The wind whips sand across polished metal and tries to bury it like a forgotten pyramid. Desert heat seeps into every pore and I gradually come to with the taste of blood in my mouth. Sputtering and coughing into hard packed sand the pain slowly begins to register as I become more aware of my surroundings. I have internal injuries and there's something wrong with my spine. I'm laying face down on a sloping dune and my entire body hurts.
It takes me a few minutes to realize that I can't hear anything. I can feel the vibrations of sand billowing around me and striking my armor plated limbs but there's no sound to accompany it. In the distance I sense the faint vibrations of automatic fire and heavier weapons occasionally launching deadly payloads. At least then I know some of my people are still alive. I try to get up but my right arm doesn't move. Panting in exertion I rock myself onto my back and look up at the dusty sky. Taking off the blue goggles I favor in combat I drop them aside to let the natural light of the Karnak system's sun hit my eyes.
Craning my head up I can see where the top of the building used to be that I had jumped out of. Only a small portion of it was still standing to my right. The rest had been blown to smoking rubble and even the nearby security wall had been knocked down. There is a dull buzzing in my head that blocks out the sound of nearly everything around me including the grainy sand shifting around me.
I blink several times and realize that I can hear the wind around me if only faintly in the presence of the oppressive white noise dominating my skull. It is of little comfort now but things were looking up from a few moments ago. Scanning around as best I can without sitting up a shadow passes over me. Squinting I see Thane Krios standing over me. He looks unharmed as he kneels down.
"Master." I say and can barely hear the sound of my own voice.
"Shepard. Will you live?" he asks without emotion.
"I think. My radio is down…what's going on?"
He hands me his ear piece which is more of a long barb made for drell auditory organs but I jam it in my ear anyway. Straining to listen I can hear Garrus shouting orders. Comforting.
"-ssing fire on the double. We need immediate evac along with search and rescue!"
Whoever he was talking to wasn't on my channel but I heard the turian's response anyway. "I don't care! Get every available marine and trainee we have locked and loaded! They wanted field experience so today they get it!"
I close my eyes. My head is killing me and my own voice sounds distant but I can't let go just yet. "…shore team, status report."
"Shepard!" Garrus perks up. "You had me worried you bastard. Where are you?"
"With Thane…on a dune somewhere behind the building…everyone else?"
"Jack and Samara are with me Shep." Kasumi said. "Mordin's hurt pretty bad, we need to get him out of here."
"Tali…has anyone seen Tali?"
There's a few seconds worth of pause that makes my stomach flip despite my more pressing injuries.
"Tali?"
"The blast knocked down comms Shep, maybe she can't check in." the master thief suggested.
A wave of pain comes over me as I try to rise and I swoon. The world goes dark for a moment and suddenly Thane's face is directly above me. "Find her…find her-" I get out before the darkness takes me.
Surgical machines work on my body for hours. It's a strangely familiar sensation to not feel parts of me getting cut open and sewn back up. It is not even a true memory but only a dim awareness that things were happening to me. In between sedative induced black outs I can see Mordin being patched up alongside me. I don't see Tali or a body bag so I will assume she is alive until told otherwise.
The sound of beeps and clicks rouse me from a deep torpor and I wake up on a cot in the Normandy's medical bay. The dull noise is gone and I can thankfully hear again. On different spots I can feel the soreness and the stitches to accompany invasive surgery but they will heal relatively quickly. I flex all my fingers and wiggled my toes to find everything in working order. Dr. Chukwas notices my movements and makes a beeline for my bed.
"Commander, you're awake." she said.
"Tali'Zorah." I croak.
The good doctor has been a friend of mine for a long time. She took my left hand, which still had a sensor over the index finger, into hers. "We held out as long as we could but Garrus had to get everyone out of there. I'm sorry."
"Did anyone recover her body?"
Chukwas was military veteran of dozens of engagements and full pitched battles. I could tell she was uncomfortable with whatever information she had. I didn't think anything could ruffle her. "Shepard…I talked to Dr. Solus when he was awake. She was in the room with the bulk of the explosives. If she was still there when they went off-"
"There would not be enough left of her for a DNA scan." I finish. Chukwas looks away from me. Plans begin to form in my mind as I try to sit up and find something that shoots.
"Easy Commander. You need a time to heal. Even you have to rest once in a while."
"I have things to do." I growl.
"Not yet you don't. I'm your doctor and you're not leaving this room until I say so."
The door to the med bay opens and Garrus Vakarian enters. He walks confidently over to me and puts his hand on Chukwas' shoulder. "Excuse us Doctor."
"Of course. Just keep in mind that while you two might command on the battlefield, in here I make the choices." Chukwas said and returned to her desk to look over her latest scans.
"You gave us quite a scare, Shepard." Garrus said while looking over his shoulder at the doctor. "She's been guarding you like a newborn." he said under his breath.
"What's the situation?"
"We pulled out before they could overtake us. Recovered what we could but we had to get out of there fast. I'm betting with Boot gone locals will be a bit more loose lipped about where to find more of his gang. So to speak."
"Let's not move on that just yet." I order. "Get some eyes and ears on the ground. Offer up bounties for base locations. Someone will talk. Until then it's business as usual."
"Aye aye."
"One more thing. I want a specialist down at the base. Tali's body has to be found or at the very least a full report on what was done to find it."
"Shepard-"
"Please Garrus. If nothing else I need evidence we did all we could for the quarian admirals."
"...all right. What are you going to do?"
"I'm on bed rest for a week or two. Until then the Normandy is yours. Get used to it Captain."
The turian sniper takes his leave and I lay back on the medical cot. Visions of death dance in my head and I itch to be up and walking around so I can punch something. While Tali's body had not yet been found there was little possibility she survived the explosion. Even if she did my crew would have located her or she would have called in. Every sign pointed to her death. There was nothing I could do for her now and that would spur me on to do violence upon those who harmed her. There would be blood.
Angels save my enemies now.
The pain comes in waves and is as persistently annoying as the increasing light. The two team up to rouse a nearly unrousable Tali'Zorah. Her entire body throbbed and there was an infection beginning to clog her breathing passages. Coughing she spit up blood and mucus onto the inside of her own helmet.
Twisting her painfully she tried to see where she was. Vaguely the quarian remembered fighting for air after the blast threw her a fair distance. There was sand inside her suit which meant she had tried to breath it in at some point. Everything after that was hazy but it was likely the only thing that saved her life was co-opting Legion's geth shield technology. Once it was clear she couldn't reroute the bombs she had leaped through a window but landed awkwardly on the shield wall before the explosion knocked the both of them down over the edge. Behind her a sand river lazily flowed by and that too was another reason she hadn't been killed by the fall over the cliff side.
The injured quarian tried to sit up and realized something was terribly wrong. The blast had fused part of her suit to her back and arms from the heat. The slightest movement caused a pain so intense she nearly screamed just trying to move. Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes but she would not die here. Jaw clenched through the searing pain movement caused she tried to activate her omni-tool and radio. To her dismay the suit's systems were almost completely off line. Her chances of survival just dropped by a fair margin but she wouldn't allow herself to dwell on it.
No matter what she knew she had to move. The river gouged a path through the rocky terrain that would make it hard to spot her from above. Higher ground was her only chance of being spotted either by a passer by or possibly the Normandy from orbit. Bracing herself for the agony Tali used her undamaged feet to push herself forward towards only part of the canyon wall that looked like it was sloping downward. Exhausting minutes ticked by and she only managed to get four or five meters before having to stop.
It was clear crawling wasn't going to do much and she tried to get up but her entire back and arms flared into white hot pain when she tried to use them. Screaming into the said Tali breathed hard as the burning sensation slowly faded. She was going to die on this dusty planet from injury, starvation or illness. She wished she could have seen Shepard one last time.
Resting in my bed I have little to do but watch holovids. I could have gone through my mail but I didn't feel like answering them. Right now the most important thing going on was learning about the flora and fauna of Earth. While I had visited that lonely blue planet a few times I didn't have the same kind of attachment to it other humans did. I was born somewhere in between star systems in a freighter carrying my parents and a lot more colonial hopefuls. It didn't work out and I was primarily raised on ships. Probably why I identified so much with the formerly alive Tali'Zorah vas Normandy.
"Commander." EDI suddenly said. "Dr. Solus is here to see you."
I turn off the vid. "Send him in."
The former salarian commando quickly enters and presents himself at the end of my bed. "Shepard."
"What can I do for you Mordin?"
"Had to come by. Check in you. Talk about what happened." he said.
"As pleasant as that sounds Doctor I'd rather skip it."
"Human emotions messy. Have to move past them sometimes. Facts remain. Planet side on Duat, was with Tali'Zorah. Failed to force her to evacuate. Could have done more." Mordin took in a hasty breath. "Didn't. Had to tell you face to face."
"Nonsense. I know she locked you out of the room. That you tried to break in. You don't owe me an apology."
"Not so sure. Realize how much she meant to you. Humans irrational sometimes. Had to talk. Make amends if necessary."
I shake my head. Hard given the number of stitches still healing and work done to repair my spine. "Not this time Mordin. I would tell you if you did."
"Good. Glad to hear it. Still, troubled by your loss. Unfair. One more thing. Windows visible in room before explosion. Possible she made it out. Shield strength strong, suit protects against elements."
"I appreciate you trying to cheer me up Mordin. It's been three days. If we haven't found anything and she hasn't reported in. If she can't reach us and is alone in the desert, how long do you think she'll last?"
"Don't give up Shepard. Not like you. Not like your kind. Hope greatest asset." the salarian said before he sucked in a good breath. "Greatest weakness."
Time seemed to stop while Tali struggled to make progress. The desert world of Duat had a long day followed by a cold and short night that worked against her favor at the moment. It was however a welcome relief from the heat and she had fallen asleep near sundown. Cold shivers woke her constantly and morning came after what seemed like only minutes of rest. Dawn brought the slow return of the relentless heat and a renewed effort to make progress. Hunger gnawed at her stomach but it was a dull ache compared to the myriad of more pressing problems she was dealing with.
It took her most of what she assumed was the morning to half-push, half-crawl ten meters towards the gradually sloping canyon wall. She estimated that another five meters or so would get her to a small ledge that she would have to shove herself onto. It was only a few centimeters high but might as well have been a mountain given how difficult it was going to be getting over it.
Alternately grunting and crying as she fought for every bit of distance Tali almost didn't hear the clicking sounds coming from nearby. She froze where she was and tried not to make any noise as the sounds became louder. Alone and nearly incapacitated on an unfamiliar world she had little chance to fight off threats from local wildlife. Struggling to move reach down to her hip Tali found her heavy pistol still mercifully strapped to her leg. Fumbling at the gun something came up over the dunes before she was ready.
A half dozen eye stalks popped up from a few meters away. Tali blinked in her helmet at this strange development as the glistening, black orbs studied her. There was more of that clicking sound and the creatures came up over the ridge. There were three of them covered in loose, flowing robes in many shades of light brown. It made for effective camouflage on a planet constantly battered by sand storms. Little else but their eye stalks were showing but she could see bits of chitinous shell underneath. These had to be the local mindartians that she'd been briefed on.
"Uh...hello?" she said. There wasn't much intel about the natives other than they were semi nomadic and resisted contact with the Terminus off worlders. The three of them began talking with chirping, clicking noises made by mouths she could not see. Whatever they was happened they were excited and pointed at her with slender claws covered in robes. Her hand was still hovering next to her gun but the quarian had no idea if she would need it.
"Don't suppose any of you have a translator on you." Tali asked almost to herself. One of the group timidly came forward a few steps closer to her. It lifted three of its long arms and pantomimed shooting a large gun against its shoulder. It then pointed at the sky and Tali got a good look at the mindartian's three fingered, claw like hand. It repeated both movements and added a circling motion to the sky pointing.
It took the quarian a moment to piece together what it was trying to get across. Nodding Tali pulled her pistol free and threw it a couple centimeters from her body. Wincing as she did it was sadly the farthest she could get the weapon. Instantly the three of them began chattering at a quickened rate and she still had no indication if she was about to be saved or roasted alive. Abruptly the group turned and quickly fled on their multiple feet.
"Hey...hey! Wait! Hold on!" she called to no avail. The clicking gradually faded until it was overtaken by the sounds of the desert she had come to loathe.
"Bosh'tet..." she cursed. She did her best to look up at the blazing sun. It was barely to the halfway point in the sky. It was going to be a long, long day. Tali'Zorah started crawling again. Hopefully her visitors would either come back with medical supplies or bullets to put her out of her misery.