What Was Lost
Chapter 9 - Fragments
Tali groaned, frustrated. Her father had yet another mission for her. In addition, Admiral Gerrel tasked her with investigating a young quarian overdue on his Pilgrimage. When she asked for more responsibility after returning to the Fleet, she hadn't imagined that it would include so much paperwork or so many side errands.
Wrex had been right, though. She was finally being useful. While they didn't consider the reapers to be an immediate threat, her father had at least ensured that the Admiralty Board listened to her and took her warnings seriously. They were still more concerned with the geth and the dark energy problems on Haestrom, but they did start looking into the reaper menace. She felt like she was doing something positive at last.
Not to mention, some days she actually made it through a few hours without thinking about Shepard.
Tali had intended to use her new position to track down Shepard's body and recover it from Cerberus. But one thing led to another, and she ended up going on mission after mission. The few leads she managed to uncover between tasks hadn't panned out.
Now, it was probably too late.
After two years, she had no idea what the condition of Shepard's body might be, or what Cerberus might have done to it. So, between missions, she searched for any clues about Cerberus itself. Unfortunately, a terrorist incident on the Fleet perpetrated by the shadowy organization preempted her inquiries. The Admiralty Board took over the investigation. She was still able to search, but the extra resources she had been using were no longer available.
Taking away her focus had ripped open the old wound of Shepard's death. Once again, she had been unable to do anything for her. It hurt so much.
Tali still loved her.
She pulled a small, worn book from one of the pockets on her exosuit. The Princess Bride. She had never managed to get it back to Shepard after Ashley died. Now it was the only thing that she had left of her.
She opened the book and started to read it again.
Liara sat back, dismissing her terminals with a wave of her arm. Another dead end on the hunt for the Shadow Broker. She was getting closer and closer, but each step took time and effort. Lots and lots of time and effort.
Still, her training as an archaeologist was serving her well. She was used to hunting through piles of debris to find small nuggets of value. Being an information broker wasn't that different. Just data instead of dirt, search engines instead of shovels.
Illium was proving to be a most useful base of operations. Free of the normal restrictions of the Asari Republics, she was able to find nearly anything she could want. She established herself as an independant broker, and rapidly emerged as one of the most prominent ones on the planet. She had even been able to reconnect with some of her mother's old network.
It had only been two years and she was already near to finding the Broker. Just a little more info, a few more clues, and she would have him. She would make him pay for Feron. She would get her friend back.
She kept working, the small holophoto of a red-haired human woman sitting forgotten on the corner of her desk.
Wrex paced the small 'throne room', impatient for the latest scouting report. His plan was... working was too strong a word. Uniting the clans was proving to be far more trouble than he had expected.
Still, he was slowly gaining support. This past month, two more clans sent ambassadors to open negotiations for joining his tenuous alliance of clans. He hadn't even had to kill any of them either. Yet, anyway.
He chuckled ruefully. Maybe some of Shepard's patience really had rubbed off on him. Diplomacy and cooperation dominated his life now. It made him want to headbutt someone, anyone, from time to time.
He might have the chance soon enough. Clan Gatatog had chosen Uvenk as their ambassador. The two of them had nearly killed each other a few times over the years, and disagreed on almost everything. The only reason Uvenk was even bothering with the negotiations was because the female clans insisted.
Hopefully a thresher maw will eat his truck on the way here.
He commed the clan shaman, asking him to meet the transport. At least someone else had to suffer along with him.
Diplomacy and politics...
He really needed a good blood rage rampage to get the taste from his mouth.
Tali pulled out the book again. Ever since Shepard died, she found herself reading it when she had any free time. Though it had left her sick for half a week after, she had even taken off her glove, just to feel it, truly feel it for once.
Too bad there are no miracle pills in real life...
She still hadn't given up on Shepard. A friend on the Fleet Intelligence committee recently forwarded her a report on Cerberus. One of their freighters spotted a convoy leaving Omega. A few discreet bribes had provided a cargo manifest. While Omega had no true customs inspectors, nearly anything could be bought there, for the right price.
Shepard, I will find you. This time, I won't fail.
She dreamed of it, sometimes. Dreamed that Shepard was still alive. That she would come for her. They were so real. She would reach out, put her hand on the human's face. Pull her in for a kiss. A real kiss, without her helmet to get in the way.
Waking up from those dreams was torture. Every time, she would feel the pain of losing her again. The rest of the day after one of those dreams, memories of Shepard would claw at her too. She could distract herself with her missions, and it would work for a time. Then Shepard would be back in her mind.
Tali shivered. Despite the pain from the dreams, she didn't want to give them up. The dreams and the book were all she had left of Shepard. That and her promise.
No matter what, I will find you!
She would be able to search again soon. The expedition to Haestrom wasn't due to set out for a couple of months still. She would stop by Freedom's Progress to check on Veetor for Admiral Gerrel on the way.
I'm coming for you, Shepard.
She closed the book, putting it back in her suit pouch. She needed sleep. As she closed her eyes and drifted off, she wondered if she would dream tonight. She fell asleep trying to decide whether she wanted to, or not.
Pain ripped into her, dragging her up to the blackness. Night-dark flames burned her, searing her all over. Spears of ice lanced into her, tearing her open.
Agony.
Beyond anything she had ever known. It drowned her, seeking to pull her down from the blackness, down to what lay beneath. She tried to fight it, but it clawed into her, sinking itself into her very core.
She could hear voices, floating outside the darkness. She opened her eyes, intending to seek out the source of the voices. At least, she thought the eyes belonged to her. Attempting to move them brought more needles of suffering.
Light blazed in her eyes, blinding her. Beyond the light, she saw figures moving. They looked at her, at machines nearby. She could hear their words now, but the pain kept her from understanding. She tried to reach out to them.
A cool breeze of calm thundered through her blood. It dulled the pain, letting the blackness slip quietly over her once more. The eyes she was using to look out of slid closed.
Her mind drifted down into the darkness.
As thought fled from her, she tried to remember the last time she had been here. Someone saved her?
I have to find her...
The thought echoed in what was left of her active mind. The whisper of memory wrapped itself around her soul, sheltering her.
She slipped back down, sinking below the darkness.
...find...
Garrus cracked open the next crate. More thermal clips. The Blue Suns shipment he had 'liberated' would certainly help his efforts. Along with the grenades from the first crate, his team would be well-supplied for their next mission.
The Blood Pack had intercepted a shipment of medigel and was holding it, extorting massive sums of cash from the clinics and citizens of Omega. He didn't intend to let that stand. His team had been training all week to get ready to hit the Pack's base. Taking out the Suns smuggled weapons had merely been a bonus.
Garrus looked around the small base. Humans, turians, an asari, even a batarian were busy storing away the supplies and prepping weapons. His team. He was proud of them - they were all dedicated to cleaning the gangs out from Omega.
Realistically, he knew they would never remove all the corruption. Aria T'loak, for example was probably permanently beyond his reach. Still, he was doing something that mattered. That was far more than he could say about his time in C-Sec. No rules, no red tape, no office politics. It was almost like working with Shepard. Almost.
He finally felt alive for the first time in two years. He had people he cared about. A job worth doing. A cause. Comrades he could trust, who understood what was truly important. He was continually surprised how much that mattered to him. He just hoped one day his father would understand...
Still, things were going well. They were making a real dent in the merc gangs operations. The bounty on his head kept getting bigger and bigger. He grinned, thinking about it. The regular citizens of Omega loved him. The more the gangs tried to stop him, the more popular he got. Shutting down Eclipse's Red Sand operation alone garnered him two new recruits, a human biotic who only went by the name Ripper and a turian heavy weapons specialist, Sidonis.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. The Pack's shift change was in an hour. He grabbed his sniper rifle from the arms cabinet.
Time to hunt.
Kaidan cursed and slammed the circuitry panel back into the the targetting unit. The guns the Alliance had shipped to Horizon just would not cooperate with him. Fix one problem and two more would crop up.
He had finally gotten the targetting link working right when the VI imager fried. Repairing that had shorted out the power regulator. Of course, requisitioning a new one of those from the Alliance would have taken months, so he used a scavenged one. Which promptly burned out the comm relay unit...
Maintaining the damn guns was seriously cutting into investigating the colony disappearances in the Terminus systems. His original cover was a liason / maintenance officer, and should have left him plenty of time to check on neighboring colonies. Unfortunately, the guns had other ideas. Not that he minded all that much.
He got up. Fixing the targetter could wait for another day. Right now, he needed beer.
He put away the tools, leaving them near the console. Stretching, he walked towards the main colony. At least the weather here was beautiful. Most days, the temperature was comfortable. He loved working outside here. Fresh air, nice weather, and other benefits... He dropped his armor and weapons off at the small hut assigned to him, and headed towards the bar in the heart of the colony.
Inside, he saw that Lilith, one of the agrotechs, had a drink waiting for him at their usual table. He had been seeing her for a few weeks now, and things were definitely heating up between them. In addition to the weather, she was the biggest reason he didn't mind staying here.
"Hey sweetheart," He sat down in the chair across from her and took a drink.
She smiled over at him, her eyes sparkling. "So, what broke down today, Mr Alenko?" Their usual joke - by now, everyone in the whole colony knew about his continual troubles with the gun emplacements.
"Targetter - don't worry though, I'm sure one of these days the holodisplay will fry and you'll win the pool." He waved for some menus. "How was your day?"
"Well, dirt never really gets exciting, you know? Still, we should be self-sufficient within a month or two. We just finished the next to last field."
"That's great! Want to go out and celebrate tonight?" He grinned along with her.
"Mmmm, I think tonight we're staying in, Kaidan..."
Tali boarded the small scout ship. She was heading up a team to investigate Veetor's whereabouts and safety. Admiral Gerrel originally wanted her to wait a bit and stop by on the way to Haestrom. Now, with the Freedom's Progress colony going ominously silent, finding him had taken on a new urgency.
She looked at the team gathered on the ship. Most of the faces were new to her, but she was familiar with Prazza. The stubborn bosh'tet had worked with her before, and the dislike between them was mutual. He was hotheaded and rude.
They ignored each other as best they could on such a small ship. Prazza stuck close to the rest of the marines while Tali visited the engineers. They reviewed maps of the settlement and rosters of the colonists, trying to figure out how much opposition they migh encounter. The Fleet's intelligence had even bribed an information broker on Omega to provide them a list of mechs shipped to the planet too.
As a result, they knew more or less what to expect from the colonists. It was what might have silenced the colony that worried her. The current theory of the team was a slaver hit by the batarians. Merc teams wouldn't make enough profit, and most criminal syndicates wouldn't kill potential customers.
They had made one stopover, to pick up some extra weapons, as a precaution. Prazza had argued against the delay, but ultimately Tali was in charge and she chose to be prepared. She had a bad feeling about this mission. Travelling with Shepard had taught her the importance of paying attention to her feelings.
Thinking of Shepard caused her to remember the dream she had the night before departure. It had been... intense was the only word she felt could do it justice. She had woken up in a sweat. She hadn't been able to go back to sleep after it, either.
Tali pushed the thoughts from her mind. She had a job to do. Her intuition told her there was something important about the mission to Freedom's Progress.
*Next Chapter: Shepard wakes up, finds out where she is. Tali lands on Freedom's Progress. Shepard learns how her body ended up with Cerberus.*