I'm not exactly sure if this is required, but I'll still say it just in case. I don't own Mass Effect or Mecha Ace. The former is property of Bioware and the latter is the property of Paul Wang.

Orbit over Shanxi, Shanxi-Theta System

429 Interstellar Era

Rear Admiral Robert Kim gave a sigh as he leaned back into the smartfoam padding of his command chair. After the adrenaline-filled years of war he spent in the cockpit of a combat armature, peace-time in a dreadnought was almost boring. Not that that was a bad thing. After all, boring meant safety, the safety of his ship, his crew, and, above all, the safety of his family. But even though he spent the war fighting for this peace, he couldn't help but feel a slight sense of longing for his old Manningham Combat Armature.

On the other hand, with that thing on his viewscreen, life wasn't as boring as it could be. It had been a month since his small fleet was assigned to guard both the object and the research teams assigned to study it. The massive construct was... graceful, a pair of arms nine miles long surrounding a pair of rings and a core of an unknown element which had the scientists going nuts for the past several weeks. But what worried the soldier was the simple fact that they knew nothing of it: who built it, its purpose, even what's it's made of. For all they knew, it was a massive weapon of mass destruction like the Lightbearer.

Which was the reason that, out of all of the fleets CoDEC had at its disposal, his was the one assigned to protect the contruct. A motley collection of Interstellar War era vessels, the backbone of the fleet was his dreadnought and two Caliburn class carriers built after the war, along with their flights of Lionheart combat armatures. And, of course, the hero who ensured CoDEC's victory during the war happened to be its commanding officer.

Ten years, he had commanded the Temeraire and her battlegroup. Ten years since the Interstellar war had ended with CoDEC as the reigning power over every human colony. Ten years since the politicians started debated over changing the name of the state from the Coalition of Democratic Extrasolar Colonies as, with the conquest of Earth, CoDEC was no longer just a collection of colonies outside Sol. Though it was, thankfully, democratic.

Ten years of a hard-earned peace. And with the giant construct all but announcing to humanity that it was no longer alone in the universe, Admiral Kim prayed that the peace would last long past his lifetime.

But if it didn't, he was prepared to go to war again. He was prepared to risk life and limb to protect his people, his crew, and above all else, his family.

And he would make sure that anyone foolish enough to start a war during his lifetime would live just long enough to regret it.

AN: One of my first fanfictions submitted to this site and it's a crossover. For those of you not familiar with Mecha Ace, it is a text adventure video game written by Paul Wang. Check it out at . Please review so that I can get better at writing.