“We'll be there soon" John said fondly.

“You did a hell of a thing today Lieutenant"

Calara looked back at him and smiled proudly.

“See you both soon" she said and blew him a kiss.

Alyssa brought the dropship around to the side of the Invictus and then eased it into the Hangar bay as soon as John had opened the hull doors. They disembarked, eager to leave Kirrix technology and the blood soaked ship behind them. As they left the hangar, they passed a couple of cleaning robots who had stopped at the pile of Kirrix corpses, paused as if unsure how to proceed. The automatons eagerly began to clean up their bloody green footprints however, soaked as their boots were in Insectoid gore. Having pity on the cleaning robots, John and Alyssa left their bloodied armour in a pile in the Hangar bay to collect and clean Later, rather than tracking blood all over the spotlessly clean ship.

John Looked at the ammo counter on his Assault rifle as he placed it carefully by the armour, the digital readout showed him he had fifteen rounds left. Alyssa smiled at him wryly, and showed him her own rifle which cheerily displayed that she had nine remaining bullets.

“Thank goodness for Commander Richards" John said, shaking his head at how close they came to disaster.

They took the elevator up to the bridge and the door swished open quietly. Calara and Sparks rose out of their chairs and dashed up to meet John and Alyssa and hugged them both with relief.

Before they could get to congratulating each other on their extraordinary victory, the Communicator began to flash and chime, indicating they had an incoming call. John darted up the illuminated steps to the command podium and pressed the button to answer the hail.

Captain Flintlock's face filled the vid-screen in the bridge.

“Commander Blake!" He said happily “I‘ve just spoken to my Marine Commander and he told me quite a tale" the older naval captain said, smiling in amazement.

“I've never known Commander Richards to exaggerate, but he tells me you took out the Hivelord, the Broodmother and scores of Kirrix troops, whilst managing to rescue over 400 captives?" the naval Captain said incredulously.

“Not only that" Captain Flintlock continued, “my crew tell me you destroyed 13 pirate vessels before taking on and disabling the Kirrix Hive ship?"

“Yes, that about sums it up" John replied.

“It's been a busy day!" he said with a mastery of understatement.

Captain Flintlock Laughed out loud. "I'd say it has Commander!" he said in wonder.

“Thanks for sending in the reinforcements" John said appreciatively “How did you get here so quickly though? I thought you were going to wait and repair the Calypso?" he asked, puzzled.

“I received orders from Vice-Admiral Harris to get to the Chendar system immediately" the Captain explained. "I left the rest of the patrol behind to assist the Calypso and we headed here as fast as we could".

“Well we hate to leave you to clean up after us, but we want to finish off the last of the pirates" John said apologetically.

"It's my pleasure Commander" Captain Flintlock said as he saluted. "You and your crew should be very proud, you saved a lot of lives today”

John nodded appreciatively and returned the salute and the Captain ended the call.

“Alyssa can you lay in a pursuit course for the Pirates please" John requested.