Outlier
Chapter Two: Illusive Machinations
Word Count: 1,366
Watto tries to sell Shepard exactly once.
Light spills from the kitchen, Shmi humming as she flits about a small, antiquated stove. One hand cradles the head a sleeping infant against her shoulder, the other stirring rations in a dented pot.
Jane, panting and aching, leans against the entryway of the backroom for support, taking a break from walking on her thin, shaking legs.
She breathes in the parched air, cold from the setting sun.
Then the baby wails, startled from a dead sleep.
The front door flashes open, slavers storming their little abode, dragging a screaming Anakin from his mother and shoving Shmi face-first into a sand-smoothed wall.
Visored enforcers prowl swiftly forward, blasters at the ready.
And Jane… changes.
A blink and its Commander Shepard who stands there, severe and sharp.
Synthetics flare in her eyes and the faint scars of her face burn red as the slaver closest to her goes flying, a Stasis field freezing the one holding Annie in place. A Singularity lifts and pulls the first away from his mother, the last two, unable to resist its force, get pull in as well. They scream as the blackhole crushes them out of existence, imploded life blood swirling away into the void. Shmi gasps as a blaster bolt fires, the alien thrown to the floor rising with admirable swiftness. Shepard crushes him with a Warp, ignoring the smell of cauterized flesh coming from her wounded shoulder.
Then... silence.
The wild-eyed slaver holding Anakin shudders in place and Shepard's head cocks.
"Shmi."
A whispered croak. "Yes."
The dark-haired slave darts forward, tugging her baby away from frozen hands and escaping with his tiny, trembling form into the back room.
Shepard steps closer, ignoring the way her flesh steams as it seals closed. Adrenaline pulses through her, veins skittering with suppressed violence.
"Who sent you?"
The creature, be it man or alien, lets out a guttural groan.
Shepard pulls a chair from the kitchen, iron clad control holding the Stasis in place with only a thought. Her body may be weak, but she hadn't passed through the hell that was biotic boot camp for nothing.
She sat, legs splayed, forearms resting on the back of the chair, and waited for the pitiable creature before her to give in to fear.
When it does, Shepard quietly disposes of the evidence, fixes the front door and comforts her hosts.
In the morning, a pale Watto finds a helmet placed gently on the shop counter, bloated head still inside.
They come to an agreement after that.
He doesn't mention the bombs still in Shmi and her child's neck, doesn't bluster and make threats. He needs them alive, after all, and standing between him and the feral woman leaning with a thin smile in the doorway of his shop.
Three years later and Shepard's smiles that same sharp smile as she steps into the cantina, breathing in the smell of sweat, despair and feted lost dreams.
It feels like coming home.
Her keen eyes finds familiar faces, those who can give her jobs and those who will find themselves without. She marks them, some for business and some for pleasure. Either way, they were woefully unprepared for what's about to take place.
Most would call it counting cards.
Shepard calls it equivalent exchange.
And if a certain enforcer who'd held her friend a little too tight some four years ago happened to be found dead after an unfortunate game of Sabacc?
Better late than never.
Brokering passage off world was nearly impossible for a nobody waif in Hutt controlled space.
But for Jane? Just because she doesn't wear it proudly on her shoulder anymore, doesn't mean she isn't still N fucking Seven.
And if she vanishes like a Spectre?
She's only doing what she does best.
Shepard reappears on a junkyard planet, 18 parsecs into the Mid-Rim, slinking through ship graveyards, pilfering parts and blueprints.
Her omni-tool flashes in the dark, synthetic synapses compiling and storing information in the depths of her DNA's databases. She searches for what would fit best, ordering and transporting seemingly random pieces of ship-ware across the galaxy with funds siphoned from… uninformed donors.
She is at once the most powerful AI in existence, and the most unknown entity in this universe.
The Infiltrator in her preens, and the Sentinel hums smugly.
Perfect.
She rents a hanger bay at a busy space port, sending her ill-gotten goods on a round trip through the outer rim to get there. Once they all arrive, she poses as a mechanic sent to look through the savaged goods, knowing full well that each container has already been opened by the unscrupulous wankers who run the place and those manning every stop from here to Alderaan.
It doesn't matter. The parts are irrelevant when she has her omni-tool to fabricate the blueprints she has stored. All she cares about are the larger than average traces of beskar embedded in the metal scraps. Those Mandalorians sure knew their stuff.
From there, she has the "junk" transported to a storage bay on some podunk mining asteroid.
Then she starts on the pared down version of SSV Normandy SR-3. A mass effect drive-core may be just outside the realm of possibility, what with apparent the lack of element zero, but a hybrid system fitted for a hyper drive was doable until she figured out how to artificially create the wily blue stuff.
When she finished, her baby would be the toughest "deep scout" stealth frigate ever to not exist in the galaxy.
She'd call it Norman for short.
Jane discovers midi-chlorians when, on a whim, she inspects the inner workings of her cells.
It's a full-fledged siege, her biotic and synthetic nervous system protecting her organic parts and repelling the invaders with contemptible ease. The strange force surges against her body's impenetrable walls with a sort of desperate abandon, uncaring if it dies at the point of contact.
She monitors the strange phenomenon with sharp eyed suspicion, observing the formerly unnoticeable microscopic particles congregating in overwhelming numbers around her form.
One Holonet troll later and she has her answer in the form of weird religious nuttery and scientific fact.
It comes as a shock to discover that midi-chlorians are in everything. Every creature, every plant, material inanimate or animate. Every sentient being in the universe possesses this quality.
Except her.
Figures.
She tests a blood sample, watching the interaction between her DNA and the mysterious substance when she orders her synthetic parts to let it in.
The results are confusing, but promising. After the initial surge, the midi-chlorians seem to merge with her organic cells, strengthening them and causing them to...vibrate, somehow, almost glowing with intensity. Then, they simply... stop.
Jane flinches when she feels something flicker along the mental shields she'd painstakingly built with Liara.
It smacks of Sovereign's indoctrination.
Then-
A knock.
There is no other way to describe it. A knock, hesitant, cautious.
It happens again.
Shepard burns the infected sample with extreme prejudice.
Days later, an old, grey alien with blind, milky-white eyes walks up to her and tells her that she's causing quite the upset.
She apologizes, of course, but kindly informs it that she has no idea what the fuck it's talking about.
"You are a Void." It says, nodding knowingly as if that makes any sense.
She nods along and politely tries to remove herself from the increasingly awkward conversation.
It laughs jovially at her attempts, waving her away. "May the Force be with you."
She tells him to sod off.
The next morning, a Twi'lek toddler grabs her hand and tells her to, quote: "Li'th' to te' For'."
Jane extracts herself, free hand white-knuckled on her retrofit blaster-pistol.
One week later, a long-limbed purple alien hands her a hologram chit for a Republic tourist trap featuring the "Pinnacle of Intergalactic Justice: The Coruscant Jedi Temple".
Thus began her crash course on the interstellar semi-consciousness that oversaw the universe, the religious orders and shadow wars associated with it, and its inane need for cosmic "balance".
She carefully composes her mental response to the entity and sends it off.
"No. Fuck you very much."
