The club was near indistinguishable from countless others one could find throughout the universe: It had booze, a dance floor, patrons of various species, pulsing music and a throb of many conversations occurring simultaneously.

To Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch none of that mattered much.

After the end of the Reaper War, she'd stepped down as Admiral. She hadn't wanted the post in the first place, only accepting to try and pull the Migrant Fleet through as intact as possible from the war the Admiralty had started against the Geth.
Now, while everyone focused on rebuilding in the aftermath of the Crucible Event,-which had shut the Reapers down and had necessitated a hard reboot of the Geth which had sparked a heated debate that was ongoing as to whether or not they should,- Tali had accepted a scouting mission through a previously inactive Mass Relay to see what lay on the other side and why it had been activated.

Thus, armed with a single reactivated Geth platform,-that appeared to be a 'reincarnation' of Legion as that was what it had designated itself when she'd rebooted it,-and a translator program that it had created from intercepted signals from beyond the new Relay, they were exploring this new frontier and trying to keep a low profile.

Currently, Tali was drinking. It wasn't often she indulged and when she did, she was usually upset. This time was no different.

Despite the best efforts of search teams, no trace of Shepard had been found, though he was presumed dead.

'Ma'am.'
Tali looked up at the address to see a human wearing white armour with a black 'T' shaped visor looking down on her with some sort of carbine in his hands.
'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to remove the mask.' The man continued.
Tali's eyes narrowed and she took out her Arc Pistol. Much as she disliked Admiral Xen, Tali couldn't deny the woman was a brilliant engineer.
'I can't.' Tali said icily. She had a suspicion and if it proved correct, this bosh'tet was going to regret bothering her.
'Look, it's a matter of-'
'I said, I can't take off the mask, you bosh'tet.' Tali said, levelling her pistol at the man.

'Echo, I'll take it from here.' Broke in a new voice from somewhere behind the white armoured man as he took a step back in surprise and brought his carbine up,-Tali was almost positive Legion would've had a gun aimed right at the central juncture of his visor if he'd been there to see this. He was back on the ship to make sure it was there when she got back though.

The man,-Echo,- wisely decided to back off, letting the newcomer,-an alien girl with orange skin, head-tails and white facial markings,-approach.

'A little young to be giving orders, aren't you?' Tali asked dryly.
The girl bristled. 'I can handle myself.' She replied as her companion started searching the rest of the bar.
'Look, whoever you're looking for, I'm not them.' Tali said tiredly.
'What's your name?' the girl asked.
'Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch. Now go find someone else to annoy.'
'Ahsoka Tano.' The girl replied, taking the seat opposite Tali. 'What are you doing here?'
'None of your business.' Tali replied.
'Why can't you take off your mask?' Ahsoka asked curiously.
'Because I'd be risking a serious infection that could possibly kill me.' She replied. 'And if you ask me to tell you about my immune system, I will shoot you.' She promised.
'There's no need for that.' Ahsoka said reasonably.
'I'm having a bad week and I want to drink in peace until I forget about it.' Tali said shortly. 'You're preventing me from doing that.'
'So you're having a bad week. The galaxy has been in a civil war for two years and we're here searching for a Seperatist spy.'
'Not me. A spy would try and blend in with the crowd; I'm just trying to keep a low profile and figure out why the hell humans are so common in a part of the galaxy they hadn't even heard of until two weeks ago.' Tali said deadpan, taking a sip of the drink she'd brought through a straw. She vaguely recalled a drunken conversation she'd had with Shepard after the Cerberus facility on Horizon.

When she'd revealed how she felt about him, he'd been understanding, but he'd also made it clear he valued their friendship and her life too highly to risk them on what was likely only going to be a fling. He'd made it pretty clear during the whole Omega-4 mission that he was still committed to Ashley.

'Are you okay?' Ahsoka asked.
'No. Not in a way that shooting something would help, and I don't want to talk about it.' Tali replied coolly. This girl was far too nosy. Most Quarians would've backed off and let her be by now.
Suddenly, her omni-tool started beeping:

Incoming message.

'Creator Zorah, vessel matching known military vessel profile in use in the local civil war just pulled in system. …I have hacked their system and it seems they are searching for us.' Legion reported, pausing slightly as if to savour the use of the pronoun.
'What?! What interest are we to them?' Tali demanded, startled.
'It appears word of us has spread and people have become interested in our mass effect drive. It seems they wish to study it and us. There is a capture\kill order out on us as well as a substantial bounty.' Legion replied in its usual, succinct fashion.
'Legion, prepare the ship for take off and figure out the shortest route back to the Relay. Send a message back to Rannoch to the effect that as soon as we're back on their side of the Relay, they're to shut it down and set whatever portion of the fleet can be spared to guard it.' Tali ordered.

'Acknowledged.' Legion replied succinctly. If any ship from this part of the galaxy found them, or followed them back through the Relay, it would be a disaster on the scale of the Rachni War, especially as they were likely to be hostile. It would also mean deep disgrace to the Quarians, again and so soon after reclaiming the Homeworld…

'I have to go.' Tali said firmly, getting up and heading towards the door, her hands going to her M-22 Eviscerater shotgun as she came outside.

'Are you in some sort of trouble?' Ahsoka asked at her elbow, much to Tali's startlement.
'What was your first clue?' Tali replied scathingly as she jogged towards the docking area. If she could get to her ship before things turned ugly…

'Hold it right there.' Off to the left was a weather-beaten, tan-skinned human with a pistol in his hand and a mess of scars across his face.

Tali didn't think, she just levelled her shotgun and fired.

The M22 was illegal in Citadel space for a reason:
It fired aerodynamic spikes which, while they extended the accurate range of the M22, were fully capable of going right through an unshielded target, hard suit or no, with grisly consequences.

The bounty hunter took the shot at almost point blanc and had his chest cavity blown out for his trouble, sent flying back into the wall behind him and leaving a huge bloodstain as he slumped down.

After that, she took off at a dead run. In her mind, everyone on the street now had a weapon on them and the only sensible course of action was to run.

She sprinted into the docking area just as a squad of what looked at first glance to be brown Geth came into view. 'Stop right there!' Ordered one in an almost comically high-pitched tone, levelling a carbine at her, along with the squad backing it up.

Tali spun into cover behind a support pillar then, leaned out and sent a Sabotage program into the combat platforms, causing several to turn traitor and fire on their fellows.
'Legion, I've been engaged!' Tali shouted as she pinked off a few shots with her Arc Pistol at the infighting mech squad as she used the distraction to dash past towards her ship.

'Hands up.' The mechanically inflected order was followed by the unmistakable sound of weapons being readied and a quick glance showed she was virtually surrounded by mechs all with weapons aimed at her. She had no choice but to comply.

A snap-hiss! sounded close by, followed closely by the thrum of energy, before three of the droids were slashed apart with practiced ease. They fell apart to reveal the girl, Ahsoka, yet again, this time with a green energy blade in her hand.

Tali took the opportunity to activate the omni-blade feature of her omni-tool and stab another mech in the optics, before a duo of anti-materiel rounds cleaned out the two rows of flanking mechs in less than a second.

'Creator Zorah, we must go.' Legion stated with the closest it could come to urgency, lowering the massive Black Widow rifle it had taken to carrying after being reactivated. 'Hunter-killer teams of mechs have been deployed to this area of the station. We must leave now.'

Before Tali could move or respond a searing point of pain took her in the shoulder and she pitched forward.

There was a flurry of movement, she briefly realised she was being carried and heard Legion firing at something along with the constant thrum of Ahsoka's energy blade and the hiss as she deflected shots away from herself, then she passed out.

This is a plot bunny that refused to let me be.

I recently got incredibly bored and downloaded Lego Star Wars 3: Clone Wars, since I got a code that allowed me to get it for free along with an Xbox hard drive.

That led me to buy the movie on iTunes.

And for reasons unknown I couldn't let the thought of Ahsoka meeting Tali go.

No one else on FF. Net had done anything similar, so…

Itch scratched.

Also, this is a plot bunny. I will not be continuing with it. If anyone wants to take this and turn it into a full-blown story, let me know.

Hopefully, I can get back to writing the next chapter of one of my other fics (yeah, I know I REALLY need to get around to updating some of them.) or my Original. Who knew editing would prove more annoying than getting the draft done?