Excerpt from Chapter one of Mass Relay: Thedas?
"Hey Command—Admiral?" Joker's voice came over her comm, and she bit back a chuckle at him still calling her the wrong rank after nearly a year.
"What's up, Joker?" she said, desperately hoping that some incredible new danger had been reported and the Alliance was needing her to step in and save everyone again.
"Uh. You're going to want to meet James down in the shuttle bay. We've been—" Joker cut off.
Jane was already on her way to the shuttle bay. "We've been what, Joker?"
"Boarded, Comm—Admiral. We've been boarded."
The elevator doors opened onto the shuttle bay and Jane saw an unarmed James with his arms up in a universal "I'm not fighting" stance and Steve with a gun trained on a man wearing some sort of medieval armor, with a giant fur-lined cloak and a sword.
Joker's voice spoke in her ear. "He showed up about three minutes ago—just appeared. Doesn't understand us, but our universal translators are working fine. He thinks we're 'demons' and that this is something called 'the Fade.' EDI's working on the communication issue now."
"Kaidan or Liara, get down here," Jane said. "I need a biotic shield." She paused and rethought. "Wait, belay that. Not Liara yet. I think he's going to lose his shit if he sees a non-human."
"On it," came Kaidan's reply in her ear.
"EDI, is your skin working today?" Jane asked. EDI had been working on getting her elastomer skin covering working, so some days she looked mostly human, but other days she looked decidedly not.
"She's purple, Shepard," Joker answered for her, "and her skin is currently shocking anyone who touches her."
Ok. So, never mind EDI coming down. The elevator opened behind her and Kaidan came out, hair still damp like he'd been in the middle of a shower, wearing a white t-shirt and his off-duty sweatpants. Nice.
"Can you put a shield around him, so that I can speak with him, and maybe Steve can drop that gun?"
The telltale blue shimmer appeared around the armed man, and Jane walked towards him. She mentally ran through what she could remember of first contact protocol and decided to settle on what had worked for her so far in her career—obstinate hope and good luck.
"Hey, I'm Admiral Jane Shepard," she said, putting her hands to her chest, and then she pointed to him with both hands. "And you are?"
"His name is Cullen Rutherford," EDI spoke in her ear, "and he is a knight from somewhere called Ferelden. Working out if that's a town, a country, or a planet, currently."
A knight. He was a literal fucking knight in shining armor.
"Lady," she heard the man—Cullen—say, "I have been held by demons before, and you cannot break me."
Great. He was also insane. Was he an escapee from some sort of renaissance fair on Earth? Had he just stowed away on board?
"All right, Kaidan. Knock him out, would you? Let's fit him with a translator and then deal with him later."
Kaidan collapsed his shield on the man, and he hit the deck, unconscious.
Well. She wasn't bored anymore.
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thanks for everyone who keeps reminding me to try and share things, mainly @vanillastrange and @elfyroot and @nirikeehan
