Hello everybody, extremely sorry for the delay but both me and my editor have been very busy with various projects and we didn't get to release this chapter on our intended date. Hope everybody had a wonderful holiday. Big round of applause to everyone who read the previous chapter. Well I won't keep you any longer so please enjoy!

Chapter Four

"Please, make yourself comfortable." Liara said as she welcomed Tali to her cabin.

"Thank you." Tali replied as she looked around while Liara strolled to the back of her cabin to put her findings away. She had never been inside Liara's cabin before. Unlike their time on the first Normandy, where Tali would occasionally visit her friend, Liara had become a more private person.

"How did you managed to get all of this from the Broker's ship?" Tali asked Liara as she admired all of the equipment.

"Well when I found out that the Illusive Man had tracked me down, I decided it was time to relocate. Feron and I took as much of the equipment we could and loaded it onto a shuttle. We made sure that they couldn't use anything that was left behind."

"So they took the ship?"

"Not exactly. The Broker's ship wasn't exactly designed for combat and it certainly wouldn't have been able to outmaneuver a Cerberus cruiser. So I decided to send a message to Cerberus."

"What kind of message?"

"The kind that involves crashing the Broker's ship into the cruiser." Liara said simply. The two of them shared a laugh together.

While Liara took care of her findings, Tali continued to look around. She was impressed by the amount of equipment Liara had managed to squeeze into the cabin. It reminded her of how her people would maximize the limited space that they had to work with. On closer examination, Tali saw that Liara was piecing together a series of constellations to pinpoint where they were. Many of the monitors were being used to project a star chart of the galaxy with various portions denoted in red.

As she examined the chart, she saw a drone float by the monitors and marked another section of the galaxy in red. Somehow the drone had noticed Tali staring at it.

"Greetings Tali'Zorah." Glyph greeted her in an enthusiastic manner.

"Hello. How do you know me?" Tali replied. She had no idea that Liara had a drone.

"You are in many records that I routinely handle and categorize for Dr. T'soni."

Feeling a bit unsteady, Tali sat down on the chair near Liara's terminal. Maybe she did have a bit too much to drink, she thought to herself.

"Are you feeling well? Would you like me to inform Dr. Chakwas that you require her help?" Glyph inquired.

"Thank you, but I can manage." Tali replied as she tried to shake off the disorientation.

"Of course. If you require anything, please let me know." Glyph responded before turning its attention back to the monitors and continued to upload Liara's findings.

"I see you have met Glyph." Liara commented as she finished putting away her things.

"Yes. I assume it helps you with your work." Tali commented as she watched Glyph dart back and forth.

"Glyph has been very helpful in coordinating the network. Hopefully when we reestablish contact, Glyph might be able to contact someone. If everything goes according to plan, then maybe they can find us."

"I hope it works." Tali replied quietly. Liara silently berated herself for inadvertently reminding Tali of Shepard.

"Do you think that the data you found will help?" Tali asked suddenly.

"I'm sure that it will. With Traynor's and Glyph's help, I'm confident that we will be able to contact someone." Liara tried to reassure Tali. She wasn't actually sure if it would work, but she could not afford to tell Tali that.

"Hey Liara. Traynor said she needs your help with something." Joker's voice chimed in suddenly causing both Liara and Tali to jump.

"Look I need to go talk to Traynor. Would you mind staying here until I get back?" Liara asked. She was worried about leaving Tali alone but she was sure EDI and Glpyh would notify her if anything happened. She made a mental note to head over to Dr. Chakwas before going to the CIC to tell her to keep an eye on Tali while she was gone.

"Alright." Tali nodded.

"Again, feel free to look around while I'm gone." Liara called out before leaving the cabin.

Closing her eyes, Tali tried to clear her head. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and just forget everything. However it was impossible for Tali to forget anything when everything reminded her of Shepard. Taking a deep breath, Tali struggled to subdue her feelings while at the same time searching for something to distract herself. Whether it was by chance or on purpose, Tali's eyes landed on the terminal next to her. She wondered if it was Liara's personal computer.

"Glyph?" Tali called out as she turned around to look at the info drone.

"How may I help you Tali?" Glyph chirped as it turned it's focus away from the monitors.

"Is Liara the only one who can use this terminal?"

"While Dr. T'soni usually uses this terminal for her work, she has not placed any restrictions on the ground team from accessing various information."

"So I can use it then?"

"Of course. Is there anything in particular you are searching for?"

"That's alright, I can take care of it myself. If I have any questions I'll ask you." Tali replied as she turned back to the terminal and accessed it.

The amount of information that appeared on screen astounded Tali. She had no idea how Liara could handle sorting and analyzing all of the information she received even with the help of Glyph. All of the data on screen right now had something to do with star charts, lists of unsettled planets, and council reports of various systems.

Scrolling past Liara's current work, Tali took note of the various files that the terminal contained. The files contained all sorts of information ranging from various government activities to mundane surveillance and anything that the new broker deemed important. She felt a little uneasy with having access to this kind of information and she wondered how Liara dealt with it on a regular basis.

After sifting through all of the files, Tali found what she was searching for and opened up a file that contained a list of noteworthy individuals. Many of the names on the list were unfamiliar to Tali, however there were some she had heard of in passing.

There was an extensive dossier on each and every important political and military leaders including the council, the heads of various governments, and noteworthy generals and admirals. She was also surprised to see very detailed dossiers on each member of the admiralty board including herself.

Curious, Tali opened her own dossier and scanned it's contents. There were only a few entries that included a suit process log, a message chain, keystroke log, and a more recently added entry on her activities when she became a admiral. Taking a moment to read each entry, she wondered how the shadow broker's network had even gathered that much information on her.

The upgrades for her suit had been done in the utmost secrecy and most of it was when she was still with the flotilla. Tali felt herself blush a little as she saw the various suit applications she had made in order to be with Shepard. She could only hope that Liara respected her privacy.

"Glyph?"

"How may I help you?" Glyph chirped as it turned its attention away from it's activity.

"How did the broker get access to the fleet?"

"The broker had no direct access to the fleet. There was no reliable source of information and it was difficult to have an agent placed within the fleet. A plan was devised involving a decommissioned ship and an agent acting as a pilot for a transport shuttle carrying a quarian pilgram. The pilgram discovered the ship and contacted the fleet and presented the ship as their gift."

"I still dont see how this ship managed to get access to fleet surviellance."

"The ship's onboard computer was loaded with one of the broker's program. When the ship was reactivited and pressed into service, the program seeked out a connection with quarian communications and surviellance. It has escaped detection by disguising itself as a debug procedure."

Tali shook her head. It was so simple and her people never knew it was even there. Thanking Glyph, Tali turned her attention back to her dossier. The next entry was a log from Tali's personal keystroke. She instantly recognized it as her failed attempt at her letters of condolences. She remembered how difficult it had been trying to find the right way to word it so that the families could find some comfort in it.

Tali had tried multiple times on separate occasions but abandoned it in the end. She did eventually meet with each family personally and they were grateful that Tali told them what had happened on Haestrom but Tali had felt as if her presence only made it harder for them. Shaking her head, Tali moved on the next entry.

It took a moment for her to realize that the message chain she was reading was when she was younger. Tali remembered how scared she was after she had found information on Saren's betrayal. Reading the former Broker's replies and the orders he had given to Fist, she realized how naive she was to have trusted him. She was lucky that Shepard had found her in time.

Things would have probably turned out much more different if she had never found proof of Saren's work with the Reapers. In a way, she was glad she had contacted the Broker. The Reapers might have succeeded in their harvest and she probably wouldn't have met Shepard much less fall for the human.

The last entry was very short. It detailed the various operations, supply procurements, and the transportation's of pilgrims, she had helped with before the quarians push for Rannoch. Looking back, they could have saved so many people if the other admirals had agreed to Tali's request for outside help. But the others had insisted that this was their people's conflict and outvoted her and Koris.

When she became an admiral, she knew that more people would die and there was nothing she could have done to stop that. She never wanted to lead but she knew that more might have died if someone else had been in charge. It was just like Haestrom, but on a larger scale and with everything on the line. If Shepard had never came, than she and all of her people probably would have died at the hands of the geth. Instead they had regained their homeworld and gained a new ally.

Her mind heavy with those memories, she closed out her dossier and closed her eyes again. Everything she thought of always reminded her of Shepard. Tali scrolled through the files randomly until she stopped. Whether it was intentional or by chance, she found herself looking at Shepard's dossier. With her curiosity overwhelming her sadness, Tali opened the dossier and browsed through its contents. Similar to her dossier, most of the entries seemed rather bland, if informative. The entries included biological information, medical history, military service record, and personal history. Unlike her dossier though, there were several video recordings of Shepard.

Tali felt extremely uneasy with access to such information on Shepard. She had always wanted to know more about the man she had fallen in love with but she respected his privacy and hoped he would eventually tell her himself.

While Shepard was mostly quiet on the matter he did occasionally open up to her, a rare crack in his stoic armor. Those instances were well worth the wait. However she decided to leave Shepard's personal history alone, still clinging to the hope that Shepard was still out there. All she wanted was more time and now she wasn't sure if she would ever have the chance again.

Giving into temptation, Tali opened up his biological history. Like a sponge, her mind absorbed all of the information it could on Shepard. She learned that he was born on April 11, 2154. This embarrassed her a great deal, she had never really known when Shepard was born and it didn't help that she had never seen him celebrating it. Perhaps military life had changed that aspect of his life.

Reading on, Tali learned that Shepard was as close to perfect as a human could be without the use of genetic tailoring and manipulation. There was an article attached to his records of an accident involving the exposure of element zero to humans. She wondered if the incident was actually an accident but pushed the thought aside as she read the details on Shepard's secondary exposure and how his doctors discovered that he had some biotic manifestation but only developing to a certain point despite the doctors declaring him a biotic.

Until now, she had always been completely perplexed about Shepard's biotics. She knew he consumed just about the same amount of calories as some of the biotics they had worked with but she didn't know if he was anything like the others. Perhaps he was more of a combat biotic, relying on his biotics to give his weapons some more punch, it would certainly explain how his weapons tended to produce something akin to a warp blast.

The rest of the file continued to detail the various augmentations he had received during his training as well as a file of Shepard's extensive cybernetics during his "reconstruction" The file came from an agent only known as Wilson.

Having a better grasp on Shepard's history, Tali moved on to the next file. Shepard enlisted at the age of 18 and had began his training under a gunnery chief named Ellison. Tali remembered Shepard telling her about Ellison and how he had at times wanted to quit. She still found it difficult to believe but from what she read in the files and all of the training methods, she began to understand why Shepard would even think of quitting.

Reading on, she learned of Shepard's various assignments as a marine. She took note of his quick rise in rank and his exemplary service. He was involved in dozens of high risk missions and had always completed the job and surprising his superiors. The amounts of medals and commendations he was awarded was more than enough to make any veteran quarian marine jealous. It was no wonder he had been selected as a candidate for the N7 program as soon as he had finished his officer training.

Surprisingly, there wasn't much information on Shepard during his N7 training aside from the fact that his commanding officer was none other than Alexander Shepard. She had never really heard Shepard talk about his father and she knew that they rarely talked with one another. Tali suspected that the Alliance guarded their files on the N7 program carefully. Even with Liara's information network, she couldn't find anything on Shepard's father or what kind of operations they conducted. Aside from that and sparse information on training methods, she learned he had graduated from the program along side a small handful of soldiers.

Tali paused at the next section of Shepard's service record. There was numerous reports on the Skylian Blitz on both the pirates and the Alliance. There was even a after-action report from Shepard, describing the assault and how he and his squad continued to repel pirates from one of the defense guns until he ordered them to leave him in order to take the civilians and the wounded through the emergency tunnels. Shepard had narrowly escaped death with the timely arrival of Alliance reinforcements. His superiors had praised his actions and promoted him and had him reassigned. Tali frowned. The report was just a collection of cold, hard data. It was nothing like Shepard's own account when he had told her after the incident with the batarian invaders on Horizon.

She already knew the rest of Shepard's service record and decided to leave it at that. Tali had gained a better understanding of how much Shepard had changed because of his military career. While her curiosity was somewhat satisfied, she felt her sadness bubbling up again. Tali checked the time and was startled at how late it was. She briefly considered leaving but she decided to check one more item from Shepard's dossier. This time she opened one of the videos.

"Louis Shepard. Earth."

The camera was in the corner of the room with an unobstructed view. Tali watched as the door opened with a fuming Shepard walking in accompanied by James.

"If it means anything commander, I'm pretty sure they're just scared. I mean it sounds crazy and-"

"So you think I'm crazy?"

"No. No, that's not what I meant. It's easy to understand that they don't want to believe it."

"Yeah well believe it or not, the Reaper's are coming and I'm stuck here not able to do a damn thing about it."

"I know, I believe in you. Look, I gotta go take care of something. If you need anything just let me know."

"Thanks."

Shepard waited for James to leave before he turned and walked over to the window and looked outside. Tali was about to close the video before she heard Shepard speak again.

"I wish you were here Tali. I feel so lost without you. Whatever it takes, I'm going to find a way back to you."

The video ended and Tali wished she hadn't watched it. Without thinking, Tali left the room. She had to find a place to get away from her thoughts.

The days passed by quickly to Shepard's mind. He was eager to get out of the hospital and get back to work. Dr. Charles had accompanied him to the lobby and took care of the release paper work.

"Thank you for everything Doc." Shepard said as he offered his hand.

"It was my pleasure commander. It's a shame that your leaving. Having you around is a big morale boost for the patients." Charles replied as he shook Shepard's hand.

A small squad of marines stood up from their seats when they saw Shepard in the lobby. All of them snapped off a crisp salute to Shepard, to which Shepard returned the salute.

"Keep up the good work Doc."

"Same for you commander." Charles nodded before leaving to tend to his patients.

Shepard turned back to inspect his guard detail. Each one of them was armed and prepared for combat. Hopefully they wouldn't have to worry about that. One of the marines stepped forward.

"Commander Shepard. I am Lieutenant Schulz. My team and I volunteered to accompany you to Kiel. It's an honor to meet you."

"Good to meet you lieutenant. It'll be an honor having you and your men with me." Shepard replied as they shook hands before continuing, "I want to thank all of you for finding me on the Citadel, I probably would have died if your squad weren't there."

"Just doing our job commander. These are my men, Hammond, Logan, and Jenson." Schulz replied while his men nodded their heads in turn. "Hammond. Where's that shuttle?"

"The shuttle is about ten minutes out, pilot said he was dropping off a few boots in the next district." Hammond spoke as he gestured behind him.

"Might as well get some fresh air. Lets get a move on." Shepard nodded.

Hammond took the lead, while Shulz took his place next to Shepard while Jenson and Logan followed behind them. Shepard took in the destruction caused by all of the fighting outside. It would be years before all the damage could be fixed. But he was hopeful. The men were silent as they scanned the area and made sure it was safe. While there have been no more reports of Reaper forces there have been some looting from desperate survivors.

It wasn't long before they heard the rumble of the shuttle as it approached. The shuttle landed with a thump in front of them and it's hatch opened up with a marine waving his arm for Shepard and the others to get in the shuttle. Together, they all boarded the shuttle and took their seats. Shepard had no idea what to expect next but hopefully he would be able to find a QEC once he was done playing with politics again.

There you have it folks. I know it was a bit short considering how long it's been since I last posted a new chapter. Hopefully I wont have as many distractions while working on the next chapter. Until then, have a happy and safe new years!