Slightly Off-Course

by The Winged Pyro That Drowned

What happens if you Banish a Liset right before going through a Solar Rail? Why, it'll send them across space and into somewhere it definitely shouldn't be, as a young Mirage wearing Tenno discovers. Stuck in dock next to the one and only Normandy SR-1, Tessa's stuck in a First Contact situation only a Shepard could defuse. (ME1, FemShep, shit's gonna get crazy...)

1. Chapter 1

-.-.-.-

Welcome, Tenno and Shepards, to a lovely little bit of chaos.

~Pyro

-.-.-.-

Tessa struggled to wake up. C'mon, get up… getupgetupGETUP!

"Operator… are you alright?" the Cephalon AI Ordis asked her, clearly much more concerned than it should be. What the hell happened to her?!

"Unnhn…"

"What is the last thing you remember, Operator?"

It took her a while to respond, what with opening her eyes and all. Somehow the young Mirage had landed with her ass in the air and her face jammed up against the console. "I… we… ooowwhhhh my head…" Tessa clutched her helmet warily, getting up cautiously.

"Please focus, Operator. I need to assess possible damages."

"Fine…" Tessa groaned. "We'd just… I think we were just about to get launched by the Solar Rail?"

The strained silence from Ordis was not reassuring in the least.

"Ordis…"

"Yes, Operator?"

"Why is the window blacked out? You only do that when I'm trying to get to sleep without my Cryopod."

…

"Any day now, Ordis… It's really dark in here. Why aren't any of the lights going?"

"Apologies, Operator. Before I open the curtains," it paused as the emergency lighting came on, "I'm afraid I have some… news."

Tessa opened her mouth to speak, but then there was a great big thump and she found herself plastered on the massive, still black-shaded, window. And it was quite painful too.

"OW!" Tessa yelped as her Attica hit her in the gut. "Ordis, just tell me what the hell happened!"

"From what little data I have, it appears the Liset was Banished by a Limbo just as we were about to jump. As we already had our Void Mask up, the effect of being in the Rift at the time of launching was catastrophically horrid. The main reactor has gone offline, we were launched - bzzrkkk A BLOODY LONG WAY tzzk- off-course by a phenomenal distance."

She froze in place when Ordis' voice had turned into a raging ball of malice. "Ordis?" she whispered, "Are you… okay?"

"We have been subjected to an unknown wave of energy that almost completely fried us. I may require maintenance."

Damnit. Tessa disliked the Cephalon Suda for one reason and one reason only; she acted like Tessa was non-existent. She knew that hate was completely unneeded but Suda barely even acknowledged her existence. Ever.

And Suda was the only one capable of giving Ordis the maintenance he sorely needed.

"Also we have crashed into an unknown structure which I believe is a permanent stationary habitation platform."

Well that was interesting. "What do I have to do to get the reactor online again?" Tessa didn't like the thought of being stranded in an unknown environment without her ship.

-.-.-.-

Joker looked out the window and whistled, impressed. Some ship that looked a bit like a grey-and-white arrow had just smashed into the rear wall of the docking bay next to the Normandy to leave a rather large dent in it. As far as Joker knew, that was damn near impossible with the rammer surviving the impact, let alone just drift off as though nothing had happened.

He quickly keyed in Captain Anderson and Commander Shepard over the Comms as C-Sec officers started pouring out of the elevator to take defensive positions, all of them aiming at the unknown arrow-ship.

"Hey guys, we might have an issue over here."

-.-.-.-

"Just one mor- bzzk NOT THE RED ONE!- … sorry. Put the green one in…"

Tessa diligently followed the instructions Ordis gave her as she messed about in the drive core behind the Arsenal. "Do we still have access to the Void?" she asked, suddenly concerned. Most of her stuff was stored in Void pockets!

"I don't know. It's possible they got knocked out of alignment when we were hit with the energy wave. Running calculations now."

"Okay. Which wire now?"

"We're done with wires. Just plug the Cells back in and I'll initiate the spin-up sequence," Ordis instructed, finally returning the window to its natural clear state.

Tessa gladly returned back to the top deck, stretching as she did. Say what you will about Orokin engine design, being a mechanic was a very cramped job. All that twisting and turning and guns were pointed at her. She froze in place, staring.

"What."

-.-.-.-

Anderson shook his head. "Harkin? I wouldn't bother with that looser. If you want to find Garrus you're most likely to find him at the docks; probably right next to the Normandy."

Kara Shepard raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Care to explain, Captain?"

"Joker said there was an accident with an unknown ship colliding with the dock next to the Normandy. C-Sec are going to be swarming all over it." Anderson replied with a small shrug.

Shepard nodded slowly, the motion causing a strand of her startlingly dark red hair to get in her face. She muttered something darkly and tucked it behind her ear again. "Any other leads we could use to get Saren?"

"None. Just Barla Von and Garrus."

"I better get going then," Shepard said with a tinge of sadness in her voice. She saluted Anderson calmly, as did Kaidan and Ashley behind her.

Anderson returned the salute before nodding and following Udina.

Kara turned to her squad and sighed, heading down the stairs to the elevator. "I never thought Anderson'd go like this."

"By backroom politics?" Ashley suggested venomously, scowling at the nearest Salarian. Thankfully that Salarian wasn't looking so no horrible firefight started.

-.-.-.-

"…" Tessa was speechless.

She'd found alien life. Not Grineer or Corpus or Infested kind of alien life. Heck, not even Orokin alien life.

And they were lizard people.

"Operator? May I suggest a peaceful first contact as opposed to a violent one?" Ordis sounded almost pleading.

"Why would I shoot them?" Tessa asked, still dumbstruck.

"They appear to have a lot of guns pointed at us. Apologies, I simply…"

"Don't worry about it, Ordis," Tessa said softly, rubbing the back of her Harlequin helmet. She liked that helmet. It'd been a gift from her father. "Is there any way to manoeuvre us into a docking position without scaring them?" she asked innocently.

"No."

"You're lying."

"No, Operator, I have checked their vital signs and similar ones nearby and they are very different. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say these things are on a hair-trigger." Ordis explained, worry evident in his voice.

Hey when did I start thinking of Ordis as a he? It's… he's… I guess this is what Dad meant when he said I'd bond with my Cephalon. He always referred to Asgaia like a sister. Like Mom did with Judakas, calling it a him.

"Operator? Have you finished your internal monologue yet?"

"Shut up, Ordis," Tessa said, turning away as her cheeks blushed a very hot pink.

"Your mother used to do that all the time," the Cephalon said, surprising Tessa out of her embarrassment. "While you were still in the womb, she would voice her fantasies of you to me, or reminisce about missions with your father, Corvad."

"She did?" Tessa asked quietly, a little bit in shock about that. Her mother used to monologue too?

"Yes, why- bzzrk THE OLD HAG WOULD NEVER SHUT UP!- …" Ordis remained silent after that outburst.

"You're right," she chuckled, "you do need maintenance."

She saw outside that things were suddenly moving. The lizard people had started piling up armoured crates in what looked like a small blockade around the only doorway into wherever on the entire dock.

There was a ship just across the platform from them, something called a Normandy SR-1. Wait, what?

"Ordis is that… English?"

"Yes, Tessa. That is a ship that has been named the Normandy. There are life-signs aboard, although I cannot identify which species they may belong to." Ordis had called her by name.

God, Tessa had become excited. She was truly bonding with her Cephalon now. She'd expected this to take a few more years at the very least.

"Brace for docking. I have shifted the Void-Bay frequency to allow you to walk out on the ramp." Ordis announced, truly proud of himself. "Please be careful."

-.-.-.-

Shepard really wanted to get up that elevator and over to the Normandy and grab the shotgun she'd forgotten to give to Ashley, but there was so many people in the way. The whole area had been in lockdown for an hour, forcing the squad to go check up on Barla Von's leads first.

So, Fist had betrayed the Shadow Broker and now had one of the most dangerous Krogan bounty hunters in the galaxy coming for him. A Krogan that just happened to be in the C-Sec Academy right in front of the elevator and getting arrested at the same time.

"I will kill Fist." the Krogan said adamantly. He wasn't going to budge and by the look of his scars, he was prepared to move asteroids to get the job done.

"I could arrest you just for saying that, you know."

The large red Krogan just laughed. "I'd like to see you try." He said challengingly before barging his way out of the conversation. Before he could get away, however, Shepard managed to get in his way.

"Hey, got a minute?"

"I have no quarrel with you, Human. What do you want?" the Krogan said, seemingly annoyed.

"Couldn't help but overhear you're going after Fist. I need some information from him before you kill him, though, and I can guarantee that by being with me you'll get into three times as many fights that are at least four times more fighty!" Shepard proposed, calling on the general Krogan stereotype of loving a good fight. It was something she could sorely relate to.

The Krogan stared at her. She did look kinda… enthusiastic about it. Wide-grinned and everything. He raised an eye-ridge. "Commander Shepard? I thought you'd be more…" he struggled to find the words he was looking for.

Kaidan found them for him. "I think you mean less."

"Ha! I'm Wrex. If you get into as much trouble as I hear you do, then this is gonna be fun."

"Welcome to the crew."

-.-.-.-

"Ordis? ORDIS!"

The Cephalon hadn't responded once since she'd stepped out the Liset and behind a trio of armoured crates. Her black-and-grey-with-white-bits armour was almost blending into the crates. Apart from the white bits. Tessa didn't even know if she could recolour those bits.

Another burst of static came through on her Comms. "Goddamnit Ordis…" she muttered, keeping her crossbow trained on the lizard's blockade as she shimmied back up the ramp.

"Operator, I have discovered a problem."

Well that's not good.

"What is it, Ordis? And I thought you were calling me Tessa now," she added cheekily, smirking under her helmet.

A glowing blue datachip ejected from the main console. "Take this, and insert it into the slot at the base of your neck. It will be our only way to communicate while you are outside the Liset. There's something blocking all my known signal frequencies and signal types. Void Communications isn't working either."

"So how does this one work?" Tessa asked, fiddling with the chip to get it in right.

"It's based on a small transmission signal sent via Rift. Only the transponder chips are actually in the Rift, however this allows for instantaneous communication regardless of location. You could be light-years away from the Liset and we could still be communicating in real time. In theory, anyway." Ordis explained. Thankfully his 'glitches' were less glaring now.

"Thanks, Ordis."

A small window popped up on the left of her HUD, Ordis' glowing- oh god, it's cracked…- cuboid form the centrepiece. "It was my pleasure, Tessa. Now for a test of practical application."

-.-.-.-

"So…" Shepard started, sheepishly looking at the elevator guard. "I know nobody's allowed up there but I'm assigned to the ship docked right next to where that big incident is going down…" she rubbed the back of her head and tried to smile but it turned into half a grimace as she shrugged.

The Turian guard stared at her uncompromisingly.

"Is a Garrus Vakarian up there by any chance?"

The officer checked his omni-tool for a moment. "Yes, he is." But when he looked up, the three Humans and the Krogan were gone.

He turned around just in time to see the redhead that had asked about Vakarian waving at him as the elevator sped upwards.

"What."

-.-.-.-

"Hey Ordis?"

"Yes, Tessa?"

"We've been standing here… pointing guns at each other… for like ten minutes now. Can I at least wave or something?"

"If you wish to do so, then you may. I'm not stopping you."

"Well… I dunno…"

"Are you not waving because I haven't explicitly stated that I am in favour of waving?"

"…" she had no reply to that. At least she couldn't think of anything that wouldn't make herself sound like a fool.

"Tessa, you must learn to take action without consulting me first. Some situations you are simply going to need to react to rather than think through."

"I know… but you're the last friendly soul I know. Aaaaaaaand I can't speak English." Tessa squeaked out the last bit far too quickly for it to be not her own fault.

"Oh FOR GODS SAKE TESSA!- Have you not been practicing those lessons your mother gave you?"

"… no." Tessa replied meekly, lowering her gun sadly as she looked at her feet in shame.

"Don't feel bad. You should be feeling terrible about this!- Oh I really need to find out what's causing these glitches," Ordis scolded himself. "Tessa, put your gun away and walk slowly in front of the crates and say hello. Perhaps they understand Orokin."

Doing as she was told, Tessa put her Attica on her back, held her hands in the air in the "Don't shoot me I'm unarmed and a frikkin awesome Tenno ninja!" as she walked out into the open.

"Hello?!" she yelled, waving with one cautious hand. "Can you guys understand Orokin?"

The reply she got was enough to send her scrambling over the crates for cover as a dozen shots rang out and several found their marks, slamming into her shields with unprecedented velocity. "HOLY SHIT WHAT KIND OF GUNS ARE THESE LIZARDS USING?!"

"Interesting," Ordis commented.

"ORDIS, NOW IS NOT THE TIME!" Tessa shrieked and covered her head as rounds pinged off the crates she was hiding behind.

"Alert: an unknown creature is attempting to scan the Liset. Recommendation; destroy the scanning device. I am highlighting it on your HUD now."

Tessa peered out from behind the crate and looked at the marker. "Is that a gecko?" she asked, incredulous.

"Just shoot the glowing orange holographic device on his arm."

Emotions and panic aside, Tessa was glad that her training allowed her to near instinctually aim and fire in one smooth, delicate, totally badass, but most importantly quick motion as she took a single step to the side, brought up her Attica, and launched a bolt across the platform.

The gunfire stopped as soon as her crossbow had gone *styw*, only for panicked screeching to begin as the gecko-thing was left impaled to a wall by his hand, the glowing orange hologram destroyed.

The lizards immediately started squawking in some unknown harsh language, their voices sounding a goddamn lot like Corpus.

Tessa immediately backed up, her Attica aimed at the one with what appeared to be a sniper rifle. It had a visible scope and a very long barrel, anyway.

-.-.-.-

"Saras… SOMEONE GET A MEDIC OVER HERE!"

"How the hell did that-"

"It punched right through his kinetic barrier like it wasn't even there!"

Garrus kept the unknown soldier- at least that's what I think she is- in his sights. She seemed to be aiming for him so it wouldn't be a good idea to take his attention off her. The delay in the shot and the screaming told him he might have a chance to roll out the way- or more likely, get off a single retaliatory shot before his head became Vakarian-Kebab.

"BE QUIET!" another officer yelled, trying to bring order to the chaos. "Defensive positions, don't rely on your kinetic barriers because they obviously don't trigger against whatever it's shooting at us."

Finally, some advice that the friggin' new guys might actually listen to.

"Dibs on the helmet!"

*styw*

Or not.

The bolt impacted into the FNG's head, straight into his eye socket, getting stuck between there and a clean exit on the other side of his skull. The corpse was flung away, somersaulting head over heels before it hit the closed elevator doors with a very wet-sounding *spurluck*, leaving a large blue and grey stain.

Garrus ducked behind the crate, making sure none of his body parts were available to be aimed at. "Alright, next guy who tries to say something while in the killzone is going to get shot."

"What makes you think that, Garrus?" the Turian, whose name Garrus could never remember, next to him asked.

"She doesn't understand the language. For all she knows, 'dibs on the helmet' means 'attack formation bravo'."

The other guy did the Turian equivalent of raising an eyebrow. "And what makes you think it's a she?"

Garrus made a little cupping motion with his hands in front of his chest. The other Turian burst out laughing before the elevator doors opened.

-.-.-.-

One pissed off Shepard looked out the door and put a hand of her hip, pursed her lips, and looked to the heavens thoughtfully. "Considering how today has gone, what do you guys think my chances are that the Turian we're looking for is currently fondling his own non-existent breasts?" she said, loudly.

The Turian in question immediately paled (a very rare thing for Turians to do) and hugged his sniper rifle a little bit closer.

"At least he has good technique," Ashley supplied. "For a Turian…"

Another C-Sec officer, baring a striking resemblance to the Executor, came marching over. "What- why are you four here?" he asked, wisely staying behind cover. "And get down!"

Shepard took a moment to collect her thoughts as she slid behind a crate, her squad heading to their own cover in various positions behind the crate wall. "We're here for Garrus," she explained. "Wanted to have a quick chat with him about his investigation into Saren."

The officer in charge looked at her. "I need everyone I've got here. You can't take him away until we've dealt with…" he peeked out for a glance at the enemy, "whatever that thing over there is."

Shepard nodded, thinking quickly. "What can you tell me about the situation?"

"It flew in fast enough to dent the back wall. According to your pilot over there, it was dead in the water until about half an hour ago."

"So we're deal with an unknown that was propelled here under power that wasn't its own." Shepard had a hard time digesting that information. It must have been going extremely fast to have dented the nigh un-damageable metal that the Citadel was made of. "What can you tell me about them?" she asked, nodding her head at the other end of the platform.

"According to a couple of officers, it's some kind of power-armoured female Humanoid with a crossbow that ignores kinetic barriers."

"If it's firing bolts then they probably don't move fast enough to trigger shields."

"Saras tried to scan the ship and got a bolt in the arm for it."

Shepard winced in sympathy. "Ouch. Any attempts at communication?"

"Yeah. Came out with her hands up, crossbow away, and shouted something. Four or five guys suddenly started firing at her. Probably weren't even paying attention, the bastards…" the officer growled. "It doesn't seem to react well to Turian voices. Last guy who stood up to yell 'dibs on the helmet' got a bolt in the eye for it."

"WHAT?!" Shepard yelled, unbelieving. A bolt in the eye?! From this range?! With a crossbow?!

"It is a nice helmet, though."

Shepard hit him in the forehead with the butt of her pistol.

-.-.-.-

Tessa remained behind the crates, resorting to scrolling through various lists and documents she'd saved onto her Warframe's memory drives. With her back propped up by the hard and very uncomfortable crates, the holo-projector disk on the floor between her legs, the interface in front of her, her situation was, in a word, boring.

"Ordis…" she moaned, for the twelfth time, "I'm bored…"

"I'm afraid I cannot do anything about that, Tessa. Try walking over to say hello."

"Last time I did that they shot at me."

"That might have been on accident. I'm sure they've had time to get their act together since then."

"Fine…" Tessa groaned, picking up the disk and deactivating it.

She got up to sit on the crate, tense and cringing as she expected to get shot at again. When she didn't hear any gunfire, she opened her eyes and recoiled as the first thing she saw was a head of dark red hair sitting on top of a very familiar Human face.

And that was how she fell off the crate.

-.-.-.-

"What?" Shepard jerked her head back as the female fell, flailing, off the crate and probably onto her head behind them. "Did she just-"

"Yep." Wrex chuckled. "Betcha two-hundred creds it's a Human under that suit."

"You're on," Kaidan said, rising to the challenge and slapping the Krogan Battlemaster's outstretched hand.

"Men…" Ashley muttered, earning a disapproving look from Garrus. "Hey! You were fondling yourself not five minutes ago!"

"…" Garrus had no reply to that.

"She's coming out again," Shepard called, bringing her crew's attention back to the situation where it belonged. Thank god there wasn't any alcohol in sight; they'd have all been fighting over it.

The female stepped out of cover again, hands lowered but not relaxed in the slightest as she seemed to peer at Shepard. Some unintelligible gibberish seemed to spew from her mouth in an unstoppable torrent as she took a few steps closer, causing a few of the officers, almost none of whom were Human, to raise their guns.

"Stand down!" their CO barked, making most of them look back to him in confusion. "We're letting Shepard handle this."

The Shepard in question looked back at him, surprised.

Her, along with almost every other person there yelled at the same time. "What?!"

-.-.-.-

"I don't think they like me."

"You did shoot two of them." Ordis replied in an annoyed tone.

"I know but that was self-defence! Retaliation! They shot first!"

"At least a couple of them are speaking English."

"But they're Human. Ordis, why are they Human?"

"I don't know but maybe you should ask them. IF YOU'D BOTHERED TO LEARN ENGLISH!"

"Oh shut up, Ordis…" Tessa sighed, slumping slightly. She sat down in a meditative position, trying to calm herself when she was suddenly startled by the entire group yelling something.

"… why me?" she heard. She could understand basic English, reading and listening, but the method in speaking and writing it was just so alien compared to Orokin. She could never get it right.

The familiar redheaded one shook her head in what appeared to be exasperation or something as she vaulted over the crates and stopped in front of Tessa, sitting down cross-legged to join her.

"Hi. I'm Commander Kara-" she didn't get any further as Tessa lunged at her with the ferocity of a very, very angry Charger.

-.-.-.-

When the alien warrior- well she's got a gun and armour so it stands to reason she'd be whatever her species' soldier is- lunged at her, Shepard had clamped her eyelids shut and saw her life flash before her eyes. At least that was what she expected.

Instead she was stuck in a hug. Not the kind of bear-hug you'd use to pin your enemy, but a genuine hug. Whaaaaaaaaaat is going on here…?

She slowly became aware of how close she was to the alien girl, especially when a voice whimpered right next to her. "Mom!"

"What."

-.-.-.-

Garrus saw the two anomalies hugging of all things. The alien had taken her helmet off, revealing a Human head of bright pink hair. In pigtails. "Please tell me I'm not the only one seeing this."

Kaidan grumbled and handed over a credit chit to Wrex, who was triumphantly doing his 'told you so' gloating routine. "Sucks to say that I see it too."

"How do you even get hair that pink? It can't be natural…" Ashley muttered under her breath, keeping the alien in her sights.

Garrus didn't know much about what he should be doing now, seeing as the situation had turned peaceful, but he did know the next step in First Contact scenarios near the Citadel. "Hey can we get an Asari or something down here?"

-.-.-.-

Elilia T'Morza had a pretty eventful day so far. Some terrified Volus had come to her thinking his workmate was out to kill him, and then she'd traced a strange signal in the between-elevators halls of the Wards to a bank… it felt like her day would never end.

"Hey Elilia?" another C-Sec officer, one of the Human rookies, came rushing over to her.

Oh Goddess, please no, not now!

"Yes, Caleb?" Elilia answered, with very well disguised exhaustion, "What is it?"

Caleb did a quick sweep on the area, something that confused Elilia. Why would he need to do that? It must be a Human thing. She'd noticed that a lot of them tended to do that when they felt insecure about something.

"We need you up at the Systems Alliance docking bay; there's a bit of a situation-" he lowered his voice to the point where Elilia had to strain to hear him, "they're saying it might be a First Contact and we need an Asari up there ASAP."

Elilia was shocked, to say the least. "But- why me? How? Why an Asari, specifically?"

Caleb looked slightly guilty. "Sorry, you were the first Asari I could find. There's a language barrier, among other things, and…" Caleb blushed. "Well you've got a much more comforting face than most of the other Asari C-Sec," he said.

"Well… when you put it like that…" Elilia smiled warmly at his antics and shook her head. "Lead the way."

-.-.-.-

"Uhhh…" Shepard couldn't believe it herself. "I think you might have the wrong Commander… miss?"

The female didn't respond, other than hugging her even tighter. Shepard decided to hug back and try and comfort her instead of listening to reason and logic. But she did radio the squad for help. "Hey guys, any chance-"

"We've got an Asari 'translator' coming up to help right now." Garrus interrupted. "Anything you can do to keep that girl calm will help immensely. I've sent off the rest of the squad. We can handle it from here. Right?"

"So long as you don't start fondling yourself again, yeah, we can," Ashley all but growled.

"Are you ever going to let me live that down?"

"Probably not."

Shepard ignored them as she stroked the pink hair. She didn't know if it was normal for daughters to nuzzle their mother's shoulders but she didn't want to start an interstellar incident over familial instincts that she didn't understand.

"Hey, umm, miss? Ma'am?" she tried, leaning away for a moment. The girl's eye's looked into Shepard's hopefully, and goddamn they were the same shade as her hair. "Can you understand me?"

The girl nodded, finally letting Shepard out of the excruciatingly tight embrace. She said something that sounded a lot like the gibberish from before, and Shepard couldn't decipher it to save her life.

"Well… I can't understand you," Kara grimaced sadly. "But we're getting someone who can. I've been told it's, uhh, quite the experience."

-.-.-.-

The first thing she thought when she saw the ship was 'at least these new aliens have a sense of beauty.'

Then she saw the ragtag group made up of Humans, Krogan, and Turian and wondered what kind of madman thought they'd be able to work together very well.

"Ah, Elilia, perfect," a flanged voice greeted her from the front of the impromptu barrier.

"Garrus… I should have known you'd be caught up in this." Elilia smirked, walking over to him and shaking his hand. The Human gesture had become quite popular among the Citadel races. For those that could, they often would.

"Nice to know you've been thinking of me. We need you to meld with the girl over there," Garrus pointed to where a couple sat on the docking platform, oblivious to them.

"Isn't that Commander Shepard?" she asked, confused.

"Try the pink one on the other side," the Krogan suggested. His scarred crest reminded Elilia of someone…

"Wrex?"

"Yup."

She left it at that and made her way out to the Commander and the new alien.

-.-.-.-

"Blue?" the girl asked, dumbfounded, as she stared at the Asari maiden walking towards them.

"Yeah, she's an Asari. They're blue." Shepard confirmed. "She's going to meld minds with you-"

"Hello, Commander Shepard, I am Elilia T'Morza. I wasn't aware that we were making First Contact with Humanity again," Elilia said, eyeing up the girl.

"Blue…"

"Yeah, well she's alien, she thinks I'm her mom, and shit happened." Shepard grimaced. "She already shot a Turian officer in the eye with a crossbow so I'd appreciate it if we could get this over with as soon as we can."

"I understand." Elilia turned to face the girl, and then made the effort to speak in English for her- albeit with a noticeable accent- "Just clear your mind, and do your best to remain calm," she said, putting a hand on the girl's neck and touching their foreheads together. "Embrace Eternity," she whispered.

-.-.-.-

Shepard watched, amused, as the two stood with their foreheads together. The new girl- I really need to find out her name- looked almost like she was about to drool on the floor.

"Does it usually take this long?" she asked after a full minute had passed. Everyone just swapped glances and shrugged. "Guess not then," she muttered, rolling her eyes.

"As much as I would like to stay until this is over," Garrus started, finally relaxing as the threat was over, "I still need to continue my investigation."

"I thought the Executor-"

"The Executor can shove it," Garrus whipped around to glare at Kaidan, who backed up innocently as he was interrupted. "If I'm using the human term correctly," he added as an afterthought.

"Yeah about that…" Shepard leaned against the railing, "I'm planning on exposing Saren too. And before you comically throw yourself on my feet screaming 'take me with youuuuu!' yeah, I'm dragging you along whether you like it or not." she smirked.

Garrus shrugged. "Fair enough."

Ashley was muttering something about "Too many damn aliens…" while Kaidan and Wrex were left to argue about whether or not pink-hair was actually Human. But, eventually, they all put their weapons away.

Shepard and Garrus stood next to each other, watching and waiting. "So why do you wanna pin Saren?" Shepard asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Saren is rogue, a mass murderer, and probably wouldn't think twice about genocide just to stop a minor conflict," Garrus snorted in disgust. "He's an absolute disgrace to my people and nobody is going to do a damn thing about it!"

"What if you agreed with his view though? Or he was your commanding officer?" Shepard knew that 'I was just following orders' was more of a creed than an excuse for Turians. Following bad orders could be forgiven. Disobeying those same orders came with a social stigma that few were willing to accept.

"Then I obviously wouldn't be calling him a traitor to our species. I know what you're asking, Shepard." Garrus nudged his head at her, pointing.

"I have no idea what you're talking about…" Shepard tried too hard not to smile, and her excessively twitching lips betrayed this fact.

"Yes, Shepard, I do have a stronger sense of morals than I do loyalty."

"We all have to make unsavoury decisions. As long as you can promise me you'll follow orders regardless, we shouldn't have a problem."

Garrus' mandibles twitched in surprise. "I… see." he murmured, looking away.

"Aww c'mon, Vakarian, I've got a sense of morals too. How d'ya think I got to where I am with my blindly obvious unprofessionalism?" Shepard grinned, giving Garrus a light punch on the shoulder. "I'm not gonna ask you to nuke anyone or anything stupid like that. At least I hope not…" she added, thinking carefully.

"You're a groundside squad leader; do you even have access to nukes?" Garrus asked pointedly.

Shepard shrugged. "Maybe."

The pair in front of the bonding soldiers finally moved, starting with pink-hair collapsing the moment the meld ended. "Uuhnnhhh…" she moaned, almost zombie-like as she stared at the ceiling.

"Finally finished, Elilia?" Garrus asked, stepping forward.

Elilia swayed on the spot for a moment, lightly touching the side of her head. "Yes… how long were we out?" she asked, concerned.

Shepard checked her omni-tool. "Almost five minutes. I thought learning languages would go a bit quick-"

"No. There was much more discussed than just language," Elilia told her, almost in a commanding voice. "Tessa is dangerous in ways you cannot imagine." she said, quite sternly.

"Okay…" Shepard nodded slowly, "But what about the bit where she thinks I'm her mom?"

"Mistaken identity. Though I must say you two are very alike." Elilia almost chuckled. "But this is a heavily isolated incident. Unless her kind sends a search party, which is highly unlikely, even more so by the second, then Tessa is the only Tenno in known space. Possibly even the entire galaxy."

Garrus shook his head. "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"Tell me about it," Shepard groaned. "So what do we do with her? If she's as dangerous as you say, we can't simply let her roam around on the Citadel." she gestured to the ship hovering at the end of the ramp- why didn't I go check that out while I had the chance?- "And what are we going to do about that?"

Elila shrugged. "I do not know. Perhaps it would be best to take her with you. We can impound the ship and keep it away from prying eyes but we cannot do the same for a sentient being who is not at fault for the problems she has caused. Though… nevermind. He will be missed."

Shepard glanced at Garrus. "Who'll be missed?" she whispered.

Garrus did his best to mimic the late officer, "Dibs on the helmet," he said.

"I can't believe it," Tessa muttered from her position on the floor. "Talking jellyfish."

Shepard couldn't help herself as she burst into unrestrained laughter. First Contact with a new species and the first thing she comments on is the Hanar.

-.-.-.-

The roof was interesting, but digesting the torrent of information had left her boggled. Hanar, Volus, Elcor, Asari, Salarians, Turians, Drell, Humans.

Sprawled out as she was, all she had to do was turn her head to stare at not-Mom who was laughing her socks off. The lizard-man- no, Turian- was shaking his head with a most decidedly 'annoyed' look, if she was getting the alien's expression right. She probably wasn't.

"Hey…" she slurred, her mouth and vocal chords still adjusting to the formerly foreign language, "Whayt're you laughing at?"

The Turian and Asari stopped conversing long enough for Elilia to crouch down and help her sit up. "Don't worry, Tessa, but I have to go." Tessa didn't realise how alarmed her expression must have been for the Asari to suddenly look guilty. "I promise, your secrets are safe with me," Elilia reassured her, embracing Tessa. "I'm going to leave you with Shepard and Garrus. Just keep your helmet on at all times when you're on the Citadel, okay?"

Tessa nodded, bringing her helmet up. The Turian seemed rather shocked by the way it folded out without catching her pigtails in it. "If anyone asks, it's just an experimental set of armour," she recited, "Don't draw unnecessary attention to myself, and Garrus and Shepard will take care of me."

Elilia smiled, giving her a final hug. "Good girl. Be safe," she said, leaving Tessa sitting cross-legged on the floor before turning to the soldiers. "And if you two don't take care of her and guide her…" she left the threat unspoken as she walked away. Tessa smiled when Elilia started ordering the other three to reorganise the impromptu barrier back to where the crates belonged.

-.-.-.-

Shepard couldn't believe it herself. "So you're Tessa?"

Tessa nodded. "Sorry about shooting the gecko and the other guy," she said, suspiciously less guiltily that Shepard would have expected. She even called the Salarian a gecko, which she found slightly amusing.

"You a soldier of some sort?" she asked evenly, not really liking that she already knew the answer. And she's so young, too.

"I am Tenno. We are warriors of gun and blade. It is our sworn duty to maintain balance across the Origin System." Tessa said it so mechanically that Shepard couldn't help but wonder if she'd been brainwashed into it.

"How'd you get to be a Tenno?"

Tessa looked at her, frowning. Shepard immediately realised how she knew that, and didn't like the answer. She's been in that suit for so long… her body language is almost impossible to miss.

"I was born. I'm actually one of the youngest Tenno alive," she remarked, tilting her head. "One of seven born in the last fifty years since the Cryosleep officially ended."

Garrus looked very surprised at that. "How long do Tenno usually live?" he asked.

Tessa appeared to wince as Garrus spoke. "Depends. Nobody actually knows, really. Unless you count a destroyed Cryopod, none of us have ever died in our sleep or of old age."

Shepard thought about it. Tessa was quite literally bred to be a warrior. "Hold old are you? Uh, if you don't mind me asking."

"Hmm twenty… seven? Twenty five?"

"Impossible!" Garrus exclaimed, pointing at her harshly. "You can't be older than thirteen!"

"I'm only twenty nine so that's a bonus point towards me not being her mother…" Shepard muttered under her breath.

Tessa shrugged. "If you say so… I did spend almost twelve years of my life since birth training. Two months with my mother to see if I would actually live, and then I was stuck in a statis pod to grow and stuff."

"And stuff?" Shepard repeated dully. "You spent twelve years of your life alone in a pod growing and stuff?"

"I don't know! I remember being in a simulator training or something. I wasn't old enough to talk Orokin yet, let alone have a say in how I was raised." Tessa looked down, playing with a flake of metal she found by her feet. "I… never really had a childhood or anything. I know I've spent the last decade out on missions or checking around trying to contact mom again. Doing whatever missions Lotus sends us."

"I think we can save the talk for later," Garrus suggested, noting that the others had finally finished grumbling about putting the crates back.

"Good thinking, Garrus. Okay then, Tessa, what's your combat specialty?" Shepard asked, signalling the others to get their collective asses over here.

"Crowd control, assassination, infiltration, indiscriminate local genocide." Tessa listed, counting each one on her fingers.

Shepard stopped at stared. "What."

Tessa started giggling. "You should see your face!" she squealed, laughing. When she finally calmed herself down, she gave Shepard a serious answer. "I'm good at crowd control, ninja stuff, and I'm reasonably OK at stealth. I think." she shrugged. "Probably."

Shepard tapped Garrus' shoulder, getting his attention. "We're gonna head down to Chora's Den to confront Fist. I have to bring Wrex because Fist is his current target. Any suggestions on everyone else?"

Garrus was surprised that Shepard would just ask for his consultation like that. "Well… considering what kind of establishment Chora's Den is, I'm not sure you'd want to bring Tessa. I'm happy to come along. If it weren't for Tessa's arrival I would have been investigating a lead at Doctor Michel's clinic down in the Wards. I'd still like to go there but if you're heading straight for Fist to kill him I'd rather not miss it."

Shepard nodded. "Ashley, Kaidan, you two take Tessa here and head to that med store in the Wards. Wrex, Garrus, and I are gonna go take out Fist. Got it?"

Several heads and one owl-faced helmet nodded.

"Meet at the Presdium in an hour or so. Move out!" Shepard ordered, jogging towards the elevator, Garrus and Wrex hot on her heels.

-.-.-.-

Kaidan glanced at Ashley and Tessa, who'd put her crossbow back in her creepy ship. "You're Tessa?" he asked, just to make sure.

"Uh-huh."

The three of them started walking down the dock to the newly-returned elevator, Tessa in the middle. Kaidan couldn't fathom what kind of tune she was humming but it was quite soothing, in his opinion.

The elevator ride was awkward and quiet.

"So…" Kaidan started, desperate to break the ice, "Are you even Human?" he asked.

"Nope. I'm Tenno." Tessa replied, rocking on her heels. "So I guess technically I am Human, but… I'm not anymore. It's complicated."

"Damn," Kaidan chuckled. "So if a bet were made on you being Human…"

Tessa visibly scowled at him, despite her helmet. "Whoever bet on not-Human would win."

Ashley shot him an appalled look. "You bet on her species?!"

"He wouldn't have asked if he didn't. At least, not if he'd won." Tessa said matter-of-factly. "So, Dad, how much does the dinofrog owe you?"

-.-.-.-

"Shitshitshitshitshit-"

"Shepard's hit!" Garrus yelled, moving to her cover and applying a large dose of Medigel from her reserves sloppily.

"I can see that!" Wrex yelled, charging through hired thugs, wreathed in his biotics. What few hostiles remained were quickly pummelled to death or had their head blown off by Wrex's shotgun.

"Clear!" Garrus called, applying Medigel more carefully now.

"All you C-Sec are the same," Wrex grumbled, lumbering back to where Shepard was crouched behind the counter with a bullet in her gut.

"Shepard, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Twelve," was her immediate response before even bothering to open her eyes. "Two?"

Garrus sighed, helping her up once the Medigel had taken effect. "We're going to need you to get looked over by a doctor or something next chance we get, make sure you didn't lose anything vital."

"Thanks for the concern, Garrus," Shepard winced and clutched her midsection, stumbling for a moment, "But I think I'll be fine. Unh, well y'know for a few more hours at least." she paused, looking around. "Where's Wrex?"

A couple of almighty *thunk*s could be heard from down the hall. "Nevermind…" Shepard groaned, hobbling a few steps before getting her gait right and jogging towards their Krogan merc. She hit Wrex's arm when she saw the two bodies on the ground. "What the hell, Wrex?!"

"They pointed guns at me." he grunted. "But they weren't Fist's goons so I taught 'em not to point guns at Krogan."

Shepard sighed and placed a hand on her forehead. "Just… urgh just so long as you don't go around killing-"

"Shepard, I'm over nine hundred years old and probably the only Krogan you'll ever meet who knows when not to start a fight. I can actually handle myself, you know."

"Yeah… okay. Fine. Let's go get Fist," she sighed, defeated. "C'mon Garrus. We don't want to miss the execution, now, do we?"

-.-.-.-

Tessa grinned under her helmet. He really truly did look like her father. Even acted a bit like him with some things. He even had the same name!

So while she was busy looking around the Wards and staring at aliens, her two squadmates were bickering about Kaidan and Shepard's relationship.

"I'm telling you, I'm not her father!"

"How long have you been sleeping with the Commander, Kaidan?" Ashley demanded, walking into the clinic.

"For god's sake, Ashley, I've-"

"What the hell?!" one of the thugs exclaimed, pulling the doctor into a headlock and putting his pistol up against her temple. "Nobody moves or the doctor gets it!"

"-never even-"

"Hey guys?" Tessa grabbed their hands and started shaking them about roughly. Since they ignored that, she forced their hands together and wrapped them around each other, holding them there.

"And now you're-"

"HEY!" the lead thug yelled, switching targets to shoot at Ashley's face.

Tessa used this moment of distract to launch herself into a cartwheel and kick the gun out of his hands, pick it up, and shoot him in the forehead the instant she was on her feet again. The gunshot rang out loud enough for Kaidan and Ashley to finally realise they were at their destination, holding hands, and were in a firefight all at once.

"Tessa!" Kaidan yelled angrily, separating himself from the Gunnery Chief. "What the hell?!"

Tessa smirked from her position behind the counter, taking pot shots at the thugs while Ashley bodily dragged the poor doctor to some cover. "You guys literally walked into this."

Ashley frowned at the doctor. "Really?"

Dr. Michel nodded, speaking with a thick accent, "You would have been shot if it weren't for this girl."

Kaidan growled in frustration, shooting the fire extinguisher. The sudden blast knocked everyone off their feet, but more importantly, stunned the thugs long enough for Tessa to run over and shoot them point blank.

When it was finally over, they gathered at the back of the shop, not looking at all like they'd just walked into a hostage situation. Tessa sat on one of the bed-benches, swinging back and forth. "You okay, doc?" she asked.

"I'm fine, thank you for saving me."

"It's ok. Look, I even got a new gun!" Tessa proudly held up the stolen pistol. And the small pile of weapons next to her.

"Yeah…" Kaidan rubbed his chin, wondering if the Commander had to deal with anything like this before.

"Why were those thugs here?" Ashley asked, keeping her assault rifle out. She didn't want to be caught by surprise again.

"They wanted to keep me quiet, to stop me from telling C-Sec about the Quarian. She came in here, injured. I helped her, and she asked where she could find the Shadow Broker, something about wanting to trade information on Saren for sanctuary." the doctor explained. "I directed her to talk with Fist, but that was before I found out Fist had betrayed the Shadow Broker!"

Kaidan grunted thoughtfully. "Shepard's already gone to confront Fist…" he said, holding a hand up to his earpiece to switch channels. "Hey Shepard, have you killed Fist yet? Good, ask him about the Quarian before you do. Doc here says she came in looking to trade Intel on Saren for sanctuary. No, we haven't got any more than that, sorry. Alright. I'll use the budget we got from the Turians for it. Kaidan out."

"So how'd it go with you and Mom?" Tessa asked, swinging her legs innocently.

Kaidan groaned and resisted the immense urge to facepalm. "We're going weapons shopping and gathering supplies. Shepard's confident she can nail Saren and when she does, we're going to be either chasing him or on the front lines holding back Geth whenever he shows his ugly mug, so we'd better be prepared."

"Yay! Birthday shopping!"

"NO."

-.-.-.-

"'kay. Wrex, he's all yours." Shepard turned around and was walking out by the time Wrex pulled the trigger and painted the rather nice wall with Fist's guts and other various inside things.

"Are you sure we should have just executed an unarmed prisoner like that?" Garrus asked, falling into step beside her.

"No, we shouldn't of, but Wrex probably woulda done it anyway. The Wards are probably going to be a better place without him, at least." Shepard replied, walking around the corner and quickly looting a foolishly unlocked weapons locker. "Cool! Edge II pistol for me… hey Wrex! C'mere! Found a shotgun for ya!"

"Should we really be looting this stuff? That's kind of illegal." Garrus reminded her, although he did appreciate the Reaper II sniper rifle he was given.

"Meh. We killed a bunch of guys but they LOOK OUT!" she yelled, ducking behind the corner as several rounds bounced off her shield and chipped away at the wall she hid behind.

-.-.-.-

"Shepard to Kaidan, come in, Kaidan!"

Kaidan tapped Ashley's shoulder to let her deal with the Volus shopkeeper while he dealt with Shepard. "This is Kaidan. Go ahead, Commander."

"The Quarian's- oof- in the alleyways near the Markets. Fist set her up and- Goddamnit Wrex!- We're pinned down!" Shepard yelled in his ear, gunfire clearly in the background. "You need to-"

"On it," Kaidan told her, pulling out his pistol.

"Better hurry, Lieutenant!" Shepard answered, cutting the comms.

Kaidan motioned for Ashley to hurry up as he grabbed Tessa and moved to the doors. "We've got a Quarian that needs saving, so watch your fire."

"Quarians are purple, right, Dad?" Tessa asked, pulling out her own pistol. It was the only one she'd kept; she'd let Ashley sell the rest to one of the dealers back in the markets.

"I'm not your father, and no, I don't think they are. They're the ones in the enviro-suits for their entire life." Kaidan replied as Ashley caught up.

"What-"

"Saving a Quarian cos Mom's pinned down." Tessa answered as the trio rushed down the halls to their objective. As soon as they caught sight of the group of soldiers surrounding the Quarian, Tessa sped off.

"Where the heck did she go?" Kaidan muttered to himself, looking into the shadows where his 'daughter' had just vanished.

-.-.-.-

"Deal's off. Tell the Shadow Broker he can meet me in person if he wants-"

"The Shadow Broker never meets anyone in person, dear. Take her out!" the Turian ordered, raising his shotgun one-handed and pulling the trigger. He heard a whirring sound, wondering why his weapon wasn't firing.

Then his arm fell off.

-.-.-.-

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya threw the tech grenade and dashed for cover. These shipping crates are awfully strong.

She ducked instinctually as shots started flying, but before she could pull out her shotgun her helmet collided with something.

"Hey!" a very young female human's voice piped up, coming from a flickering, smoking, shadow. A rather Humanoid shadow that was rubbing its head in annoyance.

So Tali screamed and shot her.

-.-.-.-

"All hostiles down!" Ashley reported, waiting for her sniper rifle to cool before putting it away. More shotgun blasts could be heard, along with screaming and yelling, from the alcove the Quarian had taken residence in.

"I don't even want to know." Kaidan grumbled, covering his eyes and trying to calm himself. Dealing with Tessa had been giving him some much worse headaches than usual.

"I'll go deal with them…" Ashley said, not waiting.

"WHAT ARE YOU?!"

"HUMAN!"

"DON'T!" Shotgun blast. "BOSH'TETING!" Another shotgun blast. "LIE!" And yet another shotgun blast. Ashley was going to need to ask this Quarian what kind of heat sink upgrades she had on her gun. "TO!"

"She's telling the truth." Ashley called, stalling the murder of Shepard's newest extra-galactic recruit.

"What?" the Quarian looked at her in surprise.

"It's a long story. You have intel on Saren?"

The Quarian backpedalled, pointing her shotgun at Ashley now. "Why?"

"We need it to expose Saren for what he is. Also, that girl you're trying to murder is our ally."

Tessa groaned from the corner, her form easily visible, and worryingly marked with red patches. "I'm…" she coughed, opening the bottom of her helmet for a moment to let out blood. "I'll be fine…"

Ashley didn't believe her, but she didn't exactly trust her either, not after that stunt with forcing her to hold hands with the LT. "Really?"

"Hnnn maaayybe."

Ashley glared at the Quarian.

"I'm sorry!"

-.-.-.-

It'd taken a while, but eventually the group found each other up at the Presidium, lounging around in the Diplomat's Bar. Ashley, Kaidan, the Quarian, and Tessa had managed to snag the couches in the corner on the main balcony, and were simply lying about waiting for the Commander to get back.

"Let me get this straight," Kaidan leaned forward, watching Tessa carefully, "You tanked how many shotgun blasts to the chest?"

Tessa winced, her wounds still healing. "I think it was something close to too many." she groaned, gingerly shifting position on the couch she was on. "At least I got my Glaive back…"

Kaidan sighed, turning to face the Quarian, "Do you know how many times you shot her, miss..?"

"Tali. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

"Tali, do you know how many times you shot her?" the lieutenant asked again as Ashley returned with drinks and a Medigel pack.

Tali seemed to shrink under the gaze of the two Alliance soldiers. "Well… around twelve times? I'm really sorry about it," she said.

"Uhn, don't worry. I'll heal." Tessa waved off the apology. "How much longer 'till Mom gets here?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.

"How long are you gonna keep this up?" Ashley asked, smirking at Kaidan's aggrieved expression.

"Until they get together and gimmie a sister. Or brother." Tessa giggled quietly.

"NO." Kaidan ordered, "No more!"

Tali raised a hand, about to say something, when Kaidan sent a death-glare at her, quickly preventing her from thinking of doing anything for the next ten minutes other than sit down, shut up, and wait for the Commander.

Tessa's odd armour gained a few cursory glances, as did the numerous spots of blood on it, though the fact that Kaidan had made sure that Ashley left her assault rifle on the table in clear view kept the gazes from being any more than momentary glances. "Has anybody got any spare nanites?" Tessa asked sleepily, finally relaxing in this strange place. Possibly because of blood loss.

Ashley and Kaidan shared a worried look as Tali spoke up. "I think nanites are illegal tech…"

"Most definitely," Ashley agreed, nodding vigorously. "Let's just keep this quiet until we get back to the Normandy."

Kaidan almost agreed with her before he thought about what she said. "Wait- are you sure we'll be taking them on the Normandy?"

"The Commander's easily going to be recruiting them for whatever it is we'll be doing. Probably fighting off waves of Geth whenever they make an appearance." Ashley shrugged. "You know she's going to try hunt down Saren whether he's sprung or not."

"Yeah…" Kaidan muttered, leaning back in his seat. "Is she dead?" he asked, nodding towards Tessa, who'd stopped moving entirely. It didn't even look like she was breathing.

"I'm ded," Tessa confirmed, "deeeeeeeaaaaaaaad!" she moaned like a zombie, holding out her arms and making various un-dead noises.

Tali leaned away, itching to grab her shotgun and shoot the girl again. "Please, don't," she whimpered as Tessa grumbled something about eating brains.

Thankfully the scene was interrupted by a small commotion at the bar entrance. Unfortunately, that was where the Commander was…

-.-.-.-

"Whaddaya mean I can't bring Wrex in here?" Shepard asked, supremely pissed.

"I don't want any trouble, and everyone knows that Krogan cause trouble!" the guy at the door told her sternly.

"I like him." Wrex chuckled. "Don't worry about me, Shepard." he said, shuffling away. "I'll collect the bounty and meet you back here in half an hour."

Shepard really didn't like how Wrex was acting. Mostly going against her orders- or better yet going off to do his own thing and not even checking it with her first. She folded her arms and huffed in annoyance.

"Well that went smoother than expected," Garrus quipped, earning a death-glare from Shepard. "What? It did!"

Shepard grunted and barged her way past the idiot who'd tried to stop her. She scanned the room, looking for the tell-tale signs of oh god, why…

"Hey Commander," Kaidan greeted her tiredly, while Ashley snapped off a salute.

"I told you to get the Quarian…" Shepard seethed, Garrus wisely staying quiet as he moved to check on Tessa, "So what the fuck happened?!" she all but screamed at them. Before anyone could explain, Anderson arrived. I bet Kaidan's thanking his lucky stars the Captain's here…

Anderson took one look at them and raised an eyebrow before shaking his head. "I'm not even going to ask. Come on, we can discuss this in the embassy," he said, grabbing Shepard's shoulder in an attempt to get her to calm down.

"If Udina's in there and decides to be a smartass, I'm going to punch him." Shepard promised.

-.-.-.-

"Remind me never to annoy you," Garrus said, eyeing the Ambassador lying on the floor. "How Anderson ever survived being assigned to the same ship as you- I'll never know."

Anderson sighed and rubbed his forehead. "If I'm honest, I was expecting that to happen a lot sooner. Now if we could just get back to work," he suggested, gesturing to Tali.

"Uh…" Tali hesitated just long enough for Tessa to shove her into the spotlight. The Quarian glared at the girl leaning on Garrus from beneath her visor. "I've managed to salvage an audio log from a Geth memory core-"

"I thought Geth destroyed their memory cores when they died." Anderson interrupted, frowning.

"If you're quick, lucky, and know what you're doing, small caches of data can be saved. Just listen to this!" Tali responded indigently, holding up her omni-tool to replay the recording.

Anderson leaned over to Garrus, whispering quietly, "It helps if you're on the same side and share her sense of humour," he advised, before the two started listening to the all-important evidence.

"Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the Conduit."

"We've got the bastard now!" Shepard yelled triumphantly, punching the air.

"He wasn't working alone," Tali said, continuing the recording.

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers." continued a female voice.

Shepard visibly deflated. "Dang…"

"We have to present this to the Council as soon as we can," Anderson said decidedly. "The quicker he's taken down the safer our colonies will be."

"I think you mean 'the safer the galaxy will be', Anderson," Shepard replied, grinning. "That bastard going down!"

-.-.-.-

Ashley and Kaidan once again had babysitter duty as the Commander and Anderson took Garrus and Tali to present the evidence to the Council. Shepard had been very insistent about reminding them that nobody had Wrex's contact details yet.

At least they got to wait in a bar.

Tessa was ignoring the other two as they talked, instead trying to meditate. If she could calm her body down a bit, she might be able to accelerate the healing process. This isn't working very well…

She was surrounded by an alien space station that looked fit for permanent residence. She was surrounded by aliens. There were funny drinks that glowed in different colours (sometimes there were drinks that glowed in several colours) and exotic foods and so much stuff! She'd never seen a Dojo as… metropolis-y as the Citadel in her life. Nature stuff and high tech spacestation corridors and buildings and statues…

With nothing else to do, Tessa watched the bar's entrance, waiting for Wrex the dinofrog- Krogan. He's a Krogan. They just look like dinofrogs is all.

It didn't take long. Kaidan was off going to the toilet or something, and Ashley was getting more drinks when Wrex arrived. He didn't go into the bar far enough to aggravate that weirdo from last time, but far enough to make himself highly visible to the people he was supposed to be meeting.

Tessa got up and dashed over to him, ignoring the funny glances she got. "Hi, Wrex!" she greeted the Krogan, smiling and waving. "What was the bounty?"

Wrex checked his omni-tool before replying. "About thirty thousand credits."

"What is that?" Tessa asked, pointing to the glowing orange interface, intrigued.

The old Krogan merc raised an eye-ridge. "An omni-tool. I guess if you're gonna be staying here we should get you one," he suggested, nodding towards the outside world. "C'mon, my budget's likely a whole lot bigger than Shepard's," he chuckled.

Tessa wore a grin that was too big for her face and it showed. "Yes!" she pumped her fist in the air, "New stuff!"

-.-.-.-

Kaidan got back to their table to see only Ashley there, calmly sipping her Eden Prime Paradise.

"… She's not with you?" Ashley asked, concerned when the Lieutenant hadn't moved from standing in front of their table for the last three minutes.

Kaidan never answered her, simply standing there, deeply breathing slowly. Ashley finished her drink before getting up and grabbing her gun.

"How much trouble can one little girl get into?" Ashley asked, confident that the answer was 'not too much'.

"Don't tempt fate, Ashley. It only brings bad fortune." Kaidan whispered, following her.

-.-.-.-

"Wazzat?"

"Elcor."

"What abo-"

"Hanar."

"Why does-"

"That is Blasto. It's a movie series about a Hanar with as many guns as you have questions."

"Huh. So is that norm-"

"Hanar aren't strong enough to hold guns, let alone fire them." Wrex was beginning to wonder what the hell he was thinking when he'd offered to take the alien girl shopping.

Tessa paused in front of a display in the Presidium's shopping corner. "Hmm… what's a 'manufacturer'?" she asked, pointing at one of the more common ones.

Wrex was surprised at that. "A manufacturer is a mass-producer of products. There's weapons manufacturers, armour manufacturers, furniture manufacturers… if stuff has a big enough demand then there's probably a manufacturer out there trying to sate that demand by producing the biggest supply," he explained, becoming more and more curious about Tessa's world with every seemingly simple question she asked.

She was a warrior of the highest calibre, according to Shepard, and yet she was so childish, with a massive lack of discipline and no idea whatsoever of manufacturers and many other things he took knowledge of for granted.

He was about to suggest they go to the Wards for some better, and definitely more illegal deals, when the large Blasto display suddenly changed. "Huh." Wrex grunted, recognising the Citadel Tower and Council Chambers, and most importantly, Shepard.

The loudspeakers gathered the attention of all who weren't already watching. "Shepard, please step forward."

Wrex felt something climbing on his back, and was ready to chuck it off when he noticed Tessa was no longer in front of him. He looked up and saw a flash of bone-white fingers gripping his armour. He chuckled. She definitely had no discipline.

Climbing on your allies was right next to friendly-fire on the "Not To-Do" list.

-.-.-.-

"Congratulations on making Spectre, Shepard," Garrus said when the esteemed Commander had re-joined the group. Udina's black eye was just starting to show so he wisely refrained from saying anything lest the Commander deck him again. And this time, for her at least, it would be fully legal.

"Thanks," Shepard smiled, quite proud of herself. "But I certainly didn't get this far on my own. If I want to take down Saren once and for all I'm going to need a ship and a crew I can count on," she said, planning her moves already. She glanced at Tali and Garrus again. "You two wanna come with?" she asked.

Garrus' mouth fell open in shock. "You- what- of course I do!" he exclaimed.

"Me too!" Tali stated, clumsily giving a salute which had the Commander trying very hard not to snicker at.

"Wait- what about your Pilgrimage?" Shepard asked, suddenly coming to the realisation that her potential crew had lives outside of hers. "Isn't that-"

"It can wait. I would rather make sure I have a Flotilla to return to than find a gift," Tali shot down her new Commander's worries with startling accuracy.

"Alright then. I know the Ashley and Kaidan are with me- I probably couldn't leave them behind if I tried." Shepard mulled it over, rubbing her chin in thought. "I might have to ask Tessa and Wrex though."

Udina and Anderson had been quietly conversing over by the cherry tree while Shepard was doing her thing. And as usual, her plans went very well up until they came across that one, vital thing that was a passive detail of the overall picture.

How the hell was she supposed to afford her own ship?

-.-.-.-

"Hey Kaidan, good news," Ashley said, reading the message she'd just got from Humanity's First Spectre. A quick glance at the Lieutenant told her that the poor, tormented man wasn't listening. "KAIDAN!" she yelled, hitting his shoulder.

"Hm?"

"Anderson's giving Shepard the Normandy. We're staying on her while we hunt down Saren." she told him, glaring at him the entire time to make sure he listened. "What's up with you anyway?"

"I…" Kaidan looked at her like a sad puppy and Ashley used all her inner discipline not to freak out and cuddle him.

"Maybe you should go see doctor Chakwas. I can find the aliens and meet you back at the ship," Ashley suggested, looking concerned.

Kaidan took a deep breath, holding it for a moment. "Yeah. Okay. I'll see you back at the Normandy." he said lightly, before slowly wandering in what Ashley could guess was vaguely the right direction.

-.-.-.-

"What's the Normandy like?" Tessa asked as she scrolled through a list of ammunition mods on the datapad that same Salarian she and Ashley had sold a pile of guns too earlier.

"Dunno."

"It looks like it'd be a bit more spacious than my Liset," she commented idly. "Phasic?"

The Salarian nodded. "Partially bypass kinetic barriers."

"Cool." Tessa continued scrolling until she found one she liked the look of. "High explosive rounds? How high explosive are we talking here?"

"Morlan does not have access to a firing range. If you wish to test it, any reparations are on your hands," the Salarian shopkeep said nervously, wringing his hands in that way that really creeped Tessa out.

"Hey Wrex, can I shoot you?" Tessa innocently called to the merc on the other side of the room. She seemed to get a positive grunt in reply but at the same time he was busy… "How do I even use this thing?"

"Morlan can demonstrate!" the third-person geckoman swiped the pistol from Tessa's slack grip, ejected the ammo block, unfolded the modifier, clipped it in place, and had the whole thing reassembled and back in her hands before she even realised what'd happened.

"Wuh?" she stared at him dumbly.

"The mod clips onto the ammo block. All weapons use ammo blocks of varying sizes and all ammunition modifiers can adapt to attach to every ammo block within standard conventions. Morlan recognises this as a good business plan."

"Right…" Tessa repeated the information in her head as she took aim at Wrex's slowly approaching form. Two shots impacted on his shields, with very noticeable blasts; almost enough to knock him on his ass. "Huh. I thought it woulda been bigger."

"Explosives relative to basic shot power. Assault rifle explosions smaller, then pistols," Morlan nodded to Tessa's weapon, "Shotguns have a larger combined explosion, although individual explosions smaller than that of a pistol's. Sniper rifles comparable to mini-RPGs in terms of strength. And of course, better quality modifiers make for more powerful explosions."

"How much for this one?" Tessa asked, holding up her pistol.

"Two thousand seven hundred and eight credits." Morlan replied, sensing a deal to be made.

"I'll give you two thousand five hundred."

"Deal."

"Wrex, can I borrow two and half thousand credits? I'll pay you back for this one, I swear!"

Wrex grumbled something darkly about friendly fire but paid for the mod. "You better. This-" he stopped himself when he saw what he'd bought. He snatched the datapad with the available items from Tessa and scrolled through to the ammo mods. "I want three of these and two of those." he ordered, pointing to the items.

Morlan almost giggled as he wrung his hands again and nodded.

"And one of those and that one and… these three."

"A total of twelve thousand four hundred and nineteen credits. Morlan will do you a deal; the entire purchase for only twelve thousand!" the merchant gleefully announced as he packaged Wrex's new gear. "You two are the best customers Morlan has had the pleasure of serving in years!"

"Awesome…" Tessa was still put off by the way Morlan kept wringing his hands. The last guy she'd seen act like that had been a Corpus trying to experiment on cannibalising Warframes.

"Morlan will even throw in the duffle bag for free!"

-.-.-.-

"Anderson… why?" Shepard asked, unimaginably sad at the fact she had to take the Captain's ship from under him.

"She's quick, she's quiet, and she's one of the best ships in the fleet. It's the perfect vessel for a Spectre." Anderson told her proudly. "As much as I hate getting promoted to a desk job, I know chasing down Saren is more important."

Shepard was about to hug her dear old friend, but stopped when the Lieutenant got in the way. "Kaidan?"

The man looked at her with a dazed expression. "Hey Commander. Hey Captain." he said, nodded to them before wandering down the ramp and into the Normandy's airlock.

"…" Shepard really, really wanted to yell some vulgarities at the Sentinel right now. "Kaidan," she began, slowly, "Where's the rest of the squad?"

"Dunno."

"YOU-"

-.-.-.-

Chellick heard a lot of things from his C-Sec office. Angry screaming was nothing new.

But this loudly? He hadn't heard that since… well, never, actually.

Oh well, that's his one out-of-the-ordinary thing for today done; it was almost time for him to go check up on Jenna.

-.-.-.-

"Hmm… you've never had an omni-tool before?" the Turian technician asked, looking rather confuddled. His little corner of the market was a bit too 'out-of-the-way' to get as many visitors, let alone customers.

"No…" Tessa wasn't sure what story she could make up without heightening the suspicion on her already.

"You musta been on one of those isolation colonies, then." the Turian remarked, grabbing a small bracelet-type band from behind him. "I'll give you this one for free. It's the most basic omni-tool there is and it's almost a mandatory piece of equipment in Citadel space. Or anyone who knows about Citadel space, now that I think about it."

"So what's it do?" Tessa asked, leaning on the counter. Wrex had wandered off to do a couple more deals a few minutes ago, leaving Tessa feeling slightly lonely.

"Well, it's an omni-tool. It's basically got every function a standard computer terminal has, but with the addition of a micro-fabricator and Medigel dispenser," the shopkeep explained. "It can act as a translator, and with the right programs it can even be used to throw snap-freezing ice bombs, if you're a combat techie."

Tessa didn't like hearing about the translator function. "How does the translator work?"

"It takes a few hours to kick in, but by reading your brain signals it can alter the stimuli. I'm speaking English right now, but if you had an omni-tool with a working translator function, I could start speaking Turian and you would still see me speaking English. Its complicated stuff, if you want an in-depth explanation, try a Salarian."

"What about new languages?"

The Turian thought about it for a moment. "Hmm… usually it gets added to the omni-tool database and then networked to all active omni-tools as a language update. But first someone wearing an omni-tool has to be capable of speaking that language."

Tessa really didn't like the sound of that. "So… if an Asari mindmelded with someone who knew this new language, and she was wearing an omni-tool…"

"Yeah, that language would probably be added. Keep in mind that unlike mindmelding, using an omni-tool with the right language doesn't let you speak it, only translate what you hear of it into a language you know. You could have a Salarian and a Krogan chatting and the Krogan would assume the Salarian is talking his own language, and the Salarian would think the Krogan is speaking Salarian. Make sense?"

This was bad news. "So how would I go about deleting a language from the library?" she asked, her voice betraying both extreme anger and sadness.

"You'd have to talk to the Council directly and then, if they accepted your request, they'd have to contact the guys behind the omni-tool updates database and get them to remove it," the Turian told her. "Why do you want this language removed, anyway?"

Tessa scowled under her helm. "It's a sacred language. If there are translators out there, they must be killed or mindwiped or erased or whatever. Speaking it without having earned the right to is blasphemous and must be dealt with. PERMANENTLY."

The Turian whistled. "Yeah, I think you might be able to get through to the Council with that. Here, give me your wrist for a moment…"

-.-.-.-

Wrex had a few more things in his duffle bag when he returned. But he was more than surprised that Tessa wasn't there.

"She's gone to the Citadel Tower to talk to the Council about removing a sacred language from the omni-tool database," the shopkeeper told him before he could even raise his fist.

"Grr…"

"I did ask her to wait until you'd gotten back, but she just ignored me and stomped off." the Turian shrugged. "I'm sorry. Just never bring her back and the entire purchase is on the house."

-.-.-.-

"Elilia," Ordis began worriedly, "Tessa is about to get herself in trouble."

Elilia had been in the Liset, talking about Tessa's future in this bold new world for a good three and half hours before Ordis had warned her. Despite the massive information exchange between Tessa and Elilia, there was still much she felt she needed clarification on.

She sighed. "How?"

"Data indicates that she may be attempting to contact the Citadel Council in order to get them to remove the Orokin language from the omni-tool database."

"Can you ask her to come here?" Elilia questioned, leaning forward from her position of sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I can remove the language myself, there's no need to get the Council involved."

"…"

"Ordis?"

"She is on her way. If possible, I would like for you to meet her at the C-Sec entrance," Ordis requested, almost emotionlessly. "She may be angry and will likely need your guidance to get here."

"Alright. Is there any way for me to contact you outside this Liset?" Elilia asked, flicking on her omni-tool.

"Sadly that answer is no. There is a language barrier of my own in the way," Ordis said sadly. "And even the goddamn translator program doesn't work here! … Apologies. I still haven't found the source of these glitches."

"Ordis, as long as you aren't going to do anything violent, glitch-ridden or otherwise, I should be able be able to keep you as our little secret. AIs are illegal here, remember?" Elilia reminded her new companion reassuringly.

"I am aware." Ordis muttered. "Has Commander Shepard given you an update yet?"

Elilia got up and stretched. "She hasn't yet, but if Tessa's alone like you say she is, I most definitely will be having a word with her."

-.-.-.-

Shepard was about to have a breakdown. Half her crew were missing or searching for the missing ones who she couldn't contact as one of them hadn't given her his omni-tool contact details and the other one didn't even have an omni-tool.

"Pressly… what am I gonna do?" she asked, distraught, her hands over her face.

"Maybe contact C-Sec. If anyone knows where anyone is on the Citadel, it'd have to be them," the balding navigator suggested. "We don't have any leads on Saren yet so I'd say we've got about five or six hours before we have a destination in mind."

Shepard breathed out slowly. "Okay," she agreed, standing up just as her omni-tool pinged. "What?"

Shepard,
I've found Tessa wandering all alone in the C-Sec academy. I expect you to come pick her up as soon as possible. And I have directed Wrex to the Normandyfor you.
~Elilia T'Morza

"I don't know if I should be happy or angry about this…" Shepard muttered darkly as she stormed her way to the airlock. "Pressly, do me a favour and keep the rest of the squad tied up in the hangar."

"Aye, aye, Commander!"

-.-.-.-

Just a few more taps… a quick password there… and… "There. Orokin is now a secure language once again."

"THANK YOU!" Tessa shrieked, hugging the Asari with all of her quite considerable strength. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

"Oooff… you are welcome Tessa," Elilia said when she was finally released, "but now I'm going to have to ask you a few questions."

"But-"

"No buts." Elilia told her, setting her down on the floor. "Tell me everything that happened since I left you in the Commander's care." she ordered.

Tessa sighed. "Well we had a chat, then Garrus, Wrex and Mom went to some place called Chora's Den to kill someone or something, and I went with Ashley and Dad to visit Dr. Michel's medical clinic because Garrus had a lead there that he wanted to check out but couldn't since Mom and Wrex were on their way to kill someone important on his hit-list and then when me, Ashley, and Dad got to the clinic there was a bunch of thugs so we killed them, took their guns, sold it to a Salarian named Morlan while dad got told about a Quarian who had information they needed and before Mom killed the other guy they interrogated him so that we knew where the Quarian was and then Mom got pinned down so Dad and me and Ashley had to go save her and she shot me at point blank range with a shotgun like twenty-something times while yelling at me, then we went to a diplomats bar, waited for the commander and then we got the evidence off the Quarian, whose name is Tali, Wrex wasn't allowed in the bar so he went off to collect the bounty for killing this dude in Chora's Den, Mom took Garrus and Tali to that big tower, Ashley was off getting drinks, Dad was going to the toilet or something when I saw Wrex again and then he took me shopping, I found out that the omni-tools automatically downloaded languages from your brain and that's why I was mad because the Orokin language is SACRED and then Ordis told me to go to the C-Sec academy and then you found me and now we're back on the Liset."

Elilia was speechless. "By the goddess… how did you-"

"It's my Warframe," Tessa explained glumly. "It can supply me with oxygen while I talk so I don't really need to breathe while I wear it."

"That is… extraordinary."

"No it isn't. It's just chemical and mechanical integration." Tessa looked at her like she'd just asked a really stupid question. "My body is literally overflowing with nanite technology. Heck, if I go down in the field, it's the job of my friends to give me an 'adrenaline' dose of more."

Elilia sighed. "So much of your technology is illegal here. Ordis is an AI, your body is crawling with nanites, and your weaponry simply ignores kinetic barriers."

"Yeah well it's a crossbow." Tessa sulked, folding her arms and staring at the floor. "It's not my fault your crummy shields can't do shit against throwing knives, either."

The Asari had no idea where to begin. "I'll have to advise the Council, obviously, but… you are a localised case." she hmmed.

"Oh just tell them and if they have any problem they can shove it up their-"

"Operator!" Ordis gasped in horror of Tessa using such foul language.

"-weird, alien, behinds."

"No." Elilia told her sternly. "No blowing up anything on the Citadel."

"You can't exactly stop me," Tessa frowned. "Not unless you're willing to cause excessive collateral damage…" she added as an afterthought. "I suppose if I got caught in the wrong situation it'd be possible, but if readings from my earlier 'firefight' were anything to go by I'd survive even longer than usual."

Elilia grumped. "That's why I'm asking you not to."

"You told me not to! That's completely different!" Tessa whined sadly.

"Please do not blow up anything on the Citadel." Elilia corrected herself, giving Tessa a quick hug. "Commander Shepard is on her way, and I want both of you to stick together from now on, okay?"

Tessa bit her lip. "She left me with Dad- uhh, Kaidan, and Ashley like five minutes after meeting me."

Elilia sighed. "Chora's Den isn't the kind of place someone of your development should be," she explained. "It's… how do I put this…"

"A foul establishment with a lowly reputation and a diseased mindset." Ordis said confidently. "I approve of Commander Shepard's decision not to bring you there. Operator Elilia, Shepard is almost here."

Tessa looked out the window, getting up. "Doesn't she need a passcode or something to get in here?" she asked.

"She's a Spectre now. In her current mood I doubt she will use anything less than brute force to find you, Tessa." Ordis responded. "She had better keep you safe…"

The Asari in the room finally got up. "Should we let her in or have this conversation outside?"

"Is she gonna be mad at Ordis?"

"Hopefully not." the Cephalon's cube fizzled into existence over the main navigation console. "Your previous boyfriend-"

"Zen was NOT my boyfriend!" Tessa's face when bright pink as she violently denied Ordis' implication. Zen was just an Ash she knew a while back… they were just good friends!

"… Your previous male companion did not seem to appreciate me much." Ordis finished while Elilia hid her smirk. "Allowing Commander Shepard entry."

The ramp opened up, allowing the view of the stars, the docking bay, and one extremely pissed-off redhead into the Liset. "Where. The hell. Have you been." Shepard demanded, stomping up the ramp and glaring like a demon at her 'daughter'.

"Wrex took me shopping!" Tessa said cheerfully, holding up her new omni-tool.

"Tessa-" Ordis began, his cube popping up over the console again, only to be cut off by Sherpard pointing her pistol at his avatar.

"Is that an AI?"

"I am a Cephalon." Ordis responded. "Please cease trying to threaten me with your gun. Shooting will achieve nothing more than breaking the window."

"It was AI that killed Jenkins back on Eden Prime, it was AI that attacked Eden Prime in the first place!" Shepard yelled right back. "I'm not letting my first act as Spectre be letting you loose on the galaxy!"

"Mom-"

"I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER!" Shepard pretty much screamed at the Tenno.

"Commander, you need to calm down." Elilia frowned at the newest Spectre, holding out her hand wreathed in biotic blue energy, ready to snap a Stasis on Shepard.

"I have had the single most stressful day of my life today." Shepard started, her hair a mess. "All I want to do right now is go and blow something the fuck up."

There was silence in the Liset after that. Shepard glared at the three in front of her, and they stared back. Tessa, however, was trying her best not to cry. This woman in front of her was almost identical to her own mother, and whether she was or wasn't, hearing that same voice say what it did was almost too much for her to bear.

"… You're right. You aren't my mother. Goodbye, Shepard." Tessa whispered, turning around and falling to a meditative position.

Shepard was rather taken aback. "Hey, now-"

"Get out." Tessa told them calmly.

"Tes-"

"GET OUT!" She screeched at them, her armour and body flaring up as Void energy coursed through it.

She didn't turn around, but she knew they were gone when Ordis closed the ramp again.

"Tessa? Are you… okay?" Ordis asked, his voice filled with concern.

Tessa struggled to speak, her throat closing up as tears threatened to break free. "No, Ordis, I'm not," she whispered, barely loud enough to hear herself.

Ordis didn't respond after that, which Tessa was thankful for. She needed a moment to get her emotions under control. She'd never had to deal with anything like this before.

"What do we do now?" Ordis asked, his near-shattered cube floating in front of Tessa.

"I don't know Ordis. I don't know." Tessa replied. "Do we have anywhere to go?"

Ordis paused to calculate the stars. "No. Attempts to integrate maps and other coordinate data from your omni-tool have proved unsuccessful due to conflicting natures in both hardware and code. The archaic thing uses hard-hologram! How am I supposed to work with THAT?! Even with the Orokin translation software no progress has been made."

"Damnit…" Tessa swore. She got up, and started pacing. "How am I supposed to DO anything?!" she shouted, kicking her codex console in frustration. "This is kubrowshit!"

"Operator Tessa," Ordis began thoughtfully, "we may be able to contact other members of the Normandy to sort things out between you and-"

"No." the young girl bluntly refused. "I'm not going near her."

"I cannot simply fly us out of here into deep space with no idea where we are, Tessa!" Ordis argued. "We need help whether we like it or not- which I certainly don't!"

Tessa shrieked in frustration. "FINE! I'm going to go visit this 'Citadel Council' and see if I can get us something to blow up." she growled. "And if they don't want to help, well, that's why I'm bringing my goddamn Attica."

"Oh dear…"

-.-.-.-

Please Review! Feedback and reactions are always greatly appreciated

~Pyro