Jane Shepard didn't know exactly what she was seeing. Or even what she expected, really. A convict, yes. A biotic, that was in the file. A woman in nothing but straps for a shirt and a grudge against the whole of Cerberus? The whole of the Alliance probably hated Jack. Jane kind of hated her, with the brusque exterior and the rash attitude.
"I want access to Cerberus files. I need to find something in there. I want full access," she said, jabbing her fingers like daggers at Jane. All knives and edge.
"Done. Anything else?" Jane asked, composed and the soldier she had to be.
Jack backed away, her sharpness was still there but now it was wary and cautious. Like a cornered animal that was suddenly given an escape out of the bear trap into another cage. Her eyes flicked to the pistol pointed at her, then to Jane's face. "I don't fucking know, kind of hard to think when a damn space station is falling down around you!"
"Good point. I'll take that was a yes. Miranda, Jacob, let's get outta dodge."
The run into the airlock was a bit more desperate than Jane would have preferred. She was breathing hard as she slid in at the last second, letting the other go first as she laid down cover fire.
"Hah, military brat's breathing hard," Jack said from her corner where she was also recovering her breath.
"Not born... into the military," Jane corrected her, looking at the other woman without fear. The wolves couldn't see the soldier falter here. Cerberus, the Tenth Street Reds, she was just as watched for everything she did.
Jane didn't understand some days why she was called a hero. She tried to do good, but sometimes you can't wash the past away.
"Pfft," Jack snorted, "you act so uptight that I figured you for a spacer kid. Tch, let me know if you want that stick up your ass removed."
"Well, I'll be sure to do that after we ensure that you aren't dying of ink poisoning," Jane said as she moved to the unsealing airlock door.
"Bitch."
Jack shoved Jane to the side and went into the ship first. Miranda was right on the inked terror's heels, and whispered to Jane, "we'll monitor her closely, Shepard. Don't worry."
"Good. Don't let her catch you, she might tear the whole goddamn ship apart," Jane replied.
"To be fair, there are only three biotics on board that can do that, and you're one of them. Besides, your scars haven't healed yet, and we're not sure if you biotics have somehow fluctuated due to the reconstruction."
"You mean the Lazarus project, which I still have nightmares about?" Jane asked, a bit more aggressively than she would have preferred. "Tch, some days I'd rather be dead."
With those icy words in the air, Jane headed for the armory, feeling the relief of the armor sliding off with each moment. She arranged each carefully, because the soldier required to be organized, efficient. She held her pistol for a moment, then put it away along with her shotgun. She lingered for a moment before going to her quarters to change into her 'civvies' or her fatigues. The last garments of the Alliance. Shepard touched the N7 gently, as if she was going to wipe the paint away with anything stronger than brushing her fingers over it.
"So now the Cerberus bitch is giving orders for me to debrief?" Jack said as she charged into the armory. The glow of a charged biotic was obvious and clear, Jane knew it well enough to throw the chestplate into her locker and move to Jack.
"We do a mission, we see if you're not going to rip the ship in half, then we all go to our quarters or wherever and we all did it by the book because as long as Cerberus is happy, we all don't end up Collector test subjects, got it?" Jane was forceful, and her anger triggered her own biotics, so they were waiting for the other to flinch first.
Jack lost, leaving with only a snarl and complaints a small child would make about a long car ride or that she was partners in school with someone she didn't like.
It was then Jane realized that below the sharpness of Jack, there were weak points. It was nothing but a cover for her own mistakes or past. Shepard knew this only because she realized that Jack was everything she had been afraid to become. A crazed gangster with nothing to lose because she couldn't find anything to gain besides money and fear. Jack had a galaxy's worth of gangs to run with, and Shepard only had Earth. Shepard vowed to help Jack during this mission, as much as possible, as often as possible.