free space without seeming to think about it when Irillith identified it. The device, to say nothing of the heavily-reinforced crate, weighed over 500 Imperial pounds. It was a sobering reminder that for all he seemed determined to not make her feel unsafe, John Blake was a very dangerous psychic and alien. Irillith would have to keep her wits about her during her time pretending to be a loyal member of his crew.
"Well, let's get you squared away in your room on Deck 2, then we should go to the Bridge for when we head into hyperwarp," John decided after turning away from the crate.
"Very well," Irillith nodded.
A quick trip up the blue grav-tube (brilliant solution to elevators, she'd have to remember to steal it later), Irillith found herself on the deck holding all the officers' quarters for the ship. John Blake showed her to her assigned room, which was suitable from a spartan perspective Irillith would admit. No doubt it was loaded with surveillance equipment, no way they'd leave her unsupervised aboard their 'home'. Asking for privacy for a few minutes, Irillith changed out of her armor and the underlying body-sleeve and into one of her preferred dresses. When she found herself applying cosmetics in the mirror, she paused. But, she assured herself, she didn't want to make herself pretty just for John Blake. It was also to make those long-haired hussies eat their hearts out at her superior beauty.
The way John Blake blinked and obviously gave her a once over did not make her heart sing, for the record.
"Wow. Um, anyway, up to the Bridge," John Blake said.
Irillith did another trip in the grav-tube and stepped out on the Command Deck. The rest of the Bridge crew, though Irillith gathered there was a team of roughly 20 Ashanath on Deck 4, were assembled and seated at their relevant stations. They all seemed to be in a similar state of casual attire as John Blake, making Irillith stand out as the best-looking and most formal. All to her advantage, naturally.
John Blake went up to his Command Chair, the other Terran-looking male, his XO Jonah Bennings, making a command at his own chair's console. The only remaining station lit up.
"Take your place, Intelligence Officer Valaden," John ordered casually.
Irillith waited a beat to make it clear she wasn't an unthinking pawn, then went to take the surprisingly comfortable seat. Irillith watched with a blank mask but mounting incredulity as the green slut piloted them out and away from Geniya, flying with disturbing skill around all traffic in her path. Once they reached the edge of the gravity well, the System Map switched to a Sector Map showing their planned route in hyperwarp. "You made a mistake," she found herself saying.
"No, I didn't," one of the blonde sluts, the one who seemed to be a Telepath and Telekinetic like her mother, said dismissively.
"Nothing's that fast! My own Cruiser would take 6 days to get from Geniya to Beta Capricornus! Your route says a mere 2!" Irillith protested.
"Is it more the thought that the Maliri aren't the best at everything in the galaxy or the idea of that technology not in your own hands that bothers you?" the blue-eyed whore asked with an arched brow.
Irillith had a finely-honed sense of when she was testing the patience of a psychic. It was screaming with this young Terran bitch, so Irillith bowed her head to show her submission. "My apologies," she forced out, though the words burned.
John Blake sighed. "Irillith, I think it's best if you come with me to my Ready Room. We need to discuss you joining my network. Jade, honey, we'll probably need your help."
Irillith followed John Blake and the odd green-skinned woman into a neighboring office. Where the two sat her down and spun a tale of pure fiction laughable in its sheer gall.
"Haha, nice joke. Now be serious," Irillith prompted.
John Blake sighed. "No joke. The fluid that lets me fix your DNA and give you powers and all the other benefits of the Change is mixed with my semen. We're working on a way to synthesize and produce it, but it's weeks yet before we can even make the first test batch. If you want to join my network, with all the benefits that entails, you need to drink my cum. Again, though, you should be aware you'll imprint on the first man or woman you have sexual intercourse with afterwards. So if you aren't prepared to join my personal harem, you'll have to get a dose indirectly through Jade."
Irillith bit her tongue to prevent all the vitriolic phrases that wanted to come out. "Is there really no other option between direct fellatio and… 'nursing' from this woman?" she managed with some modicum of 'manners' as the non-Maliri called their ridiculously convoluted code of courtesy.
"I can pump it from my stomach out through my fingers. Or we could try to find a big enough cup," the alien woman said with guileless eyes.
"I'll take the fingers," Irillith said quickly.
"If you don't want to watch, I suggest you close your eyes," John warned as Jade went to her knees between his legs.
Irillith was glad for the option to avert her gaze, seeing any woman be so subservient and allow a mere male to do that to her would have made her lose her last meal. It was bad enough she had to listen to the disgusting 'schlock' noises and John Blake's unconscious moans. A high-pitched squeal and a distinct scent filling the air almost made Irillith gag. This alien slut had actually cum on command to sync up with John Blake's own release? Her disgust was matched only by how impressed she was at such self-mastery.
"I'm ready, Irillith," came the bitch's voice a minute later.
Irillith looked and stared. "What… what's going on?" she asked. Between closing her eyes before the 'blowjob' and now, the verdant woman had inexplicably gotten a curve to her belly as if she were 8 months pregnant. It looked completely natural, too.
"John cums a lot. Now just suck and when you wake up you'll be one of us," the woman, 'Jade', said calmly, offering two of her fingers.
Wondering what the point of this elaborate joke was, Irillith took the woman's fingers into her mouth.
And then she tasted heaven…
Irillith became aware of being tucked into a bed. She sat up and looked around, noticing details quickly. By all appearances, it appeared to be 'her' own room on Deck 2 of the Invictus. How had she gotten there, though? The last thing to happen was…
Irillith couldn't suppress licking her lips as the memory of that ambrosial flavor crossed her mind. Then she remembered exactly what it was and where it came from. That made her feel more like she'd just been drugged. Not for the first time since learning the nature of Progenitors and Thralls, Irillith cursed her fate and the genetic programming inherent to her species. Apparently, an addictive appreciation to a Progenitor's fluids and ergo joining his network was one of many 'helpful' features.
There was a knock on her door. She glanced at the chronometer, seeing that a full 14 hours had passed since she got her first 'dose'. In Terran Naval Time, it was now very early morning, almost still nighttime. John Blake had warned her about that aspect, if not in full detail about what caused it. Making sure she was decent, Irillith went to open the door which she fully intended to secure with a mag-lock right after this.
John Blake was on the opposite side. The green cocksucker 'Jade' was with him, already loaded up with another 'dose' by the looks of it. "Morning, Irillith. How do you feel?" John Blake asked Irillith, acting as if their last interaction was perfectly normal and not at all traumatic.
Irillith's first instinct was to say something rude, but that would be foolish and hurt the illusion she planned to craft as his obedient underling. Then she took a beat to actually take inventory of herself and was amazed at the results. "I feel… better. Like a new woman," she admitted. "All my aches and pains are gone, I'm full of energy, I feel like I just had the best night's sleep after a week-long health retreat or something. Is that all to do with… you?"
"I invested a good chunk of my personal reserves into curing all your physical injuries and restoring your health. Not to put too fine a point on it, I had a lot to do. You had a hard life, didn't you?" John Blake said, his eyes alight with… was that sympathy? It was so unexpected and rare for Irillith to see genuine compassion that it took her a second to even recognize it.
"My life was a dream compared to what some Maliri women have to endure to get by in the Regency," Irillith said coolly. The persona she was portraying or no, she would not tolerate pity from a male. That would be unacceptable. "And everything I went through and did made me the woman I am today, so I have no regrets."
John Blake's eyes hardened. "You really don't? Not even about Tashana, now that you know she was right all along?"
The tiny part of her heart that had always refused to harden gave a pang at the thought of her twin. And the fate Irillith had condemned her to. But Irillith was very practiced at ignoring that stubborn piece of weakness she couldn't manage to fully destroy. "It matters not. Tashana is gone, and nothing can bring her back. What point lies to debating the immutable past?"
John Blake closed his eyes, and when they opened he seemed to be all business. "The first dose knocked you out for 14 hours. The second will do the same, but only for 4 hours. From then on, you'll remain fully conscious with every dose. Given the hour and in the interest of getting you fully integrated into the crew ASAP, would you care for your second dose now?"
"What causes the sedation?" Irillith asked, wanting to know everything about any substance that would leave her defenseless for even a second.
"There's a narcotic in my natural lubrication, meant to keep a Thrall compliant and eager to stay near me so she can get another dose, though so far as we've seen there don't seem to be any real withdrawal symptoms," John said with a sigh. "Also, speaking modestly, Progenitors are the most powerful psychics in known space. It wouldn't surprise me if those first couple touches from my mind to another's sends them into a form of shock."
Irillith acknowledged the logic in that. "So I would need to… drink, again?" Irillith asked delicately, eyeing the swollen form of the feline humanoid.
"Yes," her new commanding officer confirmed, no nonsense.
Irillith was greatly against leaving herself vulnerable like that, but it seemed she had little choice. "Very well then. Same procedure as last time?"
"Jade?" the Progenitor said, standing aside. The alien woman stepped forward, a blithe smile on her face as she offered her fingers at a height for Irillith to accept them into her mouth. Part of her eager to get that taste back on her tongue, and hating herself for it, Irillith leaned forward…
Once again, in what felt like rapid succession, she woke up tucked into her bed again. Irillith tried to sit up, but there was an odd resistance from her midsection. Having a vague inkling of the reason why, Irillith still almost screamed when she looked down and saw that unnatural bulge. Proof that the ridiculous volume of John Blake's seed had been transferred from Jade's stomach to hers. The sheer disgust inherent to that fact was enough to almost make her start dry heaving. And, if the alien man was to be believed, this was after 4 hours of her body trying to digest and rid the invading sperm.
Irillith had only ever seen her dalliances with Maliri males as disappointing and a matter of satisfying an inconvenient physical craving. But when she finally managed to escape from these current circumstances, returning to plain, normal blue men would be a relief.
Managing to get upright, Irillith finished the process of unpacking all her belongings and getting settled to stay on the Invictus with any degree of permanence. Including sweeping her room for bugs and any other sensors and crafting convincing loops or procedurally-generated fakes once she blew past the security on each device. The cybersecurity was remarkably robust… for Terrans. Which was to say less than a minute's work for a Maliri master at her craft such as Irillith.
Just as she was finishing up, there was a knock on her door. "Irillith? You must have been up for an hour now. Are you alright?" asked one of the females on this 'crew'.
"Just finished packing," Irillith called out. Tucking her personal console back into her lockbox and grabbing a mag-lock, Irillith went to answer the door. It was the darker-skinned Terran woman, the one with lineage dating back to the Iberian Peninsula back on Terra. A 'Latina', Irillith believed the term was. The bitch's name escaped her at present. She'd have to work on that. Remembering names was a dreadful chore, but it was necessary on any infiltration mission to appear like you actually were building relationships with the targets.
The Terran woman watched with a raised brow as Irillith placed the mag-lock on her door and activated it. Now the door would be impossible to open short of plasma-cutting the whole lock and the pieces of the Invictus it was attached to away. "That's really not necessary. We would never invade your privacy by entering your room without permission," the woman said.
Irillith had to try very hard not to burst out laughing at such a blatant, poorly delivered lie. "Please respect our cultural differences," she said in response.
"Very well. Though I have to say, if you feel that paranoid and unsafe around people you consider 'allies', I don't want to know how you'd be around your enemies," the woman said, and her words for some odd reason struck Irillith in a way she didn't expect. Moving past that strangeness, the woman nodded. "Anyway, we haven't been properly introduced. I'm First Lieutenant Calara Fernandez, the Tactical Officer aboard the Invictus. John assigned me to give you a tour of the Invictus."
"What's everyone else's positions and name?" Irillith asked, wanting the lay of the land of this enemy territory she would pretend she had defected to.
"We'll probably run into everyone during the tour, but I can give a quick summary while we walk," Calara said. Turning to walk away, Irillith kept pace with the woman as they headed for the grav-tubes. "I'll just go in the order we all joined. John is, well, John. The Progenitor and our leader and so much more. His XO, the Patriarch of the male members of John's network, and the first to join was Jonah Bennings. The Navigator and the Matriarch of the female members is Alyssa Marant."
"What do those words mean in relation to a Progenitor, 'Patriarch' and 'Matriarch'?" Irillith interrupted.
"A lot of this seems to be built into John's genetic code, hardwired in. From what we understand, it's like a psychic cell structure," Calara answered, not taking offense. "A Matriarch is basically a Progenitor's lieutenant. She does all the hard work of maintaining all his Connections to the women in his network and can relay Telepathic commands from her Progenitor to all the underlings. We've experimented, and Alyssa is also like John in that she can consciously allocate psychic energy across the network. So she's top bitch, basically. Fun fact, your distant ancestor Valada was Mael'nerak's last Matriarch before he sacrificed himself to save her from Rahn'hagon."
Irillith hummed in thought, processing that and integrating it with what she remembered John Blake telling Ceraden during that first meeting. "And since John is also bisexual, he has a Patriarch for male Thralls, yes?"
"That's right, though we use the word Angels for members of John's network. Little inside joke," Calara explained. "Going down," she added before stepping into the red-lighted grav-tube. Faster and more convenient than any lift she'd ever taken, Irillith followed after and stepped out on the bottom deck. "We think that Valada kept her title as Matriarch after Mael'nerak's death. Once she was gone, though, the last semblance of species-wide unity vanished from the Maliri and you fell into infighting that resulted in the current 19 Noble Houses. Since 'Matriarch' was once the most highly valued title in your civilization, it's the word of the office of the head of a Noble House now."
"That matches what we managed to preserve from ancient history. Unfortunately, wiping out all archives is a fairly common cyberassault tactic and in the early days we weren't as skilled at backing up and protecting everything. House Valaden's current records date back approximately 8000 Terran years at the earliest before becoming totally lost," Irillith revealed. Give something to get something. Pretend this was an equal exchange. A harmless tidbit in exchange for more intel. It was a simple formula but it was effective.
"I see. Anyway, this is Deck 9. There's basically this hallway with the airlock and you saw the Cargo Bay when you came in with John. Let me show you the Hangar Bay," Calara said, heading in the opposite direction as the end of the ship Irillith had entered from. "Back to the crew, I was the first real Angel to join the crew. It's funny in retrospect, but we can get into the circumstances of how we ended up on the Invictus later. I joined as Tactical Officer and went through the Change. After me came Dana, also known as Sparks, she'll respond to either. She's the Chief Engineer, and arguably the smartest woman I've ever met. She's able to do things even other Angels can't. One of her babies… is this," Calara said, opening the door to the Hangar Bay.
Irillith regarded the dropship that took up most of the space in the next room. Like the Invictus, it was clearly originally a Terran design but seemed to have undergone extensive upgrades. "What's the metal you use for your armor? I don't recognize it," Irillith asked, noting weapons loadout and trying to get an idea of how this ship would go up against a Maliri strike craft.
"That's another of Dana's genius ideas. She mixed Terran Titanium, Ashanath Etherite Crystals, and an exotic form of Carbon called Onyxium and somehow got them all to bind together with 17 other elements thrown in for flavor," Calara chuckled, her lighthearted humor sounding almost insulting to Irillith. For gods' sake, they'd just met, show some good grace and be on guard instead of so relaxed! "Dana named it Alyssium, after Alyssa since she and Dana are good as sisters. Though I'm told Dana has a side project now to try and replace the base material of Titanium with Maliri Crystal because it's even better. But it's a low-priority project given everything else on our plates. Anyway, Alyssium is a supermaterial, many times harder and denser than Titanium, psychically reactive due to the Etherite Crystals, and the Onyxium makes it a practically perfect conductor of heat, electricity, and is also highly reflective. So it's basically the best armor in the Galactic League apart from the Soul Forged metal on the rival Progenitor's Dreadnought."
Irillith frowned. "Soul Forge… that sounds familiar. I think Tashana mentioned it once. What is it?"
Calara's smile vanished, if anything she now looked a little nauseous. "It's a Progenitor device that fatally sucks psychic energy out of people in order to produce the metal most Progenitors consider standard for all their ships and gear. Even when John manages to unlock the schematic, I'm not sure he'd ever go through with having one built. Not unless Dana and the Engineering Team could find a way to make it nonlethal."
"Why not? Why handicap his fleet like that if all these other Progenitors are so threatening as he made out?" Irillith asked in disbelief.
Calara gave her a look that actually managed to disturb Irillith. It was like the Terran whore could see right through her. "You really don't care about any life but your own, do you?" she said, her tone rhetorical.
"You judge me for that?" Irillith snarled, her hackles raising at the gall of this child in thinking she was morally superior to Irillith in any way.
"It lets me know something about you," Calara said neutrally. "And it makes me very glad that I'll see any attempt at backstabbing coming."
"How do you mean?" Irillith frowned, not understanding.
"In case it was unclear, John bestows psychic powers to any Angel who isn't already psychic. My Gift is Prescience. I see the future. I know every move any opponent will make before they make it. It serves me well in protecting my family," Calara said. "And until you prove you are a real member of that family, expect me to keep an eye on you, Irillith Valaden."
Irillith refused to show weakness. But the idea of an enemy that would always know she was coming, would be impossible to take by surprise, was actually quite terrifying. She'd have to be extremely subtle when the time for any backstabbing actually arose. "Very well then. Now, the tour?"
Calara turned her back, and it no longer seemed like a too-trusting move of an untrained idiot. It was more like a show of force, proving she didn't need to keep her physical eyes on Irillith to still be 'watching' her. Shaking off those thoughts, Irillith followed Calara back to the grav-tubes and up to Deck 7. Deck 8 was occupied with the upper levels of the Cargo Bay and Hangar Bay, with vital machinery taking the space above the airlock hallway Irillith gathered.
"This is the deck where we spend most of our time when not in our quarters or on the Bridge," Calara said, acting as if the tense encounter in the Hangar Bay was forgotten. "It has everything. The Gym, which we honestly use more to exercise our powers than our bodies but both happen. The Medical Bay, where Rachel does most of her research. We happily haven't had a real need to use it for surgery, but we all know it's inevitable. The Pharmacy, which honestly is a bit gratuitous between the Change and Rachel's Healing power, but better to have and not need I suppose. The Firing Range, where we all put in the hours to get as good as physically possible as allowed by the Change. And then there's the Engineering Bay, where all the magic seems to happen."
Calara led Irillith first to the Firing Range, which again was a boring Terran example. "Back to the lineup of the crew, after Dana came Jade. She's a Nymph or Lenarran. Mael'nerak engineered them as the perfect spies during his war with the reigning Achonin when he first found the Shroud. She's over 70 thousand years old, but so much time without a proper Master first on Lenarra and then in service to Terrans led to her mind kind of falling to pieces. She has flashes, remembers bits and pieces of trivia, and Alyssa is having more and more luck doing deep dives into her ancient memories. But in a very real way, her life didn't start until she met John and he became her Master. Relationship dynamics aside, she's primary Pilot of the Raptor and secondary Pilot of the Invictus."
They went to the Gym next, which is when they first ran into other members of the crew. John Blake and Jonah, both distractingly shirtless as much as Irillith loathed to admit it, were engaged in a martial arts spar. It was fairly unremarkable, except they were moving so fast that they left afterimages and the impacts of their fists and feet were oddly loud, as if much more force than was normal was involved.
"That's Jonah sparring with John," Calara said, as if superhuman strength and speed was nothing special. And on this ship, it probably wasn't. "When I'm done with the tour, I'll probably try to join in if it's still going."
There was another sound, this one decidedly unnatural. Irillith turned her attention to the other side of the Gym, and tried very hard not to scream in shock. The blonde, the one Irillith was pretty sure was Alyssa, was surrounded by transparent hexagons. The woman who looked like some odd Terran/Ashanath hybrid was surrounded by her own wall. They seemed to be just standing there staring at each other while all manner of Telekinetic constructs appeared out of nowhere in the space between them. It didn't take a genius to see that the two were trying to break through the other's shields as part of some duel. Irillith had spied on her mother practicing her powers for combat scenarios, but this made Edraele's most strenuous, impressive session seem like a child playing with toys instead of a true warrioress practicing her craft.
A mixture of dread and longing went through Irillith. This, this is why she was here. Why she had consented to the Change and drinking John Blake's fluids and all it entailed. To get this kind of sheer power, power enough to crush her enemies like bugs.
"And that's Alyssa sparring with Lirrash," Calara nodded in the direction of the psychic combat. "Lirrash has decades of experience, but Alyssa has been getting supercharged by John for so long that it doesn't help much in the end. The two really play off each other well to become better Telekinetics."
"When did Lirrash join?" Irillith asked, her eyes torn between the two spars in the room, unable to decide which was more intimidating or interesting to watch.
"When we visited the Ashanath Collective. Her official role is as Comms Officer on the Bridge. In actuality, she's more here as the Ambassador between the Ashanath and John as his own power. She's also our unofficial tutor on psionics and is full of all the classified information the Ashanath preserved about Mael'nerak and other Progenitors. She's a multifaceted character, and great fun. You want to watch some more or go on with the tour?"
Irillith was torn, but she would have plenty of time to see psychic feats on this crew, she was growing increasingly certain. "The tour."
"Right," Calara said, turning and taking Irillith back into the hallway. "The whole episode we had in the Collective is an exciting story. On top of Lirrash, we got Zanthus as Dana's Assistant Engineer as well as our secondary crew, the Engineers and the Marines. We don't hang out as much with them as we do with each other as part of John's harem, but I'd still take a bullet for any of them. They've proven their worth and commitment more than enough, plus we're all part of the same team."
Irillith might vomit at such sentimental nonsense, but she just hummed in acknowledgement. Calara took her into the next room, and Irillith immediately identified it as a medical room by that antiseptic smell of any sterile environment. Another Terran woman, one Irillith had had no interaction with, appeared to be reviewing a few different strands of DNA on various holographic screens. She turned to smile and nod at them as they entered before turning back to her work.
"This is Rachel Voss. She's our Medical Officer, and while it's early days yet she's probably going to be even better at John when it comes to keeping us all in one piece. Until we crack the machine to produce an artificial version of his fluids, John can't really heal us unless we get a taste of his cum. And even then, he can only really restore us to the base template of the Change. Rachel, though, can heal us directly with her Gift, plus she can treat civilians and anyone else we run into with traditional medicine with her training," Calara explained to Irillith. "Her latest project is analyzing all the samples of Maliri DNA we got on Geniya."
"And how many is that, precisely?" Irillith asked archly.
"27," Calara said without blinking. "And before you say anything, all we had to do was ask. The Maliri women John approached didn't even blink at taking off their armor when he asked nicely to give hair, skin, or even blood. Ceraden was kind enough to get us in touch with a few of his friends and they volunteered samples themselves, along with scans. You, we don't have because we haven't properly asked."
Irillith didn't believe that for one second. 18 hours in total she was dead to the world, they didn't get so much as a strand of hair?
"Though if you're feeling in a giving mood, you could do it now. I'm sure you're curious as we are what causes the cancer in the Eldritch Bloodline. Might even explain your hair," Calara added.
"What about my hair?" Irillith asked, reaching up and her eyes widening. "Wait, why is there so much of it?!" Irillith pulled on a strand that had no reason being that long. "And it's white!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you'd noticed by now," Calara said, sounding and looking contrite. "Yeah, it happened within a few minutes of your first dose and joining the network. No idea what caused it."
"My leading theory is that it's to distinguish between members of a Thrall race in a Progenitor's network and those who are not," Rachel spoke up, even as she peered at a certain sequence of alleles. "If it stays in line with the general theme of all the genetic programming Mael'nerak or the Devourer or whoever seems to be following, then any black-haired Maliri who sees a white-haired Maliri will become more suggestible, easy to influence, and unlikely to resist or attack no matter what."
"I need scissors! This is a med-bay, you have scissors, right?" Irillith demanded, in genuine distress. She couldn't have long hair. She just couldn't! She wasn't like that, not some bimbo or cheap prostitute or penniless urchin who couldn't afford a haircut.
Calara frowned. "Is long hair really that shameful in Maliri culture?"
"Give me scissors, damn you!" Irillith snapped, on the verge of going to look for them. Or a laser cutter. Or a bonesaw. Anything to chop off the offensive tresses.
Rachel abandoned her work to go to a certain shelf. She came back with a pair of surgical scissors. "Here," she said, her expression guarded. Finally, a woman with sense, knew it was a bad idea to arm the newcomer. Irillith spared that no more than a passing thought before taking the tool and doing her best to cut off all her hair at the nape. There was pain, but it was so worth it to feel the lightness on her scalp and feel the obscenely long locks come away in her fist. Irillith breathed easy when she ran her hand through her hair and felt its comforting shortness.
Irillith, realizing she'd had a moment of weakness, did her best to salvage the situation. She offered the scissors back handles first along with her handful of cut hair. "Here. This is more than enough for a sample, yes?"
Rachel went to get a specimen container and let Irillith drop all the cut strands into it. Rachel, oddly, refused the scissors. "Keep those, you'll be using them a lot. The template for a female Angel includes waist-length hair and will keep trying to 'heal' you to that. Short of you overcoming your cultural aversion to that, you'll be giving yourself a haircut after every dose you get from John."
Irillith almost cried at the very thought. The humiliation! Of all the headaches and struggles of being part of this crew, this irrationally felt like the greatest. Not only did she have to drink alien seed, but it was a hair growth tonic among other things. Still, what choice did she have? So Irillith pocketed the scissors. In good news, she now had an extra weapon, she supposed.
Calara, rather awkwardly, led Irillith out of the Medical Bay. They passed by the Pharmacy without going in, and then they reached the Engineering Bay. Irillith's eyes blinked at all the activity that was going on, trying to make sense of the chaos. 4 Ashanath, abnormally tall for the species, were at a workbench putting together what looked like a series of components for some kind of weapon in an assembly line fashion. Another Ashanath, this one physically identical to John Blake or Jonah Bennings in frame apart from his species' characteristic coloring, was next to the redheaded Terran as they both typed something at a holo-console. From what little Irillith could make sense of, it was some extremely dense data files they were decompressing. One thing that struck Irillith was how the room was silent but for the hum of machinery. No one was talking, and yet everyone was acting in perfect concert. The effect was eerie.
"Behold, the workshop of the Grand Engineering Overlord and her Minions," Calara said for Irillith's benefit.
The redhead, without even looking in their direction, did a Terran hand gesture that even Irillith knew was considered rude except in jest between friends.
"Why is no one talking?" Irillith asked.
"The Engineering Team aren't fully through the Change yet, so they haven't grown vocal chords and depend on Telepathy. Since John gifts Telepathy to every member of the network, it's no great barrier. Plus it's faster. You're the only one on the ship who needs soundwaves to communicate at the moment," Calara shrugged.
"Ah," Irillith frowned, processing that.
"Zanthus and I are in the process of unpacking the fuckton of data that Valada had saved on her console and backing it up," Dana, the redhead Terran, spoke up without looking away from her work. "The others are putting together all the upgraded Laser Rifles for the Marines to use during the Fulmanax attack tomorrow. Zalin and Patreus are doing a routine inspection of all the tech up on Decks 6 and 5.
Irillith's curiosity peaked. "What was there? All I knew about was the AI function."
"Well, that program is the crown jewel of the lot, but it hurts even my brain trying to read it," Dana sighed, her work not interrupted or slowing down in the slightest as she humored Irillith's question. "Not only is everything in Progenitor runes, meaning I have to either convert all our code over or rough out a translation program, but it's in a 3D-code matrix. You know how bleeding-edge 3D-code is by Galactic League standards? For Maliri and Progenitors though, it seems to be the standard. God, we really are like cavemen banging rocks compared to all those bastards fighting in the Progenitor War."
"To answer your question, Irillith, apart from the AI assistant feature, the majority of the code seems to be Valada's personal diary from the moment Mael'nerak gifted it to her up to her death. Text and video files, though there's a couple of holo-files in a format that needs its own projector," Zanthus added, in a similar state of complete focus on the project. "Given she lived roughly 40 thousand Terran years and made an entry almost every day, you can imagine there's a lot to sift through."
Irillith felt like she had to sit down as the casual way they talked about such extreme longevity. It had been brought up before by John Blake, how Progenitors were unaging and the Change could cure aging, but still… The idea her distant ancestor lived such a long life boggled her mind.
"Man, can you imagine? And unless Mael'nerak edited the default Connection, she would have been heartbroken when he left her to go die at Zeta Pegasus. To manage to go on and lead the Maliri until her death in the aftermath… that's one bad bitch," Dana said in clear respect. "Hope you inherited some of that, Irillith, we can use it."
"I… I guess we'll find out," Irillith managed.
Calara, seeing Irillith was overwhelmed, gently guided her out of the Engineering Bay. The tour of the next 2 decks was rather boring, even running into the other 2 Engineers proving not much stimulation. Irillith could not care less about Terran life support or munitions systems. Deck 4 is where they met the Marines and Lauren. Irillith gathered Lauren was the newest recruit after herself and had some form of compulsion or mind control she called Influence. The Marines, lacking anything to do when the Invictus was in transit besides lounge or train in the Firing Range, allowed her to practice on them. Deck 3 was even more boring than Decks 6 and 5, being nothing but empty rooms apart from John Blake's holo-simulator for his swordsmanship lessons. Between his psychic ability to enhance his speed and strength and greater reach as a tall male, Irillith doubted even her mother's best assassin Luna would be able to beat John Blake in a swordfight if he had a modicum of talent.
They made it back to Deck 2, and Calara guided Irillith towards one end of the hallway. "Technically, the master cabin belongs to just John, Jonah, and Alyssa. But we all end up sleeping with them every night 9 times out of 10, so our personal rooms are really more for storage than anything. If you can't find any of us, odds are we're having 'private' time in there. Either that, or we'll be here: the Lounge."
The double-doors opened at their approach, revealing what seemed to be a combination full bar, living room, and dining room. Calara showed Irillith around, including the Kitchen tucked around a corner where the Bridge crew cooked all their own meals. Irillith acknowledged the good sense, preparing your own food was the best way to check for poison after all. She imagined she'd have to get used to Terran cuisine as opposed to her own people's food, living on this ship for the foreseeable future.
"Do you cook Irillith?" Calara asked innocently as they left the Kitchen.
"Yes, but never with Terran ingredients. I'll have to learn a few recipes, or you'll assign me a simple task when it's my turn to help," Irillith said. She hated to admit it, but she was relaxing. It just felt so… safe, on the Invictus. More so than even her private chambers in her mother's palace ever had since she'd come into her majority, at least.
"You'll catch on quick, John's a great teacher," Calara grinned. "Now, one last stop: the Command Deck."
One last trip up the grav-tube, and they were back on the Bridge. Calara described in detail where everyone tended to be during a combat situation and the general layout. She indicated where John Blake's Ready Room was but didn't let her go in. Then it was just the Briefing Room, where Irillith had revealed her face and asked to join the crew a scant few days ago.
"This will be your seat," Calara said, indicating one chair around the middle on one side. "And that's pretty much all there is to see aboard. Do you have any questions?"
"Exactly how did all this start? I remember what John told Ceraden, how you suspect Rahn'hagon impregnated Jessica Blake as part of some scheme. But if Progenitors are so powerful, why did John wait until he was 40 to start trying to build an empire?" Irillith asked. That was the most confusing thing to her about this whole mystery and motley crew.
Calara sighed. "Well, you deserve to know. There's John, and you've met him. But he's only 1 of 2 personalities. All of John's Progenitor instincts, most of whatever mission Rahn'hagon programmed into his DNA, it all was sectioned off by John accidentally when he was a teenager. He was originally a 'trouble' child, and his grandparents started taking him to therapy and martial arts lessons to try and fix his acting out when puberty kicked in. John, without even realizing it, split his mind in two. Now there's John and Other John. John has morals and is the one in charge of the body. Other John has most of the psychic power and, as I said, all the Progenitor knowledge. And believe me, Other John isn't interested in any kind of peaceful resolution. If he ever escapes, John's either dead or stuck in his own prison. And then we'd have a full-powered Progenitor without any regard for anyone but himself running around. Suffice to say that John keeps Other John under lock and key in the back of his mind."
Irillith felt her blood run cold. "But, with the obedience compulsion of being in the network…"
"Yeah, if Other John gets loose, we'll be his slaves," Calara nodded grimly. "Which is why we all have gone to great lengths to work on measures to prevent that from ever happening. John and Alyssa have worked together to make John's mind the Citadel of Telepathic defense, and half the reason he trains at such an intense level is so he can reach the point he's strong enough to confront and kill Other John and reintegrate into one mind."
"That's… yes, that's good to know," Irillith said faintly.
"So, anyway, John did that and went on to have a career in the Marines and then as a trader. He never had more than a one-night stand or brief fling, never fed anyone enough to start the Change. Not until he and Jonah hooked up and they were together enough that John subconsciously made his first Connection and became an active Progenitor. That was almost 4 months ago. A lot's happened since," Calara said, her tone hinting her words were an understatement.
"May I hear the tale? What exactly has John been up to since coming into his powers?" Irillith asked. She had an idea, she'd done an extensive background check of Commodore John Blake before setting aboard, but she found herself curious to hear an insider's perspective.
Calara led Irillith back down to the Lounge and then launched into the story of the exploits of the crew since its inception. Irillith found herself being drawn into the events as Calara got into all the details, talking for hours. So much so that she almost jumped when she heard a throat clear from behind her.
Irillith looked over her shoulder and saw John Blake, his hair a bit wet from the shower and dressed in clean clothes. Jade was with him, her belly swollen. "Hate to interrupt, but we're about to cook lunch. I thought Irillith might like to get hers and then she can help out with making some for the family."
Irillith felt a pang from that stupid, tiny piece of an innocent little girl that refused to die. "A family? That's truly how you see each other?" she found herself asking before she could stop herself.
"Yes," John said with a nod, looking her dead in the eye. "The Engineers and Marines are brothers and sisters-in-arms, part of the unit I lead on the Invictus. And every other Angel besides you is a member of my harem, whom I have every intention to marry at some point. Me and the other men will be making babies with all the women once my territory is established and the Galactic League is safe as possible from all the other Progenitors. I'd die for any one of them, and I love everyone from the bottom of my heart, albeit in different ways. But love without trust is a dangerous thing. So until I know I can trust you, Irillith, expect to be the odd one out."
Irillith didn't want to admit how much that hurt. And it worried her that it did in the first place. She shouldn't be so invested, shouldn't care so much, be so attached so quick. Was this part of his psychic powers, a more subtle application. Was he changing her from the inside, not just in body but in mind and soul? But she'd locked herself into this position, and she couldn't very well back out now. She'd have to see it through to the end.
"I understand, John Blake. Now, there was something about lunch?" Irillith posed.