“You okay, Commander?” Joker asked as Shepard slouched near the entrance to the cockpit and just took a moment to stare out the viewports into space.
“Just fine, Joker. Just need a moment where I’m not trying to ape a politician with the vast amount of experience I don’t have.” Shepard smiled at the pilot. “And besides that, today was just…a lot.”
“I know what you mean. Fighting through an entire battlefield to find one person? Mysterious space fleets coming out of nowhere? And that’s not even mentioning the Reapers…I know we dealt with stuff like that all the time in the old days, but we usually spaced it out at least a little.”
“Looks like we’re not that lucky this time around.” Shepard smirked a bit. “At least EDI got a new toy out of everything.”
Joker side eyed the Cerberus made robotic infiltrator body they had picked up in the Mars facility that their resident AI had taken over and started puppeting, now sitting in the co-pilot’s chair. “Yeah, thanks for not telling me about that by the way. I just about crapped my pants when she walked in.”
That made Shepard raise an eyebrow in turn. “You seriously didn’t know she was going to do that?”
“Okay, let me put it this way: if I knew EDI was going to install herself into a sexy robot body, do you honestly think I’d be able to keep quiet about it?”
Joker held his hands up like he was framing a picture.
“Look at that! I would’ve baked a cake!”
“I am right here, Jeff.” EDI responded drily without taking her new eyes off the panel in front of her.
“Yes you are, EDI. Yes you are.”
Shepard snorted at the back and forth between the two of them before getting serious again.
“Either of you manage to dig anything up about the fleet that appeared at Palaven?”
“Not much, Shepard. Very few of the sensors in the system were in a position to get a detailed look, but we can confirm that the design of the vessels does not match with any known race registered by the Citadel.”
“So we know nothing about them?” Damn it, was it actually a first contact situation? That would be an absolute nightmare. Especially with a group that could put up an even fight with a Reaper detachment. A new species wouldn’t know about the dangers of Reapertech and Indoctrination and even more critically, might not believe it if they were told. That could lead to another Race becoming pawns of the Reapers and being able to launch surprise attacks deep into Citadel space because all defense fleets would be on guard against Reaper ships, not the newcomers…
“Ah, not exactly.” Joker interjected.
“What do you mean? I thought you just said the Council has no record of them?”
“That is correct, Commander. The Council has no records of them.” EDI said smoothly. ”However, there is one ship that shares several design elements in Cerberus’s databases. A wreck that was discovered on Lorek a year ago.”
Shepard made the connection. “Wait, are you saying Revan…?” She trailed off.
Joker nodded. “Looks like our Dark Overlady has been pretty busy. Too bad we don’t have her number anymore. It’d be really useful to have those ships on speed dial.”
Right, the Normandy’s systems had been scrubbed when the Alliance had refitted her. And Shepard’s own contact list had been deleted when she gave herself up after the Alpha Relay incident. Shepard would have to check with Liara later to see if any of her contacts had Revan or Tali’s contact information. Or failing that anyone close enough to them to pass a message because Joker was right, they needed every ship they could get their hands on if they were going to push the Reapers off Earth.
“Well hopefully we can get in contact with her soon. She did promise to help with the Reapers.” Shepard commented. “Did we manage to see how they compared in battle?”
“Only partially.” EDI reported. “We are missing most of the final engagement but it seems that in a direct confrontation the new ships we observed can match a Reaper without being destroyed.”
The Commander perked up. “Revan can beat them then?”
“In small scale engagements with equal numbers at least.” EDI temporized.
“Too bad the Reapers don’t fight fair.” Joker added. “There was some really impressive flying over there, almost like their captains could see what the Reapers were going to do before they did it, and they still ended up needing to limp away because the Reapers sent more ships after them.”
Shepard still ended up smiling. “Yes, but Revan’s fleet proved we can fight the Reaper’s toe to toe. It’ll be bloody, but now we have a plan B if the Prothean superweapon turns out to be a dud.”
It would be an incredibly bloody and long fight, but if they could build enough ships like those to avoid getting simply overrun by the Reapers then the galaxy could eventually win. Or at least she hoped so. She simply had no idea how hard it was to produce ships like the ones they had seen but it was another thread of hope when they only had one other before.
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‘No point in speculating right now.’ She thought to herself as she turned to leave. ‘I have enough to worry about trying to convince the Krogans to help us out.’
-o-
“Commander, I found something suspicious. Do you have a minute?” The voice Specialist Samantha Traynor stopped her on the way to the elevator.
Shepard paused at the call, since it was pretty rare for the Specialist to initiate a conversation. They would talk every now and then thanks to the Commander’s habit of trying to make time to speak with every member of her crew, but it was obvious Traynor despite her rank was more comfortable with lab work and a more civilian environment. Something Shepard had no issue respecting since Liara and Tali had started off the same way and Shepard was even making allowances for the Journalist tagging along with the Normandy, but Traynor was simply taking longer to adjust to living on a ship than any of them that made it obvious she was uncomfortable on the Normandy.
“Sure, what do you got?”
“I found something while scanning Alliance channels. Grissom Academy is requesting help. The Reaper invasion front will hit them soon.”
An Academy had access to Alliance channels? That was a bit surprising.
“I know the place. We needed to send a young man there after an…incident.” That was probably the most polite way she could describe the Project Overlord fiasco. “But I thought it would have closed down already once the Reapers were confirmed.”
Traynor shrugged. “Some of their work has Alliance support. It may be why they stayed.”
And explain why they had access to military channels. Fine.
“Alright, and what’s suspicious about them?”
“I first noticed them because of a distress signal sent by the academy that was answered by a turian evac transport. So normally I’d say we don’t need to do anything. But something sounded off in the turian signal. I had EDI run an analysis.” Traynor pulled up a bunch of charts and infographs on her terminal that meant absolutely nothing to Shepard. “It’s fake.”
Traynor already had Shepard’s attention. Now she had her interest. “Fake?”
“EDI thinks it’s Cerberus. She said the faked turian signal was similar to one that lured you to a Collector ship…?” The Specialist trailed off, looking at Shepard with curiosity. Unfortunately the Commander wasn’t in the mood to explain.
“Long story.”
Traynor got the hint. “In any event, whoever faked the signal wants us to think Grissom Academy’s being evacuated. But I believe they are still in danger.”
Shepard was impressed. Between the chaos of the war and Cerberus’s own skill at hiding their tracks, she bet no one else had picked up on this. “Good catch.”
“If this really is Cerberus, hopefully this operation is worth investigating.” The Specialist continued as if Shepard hadn’t spoken. “It could be simple disinformation…”
“Traynor.” Shepard interrupted. “Good catch.” She emphasized, which got her an uncertain smile from the darker skinned woman.
“Thank you, Commander!”
Now Shepard just had to decide if a detour was worth it when they desperately needed to get to Tuchanka yesterday.
The Spectre and Commander said no, that anything that delayed getting support for the war was a lower priority and would have to wait. The human side told both those sides to fuck off. Jane Shepard wasn’t about to allow Cerberus to get their hands on a bunch of kids for whatever twisted purpose they had in mind.
Tuchanka would have to wait for now.
“EDI, I have a course change…”
-o-
“This is the last of the damage reports?” Revan asked rhetorically as another datapad was handed to her.
“Yes, ma’am.” Her secretary responded. “All ships reported in.”
The Sith Empress dismissed him with a wave of her hand and began scanning the reports.
They were…better than she expected, but worse than she hoped.
Besides the Harrowers, nearly every ship had blown at least one shield generator and several escorts had hull damage from where the Reaper’s powerful main weapons had broken through. None of them had been damaged to the point that they couldn’t move under their own power but at least two were going to have to return to a docking station for repairs and another three needed new components before they could afford to get into another major confrontation.
So five ships ‘mission killed’ in exchange for the near complete destruction of a Reaper battlegroup roughly the same size.
In theory it was a resounding victory – and it was – but Revan reminded herself it wasn’t enough.
She had ‘lost’ five ships at the end of a battle where they had surprised the Reapers with technology they were not prepared for, had Revan’s Farsight countering most of their tactics, and had not even engaged every Reaper in the system.
Yes, she had won the battle. But the moment the Reapers decided to attack her forces with overwhelming numbers was the moment the only strategy she had left was to run.
Revan needed more hulls.
More importantly, she needed hulls that could handle the stresses a large turbolaser battery put on a ship and wouldn’t take months trying to refit everything. Her Geth and Quarian subjects were working tirelessly to produce as many warships as they could, but reinforcing the ramshackle Quarian fleet or redesigning Geth ships for organic habitation were almost as much work as simply breaking them down and building Imperial ships instead.
She needed something already tough enough that she could simply slap a few weapons on, was built for organics, and wasn’t in use by a faction that would demand things from the Empire Revan wasn’t willing to give.
Unfortunately that meant many of the wrecks that populated planets like Korlus were unusable for her purposes.
Oh, the metal was absolutely useful and now that Revan remembered the garbage planet the Normandy had visited in an attempt to recruit a krogan warlord she was absolutely going to send several transport ships to salvage everything they could, but it remained simply another source of resources, not a solution to her problems.
Although, Krogan…
Revan was forced to put those thoughts on hold as the holo-tank in the middle of the room began indicating a call coming through. Seconds later the ghostly blue hologram of Admiral Han Gerrel appeared.
“Admiral, is there a problem?”
“Greetings Empress Revan. I’m sorry to say there is.” Gerrel said solemnly.
“Reapers?”
“I would almost prefer that. We’ve seen an uptick of pirate attacks in the Terminus Systems. We’ve been able to repel any that approach our territory for now but it seems only a matter of time before they attack a world we’ve claimed without a defense force in place.”
Revan frowned.
“I left several Geth fleets under your control. Are you saying they aren’t enough to deter a few pirates?”
Gerrel rolled his shoulders uncomfortably. “Under normal circumstances, absolutely. But I believe the pirates are being backed by Cerberus. I have enough ships to protect our interests, but not enough to rout them out without leaving gaps in our defense.”
Cerberus again. That human supremacist group was quickly becoming a thorn in her side.
“I see, then I suppose you have a plan to deal with them?”
“Of a sort. Your battlegroup would make a great deterrent against the pirates and would be free to hunt down the slower groups. A Harrower and a few escorts split up over our trade lanes would make entire systems much safer.”
Revan could see where the Admiral was coming from. Unfortunately that was assuming her battlegroup was at full strength, which it was not. It also assumed that Revan could split her group up at the moment.
The Empress could spare one or two ships at maximum.
Unlike the Normandy, her Harrower couldn’t slip in and out of systems unnoticed. And after the victory she earned at Palaven she had no doubt the Reapers would jump at the opportunity to destroy her if she gave an opening. Which meant escorts. Especially if she was going to secure the hulls she needed should she find them.
She couldn’t afford to split her group up further and still pursue her goals.
“I understand your concern, Admiral. Unfortunately I simply cannot spare the ships. At most I can direct the damaged ships I have to a world with the capabilities to repair them and you can use them as stand ins for the defense fleet to patrol as you see fit.”
“Empress…that would leave hundreds of smaller ships vulnerable to these pirates!” Gerrel objected.
“I understand.” Revan said evenly. “But it is a sacrifice we will need to make if we are going to stand a chance against the Reapers when they turn their full attention to us.”
And it wasn’t like Revan wanted to let pirates run freely around the Terminus Systems.
“I cannot spare more ships right now, but I have an idea that will give us a boost in the number of ships we can field. Tell me, do you know anything about the demilitarized Krogan fleet?”
“The Krogans? Not much, unfortunately. At the end of the Rebellions no one trusted them with a war ship so the weapons and drives were removed but beyond that I have no idea…wait, you think…?”
“That the hulls might still be around? Yes.” Revan had no issue confirming his suspicion. “No other species but the Elcor are large enough to comfortably use the hulls and from what I understand they do not like space.”
“Hrm, that would solve our hull shortage. If you can get them to move, that is. Weapons we can refit anywhere, but we would need to install the drive cores wherever they are now. Likely Tuchanka. And the Krogans won’t like it if they catch you trying to simply take them.”
Revan clasped her hands behind her back. “Let me worry about the Krogans, Admiral. You focus on curtailing the pirates as best you can. And if you can find proof of Cerberus’s involvement, inform me immediately.”
“Yes Ma’am.” The Admiral nodded one final time and the holo-tank winked off.