Chapter 93

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* John gives Jade permanent access to his mind, as if she were one of his matriarchs.
* John takes the girls to Myra's World and proposes to them all except for Edraele and Faye. Alyssa suggests that Calara be his official wife.
* Tashana and Irillith fully bond. Irillith relives every moment of Tashana’s torment.
* High Command were none too pleased with the video TFNN aired of John saving the Trankarans from the Kirrix. They fear they won't be able to defeat John in open battle. Weber updates Buckingham: He tapped TFNN's Nymph hotline and has been abducting Nymphs.

## Notes

### Miscellaneous

* Ryan Murphy (Leprechaun) went on another Claymore test flight, this time shooting up agile target drones. He started spotting quirks and idiosyncrasies of the converted gunship. He has an image of Jade painted on his Claymore’s fuselage that he uses as a lucky charm. He has Engineer Garvy take another look at the alignment of the Gauss Cannon's sights.
* John gives Jade permanent access to his mind, as if she were one of his matriarchs.
* Information regarding Nymphs was re-classified at Admiral level, which prevents Calara from accessing it using John's Vice Admiral authority.
* John sent the video footage to Jehanna.
* Tashana bonds with Alyssa while John fucks her ass.
* Just as Charles thinks Henry Voss is deliberately crippling innovations in spacecraft components, perhaps because of a feud with Rachel, Henry shows up, explaining that he's actually spent 212 billion credits in order to massively expand shipbuilding. He just had to clean house of the boards objecting. Two reasons:
	1. "What’s the use of all that money if we’re all dead in a matter of months?"
	2. "It’s my last chance to create a Voss Legacy that my daughter will actually be proud of."
* John takes the girls to Myra's World and proposes to them all. He has rings for Edraele and Faye, but Edraele is in cryostasis, and he's not yet at that point in the relationship with Faye.
* Alyssa suggests that Calara be his official wife.
* Tashana goes over her Mael'nerak research, and what convinced her it wasn't a fairy tale.
* Tashana and Irillith fully bond. Irillith relives every moment of Tashana’s torment, starting with that excruciating agony of betrayal, when Irillith framed her and engineered her banishment. *“How could I do that to you?!”* *Irillith trembled with anguish, racked with deep sobs, finally getting a glimpse of the horrendous catalogue of brutality Tashana had endured. Brutal gang rapes, whippings, torture, even her sister’s face being permanently mutilated ... and through it all, feelings of terror, shame, and despair. The only thing that had given Tashana the strength to survive through her hideous ordeal had been her blazing hatred for her twin.*
* High Command were none too pleased with the video TFNN aired of John saving the Trankarans from the Kirrix. They fear they won't be able to defeat John in open battle. Devereux found out about Alyssa Marant's identification, and her drastic change, but they abandon using that as it will be easy for John to spin it positively.
* After their meeting, Weber updates Buckingham:
	+ *"We tapped the TFNN hotline regarding information on the Nymphs. My strike teams tracked down the most reliable informants, rounded them up and interned them so we could find out what they know. We’ve started hunting down the aliens themselves [and have two so far]. I’ve had them sent to a secure facility. The extraction was covert, so there won’t be any direct blowback from their previous owners. You’d be surprised who they were though ... Such upstanding citizens keeping an alien sex-slave as a pet! They definitely won’t want this going public."*
	+ Buckingham liked the news. *"Just imagine replicating those Nymphs and turning them into shock troops... Even if we can’t, it keeps them out of Blake’s hands."*
	+ Buckingham's aware that the Invictus queried the military Nymph records that he'd placed a post-dated security lockdown on. *"It’s about time we curtailed your little operation, Mister Blake," he said to himself, with a nod of satisfaction. Relaxing back in his chair, he glanced across the office at the still-frozen image of Jehanna Elani on the holo-screen. "Yes, well past time..."*

### Minor Characters

* Ryan Murphy: Lieutenant Commander. Nicknamed Leprechaun. Has flashbacks of Memories of Angel, Snakebite, and Romeo, and feels responsible for their deaths at Regulus.
* Lewis: Captain. Nicknamed Gator. Assigns Ryan and Binary their own wings. They'll be training the new replacements as their wingmen.
* Binary
* Garvy: Engineer
* Whiskey
* Halifax: Ensign. Specifically requested to be in Ryan's wing.
* Baker: Ensign. Specifically requested to be in Ryan's wing.

### Reaper Pistol

* The Reaper Pistol is basically a really powerful laser weapon coupled with a Quantum pistol, which Tashana can use as an integrated grenade launcher.
* The upper barrel is a cut-down version of the Reaper Cannon, so Dana's started calling them Reaper pistols.
* There’s a tiny Power Core at the back that powers the weapon systems and heatsinks between the dual barrels to cool whichever’s in use.
* There's no fire selector switch. Dana figured Tashana would be using the Quantum rounds for flaming ammo. They’re set for single-fire only, partially to avoid over-heating issues, as both barrels share the same heatsinks.
* It takes normal 10mm ammo like the Quantum pistols.
* Anti-grav generators make them feel much lighter than the ordinary Quantum versions, despite being twice the size.