Alyssa dashed up to him, her face full of concern. “John, are you ok?!” she asked, her voice full of worry.


    She cupped his head in her hands and looking into his eyes, but she couldn’t pick up any thoughts from him and he seemed to be dazed. Alyssa shook him gently, and he gradually regained full consciousness, his eyes bing bright and focused again.


    “What happened?” John asked, bewildered.


    “Let’s discuss itter,” Alyssa said firmly, as she helped him to stand.


    John picked up his assault rifle and magazine from the floor, wincing at the sharp pain in his back and shoulders from where the cyborg had tried to insert him into the wall. They walked back to the mess hall, where the two crewmen from the Calypso were cautiously checking on the pirates that John and Alyssa had gunned down. More freighter crew wereing out from the storage area behind the kitchen, looks of relief etched on their fear drawn faces.


    One of the crew, the brown haired woman who had spoken to them earlier, stepped forward holding a makeshift trauma bandage to her left arm.


    “Thank you Commander! You saved us!” she said passionately.


    The rest of the Calypso’s crew had gathered around, and they echoed their Captain’s words, thanking John and Alyssa profusely.


    “We rescued three women in another room back there too,” Alyssa said. “We were going to let them know when the rest of the ship was safe.”


    “Oh thank God! Bless you, the pair of you!” one of the men blurted. “I’ll let my wife know the coast is clear,” he added, heaving a sigh of relief as he moved to leave the room.


    John waved away the thanks from the crew of the Calypso, nodding graciously.


    “We better get back to our ship,” he told the freighter Captain. “Will you be ok here?”


    “Our engines took some heavy damage, so we’ll have to wait for assistance from Port Heracles,” the Captain replied. “You go ahead though. Terran Federation patrols responded to our distress beacon, and said they’d be arriving in two hours. We never would have survived that long, if you hadn’t arrived in time, though!”


    John smiled and said reassuringly, “We’ll return to the Invictus and cover you.”


    He turned to face Alyssa, smiling at her as he said, “Come on, honey, we should let the others know we’re okay.”


    The beautiful blonde nodded and waved goodbye to the Calypso crew. They pped and cheered as the two of them left, the apuse echoing down the corridors as they walked back to the Griffon to get to their ship.


    “Are you ok?” Alyssa asked him as soon as they were alone, her voice tinged with concern.


    “I feel drained and my back feels like I just wrestled a bull and lost, but other than that I’m fine,” John said honestly.


    “You managed to rip apart steel with your bare hands,” Alyssa said, feeling awed as she remembered John tearing the cyborg’s arm off his body. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”


    “Adrenalin rush I guess,” John shrugged. “I just knew I had to stop him from hurting you and then I sort of cked out.”


    “Well thank you for saving me,” she said as she smiled at him gratefully, realising that John had no answers to exin his mighty surge of strength.


    They arrived at the docking cor between the Griffon and the Invictus, and John activated the airlock into the Assault Cruiser by cing his hand on the DNA reader. The airlock door spiralled open, and they headed into the ship, with Alyssa sealing the airlock behind them.This material belongs to N?velDrama.Org.


    “We’re back on board,” John said into his watchmunicator after he got through to Cra. “Disengage from the Griffon and provide cover for the Calypso. Relief will be here within two hours. We’re going to our room to get out of this gear”.


    “We were so worried about you two!” the image of Cra said, forgetting to call him Commander she was so overwhelmed with relief.


    John smiled at her affectionately, and said, “We’re fine, honestly. We’ll catch up with you soon.”


    Cra grinned at his smiling face and waved goodbye. “Executing your orders, Commander,” she said cheerfully, ending the call.


    John slumped, having put on a brave face for the Latina, and walked wearily to his quarters with Alyssa watching him closely as she kept himpany. They entered their walk-in-wardrobe, where the beautiful blonde helped him gingerly peel off his armour, trying to be careful not to hurt his back or shoulders.


    Sparks walked in on them just as Alyssa had taken off thest of John’s armour from his upper body, exposing his muscr chest and arms.


    “Oh my god! What happened to you?” Sparks gasped in rm, seeing the ck and purple bruises covering his back.


    “A run in with an insane cyborg,” John said, wincing as Alyssa helped him remove the armour from his legs.


    “I got bashed about a bit,” he admitted, downying the encounter.


    “It looks like you got run over by an ore hauler!” Sparks said with concern, as she gently ran her fingers over the mottled bruises on his back.


    Alyssa quickly stripped out of her own armour, leaving it all in a jumbled pile on the floor.


    “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, and then you can have a rest,” the beautiful blonde saidfortingly.


    Sparks went ahead of them to turn on the shower, and stripped off to join them, as John and Alyssa stood under the soothing warm water. The girls cleaned him up tenderly, washing the gore from the fight off his face and hands. Sparks looked puzzled at how he got so drenched in blood, but a nce from Alyssa told her not to ask.


    John stood under the rxing streams of water, letting the girls clean his body. He realised that Alyssa still had questions about the brutal melee onboard the Calypso, but he had no real answers, and was too weary to care at the moment. Alyssa moved into his line of sight as she washed his chest and he noticed the angry red welt on her left arm, from where she had been clipped by the cyborg.


    “Honey, you’re hurt!” he said in rm.


    “It’s nothing serious,” Alyssa said, shrugging it off.