User:FightWithHonor/Halo: Ill-Gotten Gains

Introduction
The dust has settled, and the blood as ceased to flow. Two decades of ceaseless chaos and warfare have rocked the very institution of Mankind to its very foundations. With the Covenant a fragmented carcass, its banner a threadbare rag of fallen glory left homeless and leaderless with the destruction of ‘’High Charity’’ and the death of the last great Prophet, Humanity could at last breathe.

Yet despite her victory from the edge of defeat, Humanity was little better. Her once-proud diadem of diverse colonies, spanning countless light-years were now barren deserts, their surfaces glazed by the might of their now-humbled foes.

Her industrial base a hobbled cripple, her population homeless refugees, the UNSC recognized the need to reform, reorganize, and recover. Taking a dynamic stance, the UNSC governing council authorized the largest, most diverse private-sector contract in human history, an offering in the trillions of cRs. The contract called upon the holder to heal the wounds of the Great War, re-building shattered cities, resurrecting mangled lands, re-erecting torn homes, and setting in motion the long-harried lifelines of starships and freighters which had united the UNSC and Her Colonies.

To the bearer of the contract, all Humanity’s hope for the future would be placed, a task that would be both monument and a tombstone, enshrining both its hero and it villain in eternal memory. And into this arena twin companies stood to assume these mantles. Pillars of honor, and cellars of shame adorned these two rivals, and between them a war as violent as Humanity’s Last Stand would rage, a conflict as subtle as the last had been spectacular, a brawl filled with avarice and greed, and a duel filled with nobility and courage.

Twin giants Jennings & Rall and Davenport Security Services have crossed swords, and the dawn of Ill-gotten Gains has been heralded.