Chapter Seventeen

Revan was breathing quickly, short and sharp, lightsabers clutched tightly in her hands as she stared out through the viewport of the Republic flagship. The blackened world below crackled with lightning and billowed with swirling smoke clouds. Fires so large they were visible from space smouldered, burning slowly but inexorably across huge swathes of land. In orbit, thousands of ships drifted, both Republic and Mandalorian, all crushed so violently that they were now little more than jagged chunks of metal.

She had done this. All of this. She had ordered Bao-Dur to create the mass shadow generator and install it on the surface of Malachor V, and she had instructed Jedi General Surik to use it when the Mandalorian fleet had been irrevocably committed to battle. Surik had followed orders, as always, and now… now there was no more Mandalorian fleet.

Nor was there a Malachor V, really. Not anymore. Anything living on its surface had either been crushed in the initial surge, or incinerated in the enormous, city-sized fires that came after. Shortly it would be all but uninhabitable.

Revan swallowed against a dry throat. And the Republic fleet…

She had planned it well. Only those ships essential to the battle had been utilised to draw the Mandalorians into the trap, and they had been crewed as sparingly as possible, with droids deployed to every station they could manage. But that still meant that thousands of Republic lives had been lost.

It had been unavoidable, if they wanted to finally end the war. A necessary evil. She knew that, and so did most of her generals. If the Mandalorians had been allowed to continue waging war against the Republic, they would have killed billions. This way, only thousands had to die, and they were all either soldiers or Mandalorians. There was no such thing as a Mandalorian civilian. She wasn't happy about the loss of life, but at the end of the day, it had been a simple calculation.

She gritted her teeth, the ridges of her lightsabers digging into the calloused flesh of her palms. She could tell herself it had been a necessary evil and that she wasn't happy about the loss of life all she liked – both statements were true – but that didn't negate the fierce satisfaction she felt for having won. She, a barely minted Jedi Knight, had done something seasoned Republic generals could not: defeated the greatest enemy the galaxy had faced in generations.

She felt a warmth in the Force as Malak approached. His large hand gripped hers, warm and tight, over the top of her lightsaber. Malak was at least a head taller, but he stood close enough that the overlap of their Jedi robes hid their clasped hands from view. That was on purpose. They had become very skilled at hiding their relationship.

"You did it," he murmured.

"Yes," she replied, carefully schooling her tone to flatness. She took refuge in the lack of emotion, acutely aware that satisfaction was not what she should be feeling in this moment, but unable to entirely dispel it.

"What now?" he asked.

"We mop up," she told him. "We ensure the Mandalorian army is completely destroyed."

He nodded. "And then?"

And then… she didn't know. She stared out at the burning planet below. The Battle of Malachor V – if it could be called that – wasn't the first time she had allowed herself to blur the line between the light and dark sides of the Force. She could never return to the Jedi. Not after everything that had happened. Everything she had done.

Not after she had begun to fall, and decided that perhaps she no longer wanted to catch herself.

She had won the war for them, but that wouldn't matter. She would be forced to give up all the power and potential she had found within herself, give up Malak, give up the leadership of the Republic army. Everything she had fought so hard to gain, everything she had discovered she was so good at. The place in the universe she had carved for herself with her own blood and sweat. They would want her to go back to being a good little Jedi, a docile emissary happy solving petty disputes between minor politicians on backwater planets in the middle of nowhere.

No. She couldn't do that. Not anymore.

"I'm not a Jedi anymore, Malak," she told him quietly.

"I know." His voice was gruff.

"I need to keep going." She wasn't entirely sure what she meant by 'keep going', but just saying it felt right. Something was pulling her, calling her onward. Maybe it was the Force, or just her own personal drive – she didn't know, but answering that call felt important.

He nodded again, and she snuck a look up at him. His jaw was set in grim lines that dramatically offset his thick blue facial tattoos, the strength she so admired in him always plain to see. "They'll follow you, you know. Most of them." He looked down at her, and his face softened ever so slightly. "As will I."

A tiny little thrill of excitement coursed through her and she nodded, keeping her face blank as she stared out at the ruined planet below. "I know."

Revan's eyes snapped open, and she blinked in the darkness, breath sounding harsh in the near-silence of Starboard Observation. Her skin was damp, clammy, as though she had just been running. She shook her head, forcing the grogginess to clear. There was something about that dream…

That had been a memory. Not a dream, a memory. A real one.

She took a deep, shaky breath. She'd had nothing but false memories for so long that she had almost forgotten what a real one felt like, but she vividly remembered standing on the bridge of that flagship – her flagship – like it was something she had done no more than a few hours ago. She remembered the vaguely metallic and chemically-clean smell of the bridge, the faint murmurs of the crew working around her, the feel of the solid durasteel beneath her leather boots, the undercurrent of respect and the new but welcome touch of awe floating through the Force in response to her presence. She remembered the feel of her heavy brown Jedi robes as they brushed against her pants, and the weight of Malak's hand as it enfolded hers. The warmth of what might have been love in his gaze as he looked down at her, and the tiny flutter of her own heart in response.

But above all, she could still feel that excitement, the heady thrill of being in command. The satisfaction of achieving a victory no one had thought possible. Even now, she could glance back over her shoulder and almost see lines of followers standing behind her, where they belonged. All waiting for her next order, all ready to put their lives on the line if she told them it was necessary.

She pushed herself up quickly, as though she could shake that memory free with movement. She sat on the edge of her cot, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Sithspit. Her memories were starting to come back.

That was a good thing, right?

She got to her feet and started pacing, unconsciously using the Force to avoid tripping over things in the dark, shuttered cabin. Yes, of course. Of course it was a good thing. The Reapers were buried in there somewhere, and the more she knew about them the better.

For just a moment, though, she had remembered what it felt like to be in power. To know that people would follow her, wanted to follow her, because she was powerful and strong. To be the one responsible for the lives they had granted to her to use as she saw fit.

It had felt right.

She stopped cold. That wasn't the only thing that had felt right. The way Malak looked at her, and the way her body responded to him had felt right, too. The two of them had been lovers.

She spun around, looking for something to distract herself in the quiet, empty cabin. She didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about the way her heart had beat a little faster at his gaze, or how warmth had spread through her when he told her he would follow her. She didn't want to think about any of it anymore.

Quickly she threw on her tunic, pants and boots and twisted her hair up into a tight bun. She palmed the door open and strode past HK. His ocular receptors tracked her keenly, but he didn't move to follow, perhaps sensing she wasn't in the mood for witty remarks about how fun it was to kill people right now.

She knew she should stay in her quarters and meditate, like the good Jedi she wanted to be, but it felt like every muscle was coiled tight enough to snap. She had to do something to work out the tension. Shepard had told her there was a small area set aside for exercise in the shuttle bay; she headed straight for that.

When she stepped out of the elevator, she found Matt Cherry already there, pounding his fists into a punching bag that was half again as tall as he was. His dark hair stuck up in spikes, and in places his shirt clung to muscles she hadn't realised he possessed. Judging by the sweat lining the neck of that shirt, he had been there for a while.

Maybe it was just the agitation talking, but he looked good.

Her lip twisted in annoyance when she realised she was staring. Sithspit, whether he looked good or not, she wanted to be alone. She wanted to deal with the remnants of that memory in solitude, but she couldn't very well just tell him to leave.

He glanced up as she approached and nodded in greeting, gaze lingering on her for a moment, but whether he sensed her lack of desire for social interaction or was feeling the same way himself, he didn't attempt to start a conversation. Instead, he returned to his punching bag, seeming focussed on his form and footwork.

Relieved, she found an empty square of mats and faced out into the silent shuttle bay, quieting her mind as best she could and drawing deeply on the Force. She immersed herself in its currents, letting her awareness of Matt's presence fade to the peripheral.

She began moving slowly, stretching out and warming up her muscles, then stepping into basic movements from the first lightsaber form. As she began to feel more limber, she gradually increased her speed, moving through the various forms one by one. She let the familiar movements take over, focussing on tightening the correct muscles at the correct times and feeling theebb and flow of the Force as it moved through her.

She went from lunging and twisting, blocking and parrying, to leaping and balancing and sometimes even flipping, which was a skill not many Jedi had been able to master without using the Force as a crutch, and one in which she took an unashamedly smug pride. She moved in ways that were highly unlikely to be useful in a real fight, but did wonders for improving her aerial-sense and body discipline, both of which were essential to a Jedi who had a fast, acrobatic fighting style like herself.

She finished with a front somersault, stepping out of it neatly and allowing herself to gradually release her hold on the Force. Letting a breath out in something that was thankfully much closer to calm than she had thought she would attain, she stretched her muscles one by one, cooling down. She was pleasantly sore, and Darth Revan's memories were now safely muted in the back of her mind.

"That was… so cool."

She glanced sharply over at Matt, who was sitting on a bench beside the punching bag. She had almost forgotten he was there. "What?" His hair was even more askew than before, thanks to the damp towel he had slung around his neck. He was sweaty, but still… it was a nice view.

Maybe it hadn't just been the agitation talking.

He stood up, grabbing another towel from beside him and tossing it to her. She caught it. "That was cool. Uh, impressive," he added, as though realising she might not know what 'cool' meant. He laughed briefly. It sounded a little self-conscious. "Blocking bullets with your lightsabers was cool too, but I didn't see you do half those," he waved a hand in a motion approximating a flip, "flippy things on Purgatory. Is that what you can do when you're not babysitting engineers?"

"That was… practice," she explained, feeling a little self-conscious herself as she dabbed at her own sweat. "Exercise."

He blinked. "So you can do more than that? Damn. With moves like that and a couple of laser swords you could… Wait, could you have rescued Jack on your own? Did the rest of us just slow you down?"

Now she felt really self-conscious, and it didn't help that she was suddenly noticing the strong lines of his jaw and the slight fullness to his lips. His eyes, too; they were a warm, liquid green a good few shades darker than her own.

She cleared her throat and broke eye contact. "Of course not," she replied, although she wasn't altogether certain that was the truth. "I could have done more than I did, I suppose, but I'm not a..." what had Shepard called it? "… a super hero."

He grimaced, her words obviously not having the intended effect. "I'm sorry for holding you back."

"You didn't hold me back," she tried to reassure him, though she knew it was a white lie. "You were there for a good reason. I was happy to fulfil my part of the mission."

He eyed her wryly, humour in his eyes. She hadn't noticed before, but his mouth was slightly crooked, giving him the touch of a smirk even when he wasn't smiling. "Very diplomatic."

Unbidden, she felt a faint smile of her own tugging at her lips. "A Jedi must always do her best to protect civilians."

"'Civilians'?" he repeated, holding a hand to his heart as though wounded. "Civilians? I'm no civilian, Jedi." He tossed his towel back on the bench. "Let's go a round, I'll prove it."

She blinked, taken aback. "You want to spar? With me?" Her own ego aside, he had just finished telling her how unbelievable of a fighter she was.

He nodded, seeming far more enthusiastic than the situation deserved. "Yeah. I've seen you fight. I know what you can do. Let's spar. It'll be fun."

She raised an eyebrow. What was going on here? His offer seemed friendly, but there was an undercurrent of something else that she didn't trust. She couldn't put her finger on it. He didn't seem the type for it to be a male pride thing. "Matt, you have seen me fight. I, uh, don't think… Are you sure?" she asked carefully.

"Don't tell me you're scared, Revan," he taunted her.

She grinned, relaxing. Well, if he wanted it to be like that… "All right, but don't say I didn't warn you," she tossed back, moving to take up a position opposite him on the mats. "I hope you're not banking on me going easy on you."

He grinned back, but it had a sharp edge that made her own smile falter. "Hell no." He began to jump around on the spot, loosening up his muscles.

Thanks to the workout she had just completed, she was already loose. She waited, watching him warily. He was well-muscled and could obviously throw a good punch, but with no biotics, no gun, and certainly no Force, she had no reason to believe he could actually challenge a Jedi like herself. If it wasn't quite fun he was after, maybe he legitimately wanted to test his skills against a superior opponent? If so, she could respect that.

Matt stopped jumping and eyed her right back. "Is that your stance?" he asked dubiously.

Revan glanced down at her feet, surprised. She was standing comfortably, legs shoulder-width apart, knees loose, hands free at her sides. She opened her mouth to respond, then felt a ripple in the Force a moment before he attacked.

He darted forward, aiming a solid punch at her mid-section while she was supposedly distracted. He was fast, but she just stepped neatly to one side, shoving his shoulder and using his own momentum to send him stumbling forward a few steps.

"Nice try," she teased, keeping her tone light. "But you'll have to do better than that."

He recovered quickly, shaking himself off and resuming his own ready stance, but he didn't smile. "You're fast," he acknowledged. "I almost had you though."

The fact this conversation was putting her so off-balance was starting to rankle her. "Did you?" She clasped her hands behind her back as if to underscore the point that the opposite was true, and began to circle him, letting the Force flow gently through her. Credit where it was due, Matt had excellent footwork. He was light on his feet, and sure of his balance with every step—

He attacked again, this time darting in with a high punch. She ducked, then danced to one side as he tried a follow-up kick aimed at her mid-section. "Stop dodging," he complained. "It's no fun if you don't fight back."

Fun? Fun for who? "There are many ways to win a fight." She kept her tone light, burying her irritation, but inwardly she remained wary. He was treating this fight too seriously, and certainly not as a friendly challenge. He obviously hadn't understood what he was getting into, but how could he? He was completely unfamiliar with how a Jedi fought. No doubt he had been expecting her to spar with him hand-to-hand.

For a moment she considered doing just that, but discarded the idea almost immediately. With Force-enhanced muscles and reflexes it wouldn't make a difference, and she didn't think babying him by going easy on him would help.

Matt came at her again, and this time she could sense his frustration. He tried to close with her, perhaps to negate her ability to dodge out of the way, but she reached out a hand and pulled at the mat below his feet with the Force, creating an uneven surface that made him stumble. Then she pulled his leg out from under him too, sending him toppling to the ground in an ungainly heap.

He glared up at her. "You can't just push me over without touching me," he grumbled.

She shrugged. "I could do it while touching you if you prefer." It was true: it wouldn't make a difference whether she was touching him or not. Still, she couldn't help a growing feeling of disquiet. 'Fun' bout or not, his insistence or not, it felt like she was taking unfair advantage of his lack of experience with Jedi.

He picked himself up, a touch of pink spreading across his cheeks. "So do it, then, but do it yourself. Without the Force. That's cheating."

Irritation flared, and her own cheeks heated in response. That had cut a little too close to home. "I can't just flick a switch and turn it off," she snapped. "It's as much a part of me as my eyes and ears." Was he just trying to hobble her until he could defeat her?

"Yes, but—" Matt seemed about to continue the argument, but suddenly he seemed to realise what he was saying. He stopped, shut his mouth and backed away a couple of steps, turning away. It took him a moment, but slowly she felt his anger fade into embarrassment. It mollified her a little, but did nothing to assuage her guilt. She waited silently for him to get himself back under control.

"Fuck, enough of this," he muttered to himself before turning around to face her again. "I'm sorry, Revan. This was a bad idea. I asked for this and now I'm getting shitty with you for humouring me."

"Yes, you are," she agreed.

"I thought it would be fun, or—I don't know what I thought. I'm sorry." He sounded genuine, and her irritation began to fade. "I guess I… after I was so useless on Purgatory…" He shook his head.

"It wasn't your fault you couldn't get Jack out—"

"No, I'm not talking about that," he cut her off. "I mean, that didn't feel great, but that's not why I felt so useless. I wasn't always an engineer, you know. I was a marine, just like Commander Shepard. And then I… when I came back I couldn't… never mind." He shook his head again, biting off whatever he was about to say. "I should have been able to contribute to the mission as a marine, not just as an engineer. I shouldn't have needed someone to look out for me."

Revan could feel his agitation through the Force, along with something else… shame, perhaps, and she didn't think it was solely relating to their mission. "What happened?" she asked quietly.

But he shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it," he told her firmly.

That gave her a big dose of perspective. Of course he didn't want to talk about it, they had only spoken to each other a few times before. As comfortable as she usually felt around him, in reality he wasn't much more than a complete stranger. "Right. Sorry," she apologised, embarrassed. "Well… if it makes you feel better, you didn't need that much babysitting."

Now he smiled, and although it was a little hesitant, it was genuine, crooked and rogueish. Revan couldn't help but smile back. "Thanks, it does," he told her wryly. "But look, getting back to the original topic, I was being a bit of a dick about it but maybe it's something worth thinking about."

Revan blinked. She had lost track. "What is?"

He fidgeted awkwardly and gestured vaguely in her direction. "The Force. You use it a lot. And I get that it's a part of you, sort of – sort of like biotics, right, but external? – but you, uh… rely on it a lot."

"Maybe," she admitted with a frown. "I'm sorry, I know you've never fought a Jedi. It was unfair of me to take advantage of that."

His eyebrows rose. "Oh—no, that's not what I meant. Revan… what if you could be cut off from the Force?"

A tiny chill wound its way down her spine. She was embarrassed to admit she hadn't thought of that possibility, and it took an effort not to get defensive. "It is possible to remove, or block, a Jedi's access to the Force," she acknowledged slowly. "But all the methods are exceedingly rare and none could possibly exist in this galaxy." She wasn't sure if she was trying to reassure him, or herself, but that last statement felt hollow as soon as it left her mouth.

His gaze was piercing. "That you know of."

"That I know of," she agreed reluctantly.

"I'm not sure how much you know about biotics, but the chances of a biotic overusing their talents to the point where their implant overheats and becomes unusable are not insignificant. Because of this, an Alliance marine biotic's basic training includes pistols and hand-to-hand, just like everyone else," Matt told her. "Can you fight without the Force?"

"I, uh… don't know," she admitted. "I've never tried." Inwardly she cursed the Jedi Council once more for taking her memories. Asha had never tried fighting without the Force; even when she wasn't aware she was Force-sensitive, it was still with her, augmenting her abilities. Had she, during her Jedi training? Had Darth Revan?

"I think it might be a good idea to try," he suggested. "You're in a whole new galaxy, after all. You never know what could be out there." His words were ominous, but he sounded more interested in helping her and having a new problem to solve than in trying to scare her. Dimly she wondered when he had decided it was his problem to solve, as well as hers. "I'll help you," he offered, then added, "if you like. To uh, make up for acting like a dick."

She stared at him, unsure what to make of the offer. His refusal to talk about whatever had happened to him as a marine had made her think he wanted to keep his distance. Had she been wrong about that?

A tiny part of her was glad, and not just because she could use the help in this strange galaxy. "All right. Thank you," she said. "I'll need to do some research. There are certain animals and materials that can block or suppress the Force. I need to know if they – or their equivalents – exist here. If humans exist in both galaxies, other things might too."

He nodded. "I can help with that. And… look, I know I'm not on your level when it comes to fighting, but as a Force-less human I'm not too bad. I can help with that, too. If you need it."

"Thank you," Revan said again, frowning to herself as she thought. "I'll need to try and think of a way to cut off my own access to the Force for that to be useful, though, and I'm not sure that—"

The ping of the elevator startled her. Shepard stepped out, arms full of cloth, and strode over. Revan could sense the commander's curiosity as soon as she laid eyes on the two of them, and suddenly she realised that somehow she and Matt were standing a lot closer together now than when they had started their conversation.

She turned and sidled away, hoping it looked a lot more casual than it felt. "Shepard."

"Revan." Shepard didn't raise her eyebrows, or smirk, or anything like that. She simply shifted her gaze deliberately from Revan to Matt. "Engineer Cherry."

Matt belatedly raised his arm in an awkward salute. "Commander. I was just… I mean, Revan and I were just… we just finished working out."

Why did Revan suddenly feel like a padawan caught stealing spice-mints from her Master's secret stash?

"Oh, good." Shepard's tone was completely normal. "I've been telling Revan she should come down here and try the gym out."

"It's a good little, um, area," Revan said lamely.

Matt cleared his throat. "I'm due on shift soon, ma'am, so by your leave…?"

Shepard nodded. "Thank you, Matt."

The engineer left, tossing Revan a quick wave and a tentative smile as he went. As soon as he was gone, Shepard turned to Revan. This time she did raise her eyebrows. And smirk.

Revan could feel her own cheeks warm. "What?" she demanded.

"I… sense something." The glib tone was unmistakeable.

Revan groaned. "Shepard. You don't sense anything. There's nothing to sense. We were talking. And… well, sparring, I suppose you could call it."

Now Shepard's eyebrows flew to the top of her head with record speed. "You were what?"

"Sparring. He wanted a friendly…" Revan trailed off. "Oh. Oh. No! Sparring doesn't mean sex! I would never – with one of your crew—in your shuttle bay—wait, does it mean sex here?" Surely not.

Shepard was laughing now. "It depends on the context. And don't let the fact he's in my crew keep you away. Or that you're in my shuttle bay." She took a good look around. "In fact, the shuttle bay could be fun."

"Well, we weren't doing, uh, that." Revan glared at her, cheeks feeling far too warm. "I bet Darth Revan didn't have to put up with teasing like this."

"I doubt Darth Revan had many friends."

Revan grunted and spun around, heading for a bench. Talking about Darth Revan, even in jest, was beginning to remind her why she had come down to the gym in the first place. She wanted to tell Shepard about the memory she had unearthed, but Cerberus had already learned quite enough about her over the past couple of days. It was bad enough that now, thanks to Matt, they knew it might be possible to cut her off from the Force.

She gave Shepard a quick run-down of what she and Matt had talked about. When she was done, the commander set her bundle of cloth down on a mat and dropped to the ground beside it, sprawling cross-legged across from Revan. "That could be a problem," she agreed. "Matt's going to help you look into it?" Revan nodded. "And, all joking aside, you trust him?"

"I don't know," Revan admitted. "But he was the one who reminded me that I could be cut off from the Force in the first place, and that it might be a lot easier to accomplish here in this galaxy. I would probably have thought to investigate it at some point if he hadn't brought it up, but if he had told Cerberus instead, they would have had a decent head-start."

Shepard's voice was hard. "It could be a ploy to get you to trust him, you know. Like the jumpsuit Miranda lent you. That was probably bugged."

Revan sighed. She knew Cerberus was almost certainly spying on everything that happened aboard the Normandy, and she agreed that the organisation and their dependence on it was a problem, but part of her wondered if the commander went a bit too far sometimes. "I know they're listening to us, but that's a little paranoid, don't you think?"

"Maybe." Shepard shrugged, unfazed. "But that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

For a moment, Revan wished she did have all of Darth Revan's memories back, as unpleasant as they no doubt would be. Without them, she was missing years of tactical and strategic experience. Instead, she could only rely on her instincts, and the Force. The Force was maddeningly silent, but her instincts were telling her Shepard – who did have the memories of years of tactical and strategic experience available to draw on – could be right.

"True," she conceded, irritated that they constantly had to spend so much energy on protecting themselves from a terrorist organisation when they had bigger things to worry about. "What's their end goal, though?" she asked. "Why put so much effort into learning about me? If they want my galaxy's technology, they don't need me. I assume they're already searching for a way to get us home; there's nothing stopping them from just not telling us they've found one and sending their own people through instead."

"Honestly? I don't know," Shepard said grimly. "It can't be about the Star Forge, though I know the Illusive Man would love to get his hands on that. You only mentioned it for the first time last night." She shook her head. "The Illusive Man likes having people he considers powerful under his thumb, and you certainly fit that description. Maybe that's all it is. One thing I do know, though, is an adversary is infinitely more dangerous when you don't understand their motives."

Revan hummed in agreement. She didn't need her memories to recognise the truth in that. "Well, what do we do about it, then?"

"Right now? Nothing." Shepard grimaced. "We need to be able to talk freely, and we can't do that aboard this ship, with EDI reporting everything straight to the Illusive Man."

Revan raised her eyebrows. "Theoretically that would include this conversation."

"He already knows I'm not a fan of this… arrangement. We're not telling him anything he hasn't already assumed."

"Right." Revan nodded slowly. "So… Korlus next, then back to the Citadel? We can find somewhere to talk there, surely."

"Garrus probably knows a place," Shepard agreed. "He was with C-Sec – Citadel Security – for years."

"You trust him?"

"With anything."

Revan paused for a moment. There was such intense certainty in Shepard's voice that Revan found herself momentarily envious. She wished she had someone she could trust so completely. "Good," she finally said. "Who else do we have?"

Shepard tapped a finger against her chin, thinking. "Carth can't possibly be in Cerberus' pocket, so we have him. Kasumi is too mercurial. Zaeed would go with the highest bidder. Jack…" She made a face. "No. Maybe Mordin, but I don't know him well enough yet. There's also…" she trailed off. "No. Never mind."

"What?"

Shepard hesitated. "I just had an interesting conversation with Jacob. He made it clear he didn't believe Cerberus should be the ones to make contact with your galaxy, if we do find a way to get there." She paused. "I wouldn't say that I trust him, though."

"Hm. It's a good sign. We should watch him."

"Agreed. All right, I'll talk to Garrus and figure something out for the Citadel. In the meantime, there are a few other things we need to start looking into. Things Cerberus already knows about, like the fact your lightsabers shorted out when they came into contact with that YMIR's shields, while HK's blaster bolts went straight through them. I'll talk to Garrus about that too, maybe get him to liaise with Carth." Shepard sighed in frustration. "It's like navigating a maze of barbed wire, trying to figure out what I can talk about on this ship, with Cerberus listening, and what I can't."

The first step to overcoming that was to get to know the man at the head of the organisation. Like Shepard said, they didn't understand Cerberus' motivations well enough to guard against them yet. Know your enemy, Revan thought to herself. "This Illusive Man. I want to meet him," she told Shepard.

"So do I." Shepard's voice cooled noticeably. "There are a few things I want to ask him in person. Unfortunately, however, neither of us will get the chance. He's on a hidden base somewhere. All my communication with him has been via the QEC. Quantum Entanglement Communicator," she added in explanation.

"You don't know where he is?" Revan asked.

Shepard shook her head. "No. And short of asking Miranda, or somehow getting it out of EDI, there's no way to find out. It's not possible to track QEC comms."

Of course not. "Right. Well, next time you speak to him, maybe I could join you."

Shepard grinned wolfishly. "Want to introduce him to Darth Revan, huh?"

Revan couldn't suppress her revulsion at that idea, though she knew Shepard was being glib. The memory of Malachor burning was too fresh. She didn't want to introduce anyone to the Dark Lord of the Sith. "No," she said firmly. "He holds all the cards right now," she added in explanation. "And he has no real idea who Darth Revan is, beyond a story. He won't be intimidated because he has no reason to be afraid of me."

"Afraid, no… hmm. We'll never be able to make him afraid of you, but it might suit our purposes to make him at least hesitate before trying to manipulate you. Like he manipulated me." Shepard eyed her. "For that, he needs to respect you."

Revan was doubtful. "He respects your skills and abilities, Shepard, or he wouldn't have brought you back."

"He needs me to fulfil a specific purpose. That doesn't mean he respects me enough to avoid manipulating me. He's already done it on Freedom's Progress, and he's been drip-feeding me information ever since. I'm just a tool to him." The bitterness was obvious in Shepard's voice, though she managed to keep it mostly under control. "You, on the other hand… We haven't seen all you can do on the battlefield, have we? From what you told me last night, you could go a long way toward giving him something to worry about without risking yourself by bringing the dark side into this.

"Next time I speak to him, I'll bring you with me, and you can… introduce yourself. Then," Shepard continued, "on the next mission, I'll put you up front and centre and you can show him exactly why he needs to make an effort to stay on your – and by extension, my – good side."

Revan sat back on the bench and thought. She wasn't sure about this plan. It seemed like it could very easily backfire. What if the Illusive Man perceived it as a threat? Or worse, a challenge to his authority? Would he then send everything he had after her, thinking she could jeopardise whatever his end goal with Shepard was? Revan didn't believe for a second that he altruistically wanted to save the galaxy from the Reapers.

On the other hand, he already knew a lot about her skills after seeing whatever recordings Miranda had made on Omega and Purgatory. He knew she possessed abilities unknown to this galaxy, and no doubt would continue to try and learn more about them. If he was as keen to have powerful people under his thumb as Shepard said he was, that could one day extend to trying to keep her here, in this galaxy, on the Normandy or even in a lab somewhere. Perhaps Shepard was right. If she added an element of respect to his curiosity, it might make him hesitate before trying something like that. And at the end of the day, Shepard knew him best.

She nodded slowly. "All right. We'll do it. And hope it works."