With Pride and Blood 7 (Patreon)

With Pride and Blood 7 - or ‘Time to make Humanity the Greatest Ever, at the Expense of some scum from outer space!’ (Mass Effect, Senator Armstrong!SI)

If you’re trying to make the mother of all omelets, you can’t fret over all eggs.

Everything needs to be done with meticulous and ruthless precision to gain the upper hand in what I know as the ‘biggest threats to worry about… right now’. And the first two of those were:

1) Batarian Slavers which could be countered with an active guard duty deployed by the bordering colonies all over our space perimeter.

We had the military and people were more than happy to ‘Prevent another Shanxi’. Despite the peace treaty and Nihlus pretty much becoming what I wanted in terms of propaganda of ‘it is not all of them’, xenophobia existed and it was best to harness it in its moderated form.

I couldn’t exactly accept a full-on submissive and peaceful mindset- not when we were pretty much cornered and put in a bad spot in the eventuality of a big war with the Council.

In a fair fight, we could probably take on at least two of their biggest members, but the rest was- well, we were far from perfect. And the ‘nerds in the lab’ were already cooking up some advances through the technology we acquired.

Our current battlecruiser could receive major upgrades around their engines, propulsions and their fighter squadrons within the next few months- a full-fledged weaponry update would require a bit more.

Considering the potential modernization of the Metal Gear line into something even more Sci-Fi, I looked forward to having this entire system rearranged to be stronger, better and devoid of potential glaring weaknesses.

Likewise, an effort to further shield our AIs had been taken to avoid a potential break from anyone- may those be Council-affiliated, Geths, Quarians, and, last but not least, Sovereign and the Reapers.

Thus, the second issue- Sovereign.

We were a few years off from it being quite active, and with Earth not adopting any anti-AI laws that may have pushed Dr. Shi Quan to pursue Sovereign, the means for it to expand its awareness of ‘why the Crucible is not going boom?’ were drastically reduced. It was ever present and… I had to double-check my nanomachines on this.

If there was even just a smudge of a chance for that bastard to find a way to indoctrinate people through their nanomachines… Well, that was best to be dealt with ASAP. Researchers on the topic were definitely getting a budget boost before we faced the space tentacle bastard.

It was around two months since Nihlus had become my little ‘Turian Poster Boy’ that we got a new surprise. It wasn’t really a shocker considering that I had expected it, but we got a request from the Migrant Fleet for… diplomatic negotiations.

I wasn’t an idiot- I knew what they wanted: a planet. Some place where they could start anew. And supplies. Lots of supplies. Then again, I couldn’t blame them. Lots of hypocrisy from the Council when it came to help the remnant of a species.

Sure, their leaders goofed the fuck up and lost their homeplanet and numerous billions of lives, but fuck’s sake to just ‘punish them for their naivety’ was just begging to be seen as a group of bastard.

Nonetheless, I was going to thread the middle ground. The Quarians have grievances, but none of those can still stop a potential ‘overcharge’ in the ‘requests’. I decided against chatting with them first. After all, the ‘First Contact’ Diplomats had been created just for this sort of job.

Mostly to establish a foundation for a relationship between a new species. In this case, the Quarians were a rather peculiar one as we had ‘little’ about them. Still, we knew about Ekuna, and we made it clear that we weren’t going to accept that kind of stunt in our space zone.

That set the record straight, and while some doubts persisted within the Migrant Fleet about our use of AI, the next months were going to slowly mellow their distrust about it.

We had data, we had some of their researchers look into it, and one of the points in the ‘First Human-Quarian Agreement’ was that AI use within exchanges was to be either limited to a minimum or outright non-existent.

And with that situation still developing, I also received a new surprise.

If Nihlus’ became the first Turian ‘military exchange student’, I shouldn’t have excluded a certain Prothean Studies’ Archeologist making an effort to try and get involved with the research on Mars.

I got a warning through my secretary that someone had visited for a ‘job application’. I was not sure why they would ask for me at first, but then dear Janet told me that it was an Asari.

You can understand how amused I already was when I quietly stepped in my office, glanced at the distracted Asari as she was… studying one of my paperweights, and had to restrain a chuckle at the sight.

Still, I decided against prolonging this adorable display as business had to be made today. So, I fake-coughed a bit, the girl jumping off the chair and almost dropping the paperweight on the ground with how fast she turned to look at me with a panicked look.

“Hello.”

She approached, bowing slightly and-

“Y-You’re so tall,” She blurted out, then shook her head as she realized what she just said. “I-I mean, it’s an honor to meet you, President Armstrong.”

“Well, I am glad I am tall, Miss?”

“T’soni. Liara T’soni.”

I nodded. “A pleasure. Now, how about we take a seat and discuss your current visit as, from my understanding, you saw fit to not provide notice for it.”

Liara opened her mouth, keeping silent and nervous while I walked up to sit by my desk and she reclaimed her chair. “I-I forgot- it’s just that with the news of a new Prothean site I had to-”

“To give it a look?”

She nodded fiercely. “I wish to apologize- I didn’t mean to be imposing but I really would like to have an authorization to join the research team.”

“And since you are not human, you felt it was fitting to just bypass potential bureaucratic passages and just force a visit with me.”

…

She bowed her head.

“I am not angry. Not when there’s still not much in that regard but… I am not exactly the one that you have to convince with your skills.”

“I have all the paperwork needed, and I have experience on the topic for a few decades,” The Asari argued, but I held a hand up to stop her.

“What I mean is that I may give you allowance to approach the team, but it is ultimately up to the head researcher to make that call. I ain’t exactly an expert on this and would just trick you if I say otherwise.”

She nodded as she understood my point. “Can I inquire for a spot?”

“Well, there should still be a process to see documentations made. I can ask for arrangements for you to have a proper living space to be made, but it could take a few days to do so.”

“I see… and, if it isn’t so much, and I know it is a bit weird but…” She paused, closed her eyes for a moment, and then offered me a determined look. “May I have your contact information.”

…The fuck? I mean, sure, but…

“Why?”

“I-I don’t wish to sound impertinent, but I would like to ask more about Nanomachines. I had the opportunity to read from a brochure, but considering you are a prime supporter of this technology, I wanted to learn more about it.”

I don’t think it’s just that but… I am not going to complain.

“It would be fine. Of course, I have a job to attend to.”

She smiled, clearly pleased with this response and-

God, she is adorable. But I think she is also flirting with me so… hmm, Asarussy goes brrr?

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AN

Liara discovers a new kink, she likes her boys big.