Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic - Chapter 80

“Shepard, good work dealing with the Rachni. That could have gotten messy fast.” Admiral Hackett said over the Normandy’s QEC. “But are you sure about trusting them again? We did get burned.”

“The Rachni upheld the deal we made the first time.” Shepard countered. “We can’t blame them for failing to drive away the Reapers on their own.”

“True, but what about the risk of Indoctrination?”

“Revan was able to clear them from any signs of Indoctrination. And after what the Reapers did to her, I don’t think the Rachni Queen is going to be very forgiving.”

“I’ll trust your instincts on this one, Commander.” Hackett nodded. “Besides, we cut the Reaper supply of new Rachni troops and picked up some new Krogan support. I call that a victory.”

“Speaking of Krogan support,” he continued, “what’s the progress on securing their help for the Turians?”

“The last I heard we still didn’t have a reliable cure, but we’re getting close.”

Hackett didn’t look happy at the news, but he didn’t press either. Thankfully he was one of the Admirals that made it that high in command that realised simply demanding things happened faster didn’t always mean it was possible. “We’re counting on you.” He said simply. “I’ve got to get back to it. Watch yourself out there, Commander. Hackett out.”

Shepard let out a long breath as the hologram shut off.

She understood why Hackett needed a face to face after she decided to release the Rachni back into the wider galaxy – again – but feeling like she was a fresh recruit on report was never a fun one.

As she made her way out from the vid comm she gave Wrex a nod, not really in the mood to talk to the Krogan at the moment, but once she realised Mordin was making his way into the War Room – it looked like they were having a conversation no matter what she wanted.

“Shepard,” the Salarian scientist greeted briefly, “tests verified. Results promising. Can synthesize for universal krogan immunity.”

“Good. Then you can put your knife away.” Wrex grunted from where he was sitting.

Shepard was still playing some mental catchup though. “Wait, the cure is ready?”

“No. Still need transmission vector.” Mordin replied, eyes glued to his Omnitool. “Cure useless unless given to entire species.”

Shepard blinked at that.

She had assumed that the cure would be made with a vector already determined simply by necessity. She didn’t think they would have a choice.

But that was why Mordin was the scientist and not her.

“You’re usually full of ideas, Mordin. You altered the Genophage before – there must be a way.”

“Of course. Always possibilities. But time limited. Can’t create new infection strain from scratch.” Mordin said, then began thinking out loud. “Groundwater? No, too slow. Voluntary inoculation risky, population too scattered for airborne, unless, wait, yes!”

Shepard could only watch amusedly as Mordin began frantically manipulating the controls of the holotable, only sparing Primarch Victus a nod as he walked over to listen in on their discussion.

“The Shroud.” Mordin continued, pressing a final key and bringing up a hologram of some Salarian designed tower. “Constant global dispersion of air particles. Built by Salarians to repair atmosphere of Tuchanka.”

He paused and looked across the table before saying more seriously, “Also used by Turians.”

To his credit, Victus didn’t flinch. “We used it to secretly spread the Genophage virus. It ended the Krogan Rebellions.”

“I’d be careful who you tell that to.” Wrex commented.

Shepard sighed. “You know, sometimes I understand why the Krogan want to shoot everyone in sight.”

“Those were desperate times.” Victus offered.

“Yes, yes, but useful now!” Mordin cut in, impatiently. “Original Genophage strain still in storage at Shroud facility. Can use it as transmission vector, then use Shroud to blanket Tuchanka with cure!”

“And reaches every Krogan on the planet.” Wrex grinned. “You clever little Pyjack. That’s our best shot, right there.”

It seemed Shepard had her talk with Hackett too early. In less than twenty minutes they had gone from still trying to develop a cure to having a workable plan of action that – should it succeed – would have gained the Krogan’s support and secured the alliance with the Turians.

She would have to send an update after this meeting.

“Then it sounds like we have a plan.” She said out loud. “Mordin, finish up any preparations you need and let us know when you’re ready.”

“Of course. Ready when you need me. Will be in med bay with Eve until then.” The Salarian scientist nodded before leaving.

The Commander was right behind him as she said her farewells to Wrex and Victus.

She needed to talk to Liara.

-o-

Somewhat surprisingly, Liara wasn’t alone when Shepard found her.

Both she and Revan were pouring over a computer monitor having a tense conversation over something.

“This a bad time?” Shepard asked as she walked further into the room.

“Shepard!” Liara turned to her with a smile. “No, we were just going over some reports. What did you need?”

Shepard raised an eyebrow. “It seemed a little more serious than that.”

“Alongside some more Reaper activity near Tuchanka there have been some rumors about Asari ships sneaking into the system.” Revan explained. “Considering they’ve pulled back most of their ships to their home system and colonies until now, it’s raised some flags.”

“Asari ships? What could they possibly want with Tuchanka? As far as I know, after Tevos refused to join the peace conference the Asari have been keeping the Krogan at a distance.” Shepard said.

“It’s not that they want something with the Krogan,” Liara said, “It’s that Tuchanka is the only place in Citadel space where you can consistently get a good look at Imperial ships. By itself, it’s nothing too surprising. The STG and various other intelligence groups have been doing similarly almost the day after Revan’s ships remained in the system. What we’re worried about is what might have come with them.”

“Liara and I both agree that in addition to Asari black ops teams attempting to get better scans of Imperial technology, there are likely a few Jedi infiltrating the system.” Revan expanded. “What we are having trouble agreeing with is what their objectives will be.”

“Okay, what options are we looking at?” Shepard asked.

“Liara thinks that they will focus on trying to infiltrate the crews reactivating the derelict Krogan ships. I’m certain the Jedi will try to strike at one of the battleships instead.” Revan said, which caused Liara to sigh.

“And I’m certain that is too big a risk for them to attempt. Putting aside how bad it would look for them to attack another major power without provocation right now, there is just no way a handful of Commandos, a few Justicar, and however many Jedi are available to risk being destroyed on approach to one of your ships when infiltrating and gathering information would be better uses of their time and limited manpower.”

“Are those the only two scenarios you’re considering?” Shepard asked, because she had workshopped those kinds of things in training before, and real life rarely ever gave you only two options.

“No, but those are the two we think are most likely to happen without any changes.” Liara admitted.

“Changes like the Sith Empress being back in the system for some amount of time?” Shepard asked.

“Why would Revan, wait… if we’re going to Tuchanka, that means Mordin finished the cure!?” Liara exclaimed, quickly putting two and two together.

The Spectre nodded. “He’s finishing up the final adjustments now. By the time we’re back in the Aralakh System, it’ll be ready for deployment.”

“Then we better be prepared.” Revan said, clearing the reports she and Liara had been looking at and bringing up a completely new set. “The Asari won’t be the only group we will have to contend with if we plan on curing the Genophage. The Salarians at the very least will be monitoring the situation and given the attitude of the Dalatress, will step in to prevent us from delivering the cure.”

“They would, wouldn’t they?" Shepard mused.

She had been expecting some kind of retaliation from the Salarians over the decision to go ahead with the Genophage cure.

Part of her hoped that their interference ended on Surkesh – if Revan was right about the Dalatress letting Cerberus slip through the planet’s defenses, anyway – but the rest of her knew that she couldn’t rely on politicians acting reasonably even when the galaxy was burning.

Especially not one who seemed to have a specific fear of a krogan restoration.

“Right, well what can we do about that?”

Revan leaned forward slightly, causing the shadows to deepen around her mask. “Simple. We have the time, so we create plans and contingencies based on the resources we have available. And when our enemies expose themselves, we remove them.”

-o-

After a few hours of planning how to deal with interference from the STG, Asari Commandos, the Jedi, and possibly Cerberus as well, Shepard, Liara, and Revan all agreed to step away from more planning.

The reality of it was that without more information than they had on hand, there simply wasn’t a point in creating detailed plans for scenarios that would never happen.

And with Jedi potentially being in play, Revan wasn’t putting all of her faith in those plans anyway.

Force Adepts in general were very good at slipping through the best laid traps and surviving things most other beings considered impossible. To the point that the best counter for a Force User was another Force User.

And unfortunately, Revan had a current shortage of available acolytes she could throw at the Jedi problem.

Revan sighed and shoved that thought away for the moment.

As much as she would like to spend time establishing an organization of Force Users to help her counter the Reapers and Jedi making a mess of things… she simply did not have the time.

Between kludging together a somewhat functional empire, fighting a war with the Reapers, and additional shadow war with the Asari Jedi, and dealing with all the issues those things produced, Revan barely had any time to devote to teaching Lymrase.

And the former Jedi-turned-Sith-Acolyte had the advantage of already knowing how to touch and channel the Force. Trying to teach a complete novice…

Revan made a mental note to either make or repurpose the holocron she discovered on Haestrom. It would be vastly inferior to an actual instructor, but it would be a way to start training more acolytes for the Empire.

…if she could find someone she could trust to oversee them properly so she didn’t have a bunch of Acolytes diving head first into Dark Side madness running around her empire because they were desperate to fight back against the Reapers.

“Ah, Master, are you finished with your strategy meeting?”

Speaking of her Apprentice…

“For now. We’ll need to readjust based on what is waiting for us on Tuchanka, but we have a few general scenarios planned out now.” Revan replied, looking over as the Asari made her way closer. “Did you need something?”

“I know we have been busy, but I wanted to ask if you made any further decisions about Teveezra and what is to be done about her?”

It took Revan a moment to place the name. Teveezra was the Jedi knight that had tried infiltrating the refugees while Lymrase had been leading the pirate fleet attacking one of the Empire’s outposts.

Lymrase had surrendered and been turned into Revan’s apprentice, but Teveezra had been captured and mostly forgotten about. Both because Revan truly had been too busy to put much thought towards her, and because Teveezra had remained imprisoned on Revan’s flagship, the Revanchrist, while they had been busy dealing with the aftermath of the pirate attack, then Cerberus’s techno-plaguebearing Adjutants, and then the Rachni.

Out of sight, and out of mind, Revan hadn’t really considered what to do about the captured Jedi beyond making sure she was constantly monitored by Geth guards to prevent her escape.

“I had planned to leave her where she is until she could be transferred to a proper prison facility in the Terminus Systems.” Revan half-fibbed, because that had been one of her plans in the case she wound up capturing more Jedi in the future. Perhaps a prison station far enough away from a planet that even if the prisoners broke free, they would be stuck there unless they managed to reprogram and fly a Geth ship or had outside assistance. “Why do you ask, Apprentice?”

“I was hoping to talk with her.” Lymrase admitted. “By now I’m hoping she will at least be willing to listen to what I have to say, and she deserves to know that the Order is harming the galaxy – even if it’s out of misplaced pride or duty rather than active malice.”

Revan paused to consider it.

Lymrase’s mind had settled beyond the point that casual experiences with something like Dun Möch would be enough to change her allegiances again, and the idea of bringing another Force Adept to her side was an attractive one.

And even if Lymrase failed at convincing her former Jedi companion, there was nothing stopping Revan from simply falling back on her plan to send Teveezra to a proper prison facility – something she would have done anyway since keeping a hostile Force User captive on her ship was just tempting luck to have her break out at the worst possible moment.

So there was really no reason to not let Lymrase try.

“Very well, when we return to the Aralakh System you’ll have an opportunity to speak with her.”

And if Revan prepared a few topics for them to discuss that just showed how this Jedi Order was failing to protect the galaxy like they claimed?

Well, that was just stacking the deck in her favor.