*I’m going to move my hands away in a moment,* she heard him think clearly.Têxt belongs to N?velDrama.Org.


    Alyssa’s eyes shed open, wide with panic, as she protested, *Wait! Don’t!*


    *I won’t let anything happen to you, you know you can trust me,* he told her, his thoughts strong andforting as he quelled her fears.


    She nodded and felt his hands drop away and then… nothing. She still floated peacefully in the water, the waterpping gently at her sides. The feeling of weightlessness was something she had never experienced before, and Alyssa found it was not as terrifying as she had imagined. Eventually she even began to quite enjoy the sensation, finding it soothing and restful.


    John let her float for a couple of minutes, before encircling her in his arms again and lifting her head from the water.


    “That was exhrating, John! Thank you so much!” she gasped excitedly.


    “You were amazing. For someone who had never been in a pool before today, you were incredibly brave!” he said, very proud of her.


    As always, Alyssa’s heart lifted to hear his praise and the beautiful young woman beamed a huge sparkling smile up at him. The pool didn’t seem anywhere near so frightening to Alyssa as before and she felt much more confident as they moved to the side and climbed out. They walked over to the towel rails and each took a lovely warm towel to wrap themselves in.


    “Thanks for my swimming lesson, that wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared!” Alyssa admitted as she smiled at John.


    “You’re wee honey, it was fun teaching you,” John said, returning her happy smile. “You’re a very fast learner, I’ll be able to teach you to swim in no time.”


    “Ok, I trust you,” she said, smiling up at him.


    John scooped her up and kissed her soundly, causing Alyssa to squeak excitedly in surprise. She wrapped her arms around him and returned his kiss passionately.


    “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 boy!” she said, grinning eagerly. They left the gym and headed to their quarters, as John called Sparks on his watchmunicator.


    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 inparison, even her proudest works seemed utterly trivial whenpared 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 Cra was still sitting at her tactical station, engrossed by the System map of Chendar. Sparks opened her mouth to speak to the brte, but then closed it again, not wanting to disturb Cra’s intense focus as she nned possible attack scenarios for the uing battle against the pirates.


    Sparks still found Cra a little intimidating, even though the gorgeous Latina had been extremely friendly and weing. That kind of wless 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, Cra, Alyssa and John had been nothing but overwhelmingly inclusive and generous with her since she hade 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 ce 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 disy 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 nk 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 sma transformer! That was meant to being 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 youe 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?” Cra asked, smiling at her.


    Sparksughed 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 Cra’s lovelyughter 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 ce in a heartbeat!”


    “No, no it’s ok!” Sparks said quickly. “I can see you’re busy.”


    “Yes, I thought so,” Cra 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.