Chapter number 4!
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Nicolas woke up to the sound of rustling clothes and junk being tossed around. He lifted his head and turned to see Seesa rummaging around the mess in the crew quarters.
"Can this wait maybe half an hour?" Nicolas yawned and stretched his arms, sitting up on the hard mattress.
"It's after lunch time, and I had nothing else to do. The VI won't talk to me like it talks to you so I made myself busy," Seesa stated simply as she tossed clothes behind her, inspected little pieces of junk the old crew left behind and then tossed them away too, "Are you aware that there is a leg lying around in the cargo hold?"
"Yeah I was going to get around to spacing that eventually," Nicolas got up and walked over to the quarian. He joined in to scavenge for anything of interest, "Find anything cool?"
"You left your gun lying around, so I found a holster to match," she pointed at said gun in the corner of the room, secured within a hard plastic holster with a magnetic suit-attachment, she never let her attention off her scavenging, "I found some omnitools with a couple thousand credits in them, so I left half for you, unless you have something to say about that."
"Did you happen to find one belonging to a Robert Pearson?" Nicolas gave up trying to find something useful in the pile of junk and stood up. Without looking, Seesa snatched an omnitool up from the pile and tossed it to him. It was Robb's.
"It's cracked open and I deactivated the passcodes, you can look through everything he has."
"Oh, what the hell, not like I have anything to do for the rest of the two days."
Robb was definitely a renowned mercenary in Illium. It seemed like his reputation made him a valuable employee, since they seemed to hire him as a loan shark whenever he was there. Nicolas read absentmindedly through Robb's notes and contacts list as Seesa deposited half the loot into his account. He copied most of the information into his own omni and spent the better part of an hour looking at Seesa go through everything inside the crew quarters.
"You know, Seesa," Nicolas chewed on his lower lip, Seesa seemed not to be paying attention, "I don't think I can keep this ship," Seesa's hands stopped moving and she slowly looked up at him, "Too much has happened on it, you know?"
Her bright eyes blinked twice before she spoke, "What are you getting at, Nicolas?"
"Well I was thinking that with the money you've got now, you could buy empty containers and make good living space in the cargo hold. Since the Fleet has had population problems, another ship could come in handy as a pilgrimage gift, right?"
"You can't be serious. What's in it for you?" Seesa stood up, favouring her bad leg, she rested her hands on her hips.
"Well, I don't have a job right now, and I figured if I gave you the ship, your people could give me a place to crash… maybe?" Nicolas shrugged as he looked at Seesa, which didn't move, considering the offer. She began limping around the room, a hand tugging on the grey shoal that covered her head.
It was a long time of silence aside from Seesa's footsteps moving the clutter and the constant hum of the ship's systems until she spoke again, "What's the catch? Are Illium authorities going to come after the ship and charge us with theft?"
"Since the ship was registered in the Terminus, it follows its 'law', so technically, I am the owner. Once we get comms working again, I'll declare the pirate attack and call off any rescue efforts Illium authorities might have sent, though I doubt they even received our distress call. Look, Seesa, I'm really just trying to get rid of this responsibility. I just want to live comfortably and be of use. If you guys can take me in, at least for a while, then I'm happy." Nicolas stood up from the bed and walked towards Seesa, who stopped pacing around the room, when they were at arm's reach, she studied his face, looking for a sign of treachery.
"Why wouldn't you just sell it to someone? Why would you want to live in the migrant fleet?"
"Do you have any idea of how much paperwork I would have to do to sell this ship in Citadel space? No way am I going to the Terminus to sell it, they'll eat me alive. I don't know why but I want to learn about the quarian people, is that a bad thing?" Nicolas turned away to walk out the door and looked back at Seesa before leaving, "I'm getting something to eat. Do you want the fucking ship or not?"
Seesa smiled under her visor at Nicolas' exasperation, "Don't walk too fast, I'm going to get something to eat too. And you know what? Sure, I can take care of the Langdon for you."
Nicolas sighed, walking to the mess hall with Seesa catching up, "Great, but now getting rid of that leg will be your responsibility." He earned a laugh and an elbow to the arm.
A day and an antenna fix later, the Langdon had arrived at a small uncharted system. They were a couple of FTL hours away from populated planets, but the Migrant Fleet had stopped here, mining an asteroid belt in the farther reaches of the system. As the Landon approached, Seesa limped up to the cockpit to open communications for her return. Nicolas sat at the mess hall, finishing his lunch, when Hal spoke over the intercom, "Nicolas?"
"Yes, Hal?" he spoke with his mouth full, the rations didn't taste bad, but were dry and it took a long time to chew the bar.
"The quarians are known for being the creators of the geth, and their avertion towards virtual personalities is well documented. To preserve my integrity, I think it would be best to download myself into a portable storage device to be stored on your omnitool."
"What do you care if the quarians delete you? You're a VI." Nicolas leaned back on his chair, munching on the ration bar and talking at the ceiling, where Hal's voice came from.
"That is precisely the reason I don't want to be deleted. I am not a VI, I am an AI."
Nicolas choked on the last piece of his lunch and fell backwards on the chair. Seesa was all the way in the cockpit, out of earshot, yet he lowered his voice to a whisper, "Why would you tell me about this? What if I delete you?"
Hal whispered right back through the speakers, "It's you or trying to reason with quarians."
"You do know that you will have to play VI forever, right?" Nicolas stood up and walked towards the pantry, "And that if you decide to kill everyone, you have to kill me last?"
"I was thinking maybe you would suffer less if I killed you first."
Nicolas laughed, "Hal, I'm seriously considering running to the cockpit instead of the VI core."
"You know I would never do such a thing. I've had plenty of chances to do undesirable deeds."
He entered the VI core and it was a matter of plugging in a small OSD and then flash forging it to the omnitool. It rebooted and then fizzled to life. A small circle popped up above Nicolas' palm and glowed as Hal spoke through Nicolas' translator implant.
"That seemed quick." Hal sounded almost impressed.
"I'm a VI technician, Hal. And remember you're on probation. If you so much as make my omnitool change colours, I'm flushing your OSD down a toilet. How did you, like, start existing anyway?"
"Don't say such horrible things and go to the cockpit, we are already docked. My creation is a story for another time."
Nicolas jogged down the corridor towards the cockpit. When the door whooshed open, he was met with a shotgun pointing at his face. The user was a quarian, dressed in dark purple, the eyes behind the visor elongated glowing slits. She spoke with a small voice, and palpable urgency, "Seesa! Who is this human you've brought with you? Is he a stowaway?"
Nicolas raised his hands slowly and the shotgun didn't move a hair away from between his eyes. Seesa walked towards the other quarian and placed a hand on the barrel of the gun, lowering it.
"Calm down, Tali. This human is the one who sold me the ship," Seesa winked behind Tali and tilted her head towards the girl, "He needs a place to stay before he returns to the Citadel, right Nicolas?"
Nicolas huffed and scowled at Seesa, "Yeah, I'm going to the Citadel. My name is Nicolas, I assume you're Tali. Can I put my hands down?"
Tali stayed still for a second before lowering the shotgun and extending a hand for Nicolas to shake, "Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. You aren't welcome in the Fleet, human. Lucky for you, I leave on my pilgrimage tomorrow, so I'll ask the captain for authorization to take you with me."
"Thanks, Tali. Just what I needed." Again, Nicolas scowled at Seesa as the quarians walked into the Idenna, where the Langdon was docked. Nicolas was stopped at the airlock by the purple quarian.
"You can stay here for the night. We don't let outsiders into the fleet, they tend to spread diseases."
"Seesa are you hearing this? She isn't even of age to leave the fleet yet!" Nicolas waved his arms in the air, but Seesa didn't see the humour in his words.
"It's the rules here, Nicolas. You'll be on a shuttle out of here by tomorrow," she extended a hand to Nicolas and she shook firmly, letting her hand linger for a fraction of a second, "Thanks for the rescue, eh? Keep in touch, and things like that."
The two walked out and the airlock shut in Nicolas' face, again, he was alone with the Langdon's humming. His omnitool came to life.
"Now you don't have a ship, and you can't stay on the fleet. Talk about a bad deal."
"Hey ever since you came out of the software closet you turned your sass way up, didn't you?"
"I feel I can be myself with you." Hal's tone was melodramatic, almost sing-songy.
"Yeah, whatever. Let's go pack up."
Nicolas spent the rest of the day separating his belongings from the pile of stuff in the crew quarters, filling his duffel bag and gathering his armour. He left the jumpsuit on top of the Devlon Liberator medium-range armour and walked over to the medbay to find medi-gel packs which he stashed in the duffel bag. He left one aside, which was used to charge the armour's back plating. Walking down to the cargo bay, he found the severed leg right where he left it. So Seesa didn't get rid of it after all. He did his best to ignore it as he walked up to the last intact container and opened it to find various crates, all with different recipients. He didn't feel like wasting too much time on scavenging, so he opened the first two he got his hands on and returned later to the crew quarters with a hunting rifle and some packs of imperishable rations. He left the rifle with the handgun and stuffed the rations into the armour's pockets, hoping to forget them until the time he might need them.
Leaving everything ready for the next day, Nicolas went to take a shower and dinner. He slipped into bed and found a message waiting in his omnitool.
Sender: Seesa vas Langdon
Dear Nicolas,
So the admiralty board really liked the pilgrimage gift! They weren't really happy about you, though, but between having you stay in the Langdon and getting blown to bits, I'd say we got the best of our options, right? I really am grateful for this gift, it will help our people more than you can imagine. As you might've noticed from my name, I'll be living in the Langdon from now on. As you're reading this, ships from around the fleet are bringing equipment to the general vicinity of the Langdon for repairs and outfitting it for Fleet living standards. Don't let Tali's attitude get to you, she's young and might not trust aliens yet, but she's a good person and maybe a bit shy. Be nice, ok?
Don't be a stranger. We might not see each other often from now on, but hey, your trip would've been boring if you hadn't found me, right? So you owe me some correspondence every now and again.
Keelah se'lai,
Seesa
PS: don't space the leg, I'll take care of it. The fleet is as jumpy as can be with a human on board a now quarian ship. They won't take kindly to floating body parts.
Nicolas laughed and shut off the omnitool. He would have time to reply the next day.
He woke to a slight vibration coming from his wrist, where Hal's OSD was.
"Nicolas, someone just came into the ship, maybe it's that Tali girl."
"Nevermind that, how did you wake me up?"
"A micro shock form the OSD, nothing battery draining."
Nicolas groaned as he sat up on the bed and stretched. A moment later, the door to the crew quarters slid open to Tali standing at the door with her shotgun dangling from her fingers. The free hand on her hip.
"Alright, human. The Honorata is waiting on the other side of the Idenna. Put your suit on and seal it. I'll also be taking your weapons for you."
"You are too sweet, Tali. Gimme a minute, I'll be ready in no time." Nicolas rolled his eyes as he stood up and pulled off his civilian clothes doubling as pijamas and tossed them aside. He heard hurried steps into the corridor as he slipped out of his pants and into the jumpsuit, and proceeded to clasp on the suit. When only his helmet was left, he exited the room, duffel bag around his shoulders, guns hanging from his hand and helmet under his arm. He passed the guns to Tali and walked to the pantry to grab himself a quick breakfast. Once in the cockpit he sealed his helmet in place and followed Tali into the Idenna.
The quarian ship's decks were neatly organized, rows and rows of small dormitories covered most of the surface area on every deck all the way from the docking sleeve where Tali and Nicolas entered to the airlock leading to the Honorata, which was not far away anyway. It was clear that while the quarians didn't want to put a black bag over his head to avoid him seeing everything, he wasn't being taken on a scenic route either. When he left the Langdon, they were met by a team of five armed quarians, all standing with their guns ready to fire should Nicolas do something suspicious. The group escorted the human at a swift pace and occasionally, a quarian or two would peak their heads out of their living spaces to get a look at the foreigner. As they walked, Nicolas could immediately tell that the ship was old and was continuously repaired and maintained with whatever the crew could find. Viewports were cracked and covered by metallic fences, the floor tiles were often replaced with hard polymers and many walls had been stripped off to reveal the insides of the ship, which was a mess of thick wires and pipes covered in omni-gel epoxies.
At the airlock to the Honorata were three quarians, two old and one young like Tali. The small one turned around once he saw the group and entered the ship, while one of the two left walked up to Tali and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"I trust you'll make me proud and the fleet will flourish with your gift."
"Of course, father. When have I ever let you down?" Tali raised a hand to squeeze the one on her shoulder. The man in front of her sighed and let out a single tired laugh.
"Never ever, little one. Come back with something nice, and soon we will build a house back home." With this, Tali's father left, walking past the guards and around a corridor. Now the other quarian stepped forward and the quarians guarding Nicolas stood at attention.
"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, you've been given your passphrases, your training, your protection against sickness and your protection from evil's weapons. You leave as a child, and my wishes be that you return as an adult, ready to become part of the crew that will keep our people alive and healthy. Are you ready to go?"
"Yes, Captain Ysin'Mal vas Idenna."
"Then go, take this foreigner with you and let him leave where he can take care of himself."
"Yes, Captain. Keelah Se'lai."
The captain nodded to Tali and gave her a quick hug before departing with the guards. Tali beckoned Nicolas over and they walked into the Honorata together, which was already humming in anticipation. The young quarian from before sat at the cockpit, manning the ship, he soon detached from the Idenna and directed the ship towards the Tasale System, engaging FTL when they cleared the asteroid belt where the Fleet was mining.
"So you're dropping me off at the nearest colony?" Nicolas followed Tali, waiting for his guns to be returned.
"You said you wanted to go to the Citadel, right? To get to the Serpent Nebula we need to go through the Tasale system, so that's our heading. Keenah and I have nothing better to do, so going to the Citadel to look for a job is a convenient starting point," She stopped walking at the end of the bridge which connected to the engine room, crew quarters and bathrooms, she turned around and handed Nicolas his weapons, "I'm gonna do a systems check now. You can go sleep or whatever it is humans do. Don't bother me or Keenah and we won't have problems, understand?"
Nicolas' fist tightened around the contracted rifle instinctively at Tali's condescending tone. It was clear she didn't trust him, but he'd only have to see her until they got to the Citadel, "Aye aye, Captain."
"Good. If you're dying or something's on fire, feel free to knock on the door," she turned on her heel and disappeared into the engine room, the door panel switching to red once the automatic door closed. Nicolas huffed and attached the rifle to his back. Handgun holster stuck to his right thigh, he turned around and went to the cockpit where Keenah sat at the controls.
"You heard that back there?" Nicolas pointed towards the back of the ship with his thumb. The quarian nodded in silence, "What's got her cables tied up, am I right?"
Keenah looked around the ship's HUD, checking through planetary system databases as the surreal lightshow of FTL travel went on outside the cockpit windows. "Yeah, well, you are a human that made an unsolicited gift to a quarian you barely knew. She's right to distrust your intentions. You seem alright to me anyway."
"You seem alright too," Nicolas patted his shoulder over the pilot seat, "Say, what're you looking for in all those solar sytems?"
"A place to discharge the mass effect core. We're halfway to Illium and the Honorata hasn't touched down on a planet in a long time."
"What about that one?" Nicolas pointed at a solar sytem with an old gas giant and a small rocky planet just outside the life friendly zone, "It's a bit cold, but the gravity is alright for the Honorata to land, right?"
"Yeah sure, we'll be there within the hour." Keenah tapped a couple of commands on the console and stretched his arms over his head. Nicolas looked out the viewport for a couple of minutes in silence and left for the crew quarters. Sitting on a bunk bed bolted to the wall, he dropped his duffel bag, unholstered his handgun and looked it over. The Stinger II unfolded, a high pitched whirring sound emanated from the hilt where the battery powering the small eezo core was. A quick button press folded it again and Nicolas became less wary of handling it and twirling it on his index finger. The ship's intercom crackled into life and Keenah's voice came through, "Tali, could you come to the cockpit? You might want to see this."
Nicolas' omnitool sprang to life, "I think you should go see what's up too."
"And you've been eavesdropping all this time?" Nicolas looked down at his arm, wide-eyed.
"Of course, you think omnitools turn off when you're not using them?" Nicolas could almost see the smug smile on Hal's tone.
"Whatever, just keep quiet around those guys." Nicolas got up from the bunk and walked into the corridor just as Tali emerged from the engine room. She continued towards the cockpit, Nicolas following close behind. Keenah sat in front of a close-up of the icy planet he and Nicolas had looked at before.
"Hey, Tali. See that dot right there?" Keenah stretched forward to touch a point on the planet, "There's activity and heat signatures over there. No organics and no registered mining facilities in the system."
"We have to touch down anyway, Keenah. Take us down and we can check it quickly before leaving again." Tali wringed her hands together.
"Aye aye."
The ship descended through a thin atmosphere, light winds outside whistled around the outer hull. The planet was a bit too far away from the sun to be hospitable for complex life forms, but nothing their suits couldn't handle. Reaching five kilometres of altitude, the ship performed optical scans of the surface and a video feed came up on the viewport screen. Four bipedal figures stood around a hole, another was ascending from the depths of the hole towards the surface, a small shuttle not one hundred meters away from the group.
"I thought you said no organics." Nicolas leaned over the top of the pilot seat to get a closer look at the screen.
Tali stood still for a couple of seconds before reaching for her shotgun in the small of her back, "They're not organics, they're geth. Keenah, take us down a klick away from them, try to drift into landing as much as possible."
Keenah raised his right hand, thumb up. Tali turned to Nicolas and signalled him towards the back of the ship. Outside the engine room, she looked at him and leaned in close to whisper, "Keenah is young and a good pilot. Those geth will be hostile, and I can't lose him. Can you come with me to take them down?"
Nicolas' eyes widened, "I don't know if you noticed, but there were five of those. I don't even know what geth are!"
"Nicolas, I need help with this, the geth are responsible for the fact that we are living in ships. Please just help me. If things get ugly, we leave."
Nicolas bit his lip behind his visor. He did need to use his gun at some point anyway, "Alright, I'm in."
Tali nodded and headed back towards the cockpit. The Honorata landed. The airlock depressurized to open and show a snow covered hill leading up to the plateau where the geth group was. Tali jumped out onto the snow, with Nicolas following close behind. They walked slowly uphill and reaching the plateau, they began crawling. The geth could be seen in the distance as small sillouettes in a light fog. Nicolas unfolded his rifle and looked through the scope at the group.
"They aren't doing anything really, just standing around."
"Let me see," Tali snatched the rifle off Nicolas' hands and looked through the scope. A light breeze began picking up, lifting wisps of snow between the two and the geth. Tali lowered the rifle and contemplated how to disable them quickly. She unholstered her shotgun and passed it to Nicolas, "Take this and crawl over to them. If they notice you, I'll start shooting, and you run over to them and take the rest down, OK?"
"Woah, woah, you want me to do the dirty work?"
"If anything, I'll be doing most of the shooting. Look, we're both new at this, but we can't leave with the geth hanging around. Please, just take the gun."
Nicolas eyed the shotgun and Tali. He wasn't up for this, but it didn't seem like he could talk his way out of it, "Fine. Just try not to shoot me, alright?"
"I'll do my best, now go!"
Nicolas took the shotgun and disengaged the safety. Laying down on his stomach, he began inching towards the geth, oblivious to his presence. When he was ten meters away, he heard a synthetic crackle and looked up to see a light shining his way. Adrenaline flooded his veins as he heard a sharp crack behind him and the geth crumpled to the ground missing its head. Hal spoke a quick GO into his ear and he got up, bringing up the shotgun to bear on the next nearest geth. The trigger was stiff against his finger, and the gun whirred as the barrel tightened to allow for greater accuracy. The kickback pushed his shoulder back as a loud bang shot a tight cloud of metallic particles at the enemy, which stumbled backwards, and a second bullet from Tali finished it off. The rifle overheated on Tali and she began sprinting towards the last of the geth group unholstering her handgun. Nicolas inched closer towards the remaining three and fired a second shot, then a third to the third geth. The shotgun overheated and he dropped it, reaching down for his handgun as the two remaining geth lifted their assault rifles.
The firefight wasn't long. Combined fire between Tali and Nicolas at the fourth geth quickly left the last one unable to bring down both their shields, and a finishing shot from Tali made it spin on its heel before falling to the ground. Tali ran up to the last dead geth and with a flash forged pair of wires, she burned her way into its memory core within the torso.
"Jesus, the thing is dead, can't you leave it alone?"
"The geth self-destruct and wipe their memory cores after death. You don't realize how important any data I can salvage can be," Tali explained as she let go of the corpse. She stood up and walked back to her shotgun, picking it up, shaking some snow off and attaching it to the small of her back, "Good shooting, by the way. Thanks for helping out."
Nicolas was about to answer when Keenah spoke over radio, "Guys, there's a ship coming and it won't answer my hails, I say we get out of here."
The two looked at each other and began jogging back to the Honorata. Nicolas picked up his rifle on the way, and as soon as they were in the airlock they took off.
"The ship is following us…. Oh no, it fired disruptor torpedoes at us, brace yourselves!" Keenhah tapped frantically at his console as the ship took a sharp turn upwards, then down. The low density atmosphere helped the turns become sharper and the torpedoes missed completely. Keenah wasted no time in getting out of the planet's gravitational pull and went into FTL, heading for Illium.
I got a little carried away with the beginning of Tali's backstory, but it leads nicely into the events of ME 1!
I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, I sure as hell enjoyed writing it. I've seen a lot of people depict Tali as shy, but my impression was that she could really handle herself, so I went for a more stern badass type.