Revan gripped the edge of her seat tightly as the shuttle did its best to toss her across the interior of her shuttle as it cut its way through Tuchanka’s atmosphere. Unfortunately for her, the best method of landing on the planet while avoiding detection by the Reapers chasing her battlegroup was to use a storm as cover.

It made the ride down decidedly unpleasant. Especially since she had to use one of the smaller shuttles to reduce the chance of discovery as much as she could. But once she was through the cloud cover it was only a short flight towards Urdnot territory where she hoped she could negotiate for what she was here for.

If possible she didn’t want to remain on this planet very long. The desert landscapes, crumbling stone ruins, and persistent feeling of death in the Force reminded her uncomfortably closely of Korriban, the old Sith homeworld and part of the reason she had preferred to remain on the Normandy the last time she had been on this planet.

The lack of hostile Force Ghosts was a definite improvement though.

As her shuttle set down on an empty landing pad, Revan slowly let her awareness seep out into the Force to gauge the general feel of the populace. She had no intention of starting a fight with the krogan, but when a planet was going through an invasion sometimes the stress made any outsider look like a valid target.

Even a Sith Lady with two heavily armed Geth following behind her.

“Hey, human! You just going to walk away without paying the docking fee?” A krogan in red armor shouted and stomped towards the small group. Revan noticed several similarly dressed krogan were watching from different corners with smirks on their faces.

A shakedown backed up by a group of thugs. She didn’t have time for this.

“I don’t need to pay the docking fee.” She waved a hand while pressing on the krogan’s mind with the Force. To her slight surprise there was a fair bit of resistance. Enough that her command was only partially effective.

“You don’t need to pay the docking fee,” the krogan parroted back blankly before shaking his head and pressing forward anyway. “But you’re using our pad. I think that deserves a few credits tossed our way.”

Revan was forced to stop as the large alien stepped directly in front of her.

She glanced up slightly so her visor was even with the krogan’s eyes and raised an open hand.

“I am the leader of the battlegroup currently fighting the Reapers in the system and I need to speak to the leader here immediately. Move or I will move you.” she said calmly but clearly so the whole landing pad heard her.

“Heh, big words little human.” the krogan sneered. “But look around, you’re outnumbered and we aren’t scared of your robo– ghk!”

The krogan’s hands shot to its throat as Revan slightly clenched her fingers, ignoring the shouts of surprise and shuffling of the other red armored krogan. “It’s not my Geth that you need to be scared of. And I’m not a human.”

“Well whatever you are, you've made your point.” Another krogan, this one in a light grayish armor, said as he approached. “Let the whelp go and get moving.” He nodded his head towards an armored hatch that led further into the settlement. “No fighting in there, though, or we’ll throw you at the Husks.”

Revan allowed the krogan in her grip to fall gasping to the floor and turned to the new arrival. “I need to speak to your leaders.” she repeated.

“Do I look like I care? I just guard the door.” the gray krogan huffed. “You’ll need to find them yourself inside.”

Somehow Revan knew that was going to be the answer. She always seemed to need to do these things personally when visiting new planets…

-o-

“So you’re the one making a mess in my territory.” A large, scarred krogan growled out as Revan was finally able to meet with the Urdnot clan leader after being led to a private room. It seemed this was going to be a private conversation.

“I’d say I’m the one cleaning it up.” She returned evenly.

It was hardly her fault that some of the krogan had tried to steal the Geth accompanying her, or that the one mechanic had taken offense to her explaining how to properly bypass an electrical fault instead of just soldering on some wire and a resistor over a broken path, or any of the smaller incidents that she found herself dealing with while trying to get this meeting.

The supply master seemed happy with her however. Or at least with the fact she was able to unload a large truck full of supplies in seconds without the need to use heavy machinery.

“Heh, you got quad at least. Urdnot Wrex, I’m the one in charge of this dump. I heard you wanted to speak with me.” The krogan – Wrex – introduced himself while giving a dismissive wave at the ruins around them.

“Darth Revan, empress of the Sith Empire.” she returned.

“Revan, hm? That sounds familiar… Ah! You were part of Shepard’s crew, weren’t you?”

The Sith nodded. “For a little while. We dealt with the Collectors together.”

“Heh, heh, well if you were one of Shepard’s then I take it back, I’m surprised you didn’t cause a bigger mess.” Wrex laughed. “So what do you want?”

Revan suppressed a laugh of her own. Empress of an Empire? That wasn’t very impressive. But the fact she was shipmates with Commander Shepard for a while? It was almost expected chaos followed her.

“I want the hulls in the system and everything you can offer against the Reapers.” She said, figuring Wrex was the type to appreciate blunt honesty.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Hmph, not much then. What are you offering?”

Against the Reaper invasion? Anything and everything as long as it didn’t weaken Revan’s forces. Credits, weapons, armor, shields, hell even a planet if the krogan really wanted one, she was ready to offer it all. Even a high ranking membership in the Empire if Wrex was interested. And to Revan’s amused frustration she had found one of the rarest beings in the galaxy in Wrex. A blunt, honest ruler that cared more for the beings he ruled than personal power.

“You can have the hulls for whatever supplies you can give us, not like we can stop you from just taking them. But if you want to use the krogan as your own personal army there is only one price I can accept.” Wrex said seriously.

“And that is?”

“A cure.” He said passionately and Revan didn’t even need to guess the cure to what.

The Genophage. The sterility plague that made it so that only a handful of krogan females were even capable of reproducing…and then reducing the chances that the eggs were even viable to a one in a thousand.

It wasn’t a big surprise that a cure was Wrex’s main demand. Drive off the Reapers, save the galaxy, and return everything to status quo and the krogan would be in the exact same position they had been in for centuries…slowly dying out as despair and rage drove them to extremes in search for a cure on their own or down a path of violence because they did not care for the future.

It was also the one thing Revan could not promise. Not honestly. A problem when dealing with an honest or idealistic leader.

For all the engineering knowledge she possessed, biology was never her area of focus. And even if it had, there was a difference between engineering a better plant and modifying the genome of a sentient race without messing up horrifically. The Geth and Quarians would be little help either. The Geth for obvious reasons and the Quarians because they preferred cybernetic solutions. And both were already fully dedicated to solving the Quarian’s poor immune system that had been a problem for a few hundred years as well. They didn’t have a cure to the Genophage to offer. Even an attempt would be decades in the future.

She could offer anyway, but she had a feeling Wrex was fed up with empty promises and would only react negatively.

“...I can have three carriers worth of supplies here within a few days for the hulls.” She offered instead. “We can work out the specific breakdown of cargo at a later time.”

“Hrmph, that’s not even close to how much those hulls are worth.” Wrex grumbled, though Revan could sense he at least respected that she didn’t make any false promises. “I’ll need more than that if you want them all.”

Revan tilted her head and motioned at the ruins around them. “Those are already generous terms considering the Reapers and to put it bluntly your people aren’t exactly in a position to deny me if I wanted to just take them.”

“Heh, you’ve definitely got quad. Not many have the guts to say they would rob me anymore, but you’re right. I couldn’t stop you.” Wrex admitted. “But understand something, Revan. My people have been used by the Council since the Rachni Wars. We don’t need some pyjak swooping in and claiming they can solve all our problems, but what we do need are allies.” He gave Revan’s Geth a look. “And from what I can see, you aren’t afraid to poke the Council in the eye.”

So a counteroffer after he rejected joining the Empire outright?

Revan didn’t take long to consider it.

Accepting would mean that she accomplished both goals she came for, both gaining the krogan as ground forces – though admittedly in a more limited fashion than she preferred – and acquiring the additional hulls needed for a defense force.

It would probably mean alienating the Salarians, especially if Wrex was pushing for a cure to the Genophage and expected Revan to back him up politically, but the Salarians and Asari tended to move in lockstep. With the Asari Jedi knockoffs influencing things in the background it was already likely the Salarians would be hostile to her Empire at worst and dismissive or obstructive at best.

“I think an alliance is possible. Shall we discuss the deal?”

-o-

“Contact! Left high! Garrus keep their heads down!”

“On it! Three more coming up the right side though!”

“Liara, singularity! Block them off!”

Shepard bit down on a curse as she piloted the hijacked Atlas mech against the Cerberus troopers flooding the shuttle bay. Gunfire pinging off the mech’s armor as she did her best to draw their attention away from the students trying to escape behind them.

“Jack, hurry it up! Get those student’s on the shuttle!”

“Hold your horses, Shepard, we’re almost done! Rodriguez, firm up those barriers! Next two, let’s move!”

Finding Jack working as a biotics instructor for the Academy had been a surprise, a welcome one considering they were fighting off a battalion with a single squad and a handful of students, but a surprise nonetheless. And in another situation Shepard would have enjoyed teasing Jack about how she had managed to go from hedonistic pleasure seeker to mother hen in just a few months but right now she was more interested in getting their asses moving!

Cerberus had figured out where they were going and their cruiser was swinging back around to block their escape. The window they had to escape and join up with the Normandy was shrinking fast.

A pair of troopers ducked around cover and started shooting up the biotic barrier Jack and a pair of students were covering the catwalk to the shuttlebay with. Shepard cursed again and turned the mech to face them but already knew they would duck back behind cover before she could line up the shot. But before they could both of them were surrounded in a blue aura that pinned them in place for just the few seconds Shepard needed before her mech’s MAC gun reduced the two troopers to a red mist.

The Spectre took a second to shoot a glance at Jack, who was still maintaining the barrier and had still managed to assist.

She had finesse to match her ridiculous biotic potential now. That was three biotic techniques at once and even modifying a Stasis on the fly. It seemed the Normandy’s favorite convict had been taking a certain Sith’s lessons on control seriously even after they had split up.

Jack had already been one of the strongest biotics Shepard had even heard about. Now, she was turning into a real monster.

She shook her head and focused on the new group of Cerberus troopers that just arrived. One of the last rockets her mech had left wiped out the whole squad but Shepard didn’t celebrate. Just behind them another Atlas mech was making its way down the hall taking potshots at her and her own squad.

Shepard immediately focused on that and returned fire but her Atlas was already badly damaged from all the earlier fighting. It didn’t take long for the enemy mech to score a hit that disabled her main weapon.

“Kahlee, we’re out of time. What’s your status?”

“Shuttles are unlocked and the students are loading up.” The director of the Ascension Project radioed back. “The Normandy’s pulled the Cerberus cruiser out of position too, we need to leave now!”

“Got it. Garrus, Liara, you heard her! Move it!” Shepard snapped as she clambered out of the damaged mech, but not before setting its internals to overload as one final present for Cerberus. “Jack, get your kids moving. Our ride is leaving!”

“Way ahead of you, Shepard! Rodriguez, move your ass!”

It was a bit of a scramble, but in less than a minute everyone they had managed to keep free of Cerberus was loaded and the shuttle jettisoned out of the hangar. A quick message to Joker to let him know not to shoot them out of the sky later and Shepard finally breathed a sigh of relief.

One mission completed. She could wait until they were back on the Normandy to begin thinking about the next.

-o-

“Hey Shepard. Making the rounds?” Garrus asked as the Commander walked into the main battery room.

“Yeah, figured it’d be good to keep an eye on everyone. A bunch of kids running around the Normandy sounds like a recipe for disaster, you know?”

“Why are you here then?”

Shepard scoffed. “Please, I had to check up on the biggest kid here! Who knows what you’d do to the Normandy’s guns if I left you unsupervised.”

“Heh, sorry Shepard, I don’t have a mirror for you in here. You’ll have to look elsewhere if you want to check up on yourself.”

Both of them laughed at the light ribbing before falling into a comfortable silence. Shepard slightly relished in it, being able to just exist for a moment after so much action demanded is such a short time. But the galaxy wouldn’t wait forever.

“We’re going to be changing course for the Citadel.” She mentioned after a minute.

“Not Tuchanka?”

There was no judgment in her friend’s voice. Just a desire to know if the plan was changing. And it certainly was.

“We need to drop Sanders and the students off somewhere safe and we don’t have another ship that can make that kinda distance. Sounds like Jack is going to stick with them too.”

“Hrm, that’s a surprise. I would have thought she’d demand to be on the front lines.” Garrus mused. “But I suppose it’s nice that she’s downgraded from ‘dangerous lunatic’ to just ‘mildly insane’.”

“Yeah, it’s a bit weird to see her so attached. But I think it's a good change.” Shepard nodded. “And I’m sure she’ll be right in the thick of it one way or another once she gets her student’s settled.

“Aside from that, I’ve gotten some messages from a few contacts on the Citadel that might give us an edge with getting the krogan on board. No details obviously, but the sources are solid.”

Garrus hummed as he fiddled with the readout of whatever calibration scan he was currently running. “Leads are good. You’ll have to fill me in later.”

“I will.” Shepard promised. “But for now I should go. Rounds to finish and all that.”

“Alright, Shepard. Later.” Garrus repeated as she headed out the door.