Chapter 55

***This article contains spoilers.***

## Highlights

* Irillith wants to rescue her sister, Tashana, after finding out she's still alive. Irillith had framed her over a decade ago due to jealousy, resulting in her banishment. She has to wait until after they expose Norwood.
* Dana finishes her new super material, Crystal Alyssium.
* John decides to fix the gender ratio change Mael'nerak made to the Maliri.
* Edraele explains psychic powers, energy transfer, and the relationships between Progenitor, Matriarch, and Thralls.
* John has a nightmare in which he infuriates the Eldritch horror from previous nightmares into trying to destroy him. Radiant Alyssa appears and they escape together.

## Summary

“*There’s two of you?!*” Dana gasped in alarm, before Rachel elbowed her in the ribs.

Irillith explains who Tashana is.

* Unlike Irillith, she was good and kind, just immersing herself in her love of ancient things, and throwing herself into her archaeology.
* They were close as children but grew apart, following different careers.
* Tashana had no interest in Maliri politics and spent her time on research, while Irillith tried to curry favor with their mother.
* Irillith's hacking deck was a gift from Tashana, who found it during an excavation of an old Progenitor facility.
* Irillith rebuffed all of Tashana's attempts to rebuild their close childhood bond, considering her a fool with all her talk of the Mael'nerak fairytale being based on real events.
* Irillith tells them she killed Tashana.
* Edraele became very interested in Tashana’s research into healing powers, the reason of which is now apparent. Irillith grew insanely jealous of her, and saw her as a rival for Edraele’s attention, so she framed Tashana, setting her up to look like she had been selling House Valaden secrets to House Loraleth, their greatest rival, in exchange for access to dig sites in their territory.
* The penalty for treason to your house is death, and Tashana should have been executed immediately, as Irillith had hoped, but Edraele commuted her sentence to banishment instead.
* Edraele suddenly spoke up in John's mind. Tashana's still alive. Edraele had her implanted with a tracking device in case she needed a blood relative to use as a test subject for an experimental medical procedure. Irillith wanted to immediately go to rescue Tashana, but John said they need to expose Admiral Norwood first.
* Tashana spent nearly a decade around the Unclaimed Wastes, which are a lawless region on the far border of Maliri Space. A few years ago, she moved to a location known as The Underworld, an ancient refinery taken over by mercenaries, pirates and other outlaws. It's just outside the borders of Terran and Maliri Space, and not under anyone’s jurisdiction. Edraele had contemplated having it eliminated, but it’s on the far edge of House Ghilwen territory, and thus not easily accessible for her forces. John should be able to approach it from Terran Federation Space, unimpeded, on the way back from dealing with the Dragon March traitor.

Dana presents her new material, Crystal Alyssium.

* She had to create a new periodic table of elements with 19 new elements. After the new bond and resulting surge of energy, the standard *Terran* periodic table looked wrong.
* Rachel noted this might be the Progenitors' knowledge of elements John unconsciously shared with her. There are vast amounts of information stored within John's third helix, and it's possible Progenitors use that kind of built in pre-coding to store complex information. There might be other secrets hidden in his DNA.
* There is no sample yet, because she needs a Fusion Reactor to fabricate the two elements. Irillith offered Genthalas' to use.
* Dana had deleted all the tech schematics after memorizing them when she saw Irillith's hacking abilities.

Dana looks at Irillith's Maliri schematics.

* **Pulse Cannon**: Maliri equivalent of Terran Gatling Lasers, but three times as powerful and no wind-up times. It uses photon-folding and phased-channelling techniques to massively amplify the power of their lasers. A straight swap with Gatling Lasers is possible.
* **Maliri Beam Lasers**: Greatly superior to Terran equivalent, more potent, and small enough to be fitted in a turret. Swapping Laser Cannons with Beam Lasers is possible, quadrupling their firepower.
* **Nova Lance**: The Maliri used them to eviscerate The Warning. They’re too big and draw too much power for the Maliri to fit them on cruisers, so they're only used on battleships. It can fit on the Invictus by replacing each bank of three Beam Laserss with a single Nova Lance, but its phenomenal power draw means they we would’t have enough power for the Mass Drivers. Calara thinks it's worth it, judging by The Warning.

They decide to split the tasks for the refit.

* **Calara**: Invictus weapons
* **Jade**: Raptor
* **Rachel**: Central core
* **John**: Armor plating removal
* **Dana**: Element creation elements
* **Alyssa**: Psi-shaping
* **Irillith**: Liaison with Maliri engineers
* **Faye**: Maintenance robots

Edraele's new personality develops quickly. She's now happy and playful, but extreme remorseful. She makes John a copy of Tashana's tracking device.

When Dana was reproducing the schematics, the Tachyon Drive and Power Core schematics looked familiar, but somehow wrong, like the person who had designed them had done so without a full understanding of the physics involved.

Edraele addresses the engineers, introducing John as House Valaden's closest ally, telling them to assist him with the refit using Maliri weaponry. Edraele gaved the shocked engineers a pleasant smile, and John could tell by the fearful way they looked at her that if their Matriarch was happy about something, it usually meant something terrible was about to happen to someone else.

The Maliri engineers were all gazing at John curiously. Alyssa suggests John bring Luna onside. John shows off to Luna, Almari, and Ilyana.

The Fusion Reactor's Lead Technician, Alyndra, thinks Dana is insane for wanting to shoot a stream of highly charged anti-matter through the Power Core, and refuses until Irillith threatens her with Edraele.

John disconnects weapons for the refit by hand, showing off to Filaurel, Thessalia, Syndra, Farryn, Annallee, Rania, and other engineers who are spellbound by him.

Irillith starts seeing flickering spots in her peripheral vision.

Ioelena, a Maliri engineer, slipped off the port edge of the hull. Jade jumped after her in tiger form, caught her, shifted into a falcon with huge leather wings, and brought her back up. Ioelena cried in John's arms.

Rachel suggests John fix the Maliri birth problem by getting Jade to help him feed his cum to as many Maliri girls as possible, while concentrating on healing them of this gender ratio skewing change Mael'nerak made. Then they’ll be seen as desirable mates, and this fix will eventually spread throughout their population.

Edraele surprises John with Luna, Almari, and Ilyana, but John says he wants them to know about him first. Edraele said she already talked to him. When he asked what she told them, an excited Ilyana says, "*You are one of the Progenitors, akin to the being we Maliri refer to as the Mael'nerak. But where he came to enslave and destroy, you are his opposite, seeking to liberate and empower.*" They give John a triple blowjob.

John heals Almari's hand that was burned by the shadow barrier that his dark-half created, and then heals the other scars and injuries of all three.

Alyssa suggests the Maliri for John's long term future plans with his girls.

Faye makes the engineers uncomfortable and distracted, so Rachel suggests she prepare the bots a program to help install the new Pulse Cannons instead. Later, when Dana hears Faye might've been making her own upgrades, she worriedly goes to check on the bots. Dana finds Faye's bots to be benign and guiltily confesses to Faye why she had to check: Terran AI constructs have a habit of going bad, and lots of people end up getting hurt. Faye agrees not to program the bots without Dana or Irillith checking her code.

Calara confessed to Irillith she originally voted "no" to her being allowed on the ship, but now she thinks it's the best thing that's happened to them.

John helps Jade's team and inevitably his shirt comes off. Jade shares his load among the engineers to help correct the Maliri gender skew where 20 females are born to every one male.

Myriana allows Rachel to take a DNA sample.

Jade notes the engineers who swallowed his cum were out for four hours before waking up full of energy. Jade offers to help John impregnate them at once using tentacles. John declines, not wanting to abandon his children since he has abandonment issues himself.

John and Alyssa meet in Edraele's state rooms. Luna's voice sounds clear now that her larynx injury has healed. Edraele realizes from how worn out he looks that he's been using his personal reserves to heal Luna, Almari and Ilyana, and cautions him that some powers use more energy than others. Edraele learned how energy transfer works after she submitted to John's Progenitor side (Chapter 43). Before he had her service him, he told me her he was going to use her to control his legions, and fuel his powers. Edraele kissed them, transferring energy and refreshing them.

Edraele tells Alyssa they might both be his Matriarchs, but they aren’t equals; she has no desire to challenge her position as his most favored woman.

Edraele explains energy transfer and the relationships between Progenitor, Matriarch, and Thralls.

* Although John's Progenitor side wiped out her original personality, he implanted this knowledge in her mind, so that she would be able to serve him.
* Energy transfer is like a pyramid. The Progenitor is at the top, with a Matriarch below him, and the women linked to her are at a lower level.
* Every person contains a certain amount of psychic energy that can be drawn when needed, and that is typically channelled through the Matriarch up to the Progenitor.
* The amount of energy a person holds grows with their experience and psychic potential, and a Progenitor can use his own reserves of energy if he is unable to tap his thralls for power for any reason.
* In times of great need, a Progenitor or Matriarch can draw on a thrall’s life force once their psychic energy has been exhausted. Doing so will burn them out, leaving them an empty drained husk, killing them in the process. (John orders Edraele to never do this.)
* A Progenitor can drain his thralls of energy directly if his Matriarch is slain or unconscious
* Progenitors normally let the Matriarch control the energy transfer from the thralls, to avoid unnecessarily burning his women out. A Matriarch is telepathically linked to her thralls, so she can issue them commands, and monitor their status.
* Since non-psychics can’t project a telepathic voice, Edraele was confused when Alyssa talked about chatting with the girls. Edraele was unaware of creating bonds since Progenitor Matriarchs treat their thralls like cattle to be harvested. They don’t do anything like bonding.
* The way John connected the Maliri engineers to Edraele is likely closer to the normal Progenitor way of doing things. If the Progenitors and their Matriarchs never bother to develop the links with their thralls, that’s likely why they need to enslave so many women to fuel their powers.

Edraele explains powers.

* When Edraele had kissed John to refresh him, she took a little bit of psychic energy from each of the Maliri who are linked to her, as well as a sizable portion from her own reserves, and used it to rejuvenate him. It’s not as efficient as if John had simply reached out to her for the psychic energy to help fuel whatever powers he was using, but the result is the same.
* An **Active power** requires mentally directing the ability, concentrating on it to accomplish something. Spirit Walking and telekinesis are examples of this.
* A **Passive power** is something done without any conscious thought. Alyssa's telepathic connections with the girls on her crew are Passive powers. Once she's created that connection, a small part of her mind is dedicated to maintaining the link. John's strength is another example.
* Passive powers are very efficient, and don’t tend to use much psychic energy to maintain. Active ones can be quickly exhausting to use. This is why healing Luna, Almari, and Ilyana and undoing the Mael'nerak’s tampering in the engineers is what made John tired, rather than from using his strength to haul ship weapons about.
* As a person gets more confident and practiced with an ability, they get stronger in its use.
* It is likely that the more girls added to the group, and the more Alyssa "bonds" with them, the stronger John becomes too. This would explain why he's steadily growing in psychic power, and why Progenitors recruit legions of followers.
* The kind of psychic abilities that manifest for each person depends on their mind, which is unique to each individual. Edraele favors telekinetic attacks and telepathy, but her mother was gifted with pyrokinesis. Edraele's mother particularly enjoyed slowly burning her enemies to death, and her old personality’s memories of that are quite horrific.
* Irillith and Tashana should be psychic but the old Edraele never encouraged them to develop their abilities, because she considered them a threat.

Edraele explains telepathy.

* There is a difference between active psychics, and normal people ("Mundanes"). A normal person has no way to project their telepathic voice, and their ability to withstand telepathic intrusion is instinctive, and primarily just through having a strong willpower.
* Telepaths can establish a psychic link with another telepath, and chat to them in the same way you would if you had opened a comm channel to someone. They hear what you want to tell them, and you hear what they want to say to you.
* Active telepaths build a mind-shield, which is a much more robust defence against unwanted mental intrusion than willpower alone. Alyssa's mind-shield is extremely strong, but she lets them in to hear whatever she's thinking about at the time. Edraele was never conscious around Progenitor-John after she became his Matriarch, so she doesn't know I'd Progenitors normally let their Matriarchs listen to their thoughts. (Knowing him, probably not.)
* There are probably different ways of doing reading minds, but Edraele only knows about one way. She uses astral projection to shift into her spirit form, then break through someone’s mental defences. After breaking through a mind-shield, or overcoming a Mundane’s willpower, it is possible to access their mind. At that point, you can use a person’s personality framework to guide you around their memories, and basically find out whatever you want to know. There's no danger of harming the subject's mind for a skilled telepath, but an unskilled telepath can accidentally damage their mind if they aren’t careful.
* Progenitor John must be a strong telepath, because completely wiping out a person’s personality, like he did to Edraele, is difficult. This means John might be a strong telepath too, but his mind might be suppressing that ability for some reason.

Alyssa is more positive about the future since Edraele joined, since it feels like they have a base to return to now, rather than just roaming the galaxy. Edraele worries that since she has very long list of well-deserved enemies, by allying with her, they made themselves a target by association. John and Alyssa decide to stay the night with Edraele.

Edraele’s new personality seems suspiciously familiar to Alyssa. John tells her he needed to start from somewhere.

Irillith comes and gives a progress report.

* The Raptor has been rearmed and armored, and is just waiting for the Central Core to be installed.
* All the Pulse Cannons, and Beam Lasers have been installed in the Invictus topdeck, and the weapons team will split in half and take one flank each the next day, working from fore to aft.
* The Nova Lances are ready, but they need to be installed in the prow. Rachel’s team has bored out the Central Core through all the decks in the Invictus, and are ready to install the Central Core as soon as Alyssa shapes it.
* Dana has upgraded the Pilot’s Station
* Faye’s robots have upgraded all the ship’s computer systems and subsystems.

Edraele suddenly said to Irillith in a cold, dispassionate voice, “*Irillith, I wish to speak to you before you leave.*” Irillith froze in dread, but when Esraele glided over to her, she said, "*I've treated you so badly*," her voice throbbing with sincerity. Edraele said she she loves Irillith and hope she allows her to make up for the terrible things she's done. Irillith clung to her mother, crying, as she stoked Irillith's back, comforting her.

Alyssa detects it being John's handiwork, and when she mentioned this telepathically, John explained. The way Edraele treated Irillith wasn’t the new personality’s fault, but she still felt guilty about it. She was in a perfect position to do something to make amends, so he nudged her in the right direction. After this reconciliation, hopefully they’ll both feel better, and maybe they can start building a new, positive relationship.

John had a nightmare. An Eldritch horror gloated, greeting John as one would greet their pet. John yelled at it, asking what it wanted. The Eldritch horror's demeanor changed from indulgent curiosity to suspicion and anger. John's chest surged with dread and his mind froze with shock. Suddenly, the radiant figure who always saves John appears, fortifying his courage. The being's utter revulsion at Alyssa's appearance was palpable, and it prepared for a stroke of titanic proportions. In the past, its barbed tentacles were only meant to chastise and punish. This time it's different. John reached for the radiant figure, knowing he had to save them both, and when their fingers touched he was ripped out of the dreamworld.

John opened his eyes to find Alyssa clinging to him in fright. John himself felt like crying out in terror. They discussed it with Edraele. These attacks happen every third load when they add a girl to the group. Edraele's third time was the day before. John never experienced a dream after Irillith's third load because Progenitor John had taken over by the evening.

John took a Maliri shower, where a clip-like device goes over the nose for breathing, the cubicle fills with water, and then the cleaning agents thoroughly clean the body.

Irillith thanks John for setting up the previous night with Edraele, because it was pleasant even though it wasn't really her mother. John told her to think of Edraele as having a healed personality like she does; they just got to the final result in different ways. For the first time Irillith feels like spending time with her mother.

Edraele, acting as her old personality, had a video call with planetary governors, demanding trials to be held for all serious infractions; there are to be no summary executions.

Edraele tells Alyssa there isn't any range in their connection; they're connected across the Astral Plane, and distances don’t apply there in the same way. The **Astral Plane** is another dimension that co-exists with their own. It’s a place shaped by thought, and a person’s consciousness can change reality there, opening up many possibilities, but also extreme dangers for the unwary. When a Telepath **Spirit Walks**, they are projecting their mind into the Astral Plane. It’s more commonly known as **Astral Projection**, the Terran translation of the Maliri name.

Edraele confesses that Irillith and Tashana's father died a few years after they were born. He objected to the way Edraele was bringing them up, and asked that they be allowed to stay with him on Geniya. They argued, she got angry, and it's implied she had him killed.

Edraele ascended the steps of the podium, then stood behind the lectern to address the engineers. She apologized to them for having to threaten them into helping with the refit, relying on her terrible reputation for inflicting suffering to get them to comply with her orders. She informs them that things will be changing for the Maliri of House Valaden in the future, and she'll be doing her best to improve all of their lives in the coming months. Edraele said she'd help arrange matches with men for them, and that any Maliri with white hair can considered a close ally, and someone they can trust with their lives. Edraele tells them telepathically they are now linked with him, but the telepathy was less of a shock for them than finding out Edraele wasn't the tyrant they thought she was.

While this happens, Rachel uses the psi-detector to capture the psychic energy flows of them all.

They say their goodbyes and get back on the Invictus. On the way to Terran Space, they go to the Beta Aquarii system for a weapons test on an abandoned mining station. Afterwards, it looked just like The Warning.

Degory Milligan angrily told the brooding figure his Intel on John was on inaccurate. John was supposed to be a do-gooder type, but he told him to fuck off. He reminded Degory of the brooding figure.

To kill John Blake, the brooding figure will have to get involved personally now.