Monk
I yawn as I wake up.
Star is curled up close to me, Tifa sleeps at my back, and Samus is cuddled up near Star. The girls take turns sleeping in the center of the pile. Star's belly has grown and, as it has, she's gotten more submissive towards me. It took a lot of trust for her to do that, to give herself to me, and in a way I feel honored. But other than being a little more submissive, and maybe slightly more horny, Star is still her adorable self. I take some time to rub her belly, Star giggles and smiles and kisses me.
"Ugh, five more minutes."
I turn over and kiss Tifa.
"I love you too."
It's a good life, Tifa blushes and we get up. The four of us get dressed and get to work. Star handles a lot of the administrative stuff for the station, Samus trains people, Tifa watches the kids, I handle spy work and logistics for the Front. We head to the showers and clean up. I thought about making love but as Tifa stumbled I knew that was a bad idea. Instead, I got clean and made breakfast.
The girls drank their coffee, Star got out a bottle of ketchup and poured some into her coffee. I decided to just... let that go. When one has a harem, one does not bitch too much about certain eccentricities. After that, I went up and started another day of going through intel reports and sending them off while managing the fortification of another star system.
Some people say we should strike back but there is a small problem with that idea.
The Covenant is huge, as in they have trillions of people huge. Attacking them just justifies in their mind that the war is necessary, that it must be fought. That is not a fight we could win at that point however their political will can be broken. If I make this war big enough, costly enough, horrible enough, the Covenant will eventually give up.
The current Star Forge is a true starforge, something worthy of the name, using magic and technology to create new elements and push out new technology in mass. But, even then with all of that power, fortifying a star system takes time. It's not just forcefields, it's not just interdiction fields, it's not just building Carriers, it's also automated defenses and infrastructure and a lot of things. The goal to make getting to the shielded worlds an absolute blood bath.
These defenses are built to break the enemy's spirit as much as protecting our people.
"And done."
I sent warnings to the UNSC about an upcoming attack on one of their worlds, and I leaned back. My name was getting known, thrown about more in the Front. Before I was pretty obscure but these days I'm becoming known as one of the founders of the Front. I'm not used to that kind of respect, and I'm not sure I can live up to that hype.
The computer turned on and I looked at the General.
"Hey, Howard! How is it going?"
"Biko sends their thanks."
He looks tired.
"Thinking about going into politics?"
"Couldn't even if I wanted to Howard, I have a job to do."
"Shame."
"Thinking about retiring?"
"I'm an old fart, I'm not sure I'm up to the kind of challenge that this war is going to be. The Front needs someone younger to take the reigns."
"Why not hold elections?"
"Believe me, son, we are working on it. The problem is that a lot of worlds want to table that until the wars over."
"I thought those worlds wanted democracy."
"They wanted to be in charge of their own internal affairs and we have elections for those. the problem is everyone is scared crapless about the Covenant and too many people are saying we should have a Junta until that's squared away."
"This war is going to last decades."
"I know, that's why I am trying to push for more civilian control. I didn't get into this game to replace one tyranny with another."
He sighed.
"When will all of the inhabited systems be hardened?"
"Five more years."
"Shit... anyway we can speed that up?"
I thought about it and ran the numbers.
"If we get the Carriers on it a team of three could set up interdiction fields in a system in a week. It's not up to my standards of course but it will buy time if anything happens."
"We have around 70 carriers these days right?"
"Yeah."
"I will send out 30 of them on interdiction duty. That should lock down everything we have that's currently populated."
He looked at me with tired eyes.
"Doc."
"Yes?"
"Thanks for... everything. You know, if you wanted, you could have a more important position, a more strategic position."
"And would I be able to do my job if I was in said position?"
He was silent.
"Someone has to do the support work, Howard. Victory is more important than my ego."
"Life would be so much easier if more people had that attitude... Keep up the good work, doc."