"If you think about it, everybody has been trying to impose their will upon this universe. Little did they know that they are trying to change the very galaxy itself."

- Horus Lupercal

The town was nothing like how it was during the time she came to the Enforcer station. Streets were filled with people going about their business, everything from unloading cargo from the hovercraft to selling trinkets from street stalls. Trying to taking in all the sights that she could, Jane had to quicken her pace to catch up to Aydar. The fast pace while following the Enforcer kept reminding Shepard how the bra sometimes chafed with the shirt as it was too tight near the left armpit. There wasn't exactly plenty of clothing that was her size inside the station itself, thus they were now headed to Aydar's home to either find some old things to give to her or go shopping for new clothing. Thankfully, Aydar's size was only one or two sizes smaller than Jane and she could wear the shirt with the Enforcer emblem. Shirts and pants for the Enforcers looked rather simplistic compared to the more ornate fashion in the Imperium. Although to be fair, the shirts and pants are worn as the first layer of uniform before the extra layer of uniform then a set of armor when out patrolling. The pauldron of the Enforcer's armor set had this intimidating skull on it while the rest of the fabric was dyed navy blue. Combination of unknown thick fabric and metal plates covered the shines, arms, and back of the Enforcer while the breastplate was made from a plate covered in fabric. It did look to actually stop stubber shots and might be tough enough to withstand shrapnel from explosives.

All along the walls and streets of the town were propaganda posters and advertisements. There was an old torn one from at least a year ago which told to join the local Auxiliary Corp for a quick path to citizenship. Three more posters did Jane see as she passed a broken down cargo craft clogging up a street. The Imperial Guard ad promise a life military adventure as the Imperial Navy told that anybody with any skill will find a place to serve God. The last advertisement was from this Hastis Megacorporation that sold toy weapons from swords to stubbers. Bustling with lively on goers that rushed up and down the street, Aydar pressed her hand on a blood lock. The machine attached to the wall pricked her hand before taking a sample of her blood with a needle which caused the door to open. Surprisingly enough, although Shepard thought that this was a door into a much more important place than a garage, it wasn't. There was a great array of speeders parked in this building. She knew they were speeders from the fact they didn't have any wheels and some of them looked to be carrying heavy cargo.

Taking out an actual physical key from her pocket, Jane was shocked by how backward the Imperium is. Aydar would use the key to slot in the speeder then turn it to unlock all the doors.

"So, how high does this thing go?" Perking up in excitement at the prospect of flying around in this odd vehicle as she lowered her head to entered.

Aydar looked back with a raised eyebrow, "20 or 30cm, how high did you think we would be moving around?"

"I don't know, I was thinking about around hundreds of meters high."

Giving off a little giggle that Aydar normally didn't do, "This is a hovercraft that floats just off of the ground, it wasn't made to be used in places like the hive-cities. The town doesn't have any landing pad parking spots to fly to in the first place because it isn't built up vertically enough." After turning on the speeder with another clock-wise motion with the key slot in near the steering wheel. The engine purred awake to give a low growl as the entire speeder shook from hibernation when slowly rising from the floor.

Shepard noticed how even the inanimate objects have a threatening aura around them for the speeder was moving in the same matter as an armored vehicle rather than a civilian transport. That had brought about another question from Jane, "Does this thing have armor plates on it?"

Now that had made Aydar smile with pride, "You don't know how much I saved up to install the plates and a better engine for my ride."

"That seems like overkill to me, I know that you might be targeted and all but really?"

"I don't know what you mean by overkill but yes it is a necessity. After I heard about how Johannes got his ride smashed up by a ganger with a hammer, I'm not taking any chances. Not to mention that you know the planet could be attacked any time by raiders, whether it is Chaos, Orks, Necrons, or Dark Eldar."

The references and names fly right over Jane's head but the need to have even the civilians militarize in such a manner was unheard of, outside of the Turian Hierarchy that is, it means living in the Imperium wasn't as might and safe as she originally thought it was. All of her surroundings sounded and appeared to be eerily similar to the history lessons she had back in officer's academy. Where the Soviet Union had people shot in the streets for drunkenness as the German advanced onto Moscow. The locals enlist in the military for a quick path to citizenship like in the Roman Empire. Seemingly powerful warlords ruling over their own fiefdoms with private forces personally loyal to them but swearing allegiance to a far-off capital and the Emperor. It seems to be that their entire civilization was the epitome of odd mix from different states throughout history which were in a constant total war. Jane dear not ask the question that was gnawing the back of her mind. The question which would explain why it was considered normal to outfit armor plates onto their speeders or the great array of different raiders that could attack a planet at any one time. Unwilling to say the words though, Jane gazed out the glass to watch what looks like soldiers walking around both with and without their armor. They didn't bother the locals and the civilians didn't even pay them no attention. By the way, these troopers looked like they themselves were locals as well. Some were even interacting with the townsfolk like in a very natural nonchalant manner. From Shepard's experience, intermingling between the civilian and military population wasn't this fluid, to say the least. The thought bothered her too much and Jane's mind forced her body to speak the words, "Is the Imperium at war with anybody?"

"Uh?" Turning to glance at the ancient Human as if she asked the wrong question, "What do you mean?"

"I mean it seems to be that the Imperium is at war with somebody to see all these enlistment posters and soldiers."

"Well, the soldiers are just here for show most of the time. You know, garrison duty. They don't actually do any policing or anything like that. That burden lays onto us working for the Enforcers, Arbites, Inquisition, and Ordo Securitas."

"The second part of my question."

"Let me think," Aydar stared for a while as she counted up all of the different factions that were at war with the Imperium. The silence scared Jane until the Enforcer took her eyes off of the empty road for a second, "Rough Necron dynasties that do their own thing like kidnapping planets' worth of people or just straight up killed them."

"What?" Shepard couldn't take that seriously when she remembered how she stopped the Collectors.

"The Orks keep fighting because they love war, the Tyranid xenos that tries to eat all organic matter in this galaxy, traitorous Fallen Marines that have a 10,000-year-old grudge, Crone Eldar from the Eye of Terror, Dark Eldar that tries to enslave everybody else, the other half of the former Tau Empire that refuse to join the Imperium, and who else I'm I missing?"

"I get it, you made your point."

"Oh, yea! The endless amount of rebels, Human supremacist, Eldar supremacist, and frontier states that I can't keep track of."

"That's a lot." The flurry of names, titles, and peoples almost made Jane dizzy at the thought of a state fight all these different things on a galactic level. Nay, it might have been impossible to do such a thing for a protracted period. The idea of fighting so many different things at once was incomprehensible to her. To Shepard, it sounded like a mirror of a Reaper extermination event was falling upon the galaxy except the locals would have the means to defend themselves. It was mindboggling how people lived in normalcy in this world knowing how many different people they were at war with. Once looking back at Aydar even she didn't show any signs of being alarmed with the idea. Turning to stare back outside, Jane saw less and less of the townsfolk walking around outside as there were more empty fields and farms lining up along the road. Eventually, arriving at a one-story house where the speeder parked inside of it.

The building looked less like a house that one might see on a farming colony back in the Alliance and more like a bunker. The walls were thick made from a substance that she didn't know while the roof was only an ever slight slanted, for what she suspected was to allow the rainfall to make its way own to the back of the house. No, a house wasn't the right word to describe the place. It was a hab-block if anything and a truly tough one at that. There was still the same stoic presence about the place that every other building had within this Imperium. It gave the impression of a person staring down at anybody at the entrance. This was the same as how she felt walking into the Enforcer station and now it was the same standing outside to wait while Aydar unlocked the door.

The metal door slid open to let both of them inside to have Shepard's eyes jump around trying to take in everything that she could. At first, it was a surprisingly normal living room, although a bit archaic compared to what Shepard was used to. There was a large box with a screen much like what the cogitators had sitting next to a wall near the center. The couch, if one could call it that, was in front of the screen. She assumed the furniture was a couch even if it lacked back support, well half of one that is. The actual back supporting part of the piece only went up to halfway along the spine of the couch. That and it seemed to be where a person was to lay on their sides to watch the screen, specifically the right side.

"Oh, the headrest is detachable but the back isn't. So, if you want to sit on your left side just plop out the headrest then fit it onto the opposite side."

"Thanks." That was just the thing to say without sounding stupid from questioning how that thing works.

"Don't thank me yet, you're going to be sleeping on that thing until you can get a real bed. I mean sure some people nap on it but that can become really annoying quick if you have to sleep every night on it."

Setting herself down to sit upright on the couch, Jane was sitting the wrong way for Aydar and her whisper of "stommerik" went unnoticed as the Enforcer shook her head.

"I think I can get you some of my older brother's clothing around here somewhere."

And Shepard waited for at least a good five minutes or so until she finally tested out "sitting the right way" as the Imperials would put it. More like the N7 operative simply gave into what was naturally the way she wanted to wait. Extending her legs to give a relaxing muscle stretch, she just laid on her right side facing the screen. Putting her right arm to lay on the headrest while supporting her head upright with said arm. Instinctively, her left hand went to her right forearm in an attempt to activate an interface to turn on the screen, forgetting that it wouldn't do anything. Right as when Jane was playing around with her arm, Aydar walking back into the room holding a bundle of clothing. The former prisoner stared back dumbfounded from the couch before asking, "Uh how do I turn this thing on?"

That had gotten the response of a simple laugh before she put down the pile on a table then grabbed a hand-sized device from next to the screen. Handing the thing over to Jane, it had buttons all over and Aydar said, "This here is the wireless controller, this button here," while pointing at the green dot, "Turn on and off the tele." Shepard immediately hit the button to bring the screen to life which showed a boring person speaking into the camera. The words were dry and his expression was blank as he rattled on about economics.

"And these buttons can change the volume," Aydar pointing at the O and X buttons, "While these buttons control the line you're watching," then moving her fingers in a deliberately slow manner to show the buttons with a + and - on it. That had evoked a face of sure obviousness from Jane who didn't want to be treated as a child. Even though Sheperd knew much about life in the Imperium as a sheltered child.

Notes

Yes, I changed Sheperd's age to an older 32 because when I first wrote the last chapter I didn't actually know the age despite me trying to look it up.

Carre: Probably, I mean if there was no Abhumans and Xenos within this Imperium it wouldn't be too different than vanilla.

The Tech-Priest can still act with the quasi-magical ability to interact with machines, including but not limited to unjamming multiple weapons at once with a wave of a hand. Sort of the same thing with Bio-Priest as well but they actually innovate and scientifically understand what they are doing, being that the Bio-Priest branch of the Mechanicum comes from gene splicers from Terra.