Mass Effect belongs to Bio ware and Halo belongs to 343 Industries.

Miranda wasn't usually this at peace when watching her own handwork come together, but after the shit storm she'd just spent the last two months enduring on Arcturus Minor, she was content to kick back and watch her two spokesmen handling it.

Well, Shepard's spokesmen, if she cared enough to think about it. They'd be out of the locker room in just minutes.

Just dropping Shepard's name had gotten them the Armali Arena for a week, and renovating this pithy little shit pit from concession stands and soda stained floors into something that could represent a galactic conglomerate had cost her for than its fair share sleepless nights.

Mixing this work in with the bourgeois idiocy the Alliance Requisition Committee kept throwing up at every time she tried to get their new hardware on Tuchanka for the Alliance Expeditionary Force, having the elite of every Council race's military and industrial showing up on her door step may just give them the kick in the ass they needed.

And a kick in the ass it would be with Admiral Hackett here, sombrely watching the other representatives with his staff officers at his side. Then there was Primarch Fedorian of the Turian Hierarchy, Matriarch Aetheta of the Asari Republics… word of what Clan Urdnot was pulling off despite its being outnumbered five to one was making waves everywhere.

The Shadow Broker herself had seen to it root footage was "leaked" onto the Extranet of what was happening onTuchanka; Cortana's contribution beyond the R + D was the ridiculous stock growth Achea had been posting, which was spreading more like a virus than a financial marker.

Miranda took a deep swig of her champagne and returned her glass to the server's platter, deftly grabbing another as she leaned against the balcony railing.

Then there they were, dressed to the nines in the foyer below, the two people that were about to usher in the next generation of technology to the galaxy.

Ratch, a krogan warrior and Urdnot's senior supply officer, and Shiala, an asari commando and former retainer of Lady Benezia, both entering the exhibition hall and heading towards the small arms kiosk as the crowd of naval officers and bigwigs parted before them.

Ratch walked straight to the platoon of armoured dummies in the corner as Shiala quietly stood to the side, watching him pick his Graal shotgun off its stand and turn towards the props.

His shotgun erupted without him saying a word, betraying the swathe of guests that hadn't put in their ear defenders as they bolted in pain; he kept laying on the trigger without respite as the armoured dummies were chewed up by the barbed spikes of his Graal.

The firing should have stopped at three shots, but no, four, five, six, until the crowd stopped counting shots and started counting the minutes of his salvo; after the four minute mark, a trigger pull was only given a click instead of a boom in response. Ratch turned to the crowd with a smile.

"The first thing I wanted to show you, I just have. The second thing I wanted to show you…" Ratch pulled on the Graal's undercarriage and popped the ammo slug, now stripped to its mounting pin. "All the punch of a thermal clip coupled with longevity of the last generation's self-cooling small arms. Thanks to this…" Ratch ejected a white cylinder from the thermal slot and held it up.

"Ionized endothermic reciprocation. That's fancy talk for when the gun's ion stream feeds on the same heat it's built to manage. You could call it an "ion clip" like the stuffed shirts do, or you could call it an ass kicker like all of Clan Urdnot already does. The third thing is that everyone in this room will be dead and buried before this clip reaches its chemical half-life." Ratch held the shotgun up to a female Alliance officer with a big smile on his face. "And the fourth thing is this. Go ahead, love. Touch the barrel and tell everyone what you think."

Amidst some chortling and surprised gasps, the woman gave a lopsided smile and reached for the muzzle after licking her thumb, eager to show her mettle. She pressed it to the metal without a word and it held for a moment with crowd in total silence, only to smile wider as she wrapped her entire hand around the muzzle.

"Not. Even. Hot." She replied slowly as the crowd applauded.

Ratch continued once the clapping died down. "Once you've seen what there is to see here today, there won't be any going back. But what we also know is that'll take time, time that will cost lives. So, after the expo, come have a chat with old Ratch; Achea has made enough ion clips for every service rifle and sidearm your armies have, and have transports ready to fly… all pro bono."

Ratch laughed heartily at the line of wide eyes in front of him, unbelieving that anyone would hand out hardware worth tens of billions of credits for nothing.

Not for nothing, Miranda knew. Mommy and Daddy back at home would see little Johnny with the new toys and feel at ease. The bad guys would see them and start shitting their pants. Finally, everyone wetting their lips here would get a taste and want even more. Just a sample tray in the grocery store, really.

"After my companion's presentation this evening, everything the Extranet has been taunting you onlookers with from Tuchanka will be available at the firing range to my right. The Proteus Small Arms Initiative, the Laconic Defensive Suite, and even Clan Urdnot's favourite toy for close quarters battle." Ratch pulled a lopsided device out from behind a weapon stand. "The gravity hammer, or the Berserker, as my fellow warriors have named her."

The device's handle was barely longer than the gravity plant at the weapon's mast, made for the smaller arch of a krogan's swing than a true Brute's. Everyone watched in silence as he walked up to the industrial cargo container behind the dummy platoon, slowly shifting their position behind the velvet rope to get a better look.

These containers had been many soldiers' best cover in close quarter fighting, even Shepard's experience was no exception. Built to endure ship destruction, the vacuum of space, and even terrestrial gravity many times that of Earth, these babies shrugged off fire power easily; the pock marks of the Graal's fire on its side attested to the fact personal weaponry wasn't enough to deal with an enemy taking cover behind one.

Ratch grabbed the Berserker with both hands as he swung it back, the gravity plant crackling with an electric haze as he threw his muscle into the strike. The back blast of the horizontal gravity-well knocked the last of the armoured dummies over as the wave rippled over them and into the crowd, a flutter of service caps and shattered champagne glasses followed in its wake as it spat past them and into balcony above, sparing no one in the arena a taste of its power.

Martial austerity and bravado, however, wouldn't let anyone in the crowd be shaken. Nothing overt, of course, just easy smiles and easier laughter as they dusted themselves off; the hardboiled diplomacy all soldiers employ when around other soldiers, ally or enemy.

"And how did I walk away without popping a seam, you ask?" Ratch sauntered back to the crowd with the Berserker over his shoulder. "That this thing could roll a Troika on its side, but that doesn't matter to who wields it; so long as they keep just one hand on the buffering pads, the Berserker will keep them safe while turning their enemy into paste."

Ratch held the Berserker up the onlookers, displaying the switch under his thumb that had activated the hammer's safety suite, its power shimmering down its mast to envelop him during the discharge.

"And now… my lovely partner." Ratch gave an over gracious curtsy towards the stage.

The stage's holo-projector flooded the stage with incandescent white as the auditorium's lighting faded to black, the sound system slowly creeping up in intensity until the sounds of battle rippled to a crescendo… and the sound and images painfully familiar.

"Sovereign's too strong, we have to pull back!"

"Negative, this is our only chance! Take that monster down no matter what the cost!" Hackett's unwavering voice rising above the clamour of ship captains and the droning of the VI announcing the faltering fleet status.

The Battle of the Citadel took on a new perspective as the image switched to the battle as it was seen from one of the ward arms, filming the bombardment that the combined fleets were pouring onto the Reapers' vanguard; even the cameraman's shaking hands couldn't distract anyone from the two kilometer long sentinel absorbing the fire with seeming impunity.

There was no sound of the battle as it raged, only the weeping and cries of disbelief from the cameraman's fellow onlookers as the Citadel ships exploded; right until a particle beam from Sovereign slashed through the cruiser it was aimed at and crashed into the ward towards the mystery cameraman, ending the film footage in screams of pain and sideways movement as the blast threw everyone and everything around them sideways.

The image slowly turned from the battle into a three meter outline of a Reaper, a Sovereign class capital ship noticeably missing its nose tentacle… Harbinger. From behind its images of the other Reaper armada began to appear, until they poured over the heads of everyone in the auditorium; everyone was covered in the image's red light as the holographs finally reached the walls, bubbling downward from the ceiling as their numbers became too great to expand side by side, becoming a cloud of synthetic avatars floating above the crowd in the thousands… the true number expected for the invasion.

Then, the avatars slowly began to fade, returning everyone to the blackness as the image of Harbinger finally vanished.

In the darkness they stayed, just long enough for them to wander what was going on when a shimmer appeared overhead, a small and strobing pinhead of light descending from the ceiling towards the stage.

It ignited just feet from the floor, flushing outwards into a kaleidoscope of blue and white clouds before the crowd.

"I… am your shield." A woman's ghostly image spoke from the shimmering mist.

It quickly flowed into a dusty hue as the image turned into a Tuchankan battlefield. A camera's-eye view of an Urdnot warrior appeared next, caught charging into a doorway as a sticky grenade plunked dead center of his chest, blowing the camera out of position as it exploded.

The camera eased back into its hover position as it readjusted, focusing back on the charred building entrance as laughter was heard off camera; a quick turn of the lens found that same warrior alive, albeit blown seventy feet away from doorway, laughing hysterically as he stared at the mauled shotgun in his hand… while he was completely unscathed.

A murmur of disbelief rose from the crowd as this warrior roused himself and charged back towards the door.

That blast should have been enough to kill an entire squad, only to be undone by one soldier's personal shielding? No way was that an eezo-based kinetic field; if not by how much devastation it had just shrugged off, then certainly by how its paralleled shielding had kept his hand intact and not his shotgun.

"I… am your sword." The woman's voice returned as gave another image to the Tuchankan War.

This time an observation drone circling a heavy armour formation, the red and white icon of clan Urdnot blazing against the black onyx hulls.

The newly arrived "Arbiter" battle tanks, these variety clearly built to accommodate the bulk of its krogan operators. These machines were unlike anything else deployed anywhere in the galaxy, or any time in their recorded history.

Like it or not, the basic design of the fighting vehicles barely strayed from the same basic pattern; four or six heels, supped up accelerator cannon, and maybe some anti-personnel weapons for variety.

But these Arbiter tanks… the sight of them spewing volley after volley of plasma fire over the city rubble, seeing the target buildings bubble and smoke from the superheated convection before splash down. Then to see the rubble melt away as though it was plastic.

The tanks' particle phalanx opened up into sliver muzzle flashes as a swarm of assault drones flew through the smoke, their combined fire easily cutting down the barrage of contact missiles before the drones were dealt the same fate.

A single smoking drone reached the tanks, without even touching the hull as the shimmer of the tank's shield revealed itself.

"Is this the way the world ends?" The voice spoke a final time, the Arbiter tanks faded back to Harbinger's avatar above the stage, only to turn to a woman's ghostly image slowly took the stage back; letting the room hang in silence as they looked at her visage, slow to realize the arena lights had slowly been brought back to full intensity.

"Friends." Shiala's voice gently brought the room's attention to her. "Just two samples of what lies in wait. Both I and Ratch will be here until every question is answered, even it brings us to the dawn. But before every ware is made available to you, we want your doubt dispelled; we are both representatives of a business organization, organizations that have long twisted the truth to attain what they want."

"We asked one person of both notable integrity and of diligence to reveal our last showpiece to you, so you know we come from a place of refuge and not lies." Shiala smiled as she waved everyone toward the arena's back wall as its screen flickered to life, revealing a woman in a hard-suit walking along in space's vacuum, her magnetic boots keeping her attached to some surface below the camera's view.

"Good day, high and mighty of the Citadel races." A woman's voice sounded over the speakers.

A familiar voice to anyone dealing with the Citadel's revamped bureaucracy for the last two years.

"This Emily Wong reporting live from the Arcturus system, sitting on top of the newest, biggest friggin' stick to be found anywhere in the galaxy." Emily patted the metal ground at her feet. "They just wanted to give everyone assurance that the whole "big gun without kickback" problem had been solved, so they turned to yours truly to make sure everything was on the up-and-up for in the unveiling."

"Until now, missiles have been any space station's only real option, or at best covered by ground side atmospheric cannons. Even in a perfect world with a dreadnought giving it cover fire, these shells are the greatest punch they had to offer." Emily produced a twenty kilo slug from her hip bag and let it hang in the zero gravity, looking more like an oversized soup can than a weapon. "Accelerated to one to one point five percent of light speed and packing kilotons worth of firepower, hundreds of these shells fired by our fleets during the Battle of the Citadel weren't enough to deal with a Sovereign class Reaper. Bravery simply can't overcome such a shortcoming in firepower."

"So, enter Achea and their big bag of tricks to save the day. If you've been curious about what I've been standing on all this time, this is the two kilometer long main-gun of a Super-Mac Orbital Platform. And if any of you Alliance jocks want to validate this happening in real time, just make a request for video coverage from the Arcturus Dispatch while I'm talking you through this." Emily waved towards Arcturus station as her camera panned left towards it; a classic "Emily Wong" touch that concreted her coverage as it was happening, that instead of dealing with naysayers for years to come about viability.

"If you're wondering where this is going, this baby will spell it out nice and clear." The camera panned right as Emily leaned up against what appeared to be a seventy foot long torpedo, easily twice as wide as she was tall. "This is a three thousand ton ferric-tungsten slug, to be accelerated by this MAC gun at forty percent light speed at five second intervals."

Miranda allowed herself a rare giggle as the wave of awe rippled through the crowd; this announcement was tantamount to when the laws of aerodynamics had been rewritten in the early twenty first century.

Physic as they were understood now dictated that to fire a projectile with that kind of force meant throwing whatever launched it backwards with equal power… but not anymore.

Eezo had been a lynch pin discovery for every spacefaring species in the galaxy; no technology was the same after this strange mineral was happened upon.

But once this "miracle mineral" had been discovered, people had simply stopped searching for mechanical or technological solutions that weren't based in it, the advantages too great and too convenient to do otherwise.

Only now, knowing the true masters of this technology were the Reapers, that they understood the need to look elsewhere.

"But before this baby opens up for your viewing pleasure, I've asked a favour from Adm. Hackett and the Sixth Fleet. Admiral?" Emily gave an impish salute as the camera panned to space above the Super Mac, right into the teeth of the Sixth Fleet holding position several kilometers off the station.

Dreadnoughts, a carrier, cruisers, and everything that made up an entire fleet, even their patrol frigates seemed to have been recalled from their Attican routes to attend. To see something of this magnitude without a war on would have meant some major favours pulled.

All eyes turned to Hackett as he tapped his omni's voice control.

"Admiral Hackett to Sixth Fleet. Thirty seconds of independent fire on my mark." He spoke calmly. "Fire."

The muzzle flashes of a hundred guns ignited as the cascade of hyper-sped slugs flew at the MAC gun, the shells erupting off the platform's shield in the same nanosecond as their acceleration. Emily Wong stood in the foreground of the camera's view as the megatons of destruction pelted against the station's barrier a hundred meters above her, with her body language looking as indifferent to the barrage as the station's seemingly impervious defenses.

At the twenty-five second mark the shower of shells halted, long enough for the naked eye to see the entire body of the Sixth Fleet's fighter escort baring down at the station, a buzzing swarm of hundreds squeezed between the fleet's fields of fire to bring their disruptor torpedoes into range.

At six missiles apiece, the forward fighter wave's salvo became a blue sun as the missiles' propellant burned, their intensity blinding as the missiles concentrated above Wong's position.

Just as it was before, they fell short of the station as their plumes of dark energy rippled into space, followed by another wave and another; the timing of the barrages was perfect as each explosion was replaced by barrage in its stead, creating a stewing black and blue cloud of dark energy that was powerless against its target.

Emily Wong again stood her ground beneath the carnage flashed above her, only now nodding her head to the camera and waving her arm in the air like she was cheering on at a rave.

As the last second of the fleet's firing window closed, the fog of spent propellant and metallic dust hung above the MAC platform as the solar wind buffed it away, the white and blue of the Alliance colours popping up in the distance as the fleet began to withdraw.

No "oohs" or "ahhs" from the crowd this time, only silence as they absorbed what had just happened. Even Sovereign's shielding had swayed temporarily when disruptor torpedoes had been concentrated on a focal point, even if there hadn't been enough cruisers available to exploit the advantage.

"Well gang, yours truly wouldn't here if the shielding didn't do as advertised. You probably figured out this thing can wrangle with a Reaper, but there's even more to this Super MAC than that. They're talking defenses that handle Reapers right through warding off nano-mech incursions, explaining how their own counter-fire can get through the shielding, and a whole other slew of goodies… but I'm guessing you're going to have buy one before the tell you how." Emily giggled. "The one thing that caught my eye, as far as strategy was concerned, was this station's belly guns and the High Atmosphere Artillery Coverage concept they're introducing, which will provide ground side firepower to any army while the fleets are chasing the bad guys to the other end of the galaxy."

"So, I'm outta here. But don't go far. 'Cause that planet?" She pointed to a moon of the Arcturus sun as the Super MAC began to align the main gun towards it. "It's going to be dust in about five minutes."

The auditorium exploded in applause and whistles as Emily Wong signed off and the countdown timer appeared on the screen's face, letting everyone bubble for several minutes as the caterers slid between guests with fresh drinks.

Their minds were officially blown now, because being impressed was so two minutes ago.

At least sixty percent of any fleet was spoken for by colonial patrolling, it was a pipe dream to believe any fleet would launch at full strength, lest the home front be ravaged by the enemy while the only people that could protect it were half a galaxy away. But to have a Super MAC in atmosphere, maybe even a battle cluster of them to cover a solar system, both sailors and civilians had the peace of mind they both needed.

Miranda quietly rolled her glass between her fingers as she waited, watching the flurry of excited chatter around her as they bubbled and brewed. One figure with an entourage had made its way up the stairs to her amidst the brew-ha-ha, though.

"Admiral."

"Director."

"Please pass our thanks along to Anderson when you see him again. The Council can be so uptight about destroying planets without a schedule." Miranda spoke blithely as Hackett leaned on the balcony beside her. "Last favour of our first Councillor?"

"Not at all, Director. Favour for a favour." Hackett crossed his arms. "We want our supraluminal before the week is out. Anderson would ask you this himself, but he has some business he's tending to on Omega."

"Dear man doesn't waste time does he?" Miranda took another sip of wine, dribbling on herself slightly as she smiled. Udina was Councillor now, with Anderson back in uniform and already raising hell.

A prototype supraluminal star craft… that was one hell of a gift basket to the Alliance make this firepower display happen. No more conventional faster-than-light for the Citadel fleets from now on.

The simplest explanation on how a supraluminal drive worked? If an ant were to crawl on a piece of paper from end to the other, the ant would need so many minutes to travel that exact distance depending on how fast it could move.

If the ant had a supraluminal drive with it, the drive would crumple the paper into a ball until the destination was at the ants feet, and once the ant had crossed the threshold with a few steps, the drive would let the paper snap right back into its original shape.

Now, think of that piece of paper as space time, and you've got it.

So, the more power a supraluminal had, the bigger the "sheet of paper" it could crumple and the tighter a ball it could make it. Point-to-point travel with only days of travel between the galaxy's furthest points within millimeters of its destination point… and completely free of the mass relay system.

"We'll have one made available, Admiral. It'll be earmarked for him when he gets to Arcturus Minor." Neither party faced each other while they jumped around the burning questions. "That'll be about two days, yes?"

"Well, doesn't that restores my faith in the Directorate's discretion."

"Not at all, Admiral. Any organization with two brain cells to rub together knows you can buy the same secret for half the price on that piss-hole. Ask your own network." Miranda let the last few drops all from her glass to the floor. "And we can't protect our assets without knowing the path they're taking can we?"

Hackett half-grinned at the comment, but gave his entourage a sombre look that sent them away by his next breathe.

"Director… we've just learned about the STG espionage campaign you crippled last week. I'm not entire sure what to make of how Achea handled it, though."

Miranda laughed outright at the thought. "Oh, as a member of the Directorate I can't take full credit for that salarian comedy of errors. That was the CEO's little trap; you can reassure any of your Union counterparts that their agents will be returned as soon as the land-lease for Gellix is signed."

"Turians have had their heels dug in about that planet since the Rebellions, just on principle. Now you have the Dalatrass convincing them to make it a quarian industrial colony? You believe she'll actually pull it off?"

"She'd better."

"Director, salarians have short lives, but long memories. They're not going to forget this." Hackett turned and put both his hands on the balcony railing. "And they're not the only ones gunning for you. This technology is going to undermine about sixty percent of all heavy industry in the galaxy, and the bounties they'll pay to learn how you're doing this is getting as large as they are desperate. Achea is what is going to see us through the Reaper invasion, and I don't like that it's all hanging by a thread."

"The greatest undertakings are always a hair away from failure, Admiral. You know that as sure as anyone could."

Hackett grinned and pushed himself off the balcony slowly.

"Yeah, I know… sure as hell doesn't mean I have to like it, Director. In the meantime, I'll keep as many of our allies as I can assured that this is what's best for them." Hackett waved his hand towards auditorium floor. "You and Shepard just keep doing what you do."

"One last thing." Hackett asked before he stepped off. "When am I going meet this CEO of yours?"

"Oh, you've seen the CEO, Admiral." Miranda purred. "I'll personally introduce you once the Council passes the Sentient Rights Bill."

After? Hackett knew there was a hook that spoke to something deep and damaging that couldn't be revealed yet, but he just nodded and walked away. But that was the trust he put in Shepard's work.

Of course, with Cortana posing herself as Achea's business emblem for kicks…

Preparations would have to be made for if this was found out.

Miranda turned back to the auditorium screen as the lights began to fade, beckoning the crowd towards it. In just a few minutes, they'd see that planet's tectonic plates shattered like corn flakes and sucked in by the gravity of the Arcturus sun.

How did she get here? Turning tricks for a conglomerate started by a xeno-cybernetic construct while still the right hand of the Alliance Directorate? After all, she just wanted to throw the damn thing out the air lock.

Well, here's to you. Miranda raised her empty glass to Achea's logo. You digital bitch.