Massive Disaster III-1

III-1: Victory

The shuttle’s engine hummed beneath him, a steady vibration that matched the buzz under his skin. Zedd adjusted the cuffs of his formal suit for the third time in as many minutes, the blue synth-fabric tight across his shoulders like it was trying to hold him back. He’d grown since the last fitting, not in height but in muscle—a side effect of actually sleeping and eating regularly for the past few months. 

The subtle weight of the compact VEST unit pressed against his spine, disguised as an oddly rigid backpack. It was lighter than the Mark 2, nearly half the weight but twice the functionality. 

Nine revisions in 5 months.

Not my fastest work, but definitely the best. The Mk 5 VEST was definitely a feat, but he still knew he could do better. The only limiting factor was time. He could argue materials but ehhh… not even really there.

Providence stretched below them, the Exhibition Center’s massive glass dome catching the shining lights around it. Built specifically for this, for him. For Victory Innovations, by the man whose name was on the colony itself. The thought still didn’t compute sometimes. 

Twelve months ago, he’d been a guy with a workshop and some ideas. 

Now he had a startup valued in the hundreds of millions of credits and growing daily, an increasing catalog of non-eezo tech Salarian researchers kept requesting research study on, and a goddamn expo with his name plastered across a building bigger than most colonial government centers. All he needed was David to stop pushing him to expand into Alliance and Citadel space. I don’t care if 100 mil credits is galactic pocket change. It’s my pocket change.

The shuttle banked, circling the dome once more. Through the glass, he caught glimpses of the crowd. There were thousands of people, humans and aliens — but mostly humans — packed into the exhibition floor, waiting. 

For him. 

“You’re doing that thing again,” a voice broke into his thoughts as he turned around. Nina stood by his side, rolling her eyes as she reached up to straighten his tie.

“What thing?” Zedd’s fingers found the edge of his aviators, adjusting them even though the things were bespoke, perfectly and automatically fitting to his own movements. The HUD flickered with his vitals—elevated heart rate, slight cortisol spike. Nothing unusual for what he was about to do.

“That thing where you’re not being present, idiot. That thing where you’re somewhere else entirely while sitting right next to me.” She shot him a look with a raised eyebrow, those hazel eyes piercing deeper than any weapon he could think of right now. “Where are you right now? Running calculations? Planning your speech? Redesigning the VEST mid-flight?”

Zedd grinned wide, the expression coming easy as Nina read him like a book. He cupped her face and smiled down at her. “All of the above, plus wondering if I remembered to feed AY-U this morning.”

Nina snorted, pushing his hands away and pulling back to check his face one last time. “Your drone doesn’t eat.”

“Tell him that. He gets cranky when I forget to run his charge cycle.” Zedd caught her hand, a strange impulse making him hold on rather than let go. “You look nervous.”

“Me?” She rolled her eyes again, shooting him a look that dripped with disbelief. “I’m not the one about to jump out of a shuttle in front of half the Traverse.”

“Not half the Traverse. Just a few thousand people. Plus extranet feeds. And definitely some corporate spies.” He squeezed her hand. “No pressure.”

Nina’s laugh held a brittle edge. “Right. No pressure at all.”

The shuttle’s pilot—one of those Alliance military types David had insisted on for security—called back from the cockpit. “Two minutes to drop zone, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir,” Zedd muttered, but his mind was already shifting gears, running through the sequence. The jump. The suit deployment. The landing. Everything had to be perfect. A deliberate spectacle, because that’s what people remembered. That’s what sold products. That’s what was gonna shoot Victory Innovations all the way to the top of the Traverse markets, where he needed it to be.

His free hand itched over toward the compact VEST unit on his back one more time, habit more than necessity. The pre-flight check had been flawless. ADAM had triple verified the deployment sequence. The inertial dampeners were calibrated to within 0.002% tolerance. The kinesis field generators had been stress-tested beyond anything this jump would require. The jump jet modules, his latest addition, packed more thrust than anything this side of military hardware, all without a gram of element zero.

And yet.

“I love you,” he said suddenly, words tumbling out before his brain could veto them. “Can’t imagine doing this without you here.”

Nina’s eyes widened, her composure slipping for a fraction of a second. He didn’t say it often. Maybe not often enough. The words felt strange in his mouth, clumsy and raw, and he didn’t like how… weird it made him feel.

“Where did that come from?” she asked, voice softer.

Zedd shrugged, already regretting the emotional display. “Pre-jump jitters. Ignore me.” But he didn’t let go of her hand.

“Thirty seconds,” called the pilot.

Zedd stood, rolling his shoulders as the compact VEST shifted against his back. The shuttle doors slid open, cold air rushing in as the gap widened. Providence sprawled below, the Exhibition Center’s open roof section of it’s glass dome directly beneath them. 

Through it, he could see the crowd, thousands of faces turned upward, waiting.

“Time to make an entrance,” he murmured, half to himself. “ADAM, sync to suit systems,” he said, activating the AI connection through his glasses’s interface.

“Systems sync complete, boss,” ADAM’s voice came through the speakers next to his ears, smooth and dry as ever. “All parameters nominal. Weather conditions optimal. Wind speed at 7 knots, headwind from the northeast.“

Nina stood too, stepping close. “Try not to die, genius.”

“That’s the plan.” Zedd’s heart pounded against his ribs. Not fear. Anticipation. He’d checked and rechecked every variable, run every simulation. This would work. This would amaze. This would sell.

She reached up, straightening his collar one more time. “Show them what you can do.”

Zedd caught her face between his hands and kissed her—quick, hard, meaningful. He pulled back just enough to see her startled expression, a grin tugging at his lips. His eyes caught hers, and he winked, deliberately cocky. “You complete me.”

Then he stepped backward into empty air.

The wind tore at him immediately, howling past his ears as Providence rushed up to meet him.

The first second of freefall was the best part. That moment where gravity stopped feeling like a force and started feeling like permission. Where the whole world let go of him, and for a breath, nothing existed but speed. Providence stretched out beneath him in a glittering mess of artificial light, the exhibition center’s glass dome dead ahead, exactly where it was supposed to be.

“Terminal velocity in three seconds,” ADAM noted in his ear, calm as a weather report. “Suit deployment recommended in two… one—”

Zedd arched his shoulders, narrowed his profile, let the wind sheer off his body like he was cutting through water. “Let’s ride this out.”

The wind clawed at him, his suit’s fabric snapping like a flag in a hurricane. The buildings sharpened. The crowd below stopped being a concept and became individuals. Faces. Cameras. Expectation.

“Boss, suit deployment threshold in five seconds. Four—”

Zedd grinned. “They’re watching.”

“…Three—”

He rolled in midair, a snap-fast barrel roll that killed a fraction of his momentum but turned his plummet into something deliberate. He could already hear the extranet edits, the slowed-down footage, the breathless headlines. The Face of Victory Innovations, unshaken even in freefall—

“…Two—Zedd, I strongly recommend—”

“Now.”

He tapped the activation sequence on his omnitool.

The VEST system woke up all at once, an electrical hum against his spine that bloomed outward as the plating unfolded, snapping into place over his body in cascading sequences. His ribs locked in first, then shoulders, then the limbs, all reinforced composite and resonance shielding, so light it barely pulled against his freefall. Every piece clicked together with mechanical efficiency, the seams humming as energy systems kicked in. Unlike the standard VESTs—bulkier, overengineered for emergency use—the Mark 5 was something else.

Sleek. Seamless. Engineered to impress.

“Suit integrity at 100%,” ADAM confirmed. “Kinesis field generators online. Jump jet system initializing.”

Zedd tapped the side of his aviators, and they unfolded, nanomachines snapping outward into a full helmet, his face hidden behind a glowing blue screen as the lenses expanded outward. The HUD flared alive in his vision, tracking his altitude, velocity, the vector of his descent. The projected path was clean. Textbook. Safe.

Boring.

“Six hundred meters to target,” ADAM continued, utterly uninterested in whether Zedd was listening. “Current velocity exceeding optimal approach by 22%. Recommend immediate deceleration.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Zedd laughed, the sound echoing inside the helmet.

He adjusted his angle, hands shifting slightly to fine-tune his trajectory, body tilting into the motion. The cameras down below tracked his every move, the crowd’s energy building in a way he could feel even from here. The heads tilting upward. The eyes locked on him. Waiting.

“Four hundred meters. Deceleration required in three… two…”

“Fine, fine.” Zedd flicked the control.

The jump jets flared to life, blue-white fire streaking from his back and calves, not just slowing him, but redirecting him. His vertical drop curved into a horizontal arc, momentum twisting through his frame like a live wire as he cut across the sky over the Exhibition Center.

And the crowd went insane.

He could hear the noise even through the helmet’s filters—roars, cheers, the distant hum of media drones shifting to track him. The HUD flashed optimal approach vectors, suggested deceleration paths, all cold, calculated, and completely predictable.

Zedd ignored them.

He twisted midair, throwing himself into a tight spiral around the perimeter of the dome, the suit compensating instantly, the g-forces thrilling rather than overwhelming. Every movement was met with a roar from below, a shift in the collective breath of the audience.

“This isn’t the approach vector we calculated,” ADAM noted, ever the killjoy.

“Calculated approaches are boring.” Zedd banked harder, the thrusters adjusting on instinct, the energy field crackling along the seams of his suit. He could feel the momentum, the rightness of it all, the way every calculation he’d ever run had led to this moment, this design, this flight.

“Besides,” he grinned, cutting hard into another sharp arc, “what’s the point of building this thing if I can’t have a little fun?”

The thrusters flared brighter as he completed his circuit of the dome. Now for the finale. He cut the main thrusters, momentum carrying him forward as he aimed for the open roof section. The kinesis field intensified around him, creating drag without the telltale blue shimmer of mass effect fields.

The Exhibition Center roof rushed toward him, the open section now directly below. The crowd was a sea of upturned faces, expressions of awe and anticipation clear even from this height.

“Approaching optimal entry point,” ADAM confirmed. “Adjusting kinesis field for final descent.“

Zedd grinned inside the helmet. “Let’s stick the landing.”

He reactivated the jump jets at twenty percent thrust, just enough to give him precise control over his descent. The thrusters on his calves fired in short, controlled bursts, guiding him through the opening in the roof. The crowd’s collective gasp was audible even over the rush of wind and the hum of the suit’s systems.

The stage loomed below, the landing zone marked by subtle targeting indicators only he could see through his HUD. He killed the thrusters five meters from the ground, letting momentum and the kinesis field do the rest.

Then—impact.

He hit the stage in a classic three-point landing, right knee and fist striking the surface as the kinesis field absorbed the shock. The floor beneath him cracked for effect—a pre-programmed element of the show, designed to show off and look good.

And it did.

The jump jet system gave one final burst as he landed, blue-white fire erupting from his back and legs before cutting out with dramatic precision. White-blue energy crackled outward from the impact point in a perfect circle, racing across the stage before dissipating, exactly the way he intended.

For a heartbeat, everything was silent.

Then the crowd exploded.

Zedd rose slowly, deliberately, the VEST’s servos humming as they assisted the movement. The faceplate retracted, nanomachines flowing back to reveal his face, the aviators still in place. He looked out at the audience—humans, asari, turians, salarians, even a cluster of volus near the front—all cheering, some standing on their seats for a better view.

A smile spread across his face, not the calculated one he used for investors, but the genuine one that only appeared when he’d built something that worked exactly as designed, thoughts becoming reality, technology becoming art.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished guests of all species,” he began, voice carrying through the exhibition hall without needing amplification. “Welcome to the first annual Victory Expo… where we celebrate the Victory of New Abraham.”

The crowd roared again, the sound washing over him like a physical force.

“I mean, it’s also my birthday,” he added with practiced casualness, “but that’s beside the point, am I right?”

The crowd erupted.