Disclaimer: I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.
[AN: Ever since Tali's arachnophobia was revealed in ME3, I had always wondered where she might have got it from considering Rannoch has no insect, and therefore presumably arthropod, analogues of any type therefore making it highly unlikely that the Migrant Fleet would have a spider infestation.
This is what I came up with. /AN]
A Perfectly Rational Fear:
"Hey Tali, watch out for spiders when you're moving through the service tunnels; scuttlebutt says there's some big ones down there at the moment." One of the human engineers, Crosby she thought it was, called out casually as she was just beginning to lower herself through the hatch leading to the interconnecting rows of narrow service and maintenance tunnels that criss-crossed the amazingly high-tech Frigate. Tali peered curiously at the man as she tried to work out what the 'spider' he mentioned was and why her translator had picked that moment to fail her. Before she could ask for clarification, Chief Adam's was already chastising the other Engineer, though she didn't understand why.
"Come on Silas, give the girl a break! She's only been here for a week and she doesn't need you filling her head with the scuttlebutt's fantasies." The senior engineer scolded his younger compatriot before shooting Tali a reassuring smile.
Deciding that her curiosity could wait, she lowered herself the last couple of feet and closed the hatch behind her, pushing all thoughts of these mysterious 'spiders' to the back of her mind while she focused on familiarising herself with the power distribution system used within the Normandy.
After half an hour of crouch-walking around the technological wonderland she found herself in, the most surprising thing she had noticed was how clean everything was. There was none of the dust that usually coated everything like a translucent patina, none of the carbon scoring that had always accompanied any sort of electrical system on the Rayya, none of the grime and corrosion that resulted from centuries of active use that she was so familiar with in the bowels of the Flotilla's myriad ships. It just served to hammer home how new the Normandy was, barely a month out of the shipyard, and she got to be part of its engineering team! She still couldn't believe her luck.
Pushing aside her giddiness to be working on the ship, she returned to studying every inch of its internal systems while her mind drifted back to how immaculately clean everything was. In fact, there was only one build-up that marred the almost spotless environment; strange, remarkably thin strands of some odd material that clung to her suit as she brushed past. It proved to be very hard to remove but she wasn't particularly worried; such stains and residues were hardly new to her and they all washed of easily enough in her experience. Still, she had never encountered such a strange residue in all her time working on ships in the Flotilla.
'Perhaps it is a phenomenon peculiar to human ships, or maybe new ships; the fleet hasn't had a new ship for generations. It's almost… pretty with how it catches the light, much nicer than the oil stains and rust patches that normally fill these tunnels.' She thought to herself as she continued on her expedition.
Three hours later, she found herself sitting in the Mess Hall, sipping on a tube of Nutrient Paste as her mind wandered back to the strange warning about 'spiders' she had received earlier. She briefly contemplated seeing if Shepard was in his cabin so she could ask him, but dismissed the thought immediately as she remembered how tired he had been in the last week. After dealing with the mission to Feros and then the Terrorist attack on Terra Nova she didn't want to disturb him for something so minor as asking what a word meant, even if she would have liked the excuse to talk to him some more.
Instead, she keyed her omni-tool and accessed the ever-reliable extranet for information. Opening the first page from her query, she began to read:
"Spiders are a member of the Arachnida class of invertebrates that inhabit the Human Homeworld, Earth, and are analogous to species of a similar nature found on numerous worlds. All spiders have eight legs used for locomotion and the capacity to produce spider silk, a material of remarkable strength and elasticity. They are also exclusively predatory, with some species being patient ambush predators, while others are active hunters that run down their prey. Whatever hunting style used, spiders kill their prey by injecting a venom that paralyses their unfortunate victim, followed by digestive enzymes that begin to dissolve their prey's body before the spider consumes it. With nearly 50 000 known species, they can be found in almost any environment, even starships!"
Kaidan would find her an hour later in a nearly catatonic state as she scrolled through pages upon pages of information about spider biology, their venom and its effects on the human body and worst of all, images of the various forms of eight-legged demon that lived on Earth. Shrugging off Kaidan's attempts to close down her omni-tool, she continued her fear-induced research well into the next shift cycle, her forgotten tube of nutrient paste still connected to her helmet. It was only after she had exhausted all of the links provided by her first extranet query that she finally shut down her omni-tool and settled into a fitful night's sleep in her sleeper pod (after very thoroughly checking it for spiders… four times).
The next morning, Adams found himself becoming rather concerned about his Quarian charge. She had been doing an excellent job learning the ropes over the last week and she usually had this enthusiasm which brightened up the whole shift. But today she was far more subdued and seemed to be stuck in a cycle where she would enter a near daydream state that she would suddenly jerk out with a shudder between 2-10 minutes later and begin working feverishly at whatever task she had in front of her for half an hour or so before slipping back into the daydream. He had tried asking her if something was wrong but she just nervously waved away his concern and focused even harder on her work.
At first he had put it down to the effects of a stressful week of combat and her difficulty adjusting to life on the Normandy; but three hours later and Adams was on the verge of asking the Commander to come and talk with her and see if he could get her to tell him what was wrong. Before he could do that, though, Tali finished at her console and asked if she could go back to the maintenance tunnels to check some of the areas she didn't see yesterday. Deciding that maybe all she needed was a change of scenery to get her head back in the game he agreed without hesitation.
Tali desperately needed to clear her head, so while others might go for a workout or watch a vid to achieve such a result, she decided to go back to her recently discovered mechanical paradise that was the Normandy's interior. If wandering around down there for the rest of the shift couldn't take her mind off her spider-related thoughts, nothing would.
She followed one passage that ran the length of the Main Gun (so that the capacitors and superconductive wiring could be maintained and replaced easily), admiring the quality of the technology employed and making some minor tweaks here and there where someone had installed something in too much of a rush or where that strange sticky, filament-like residue had become quite dense.
After ten minutes of this she had almost completely forgotten about how the hypothetical damage a levo-protein based neurotoxin could be to a dextro-protein based species with a severely overactive immune system, which had been draining a significant portion of her focus for the last hour or so. So distracted was she by the technology on display before her, that she nearly missed a small dark shadow scuttling toward her from a little crack between two bundles of wiring off to her side. She caught sight of it in her peripheral vision and spun violently to face her attacker, only to find that whatever it was had stopped moving as soon as she had moved and it now waited just outside the glow of the evenly spaced lights that ran the length of the tunnels. Her visor strained to make out details in the gloom but all she could see was a small, dark body and lots of legs. It looked far too much like a spider for Tali's comfort and she tensed herself to squash the creature, or alternatively to run (scramble) screaming back to the access hatch as fast as she could in the low-ceilinged tunnels.
After ten incredibly tense seconds, the dark shape darted forward into the light, revealing an elliptical body encased in a shiny, red-brown carapace. Tali relaxed immediately as she recognised the cockroach as it darted from point to point, searching for food in the rather spartan tunnels. She had come across cockroaches in her study last night and she knew that they were harmless scavengers as well as being practically ubiquitous for humans, as they readily established themselves onboard ships and space stations. She watched in fascination as the small creature swiftly zigzagged between points of interest, antennae waving in the air in the never ending search for food. The cockroach stopped to quickly clean its antennae of dust, running them through its mouthparts, one at a time, and the predator that had been stalking it used this moment of distraction to launch its attack.
Neither Tali nor the cockroach had a chance to react as a large Huntsman spider shot out from its camouflaged position on the wall and swept up the smaller insect in its long legs before sinking its fangs deep into its thorax. The whole attack took no more than half-a-second and Tali could only stare in shock and terror at the large black and grey spider that had to be nearly the size of her faceplate as it methodically worked its fangs into the juicy body of its prey, a sickening clicking, squelching sound being the only noise beyond the background hum of electronics.
The shock wore off seconds later and Tali's fight-or-flight instinct leapt into action. Smoothly unsheathing her stiletto from its place on her boot, she struck out at the spider but only succeeded in damaging one of its legs as it raced back into the shadows, its prize clenched firmly between its fangs. Glancing around nervously, Tali hurriedly made her way back to the access point, staying as far away from the walls as she could manage and keeping her knife in hand the whole way. She finally stopped when she reached the familiar glow and background noise that told her she was back at the Engineering hatch. Slumped against the wall and bathed in the blue-white light of the drive-core, her mind had the chance to process coming within two feet of her newly discovered worst nightmare. She could see the fine grey hairs that coated its flat, broad carapace and its eight legs all curved around in front of it, lying flat to the ground, how it's numerous soulless eyes shone in the twilight of the tunnels. Tali shuddered violently as she tried to shake the image burned into her mind but it remained stubbornly in place.
Taking a few moments more to calm her raspy breathing and racing heart, she looked down the tunnel she had just left. No longer did she see a playground filled with all the technology she could ever desire; now it was a dark, foreboding space filled with monsters straight from the darkest recesses of her mind.
Taking a final deep breath before she returned to Engineering, she vowed to herself that this would not keep her from doing her job. If she needed to enter the tunnels, she would. Though she might take appropriate precautions next time, like a shotgun… and maybe a couple of grenades.
[AN: Well I hope you enjoyed this story, any questions or feedback is welcomed, particularly constructive criticism; I'm always looking to improve.
For anyone wondering, the spider described is a member of the Holconia genus of huntsman spiders and they're endemic to Australia and a pretty common sight here, though still seriously disconcerting when you find one staring down at you from your ceiling.
Thanks for taking the time to read! /AN]