Chapter 1: A big loss
Tali sat in the escape pod and watched the Normandy explode. At this moment she was very close to crying. The only reason she wasn't crying was, that she wasn't alone in the pod. Liara and Ash sat next to her. All watched the flying fireball once called Normandy. While Tali looked out of the window, Ash asked through the radio the other pods:
"Here is pod number 12, has anybody seen Shepard."
"Here's Joker in pod 9. She wasn't able to escape. Shepard is dead." came the answer.
"No that can't be. Shepard always finds a way to survive. She always did. She can't be dead. She must be one of the pods." Tali screamed.
Tears were coming down her cheeks. She just lost her home and now Shepard has been lost. It all seemed so unreal, like a nightmare. Tali hoped that she would wake up in the next few moments, but she wasn't sleeping, she was fully awake.
"Shepard, that's not funny, answer you bosh'tet." She screamed.
"Tali she's dead, don't you understand that. Ash and I are also very sad but crying, doesn't bring her back. We have to fight for her, that her sacrifice wasn't just for nothing. We will revenge her but we have to be strong now." Liara tried to sound strong but she was also very close to crying.
"But she could be still alive, her suit has a life support system. I know that she's out there." Tali sobbed.
Now Ash got furious: "We don't have a beacon of her, and what do you want to do. Fly back to look for her. Even if we could turn the pod to fly back, there's too much scrap flying around. We would end like the Normandy. If you want so you can get out and walk back, but I'm not going to risk my life for a little girl, which tries to find her only friend. It's not the first commander I lost and it won't be the last. So get over it!"
Tali looked to Liara.
"Help me." She whispered to the Asari.
"Sorry, I'm on Ash's side. It would be suicide to get back to the Normandy. Don't waste your life, Shepard surely didn't want you to die. I can tell you that you were very important to her." she answered quietly.
Tali couldn't stop sobbing, she remembered all moments, where Shepard was important. She exactly remembered, how the commander saved her on the Citadel, how they killed Tons of Geth, and how she killed Saren. At that moment she knew how important this particular women was to her. And the fact, that she would never see her again made her sobbing even more. Liara noticed how heavy the situation was for Tali. The Asari took the quarian into her arms.
"Everything will be fine, you will see. But you have to be very strong now." she whispered to Tali
"Try to sleep a little bit, after that you will feel better, I promise."
The young lady wanted to say something but she didn't. Thanks to her mask, the others didn't see, how much she really cried. All she wanted, was Shepard sitting next to her and smile as she did, when she just bought a new weapon, but now she was dead and maybe she was floating in the cold space, or ripped into little pieces by the scrap of the Normandy.
"Why did she had to die, she was only 29 and her birthday was in a week. She didn't deserve it. Oh, keelah, she was only at the beginning of her life." Tali sobbed.
"Nobody deserves to die, Tali, but that's the natural order. Everybody has to die some day." Liara answered.
At this moment Tali noticed, that she became suddenly very homesick. She wanted to be a child again, laying in bed, with her mother on her side, singing a lullaby. But her mother is dead and her home is light years away. Shepard has taken the position of a substitute mother, and now she's gone.
"Can you sing me a lullaby, Liara?" she asked silently.
"Is the shock really that big, that you began to behave like a five-year-old again? Okay I'm gonna try." Liara answered softly.
As Liara began to sing, Ash rolled with the eyes and tried to ignore the big Quarian Baby. Even thought Tali thought this was, an stupid idea, to ask for a lullaby, it helped her, and after a while her eyes became heavy and she fell asleep.
At the funeral of Commander Shepard the whole crew of the former SR-1 Normandy stood around an empty coffin, because her body hasn't been found. Nobody said anything. The only thing that could be heard was the light rain and the Priest speaking.
"Does one of the present people say any last words?" he asked.
"I would." Garrus answered.
He walked up to the speakers desk. Slowly, but secure.
"Some days ago" he began "we've lost one of the greatest Commander of the Alliance in all times. Shepard never had much contact with her family, so we were always her family. She cared about us all the time, she looked after us and made always the right decision. It's hard for us to let her go, but now Shepard is gone, and we will move all along, but we must not forget what a great person she was. Without her the whole galaxy would be destroyed by the Reapers, without her many people would have died. And we will not forget the stories, we will go out and tell those stories to all people we know so her actions won't be forget, because without her I wouldn't be standing here and everybody else. So may your actions never be forget." Garrus went to the coffin and put his hand on it. "Goodbye Shepard. May you rest in peace wherever you are." He said silently and walked back to the small crowd.
"Well said." meant Dr. Chakwas , but Garrus wasn't listening.
Slowly the coffin moved into the hole beneath it, while soldiers of the Alliance fired 21 gunshots. Tali watched it sinking into the ground, she thought about the speech of Garrus and she decided to go back to the Flotilla and help her people with the Geth.
Liara, who seems to be the only one who recognised how bad thing are for Tali, walked up to her.
"How are you? Do you need any help?" she asks. Tali, who didn't see Liara coming was a little astonished.
"Ah... well... I'm doing fine, I think. I don't think, that I need any help, but thanks for asking. I can't believe she's dead now. But we have to move on." Tali just said that very casual but under her mask tears are coming again.
"And do you have any plans for the future?"
"Yes, I going to get back to the flotilla. Maybe I can help my people at fighting the Geth, because no one like me had so much contact with Geth like me."
"You sound very confident, when do you leave?"
"Immediately, because every female woman here on earth reminds me of Shepard. I'm just going to say goodbye and then leave. But there's one thing I don't understand."
"What is it?" Liara asked.
"Why do humans bury their body into the dirt?"
"I also don't know that, seems like an human tradition." Liara shrugged "Well then good luck on the flotilla" After that Liara walked away.
Tali walked to the coffin and thought why humans put their bodies in such boxes, just to bury them afterwards. That's a complete waste of expensive resources. Then she thought about Shepard and as she came close to tears she turned away and moved to the next shuttle bay to fly home to the flotilla. On the bay there were many people, all ignored her and even some mothers took their child on the arm as they saw Tali moving past them, as Tali would eat little children. Not even a single terminal showed, that Commander Shepard died. They don't want to start a panic. Wouldn't be good if the most valuable Commander of the Alliance would die. She walked past some pigeons to the Terminal. She had never seen some pigeons and she stopped to look at them. Some old guy came up to her.
"Please leave our birds alone. You sure have some native animals on your home to test medicine on." he said.
"Sir, I'm not going to test drugs on those animals. I'm not an evil being, I never saw such thing, and I wanted to admire them. What do you think I am?", she answered politely.
"Just making sure." he said and walked away.
"Such a bosh'tet, thinks I'm going to kill their wildlife." she said in a such a low voice, that nobody could hear and moved on to the ticket terminal.
"One ticket to the Quarian flotilla, please." she said to the guy behind the register.
"One moment please. That's 250 Credits."
"Wow that' pretty expensive!" Tali said and transferred the credits from the omni tool to the register.
"Have a nice flight!" wished the guy behind the counter and gave Tali the ticket. "Your shuttle leaves in 4 hours at docking 6." Tali turned around and walked to docking 6, thinking how to kill some time.
So apperantly you've read the whole first chapter, hope you liked it if you have any recommendations i try to follow them in the story. And of course please leave a review.