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Eva Blake always knew that her grandson was special. Her only legacy of her estranged daughter who had vanished without a trace after her last research mission, John was a delight. A little different from the grandbaby she'd always hoped for, with his pointed ears and… unusual genitalia, no doubt inherited from his unknown alien father. But once you got past those little foibles, John Blake was an absolute cherub of a child. She knew from the moment she looked into his eyes that he was destined for great things.He was always happy and smiling and full of energy, never causing trouble for trouble's sake. He learned his lessons well and was so polite. John was a regular ball of sunshine, lighting up his grandparents' lives after the murky twilight of their strained relationship with Jessica and the crushing heartbreak of her disappearance after birthing John.As John grew, though, Eva couldn't help but notice little… oddities. For one thing, he had the ears of a bat. She could be talking with her husband Don in the kitchen and when she asked a question about John, the boy would yell the answer from the open door into the backyard where he was playing. Then there was the made-up language. Almost since he was old enough to coherently speak Standard, John had also been in the habit of talking or singing to himself in a flowing, liliting sequence of sounds that sounded just a bit too… fleshed out to be simple gibberish. John even had an alphabet for his 'secret words', characters and glyphs that while matching nothing on Terra were distinct and seemed like actual script to Eva's eye.On top of all that was his overactive imagination, expressed with elaborate stories he could wax over to Eva and Don for hours and pictures he drew with care. They all seemed to follow a theme of a fallen civilization getting revenge on the monsters that had almost killed them off. The hero with his magic sword was a frequent character and subject of the drawings, and somehow even a scribbled colored pencil sketch of that enchanted blade covered in runes sent shivers down Eva's spine.Of course, Eva knew she was being silly. John was just a half-Terran boy with his head in the clouds. What other explanation was there, after all? The language wasn't real, the stories were pure fantasy, and those images were just the product of her grandson's creative mind. What disturbed Eva was how hollow and fake such assurances felt when she stopped to really think about them. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, there was something about John that was 'other', something that didn't fall neatly in her Terran world and understanding. But she still loved him with all her heart, so she did her best to ignore those ridiculous thoughts. John was her grandson, that was the end of it.One night when John was 6, Eva was reading in her bed next to her snoring husband, fondly thinking it was past time she nagged him into buying that CPAP machine. Then she heard a scream from John's room and before she knew it she was already out of bed. She rushed to John's room and found him trembling in his bed, staring up at the ceiling in horror."John! What's wrong? Did you have a nightmare?" Eva asked, going to kneel next to him and feel his forehead to check for a fever.John flinched from her touch, which was very alarming. He was normally a snuggle bug. "Yeah… nightmare…" he said slowly, a disturbing emptiness in his normally bright and shining eyes."Do you want to talk about it?" Eva offered, only wanting to comfort her beloved grandson.John took a shuddering breath. "Grandma… am I a monster?"Eva blinked, bewildered at such a question. "John, of course not! You're a good little boy, nothing like a monster.""Okay… but what if I grow up into a monster?" John pressed."That won't happen, John," Eva assured him, wondering where this was coming from. "As long as you follow the rules and say 'please' and 'thank you' and do your best to be a nice person, you could never become a monster.""Right… um, Grandma?" John said tentatively. "I promise, you'll never see me turn into a monster.""Okay, John. I'll hold you to that," Eva said indulgently. "But you're being silly, there's no way you could turn into a monster."As Eva made sure John was tucked back in and went to leave the room, she could have sworn she heard him say "Unless I build a Soulforge.""What's that?" Eva asked, looking over her shoulder."Nothing, Grandma. Love you," John said, already half asleep.Eva closed the door behind her, wondering at John's ridiculous idea he could be any kind of monster. Little did she know how easy it would be for someone with his power and knowledge to follow that dark path. But she went to bed blissfully ignorant, to continue the task of raising John into a fine young man in the morning. Meanwhile in his bed, John repeated his promise to himself. He wouldn't start his mission… not until his grandma and grandpa weren't around to see if he did become a monster.The genetically enhanced Progenitor known as John Blake woke to his alarm. He sat up, stretching until he felt the 'pop' in his joints, then muted the annoying beeping from the device installed in the wall. John got out of bed, then immediately turned around and made it. He didn't half-ass it, putting serious thought and effort into making sure his sheets were in perfect order. When he was satisfied he could do no better, the compulsion abated and he went to his exercise corner. He dropped to the floor to start his daily pushups, part of him trying to stay perfectly aligned just so his sweat wouldn't drop on the floor instead of the mat.Progenitors like John had a deep, instinctive need to dominate and exert power over others. John, having no enemies to slaughter or Thralls to manage while living like a hermit, satisfied that mental itch with an OCD-like need for cleanliness and order aboard his home, the freighter Fool's Gold. It took many hours to keep his ship up to standards that he was comfortable with, but needs must. Until he got a Matriarch and activated, he had to deal with the cost of not fulfilling his purpose for living.John hadn't so much had some grand epiphany one day and realized he was Kyth'vindathys, Vengeance of the Kyth'faren reborn. He'd sort of just… known, for as long as he could remember. His understanding of all his genetic memory, all the information encoded into his DNA that lurked in his subconscious, had grown and developed with age. But he'd always been aware of what he was: the man destined to kill the Progenitors or die trying.John wasn't sure what his father was thinking, whichever Progenitor out in the wide Milky Way that Jessica Blake had encountered and been impregnated by. Why customize John into a Progenitor killer in utero and then just send Jessica back to the Terran Federation to drop him off? Was he so confident John would never raise a hand against him? Because if John's unknown father was anything like every other Progenitor in the galaxy, then he had the blood of billions on his hands and deserved to be struck down. Was John's birth a long, elaborate suicide attempt or had his father not fully understood exactly what he had created?John didn't have the answers. The vast repository of forbidden, arcane knowledge tucked in the depths of his mind was very explicit in all the methods and necessary steps to exterminate a Progenitor. Not so much in the actual history of Progenitors or their place in the galaxy. That part was up to John to investigate and research, it would seem.John had done his best, as he'd grown up in the Terran Federation, to work out his place in the world. Same as anyone really, even if his circumstances were rather unique. It simply couldn't be a coincidence that Terrans looked so much like Progenitors. Nor that the Trankaran Republic or Ashanath Collective both had names rooted in the Progenitor language. And the Maliri language and written alphabet were just a little too similar to Progenitor, almost like they were a dialect that had evolved over thousands of years from the original version John knew instinctively.John's whole life had been built around his mission, in one way or another. Despite knowing it would break his grandparents' hearts, he enrolled in the Academy and joined the T-Fed military rather than inherit the family restaurant. He needed the combat experience, the fate of billions or even trillions depended on that. He did his best to make it up to them, but their relationship never really recovered after John became a Marine. John served with distinction for 11 years, up until Galon Prime. He won the Stellar Cluster, but John could no longer stomach serving a government that would obliterate whole cities of its own citizens with an orbital bombardment. He worked out a deal to semi-retire, keep a few perks but otherwise become a private citizen in exchange for 'favors'.And then started his career as a trader. Trading was fun, the art of a good deal feeling like a delightful game to John. And it allowed him a certain degree of freedom and independence. More importantly, he was free to travel around the Galactic League and learn more about alien cultures. Specifically, whether they had any Progenitor influences in their ancient past.John struck out in the Kintark Empire and the Brimorian Enclave. From all he was able to discover, they had nothing to do with his ancestors. A closer look at Terran Federation computer technology, though, showed to John that they were on the exact same path the Kyth'faren had taken eons ago, just not as far along. John began to wonder exactly how Terrans had developed along that road, positing that they'd discovered an ancient Progenitor computer and tried to reverse-engineer it. Alas, such secrets weren't available to the public, and if the military knew then it was above John's clearance, so it remained just a theory.A deal involving couriering Ashanath parts for a Tachyon Drive showed John that they were a knockoff of Progenitor tech. That, their Progenitor name, and the fact they were naturally psychic made the Grays of real interest to John, though he never managed to make any headway. The Collective, for all their pacifism and friendliness, proved surprisingly secretive about their past and technology.After enduring a long lecture on Trankaran mythology and religious doctrine, John found a gold mine when he visited Demladuhr Station regarding the tale of the 'Great Maker'. The story of being created by some godlike being to mine his worlds and the fact Trankara meant 'miner' in Progenitor had to be related. And the War of the Heavens sounded an awful lot like two Progenitors, one with a Quantum Annihilator, squaring off. The sapphire, all female 'Favored Ones' could have easily been a Thrall race too.John's biggest clue, though, came from his friend Ceraden at Geniya Station in the Maliri Regency. After getting half-drunk after a very lucrative deal, John had made an innocent inquiry into Maliri folklore. You could learn a lot about a culture by the stories they told themselves, after all. Which is how John had heard the tale of 'the Mael'nerak', a boogeyman who kidnapped bad Maliri girls and whisked them away. The instant John heard the name for 'the Evil Enslaver', he knew that the Maliri were a Thrall race, unclaimed since Mael'nerak's death.Piecing it all together, John had a working idea of how the Galactic League had come to be. He didn't have all the pieces, but the general picture seemed clear. Mael'nerak was an ancient Progenitor who had come to this part of space. Given thousands of years to experiment and improve on base Progenitor technologies, it was entirely possible that Mael'nerak had created his own slave races to supplement the Maliri. The Ashanath as psychic grunts, the Trankarans as miners, the Drakkar or 'pawns' as shock troops, and possibly even Terrans for some reason or other. Another Progenitor had come from the Trankaran side of his territory, and they'd fought to the death in the War of the Heavens. Fast forward thousands of years, and John had been conceived on that one planet in Kirrix space he was programmed to report to when his mission was done. And now John was in the Galactic League, an unactivated Progenitor just waiting to ascend and become the dominant power in this part of the galaxy.But John had made a promise. John had every hope that there was a way to 'fix' the Soulforge, find some way to make that necessary metal without sacrificing hundreds of lives per day. But if there wasn't, John was painfully aware he just might have to fight fire with fire, build a Soulforge and use it despite the cost if he was to have a prayer of defeating other Progenitors. Such an act would make him a monster, though, and John had sworn to Eva she'd never see him become one.Which is what had stayed John's hand and kept him celibate apart from one night stands throughout his 30s. But his grandparents had both passed away last year, within weeks of each other. John, now freed from his promise, wasn't quite so crass as to seduce a woman to become his Matriarch the night after the second funeral. John decided to mourn his grandparents in peace for a time before he started seriously thinking about claiming his birthright. While he grieved, though, time marched on and he was still a trader with bills to pay.Now John was 40, and set to arrive at the asteroid colony Karron in Omicron Ceti later that day. He'd been catching up with his much older spacer friend 'Mad' Jonah Bennings in a bar one night in the Core Worlds. The geriatric drunk had pulled his faculties together after recalling the delights of a Karron brothel to mention to John that he'd heard the local miners had found a vein of Tyrenium. The rare metal was in huge demand by the Terran Federation, being the key component in constructing a Singularity Generator. John had dropped everything to rush to the edge of the Outer Rim to potentially make the deal of a lifetime. The journey had taken a month, and John dearly wished the tip had been good so he hadn't wasted his time coming out to the asscrack of nowhere.John finished exercising, got a quick shower and dressed, before occupying himself with maintenance chores. An alert over the intercom informed him when he was 10 minutes away from his destination, at which point he went to the cockpit. He patiently monitored the instruments until he reached the edge of the gravity well for the target system. The FTL Drive deactivated automatically when the sensors detected the Nav-Beacon's signal for the safe radius from the local star. John took over by plotting a route to Karron, a dwarf planet floating in the lone asteroid belt around the red giant star. His subpar civilian engines ignited, taking him at a rather slow pace towards one of the last colonies before the Kirrix border.John dealt with a rather unprofessional Flight Control tech and landed in a Docking Bay. He was struck by how deserted the whole place was. There was literally only one other ship in the whole bay, which appeared to be in the middle of a loading operation. And he hadn't detected much incoming or outgoing traffic on the way here. Karron apparently wasn't that popular a destination even for traders. With credits and supplies lean and poorly circulated, John could just imagine the kind of desperation and corruption that had festered out here, especially with how little care or attention Colonial Administration probably paid any population center under a million.John, figuring better safe than sorry, unlocked his weapons locker and belted a holster with a heavy pistol. Between the gun, his natural muscular bulk, and the right attitude, he should discourage any trouble. Bracing himself, John exited the airlock, leaving the safety of the Fool's Gold for the dubious environment of Karron. He kept his face carefully blank and moved like he was on the way to feed someone their teeth, projecting a subtle aura of violence.John spotted a foreman for the miners who were laboring to fill up the heavy freighter at the other end of the Docking Bay. Knowing the fastest way to get some answers in an unfamiliar place usually involved bribing a local, John approached the superior barking orders at his underlings. "Yo. You look like a man who knows what's what around here," John said in his strong baritone.The foreman turned and looked up. And up. John was an impressive six-foot-two and blessed (or cursed) with genetics for a warrior's body. By comparison, the Karron native was five-foot-five and rather lanky. There was a moment of disquiet at the unspoken acknowledgment that John would obviously win a fight, then the foreman shrugged. "I keep my ear to the ground. Whatcha wanna know, stranger?""Tyrenium. I have it on good authority that a vein was discovered sometime a couple months ago. Which mine was the lucky winner to find it?""What's in it for me if I tell ya?" the foreman asked point-blank, his beady eyes narrowed in greed and suspicion.John narrowed his eyes, but reached into his pocket for a credstick he'd preloaded with just such a scenario in mind. He held it up for the man's avaricious gaze. "50 creds upfront for good intel… or a broken nose when I track you down if you lead me on a wild goose chase," John said with a hard smile.The asteroid colonist or 'worm' gulped, knowing John wasn't kidding. "Fine, fine, no bullshit. Go to Mortimer, bastard's boys have been bragging about finding an exotic ore like that to anyone who'll listen for weeks now.""Pleasure doing business with you," John nodded, handing the credstick over. John turned and left the Docking Bay, entering the colony proper. The first word to pop into his head to describe the place was 'grubby'. John tracked down a cab, using tires and an internal combustion engine rather than a power core and anti-grav cyclics. Shaking his head at how low-tech things were out here, John paid to be taken to the Mortimer Mining complex. He got dropped off at the gate, which was manned by competent-looking security staff or mercenaries. Whoever ran this business seemed to have both money and sense, a potent combination in a place like this.John checked in with a receptionist who didn't seem to have been hired for her brains. Still, she called him in and got him a meeting with Seb Mortimer himself. John shook hands with the diminutive mine owner before taking a seat in a chair before the man's desk. "Dina tells me you're interested in making a large purchase, Mr. Blake," Mortimer grinned acquisitively."Depends. I was told you're the man to talk to about buying Tyrenium. Was that accurate?" John checked.Mortimer got a self-satisfied smirk. "Ah, at last, word of mouth prevails. I couldn't exactly take out an ad on TFNN. You're the first trader who's even asked about the damn stuff. How much you want?""That would entirely depend on price," John said neutrally.Mortimer hummed in thought. "It's a damn finicky ore, my boys had to mine it the old-fashioned way. I'm talking pick-axes instead of bore-hole machines and explosives. I'm sure you understand I'll need to factor all that labor into the price.""Of course," John nodded, bracing himself for an exorbitant price per ton."Still, I don't want the crates to just keep gathering dust in my storage, so I'll cut you a deal. Let's call it… 250k a ton," Mortimer offered.It took all of John's considerable self-control not to burst out laughing at his good fortune and Mortimer's ignorance. In the Core Worlds, Tyrenium could go for over 10 million for a single ton. John had expected a cheaper rate due to a variety of factors, but he hadn't counted on Mortimer being that out of touch with how valuable this ore really was. Trying not to seem too eager, John made a show of looking like he was debating it. "Well, I suppose that's fair," he finally sighed. "Let's call it 10 tons, 2.5 mil even. You're not going to screw me with a transport charge back to my freighter, are you?""Always built into the price, my friend!" Mortimer beamed, thinking he was getting the upper hand in this deal.John pulled out his ship's logging manifest. "Let's do this by the book. You have an auth device, I'm sure.""Damn, you actually play by the Merchant's Guild's rules? Well, you do you," Mortimer chuckled. "We could have just transferred the credits chit to chit and skipped the hassle.""My backers are real sticklers, sorry," John shrugged. The truth was he wanted this trade logged and verified to make it impossible for Mortimer to sue him if he ever realized how much John was cheating him blind.Mortimer plugged the auth device into John's manifest and typed out the simple commands to facilitate a transfer of 2.5 million credits in exchange for 10 tons of unrefined Tyrenium. They waited in tense silence as the signal was bounced through the Terran comms network back to the Core Worlds and confirmation was sent back. With a beep, John was rendered nearly penniless but Mortimer was legally obligated to hand over the cargo. He now had less than a thousand credits to his name, but if he completed this trade with his planned buyer, he'd be set for life.Mortimer contacted a team of his miners to load a truck and split a measure of whiskey with John to toast the occasion. John choked down the rough burning liquor that tasted like it was cheaper than the bottle it came in, then waved Mortimer farewell to hitch a ride in the truck. John watched the slums of Karron pass by through the windshield. He was struck by how dirty and dark his surroundings were, and the mean, pinched look to almost every colonist, even the children. John had never felt more blessed to have been raised on Terra instead of an inhospitable colony like this.The truck reached the right Docking Bay and parked next to the Fool's Gold. John opened his cargo bay and supervised the men loading the ore crates and mag-locking them in place. Even with how lean his account was now, John still tipped each man what he could afford to thank them. He had the feeling every little bit helped in the tunnels of Karron. Waving the miners goodbye, John hit the button to close the cargo bay door and set the room for auto-decontamination. He went to the cockpit and dealt with Flight Control to get clearance to leave. That done, John piloted the Fool's Gold back out into outer space before heading to the edge of the gravity well. Almost an hour later, he finally made it and planned his route to Alpha Centauri. Satisfied he'd chartered the safest, fastest trip he could, John activated the FTL Drive.With an unsettling lurch John had still not gotten used to after a decade traveling in the Fool's Gold, the antiquated freighter went into hyper-warp. John leaned back in his pilot's chair, sighing in relief. Another month, and he'd be a millionaire. Assuming no issues in transit, but he was trying to be optimistic. Yet despite the thrill of victory, John still felt a little jittery, tense and on edge. Brushing it off as nerves and lingering sticker shock, John went to put his heavy pistol away. He did a couple maintenance chores, had a filling if tasteless dinner from his stocked rations, then went to sleep after a productive day.John woke from a dreamless slumber to find he was hard enough to break rocks, his cock throbbing and desperate to be satisfied. John was surprised, as this was a tad more intense than his typical morning wood. He muted his alarm and meditated his way back to a calm, unaroused state. By the time he'd made his bed, worked out and showered, John figured it was just a hormonal thing and focused on getting through the chores of the day. He went to sleep after a long day… and woke up in an identical state of extreme horniness.John willed his erection away once again, then pondered this phenomenon. In over a decade aboard the Fool's Gold, this kind of reaction had never happened except on the rare occasions he'd woken up with a bedmate in the vicinity. After a moment of thought, he came to two possible conclusions. Either Tyrenium was some kind of Progenitor aphrodisiac… or there was a woman onboard and her pheromones were circulating through the air supply.John sighed, then got dressed and went to his weapons locker. He loaded a clip into his auto-shotgun, perfect for the confines of a spaceship to deal with intruders without risking breaching the hull. He doubted he really needed the firepower, but it was the principle of the thing. Whoever this stowaway was, they were trespassing in his home. He took issue with that.John went to sweep the ship room by room with the holo-scope and its thermal filter. He got confirmation that someone had snuck aboard at Karron when he reached the door to the cargo bay. There was a distinct scuff mark on a floor that had been gleaming the day before he'd arrived, and John knew he hadn't made it. Checking all the obvious hiding places, John finally arrived at the storage room. The heat detection feature of his auto-shotgun illuminated the edges of a locker in the corner, just big enough for a short person to curl into a ball within, in bright orange."I know you're in there. Come out," John stated loud and clear.No response.John grit his teeth. "You have 10 seconds to come out before I unload this shotgun and space your corpse," he said, his patience quickly running out.There was a faint squeak, then the door opened. John knew intellectually it was probably a young woman since he'd never react to male pheromones on the air the way he had, but the figure was very androgynous and made him question that. Short, dirty, in bulky coveralls and a jacket, a ghostly pale face looked up at him under a dog-eared cap. They were obviously a teenager, dangerously young. Bright, cerulean eyes gazed at him with apprehension.John took a deep breath and counted to 10. "How old are you?" he asked directly. If they were a minor, then he had no choice other than to reverse course to Karron and kick them out. Like hell he'd risk getting done up on 'kidnapping a minor' charges."18," they said in a very small, high voice. No male voice could reach that octave after puberty, so if the age wasn't a blatant lie then she was obviously a young woman merely stunted by years of borderline starvation."Got any ID to prove that?" John asked, his auto-shotgun still aimed in her general direction. He could handle her without firing a shot and wasn't particularly inclined to hurt her, but it set the tone for who had the power in this scenario.The waif reached into a pocket and pulled out an ID cover. She hesitantly held it out. John leaned forward and grabbed it before she could try and steal the gun, if she even had the strength. He leaned back out of reach and regarded the ID card. If it was real, and a convincing fake would probably cost more money than he guessed she'd ever had in her life, Alyssa Marant's 18th birthday had been the day John arrived at Karron. By the skin of her teeth, she'd been legal when she snuck aboard the Fool's Gold. Which was still a point of contention, but at least she was an adult.John turned his attention back on Alyssa. "Miss Marant, congratulations on your recent birthday. That makes you an adult who is breaking and entering rather than a minor, which would be much more troublesome to deal with. I'll be blunt and ask for one good reason why I shouldn't turn around and kick you off my ship back at Karron.""Please don't take me back!" she said in a rush, eyes wide with true fear. Fear for survival. "I'll work, you can drop me off anywhere, I'll do whatever you want! Just don't go back to Karron, I'm begging you!"John frowned. He did her the courtesy of powering down the shotgun and putting it in rest position. "Are you in some kind of trouble, Miss Marant?"She bit her lip and looked down in shame. She took a shuddering breath, just a tad too raw and vulnerable for it to be an act. "One of the Diablos tried to rape me on my birthday. I stuck him with my knife and ran. There's definitely a bounty out for me by now, and whether I just get executed or gang-raped until I die will depend on how their leader feels when they catch me. I'm sorry for sneaking on, but I had no choice. If I go back to Karron, I'm dead meat. That's the truth."John felt his heart break for the tragic trauma this young woman had endured. He didn't for a minute suspect she was lying, all his instincts screamed that her obvious pain was genuine. Still, having a young woman onboard the Fool's Gold for a prolonged period came with some risks… or opportunities.Shaking his head at the direction his thoughts had turned, John waved the ID. "Let me just scan this to verify it. If it comes back clean, we can discuss the terms of your stay aboard my ship. I'm not without sympathy for your plight, Miss Marant, but I hope you understand how precarious your position is.""I know," Alyssa said in a small, scared voice.John led Alyssa to the cockpit and had her sit in the copilot's seat. He unloaded the auto-shotgun and propped it against the wall, on the far side from Alyssa so she couldn't make a grab at it. Keeping half an eye on the teenager at all times, John accessed Galactic-SEC and ran a background check on Alyssa's ID. "Alyssa Marant. Age 18. No outstanding warrants," came the brief summary of her file.The fact there'd be zero legal ramifications for sheltering her allayed most of John's concerns. He turned to face her. "Let's start over," he proposed. "Hi, I'm John Blake, owner of the Fool's Gold.""Hi, John. I'm Alyssa," the young woman said, looking very nervous and just a little bemused."I'd really rather have preferred you bartered passage with me directly rather than letting yourself in. But that's beside the point. Do you have any money or useful skills you could contribute to justify me allowing you to stay onboard?" John asked, having a good idea of the answer already."I'm flat broke, sorry," she admitted reluctantly. "But I'll do anything you want me to do to not go back to Karron." She hesitated, before deliberately licking her lips. "Anything," she repeated, a subtle emphasis on the word making it obvious what she was offering.John tried very hard to ignore his body's reaction to the very thought of a consenting female. It seemed so obvious, almost written in the stars. She was desperate, her life on the line, utterly at his mercy. He had the power to decide the course of Alyssa Marant's life. How easy it would be, to have her blow him and make her his Matriarch, come into his powers and make her his eternal companion.But if John didn't have his conscience, he had nothing. He refused to be anything like a typical Progenitor. He couldn't trick or deceive this young woman. If she was going to go down that path, she had to do it with both eyes open and giving informed consent. Which made what John had to do obvious."I have in mind two possible arrangements for you, Miss Marant. I'll let you decide which one we go with," John said. "The first is that you essentially keep out of my way. I'll let you stay in the passenger cabin and you won't bother me. I'll give you 3 meals a day, a bathroom, and access to the Holonet to entertain yourself. I'll drop you off at the nearest colony, probably Tasmaris Prime or Carolus III, with nothing but the clothes on your back. And that'd be that, we'd probably never see each other again.""Okay… and what's the second one?" Alyssa asked warily.John blew out a low breath. "That requires a very long explanation. Let's start with the basics. I'm not Terran," John said, reaching up to trace his elongated, pointed ear.Alyssa blinked before tilting your head. "Really? You're not human? You look a lot like one.""Our species are related, but I'm definitely not Terran. I have triple-helix DNA, for one thing," John patiently explained. "I'm from a rare race of all-male psychics called Progenitors. We were genetically engineered as a master race for a number of slave races called Thralls dotted around the galaxy. My mother was a Xeno-biologist who went on a research mission into deep space. She came across my father, I was conceived, she returned to Terran space and I was born here.""I've never met an alien before," Alyssa said with wide eyes. "Um, nice to meet you. But what's that got to do with me staying on this ship?"John looked her in the eye. "If I wasn't misreading you, then you're willing to trade sexual favors for me to not take you back to Karron. Something I would be willing to discuss, except there's some rather permanent consequences to sex with a Progenitor. I'm going to explain all the pros and cons, and then you can decide between going through with starting that kind of relationship with me or being stranded at the nearest spaceport. Are you willing to listen or would you rather go with the first option here and now?"Alyssa frowned in confusion. "Um… I mean, getting stranded on a planet was honestly one of the best case scenarios I could come up with if I got caught. Still, you've gotten me curious. Exactly how could sex with you change my life?""As ludicrous as the following statement is, you have my word that it's the honest truth: Progenitor semen rewrites a woman's DNA," John stated clearly.Alyssa blinked. "... Okay. How, exactly?" she asked, though she looked rather dubious in the wake of such an absurd declaration."There's a template hardwired into my DNA. There's also a special protein in my semen that acts as a genetic scalpel. It responds to psi-waves. In a nutshell, if you drink my cum then I'll subconsciously mold you into my perfect woman. You'll get a new body, your brain will be rewired to alter your personality on many levels, and you'll even get psychic powers of your own. So the second option is to give me oral sex and enter into a lifelong sexual relationship with me which will change you on a fundamental level in body, mind, and soul," John laid out.Alyssa looked at him askance. "Change me how?" she finally asked.John accessed the computer and pulled up a holographic model he'd made to showcase the Thrall build. A silhouette of a five-foot-nine goddess with waist-length hair and curves for days appeared in front of Alyssa. "Feed from me for a couple weeks and you'll wind up looking like that," John said."I'd get boobs? Seriously?!" Alyssa gaped at the wireframe."Yes, but it's not just skin-deep," John continued his explanation. "You'll be enhanced to have peak fitness for a Terran female this size. More importantly, there's behavioral modification built into this template. You, Alyssa Marant, will change as a person if you go through with this, your DNA edited and your mind pushed into a new shape. I need you to really think it through before I'm convinced you can give informed consent."Alyssa gulped, struck by the enormity of the transformation. "Okay… what kind of changes will you make?""You'd be the first woman I've done this with. I've only had one night stands up until now, I've never had a long-term partner who got enough 'exposure' to the protein for the effects to kick in," John told her. "That said, I'm not sure how much of the process is automatic and how much I can consciously control. I just know you'll become my ideal woman. In which case, you'll likely become bisexual, submissive in bed, no jealousy to speak of, positive, kind, confident, and immune to combat fatigue via lack of empathy for enemies. And there's an imprint to ensure undying loyalty to your first sexual partner after the process starts. Everything needed to be both the perfect soldier and the perfect harem girl.""That's a lot…" Alyssa said softly, appropriately scared at the thought of being changed so much. "But… why is that your perfect girl?""That's just how Progenitors are wired," John sighed. "We were literally designed to recruit as many women as possible and turn them into disposable soldiers as well as breeding stock. On top of the DNA modifications, anyone who drinks my cum will get a psychic connection back to me that turns them into a battery for me to use to fuel my own powers. Your average Progenitor literally jerks off into prepared vats which can divide each load into over 10 thousand doses. Every Thrall in his empire becomes a happy baby-making factory for whatever man gets to them first due to the imprint, and if they serve in the Progenitor's military then they'll be able to fight the rest of their lives in bloody campaigns without burning out. I'm going to do my honest best to be a good Progenitor and not abuse that, but that's just what happens to women who drink my cum and join my network.""Okay… okay, okay. Option one, get stranded at the nearest colony. Option two, become your Thrall and get brainwashed while becoming impossibly beautiful. Is that the choice I have to make?" Alyssa checked, eyes very wide."There's more to it than that. But if you've already heard a dealbreaker, then you can go with option 1 before you learn the full nitty-gritty of joining me," John nodded, very aware that this was a hard sell, to abandon everything and be genetically modified by a mysterious alien."Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Keep going, finish the sales pitch for becoming your sex slave/soldier," Alyssa prompted, though her tone made it clear she wasn't very tempted to go through with such a course of action."If you agree to drink my semen, I will remake you. You'll get a new body in perfect health. And every time you get a 'dose' after the transformation is finished, you'll be reset to factory settings, so to speak. This means you'll never get sick, injuries can be healed overnight, and assuming neither of us dies in combat eternal youth. Progenitors stop aging when they make their first connection, so I'll be a true blue immortal. If you stick close to me, you'll live forever too," John laid out. "Your mind will be altered, and not just the personality tweaks. You'll become smarter, a genius IQ with a photographic memory. And as my first recruit, you won't just be an ordinary Thrall. You'll be my Matriarch. Which means you'll get Telepathy to hear my thoughts and be able to send my commands to every other woman we recruit to help coordinate them in battle. You'll be my second-in-command, my right hand as I build an empire, create an army and fleet, and get ready to defend my territory from other Progenitors," John listed off, giving a comprehensive briefing.John held up his two open palms, before bringing one higher than the other. "Pros: body of a holo-model in perfect health, enhanced intelligence, psychic powers." He held the other palm up. "Cons: obligated to have sex with me forever, personality rewrites, having to fight in the biggest and bloodiest war in galactic history." John leaned back in his pilot's chair. "Any questions, Miss Marant?"Alyssa had gotten an odd look on her face. "If I join you… will I be important?" she asked.John tilted his head. "Very important. I dare say the most important person in my life. You'll be the lynchpin of my psychic network, which alone would give you major strategic value. On a more personal level, I'd do my best to treat you right and be a good partner as we explore our relationship outside just Progenitor and Matriarch. And assuming everything goes to plan, you'll become one of the most powerful women in the galaxy once I come into my birthright and establish my empire. Why do you ask?""I'm a nobody with nothing. If I leave, I'll still be a nobody with nothing. If I choose you, though, I'll be somebody," Alyssa said, almost to herself. She looked John in the eye. "I'll do it. I'll sell my soul to you, John. What's left of it, anyway."John frowned. "Are you absolutely sure, Miss Marant? This choice will affect the rest of your life. I want you to be sure that what I'm offering is what you want.""It is," Alyssa said, not a trace of doubt on her face. She got an amused smirk. "And are you still going to be calling me 'Miss Marant' when I'm sucking on your cock?"John figured he'd given her enough information to make an informed choice. If he refused at this point, he'd be disrespecting her wishes over his own issues. Accepting that this was really happening, John glanced at Alyssa's dirt-encrusted clothing. "Well, you're not sucking me looking like that. Let's get you a shower."Double-checking that their route was clear and the long-range scanners were set to give alerts, John led Alyssa to his main cabin. He stowed away his auto-shotgun before locking up the weapons locker. He led Alyssa into the modest bathroom. Alyssa reached up and took off her cap, revealing thin, lifeless blonde hair held in place with clips. She removed those as well, the strands falling to her shoulders. She unzipped and removed herself from the rest of her clothes, until she was standing nude by a pile of filthy fabric. John's eyes raked over her painfully skinny form, scars from numerous scrapes and injuries hinting at a hard life on the streets."Your turn," Alyssa prompted when he'd been staring just a little too long at her naked body.John pulled off his t-shirt and his combat trousers. He paused as he was about to take off his briefs. "It's not just my ears that are different," he warned, before exposing himself."You're huge!" Alyssa gasped, more than a little intimidated. "There's no way that will fit!""It will. We'll just have to take things slow," John assured her.Alyssa, moving past her shock at John's burgeoning endowment, noticed another detail. "Your balls! There's four of them!" And each was the size of a ripe orange, at that."I cum a lot. I'm talking pints. All to maximize production of psychic slave juice. You'll actually be able to survive on just my loads at breakfast, lunch, and dinner while we're together," John informed her seriously."Three square meals of cum a day… that's kinda hot," Alyssa admitted with a delicate blush on her albino pale cheek.John opened the shower door. "Ladies first," he offered chivalrously.Alyssa walked into the cubicle, John a step behind her. The sensors detected they were inside and started the temperature-controlled streams of water from overhead. Alyssa gasped at her first hot shower. John observed her luxuriating in the sensations, her expression losing its hard, guarded edge that had been present since they'd first met. John filled his hands with shower gel and lathered them up. "May I wash you, Alyssa?" he asked gently.Alyssa opened those cerulean eyes that were easily her best feature and looked up at him. She nodded, and John laid his soapy hands on her shoulders. John methodically wiped years of grime and dirt from every inch of Alyssa's body, moving up her neck to get her face and hair, going down her torso and back, massaging each limb down to her fingers and toes. It took several minutes before the water stopped running black when it touched her and she was gleaming like an alabaster sculpture under the lights.John soaped up himself with brisk efficiency while Alyssa just watched him and enjoyed the shower. After he was done, he opened the door, prompting the water to stop. He led Alyssa to the heated towel locker and dried her off with the soft cotton. When they were both dry, John put the towels back in the locker and led her back into his cabin."No joke, I'd have blown you just to get that shower. That was the most sensual experience of my life, John," Alyssa said, her eyes heavy and languid.John took her hand and led her to his bed. He sat them both down next to each other. "Moment of truth. Sure you haven't changed your mind? Once you go through with this, you'll never be the same again," John gave his final warning at the point of no return."I won't miss the old Alyssa. She's done some bad things. I'd like to start over with you," Alyssa said, an undercurrent of pain and self-loathing behind her words.John wanted to dig into that, but he had just had his hands full of naked female flesh and he was pretty turned on despite his solemn words. His length was hot, hard, and throbbing. "Then you know what to do," he said, giving her his tacit blessing to put her mouth on him.Alyssa slid to the floor, kneeling between John's spread legs. She snapped a play salute. "Matriarch reporting for duty, Master Progenitor!"John chuckled, before it became a moan when Alyssa took hold of his massive girth and tilted it down towards her mouth. She opened her lips into a wide oval, before taking his broad head into her mouth. A dollop of his precum spread across her tongue and she reared back in shock. "It's sweet!""Not Terran, remember?" John managed when all he wanted to do was grab her head and pull her down to take him to the root. He resisted for her sake, refusing to just take his pleasures without regard for his partner.Alyssa smacked her lips before going back for a second taste. Her tongue swirled around the tip, prompting another spurt of precum from his taut quad of balls. As John anticipated, the light started to dim from her eyes. Even unactivated, John was still a Progenitor, one of the most powerful psychics in the galaxy. The psychic catalyst in his fluids made a bridge between his mind and Alyssa's, and she was overwhelmed, going into a trance. She started to suckle on reflex, moving up and down to steadily take more of his cock. There was a slight pause when he reached her tonsils, and then she took him into the depths of her throat with a swallow.John laid a gentle hand on her blonde head, softly moving her up and down his length, savoring the sensations of a hot, wet fleshy glove wrapped around his cock. Seeing no point in holding out, he made no effort in fighting his orgasm and soon he was roaring, a mighty climax eked out of his body. Alyssa swallowed all he had to give her, her belly expanding and rounding out as he filled her to the brim and beyond with his rich spunk.When the last spurt had been ejected and John stopped seeing stars, he slowly eased Alyssa off his softening prick. She panted once he was free, her face a mask of dazed contentment. Her hands went to her convex tummy, caressing the evidence of his potent load in her stomach. John stood up and picked Alyssa up. He tucked her into his bed, her eyes closing as soon as her head touched the pillow and her breathing deepening into slumber.John sat beside her and ran a finger across her cheek. So young, just barely an adult, and he could already tell she'd had a hard life filled with darkness and loss. He only hoped he could give her a better one at his side. Speaking of which, John closed his eyes. His lone mind-box, the metaphysical representation of his psychic potential, was filled with a glowing image of Alyssa. There was only one power available to him, the Progenitor Connection lying in wait to bind this woman to him for eternity.With a deep breath and saying goodbye to his ordinary life forever, John reached out to lay an eldritch finger on Alyssa's soul and made the Connection.It was frightening how simple it was, the rope of runes that spelled out a binding psychic contract snapping into existence in an instant. John gasped as he felt himself come properly alive for the first time in his 40 years. He felt whole sections of his mind that had always been shadowy and indistinct light up like a supernova. He'd always 'known' his genetic memories, but now he understood. He could feel each of the 61 standard Progenitor runes that spelled out psychic powers, and the deeper, secret Kyth'faren runes his father had unwittingly blessed him with.It was a timeless moment of transformation, when John Blake ascended to his true form of Kyth'vindathys. When his mortal shadow was shed to make way for his divine splendor. And he would burn out the monsters that lurked in the darkness, those slaves of the Devourer, and avenge the first civilization.Then the moment passed and John found himself sitting next to Alyssa. His mind-box, now joined by several others, still shined with his active link to her body and mind. John was about to start funneling energy across the Connection to start changing her, when he paused. Could he really trust anything that came 'standard' with a Progenitor, even or especially the source of all their power? John snipped the nascent link between him and Alyssa before seizing it with eldritch fingers.John turned his mental eye on the Connection itself. Strings of runes spelled out individual clauses that twisted and weaved around each other to form threads that tied together into a tapestry mind-boggling in its depth and complexity. John sensed that it would take him months or even years of dedicated effort to read it out line for line, so he broadened his focus to simply get a general feel for each 'section' of the Connection. He got a sense of the tone for each major cord wrapped together to form the finished rope. He felt how there were dependencies linking different parts, how affecting one would disrupt or destroy others unless handled with equal care. The deepest guts of the Connection were so interwoven that he knew better than to even think of editing anything. He focused instead on the fringes, the outermost layers with no dependencies.John immediately noticed two long, toxic cords of pitch-black runes on the 'top' layer. One spelled out unthinking obedience, the other suicidal grief in the event of the Connection being broken or John's death. John, with deliberation, snipped both cords completely, pruning their corrupt influence from the Connection on every level. That done, and feeling his energy waning, John was about to figure that was good enough for a day one patch job when he paused. Seized by some inner drive, he wove a pure-white cord of runes, using secret Kyth'faren symbols unavailable to any other Progenitor, and inserted it into the Connection. With a final surge of focus and intent, John remade his new and improved Connection with Alyssa.A relative stream compared to the earlier trickle of energy flowed into him from Alyssa's unconscious body. John gasped as he viscerally felt his personal reserves start to expand with fresh energy that had been emptied while modifying the Connection. Obviously he'd done something right, more energy per member could only be a good thing. Besides, mindless obedience and a compulsion to suicide served no real purpose, not the way John planned to do things.John made sure Alyssa was comfortable, then checked the time. He blinked when he saw it was past noon, there must have been some time dilation while he was in deep meditation examining the Connection. John went to get lunch. He'd have to stay strong and well-hydrated. He had a hungry mouth to feed now, after all. As he left the room, John still felt his active connection to Alyssa as she slowly digested his full load. John focused and sent some of the energy she was automatically sending him back into her to hasten the process of becoming his Matriarch.John spent the rest of the day doing maintenance chores. In the interest of conserving energy, he didn't experiment with his newfound psychic abilities… too much. Most of his eldritch mana was being channeled into Alyssa to heal and enhance her. Her body was in a terrible state, having lived on the knife-edge of starvation almost all her life. There were all her scars and some internal injuries that broke his heart since they were consistent with rough, underage sex. It was her mind that was the real challenge, though. John, rather than just erasing all memories or stripping the emotional pathways linking them (both of which would destroy Alyssa's personality), was focusing on injecting positive energy into the hall of Alyssa's memory. It would take days or even weeks, he could sense, but John was determined to make Alyssa strong and bright enough to shine like a star despite her horrific upbringing. It was slower and more complex, but it felt like the best way to 'cure' Alyssa's heaps of mental trauma.After dinner, John relaxed in the cockpit. As he recalled, most girls slept something like 14 hours straight after their first dose of his cum. He hadn't exactly checked the chronometer before she'd gone down on him, but John was sure Alyssa would wake up sometime before midnight. John passed the time on the Holonet. He detected a theme of growing trouble between the Terran Federation and the neighboring Kintark Empire in the articles on TFNN. John frowned, wondering what had caused hostilities to erupt after centuries of peace.John got just a little too absorbed into an interview done by Jehanna Elani, a junior reporter who was distractingly pretty on top of being genuinely talented at her job. He heard a knock on the wall behind him and turned to see Alyssa wrapped up in the bedsheet in a makeshift toga. "Thirsty," she said in a hoarse voice.John got a glass of water from the wall dispenser and carried it to his young Matriarch. He handed it over, their fingers brushing as the glass exchanged hands. Alyssa gulped it down like she was parched. "Another?" John offered when she finished and still seemed unsatisfied."Please," she said, her voice a bit less dry.John went to get a refill, Alyssa going to sit in the copilot's seat as she had that morning. John handed her the second glass before taking the pilot's seat. He watched in silence as Alyssa savored this glass a bit slower before setting it aside. "How do you feel?" he asked, curious and concerned in equal measure.Alyssa yawned and stretched her arms. "A little awesome, actually," she said as she took stock of her body. "I'm not hungry, like, at all. A lot of my aches and pains are gone. And I just feel… better. Is that all you?""I've spent the day sending energy into your body and mind to try and heal everything that's wrong," John readily admitted. "And I have psychic energy now. I've come into my powers, thanks to you. You have my eternal gratitude, Alyssa. You've unlocked my birthright for me. I'll spend the rest of my life thanking you for that.""Well, it was just a blowjob," Alyssa chuckled. She tilted her head. "Um, exactly what happened? One minute I'm going down on you, then I'm waking up in the middle of the night. What the fuck happened?""I'm not sure if it's a chemical in my precum or just psychic shock from our minds touching. But either way, a woman passes out for 14 hours the first time I 'feed' her. I've only done it a second time here and there, and on those occasions she was asleep for only 4 hours. I presume that by the third or fourth exposure, you'll become immune to whatever's happening and stay conscious throughout the act," John revealed."Ah. Psychic shock. That's a thing, apparently," Alyssa said with a shrug. "So, what now?""Now, I need to get some sleep. You can stay up until you feel tired then join me, or we could just get your second dose out of the way and you'll get a 4 hour nap," John offered."I don't really feel like sleeping. I'll let you conk me out to sync us up," Alyssa agreed.John led Alyssa back to his cabin, unwrapped her to make the bed again, then feeling too tired to care how unromantic it was, John got a second reflexive blowjob from Alyssa. He tucked her disturbingly light form, even heavy with one of his loads, into the bed then joined in next to her. John spooned up behind Alyssa and drifted off to sleep, reflecting it had been an eventful day.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The peaceful darkness of John's dreamless sleep shifted into something much more sinister. The darkness went from a comforting blankness to some yawning abyss, somehow both clinging and vast. John's mind rebelled as he experienced claustrophobia and agoraphobia simultaneously. Then cold mists rushed in from every direction, terror and horror and panic weaved into every wisp. A monstrous howl echoed from all directions, as stygian beasts knew that fresh prey was at hand.John's conscious mind was overwhelmed by all the strange, foreign, bewildering stimuli. But his instincts, those had been molded in the womb into something literally designed to oppose the mastermind behind this nightmare. In his stunned state, John barely even noticed as he reflexively gathered energy and surrounded himself with a dome of hexagons. When the last polygon slotted into place and completely closed John off from his environment, the subtle influence of the Deep Astral abated for a brief moment.Realizing exactly where he was in a moment of clarity, John slapped his hand on the inside of the dome. "Cloak of shadows to mask my presence from unfriendly eyes," he intoned in the language of the first civilization, enchanting his makeshift shield with the proper enchantment to protect him from Fallen Progenitors and worse who lurked in the depths of the Astral Plane. The elaborate glyphs and sigils appeared, emblazoned across every hexagon in neat rows.The encroaching mists seemed to pause, as if they'd been drawn to him and now could no longer 'see' him. John spotted a direction that wasn't filled with icy tendrils of ghostly steam and willed himself towards it. His feet came off the floor, if there even was such a thing in this place, and he soared away from the mists and darkness into a blank gray expanse that while still eerie felt much less threatening.John blew out a breath. That had been close. He had no idea why he'd gone on a Spirit-Walk in his sleep or otherwise been pulled into the Astral Plane. And if it weren't for his subconscious enhancement as Kyth'vindathys, he'd probably be in one of the Devourer's sub-planes right now, being tortured into making the binding Faustian deal that would seal his fate for eternity as that monster's puppet.John wondered at the cause, and reflected it was probably linked in some way to his activation and recruiting Alyssa. He'd have to take precautions every night going forward to ensure he didn't have a near-miss like this again. On the bright side, he'd get plenty of practice at warding, making this psychic invisibility cloak on a daily basis.John willed himself awake and found himself back in his physical body, cuddling a still gravid Alyssa from behind. A check of the chronometer confirmed he'd been asleep barely 15 minutes. Recreating his cloak in the Physical Plane and anchoring it to his body skin-tight, John pressed a kiss to Alyssa's cheek before hesitantly trying to relax back into sleep.What felt like moments later, he was being shaken back into wakefulness. John blinked awake, a tad disoriented, to find Alyssa putting all her feeble strength into trying to rock his body enough to disturb his rest. When she saw he was awake and looking down at her, she gestured down at her rounded belly. "What the fuck happened to my stomach?" she demanded in full volume.John had had worse wake-up calls, but this was in the top 10 of his least favorites easily. "That's all my cum. You're still digesting it all. You were actually a lot bigger right afterwards," John groaned, reaching up to rub his tired eyes.Alyssa blinked and looked down. She ran a tentative hand over her curved abdomen. "This is all you?" she asked in mixed disbelief and awe."That's correct," John nodded, collecting his scattered thoughts and willing himself fully awake. "Cum inflation, it's a thing with Progenitors. Sorry if that's not your kink, but it's kind of unavoidable whenever we have sex.""The idea that you can fill up my belly until I get fat is actually one of the hottest things ever, to me anyway," Alyssa said, stroking her expanded tummy with both hands now. "I'm actually looking forward to three square meals of this stuff a day, just to feel this full.""Well, glad I can provide," John chuckled. He sat up and stretched, glancing at the chronometer. Absurdly early, but still a little too late to justify going back to sleep. "Feel like a shower?" he offered."Oh, sure," Alyssa agreed, snapping out of her fascination with her cum-stuffed middle.John led Alyssa into the shower cubicle. Much as he had yesterday, he soaped up his hands and gave her a full-body massage. The difference was this time, she was his. So he took a few more liberties, his caresses turning into gentle gropes. Alyssa gasped and moaned as he placed a confident hand between her legs and began to rub, the wetness he found not just from the shower. He delved in with two fingers, twisting and reaching until she shuddered with a climax. He paused to let her recover, then surprised her with rubbing her clit with his thumb while his inner fingers honed in on her g-spot. Alyssa cried out as she experienced an explosive back-to-back orgasm.John withdrew his hand when she stopped clenching rhythmically around his fingers. He cupped her cheek, her mouth open and panting as she reeled from such intense sensations. When she seemed to return to herself and focused on him, John leaned in to give a tender kiss. Oddly, she reacted more intensely to the brush of his lips and tongue against hers than she had to the fingering. John pulled back, looking into her lust-dilated pupils. "Was that okay? I didn't go too far, did I?" he checked.Alyssa pulled him back down into a harsher, much more enthusiastic makeout. When she pulled back for air, John was left reeling at the pleasurable assault. "You can go a lot farther than that," she said in a husky purr.A certain part of John's anatomy made its opinion on that course of action abundantly clear. John himself resisted with difficulty. "Let's wait until you're a bit bigger. I'd be too worried about hurting or breaking you when you're this small to really enjoy it.""Oh, right. I'm going to have a growth spurt into your perfect woman," Alyssa nodded. "This all feels like a dream."John sighed and tenderly stroked her cheek. "I tried to warn you, honey. And now we're bound together, so there's no changing your mind.""I didn't mean this doesn't feel real. I meant that you've just been so nice and helpful and kind since we met, it feels too good to be true. I've never met anyone like you, John," Alyssa clarified, reaching up a hand to trace imaginary patterns over his heart. Her other hand went up to her own chest. "It's like I can feel how much you care about me.""Um, you can. Literally," John explained. "I made some tweaks to the Connection after I first made it with you. I took out an obedience and a suicide compulsion, those were just awful and unnecessary. Then I added a… call it a psychic imprint. You, and every other woman I recruit, will always be able to know exactly how I feel about you.""Huh. Cool." Alyssa closed her eyes and breathed deep under the streams of water. "It's so light… and warm… I'm not sure even my Dad ever cared about me this much."John was about to deny that as obviously untrue, but he didn't really know anything about Alyssa's past. For all he knew, that statement was accurate. John reached up to hold Alyssa's hand that was still on his chest. "Well, that's how much I care about you, Alyssa. And I'm sure it's only going to grow as I learn more about the incredible woman in front of me."Alyssa blinked doe-like eyes up at him. "It's like you came out of a storybook," she said to herself. She jumped when she leaned in and felt the heat of his erection twitch against her belly. "Oh! Let me take care of that!""You sure? You still have about half a load in your belly," John pointed out, though he didn't protest too hard as Alyssa got on her knees before him, making him feel deliciously dominant."Sure! Isn't that my job? To keep these big balls empty at all times?" Alyssa smirked, reaching up to fondle his hanging orbs. She opened wide before he could answer and smoothly took him to the root… only to recoil and blink, staring at his tool with a look of cross-eyed shock. John would have burst out laughing if he wasn't so turned on. "What the fuck? How did I do that?! I could never deepthroat, my gag reflex was too strong! And somehow I took this monster effortlessly!""All part of the changes you're going through, Alyssa," John managed to string together. That brief few seconds where he'd been buried in her throat had done a number on his ability to concentrate on anything but his own pleasure."Oh. Well, that makes this easy then," Alyssa chuckled self-consciously. Then, keeping eye contact with him, she opened wide and gobbled him all up in one movement. John almost came then and there from the combination of slick heat and the heady rush of her willing submission written all over her face. She wasn't in the trance, she was fully conscious and still going down on him. For the first time in his life, John didn't feel like he was taking advantage of his partner due to psychic bullshit or his biology. Alyssa was blowing him because she wanted to. The rush to his ego was intoxicating.Alyssa withdrew halfway up his shaft before sinking back to the root, repeating the movement smoothly over and over, skullfucking herself on his cock while he just stood there and watched in amazement. No man could last long under that onslaught of sensation, and John was no exception. He reached out to lean against the cubicle walls as he roared his release, unable to see straight as he pumped a solid load of his spunk into Alyssa's receptive body.John was vaguely aware of Alyssa pulling her mouth off of him. "Um, John? I think I need a little help." John blinked and focused through his post-orgasmic stupor to look down. Alyssa's tummy looked like she'd swallowed a beach ball, her belly-button popping out and looking almost rounder than she was tall.John crouched down and slowly helped lift Alyssa back into a standing position. His hands went to cup her rounded stomach, a fierce feeling of pride and protectiveness filling him. He knew in his head that she wasn't pregnant or expecting, but the shape and feel of her body gave a tantalizing glimpse at what it would be like when she actually was. Unable to resist, John leaned down to give a gentle kiss to her bump, confident that one day in the distant future, this woman would have his lusty baby in her womb.John looked back up to Alyssa's face, to find a look of doe-eyed adoration and longing on her face. "Whenever you're ready," she whispered, sounding like she hoped he could reload and impregnate her that very second.John shook his head, snapping his thoughts out of tempting but unrealistic directions. "Someday. When the Progenitor War is over and we're both prepared to be parents. I promise.""'Kay," Alyssa nodded, her look of anticipation turning wistful. Then she blinked. "Okay, you weren't kidding about personality changes. I'm honestly disappointed that you're not knocking me up a day after we first met. Your swimmers work fast.""I did my best to warn you, Alyssa," John sighed, deactivating the shower. He led the blonde to the towel locker to dry them off."You did. What surprised me was how… 'me' those thoughts felt. Until I stopped to really think about it, I didn't see anything weird with my ovaries aching for you when we met less than 24 hours ago. I was worried the behavioral stuff would feel like I was slowly killed off and 'new' Alyssa took my place. Now I know that I'll barely notice the changes even while they're happening. Which is sorta comforting, really," Alyssa explained as John toweled her off, taking care not to jostle her extremely rounded belly."You may not even remember your old self by the time I'm done with you," John sighed, regretting the necessity but powerless to stop it."I'm sorry, are you upset that you're brainwashing me into a happier, healthier person? Because that seems silly," Alyssa pointed out with an eyeroll."So you really don't mind? That I'm changing your insides as much as your outsides?" John asked dubiously."John, hear my words. This is one of the best mornings of my life. I feel… happy, in a way I can't remember ever really feeling while I was on Karron. If that's all you psychically tampering with my mind, then I say 'thank you'. I'll take what I can get and like it. Why feel guilty for making me feel better than I ever have before? Why taint my happiness?" Alyssa asked rhetorically.John focused on getting every last drop of moisture off her limbs with the heated towel for a minute. "What about the 'sex' parts, though? Like wanting to be bred by a total stranger? You don't mind that part of the process?""Why would I? They're not hurting me. You can have a little naughty fun with the personality tweaks so long as I end up a better version of my old self. It's not like you're making me a masochist who looks forward to you flaying me with a neural whip or anything. From what you've told me, your kinks are pretty vanilla and you're just inserting them into my new mind. Which will make us more compatible, which will lead to hotter sex, which will make both of us happy." Alyssa ran her fingernails through his hair to tickle his scalp. "Imagine if you liked your women to be mute, obedient maids. Or you liked me to be defiant and dominant so you could 'break' me in bed. Compared to just how horrible all these changes could be, the fact you're worrying about little tweaks like a breeding kink is actually a bit funny to me.""I hear you. But doesn't the fact I'm rewriting your mind at all make me a bad person?" John pointed out."Well, you can't help it. It's just part of being a Progenitor and the Connection, based on all you told me. Blaming you for something inherent to your nature, your species, is just plain xenophobia. You're not a Terran, why hold you to Terran standards? That's just silly," Alyssa shrugged.John finished drying them both and put the towels in the hamper. He took her back to the cabin and sat them both on the bed. "You have a good point," he allowed. "I've just spent my whole life worrying about whether it was possible to be a 'good' Progenitor or if I was doomed to be no different than the rest of them. Guess I have some internalized issues to work on.""Well, I'm here to help if you ever want to talk it out," Alyssa said, laying a gentle hand on top of his."Thanks, honey," John grinned back at her. He glanced at the chronometer and saw it wasn't even 0500. "Well, I better get some breakfast. You should be covered on that front," he joked, patting her drum-like belly.John threw on a pair of sweats, and Alyssa elected to stay nude. He led her to the rec room, which doubled as his kitchen and dining room. John helped her sit down in one of the chairs to the dining table then went about brewing a pot of coffee."Oh, wow, coffee. That's the real stuff, too, isn't it?" Alyssa gasped as she smelled the grounds while he filled the filter.John paused. "Yes. Have you ever had it?" he asked, struck again by just how deprived an existence she must have led growing up on Karron."Even instant was always too rich for my blood," Alyssa admitted. "I know the smell from when I'd go dumpster diving by one of the diners, it was the only place on Karron that regularly had the stuff."John set the pot to percolate then grabbed a protein bar and a banana. He set them down at the table, noticing how fascinated Alyssa was with the yellow fruit. "This is a banana, a fruit from Terra. Would you like to try it?" John offered."I think I'm a bit full," Alyssa chuckled, patting her massive bump. She did look intrigued, though."One bite won't hurt," John argued. He peeled the outer layer and offered it for her to nibble. Alyssa, after a beat, leaned in and took a tiny bite."It's sweet… and chewy…" she said to herself as she savored her first taste of banana. Her eyes unexpectedly started to well up."What's wrong, honey?" John asked in alarm."Happy tears," she sniffed, rubbing her eyes. "It just hit me… I really left. I never have to go back. I'm free."John got up and went to give his overwhelmed Matriarch a hug. He held her until there was a beep from the coffee machine to indicate it was finished brewing. John poured two cups, and dug out the milk and sugar. "Here's another first, if you're up for it," John offered.Alyssa took a hesitant sip of the bitter black brew and grimaced. "Ugh, it tastes worse than it smells.""Most people cut it with milk or sugar to help," John indicated the two sweeteners he'd brought out. "And some learn to like it straight," he chuckled, taking a sip of his own cup black as tar.Alyssa experimented until she had a cup she was comfortable finishing. She and John enjoyed a quiet cup of coffee, John getting quick bites of his breakfast in between sips. Once they were done, John led her to the cockpit. He sat down in the pilot's chair. After a beat, Alyssa went to sit in his lap rather than take the copilot's seat. John made room for her, cupping her bump instinctively."So… what happens now? You said you'd have to 'build an empire' if I joined you? What does that even mean?" Alyssa asked, leaning back into his warm bulk. The size difference between them, even with her swollen belly, was quite pronounced.John tucked his chin atop her head as he contemplated his answer. "As I told you yesterday, the Progenitors are a genetically engineered master race to a number of slave races called the Thralls. Your average Progenitor, from what I can tell, is born in an existing Progenitor's empire and then the infant sent to be raised by an unclaimed Thrall species, their last master having died. Fast forward a few centuries, and the new Progenitor will have claimed them and started to build a fleet and empire worth the name, and joins the Progenitor War in earnest, just another player on the board. His own father could end up killing him, or vice versa. The circumstances of my birth were unique by Progenitor standards, though.""How so? And engineered by who, exactly?" Alyssa asked."As to who made us both, the answer is one sociopathic mad scientist from the first spacefaring civilization in the galaxy, the Kyth'faren. Xar'aziuth, or the Devourer, hunted his own species to extinction, turning psychic vampire to suck the life out of his people to expand his own reserves. When he'd run out of targets, he set up the Progenitor War. He made the Progenitors and the Thralls and the Connection linking them together, the psychic contract that's part of being in a Progenitor's network. The Connection, and it's buried so deep that I couldn't edit this out of our own, makes it so any Thrall who dies has her soul, her Astral body, fed to Xar'aziuth. He literally gets stronger with every death in the Progenitor War. Almost the entire Milky Way is essentially a meat grinder, all the Progenitor Empires locked in bloody wars of attrition designed for maximum casualties. This has been going on for millions of years, Alyssa," John said solemnly."That… is the scariest, sickest thing I've ever heard," Alyssa said in numb horror. "He… it… eats their souls?""Yes. And this actually ties into how and why I was born," John continued his story. "The Kyth'faren, before they were wiped out, hid psychic libraries in the Astral Plane. It's basically an alternate dimension accessible only to psychics. At first glance, they're there to preserve their knowledge for eternity and leave a legacy untouched by Xar'aziuth. But they're really traps designed to bring about the Kyth'faren's revenge from beyond the grave. Any Progenitor who finds one will find himself drawn to the Kyth'vindathys project, a series of genetic enhancements to make the ultimate warrior. My father must have found one, because I have all those enhancements. I don't think he fully understood what he was doing, though, because if he did then he signed his own death warrant when I was conceived. Kyth'vindathys isn't just 'what' I am, it's 'who' I am. I am the Vengeance of the Kyth'faren reborn, and I will give every breath in my body to end the Progenitor menace until I die or I succeed. There are no other options.""Doesn't that mean you'll save the galaxy and stop billions or even trillions of Thralls from dying?" Alyssa asked in a very small voice."That's the idea," John confirmed."Huh. I'm sleeping with a bona fide hero. Lucky me," Alyssa chuckled to herself, her laughter feeling a little out of place after bold declarations of galactic vengeance. "So, you were saying how you weren't born like normal Progenitors?""Yeah. I think my father is marooned on a planet in Kirrix space. At any rate, he encoded its location in my genetic memory and tried to program me to report there after I'd completed my 'mission' of killing every other Progenitor. My working theory is that he's living there, for whatever reason, and my mother's research crew happened to land on his planet to survey it. They met, he made her his Thrall, I was conceived. Then either she managed to escape, her crew found and rescued her, or he deliberately allowed her to be taken back to her ship. I'm not sure, all the mission logs and fine details were always above my clearance level. In any case, they brought her back to Federation space and I was born.She vanished immediately after I was born, around the same time her ship was sabotaged to explode with all hands aboard. I'm sure that's not a coincidence, but given she's under my father's psychic mind control I guess it's not rational to blame her for being a murderer. If he was smart, she suicided afterwards to cover his tracks, no loose ends. If he wasn't, she stole a ship and returned to him and he's waiting for me to make my triumphant report while shacking up with her," John relayed, his tone flat and cold as he discussed his parents.Alyssa leaned back into his grip and laid a soothing hand on his arm. "Not rational, but I wouldn't blame you. It can't be easy, knowing your mother killed some people and abandoned you like a parcel she dropped off. Even if she couldn't help herself, that's got to sting. I'm sorry, John.""Thanks, honey," John said, truly appreciating her kind words. "Anyway, back to me building an empire. There's actually one practically waiting for me to claim already. I'm fairly certain that the Maliri are a Thrall race left unclaimed since their last master died. It won't exactly be easy, arranging a meeting with their leaders, but they have genetic programming to be very eager to please and obey a Progenitor. It shouldn't be too hard for me to gather them all beneath my banner and declare myself Maliri King. At least compared to leading a bloody coup of High Command.""That does sound neater," Alyssa gave a weak giggle. "But could you? Lead a bloody coup, I mean?""Once I get a big enough network and a chance to really build a fleet of Progenitor-grade warships… there's not much I couldn't do, Alyssa," John said solemnly. "And until I reach that point, if any other Progenitor in the galaxy discovers the Galactic League, we are fucked. No ifs, ands, or buts. His Dreadnought alone will be enough to wipe out an empire's entire navy without losing Shields. And I can't tell you whether it'll be a century or if he'll show up tomorrow. There's a certain urgency to me getting on the Maliri throne and getting them ready to hold off a Progenitor incursion.""Right," Alyssa said faintly. "Can we talk about something else besides the potentially unstoppable extinction of humanity?""Sure," John agreed. "Well, you know how I was born. I was eventually released into the custody of my grandparents. Growing up, I always had my genetic memories, I just never really understood what it all meant. I learned to stop speaking Progenitor or sketching schematics of Progenitor tech when it started to make my grandma really uncomfortable. Other than being a budding Progenitor killer, I had a pretty good childhood. My grandparents were a sweet couple, and they raised me right, not too strict but not too loose either…"John spent hours recounting his childhood to Alyssa, going over his most treasured memories of Don and Eva, and then giving the executive summary of the rest of his life once he'd gone to the Academy. His service as a Marine officer, how he'd gotten out with a handful of perks after the massacre at Galon Prime, and his decade as an independent trader aboard the Fool's Gold. He lost track of time and didn't realize how late it had gotten until he felt his stomach gurgle. John glanced at the chronometer in shock. "Wow. I've been talking for over 6 hours. If I was boring you, you could have just said something," John chuckled, embarrassed to have monopolized the conversation for so long."Oh, no, I wasn't bored! You have a nice voice, and your life is way more interesting than mine. I could have listened to you all day," Alyssa assured him, her belly having slowly shrunk over the course of the morning until any hint of a curve had vanished."Still," John said, helping Alyssa to her feet so he himself could stand. They returned to the rec room, and John picked a different flavor of protein bar before helping himself to a couple. He sat down to chew them, and was only half surprised when Alyssa slipped to the floor and nudged his legs apart before reaching for the waistband of his sweats. And so both of them got a filling lunch, if in very different ways.When John had swallowed the last bite and could see straight again, he tucked himself back into his loungewear and made himself decent. He helped Alyssa to stand, surprising her with a quick kiss to the lips that had just been wrapped around his cock. "Thanks for lunch," he grinned."Isn't that my line?" the blonde chuckled, patting her convex belly that was once again a gravid sphere.John sat back down on the couch, gently but insistently guiding Alyssa to sit in his lap. They stretched their legs out and leaned back into leathery comfort. "So, I gave my life story. Care to return the favor?" John asked."... Is that really necessary?" Alyssa asked in a soft, broken voice. John's full attention was immediately on her. "Can't we just pretend my old life is over and I got to start over on this ship as your Matriarch?""That bad, huh?" John aimed for levity, but it fell flat."The worst. I don't want to think about it. With one exception, there's not a single thing I miss from Karron," Alyssa stated in no uncertain terms."Can you tell me about that one thing, at least?" John gently prodded.Alyssa took a deep breath. "Her name is Sparks. She was my best friend. Probably the reason I managed to live this long. I owe her so much, and now I may never see her again.""How'd you two meet?" John encouraged, trying to keep Alyssa talking. He didn't mean to pry, but he sensed it would be therapeutic for Alyssa to open up about her past just a smidge."I was 14 and digging in the trash heaps for something to eat," Alyssa said in a rather dry way. "Sparks is a mechanic, she was looking for old parts to scavenge and repurpose for her own inventions. I helped her find what she was looking for, and she shared a protein bar with me. That set the tone for our friendship. She's indentured to the Diablos gang as their gunsmith and handyman. I kept her company while she worked, helped gopher parts for her, basically was her assistant. The Diablos let me hang around her, and she shared what scraps they deemed worth giving her with me. We had a good thing going. Then fucking Georgio took a shine to me and… well, now I'm here."John hummed in thought. "You care for her? You miss her already?" he checked."She's the closest thing I ever had to a sister," Alyssa admitted quietly."Well, we're currently in transit to Alpha Centauri so I can trade the 10 tons of Tyrenium I got for a steal at Karron. But there's more that I couldn't afford. Once I complete the sale, it would be worth the time to make a return trip to Karron and buy up the rest of the ore available. While we're heading back to that rock anyway, we could see about helping Sparks run away to freedom."Alyssa twisted her head to look incredulously at John. "You mean, recruit her? Make her a Thrall?""Not necessarily, though that would be ideal, I won't lie," John clarified. "At the very least, we can offer her a free trip to the Core Worlds and then some money to set herself up. A position on our private crew as an engineer isn't out of the question, though. And assuming she's a legal adult woman like you, then the option of joining my network and becoming my Thrall would be on the table. Then the two of you could be together for eternity."Alyssa twisted and threw herself into a passionate liplock with John that lasted several minutes. Her bump was a distracting obstacle between them but she was determined to kiss the life out of him as best she could. Alyssa finally pulled back, a rather arousing strand of saliva still linking their heaving mouths. "I already owe you my new life. Save Sparks from that hellhole, and you'll own my soul.""Honey, I already do," John chuckled as he tried to get his breath back and focus on calming down his reawakened erection."I'm serious, John. If you can talk Sparks into joining me on this adventure with you, I'll do anything you want. ANYTHING," Alyssa stressed."Intriguing," John said lightly, even as his thoughts went wild imagining a number of depraved acts of debauchery he could enjoy with Alyssa's blanket consent."But that's the plan for the return trip. We just started the trip to the Core Worlds in the first place. So let's calm down a bit," Alyssa realized with a self-conscious giggle.They went back to spooning on the couch for a few minutes as they both relaxed. Searching for a new topic, John was about to speak when Alyssa beat him to the punch. "What's the plan? You know, the plan. Now you're an activated Progenitor and got your Matriarch and everything?"John gave the question serious thought. "Well, like I said, our first priority will be a return trip to Karron to get the rest of the Tyrenium and sell it off. We'll need lots of funds to pull off what needs to get done. So that's two trips from Karron to Alpha Centauri. Somewhere in that, probably after the first sale, we should look into getting a proper ship instead of this rustbucket. After the second sale, I figure it might be worth a tour of the Galactic League to upgrade the ship with state-of-the-art tech from each empire. Progenitor tech is better across the board, but most of it requires a Soulforge to produce. Finding a base planet to build a Soulforge, having one constructed, and fixing a few design flaws could take months or years before we can get properly started.So in the meantime, we'll get a new ship and use the best the Galactic League can provide as stopgaps. While we're visiting each empire, we can see about recruiting talented women to serve officer roles or general recruits to simply serve as psychic batteries. Visiting the Maliri will be a whole ordeal, figuring out how to get an audience with just one Matriarch to start the process of 'claiming' them will be a major headache, I'm sure. So, the 'plan' is to make a lot of money from the Tyrenium, upgrade our new ship with alien tech, and expand the network with willing women who can pull their own weight. And no plan surviving contact with reality, there will probably be a few wrenches or hiccups thrown in for us to deal with along the way.""Sounds decent enough," Alyssa nodded. "Just to give me some perspective, how long is the trip to Alpha Centauri going to take?""On the Fool's Gold's FTL rating, and with the standard route I plotted, a good 4 and a half weeks from now," John sighed. "This will probably be the slowest leg of the whole trip going forward.""Well, that gives us plenty of time to get to know each other and adjust to our new lifestyle as immortal life partners!" Alyssa pointed out with a bright grin. "I mean, I know the whole Progenitor-Matriarch thing is more of a working relationship, but something tells me you won't be able to help catching feelings for me the way I already am for you."John pressed a soft kiss to her temple. "The changes to your DNA and my own subconscious tampering with your mind will mold you into my perfect woman. It'll be almost impossible for me not to fall in love with you the way you'll be forced to fall in love with me. I figure it's only fair that I be a good partner for you now that I'm your only option.""You warned me about the imprint, John. I'm not being coerced, I went into this with eyes wide open," Alyssa contested sharply. "I'm not being 'forced' into anything. Through a combination of things, from your psychic jizz to your personality to your smoking hot bod, I'm going to end up wrapped around your fingers. Don't feel you have to return the favor out of some kind of guilt or shame.""Then can I do it because you're a lovely girl I can see myself being very happy with?" John asked, deciding it wasn't worth an argument. And he wasn't certain he'd come out the winner in any case, with his own bias against his Progenitor nature that was hardly the most rational of things. Maybe, instead of getting bogged down with the fine print, he could just enjoy the coming presence of a lovestruck teen who thought he hung the stars and proceed to the natural conclusion on his part."That sounds much better," Alyssa snuggled back into him, appeased.They wound up dozing for a couple hours, just enjoying the warmth of each other's bodies while they digested their lunch. Rousing, John checked both Alyssa and her bump and then the chronometer. "We should head back to the cockpit. I want to double-check our route and make sure the path's clear.""'Kay," she agreed easily, coming to her feet with a smaller but still distinctive curve to her abdomen. Her body was voraciously consuming her regular meals of John's spunk to help fuel the various changes alongside the fuel of psychic mana supplied by John.They returned to the cockpit, Alyssa sitting in the co-pilot's seat so as not to distract John too much. John reviewed the next few sections of the astro-nav projected course, making sure all his planned maneuvers were viable and there wasn't any debris in the way. "I don't like how many wrecks are popping up on the long-range scanners," John thought out loud as he altered course around a dead-in-space freighter that had appeared on the deep-space scans but hadn't been logged in the Federation database yet."What's causing them?" Alyssa asked, a tad worried that some ill fate would befall them just as they were starting on their epic journey."Based on the debris patterning I'm seeing… pirates," John sighed. "There's too many wrecked ships and the damage is too consistent for it to be all environmental. I heard that pirate activity was escalating out here in the Outer Rim, but I've spotted at least a dozen wrecks just on my shitty sensors since leaving Port Heracles. That's not a small uptick, that's just shy of a warranting a state of emergency and a fleet being sent from the T-Fed to hunt them all down. Hopefully, though, we won't be a juicy enough target to draw their eye by the time we get back to patrolled space-lanes.""Fingers crossed," Alyssa said, actually crossing her fingers. She concentrated on the route itself as opposed to the looming threat of pirates along it. "How does the whole 'astro-nav' thing work, exactly? It seems to be a lot of looping around stars without entering their gravity well before heading for the next nearest star in the direction you're headed.""Slingshot maneuvers like that are common practice, yes," John nodded. He launched into an impromptu lecture on astrophysics, navigating around the galaxy, and a general explanation of hyper-warp and how it interacted with gravity. Alyssa proved an attentive and intuitive student, asking questions that John actually had to think to answer. Her questions became more and more complex until John was at a loss to satisfy her curiosity.John opened a browser on the Holonet and sent it to the screen at the co-pilot's seat. "Honey, you officially know as much about astro-nav as I do now. If you want to know more, do your own research.""Great!" Alyssa rushed to type in her first question, when she paused. "Hold up. I'm calling psychic bullshit. I wasn't the village idiot, but I was never this interested in math or science or able to think this clearly. Ever. This must be part of the mental enhancements you talked about."John blinked. "Well, you'd know more about that than I would, actually being in the middle of them all. If you say you feel smarter and more intellectual, I'll take your word for it. And it's just getting started, in that case. I like my girls smart, so you're probably going to end up with close to a peak IQ for a Terran. You can give yourself a doctorate in astro-nav by the time we reach Alpha Centauri, I'd wager.""Is there some kind of test you take to prove you're good at astro-nav?" Alyssa asked."The Navigator's Guild has a test you can take online. First attempt is even free. Depending on how well you do, you can get a pass and get an official certification as a Navigator. The highest score is Navigator First Class, but less than 10% of applicants ever manage to do that well," John recalled."Then I'm going to become a Navigator First Class," Alyssa declared as if it were as simple as tying her shoes."Alyssa, people pay thousands of credits for official schooling and study for years just to take that one test," John pointed out."Well, I'm cheating with psychic smart juice. I'm going to become a Navigator First Class. Prove I'm more than just a pretty face," Alyssa said with a challenging smirk."I wish you luck, then, honey," John conceded. And for all he knew, she'd make it look easy once his cum was done boosting her brain.Alyssa dug into her research, pulling up one holo-wiki article after another as she devoured all the free information on the Holonet regarding her chosen field. John finished his check of the Fool's Gold's route, and decided he might as well do some maintenance work while Alyssa was occupied. The engine filters were due a cleaning. Going to change into coveralls, John tackled the grimy task of cleaning all the carbon buildup. It was a dirty, thankless job, but it kept the ship from exploding so it was necessary.A solid 3 hours later, John emerged from the engine room black with carbon residue. He gingerly walked to his cabin and happily stripped once he made it to the shower. He gave himself a quick rinse and then just luxuriated in the fall of hot water and steamy atmosphere.The whole time he'd been working, he'd been channeling a small but steady stream of energy across his link to Alyssa with the intent of speeding up the process of her transformation. He felt some invisible tipping point pass, and suddenly John heard feminine whispers inside his head.Assuming an FTL rating of 2.7, calculate the ideal vector on the horizontal around a singleton system of a F-type with a mass of…* Alyssa's soprano voice appeared in John's thoughts without the requisite steps of noise being filtered through his ears and translated into meaning by his brain.John blinked, having a good idea behind the cause of this phenomenon. He pictured his mind-box filled with Alyssa and gently directed his own thoughts towards her. *Alyssa? Can you hear me?*John heard a startled screech all the way from the cockpit from where he was standing nude in the shower. *John?! Where are you?!* he heard her project alongside her physical voice, though that was muted by the walls between them.Your Telepathy has come in. I'm in the shower. We're speaking mind-to-mind, honey* John patiently explained, even as he stepped out of the cubicle and went to dry himself off.We can hear each other's thoughts? I mean, you said that was what made Matriarchs special compared to other Thralls, but wow…* Alyssa's mind-voice trailed off, leaving John to feel a cresting wave of emotions emanating from her special place in his own mind. Chief among them was wonder and awe. *You made my psychic* she projected after a beat.Just like I told you I would* John confirmed.John finished drying himself off and put the used towel away and had just entered his cabin when Alyssa came in through the door. She prowled, there was no other word for it, up to him. Looking John dead in the eye, she came up to just an inch in front of him, invading his personal space without actually touching. Maintaining eye contact, she sunk into a crouch and then a kneeling position.Please bless your Matriarch with more of your magic, Master Progenitor* she projected, before opening wide and circling her mouth with her tongue to make her lips moist and inviting.John was hardly going to turn that down. His mighty endowment rose to full hardness, looking almost too big for Alyssa to fit. Alyssa reached up, but not to touch his cock or balls. She took his hands, and guided them to land on either side of her head. Then she rested them folded in her lap. The look she gave him made it obvious what she wanted, what she was permitting him to do.Treasuring this moment for the gift of submission it was, John canted his hips to get the angle right and then moved Alyssa's head to swallow his tool from tip to root. His progress was smooth and unhurried, Alyssa taking every inch like a champ without any issue. John ended with Alyssa's nose pressed into his groin, every bit of his cock in the warm, wet embrace of Alyssa's mouth and throat. He savored the rush of pleasure and power as he held her there, conscious of her need to breathe but keeping her pressed to his pelvis just a moment longer. Then he withdrew her head, giving her ample opportunity to catch her breath before he reversed the motion and fully impaled her once more.John moved Alyssa's head, using her like a living, breathing fucktoy with her full consent. His orgasm was long and slow in coming, taking his time as he slaked his lust in no particular hurry. Finally, he roared with the whiteout of sensation as he finally busted his nut and pumped 4 pints of thick Progenitor cum into the waiting hollow of Alyssa's stomach. She was soon filled to capacity and then some, her waist ballooning out as her body made room for one rich spurt after another.John let Alyssa go, and she withdrew gently until his softening prick flopped out of her mouth. She licked her lips and patted her tummy. "Compliments to the chef! That was a tasty dinner!"John could only laugh breathlessly. "You're going to kill me. And I'll die a happy man," he stated with calm certainty."No dying allowed. You haven't even properly rung my own bell yet, and I was promised an eternity in your bed," Alyssa fired back with a crooked grin."Well, we can't have that," John said. He surprised Alyssa, complete with a girlish scream of fright, as he literally swept her off her feet into a bridal carry. He laid her down on their shared bed, then he got into position between her thighs. Nuzzling her bump, he lowered his head to the gates of paradise as far as he was concerned. Ignoring the blond hairs that would take care of themselves in due time, John dived in to feast.Alyssa proved both remarkably sensitive and multiorgasmic. A combination of John's tireless fingers and tongue had her climbing to unexplored heights again and again in rapid-fire succession. Somewhere after the fifth or sixth screaming climax, Alyssa pulled back her leg to push against his shoulder. "Enough! I'm gonna lose my mind," she moaned, half delirious."Consider us even… for now," John chuckled with something dark and hungry behind his bright words.Remind me why I thought it was a good idea to sell my soul to the alien sexual demigod?* Alyssa thought, probably to herself.I believe the deciding factor was that being with me would make you a 'somebody', in your own opinion* John commented silently."Right. Telepathy. Is that just going to always be on from now on? Privacy is dead and gone between us?" Alyssa checked aloud."The link will remain as open as we both allow it. We can have unfiltered access to each other's thoughts and feelings 24/7, or we can block it out and only use it like a radio inside our heads, or something in between," John explained patiently.Alyssa hummed in thought. *Why start bad habits? I'm fine with full transparency if you are. We'll literally always be just a thought away from each other. It's kinda romantic, if you think about it.*Open connection at all times, agreed* John assented. Then his stomach gave a slight gurgle. He chuckled. *We just fed you dinner, now it's my turn.*John made himself a protein shake with a mix of whey and greens powder. The sacrifices he made to save costs on long-term food storage. He missed cooking, working with real ingredients to create a meal. "What's your favorite thing to eat, honey?" John asked, his mind on food as he choked down his bland albeit nutritious rations."Your cum," Alyssa said with a straight face."Okay, other than that," John managed not to break out in chuckles."John, what you're eating now would be considered eating like a king back on Karron," Alyssa stated flatly. "Protein bars that you seem to tolerate for money's sake would be a luxury for most anyone back in that rock. Most of what I've eaten over the last 18 years barely counts as 'food' in my mind. I'm not the one to ask if you want a rousing debate over cuisine.""Right," John sighed, reminded yet again of how bleak a life on Karron must have been for his young Matriarch. "Well, when we go shopping for a new ship, it's going to have a good kitchen. And I'll spend years introducing you to food from all over the galaxy, the best you've ever had.""The way to a girl's heart is her stomach, and you're going overkill on that front," Alyssa chuckled, patting her rounded tummy. But he could feel how touched she was by his promise. "What's your favorite food?""So hard to decide," John hummed. "I guess you can't go wrong with a proper steak. If there's one thing I can't stand though, it's pizza.""Why pizza?" Alyssa blinked, vaguely aware of the dish from ancestral Terra but not sure exactly what it was."My grandparents ran an Italian restaurant, and we served a lot of pizza. That meant a lot of leftovers, and guess who got to eat them all," John said with a groan. "If I never see another slice, it'll be too soon. I used to love it as a kid, but by the time I left for the Academy at 16 I was ready to swear it off for life.""Gotcha. That's kinda how I feel about 'mystery stew'," Alyssa nodded."Dare I ask?" John wondered."Kind of a 'break glass in case of emergency' when it comes to food for your average Karronite. Literally just a credit for a bowl if you bring your own. But it was a roll of the dice whether you'd survive to get another bowl the next day," Alyssa described with a shudder at the thought of that atrocious taste and texture. She'd resorted to mystery stew more times than she'd been proud of."Was the mystery what the secret ingredient was?" John asked lightly."It was a mystery how anyone could swallow any without going full vom," Alyssa corrected.John got up and went to give Alyssa a tight hug out of nowhere. *Never again. You'll never be that desperate ever again* he vowed with the full weight of his soul.I'll hold you to that, John* Alyssa thought, snuggling into his embrace and feeling properly safe for the first time since she was little, or maybe ever.Having woken up rather early, even with their post lunch nap, John and Alyssa called it a night after another hour of conversation after John finished his dinner. Alyssa observed with wide eyes as John crafted his psychic invisibility cloak and explained its purpose. They settled down to sleep together, alarm set for a reasonable time the next morning.The next couple weeks swiftly fell into a productive routine. John and Alyssa would wake up, and Alyssa would blow and go getting her first meal of the day while John was still blinking away sleep. Once recovered, John would exercise, shower, and get his own breakfast. He'd do maintenance chores until lunch, and then again until dinner. Alyssa would spend all day in the cockpit keeping an eye on the long-range scanners and digging into her astro-nav research on the Holonet. Despite only meeting up for mealtimes, they remained in constant Telepathic contact. After dinner, they'd cuddle and just talk for an hour or two before going to bed to repeat it all the next day.A river of words, thoughts, and emotions flowed back and forth between the Progenitor and his Matriarch. John had never shared as much of himself with another sapient being as he did with Alyssa Marant. And she had bared her very being to him to do with as he would. Just being in the same room, sneaking looks at the other while they weren't looking, felt intimate. To say nothing of their hugs, shared showers, the oral sex that was as mutually pleasurable as it was frequent, or their casual kisses. John couldn't remember how he'd ever lived without Alyssa by his side, her presence fulfilled him in so many ways he'd long suffered without. He'd die for her. Even better, he would live for her.That was love, right?John woke up and realized there was no incessant beeping. His sleep had been quiet and nightmare free, his Astral cloak apparently serving its purpose for he hadn't gone on a Spirit-Walk in his sleep since he'd started implementing it. Reasoning that Alyssa had gotten up already and muted the alarm, John found himself puzzled why he could not sense her warm body anywhere in the general vicinity. Or why his morning wood was twitching in the air rather than encased in willing female flesh.Wow, have I been spoiling you? You're honestly surprised not to get a morning blowie?* Alyssa teased him across their mental link. Her physical laughter came from next to him. John opened his eyes to see her standing, gloriously nude, beside the bed waiting for him to wake up.Maybe a little* John admitted with a chuckle at his own unrealistic expectations.Alyssa glided over and leaned down to peck a kiss to the crown of his dick. *Oh, don't get me wrong. Just say the word and I'll suck your soul out through your cock in a jiffy. I just had a little surprise for you this morning and was curious to see what kind of 'reward' I'd get if you were fully loaded.*John blinked, sitting up and twisting to get his feet on the ground. Alyssa backed up a bit, and he stood to his full height, which felt perfect in relation to her own. Ignoring the stray thought, he grinned down at her. *Okay, you've got my attention. What's the surprise?*She turned and moved like a model down the catwalk out of the cabin towards the cockpit. Something in the effortless grace of her body tickled something in his mind, but he brushed it off again as he cracked a yawn. Alyssa guided him to sit in the pilot's seat, and then worked the instruments with sure familiarity."This is our current route through hyper-warp to Alpha Centauri," she said physically, pulling up the route John had programmed way back before leaving Karron in Omicron Ceti. The projected ETA marked it as having 15 days remaining at current speeds. "And here's a new route I worked out with a neat trick," Alyssa said, pulling up a secondary route on the adjacent screen.John regarded Alyssa's route. It certainly seemed shorter, though she did some maneuvering and route changes he'd never seen before. He glanced at the projected ETA and his jaw dropped. 10 days. A full third of their travel time shaved off. "How is that possible?" he asked in shock."Warp tunneling. Devilishly complex, has to be individually calculated for each system between point A and point B. In a nutshell, we trick hyperspace into making a slipstream for us to ride through, and we get places faster," Alyssa declared with obvious pride."Put it in, honey!" John beamed.Alyssa's answering smile could have outshone a star as she switched the Fool's Gold to the newer route. Then she reached to the dashboard and grabbed her old ID cover. "Scan this. Please," she asked, expression suddenly anxious.Confused but willing to play along, John pulled up Galactic-SEC and ran a scan on Alyssa's ID. "Alyssa Marant. Age 18. No outstanding warrants. Navigator First Class."John blinked and reread the last part. He turned to her, eyes wide. "You didn't," he breathed."All my research started to feel repetitive or too niche to really matter the last couple days. After you fell asleep last night, I came here and took the free exam. It was surprisingly easy. Whether that speaks to the quality of the test or how crazy stupid smart your cum turbocharged my brain into, I can't say," Alyssa laid out. She gave a nervous grin. "Told you I'd do it.""Alyssa… honey, I'm so proud," John choked on his words, unable to express with sound the overwhelming sense of happiness and adoration welling up from inside him.Alyssa's smile turned bright and open. "I know you were waiting for me to get bigger before we properly fucked. But maybe this one time we could make an exception?"Her words sparked a brainwave in John's mind and he realized what had been right in front of his eyes but they both seemed strangely blind to. John pulled up a live feed from the cockpit cameras on the screens. "I think you're done changing, actually."Alyssa blinked and narrowed her eyes at the camera feed on the screen. She tilted her head and made some slow gestures, watching the woman in pixels mirror her movements. "That's… that's me?" Alyssa asked breathlessly.When John had first found Alyssa stowed away, she'd been 5 feet and a hair, less than 100 lb soaking wet, and about as pretty as possible for a street urchin, but that wasn't saying much. The goddess made flesh regarding her own reflection via cam-feed was a different creature entirely. She was tall at 5'9, and every inch of her oozed with feminine strength, beauty, and grace. She had luscious curves, a 32D chest that hung high and proud in flawless proportion to the rest of her hourglass figure. Curves that distracted from the hard muscle of an Olympic gymnast or special ops soldier, with just enough softness to make the effect more alluring than intimidating. Her face was a work of art, worthy of being immortalized in sculpture and paintings, lovely as a dream of heaven. Her thick, lustrous blonde hair fell in a waterfall of golden silk to her hips. Her skin had not a single imperfection, smooth and clear, the gorgeous bronze of one who spent lots of time in the sun. Every movement flowed with elegant poise, giving the impression of a dancer or nobility.In short, she was now the most attractive woman John had ever seen or even imagined. Alyssa had transformed into an Amazon, a woman with enough strength to fight a war and enough beauty to stop one in its tracks. It was obvious that she was fully transformed into the Thrall template.John stood and went to hug Alyssa from behind. Part of him noted how good they looked together on the screen, his own masculine frame juxtaposed against her feminine splendor. "Now the way you look on the outside, reflects the girl I fell in love with on the inside."Alyssa twisted in his hold and curled her arms around his neck, pulling him down into a scorching kiss that had him hard as steel and ready to go in moments. *You can't say something like that and not expect me to jump your bones!* she informed him even as she did her level best to kiss him witless.They might well have consummated their union right there, standing up in the cockpit, if they had not been interrupted by a blaring klaxon on the intercom."What the fuck?!" Alyssa demanded, pulling back from making out with John to glare at the source of the offending noise.Very few things could have gotten John's mind off Alyssa and sex at that moment, but that particular alarm was one of them. "We're picking up a distress beacon. Someone's in danger."

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

John rushed to take the pilot’s chair, heedless of his nudity given the urgency of the situation. He silenced the rather annoying klaxon and reviewed the data from the long-range scanners in detail. “It’s a civilian freighter. Claims they’ve had engine failure and requesting parts or a tow. Not too far from where we are now.”
 
Alyssa moved past her annoyance at being cockblocked to consider the scenario as it presented itself. “So, are we going to help them?”
 
“It’s not that simple,” John said grimly. “It could be a trojan horse. Pirates pull tricks like this all the time. Load up an unarmed ship with a gang, lure in unsuspecting passerby, and then ambush them when they dock together. Of course, there’s every chance that the distress beacon is genuine, in which case if we don’t do anything they might end up marooned out here until another ship enters the range of the beacon. That could be weeks, if ever, and they could easily starve if we don’t intervene. But if it

is

pirates, we’d be going towards a big conflict. We have psychic powers on our side, but without knowing the numbers or firepower of the other side…”
 
Alyssa laid a hand on his shoulder, distracting John from his overthinking. “John. Ignore your head for a minute. What’s your heart saying?”
 
John was silent before sighing. “We’ll go check them out, see if we can help. But we’re taking every precaution. I’m lowering our energy profile to the bare minimum to make us harder to detect. We’ll get close in ‘stealth’ mode, get the lay of the land when we’re in range. If I see a single red flag, we’re gone.”
 
“Alright then,” Alyssa nodded. She took the co-pilot’s seat and accessed the controls with confidence. She’d only been practicing with these systems for the past couple weeks, but her enhanced intelligence had ensured a rather steep learning curve. She plotted the fastest route possible between their current location and the coordinates provided by the distress beacon. With a final nod from John, Alyssa confirmed the route change and they were on their way to the rescue… or into a trap.
 
“Sorry. This kind of ruined the mood we had,” John said contritely as he realized he’d gotten soft, his arousal forgotten in lieu of wariness for what might be coming.
 
“You’ll make it up to me later.” It was not a question. Nor was it a command, really. It was a simple statement of fact, based on faith and trust in John’s character. Alyssa flashed John an angelic grin, then glanced pointedly down at their naked bodies. “Lurking pirates or desperate civilians, we’re going to be expecting company. Might be a good idea to get dressed. Not sure my old clothes will fit anymore, though.”
 
“I’m not even sure where those rags ended up,” John admitted with a chuckle. He vaguely remembered thinking of just spacing the dirt-encrusted coveralls out the airlock, and wasn’t sure he hadn’t gone through with it at some point. He stood and took Alyssa’s hand. “Come on, let’s sort out an outfit for you.”
 
John got dressed easily in his standard fare of a long-sleeved t-shirt and combat trousers. The problem was that while Alyssa had grown dramatically in height and mass, she was still slim and dainty compared to John’s own bulk. John finally went with the one-size-fits-all nanomesh body-sleeve he normally donned before putting on a spacesuit for examining the ship’s external systems. The very stretchy material ended up clinging skintight to Alyssa’s drool-worthy curves to devastating effect, but at least she wasn’t naked anymore.
 
Figuring better to err on the side of caution, John went the extra mile of equipping himself with his personal suit of armor. The bodysuit was composed of a weave of bulletproof fibers with ceramic plates over major areas. John zipped himself in and made sure all the plates were attached securely. He glanced at Alyssa, looking very vulnerable in nothing but the body-sleeve. With a thought, he made a cocoon of floating hexagons materialize around her for a moment before releasing the psychic shield. “If we get into trouble, I’ll cover you,” he promised his Matriarch.
 
“Okay, John,” Alyssa agreed, looking a bit troubled. She was worried that John would be so focused on protecting her that he’d forget to protect himself.
 
John turned to the weapons locker, again figuring better to have and not need than to need and not have. He unlocked it with a simple press of his hand to the DNA scanner, his genome verified and opening the secure doors. John grabbed one of two XR73 Rifles he had stocked, slapping in a magazine of standard Terran caseless .50 cal ammo. Hollow point, not armor piercing, any firefight would still be inside a spaceship after all. He slotted multiple other magazines into strategic slots dotted around his armor for just that purpose. He flipped the power switch, activating the holographic scope and ammo counter for the rifle.
 
John finished his mental checklist of gearing up for combat, then turned to Alyssa. “Do you have any firearms training to speak of?” he asked directly.
 
“Sparks was the one who worked with guns. I’m decent with a knife, but I’ve never even fired a shot before. Sorry,” Alyssa admitted.
 
“Nothing to be sorry for, honey. But we’ve only got a little over an hour and we can’t fire safely inside the ship to practice anyway. Still, all things being equal, I’d rather have a rank amateur armed next to me than a defenceless civilian.” John turned and grabbed the very auto-shotgun he’d once pointed in Alyssa’s face. He handed it over, gently correcting her grip as she hesitantly took it. “I’ll go over the basics, how to reload and avoid jams and all. First and most important lesson, only aim it at something you wouldn’t mind getting hit.”
 
John gave Alyssa a crash course in firearm safety and handling. Alyssa absorbed the lessons with ease, and within half an hour John was as confident in having her at his back as could be expected. He really hoped all this preparation would prove unnecessary. In which case, he and Alyssa could laugh off how paranoid they’d been while they towed the damaged freighter to the nearest starport. But if it

was

a pirate ambush or some other danger, then he’d feel better knowing Alyssa had a gun and at least knew the theory of using it.
 
As prepared as possible for things to go sideways, John and Alyssa went back to the cockpit. Laying their guns carefully on the floor beside them, John focused in on the sensors. They were still another 40 minutes or so away from the system where the distress beacon claimed the stranded freighter was located. With his strong suspicion that pirates were running rampant in the Outer Rim, John felt there was no such thing as being overcautious in these circumstances. He watched the controls like a hawk, making sure the Fool’s Gold gave off as little energy as possible and their route was clear of hazards.
 
*Hurry up and wait, huh?* Alyssa thought across their telepathic link. *Is there some secret Marine trick to make time go faster instead of counting the seconds?*
 
*Stay grounded. Don’t get lost in your head, where time can stretch. Focus on breathing, to a count if necessary. Some people try to lighten the mood with banter, some prefer silence to meditate. It’s a balancing act between being relaxed enough to not snap and tense enough to be ready when the time comes. It’s the kind of thing that takes practice, honey,* John replied at the speed of thought.
 
*Well, guess I get to start now,* Alyssa gave a weak huff of laughter. *I sure as hell hope it’s just some kind strangers needing help and not a shitshow.*
 
*So do I. But just in case…* John thought with weight.
 
The time passed in physical silence, though Alyssa kept a halfhearted stream of thoughts going between her and John, purely to stop from losing her mind as the tension seemed to mount with every light-minute closer they got to the beacon’s origin. Finally, they exited hyper-warp as they entered a gravity well, the Fool’s Gold appearing at the edge of a deserted solar system. Just the solitary star, a couple barren rock planets, and no Terran settlements or equipment of any kind. The sensors began collecting much more detailed data from the local system as opposed to lightyears away, sending it all to the Nav-computer to display on the System Map in the cockpit.
 
John and Alyssa’s eyes were immediately drawn to the nearby freighter, a Marlin-class, easily five or six times the size of the Fool’s Gold. It hung suspended in the empty black of outer space, no visible damage or reason to be parked there immediately obvious. And it was impossible to miss the sleek titanium hull of a Terran Federation military corvette locked with one of the freighter’s airlocks.
 
“Oh, the navy got here first,” Alyssa sighed in relief. “Guess this was a pointless detour, huh?”
 
“Wait,” John said distractedly, something niggling at him. Some detail had yet to register in his mind but had set his instincts flaring that something was off about the scene. He finally realized the problem after a few seconds of scrutinizing both ships. “See how the corvette’s lights are set for a docking procedure?”
 
Alyssa frowned and looked closer at the small military craft. “I don’t see any lights,” she confessed after a beat.
 
“Exactly. And ignoring protocol like that can get the whole crew slapped with fines or disciplinary action if it gets caught or reported,” John frowned. He set his shoulders with resignation. “This isn’t just helping out a stranger anymore. Both the T-Fed and myself are involved in this situation now. By the terms of my ‘consultant’ agreement, I’m obligated to investigate and render any aid I can to the military. We have no choice but to go in.”
 
“I see,” Alyssa said, feeling like a stone had sunk into her gut. There was a big difference between the nebulous thought of going into danger and the realization that danger was imminent. Still, John was going in. Ergo, she was going in. Where he went, she followed. That was simply how it worked with them.
 
Alyssa guided the Fool’s Gold, still in ‘stealth’ mode as it were, to dock with the secondary airlock for the Terran Federation corvette. John and Alyssa stood, getting their guns loaded and into ready position. John surprised Alyssa by leaning in quickly to steal a kiss. “For luck,” he grinned, which she answered with her own. Then his face fell into something much harder and sharper than what Alyssa had gotten used to since meeting him almost 3 weeks earlier. He turned and walked towards the cargo bay, where the airlock was located. *Stay behind me and a bit to the side, do your best not to shoot me in the back, Telepathy only until we’re back in the ship. Understood?*
 
*Yes, sir,* Alyssa agreed almost reflexively, so strong was the tone of command in John’s thoughts. She hurried to obey, matching his stride and maintaining position near him.
 
John let them both into the chamber for the Fool’s Gold’s airlock. He confirmed that the outer door was detecting a secure seal with a pressurized vessel, then opened it. The corvette’s outer door was revealed, ‘TFN Griffon’ emblazoned in block letters across the center.
 
John reached to his utility belt and pulled out a small handheld decryption device. Technically illegal, but John had special permission to own and operate it as part of his semi-retirement package. He pressed it to the Griffon’s door and the computer interfaced with that of the door’s. John’s still-active Commander-level clearance proved sufficient, and the door’s lock was overridden. It opened smoothly, revealing the Griffon’s own depressurization chamber.
 
*Follow me, only shoot if fired upon,* John ordered before crossing over to the other ship, Alyssa a step or two behind him. He closed the outer door behind them, and his decryption device made short work of the inner door. His assault rifle up and prepared to shoot at the first sign of hostility, John entered the corvette Griffon.
 
It took less than a minute to find the first body. And then the second and third. The central hallway of the corvette was a bloodbath, multiple bodies in naval fatigues cooling on the ground and showing signs of pockets being looted.
 
*Pirates,* John thought with certainty. *They’ve been here a while, too.*
 
*Yeah, rigor mortis has set in, so it’s been at least a couple hours,* Alyssa agreed, young eyes that had seen far too much assessing the corpses much as John had.
 
*I am both impressed and disturbed that you knew that,* John thought with a touch of gallows humor. *Come on, let’s check for survivors.*
 
A room-by-room sweep of the Griffon ended with finding 15 bodies in total, all of them male. A lot of the consoles in the cockpit had been damaged by some kind of explosion, likely a grenade blast, and the armory showed signs of heavy attempts at infiltration that had proved unsuccessful. But the pirates hadn’t had John’s decryption device. John opened the secure doors and happily requisitioned (‘steal’ is such an ugly word) some grenades for himself and a suit of standard-issue T-Fed body armor in Alyssa’s size.
 
Once Alyssa was as secure against incoming fire as John himself, if not more so given she had military-grade gear and his was from a civilian retailer, John led them to the medical bay of the Griffon. *Why are we here?* Alyssa asked once John honed in on the main console in the room.
 
*Captain’s logs and ship roster would have been lost with the cockpit explosion,* John reasoned. *Patient files, though, should let us know if anyone is missing or if everyone’s dead.*
 
As John had feared, there were a total of 18 crew assigned to the Griffon at present. Three women were unaccounted for. Historically, male criminals and innocent women did not mix well. John could only imagine what horrible circumstances had befallen the three missing crew. Not only his deal with the Federation, but his own conscience now insisted he try and save the three, or at least confirm they too were dead.
 
*We need to board the pirate ship. We can’t leave those three women behind. The odds of us finding them and getting out without being noticed are negligible. Are you ready for shit to go down?* John looked his young lover right in the eye.
 
Alyssa’s response was to nod without breaking his gaze, her grip firm and sure on the auto-shotgun.
 
John, girding himself for the worst, led them to the primary airlock of the Griffon. The pirate crew had left all 4 doors open and hadn’t posted any lookouts. Unprofessional, and a hint at the quality of leadership and intelligence running this operation. Still, dumb men with guns could be even more of a threat than smart men with guns. Dumb men were more prone to stupid, lethal mistakes, after all.
 
John took a moment to pull up a sample deck plan for a Marlin-class freighter on his vambrace computer. He did some quick commands to have the computer track their route through the ship so they wouldn’t get lost when they inevitably had to retreat. Then, John crossed fully into the pirate freighter, Alyssa as his shadow.
 
John’s inhumanly keen hearing detected a clamor from the aft of the ship. Keeping a wary eye out for any pirates to cross their path, John went towards the rear cargo bay of the freighter. He and Alyssa saw no one as they went through grubby, ill-maintained halls. Reaching the open entrance to the cargo bay, John sidled up beside the doorway from which so much noise was escaping. He carefully peeked around the edge to look into the room.
 
What he saw made his blood run cold.
 
The upper gantries were filled with pirates, dozens of dirty, unkempt men all hooting and hollering at what they considered entertainment. Despite it being before noon, many were drinking heavily and loudly gambling on how the ‘match’ would end. In the main area of the cargo bay below them was a scene from a nightmare.
 
A Largath was ‘fighting’ one of the Terran women kidnapped from the Griffon. The young girl, looking no older than Alyssa, was in the rags of naval fatigues that had been ripped to shreds by harsh, groping hands and stained with blood from open lashes across her back. Despite her obvious agony from the whipping and whatever damage the Largath had already dealt, she still brandished a broken pipe as a makeshift spear in desperate defense. The sharp, pointy thing seemed the only thing keeping the alien at bay, and it was obvious that it wouldn’t work much longer. The big crimson gorilla-like creature blinked its 4 eyes and licked its drooling chops, his two-foot-long cock erect and shiny from the fluids of the two victims it had already had its way with. The two other naval officers laid desecrated on the floor, their bodies warped from where the Largath had forced his way in and literally raped them to death. And it was clear that the third woman would soon share their terrible fate.
 
John pulled his head back away from the door, what he’d just seen seared into his memory. Putting aside his disgust, rage, fear, and every other messy emotion, he considered his next move logically. He had his XR73. He had the grenades he’d grabbed from the Griffon’s armory. He had a bevy of psychic powers, none of which he had much practice with. He had Alyssa, who had never fired a shotgun in her life. How to save the lone survivor without getting her, him, or Alyssa killed?
 
Plan formed based on years of fighting experience, John projected to Alyssa her instructions. *I’m going to throw stun grenades. As soon as they go off, get to the edge and aim for the Largath. Keep the barrel pointed towards center mass, and don’t just squeeze the trigger. Do a few short bursts, you don’t know how to correct for barrel climb yet. Let me know when it’s dead. I’ll be handling the pirates.*
 
*Got it,* Alyssa thought back in acknowledgment.
 
John pulled out two grenades. Darting into the doorway, he lobbed both in gentle arcs towards the left and right gantries, palming a third quickly to toss towards the central one on the far side of the room. He dashed just as quickly back out and into the hall. Even with line-of-sight broken, he still closed his eyes and covered his ears to brace from the coming flashbangs.
 
“BANG!”
 
Grabbing his rifle from where it had been hanging from its strap, John walked into the cargo bay with the gun raised. Within a full second of entering, he’d already aimed and pulled the trigger half a dozen times. In the panic and chaos, none of the pirates had the presence of mind to notice how their attacker was firing unnaturally fast and seemed to blur as he moved. All they knew was the sensory hell of the flashbangs and for several the sharp bite of bullet wounds shortly afterward.
 
Alyssa, following John’s orders to the letter, came in behind him and rushed to the nearest ledge overlooking into the cargo bay. She noticed the big red alien that must be the Largath, rubbing its eyes and snarling. She aimed the gun as John had shown her how barely an hour ago, braced for recoil, and pulled on the trigger. As told, she didn’t blow through her whole clip at once, firing two or three rounds at a time before pausing and trying to re-center her aim on the Largath’s torso in the holo-scope.
 
The Largath was unarmored and shotgun shells were designed to inflict maximum damage from a relatively short distance away. Even with a total novice’s aim, Alyssa was still enhanced by a Progenitor, customized for combat with peak strength and reflexes for her size. She handled the gun as well as possible physically, and the results were deadly for the alien. Chest leaking copiously from all the penetrating pellets, the Largath collapsed on his side, giving a wet gurgle with his final breath.
 
*It’s down!* Alyssa thought to John.
 
Even as he continued to utilize Psychic Alacrity to fire at superhuman speeds, John reached out with his mind and grabbed the stunned naval woman in a telekinetic grip. Pausing in his onslaught, John lifted her up out of the cargo bay to land by his side. Once she was safely out of the crossfire, he went back to mowing down the pirates, most of whom were still recovering from the stun grenades and not even remotely accurate in firing back. *Help her, she probably can’t walk unassisted,* John commanded.
 
Alyssa maneuvered to the survivor’s side. At first glance, she was a college age Latina with a slim, athletic build. More importantly, she had several open weals on her back from a neural whip, a bloody nose with blooming black eyes, and the lopsided way she was balancing upright hinted she had broken ribs. Her eyes were watery and blinking rapidly, having been hit with the stun grenades same as the pirates and Largath.
 
“I’m here to help!” Alyssa shouted over the thundering chatter of gunfire and the ringing that would still be in the girl’s ear. “Where does it hurt?!”
 
“Back, left side, face!” the young officer yelled back.
 
“Put your arm around my shoulder!” Alyssa ordered before getting into position to half-carry the rescued victim. Alyssa, barely feeling the strain, kept the shotgun up and balanced with one hand while the other wrapped around the smaller girl’s waist. *I got her!* she sent to John when she felt the girl lean against her and let out an audible moan of relief.
 
John, having blown through three magazines in less than a minute, fired off the last few bullets and surveyed the room. He’d aimed primarily for the heart, lungs, and the head when he was confident in his aim and the angle. All but two of the original horde of pirates was still standing, the rest having collapsed in bloody sprawls on the gantries or fallen to the cargo bay floor below. Still utilizing Psychic Alacrity, John focused on the two survivors, obviously heavily augmented cyborgs who must have had subdermal armor to protect from gunfire. With an act of focus, John conjured two telekinetic spears and launched them like ballista bolts at both men. The lances of pure blue light pierced them like needles through cloth, and they fell down dead much as their organic brethren had.
 
Satisfied that all hostiles had been eliminated, John deactivated his super-speed. He only then noticed the strain on his mind and body, his energy stores having gotten dangerously low. He cursed himself for being an idiot for not keeping better track of his reserves, even though this was his first time using his powers in combat. Returning to the situation at hand, John turned to Alyssa and the surviving naval crewmember.
 
“Let’s get moving,” John ordered in the echoing silence left after the roar of gunfire and wailing death cries. He met Alyssa’s eyes. *I’ll take point, focus on keeping her moving,* he relayed silently. A quick nod was her answer.
 
Reloading his XR73, John retraced their steps through the pirate freighter. It had seemed like the majority of the crew had been in the cargo bay for the ‘entertainment’, but it would be foolish to assume every pirate on the ship had been accounted for. John’s caution proved warranted, as he checked a 4-way intersection and was ambushed by a pirate hiding just around the corner. John, moving on reflexes honed by over a decade of active duty, kneed the brigand in the groin and fired a 3-round burst directly between his eyes as he writhed on the ground.
 
John checked on Alyssa and the Griffon survivor, who seemed barely coherent or aware of her surroundings. Was still staying upright and maintaining a decent pace, though, so John counted his blessings. John finished the trip back to the Griffon without crossing paths with another pirate. He closed both the Griffon’s airlock doors behind them and locked them to slow down any pursuing pirates.
 
“That should buy us some time,” John said aloud for the young survivor’s benefit. John focused on the college age girl, probably fresh from the Academy on her first posting by the look of her. “I’m Commander John Blake, and the woman carrying you is Alyssa Marant. Who are you?”
 
“Second… Lieutenant… Fernandez,” the Latina panted, eyes glazed with pain and exhaustion nonetheless focusing on John in front of her. “T-thank… you…”
 
“You’re welcome, Lieutenant Fernandez,” John said softly. He glanced at Alyssa. *Get her to the passenger cabin, this ship is compromised. I’ll grab some medical supplies and be right behind you. As soon as she’s settled on the bed, get us away from here and enroute to Port Heracles in the Nerus system. Can you do that for me, honey?*
 
*Sure thing, handsome,* Alyssa projected back at him.
 
The blonde Matriarch started guiding Lieutenant Fernandez towards the secondary airlock and the relative safety of the Fool’s Gold. John, trying hard not to pant with how tired and low on energy he really was, rushed to the medical bay of the Griffon. He grabbed a couple trauma kits and as many hypo-injectors of common drug cocktails as he could carry. He carried his bounty back to his freighter, closing the airlock doors behind him to prepare the Fool’s Gold to undock from the Griffon.
 
As soon as John was past the inner door of the Fool’s Gold, he felt the slight acceleration of the ship in movement. Alyssa must already by piloting them out of the gravity well. By the time John reached the passenger cabin, he had detected the distinctive lurch of the FTL Drive activating and relaxed, knowing it was now much harder for the pirates to catch up with them. Not impossible, but still.
 
John regarded Fernandez leaning against the wall in a drained slump, her face a mask of shock-dulled agony. He set the healing implements aside on the floor and did the same with his weapon. He crouched down and tried to meet Fernandez’s blank gaze. “Lieutenant? Fernandez, can you hear me?”
 
“Yessir,” she slurred, clearly not all present but still responsive. That was something.
 
Alyssa entered the room and was soon mirroring John in a crouch beside him and in front of the traumatized teenager. “What’s your name? Your first name, I mean?” Alyssa asked, trying to keep the victim from focusing on the pain or loss.
 
“It’s… Calara…” she replied, silent tears starting to fall from blackened eyes.
 
“You’re safe now, Calara. The Largath and those men are dead. They can’t hurt you anymore,” John said, firm yet gentle, trying to offer comfort.
 
“They’re all dead. The whole Griffon. They’re just… gone…” Calara said in a daze, the tears falling steadily but no signs of sobbing. It was like she was too lost in her head to really feel the pain.
 
Realizing she was in shock and her condition could only worsen, John reached for one of the hypos he’d grabbed. “Calara, I’m going to send you to sleep. We’ll treat your wounds. When you wake up, we can have a proper talk. Is that okay?”
 
“Sure…” Calara said faintly, not sounding like she even knew what she was saying.
 
John gently tilted Calara’s head and pressed the injector to the big vein in the side of her neck. A press of a button and hiss of air, and within 10 seconds she was losing consciousness. John tossed the used hypo aside and guided Calara into a comfortable position with her head on the pillow of the bunk.
 
*She’s been through hell,* Alyssa thought solemnly. *And healing from this might be harder than having to experience it in the first place.*
 
*Still, she’s alive. That’s always preferable to the alternative,* John replied with their shared telepathy. *Let’s get to working on all these injuries.*
 
*You’re a doctor too?* Alyssa thought, half-joking.
 
*You get real good at effective first aid in the field in my old line of work, assuming you survive that long,* John thought with dry humor. With careful movements, he stripped the rags of Calara’s naval fatigues from her body. Leaving her in her bra and panties for modesty’s sake, John surveyed the young woman head to toe and got to work. The open weals on her back from a neural whip were each coated with medi-gel to seal the wounds and prevent infection while stimulating cell growth. With the advantage of her being in anesthetized sleep, John straightened the cartilage of Calara’s broken nose without incident. The deep bruising on her left side and Alyssa’s own observations had John binding her broken ribs with bandages. Finding nothing else major to address, John tucked Calara under the sheet to sleep until the hypo’s effects had run their course.
 
As John stood back up to leave the cabin, Alyssa matched him and unexpectedly pulled him into a kiss. An kiss that tingled unnaturally, and John gasped as a rush of energy poured into his internal reserves like a spout filling an empty cup.
 
*Idiot. The whole purpose of a Matriarch is to supply her master with energy. You didn’t borrow a drop from me during that whole thing,* Alyssa thought with fond exasperation.
 
*Hey, give me a break. It was my first time,* John chuckled, even as he returned the kiss with gratitude and more than a little heat. *So, we kinda got interrupted earlier…* he trailed off suggestively.
 
*Indeed. What do you propose we do about it?* Alyssa returned with a brow raised just so.
 
*We can either go to our cabin, get out of this gear, have a shower, then pass out. We’ll have a proper first time tomorrow where I can really set the mood right… Or we can have thank-God-we-survived sex until we pass out as soon as we’re out of this armor,* John laid on the table.
 
*Decisions, decisions. Like watching you slaughter those evil men and rescue Calara like a white knight didn’t have me dripping the whole time,* Alyssa thought with a smile full of sin.
 
Well, that settled things. John grabbed his rifle and led Alyssa swiftly to the door. They left Calara to a healing sleep, dashed across the hallway to their main cabin, and John was then storing away the XR73 and auto-shotgun in his weapons locker as fast as was safe. Once the weapons were squared away, John unzipped himself from his body armor, Alyssa already a few steps ahead of him. By the time John was down to his civilian clothes, Alyssa had already stripped herself out of the body-sleeve and was lying supine on their shared bed like a virgin sacrifice to some ancient god.
 
John might literally have ripped his way out of his clothes, he didn’t have enough spare blood in his brain to really notice or care. All he knew was his woman was ready and waiting, and he had to join her. Once equally naked, he crawled onto the bed to hover tantalizingly over Alyssa.
 
John opened his mouth to offer words of love, or an offer to take this slow and make the most of it, when Alyssa reached up to wrap her arms around his head and pulled him into a scorching kiss. She didn’t need words or Telepathy to let him know what she wanted, what she needed, what she craved.
 
John laid down on Alyssa, her soft yet strong body a delightful pillow perfectly capable of supporting his full weight. He kissed her like he needed air from her lungs rather than his own. One hand cradled her head while the other went to map the glorious curves of her body. His knees came up and spread her own legs wide open, letting his lower body settle into the cradle of her thighs. His wandering palm settled on one of her gorgeous, full tits and he relished the weight as it filled his palm to perfection. His hips began to buck instinctively, the underside of his gargantuan girth rubbing against her leaking folds.
 
A tiny part of John regretted that this wasn’t going to be soft and slow and romantic. He loved Alyssa, with all his heart, and he wanted their first time to be a happy memory for centuries to come. Then again, an adrenaline-fueled romp right after their first shared combat would certainly be memorable. And Alyssa hardly seemed disappointed or unsatisfied with the circumstances. She just took all he could give and demanded more with wordless, thoughtless communication, all touch and moans and sighs.
 
Losing himself in desire, John stopped thinking and pulled back his hips. He felt Alyssa’s heavenly soft hand come down and grip him, guiding him to her entrance. He pressed the crown of his cock to slick, silky flesh and took a second to just savor the sensation. Then, at Alyssa’s own yearning insistence, he plunged deep as he could go, penetrating her pussy further than any man had ever gone before.
 
Alyssa seemed to both tense and relax, her movements becoming more liquid and yet more urgent. Her arms went under his armpits to wrap around his back, her fingers clutching at his shoulders. Her long, strong legs curled up and crossed behind his buttocks, locking him in place with no intention to let him go until he’d planted his seed deep within.
 
John pulled back, feeling the divine sensation of honey and heat and grip against his manhood. He thrust back in, more than half his cock sinking into Alyssa’s depths. But there was still more to go, and Alyssa would hardly settle for anything less than his best. John applied more pressure and force to each thrust until he felt the barrier of Alyssa’s cervix yield. And then it was like sinking into a pussy inside a pussy as the head of his cock breached Alyssa’s womb to sink into her most secret places. Perfect, pillowy warmth cradled the head of his cock, while a convulsing tunnel stroked the rest of his shaft. His quad of balls rested flush against the magnificent curve of Alyssa’s ass, their contents churning as they prepared for launch.
 
John speared Alyssa from tip to root over and over again, his mind clear of anything but the drive to mate, to procreate, to claim this fertile female and make her

his

. Her every twitch and sound spoke of her agreement, her urge to comply, her submission to his masculine might. How long John actually ploughed her, he had no idea. Release was in reach, yet he saw no reason to chase it too quickly. He was having too much fun with the journey to care much about the destination.
 
Yet even Progenitors had limits to their endurance, and John finally passed the point of no return. He bucked harder and harder into Alyssa’s willing body until he buried himself as deep as he could go and roared to the heavens at his climax. Pint after pint of thick alien cum pumped into Alyssa’s womb, filling her with enough semen to impregnate her a thousand times over. Such vast quantities filled her that her abdomen was forced to round out as she expanded to hold so many sperm. Her body, riding a string of climaxes as she was ravished by the sexual demigod she’d pledged her life to, was wracked with tremors as her mind whited out and her inner muscles flexed to try and milk every drop from the future father of her children.
 
John and Alyssa both returned to themselves roughly at the same time, panting and looking into each other’s eyes. John’s body was curved in an n-shape over her rounded belly, which had forced his softening cock to slip out of her gaping pussy. Her cervix, while made elastic by the Thrall edits, sealed up tight to not let a single drop go to waste. John caught his breath, then leaned in to press a gentle peck to Alyssa’s own gaping mouth. Then, really feeling the aches of combat after the exertion of sex, John gingerly maneuvered himself until he was lying on his back on the bed next to Alyssa. She turned and nestled against his side, the swollen curvature of her belly a delightful weight between them.
 
“So… how was it for you?” John asked in the silence that followed.
 
“A round or two of that every night, and it will be a fucking

privilege

to fight in the Progenitor War with you, John,” Alyssa said in no uncertain terms. “That was better than I ever thought it could be.”
 
“Well, how much of that is my actual talent, and how much is the fact you’re genetically customized to respond to my touch?” John pointed out.
 
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Alyssa rolled her eyes almost audibly. “You really need to learn to not look a gift horse in the mouth, John. If sex with you is that awesome just because I’m your Matriarch, then so what? I’m not complaining, and neither should you.”
 
“Sorry, force of habit to second-guess anything Progenitor-related,” John huffed. The longer he laid there, the more tired and sore he was feeling. “Let’s get a shower, and we should really store that armor away properly.”
 
Alyssa got up without complaint and followed him into the bathroom. She took a brief detour to the toilet, and was back to her trim, svelte self when she joined him in the shower. *Seems like such a waste. Remember to cum in the other end next time,* Alyssa thought in all seriousness.
 
*Duly noted,* John chuckled wearily.
 
They got clean and then dried off. John professionally stored away his own armor and the requisitioned set Alyssa had worn. Then, despite it being barely noon, John and Alyssa decided to take a long nap to recover after the intense exertion of that morning.
 
Alyssa opened her eyes and realized she was in her favorite place in the universe: next to John. He was softly spooning her from behind. She quietly sat up and turned to just look down at him in slumber. He was naturally an early riser, but when he did fall asleep it was like the dead. He could shrug off noise and sensory input that would have Alyssa jolting awake like it was nothing. Then again, she’d slept with one eye open for over a decade in the dog-eat-dog world of Karron while he had close to a perfect childhood on Terra. Or maybe they were just different people who slept differently.
 
Alyssa reached out to trace the elongated point of John’s ear as it stuck out from his hair. It was easy, at times, to forget that he wasn’t just an extremely well-endowed Terran who’d gotten a bodysculpt for his ears. Physically, Progenitors and Terrans were nearly identical. But, Alyssa mused as she looked down at her new body, it was pretty obvious that there were some key differences. She certainly wouldn’t look like this if she’d been living off Terran cum for 3 weeks straight.
 
It was hard to even recall life before she’d first gone down on John. Not that she couldn’t dig up the memories if she tried, only she felt no reason to. Life had gotten orders of magnitude better since she’d agreed to become John Blake’s Matriarch. Or rather, Kyth’vindathys’ Matriarch. Why waste time remembering hell when she’d somehow slipped into her own little slice of heaven? Sure, part of her acknowledged that some of the new ‘her’ wasn’t organic, wasn’t what she’d been born with. It had been inserted alongside all the new genomic data as John’s Progenitor semen had rewritten her DNA. And yet, so what? Anything that made her this happy couldn’t be evil, as John seemed half-convinced his powers were at times. All things being equal, Alyssa wouldn’t go back to her old life even if it were possible. In every way, by every metric, life as John’s Matriarch was better than being a Karron street whore. She would embrace her new life, even with its extraordinary duties and responsibilities, and do it smiling. It was definitely worth it.
 
Drawn from her musing, Alyssa’s ear caught a gasp from the door. She turned, and saw Calara hesitantly peeking into the main cabin. Her eyes were wide, no doubt focused on Alyssa’s and John’s nude bodies not covered by the bedsheets. Alyssa glanced at the chronometer, seeing that a good 6 hours had passed since John had dosed the Latina. Guess the meds had already worn off.
 
“I’m s-s-so sorry! I should have knocked, I…” Calara stammered, reaching up to actually cover her eyes as if to protect Alyssa’s modesty. As if she had any left.
 
“No worries,” Alyssa assured their temporary charge. She slid out of bed, tucking John back in behind her, then turned to walk over to Calara. Still starkers, for the record. “Are you feeling better? John treated your injuries as best he could.”
 
Calara peeked through her fingers, squeaked, turned a very dark shade, then ducked her head. “I… I do feel better, but that’s not saying much. I’m still in a lot of pain, but I’m very hungry. I came to ask if I could borrow some rations before I got another hypo, but…”
 
“Say no more!” Alyssa chirped. She darted over to John’s drawer and slid on one of his long-sleeve t-shirts. She practically swam in it, even in her much bigger body compared to her original self, but it made her decent with minimal effort. Plus, she’d be able to smell a trace of John on her skin while she cooked, which was always a win. She went back to the cabin door, exiting the room and grinning at a still-blushing Calara. “Let’s get some grub!”
 
Alyssa patiently guided Calara as she walked at a slow pace so as to not aggravate her ribs towards the rec room. Alyssa helped the naval officer into a seat at the dining table, then went to dig out a pot. She was sure a hot meal would be more appealing for Calara and John than protein bars. Alyssa, naturally, would be getting her dinner on her knees out of John’s quad once Calara went to sleep. Anyway, Alyssa found a few cans of chicken noodle soup, emptied them into the pot, and carefully turned on the stove to heat it up.
 
“You’re, uh, not shy about your looks, are you?” Calara said a tad awkwardly as Alyssa reached up to grab a couple glasses from the cabinet, making John’s t-shirt ride up indecently.
 
Alyssa turned over her shoulder and quirked a brow. “Honey, does it look like I’ve got anything to be shy about?” she asked rhetorically.
 
“Point taken,” Calara managed while turning as red as her coffee-colored complexion would allow.
 
Alyssa filled both glasses with water and brought them over to the dining table. Making sure Calara got a sip, Alyssa then went to keep an eye on the soup. She’d literally never cooked before in her life, but how hard could it be? Just turn off the heat once the bubbles started, right? With her eye on the pot, Alyssa asked “How are you feeling, really?”
 
“Sort of… numb. I’m trying real bad not to think too hard,” Calara admitted. “There’s a lot I’ll have to face and deal with in therapy after… what happened.”
 
Alyssa felt sympathy well up in her heart. “What’s important is that you’re alive. You

get

to face and deal with it. Remember that.”
 
“Have you ever lost someone?” Calara asked, a little pointedly. “‘Cause I just lost 17 friends and coworkers.”
 
Alyssa turned to look Calara right in her chocolate-brown eyes. “My mom died in childbirth. I never met her, doesn’t mean I didn’t feel her absence. Daddy died when I was 6. When I was 12, my best friend got hooked on drugs and became a whore for a pimp who kept her high as a kite. I found her body in an alley a couple years later. I could go on, but comparing pain isn’t a dick-measuring contest. Just know I’m not making empty platitudes, I know what I’m talking about.”
 
Calara gulped and looked down. “Sorry. I guess you’re just so beautiful, part of me thought you must have gotten lucky in every other way too. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that.”
 
“Apology accepted,” Alyssa assured the Latina youth.
 
There was a beat of stilted silence, then Alyssa felt something inside urge her to be honest. “I didn’t always look like this,” she admitted.
 
“What do you mean?” Calara asked, frowning in confusion. “Like, you got work done?”
 
“Not the way you’re thinking,” Alyssa tried to clarify. She had a moment where she debated if she had any right to share John’s secret without asking permission first. But she pressed onward, having a gut feeling this would all work out for the best. “I didn’t go to a clinic and get cut open with a bodysculpt. But this isn't the body I was born with either. It’s complicated, and you’ll have to keep an open mind to understand the truth. That’s if you want to know, anyway.”
 
“You can’t drop hints like that and then leave me hanging. Go on, I promise to listen to whatever you say,” Calara prompted. The mystery was much more interesting to focus on then how her day had gone so far.
 
Alyssa took a deep breath, then forged onwards. “Let’s start with the basics. John isn’t Terran.”
 
Calara blinked at that curveball. “Wait, really? But I thought he was a Commander! Which is actually a bit odd seeing as you two seem to be in an old auxiliary freighter but I still thought he was military.”
 
“He was. Is. Again, a little complicated. He describes it as he’s a semi-retired ‘consultant’,” Alyssa provided with helpful air quotes. “He wanted out after Galon Prime, but he didn’t want to lose all the perks of being an officer. So he and the T-Fed split the difference where he got to keep a few toys and he has to help out where he can. Like just now with the Griffon attack. So he has Commander-level clearance, even if he’s technically a civilian now. Not the point, though. He’s a Federation citizen, and he graduated the Academy, but he’s still not human. Just looks a lot like one.”
 
“That’s… wow. You hear about non-human citizens, but I don’t think I’ve ever met any who went into the service. But what does John’s species have to do with you getting a new body?” Calara wondered.
 
“Accepting that biology is capable of miracles, and that Terrans for all their knowledge have only explored a very small portion of the galaxy let alone the universe, I need you to just take what I’m about to say at face value,” Alyssa forewarned. “John’s a Progenitor. Progenitor semen is a genetic scalpel that rewrites the drinker’s DNA.”
 
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Calara rolled her eyes.
 
Alyssa stayed stone-faced. “Am I laughing?”
 
Calara’s face twisted into puzzled annoyance. “Seriously? Gene-editing jizz? You expect me to believe that?”
 
Alyssa sighed, thinking of a way to convince the fellow teen. She went over to the nearby holo-console and logged into the Fool’s Gold’s camera archives. She found a good angle of herself on the day John found her and froze the image. She handed it over to Calara to inspect. “That was me before I started drinking John’s loads. I’ll lay my hand on a stack of holy texts if that’ll convince you. I didn’t get sick, I didn’t inject myself with anything. All I did was drink John’s cum. And the results are clear to see.”
 
Calara, while still skeptical, couldn’t deny one key detail: the eyes were the same. The cerulean orbs shining from the dirty face of the urchin on the screen were the same peering straight into her soul right now. “On the off chance I accept that, how did it happen so fast? Even if John’s… stuff gave you new genes, you’d have to go through a second puberty or something for the changes to express themselves. That should take months. This footage is 3 weeks old.”
 
“Did I forget to mention that Progenitors like John are psychic?” Alyssa shrugged. “I don’t understand the science of it, precisely. But John’s cum rewrote my genetic code, and then he used the psychic link between my body and his to feed me the energy to speed up the process. And it’s not just skin-deep. It wasn’t just my body that got a makeover, but my mind. My IQ has doubled, no joke, and I’m much more content and mentally healthy than I have any right to be. John, quite simply, ‘cured’ everything wrong with me to make me into, well, this.” Alyssa gestured at her statuesque form for emphasis.
 
Calara wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t slow either. “And, what, you think I should get the same ‘cure’? You want me to go down on your boyfriend?”
 
“There’s a lot of fine print we’d need to go over, but in a nutshell, yes,” Alyssa said directly. “I think it would be the best thing for you.”
 
“How so?” Calara demanded.
 
“You recover from all the physical trauma those bastards put you through overnight. John can make at least a little headway into healing your mental and emotional trauma while he’s at it. While you get fixed up as if this morning never happened, John will get a psychic link with you to help him fuel his powers for the rest of your natural life. Win-win, the way I see it,” Alyssa said earnestly.
 
“Alyssa, stop,” John said from the doorway, startling both women at his sudden presence. He’d thrown on a pair of shorts but nothing else, and Calara got even redder than she had while looking at Alyssa seeing his rippling torso and bulging arms on full display. John padded over to the stove to turn down the heat of the soup in danger of bubbling over. He turned away from the pot to pierce Alyssa with a look. “What are you doing, young lady?” he asked, every inch the disappointed authority figure.
 
Alyssa strove not to duck her head or otherwise react like a child caught reaching into the cookie jar. “I’m trying to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement with Calara. You disapprove?”
 
“Yes, I do,” John stated flatly. “For one thing, did you consider the long-term consequences if she were to agree? If she shows up at Port Heracles after a pirate attack with not a scratch on her and not obviously shellshocked, she’ll likely be accused of colluding with the gang. She could get railroaded with circumstantial evidence and drummed out of the service, or even get prison time depending on what charges stick. To say nothing of the attention that would be drawn our way when a simple blood test reveals something very strange has happened to her genome after contact with the unidentified alien. Shall I go on?”
 
Alyssa had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d miscalculated somewhere. “That’s if she doesn’t just resign and run away with us to join the crew,” she countered, knowing she was on shaky ground but sticking to her guns.
 
“Oh, yes, of course. Why wouldn’t she abandon her whole life to run away with the two strangers she just met?” John asked with a straight face that hit harder than any amount of scathing sarcasm. “Alyssa, you had nothing to lose. It breaks my heart, but you had nothing and no one holding you back from giving me everything. I highly doubt Calara is in the same position. She’s a Federation officer with her whole career ahead of her. She probably has a family that would notice her absence or question her decisions. We don’t even know if she’s attracted to men that way, let alone male aliens.”
 
“You say that while she’s practically drooling over your abs?” Alyssa fired back, but most of the wind had been taken out of her sails.
 
John took a deep, slow breath. “We will talk about this later.” It wasn’t a threat, it was a promise. John turned his focus on Calara. “I’m sorry for Alyssa’s conduct. She means well, but she still had no right to proposition you on my behalf. The last thing you need to deal with after this morning is unwanted sexual advances.”
 
Alyssa winced at the reminder of the Largath and what it had almost done to the young Lieutenant. She’d gotten so caught up with the end that she hadn’t considered how Calara would react to the means. 
 
“But you’re really some psychic humanoid who has DNA-rewriting semen?” Calara asked him with a dubious expression.
 
“Yes, that is the truth. Like Alyssa said, there’s a lot of fine print we’d need to go over before I would agree to go through with you drinking my fluids, even indirectly. If you’re genuinely interested, we can go over that all tomorrow. But right now, let’s focus on eating dinner and getting a good night’s sleep. Sound good?” John posed before going to get three bowls.
 
They had a very awkward meal, and John escorted Calara back to the passenger cabin and administered another hypo of pain meds and sedative to conk her out for a good few hours. John returned to the rec room, where he found Alyssa cleaning the bowls very slowly.
 
*How much trouble am I in?* she asked, not looking over her shoulder as she scrubbed at nonexistent spots in the wet ceramic.
 
*I’m debating whether a stern talking to will work or if you’ve earned yourself a solid spanking,* John answered honestly. *Honey, what were you thinking?*
 
*I wasn’t even angling for her imprinting on you and becoming my sister-wife or anything. I just figured your powers could heal her good as new and we’d have an extra psychic battery to use for the upcoming Progenitor War. You were right, I didn’t think it through, I just acted on impulse,* Alyssa confessed, setting the bowls on the drying rack and turning to face John. *Sorry.*
 
John met her ocean-blue gaze and finally let out a long sigh. *Guess this was our first fight. You had your opinion, I had mine, and we’ll need to work out the difference. But I know you weren’t trying to cause trouble, you really just wanted to help both Calara and us out. I forgive you, Alyssa. But next time, let’s pitch the recruitment for any potential Thrall on mutual agreement, deal?*
 
*Deal. Kiss and make up?* Alyssa asked hopefully.
 
John chuckled and walked over to wrap his arms around his lover, dipping down to give her a deep kiss. *Kissed and made up. Now, let’s go back to our cabin where I can give you your real dinner.*
 
Once Alyssa was rotund, John took a brief trip to the cockpit to check the long-range scanners and ensure their route to Nerus was clear. Then he returned to the main cabin, talked things out with Alyssa, and finally went back to sleep for the night.
 
John and Alyssa woke to their alarm. Alyssa got her usual breakfast, put on the body-sleeve in case Calara saw her, and went to man the cockpit. John got his own breakfast, grabbed a couple extra protein bars and a glass of water, and went to the passenger cabin to check on Calara.
 
Calara stirred at the activated lights when John came in, her chemical slumber having transitioned to natural sleep sometime in the night. “Morning, Lieutenant Fernandez. Rations?” John offered. He was using military jargon to try and put her at ease in an unfamiliar environment.
 
“Appreciated, Commander,” Calara said, sitting up slowly given her broken ribs. She accepted the glass and protein bars when John handed them over, and he pulled over a chair to sit beside the bunk while she slowly ate her breakfast.
 
“I won’t insult you and ask if you’re feeling good. But do you feel better than yesterday?” John asked once she’d swallowed the last bite and washed it down.
 
“It feels like a nightmare. Except I was awake the whole time,” Calara said shakily, a tremor in every word. “The pirates rushing the Griffon when we docked, getting dragged into their ship, the lashing, watching that

beast

do what it did to Jojo and Maisy, then it was me…”
 
John offered his open hand, which Calara clutched like a lifeline. “It wasn’t your fault,” John told her, having plenty of experience with survivor’s guilt and PTSD, in others if not always himself. He knew part of her would be irrationally blaming herself for failing to foresee or prevent the tragedy.
 
“I know that. I

know

it. But it doesn’t feel like it,” Calara said with wet eyes and a knot in her throat. “And then there was all that craziness with Alyssa and your freaky alien sex powers or whatever.”
 
“Yes, that was in poor taste of Alyssa to offer that to you so soon after what happened,” John frowned. “To be fair, joining my network is the best thing that ever happened to her, no joke. She probably assumed it would be the same for you. She didn’t consider all the other factors at play when she tried to recruit you.”
 
“How does that even work? What network? And she really used to be that worm girl I saw on the video?” Calara asked, curious despite herself. Besides, it was something to focus on besides what happened to her crew.
 
“Normally, I’d require your solemn oath not to breathe a word of this if you end up opting out. But frankly, between how outlandish the truth is and the events you just experienced, anyone you report it to will write it off as the hysterics of a traumatized young woman and ignore it completely. That being said, I hope you recognize that I’m sharing something very personal with you and I hope you can respect the severity of the situation, silly as it may seem,” John prefaced.
 
“I’m listening. And I won’t tell anyone, cross my heart,” Calara promised. She even made the gesture over her chest.
 
John nodded and launched into a full explanation of Progenitors, their psychic networks, and the full scope of the genetic edits that came with ingesting Progenitor semen. He spared no detail, being even more thorough with the Latina than he’d been with Alyssa. He even used before-and-after comparisons of Alyssa to drive home the behavioral modification and how deep the changes went.
 
“You have three options before you, Calara,” John finally wrapped up after a solid 10 minutes. “You can choose to have nothing to do with me that way. We can keep in touch as much as you want, but after we drop you off at Port Heracles then we might never see each other again. That’s ‘A’. ‘B’ is to accept a single dose of my cum indirectly. I’d jerk off into a cup and you’d drink it down. I’d touch up your physical injuries, though I won’t heal them completely because that would arouse too much suspicion. I would certainly try my best to cure your mental trauma though, take the edge off the pain if not erase it entirely. You’d become a node in my psychic network, capable of receiving one-way telepathic messages from Alyssa as my Matriarch and at risk of randomly getting tired as we tap you for psychic energy for the rest of your life. ‘C’, and you’d truly surprise me if you opt for it, is to drink from me directly. You’d imprint on me, joining me for eternity alongside Alyssa, and you’d serve beside me as I go on to fight in the Progenitor War, the war to end all wars. You’d have to resign from the military, and while I won’t bar you from seeing your family ever again, they will have some awkward questions about why you’re in a polygamous relationship or eventually why you’re not aging. Those are your options. Choose carefully.”
 
Calara gulped and looked down, clearly deep in thought. “I owe you my life,” she finally said in a small but resolved voice. “Cutting all ties, giving nothing back like with ‘A’ doesn’t appeal. But I could never abandon the military. So ‘C’ is a non-starter. That leaves me with ‘B’. I’ll become your Thrall in exchange for you making the nightmare stop. Seems fair to me.”
 
“Final answer, Calara. Is that what you want, yes or no?” John pressed, not wanting there to be any doubt as to her decision.
 
“Yes,” she said, meeting his eyes with her own haunted look. But there was determination there as well.
 
John finally nodded, satisfied that she’d thought it through. “Be right back,” he said, before going to find a glass… or maybe the pot from last night. 4 pints was a rather large volume of liquid after all.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

John and Alyssa entered the passenger cabin, almost 14 hours to the dot after Calara had swallowed one of John’s loads out of a kitchen pot. The young Second Lieutenant had agreed to become John’s first Thrall (Alyssa was his Matriarch, different thing entirely) in exchange for him using his psychic powers to heal her mental trauma from the pirate ambush on her ship. 
 
John had already forged the Connection between himself and Calara, binding her Astral body to his for the length of her natural life. While his semen and the psychic catalyst it was laced with was still in her system, John had rolled up his eldritch sleeves and gotten to work. He’d isolated the memories of the pirate attack in Calara’s mind and carefully pruned every emotional connection they had to the rest of the Latina’s psyche.
 
It would have been simpler to just erase the memories entirely, but that might be too suspicious if Calara couldn’t report to her superiors anything and claimed total amnesia. So John did the next best thing, and made it so the memories had zero emotional weight. In theory, Calara would remember the whole event like a scene out of a movie, something she’d witnessed but had absolutely no impact on her mind or heart long-term.
 
After a couple hours of delicate psychic tampering with Calara’s brain, John was satisfied he’d done the best he could. Which still left Calara to sleep off her first dose for most of the day. John had returned to his usual routine of maintenance chores and telepathically conversing with Alyssa, keeping his blonde Matriarch well-fed at lunch and again at dinner.
 
Calara having gotten her dose of John’s fluids before 0700, it was coming up on 2100 when John and Alyssa came to check on whether the Latina was awake yet. John came bearing a tall glass of water; he’d observed that every woman who woke from first exposure to his spunk did so in a dehydrated state.
 
Right on time, Calara began to stir around the 14-hour mark from when she’d first swallowed John’s seed. She blinked and yawned, smacking her lips. “Thirsty,” she muttered to herself.
 
Alyssa reached over to help move Calara into a sitting position, mindful of her still-broken ribs. John made sure he had Calara’s attention, then offered the glass of water wordlessly. She took it eagerly and gulped it down rather fast. With a contented sigh, she offered the empty glass back to John. “Thank you, John,” she said.
 
“How are you feeling?” John asked carefully, hoping he’d been successful.
 
“Parts of me are in pain, but the rest are throwing a fiesta,” Calara said, eyes widening as she took stock of herself. “My nose and side still hurt, but even that’s a bit less than this morning. Otherwise, I’m full of energy. Like I had the best night’s sleep in the universe. And the memories… they don’t hurt anymore! They just don’t! How is that possible?!”
 
“A helpful Progenitor hacked your brain, remember?” Alyssa pointed out with a chuckle. “John keeps his word. He said he’d cure your mental trauma. So he did. Satisfied?”
 
“I just feel so… detached from what happened. Like I’ve had years and years for the scars to fade and process everything,” Calara breathed in awe. “I can remember getting whipped. I remember fighting the Largath. I remember every detail. And yet I don’t want to cry or scream or anything. I’m making myself sad because I think I

should

be sad, but the memories themselves… they’re ‘clean’. It’s strange, but I’m not complaining!”
 
“Well, I’m happy I could help,” John told the second woman who’d knowingly joined his psychic network. “Now, do you remember the strings that were attached to this deal?”
 
“I’m your Thrall now, in other words a psychic battery for you to tap at a moment’s notice. I’m also probably not going to transform to look like Alyssa, but I’ve still most likely picked up the imprint on my first sexual partner. And supposedly, Alyssa can talk to me via Telepathy but it’s strictly one-way,” Calara rattled off what she remembered from John’s warning earlier that day.
 
*Testing, one two,* Alyssa projected across her link to Calara, separate and distinct from the link she shared with John.
 
The Latina jumped. “I heard that. Only it wasn’t with my ears. Freaky,” Calara commented. “Is this how the Ashanath talk to each other?”
 
“I would assume so, they rely on Telepathy. Though we can’t be sure Telepathy isn’t different between different species. The version I have and gave to Alyssa and now you might not be the same as what the Grays have,” John answered as best he could.
 
“I promise not to chatter your ear off at all hours of the day. We can rely on Terran comms if we ever want to keep in touch and chat. I’ll only use Telepathy to keep you up to date on anything that can’t be said over an open call or to warn you we’re about to tap you for power,” Alyssa informed Calara.
 
“On that note, we should exchange comm codes. The whole ‘Progenitor-Matriarch-Thrall’ thing aside, you guys saved my life. I’d like to maintain a relationship with you guys,” Calara said with the first smile John or Alyssa had seen from her since they’d met.
 
It turned out that Calara’s smartphone had been looted by the pirates and wasn’t in the pocket of her fatigues where she’d left it. But she still remembered her personal code and rattled it off for John to copy into his own device’s memory. He sent a test text to Calara’s account so she’d have his own code on record. Calara expressed a desire to eat, so John went to fetch more water and a couple protein bars. The three of them ended up conversing for a couple hours, Calara forming a fast bond of friendship with both her rescuers based on respect, gratitude, and shared interests. Finally, it was John who had to cut the talk short when Alyssa yawned, it having neared their usual bedtime.
 
Wishing Calara a peaceful night, John and Alyssa went to their own cabin. Alyssa stripped out of the body-sleeve she’d been primarily wearing when it was necessary for her to not be naked and threw it in the hamper. She crawled into bed and waited patiently for her man to join her. John, once nude himself, sat down at the edge of the bed. He took a moment to focus and crafted his usual Astral invisibility cloak to ward against any accidental Spirit-Walks and assaults by Fallen Progenitors or worse the Devourer. Then he lay down on the bed and curled an arm around Alyssa as she snuggled into his side.
 
*Night, honey,* John sent directly into her mind via their always-on, always-open telepathic link.
 
*Night, handsome,* she returned, already half-asleep in the safety of John’s embrace.
 
John closed his eyes and relaxed, allowing himself to sink into slumber.
 
Rather than a comforting blank darkness that would hold him until his alarm in the morning, John found himself floating in a chaotic void that violated every ‘rule’ he could think of. Up was also down, black was also white, near was also far, the mind buckled trying to process the sheer paradox of this realm. And a bank of icy mist was just before him, seeming to be blindly reaching out tendrils to try and find him.
 
John, realizing he had somehow once again Spirit-Walked in his sleep, retreated as far back as he could from the mists where the Devourer and its slaves resided. Even as he kept an eye on the grasping mists to make sure he remained beyond their reach, he pondered this phenomenon. He hadn’t had another ‘dream’ like this since the night after he’d recruited Alyssa. And now it had happened again… the night after he’d recruited Calara.
 
Realizing the link, John recognized that these involuntary trips to the Astral Plane seemed to be triggered whenever he made a new Connection. Still, with his enchanted cloak of hexagons, he was as safe as possible while traversing the Astral. Focusing, he tried to force himself awake, to return to his physical body in the Material Plane. He felt slight resistance, and then he was gasping awake as he forced his eyes open, his soul once more encased in his flesh and blood body.
 
Alyssa stirred, having only been asleep around 15 minutes and disturbed by John’s turbulent thoughts and emotions. Blinking awake, she reached up to cup John’s cheek. *John, what’s wrong?*
 
*Remember that dream I had the first night? I just had another one,* John explained, even as he worked to calm himself down from the shock of the unexpected experience.
 
Alyssa wasn’t dumb. In fact, John had enhanced her to an IQ over 200 if it ever got properly measured. She realized this wasn’t a coincidence. *You get dragged into the Astral the next time you fall asleep after making a Connection! But why?*
 
*I’m not sure,* John admitted. *Either I’m doing it subconsciously for some reason, or the Devourer can ‘detect’ whenever I make a Connection and then tries its best to drag me into a sub-plane as soon as I’m ‘vulnerable’ in sleep. Or maybe there’s a third explanation I can’t think of. ‘Why’ might not be as important as how to deal with it, though.*
 
*Your Kyth’faren spirit shield thing seems to be working pretty well,* Alyssa pointed out. *Still, the best defense is a good offense. Maybe next time you should show those Fallen Progenitors who’s boss and scare them off from trying to find you.*
 
*Great idea, but a bit ahead of ourselves, honey,* John gave a rueful chuckle. *Fallen Progenitors retain all the power they had at the moment of their deaths. Usually when they’d been ruling a Thrall Empire for centuries if not millennia and training just as long for psychic duels with other Progenitors. I have a grand total of two women in my network. We’re a long way off from me being in the right weight class to take the fight to them. For now, playing hide-and-seek with my invisibility cloak is probably for the best.*
 
*You’re right. It just sticks in my craw, the idea of you running away instead of standing to fight,* Alyssa sighed.
 
*Well, them’s the breaks. When I’m ready to go to war in the spirit world, you’ll be the first to know,* John promised. *Now, let’s go back to sleep. I didn’t have a repeat nightmare the last time, so I’m probably safe to sleep now.*
 
*Might as well keep the cloak up, just in case,* Alyssa pointed out.
 
John agreed, made sure the cloak was still active, then did his best to slip back to sleep alongside Alyssa.
 
The next thing John was aware of was the beeping of the alarm clock, so he considered his working theory accurate. He felt movement by his side, then the beeping stopped. A few seconds later, a warm weight settled between his legs and he felt the silky softness of Alyssa’s hair brush his hips just as a warm, wet mouth wrapped around his morning wood.

*This is the life,* John thought dreamily, reaching down to cup Alyssa’s head and provide gentle encouragement as she did her best to milk his balls for her usual breakfast.
 
*You’re telling me,* Alyssa replied, even with her mouth and throat rather occupied. *I even cum when you do, our bond is so strong. Progenitor blowjobs, fun for both sides!*
 
John gave a weak laugh that morphed into a moan. While he could last over an hour when he was motivated, there was no real need to prove his endurance right now. Besides, Alyssa was hungry and the longer he held off, the longer before she was fed. So John offered no internal resistance as his pleasure reached higher and higher until it crossed the threshold into orgasm. He sighed happily as his cock erupted, Alyssa expertly drinking down each spurt while maximizing stimulation to prolong his climax as long and hard as possible.
 
His quad of balls finally drained dry, John looked down to see Alyssa withdrawing her face from his groin. She flashed a beatific smile at him, then reached down to cup her rounded belly, swollen from the half-gallon of sperm-rich spunk he’d filled her with. *I love this feeling. Full to the brim because of my man. And it’s not even the

fun

way, not yet,* Alyssa thought with a teasing wink.
 
*And not for a while, nice as it is to fantasize,* John huffed a breath, his ebullient mood tapering down to his usual stoic calm. *You’ll be on the front lines with me for the whole of the Progenitor War. It won’t be safe to knock you up until it’s effectively over and won. That could take decades, or even centuries.*
 
*Still, one day, you’ll get me pregnant. I’ll carry our baby and bring them into the world. My own gift to you, to pay you back for the Gift you gave me,* Alyssa thought with a serene smile.
 
John felt his heart grow tender, even as he raised a brow. *The Gift? Capital ‘g’? Is that what we’re going to nickname the process?*
 
*Sounds sexier than ‘the Change’ or ‘Thrallization’, don’t you think?* Alyssa pointed out.
 
*Fair point,* John agreed. Plus, would be faster than saying “the suite of genetic edits caused by my Progenitor semen rewriting the subject’s DNA” at any rate.
 
Alyssa, hardly affected by her gravid middle, slipped out of their bunk and went to put on the body-sleeve, robotically laundered overnight. Making herself decent in consideration of Calara, Alyssa went to exit and go to the cockpit. *Don’t be a lazybones. We’re due to arrive at Nerus and Port Heracles within 2 hours,* she thought as she left, having perfectly memorized the route she’d calculated and their remaining travel time.
 
John got up and dressed himself, grabbed breakfast for two from the rec room, and went to wake up Calara. The Latina blinked her eyes open when the lights turned on as he came in. “Morning, John,” she said, sitting up gingerly and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
 
“Morning, Calara. We’re due to arrive at Port Heracles later this morning. You don’t have to stand up, they’ll probably send in a med crew with a stretcher and shift you bed-to-bed into the hospital,” John informed his new Thrall as he handed her her breakfast.
 
“Wow, that seems fast. It’s been only 2 days in transit, hasn’t it?” Calara blinked. “Especially in a ship this old, no offense.”
 
“None taken. And Alyssa’s not just a pretty face. She’s a Navigator First Class, official certification and everything. She plotted the fastest route physically possible to get us from the Griffon to Heracles,” John explained.
 
“Is that part of the perk package of the full ‘Gift’ I won’t get on just one dose?” Calara asked.
 
*I can talk to her at the same time you can, thanks to the Matriarch-Thrall link,* Alyssa told John when he was surprised at the Latina referencing the Gift.
 
Putting juggling physical and telepathic conversations simultaneously off for now, John nodded. “Yes. I focused almost entirely on your mind when we had an active link when you were… digesting. Any physical enhancements you would have received would be negligible. I’m not sure your DNA was even touched on, and if it was it would have been subconsciously on my own part.”
 
“Running away with you guys gets more and more tempting,” Calara managed to chuckle. “Still, you guys are immortal, right? Maybe when I’m old and gray and retired, I can call you guys up and get a second shot at life as part of your crew. Have my fulfilling military career as a Terran before joining the alien warlord as his eternal concubine.”
 
“You’d be Alyssa’s sister-wife, not on a lower tier or ranking than she is,” John replied with a straight face. He chuckled at Calara’s blush. “In all seriousness, that is an option. You already opted for ‘B’. ‘C’ doesn’t necessarily have to happen right now, or even this decade. If at any point you change your mind and decide to pledge your life to me, just call me up and I’ll rush to your side and whisk you away.”
 
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Calara said delicately, before distracting herself with eating her protein bars.
 
John collected the trash for Calara, handed her the laundered rags of her old fatigues for her to change into if she so desired, then went to join Alyssa in the cockpit. He settled down in the pilot’s seat, she having taken the co-pilot’s seat without thinking about it out of deference to him. John checked on their astro-nav route himself, despite every confidence in Alyssa’s skills, he was just the type to double-check everything. That done, John decided to pass the time until they arrived at Nerus by checking Terran Federation Network News.
 
The headlines were the usual mix of sports, politics, entertainment, and civic news. An alarming number of trending pieces, though, seemed to be about the escalating tensions between the Terran Federation and the neighboring Kintark Empire. John frowned and pulled up a video of an interview between Lead Anchor Bill Armstrong and a member of High Command, Admiral Leonard Norwood.
 
“Admiral Norwood, can you confirm the rumors of numerous border skirmishes and increasing casualties thereof in the Dragon March?” asked the immaculately dressed and made-up journalist.
 
“The Terran border with the Kintark Empire is strong as ever,” said the stony Admiral with a rather sour cast to his face. “The Lizards have indeed been acting more aggressive lately, testing the strength and conviction of the brave men and women who serve in the Dragon March. They have unilaterally been repulsed. Some injuries and losses are an unfortunate reality, but there’s no reason to worry.”
 
John listened to Armstrong try numerous tacks to try and get more information out of Norwood only to be met with clearly scripted responses that said very little with very many words. He sighed and exited the holo-feed. *A war with the Kintark. That’ll end well,* he thought sardonically.
 
*Are you sure it’s going to go all the way to a war?* Alyssa asked, having little to no understanding of the Galactic League and the interplay between the constituent empires.
 
*I recognize propaganda when I hear it. High Command is playing it off as the Lizards getting rowdy and we’re calmly beating them back. I’ll need to check with a few of my sources near the border to get the real story, but my gut says things are much worse than they’re telling the public. And we probably started this fight in the first place, so on our own head be our sins if this turns into a major conflict,* John explained his thoughts to his Matriarch.
 
*So what does this mean for us, personally?* Alyssa wondered.
 
John hummed as he steepled his fingers. *Well, on the one hand, if conflict is brewing then the demand for Tyrenium will be going up, ergo we’ll make a better profit off our cargo when we reach Alpha Centauri. On the other hand, if the Kintark have closed their borders to Terran vessels, we won’t be visiting them to upgrade the heatsinks for our new ship when we take a tour of the League after the second trip to Karron. And if a war does break out, I’m hardly going to re-enlist but if we stumble on any incidents, I’ll be forced to intervene as a consultant. In the long-run, if I end up Maliri King, the fate of a war between the T-Fed and the Kintark will be immaterial for the most part. Still, the part of me that’s still a little boy growing up on Terra feels bad that my birth nation is gearing up for a fight it may not win. The Kintark are the greatest military power in the League after us and the Maliri, after all.*
 
*Who all is in ‘the League’?* Alyssa asked, figuring she could distract John with an educational moment and relieve her own ignorance with one move.
 
John focused on the question, well aware of Alyssa’s intentions but playing along regardless. He pulled up an atlas of Galactic League territories. He lectured aloud “Here’s the Galactic League, or almost every explored and therefore claimed star in known space. To keep perspective, it all totals less than 100 thousand stars, out of roughly 250 billion in the Milky Way. There’s hundreds of member nations, but the Terran Federation is easily in the top 5 in terms of sheer size and military power. Most members have only their home system to their name. The major players each have hundreds or even thousands of star systems colonized or otherwise within their marked borders. There’s an official summit every 10 years where they try to work out any issues or disagreements, but the League itself has no teeth. It can lean on members to comply with its standards, but there’s no real penalties to ignoring them and a nation acting on its own devices. So ‘the Galactic League’ is used more as an easy way to refer to every nation humanity knows about than the actual organization.”
 
“Who are the ‘major players’, besides the T-Fed?” Alyssa asked.
 
John patiently started to point out the biggest sections of the color-coded atlas. “The Terran Federation is centrally located in the League, hence why Terran Standard has become the lingua franca since most international trade happens within our borders compared to going all the way to the other empire. Believe it or not, though, almost all of what we have now used to belong to the Ashanath Collective, that empire to our ‘south’. When humanity first reached Alpha Centauri and made contact with the Gray colony there marked the beginning of them seceding systems over to us. Mankind just kept expanding outward, and the Ashanath for whatever reason peacefully handed over all those planets and resources rather than put up a fight. Current borders were reached about two centuries ago, but I’m sure at least one Admiral has a big binder of strategies to annex them for good and make them a vassal state. ‘Grays’ is a nickname, like ‘Lizards’ for the Kintark.”
 
John paused. “Fun fact. ‘Ashanath’ is the Progenitor word for ‘Collective’. Which might make Ashanath Collective a translation issue, like Rio Grande River or Sahara Desert, but whatever. The fact they’re bipedal mammalian humanoids is another way they could be linked to the Progenitors. And I got a close look at their Tachyon Drive tech, their superior version of Terran FTL Drives. It was watered-down Progenitor parts, I swear. There’s definitely some kind of connection between the Ashanath and at least one Progenitor, likely in the distant past. But I’m not sure when or where, and I don’t know who to ask or where to look for answers.”
 
“Might be worth making them our first stop after the second Tyrenium deal. Besides doing some research, getting faster hyperwarp speeds will make getting all the other upgrades that much faster,” Alyssa put in her two credits.
 
“Not a bad idea,” John nodded.
 
“Who’s past the Outer Rim, the ‘eastern’ border?” Alyssa asked, regarding the ochre-colored section of stars with curiosity.
 
“The Kirrix, aka the Bugs. Kill-on-sight throughout the League, a living plague on sapient life. You’ve never heard of them?” John asked, a little surprised given she’d grown up within spitting distance of the border.
 
“I didn’t see the point of learning about the rest of the galaxy when I seemed doomed to live and die on Karron,” Alyssa admitted without shame. “Plus any education I got stopped when I ran away from the orphanage at 8. Not counting my new Astro-Nav chops, over half of what I know was picked up from listening to gossip around the barrel fire, and I can’t be sure all of it was true or accurate.”
 
John didn’t bother saying sorry, though he radiated care and comfort across their link. “Well, maybe ignorance was bliss. The Kirrix are insectoid parasites. They invade planets and colonies with intelligent life, specifically go after sapient species as opposed to lower life forms, and rape their eggs into each host. Two weeks later, the grubs hatch and eat their way out of the still-breathing body. Most people who live near the Kirrix border have nightmares of dying from Kirrix implantation. You, on the other hand, couldn’t be scared of what you didn’t know existed.”
 
“Yikes,” Alyssa shivered, images of a giant cockroach violating her now playing in her head. “That’s despicable. Do we know why they do it?”
 
“They don’t appear to communicate via sound waves, and their computers don’t seem capable of interfacing with any other species’. All attempts at communication have failed. The Kirrix are an anomaly. Smart enough to crack interstellar travel, yet apparently driven purely by instinct to procreate and expand. We don’t know why they do what they do, and so far the universally accepted answer is just to wipe them out to a drone whenever we cross paths,” John revealed.
 
“Then why did your mom’s ship go exploring in that direction?” Alyssa wondered, recalling the fact that John had apparently been conceived on a planet in Kirrix space.
 
“Keep in mind this was back in the ‘30s. The Kirrix hadn’t expanded to their current borders yet. The ‘40s Purges is when they tried to expand into Federation space and High Command fought them back to their current borders. In any case, I’d need a Progenitor-grade ship before I’m comfortable going to investigate my father’s planet, given we’ll be fighting through Kirrix territory the whole while,” John sighed, mind heavy with thoughts.
 
“So, Terrans in the middle. Bugs to the right, Grays behind us. What about left, in front, below, and above?” Alyssa asked, hoping to shift her man’s focus off dark topics.
 
“‘Left’ or ‘west’ is the Kintark Empire, the ones we’re gearing up to fight,” John said, getting back to the lesson. “Reptilian, bipedal but capable of quadrupedal movement. Their society is a genetic caste system. Also very religious, but that’s neither here nor there. They’ve been playing around with gene-splicing longer than humanity’s had the steam engine, and over time they’ve settled into various subspecies. Top of the food chain is the Imperial family. If the videos I’ve seen aren’t pure fabrication, Emperor Baledranax is a 200-foot winged

dragon

of all things. Not fire-breathing, but that’s where their famous Plasma weaponry comes in. Like I said, in the same weight class as the T-Fed in terms of military might, so a real war will be a bloodbath no matter which way you slice it.”
 
John continued before he could linger too long on that disquieting notion. “To our ‘north’ is the Brimorian Enclave. Aquatics, though technically amphibian with a preference for water. We have a checkered history with them. The first wave of Terran colonists that went past their border made settlements on land, unaware of their neighbors underwater. The Brimorians reacted rather violently, slaughtering every Terran colonist. The Callopean Shoals became a warzone until we finally beat them back to current borders. They’re sore losers though, so every few decades there’s a major skirmish where they try to reclaim those systems and we have to repel them. Always by ‘rogue’ elements, of course, not backed by the Enclave,” John said with an eye roll.
 
“What’s their claim to fame? They must have some kind of ‘edge’ to have such a large empire,” Alyssa reasoned, regarding that section of the atlas.
 
“Their shield technology is tougher than old boots. No other species has ever cracked whatever they’ve done to make their ships’ force fields so resistant. And they’re not in the mood to share. They don’t quite have closed borders, but all ‘aliens’ are begrudgingly tolerated at best. Cultural xenophobia, in my opinion. If you’re not Brimorian, you’re not a person to them, or at least that’s the vibe I’ve picked up from most every Brimorian I’ve encountered,” John answered.
 
“Moving on, beneath us is the Trankaran Republic, along with a solid dozen minor empires that border or exist independently within their territory,” John went on to discuss. “Very friendly, gentle giants in my experience. Emphasis on ‘giant’. Their women are as tall as me and their men crack 8 feet. Bipedal mammalian humanoids too, with one key difference: they’re silicon-based, not carbon. They look like living granite statues. Also, ‘Trankara’ is Progenitor for ‘miner’. Coincidence, I think not. Plus their origin story speaks of the ‘Great Maker’, who sounds an awful lot like a Progenitor if you know what to listen for. Not to mention the ‘War of the Heavens’, when the Great Maker and ‘Ranagon the Despoiler’ clashed in battle. Rahn’hagon is a Progenitor name, for the record.”
 
“So your dad could be either of them?” Alyssa saw the connection immediately.
 
“That seems most likely, though it’s impossible to be certain. The ‘War of the Heavens’ was prehistoric for the Trankarans, passed down by word of mouth for generations before they transitioned to an interstellar empire. Impossible to tell how long ago it actually happened. Progenitors being immortal, it remains a distinct possibility, but still,” John hummed in thought.
 
“And, last but certainly not least, the Maliri above us. Those systems marked on the atlas are just what we’ve confirmed form their border with the rest of the League. No one knows how big their empire really is, on account of any alien that moves past the border is summarily executed,” John wrapped up the virtual tour. “They’re the most technologically advanced species in the Galactic League. And it all strikes me as civilian-grade Progenitor tech that’s evolved over thousands of years. Plus they have the bedtime story of ‘the Mael’nerak’. Mael’nerak is a Progenitor name meaning ‘Evil Enslaver’. I’m certain they’re a Thrall species, probably the one that served the Great Maker who must have been Mael’nerak. They went on after his death, and became what they are today. But at heart, they’re still a genetically-designed slave race meant to serve a Progenitor. I’m enhanced as Kyth’vindathys, but I’m still technically a Progenitor. Do the math.”
 
“So you’ll be working with a major handicap via genetic programming. Still, you’ll have to either conquer or somehow peacefully unite them all under your banner. That could take a while, and be very bloody while it lasts,” Alyssa reasoned.
 
“Unfortunately, I don’t see any better or faster way to get an interstellar empire’s resources at my beck and call. Which is necessary to build a Progenitor-level fleet and prepare to at least defend the League from every other Progenitor in the galaxy, let alone go out to fight and defeat any of them,” John sighed. “Luckily, we should have nothing but time to work with. Unless a Progenitor finds the League before we’re finished, in which case we’re screwed, blued, and tattooed. But I try to be a glass half-full guy.”
 
Alyssa occupied John with more detailed questions about the League and other species, including the nations that had refused to sign on with any treaty. The Drakkar and the Enshunu were mentioned as the major players outside the League. Time passed, and finally the Fool’s Gold reached its destination. The ship’s FTL Drive deactivated as soon as they entered the gravity well of the Nerus system.
 
“That’s Port Heracles,” John indicated on the System Map.
 
“It looks like a bunch of dinner plates stacked on top of each other,” Alyssa gave her unvarnished opinion.
 
“Appearances aside, it’s the last major T-Fed outpost in this direction. Every military operation in the Outer Rim can trace its supply lines or crew transfers back to here,” John informed his young Matriarch. “That includes reinforcing the Kirrix border. Plus, it’s a major trade center since a lot of species stop to refuel here while hauling cargo from the Trankaran Republic to the Maliri Regency.”
 
“Regency? As in a government awaiting the return of a king? Oh, yeah, they’re definitely Thralls,” Alyssa chuckled as she connected the dots.
 
“It’s a big clue, but you never know for sure,” John shrugged. “Anyway, take us in. I’ll rough out my After Action Report to submit while we’re enroute.”
 
It took over 90 minutes with the Fool’s Gold’s outdated civilian engines to even reach the hailing distance for Port Heracles. John contacted Flight Control, gave a brief synopsis of the Griffon ambush and his role in it, submitted his AAR, and requested a medical team to pick up Second Lieutenant Fernandez from the freighter when it docked. It all went off without a hitch, and within another hour they were touching down on a landing pad in one of Port Heracles’ many docking bays.
 
John went to open the airlock, where a team of medics with an anti-grav stretcher were patiently waiting. He led them to the passenger cabin, and supervised them professionally moving Calara from the bunk onto the stretcher.
 
“Thank you both for everything,” Calara wished, waving goodbye as she was floated away.
 
“We’ll call you every day!” Alyssa said back brightly, blowing a kiss.
 
“Stay safe, Calara,” John wished as he walked beside her stretcher. When the team cleared the airlock, he waved goodbye himself before sealing both doors behind them.
 
It took just as long to exit the system as it had to reach the starport, but John and Alyssa were hardly bored in each other’s presence. As soon as they were in hyper-warp, with an ETA of 8 days to Alpha Centauri, it was time for a late lunch.
 
John was almost distracted while Alyssa blew him. He’d had an idea, and it wouldn’t leave him alone despite the onslaught of pleasant sensations. When he’d finished cumming and filling Alyssa to the brim, he settled on a course of action. *Alyssa? What other powers do you want?* he asked directly.
 
The young, beautiful teen blinked. *What do you mean? I already have Telepathy. And even that’s extra compared to a normal Thrall.*
 
*Last time, you and I went in as a team. But I can’t guarantee that will always be the case,* John explained his thought process. *If you’re ever caught alone, I want you to be able to do more than call for help telepathically. I want you to be able to

fight

. Part of that can come from training you in firearms or hand-to-hand. But if, heaven forbid, a Progenitor corners you, I want you to be able to psychically kick his ass. So, what offensive powers do you want? Or any other powers, the whole runic alphabet is yours for the taking. It’s just a little more editing for your third helix, which you already have from the Telepathy or Mind Rune being spliced in.*
 
Alyssa hummed. *I don’t suppose you can just give me ALL the powers and make me the first female Progenitor?*
 
*Let’s start small, though we can certainly work up to that,* John agreed. He saw nothing wrong with having a partner equal to him in power. Which was a decidedly Terran idea, he was sure most Progenitors would gag at the thought, but fuck those monsters.
 
*Hmm… well, they always go hand-in-hand in the movies. Can I get Telekinesis to go with the Telepathy?* Alyssa requested.
 
*No problem,* John nodded. He focused on the runic alphabet that described every Progenitor’s powers. Focusing on the Force Rune, he went through the mental exercise of imagining it flowing through his active link with Alyssa and embedding itself in her DNA.
 
Alyssa gasped, her eyes flaring with a snow-white light while goosebumps appeared all over her body. “That was tingly!” she huffed breathlessly, honestly not sure if it had been agony or ecstasy that had flashed through her body before vanishing just as fast.
 
John frowned, noticing something significant. *I… lost some energy. Not spent, lost. My reserves shrank just a tad.*
 
Alyssa frowned. *Do you still have the Force Rune yourself, or did you ‘transfer’ it to me?* she asked in alarm.
 
John focused, and made an empty glass leftover from earlier float from where it was placed to his hand. *I still have it. But I didn’t just use some energy temporarily to give you a Rune. I permanently sacrificed some to imbue it into your third helix.*
 
*So we shouldn’t do that again,* Alyssa thought firmly.
 
John shook his head. *I’m sure I can gain back the difference between training or recruiting a new woman to the network. And there’s power in numbers. I’m fine with cutting my reserves in half altogether if that means I’ll have you just as strong next to me.*
 
*I appreciate the sentiment, but let’s not get carried away,* Alyssa frowned. She contemplated the situation. *You’ll stay the jack of all trades, the Progenitor warrior-mage with ALL the powers. I, as your Matriarch, will be your lieutenant, blessed with a decent chunk of my own magic. And every other sister-wife we recruit along the way can specialize in one or two Runes individually. We won’t just be your harem, we’ll be your bodyguard of witches.*
 
*That sounds like an excellent idea, actually,* John agreed. *So, you already have Mind and Force now. Any other requests? If you ever change your mind or think of something else, you just have to ask.*
 
Alyssa, conscious that any power-up for her was a power-down for John, at least in the short-term, decided to be frugal with her choices. Still, she didn’t know all her options. *What’s the full alphabet again?*
 
John focused and a large blue translucent hexagon of solid light appeared out of thin air before him. He reached out and traced a central rune, then 6 around it, 12 around them, 18 around those, and 24 for a final ring. *These are the standard 61 Progenitor Runes. There’s secret Kyth’faren Runes known only to them and Xar’aziuth, but I can’t consciously access them. I can use them, like when I rewrote the Connection, but it seems to be on an ‘as needed’ basis. They’ll activate  by reflex if necessary, but otherwise I can’t even think of what they look like or what they are,* John told his blonde lover.
 
*So you’ve got secret emergency powers you don’t even know the specifics of… that sounds strange, but there’s nothing we can really do about it, I guess,* Alyssa hummed before letting it go for now. She focused on the 61 Runes on display. *Give me a rundown of each of these.*
 
*The central Rune is Power, and allows for the gathering and use of psychic energy in the first place…* John patiently pointed to each Rune and explained its meaning and what powers it could activate. He also explained how interactions between different Runes could create novel powers or applications, and that some Runes naturally resonated with others. Also how each psychic had an inclination to specific Runes, which determined individual affinity and proficiency with using them.
 
*What Rune are you most attuned to?* Alyssa asked curiously.
 
John sighed and pointed. *Destruction. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I certainly will have to destroy Xar’aziuth’s whole system and every Progenitor who serves him. And a blazing forest fire clears away the brush to allow for new growth. Still, it bothers me that my very nature is geared more towards tearing things down than building them up.*
 
*You have the power to create too, you know. You’ll be using it pretty often once the Progenitor War is over,* Alyssa pointed out, going so far as to reach out and cup his quad.
 
John snorted but couldn’t deny he felt a bit lighter. *Point taken. I’ll be the destructor until the War is over. Then I’ll retire and plant my seed in a fair few fertile fields to grow.*
 
*Sounds like a plan,* Alyssa beamed. She turned to refocus on the hexagon filled with Runes. She settled on her choices. *Give me Spirit. Not only will that let me Spirit-Walk and do deep-dives into people’s minds, but I’ll be able to join you in the Astral Plane if you ever need to go there besides from a recruitment dream. Like you said, power in numbers. And also Lumen. Not to get too symbolic, but the Devourer is a shadow monster. I’d like to hit him with some supernova-level lasers when the time comes, just to be poetic.*
 
*Spirit and Lumen it is,* John nodded. He repeated what he’d done with the Force Rune. He felt it even more sharply as his total reserves were reduced, but it was worth it to viscerally feel Alyssa’s own power expand and thicken across their link.
 
Thoroughly spent from all the psychic exercise, John and Alyssa relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, got their normal dinner, then drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms around the usual hour.
 
The next day started bright and early. John, balls tingling from feeding Alyssa breakfast, did his usual calisthenics routine in the workout corner. He showered and dressed before going to the cockpit at Alyssa’s mental nudge. She handed him an apple and a protein bar, along with a glass of milk. *Now that I’ve learned all there is worth knowing about Astro-Nav, what do you think I should study next?* she checked as he began to scarf down the food.
 
John gave it some thought. *Well, not that it really matters, but just to round out your knowledge base you should look into how to get your General Education certificate. Basically a high school diploma for people who didn’t attend high school. You’re probably the first Navigator First Class in history who passed the test without finishing secondary school, but whatever. Once you do that, though, it’s really up to you. Research whatever you feel like, honey.*
 
*Yeah, yeah, freedom of choice, you empower instead of enslave women, I get it. But what would make me more useful to you? No joke, John,* Alyssa pressed.
 
John decided it wasn’t worth arguing with her over her motivation to learn and thought instead of where best to aim it. *I don’t know the first thing about investing or how to handle the kind of money we’re set to make from both Tyrenium deals. Personal finance, that’s what you should master next. Make it so we couldn’t go broke if we tried, or even how to make us richer than we’ll already become.*
 
*Master making moolah, got it. But first, basic pillars of education,* Alyssa nodded. She turned to the console before her and searched the holo-net for a sample GE diploma test.
 
John finished his breakfast, then went to do the regular maintenance chores necessary for a ship this old. Alyssa, as per usual, was a delightful distraction at the back of his head, whether he was actively communicating with her or just passively listening to her stream of consciousness. At lunch, they met in person for the expected blowjob while he ate, and John reflected he was a lucky sumbitch to have such regular sex he could almost set his clock to it.
 
Once both their bellies were full, Alyssa suggested they call Calara. Seeing nothing wrong with that, John led them to the cockpit. He pulled up the comm interface, Alyssa settling herself in his lap, and initiated a comm-link with Calara via the code she’d shared.
 
The call was wired to the last comm device registered with that particular code, and then it took a minute for the connection to stabilize across the string of comm beacons in between both sides. Soon enough, though, Calara’s face appeared on the vid-screen in the Fool’s Gold’s cockpit. She appeared to be in a hospital room, likely using a complimentary holo-console. She gave a weak smile when she saw them. “Hey, you two. You really did call.”
 
“Just like we promised! And John always keeps his promises, which means I have to too,” Alyssa made a little joke at her expense. “So, how are they treating you there?”
 
“Technically, they’re not ‘treating’ me at all,” Calara huffed with annoyance. “All my wounds were ruled unnecessary for surgery. They’re keeping me on a steady supply of pain meds and redid the medi-gel on my back, but otherwise I’m just waiting in bed for time to do all the work.”
 
“That’s stupid,” Alyssa frowned. “Is there really nothing better they can do?”
 
“Supposedly not,” Calara shrugged, as much as she could with her bound ribs.
 
“Terran medicine has come a long way, but some things really are best left to Father Time,” John offered his own view. “At least you get a couple weeks of rest before you have to worry about reassignment and your next posting.”
 
“Yeah, and the food isn’t any worse than what I was getting on the Griffon. So I guess I should look at this as a short vacation instead of a benign prison sentence. It gives me time to catch up with my family, too,” Calara nodded along with John.
 
“Are you close with your family?” Alyssa asked. She’d actually never had to ask that question. It was assumed on Karron that everyone was alone and out for themselves.
 
“Oh, my brothers are my best friends, I love my Mom to tears, and Daddy is my hero!” Calara said brightly.
 
“Tell us about them,” John prompted, silently tracking whether any jealousy or resentment would bubble up from Alyssa. Orphaned at a young age, listening to what was clearly a model family be described would have to be hard.
 
“We’re all military, it’s a tradition going back generations on both sides!” Calara happily began to gush. “Dad is Jack Fernandez, and he’s currently Captain of the cruiser Damocles. Mom is Maria. They actually met when both got assigned to bridge crew on the Damocles almost 30 years ago. They got a lot of flak from their CO over ‘fraternization among the crew’. They got married and less than a year later Mateo was born. Less than 9 months, even, but we just laugh about that when it comes up. After him came Dylan, and then Eduardo, and then me. Mom retired from Comms to be a stay-at-home mom on Jericho. Us kids have all graduated from the Academy now and are serving around the Federation.”
 
“Where’s everybody posted?” Alyssa asked, not green in the slightest. It was beautiful to see Calrara’s face light up thinking of her loved ones. She wouldn’t begrudge her luck just because Alyssa herself had been dealt a poor hand.
 
“Like I said, Dad is Captain of the Damocles. He’s stationed in the Dragon March, so I’m a bit worried about him, but I trust him and his crew to handle themselves,” Calara said, a shadow flickering over her face before it vanished. “Mateo is the Navigator on the light carrier Hydra, Dylan is stationed at Port Megara as a doctor, and Eduardo is a junior engineer on the battleship Orion. I’m trained as a Tactical Officer myself, not that I got the chance to prove it on the Griffon. We got ambushed while I was asleep, and there wasn’t a chance of ship-to-ship battle in the first place.”
 
“You all seem to have gone into very distinct fields within the service. What did your father do before he became Captain?” John wondered.
 
“He worked Tactical too, so I’m kinda following in his footsteps. We used to joke about all of us crewing our own ship someday. Never going to happen, but it was a nice fantasy,” Calara chuckled.
 
John and Alyssa chatted with Calara for an hour before finally hanging up. A daily post-lunch call became a ritual on the final leg of their journey to Alpha Centauri. John felt a great deal of fondness for his Thrall, not just as a woman in psychic servitude to himself but as a strong young woman he could be friends with. Alyssa and Calara got on like a house on fire, and the blonde was amazed that she could get along so well with anyone besides Sparks or John. She wondered if this is how most ‘healthy’ friendships started rather than trauma-bonded trainwrecks like she was used to.
 
Other than the call with Calara, the Fool’s Gold’s crew’s routine remained consistent. Alyssa spent most of the day in the cockpit teaching herself from the holo-net, and John made sure the freighter didn’t break down on them. Mealtimes were occasionally spiced up with an ‘appetizer’ of vigorous vaginal sex before John fed his still-slick cock to Alyssa at the end to feed her. The two were in love and blissfully happy together. They also recognized this may be the last time they had such a long, uninterrupted stretch of time to themselves without anything more urgent to do. So they savored each day as it passed.
 
Finally, the fateful day came when their ETA was measured in hours instead of days. Due to arrive around midmorning, John and Alyssa both settled in the cockpit after breakfast to await their arrival at Alpha Centauri.
 
“Remind me what the agenda is,” Alyssa asked lightly, just passing time. Her photographic memory hadn’t forgotten a syllable of John’s initial explanation over dinner the night before.
 
“We’ll arrive, and wait however long it takes to get an audience with Charles Harris. He was my CO most of my time in the Marines and who helped facilitate my deal to become a consultant. He’s my ‘handler’ for lack of a better word, plus the most senior officer I’m acquainted with. I figure he’ll be the best person to deal the Tyrenium with or at least get us in touch with whoever is. Price might depend on some factors out of our control, but we’re set to make over 100 million credits if the T-Fed doesn’t haggle too hard,” John spelled out.
 
“All that money for 4 crates’ worth of shiny metal,” Alyssa shook her head in disbelief. “That’s ridiculous.”
 
“Tyrenium makes Singularity Generators, honey, which power Singularity Drivers on Dreadnoughts and other ships-of-the-line. And with war brewing with the Kintark, I’d bet my left nuts that at least one is in the production line. They’ll pay through the nose for our ore, I guarantee. Just how much so, I can’t say, but we’ll be set for life just on this deal, let alone what we get on the return trip,” John assured his companion.
 
“And what comes after we sell the ore and become rich?” Alyssa prompted.
 
“At least take a look at the decommissioned ships up for auction and see if we can afford anything good,” John answered. “I’d prefer an ex-military ship, but if they’re all too rich for our blood even after the deal then we can look into some good civilian models. In either case, whatever ship we pick will need to be refurbished and refueled and restocked and everything. That’ll take a few days, maybe a week. So in the meantime, we can head down to Gravitus and have a proper vacation. Taste of the high life, for you and for me. Even with what little might be left over after buying our new ship, we’ll still be able to have a

lot

of fun.”
 
“And then head back to Karron to get whatever Tyrenium Mortimer has left, and possibly recruit Sparks if not just set her free from indentured servitude,” Alyssa nodded. “Then a second deal for the ore, then a tour of the Galactic League to upgrade every system with superior alien versions. First stop, the Ashanath. Right?”
 
“You got it,” John confirmed.
 
“What’s so special about Alpha Centauri, anyway? Why would some big-shot military guy like Harris be stationed so close to Terra?” Alyssa asked.
 
“Other than being the closest neighbor to Sol? Two words: Olympus Shipyard. The beating heart of the Federation navy,” John said with no small amount of patriotic pride.
 
As if on cue, the Fool’s Gold reached the gravity well of Alpha Centauri’s stars. The antiquated freighter fell out of hyper-warp, and the scanners did their best to fill the System Map with all the relevant data they collected. There was so much to record and process that the system almost crashed.
 
“Holy shit!” Alyssa gasped. “This place is packed!”
 
It was true, there was so much traffic along each space-lane in the system they were almost in gridlock. Almost exclusively headed to or from the orbital shipyard hovering above the planet on the second orbital path. Olympus Shipyard was massive, easily more than 3x the size of Port Heracles. It consisted of six stumpy prongs radiating like the spokes of a bike wheel out from a central core.
 
“Seriously, how are there so many people here? WHY are there so many people here?” Alyssa continued to gape. The whole population of Karron amounted to less than a million citizens, even counting the undocumented and criminal elements. The asteroid colony saw a fresh trader or supply ship maybe once every couple weeks. From what she could see, there were more ships on approach to Olympus just in the nearest space-lane than Karron saw in a year. Such a large amount of people strained her brain to even contemplate.
 
“Olympus is a mighty machine, cranking out repairs, retrofitting, and constructing entirely new ships around the clock. There’s the military craft coming in to have work done. There’s traders, like us, who provide the raw goods to keep the operation running smoothly while making a profit. Not to mention Gravitus, the planet it orbits, is the oldest and most established colony outside the Sol System. I think more people live on Olympus, between stationed personnel and civilian workers for all the businesses who rent out cabins, than Karron.” John reached out and patted Alyssa’s shoulder. “You’re not in the Outer Rim anymore, honey. Welcome to the Core Worlds.”
 
“You hear that the T-Fed has over 100 billion citizens and most of them live in the Core Worlds. I guess it didn’t ‘click’ what that meant in terms of population density,” Alyssa said faintly. “So many people… it hurts my head to think about it. In that context, Karron is just a tiny border town barely on the map, isn’t it?”
 
“Sadly, yes, and it gets about as much attention or care from Colonial Administration, I’m sure. Same for most of the Outer Rim past Nerus, in my opinion. Humanity always had a bad habit of expanding faster than it should. You can practically see law and order and infrastructure fall apart the further away from Sol you get. Colonies like Karron are the absolute worst examples of Terran society. Even some prisons are more hospitable.” John paused. “Still, if you weren’t born exactly where you were at exactly when you were, we might never have met.”
 
“Then I guess I can’t complain,” Alyssa finally gave a small yet assured grin. “But since we’ve got eternity, knock on wood, promise me something. I want to visit EVERY Terran colony. Just to compare, just to say I have. That sound doable?”
 
“Not a problem, honey. We’ll work on that as soon as the Progenitor War is over. Call it a honeymoon before I knock you up and we settle down for good on whatever Throne World I claim,” John nodded.
 
“Throne World?” Alyssa blinked, hearing the subtle capitalization in how John said the words.
 
“The center of a Progenitor’s power, from where he rules his empire. Typically also where his primary Soulforge is constructed, though I’m sure at least one Progenitor has switched things up over the years to avoid being predictable. Unless Xar’aziuth

likes

things to be predictable, then nevermind,” John explained.
 
“Would Mael’nerak have had a Throne World in Maliri space?” Alyssa asked, even as she noted John silently guiding them into the nearest space-lane to join the approach vector towards Olympus. With their slow speed, it could take hours and many ships would pass them, she was sure.
 
“Most likely. Then again, if he was involved with the Ashanath and the Trankarans, then maybe his Throne World was in their territories and humanity hasn’t found them yet. But that strikes me as unlikely; Trankarans have an open-border policy and let everyone go everywhere so long as they respect the universal ceasefire. Be hard to hide a planet with a massive palace chock-full of advanced alien technology from passerby. The Ashanath might be more likely, in what remains of their territory. Would even explain why they held onto that portion while giving away the rest to the T-Fed. But the Maliri are more probably, just because so little is known about their interior. Wouldn’t surprise me if Mael’nerak’s palace is a holy site for the Maliri, assuming they’re aware of their origins,” John thought aloud. “I just don’t know for sure, though, Alyssa.”
 
“Add that to the list of things to do once you’re Maliri King: set up an archaeology division to research Mael’nerak’s reign. If you could piggyback off some of his progress, you’d save so much time and energy getting started with the Progenitor War,” Alyssa posited.
 
“You are my muse, my font of inspiration,” John said, a little over-the-top but meaning every word. That might never have occurred to John. Guess it was true, two heads were better than one. Having a second perspective on the whole Progenitor/Kyth’vindathys thing was resulting in novel and original thoughts.
 
“So imagine once you have a private think tank of supergenius ladies who will obey your every command!” Alyssa teasingly winked.
 
“I took out the obedience compulsion,” John protested weakly.
 
“Doesn’t mean we can’t be good, submissive girls by choice though, does it?” Alyssa countered.

“Point taken,” John said weakly, musing that he

might

be biting off more than he could chew, surrounding himself with women shaped to the same mold as Alyssa had been. What a way to go, though, he thought. He’d happily choke in that case.