Revan idly browsed through one of the datapads the Normandy crew had provided with information about the new galaxy she found herself in.

Speaking with Shepard had been...concerning to say the least. Revan had been preparing for a galaxy wide invasion for years now. Waking up in another galaxy and finding out a similar invasion was expected to happen put her in a weird position.

Revan had no attachments to this new galaxy. There was no one she cared about living here. She hadn’t spent years traveling it and learning the different cultures and practices of different planets. Immersing herself in the knowledge and traditions of a dozen different worlds even when it caused friction between the Jedi Council and herself.

She would be perfectly able to just leave the Reapers and their pawns to the locals (even if they seemed similarly unwilling to prepare for invasion as her own home had) and try and find her way back.

Of course she also had no resources, no friends or allies, and no reputation here. All of which would be needed to secure even the most rudimentary workshop to manufacture a working hyperdrive. And she would have to make her own, a quick search on extra-galaxy travel had the first attempt of the locals estimated at a six hundred year journey to another galaxy.

Needless to say, Revan did not have six hundred years to spare and there was no guarantee that her own galaxy wasn’t even further away.

Should she simply stay with Commander Shepard then? There was obviously a decently powerful organization behind the woman. And if Revan could assist with her current mission she might be willing to assist getting her home.

Of course there had been an odd mistrust between the Commander and the two officers she had with her. It was as if the Commander was constantly watching the two of them and checking over what they were saying. Without more time to gather more information, Revan wasn’t confident making any long term plans.

She would be forced to stay on the Normandy for a little while longer at the very least. She had looked up Omega as well, trying to verify how truthful the dark skinned human was being during their meeting. Unfortunately, he had not been exaggerating the amount of criminals on the station. Revan would be doing nothing but cutting her way through thieves after her salvaged equipment for months if she was seen being dropped off with no protection in place.

The door to the cargo bay opened and after a polite knock on the frame Commander Shepard walked in. Revan wasn’t unaware that her actions in the medbay had lowered the Commander’s opinion of her a good bit. That Revan had just woken up from an orbital crash, an attack by Batarian slavers, and hadn’t done any permanent damage to Dr Chakwas were likely the only reasons she wasn’t spending her time in the brig.

That and Shepard seemed to be a bit of a bleeding heart if the public records could be trusted.

“Revan,” Shepard greeted. “Getting caught up on the galaxy?”

“The basics at least. It’s easier since your galaxy has fewer spacefaring species in it.” Revan said. “Did you need something?”

Shepard filed away that information for later.

“We’re about to dock at Omega. I’m dropping by to let you know you are coming with us when we head off to recruit our specialists.”

Revan raised an eyebrow. “You trust me enough to follow you into what your own crew described as a nest of pirates and slavers?”

“Of course not,” Shepard waved flippantly. “But I’d rather have you running around where I can see you rather than doing who knows what on my ship.”

A little unfair, Revan thought, but it would be enough to start gaining some good will from the commander. Violet eyes stared challengingly into bright green.

“I suppose this means you will be returning my armor and my lightsabers?”

Shepard nodded. “Jacob has them in the armory. We’re getting them wired with temporary comms and an omnitool. We don’t have time to get you fitted for a hardsuit and I’m not going to risk friendly fire because I forced you to use a gun you don’t know the first thing about.”

Revan’s eyes hardened at the thought of some random person going over her armor. She wasn’t as touchy about it as most Mandolorians she had come across, but she had fought them- and with them -long enough that some of the culture regarding how they treated arms and armor to wear off on her.

Maintenance was to be done by the owner or a trusted individual alone. Revan would have made exceptions in emergency situations, but she didn’t think this one counted.

She took in a hissing breath. “I would appreciate it if your men left my armor alone in the future.” she said. “At least as long as it isn’t urgent.”

Shepard looked a bit surprised at the anger. “If you're worried about him breaking something he is only adding in the hardware with a bit of adhesive. No breaking it apart for secrets or anything like that.”

Revan shook her head. “It's...more of a cultural thing, I admit. I’m not a proper Mando'a- or Mandalorian -but there are...expectations about personal armaments.”

“Mandalorian...you mentioned something like that earlier. Something about killing Mandalore the Ultimate. Are those related somehow?” Shepard asked.

“They are,” Revan confirmed. “The Mandalorians are a culture of warriors, not really restricted to a single race. A few years ago their Empire declared war on the galaxy. I fought their leader over Malachor V and killed him in single combat.” It had been one of the hardest fights of her life. And the one that started her on her path to where she was today.

“So their leader is called a Mandalore?”

“They are. Mandalore, or more properly Mand'alor, roughly translates to ‘sole ruler’. Basically they are supposed to be the best the Mandolorians can offer.”

“And you killed him.” Shepard seemed to be analysing Revan’s explanation. She had no way of knowing exactly how impressive a fighter Mandolorians tended to be, but she was smart enough to hear that a group of warriors had declared war on a galactic scale and were presumably confident in coming out ahead. Then Revan had managed to kill one of the best of them in single combat.

“And I killed him.” Revan agreed.

“Well hopefully you won’t need to do much of that on Omega. If all goes well we simply get in, grab our specialists, and get out.”

Revan snorted. “And you really believe that?” well aware that things rarely were straightforward when dealing with criminal dens.

Shepard sighed and hung her head slightly. “Not for an instant...but a girl can dream right?”

-o-

Revan found Jacob standing at a workbench when she made her way to the armory. The Cerberus agent was hard at work cleaning one of the several rifles the Normandy kept on hand.

She took the opportunity to look around the armory without distraction. Unfortunately it seemed that most of the weaponry was just the same mass produced models she had seen earlier. Revan wasn’t sure how this group stacked up against the rest of the galaxy, but if this was standard it seemed she would be dealing with physical projectiles most of the time. That would take some adjusting.

She picked up one of the pistols on a bench and turned it over in her hand. It was a decent design, Revan thought. It fit well in her hand and it seemed simple enough to operate. Not that she would likely ask for one. She was only an okay shot and that was with a blaster. Best she stick to her lightsabers and maybe see about building a blaster and a few energy cells if she could figure out how to erase any data on them. The armory had what seemed like a few small fabricators that she could make use of, but she didn’t want to just hand over any tech.

Sell it perhaps, but hand it over for free? Not a chance.

The pistol was returned to the bench when Revan saw Jacob finishing up his task. The man secured the rifle and stowed it with quick efficient movements.

“Sorry about that, wasn’t expecting you up here so fast. I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” Jacob said. “Jacob Taylor. I hear you're coming with us to Omega.” he held out a hand and Revan accepted it with a raised eyebrow.

“You can call me Revan. And yes, your Commander decided she wanted me off your ship while you went looking for your recruits.”

Jacob chuckled. “I wouldn’t take it personally. The Commander takes care of her people, she’s pissed you went after Chackwas. Even if she understands why you freaked out when you woke up on a strange ship. Thinking you were captured by the same people that tried to kill you would make anyone try and escape. Give her some time and she’ll mellow out.”

He misunderstood why Revan acted the way she did, but she felt no need to correct him. Instead she simply nodded and looked around the room.

“Shepard mentioned you had my equipment up here? I’d like to make a quick diagnostic check before we head out to the station.”

“I doubt you have the time for more than the basics.” Jacob hedged as he walked over to a locker Revan hadn’t noticed. “Shepard won’t want to wait too long. But I patched the hole on the leg with some Omnigel and reinforced some of the damage on the chest. Patch jobs but it keeps everything sealed. I saw some damage to the underlayer but I don’t know the first thing about your stuff so I left it alone.”

Revan pushed down the slight resentment of another person fixing her armor. It wasn’t the time and it wasn’t Jacob’s fault he didn’t know it would bother her.

“And my lightsabers?”

“They really called that? They’re in here too.” Jacob handed her a heavy sack containing all the components to her armor and a small box containing her lightsabers from the locker. “That should be everything. When you get everything on drop by again and I’ll run you through the basics of the omnitool.”

-o-

“Are you sure it’s a good idea to bring Revan along?” Miranda asked. “We don’t really know anything about her.”

Shepard glared halfheartedly at her XO, “And her staying behind would be any better? You saw what she did on Torek. Fifteen Baterians killed and she almost took us out with them. And that was after a crash and with nearly crippling injuries to her leg and second degree burns on her chest and shoulder.” she huffed a bit. “I’m not saying we need to never let her out of our sight, but I want to get to know her a bit before I offer her to join the mission.”

“You want to recruit her?!” Miranda’s eyes went wide.

“Of course I do.” Shepard replied. “She’s skilled, probably one of the best close quarters combatants ever I’ve seen, and she doesn’t have any ties to anyone else at the moment. She’s also apparently been through a war before. Who knows if she knows something that would tip the odds in our favor.”

“We know next to nothing about her!”

“I know next to nothing about you and the rest of Cerberus.” Shepard pointed out making Miranda grimace. “Or even any of these specialists we’re here to recruit. Besides, I don’t see anything wrong with recruiting the person who is basically staying on the ship anyway.” Shepard might not really care for Revan, the situation with Chakwas still bugged her, but she recognized Revan had valuable things to contribute. And who knows, maybe Revan would slip up and wind up at the mercy of Chakwas after a mission?

Shepard pushed that thought away. It was petty. And not just a little cruel.

She had been forced to work with several people she had significantly more reason to dislike than Revan and she’d never wished they got shot. It was something she never would’ve considered before…

cold surrounding her, flailing uselessly in the void, hissing air, can’t breathe can’tbreathecan’tbreathe

…before. Just another reminder about how she wasn’t quite the same.

“We spent a great deal of time investigating everyone on those dossiers.” Miranda protested, fairly weakly though. She understood Shepard wasn’t about to change her mind at the moment. The final decision wouldn’t be made until she had seen Revan in action anyway.

“It doesn’t matter for now anyway. Lets focus on our first two recruits before we start looking at another.” Shepard suggested. “They're here anyway.”

True to her word, both Revan and Jacob walked up to join them at the airlock. Jacob was in his usual black Cerberus jumpsuit, Revan in her red and grey armor though she was carrying her helmet for now. Once again she had a black robe concealing most of her armored form.

“You two ready? We have a basic idea where to look for our Salarian doctor, but we might need to dig around for Archangel.” Shepard said.

“Ready whenever you are Commander.” Jacob affirmed. Revan nodded and began to walk out the airlock onto the station.

Shepard snagged her arm and pulled her to a stop.

“Revan, I know I ordered you to come along and you aren’t actually required to go along with what I say. But if a firefight breaks out I need to know you will follow my lead. I can’t waste my time worrying about a loose cannon.”

Revan looked at her inscruitiably.

“I’ll follow your lead. For now.” She said eventually. “But don’t expect me to start jumping to follow commands, Shepard.”

“That works.” Shepard agreed. That wasn’t an issue. She would just need to treat Revan like she did Wrex. An ally to be guided rather than a subordinate to be ordered.

She released her hand and the both of them walked off the Normandy onto the station.

-o-

“Well, this certainly got more interesting than picking up a scientist.” Revan commented as the four of them walked away from Afterlife, a night club run by Asari pirate queen and de facto ruler of Omega Aria T'Loak. Her voice slightly distorted by her helmet.

Shepard resisted the urge to sigh. ‘More interesting than expected’ summed up a good amount of her missions.

“This might be a problem.” Miranda points out. “We don’t have another candidate on Mordin’s level picked out. We might have issues with those Seeker swarms the quarian told us about on Freedom’s Progress.”

“Seeker swarms?” Revan asked.

“Collector tech. Some kind of insect drone that injects a paralytic.” Jacob explained. “It’s how they’ve been abducting colonies without them fighting back.”

“Well that sounds lovely.”

“It also presents an issue since without a skilled scientist we have no way of getting close to the Collectors if they use those against us.” Miranda ranted. “Unless our guest has some hidden skill to assist us?”

“Sorry, more of a mechanical engineer than a bio one.”

Shepard stopped and turned to face Revan.

“You’re an engineer?”

“Well...yes.” Revan shifted on her feet.

“And you didn’t mention this earlier?”

“Was there a point? I’m not familiar with your tech base at all. I’ll work on that simply because I refuse to get stranded in space if something breaks, but that is weeks away for even the basics.”

“I guess not.” Still, it was another thing Shepard would keep in mind about Revan.

They continued to casually talk all the way to the quarantine sector. Miranda kept poking at Revan, trying to learn more about what she was capable of. Jacob seemed content to ask for more details occasionally when Revan tried to blow off Miranda with an unimportant story regarding whatever interesting gadget Revan mentioned. Shepard found the whole trip weirdly relaxing.

For once she wasn’t the center of attention. It wasn’t something that used to bother her, shyness was not something her N7 instructors encouraged, but ever since she...woke up...she felt like eyes were always on her. On her scars, on her behavior, whatever she did was always under scrutiny.

For just a little bit she was free to not need to project that she was unshaken from her death to a bunch of terrorists that seemed to be her only hope to stopping the colony attacks.

It was nice.

Then they reached the quarantine zone and she needed to put her Commander mask back on.

-o-

Revan was decidedly uncomfortable.

Something was...odd...about the Force here.

It was still present, nothing wrong there. It was just...still. Tiny ripples instead of the steady waves she was used to.

When she had heard about the Reapers, Revan had half expected the galaxy to be tinted with various shades of the Dark Side. Instead it didn’t seem to be tinted at all. Even in Omega, a place full of suffering and hatred, Revan could only feel the slightest presence in the Force.

She might have taken the time to investigate further if she was alone. But with Shepard clearly wanting to get out of Omega as quickly as possible, she doubted she had the time. Besides it was somewhat fun verbally sparring with Miranda. The ravenette didn’t hide her interest in whatever technology Revan could offer and Revan was determined to get the best deal for any tidbits she handed out. Naturally both Jacob and Miranda were interested in the thermal detonator. Miranda because the component technologies for creating a small thermonuclear fusion reaction would lead to breakthroughs in several fields, and Jacob because it was an incredibly powerful explosive.

No matter the galaxy, it seemed soldiers liked things that went boom.

Things took a bit of a darker turn after they passed the guards Aria set up. Bodies were being stacked and burned just feet away from the guard post. Two mercenaries in blue armour (The Blue Suns according to one of the guards) had spotted them and opened fire.

Too bad they were not dealing with unarmed civilians but four very unamused combatants. The mercenaries barely had time to realize they messed up before they were shredded by a combination of bullets and Shepard’s weird imitation Force technique.

“Guess they just left the dead in the streets.” Jacob said with disgust after making sure no other mercenaries were around. He had his eyes on the piles of bodies near the fires. Each one riddled with bullet holes.

“Burning corpses,” Miranda said a little more analytically. “Must be trying to keep the plague from spreading.”

Shepard said nothing but noticed there was someone still alive nearby. “Wait here for a sec, I’m going to see if they are okay.”

Revan and the others nodded and returned to watching for any additional Blue Suns members.

“A bioweapon targeting anything nonhuman? How despicable.” Shepard commented after she had finished with the plague victim. Revan tended to agree. She was also incredibly thankful that she had filters on her helmet.

“We should find Mordin quickly. From the sound of it the Blue Suns and the Vorcha are going to turn this quarter into a warzone soon.”

There was little discussion as everyone moved ahead. The plague seemed to be much worse than the humans anticipated. So much so that they were distracted enough to nearly walk head first into a Blue Suns guard post.

Revan quickly placed a hand on Shepards shoulder to hold her back.

“Revan? What are you doing?”

“Stopping you from getting shot apparently.” Revan chided. She pointed down the hallway to a metal barricade with a few figures in blue and white visible. “Unless you were planning on walking right up to them with your head in the clouds?”

Shepard cursed under her breath at the loss of focus. “No you’re right I lost focus.” she shook her head. “Alright what are the chances they will let us through?”

“Not high.” Miranda commented. “If they are scared enough to start shooting civilians I doubt they would let armed unknowns through without a reason. Especially not if they are getting pushed out by the Vorcha.”

Revan reached out to the Force, trying to get an idea about what was ahead. There was danger ahead but nothing that felt like it was more than she could handle.

“Fantastic. And we’re a mostly mid to short ranged group going against a hardpoint. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do…” Shepard started before noticing Revan beginning to walk off. “Revan? What do you think you’re doing!” she hissed.

Revan ignored her and walked confidently up to the Blue Suns, drawing their attention pretty quickly.

“Well this is new, usually the humans run when they see us.” A Batarian Revan assumed was the leader called out. “Looking to apologise for the shit you did to us? Well if you don’t move we promise not to piss on your corpse before we toss it in a fire.”

Revan ignored the Batarian. Instead she raised her left hand and pointed it at the merc, her right hand held an un-ignited lightsaber.

“Counter offer.” Revan called darkly. “Let me and my companions pass and I will let you live.”

She heard Shepard curse at Revan giving away there were more of them nearby.

“Screw you, human! Shoot the idiot.”

There was a snap-hiss of a lightsaber activating, the sound of gunshots, and then a sizzle as a trio of bullets vaporized on the red energy blade.

“I gave you a chance”

Lightning arced from her hand, frying the three on top of the barrier and causing the Blue Suns troopers behind it to curse and run out, rifles blazing. Two of them were yanked off their feet and sent flying into a wall as Revan charged another two coming out of another doorway. She sidestepped as the two opened fire, reaching out to the force and nudging the farthest one’s aim so he was shooting into his companions back. Unfortunately the shots were blocked by a flaring blue shield and the trooper stopped shooting before the shield failed.

Not that it mattered, since a second later Revan was close enough to lash out with her lightsaber. The first trooper was nearly bisected as his shields and armor did little to protect him from the ruby blade. The second was dispatched with a clean stab through the middle of the chest, severing his spine.

Revan pulled her lightsaber free and turned to face the two she had thrown earlier.

They were just getting back to their feet when there was a bark of a shotgun and one of their chests exploded in gore. Another burst of machine gun and rifle fire cut down the last trooper a second later.

“What. The. Hell. Was. That?” Revan turned to see a furious Commander Shepard stalking towards her.

“Did you mean something specific?” there was a hint of a smile in Revan’s voice.

Shepard grabbed Revan’s robe and pulled the slightly taller woman so they were face to visor. “Don’t give me that shit.” she snarled. “You want to paint a giant target on your fucking chest and dance around in front of the enemy? Fine, great even! Since you can apparently throw lightning around and we established you aren’t under my command. But you decide to drag my team in with you? After saying you’ll follow my lead?” A finger was thrust just underneath Revan’s visor. “That shit. Doesn’t. Fly.”

Revan was silent for a moment before she pulled herself back out of Shepard’s grip. “You're right. I forget that you don’t actually know what I’m capable of. I won’t announce your presence like that if I move independently again in the future.”

“Good.” Shepard nodded decisively, evidently mollified by Revan’s not-quite-an-apology. “Make sure it doesn’t. Now let’s go find our doctor before someone else shows up.”