Author's Notes: My apologies for the long delay between chapters. School has been rearing its ugly head for certain. That, and a severe case of writer's block. Fortunately, I'll be done with school in the next few weeks, so the gap between chapters will hopefully shrink dramatically when that time comes. This chapter was also fairly long, clocking in at around 6200 words. Hopefully it was worth it though, as I have been trying to decide the direction I want to take with this story.
Anyway, this chapter contains some rather non-canon material. For the most part I do plan on sticking to the main overarching story, but there will be some changes to accomodate the direction I'm trying to take with the story. Let me know how I did. I am by no means a professional writer, so I'm learning as I go here.
Finally, in answer to a concern that was brought up in the last chapter, I do plan on giving the other characters some screen time. Though Tali is my favorite character, she is not the only character that I love, so expect some Garrus and company as well.
Now please, read and enjoy. And as usual, comment and let me know how I did.
Therum
John worked furiously at his terminal. Tali shook herself. She caught herself watching John work quite frequently. It fascinated her that he worked with such intensity and fervor when the ship was in danger. His focus was unreal. They had dropped the Commander off on Therum just over an hour ago. The ship's stealth systems had been engaged for over two hours and ever since then he had been working with the same vigor at his terminal, never slowing or showing signs of weariness.
Tali turned her attention back to her terminal. She began to work to reduce the emissions of the ship, as she knew John was doing. As the ship vented heat and radiation, byproducts of the ship's helium-3 fusion torches, it was stored in internal sinks inside the ship. However, the sinks had a maximum capacity. If stealth mode was engaged for too long, the radiation would begin venting into the ship and the heat would cook the crew inside the hull. The more the emissions could be reduced, however, the longer the stealth systems could be used. Joker had been moving the ship around a lot since they had engaged the emissions sinks as well, which created more emissions, limiting the time they could stay cloaked. Every little reduction they could get helped.
"Tali," John said suddenly. Tali started at the sound of his voice. John was fairly loud spoken, and he hadn't said anything for nearly an hour. The sudden noise startled her. "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to startle you," he said, apparently having noticed her jump.
"It's okay. It's just so quiet on this ship and it's been so long since either of us has spoken. Anyway, did you need something?"
"Yeah, can you get me a bottle of water? I'm freakin' thirsty."
"Sure thing." Tali left the engine room and went to the fridge in the corner of the cargo bay, next to the weapons bench. She got a bottle of water and returned to engineering. When she came back John had stopped working and was turned away from his terminal, leaning against it with his arms crossed. Tali handed him the water.
"Thank you," John said to her, taking the water. He unscrewed the cap and took a long drink from the bottle, tilting it upward. He gasped as he lowered the bottle and separated it from his lips. "God, I was thirsty," he said, breathing heavily.
"How are we looking?" Tali asked.
John took another gulp of water before answering. "Not sure to be honest. I mean I've reduced the emissions of the drive core and thrusters as much as possible. There isn't much else we can do. The sinks weren't designed to be used more than five hours in the best of conditions, anyway. But these aren't the best of conditions. Joker's been pulling a lot of maneuvers to avoid geth ships, because, you know, crashing is bad. So that's increased the heat output. I don't see the sinks lasting a third hour before they start venting into the ship."
"You'd better tell Joker that."
"Already did while you were gone. He doesn't think we'll be out of range of the geth scanners by then, but he's trying. We'll vent the sinks when we have to. The Normandy's capable of handling a few geth frigates anyway, it's just we'd rather avoid combat if we can help it. You know." John took another drink of water.
"Yeah. We'll be okay though, I think. You know, I just thought of this. But what is 'Normandy?' Like, what was the ship named after?"
"All Alliance frigates are named after the sites of famous battles on Earth. The Gettysburg, for example, the first ship I served on, was a frigate and it was named after a famous battle during the First American Civil War. This ship is named after a major battle at a place called Normandy. It's a region in France that was invaded by the Axis side at the beginning of the Second World War, and a counteroffensive was launched to take it back from the Germans. The day of the invasion was called D-Day. It marked the beginning of the end of the war, the bloodiest conflict in human history-"
"How many died?" Tali asked. "Oh sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You said it was the bloodiest conflict in human history, so I just wondered..."
"That's fine. It's a good question. Anyway, if memory serves me right, the final death toll sat around 60 million. That includes civilians and victims of genocide."
"That's a lot for a single war on one planet."
"I know. That's why they called it a world war. There were two major theaters spanning nearly the entire globe. That's why the D-Day invasion of Normandy was so important. It marked the beginning of the end of the war. From Normandy, the Allies were able to gain a foothold on the continent and push the Axis forces back into Germany and eventually take the German capital and end the war. So we named a ship after it."
"I don't think there were any conflicts on the homeworld that had casualties that high. Well, except…" Tali trailed off. John nodded to her, indicating he knew what she was referring to. Before either of them could say anything more, an alarm blared from the chief engineer's terminal. A confused look appeared on John's face.
"That's weird. I've never heard that one before," he said as he turned around. He examined the terminal briefly. "Oh shit!" he exclaimed as his hands sprang into a flurry of furious motion.
"What is it?" Tali asked, moving over to her terminal, ready to assist however she could.
"That's the heat load monitor for the sinks. We had way less time than I thought." John said. He opened the voice channel to the cockpit. "Joker! I've got to vent the sinks! They're nearly full!"
"No, Chief. There are too many geth ships nearby. They'll fire on us," Joker responded.
"Joker, you don't understand. We have to vent them now!" John yelled to his terminal, his fingers still flying over the console.
"Hang on, John. I can get us out of here."
"Damn it, Joker!" John slammed his fist on the console. "It's gonna start venting into the ship if we don't vent the sinks right fucking now!" The swearing startled Tali. She had never heard him curse so much at once, or while yelling. The situation must be bad, Tali thought. She began to try to reduce emissions in any way she could at her terminal.
"I'll just make an FTL jump," Joker said.
"No, Joker! Not unless you want every geth ship in the star cluster coming after us! Damn it." John switched the intercom to the navigator's station in the CIC. "Pressly, we've got to vent the ship's emissions sinks. They're going to start venting into the interior of the ship!"
"Do it," Navigator Pressly responded without hesitation.
"I can get us out of here!" Joker said desperately.
"Joker, we have to do it now or we're all cooked! Literally!" John said.
"Joker, deactivate the stealth systems. That's an order!" Pressly said. Tali heard a sigh from the comm.
"Fine. But if the geth kill us, I blame you guys." The alarm coming from John's terminal stopped. He immediately vented the emissions sinks.
"It won't matter if we all die in here anyway," John retorted. "Besides, the Normandy can handle a few geth frigates just fine."
"I hope so, cuz here they come," Joker said. John turned off the comm on the terminal.
"Tali, get ready for combat. We may need to divert power to the kinetic barriers. I'm switching the ship to low-power lighting. Divert all non-critical power to the shields and weapons."
"Got it," Tali responded, beginning to work.
"All hands, brace for evasive maneuvers," came Joker's voice over the loudspeaker. Tali felt heavier as Joker pulled the ship up into a steep vertical U-turn. It was replaced by a much more subtle vertigo as the momentum dampeners kicked in. The ship shook as the kinetic barriers absorbed fire from a geth ship.
"Damn they got a bead on us fast. What are our shields like?" John said.
"I'm reading 80 percent over here," Tali answered.
"Hm. I hope there aren't too many geth ships." John said. He activated the comm on his terminal. "Pressly, can I get a sitrep? How many geth ships do we have?"
Pressly's voice crackled over the intercom, "We've got three geth ships incoming, Chief. Looks like all three are frigates."
"We'd better take them out fast or make an FTL jump, Pressly. The Normandy wasn't built for a war of attrition."
"Understood, Chief. We still have to get the Commander, remember."
"Copy. Do what you have to. Rettinger out." John closed the voice channel.
"Can the Normandy handle three at once?" Tali asked John. He looked at her meaningfully.
"We'll be okay, Tali. It'll take more than that to get rid of the Normandy," he assured her. Tali wasn't convinced, but she returned to work on her terminal.
"One geth ship down," came Joker's voice over the intercom.
"See? We got this," John said. Almost as soon as he had finished speaking another blast rocked the ship, this one slightly harder than the one before.
"Barriers at 55 percent," Tali said, relaying the information on her readout.
"Is all non-critical power diverted to the barriers?" John asked.
"Yes, everything I can find. The whole ship is already on low-power lighting, and life support systems are at minimum capacity."
"Okay. There isn't much else we can do, then. Try and divert combat stress from the drive core as much as possible. We lose the drive core and we're done."
"Understood," Tali said as the ship rocked a third time, this time significantly more than the previous two.
"Two geth ships down," Joker said over the loudspeaker.
"Shields at twenty percent," Tali told John.
"Damn it," John said. "That's way too low for comfort."
"John," Pressly's voice emanated from John's console. "The third geth ship is below us. We can't hit it. It looks like they're going to try and board through the cargo deck. You're in charge down there. Take whoever is down there and repel any boarding parties. Failing that, slow them down so we can prepare defenses up here."
"Yes sir," John replied. "Synthetic bastards won't know what hit 'em."
"Give 'em hell. Pressly out."
John shut the comms off. He pulled out a small rectangular device and plugged it into his terminal.
"What's that?" Tali asked.
"It's a flash memory drive with a self-executing program on it. It will interface with the terminal and destroy any classified Alliance data on it, as well as other, more personal things that I have it programmed to destroy. It'll back up all the personal data to an extranet server where I can retrieve it if I want it later, but if the geth are gonna take this ship, there's no sense in helping them out and giving Saren useful intel."
"Oh, wow. I need one of those."
"Standard issue for Alliance personnel. Remind me once this shit is over and I'll put in a requisition order for you."
"Okay," Tali said.
"Alright. That's taken care of." John looked at Tali. "Now come on. We've got a ship to defend."
John walked through the cargo hold to his locker. It was grouped with all the others on the cargo deck since he spent so much time on that deck anyway. In the hold he found Garrus, Wrex, and the Alliance requisitions officer. Ashley wasn't there. Shepard had taken her to Therum to find Dr. T'Soni. Not bad, John thought. Five people to fend off a geth attack. We got this.
Garrus approached him. "John, what's going on?" he asked. "We know the geth are attacking, but why have they stopped firing?"
"There were three ships that broke off from the main geth force to attack us," John said. "We managed to disable two, but the third is directly below us and is going to attempt to board us. I've been ordered to take charge and repel any boarding parties." John began to don his armor. It was standard issue armor for all Alliance engineers, whether they expected combat or not. It was simple light armor with heavy kinetic barriers meant for popping out of cover quickly to disable shields or overload weapons and popping back in. Not the greatest, but it would do. John was glad he forwent wearing an officer's uniform, which he was allowed to wear as chief engineer, in favor of the standard issue Alliance grunt uniform; the thick fabric and limited mobility of the more formal officer's uniform would have been ill-suited to wear underneath his armor. As it were, he fit his armor on just fine and powered up the kinetic barriers.
In addition to his armor, John took the standard Alliance issue M7 Lancer assault rifle from his locker as well as his Elkoss Combine Edge pistol custom-modified with corrosive rounds and a high-caliber barrel. He bought the pistol after the Skyllian Blitz in case he ever faced combat again, and it looked like it was about to pay off. He left the sniper rifle he usually preferred to carry in favor of a standard-issue Katana shotgun. The sniper rifle would do him no good inside a ship, and would only serve to slow him down. The shotgun, on the other hand, would prove useful in such close quarters.
Having finished arming himself, he turned around and found everyone on the cargo deck gathered around him. He gathered himself.
"Failing repulsion, we are to slow down any boarding parties as much as possible while the crew on the upper decks prepares defenses. However, I don't plan on failure. Everyone gear up."
Wrex spoke in the deep bass common to krogan, "Why are you in charge, human? You probably have the least combat experience out of any of us," he said. John looked at him.
"Don't underestimate me, Wrex," John said firmly, but not aggressively. "I've got more combat experience than you know. I saw shit during the Skyllian Blitz that would make your stomach- stomachs churn. I led a rag-ass team of marines scraped off shore leave against an army of batarians for three days. Didn't lose a man. Beyond that, orders are orders. Pressly ordered me to lead the repulsion team, so I'm gonna lead it. If I die, feel free to fight them on your own."
"Fine, but don't ask me to like it." Wrex said begrudgingly.
"I don't give a damn if you like it so long as you do what I say, when I say it. Now gear up. All of you."
Wrex turned and went to retrieve his gear. The rest followed suit. John turned around and readied his weapons on the weapon bench. This took several minutes. When he was finished he moved to the center of the cargo hold and waited for the rest. Tali returned first with a pistol, shotgun, and a set of armor that strapped onto her exo-suit for combat.
"I wonder why Wrex has such a problem with you in charge," she said.
"Can't say I blame him. Most ship's engineers don't have combat experience, much less leadership experience. I'm an exception though. Pressly knew that, and I guess that's why he wanted me in charge. Probably didn't trust the non-humans either. I'm glad he's on board, though. We're gonna need him."
"Yeah, we are," Tali replied. She fell silent as Garrus walked over to join them.
"You ready for this, John," he asked.
"Ready as I'm gonna get I reckon," John replied.
"Well if it makes you feel better, I'd rather have you in charge than anybody else on this deck."
"Thanks, Garrus. I'd be pretty comfortable with you in charge, though."
"I appreciate that, but I don't quite have the pedigree that you earned during the Blitz."
"All the same to me, Garrus." The group fell silent again. After a few moments Wrex and the requisitions officer returned together, weapons in hand.
"Okay, here's the plan," John began. He drew out the defensive positions each of them was to take around the hold.
"Tali, I want you to hack the most powerful one that comes in, okay? Especially if it's one of those big bastards, a Juggernaut I think they call them," he continued.
"Yeah. The Primes are also pretty formidable," Tali said.
"Right, them too. Just whatever the most dangerous one is, hack it. There's no need in fighting it if we can get the other geth to fight it for us."
"Got it," Tali said.
"Let them beat on each other until the hack wears off. Once it does, concentrate fire on it. If there's two, I'll drain the shields of the other one and keep it distracted while you guys bring the first one down. Once they're out of the way, work on the other geth, just like any other enemy. We can handle that. And watch your flanks! Do not let them flank us, or we're done. They'll enter through the main cargo door because it's a hell of a lot easier than cutting through the bottom, so don't let them move from the middle. Keep them in the crossfire. Once the boarding party is taken care of, stay behind cover and let your shields recharge. More might be on the way. We may need to board their ship to detach the boarding lock, so be ready for that too. Any questions?" He paused to give them time to ask questions. "Okay, everybody grab a communicator. Do not engage until I give the order." John held out a handful of earpieces he grabbed from the ship's armory. Everybody took one from his hand except Tali. John fit one on his own ear. "Alright people let's move. We've got a ship to defend."
John pulled Tali aside as the others began moving crates and setting up defenses. "Do you have a communicator in that thing?" he asked her, referring to the suit.
"Yes. Works on all standard frequencies."
"Good. Tune it to 99.5 megahertz. That's the frequency for personal radios on the Normandy." Tali opened her omni-tool. After a few moments of working, she closed it.
"Done," she said. John nodded to her. He opened the voice channel on his earpiece.
"Comm check. Can everyone hear me?" he said.
"Check," said Garrus.
"Check," came from Tali as she gave him a thumbs up.
"We're good," the requisitions officer said.
"I hear you," Wrex said.
John nodded, pleased. Nothing complicated a fight more than the inability to communicate, and the comms worked without a hitch. No fiddling required.
John set to work moving crates for defenses. He had the team arrange two tiers of crates. Two crates on the outsides of the cargo bay, facing inward toward the main cargo door. He hoped to use those crates to catch the geth in a crossfire and keep the flanks guarded. The second tier was arranged on the outsides of the rear support columns. John moved a fifth crate to the middle of the cargo bay, behind the two tiers. He would be there so he could see the fight easier.
He positioned Wrex and the requisitions officer in the front, Wrex for his biotics and ability to… well rip things apart with his bare hands. The requisitions officer was there because he didn't really know what to do with him. John had no idea what his combat abilities were like. He put Tali in the rear-left and Garrus on the rear-right. Garrus was the logical choice for the rear; he was well trained with assault rifles, and the range given by the rear crates was perfect for assault rifles. He put Tali in the rear because he needed her alive and he felt the rear was a safer place. She could hack and overload with her omni-tool from there and had a nice range for her pistol.
As the movement died down, a strange sound John had never heard before came from the cargo door. It was some kind of strange, stuttering, mechanical click.
"What the hell-?" John began to ask.
"It's the geth!" Tali said.
John opened the voice channel on his earpiece. "Everybody take position! Get down!" he ordered as he vaulted over his crate and sat down with his back to it. The sounds of armor moving and weapons readying filled the cargo hold as everyone followed his order. Nobody said a word. John brought his assault rifle off his back and expanded it. The hold fell silent as everybody settled in behind his or her respective cover.
Then came the waiting. Damn the waiting, John thought. It's always the worst part. His heart hammered in his chest. He did his best to control his breathing. He knew the geth were busy trying to get the door open, most likely hacking it, but he wished they would do it faster and get it over with. It felt like an eternity waiting for the fight to begin.
"Everybody stay hidden! Do not engage until I give the order!" he said over the comms. Just after he was done speaking, the pneumatic pumps controlling the cargo door hissed as the door slid open. John heard the strange stuttering sound again, this time not muffled by the door in the way. He laid his assault rifle down and opened his omni-tool. It showed six heat signatures by the doorway that he assumed to be geth. He risked a peek around his crate to examine the situation. He saw two prime units in the middle and four geth troopers, two on either side of the primes. Shit. John knew two primes were going to be tough to handle. The geth began to spread out, the two primes moving up the middle and the troopers spreading to the sides. John withdrew his head.
"Hold…" he whispered through his earpiece, knowing it would automatically amplify his voice for its recipients. "Everybody stay down." He watched his omni-tool as the heat signatures spread apart from each other. One moved next to where John guessed Wrex's crate was. "Tali, hack that prime on the left. Everybody else, hold," he ordered.
"Got it. Give me a few seconds," Tali said.
"Rettinger, one of the geth is just on the other side of my crate. I'm gonna take him out. Get ready to engage," came Wrex's voice over the comm.
"Negative, Wrex!" John whispered urgently. "Wait for Tali to hack that prime!"
"It's gonna notice me in a second, Rettinger! You best get ready," Wrex repeated.
"Fine then. Do what you have to, but try to wait as long as you can." John heard the firing of a weapon, though not a conventional one using bullets. It had to be a plasma weapon of some kind. He heard a battle cry that could only be from the mouth of a krogan. "Damn it. Fire at will," he said. He looked around the crate to see Wrex grab one of the troopers over the crate and rip its head off with his hands as the roar of gunfire erupted in the hold. John opened his omni-tool and drained the shields of the prime on the right. He brought his assault rifle over the top of the crate and opened fire on it.
"Got it!" Tali said. The prime she had been hacking immediately began firing at the other trooper that Wrex hadn't killed, which began to fire back. John continued to fire at the other prime as Tali began shooting her pistol, adding the sound to the din of all the other gunfire.
John stopped firing long enough to look around. He saw the prime and the one trooper still shooting each other, Garrus and Tali were busy engaging the prime on the left, and the requisitions officer was shooting at a trooper from behind his crate. But there were four troopers. Where did the fourth one go? Just as John realized this, movement in his periphery caught his attention to his right.
John looked at where he had seen the movement. He saw the fourth geth trooper appear from behind the Mako. "Shit!" he swore as it began shooting at him. John moved away from the geth in a desperate attempt to get some cover between him and it. He knew that his shields were meant for short bursts of gunfire and would quickly fail under a consistent hail of rounds. He fired back at the trooper to try and get it to retreat behind the Mako for cover, but it just let its shields absorb the fire. In desperation, John whipped a grenade off his hip and threw it at the ground beneath the geth's feet. The trooper dove back behind the Mako to escape the blast radius as the grenade detonated. John took his chance. Dropping his assault rifle, he sprinted at the corner of the Mako where he last saw the trooper. As he approached, the trooper reappeared from behind the Mako to shoot at John again, but didn't get the chance as John charged it and tackled it, bringing it to the ground. The geth struggled underneath John for a moment as John lay on top of it. John took his pistol off his hip and put it underneath the geth's curved head. He fired a single round that went through its head and out the top. The light of the optical sensor went out, but the trooper still struggled underneath John.
It's not organic, dumb shit, John thought to himself. You gotta hit something vital. He put the pistol to the trooper's chest and began firing again. He put multiple rounds into its chest in various places, hoping to hit the power supply or central processing unit. After the fifth bullet the geth lay still. John rose to a stand and put three more rounds into it just to be safe. With the trooper taken care of, John turned around to examine the situation. It had deteriorated quickly.
Tali and Garrus were pinned by one of the primes. Wrex was pinned by the other, which had recovered from Tali's hack. The requisitions officer was busy applying medi-gel to himself, as he had taken a round to his left shoulder. The only good thing was that all of the troopers were dead. John swore and took cover behind the Mako.
"Tali," he said over the comm, "can you hack the other prime now? The one that's shooting at you?"
"Yeah. Give me a second," Tali replied.
"Garrus and I will cover you," John said as he leaned out from behind the Mako to shoot at the prime with his pistol. "Garrus, alternate with me. Let your shields recover while I occupy it, and we'll switch to keep our shields charged."
"Understood," Garrus replied, ducking back behind his chest-high crate. John continued to fire at the prime to keep it from firing on Tali. The prime fired back at him. John let his shields absorb the fire for a moment, and then retreated behind the Mako. He periodically popped out of cover to take a few shots at the prime before retreating again in order to keep the prime focused on him. After doing this several times, Garrus said, "I'm good, John." Garrus brought his assault rifle up over his crate and began shooting at the prime. John retreated behind the Mako and stayed there to let his shields recover.
"Got it," Tali said over the comms. The prime that they had been occupied with began firing at the other prime that had been engaging Wrex.
"Everybody, concentrate fire on the prime on my right!" John ordered. He leaned out from behind the Mako again and began shooting at that prime. The rest followed suit. The prime brought down the other prime, since it had already been weakened when it was hacked the first time. It fell to the ground, sparking and stuttering until the light on its head died. John continued to fire until he noticed that none of his rounds were having an effect. Damn it, he swore to himself. The armor was too thick for any ordinance they had on board to pierce it.
John examined the prime unit, trying to find a way to bring it down. He noticed a gap in its armor near the base of its neck, where a few wires could be seen running down the neck and into the torso. An idea occurred to John. It was crazy, but he couldn't think of anything else. The unit began firing at his team again as it overcame Tali's hack.
"Everybody, keep fire on it. I've got an idea." John moved across the back of the Mako, turning the corner and moving across the length of the rover. He kept low, hoping the prime wouldn't spot him through the gaps in between the wheels. He reached the corner at the front end of the Mako. He peeked around the corner to ensure the prime hadn't noticed his movement. He checked his grenade belt on his hip for trip mines.
"Hold fire!" John ordered as he turned the corner and charged the prime. It finally saw him as he was rushing toward it and turned to face him. It managed to get a few shots off before John reached it, but his shields absorbed the fire. He collided with the unit at its knees and squeezed, bringing its feet together in an attempt to bring it off balance and force it to the ground. The huge geth stood upright, however, and for a terrifying moment John feared it would stay that way, in which case he was dead. But he refused to give up. He squeezed tighter, dug his feet into the floor and heaved. His quadriceps flexed as he pushed on the prime with all his might. It finally worked; the top-heavy armored geth unit toppled over. John scrambled up to its chest, pulled a trip mine off his grenade belt, and shoved it as far down into the gap in its armor as he could. He rolled off the unit.
"Everybody take cover!" he yelled as he scrambled toward Tali's cover. He vaulted over the crate and leaned up against it next to Tali as the prime began firing at him. He slapped the button on his hip to set off the trip mine and heard it explode. He kept his head low as bits of geth flew over his head. He looked around the corner of the crate at the spot where the prime had been and saw its mangled body lying where he had detonated the mine. He withdrew his head and relaxed, leaning against the crate and breathing heavily from the exertion and adrenaline of the fight. He sat for a time, allowing himself to recover for a moment. He noticed how close he was to Tali and his face began to heat up. John hastily stood.
"Pressly," he said into his communicator after switching it over to the ship's intercom channel.
"Yeah, Chief? How's it going down there?" Pressly responded.
"Boarding party's been taken care of, but the boarding arm is still attached to the ship," John answered, moving back to his original crate to retrieve his assault rifle. "I've got wounded down here. I'm sending him up to Chakwas."
"Understood. Can you detach the boarding tunnel?"
"I don't know. I can try, but I'd rather not with only four. If we meet resistance it'll be tough. Can you send me Private Miller?"
A pause, then, "He's on his way."
"Thank you. Rettinger out." John switched his comm back to the personal channel. Ignoring the stares from Tali, Wrex, and Garrus, he walked past them to the corner where the requisitions officer sat attempting to bandage his wound with one hand.
"How you doing, soldier?" John asked, kneeling down.
"I'm okay," he replied. "I can still fight."
"No you can't, not with that shoulder. Go on up to Chakwas."
"But, sir-"
"But nothing," John cut him off. "You did good. Go see the doctor and get that taken care of. We can't have it getting infected."
"I-" the requisitions officer began. He sighed and said, "Yes sir." John helped him up and watched him make his way to the elevator. He walked back over to Tali, Garrus, and Wrex.
"You are a crazy bosh'tet!" Tali said as he approached, pointing a finger at him. "Charging a prime. I haven't seen much crazier than that."
"Hey it worked, didn't it?" John asked, grinning.
"I'll admit, that was damned impressive," Garrus said. "For a second I thought that prime was going to take us all out single-handed because we didn't have the ordinance to take care of it. Just goes to show that a little ingenuity and a lot of crazy can go a long way in a lopsided fight."
"Emphasis on the crazy," Tali said. John continued to smile at the joking. The elevator door hissed and opened to admit Private Miller. He approached John and saluted.
"Private Miller reporting for duty, sir," he said.
"Miller, you're just in time. We were about to take care of the boarding tunnel. Tali, override the hack on the door and get it open again. The rest of you, stack up in front of me." His team moved to follow his orders. Within minutes they were in a line in front of the now open cargo bay doors, moving through to detach the boarding tunnel so no more geth could board. Instead of a tunnel, however, they found a small room no larger than the med bay on the ship.
"This is odd," John said. "I wonder where they came from. Or maybe this isn't a tunnel but it's-"
"John, this isn't a tunnel," came Garrus' voice from a smaller room to John's left. "I just found a cockpit. This is a shuttle."
"Wow, a free shuttle. Who opened a bank account?" John asked. Nobody laughed, giving him odd looks instead. "Nevermind. Reference to an old-ass practice on Earth. Maybe I'll explain later," he said, stepping into the cockpit. "I think we're done here, guys. I'll stay here and see if I can't get some useful intel from the databanks on this thing. You guys can return to your posts in the ship." His team began to leave the geth shuttle.
John sat down and began sifting through the databases in the shuttle, downloading everything that might be useful to his omni-tool. He would work on decrypting and decoding it later, when he had some free time. When he finished, he returned to the ship and reported to Pressly. The Normandy had no trouble dealing with the final geth frigate at full shields. They engaged the stealth systems and picked up Shepard and his team without incident.
Several hours later, John kept glancing over at Tali as he worked at his terminal in the engine room. He kept trying to stop himself, but he couldn't. He had to admit, she had a nice body. The way her upper body curved inward and then back out to her- Damn it, get back to work! John chastised himself. Sighing, he turned his attention back to his terminal.
"Something wrong?" Tali asked, having heard him sigh.
"No," John replied. "I'm just tired. It's been a long day." It was well into the third shift on the Normandy, and the ship had been quiet for a few hours, most of the crew in the sleeper pods on the second deck getting some rest.
"Yeah, it has been. Getting boarded has a tendency to tire those already on board."
"Indeed," John said. He returned to work decoding the geth data he salvaged from the shuttle. Most of it was junk that he couldn't use. Anything useful he forwarded to the Alliance brass for them to decide how to use it. Most importantly he searched for anything about the Conduit, as it was the key to Saren's plan and nobody knew what it was or where it was.
As he worked, however, his thoughts began to wander. He and Tali had just finished a conversation. It had been interrupted by Engineer Jackson, the third shift engineer, walking into the engine room for her shift. He found himself disappointed at the abrupt end to the dialogue. As the two of them talked he found himself admiring her positive attitude and constant selflessness more and more. She had sacrificed so much for her people, and even for the rest of the galaxy, that he couldn't help but admire her. It made him rather introspective; what had he done for his people? Sure, he had joined the Alliance, but that was because he saw no alternative, not because he wanted to serve humanity.
John's thoughts were interrupted as the intercom winked into existence on his terminal screen and Joker's voice emanated from the console.
"Bridge to Engineering. You still down there, Chief?"
John opened the voice channel, "Yeah I'm here, Joker."
"The Commander wants to see you in his quarters. Probably wants a debrief on what happened while we were near Therum."
"Understood, Joker. You can tell him I'm on my way."
"Roger. Bridge out."
John shut his console down. "Well, duty calls." He turned to Tali. "Don't stay up too late, okay? You need some rest. It certainly has been a long day."
Tali looked at him. "I won't," she responded. "I was going to finish cleaning the carbon buildup in the thrusters and go to sleep anyway."
"Good. I gotta get going. Don't wanna keep Shepard waiting. Have a good night, Tali" He gave her a friendly smile.
"You too." With that John turned and strode toward the exit.