“There's room for two more!" Alyssa grinned at the girls, and the brunette and redhead rose to join them.

The crew of the Invictus sat in the Officers’ lounge, cuddled up on a big sofa watching the stars. John sat in the middle, with Alyssa sitting sideways across his lap, Sparks and Calara sat to either side of him. The evening had been a great success, with the girls loving the delicious dinner that John had whipped up and they relaxed sipping wine together.

“To our new chief engineer!" John said, raising his glass.

“Welcome aboard Sparks, it's great to have you here

Alyssa and Calara echoed his comments and their glasses clinked together merrily for the toast, before they all took a big drink.

“Thanks everyone for being so welcoming. The ship feels like home already!" Sparks said gratefully, which prompted a round of hugs from the other girls.

The three teenagers chatted quietly amongst themselves, with John just soaking in the ambience of the evening and feeling relaxed and happy. He just sat and enjoyed their company, until a question from Alyssa roused him from his reverie.

“John, what are your plans for us and the Invictus after we go to Olympus?" she asked curiously.

"Well firstly I think we could use a Little holiday on Gravitus," John suggested.

“It will take a couple of days to equip the new workshop for Sparks, so we might as well go and have some fun while we wait".

"I've never been on holiday before," Sparks said wistfully. "If it's anything like the last trip to Gravitus, we didn't leave the hotel room very much," Alyssa smirked, which had John Laughing.

“Well we do need to take Calara and Sparks shopping,” he replied. He smiled at Alyssa, and added, "You must be getting tired of Calara borrowing all your clothes.".

“Hey, it's not my fault, none of my old clothing fits me any more!" the gorgeous Latina exclaimed, cupping her pert breasts which had grown from an athletic 3B to an impressively busty 32D. She gave him an excited grin, then gushed, “A shopping trip sounds amazing though!"

Sparks was still a little intimidated by how beautiful the other two girls were, so she was feeling resigned to being the ugly duckling on this shopping trip. She had seen Alyssa's impressive wardrobe of exquisite dresses, suits and casual attire and she certainly wouldn't object to a similar selection of clothes for herself.

“That'll be lots of fun, but what's our plan after that?" Alyssa persisted.

“Well, I've been thinking that it might be a good time to upgrade the Invictus," John began. "Things seem to be heating up around the galaxy and we're bound to run into trouble. As and when that happens, I think we should make sure we have the ship fitted with top-of-the-line gear."

“What are you thinking about upgrading first?" Sparks asked, growing excited.

“I'm thinking the FTL drive is a good place to start," John replied.

“If we can get the FTL drive upgraded, our journeys through hyper-warp won't take so long, and we can upgrade everything else that much quicker."

Alyssa nodded, and said, "That sounds Like a good plan to me. Where do we go for the best FTL drives?"

“We need to go and see the Ashanath..." John replied, with some trepidation. After a lengthy pause, he continued, “The other advantage of upgrading the FTL drive first, is the Ashanath are masters of Power Core technology too. I guess they needed all that energy to power their drives."

"That sounds awesome!" Sparks gasped eagerly.