Chapter 85

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Rupert Grant, the Terran Federation Commander who harassed Calara and partnered with the pirate Everett Hitch, is finally caught after months of being on the run, wanted for treason. He was the one who took out a hit on John with Mikaboshi.
* Dana learns **molecular purification** and **psychic defense runes**, and unveils her **Quantum rifle**.
* Kali Loraleth reports Kintark fleet activity on her border with them

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* Rupert Grant went on the run to Nobruna after being wanted for treason, and took a hit out on John with Mikaboshi. Calara called him while he was at a holo-net cafe and said she'll let soldiers deal with him. Terran soldiers arrested him at his apartment. He (thought he) paid them off and they let him (technically) leave. The homeless man who he'd previously told to fuck off was really a Terran soldier, and arrested him. Only, they weren't really there to arrest him. Sergeant Rathburn's brother was one of the people sold to the Kirrix. *“Two weeks ... that’s how long Kirrix spawn take to hatch, before they eat their way out of you.” Rathburn said quietly, his eyes burning with a dreadful intensity. Suddenly his face twisted with rage and he grabbed Rupert’s index finger and snapped it backwards. “So I’m going to keep you alive in constant agony for two weeks, before I finally put a bullet in your fucking head!”*
* Faye confesses to John she was about to steal the Invictus.
* The matriarchs meet. Kali Loraleth reports Kintark fleet activity on her border with them. They're concerned they may attack the Maliri.
* Sakura feels hollow after her revenge on Mikaboshi. After eating okonomiyaki with the team, she was finally able to mourn her family.
* Alyssa fucks Calara with a double-headed telekinetic dildo in a double-peneration threesome with John. *Alyssa eyes sparkled with excitement. “Riding Calara like that was such a rush! I felt so dominant and powerful making her cum over and over again as I fucked her!”*
* Calara asks John when he'll activate her third helix, but she's the first one he started working on. She's on the cusp of it, and wants to prove herself rather than have John and Alyssa trigger it for her.
* John deca-shapes

### Abilities

Dana learns **molecular purification** and **psychic defense runes**.

* She noticed what seemed to be distortions in that lattice, weaknesses and imperfections that she knew would affect the tensile strength of the armour plating. Working more by hunch than any kind of well-reasoned process, she imagined what the structure would look like if it was completely flawless. The metal in the vambrace seemed to ripple and a fluid wave swept through the armour plating, the intricate atomic structure leaping to obey her will. Jerking her hand back in surprise, she leaned closer, staring at the armoured vambrace in wonder. The uniformity of the lattice was breathtaking to behold and she lost herself in its exquisite perfection.
* She touched her hand to the rifle and rippling waves pulsed out from her fingertips. The immediate and obvious effect was the long strip along the barrel turning clear as she leeched the white colouring out of the metal. The subtler change was the sharper gleam to the glossy-white crystal Alyssium plating. Something faint but just noticeable caught John’s attention and he ducked lower, staring intently at the metal. His eyes widened in awe when he realised what he’d spotted. “You’ve etched Progenitor runes onto the rifle!”
* “I removed the imperfections from the metal, strengthened the lattice, then empowered it with resilience runes,” Dana murmured, walking over to the first of the metal discs he’d formed. Placing her hands on the disc, rippling waves pulsed out from her fingertips, sweeping over the surface.
* Dana's new ability lets her change material properties by sight alone. Fixing the lattice doesn’t just make it look nice on an atomic level. The tensile strength has been improved by removing the microscopic flaws in the structure. It’ll help with reducing penetration from weapons with real stopping power.

Tashana improves her **pyrokinesis**.

* The two fiery girls turned to face each other, linking blazing arms around each other’s burning bodies as they danced together. They undulated with a sensual rhythm, leaving Alyssa unclear if they were dancing or making love. It was even harder to make that distinction when the flame sprites moved in for a kiss, their elemental bodies burning brighter at the sizzling contact. “They remind me of a couple of friends of mine,” Alyssa said with a knowing smile. “My sexy twins are much hotter though.”
* Tashana didn’t reply, but she briefly made eye contact before focusing on her elemental sculpture once again. She lifted her left hand, palm upwards, placing it against her right. A bigger flame manifested above that second hand, slowly changing shape into another familiar form. The fiery girls parted and sauntered over to the brawny male figure, both of them dancing with him now as he put an arm around each of them.
* Alyssa was amazed by the definition of these fiery creatures, spotting pointed ears with flickering tips amongst the detail that Tashana had layered on. The flame-nymphs took turns kissing each other, looks of ecstasy on their tiny faces. Alyssa glanced across at the Maliri girl sitting beside her, and noticed the hint of a contented smile on Tashana’s full lips.
* Alyssa watched the fiery threesome in fascination as their coupling got progressively more debauched. The tableau ended with the two girls lying together, kissing passionately as their male counterpart took them both vigorously, one after the other. When they reached their climax, both female sprites had heavily-curved orange tummies as they flanked their man. The trio took a theatrical bow towards their audience before they guttered out with a faint “whumph”.
* “I don’t know what was better, watching the fiery representations of you and Irillith fucking John, or knowing that’s what you’ve been fantasising about,” Alyssa said, a teasing sparkle to her eyes.Tashana couldn’t help blushing at that, but she saw there was no malice in her blonde friend’s comment. She turned slightly towards her and said, “I know it should feel wrong, but it just feels so right...” Leaning closer Alyssa whispered, “All the girls think it’s really hot and I know John loves seeing you two together. As long as you’re enjoying yourselves, that’s all that matters.”
* John continues his painstaking work on enhancing her DNA, imaging the kind of capabilities he thought she might need, without going into too much in the way of specifics.

### Dana's Tech

Dana finishes her new **Quantum rifle**.

* John stared at the weapon, noting Dana’s now-signature bullpup design and the power core built into the stock. In many ways it looked a lot like the Punisher rifles they’d been using, being around the same kind of size, but it looked much more hi-tech and menacing. The major difference was the clear crystal Alyssium strip down the barrel, which made the upper and lower mag-rails visible this time.
* Back to ten-millimetre rounds. The twenty-mil would be overkill with the Quantum rifle. It doesn’t need the calibre and by halving the bullet size, they can carry twice as much ammo. Standard-issue Terran Federation mags work will work in a pinch.
* John picked up the Quantum rifle, hefting it in his arms and testing the weight. It was as perfectly balanced as the Punisher rifle had been and felt comfortingly familiar as he held it. There was a power switch in the same location as the one on the Justice Laser, so he flipped that to activate the weapon, feeling a slight vibration in his hands as it powered up. Blue lights flashed on along its length, but they were all overshadowed by the crackling blue field that arced between the mag-rails.
* He pulled his left hand away from the barrel in an instinctive reaction, before he remembered that the barrel was made from clear crystal and his fingers were perfectly safe. He slotted in one of the magazines, then took a firm grip of the rifle, releasing the safety with the thumb selector switch. He brought the weapon to his shoulder and aimed downrange, spotting the smart-linked targeting reticle that appeared, the crosshairs squarely centred on Dana’s torso. He flinched, then deliberately aimed to the right for a non-lethal shot at her arm instead.
* The armor now has shielding twice as strong as the Drakkar, at the cost of the magnetic field.
* The power core charges the magnetic rails, providing massive acceleration to the rounds in much the same way as the other railguns. The difference is the energy packet that is shaped around the bullet. All that energy means you have significant shield disrupting firepower to knock out the defences of a shielded enemy.
* “How come the bolts this one fires are blue, when the Drakkar ones were purple?” “Do you want the highly-detailed light spectroscopy explanation or the very simple layman’s version?” “Better go with the very simple answer.” “Dark purple is a bad-guy colour. We’re the good guys, so we shoot bright blue ones instead.”
* The scaling of comparative thickness in crystal Alyssium is linear rather than exponential.