UPDATE: I'm afraid that I've completely lost interest in all things Mass Effect. This story is now what I think is called a one-shot and has been marked as complete. I have no intent to add to it with additional content, nor do I plan to make other Mass Effect stories. I apologize to any followers who are rereading this story for its discontinuation. I received far more positive feedback on my writings here than I ever expected and I'm sorry it came to such an abrupt ending. For what it's worth I had a lot of fun writing it and I'm glad some people enjoyed reading it. You guys were a great audience. Have fun with your next thing you enjoy enough to read fan fiction of.
That said I'll still take any feedback that crops up from any first time readers. I may have stopped writing this, but I haven't given up writing.
Distress signal or not, nobody had expected this particular nightmare to play out around them.
The place was positively tranquil. It was a quiet night, with a gently falling snow that caught the lights around the town in a picturesque display of white. The steady sound of flowing water in the stream below should have been fascinating to the visitors that night, a brush with part of their peoples past long lost to time. To stand on firm ground, to see the stars only in the sky above, to stretch out ones arms and be certain to touch nothing but crisp, cold air should have been remarkable.
If only there had been evidence of a single living soul left on the colony, Tali'Zorah vas Neema would have been relishing the experience of all these things after two years back in the quarian Flotilla. But at it was, the quiet was a deafening silence. The flowing stream all too reminiscent of the water in one of the many mine shafts she'd helped clear of cybernetic monstrosities two years ago. And the open space simply made her feel as exposed as if she had a giant holographic arrow floating over her head labeled "I don't belong here. Please shoot me!". It was a feeling apparently shared by her second in command for the mission, Prazza.
"The sooner we get off this rock the better," he said.
"His signal isn't that far into the colony," Tali assured him. "Once Velal and Tespa report we'll be in and out as fast as possible."
Prazza said nothing further, for which Tali was silently grateful. She'd not worked with Prazza often, but she'd learned that silence from him meant that he was satisfied with what he was being told. He wasn't the brightest light on the ship, so to speak, but usually he did his job and followed orders without too much trouble. However, more than once she'd run into a reckless streak of his that she'd had trouble reigning in.
One of these days he's going to get himself into trouble, Tali thought to herself. I just hope its not more than we can handle. She adjusted her stance slightly and peered around the corner of the prefab she and the rest of the squad were keeping between them and the main colony until the sniper team was in place. Everything about what she saw was wrong. No scorch marks, no bullet holes or rocket strikes. There were dormant air security drones in place atop one of the taller buildings that were certainly carrying enough armaments to leave visible damage if they'd been active, but there was no sign they'd ever been used. No sign of why nobody had answered their calls from orbit, or reacted when they'd brought their ship down to land, beyond Veetor's paniced running for cover. Nor any indication why during their time on foot they'd yet to detect the slightest hint of life that wasn't a houseplant.
Whatever had happened had given the quarian pilgrim Veetor'Nara enough time to send a distress call, but apparently, not enough time for the humans who owned the colony to do the same. Nothing about the scenario added up at all. Pirates or slavers would have left destruction and corpses in their wake. Geth would have done the same, only the corpses would still have been moving. Tali couldn't shake the feeling that they were going to be walking into either a graveyard or a trap.
"Tespa here," a female voice announced through the squad channel. "We're in position."
"Finally," Prazza muttered.
"Any signs of life?" Tali asked.
"Negative, ma'am. All quiet," Tespa said.
"Like a damned derelict," one of the marines said. A few sounds of agreement answered his comment.
"Alright, we're moving in," Tali announced. "Tespa, Velal, standard observation. I want to know the moment anything other than us starts moving. The rest of you, weapons ready but don't start shooting at shadows. Veetor is probably much more... unsettled than we are. I don't want anyone hitting him by mistake. Watch out for any humans, too," she added.
"And if we are engaged?" a brown suited marine named Malo'Tevon asked.
"You're clear to defend yourselves, but I don't want anyone going on the offense without my orders," Tali answered. "The less trouble we stir up the better." A series of 'yes, ma'ms' later and Tali gave the order to move out.
–
"How many security mechs can one colony need?" Malo asked incredulously as they entered an intersection just a couple blocks past a veritable garrison of the mechanical sentries.
"Forget that, why aren't any of them on?" another marine added. "It takes about three seconds to activate a squad of Loki's. What happens to an entire colony in less than three seconds?"
"Just keep moving," Tali said.
"Ma'am, we've got movement," Tespa's voice cut in. "Looks like a Fenris mech patrol pack just came online. Two blocks behind you." The squad came to a halt, the marines immediately taking up cover and training their weapons back the way they'd come.
"No contacts," Prazza announced.
Tali touched her comm control, "Tespa, confirm, you said two blocks behind us?"
"Yes, ma'am. Weirdest thing though, they're not moving. Just... standing th-,"
"Loki mechs powering up," Velal said. "Two blocks ahead of you."
An uneasy tingle ran up Tali's spine. "Everyone, defensive positions, all avenues. I want to know the moment one of you see something." The marines reorganized without missing a beat. In moments they'd paired up and moved to each of the four paths leading to the intersection. Tali took up a position to the left of the road leading towards the last known source of Veetor's signal and trained her heavy pistol down the line of sight. The snowfall had picked up quite a bit which meant spotting the bone-white mechs would be that much more difficult.
"Velal, are they moving?" Tali asked after several seconds of silent waiting.
"Negative. What are they waiting for...?"
The answer to that question came by way of a distant whirring of lightweight engines. A sound that was all too familiar from a day spent on Luna, Earth's moon. Specifically in three training compounds full of-
"Aerial drones incoming!"
Tali's head, and pistol, snapped around to face the new threat swooping and swerving through the air towards them just before they opened fire. Tali's left hand left her gun and shone with the holographic display of her omnitool coming to life. A few short motions of her fingers and a downward tilt of her wrist and the newest module she'd installed activated. Gone were the days of large tech mines as the weapon of choice for a combat engineer. The new "tech darts" were smaller, faster, easier to aim and did just a good a job of extending the range of an omnitools combat functions as the mines had. The tiny dart traversed the distance between her forearm the drones in the blink of an eye and released an overload burst to devastating effect on their shields. The barrage of gunfire the marines unloaded turned the mechanisms to scrap with ease after that.
"The Fenris are on the move," Tespa reported. "More of them are activating. Permission to engage?"
The varren-like Fenris mechs were faster runners than Loki's and quite a few organics. Their programming, however, was appallingly two-dimensional. A sniper in a high vantage point like Tali had ordered Tespa to take when they'd come planet side could scrap them with impunity.
"Granted. Do what you can to keep them off us," Tali said as she pulled up her omnitools map of the colony. "Velal, report."
"More Loki mechs coming online, they're moving towards your position. Light armament, looks like nothing but Shurikens."
"Do what you can to thin them out, but keep to cover. Everyone else, we're heading to these co-ordinates," she traced a path on the display with her finger to a building a few blocks away. "Take out all mechs on contact, but check your targets. Let's go!"
–
The squad left a trail of scrap metal and plastics all the way to the building they took shelter in to plan their next move. Tali and several of the marines were clustered around a holographic map she had routed through a tables projectors. Dozens of blips marched around the illustrated streets in mindless patrols. Loki mechs had become very popular in the time since what had come to be called "the Battle of the Citadel". The devastation Sovereign and its geth followers had wrought had prompted tighter security around the galaxy, propelling security mechs from a minor footnote in the world of technology to a booming multi-billion credit industry. Loki mechs were cheap, easy to use and very effective as a supplement to an organic security force. Some detractors had even raised warnings of the geth uprising at the sight of so many machines being given guns and sent marching around the galaxy.
The truth, however, was that Loki mechs were abysmally stupid machines. The earliest and most primitive of geth programming was a hundred times more sophisticated than anything a Loki mech could run through its systems. In anything other than a supplementary role, they were omnigel waiting to happen. Despite that, simply running head first into them was hardly a prudent move when a suit puncture could spell death. Considering the mechs been inert when they'd first arrived, it was likely a terrified Veetor has activated and reprogrammed them to attack anything that moved.
"If we cut through these buildings here... and here," Malo traced a path across the map. "We can bypass a few packs of them."
Tali nodded. "We should be ready in case some of them are powered down in there, but I agree."
"Why not just go right through here?" Prazza asked, pointing to a large set of doors between them the building they'd seen Veetor running to on approach.
"Too much open space, too many directions for them to come at us from. We're better off sticking to the side streets. Besides, Velal doesn't have line of sight in there. Better to stay in his range as long as we can."
Prazza fell silent and nodded, if somewhat reluctantly. Tali knew he favored a direct approach, and at one time she might have agreed. These days she didn't have a krogan battlemaster or a particularly unstoppable human Spectre at her back, so she tended to play things a bit more cautiously. Missions like this made her miss her old squadmates. Shepard would have had Veetor and the whole team back aboard the Normandy by this point. We can't all be Spectre's though. We'll get this done, even if it takes us a little longer.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of engines. The entire squad looked up to the ceiling as the sound grew louder, whatever ship it was clearly moving in their direction.
"Magara to Tali'Zorah, there is an inbound shuttle. Repeat, a shuttle is moving towards your position."
"We hear it," Tali said. "Do you have a visual?"
"Affirmative, routing to you now." The map display wavered out of existence in favor of a vertical screen of the sky. A small white craft was indeed moving in towards them.
"Magnify," Tali ordered. The display tightened its focus and enlarged the craft until it filled the screen, just as it went out of view behind a nearby building to land. Tali's hand shot out and twisted the playback control into reverse. The craft came back into view and stopped with a press of pause. There, painted on the side of the craft was a symbol she recognized. A vertically elongated, black, hexagonal ring with a slot cut out of the bottommost corner, set into half an orange hexagon at its base.
"Cerberus!" Prazza hissed. The sound of half a dozen weapons being armed at once filled the small room in an instant.
"What in the name of the ancestors are those... butchers doing here?" Malo demanded.
"I have no idea," Tali said. "But they're here, and that means we're in trouble."
"I say we take them out!" Prazza said at once.
"What? Absolutely not!" Tali said.
"What are you talking about?" Prazza said, "They're Cerberus! Have you forgotten what they did already!?"
Tali straightened up and faced Prazza directly. "Never. But I've fought them before, Prazza, and they were well armed. Better armed than we are now. That shuttle could carry a dozen of those bosh'tets. We wouldn't stand a chance against them head on."
Prazza hesitated but Tali could tell he was thinking about what she said. "Then we don't fight them head on. We can get up on the roofs, catch them by surprise."
Tali paused. Do we have time? I need to know how fast they're moving.
"Tespa, have you been listening?" Tali asked.
"Yes, ma'am, but I do not have eyes on Cerberus. Their LZ isn't far from your location though... Scratch previous report, I see them. Three hostiles moving your way. They just went into a prefab. ETA... two minutes."
"Understood," Tali said. "That's not enough time for all of us to get into position."
"But if there's only three of them-," Prazza began.
"Three she could see," Tali countered. "Ancestors know how many she can't. We should move to Veetor. If they catch up to us I'll handle them, understood?" Prazza shifted uneasily, tightening his grip on his rifle. "Understood?" Tali pressed.
"...Understood," Prazza said at last.
"Good," Tali walked past him towards the door, "Let's get moving, we have a minute-"
Gunfire sounded outside their makeshift base, along with the eerily calm voices of activating Loki mechs.
"Please reconsider your aggressive-," the synthesized voice was cut off by a sharp blast and a female voice.
"One less!"
What the- How did they get here so fast? We're in worse trouble than I thought.
"Defensive positions," Tali hissed. "Prazza, Tema, Malo, center with me, the rest of you, to the sides. Cover that door. Hold fire until I say so."
The gunfire outside came to a stop mere seconds after the last marine was in place. Tali stood in front, hand hovering over her pistol. Maybe I can talk them out of attacking. We can't risk fighting them, not with these ancient things. They'll have thermal clip weapons, perfect for a hard, fast strike like this.
Finally came the sound of a door hissing open. The only problem was that it wasn't the door closest to the direction of gunfire. The marines turned on the spot, realizing that the enemy had come in behind them. A dozen swear words were uttered in a unison that would have been funny if they weren't all expecting to be shredded in the next few seconds.
"Stop right there!" Prazza shouted, advancing towards the intruders. Tali's blood ran cold as she realized the idiot was going to attack and get them all killed.
"Prazza! You said you'd let me handle this!" she protested, swinging herself in-between the two groups, arms outstretched between them in a possibly futile attempt to forestall things. Then she looked at the Cerberus troops.
They were an odd trio to be sure. One was a female in a white and black, not to mention aggressively skin tight, body suit. With her immaculate mane of dark and shiny hair and curvaceous figure, she looked more like a buxom supermodel than a terrorist. The second was a dark skinned male clad in a jumpsuit of lightweight black armor. He was more clearly built for his line of work, with the look of a professional soldier in his physique and stance. However it was the third human that locked Tali's attention in the second she'd seen them.
Unlike the other two, who wore the Cerberus symbol proudly on their outfits, this man was clad in black and gray armor marked with the N7 insignia on his chest. A white trimmed stripe of red ran up his right arm, and a plain red stripe adorned the top of his helmet, leading the eye down to his face.
A horribly familiar face with bright green eyes and pale skin. His eyebrows were sleek and black, and had been arched at her more times than she could remember. Precision trimmed facial hair encircled his mouth in an all too recognizable pattern. Overall, it was every bit the face she remembered, one bearing an expression of dawning recognition, as well as a few strange, glowing scars across his left cheek.
"Wait... Shepard?" The words were out of Tali's mouth before she could stop them. It... how... no. It can't-
"I'm not taking chances with Cerberus operatives!" Prazza said.
"Put those weapons down!" Tali's voice was wavering, but the marines hesitantly lowered their weapons by an inch or two. Shepard was motioning for the Cerberus agents to do the same, and they complied with similar reluctance.
Tali slowly turned back to impossible figure standing in the doorway. "Shepard... is that... Is it really you?"
"Remember that geth data I gave you?" the Shepard shaped figure said in Shepard's voice. "Did it help you complete your Pilgrimage?"
"Yes... It did." Tali remembered the data all too well. How she'd found it in a geth base they'd raided in the Armstrong Nebula. How he'd given it to her in secret, asking her to tell nobody how she got it. Two possibilities made themselves known to her mind. Either it was the first thing he could think of and he was trying to defuse things as quickly as possible, or... someone could have seen the contents of the deposit box. Tried to read the data and identified it as geth. Assumed it would be information worth knowing to fool Shepard's old squadmates later. Someone like Cerberus.
"Prazza, weapons down," Tali said after a moments pause. "This is definitely Commander Shepard."
If he's an imposter, I should play along to find out how to expose him. If he's not... he must be. Shepard wouldn't vanish for two years.
Prazza finally holstered his weapon, the rest of the marines and the Cerberus agents following suit. "Why is your old commander working for Cerberus?"
And he would never work for THEM. "I don't know," is what she said aloud. "Maybe we should ask." Tali turned her attention back to the Shepard like person, silently inviting him to explain.
"I nearly died, Tali," the Shepard doppelganger said. "Cerberus spent two years... rebuilding me. They want me to investigate attacks on human colonies."
"Likely story, no organization would commit so many resources to bring back one soldier," Prazza said disdainfully.
"You haven't seen Shepard in action, Prazza," Tali countered. "Trust me, it was money well spent." Assuming you're not some sort of fake mockery of Shepard. ...Either way... perhaps...
"Perhaps we can work together," Tali suggested. Her left hand surreptitiously made its way behind her back, her fingers twitching ever so slightly. "We're here looking for a young quarian named Veetor. He was here on Pilgrimage."
Tali's heart jolted in her chest when the fake Shepard raised his eyebrow, "Isn't that a little strange? A quarian visiting a remote human colony?"
"Quarians can choose where to go on Pilgrimage. Veetor liked the idea of helping a small settlement. He was always... nervous in crowds." Tali explained automatically. It wasn't until she was done speaking that she realized she was slipping into old routines already. Damnit, no. This... thing hasn't proved anything! I can't trust-
"She means that he was unstable," Prazza added. "Combine that with damage to his suits CO2 scrubbers and infection from an open air exposure and he's likely delirious."
"When he saw us landing, he hid in a warehouse on the far side of town. We suspect that he also reprogrammed the mechs to attack anything that moved." And now that you're here they'll have more targets.
"Veetor's the only one who can tell us what happened here," Shepard said. "We need to work together to find him."
"Good idea," Tali said. "You'll need two teams to get past the drones anyway."
"Now we're working with Cerberus?" Prazza asked incredulously.
"No, Prazza, you're working for me. If you can't follow orders, go wait on the ship," Tali said shortly.
"Head for the warehouse through the center of the colony. We'll circle around the other side and draw off some of the drones to clear you a path."
Without giving Shepard any time ask anything further, Tali turned and strode to the far door. Though not quite fast enough it turned out.
"Make sure to stay in radio contact," Shepard called after her. Tali almost flinched at the sound and its stubborn consistency to her memories.
"Will do," she said. Play the part. Don't let him get suspicious. "Good luck Shepard. And whatever happens ...It's good to have you back."
The moment both teams had left the building Prazza rounded on her.
"Do you seriously believe him?"
"No," Tali said flatly. She raised her left hand and powered her omnitools display. "I spent that conversation hacking into everything he had on him... but it looks like it's all brand new. Nothing useful."
"But you sent them after Veetor!"
"And we planned this path because it avoided mechs, not to draw their attention," Tali said. "They'll draw all the fire and they're better equipped to take the machines out. Then I'll go in and secure Veetor. The rest of you, take positions on the roofs. If they try to take Veetor themselves, open fire. Velal, Tespa, can you make it closer to our-"
"Forget it!" Prazza snapped. "I'm not going to let you risk Veetor's life like this. We're going to go get him while they fight the drones. Let's go!"
"No! Damn it, we can't just charge in there. Who knows what Veetor has set up? We need to let them draw the fire until-!"
The next thing she knew, Prazza's assault rifle was pointing at her head. "I'm not putting anyone's life in the hands of Cerberus." He backed away down the alleyway, keeping the rifle trained on her the entire distance. "I say we get him and get out of here now." The marines seemed to be of a like mind as they all fell into step behind Prazza and were gone around the corner before another word could be said.
"Damn it! You idiot!"
–
Blood was everywhere. Gunfire raged all around the yard as the Cerberus team attempted to distract the monstrous Ymir mech that had made such quick and thorough work of the quarian marines. Tali hadn't been able to stop it. She'd tried to get the machines attention. She'd fired every type of tech attack she had to slow the thing down. All the marines had fired their weapons into overheats trying to penetrate its shields.
None of it had mattered. The heavy mech shrugged off slugs and even a grenade like they were nothing more than the snow still falling around them. Its own rockets and massive machine gun had torn through personal shields and environmental suits like so much wet paper. All she could do now was keep dragging Malo to cover and pray that it wasn't actually Shepard out there about to get killed by that synthetic abomination.
"Stay awake," Tali ordered as she propped Malo up against a wall. She started applying medigel everywhere she could to stop the bleeding. Damn it, if Prazza had just listened to me! Why did this have to turn out this way? Her hands started applying patches on autopilot. If that damn imposter hadn't shown up! I swear I'll make Cerberus pay for this. Trying to use Shepard's good name like this. Trying to... to... replace him!
A series of explosions made the walls rattle around her and all the injured marines that'd managed to get to cover. Silence fell for a few moments before a final, massive explosion rocked the ground beneath her feet. Keelah! Did they...? They took down that... thing? Hurried footsteps approached the prefab and the door slid open.
"Tali, are you alright?" Tali stared at the impostor in the door. His armor barely had a scratch, though he appeared unusually exhausted by the battle. Tali's brain unhelpfully opted to seize up and offer nothing to assist her in dealing with this situation.
"I'll... I'll tend to the wounded," she said. "Go find Veetor."
The imposter hesitated, then reached around to his back and pulled something loose. She caught it on reflex when he tossed the object to her before he turned and made for the warehouse. Tali looked down at the medigel reservoir of the impostors armor almost uncomprehending. Why would he do that...?
–
Tali could hear them talking through the surveillance program she'd put into "Shepards" omnitool, and she didn't like the direction they'd just taken.
"We need to get this data to the Illusive Man," the female agent, Miranda based on what she'd heard, said. "Grab the quarian and call the shuttle to come pick us up."
Tali slammed her hand on the door control. "What!? Veetor is injured. He needs treatment, not an interrogation!"
"We won't hurt him," the darker man, Jacob he'd heard the fake call him, tried to assure her. "We just need to see if he knows anything else. He'll be returned unharmed."
"Your people tried to betray us once already," Miranda cut in. "If we give him to you we'll never get the intel we need."
"Prazza was an idiot and he and his men paid for it," Tali said. I'll need to give them something. We're in no condition to take Veetor by force. "You're welcome to take Veetors omnitool data but, please, just let me take him."
Miranda looked like she was going to say something, but the doppelganger spoke first to her first. "He's traumatized and he needs medical care. Tali will give us the omnitool data and take him to the Flotilla."
"Understood, Commander," Miranda said, as clear as it was that she didn't agree.
Tali swallowed hard before speaking. The longer she had to talk to that... man the harder she was finding to keep her composure. "Thank you, Shepard. I'm glad you're still the one giving the orders. Good luck out there. If I find anything that can help you, I'll let you know." That false promise made her feel ill as she forced it out. Every fiber of her being just wanted to run from the room. To stop having to look at him. She didn't care if it was real or an imposter anymore, she just wanted to get away. To not think about it anymore. She wanted to fly all the way back to the Flotilla, crawl into her bunk and forget any of this ever happened.
The Cerberus agents were walking out the door, slightly easing the knot in her stomach. She turned her attention to Veetor, who had retreated into a corner, tightly hugging his arms to himself with his head bowed.
"Tali," Shepard's voice said quietly. Tali went rigid as the imposter closed the distance between them.
No, stay back. Don't come near me you... you...
"Considering what's happened outside," the imposter continued. "I think it might be best if Veetor was... do you have any sedatives?"
"Sedatives," Tali said blankly. Gradually it dawned on her what he meant. Outside were the remains of all the marines that hadn't been able to get away. Mirre's body would still be there, right where the Ymir had so cruelly crushed her beneath its massive foot. The Ymir that Veetor had activated.
Keelah, if he realizes what he's done... Shepard's right, I need to- Tali's train of thought skidded to a halt. Why would a Cerberus agent care about a sick quarians state of mind? Why wouldn't such an agent simply have killed her and taken Veetor anyway? Why would a Cerberus agent give up his medigel to help injured quarians? Miranda and Jacob clearly weren't interested in Veetor's best interests. Why would an imposter of Shepard be? To maintain cover? If there were no witnesses, what did that matter?
"Tali?" Shepard's voice cut through the storm of questions in her mind.
"Right, sedative," she said, somewhat shakily. She raised her omnitool and activated the backdoor she'd been given to Veetor's medical systems. A few button presses and the medical drivers triggered a sedative injection into the traumatized pilgrim. Slowly his trembling came to a stop.
"I... I w-want to go... home," he whispered.
"We're going home," Tali said gently, slowly crossing the room to where Veetor slumped against the wall. "We'll all be safe there, I promise."
"They'll follow," Veetor blearily insisted. "M-monsters... no escapes." Before he could say much more, his knees gave out. Tali just managed to catch hold of him before he collapsed entirely.
"Just rest, Veetor. You'll be home soon," she promised. Keelah he's heavy. Veetor may have been a couple years younger than her, but he outweighed her by a third, a problem made worse by being dead weight while under the sedatives. She froze in her attempts to better carry his weight when Shepard stepped up and took Veetor's other arm.
"Which way's your ship?"
"...South-east of here. Twelve blocks."
Shepard nodded. "Alright, let's get your people aboard."
–
"Velal, warm up the engines. As fast as you can. Tespa, do what you can to help Gerra with the injured."
The two marines vanished into the airlock. Tali herself didn't follow. She knew that even pushing it, the Magara would take five or six minutes at best before it was ready to take off. There was still something she had to take care of before she could board. Fortunately, the problem in question seemed to know this as well.
"I'm sorry about mentioning the data," the problem said. "I was trying to at least postpone our... colleagues from tearing each other apart. I have a feeling that you weren't really convinced."
"No, I wasn't."
"And you're still not?" Tali turned to face him, and leveled her pistol at his chest. "I thought not."
"Two years," Tali said. "Shepard has been dead for two. Years. I'm going to need more than a few minutes to convince me that he survived what happened to the Normandy."
Shepard nodded slowly, "I don't blame you for being skeptical but... I'm not sure what I can say. I'm sure you've hacked just about everything on me with a computer in it, and that hasn't answered your questions. I could ask if you got my message, but Cerberus could have monitored the reading of the will, and have gotten into my deposit box. I could cite a dozen missions but those were all a matter of record. What can I say?"
Tali said nothing. She kept the pistol steady on his chest and simply waited, not daring even to blink lest the universe try to change reality on her again.
"I could mention that night, after you boarded the derelict," Shepard said suddenly. "I could tell you about how you woke up in he middle of the night from a nightmare. How you saw the Rayya as an empty derelict, and how the Normandy disappeared all around you." Shepard took a step closer and went on. "That wasn't the last evening though, was it? X57, you came to my cabin, worried that something was wrong with me. I told you about Mindoir, about Elysium. Do you still use that Savant?"
"Yes," Tali said.
"How about before Ilos? We must have played every two player game in the library. You were pretty fast after all."
Tali's gun hand was trembling ever so slightly now. It's not true. It can't be.
"Remember about two weeks after the Citadel, I got that invitation to Pinnacle Station? Garrus was pretty annoyed that it had to wait until after he rejoined C-Sec. You, me, Liara and Kaidan all spent three days there. Took that turian agent down a few notches when we broke every record on the station. ...I wonder what happened to that retirement house Admiral Ahern gave me?"
Tali's hand was well and truly shaking now. She remembered that house all too well. She'd gone with Shepard to go see it. She could still remember how luxurious the prefab had been compared to any home she'd seen before. She remembered standing at the window, almost right at the glass, to look out over the crimson plains beyond. She remembered going outside with a fully suited Shepard in tow. Despite the heat and an atmosphere unbreathable due to the lack of plant life to oxygenate it, it had been glorious. To stand on a peaceful planet at last. No mission, no geth, no Threshers, just the wide open desert. They'd ended up in a race back to the prefab that Tali, in her less restrictive suit had easily won.
"You were pretty fast then, too," Shepard said. "But I do remember one evening when you took your time. Just over a week before the attack..."
–
Tali glanced up from the pad she was reading at the midday meal when Shepard sat down across from her. "Hello, Shepard." she said cheerfully. "Any news on our next mission?"
"Nothing yet," he said. "Joker's threatening to take us to Arcturus and park outside of Admiral Hackett's window until he stops sending us after 'ghost geth'."
"I wouldn't mind that," Tali laughed.
"Sorry to change the subject," Shepard said, as Tali picked up her paste tube, "But may I make a suggestion?"
"Of course."
"Don't finish all of that today."
Tali cocked her head to the side quizzically. "Why?"
"Nothing important," Shepard said casually. "Just a suggestion. On a wholly unrelated note... would you mind stopping by my cabin before dinner? There's something I want to run by you."
Tali's stomach did an odd sort of flip at these words. She had a sneaking suspicion that Shepard was up to something with all this. A brief, foolish notion that might have fit the facts in an alternate universe where up was down flitted past her mind, but was dismissed out of hand.
"Sure," Tali said in as offhand a voice as she could muster.
She'd ended up eating barely a fourth of her lunch tube that day.
That night she'd taken off from engineering a few minutes early to make it to the crew deck before there would be anything in the way of witnesses. Witnesses to what she wasn't sure, but she was determined not to have any. She touched the door chime without hesitation and bounced up on her toes waiting for the door to open. The sight of Shepard bearing a small smile greeted her when it did.
"Come on in," he said, motioning her to enter.
"What did you want to see me about?" Tali asked as she took her usual seat at his table.
"Just something I picked up during our last visit to the Citadel," Shepard said once he'd sat down as well. "It took a bit of research to figure out what I needed to get, but I'll need your expertise to confirm it for me."
"You could have asked about... whatever it is before you bought it," Tali suggested.
"I could have, yes. But to be frank, that would have been completely missing the point." With that, Shepard pushed a small, flat box across the table to her. Tali glanced between it and him before reaching out to open it.
"Keelah," she breathed. "This is..."
"So, did I pick the right one?"
Tali reached into the box and almost reverently lifted out a tube of meat based nutrient paste.
"How did you get this? It must have cost-"
"Nowhere near enough for it to seem like a bad idea. The total caloric content is a bit high, and I assumed that as tightly rationed as everything quarians do is, you'd probably want to save some space in your diet for it."
"I... I don't know what to say," Tali admitted.
"Forget about it," Shepard said. "And enjoy it."
Tali eagerly fitted the tube to her induction port and took a long draw of paste into her mouth. The glorious sensation of something different ran through her like electricity. She turned the mouthful of paste over in her mouth over and over again, savoring every second of the experience of flavor. Keelah, it's even better than I remembered. How do other species ever stop eating like this?
"Any good?" Shepard asked.
"Mmmhm."
"I'll assume that's a 'yes'."
Tali finally forced herself to swallow so she could speak. "Thank you, Shepard."
"You're welcome, Miss nar Rayya."
–
Shepard stood less than a foot away from the end of Tali's pistol. "You told me that was the best meal you'd ever had in your life," Shepard said. "Funny thing was, I could have sworn you'd had meat paste before."
"...Shepard?" Tali's said. "... is it really...? Shepard?"
"It's good to see you again, Miss nar Rayya."
The pistol slipped from Tali's fingers and clattered on the concrete ground between them. The next thing Tali knew, her arms were wrapped around Shepard's torso in the tightest hug she could give. She could feel his arms around her, a hand gently patting her on her back as she held on to him like he'd vanish into a puff of smoke at any moment. Part of her was terrified that he would. That at any moment she'd wake up in her bunk on the Neema, alone, a victim of some cruel joke by her subconscious. But every moment it should have happened kept slipping by uninterrupted. She was still there. Shepard was still there. It was real.
For the life of her, Tali'Zorah vas Neema couldn't remember ever being happier.