Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic

The longer the ground team moved through the plague quarter the more Shepard wanted to be almost anywhere else. The closer they got to the clinic the fewer bodies they came across, but the worst sides of people were on full display. Her team ran into several skirmishes between the Vorcha and Blue Suns, often needing to cut through both groups to keep moving forward. And Shepard could honestly say it was the only thing she enjoyed about this entire venture. Getting free reign to get rid of some asshole mercenaries and just generally assholish bloodthirsty Vorcha? Sign her right up.

It was the littler things that were starting to pile up.

The ongoing fencing match between her and Revan was starting to wear on her. It wasn’t even something Shepard could put an end to either, they were both very forceful personalities apparently used to being the ones in charge and they were struggling to find a middle ground they could both be happy with. And what was worse was they both were opposites in command style.

Shepard liked to have a plan for her group. Each member supporting the other to make sure the team covered their weaknesses. So for her it was natural that the entire team worked together at all times, a byproduct of over a decade of training.

Revan moved like a force of nature. Anything hostile in her path was crushed or sliced with overwhelming force by Revan alone and the best strategy Shepard was able to come up with was ‘Revan move forward’ and then have the rest of the team support her. What was worse was that Revan seemed perfectly okay with the team only providing support for her efforts.

Both women knew that the strained relationship would need to be addressed soon but by some unspoken agreement they would leave it until the mission was complete. For now Shepard would stick to ordering Jacob and Miranda and Revan would make sure to not drag in Shepard’s squad when she made a move.

On its own that wouldn’t have been a major issue. But on top of the leadership struggle, Shepard also had to deal with the sight of bullet hole riddled corridors, bloodstained apartments, and burning corpses as they moved along. All signs of the slaughter taking place as people either tried to kill off the plague...or kill off the ones they thought were responsible.

Not too long ago she had to scare off a pair of scavengers looting through a dead Turian’s apartment. They might not have killed the owner or really done anything wrong by the standards of Omega, but the lack of any common decency chilled the Spectre.

Thankfully they were close to the small clinic Morden was supposed to be running. With any luck this whole endeavor would be over soon.

After a brief warning from a human guard the four of them walked into a scene of organised chaos. Nurses and assistants rushed from gurney to gurney checking on patients under their care even as new arrivals were directed to whatever free space could be found.

The team made their way through the clinic until they came across an oranged skinned Salarian rapidly giving instructions to the other members of the clinic even as he worked on another patient in front of him.

“Professor Mordin Solus?” Shepard inquired as the team got closer, interrupting the Salarian and attracting his attention.

The doctor quickly stepped away from his patient and scanned the group with an almost negligent wave of his Omnitool. “Hmm. Don’t recognize you from area. Too well armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniform. Quarantine still in effect.” Mordin Solus voiced aloud as he wandered to a terminal. “Here for something else. Vorcha? Crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom, not a cause.” He began to pace in front of the team, voicing more and more hypotheses on why the group was in front of him and getting rather excited the longer he went on. Eventually Shepard decided to spare her team from the Salarians rambling although she noticed Revan seemed amused by Mordin’s speech.

“Relax Mordin,” she interrupted, “I’m Commander Shepard, and I came down here to find you. I need your expertise for an incredibly important mission.”

“Mission? What mission?” Mordin asked, immediately intrigued before visibly restraining himself. “No. Too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Who sent you?”

“Cerberus.” Shepard wasn’t about to hide their involvement. If she was going to build any sort of trust with these specialists, they needed to know they could trust her in turn.

“Cerberus? Crossed paths on occasion. Thought they only worked with humans. Why request Salarian aid?”

“The Collectors have been abducting entire human populations. We’re going to find out why and stop them.” Shepard declared, the strength of her resolve to protect the colonies audible to everyone there.

“Collectors? Interesting. Plague hitting these slums is engineered. Collectors one of few groups with technology to design it. Our goals may be similar.” The Salarian said thoughtfully.

“But must stop plague first.” He said forcefully. “Already have a cure. Need to distribute it at environmental control center. Vorcha guarding it.” he inhaled to calm himself. “Need to kill them.” he finished coldly.

“We’ll take care of the Vorcha.” Shepard promised. Anything to get a handle on this plague so she could leave.

Suddenly alarms started going off in the distance and the lights turned a low red. Everyone started looking around wondering what was going on.

Jacob was the one to voice the question everyone was thinking.

“What the hell was that?”

Mordin’s Omnitool flared to life and he began flipping through programs, moving so fast Shepard was surprised he managed to retain the information they were showing.

“Vorcha have shut down environmental systems. Trying to kill everyone. Need to restore power before district suffocates.” he reported grimly. “Here, take plague cure. Also, bonus in good faith. May be useful against Vorcha.” he handed over several vials and an M-6 Carfinax, a heavy pistol that was a definite upgrade over her current M-3.

Shepard had a few additional questions for Mordin and took the time to ask while her team started prepping behind her. Jacob and Miranda pulled up the schematics of the station and started coming up with routes to the environmental systems, while Revan stood behind them, simply observing. After Shepard was satisfied with her questioning and promised to keep an eye out for Mordin’s missing assistant she joined in on the planning session.

“I’m surprised you didn’t contribute to the planning session.” Shepard said to Revan, her tone neutral to hopefully take any bite out of the comment.

Revan’s inscrutable mask tilted a little in Shepard’s direction. “I didn’t think you wanted me interfering in the operation of your squad.” she said, equally neutral.

Shepard sighed.

“I know. And I still want that.” She admitted. “But I think we can find a middle ground between you listening to my orders or you dragging my team behind you.”

“I don’t think we can.” Revan stated, quickly raising a hand to cut off Shepard’s protest. “I’m not saying we can’t work together. I simply don’t believe we can operate on the same team. Not without one of us being incredibly uncomfortable.”

“You have an idea then?”

“I do. We stop trying to work as a single squad and start acting as two separate entities.”

Revan brought her Omnitool, having learned enough of the basics to at least manipulate the map. “We can try compromising on the larger goals and the approach of any mission, but I think the best thing to do is split objectives between the two of us.”

“Okay, how so? I can’t see us really needing to split up for this mission, but I could see it in other missions.”

Revan took a breath and turned to face Shepard. “I want command of a separate ground team. Whether that means I work alone or with whatever new team members you pick up later.”

That...might work better than what Shepard was thinking but there was a couple things that she was stuck on.

“You know that means you are asking to join up on my mission right? You would be in it for the long haul.” Revan nodded. “And you know that this agreement wouldn’t extend to command of the Normandy. It’s my ship. It goes where I say.”

“I wanted to talk to you about formally joining your group after the mission anyway.” Revan admitted. “I’m getting caught up with your galaxy as fast as I can but I simply can’t trust the people here to have my best interest at heart.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe anywhere you drop me off would immediately result in captivity. You don’t seem the type.” She clarified. “But sooner or later someone will press for whatever technology I could provide beyond what I am willing to give or try to kill me because of my abilities. You don’t have that option because you already need all the help you can get.”

Blunt, and true. Not that Shepard wanted to admit it.

“If that's what it takes for us to stop stepping on each other's toes. Fine, you can have command of a ground team. Not that we will have the members to fill another one out at the moment.”

“You will eventually.” Revan assured, then increased her stride and walked off.

-o-

The ground team had made good progress through Vorcha territory in Revan’s opinion.

The creatures were vicious and quick to attack, but between the human’s coordination and her own array of skills they were quickly slaughtered anytime they were encountered.

Shepard was turning out to be exactly the kind of officer Revan would have wanted in her own armies if she had remained in her own galaxy. Swift, decisive, and deadly but not so eager to kill everything that it would result in the failure of the mission.

They had come across Mordin Solus’s assistant after Revan convinced them to detour on their route, guided by a whisper in the Force. It meant revealing Revan could sense presences remotely, but having made the decision to join with the Normandy crew Revan’s abilities would slowly be revealed anyway. Best secure some goodwill by being forthright than needing to deal with the Human’s suspicions when they wondered why Revan didn’t do so in the past.

Shepard had managed to pacify a few Batarian civilians ready to lynch the assistant for trying to spread the plague further by managing to calmly point out it was foolish for a human to be spreading the plague in Vorcha territory when they were already immune. It might not be immediately noteworthy but Revan knew it was hard to come directly from a battle and pursue the peaceful option, especially when the heart was racing and adrenaline pumping.

That kind of level headedness was surprisingly rare.

Revan retrieved her lightsaber from the skull of one of the larger aliens, a krogan if she recalled correctly. If there was one thing that annoyed her about combat in this galaxy it was the lack of energy weapons. It was surprisingly annoying to face groups of enemies and not have the option of redirecting blaster fire back into them. She might need to add a blaster of her own if she wanted any longer range options other than her force abilities or throwing her lightsabers.

Jacob checked their route on his omni. “We’re close to the environmental controls. Let’s get that cure in, then hit the fans.”

They were met by an unarmed Vorcha (though there were others pointing weapons at them in the background), the only thing that stopped Revan from blasting it with lightning was that it was the first one that said something other than death threats and inarticulate screams.

“You no come here.” the creature hissed. “We shutdown machines, break fans!” It gestured violently towards the control panel, “Everyone choke and die! Then Collectors make us strong!”

“I suppose that confirms where the plague came from.” Miranda muttered as she moved to a better position.

“You think they realise they are going to die along with everyone else?” Jacob added his two credits.

“I don’t think forward thinking is something Vorcha do.”

Shepard, finally having someone with clear intel on her quarry, tried to get just the tiniest bit more information. “What do the Collectors want?”

The Vorcha was too stupid, or perhaps uninformed, to realise Shepard wanted to know about the larger goal of the Collectors. It snarled in rage as the rest of the Vorcha took more hostile stances. “Collectors want plague! You work for doctor, turn on machines, put cure in air. We kill you first!”

With that violence was imminent. Revan raised a hand, small arcs of Force generated lightning dancing across her fingers, and prepared to fry the annoying creature in front of her.

“Revan! No lightning! We need those controls intact!” Shepard called over the sound of gunfire.

Revan wanted to roll her eyes, a useless gesture due to her helmet, at the implied lack of control but a new threat diverted her attack anyway. Instead of a torrent of lightning leaping from her fingers Revan made a clawing gesture at an incoming rocket, stopping it dead in the air even as it’s engine struggled to propel it forward. With another crushing gesture the explosive detonated harmlessly between all combatants.

The others hadn’t been idle either. Before Revan could do anything else the last Vorcha fell backwards, dead.

Miranda stalked over to the control interface and started manipulating the holographic displays. “Looks like the Vorcha didn’t break anything. The cure is ready for upload. Once we activate the fans, the plague will be over.”

Shepard tilted her head like she was listening to someone, likely a tech still on the Normandy. “Fan controls are on either side of the room. All we need to do is activate them.”

“Then we should split up and cover both fans at once.” Revan proposed moving off towards the right side of the room. Shepard nodded and took her squad towards the left.

On her own and no longer restrained to moving with a group, Revan opened herself up to the Force and reveled slightly in the feeling of power infusing her being. She marched confidently down the pathway, lightsabers forming a wall of red and blue light as she blocked dozens of rounds shot at her by defending Vorcha. She redirected an oncoming rocket into the back of an approaching Krogan and felt its death echo in the Force.

And then she was among them. Lightsabers slashing out with impunity against armour meant to deal with kinetic force, not the beams of energy they were confronted with.

“Shepard, I’ve reached the fan controls. Are you ready to activate your side?”

Gunfire was audible over the connection. “Not yet, we are almost through though. Go ahead and hit the controls. We should be done in a minute-” there was the sound of an explosion in the background. “-and we’ll meet you back by the main door.”

Revan snorted in amusement, didn’t Shepard just tell her to limit her use of collateral damage around sensitive machines? Hypocrite. She pulled up the program Jacob forwarded to her omni and executed it. Outside of the control room giant fans groaned as they started spinning up, joined minutes later by the ones on the other side of the room.

-o-

“Environmental systems engaged. Airborne viral levels dropping. Patients improving. Vorcha retreating. Well done, Shepard. Thank you.” Was the first thing Mordin said to the group when they returned to the clinic.

Revan was happy to leave the Commander to deal with the doctor and his strangely naive assistant. In the end most people were satisfied that the district was on the road to recovery and Professor Solus set out to gather whatever things he needed transferred to the Normandy.

“Third mission out and we saved an entire district. I could get used to that kind of outcome.” Jacob said as he stretched contentedly. Miranda scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Shepard matched his grin.

“I won’t say no to helping people, but it’d be nice if we could get a simple straightforward mission for once.”

Revan was intrigued. “What were your other missions like if this wasn’t considered straightforward?”

Shepard ticked them off on her fingers. “A ghost town of a colony where we ran into a delirious Quarian who escaped a Collector attack by luck, a downed ship that turned out to contain a magic warrior elf from another galaxy, and now a pickup of a Salarian doctor that ended with us curing a plague. Simple would be nice.”

“I guess one could hope. Are we returning to the ship?”

“Yep, now that you and Mordin decided to join up I need to get you up to speed on the mission. And I want to know more about how you can shoot lighting from your fingers.”

Revan nodded, internally debating how much she should reveal about the powers of the Force to a galaxy that seemed to have little to no knowledge of it.