Systems Alliance’s Headquarters, Gambier Island, Vancouver, September 19th, 2109.
The reception hall of the Systems Alliance Headquarters on Gambier Island hummed with the quiet efficiency of a civilization trying very hard to look composed while standing on the edge of becoming an interstellar power.
Everything gleamed. Polished steel pillars. Smart-glass walls displaying rotating fleet formations. Alliance officers in immaculate uniforms moving with rehearsed precision. The air even smelled expensive—sterile recycled oxygen with a faint trace of coffee and ozone.
Natalie Hale stood waiting near the security gate, her posture perfectly straight, hands clasped behind her back. Navy-blue uniform of the Alliance; silver insignia polished to mirror brightness, expression composed enough to survive nuclear war.
Beside her stood a younger officer who looked like he’d accidentally wandered into the wrong meeting and was too polite to leave.
“Gentlemen. Ms. Belanger,” Hale said crisply as we approached. “This is Lieutenant Nathaniel Grissom. He’ll be assisting us today.”
The lieutenant straightened instantly. He looked barely thirty and carried the unmistakable aura of a man terrified of making mistakes in front of people significantly more important than himself.
I smiled politely. Internally, however, my brain had already gone completely off the rails.
Grissom.
Of course, his name had to be Grissom. Because apparently the universe enjoyed taunting me personally.
In the timeline lodged inside my head like an unwanted cosmic spoiler alert, the name Grissom belonged to Jon Grissom: humanity’s first official explorer through the Charon Relay in 2149. The man was a legend. A pioneer. A brave idiot who essentially walked through a glowing alien death hoop and introduced humanity to galactic politics, advanced alien civilizations, and eventually the greatest collection of war crimes the Milky Way had ever witnessed.
Except in this timeline, Anna Campbell already held that title. Meaning history had shifted.
Which raised deeply uncomfortable questions.
Was this Nathaniel related to Jon Grissom? An uncle? Or even his father? Was history trying to self-correct? Was causality secretly drunk?
I really hated temporal uncertainty before coffee.
“Pleasure,” Samuel Foster said politely, shaking Nathaniel’s hand.
Melina Belanger followed with a smile so professionally sharp it probably violated OSHA regulations.
Natalie Hale, meanwhile, radiated the calm menace of someone who could dismantle your life using only paperwork.
Which, to be fair, she absolutely could.
Knowing her background did not help.
There’s something deeply unsettling about shaking hands with a woman who used to be a sleeper intelligence asset inside Manswell Corporation before becoming the official liaison between the Alliance and that very same company. It’s like discovering your therapist previously specialized in interrogation techniques. You never fully stop wondering whether every smile is calibrated.
Melina clearly felt the same way. The handshake between the two women lasted approximately three seconds longer than necessary and carried the emotional warmth of a knife fight.
Samuel noticed it, too. His eyes flicked between his ‘former assistant’ and our CFO with the weary expression of a man mentally calculating how expensive this meeting was going to become.
“Standard screening procedure. I’m sure you understand.” Hale gestured toward the security checkpoint.
“Of course.” Samuel replied immediately, already emptying his pockets into the tray.
Melina followed with the long-suffering sigh of a woman who had spent half her adult life dealing with international security protocols and the other half dealing with me.
Then all eyes fell on me.
Right. I reached casually into my jacket.
The moment the semi-automatic electric pulse pistol emerged into view, the entire checkpoint area froze.
It was a beautiful piece of engineering, if I say so myself. Matte-black composite frame. Thick forward assembly housing the capacitor coil. Subtle blue light pulsing beneath the vented casing. Compact enough to conceal under a jacket. Powerful enough to reduce a krogan into a wriggling mess on the floor.
The reaction was priceless. A tableau of frozen shock. The security guard’s hand hovered over his own, much less interesting, sidearm. Samuel closed his eyes for a brief, prayerful second. Melina pinched the bridge of her nose. Hale’s eyebrow ascended a millimeter, the only sign her internal alarms were blaring.
“What?” I said, doing my best impression of a confused grandfather at an airport. “A guy's gotta protect himself. You wouldn’t believe how unhappy people are with me these days. The anti-AI lobby is vicious.”
It was Grissom who cut through the carefully constructed nonchalance, his voice cracking slightly on the first syllable.
“Sir, it's not the… the reason that's the problem. It's the… uh… unidentified firearm.” He stammered, clearly struggling to find the appropriate naval protocol for ‘unregistered weapon of potentially apocalyptic origin.’
“Oh, this?” I replied, giving it a little waggle. The security guard flinched. “Of course it’s unknown. It’s my own invention. My little pet project.”
Melina and Samuel just sighed in perfect, practiced unison. I could practically hear them telepathically communicating: ‘Just smile and nod, Victor. Just smile and nod and get through the door.’
Hale, on the other hand, did not move. That was somehow worse than if she had reached for a weapon.
“Dr. Fedorov, you are aware that bringing an unregistered weapon into Alliance Headquarters is a felony under three separate jurisdictions?” She said, voice perfectly level.
“I was aware of two.”
“Three.”
There might have been a twitch at the corner of her mouth. I was pretty sure that was just my imagination.
“Relax.”
I said, trying to defuse the awkward atmosphere, and gently placed the pistol in the security tray.
“I assure you, it’s perfectly safe… as long as you don’t point it at anything you don’t want to electrocute. And besides,” I added a wink. “It’s gene-locked. I’m the only one who can make it sing.”
Eventually the pistol disappeared into a secure containment locker after approximately seven separate scans.
The elevator ride upward was blessedly quiet.
Floor-to-ceiling transparent aluminum offered a breathtaking view of Gambier Island and the Vancouver coastline beyond. Autumn had set the forests ablaze in reds and golds. Cargo drones drifted between skyscrapers. Ferries moved through the harbor below like glowing insects crossing black water.
Beautiful, fragile, doomed, if I failed.
The thought settled into my chest with familiar weight.
Seventy years. Humanity had seventy years before the Reapers arrived. Seventy years before the harvest began. Possibly sooner.
And only five people truly understood what that meant.
My wife, Alex.
Angelo, Cecilia, and Minamoto. Three AGI constructs I've helped nurture into existence.
And me.
That’s it.
Five minds carrying knowledge capable of shattering civilization if revealed carelessly.
Sometimes I wondered if Alex was right.
Maybe I should tell more people. Maybe carrying the burden alone was arrogance disguised as caution. It wasn’t even the raw horror of what they were. It was corruption.
Subtle. Patient. Invisible.
A whisper in the dark convincing you the monster was your friend. You could not build trust against an enemy that weaponized trust itself. That was the nightmare.
Tell the wrong person. Trust the wrong official. Expose the wrong system. And suddenly the very coalition meant to save humanity would become the instrument of its destruction.
The silence stretched on, broken only by the gentle hum of the elevator. I stared out at the vibrant landscape, the golden leaves swirling in the autumn breeze, and a profound wave of weariness washed over me.
I still remember the horror etched on my lovely wife Alex's face when I first explained the mechanics of it all. That night, she had listened in absolute silence while I explained the cycles. The extinction events. The harvests. The machine gods are sleeping in dark space.
At first, she thought I was joking. Then she thought I was having a breakdown. Then she realized I was serious. I still remembered the exact moment the color drained from her face. Alexandra Manswell—the woman who could stare down hostile investors, corrupt politicians, and economic collapse without blinking—had looked genuinely afraid. Not for herself. For humanity. For me. For the impossible burden we were suddenly chained to together.
Neither of us slept that night. Or many nights afterward.
Thankfully, the AGIs handled the revelation somewhat better.
Maybe it’s because their emotions aren't as pesky and glandular as humans. Or maybe it’s because they're digital beings, and their biggest, most immediate concern was a fascinating and, at the same time, terrifying technical question:
Could indoctrination affect synthetic cognition?
If this indoctrination tech is a memetic hazard, like I suspect—a cognitohazard, an idea virus—then we're already facing an uphill battle. Imagine a bad meme so potent it doesn’t just make you cringe; it turns you into a mindless Reaper drone.
And the alternative theories aren't exactly sunshine and rainbows either. Information overload causing rampant AI psychosis? Nanomachines, rewriting your brain chemistry? Sonic waves or specific magnetic fields tweaking your mind like some cosmic DJ spinning the tracks of sanity? All the above? Honestly, I wouldn't put it past them. They’ve had a billion years to work on their mixtape.
The elevator doors hissed open, and Hale gestured us forward.
“This way.”
The hallway was sterile, all brushed steel and subdued lighting, amplifying the tension I already felt coiling in my gut.
Selling warships.
That still felt strange. Necessary, absolutely. But strange. Three years ago, I’d been lecturing about quantum resonance topology to exhausted graduate students. Now I was about to sell humanity the foundations of an interstellar navy designed specifically to fight ancient machine gods. Life comes at you fast.
Hale punched in a code on the keypad beside a set of double doors. They swung inward, revealing the Systems Alliance war room and the heavy hitters assembled within.
The meeting room was a study in controlled power. Polished mahogany, strategically placed lighting, and the kind of chairs that looked comfortable but probably weren't—all designed to subtly remind you who was in charge. And at the head of the very long table sat Marcus Peterson, director of the Systems Alliance, a man whose reputation preceded him like a thunderclap.
At seventy-three years old. Former soldier. Former strategist. Possibly the most dangerous human being on the planet.
Peterson wore age-like armor. Gray hair cropped short. Deep lines around sharp, dark eyes. Broad shoulders that spoke of a military youth not entirely erased by time.
He wasn’t charismatic in the traditional sense. No booming voice, no theatrical gestures. But the room bent around him anyway. That kind of authority can’t be taught. Only earned.
Flanking him were the Alliance's heavy hitters:
Admiral Carlos Rodriguez, head of the Alliance Navy, a towering figure in an immaculate uniform, radiating an aura of cautious... well, maybe not optimism, but certainly grim determination.
Then there was Dr. Elizabeth Beckett, the Alliance's head of R&D. Sociologist. Anthropologist. Professional destroyer of fragile male egos. Even after five years she still made me nervous, which she enjoyed immensely.
Further down sat Admiral Li Chen, Admiral Liam Rickert, General Usobe Ajibola, and Lieutenant-General Natasha Kovinov. The heavy hitters. The people who decided where fleets moved and where soldiers died.
Li Chen gave me a small nod. We got along surprisingly well despite Manswell Corp’s increasingly tense relationship with Chinese industrial interests. Shared appreciation for ship design apparently transcended geopolitics.
General Usobe, however, was a different story. The man was not a fan of me, or Manswell Corp, to put it mildly. He clearly thought that the company's miraculous bounce back from the edge of ruin was too unnatural, too… convenient. Well, he’s not wrong. He suspected we held too much power, a suspicion that wasn't entirely unfounded. Then again, he was also the brother of Azibo Ajibola, CEO and major shareholder of the Simien Industry, one of our biggest competitors.
Rickert and Kovinov were enigmas, their expressions unreadable. I filed them away as "unknown factors," a mental note to dig a little deeper later.
"Good morning," Peterson said, his voice devoid of the usual warmth I'm familiar with. It was all business, measured and formal. He ran through the introductions, naming each person on his side. He already knew I was familiar with several of them.
I nodded where appropriate.
When Beckett met my eyes, there was the faintest trace of amusement there. Probably because she knew, statistically speaking, there was a strong possibility I would say something deeply inappropriate within the next fifteen minutes.
Usobe, meanwhile, looked at me like I personally insulted his ancestors.
I stepped forward and extended my hand toward Peterson.
"Director, Admirals, General, Doctor.”
Peterson shook my hand firmly.
“Dr. Fedorov.”
I then introduced Samuel and Melina.
"With me today are Dr. Samuel Foster, our head of R&D, and Melina Belanger, our CFO." Samuel offered a polite nod, his calm demeanor a welcome contrast to the palpable tension in the room. Melina, ever the professional, offered a crisp, efficient smile.
Peterson steepled his fingers, his brown eyes, sharp and discerning, fixed on me.
"Dr. Fedorov," he began, his voice devoid of any warmth, "before we begin this meeting, I need to clarify your standing here today.”
Ah. Here we go. Straight to the point.
“Are you representing Manswell Corporation,” he continued, “or are you representing the Alliance Office of Artificial Intelligence Development?”
The question hung in the air, heavy with implication. It was a pointed inquiry, a challenge to my allegiances, and a thinly veiled accusation of potential conflict of interest. Manswell Corp and my position within the Alliance itself were often intertwined, but they were separate entities. I could see the wheels turning in everyone's minds, wondering which side I would choose.
I met his gaze, unflinching.
"I am here representing Manswell Corp," I stated firmly.
A subtle shift rippled through the room. Ajibola's eyes narrowed, while Rodriguez remained impassive. I couldn't decipher Beckett's expression; her face was a carefully crafted mask of neutrality.
"Very well. Let's proceed." Peterson nodded curtly.
The meeting began.
“Manswell Corporation’s recent expansion into military development has raised concerns,” Peterson said. “Historically your company focused almost exclusively on civilian translight infrastructure.”
Translation: Half the governments on Earth think you’re building a private empire. Which was honestly fair.
"Indeed," I confirmed. "And that remains a crucial part of our business. However, the current geopolitical climate necessitates a diversification of our portfolio. We believe that the technologies we have developed can provide the Alliance with a significant strategic advantage."
It was all bullshit, of course. Because the actual truth was that I was desperately trying to militarize humanity before immortal cuttlefish from hell arrived to exterminate us. But saying that aloud tends to negatively impact investor confidence. Any others reason was just an excuse.
Admiral Rodriguez finally spoke; his voice was like granite.
“The Constantinople, isn't it? The ship you lot built. Holds the record for the largest vessel, I believe.”
“Currently,” I corrected automatically.
Melina kicked my ankle under the table.
Right. Diplomacy.
Rodriguez ignored the interruption.
“Reports indicate defensive capabilities beyond anything currently fielded by the Alliance.” His compliment, though delivered with the enthusiasm of a tax audit, hung heavy in the air. It was an acknowledgement of the power Manswell Corp had brought to the table—a power that, I suspected, made some people very nervous.
"The Constantinople,” Dr. Beckett, her voice precise and measured, chimed in. “represents a paradigm shift in shipbuilding. Your Translight engine allows us to circumvent the size limitations imposed by Mass Effect technology. We're no longer restricted by the ratio of element zero core volume to ship size. Nor do we have to sacrifice armor and structural integrity in the pursuit of weight reduction."
Yes, the single biggest drawback of the Mass Effect drive. The bigger you build, the exponentially larger and more ruinously expensive the eezo core needs to be. Constantinople had changed the game. Now we could build big. Gloriously, defensibly, overwhelmingly big. Heavier armor, larger reactors, and real warships. Not the aluminum soda cans the Systems Alliance called "frigates" in the original timeline.
Usobe, predictably, saw this joyous breakthrough as a personal affront.
"What about maneuverability?" He demanded, his voice the sound of a rusty scalpel being dragged across a slate. "Surely a ship that size is a sitting duck. A glorified fortress. And can it even land? Or do you just park it in orbit and hope nobody shoots at it?"
Normally, Usobe’s belligerence was enough to make my eye twitch. Today, it was the perfect straight line. His antagonism was the setup for my punchline.
"The Constantinople does sacrifice a degree of maneuverability," I conceded, adopting a tone of somber, honest assessment. It was my ‘we-regret-to-inform-you’ voice.
"But the trade-off is more than worthwhile. Especially,"
I paused for effect,
"...With the deployment of Hyperion laser platforms."
I let the name hang there. I could see Beckett stiffen slightly. That information wasn't exactly public. Rodriguez's stony facade cracked for a microsecond, his eyes flicking to Peterson.
I continued, as if I’d merely stated an obvious fact. "Older Mass Effect ships, no matter how fast, will be hard-pressed to evade a weapon that fires at the speed of light. And our A3-Titanium Battle-plate, developed by Manswell, can withstand a decent amount of punishment from both kinetic and energy-based weaponry. As for atmospheric operations… that's simply not an issue. All Manswell-built ships utilize the latest generation Helium-3 fusion reactors, which are more than capable of powering the most advanced Fusion Drivers."
I paused, surveying the table. The room was silent. I had just casually revealed I was privy to their top-secret weapon timelines and then explained how my products were the perfect complement to them. It wasn't a sales pitch; it was a fait accompli.
Usobe looked like he’d swallowed a bug. Peterson’s expression was unreadable, but his fingers were no longer steepled. They were flat on the table.
Apparently, that project was more classified than I thought.
I continued anyway because self-preservation has never been my strongest personality trait.
“The Hyperion Laser Cannon platform is a logical progression toward directed energy weaponry,”
Nobody breathed.
Samuel stared at me with the exhausted despair of a man watching his friend casually confess espionage during a formal negotiation.
“Stimulated emission to generate a coherent beam in the near X-ray spectrum. A one-second pulse at light speed yields a range from a few dozen to hundreds of gigawatts. A remarkable achievement.”
I leaned forward slightly.
“Fun fact: our fusion reactors can power it without breaking a sweat. Quite the synergy, don’t you think?”
The silence that followed was absolute. It was so complete I could hear the faint hum of the climate control and the sound of Melina mentally calculating the legal fees for my impending incarceration.
Dr. Beckett’s poker face developed a slight, involuntary twitch at the corner of her mouth. Li Chen’s lips quirked in the ghost of a smile. Even the enigmatic Rickett had one eyebrow raised about a millimeter.
I knew exactly where the line was. I also knew Peterson knew I knew. Which meant crossing it was not a mistake. It was a message.
I had come to their house of power, sat in their uncomfortable chairs, and subtly reminded them who was holding the blueprints to the future.
General Kovinov’s face tightened, a subtle but distinct shift from ‘neutral’ to ‘deeply annoyed ice queen.'
"The Hyperion Project is classified, Dr. Fedorov," She stated, her voice like chipped ice.
"I have the necessary clearance," I replied smoothly.
"Your two companions do not," Kovinov countered, her glare shifting to Samuel and Melina, who were now studying the grain of the conference room table with the intensity of world-class geologists.
Ah. Right. The minor detail of my team’s lack of cosmic-level security clearance. Whoops.
Before this could escalate into a full-blown bureaucratic firefight, Peterson raised a single hand. The gesture was small but carried the weight of a meteor strike.
"That's enough, General."
His eyes, those old, battle-hardened eyes, locked onto mine.
He did not look impressed. That worried me more than if he had looked angry. Angry men reacted. Peterson measured.
"Dr. Fedorov, I suggest both Miss Belanger and Dr. Foster add additional NDAs to the stack at the end of this meeting. A very tall stack."
Melina looked moments away from murdering me with office supplies while Samuel stared at me with the hollow expression of a man contemplating early retirement. Worth it. Probably.
Peterson steered the meeting back on course.
“The Alliance is very interested in the new ships emerging from Manswell shipyards, especially since the unveiling of the Constantinople. However, that ship, and others of its class, are not warships. Does Manswell Corp have the capability to design and build true warships for the Alliance?”
Translation: Show us the scary ships.
I smiled slightly while reaching into my breast pocket, pulling out a small, unassuming data chip, and placing it on the center of the table. With a click that echoed in the silent room, seven holographic emitters embedded in the ceiling flickered to life. Instantly, the lights dimmed, and the air was filled with a shimmering, blue-tinted projection of a titan.
The ship was a monster. It was five hundred and seventy meters of lethal, predatory geometry. One hundred and eighty meters wide and one hundred and twenty meters high. It was a sharp and aggressive arrowhead shape, unlike the Constantinople's. It was designed for the crushing pressures of planetary atmospheres and the absolute zero of the void alike. Its mass eclipsed nine hundred thousand tons of reinforced titanium alloy, interlaced with advanced shielding grids that pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light in the display.
This wasn’t just a ship; it was a dagger aimed at the heart of any who dared challenge the Alliance.
A low, appreciative whistle escaped Admiral Rodriguez. He looked like a man who had just seen a vintage Ferrari for the first time. Even General Kovinov allowed a flicker of something—approval, perhaps, or maybe just professional curiosity—to cross her features.
Usobe, grudgingly, admitted, "This ship outperforms anything currently fielded." The words clearly tasted like battery acid on his tongue. I leaned back and savored the moment. Seeing Usobe admit defeat was better than a year’s worth of bonuses.
Li Chen leaned into the hologram, his eyes scanning the technical specifications scrolling alongside the ship.
"Is this… considered a frigate?"
He asked, sounding genuinely perplexed.
"It’s at least twice the length of a standard frigate and nearly nine times the tonnage. Calling it a 'frigate' is like calling a Great White a 'minnow.'"
"The Hastings is the logical step after the Constantinople,"
I stated confidently.
"As Dr. Beckett said, a paradigm shift."
I could almost hear the gears turning in their heads. The Constantinople had already disrupted the transport industry; the Hastings was designed to do the same for naval warfare.
Peterson ignored the spectacle entirely and focused immediately on the main gun schematics.
“The spinal cannon.”
There it was. The real reason the room suddenly felt ten degrees colder. I expanded the projection.
The MAC assembly unfolded in glowing layers. Capacitor banks. Magnetic acceleration rails. Ammunition cycling architecture.
The firepower of the Hastings was, quite frankly, obscene. The current Alliance Magnetic Accelerator Cannons (MACs) were impressive enough, measuring their yields in the dozens of kilotons. The Hastings, however, utilized a series of cascading supercapacitors that allowed it to deliver eight megatons of kinetic energy… every forty seconds.
"Eight megatons?" Rodriguez whispered, leaning so close to the display his nose almost touched the holographic prow. "Every forty seconds? You could level a medium-sized city in minutes of sustained fire."
"Or turn a squadron of old frigates into a very expensive cloud of stardust in that amount of time," I added.
Internally, I couldn’t help comparing it to UNSC naval doctrine.
The Hastings still weren’t close to post-war Halo-era super-MAC monstrosities. Those things fired relativistic hatred measured in gigatons. But they recharged slowly. The Hastings embraced a different philosophy entirely. Why fire one mountain…when you can fire twenty skyscrapers?
I watched Peterson’s eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if he slapped a top-secret classification on the whole schematic before the meeting was out. He was already mentally painting the Alliance logo on the hull.
Peterson’s attention shifted again.
“The drive system.”
Now came the fun part. I brought up the Mark I Chronos Engine schematics.
Complex mathematical structures filled the air. Tensor fields. Slipspace geometries. Quantum reconciliation algorithms. Slipspace capacitor.
Beckett immediately leaned forward. Then froze.
I watched realization hit her in real time.
Her eyes widened slightly.
“…No.”
Oh yes.
“Yes.”
She stared harder.
“The velocity estimates…”
“Are accurate.”
“Thirteen point four light-years per day?”
The room went dead quiet again.
Rodriguez looked genuinely stunned.
Rickert muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.
Beckett rose from her chair and approached the hologram like a woman confronting forbidden knowledge.
“You actually did it...How?” She demanded.
I expanded the engine architecture further. Quantum slipspace harmonics rotated through the display in luminous blue patterns. She studied it intensely. Hunting for flaws. Contradictions. Impossible math. Then suddenly stopped.
“Oh my God.”
There it was.
The moment the scientist realized reality had changed underneath her feet.
Liam Rickert cleared his throat.
“Doctor?”
Beckett blinked once, annoyed at being interrupted mid-revelation. Then sighed.
“The current generation of slipspace drives,” she explained carefully, “operate using what we might call brute-force insertion.”
She gestured sharply at the holographic model.
“They tear large, unstable transition apertures into higher-dimensional space.”
Another gesture.
“The Chronos Engine doesn’t tear.”
Her voice carried growing disbelief.
“It slices.”
Now the room had her full attention.
“A surgical transition profile,” she continued. “Cleaner insertion geometry. Vastly improved navigational precision. Reduced energy waste. Faster charge cycling.”
She zoomed into the AI-assisted calculations.
“And these predictive harmonics…”
Her voice nearly failed.
“Dear God.”
“What?” Rodriguez asked immediately.
Beckett looked up slowly.
“It can perform stable in-system micro-jumps.”
That got everyone’s attention instantly.
Liam leaned forward sharply.
“Inside gravity wells?”
“Yes.”
Silence again.
Grissom, who had spent most of the meeting trying to become invisible, finally spoke.
“Sir… if the Hastings can micro-jump inside gravity wells, what prevents someone from using it to bypass every planetary defense grid we’ve ever built?”
The room turned toward him. Peterson’s expression did not change, but I saw it. Approval.
Terrified silence this time. Because every military officer in the room immediately understood what the young lieutenant's unanswered question meant. Traditional defensive positioning just died. Fortresses. Orbital blockades. Chokepoints. Strategic interception doctrine.
Obsolete.
The Hastings could appear practically on top of targets.
“This changes everything.” Li Chen said quietly.
“Not without risk.” I said, cooling the admiral excitement slightly.
I highlighted the drive-stress column.
“Gravity-well micro-jumps require precomputed coordinates, stable mass-shadow mapping, and AGI-assisted correction. A bad jump does not put you dramatically behind enemy lines. It turns the ship into a radiation smear.”
Rodriguez’s enthusiasm dimmed by a medically responsible amount.
“So, it’s not a magic teleport button?”
“No, Admiral. It is a very expensive, very temperamental knife. Used correctly, it cuts through doctrine. Used carelessly, it cuts the hand holding it. Still, This is the most advanced drive architecture humanity currently possesses.”
Which was technically true. Though internally I knew the real comparison. This wasn’t even close to Forerunner slipspace technology. Not even remotely.
This was the UNSC fumbling toward competence using scraps of alien knowledge and half-understood physics in the ash of the most devastating war they have ever fought. But compared to the current technology of the Mass Effect universe? It was divine fire handed to cavemen.
Judging by the stunned silence in the room after I spilled the beans about the Hastings' true potential, it gets the job done spectacularly. This wasn't just about a faster ship; it was about projecting power, responding to threats with lightning speed, and fundamentally changing the entire geopolitical landscape.
Even with Manswell Corp's considerable resources and my own, frankly brilliant, contributions, the Alliance still has to play ball with various Earth nations and their own navies. The Hastings changes all that. It puts the Alliance in the driver's seat, holding the biggest stick. And that was the point.
My vision isn't just about building better ships; it's about forging a unified government that truly represents humanity's interests. The current system, with squabbling nations constantly vying for power, is a relic of the past. We need to stand together, not just against the Reapers, but against the Citadel Council, who will happily exploit our divisions for their own gain.
Of course, someone had to open his mouth and prove the ‘squabbling’ part.
“You are asking us to put the future of Alliance naval supremacy in the hands of a private corporation whose CEO is your wife, whose AGIs are partly your creations, and whose strategic technologies no other contractor can independently verify.” Ajibola leaned back. Grinding his teeth. “Forgive me, Doctor, but from where I sit, that is not patriotism. That is capture.”
“Your concern is noted, general.”
Peterson replied without missing a beat. It seems he had heard the argument before…and sick of it.
The worst part was that Ajibola was not wrong. Not entirely.
Manswell had too much leverage. I had too much influence. Alex controlled too many industrial arteries, and the AGIs touched too many systems no human committee truly understood.
Ajibola’s argument would have been valid if his motives had been genuine. But it was not.
The Hastings was not just a warship; it was a symbol of Manswell Corp's ascendancy. And it was a direct threat to his brother's company, which until now was one of the main shipbuilding contractors of the Alliance.
Admiral Rodriguez and Admiral Rickert were already whispering frantically, their hands gesturing excitedly toward the holographic hull. General Kovinov was nodding slowly while Li Chen took notes with the mechanical precision of a man who was already calculating the logistics of a hundred-ship fleet.
Eventually Chen pointed toward a notation in the schematics.
"This reconciliation debt?”
Ah yes.
The universe’s way of saying, 'Please stop abusing higher-dimensional travel.'
I stood and approached the hologram.
“Slipspace travel disturbs local space-time geometry. High-volume FTL activity creates accumulated distortion.”
Seeing blank looks, I simplified.
“Imagine wrinkling fabric repeatedly.” Understanding dawned slowly. “If enough ships travel simultaneously,” I continued, “the wrinkles begin interfering with additional transit.”
I zoomed out to display overlapping transit routes.
“If enough vessels utilize FTL simultaneously across a sufficiently large civilization, spacetime begins resisting additional transitions.”
Rodriguez frowned.
“Meaning?”
“Traffic jam.”
Beckett sighed heavily.
“A universe-wide traffic jam,” she corrected. “Eventually.”
“How eventually?” Rickert asked carefully.
I considered it.
“To seriously impair galactic-scale transit?” I smiled. “Millions of ships. Tens of thousands of colonized systems. Civilization spanning the entire galaxy. Basically, type III civilization on the Kardashev scale.”
Pause.
“Probably not a pressing concern.”
Relieved chuckles spread around the room.
Beckett rubbed her temples.
“So, the only downside is that humanity eventually becomes too successful for physics to tolerate.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Yet mathematically elegant.”
“I hate that you’re right.”
“Most people do.”
Even Peterson’s mouth twitched faintly.
A wave of relieved laughter and murmured conversation swept the room. The mood had lightened. The deal was practically simmering, ready to be served.
Then Peterson spoke again.
“Enough.”
His voice, deceptively low, didn't so much cut through the chatter as it simply absorbed it, filling the room with an unsettling, absolute authority. Immediately, all mutterings and side conversations ceased.
Director Marcus Peterson, the head of the most powerful international organization in human history, speared me with the most severe gaze he had ever given me in the seven years I’d known him. His eyes fixed on me unblinkingly, like a hawk eyeing a particularly scrumptious and annoyingly smug field mouse.
“Does Manswell Corp.," he began, each word precise and cold, “have any plans to make this new breakthrough in slipspace travel available to the public?”
There it was. The real question. Not engineering but power, control, and fear.
Because everyone in this room understood what the Chronos Engine represented. It was not just a faster ship. It was civilizational dominance.
I could practically hear Samuel sweating beside me, and Melina’s posture had gone rigid.
Peterson continued.
“Will this technology be licensed independently?”
I met his gaze directly.
“No, Director. Manswell Corporation has no intention of distributing military-grade Chronos technology outside Alliance authority.”
Peterson remained perfectly still. I continued calmly.
“Under Article Eight, Section Eleven of the Alliance Charter, strategic FTL systems fall exclusively under Alliance oversight jurisdiction.”
A flicker in Peterson’s eyes. He recognized the law, which is good.
“Additionally,” I continued, “Geneva II Strategic Weapons Protocols classify advanced military FTL systems as restricted infrastructure technologies.”
Now Rodriguez looked impressed. I finished carefully.
“The Chronos Engine program will remain entirely under Alliance supervision.”
The room relaxed fractionally.
Peterson nodded once.
"That’s good to hear." Peterson gave me a small, almost imperceptible nod, which I mentally framed and hung on the wall of my mind as a major victory.
"Now then, let’s get to the tedious part. Negotiations..."
Oh, it was tedious, alright. Two hours of legal warfare disguised as polite conversation.
Production schedules, technology licensing, shipyard allocation, strategic deployment authority, supply chain exclusivity, and industrial expansion subsidies.
Samuel fought like a cornered academic protecting his laboratories from bureaucratic contamination. While Melina transformed into something terrifyingly efficient. Watching her negotiate was like witnessing a smiling executioner politely discussing tax policy while dismantling your financial position molecule by molecule.
By the end of it, the agreement stood finalized. Two hundred Type 14 Frigate 'Hastings'-class warships and five hundred Mark I Chronos Engines over the next five years. The Systems Alliance and Manswell Corp were now partners in the most ambitious naval project in human history yet. And the political ripples from the stone I’d just dropped would be felt for a decade.
The number was absurd on paper. Impossible, if measured by old naval standards.
But Manswell Corp had not spent the last half-decade merely building ships. We had built the machines that built the machines: orbital yards, Alloy refineries, automated slipway scaffolds, AGI-managed logistics chains, and enough titanium extraction capacity to make old naval planners weep into their procurement forms.
This was not the beginning of production. It was the moment we stopped pretending it was civilian infrastructure.
Humanity had officially begun building the navy that might someday survive the apocalypse.
When the room was finally cleared, only Peterson and I remained.
The sleek, modern room felt suddenly vast and empty. The silence was thick, broken only by the low hum of the holographic emitters and the distant sounds of Vancouver’s harbor traffic twenty stories below.
Peterson turned to me, his brow furrowed in something closer to paternal concern. The stern director was momentarily gone, replaced by the man I’d come to respect.
"Why warships, Victor?" He asked, his voice softer now. No title now, no formality. Just Marcus Peterson. An old soldier asking an honest question. "As long as I've known you, you've always been a scientist. Eccentric, undoubtedly. But a scientist, nonetheless. You once gave a three-hour lecture on the quantum poetry of neutrino scattering. What changed?"
I looked out over the harbor while contemplating his question. Cargo ships drifted slowly through the water below. Civilian traffic. Ordinary lives. People were completely unaware of what waited in dark space.
“When two civilizations meet,” I finally said quietly, “the more advanced civilization tends to consume the lesser one.”
Peterson nodded slowly.
"Is this related to the Protheans?" He asked, his voice low, almost a whisper. "And whatever it was they were running from?"
"Yes," I said, the word feeling inadequate. "The Protheans, the ones they were running from, the ones who built the relays… they're all out there. Advanced, and likely utterly unconcerned with our quaint notions of sovereignty."
“And we, as of now, are the lesser ones." Not a question. A conclusion. I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
The silence between us carried enough truth already. After a while Peterson spoke again.
“I’m retiring in five years.”
That hit harder than expected.
Tamil Agarwal or Alan Basie would likely succeed him. Agarwal was hard, hawkish, and terrifyingly sincere. Basie was a politician shaped by polling data and donor rooms. I knew which one Peterson preferred. I also knew which one would be easier to control. That worried me more than it should have.
“I heard.”
He folded his hands behind his back.
“For forty years people have called me a war hawk.”
His eyes remained fixed on the harbor below.
“They think I enjoy military expansion.”
A faint bitter smile touched his mouth.
“I don’t.”
The room felt very still.
“I was in the Middle East theater during World War III,” he said quietly. “Our unit received faulty intelligence. We entered a civilian district expecting militia resistance.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“We found families instead. Dead families.”
I said nothing.
“There’s a smell to war,” he continued after a long pause. “People forget that. Smoke. Blood. Melted concrete. Burning plastic.”
His voice had gone distant.
“I remember it. Every time I go to sleep.”
Peterson turned slightly toward the holographic schematics still faintly glowing behind us.
“I hate war, Victor. I hate what it does to people. I hate what it turns good men into.”
Not dramatic. Not theatrical. Just tired truths.
“But unpreparedness…” He shook his head slowly. “I’ve seen what happens when people mistake optimism for strategy.”
I understood then. Why he approved the fleets. Why he tolerated people like me. Why he carried the reputation he did.
Not because he loved war.
Because he feared helplessness more.
“This,” he said quietly, gesturing toward the faded holograms, “is insurance.”
Against extinction. Against conquest. Against history repeating itself on a galactic scale.
Finally, he looked directly at me.
“Agarwal understands that too,” he said. “Remember it.”
I nodded slowly. We stood there for another long moment watching the city lights shimmer across the Pacific.
Then Peterson extended his hand.
“Goodbye, Victor.”
I shook it firmly.
“And give my regards to your wife.”
“I will.”
He gave a final nod. Then the director of the Systems Alliance walked quietly from the room, leaving me alone beside the window.
Alone with the harbor lights. Alone with the future. And alone with the terrible knowledge that no matter how many ships we built…
…seventy years still wasn’t enough time.