Can't wait to read on. :)

Brilliant. Just love it!
The whole Garrus bit is perfect.

Wow. It's just wonderful.

Oh good idea. I love that James is her prison guard.

"Think of us as an honor guard. We're honoring the historical fact that shit blows up when you're around."
That sentence should be carved onto a plaque of gold and hung up for the world to see. I can't think of a better way to describe all the crazy shit Shepard takes part in. Also, note that this is not my final review; that will come once I've caught up with the latest chapter. I'm loving this story so far though!

Good opening chapter! I like Shepard's personality and thoughts. You give us a well-written grasp of what to expect from her in future chapters. I did find the Thane flashback interesting. It gives us cause to wonder how the two of them met and got to that point. Very good description throughout this chap, I could picture everything perfectly. My only issue with description was that you kept going on and on about how Vega is built like a stud. Anybody reading this most likely has played the games and knows what he looks like, that being said, your description was awesome, but it was only needed in one paragraph. It didn't need repeating. Lastly, I think some of your sentences became run-on sentences, so you might want to watch out for that. Other than those little itty bitty things, you're in good shape with this story! Keep up the good work!

Loved this and loved your version of Shepard. I love a good wise ass Shepard. The dialogue flows well and didn't throw me at all.

There is a lot of was and were that would make for a more involving and 'shown' story if they were switched out for more evocative verbs.

Places like : James was huge, like a brick wall had become a person... the second part of the sentence shows what is told in the first part. Paint the picture rather than telling us that the picture is something.

Other than that, just awesome. Am looking forward to reading more. Thanks for sharing. (Also secretly love a good Thane LI)

It's nice to get a sneak peek into the tribunal proceedings. I love how your Shep is still thinking on her feet and not falling victim to political grand-standing. This chapter let's us see where everybody stands and may have even introduced a villain or two. I think your writing style is very tight because it really puts us close to Shep's perspective without going full first-person, that's usually difficult to pull off. Keep up the great work!

another great chapter. poor shep can't get no relief *snerk. nice little steamy Thane flashback. hotness. and lol, James' brains are showing. like the casual observation of someone's fly being down. again, i love the humor in your fic.

This was really wonderful and professionally done. The intro comes with a slow boil that feeds the reader just enough to fuel the interest. The descriptions of James are powerful and absolutely breath life into the character. The interplay and dialog is excellent, mature, and realistic - two soldiers coming to an understanding in a less than ideal situation. This was a scene that I could see crisply in my head. Well done.

The idea of Shepard having stress and guilt induced nightmares is almost a cliche at this point, but what I've seen far less and seldom done so well is how she deals with it. It can sometimes seem as just another checkbox to tick in a ME story; not here though.

It fits Shepard's character that the way she deals with a nightmare is through exercise and I like how you make clear without actually outright stating it that exercise is the one thing she still has control over, that she naturally falls back on taken control of her body when she can't control the situation she's in. That she would analyse her nightmare and try to banish it with the truth is both a clever device to tell the story you wanted to tell and something that's natural to do. I've certainly done it.

The cadence of story paragraph, truth paragraph works well. It reinforces the importance Alchera has for Shepard and also works to drag me emotionally into the story. The paragraph where Joker receives his souvenir? A perfect emotional wrench, exactly how Joker would react.

Characterisation on the whole is spot on, fitting with the games without moving into cliche: Garrus quick to protect Shepard when Joker might have put his foot in, Joker taking the lead in diffusing the situation as Miranda leaves, all these clever little touches like handing over the tags to her team or indeed the idea that her helmet was left on Alchera deliberately... They all fit in with what we know of the characters from the game, but aren't obvious (well, until now that is. Of course Cerberus did that, that's how they are. But I never would've thought of it myself.)

A few nitpicks though. Miranda was slightly off to me. Even if she's not quite as buddy buddy with Shep and the crew as I'd think she would've been at this point, she seems remarkably obtuse here. I would've guessed she'd be smart enough to stay away from this scene, to know she wouldn't be welcome. The same goes for Tali, who was mentioned just once as Shep returned, but then didn't contribute in any way. Doesn't seem quite right for her.

Also, were Daniels and Donnelly actually on the original Normandy? Not according to canon, at any rate. And where was Chakwas? If anybody should've been there, it should be her.

Okay, I just found this. And it is wonderful!
This looks like it's going to be a wild ride.

Excellent job on being inside, Shepard's head. The military feels exactly right.

The honey-haze receded, and she let it go with a pang. : With... so she's letting go of the haze while stood next to a with?

Vega glanced down at her, "Think the shooter's done?": Not a speech tag. Full stop.

He looked up at her with blue eyes gone dilated with pain, unclenched his jaw and answered with admirable stoicism, "Montgomery, ma'am.": He's stood next to some admirable stoicism?

So, another amazing chapter, with only a few mistakes I can see, easily changed. The story, as ever has really drawn me in (Vega is shirtless, omg, I... wow) This is a brilliant story, one I can't get enough of, well done.

Wow, great intro paragraph. Eases me into the chapter. Especially-since ff is such a serial medium. Readers may not get to read straight-through, so picking this up again after time away, the opening lines really just let me slip back into the piece. You seem to have a really good feel for the Tribunal; it seems very realistic. It still irritates me to see people's species names capitalized; we don't capitalize human, and it's not done in canon, either. So it's both incorrect and not canon, so that bugs me. I'll try not to mention it again, though, if that's the stylistic choice you've made.

Overall, this is just fantastic. It never occurred to me how much of her team in two was criminals ... I mean, sure, all the Alliance that deserted, but so many of the ground crew. Guess I never just listed them all like that to see. And i LOVE that at the end, she's being treated as the commander, not some petty criminal. Beautiful, beautiful work, And now the line-by:

"on board the Normandy,"
italics for ship names.

"Their disparate ranks said loud and clear that Anderson had steamrolled into HQ and grabbed whoever could possibly fulfill Tribunal duties on a moment's notice. "
Lol! Sounds just like him.

"making her wonder what might happen if she were left alone with him and a scalpel."
Chilling thought.

"And then Garrus"
This section hurts my heart! *weeps* Although, at the end, instead of telling us she's feeling lonely, you might instead show how that manifests physically?

"prove-able"
*provable

"stiff nod, "Understood.""
Period after nod; a nod isn't dialogue attribution, so the dialogue is a separate sentence. And again here: ""Commander Shepard," there was " -it only stays one sentence if it can actually be a working sentence. Otherwise, it's two sentences. You'll want to go through and check and make sure on all your dialogue that you're not shoving two sentence into one.

"if she hadn't …"
This is a little unclear. Perhaps "if she hadn't faced down ..." Or "if she hadn't already gone toe-to-toe with ..." Something like that, maybe.

"(er, her helmet) "
LOL!

""Among Quarians, anyone who commands a ship and takes responsibility for the lives aboard is considered a Captain.""
This makes the characters seem unaware of how our actual military works. You can be a fricken ensign, but if you end up in command of a ship, you ARE the captain while on that ship. You are the captain regardless of your rank (and there's only one captain-if someone visiting has a rank of captain, they're called something else while on your ship). For reals, in the real Navy. So, the Alliance shouldn't find it preposterous that she's referred to as the captain of the ship, it's how they'd refer to her, as well.

I'm not sure if underline works well for emphasis in fiction; I only ever see italics used professionally.

"Vice-Admiral Williams had probably never known the kind of hell "
He was fighting turians at Shanxi. It was the first time we realized there was intelligent life in the galaxy, and it was a species of militaristic people who are taller, stronger, and more technologically developed. Pretty sure he knows hell.

" I'm like space herpes!""
ewwwww! haha.

another stunning chapter. there's so much humor and wit in here, it's astonishing. i love these 'flashbacks', giving us pieces of previous events without moving through them in linear fashion. lol, sassy crew. just so much win. lol and garrus, being such a...dad. pfft, puts me in mind of samuel l. jackson's audio rendition of 'Go the fuck to sleep.' anyway, i am so faving this.