Shepard and Miranda were making Jacob severely uncomfortable. The amazing thing was that neither woman had said a word, neither had so much as looked at him or—as a matter of fact—at one another. Jacob could almost imagine both of them surrounded by mass effect fields that prevented them from noticing or interacting with one another.
Miranda sat at the shuttle controls, calm, collected, unruffled—exactly how Jacob was accustomed to seeing her.
Shepard sat with her eyes closed in her much-despised heavy armor, clearly pulling herself together in a sort of pre-mission meditation. Or, Jacob amended, that was how it looked to him.
And yet there as a sort of hum in the air, a tension that he couldn't quite describe but which was definitely generated by his fellow teammates. It wasn't hostility…more like 'armed neutrality', a sense of situational awareness that made the skin around his headjack tingle.
Miranda spoke first, and only because her remark was pertinent. "We're nearly there, Commander."
Shepard stood up, one hand expertly finding the handhold nearest to her, like a passenger on a subway. "Anything I should know, Agent Lawson?"
'Agent' and not 'Operative'. No one missed the subtle statement there.
So it was to be a mutual attitude of 'strictly business'. Jacob had the gut feeling that if anything would keep those two from butting heads it would be keeping everything strictly business—no personal questions, no discussions of ideology, no comparison of likes and dislikes. They could function professionally—though what else people would expect he wasn't sure.
It was the downtime that left him feeling uneasy. Both women were very used to certain roles—so what happened when team dynamic went inactive and left them to their own devices during off-duty hours?
Or maybe it was just the tension making him uncomfortable: it was entirely possible—given what he knew about Miranda and guessed about Shepard—that neither was ever really 'off duty'.
-J-
"The Illusive Man put us under your command." Miranda was used to giving orders but was also used to tailoring her actions to the Illusive Man's orders. If he said 'it's Shepard's show' then it would be—but that didn't mean Miranda was second fiddle. She did not like not having complete control of the situation, but she knew Shepard well enough to know that Shepard would not make stupid mistakes due to the clash of egos. She would defer if Miranda exhibited that the situation was out of Shepard's scope due to lack of information or lack of options.
None of this meant that Miranda had to like being second-in-command—but given the situation it was a weightier responsibility than most might expect.
Shepard was blind when it came to working through Cerberus channels—she'd need someone who could do that.
Shepard wouldn't want to interact with the Illusive Man more than she had to—so someone needed to do that.
Shepard's contacts were painfully limited, as were the Cerberus-independent resources available to her—so she needed someone who could manage the logistical side of things.
All in all, Shepard's job was simple: point the ship in the right direction and stand in the spray at the prow. Leave the real work to the metaphorical first mate, the navigator, and the quartermaster.
That long list of responsibilities made second-in-command far less…uncomfortable…for Miranda. Though, it was a step down going from complete autonomy, the undisputed director of the Lazarus cell, to being Shepard's executive officer.
Miranda stilled the inner rankling: the mission came first. She might not like not being in control of it, but she was old enough and wise enough to recognize necessity.
And if Shepard got in trouble, Miranda was there to bail her out.
'Being in charge' was all titular at this point—and Shepard was smart enough to know it and accept it.
Control was the thing, and Miranda was very good at assuming control of a situation. In this case, she only needed to be discrete…
…yet something told her that, while Shepard could take charge effectively in the field, discrete tactics were well within Shepard's range of skills.
"Do you have any orders, Commander?" Miranda asked neutrally. She could do this. It would just take discretion on her part. She, Miranda Lawson, was never truly out of control. She just didn't need to parade the fact.
-J-
Shepard was used to giving orders but also aware that doing so when badly under-informed could result in a massacre of her troops. She was also quite certain that Miranda—while not a candidate of Personality of the Year—would be every bit as invaluable as the Illusive Man implied.
As for the personality's shortcomings, Shepard had no room to throw stones: she'd been a rather cool, reserved, driving person for almost all her adult life. The difference was in how it manifested, and in Miranda's case it came with a sense of superiority which the woman broadcast loudly.
Shepard knew what that often meant: insecurities being covered up.
"Our first priority is to find any survivors."
"That's unlikely, Commander," Miranda announced, once she was certain Shepard's sentence really was complete. "No one was left at the other colonies. They were completely deserted."
Shepard took a deep breath—more to quell her inner misgivings than for any other reason. "SOPs, Agent Lawson."
"Be nice to find someone," Jacob put in. "Anything's better than another ghost town."
Shepard smiled at the blatant attempt to moderate an argument that didn't exist. They must, she decided, be making him edgy. Poor Jacob: she sincerely hoped that he never found himself caught between Miranda and herself, even if it was just to back up one or the other in an argument.
There were few more uncomfortable positions she could think of.
"I'm going to land us at the edge of the colony: we can walk in. If that's acceptable, Commander?" Miranda asked.
Shepard maneuvered herself into the copilot's seat. "You know your business, Agent Lawson."