Mass Effect: Knight of the Old Republic

Revan woke up stripped of her armor and tied to a table.

It wasn’t the first time and years of training stopped her from making any noticeable movements. The brief spike in her breathing was quickly lowered to what was normal for someone asleep. When nothing happened Revan opened herself up to the Force and cast out her senses.

She was on a ship. She could sense around thirty other sentients around her but other than them there was just the void of space. Most of the signatures were above her, several more below, and only a couple more at her level.

At the risk of alerting someone she was awake, Revan cracked an eye and quickly glanced at her surroundings. The first thing was her bindings. Thick leather loops secured her wrists and ankles. There were no locks visible, so escaping probably wouldn’t be that difficult. Did they not know who she was?

Perhaps they simply thought she wouldn’t be in any shape to escape considering it looked like she was in some kind of medical bay. One different than any ship she had seen before considering the lack of any bacta tanks. Or maybe this was a secondary medical bay and they were only going to lightly treat her wounds. Revan noticed her ribs had been seen to and that there were bandages on several cuts and wounds. None of her injuries would affect her combat ability however. Just so long as she didn’t take any hard hits to her ribcage.

The room was occupied however.

A human woman, hair grey from age, was sitting at a desk near one of the two doors. She was facing away from Revan and didn’t seem to notice that Revan had woken up.

Revan closed her eyes and ran over her options.

She could continue to pretend to be unconscious. Collect as much information as she could before attempting to escape. She could also tear her way free and kill everyone on the ship. She was sure the Jedi she ran into earlier wouldn’t be too hard to handle now that she was more rested.

Revan thought about it and dismissed both ideas.

She had no idea where this ship was taking her. The worst case scenario was they were taking her to the Republic, but without more information she would be completely lost. She also wasn’t about to start a bloodbath on an unknown style of ship. She had come across several models where a minimum number of crew where required for it to function and a slow death in space because she had killed everyone was not appealing.

More information was needed. And fortunately for her there was an unsuspecting source right in front of her.

Revan reached out to the Force and quickly undid the leather bindings. She rose from the table she was on and stalked towards the human with a predatory grace. She made absolutely no sound so the first hint the human had that her patient was awake was when Revan’s hands wrapped around her throat and mouth, stifling a surprised yelp.

Moving with quick precise steps, Revan dragged her captive away from the desk and the polarised window looking into the rest of the ship.

She pressed the elderly human firmly into a wall away from anything she could use as a weapon and looked into her eyes.

The human’s eyes were wide and she was clearly afraid but she was also not blindly terrified of the Sith Lord who had her by the throat.

“I’m going to move my hand.” Revan said in Basic. “If you scream or try to raise an alarm I will kill you. If you answer my questions I will let you live. Do you understand?”

The human furrowed her brow uncomprehendingly and Revan could feel her confusion in the Force. Did this woman not speak Basic? Odd… nearly every human population center learned it during primary education.

Revan repeated herself several times with a number of Trade languages she had picked up trying to find a way to communicate. To her increasing frustration the human didn’t seem to recognize a single one, although Revan could feel her fear receding the more Revan tried. In fact it was slowly being replaced with curiosity. Well at least one of them found this interesting.

Revan sighed as she realized she was wasting too much time. Force knew how long it would be until someone would notice that their captive was awake and not quite a captive anymore.

She removed her hand from the woman’s mouth, squeezing her neck gently when the woman opened it to talk, and pressed their foreheads together. The woman’s fear picked up again at the unknown action but Revan ignored it and drew on the Force again before reaching out and diving into the woman’s mind.

Telepathy was not something Revan was particularly skilled at, but learning languages was actually very easy with practice. As long as the target didn’t have special mental defences there was no way for any species, at least none Revan had encountered, to guard against it.

Several minutes later Revan had absorbed enough of the language to at least speak fluently.

“Now let’s try this again.” The woman’s eyes went wide at Revan’s sudden use of her language. Her fear spiked and Revan had to lightly choke her again to stop her from speaking out. “Do not try to raise the alarm. I won’t hurt you, but you will need to answer a few questions. Understand?”

The human nodded.

“What is your name?”

“Dr. Karin Chakwas, I’m th-”

Revan cut her off by squeezing her neck again.

“Just answer the question. I don’t need extra information. Where are we?”

“On the SR-2 Normandy.”

Revan waited but the woman had decided to comply with the letter of her request rather than the spirit. She was impressed, most sentients couldn’t help but babble when being threatened.

“And where in space are we?”

“The Fathar system, in the Omega Nebula.”

Revan… had never heard of that system.

“Is that in Republic space?”

“It isn’t.”

That made Revan relax a bit. If she wasn’t already in Republic space that meant she had a little more time to decide how to escape. She would likely have an easier time rejoining her forces too.

“Do your escape pods have a hyperdrive installed?”

“A what?”

Revan froze. Surely she hadn’t landed in one of those super primitive sectors of space. What little she could see of the ship made it seem like they were at least somewhat technologically advanced. If they cracked artificial gravity then obviously they managed FTL, right?

“A hyperdrive...you know, an FTL drive?” Revan said slowly. “You do have those right?” Chakwas nodded. Well at least Revan wasn’t completely screwed. “Oh good. How far away are we from Republic space then?”

“We’re in the Terminus Systems...trying to reach the Asari Republic with only a lifeboat would take you years! Even with a Mass Relay!” Chakwas said in disbelief.

Asari Republic? Mass Relay? Revan was starting to think she might be a bit farther from home than she initially thought.

She opened her mouth to ask another question but one of the medbay doors burst open and three figures with guns pointed in her direction rushed in. Revan quickly put the doctor between her and the newcomers.

“Freeze, Elf! Let her go!”

-o-

A couple hours after the ground team returned to the Normandy, Shepard called Miranda into the conference room to discuss what happened on their latest mission.

Perhaps unsurprisingly she was not thrilled to have needed to respond to a crashed ship so soon after the events of the first Normandy, soon to her at any rate, and getting beaten up by the person they were trying to rescue hadn’t improved her mood.

Very tellingly not even Joker had joked about the double black eye she was sporting.

“Do we have any idea where our Elven Space Princess came from? Or why she was alone on a ship all the way out here?” At least Shepard hoped that she was alone. They had searched all the rooms they could and had EDI scan the surrounding area for lifesigns but had found nothing. Either their new guest had been alone from the start...or they had been spaced when the engines had torn themselves free.

“Sorry Shepard, I checked every language database Cerberus has access to but I can’t find any matches for the text we found.” Miranda reluctantly admitted. Shepard had only known the woman for a short time but she could tell ‘failure’ wasn’t something Miranda really accepted. But without more information or a whole lot of time they wouldn’t be able to translate anything.

“Well that sucks but if this really was first contact it’s kinda expected. Thanks for checking anyway Miranda. EDI, do we have any clues on what she called me? Jeedai or something like that?”

The holo-emitter on the conference table activated to display EDI’s avatar, a simple blue pawn like figure. “Yes Commander. I have found several references to Jedi in historical databases. I have forwarded a summary to your omnitool.”

EDI actually found something? That was great! Maybe it would give them an idea of where the Elf had come from. She couldn’t divert from her mission to investigate the Collectors but she could bend her flight path a bit if it was close enough or call in a favor from Admiral Hackett if she needed to.

Shepard and Miranda both dove into the files EDI collected, eager to learn about their new guest. After the first five minutes they both looked up at each other in confusion.

“Err...EDI. These are movie reviews.”

“Correct. The term Jedi comes from the ‘Star Wars’ movie franchise that began in 1977 CE and consisted of four films, largely being forgotten after the unpopularity of the last film. It described a nearly completely destroyed order of warriors that wielded telekinetic powers along with an energy sword known as a ‘lightsaber’.”

Shepard felt a headache coming on.

“So our alien somehow has a weapon exactly like something out of an old movie and thinks I’m a Jedi because I have biotics? How does an entirely new species even get a hold of a two hundred year old movie series?”

“Unknown.”

“I think we can consider the similarity a coincidence.” Miranda commented. “Until we can translate the language we simply have no clue what that word means.”

Which meant waiting for their patient to wake up and learning their language enough to build a translation matrix. It was times like these that Shepard really missed Liara. She would’ve loved the chance to meet a new race and learn about their history. The ability for Asari to meld with and learn from other species would also have been a massive help.

“Okay, no use beating ourselves up over something we can’t solve. EDI let me know if our guest wakes up-”

“The patient is awake, Commander.” Oh, well that was convenient.

“Great! Let’s go introduce ourselves Miranda.” “The patient has escaped and taken Dr. Chakwas hostage.” EDI cut in.

Shepard froze on her way to the door.

What?

“Should I sound an alarm?”

Shepard quickly pushed down her raging emotions. One of her two only friends on this ship might be in danger right now but rushing in and getting her killed wouldn’t help anyone.

“Is she hurt?”

“No Commander. The patient is trying to establish communication. Dr. Chakwas has not been harmed.”

Shepard could work with that. And as long as it stayed that way she wouldn’t throw the Elf out the airlock.

She turned back to XO and started giving orders. “Miranda, get Jacob and a few weapons. Meet by the elevator. Don’t bother suiting up, there's no time.” her XO nodded and sprinted out of the room. “EDI, keep watching the medbay. I want to know the second the situation changes. And get me Joker on the comms.”

“Hey Commander, what’s-”

“Shut it Joker, we have a situation. Our Elf woke up and is holding Chakwas hostage.”

“Oh shit, usually we don’t run into trouble until after you get off the ship. What do you need from me Commander?”

“I’m taking Jacob and Miranda to contain the situation. I want you ready to cut the gravity mass effect fields in the crew’s quarters on my signal.”

“Uh, yeah...yeah I can do that. Have fun with the Space Elf.”

Miranda and Jacob met her by the elevator in seconds. Miranda was still explaining the situation to him when the doors closed and he handed her a factory fresh M-23 Katana. Shepard scowled at the ‘new gun’ feeling. There hadn’t been enough time to start modifying a replacement for the one destroyed on Lorek.

Hopefully she wouldn’t need it.

“Stack up, EDI open the doors on my mark. I don’t want us shooting first but we aren’t going to bend over either. Copy?”

“”Copy, Commander.””

“3, 2, 1, mark!”

The doors opened, the three of them stormed in.

“Freeze, Elf! Let her go!” Shepard barked in what many of her squad liked to call her ‘commander voice’. Of course she also mentaly kicked herself when she saw the Elf slip behind Chakwas with her hand still around her throat. Demands like that only worked if the person you were ordering actually knew your language.

“Alright you incredible pain in my ass, we’re all friends here.” Shepard said soothingly. The words didn’t count as much as the tone, right? “Step away from the doctor and I will only punch you once for the trouble you keep causing.”

“That’s a pretty nice offer,” the Elf said in perfect english, shocking Shepard and the two Cerberus officers, “but I’ll have to decline.”

“You speak english now?”

“I do.”

“Okay great, that's better than I was hoping for.” Shepard was expecting to have to use charades to get her point across. The Systems Alliance had to do it enough with ex-slaves that she was familiar with how to express herself, but talking would prevent mistakes. “Let’s start with introductions…”

“I have nothing to say to you, Jedi. I’m sick of dealing with your kind.”

Oh great, Jedi is actually a title in her language. Shepard really was hoping it wasn’t the same thing as the movies. Trying to convince her that Jedi only existed in an old entertainment film weren’t real didn’t sound like a conversation to have during a hostage situation.

“Can I at least get your name? I don’t want to keep calling you ‘space elf’ and by the way, I’m not a Jedi.”

The elf looked searchingly at Shepard, like she didn’t believe what she was saying.

“Do you...not know who I am?” She sounded skeptical.

Shepard rolled her eyes. She wouldn’t be asking for a name if she knew who she was.

“Your ship crashed in one of the more lawless zones of the galaxy. We have no record of anyone meeting your species before. The only close matches are fantasy books and movies. And Jedi aren’t a real thing just so you know. Whatever video you watched was a fiction film made by humans a few hundred years ago.”

The elf was looking at Shepard like she was crazy.

“What are you talking about? The Jedi have been a prominent figure in the galaxy for thousands of years.”

Shepard’s headache increased. It seems like today was determined to be one of those days.

-o-

It took a few more minutes, but eventually Shepard convinced their guest to release Dr Chakwas and follow her to the conference room after promising she would get to see a galaxy map as soon as possible and extracting another that the elf would not try to escape, attack the crew, or damage the Normandy. Shepard made it clear if the elf broke her word she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her.

To her frustration the elf seemed more annoyed at the thought she was untrustworthy rather than worried about three armed humans surrounding her.

Although when the elf immediately asked if the map in the CIC was real and started looking at completely empty sections like she expected something to be there Shepard felt a tinge of worry. Unless their guest was trolling them for some unknown reasons, the slight concern on her face when she pulled up blank after blank had...unsettling implications.

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Shepard started when all of them had taken a seat. Really uncomfortable seats actually, it was hardly a surprise she would rather stand usually. Miranda and the elf seemed unaffected, but Jacob decided to stand near the door under the pretext of ‘guarding’ rather than subject himself to a chair. “Why don’t we try introductions again. I’m Commander Jane Shepard, Systems Alliance. Council Spectre and currently investigating the disappearance of several Human colonies in the Terminus System.”

The elf huffed. “Might as well. I have several titles, most I won’t bore you with, I’ve been known as Supreme Commander of the Revanchist, Slayer of Mandalore the Ultimate, and Darth Revan, Dark Lady of the Sith.” at the humans nonplussed stares, she shrugged. “See, I can list off a bunch of things that have no context too.”

Shepard fought down the urge to punch the annoyance. “Fair enough. How about I call you Darth and you can call me Jane...or Shepard I guess, everyone else does.”

“Ah, Darth is actually another title. I don’t actually have a family name.” the elf corrected. ”You can call me Revan.”

Shepard nodded.

“Thank you, Revan. Now then for the biggest questions on our minds, how did you end up in Lorek? Where did you come from? None of the tech we inspected had any similarities with any race we know about and we found no traces of eezo anywhere.”

“Hmm, I guess I could answer some questions. Provided you do the same first. I’m not entirely sure how much to trust you with.” Revan proposed to which Shepard agreed as long as it wasn’t about classified information.

So Miranda and Shepard took turns answering Revan’s questions and explaining the broad strokes of the galactic community. They glossed over things like the Citadel, the council, the Protheans, and most of the other races since there was far too much to go over in any detail and stuck to events over the past couple years and how humanity had participated in those events. Shepard tried to ensure that everything was presented fairly and none of Cerberus’s human supremacy bullshit muddied the facts.

“That's a lot to take in.” Revan said a couple hours later.

“I’ll have someone get you a datapad with access to more historical files and cultural briefs. You can look into it more if you want.” Shepard offered.

“Thank you, I’d like that. Now I suppose it's my turn?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” Miranda sniped from across the table.

“Very well, what should I answer first?”

“You’re from another galaxy aren’t you?” Shepard asked before Miranda could say anything, stunning everyone in the room.

“I- whuh?”

“Shepard, that's just not possible.”

“I feel like I’m missing something.”

Shepard smiled at the expression Revan was making. Miranda seemed skeptical and poor Jacob was completely lost. It was always fun when she managed to wrong-foot someone who had such control over their expressions.

“And how did you come to that conclusion, Commander?” Revan asked slowly.

“It was pretty easy actually.” Shepard gloated. “You kept looking for systems on the galaxy map and looking confused when there was nothing there. Once or twice might have made sense if you were looking in one sector trying to obscure what you were looking for, but you looked all over the galaxy and there is no way we wouldn’t know about your people if they had explored that far.”

“We could have just kept to ourselves.” Revan objected. “From what you told me of the Collectors they do something similar.”

“Ah, but we at least have heard of them and they use Mass Relays. You didn’t know the term until we told you.”

Revan stared at Shepard for a bit as if trying to decide what to say. Shepard wondered if the elven humanoid would try to lie her way out of this. It’s not like she had any hard evidence.

And I know better than anyone sometimes even then no one cares about the truth. She thought bitterly. Afterall the Council still refused to believe in the Reaper threat after having one killed on their doorstep.

“It seems you’re smarter than I gave you credit for, Jane Shepard.” Revan said eventually as a backhanded compliment. “I’m still not entirely sure what happened, but I made a blind hyperspace jump using an experimental drive engine. And unless you are pulling the most convincing con in history I am a very long way from home.”

“You used unproven technology with no destination?” Miranda asked.

“I was desperate.” Revan admitted. “I had just been ambushed and thought a fleet was coming to destroy the station I was on. When it turned out it was a trick my astromech had already started the jump.”

“What’s an astromech?”

“A mechanical droid used to assist on spaceships.” Revan explained. “I had mine plot an emergency course so I could focus on other things. Speaking of, I don’t suppose you searched the wreck for him did you?”

“Sorry, we looked through everything we could but we didn’t find anything like that. It probably ended up wherever the engines vanished to.” Jacob said.

Revan nodded in acceptance.

“What will you do now?” Shepard asked when it became clear Revan was simply waiting on them. “We are going to be landing on Omega soon so you will be stuck with us for a while, but after that we might be able to drop you off at a nearby colony or even have the Alliance pick you up.”

“And if I preferred to leave on Omega?” Revan asked, eyebrow raised but with an even tone.

“Wouldn’t recommend it.” Jacob commented. “Omega is a den of criminals and slavers. You would be in the thick of it without a whole lot of credits.”

“Besides, I wouldn’t want you to worry about all the stuff we retrieved from your ship getting stolen. I’d feel bad if we spent all that time getting it for you just to have you lose it to the first pirates you came across.” Shepard added, ignoring the glare from Miranda. She no doubtedly wanted to keep the salvage for Cerberus but Shepard wasn’t about to steal from a refugee from another galaxy.

Revan immediately perked up. “Wait, what stuff? That ship was fresh from the assembly line nothing should have been on it!”

“Oh...well, I have no clue why it's there but from what we can tell there are a lot of mechanical parts and data tablets. All of it’s in the starboard cargo bay for now. You can check it out later.”

“I...thank you, Commander.”

“So any idea what you want to do?” Shepard prodded. She didn’t want to force a decision now, but if Revan was new to the galaxy she would definitely need a plan or else she would get swallowed up by some mercenary gang somewhere.

“I think I’m going to look for a way back to my own galaxy.” Revan said determinedly. “There’s a race of creatures called the Vong looking to invade my galaxy and kill everyone in it. I need to find my way back before that happens.”

“Oh good, it’s not just us dealing with omnicidal invaders." Shepard muttered sarcastically. "Guess some things never change even in other galaxies.”

“Wait...what?”

Shepard sighed heavily. “Okay, let me tell you about the Reapers…”