Well, [I]that[/I] was fucking weird and somewhat unnerving. Tanya had never heard a hanar make a sound like that before, and if she knew better (she didn’t), she could have sworn it sounded something like a rumbling laugh. Assuming anything with aliens, even with the universal translators, was a recipe for disaster. Tanya kept her body still, as keeping a straight face was one of her strong suits that came with the territory of keeping emotions to herself, but she allowed herself a slow blink. She wasn’t sure what the hell to expect going into this, but that wasn’t it. 

She recovered quickly. “Ambition is something all successful humans have, Mr. Luek. I just so happen to reach a bit further than most.” She said confidently, although she sensed a tenseness from Kosso. Perhaps she should have talked to him about what she was going to propose beforehand; ironically, it didn’t seem to be important at the time, but now, trying to convince a dangerous crime lord of Tanya’s proposition, catching her partner off guard instead of making the two of them appear to be on the same page was a stupid risk she should have caught. [I]Damn it, Tanya. You’re smarter than that.[/I] she mentally scolded herself behind a tight smile. 

"An armor design like that could be quite the hot seller, have no doubt. However, it could take you years to get through all the required safety tests and patent requests before you can actually start to trade. And that omni-tool design, no matter how useful, will be mired in legal processes for decades before it sees the light of day, if it ever does. People do care so much about their precious privacy. It is a long, costly journey ahead of you, my friend." Luek replied. "Unless, of course, you knew someone with both money to spare and a unique network of contacts."

It was impossible to tell, but did she detect anticipation in the hanar’s voice? Goddamn, hanar were infuriating. They gave elcor a run for their money for the ultimate poker face.

Before Tanya could respond, Kosso dove in, perhaps to mitigate a potential disaster. Was it that he didn’t trust Tanya to keep her shit straight, or that she was veering off a safe path? Suddenly, a pang of anxiety filled her. Not that she worried about her identity or cover being blown, but for being outright dismissed by the hanar, thus rendering the safe inaccessible. She certainly didn’t want to fight through a large, top credit security contingent with no shields and a formal dress. Still, Kosso wasn’t half bad at this, although she wondered if flattery worked on the hanar. Whether or not that was a racial thing remained to be seen, but she had to trust the guy who grew up surrounded by the infuriatingly polite bioluminescent sea creatures. He seemed to be making some headway with Luek, in any case. 

Suddenly, a loud commotion came from below the balcony. Tanya joined the others hurrying to the edge, the crowd below riled up something fierce over some human who was detained after clearly clocking the shit out of some salarian, which wasn’t a sight you saw every day. Salarians weren’t exactly powerhouses; Tanya was pretty certain even a horribly out of shape human would give most salarians a good run for their money in the physicality department. She feigned distain while privately, she was terribly amused. Nothing spiced up a stuffy rich person party like a good old fashion bar fight, even if they set race relations back ten years. It was totally worth it. 
Luek seemed less than interested or bothered by the jackwad disrupting his event, but conceded that they should move to a more private setting. They were in business. Tanya grabbed a champagne glass from a passing waiter and subtly gave cheers to the jackass who probably lost his company any future contracts for Luek, or any of the guests at the party. He just did Nova a huge favour.

Kosso and Tanya were shuffled into a fairly decadent study with skylights, the storm raging overhead. However, rain never met the glass due to a mass effect barrier, which was probably a good thing, given how even a small leak would have trashed a lot of seemingly delicate and priceless artifact in the sizable, impressive room that must have acted as Luek’s own private domain to placate guests. If there was any indication of the hanar’s wealth that wasn’t evidenced by the massive ship, this room was surely the crown jewel. 

‘Veronica’ decided Luek probably needed something to work with that wasn’t smoke being blown up his ass. She leaned back comfortably into the impossibly plush, high backed crimson seat drink in hand. “Allow me to explain the theory, and technology, behind the shielding capacitors I tantalized earlier. As you know, in any state of matter, be it a liquid, gas, plasma or solid, it is made up of molecules that in three of those instances, are freely moving, and when heat or friction is applied to them, the molecules become excited, charged. If I were to take this glass of champagne, stick it over a fire, within a few minutes it would begin to boil and the liquid would be very mobile and kinetic before it evaporated into a gas form, as you know.

“Now, kinetic barriers work in a very similar fashion, where the ions are contained by a negative mass effect field that cannot be penetrated by high-velocity objects, so long as the capacitors aren’t overloaded when the ions become too ‘excited’, which breaks the concentration of molecules that make up the barrier as technological limitations don't allow the energy anywhere to go, so it shatters, no longer contained. Now, this is where one begs the question of if all of these molecules are becoming excited and energized by the friction caused by say a gunshot, why is there nothing to contain or at least dissipate the built up and subsequent overcharge of energy? We know that the power source is unaffected, as the shields replenish themselves as soon as the systems reboot and it is able to build enough of a charge to fill the capacitor once more. All in all, it’s a waste of potentially useful energy. 

“Where this gets exciting is as such; with a specific device that ‘piggy-backs’ onto a shield generator, to use a rather crude human idiom, to capture and contain the energy that’s being expended and overloading the shielding capacitor, it could prevent the overloading effect by storing the excess energy, kind of like how a water tower stores excess production water in a distribution system during low usage so it’s ready as soon as the demand calls for it. Now, we know that if you run a magnet repeatedly through a copper coil, it generates energy, correct? What I am developing is [I]very[/I] similar in principle to that, where the excess energy magnet analogue is being passed through the copper coil analog and ends up producing more energy, which is fed directly back into the shield generator. In effect, the more the shield gets excited, the more energy it produces while bleeding off the sudden surge that causes the overload. With enough refinement and finding, I’m confident I can make this not only a reality, but something that could be modified to fit onto any existing shielding platform on the market. And with developments and improvement in the technology, it may be able to withstand the full effect of a tech overload, which as you most likely are aware, have been often the so-called game changer in a fire fight. I aim to make this a thing of the past, and any customer using my product, with [I]your[/I] name attached to it, will have massive reductions in personnel and equipment losses for a competitive price. At the risk of sounding arrogant,” she came to a conclusion, a confident smile forming on her lips. “This could be the biggest revolution in defensive technology since mass effect technology was perfected.”

Tanya gave Kosso a glance next to her with a raised eyebrow and took a delicate sip from the glass. She regarded Luek for a moment before asking. "Does this seem like something that perhaps might be of interest you?" she asked with a smile.