John and the girls settled into their places on the bridge and a few minutes later the Invictus dropped out of Hyper warp in the Ashana system, the centre of power in the Ashanath Collective. There were in the presence of a single star and it bathed the holographic system map in a warm yellow glow. Ashana was a small reddish orange planet out on the sixth orbital path around the star and when Calara brought up the tactical map, dozens upon dozens of orbital factories and refineries could be seen dotted around the system.
A button on the console flashed, indicating an incoming hail and Alyssa pressed the button to accept the call. Leader Linnaeus' bulbous grey head filled the viewscreen, his huge unblinking eyes studying them unemotionally.
"Hello JohnBlake. We have towed you to this system, as your female requested. You have been granted permission to dock at the planetary shipyard on Ashana." Linnaeus said in his strange whispery voice.
"Thanks for the tow Leader Linnaeus and you also have my gratitude for coming to our aid against the Drakkar cruiser. I'm curious though, what are the Drakkar doing so deep in Ashanath territory?" John asked the Grey alien.
The Grey leader paused for a moment. "My apologies JohnBlake, but that information is classified." Linnaeus said, his unemotional voice making him sound anything but sorry.
"Is it indeed." John said archly. "Well thanks again Linnaeus, I wish you safe travels." John said pleasantly.
The Ashanath Leader turned and pressed a button ending the call abruptly, leaving John to look at the girls with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah you were right." Calara said looking up at him from her position in the tactical station. "They are pretty strange!" she said with a smile.
"Alyssa, can you set a course to Ashana please." he asked the beautiful blonde girl sitting in the executive officer's station at his right hand side.
"Sure John, course is already laid in." she said with a smile.
Alyssa pressed a button on her console and the massive engines on the Invictus fired up, sending them on their way towards the Ashanath homeworld. It was a short flight to the planet with a surprising amount of Grey ships flying too and from the world, passing them as they approached. All the Ashanath craft followed the same disc shape configuration, in a wide variety of sizes and styles.
Dana glanced at the damage control hologram and couldn't take her eyes off the bored out hole on the hull, where the Drakkar dropship was still attached.
"The sooner we get them off my ship the better!" Dana said with annoyance.
"Your ship?" John said with a smile.
"You know what I mean." Dana said, looking up at him with a grin.
"By the way, you'll probably want to sell the dropship that's attached to the airlock. I think the other is going to be a bit waterlogged for a while." she said, smirking.
"I'll bear that in mind." John said with a chuckle.
Alyssa brought the Invictus closer to the planet, following the guide path that would lead them to the planetary shipyard. The planet Ashana loomed large in front of them as they drew closer, the reddish orange world looking dry and arid as they got closer to the surface. Eventually they were close enough to see that the planet's surface was pockmarked with silvery grey settlements. Graceful towers and domes dominated the Ashanath architectural style and the girls were astonished to see that many of the buildings were constructed on floating chunks of orange coloured rock, tethered to the ground by glowing white beams of energy.
"I thought you might find it interesting." John said with a satisfied smile as he saw the amazed expressions on the girls' faces.
"This planet is fascinating!" Dana exclaimed. "How are they doing that?" she asked intrigued.
"Ashana has very low gravity, so it takes minimal effort to levitate huge chunks of rock like that." John explained. "The Greys have built sophisticated artificial gravity into most of their settlements though, so it's easy to get around their floating cities."
They approached a huge levitating plateau that was festooned with a bewildering array of spires and domes.
"How are we going to land on that?" Alyssa asked curiously, seeing that the guide path was taking them directly towards it.
"We won't be landing 'on' it." John said with a grin.
The Invictus drew ever closer to their destination and the guide path abruptly dipped into a huge canyon that led directly underneath the enormous shipyard. Many disc shaped vessels were flying in and out of that enormous ravine on clearly designated flight paths, that were marked by rows of bright navigation lights. Their assault cruiser dwarfed most of the much smaller ships and the saucer shaped vessels gave them a wide berth as Alyssa guided them skilfully into the canyon.
The colossal shipyard loomed overhead, casting them in shadow as it completely blocked the yellow glow from the sun. After a minute of careful flying, there was a warning chime to alert everyone on the bridge that they had nearly reached their destination. Alyssa brought the Invictus upwards, closer to the underbelly of the rocky surface underneath the vast shipyard and they could see row after row of docking bays dotting the rock face above them. Eventually they reached the bay that had been allocated to the Invictus and Alyssa used the retro thrusters to lift them up into the huge rectangular hangar.
Massive robotic arms ending in magnetic clamps swung out from the sides of the docking bay and moved inwards to the fore and aft of the ship, locking them into position. Once they were securely fastened, the robotic arms rotated the ship 180 degrees around their horizontal axis, turning them upside down.
"Nicely done XO." John said, feeling in a playful mood.
Alyssa tipped an imaginary hat to him, earning herself an amused grin from John in return.
"Let's go visit Ashana!" John said as he rose from his chair and the four young women on the bridge rose to join him excitedly.
They took the elevator down to deck 2 and the girls fanned out to their own quarters, so they could get dressed into something reasonably practical and not too scandalous for their trip to the shipyard. John put on his charcoal suit, intending to look the part of successful trader, but still strapped on a chest holster for his heavy pistol. Alyssa had accompanied him into their walk-in-wardrobe and following his lead was wearing a close fitting black trouser suit. Although it was ostensibly smart business wear, her smoking hot figure still made her look ravishingly sexy.
John nodded appreciatively as he checked out her outfit, moving over to stand next to her and run his hand freely over her curves as she posed for him coquettishly.
"You look good enough to eat." he said suggestively, as his roaming hand took liberties with her young body.
Alyssa purred contentedly and arched her back, thrusting out her chest and ass to make herself look even more enticing.
"I think we might need to roleplay you being my enthusiastic secretary when we have some time." he told her authoritatively.
"Well you are the boss..." Alyssa said in a throaty seductive voice. "And I'm always ready to take dicktation... sir."
John shook his head in wondrous appreciation. He offered his hand to the beautiful blonde, so that he could lead her out of his quarters before he significantly delayed their departure. Alyssa darted back to the weapons rack to grab a shoulder holster and handgun, nestling the firearm under her impressive bust as she gave him a mischievous wink. Laughing, John led her out to the corridor to meet with the rest of his crew.
Calara, Dana and Jade were waiting for John and Alyssa and the three young women were all wearing similar outfits. They had on form fitting jumpsuits with high heeled boots and tightly tailored jackets. They posed for John with beaming smiles, enjoying his attention as he admired their spectacular figures. He walked behind them, letting his left hand gently drift from one pert asscheek to another as he did a circuit around them.
"Damn ladies! I thought you wanted to go visit Ashana?" John said with a horny grin on his face.
The girls laughed, loving the blatant lust they had aroused in their man.
"Just think of it as advertising for the main event tonight." Alyssa said with a grin.
They headed over to the elevator, the girls sashaying impressively in their 4" heels. The doors were already open, the elevator still there from when they travelled down from the bridge, so they all walked inside and John hit the button for deck 9. The elevator took a few seconds to drop the seven floors and the elevator chimed softly when they reached their destination. The doors swished open, revealing the Drakkar bloodbath from earlier that morning.
"Let's take the cargo bay door." John suggested, grimacing at the evidence of his brutal handiwork.
"The Ashanath better have some excellent cleaning crews." Alyssa smirked, as she stepped gracefully over several dismembered lime green limbs.
They went into the cargo bay and John shut the double doors behind them, sealing off the slaughterhouse within. He pulled a remote out of his jacket pocket and the cargo bay doors rose slowly, opening a huge entrance into the hull.
"When we clear up that mess in the corridor, we'll need to test the DNA reader on the airlock again." John said, looking troubled.
"I took fresh samples from Calara, Dana and Jade." Alyssa reassured him. "We tested it the other day on the loading lift and the DNA reader worked fine."
"Perhaps the old samples were corrupted in a memory glitch?" Dana suggested dubiously. "I think it's far more likely that our DNA has changed though." she said sounding convinced. "We've all gone through some dramatic changes recently and nothing would surprise me at this point!"
"Unfortunately I don't think any of us has the skillset to verify it for certain." John said, looking at each of the girls. "Unless one of you has hidden talents you haven't told me about?" he said with a raised eyebrow.
The girls shook their heads, confirming that it would have to remain a mystery for the moment.
"Not to worry, we have plenty of other more important things to think about for the moment." John said with a grin, as he led the girls outside. "Like not looking up!" he said suddenly.
Predictably all four girls looked upwards and then there were shocked shrieks as they crouched to the floor as though trying to hang on to the ground. They were now standing upside down on the "ceiling" of the docking bay and were looking upwards at the planetary surface of Ashana, the artificial gravity giving them quite a surprise.
"You dick!" Alyssa said with a grin.
