The Next Day

Parrax 3 Station – Dwarves Apartment

Chris was walking around her room, trying to finish packing the last of her personal things before her transport departed that afternoon. She had already packed up her shop, which mainly involved loading her tool chests and locking them. She would have been done already, but she kept getting distracted, her thoughts returning to the feeling she felt last night, the feelings from the empathic link with her sister.

“I still can’t believe she did it, that slut! I knew she was going to do something, but I thought she would have at least waited for our father to give his approval!” She said to herself, jamming some of her favorite ‘personal’ toys into her suitcase. 

“I was really hoping distance would dull these sensations, but apparently not. Argh!” She shouted, throwing a dildo against the wall. It bounced off and rolled under her bed. She growled again and knelt beside the bed to crawl under it to retrieve the toy. She liked that one.

The pair of them had discovered that they could feel each other’s pleasure years ago, back when they were first starting to explore their bodies. They even played around, using toys on their own bodies to give the other an orgasm. At first, it was a little weird, since they were sisters, but they hadn’t discovered a way to shut the ability off. Even the doctors were stumped on what to do for them, the network of neurons that controlled their empathic abilities was tied to their medulla oblongata, the part of the brain that dealt with all the body’s vital functions. Short of making an expensive custom implant and becoming almost like a cyborg anyway. 

So they decided to live with their weird ability, making plans to be together forever. When she was studying at university, they would call each other every week, scheduling the times they would get off so as not to interrupt each other with random orgasms. They planned on getting married to the same man, so it wouldn’t be as weird when they had an orgasm, as they would be together when it happened. Until then, they just enjoyed their time together, out here in the frontier. 

Things were going great until John showed up, the big man upending their world like a house of cards in a windstorm. Sure, he saved her brother’s and sister’s lives during an operation, even prevented her from being kidnapped by the gangs, but that didn’t give him the right to turn her life upside down! 

Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if Greg hadn’t fallen back into his bad habits! Their parents were going to string him up whenever they got hold of him. It was just too much for her to deal with right now.

“Fuck John, fuck Greg, and fuck ya too, Tanya! I am glad yer gone. I can’t wait to be gone too!” She shouted while digging about under her bed, angry at being forced into this situation. She was going to go back to the doctors and see if they could make that implant for her.

“Oh? They are gone, are they? Good to know, this will be all the easier. Get her!” A female voice said behind her.

“Hun?” Chris said, but didn’t have time to get out from under the bed before it was too late. She felt a slight pinch on her ass and promptly passed out.

————-

Tallinn System – Phoenix Hawks Cockpit

The Phoenix Hawk dropped out of hyperspace right on time, the entire fleet in the same positions they were when they began the jump, more or less anyway. 

Earlier, after a quick shower, the three of them had breakfast along with the rest of the crew. The pilots were all giving them side eyes; the women were apparently appraising them for some reason. John wasn’t aware of it, but they were all somewhat jealous of Tanya and Niki, since the cabin walls were not soundproof. A few of them were even wondering what that tiny shrimp of a woman had on them, causing them to become a little self-conscious.

John, oblivious to this, kissed Tanya and headed up to the cockpit with Niki. Tanya was heading down to her fighter, getting ready to deploy immediately in case pirates or other enemies were waiting for them when they emerged from hyperspace. Ships were blind when they were in hyperspace, which could be deadly for them if they came out in a bad spot. That rarely happened due to the sheer distances involved, but it was always a possibility. 

Luckily, there were no pirates or bugs as they dropped out of the system, and the fleet began to break up and head to predesignated coordinates to start their patrols. 

“Captain, can I use the probes?” Niki asked him as he was lining up his ship towards their assigned point. He paused, then remembered what she discovered the other day.

“Yeah, let’s try them.” He said, then sent the Dawn Chorus a short message about their intentions. They sent back approval immediately, Katrina wondering what other things John could pull out of that bag of tricks he called a ship.

Along the top of the Phoenix Hawk, dozens of hatches opened, releasing a dozen football-sized probes each. They all hovered above the Phoenix Hawk for a moment, then shot off into space, each to a pre-designated coordinate from the ship’s computer.

It took about fifteen minutes, but they started to get data in near-real time from all the probes mapping out the system. A three-dimensional map materialized beside John, showing him everything that had a power signature greater than a car battery in the system. 

There were greens and blues aplenty, the probes using the INP IFF system to identify allies and civilian vessels. There were also a lot of yellow and red ones scattered about, being unknown and enemy ships. 

He fed the data to the Dawn Chorus, and after another five minutes, new orders came down for the fleet to prosecute the red and yellow targets.

His Link buzzed. Katrina was calling him on a secure line. “Good work, Captain. This will save us some time. Why didn’t you mention that you had these probes before?”

“I actually didn’t know about them. Niki discovered them when she was training on the ship’s systems the other day. This is actually the first time we have tried to use them.” He replied, giving Niki all the credit.

“Really? Well, make sure she is properly rewarded. We might have just flown around for the next eight hours and not have discovered anything if not for her. Anyway, you have your orders. Let us know if you find anything else. Lieutenant Commander Eligan out!”

“Did you hear that, Niki. Katrina is impressed with you and wants me to reward you. Think about what you would like and tell me later.” John said over his shoulder as he hit the light drive.

“Yes, Captain. I will.” She replied, a huge smile forming on her face. 

Maybe she will realize she can be useful for things other than sex now.

That smile remained even after they landed on top of the first set of red contacts, the pirates not understanding why their weapons couldn’t even lock onto the ship that landed on top of them. Niki had jammed them up, her confidence in her abilities growing with every minute.

————————————————————————————–

Several hours later

“Phoenix Hawk, I’ve found something cool! Can you bring your ship over here and recover it for me?” Tanya asked him over the comms.

“Pebbles, this is the Phoenix Hawk. We will be right over.” Niki replied after John confirmed it was okay. He laughed the first time he heard Tanya’s callsign, but after several short fights today, he had gotten used to it. 

They had just finished mopping up their last target in this system, a half dozen pirates hanging around a few cargo containers inside one of the asteroid belts. When the INP fighters dropped on top of them, they started to put up a fight, but quickly surrendered when the Phoenix Hawk crashed the party. John ended up towing three of the corvettes into the Phoenix Hawks hangar, the ships a step above the normal trash pirates used. They still had nothing on the INP fighters, but they could be either modified or sold for significant profit. The rest of the ships he had been cutting up and processing them for any rare materials they had onboard. 

John finished up what he was doing and made his way through the dense cluster of asteroids to where Tanya’s ship was idling. One look at what was on the surface of the asteroid below her and he understood what she wanted. A crashed ship was partially buried into the side of the asteroid, but even from this angle, he could tell it resembled the Imperial Bladedancer that she had sent to his cargo hold. The bow of the ship appeared crushed, but the aft end appeared to be intact.

He had Niki use a tractor beam to tow it into the ship’s cargo hold. They could go over it later and see if they could strip the parts out of it. If the parts were still good, he was hopeful they could get her project ship functional.

“How did you even see that, Pebbles? It didn’t show up on my scans, and it is almost the same colour as that asteroid?” He asked, ignoring their normal radio procedure.

“I just had a feeling. Something told me I should look over here, so I did.” She said, sounding happy. 

“Well, good job. Hopefully, we can get your baby fixed up with the parts on that ship. I’ll see you onboard.” He replied, happy she found that ship. He was hoping to buy them for her as a present whenever they went deeper into the empire, but he would take free parts any day of the week.

I wonder. Is that the New World Bonus from DEN? Seems odd if it isn’t for me, but Tanya, but who knows what Alec is up to.

The rest of the morning was quiet, with the only thing of note being a prisoner transfer to one of the other INP ships. The fleet met back up on the edge of the system, and John recalled the probes. Once they had returned and everyone was accounted for, the fleet went into hyperspace, four hours ahead of Katrina’s schedule.

——–

Karrax System – Outer Asteroid Belt

Greg continued to monitor his sensors, a worried expression on his face. He was becoming jumpier as each hour passed. The sensor anomaly yesterday turned out to be false, so he had given the miners the all clear. If that had been the end of it, he wouldn’t have been on edge like he was now. However, that wasn’t the last time it happened, not even close.

The sensor anomalies continued to pop up, not just for him, but for the other mercenaries as well. Every time they went to investigate it, there was nothing there, not even the local fauna. It was like the entire system was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

They started feeding their sensor readings back to The Motherlode, the gigantic transport ship that held the dozen mining barges that were slowly gobbling up asteroids in the inner belts of the system. The techs on board agreed that something was out there and advised that all the mercenaries should work in pairs while patrolling in a wide arc around the system. They hoped the mercenaries would be able to provide them with as much warning as possible if it actually was the Javarians.

“It shouldn’t be them; these are not the tactics the bugs employ. When they come into a system, it usually is in a large wave, overwhelming the opposition with sheer numbers,” the commander of the miners said, an older dwarf woman whom Greg had worked with before. She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than trying to convince everyone else. She was due to be relieved today when The Motherlode’s sister vessel showed up. Greg wished he could go with her.

H – [Hey Greg, I got another leech nest over here. Can you give me a hand, please?]

Hager’s voice startled him, bringing him back to the present. They did have another job to do, which was eradicating the beasts that inhabited the system. They were every bit as deadly to a mining vessel as a plasma beam from his ship would be.

G – [Yeah, sure. I’ll be right over.] 

He checked his sensors one last time before turning towards Hager’s location. The ghosts were no longer there, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was being watched. Watched by thousands of eyes as they studied his every move.

He shivered.

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