“I want you," John said simply, turned on by her unquestioning faith and trust in him.

“But what about Sparks?" Alyssa asked questioningly.

"I've got it covered," John replied, smiling mischievously.

Alyssa read his thoughts and a thrill went down her spine. "Oh you bad she said, grinning eagerly. They left the gym and headed to their quarters, as John called Sparks on his watch communicator.

Sparks was engrossed in the holographic images surrounding the engineering station. She had started to delve into the arcane technical minutiae of the Invictus, guided by the invaluable Holo-reader and was loving every minute of it. The assault cruiser made anything she had worked on back on Karron seem like a child's toy in comparison, even her proudest works seemed utterly trivial when compared to this behemoth.

The redhead had spent a productive morning training herself on the basic operations of Engineering and she was now looking forward to studying the systems in more detail. The ability to be able to divert power from one set of subsystems to another was intriguing and she was eager to begin experimenting. She Looked across the bridge to see that Calara was still sitting at her tactical station, engrossed by the System map of Chendar. Sparks opened her mouth to speak to the brunette, but then closed it again, not wanting to disturb Calara's intense focus as she planned possible attack scenarios for the upcoming battle against the pirates.

Sparks still found Calara a little intimidating, even though the gorgeous Latina had been extremely friendly and welcoming. That kind of flawless beauty was difficult to be around at times, especially when someone felt as ugly and damaged as Sparks did. The teenager reached up to touch her terribly scarred face self consciously and wondered again how she could ever possible fit in amongst these paragons of feminine perfection. Still, Calara, Alyssa and John had been nothing but overwhelmingly inclusive and generous with her since she had come on board, which got her thinking about the workshop again.

Her very own workshop! The one back on Karron with the Diablo's didn't really count, as it was all their equipment and she was their indentured servant. She didn't doubt for a moment John's sincerity in offering her a permanent place here though and the vast space he had happily turned over for her to use at her whim was slightly daunting. The teenagers mind whirled with possibilities at the gear she could make for her crewmates.

She pressed a couple of button on the console and a Holo-feed display for the Engineer's Almanac sprang into being before her. As a small child she had spent hours looking through their advertising material poring over capacitors, generators and fabrication equipment. She had always dreamed of being able to afford one of their technical wonders and now she had John providing her a blank cheque to buy whatever she liked. The redhead swiped her hand over the holographic pages and idly cycled through page after page of expensive machinery.

“Oh wow! They've got an Optron Plasma transformer! That was meant to be coming out in 2780!" she thought to herself excitedly, as she wondered how they'd managed to have it ready in time for the 2779 catalogue.

A soft chime from her console interrupted her thoughts as she noticed that John was calling her. She pressed the button to receive the call.

“Hey Sparks, could you come and join us in our quarters?" John's smiling image said, with Alyssa peeking over his shoulder, a huge grin on her face.

“Okay, I'll be right there," Sparks replied agreeably, and closed off the call as Alyssa blew her a kiss.

She got up and stretched, feeling stiff after the entire morning sat at the engineering station.

“Time for Lunch?" Calara asked, smiling at her.

Sparks laughed good naturedly as she replied, “It's a good job his cum tastes so good right?" Truth be told she was feeling hungry and Lunch sounded Like a great idea. She Licked her lips reflexively and grinned at the thought.

The sound of Calara's lovely laughter filled the bridge.

“You don't fool me for a second," she said, smiling fondly at the redhead. "You just say the word and I'll take your place in a heartbeat!"

“No, no it's ok!" Sparks said quickly.

“I can see you're busy.” “Yes, I thought so," Calara grinned knowingly at Sparks as the redhead got up and began to walk up to the elevator.

Sparks returned the Latina's friendly smile and waved her goodbye as she entered the elevator and headed down to the Officer's quarters.

Calara returned her attention to the System map for Chendar and continued to pore over the detailed survey maps for the solar system. The Gas mining station was orbiting Chendar D, the Gas giant which formed the fourth planetary body in orbit around the G-type main sequence star. The yellow dwarf had six planets in total in its system, another gas giant and four rocky planetoids, as well as the asteroid belt that formed a sporadic ring in the fifth orbital path around the star.