Illium reminded Revan of Coruscant in a way. Both planets were gathering places for races from all over the galaxy, despite one race being the majority. Both were places where many different cultures came to mix and share ideas. Both were places where buyers could purchase rare or unusual goods that would be impossible to find elsewhere.

And once you dived under the veneer of civilization on the surface, both of them were filled with just as much scum and villainy as places like Omega. One thing that was different between the two, Illium didn’t try and deny the fact there were shady dealings going on. They just used flowery language to make it seem less bad than it was.

Slaves, afterall, were owned by horrible people and no upstanding citizen in Citadel Space would ever consider owning one. Shackling someone with a contract so restrictive that the signer couldn’t even choose the color of their clothes without the approval of the holder and calling it indentured servitude, however, was entirely acceptable.

Revan wasn’t particularly impressed when she heard that from the Illium representative that greeted them once they left the airlock. Shepard didn’t seem impressed by it either, but the Normandy wasn’t here to tear down the social fabric of an entire world by themselves, so they both had to ignore it in favor of more achievable objectives.

Shepard in particular was obviously excited at the opportunity of reuniting with another of her old crew considering the docking fees were paid by one Liara T’Soni and a standing invitation for the Commander to stop by was delivered. Miranda also seemed to have something occupying her thoughts, but she didn’t seem like she was going to share with the rest of the crew just yet.

As the last members of the shore leave party filtered out , Shepard turned to all of them and shouted to make sure she was heard.

“Alright people! We’re not planning on leaving Illium for a few days but that doesn’t mean you get to be completely lazy. Stay close to the ship, keep your comm on you at all times, and don’t be an idiot. You don’t want me coming after your ass if you get in trouble for stupid. If you do, you get to scrub the shuttle till it shines, no tools!” Some of the crew groaned at the thought of having to manually clean the Kodiak. Especially since Shepard could and would have EDI make sure none of them cut corners. “If you get in trouble for any other reason, don’t hesitate to call it in. Other than that, enjoy your time off.”

The general crew split off in groups of three or four while most of the ground team wandered off individually. Some, like Jacob and Jack, wanted to check out some of the weapons on sale while others, like Kasumi and Grunt, were more interested in food. One notable exception to this more relaxed behavior that Revan noticed was Miranda. Nearly as soon as the crew was released, the Cerberus officer had told Shepard she was going to reach out to some contacts and nearly ran off into the city of Nos Astra. Which left only Shepard, Garrus, and Revan standing around the docking port.

“And off they go. Let’s hope nobody gets security called on them.” Garrus mused as they watched their crewmates walk off.

“If they know what’s good for them, they’ll behave.” Shepard said darkly, before turning to Revan. “What about you, Revan? Any plans for while we’re in Nos Astra?”

The armored Sith shrugged.

“Not particularly. I thought about looking into the local culture, learning more about the Asari and their history, but nothing set in stone.”

“Well, if you want to talk culture and history you should come visit Liara with us.” Shepard invited. “I’m sure she would get a kick talking with someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” Revan asked. Her helmet concealed her expression, but the amused tone was easily heard by everyone there.

“I mean, she’s an anthropologist, so she’d love to hear what life is like in another galaxy.” Shepard floundered. “I’m sure she'd also be happy to answer any questions you had.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I mean, she’s a little shy and soft spoken, but she warms up to people pretty fast.”

As the trio walked towards the city Shepard and Garrus regaled Revan with all kinds of stories about their friend from the first Normandy. The Sith half-listened as the two reminisced, she was more focused on observing their surroundings.

Nos Astra was...an architectural inverse of Coruscant, Revan decided after some time looking at the distant skyscrapers on the horizon. Unlike the planet-city from her home galaxy, the Asari seemed to prefer soft curving buildings and angles at the ground level and blocky angular ones higher up. Other than that, Revan wouldn’t have found it too shocking to find a place exactly like this one somewhere back home. She idly listened in on a pair of aliens arguing about stock purchases while Shepard spoke to an Asari that seemed to know her.

It was amusing no matter where they went, Shepard always-

Revan aborted that though and dropped a hand to her lightsabers as a large Force presence appeared suddenly and subsumed the Asari. Garrus noticed the motion and palmed his sidearm, but held off on aiming it since there was no clear threat.

“...Thank you, Shepard. The Rachni will sing again, because of you.” The Asari finished.

“How did you possess another Asari?” Shepard hissed at the near-human, roughly grabbing at her shoulder and glaring at the puppet. “You can’t just take over people’s minds like that!”

She was so focused on the person in front of her that she didn’t notice the behaviour of her teammates, nor the way Revan relaxed a tiny bit when the presence retreated.

“Peace, Shepard. The Rachni Queen does not control my thoughts. That was merely the message I was asked to deliver.”

The two of them continued their conversation, Shepard asking about how and why the Asari was working with the Rachni species, while Revan was quietly reeling from the revelations only she had the full context to understand.

It was not common, even back home, but certain species had a natural connection to the Force that meant every member of the species was capable of Force manipulation at least subconsciously. For some, like the Miraluka, this was often just an extension of basic senses since the entire species used the Force to see. For others, like the Vahla, it was something all of them were capable of but whether the individual trained the ability was up to them.

A species having an intrinsic Force ability to dominate another’s mind wasn’t unheard of either. The Anzati in particular had that ability. Though they used it more for hunting other sentients and draining the life force from their prey than communication.

Finding another species that relied so heavily on the Force as part of their basic biology was surprising, but what the messenger described was the truly surprising part. Somehow, despite being machines, the Reapers were fully capable of reaching out and controlling others through the Force. They had managed to take a force-sensitive race, a naturally peaceful one if the Asari could be believed, and command them to go to war.

Revan had never heard of that being possible. Even the Star Forge, a construct so steeped in the negative aspects of the Force that it corrupted the user and caused the collapse of the entire empire that built it, never had the ability to command the beings it interacted with. Dye them with the worst aspects of their creators, yes. Actively give commands, no.

Shepard and the Asari finished their conversation and the human turned back to both her teammates.

“Well, that was-” She started before seeing Revan still deep in thought. “Revan? You okay?”

The Sith quickly gave herself a mental shake and focused on the human commander. “...we might have a problem…”

-o-

“...So-” Shepard chewed on her lower lip after Revan’s explanation. “The Reapers can use the Force? That’s...unpleasant. No, that’s really fucking terrible actually. Does that mean they can do what you can?”

The Sith lord thought it over, eventually shaking her helmeted head negatively. “I doubt so since according to you Sovereign never showed any signs of any other abilities than it’s indoctrination and possession of organics. But this does mean that both those abilities are far more dangerous than we first imagined.”

“So what can we do about it?” Garrus asked.

“Not much at the moment, I’ll need to think more on this later. For now we should deal with immediate matters. I just wanted you to know.”

“That the sentient killer spaceships are magic now? Thanks, I feel so much better.”

“Enough. We can discuss that later.” Shepard cut in. “Like Revan said, let’s focus on immediate things first.”

Revan could feel that both of them were upset by her revelation, not that she blamed them. But there wasn’t much any of them could do about it for the moment.

The three of them continued towards the address they were given to meet with Shepard’s old crewmate, much more quietly than before; the recent news had killed much of their desire for conversation. By the time they were in front of T’Soni’s office, though, Shepard had gone back to feeling excited at meeting her friend again so Revan was relieved she hadn’t completely ruined the Commander’s day. She knew from experience how much pressure preparing an unwilling galaxy to fight an outside threat was and Shepard was in an infinitely worse position than she was. At least from what the others had said about her, Liara would be a kind and soothing presence. Exactly what all three of them needed at the moment.

“...Have you faced an Asari commando unit before? Few humans have. I’ll make it simple. Either you pay me, or I flay you alive. With my mind.”

Hmm. Either Shepard and Garrus had lied a great deal about their friend, or Liara had changed a little since they last saw each other.

-o-

When Shepard and her group went to meet with Miranda a few hours after seeing Liara she was...less pissed off than she had been. Coming back from the dead really was the gift that just kept fucking giving. Being turned into some sort of super-cyborg science experiment? Fine. Being dismissed as crazy by the Council? Okay. Having one of her friends call her a traitor to her face without the chance to defend herself? Whatever, she could deal with it. Seeing her sweet and naive Prothean scientist warped into a cold blooded information broker that handed out death threats and killed her underlings for spying? That was not something she was prepared for at all.

Her mood hadn’t been great after that and running into Conrad Verner, Commander Shepard fanboy and gullible idiot, hadn’t exactly improved it much. Manipulating the arrogant Asari using him to harass the nearby bar into getting herself arrested did a good job of lifting her spirits though, so when Miranda’s call came in she managed to answer in a normal tone at least.

“Thanks for meeting me so fast Shepard, there’s been a complication.” Miranda said by way of greeting. Because of course there had.

“My sources told me my father has hired Eclipse mercenaries to make a sweep for Oriana. Niket, one of those sources, is going to escort the family to the terminal. While he is doing that, we are going to go along the original route and act as a distraction until they can get away. The other complication is that apparently the Eclipse knows I’m here and might be on the lookout for me specifically.”

Shepard blinked at that. That seemed like a much less detailed plan from what she was expecting from Miranda.

When her XO had told her the story about how she rescued her twin sister from the control of their father, a business tycoon that was so obsessed with having a perfect legacy he genetically engineered his own daughters, and had tracked down her sister, Oriana’s, adoptive family and was moving to take her back, Shepard expected to be quickly relocating the family or at the very least providing security until someone else could. Or at the very least, some kind of cover mission to ensure they got Oriana out safe. The ‘hands off’ approach wasn’t even in her top five scenarios.

“So the plan is for us to get shot down by Eclipse while your sister gets to safety?”

“Eclipse will be under orders to take my sister alive. They won’t risk anything that could kill us.” Miranda reassured the Spectre while leading them to an air car.

“That’s reassuring.” Revan commented sarcastically.

“I hadn’t planned on Eclipse.” Miranda admitted. “...but they never planned on us, either.”

Well, that was probably true, Shepard thought as a slightly feral smile crossed her face.

-o-

“Eclipse mercenary gunships. They’ll be dropping troops in the cargo areas.” Miranda reported even as small arms fire lit up the car they were in. The gunship wasn’t letting them get away either. Any move Miranda made to get out of the line of fire or change course was met with a response from one of the gunships. Their only options at this point were to land or get shot down.

“Put us down in that cover behind them.” Shepard ordered, seeing a decent landing spot near one of the groups of mercs on the ground.

“Let’s hope they really do want to take us alive.” Miranda quipped as she angled the vehicle down. Unfortunately the ground fire didn’t cut off immediately and the air car wasn’t exactly rated for combat. A round hit something important and the vehicle lost power long enough to crash into the ground.

“Everyone okay?” Shepard groaned, shaking her head and looking out the windshield. A chorus of ‘fines’ echoed back. Outside, the mercs had stopped shooting and the apparent leader, a man with glowing orange holo-barriers in addition to the standard Eclipse armor, walked towards them without a weapon in hand.

“Well, I guess that solves the mystery of if they want us alive or not.” Garrus muttered, drawing a snort from Shapard. The Eclipse certainly hadn’t been gentle if they thought there could have been a civilian in here.

The four members of the Normandy team piled out of the now wrecked vehicle and fanned out,

“Since you’re not firing yet, I trust you know who I am.” Miranda projected to the leader.

“Yeah. They said you would be in the car.” the leader drawled. “You're the bitch that kidnapped our boss’s little girl.”

“Kidnapped?” If they weren't staring down a half dozen guns, Shepard would have laughed at the amount of outrage Miranda fit into that word. “This doesn’t involve you. I suggest you take your men and go.” She continued after a brief pause.

“Think you’ve got it all lined up, huh?” the man sneered. “Captain Enyala is already moving on the kid. She knows about Niket. He won’t be helping you.”

“What do you mean, Niket won’t be helping us?” Shepard had to ask. If the Eclipse were going to kill civilians…

“Nothing you need to worry about. Nobody’s going to get killed unless you do something stupid.” Shepard’s fears were waved off. “You walk away now, the girl goes back to her father, and everyone’s happy.”

“Everyone but my sister...and me.” Miranda pointed out.

Shepard smirked. “Well, I’d hate to have twin sisters upset.”

“Is that what she told you? No, this crazy bitch kidnapped our boss’s baby daughter. He’s been looking for her for more than a decade.”

“It’s complicated, Shepard. We share the same DNA, just not the same birthday.” Miranda rushed to explain.

“Not unusual for artificial births.” Revan spoke up for the first time.

“You took a baby from the richest guy in the galaxy, lady. I don’t know what your damage is, but you aren’t getting away with it.”

It figured the one time they got a merc leader willing to talk things out it was when the right thing to do was a matter of perspective, Shepard lamented. The man even seemed pretty decent for a merc and if their positions were reversed she could easily see herself making the same arguments. Of course Miranda had also shared a few stories about what it was like growing up under her father and Shepard wasn’t going to willingly let someone get put through that after they had already spent their entire life growing up in a loving environment. Miranda’s father didn’t want a child. He wanted a VI in human skin.

She frustratedly rubbed at her forehead. “Look, maybe we should be talking to your captain about this.”

“You don’t want to talk to the captain. She’s not as...polite...as I am.” The merc deflected instantly and set off warning bells in the back of Shepard’s mind. Why was the ‘polite’ one being sent to deal with the car they knew Oriana wasn’t in? “She’s the best commando I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen her pull people in half with her biotics. And she’s getting paid a lot to stop you.”

That threat might have been effective if Shepard had any idea who the man in front of him was. As it stood ‘the best commando he’s seen’ implied he saw a bunch of them. But the first Normandy had fought Benezia, Asari Matriarch and one of the most deadly combatants they had ever run into. Whoever this Enyala was, she had nothing on her. And since the man never introduced himself-

Shepard nearly slapped herself as she figured out what was going on. He was stalling her! If he managed to talk her out of the fight or he wasted enough time that her team couldn’t get to the terminals in time, either way he won! Time to get moving then. But since he gave them a chance to back out, Shepard felt it was only fair to do the same.

“You’re not getting Miranda’s sister. If you push this, it’ll go badly for you.”

The merc proved that even if he was more polite than normal, he wasn’t much smarter. Instead of moving away in case a fight kicked off or giving up, he stepped closer to Shepard, possibly expecting his holo-shields to protect him from a sudden attack. “Captain Enyala ordered us to give you one chance to walk away.” And now the merc was back to sneering. “But this whole time we’ve been talking, my men have been lining up shots. When I say the word, we unleash hell on your squad.” In the distance a fuel cell started drifting over the other Eclipse mercs. A quick glance at Revan told Shepard the Sith had also noticed and her hand was twitching in a pre-arranged hand signal for ‘ready’. They obviously weren’t talking their way through any time soon and they were on a schedule, so the Commander decided now would be a good time to get things rolling.

“...-ant things to get ugly.” The leader had been saying something but Shepard hadn’t been listening to him for a bit. Instead, she reached out and with a brief burst of cybernetically assisted strength, snapped the leader’s neck with no fanfare.

Miranda and Garrus were on top of things as well, both of them gunning down the closest mercs before they could run for cover.

The last of the mercenaries were taken care of when Revan blasted them under the hanging fuel cell with her telekinesis and then dropped the fuel cell on top of them half a second later. If the multi-ton mass of fuel and metal didn’t kill them, the resulting explosion certainly finished them off.

“Come on! We need to get to Niket!” Miranda exclaimed and started moving further into the cargo area.

“Hold on, Miranda! What was that about you taking a baby?” Shepard shouted after her XO but started following after her anyway.

They were interrupted by another handful of mercs, but between Shepard and Miranda’s biotics, Garrus’s marksmanship, and Revan’s Revanness they made quick work of them. Apparently quicker than Miranda might have been hoping for because she kept looking for any excuse to dodge the conversation.

“Hang on, I’ve got one of their radios. I’ll patch us in, see if I can get an idea what we’re up against.” She tried before turning back to the Spectre’s unamused face. “...Alright, I owe all of you an explanation.” Miranda folded in on herself. “Oriana is my twin, genetically. But my father...grew her when I was a teenager.” She clarified. “She was meant to replace me. I couldn’t let my father do to her what he did to me. So I rescued her.” Miranda smiled softly. “She’s almost a woman now.”

“And you didn’t bring up she was a kid because…?”

“She’s not a child; she’ll be 19 this year. But...well, it didn’t seem relevant at the time, I suppose.” The Cerberus officer clearly looked uncomfortable sharing even this much, but she continued on. “There are people who’d use her against me. I’m very protective when it comes to Oriana. I’m sorry I didn’t trust you sooner. You deserved to know.”

“So why a baby though?” Garrus asked. “From what the merc was saying your sister would’ve never wanted for anything. Would leaving her with your father been so bad?”

Miranda scoffed. “If you knew my father, you wouldn’t ask. I wasn’t the first child he made. I was only the first he kept.” That, Shepard hadn’t known. And as Mordin might say; Implications unpleasant. “I was brought up with no friends, pushed to meet impossible demands. I wasn’t a daughter to him. I was...I don’t know what I was.” Miranda pinned the Turian with a glare. “Oriana has had a normal life. I made the right decision.”

Garrus held his hands up placatingly and Shepard jumped in to prevent any more time being wasted. “If Eclipse knows where Oriana is, they’ll be moving in on her soon. We should hurry.”

“Agreed. I’m a bit worried by what the merc said. If they’ve got to Niket somehow, this is going to be harder than I planned.”

“And Niket can be trusted?” Revan asked from the back of the group.

“Absolutely.” Miranda said with no hesitation. “Niket is one of my oldest friends. I guess you could say he was my only real friend. He’s the only person I didn’t cut ties with when I left my father.”

“Could your father be trying to use him to get to you?”

“I’m sure he’s tried but Niket’s one of the few people who understands what my father is really like. I trusted him with my life when I ran away back then. He won’t betray me now.”

“Hmm.”

The group started moving again and Shepard dropped back closer to Revan.

“You seem to have issues trusting Niket’s on our side. Care to share with the class?” She whispered conversationally.

“Force premonition. I have a bad feeling about the whole situation.” the Sith lord muttered back. “Could be nothing, but…”

Shepard frowned. Could Niket have betrayed Miranda? The woman herself was convinced there was no way but Eclipse had found out about the plans for Oriana somehow.

The Spectre’s train of thought was snapped off that topic by the sudden appearance of more mercenaries. The humans and the turian all dropped into cover by reflex but their resident elf continued striding forward with purpose. Revan casually lifted a hand, and all the mercs, and threw them into the walls with another gesture. Shepard scowled as she remembered exactly why she and Revan decided it was best for them to be on separate squads. There was no call out, no indication of what she was doing. Revan just acted and expected the rest to fall in behind her.

Considering they were racing the clock Shepard wasn’t going to make an issue of it now but she was certainly going to complain later.

The four of them continued through the cargo area and ran into several groups of Eclipse mercenaries, but they barely slowed down at all. Revan tended to repeat her trick on the smaller groups which meant Shepard and Miranda could save their biotics for the larger ones without worrying about overheating their amps or tiring out as much. That meant sometimes as many as half the mercenaries from each group were ripped apart by a shockwave or a biotic explosion before the others were put down by gunfire.

They were doing so well in fact, that several requests for backup had filtered in from the hijacked radio feed Miranda had found. Most of them had been answered by orders to just keep throwing more mercs or mechs at them but finally Enyala seemed to have had enough with their group.

“Divert everyone except my guard from Niket. I’ll handle him and the kid personally.”

“Dammit, I’m not letting her get Oriana.” Miranda snarled and unloaded her SMG into a merc that was unfortunate enough to get trapped in a Lift field.

“We’ll get there.” Shepard reassured her, but they all started moving faster anyway.

They had just finished off the final group guarding the elevator up to the terminal areas when the radio chirped again.

“Niket has reached the terminal. He’ll switch the family over to our transport.” Captain Enyala said and Miranda slowed to a halt, staring forward uncomprehendingly.

“Niket? But...that can’t be right…”

The Cerberus officer burst back into motion, storming into the elevator. The rest of the squad followed behind her and Shepard quietly punched in the right floor.

“Maybe the captain knows we're listening in and she’s feeding misinformation about Niket making a switch.” Miranda suggested. “Or maybe it means something else. Niket wouldn’t do that. Damn it, why won’t this thing go any faster!” frustration bled into her tone and she slammed her omnitool into the controls, overloading it. Shepard was positive Miranda was going to burn out something in the elevator but they were moving faster now.

“What makes you so sure Niket wouldn’t turn on you?” Shepard asked gently. Miranda was normally professionally distant with everyone, there had to be a reason she was so sure of his loyalty.

“He could have turned on me when I ran away. I’m sure my father tried to buy him off. If he didn’t do it then, why would he do it now?”

Shepard could think of several reasons why but if it was a recent thing and had nothing to do with Miranda personally…

“Did Niket know you took Oriana from your father?”

“No, he just found out about that recently.” The Cerberus agent looked pensive. “I never really thought about it, but maybe...no. He’d have to understand why I did it. He knows what I went through.”

Revan’s warning was still in the back of Shepard’s mind but she did her best to reassure her XO. Everything could be explained when they reached Niket.

-o-

Unfortunately it seemed like there was no misunderstanding over the radio. When the four of them made their way out of the elevator, they ran straight into another group of Eclipse, a human man, and a transport officer.

Given that the man recognised Miranda and was clearly not here against his will…

“This should be fun.” One of the mercenaries commented, dropping off a crate and pulling out a shotgun. Shepard’s squad pulled their own weapons in response. The transport office glanced between the two now armed groups and decided she wanted to be anywhere but here and took off running. A poor move, considering the Asari Shepard was pretty sure was Captain Enyala took the opportunity to shoot the fleeing civilian in the back.

“What now, Miranda?” Shepard wasn’t really sure what the Cerberus agent wanted but if they started shooting now, Niket would surely be killed in the crossfire. Traitor or not, she didn’t think he deserved to die without at least explaining why he did it.

“Why, Niket? You were my friend. You helped me get away from my father.”

Niket had been sweating heavily even before they had discovered his role in things, something that only intensified now that Miranda had a gun trained on him, but he was still able to speak just fine. “Yes! Because you wanted to leave. That was your choice! But if I had known you had stolen a baby-”

“I didn’t steal her! I rescued her!” Miranda snapped.

“From a life of wealth and happiness? You weren’t saving her! You were getting back at your father!”

That rang hollow to Shepard, especially if Niket had known Miranda long enough to have no issues helping her escape from her father. It was only after Miranda had actually included Niket in the full story with Oriana that he immediately sold out to her father.

Shepard thought she had Niket pretty well figured out. At least the broad strokes.

He was the kind of person that would never hurt a friend as long as he couldn’t come up with a justification for it, but when there was a grey area he tended to think about himself first. Giving Miranda’s father information about her when it was clear she wanted nothing to do with her father anymore he couldn’t justify, but returning someone else to that same life because Miranda had taken her? And getting paid ‘a great deal’ in the process? That he could do.

“And what about the girl’s family?” Revan asked from the side. “They’ve been all she’s known for years.”

“Her father can still give her a better life.” Niket justified.

“You don’t know what he wants for her!” Miranda hissed.

“I know that I’ve been poor, Miri. I didn’t much care for it.”

“He wants to take a girl from the only family she’s ever known. Doesn’t that tell you what he really is?”

“And what about the girl’s current parents?” Revan spoke up again.

“What about them?”

“What happens when they don’t want to give up their daughter to some stranger after being kidnapped by mercenaries?”

The sudden uncertainty on Niket’s face showed that he hadn’t considered that far but now that it was brought up he kept looking between the mercenary captain and the civilian she gunned down.

“I’m not stealing her. I’m rescuing her.” Enyala said sarcastically, parroting Miranda’s earlier words. “We’ve wasted enough time. Let’s finish this up and get out of here.”

“Take your best shot.” Miranda growled.

“I was just waiting for you to finish getting dressed.” The Asari bantered. “Or does Cerberus really let you whore around in that outfit?”

“Odd comment, considering the stereotypes about Asari.” Revan bantered back.

While that was going on Shepard turned slightly to Miranda. “If your father knows about Oriana, we’re going to need a new solution.”

“Miranda’s father has no information about Oriana.” Niket said, guilt creeping into his voice as he realised his actions were likely going to get the girl’s family killed. “I knew you had spy programs in your father’s systems, Miri, so I kept it private. I’m the only one who knows.”

“Which means you’re the only loose end. This isn’t how I wanted it to end, Niket. I’m going to miss you…” the Cerberus operative said coldly as she aimed at her ex-friend’s head.

Shepard grabbed her arm and pointed the gun away before she could fire. “Miranda, wait! You don’t have to kill him!”

“This has to end here, Shepard!” Miranda yelled at the N7. “My father won’t stop trying to find Oriana.”

“So have Niket help...talk to your father. Say that we got here first.”

Hope bloomed on the man’s face. “I’ll...I’ll tell him that you hid her. That I don’t know where she is.”

“Fine.” Miranda spat and turned to Niket. “I never want to see you agai-” BLAM!

Everyone’s eyes went wide as Enyala planted her shotgun to the back of Niket’s head and pulled the trigger. Without even basic shielding to protect him, the man’s death was at least mercifully quick.

“Done. Now if you don’t mind, I have a shipment to deliver.” Enyala said cockily.

That...turned out to be a bad thing to say.

All the pent up rage, betrayal, and fear that Miranda had been dealing with was focused solely on the mercenary captain. The Asari was suddenly fully enveloped in Miranda’s biotics as the Cerberus Operative caught the alien woman with her barriers down. Then she slammed Enyala directly into the metal floor from twenty feet in the air. Then she did it again, and again, and again.

By the time Miranda released what was left of the captain, all that remained was some ruined armor, a dent in the floor, and a very large puddle of blood.

But the other members of the squad hadn’t been idle either. The other Eclipse opened fire the instant Miranda attacked their leader. They just suddenly found themselves on the other side of a Council Spectre, her very competent sniper support, and a Sith Lord. The mercs didn’t stand a chance.

-o-

“There she is.” Miranda said softly as the squad watched Oriana’s family from a distance. “She’s safe...with her family.”

“Not all of her family.” Shepard whispered back.

Her XO shook her head. “The less she knows about me, the better. She’s got a family. A life. I’ll just complicate that for her.”

“She doesn’t need details, but would it be so bad for her to know she has a sister who loves her?”

“I guess not…” Miranda stared at the distant family, naked longing in her gaze.

Commander Shepard smiled. “Go on...we’ll wait here.”

As Miranda walked off to go meet her sister for the first time in years, Shepard moved next to Revan.

“You stopped her from killing Niket.” Revan commented neutrally.

“You didn’t stop Enyala.” Shepard returned, equally neutral.

The two watched as Miranda introduced herself to Oriana and the entire family. It was obvious Miranda was out of her element, but she was making an honest effort to make a connection.

“He hurt her.” Shepard continued. “But she still cared about him. She would’ve regretted it later I think.”

“And she would have spent every day after wondering if today was the day he betrayed her again.” Revan replied. “Better it was solved decisively.”

The Spectre glanced at the armored Sith out of the corner of her eye. She had a theory about the elf starting to take shape.

“You’ve been betrayed a lot, huh?” Revan actually lost control of herself enough to twitch at the question.

“You know, I owe you a lot for what you’ve done. But maybe you need someone to open up to as well? I think I’d like to know the real story of how you ended up in our neck of the woods one day. If you think you could open yourself up to trust us with that.”

It was a reach. Shepard had been planning on getting closer to the elven women before poking around her past, but this encounter had shown that Revan might be hurting in her own ways and the Normandy Commander felt she owed her to at least offer a non judgemental ear. It was the least she could do.

“...”

Revan was silent for a long time. Long enough Shepard was starting to believe the other woman was ignoring her. She opened her mouth to say something else but Revan beat her to it.

“Maybe you’re right. Perhaps it is time I start confronting the wounds of my past.” Revan’s armored visor turned to meet Shepard’s eyes. “Not now, of course. But perhaps sometime soon.”

The N7 nodded, happy enough with that result, and turned back to watch the family reunion.