I may have been piloting the ship alone; but, I wasn't on the ship by myself. I couldn't in good conscience leave Kara and Lashina on the station and potentially cause a ruckus.... or worse, believe that they could escape. I wasn't going to allow that, so they needed to come with me and needed to be supervised.

The downside to that was Lashina was usually in the spare room sulking, because we were technically alone and I still wouldn't allow her to walk around in her panties or sleep with her, and Kara was completely useless as a co-pilot. She couldn't even read the navigation computer display properly, let alone assist in any of the normal ship operations.

Hela was not impressed by either woman and didn't understand why I had brought along such useless people to help in the mission. She didn't trust Kara to touch her consoles, so any time Kara was near them Hela deactivated them and shunted the controls to the pilot's main seat.

I almost laughed at that, because I didn't have to warn her that Kara might try to use the controls to do... well, something... and she shouldn't have access to them. I had been tempted to leave her in one of the rooms, then decided that I couldn't pilot the ship, watch for dangers, and watch her at the same time.

On the plus side, both Kara and Lashina had orderly minds, so I wasn't being constantly bombarded by random thoughts. I had only slightly relaxed my mental barriers and it was a little relaxing to metaphorically let my hair down and not worry about either of them trying to take advantage of that. I was sure that Kara would, considering she had been trying for years to get into my head; but, she still wore the wrist and ankle restraints, uncoupled of course, and it kept her Presence in check.

Kara was really starting to hate me for that.

“So, have you figured out how to make a black barrier machine yet?” I asked.

Kara huffed from the co-pilot's seat. “You build them too quickly for me to get anything, especially since you won't take these infernal bracelets off!”

“The very first thing you're going to do when I take them off is attack me.” I said with a chuckle. “Or am I wrong?”

Kara didn't say anything and I nodded.

“I wouldn't do it on a space station and I will definitely not do it on a space ship.” I said. “You would kill us quicker than the emptiness of space would.”

Kara sat there and thought about how she could still attack and not damage the ship.

“Don't forget my personal shield.” I reminded her. “You'd still have to get by that.”

“I've done it before.” Kara said.

I chuckled again. “I've modified them since then. Now they can absorb energy and strengthen itself.”

Kara gave me a look with squinted eyes.

“Yes, I've adapted parts of the barrier technology that much.” I said. “In fact, I'm still working on trying to miniaturize it.”

“You can't miniaturize it.” Kara said. “You said it yourself. It uses standard parts. They only way to...” She caught her breath and her eyes widened. “You can't be serious.”

“I'm having a problem with the interconnections, because unless all of the parts I use are miniaturized, then they don't fit together.” I said. “I tried looking for the plans of a standard parts factory and they aren't on the open market. I'm not sure how I can get them, not without trying to buy a factory for myself.”

“Would you really spend a fortune to buy something you'd only tear apart for a chance to make it smaller?” Kara laughed. “I don't think they come with the plans to build themselves.”

“I wonder if I can make that one of the conditions?” I asked, rhetorically. “I assume the things the factory can make have to be inside the computer data banks somewhere, right? Otherwise, how would the different parts be made and assembled?”

“Go ahead and spend a fortune to find out.” Kara said. “And you complain about The Order spending to excesses.”

“A peaceful organization shouldn't need hundreds of thousands of heavily armed spaceships, Kara.”

“Your company just started and you have eight of them.” Kara countered.

“The Wave is not a peaceful organization.” I responded and she gave me another look. “It didn't even start out that way, so you can lose the accusing look.”

“But... you were a shipping company.” Kara said.

“It was, and I supported it by bounty hunting.” I said. “In fact, our very first shipping job was delivering delegates to a war-torn system and that was not peaceful at all.”

Kara closed her mouth on what she was going to say, because the Presence hadn't wavered.

“Thanks for sitting here and keeping me company.” I said with a smirk and she glared at me. “It's nice to talk to someone else, even if she's hostile and hates that I'm keeping her as an apprentice.”

“Why don't you have Lashina up here instead? I'm sure she'd love to spend all this time with you.”

“You just answered your own question.” I said and she lost the glare as she thought about it. “Yeah, she would be all over me and I wouldn't be able to fly the ship.”

“You could just tell her no.” Kara said.

“I've been telling her no.” I said and smiled. “Ha. You think I've been visiting her bed every night.”

“Haven't you?” Kara asked.

“No. She won't learn how to adapt if I gave in to her desires so easily.”

“You want to sleep with her, though.”

“Of course I do. Have you seen her cute little pink ass in a pair of silk panties?” I chuckled. “Ah, dammit. I'm hard now.”

“Thank you, Hunter.” Lashina's voice floated through the cockpit.

“If you would wear pants for more than five minutes, I could take them off of you, you know!” I said back to her.

“They're too restrictive!” Lashina said back.

“I know they are. That's the point.” I said and she didn't say anything back. “Maybe some day I'll feel your love again.”

“I'm... I'm trying, Hunter. I am.” Lashina whispered.

“I know you are.” I said, because the Presence only wavered a tiny amount, which meant she does try, just that she wasn't right now.

Kara had sat through that exchange and didn't say anything.

“Go ahead.” I said to her as I covered the cockpit with Presence. “She can't hear us now.”

Kara could feel the Presence Barrier and nodded. “She's not going to give up her beliefs for you.” She said. “She's been worshipping the Goddess-”

“Don't say her name.” I interrupted her.

Kara sighed. “...for over a hundred years, ever since she was a child and old enough to learn about The Order.”

“Do you really believe someone can't change their core beliefs, even with overwhelming evidence of their wrongdoing?” I asked.

“It'll take more than that to convince someone to abandon their core beliefs.” Kara said. “Plus, it can be argued that it was only the followers that have done the wrongs and not the Goddess herself.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

It was my turn to sigh this time. “I think that's why. She doesn't care about them. At all. She only cares that she has them. It doesn't matter who they are or what they do. All that matters is the numbers of them that believe in her.”

Kara thought of reminding me she had been chosen to go to Relique, then decided not to.

I thought about telling her that she was brought along by mistake, then decided that this wasn't the time. It wouldn't have much impact now, not with her Presence restrained like it was, so I saved that little nugget of information for later. Of course, I didn't expressly tell her that I was going to remove the shackles at some point, which was also going to be a test for her.

I was pretty sure she was going to fail, because she wasn't close to doubting her Goddess as much as she needed to, so I was delaying it as much as possible.

Temptation, thy name is freedom. I thought and smiled.

Kara gave me a look when she saw it. “I don't want to know.”

I turned my head to give her an award winning smile. “Oh, how wrong you are. You do. You really do.”

Kara opened her mouth to say that she didn't, then stopped when the Presence didn't waver. She fell silent and stayed that way until we exited hyperspace and stopped in a small out of the way system. There was nothing from The Order in the system, since it had already been eradicated, and I stayed well outside any of the planetary gravity wells.

I absorbed the Presence blocking Lashina from hearing us. “Hela, we're parking for twelve hours so I can rest and recover. Stay alert and let me know if anyone tries to approach.”

“Of course, Grandpa. Should I enter high alert?”

“Only if a ship approaches and doesn't accept your hail, then go active and warn them away. If they still don't listen, I give you permission to light up their deflector screens with a medium power laser cannon barrage when they are at extreme range.”

“If they still don't listen?” Hela asked and the console lights in the cockpit changed from normal to yellow.

“Would you rather use a missile or a black barrier device?”

“Black barrier device.” Hela said without hesitation, because she always wanted to use the most lethal weapon we had.

I chuckled and stood up. “Target the weapons and engines when necessary.”

“Yes, Grandpa.” Hela said and a plot of the local system popped up on the navigation display. “Monitoring for hostiles and entering stealth mode.”

All the lights on the ship dimmed to half intensity.

“Let's go to bed.” I said to Kara and she stared at me, so I laughed. “Separate beds, of course.”

Kara kept staring at my crotch and didn't move.

I looked down to see that my black bodysuit had faded away. I was completely naked... and still quite hard. “Dammit. Stop doing that.” I said with a sigh and took out my nightgown. “Apparently, the suit seems to respond to my intentions.” I slipped the nightgown on. “Sometimes before I intend it to.”

Kara took in a deep breath and let it out, then stood. “If you didn't have my access to Presence restrained, I would make you pay for that.” She said angrily and stepped by me.

“Kara, I didn't do that on purpose.” I said and she didn't listen to me as I followed her.

“I don't care.” Kara said and kept walking.

“You've seen me naked before.” I said in as reasonable of a tone of voice as possible.

Kara stopped and turned to glare at me. “I have never seen you like that or had you wave yourself in front of my face!” She spat. “Do you really think a woman wants to see such vulgarity? DO YOU?”

There wasn't really any response that I could give that would deflate the situation, especially not a joke saying that if we were both naked and going to have sex, then she would want to see it like that. So, I kept my mouth shut and didn't say anything as I looked into her eyes.

Kara stared at me for a few moments, then she turned and walked over to the spare room. She went inside and didn't say anything else. She didn't even talk to Lashina as she changed into her sleep clothes, then laid down on the bed.

I thought about trying to explain, then realized I couldn't really explain. I could tell her that I tried wearing clothes under it and whenever it appeared, it either dissolved or absorbed whatever I was wearing. I couldn't wear my flight suit anymore because I was pretty sure it would absorb it. I sighed again and went to my room and went inside, then used the various mental techniques to relax, enter an alert state, meditate, and also sleep.

Not surprisingly, I couldn't operate the ship while splitting my concentration so significantly, so I always retired to rest. It was at times like this that I regretted not bring Noma along. Not only could she copy my flying ability, she could have stayed with me in bed to keep me company. She was great, because she never expected anything to happen. In fact, during our little vacation, I had only slept with her once. I also knocked her out with Presence, per her request, and she had a great time just having fun with everyone.

She had refused to come with me, because she said she would constantly be asking me to knock her out with Presence overload by feeding her more than she could handle. She couldn't be around me for very long before her desire to feel that again would override her common sense, which wouldn't be a good thing to have while performing deadly operations that required both an attention to detail and perseverance... neither of which she could do while blissfully unconscious.

I closed my eyes while I laid in bed and let myself recover for the full twelve hours. I wasn't going to waste any time by not taking full advantage of my down time and then I got up. I went to the spare room and looked in on the two women there. They were both asleep, quite deeply in fact, and I thought about intruding. I decided not to, or tried to force them to stay asleep, then I went to the cockpit.

“Good morning, Hela.” I said. “Stay in stealth mode, please.”

“Good morning, Grandpa.” Hela said. “There was only one ship that flew by. They didn't approach us or were classed as a threat, so I didn't engage them.”

I smiled and stroked the piloting console. “Good work.” I said. “I'm glad you didn't overreact and blow them up, just because they were using the nearby Lagrange point.”

“It was a close call.” Hela said, and she almost sounded amused.

I laughed. “Well, keep an eye out. I'll need a few minutes to get the right coordinates from the navigation computer before we can jump to the next system.”

“Yes, Grandpa.” Hela said.

The computer calculated the right coordinates for me and I entered them into the pilot's console, then powered Hela up and flew us over to the Lagrange point and entered hyperspace. It was another three days to get to the next system and I would rest again there. It was definitely taking me a lot longer to fly the ship to my designated targets, all because I was the only pilot.

I had thought I could get Kara interested in being a good co-pilot, and soon discovered that she had no interest in learning anything at all about flying. I thought that was a little odd, especially since learning would give her a better chance to try and take over the ship or mess up the navigation computer or something. No, she didn't want anything at all to do with it and thought her time was better spent in meditation.

An hour after the ship entered hyperspace, Kara came out of her room. She was dressed in her princess uniform, with the tiara that Lashina was very envious of, and she came to the cockpit.

“Why didn't you wake me up?” Kara asked accusingly.

“I saw that you were sleeping... actually sleeping and not meditating... so, I left you there.”

“You looked in on me without permission?” Kara asked, accusingly.

“I didn't want to open the door, so I looked through it.”

“I could have been naked or taking a shower!” Kara exclaimed.

“I knew you weren't, because I saw you in the bed. If you weren't in the bed, I would have searched the whole ship before looking in the shower.”

Kara took a breath and let it out, because the Presence didn't waver. She didn't say anything else and sat down in the co-pilot's seat. She glanced at the navigation computer's display and I felt her confusion.

“Three days.” I said and she nodded, then she sat back in the chair and went into a half-meditation state and half alert state. I caught the thought in her mind about me thanking her the day before for being there and keeping me company, so she wasn't quite as hostile about having to stay in the cockpit with me all the time.

*

That's the way it went for the next eight weeks. Occasional stops to rest, long hyperspace flights, and then we popped out into the first system that had Order ships and buildings in it. We had exited way outside of the normal jump coordinates, just in case it was another brown dwarf star, then Hela calculated where The Order ships were. They actually had a full space station here and over a dozen ships of various classes.

“Damn, we're going to have to go with an expansion version right off the bat.” I said as I saw the size of the station. It would take dozens of black barrier devices to disable all the power and that many more to take out all of the weapons, so I set the normal ones for the ships that were spread out, then set two expanding ones to pair up and head for the station.

It had several ships docked to it, so they were easy pickings for the targeting computer. I held off on sending any missiles until the ships were taken care of, then I reached for the fire button.

Kara grabbed my hand. “You're not even going to warn them?”

“About what?” I asked.

“That you're going to kill them.” Kara said.

“If it makes you feel any better about it, Hela sends the message as soon as we exit hyperspace. It's automatic. Any time one of my ships appears in normal space that has an Order ship, temple, or office, the message is sent.”

Kara sighed and let my hand go. I gave her an inquisitive look and she shook her head, so I shrugged and pushed the button to launch the devices. It didn't take long for the large space station to disappear inside a double globe of the black barriers, then all the ships were disabled. I flew Hela over to the closest planet and targeted the temples and compounds on the surface and launched missiles.

Kara watched the devastation as my single warship tore through a small fleet of ships and then erased all traces of The Order from each plant's surface. No other ship tried to interfere or even contacted us to make sure we had the authority to do what we were doing.

“You have to love compliant little sheep.” I commented as the last building was destroyed. “No wonder The Order has such an easy time taking over.”

“Why aren't you doing that?” Kara asked.

“What? You mean tell them to start worshipping god?” I asked and she nodded. “Because I'd be just as bad as The Order.” I said. “I'd only be replacing one bad thing with another.”

“But...”

“Yeah, I know. The thing is, people are supposed to come to believe in things on their own. You can lead them and you can show them; but, unless they believe it, it's all just words and doesn't mean anything.”

Kara looked at me with her mouth slightly open.

“You've seen some of the planets that The Order has taken over, right?” I asked and she nodded. “Have they all converted to be loyal followers to the goddess, or are they just saying what you want to hear and worshipping who they want?”

Kara didn't say anything, because she knew that there were lots of people that only paid them lip service and didn't actually believe in either The Order or the Goddess.

“All I'm doing is freeing them up to make the choice for themselves.” I said and got the next set of coordinates from the navigation computer. I flew Hela over to the closest Lagrange point and we entered hyperspace.