Moving the planetary shield components ended up being a little more difficult than just sending a message to the Harrower’s captain. Mostly due to the limited space on the Normandy. The difference between a frigate and a Star Destroyer wasn’t exactly small. And that was even considering that Revan was only transferring over the shield generator and projector, the power source would still need to be sourced on Sur’Kesh.

  In the end it just wasn’t even physically possible to fit most of the machinery on the Normandy even if they fully dedicated all hangar space and ditched the extra equipment and shuttles already on board. And since the Dalatrass remained adamant that the Harrower remained out of Sur’Kesh’s orbit, they were forced to split the generator’s parts between several of the diplomats’ ships before heading towards the Relay.

  Revan had no illusions that the Salarians wouldn’t use the chance to scan everything in their possession to attempt reverse-engineering the whole system later, but she also wasn’t worried.

  She made sure the most important parts were transported by the Normandy and would be extremely difficult to study once the shield generator was assembled. There was also one other trick preventing the amphibians from stealing the system for themselves.

  The Sith pushed those thoughts from her mind for the moment, though, simply enjoying the sudden peace of just being another passenger on the ship instead of Empress for a little while. It was just unfortunate that she had to relax in the ship’s new lounge area rather than her old quarters, but from what she understood those had been repurposed into a media room for a warfront reporter Shepard picked up somewhere.

  And speaking of the Commander…

  “I didn’t take you for a whiskey kinda girl.” Shepard commented as she joined Revan at the bar.

  “No?”

  “Yeah, you seem like a red wine type.” Shepard continued. “Sitting up on some kind of throne, sipping on a glass as some politician grovels before you.”

  “That sounds rather specific. I take it you had some fantasies while dealing with the more political side of things?” Revan chuckled, taking another sip of her drink.

  Shepard grumbled under her breath for a bit and snagged a bottle of alcohol and glass for herself. Only after she poured herself a drink and took a sip did she respond, “Maybe once or twice.” she admitted. “I’m a little jealous that you can just say something and it’ll get done. I lost count of how many meetings I had to sit through just going over previous meetings. I started daydreaming about what everyone was doing once the ground team split up just to stay even slightly sane.”

  The Empress could only laugh again. Say something and it’ll get done? If only.

  As the Empire expanded throughout the Terminus Systems, more and more of Revan’s time and attention was spent integrating new planets and making sure the ones she already controlled actually listened to her orders. The Geth and Quarians listened with few issues, but the assorted other races on various planets had little reason beyond self interest to follow orders. And before the Reapers’ arrival plenty of them had been willing to drag their feet to get the benefits Revan was spreading throughout the fledgling empire without putting in much effort on their side.

  That had somewhat changed recently, with the Reapers attacking all over the galaxy, but it was still annoying to deal with when planets Revan knew were underproducing demanded more protection anyway.

  The two of them sat in companionable silence for a bit, but Revan could feel Shepard’s curiosity brimming in her emotions. And sure enough, before they had even finished their drinks, Shepard started asking questions.

  “So, planetary shields. How does that work?”

  The Sith smiled slightly. “Technically, it's a system of multiple shields working together. One system stops physical objects past a certain size or speed very similar to your existing kinetic shields, and the other stops high energy projectiles. Those are shaped through a focusing lens and used to cover a planet.”

  “And you just happened to be carrying one with you?” Shepard asked skeptically.

  “Of course not.” Revan shook her head. “But my ship was carrying a theatre shield designed to do the same thing on a smaller scale. You can increase the size of the shield to cover a whole planet with enough power, but eventually parts will start burning out even if the shield isn’t being strained. I expect the one going to Sur’Kesh to last a bit more than a year at most unless the Salarians start poking at it.”

  Forcing them to negotiate for more parts from the Empire if they wanted to keep their fancy new shield working, Revan didn’t say.

  “A year, huh.” Shepard mused. “The Dalatrass will probably be pissed with that, but if she’s still around to complain by then it means we’re doing something right. But it sounds like things can still get through the shield?”

  “Small enough objects moving below certain speeds.” Revan agreed, draining the last of her drink. “Shuttles and landing craft would have no difficulty, but those are a lot easier to defend against than a full sized Reaper landing in the middle of one of your cities or bombarding it from orbit.”

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  “Any chance you can spare a few more?”

  “Not for several months at the least.” Revan said bluntly. Even with fully automated factories courtesy of the Geth, the components needed for the shield systems were complex and took time and care to manufacture. And that was assuming the factories had the material they needed.

  There was already a list of where each newly completed generator was supposed to be sent that would only grow longer and more complicated as more planets demanded one for themselves and existing ones were damaged or destroyed by the Reapers.

  Revan was only willing to give one up because it was an incredible political move. The Krogan and Turian leaders couldn’t forget Revan’s involvement in securing their goals and the Salarian leader was pacified after getting pushed into a corner. Not to mention it allowed the Empire to reveal the existence of the shield system through more neutral parties than whatever spies were reporting back or the Asari Republic after she had stolen one of their unofficial colony worlds.

  “Damn, too bad.” Shepard muttered, ignorant of Revan’s thoughts. “I’d love to know we could stop the Reapers from just dropping on civilian sectors. It might help with the refugee situation on the Citadel.”

  The Commander finished off her own beverage and stood up.

  “I wish we had more time to catch up, but we should go. The ship’s almost at Sur’Kesh and I want this to go as quick and smooth as possible. Land, get the Krogan females, plug in the shield system, get out. Easy.”

  Revan shot the other woman a dirty look. “You realize now that you’ve said that, this will be anything but?”

  “Nah, I’m trying for a double bluff this time. The Universe knows I’m calling it out, so this will be a milk run just to spite me.”

  “That’s not how that works.” The Sith deadpanned.

  Shepard shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to try.”

  -o-

  “Commander, Salarian ground control says we don’t have clearance to land.”

  Shepard very carefully did not turn towards the space elf Empress currently glaring a hole in the back of her head. This was not her fault!

  “Tell them the Dalatrass authorized this herself.”She ordered Lieutenant Cortez and patiently waited for the shuttle pilot to get a response.

  Unfortunately…and predictably… Wrex wasn’t in the patient sort of mood.

  “I knew they would never keep their word!” He snarled, already moving towards the shuttle door. “Let’s see them try to stop a krogan airdrop.”

  The Spectre looked over her shoulder in alarm just in time to see Wrex slam his fist into the door control. The only person in a position to stop him, Revan, just shrugged her shoulders and stepped aside to allow the angry Krogan a clear path out of the shuttle.

  “Wrex!”

  Too late.

  Wrex had already jumped out of the kodiak. And while that normally would only be a minor concern, normally the shuttle wasn’t hovering nearly a hundred feet in the air over a heavily guarded STG site!

  Already Shepard could see some salarians rushing to confront Wrex and it was probably down to luck that no one had opened fire yet.

  “Dammit. Cortez, get us lower. I need to get down there now!”

  The last thing they needed was the Chief of Clan Urdnot being killed on the Salarian homeworld.

  “On it, Commander!”

  Cortez lowered the kodiak to a much more reasonable twenty feet and Shepard wasted no time jumping out, followed by the rest of her team. Thankfully, the situation on the ground had only gotten slightly worse in the few seconds she took her eyes off of Wrex. Only two Salarians were groaning on the ground as another dozen surrounded them in a semi-circle pointing a variety of weapons their way.

  Now she just had to think of a way to deal with this without starting another war…

  “Stand down! Hold your fire!”

  Thankfully before anything unfortunate happened on either side, a Salarian in black armour - which stood out a bit from the normal soldiers’ white, so Shepard assumed he was either important or in charge - ran out between the two groups and even shoved some of the soldiers’ weapons down so they weren’t pointed at Shepard’s group.

  “Commander Shepard, please control your colleague. We only found out about this transfer a few moments ago!” The newcomer pleaded.

  So they did know about the transfer! Shepard was relieved this was a case of slow mail instead of the Dalatrass screwing them over. And since she was effectively here to oversee the transfer of a civilian, a firefight was the last thing she wanted.

  “I’d love to avoid a diplomatic incident.” She called back. “But as you can see, tensions are a bit high and you have something incredibly valuable to my friend Wrex here.”

  “Something worth dying over.” Wrex growled, glaring at the Salarians.

  “As would we, Commander.” The Salarian placated. “This matter can be resolved, but this is a highly secure facility. As a Council Spectre, you and your team are free to move as you please, but I must insist your companions remain under guard.”

  The black armored Salarian gestured at both Wrex and Revan as he said that. Considering both of them were considered Heads of State, it made sense the Dalatrass didn’t want either poking around a secret facility if she could help it.

  The bad news was Wrex didn’t look like he was in an accommodating mood.

  “Wrex and I can stay here while you finish the transfer, Shepard.” Revan offered. “While you are doing that I can answer any questions these people have about the installation steps for the planetary shield. I’ll only release the full manual after the transfer is complete.” The Sith turned to look at Wrex. “If that’s fine with you?”

  Wrex gave everyone a final glare but relented. “Fine. But anything goes wrong and all bets are off.”

  Shepard gave the masked Sith a nod of thanks for the timely save before she followed Salarian deeper into the base.

  “Again apologies for the rough welcome.” He said. “I’m Padok Wiks, and I appreciate your understanding, Commander. With war on everyone’s minds, our people are on edge.”

  Shepard opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by a shout from up ahead where a massive horned creature was being moved in a containment shield. One she unfortunately recognized.

  “I’d hoped to never see one of those again.” Liara muttered from behind them, and Shepard had to agree. Standing almost three times as tall as a Krogan and looking about three times as brutal, the Yahg were theoretically an extremely primitive race that had been quarantined from the wider galaxy when they had killed and eaten the first contact party sent to their homeworld. Primitive didn’t mean stupid though, as one of the previous Shadow Brokers had found out when he had abducted one as a pet.

  The Yahg had learned everything he could from his then-owner before killing and replacing them as the new Broker until Shepard and her group had found out when helping Liara hunt down the Shadow Broker for her own needs.

  That had been one of the most intense and dangerous fights against a single opponent in her life, and the only reason it wasn’t number one was because Shepard had faced a Thresher Maw on foot.

  Seeing another one up close wasn’t making her feel particularly excited.

  “As you can see, this base contains sensitive information.” Padok Wilks continued, ignoring Liara’s comment. “The work we do is highly confidential.”

  “And what kind of work is that?” Shepard asked, trying to push the biological killing machine out of her mind.

  “Evolutionary trials, morphological simulations, exogenetic assessments.” Wiks listed off.

  Shepard…understood some of those words.

  “Nothing is ever simple with Salarians, is it?”

  “Science has always been our best defence.” Padok Wiks smiled. “The research we do here has kept Sur’Kesh safe for millenia.”

  “Does that involve studying lost krogan?” Shepard jumped on the opportunity to discuss the actual reason she was here. As much as she believed the Dalatrass wouldn’t try and pull something that risked hostilities with the Turians, Krogan, AND the Sith Empire…that didn’t mean she enjoyed sitting on that particular political bomb longer than she needed to. The sooner they were off this planet and everyone had what they wanted, the better.

  “The females were in poor health when we found them on Tuchanka.” Wiks sidestepped, not actually answering if they were studying Krogan besides the ones they were here for. “They were brought here to stabilize their condition.”

  “I’d still like to see them.”

  “Of course. I’ll need to clear you for the lower levels. Please, follow me.”