Walking out the observatory doors I am greeted by light – light that has traveled an hour from a dying star to a centuries-dead colony world, and reflected off the mangled chestplate of a bullet-shredded geth, a geth that might've killed one of my people… might've killed me, if not for Shepard. I hate this place. I hate this place.

Good, loyal marines, my friends, died so that I could get data on Dholen, Haestrom's star. And I couldn't even say whether or not this data is worth anything. I could've… I could've done something. I could've saved someone, couldn't I?

Keelah, this colossus, Shepard put a lot of holes in it. Even with so much it blasted off I can tell it's been modified extensively compared to the ones we faced two years ago. I can see a few fabricators built into its chassis; those are probably part of a self repair system. I don't think I could pry them out, at least not quickly – this area is still dangerous – so I'll have to get some omni-tool scans to send back to Father.

That reminds me. I turn to Reegar. "Reegar, one last thing."

He does his best to stand at attention despite being wounded. "Ma'am?"

"The… The dead, what do I…?"

"I'll give my report to the Admiralty Board, and they'll send officers to notify the families in person." He pauses, then adds in a sympathetic tone, "You don't need to do anything else."

I thank him, and he heads off to rendezvous with the few remaining marines and scientists for extraction.

Behind me, Shepard calls out to one of her people. "Jack, can you come here a second?"

Jack is a bald, half-naked, heavily tattooed woman with a shotgun currently amusing herself by kicking a disembodied geth head around with her biotics. Shepard has to repeat herself before she complies.

"Jack," says Shepard, "this is Tali. She's our best technical expert, so she'll be spending a lot of time in engineering. She helped me a lot in the fight against Saren and I'd like it if you two were on friendly terms."

Jack rolls her eyes. "Sure. Whatever."

"Tali, this is Jack. She's a powerful biotic. She is not Cerberus personnel – you can trust her." She nods towards a toppled stone pillar, where a turian is sitting and familiarizing himself with a geth plasma rifle. "And of course you already know Garrus." She calls out to him, "Are you going to come say hello?"

"I'd love to, Shepard, but you never let me do the talking." He walks over and shakes my hand. "It's good to have you back, Tali."

Garrus is a good man, but we've had some… philosophical differences in the past, and he wasn't all that nice about it. "Thanks for being here," I say sincerely.

He shifts his feet, looks over his shoulder at nothing in particular, and then slowly, "I wish we'd gotten here sooner."

"Thanks."

While we wait for the shuttle I'm able to take a few scans and grab a few geth pieces. It… it helps. To take my mind off things.

A Cerberus shuttle passes over the observatory and touches down nearby. I'm hesitant to board. It flies Cerberus colors and bears a Cerberus logo… this shuttle cannot possibly take me anywhere I want to go. I take a deep breath before following the others.

When the cabin is pressurized Jack removes her breath mask and Shepard and Garrus their helmets. Garrus has a web of scars all across the right side of his face, only partly covered by a large bandage that runs all the way under the collar of his armor. So much of his skin is gone. What happened?

He catches me staring. "Anti-tank missile. No big deal."

"Anti-tank missile," I repeat, skeptically. "How did that happen?"

"The short version is that every merc on Omega tried to kill me all at once, and when all but about ten of them were dead they finally hit me."

I laugh, somehow. "You are such a liar."

"Well, Shepard was there too."

That makes sense, then.

"He shot me," she adds with disinterest.

"Me and a thousand other people, Shepard," he says.

The sound of the cargo bay repressurizing isn't quite right. The ship doesn't say, 'Commanding officer is aboard. XO Pressly stands relieved.' The drive core's gentle 'shuum' sound has been replaced by a rougher whirring – maybe that'll help me sleep. I hope that'll help me sleep.

Shepard is first off the shuttle. "Edie," she says to no one in particular.

A VI's metallic voice echoes through the cargo bay. "Yes, Shepard?"

"Have Miranda meet us in the conference room for debriefing."

"Yes, Shepard."

It occurs to me that I haven't slept in… maybe two days. Geth attacks have a way of keeping people awake. Keelah, I am so tired I almost trip getting off the shuttle.

Garrus catches me firmly by the arm. "You alright?"

"Just… tired."

"We have actual beds now, instead of those crap sleep pods."

"I need to get my duties squared away first." Captain Shepard has accepted me onto her ship and it would be wrong to take advantage of her hospitality right away. "Beds though, huh?"

He laughs. "Yeah. Who'd have thought? Cerberus too soft for military cots."

I snicker. "You'd think it's some Noverian executive yacht, especially considering they slap their logo on everything." I swear I can see ten Cerberus logos just in this room. "Like we were going to forget who we're working with."

Shepard turns back to me with a look I can't figure out. Worried? Angry?

"Edie," she says, "send Jacob instead."


I don't believe this. Shepard is wearing a Cerberus uniform. It's seriously unsettling.

And this must be Jacob. He's very well groomed considering the difficulties of life on a ship, and in excellent physical shape even for a soldier. If I had to guess what that means I'd say he's either disciplined or vain. Either would be dangerous in a Cerberus operative. "Cerberus saw footage of you in action, Tali'Zorah," he says. "Looking forward to having you on the team. Your engineering expertise will really benefit the mission."

I think I recognize him from Freedom's Progress – he wanted to hand Veetor over to Cerberus 'interrogators.' He said that Veetor would be returned unharmed, which means he's an idiot, or thinks I am. "I don't know who you are, but Cerberus threatened the security of the Migrant Fleet. Don't make nice."

Trying to defuse the tension, Shepard says, very calmly, "That's why you're here, Tali. I need people who aren't Cerberus, people I can trust."

She can't possibly believe she can keep these people in line.

"I wasn't part of what happened to the Migrant Fleet," says Jacob, leaning against the table, "but I understand your distrust. I hope we'll get past that as we work together."

That's a nice thing to say – 'yeah, we killed some of your people but it wasn't my fault and I hope you'll get over it.' Bosh'tet.

"I assumed that you were undercover, Shepard. Maybe even planning to blow Cerberus up. If that's the case, I'll loan you a grenade. Otherwise, I'm here for you, not for them."

Shepard tells me to make myself at home, and Jacob offers to get me the proper security clearance.

On my way out I give Shepard one last warning. "Remember Shepard, these people thought enslaving thorian creepers and rachni was a good idea. I'll be in engineering."

Not quite done being horrible, Jacob tells me to introduce myself to EDI, the ship's new AI. Maybe I spoke too soon; maybe enslaving thorian creepers and rachni is a good idea, compared to putting an AI in charge of your life support systems. This thing will kill them all, and they'll deserve it.

A young human woman with short, red hair and greenish eyes stops me at the elevator. "Miss vas Neema," she says. "I'm Yeoman Kelly Chambers. If I could have a few minutes of your time, to help you get settled in…"

"I know my way around the Normandy." I step onto the elevator, but she holds the door.

"Crew quarters have changed. Deck three, toward the stern. If you have any questions you can come to me, or there's Gabby Daniels in engineering. She'll get you up to speed."

I don't say anything.

She pauses a moment, and adds, "Joker is on the bridge, Dr. Chakwas is in the med bay, and Garrus is usually working on the main battery – crew deck, toward the bow." She releases the door.

"Thanks." I don't really mean it.


Engineer Daniels is an energetic woman, I don't know how old, I still don't know human years, but probably younger than Shepard. Bright skin, brown eyes and short, brown hair, she'd look naturally friendly if not for the Cerberus uniform. As she walks me through the changes from the old systems it's clear she's very knowledgeable and passionate about her work. Her shift for today is already over, so she's only here right now for my sake.

With her is Engineer Kenneth Donnely, a more relaxed man, also with pale skin, brown eyes, and brown hair – I really wish fewer humans were pale with brown hair, it's so much easier to tell them apart when they're different colors. They should paint their faces like turians. But I probably won't confuse Donnely with any other human men, because when he speaks my translator gives him an unusual accent.

"I'm excited to see what you can do," says Daniels. "Shepard's told us a lot about you."

That's odd. "Does Shepard spend a lot of time in engineering?"

"She checks in on Jack and Grunt after every mission, and she usually stops by before she heads back upstairs. Just the other day she bought us a T6-FBA coupling."

Donnely chimes in. "And cheated us at Skyllian Five. 'Take it easy on the rookie.' Still can't believe I fell for that."

Daniels laughs. "We owe her a little more than our pocket money."

I don't get it. "A T6-FBA coupling wouldn't improve the capability of the ship."

"It cut way down on maintenance times, though," says Daniels. "It was really nice of her."

Shepard. Doing something nice. For Cerberus? "How long have you two been with Cerberus?"

"Um…" She looks back at Donnely. "Over a year now, at least. We were recruited for the Normandy's construction."

"We joined a couple months after Shepard died," says Donnely. "We couldn't work for the Alliance anymore after they disavowed her and threw away everything she stood for."

"You're former Alliance?"

"Yeah," says Daniels solemnly. "We were on the SSV Perugia at the Battle of the Citadel. We lost some friends that day."

"They died to buy us time against the reapers," says Donnely angrily, "and the Alliance is doing their best to make their sacrifice count for nothing."

"How can you work for Cerberus though?" I ask. "Cerberus kills Alliance soldiers."

"What?" says Daniels, alarmed.

"While we were chasing Saren we uncovered a Cerberus cell that led Alliance soldiers into thresher nests just so they could watch the thresher maws kill them."

I'm not so good at reading facial expressions but by their squirmy postures and uncomfortable silence I can tell that this is news to them. They didn't even know what they were getting into.

After a brief silence, Donnely says, slowly, "I joined so I could work for Shepard." He pauses again, and adds, with a laugh, "They didn't tell us they were bringing her back to life until the day before we launched, so I'm working for her in a more literal sense than I expected."

Even if they didn't know the full extent of what Cerberus is capable of, they had to have known it's a human supremacist group. I can't give them a pass just because they seem friendly. On my Pilgrimage I met more than a few people who I thought were kind, only to find out they had despicable prejudices against quarians.

…I miss Navigator Pressly.

But Shepard trusts these two, so I will too. Cautiously.

I don't start my first shift until tomorrow, so once I'm done touring the engineering deck I head straight for the crew quarters.

Garrus was right, they do have real beds. They're not exactly luxurious, but they're better than what most quarians get in the cramped quarters of the Migrant Fleet. I've made do with less and with more, Father being an admiral. One of the bunks, mine I guess, has a little, paper card tied to it with ribbon. In purple ink and big, loopy letters it reads, 'Welcome to the crew –Kelly.' She's asleep in the bunk across from mine.

I collapse onto the bed with a sigh. I really wish I could sleep, but there's something I need to do.

I open up my omni-tool interface. New document.

I shouldn't even be doing this. It's the Admiralty Board's responsibility. I just… they need to hear it from me.

'Dear Sen and Hesesh'Jorin, I am'

No. They are not Dear, this is not a greeting card.

'To the parents of Myr'Jorin, I am'

Not 'I am.' That makes it like it's about me.

'My name is Tali'Zorah vas Neema, and I led the unit where your son was killed on Haestrom'

Maybe I should ask Shepard how to do this.


'I regret'

No.

'I am sorry for your'

No.

'I understand what you must be'

No. Awful. Untrue.

I sigh. I've been at this an hour, and all I have is three sentences. I wanted to tell them the truth, but I can't bring myself to write the full story of how he died. They certainly won't hear that from the Admiralty Board. The Admiralty Board downplays disasters like Haestrom to preserve our sense of civic duty.

'My name is Tali'Zorah vas Neema, and I led the unit on Haestrom where Myr'Jorin died. I only served with Myr for a short time, but I was impressed by his bravery and his commitment to his people. He gave his life to get data that will one day bring us back to Homeworld, and we all honor his sacrifice.'

I am such a liar, but it works as-is. Send.

Falling asleep is easy. Staying asleep is impossible.


Author's Note: Next chapter will involve Jacob's loyalty mission and a heated debate with Kelly Chambers. Also, I make up a backstory for Kelly Chambers.