Completed General Syndulla Quests payway nonsense

You don't have to 'buy' her shards. Most of my guild, even F2P, use crystals on the gamba packs to get the new marquees to at least 4, since that gets you bonus and daily shards of them for as little as 2600c. It works out to being better than farming them from shipments, and you can finish some additional quests with them at 4* (and most of the way to 5* by the end of the event).