The upper city Cantina was flush with energy, lots of people were drinking, dancing and enjoying themselves (although Carth suspected that most were just trying to forget about the quarantine). Tali was amazed, the place reminded her of Afterlife on Omega. The music thumped loudly and could be heard from outside, there was nowhere quiet inside, but it would have to do. They did have a little trouble on the door but they soon got in, once inside Carth found them a nice secluded table in the back of the Cantina, near the Duelling ring. Once they had sat down, Carth went to go get some drinks and hunt for information while Tali sat at the table and worked on hacking through the datapad's fail-safe.
As Tali worked on the technology she came to realise that her own technology wasn't that different from this new technology, their weapons were vastly superior than anything Tali had found in her galaxy, but most of their other tech was only slightly better or almost the same. She cross referenced her own datapad versus the Sith one and their construction was very similar, the difference being that the Sith datapad held far more storage space as opposed to her datapad. Before long, Carth came back with a drink for himself and sat down at the table. Tali looked up to acknowledge his arrival but she quickly returned to her work.
"So..." Carth began, taking a sip from his drink, "You haven't really told me why you left your galaxy."
Tali looked up, she wasn't willing to divulge in everything he wanted to know, she certainly wouldn't mention Shepard but to be fair he had saved her life so he deserved to know some of the details. "Well... like I said there was a war. A race of synthetics called the Reapers attacked, they were extremely advanced and most of the major council home worlds were devastated fairly quickly." Tali put the datapad back together and set it down on the table. "The remaining fleets all banded together on a final battle with the Reapers, we failed and fled the galaxy in order to preserve our own lives." Tali held back tears as she began remembering what had caused her to leave the only one she loved.
"That's awful..." Carth leaned forward and put his hands on the table, "I can't imagine what you're going through." He bowed his head but quickly raised it, "So you fled the galaxy, are you sure that these Reapers didn't follow you?"
"No. We made sure that they couldn't follow us by destroying the mass relay, if they did want to follow us they would go through dark space, but it could take hundreds of years for them to get here." Tali replied adamantly, she had done everything possible to get away from the Reapers and she wanted to believe that she would never see them again, but part of her feared that she would.
"If the Sith somehow managed to get control of that technology, we probably wouldn't live too long to see how it would end." Carth uttered leaning back into his chair while taking a large drink.
Tali shuddered, imagining a Sith-Reaper alliance. The Sith seemed bad enough but adding the Reapers would make them unstoppable. "Anyway, I've keyed the datapad to you and given you a fake name in case they recognize it. They should let us through without any problems, just tell them that I'm your associate or something."
Carth looked up in triumph. "Good work! You're really talented, if you weren't here then I would not have even made it out of the apartment ring." Carth smiled and although he couldn't see it, he knew that Tali had smiled too. The glowing orbs of her eyes looked on at Carth while he thanked and congratulated her. He reached out and grabbed the datapad from her while looking over it and admiring her handiwork. "Huh, this should fool those guards. Come on let's get going." Carth left his drink half full as the two of them left the cantina, but all this time they were being watched from very close by.
Carth and Tali cautiously approached the Sith checkpoint, there were less troops there so it would be easier, that didn't mean they could relax. Tali was rigid and kept her hands near her weapons, Carth held the datapad in his left hand, his right hand close to his holster. As they approached one of the soldiers looked up at them.
"Halt civilian. The lower city elevator is off limits." The trooper said without any hesitation, his voice perfectly obscured by the built in vocoder.
"I- We have authorization." Carth stuttered as he handed the datapad over to the trooper. The soldier snatched it out of his hands and started to look over it.
"Uhuh. And what exactly is your business." The soldier quickly asked, clearly doubting him, still looking over the datapad until he noticed the rank next to Carth's fake name "Excuse me sir! I apologize for the inconvenience! You may pass." The soldier stood to attention and saluted.
"Uh... I am on an urgent mission down there!" Carth shouted, trying to intimidate the guard so that he thought twice about stopping them again. "You stopping me may have cost me too much time!" Carth leaned in to the soldier, Tali watched on from behind with her hands on her hips making an intimidating pose.
"Y- yes sir! Sorry sir!" The soldier stood to the side and punched in a password on a keypad beside the door. The elevator arrived and the doors slid open, both Carth and Tali stepped inside.
Before the door could close Tali said to the soldier: "Do not stop us again..." The soldier flinched, he had heard of what happened to soldiers who did not follow orders and he clearly didn't want that to happen to him.
Tali and Carth were both holding back laughter as the elevator descended, they both let loose and laughed at the expense of the scared trooper. "These Sith may look tough, but when it comes to officers they get down on their knees." Carth chuckled while Tali nodded and shook with laughter.
As the elevator stopped, the doors slid open and they were greeted by a squad of mercenaries aiming their weapons at them. Tali and Carth froze, both instinctively putting their hands up, the mercs shuffled slightly obviously expecting Sith. They weren't heavily armoured, and they weren't particularly uniform, they each had different armour and different weapons. Suddenly there was a shout and each of the mercs lowered their weapons, an older merc pushed through the squad and looked at the newcomers.
"Well... you're obviously not Sith. Just who are you then?" The merc asked while lowering his weapon but keeping it within arms reach.
"Uh... we managed to get past the Sith patrol, we're down here looking for someone." Carth replied slowly, clearly mistrustful of the mercenaries. He knew that both he and Tali could take care of them if they needed to.
"Uhuh." The merc turned around and addressed the squad behind him, for a second both Carth and Tali were scared that the mercs were about to open fire, "They're clear guys, let em' pass!" The merc said. "Come with me, I'll take you somewhere safer." He motioned for the two to follow him with a wide grin on his face.
Both Carth and Tali obliged, afraid of what might happen if they didn't agree to go with him. "So uh... who are you?" Carth asked cautiously just as they moved away from the squad who turned their attention back to the elevator.
"Hm...? Oh I'm from the Hidden Beks, we're your friendly swoop biker gang to protect you." The squad leader replied with a smile, seemingly out of nowhere there was an explosion and screams heard behind them, the squad leader turned around with his weapon out to see his squad completely decimated, one of the gang members crawling towards him with severe burns before a strange alien turned the corner and shot him.
At this point all three of them had equipped their weapons and were waiting, the alien then looked up and shouted in a language Tali couldn't understand before a smaller squad of different aliens came around to back him up. Carth, Tali and the Bek leader all dived into cover before any shooting could start. The Bek member shouted at the new gang members "Black Vulkar scum!" Before diving out of cover and riddling the first gang member with shots. Tali looked on as the shooting started, pulses flying past her, she peeked around clutching her pistol and watched one of the Black Vulkars step out of cover for a split second, Tali jumped up and fired multiple rounds into him with her pistol, her attention was turned when a bolt of energy exploded on her kinetic barrier forcing her into cover.
Carth had managed to snag one of the Vulkars right in the head with a well placed shot, now only 2 of them remained. The Bek leader peaked over and saw the 2 Vulkars next to each other, he lobbed a grenade at them, forcing one to run out into the open only to be shot and killed by Tali, while the other was pounded by shrapnel as the grenade exploded less than one meter away from him. With the enemy combatants dead, the three of them exited cover only for the gang member to smirk at his new friends. "Well I wasn't expecting to see that out of civilians, something tells me you aren't just normal civilians." The gang member replied, eyeing the strange anatomy of Tali and the fact she was wearing a suit. "Yes."
Tali and Carth were slowly recovering from the fight, Tali lifting Carth up from the ground and putting her hand on his shoulder. Carth quickly turned to the gang member, a smile on the corner of his mouth, "I wasn't really expecting to see that kind of skill from just a simple gang member." Carth replied as his smile was forming.
"Hm... well, you're certainly more interesting to me now. You say you're looking for someone? My boss could help out, he's the leader of the Beks and a well respected man." The gang member replied with a smirk on his face.
Carth and Tali glanced at each other, this guy could clearly hold his own in a fight and he seemed friendly enough, he may be able to help them out. "Sure... but what's the catch?" Tali quickly asked
"No catch, I'm sure he would like to meet you too. Just follow me and I'll lead you there, hopefully we won't run into more trouble." The gang member replied turning around and gesturing for them to follow.
"What do we call you." Carth asked, causing the gang member to stop and turn his head.
"Just call me Nick."