The mission ending in failure didn’t really bother Shepard if she was being honest. Yes, Okeer might have had more information about the Collectors than what was stored in his terminal, but anyone who was willing to throw away lives in pursuit of some goal just because it gets faster results wasn’t someone she could see herself working closely with.

She was fully aware that occasionally lives needed to be spent -and it seemed like the flashbacks to Virmire weren’t though with her just yet- but that it was the leaders in charge’s duty to make sure that they never were spent frivolously.

Which was why she was now nursing a minor headache after arguing with her XO that no, she would not be getting rid of the Krogan they had retrieved from the lab.

Miranda was right that the Krogan could be a danger, but Shepard had worked alongside Wrex plenty of times just fine and he was one of the most dangerous Krogan alive. Plus it wasn’t like she was just going to let anyone just open the thing with no preparation.

She sighed and rubbed her forehead in exasperation. The Cerberus Officer might not be as bad as Shepard initially thought, but she still was far too up tight sometimes.

“Ah, Commander Shepard!”

Shepard looked up to see Kelly Chambers, Cerberus Yeoman and almost certainly spy or informant walking towards her. It was nothing personal against the other redhead, but Shepard knew for a fact that Chambers acted as the unofficial councilor for the ship and any logs from those sessions would eventually make their way back to Cerberus.

What made it worse was that Chambers was so damn earnest that Shepard couldn’t hold it against her. Though it did ensure she would never sit in on one of the Yeoman’s sessions.

“Can I help you, Yeoman?”

“I just received word from the Purgatory. They’ve confirmed they are ready to release Jack into our custody and are waiting for us to stop by.” Chambers said, falling in step with Shepard as they made their way towards the mess hall.

“Great news, I’ll have Joker set a course after the shift change.” Shepard replied.

“So now that the business stuff is out of the way, how have you been?” Kelly asked. “I heard a bit from the rumor mill that we have a super-krogan in the cargo bay after your last mission.”

And that was why it was hard to dislike Kelly. She sounded like she genuinely wanted to know. Not as some kind of agenda, but simply a curious woman. How she wound up in Cerberus was still something Shepard was trying to figure out.

Shepard nodded. “We do. Okeer didn’t make it, but if we can figure out if his work is friendly or not then we could use the muscle.”

“It would be interesting to work with a Krogan.” Kelly mused. “Their people haven’t had the easiest time in the galaxy. Sure they are incredible warriors, but there must have been so much more to their culture. Poets, scientists, philosophers...I wonder what they could have given the galaxy if the genophage was never a thing.”

Shepard thought back to her conversations with Wrex.

He hadn’t ever been one for talking about his people. Most of what she did get him to talk about had to be dragged out and it didn’t paint the Krogan as a species for philosophising. Hell, Wrex himself had practically written them off because even with the dwindling numbers and issues due to the genophage, Krogans kept leaving their home system looking for fights.

“Well if this one turns out to be friendly I’m sure he could tell you more about Krogan culture. Okeer seemed to be thorough about wanting a ‘true Krogan’.” Shepard temporised.

“That would be great! Now if only I could get Revan to share more about her past. A whole other galaxy! She must have so much we could learn! I wonder if she has any music or stories she could share.”

The revived Spectre watched in bemusement as the other woman practically bounced in excitement about what the Sith Lord could share.

Still, she was curious herself.

“You’ve been talking to Revan?”

Kelly rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “I’ve been trying to, but it hasn’t been going as well as I’d like. She’s hard to talk to.”

Shepard blinked.

While Revan was incredibly hard to get a straight answer out of, she never seemed reluctant to at least entertain a conversation. She knew Miranda was occasionally stopping in and asking questions and hadn’t been turned away yet so she couldn’t see a reason the personable Yeoman would be having issues.

“Is she? I hadn’t noticed that much.”

“Well...maybe...it’s more a personal problem.” Kelly said, fidgeting in place.

‘Personal problem?’ Shepard’s brow furrowed in thought. Kelly hadn’t seemed uncomfortable with any of the other races that were aboard the Normandy. Was she really uncomfortable with a race that looked almost identical to humans?

“It's just...well...I’ve kinda had a…thing...for elves since I was a teenager. I might have come off a little strong when I introduced myself and now it's kinda...embarrassing to talk to her?”

Now Shepard was forced to stop and stare at the Yeoman in disbelief. The Cerberus operative who had willingly joined what could best be described as a potential suicide mission to stop a race of aliens from destroying entire colonies was too embarrassed to talk to a crewmate...because of a crush?!

She almost couldn’t believe it.

“I see…” the Spectre drew out, completely unsure what to say to that. “Well I have a meeting in a bit and am kinda short on time, so...uh...I should go.”

Not the most dignified way to flee a conversation. But she was not going to be delving into her Yeoman’s kinks at the moment.

Besides she actually did have a meeting to get to…

Unfortunately it was with Revan…

Shepard sighed. She really didn’t need those kinds of images going into this.

-o-

After rushing through a quick meal and making her way to the cargo deck, Shepard found herself standing outside the section of the ship Revan had claimed for herself.

Unfortunately for the Commander, this time she would be here for purely personal reasons and the usual confidence she had dealing with people seemed to have deserted her.

After a moment to pull her thoughts together, Shepard cycled herself through the hatch and entered the cargo bay. It hadn’t changed too drastically since the last time she had come through here, there were still a ton of crates they had recovered that hadn’t been sorted through, but Revan was steadily making her way through all of them and had obviously started sorting out some of the contents based on the small collection of tablets that had piled up on the desk she used.

Speaking of the Sith, Revan herself was lounging in a chair, resting her head on one hand and looking at a datapad in the other. With her guard seemingly down, Revan looked simply like a pretty young woman idly reading and not the nearly untouchable force of nature she was on the battlefield.

The sight of the elven woman so relaxed unconsciously reminded Shepard of the conversation between her and Kelly. A memory she ruthlessly crushed since she also remembered she was in the same room as a mind reader and had no desire to try explaining that conversation to the subject’s face.

“You should relax a bit. This will be easier without starting off all keyed up.” Revan’s mild tone broke through Shepard’s thoughts and she had to fight to keep a blush off her face.

Right, empath.

“So how does this meditation thing work?” She asked, brushing past the awkward feelings. “I mean I’ve done therapy stuff before -everyone in the Alliance does at some point- but I can’t say I’ve ever tried meditation before.”

“What I have in mind isn’t really therapy. It can be part of it, but this is more self reflection and understanding how you affect the universe around you.” Revan explained. “All considered, it's fairly basic.”

“Aww so not going to teach me how to be a jedi?” Shepard teased.

"Absolutely not!” Revan hissed, causing Shepard to raise her hands.

“Whoa, calm down! I was just kidding.” She defended herself quickly. “Guess I shouldn’t joke about that with a Sith Lord…” then paused because saying that out loud still sounded ridiculous to her.

Revan let out a long sigh and set aside her datapad. “No, I should apologise. The Jedi are theoretically a good role model for this training, but as you might’ve noticed I’m not a great fan of them.” she said with a small smirk before growing serious again. “Besides, their teachings work best when you are already in a healthy place. As you are now I’d probably do more damage if I tried to help you that way.”

“Why’s that?”

“There is a lot of history here that I don’t have time to go into detail if we want to actually get around to dealing with your issue, so this might be pretty vague.” Revan warned. “But Jedi fall into a weird mental space where everything in the universe is part of the Force, yet they deliberately separate parts of themselves and act like it doesn’t concern them.

For example, they will constantly spout that losing control of your emotions is a terrible thing. That you should suppress and modulate them so you can always act logically and in accordance with their code.” she raised a hand to cut Shepard off, “Not that that's a bad thing. People do need to not let their emotions control them, but the Jedi are content to either push them in a box or cut them off, never actually dealing with the root of the problem.”

Shepard noticed that as Revan began lecturing, she seemed to relax even more. It seemed the Elven woman liked teaching.

“So the Sith are better off?” the Spectre asked. Revan snorted.

“Not even close. Where the Jedi tend to cut off their emotions, the Sith like to wallow in them. Someone insults you? Hold onto that anger and use it to crush them. You afraid of something? Focus that fear until you can overcome it. Something challenging you? Beat it into submission because you are more powerful and your pride demands nothing less. Once again not super helpful in developing a healthy mindset.”

“That is not to say that all members of each group are like that.” Revan admitted with a shrug. “But not really the methods I want to teach. Especially after...”

She suddenly stopped talking and Shepard remembered what Revan had said about her apprentice.

“So no teaching me the secrets of the Force then?” Shepard joked to hopefully move past that point.

Thankfully it did seem to work. “Pfft, not even taught the basics and you want me to delve into that stuff? No chance. But we should get started or I’ll just keep wasting time.” Revan shifted so she was sitting cross-legged and motioned for Shepard to do the same. “I doubt we will get too far just the first time so we will start with a calming and focusing exercise. Here is what you need to do…”

-o-

A couple hours later Shepard walked out feeling, not lighter, but maybe more settled?

Her issues hadn’t magically gone away and she still had a few uncomfortable questions constantly swirling around her head, but the thought of going out and presenting a strong facade to the rest of the ship and acting like she was fine didn’t feel like it was crushing her for a change.

Apparently her new attitude was easily noticed because it was the first thing Garrus commented on when she stopped by to visit.

“Shepard, you seem happy. Good news or something?”

“Ah, not really? I just got done meeting with Revan and she was willing to teach me some stuff from her home.” While Garrus was a friend, he didn’t exactly need to know how Shepard was dealing with everything. He had his own issues.

Losing a teammate was hard. Losing your entire team was crushing. He didn’t need to worry about Shepard on top of all that.

“I don’t blame you. If I had the chance to talk to someone out of an old Turian myth I’d jump at it too.”

“Yeah I- wait, Turian myth?” Shepard furrowed her eyebrows.

“I’m not surprised if you didn’t know. Old stories, ones from before we even got off Palaven. But Dad always did like the classics.” Garrus said. Shepard made a mental note that Garrus seemed on better terms with his father. As far as she knew, until now they didn’t really get along. “I haven't thought of those old ‘Jedi and Sith’ stories in years. You wouldn’t believe how shocked I was to find out some of them are real. I’m guessing you had EDI look it up on the extranet?” he continued.

“Nnnnoooo,” Shepard drew out slowly. “We found the terms in an old human database from years back.”

The two of them looked at each other silently for a bit.

“Okay, so what does that mean exactly?” Garrus said eventually still a little off balance.

Shepard pulled up her Omnitool and started typing in commands. “I think it means that we’ve had more contact with Revan’s galaxy than we’ve thought.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Shepard paused for a second, thinking.

“I don’t know.” She said eventually. “But for once we might be able to find out something about what Revan might have up her sleeve before she springs it on us.”

“Right, so have EDI go through a bunch of old myths and stories and hope to find a match?” Garrus asked.

Shepard shook her head. “No, as useful as she would be, Cerberus is still tied into her systems. I think I’ll leave this to the Alliance. They have a division for this kind of thing.” She finished sending a message to Hackett. With any luck we might be able to bargain for something directly and not just whatever she decides to offer.”

It was a long shot. Even if they did manage to find references to Revan’s home there was no guarantee that the Sith would be able to give them the designs for anything, but it would be better than going into negotiations blind.

Garrus groaned and gave Shepard a look. “You remember when this job made sense? Just hunting down a rogue agent with a bone to pick? Now it’s all civilization destroying spaceships and extragalactic aliens.”

She smiled. “Please, anything less would be way too easy for us.

“Heh, guess you got that right.”

-o-

Revan contemplated what she should do with the schematics on the datapad in front of her.

In theory it was a similar problem she had faced already. The galaxy was not prepared for a sudden invasion of significant scale and she needed to either reinforce the current factions or build up a new one in preparation. The problem was, this time she wasn’t in position to be the driving force.

There was very little stopping whatever group she worked with from simply stringing her along for as long as they needed to get the full design and then cutting her loose. And unlike back home she didn’t have a potential army of honor bound followers or like minded peers that accepted her superiority over them. Here everything would be a fight between her and an already established group. Sure, she could probably subvert a few people as needed. But she would require hundreds to even begin a large project. Not to mention the infrastructure to go along with that.

A ping came over her Omnitool and she opened it to see a call from Shepard. Revan accepted it with the flick of a finger.

“Commander, can I help you with something?” As far as she knew there was nothing major coming up that needed her attention but things may have changed.

"We’re just about to dock with the Purgatory. If you want to come with, better get ready now."

Revan thought about it, and ultimately decided it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t have much interest in the prison ship and she was busy with her own thing at the moment.

“I appreciate the warning but I’ll stay on the Normandy. You shouldn’t need my help retrieving an already captive prisoner.”

”Right...well this shouldn’t take long. Just to let you know I’m taking Miranda and Jacob with me, but Mordin wanted a word with you when you have a chance.”

“Noted.” Revan replied and ended the call.

While she did want to keep planning her next move, taking a moment to talk to the Salarian shouldn’t take too long. Perhaps she could probe him about smaller factions that wouldn’t take too much effort to gain control of.

-o-

“Ah Revan, glad you could make it. Had some concerns about your species' reaction to potential vaccine for Collector drones. Need a fresh genetic sample to ensure no adverse reaction.” Mordin greeted the Sith as she walked into the science bay.

“Hello to you too, Mordin. And I thought you had enough from last time?” Revan replied, not exactly thrilled to go through another round of needles for the Salarian scientist’s experiments.

Mordin briefly nodded. “Yes, initial samples were fine for the first rounds of testing. Blood compatibility, hormone interference, cell mutation rate. All excellent starting points for vaccine prototype. However, samples degraded after vigorous destructive testing. Using those for the final version could lead to,” he inhaled deeply. “unfortunate side effects.”

Revan’s lip quirked in a mix of amusement and nervousness. Still, biology wasn’t her strong suit. So if the scientist said he needed more samples so his vaccine didn’t fry her nervous system or something, she would be happy to provide.

After Mordin had collected the necessary samples, Revan waited until the Salarian had stored everything and was undistracted, idly rubbing at the sore sites where he had done the tissue extractions. She was unsure if he knew about her Force Healing ability, but had determined to not bring it up until she was nowhere near a lab for fear of the eager scientist latching on to studying the phenomenon.

She would heal herself later and then volunteer the next person to be injured as a test subject instead if needed.

Once he stopped moving around the lab, she decided to see if the doctor knew anything she didn’t. “So, professor, I heard that you used to be part of some sort of covert intelligence group.”

“Yes, Salarian Special Tasks Group. Respected organization. Clandestine. Handles difficult assignments with limited oversight.” Mordin explained as he started fiddling with a computer screen. “Recon, analysis, occasional wet-work. Identify problems, have neutralization options ready should need arise. Model for Council Spectres based on Special Task Group. Very similar.”

Revan made a note to keep an eye out for potential STG interference in her future plans. Groups like that tended to be on the lookout for rising powers and liked keeping new players under control, especially if they weren’t already tied to an existing power in some way.

“Is that so? Unfortunately, besides the fact that the Commander is a Spectre I don’t know much about the group. How similar are they?”

“Salarians lack numbers, brute strength, military prowess. Have to rely on stealth, intelligence. Agents trusted, given wide operative freedom. Spectres similar. Given goal, told to accomplish. Better funded of course. Didn’t have to buy our own weapons.” the professor joked.

’Ah, so the Spectres and STG are similar to Jedi Shadows then.’ Revan realised. That was good news for her short term goals. She hadn’t had the time to go through each Council race’s military structure in detail just yet but had come across dozens of references to the two groups. Finding out they were individual agents rather than a standing army meant that she wouldn’t need to worry about just being attacked in force if someone decided to take offence, but it did mean bad things about long term combat strength. If two of the major armed factions were based on precision strikes, how useful would they be against capital ship sized attackers?

Probably not very. Which could complicate things later, but Revan would worry about that when she had solved her own issue on that front.

“Well since you were part of the STG you must have kept tabs on some of the groups out in the galaxy right? Any chance that one of them would be willing to help with our mission? I know Shepard isn’t thrilled to be working so close with Cerberus.”

Mordin opened his mouth to answer but before he could say anything he was cut off by the ship-wide intercom.

”Joker to Scary Sith Overlady, we’ve got a problem.”

Revan narrowed her eyes at Joker’s nickname for her, but shelved her annoyance for now.

“What is it?”

”The warden double-crossed us. He tried to take the Commander prisoner and now we’ve got a bunch of mercs trying to break into the Normandy! So, uh, how ‘bout some help up here?”

Revan and Mordin exchanged looks before they both started moving. Mordin reached into a drawer and retrieved an SMG while Revan started heading to the front of the ship. Her long strides eating up the distance.

“I’m on my way. EDI, shipwide alert. Prepare to repel boarders. And get ready to open the airlock. I’ll take care of the ones outside myself.” She ordered, not really caring if she had the authority to at the moment.

“Very well, Revan.” the AI responded as a klaxon started blaring across the ship. “Shall I direct anyone to go with you?”

“No need.” the Sith replied, flipping her hood up over her helmet. “This shouldn’t take too long.”