"Holy shit. Shepard, are you seeing this?"
"Seeing it, Joker. Working on believing it." Shepard responded to the pilot.
She kept looking at the data readout, but the number refused to change.
Fifty.
Fifty confirmed Reaper corpses floated through the Aralakh System with only evidence of elven krogan derelicts and one destroyed Geth cruiser nearby the battlefields.
A near four to one casualty ratio. At least if they assumed more hadn't been damaged but were either still able to move on their own or were towed off by other ships.
A four to one ratio in their favor, which was almost unheard of without overwhelming numbers or additional defence platforms.
And Revan's people had pulled it off with a combination of Geth, Imperial ships, and jury-rigged Krogan wrecks, though going by the spread of the wreckage they obviously hadn't engaged all fifty at the same time and it looked like the Reapers had been destroyed in a series of smaller engagements.
But even if that was the case - it proved Revan's battle at Palaven hadn't been a one off fluke and the Reapers could be driven out of a system, temporarily at least.
It really gave her hope that the galaxy could drive the Reapers off if they could put aside their differences long enough.
Time waited for no one though, and while Shepard would've liked to just keep admiring the destroyed Reapers – even if most of them were the smaller Destroyer class ships – they needed to secure the Krogan-Turian alliance as quickly as possible. The Aralakh System might have been holding off the Reapers remarkably well, but Palaven and Earth still needed help as soon as possible.
Shaking herself a bit at the reminder, Shepard looked over at Joker. "Get us on the fastest approach we can to Tuchanka. You can go back to gawking at debris fields after that."
"Aye Aye, Commander. Course set for the slightly less inhospitable rock out here." Joker acknowledged sarcastically. "We'll let you know when we're on approach. Anything else?"
"That's it for now. I should go find out what Revan's plans are for her group now that we're back in the same system as her forces."
"Ask if we can get one of whatever she used on those Reapers for the Normandy!" Joker called after her.
Shepard chuckled at the request because Joker made it every time they talked about Revan's ships. He knew for a fact the Normandy's systems needed an extensive overhaul to even mount the weapon platform the Imperial ships used – let alone have a chance of firing them – but it didn't stop him from mentioning it every chance he got.
-o-
Shepard caught Revan's team while they were waiting for another shuttle to meet them halfway while the Normandy was traveling to Tuchanka.
The Sith Empress obviously couldn't just spend all of her time on the Normandy – even if she could handle part of her responsibilities remotely via the QEC like Primarch Victus and Wrex were doing, there were plenty of other things she needed to handle in person.
And another thing that Shepard was aware of, but frequently forgot, was that Tali was also pretty high ranking these days. As a quarian Admiral, she had her own duties to get back to and couldn't stay either.
Which was a shame because even outside of any friendships – every one of Revan't team were incredibly skilled at what they brought to the table and Shepard would have loved to be able to call on those skills for what was no doubt waiting for them on Tuchanka.
"Sure I can't convince you to hang around a little longer? We could really use your help making sure the Genophage cure gets distributed without a hitch."
That didn't mean she wasn't going to try to keep them around a little longer anyway.
Tali shook her head though. "Sorry, Shepard, I've got several reports I need to go over with the other Admirals. And I can't do all of that from here."
"Lymrase and I have something we need to do back on my flagship as well." Revan continued. "But it's likely we will meet up with you on the surface of the planet at some point anyway. I've gotten word that Tuchanka still has some Reaper presence on it still, but more worrying is that Cerberus has apparently been spotted in the system as well. After our last encounter with them I don't feel comfortable leaving them free reign if we can help it at all."
Shepard didn't either.
But still… What could Cerberus possibly want on somewhere like Tuchanka?
-o-
Once the shuttle docked back on the Imperial Harrower, Revan and Lymrase split off from Tali'Zorah and made their way towards the brig keeping the other captured Jedi locked up.
There were no organic crewmembers in this part of the ship.
Part of that was that despite absorbing nearly the entire Migrant fleet into her navy, Revan was still facing a personnel shortage – Imperial designs were just bigger than the scraps the quarians had been forced to use. But part of the reason was that droids were just a more reliable option when containing a Force User.
Less of a chance that a moment of inattention or laziness could be exploited, a natural resistance to anything like the Mind Trick or Force Persuasion, and the Geth were also locally networked so even destroying a unit would alert the rest of the ship immediately. All of those meant Teveezra had actually remained imprisoned despite Revan mostly forgetting about her.
The only downside was that with so few organic presences around the prison bloc, it was actually rather easy to sense someone approaching.
So Revan was unsurprised to see that the captured Jedi Knight was already facing the door to her cell in a meditative posture and did not look shocked to see them. In fact there was only a brief tightening of her features when she saw Lymrase walk in unbound and uninjured before they smoothed out into the placid mask most Jedi seemed to develop eventually.
"Master Jatora, to what do I owe the pleasure of you visiting me accompanied by our sworn enemy?"
"I'm afraid the mastery spoken of by the Order is not worth much outside its halls, I can no longer claim to be one." Lymrase sighed as she kneeled in front of the captive Knight. Revan, meanwhile, simply moved to the opposite wall and said nothing. "And we have a much more pressing enemy to deal with than the Sith ever were."
"It's as I feared then, you truly have fallen to the Dark Side."
At this point Revan sighed herself.
She had heard so many variations of this conversation in the past that she could guess the responses from memory.
The Jedi would accuse the Fallen of turning to the Dark Side. The Fallen would respond that the Dark Side was not as bad as the Jedi made it sound or that it was the true path to power. The Jedi would try to appeal to whatever previous connection they had to turn back to the light, and if that failed then the two would likely fight if they were in a position for it.
Since Teveezra was still captive without a weapon, Revan didn't expect any violence – so instead…
"Lymrase Jatora, if there is any part of you not corrupted by the Sith, I'm begging you – remember our Order's teachings before you help drown the galaxy in darkness."
…and there it was. The subtle arrogance that the Jedi's way was the only correct way.
Revan would be one of the first to admit that the typical Sith philosophy was not something to actively encourage, but she would never say the Jedi were completely correct either. She had studied far too many other Force traditions in her home galaxy for that. Revan had found truths regarding the Force from the oldest traditions among the Jedi and Sith to the smallest of Sects in the Outer Rim. And even then she was sure there was still plenty she had left to learn.
It was one of the few true teachings she had passed on to her apprentice since her defection.
"And what of the darkness already spreading across our galaxy?" Lymrase countered. "What of the Reapers?"
Uncertainty briefly crossed Teveezra's face.
"The Order will deal with them once the Sith are–"
"Once the Sith are dealt with?" Lymrase interrupted. "Teveezra, how are they supposed to do that? When we attacked the Empire it was under the assumption that we could reverse engineer any advancements into the Asari Republic forces in time to be ready for the Reapers' arrival. And they're already here."
"More than that, you must have felt them during the fighting in this system. That the Reapers are wrong in a way none of the order has ever described a Darksider."
"And to make things worse – the Order cannot meaningfully fight them. Hold off their foot soldiers? Sure. Root out their corrupting influence? Perhaps. But to actually kill a Reaper? No, that is beyond them."
Teveezra wasn't shaken. "Not by ourselves perhaps, but there is still the Republic and the Citadel beyond them. The Order will be able to lead them to victory."
The look Lymrase gave her was pure pity while Revan's posture clearly expressed her disdain.
"Teveezra… if nothing changes, the Citadel will be ground down to nothing in a few decades at most. They have no chance of defeating the Reapers."
"It's simple numbers." Revan added. "The Asari have twenty one dreadnaughts – maybe a handful more if they ignored the treaty limit the Council imposed. A single capital-class Reaper was almost enough to destroy the most powerful of them – the Destiny Ascension – two years ago. If the information retrieved by the Normandy crew of the Reapers making one Capital ship per cycle and that they have been active for a billion years is true… there are potentially as many as fifty thousand Capital-class Reapers and who-knowes-how-many lesser classes. If they attack en masse instead of feeding us mostly equal numbers – we lose."
It was the hard truth to the war that Revan had done her best keeping secret from everyone else.
If the rest of the galaxy knew just how slim their odds of survival actually were, morale would evaporate. Revan also knew she wasn't the only one keeping quiet about their chances either. Liara T'soni had come to similar conclusions and had approached the Empress about a time capsule project similar to the Prothean Beacon that had first informed Shepard about the Reapers.
The goal of the project was not to preserve the galaxy's knowledge to rebuild once the Reapers were destroyed, but to give the species that would evolve after this cycle were destroyed a chance to be better prepared.
Revan wasn't even sure Shepard knew the true odds they were facing. And if she didn't, Revan would not be the one to tell her, for the same reason she deliberately laid the numbers out for Teveezra now.
The Jedi's face paled at the blunt admission.
She almost instinctively went to deny it, but Revan didn't allow it. The Empress projected the truth of her words through the Force strongly enough there could be no doubt.
"And the Order has to know that." Teveezra eventually admitted, sounding pained as she did so.
Lymrase nodded. "The masters at least, though they could be keeping the full situation quiet. But either way they've decided that fighting one person is more important than protecting the galaxy as a whole."
"And that's why you Fell."
"That is why I chose to look beyond the teachings of the Order. Besides, can you really say I fit the image of what the High Council described as someone that didn't accept the Light Side was the only proper use of the Force?" Lymrase asked, projecting her own presence.
"No, I can't say you do." Teveezra grimaced. "Fine then, what exactly are you asking of me then? Reject the Order, tell your Master any little secret you haven't already shared about our operations, and start learning the Dark Side?"
"We're currently on a mission to secure an alliance between the Krogan and Turians to free up support for the Human homeworld." Lymrase explained. "We're going to cure the Genophage to do so, but we expect the Salarians at least to try sabotaging us. All we ask is that you help us release the cure so Krogan mothers can reproduce without needing to stand on a pile of corpses made of their own young."
Revan knew that was when they managed to turn the Knight. "A mission to protect life and reverse one of the worst crimes in the galaxy. You certainly picked your arguments well, master Jatora. Fine, I'll help. But this does not mean I will look the other way if your master's orders harm innocents simply because it benefits her."
Lymrase smiled even as she deactivated the ray shielding keeping the Jedi captive. "You won't have to worry about that. Master Revan has done more for the innocents in the galaxy in one year than the Order has achieved in decades. You won't be disappointed."
"Goddess, I hope so."
With that, Lymrase took her fellow Asari elsewhere to get brought up to speed on the current state of the galaxy. Meanwhile Revan gently pulled back the probes of her influence from Teveezra's mind.
The Jedi had been honest about supporting their mission for now.
Loyalty to her or the Empire wasn't really a consideration, but with the upcoming confrontations brewing on Tuchanka's surface Revan was sure that Teveezra's worldview would crack further. Revan would wait for now, and eventually the Council, the Order, and the Reapers would continue to drive the Jedi further into Revan's cause.
And if two could be turned – why not more?
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