Uninspired
Mass Effect, Inspired Inventor
12
2125
"Leon! It's good to see you again."
"Victor. How's it going?" I asked, briefly glancing at the video feed before turning my attention back to the world around me.
Victor Manswell looked good—a man in his prime. Youth suited the former billionaire, still playboy, turned politician. Apparently, he had gotten tired of being old and transferred into a new body at some point in the last few years since I last spoke with him.
"Try this, sir!" an android vendor called, offering a bowl of some local delicacy.
"Sure," I smiled and gave it a try, before nodding. "It's really great, thanks. Think you could send me the recipe?"
"Of course!"
Epsilon, her light blue hair done up in twin tails, pulled me along, away from the stall. "You don't have to indulge every last one of them, master."
"Maybe, but it's nice to be acknowledged, isn't it, Epsilon?" I asked, reaching down and grabbing her ass.
The elf gynoid blushed and buried her face in my shoulder. "Nngh~! Master! Not in public!"
"I'll bend you over and breed you in the public square in front of this entire planet if I want," I threatened, and the girl trembled against me.
"—and that's why I need your help, Leon," Victor finished, drawing my attention away from the festival going on around me. A festival that took place on every single one of the planets where my androids lived and raised humans, off the mass relay network, every July 20[sup]th/sup, by Earth's calendar.
I quickly went over the transcript of what Victor had said while I had been distracted. "So, you're tired of being locked out of the wider galaxy and want to make contact with the Citadel races."
"This is the fifty year anniversary of First Contact, Leon. It's historic. We'd like to open the relays back up, get out there, and introduce ourselves to the rest of the galaxy. We talked it over between each other and the quarians. We put it to a vote and it was unanimous. The rest of the Systems Alliance believes we're ready."
After the last of the quarians had been brought into the fold, or at least the last of those who wanted to return apparently, I'd had the relays leading galactic west, south east, and north from the Attican Traverse shut off, preventing contact with the Batarians to the south, the council races to the west, and the Terminus Systems to the north and claiming much of the southern inner space and eastern part of the galaxy map as human space. That way, we wouldn't get raiders and pirates, or nosy Turians coming along looking to cause trouble for whoever had been opening relays. None of my shipgirls would allow travel for anyone who wasn't me into those sectors and ships the human-quarian alliance built that didn't use a mental model had had their FTL drives and navigational computers modified in such a way that they couldn't leave human space.
Thankfully, mental models and AI were a state secret. Somehow, the collective human governments had taken my advisement on dealing with the quarians and their AI-phobia to heart and had agreed to keep that secret. As far as the quarians were concerned, those big fleets were all staffed by human clones I had made. Which, while not particularly ethical in their eyes, was better than using AI. I didn't correct them on the assumption and those few quarians I was friendly with in the upper echelons of their government were very careful not to ask.
I was sure they had their suspicions, however. But monitoring their internal communications on that topic, the collective decision of their government seemed to be 'wait and see' since if they were dealing with AI, it was far more advanced than the Geth—and more polite. The human-centric loyalty had been noted.
It wasn't even like we were hiding the secret very well, either. There was historical record of Alpha on camera degloving herself, after all. The quarians were aware, at least the ones that mattered. I knew they had seen the archive footage. They also interacted with most of my seven primary mental model girls on a nearly daily basis, in their various roles.
Private communications between the quarians was much more blunt on the matter. Those in charge were afraid. Deathly so. Because they knew that if they tried to convince their people to leave, the majority of them would rebel. Even the AI menace wouldn't be enough to sway them. The benefits outweighed the potential risks. Public sentiment would likely be along the lines of, 'Well, if Leon's AI haven't tried to kill us all yet, they probably won't,' and they knew it.
As for the budding Human/Quarian alliance…
Frankly, I was a bit surprised that this was the first complaint I was hearing about the Systems Alliance (potentially subject to being renamed soon to include the quarians and the possibility for more aliens) being effectively locked in. It was for their own good, but I hadn't really expected them to believe that. I knew how we humans got about being told things like that, so for them to tolerate it for fifty years was a bit mind-boggling.
"Listen, I'm not asking as the president of the Systems Alliance here. I'm coming to you as a friend. A fellow explorer! You've had years to see what's out there and now, we want the chance to do so too."
That was true. I hadn't been idle these last years. I had been kind of mono-focused, however. I'd given Alpha the directive to send more drones out to explore and map the relay network through Citadel space. I, on the other hand, had been working on exploring my tech trees more in depth and experimenting with them. There were a lot of things that I hadn't taken the time to explore as I went straight towards certain goals—namely, AI, ships, defenses, weapons, a form of immortality, and biotics and other improvements. The only things I had bought in the intervening years had been the Star Wars, Star Trek, and Halo trees after finishing out MCU and Stargate.
I had been mostly keeping to myself with my girls in a single system I'd been using as a testbed for prototyping and exploring all of that new tech. I was playing around with time dilation tech from the Stargate tree to advance development of my tech, compressing decades of time to build and test into months. I hadn't actually gone out and made contact with anyone.
The only 'alien' race I'd been in contact with was an artificially engineered one I had created—the Huragoks of Halo fame, to act as a helper/maintenance/engineer. Eta, the girl I had been working most closely with lately and head of my R department, had immediately demanded access to as many of them as she could get her hands on, to go with her cadre of borrowed (read: commandeered) Operators and Scanners, in addition to requesting a new Technician model be designed and built, which I had. They were so deep in playing with my tech after I started tossing them things wholesale that I had to come physically remove Eta to make her spend time doing literally anything else—or at least the version of her actually on the planet and only syncing with her other selves when they paused the time dilation to do so.
"Alright, alright. Fine. How about this? I'll go make first contact, then let you know when it's safe to start opening up the relays and sending people through."
Victor grinned. "Excellent! That's what I hoped you would say. But if you're doing that, then I think you should go with a bit more official weight behind you than a private citizen."
I shifted my attention to the video and frowned. "Victor…"
"On behalf of the Systems Alliance—"
"No…"
"—and humanity—"
"No…"
"—I do hereby grant you the title of Ambassador—"
"Absolutely not!"
"—and Speaker for Humanity to the greater galaxy," he finished with a grin. A moment later, my focus pinged and I frowned as the new title was added to my identification tag. I turned and shot a glare at Epsilon, who shook her head.
"Don't look at me! It was probably Alpha!"
Victor chuckled as he nodded. "I might have been in contact with Alpha before I called you."
"That traitor," I grumbled, making a mental note to punish her thoroughly later. I think it was about time to finally knock up an android… Who am I kidding? She'll love every second of it.
"Fuck. Fine. Give me a few months and I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks, Leon. Knew you'd understand. Oh, and happy birthday."
"Thanks," I nodded, and the call disconnected. "Well, I should—"
"Oh no you don't! I won your birthday fair and square, master! I have you to myself for the whole rest of the day!" Epsilon reminded, squeezing my arm against her (flat) chest insistently.
I glared down at her. "In. Front. Of. Everyone."
"Eep!"
"Itty bitty titties flopping as I fuck you for this whole world to see."
"Nuuu~!!! Master please don't bully me! My ego can't take it!"
"Actually, I'll use my focus to broadcast it to the fleet—"
Epsilon shook her head frantically. "Please don't! Not that! I'll do anything!"
I wouldn't bully you so much if you didn't make it so fun, Epsilon, I mused as I continued to torment the elf gynoid.
We dropped out of relay transit and Delta engaged her FTL, sending the Lone Wolf shooting across the system. From somewhere behind my seat, I heard a series of poots and toots.
Delta's ears twitched and she frowned. "My inertial dampeners are not 'off,' you dumb gasbag! I turned them down because master likes to feel Gs when I do maneuvers!"
"Poo-poot blat!"
"Keep your tentacles off!" the gynoid growled, and I reached out and laid a hand on her head.
"Easy, Delta," I soothed the wolf girl, and her tail slowly began to wag as I stroked her hair and rubbed her ears. "He's just trying to help. Right, Rated?"
Space Rated, the Huragok that Alpha had assigned to be my assistant, tooted as his noodle head bobbed in a nod. The artificial life forms were too useful not to have one on every ship, members in stasis shrunken down and carried with every android squad. Why build a new body if it got damaged when you had something on hand that could repair it? That applied to bots, androids, and myself since I was still mostly squishy biological parts.
The floating critter tooted again and I petted Delta a bit more firmly. "Now, get us in there and I'll scratch your ears and tail the way you like later."
"'kay," Delta nodded, leaning forward where she was perched on the arm of my chair. After a few minutes, the ship dropped out of FTL and we cruised in towards the big asteroid turned space station/mining facility. "A few ships are sniffing at us. Station, too. It's sending a route for docking. Should I follow it?"
"Go ahead," I confirmed, and Delta nodded, shifting a bit where she sat. "Which ships were scanning us?"
Delta pointed and several vessels in orbit around the station were highlighted—many of which were trying very hard not to be seen, given that they were parked on chunks of debris and were running on minimal power, based on her readings. That they had gone to active scanners told me we'd piqued their interest. Footsteps sounded behind me and a moment later, I had a lap full of elf as Epsilon parked herself.
"Salarian Special Tasks Group," she said, and one blinked. "Turian intelligence," another blinked. "Asari, same. Those are the big names. There are a few others. I was right. If you wanted to introduce humanity to the greater galaxy, give the big three time to get more curious, and throw their scent off of where we came from, this is the place to do it. They've been searching for us since the Migrant Fleet disappeared. They've had a profile for the Lone Wolf since our first encounter with the Migrant Fleet. Now that we're here, within their reach, they won't be able to resist taking the bait."
"Fishing for praise?"
"Yes," she nodded. Chuckling, I wrapped my arms around her, before cupping her small breasts through her vacuum suit/uniform. Epsilon squirmed, whimpering as I mauled her tiny tits and teased her nipples. She had a bit of a complex about being flat chested compared to her sisters, since for whatever reason when she had scanned my mind to activate her core, she had come out as a tiny, flat little tsundere. I liked her just the way she was and enjoyed teasing her about it. "Nnf, master~!"
"I will fuck you on this chair and broadcast it for the entire station to see."
"Nuuu~!"
"Master," Delta pouted.
"And when I'm done with her, I'll bend you over and fuck you on top of her, Delta."
"Awesome! I'm in!" she cackled.
Trailing my hand down to Epsilon's crotch, I stroked her sex through her suit and the gynoid shuddered, rolling her hips and grinding her ass against my crotch. Taking her ear into my mouth, I chewed on it the way I knew drove all of the elf gynoids wild.
A few moments later, Delta slowed us down as we entered the station, and then a series of magnetic clamps locked onto the side of the hull. There was a soft thump as the docking collar latched on and sealed to the hatch. Tilting Epsilon's head, I gave her a quick kiss before standing and hauling her to her feet.
"Come on, let's go have a look around."
Epsilon whimpered. "Master, just leaving me like this… cruel~!"
"Yep. If you're a good girl, I'll pick up where we left off," I promised, and she nodded.
"I'll be good! I'll be so good! I'll get everything we want to know from them," the gynoid promised in return as she latched onto my arm and Delta claimed the other one. Rated tooted and waved a tentacle, before heading deeper into the ship as we made our way to the armory.
I grabbed one of the Mark 85 armor packs off the rack and pressed it to my chest, where it merged into the nanomaterials making up my clothes. Then, I deployed the armor but left the helmet off for now. Digging into the settings from my focus, I adjusted the color scheme to black with red highlights so it wouldn't stand out as much as the original, highly visible paint job. Finally, I grabbed one of four small spheres sitting on the rack and tapped the green button on its side. It blinked three times before lighting up solidly for a full two seconds, then went dim again. I handed the sphere to Delta, who immediately pulled open her vacuum suit and stuck it between her tits, before closing the suit back up, as Epsilon's hand drifted to her own modest chest and she pouted.
The two gynoids grabbed a collapsible helmet/rebreather along with a sidearm each and attached them to their belts to at least pretend to be normal. Then, we hit the airlock—or at least, a closet-sized section of the ship Delta had converted into one the moment we docked. Since we beamed everywhere, and the ships themselves were made of nanomaterials which themselves were composed of various alloys beneath the layer of super dense armor, none of my ship designs had a dedicated man hatch. Frigates and above had a dedicated cargo/fighter hatch area, but just like the hatch forming before us now, they were created on an as-needed basis by rearranging nanomaterial. Delta had really just highlighted a hatch-shaped section of her hull with exterior lights and told the station that's where the man hatch was, so that's where they stuck the docking collar.
The hatch slid open and we walked through the docking collar. Delta made a face at the same time as the smell hit me. "Nasty."
"It's vile," Epsilon agreed.
I mentally triggered a few of my cybernetic modifications and turned on my air filter. A moment later, the smell went away and I let out a sigh of relief. "Yeah, and we're not even in the station. Just connected to their air supply. Delta, you're not—"
"No way!" the wolf girl shook her head. "Positive air pressure, master. None of this nastiness is getting in."
"Good girl," I praised her, and her tail swished happily.
Once we were through, my internal sensors registered the stench as we stepped into a wall of heat and humidity. Their side of the dock was poorly lit and filthy, covered in a layer of grime. My focus pinged as Epsilon highlighted the cameras watching us, followed by a message.
Epsilon: Half a dozen interested parties are watching the feed real time and most of them just started broadcasting. They think we look like asari with hair. I'm tracing their connections back and following them out now.
Once we were clear of the docking area, I read over the signs—translated by my focus—and took us to the market, both to look around and to be seen. As we went, other aliens turned to watch us, and conversations followed. We shopped around a bit, talking with the shop owners and answering a few questions about our species and where we were from but giving only the most general of answers, giving word time to get around. Eventually, I decided that was good enough and led the girls up to the biggest watering hole on Omega—Afterlife.
Delta's ears twitched and flattened against her skull as we entered, the gynoid looking annoyed for a moment, before she apparently adjusted her audio input. "Loud."
"It's a club," I pointed out. "They're supposed to be loud."
"Don't like it."
"Same," Epsilon agreed. "The person who owns this station is here. An asari named Aria T'Loak. Crime lord, pimp, information broker."
"Neat. I've been wanting to meet an asari—"
Both gynoids perked up at that, sharing a look and a digital conversation between them that I chose to ignore—the protocol encrypted from others, but as open to me as if they had spoken verbally. Eventually, Delta said, "Master shouldn't play with xenos. We're more than enough!"
"You should at least let us vet any you choose to first," Epsilon allowed, before frowning and adding, "this one doesn't pass muster."
"What makes you two think I planned to sleep with her?"
Delta snorted quietly. "I can smell it. Master got aroused at the thought of asari."
"Elevated heart rate, increased levels of—"
"Okay, okay, I get it," I rolled my eyes. "I promise not to Kirk it up today."
"'Today,'" Epsilon repeated suspiciously as we entered the club proper and looked around, before finding a private booth empty on the second floor and making our way up. The seating was U-shaped and I wound up pressed between the two gynoids.
We were only seated a few moments before a dark blue, scantily clad asari woman made her way over with a curious smile. "What will you have?"
"Not really sure what's available. Something that tastes good and won't break the bank would be good. What would you suggest?"
"Mm, do you prefer bitter, tangy, or sweet?"
I grinned, eyeing her up. "Sweet, definitely."
"Rr," Epsilon made a quiet noise of displeasure and I rested my hand on her thigh.
"How about something different for all of us and we'll share and decide what we like best?"
The asari woman nodded. "I have just the thing! I'll be right back."
She scurried away and I squeezed Epsilon's thigh. "How's it going?"
"Good. Shouldn't take much longer to do what I need to," the gynoid answered, leaning against my side as Delta pressed herself into the other.
"Master," Delta tried for my attention, and my focus pinged with a video feed. Raising an eyebrow, I opened it as the wolf girl explained, "Uninvited guests nosing around."
Outside the Lone Wolf, a bunch of different people were swarming over it. I spotted salarians, turians, and even a few asari as they swept the ship with handheld scanners. A group of three salarians had entered the docking collar and attempted to use their omni-tools to hack the hatch controls. When that didn't work, they pulled out a machine and magnetically attached it to the ship.
"Should I…?" Delta mimed a pistol and made a quiet, "Pew."
"Nah. I want to see what they do," I shook my head. "See how far they're willing to take it."
The waitress returned with our drinks shortly after that and placed them on the table. "On the house, courtesy of Aria," she explained, before turning and leaving, but not going so far that she couldn't be at our table in a few seconds if we needed anything.
I reached for a glass, only for Epsilon to pick it up and sip. I knew she wasn't just sampling them to see how they tasted. The girls were very protective of me, regardless of the fact that I not only had a backup body on the Lone Wolf, but on every ship in our immense fleet, and more than one secreted away on every planet we'd terraformed. Being fully made of nanomaterials, they were entirely immune to things that might actually kill me, even with my medical nanites and other enhancements.
"Trash," followed by the next one, "not bad," and the last, "you'll like this one."
Taking the offered drink I took a sip for myself and nodded. "You're right. It's good."
Opening up my focus interface, I tapped into the local extranet connection and began searching. Eventually, I found what I was looking for—the contact information for a certain young asari woman and daughter to a somewhat important matriarch. Putting together a few photos, I composed a quick message and sent it off. It would take a while to reach her, given the lag involved in extranet email even if they did somehow use the relays to send data in bursts at FTL speeds.
It would probably be faster to just go to her, but no. I want to make her curious. Make her come to me.
Watching the feed from the Lone Wolf, the group of three at the 'hatch' had broken out a plasma cutter and started trying to burn their way in, to no avail. They put it away and one of them ran his hand over the hull, remarking how it was cool to the touch. A transmission apparently came through as they quickly evacuated the area. A moment later, the docking collar pulled away and the magnetic clamps released, as a larger ship pulled in behind the Lone Wolf and sent out its own magnetic clamps on cables.
"Should I…?"
I shook my head. "See where they try to take it."
Delta nodded and we watched as they eased her ship body out of its berth, moving it into the asteroid belt around Omega. Eventually, Epsilon sent a message.
Epsilon: It's the STG. They hired the local mercenaries—Blood Pack and Eclipse. The first are almost all krogan and vorcha, the second asari and salarians with some turians mixed in.
The blue haired elf frowned, turning worried purple eyes on me.
Epsilon: They weren't just hired to retrieve the ship. They want to try to take us as soon as we leave the club.
Delta perked up, grinning wide at that as her tail began to swish back and forth.
Delta: A fight sounds fun! Can we?
Before I could answer one way or another, a four-eyed batarian wearing armor and carrying a rifle stepped up to the table. "Aria will see you."
"Who?" I asked, since I shouldn't actually know.
He frowned, before seemingly realizing that himself. "She runs Omega. Go downstairs, then to the raised section behind the bar," he pointed, before stepping back, but not leaving—the message that this wasn't optional clear.
Turning to my companions, I found Delta looked ready to launch herself at him and claw his throat out, while Epsilon looked annoyed and a bit disgusted. I remembered that I'd put certain quirks about aliens in their programming and one of those was 'more than two eyes.' I considered removing it, but decided against—batarians weren't to be trusted.
Eventually, I'd ban them from human space entirely, but I wanted an excuse first. Something every human could get behind—not just 'Leon is suspicious of them and thinks we shouldn't trust them.' Likewise, the Salarians were going to get themselves a ban from most of human space, as soon as I found hard evidence on the genophage. That was on my list of things to do, to make sure the little shits didn't get any ideas about trying to fuck with humanity. Medical nanites were now spread across the entirety of the human population and all of the quarians that lived on human worlds, but I didn't want to give them any chances. The Turians might just get the ban hammer as well, for their own part pulling the trigger on the genophage, but I'd wait and see.
"I'm going to go see what Aria wants. You two good here?"
"We should go," Delta began, only for Epsilon to shake her head.
"It's fine."
Delta pouted and I gave her ears a scratch, before moving closer and forcing her to scoot over to let me out. The batarian headed downstairs and I followed, making my way up to where a purple asari sat on a couch, her arms spread along the back and her legs crossed. Pulling one of her arms down, she patted the seat beside her.
"Sit." I raised an eyebrow and met her eyes. After a moment, she added, "Please."
"Thanks." Sitting beside her, I offered a hand. "Leon."
She hummed, before accepting. "Aria." Turning my armored hand over as she studied it, her eyes turned to my face. "Incredible. You really do look like a male asari. With a few superficial differences, of course. What species are you?"
"Human. From a little blue garden world called Earth." I grinned as she let go of my hand. "And yeah, I noticed the similarities myself. Kind of interested in finding out what else we have in common and how compatible things are…"
"Hm," the woman's lips pulled into a small smirk. "As pleasurable as it would be to spend some time exploring a new race, business before pleasure."
"What business, then?"
The smirk fell off the asari's face and she crossed her arms over her breasts. "You need to leave Omega as soon as possible. I can arrange transportation and security. I doubt you have much in the way of credits, given I've never heard of your species before, so I'll do it in exchange for information."
"What information? And what's wrong with the ship we rode in on?" I asked, even as I checked the status on the Lone Wolf, where it was currently being pulled into the belly of a larger ship. Sensors showed that the small STG ship Epsilon had pointed out had also docked with the larger craft, which was firing up its engines and turning ponderously for the mass relay.
"I want to know where Earth is. Where someone would go, if they wanted to trade with the humans. As for your ship," she shook her head. "I'm afraid it's been stolen. Before you came up here, I was informed that someone hired both of the local merc groups to steal your ship and snatch you and your two companions—but especially you. Apparently, there's a market for 'male asari.'"
"Huh. What am I worth on this market?"
Chuckling, Aria brought up her omni-tool. "Right now? About ten million credits, for being the only 'male asari' seen." Her eyes swept me up and down before she leered. "I could probably get double that if I took you back to Thessia myself. Luckily for you, I don't deal in slavery."
"Good to know. And who do you think stole my ship?"
The asari shrugged. "Couldn't say. There are a dozen or more groups that keep a quiet presence on Omega to keep tabs on each other and the Terminus Systems in general. Governments, corporations, mercs, private interests. Whoever it was, they hired the local mercs to do their dirty work for them."
"I see. So, quick question before I go," I began, and her brow quirked in curiosity. "What do you think would happen if I just took my ship, if I still had it, and rolled up to the Citadel?"
"The turian patrol fleet they keep in system would stop you. Quarantine you. Make demands about disabling your weapons and send someone aboard to verify it, and likely try to find a way to infiltrate your systems. Then run you through countless hours of medical scans before you'd be allowed on the station. Good luck." Eyeing me seriously, she asked, "You didn't trip our scanners when you entered, but I should probably ask. You're not carrying any kind of plague or something, are you?"
"No, we're clean," I shook my head. Leaning a bit closer, I lowered my voice. "I'll give you this one for free, if you keep it to yourself." I paused and she nodded slowly. "The quarians were actually our first contact."
"What? But no one has seen most of them in…" she paused and I nodded. "They're in your space."
"We offered them a home," I confirmed.
Aria snorted quietly. "The council aren't going to like that." She smirked, adding, "Good. Fuck those stuck up, self-righteous assholes. Now, are you going to take my offer to get you off the station, or not?"
"No need," I shook my head. "I'll come visit next time I'm in the neighborhood."
With that, I sent a request to Delta, and the three of us disappeared in flashes of light and sound, only to reappear on the Lone Wolf's bridge. Dropping into my seat as Epsilon fell into my lap, I asked, "What are they doing now?"
"Still trying to cut into the hull. They've tried a few different things. Lasers, circular saws, some kind of mass effect field generator," Delta rolled her eyes. "They haven't even managed to scratch my hull armor."
"We're about half an hour from the mass relay. I've informed Alpha and she's got the First Fleet on standby. Once we know where we're going, she'll jump ahead of us and move into position." Epsilon grinned. "I hope it's their home world. I don't think a group that are supposed to be spies would be that stupid, but… if they've got some higher ups breathing down their necks, those politicians might be."
"Never underestimate the incompetence of government," I shook my head. Grabbing Epsilon's hips, I lifted her up, to a squeak from the elf. "Delta, let's go to bed."
"Yes!"
"P-put me down! I can walk!"
"But then you might try to get away, and I can't have that," I leered as I leaned in and molested the elf gynoid's neck.
It was several days of travel by relay before passive scanners detected the ship carrying us entering a larger facility. Not long after that, the larger ship opened up and disgorged its contents.
I managed to convince Epsilon and Delta to leave the bed and we made our way to the bridge, where Rated was running his tentacles over the chair I usually sat in. Raising an eyebrow, I asked, "What're you doing, bud?"
"Poo-poot."
"Cleaning?"
"Poot-blat!"
"Oh, I shed." I sent a look to Delta, who chuckled and looked away.
"Well, I wasn't going to say anything," she murmured. "Master can leave a mess in me any time he wants…"
Epsilon sighed and pushed me into my seat, before taking her customary position. "Don't be gross. And master, it's a thing all humans do, but it's not something we or the androids do. So any time you're on one of our ships, you leave a little bit of yourself behind." A malicious smirk pulled her lips up and she hummed thoughtfully. Looking to Delta, she asked, "Should we tell him Alpha's dirty little secret?
"Blackmail," the wolf girl shook her head.
"Do I want to know?"
"Probably not," Epsilon chuckled. "But that's what makes it such juicy blackmail material over miss perfect. Anyway! Look at where we've ended up. Looks like a space station."
"The big ship is leaving," Delta pointed out, and we watched as it slowly reversed and pulled out of the big docking bay it had been in, before the structure closed up behind it. "What should I do now, master? Can I please blast my way out?"
"Not yet," I shook my head. "Where's Alpha?"
"Hang on," Epsilon murmured, and a moment later, a screen popped up showing the interior of the Avalon.
Alpha sat in her chair, surrounded by the other mental model girls working below her. Looking up, she smiled and crossed her legs. "Master, I'm happy to see you're safe. You've been brought to a dead system the salarians apparently use as a black site. The First Fleet is sitting in the shadow of the local star and can be there in seconds. What are you orders?"
I considered it for a moment before grinning. "Let's make them sweat a bit. Here's what I'm thinking…"