The crew of the Invictus left the ship and strode out to meet the two uniformed men awaiting their arrival. As they left the confines of the airlock, John noticed the men were standing next to a brutal looking piece of Terran Federation engineering. It was some kind of dropship, lean and ferocious, the jutting weapon barrels telling their own tale of its lethal potential. He reluctantly pulled his gaze from the savage looking craft and focused on the two men standing to it's side.
John recognised his old friend Charles Harris of course, the middle aged man's stern face showing surprise at the new additions to John's team. His bushy grey moustache twitched in amusement as his eyes glanced from one stunningly beautiful young woman to another.
John didn't recognise the older man however. Distinguished, with salt and pepper hair and a closely cropped grey beard, the man was wearing full dress uniform and John could tell by the insignia on his epaulets that the man ranked as an admiral in the Terran Federation Navy.
"John! It's good to see you." Charles said in greeting. "Please let me introduce Admiral Cartwright." he said, turning to the older military man.
"Commander Blake, I've been hearing great things about you." The admiral said in a quiet voice.
"It's good to meet you admiral." John said, snapping a sharp salute. "I'm sure the tales have been greatly exaggerated." he said, self deprecatingly.
The older man looked at John with shrewd, penetrating eyes. "I don't think they have." he replied.
"So what can I do for you admiral?" John asked, curious as to why such a high ranking Terran Federation officer would come to meet him.
"It's more what I can do for you Commander." the man said. "Terran Federation High Command greatly appreciated your efforts against the Kirrix. The PR value of that battle alone is invaluable to us at the moment."
"Just happy to do our part admiral." John said. "Those Kirrix had to be stopped!" he said grimly.
"Yes, indeed." Admiral Cartwright said unemotionally.
"In any case, I'm pleased to be able to present you with a Raptor class gunship to show our appreciation for your efforts." the admiral said, looking askance at the terrifying piece of hardware to his side.
"Thank you admiral!" John said, looking up at the gunship, a big grin spreading across his face.
"Keep up the good work Commander." the distinguished older man said quietly, throwing him a salute and turning to leave.
Before he had completed the turn however, he suddenly looked back.
"According to Vice Admiral Harris, you've brought us another shipment of Tyrenium?" He said, with hunger in his voice; the first real emotion that the man had displayed since their arrival.
"Yes, sir." John replied succinctly. "20 tons of it."
Admiral Cartwright's eyes gleamed. "Outstanding work, Commander. Quite outstanding..." he said, before nodding to Charles and then walking away briskly.
John turned to look at his old friend Charles with a raised eyebrow.
"We'll talk in my office John." Charles said with a wry smile. "For now, I can't wait for you to introduce me to your companions." he said, his eyes twinkling.
John shook his head in amusement and then turned to his side.
"You already know my executive officer of course." He said, smiling affectionately at the beautiful blonde girl.
"It's lovely to see you my dear..." Charles said, before stopping in surprise as Alyssa strode up to him and planted a big kiss on his cheek.
"That's for all your work on our quarters!" she said, with a warm appreciative smile.
"It was my pleasure, Alyssa." Charles said, smiling at the exuberant young woman, before turning his attention back to John.
"This is my Tactical Officer, Second Lieutenant Calara Fernandez." John said proudly, introducing the gorgeous Latina.
"Vice Admiral Harris, it's an honour to meet you." Calara said, snapping to attention and saluting the man respectfully.
"Ah yes, the exceptional young officer who found the location of the pirate base. I've heard intriguing things about your exploits lieutenant." Charles said, nodding his approval.
"Thank you sir!" Calara said blushing, unsure how to respond to such flattery.
To save Calara further embarrassment, John moved on. "This is my Chief Engineer, Sparks." John said affectionately, introducing the redhead.
Sparks winced a little, hearing her name in this kind of formal setting. Since her conversation with the rescued engineer several days ago, she had suddenly become quite self conscious about her old nickname.
"Pleased to meet you young lady." Charles said, in a friendly voice.
"You too Charles." Sparks replied with a smile. "Oh! It's ok for me to call you that right? Not Vice Admiral or whatever?" she asked curiously.
"Charles is fine." the middle aged man said with some amusement.
"Finally this is Jade, our most recent addition to the crew of the Invictus." John said, turning towards the green skinned Nymph.
"This one is pleased to meet any friend of master's!" Jade said excitedly.
Charles looked at John with a startled look on his face.
"Don't ask." John said with a wry smile.
"Isn't she a..." Charles said falteringly.
"Yes, she is." John said, grinning.
Charles laughed loudly. "Ah, John... maybe I should have retired while I was still a young man!" he said grinning ruefully.
"Let me take you all up to my office." Charles said in a friendly voice. "We can relax while we talk business."
"Lead on, Charles." John said and they turned to follow the man out of the huge docking bay.
They walked away from the Invictus and Sparks managed to tear her eyes away from the fascinating looking gunship. She finally noticed the huge numbers of crates stacked in the docking bay and Charles spotted her drifting over to look at them curiously.
"We started receiving all these deliveries a couple of days ago. The deck officer was having a fit until I had a word." he said, smiling.
Sparks practically jumped up and down with excitement and glanced longingly at the large shipping crates as they walked to the heavy security door that led out of the bay.
"Come on." John said, grinning at her. "You can look later. They can't start loading anything until the retrofit is done on the cargo bay anyway."
"I prioritised that work order for you John, the crews will start work on that for you immediately." Charles volunteered helpfully.
"Much appreciated Charles, thank you!" John said gratefully and the older man waved away his thanks.
They followed the vice admiral to an elevator and headed up to a different office to the one they had met the shipyard commander in last time.
"New office Charles?" John asked curiously.
"My old one is being refurbished and extended." Charles said, smiling happily, "A reward for my 'outstanding initiative' in selling you the Invictus." he grinned.
The new office was approximately the same size as the last one, with a similar reception area outside. The young naval officer who had met them previously, saluted John respectfully and then looked on with wide eyes at the luscious bevy of young women following after him into the vice admiral's office. Alyssa grinned impishly and waved at him, causing the poor assistant to blush bright red with embarrassment.
John held the door open for them and they went to sit on the sofas set around the big window looking out of the office. Unfortunately there was no panoramic view of the shipyard from this office and instead it overlooked the docking bay where they had landed the Invictus. Sparks looked out the window and sighed as she looked at all the shipping crates full of machinery, all waiting to be installed in her workshop. John smiled affectionately at the redhead. She reminded him of a small child waiting impatiently to unwrap her presents on Christmas day. The naval officer assistant came into the room with a tray of coffee and began to hand out steaming cups of the hot drink.
Jade stood next to her auburn haired friend at the window and looked out over the docking bay. This was the first time she had seen the Invictus properly and as she looked at the massive assault cruiser, its distinctive shape triggered a memory from her past.
Decades before, she had belonged to an eccentric old fellow who had nicknamed himself the 'Collector'. The extremely wealthy man had been a benign master, who being too old to require her more sensual services, had meant for a calm if rather dull few years under his care. The man had been obsessed with collecting exotic creatures and as one of the few surviving Nymphs, Jade had been the pride of his collection. She recalled his assorted variety of animals and remembered a many toothed aquatic predator the Collector had told her was called a shark, a huge fish that hailed from legendary Terra.
Grey, sleek and angular, the Invictus had the same lean look as the Shark, the command deck and the fire control tower behind it even reminded her of the dorsal fin atop the ancient aquatic killer. The caudal fin was there too, but on the Invictus it housed the shield generator, flanked by the four mighty engines that allowed the assault cruiser to surge through space with such ferocious speed.
John had begun to talk again and as always she focused her attention back on him, so that she could listen to his lovely strong voice.
"So tell me more about Admiral Cartwright?" John asked curiously.
"He's here overseeing the construction of the Echelon class dreadnought you probably saw on your arrival." Charles said. "High Command are ordering a massive shipbuilding program and he wants to make sure construction stays on schedule."
"He's a bit detached, but he's very driven. He holds a lot of sway with High Command." Charles said, giving his honest opinion of the man.
"Very interesting." John said, intrigued.
"What do you know about the Raptor gunship?" he asked his old friend with a hint of excitement in his voice. "I haven't seen or heard of anything like that before."
"It's state of the art John, fresh off the production lines." Charles said enviously. "You must have made High Command very happy indeed, for them to give you one of those."
"It doesn't look much like a normal Marine transport." John said, recalling the blocky transports he had launched dozens of boarding actions from in his career as a marine.
