Chapter Twenty-One

Shala'Raan and the Admirals seemed much happier. In the weeks that had passed since the Autocoup, they had seen the main hindrance to Quarian interests as having been removed. Tanda had to admit they were right. Rumours about her own abilities swirled nervously around the fleet, and in the end, with the command situation partially stabilised, she had given Han'Gerrel plenipotentiary authority and departed with the Thunderflare to the planet where the SSVNormandy had been lost—Alchera.

Her only proclamation to date had been to direct the Quarian Conclave and Asari Matriarchs of Mil, as well as the leaders of the other colonies of Sigard, to proceed with decision-making by consensus and refer consensus legislation for her approval. For the most part, she had to rely on the local systems of law and custom, as there was a lack of trained Imperial magistrates, and that would be a long time in coming.

It is another reminder of how fragile your situation is. Arriving in the system, she had sent Tali'Zorah to Alchera. There was no need for her own departure. Indeed, Tanda rather expected that it was a painfully private moment for Tali.

She paced. At least Kesea was back, working at the back of the bridge, collating reports from the system scouts.

"Moff Tanda'Pryl?"

"Admiral Shala'Raan," Tanda acknowledged.

"What is your intention if the wreck of the Normandy produces no useful information for our fleet operations?" She shifted back in a thoughtful repose of her own.

"We are going to take the cloaking device, and make Thunderflare wait at the gate, err, the Omega-4 Mass Relay, until the Collectors arrive."

"Will we return to Mil before that time?"

"Are you asking for detached duty, Admiral?" Tanda quirked her lips in surprise. "I had hoped all was well for you on Thunderflare."

Shala'Raan gestured for Tanda's office, and both women started off for it. The Quarian smoothly turned back toward her once inside. "I believe it is equally important for me to keep aware of the activities of the other Admirals. I remain concerned that the relationship between the halves of our Empire may be imperilled. You have taken your decisive actions, and for this, we are thankful. Conversely, however, we must be aware that the desire for revenge against the geth will not be easily quashed, and I should also convey what I have observed of human military custom."

She paused. "Finally, it seems that your own presence here aboard Thunderflare is necessary, but having any additional commanders of rank incommunicado for an extended period of time seems foolish."

"Oh, I understand the argument there. I don't think anyone will be quite happy with the prospect of Thunderflare being on radio silence for a month or more and me out of touch with the rest of the Empire. But with the ISB dealt with, this is the best time for it. In another year, say, I fear there could again be opposition, from other, less expected quarters."

"I see. You anticipate perpetual instability, Tanda'Pryl." Shala'Raan did not sound happy. "Even without that consideration, I had desired this. Now I think it necessary."

"It is not perpetual instability. It is just that... You have a considerable degree of influence in this Empire, and this will tend to breed resentment."

"As humans are used to holding that influence to themselves."

Tanda sighed. "As we do at home by the position of humanity as the most populous species of the galaxy. It breeds habit, Admiral, that is all."

"Habit."

"What else can I call it?"

"Racism, I believe, is the human term," Shala'Raan answered a bit acerbically.

Tanda grimaced. "I think we have agreed what is the sound course of action."

"Certainly, Moff Tanda'Pryl. I did not mean to imply you were behaving unsoundly. But I now have a much better idea of what will be required for our endeavours to be successful. They are, do not be concerned, still worthwhile."

"Loyalty to the Empire is not something to speak of so lightly."

"Do not lecture me on the matter, Moff Tanda'Pryl. You have violated all the laws of your own government and established yourself as a dictator. But we Quarians think you will treat us better than any other alternative, so we support this even so. Necessity, as you say."

"As I say." Tanda stiffened, and then shrugged lightly. "We have more in common in our interests and our objectives than I do with the rest of my people, it sometimes seems."

"And that is why I trust you even with my friend's daughter, Moff Tanda'Pryl. Please watch over Tali'Zorah and be conscientious in her instruction while I am gone. The more you teach her, the safer she is, I believe."

"You are not wrong. Thank you for the confidence, Admiral." Tali... Tanda returned to the bridge with Shala'Raan. In the end, Tali'Zorah had alas found nothing of value in the data logs of the Normandy. The Collectors had ignored her stealth systems and destroyed it; it was clearly them. But with nothing else to go on, Thunderflare returned to Mil, and then laid in a course for Omega. It was time to lay a trap.

-

They came out of lightspeed far outside of Omega. The moment the reversion to realspace was complete, the order went out, and Thunderflare cloaked. All sensor data disappeared, and the ship was shooting along, not able to see as well as not able to be seen. But they had their chronometers, and that meant that, with the course already laid in and their initial velocity a given, it was a simple matter of mathematical calculation to determine when, and for how long, to fire the thrusters to be in position in front of the Omega-4 Relay. When the science work was done and they were sitting in front of the Relay, then it would be up to the force.

Satisfied that her crew had the situation well in hand, Tanda stood down the watch, and headed to her office. She worked on reports and filings of regulations for her pocket Empire for around an hour or so, and then sighing at the time and finishing off the last of her tea, sent a message to Tali asking for her presence in Tanda's full-sized port cabin. Then, Tanda went below to meet her.

"Come inside, Tali. I programmed up the food synth to have a smoothie waiting," she offered, tired and informal, and breezing through the doors into her own cabin. "I confess, this is like a kind of strange vacation with a charming bit of tension overlaid into it. Probably a month, but who knows..."

"...I wouldn't call that a vacation," Tali mumbled. "More like the most stressful thing imaginable! ...There won't even be any extranet access!"

Tanda laughed softly. "I admit the point." Settling at her table, she gestured to the couch in front of her. "Settle down, Tali. We should talk."

"We should."

"I'm glad we agree." She handed the smoothie over, and made herself another cup of tea. "So, Tali, you said something to me during the Autocoup, and I was thinking about it ever since. I cannot put it out of my mind, in fact." She thought about it a moment, and then dumped some brandy in the tea.

"...Why are you the only one getting alcohol?"

"Oh, so that's it." Tanda smiled, and called the synthesizer into action. "Hopefully tolerable imitation of what the Turians make... Tali."

"...Thank you." She finished the tea, and then went to straight brandy. "So, Tali. What you said to me... What did you mean by it?"

Tali looked down, and came off as very nervous. "I can't take my suit off, I can only put on my sexiest belts. I'm wearing my sexiest belts."

Tanda collapsed into relieved giggles. The alcohol helped. "I'm surprised all Quarian women aren't lesbians, then."

"... What?" She sounded so baffled at Tanda's reply, too, not even having completely negotiated what was going on, internally. "Look, I'm not sure what you're saying, and Nerve-Stim Pro doesn't work like that, I think... keelah, you're making me want to download Understanding Body Language: Human Edition. ...If only I was connected to the extranet!" She finished that sounding so aggrieved, too. It didn't help.

"That exists?" Tanda giggled again, her cheeks flushed red from the liquor, and then rubbed her fingers together. "We're anatomically similar enough that the position in which my fingers presently are legs for two women should achieve orgasm without removing suits, you see."

"Ooooh. That. ...but... that's... what Nerve Stim Pro is for. Mostly. I think. I am so not sure where this conversation went... is going?"

"Sometimes love can be meaningful even without children... Or so I'd like to hope, anyway."

"Well, of course! Look at Fleet and Flotilla! Shalei and Bellicus on that balcony... soo much dedication, the actress had an infection for three weeks after filming that scene!"

Tanda smiled wryly. "But it's still the problem. I doubt hybrid Turian-Quarian children are possible..."

"No, only asari manage that feat..." She sighed. "Doesn't happen like that in real life, though I'd like to dream. The first turian I met, on the Citadel, called me a suit-rat while I was bleeding from being shot. Polonium rounds, I had a fever in minutes."

"Well you're not a suit rat. You're a crack engineer and a fine fighting woman, and you're part of the Imperial Starfleet—and surely you could go the artificial insemination route if you married someone you couldn't reproduce normally with." Tanda met her look levelly, faceplate to eyes. She was beating around the bush, and it was clear to both of them.

"Probably... it would be weird, though. I mean, Quarians have always been an emotional people, that seems so... distant. And clinical. Ugh, and all the clean room time involved!"

"It is rather clinical. As I've said before, it's a trait of the Imperial upper classes."

"I think I'd prefer to avoid that... I mean, I don't want to be that way. Life inside the suits is clinical enough."

Tanda looked down. "I wouldn't want you to be that way. It's not a precondition for success here, or at least, I won't allow it to be one. I like you just the way you are."

She hic-ed again. "... Awh, flatterer, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were making a firing... no, pass, humans say pass... you say pass, right? Hic. Would you prefer I say... what was... Keelah, you blushed more than Shepard did when Liara tried to comment on her dancing."

Tanda responded... by blushing hotly and then bit her lip in embarrassed recognition of the fact. "Tali'Zorah, you came here wearing your sexiest belts—and I haven't had a girlfriend in a long time. You don't do that sort of thing, in the Empire."

"Oooooh... my father would be furious if I ever brought someone like... well, not-quarian." She laughed, and swayed more than a bit where she was sitting.

Tanda blushed again. "I..." Kriff, this has gotten out of hand. "So it would be that serious?"

Tali was giggling. "Oh the look on your face... waaaaiiiit... you don't get to have a one night stand with a Quarian. Too much effort." That last had a teasing tone to it. "Yes, Tanda, seeerrious."

The Moff of Sigurd looked down at her ship's deckplates. "I see. You know, it's very easy to repress that part of yourself when you're in the Imperial service and fighting for recognition... Relationships between two women fall very much on the list of not forbidden but not apt to prosper an Imperial career. I feel somewhat-Like I would be smothered by an Asari because of it, so I didn't try to date any. Imperial men fit well with them but I'm too repressed for their tastes, no relationship would work out well. And I'm the commander, and should set a good example. You, though, blow that straight out of the stars. I have to rely completely on your personality, and that's like a burning sun to me."

"... I'm not sure going after a Quarian is setting a good example..."

"I, ah." Most powerful woman in the galaxy most likely, but Tali had shut her down pretty effectively, as she folded her legs up on her couch in the quaint little forechamber of her quarters and seemed abruptly acutely aware of how close to Tali's suit she was. Tanda wondering now if she'd made too much of the sexiest belt comment.

"... Ooooh, I touched a nerve, didn't I..." She looked across, glowing eyes dim through the faceplate. "Don't worry I... "don't bite", is that the human phrase? Not that I could through the helmet or anything."

"Tali, like I said, I've been very lonely. Until today I wasn't sure you were attracted to other women, let alone blonde aliens."

"Awh, come on, I told you I sorta had a thing for Shepard... at first... now, granted, she didn't look a lot like you, but..." The glowing eyes narrowed. "You have the same sort of... I don't know. I didn't think I was... Hic. ... 's mostly that it'd be taking from the Fleet, from my people, but if that's... avoidable... then..."

Tanda opened and closed her mouth. "I'm not actually adverse to children. It's just... The culture of my home galaxy is very anti-technologist, in certain respects."

"Soooo... you made a pass at the Quarian." She just summed up how silly that sounded in the tone of her voice.

"I made a pass at the girl in the suit. And only because she fell in love with me first."

"...Yes, I kind of did. You do know how silly that sounds, right?"

"Well that means you're not the only one of us who's silly sometimes."

"... Who are you accusing of silliness...?" She sounded so wary... but the effect was somewhat lost by the fact that... Tali'Zorah was far too cute when drunk.

"An utterly wonderful Quarian lady."

"Flatterer. Hic. I am not a lady. I am a... machinist!"

"One can and ought be both. Certainly you have the correct bits for it... You know, just a small, trivial little thing, that."

"... Are you making fun of me? It's... keelah, it would take weeks, all sorts of programs, herbal supplements, antibiotics to... why am I even talking about this?"

Another sigh. Tanda looked like she was going to fall out of her chair. She reached for more brandy. "I suppose it is silly. Still, I enjoy your company a great deal. That freighter journey would have been miserable without it, with Kesea damn near summoning demons for having been made sterile."

"Well, it isn't silly... it's just... complicated. Those bosh'tets in Cerberus, you should see what they did to humans."

"Another abject not-fan of Cerberus. Well, join the club, my dear."

Tali shot Tanda a look, and muttered something under her breath afterwards. "It doesn't even seem like it'd be comfortable..."

"...Forgive me, what're you referring to?" She unsteadily reached for the bottle yet again... How did I get into this?

... She mimicked Tanda's earlier gesture, though only having two fingers somehow made it worse. ... while mirroring Tanda's thoughts herself.

"Oh." A hopeful look spread across Tanda's face. "It's awkward and requires you to be willing to laugh at your endless inept failing attempts at sex before it has a chance of working." A heartbeat's pause. "But it can be very pleasurable."

... She got a skeptical look, as much as one could figure it through the helmet. "... I have no idea why anyone would want to laugh at... I mean, it doesn't even... I'm squeezed into this thing tightly enough to survive hull breaches."

Tanda rapidly tried to do damage control. You dolt, she wasn't criticising the position, but the suit! "Exactly, so if we push a bit in the right place..."

"... This seems like it would be easier to just rig something up inside the suit... humans are straaaaange."

"The point is so that you can do it with someone you love—but without compromising suit integrity."

"... Huh. I always just assumed I'd get sick for a month... mmm, but wouldn't the other person have to be in a suit too?"

"...No. I don't think so. You certainly don't have to be in suits for two human women, eh, doing it. I was just thinking of an option."

"Well, yeah, but... you know, the belts and fabric and all... that would hurt." ...The Quarian girl was starting to think of this in engineering terms, and as to whether that was good or bad was an open question.

"Not necessarily the fabric. Belts, you might want to take off first, even if they're sexy."

Tali was getting caught up in it. "Hmmm... I still think that skin and the suit isn't a very good option. Chafing is bad."

"Pfft, well then!" Now or never, Tanda. "You're just saying your partner would have to wear clothes."

"Well excuse me, I happen to be drunk." She prodded Tanda's chest with a finger for emphasis.

Tanda blushed a bit more. "Yes, you are, that's so. And an incredibly cute drunk, complete with your straw."

"Emergency induction straw. Port."

Tanda pushed out of her chair and sort of fell into the couch, and leaned a bit into Tali. "Regardless." Breathing in, Tanda smelled hints of industrial lubricant, metal, plastics, synthetic fabric... her eyes floated along the richly embroidered cloth overlying the environmental suit, the variety of belts, some even of natural fibers and... even through the suit Tali felt warm.

"Not regardless! Need to... keep the terms straight."

"Is it that important?" Tanda could deal with it...

"Well, no, but..." She sighed. "I could get used to this... too much bare metal for a proper cabin, though. ... You know how to tempt a girl, don't you? I said I loved you because I just couldn't stand the thought of you dying. But now... Alien, and female? Wooow."

"I apparently do know how to tempt another woman... Apparently. ...Is spending more time with me tempting, Tali...?" She looked quite seriously to the other woman, forcing the look through her drunkenness.

"... I... well, you see... what if I said yes?"

"I might kiss your faceplate and curl up with a blanket over the both of us for the rest of the night."

"... Stop it. Hic. You're tempting me to... I don't know what... well, sort of is."

Tanda possessively pulled her into a hug, at least, and settled a blanket over them very comfortably, too.

"My father is going to be so upset..."

...Tanda pulled back with a sigh. "Well, I shant make assumptions about the future. But I prefer you to all the Asari girlfriends my entire lower deck has."

... She tugged Tanda back where she'd been. "I said he'd be upset. Not that I was going to give him a veto."

"I... Thank you, Tali." She trembled a bit. "There was nothing quite so terrifying, I'll confess, as watching the Empire fall to pieces at Endor. All the grown men, acting like confused cadets, when the Emperor died... Compared to that, I saw this exile as an opportunity. I didn't expect an opportunity for love, though."

"You picked an odd choice for that. Just saying."

"Why do you call yourself an odd choice, Tali'Zorah ?"

"... You know, the Quarian woman, lives in an enviro-suit, can't touch your skin directly without getting sick? Still getting used to the idea this is actually happening with my Captain!"

"I don't necessarily see that as an impediment toward the emotional attachment to you I am developing," Tanda coughed.

"I've noticed. This is still a lot closer to Fleet and Flotilla than I thought." She sounded bemused, squeezing Tanda a bit. "Just saying."

"Is that a bad thing? It's your favourite movie and you've mentioned it three times tonight." She leaned into the squeeze, not minding that it came from Tali's suit.. The woman was quite alive under it.

"... I have the soundtrack. And the relationship simulator."

"...Relationship simulator!?"

"And the musical... yes, it's... ... Fleet and Flotilla: Interactive Cross-Species Relationship Simulator..."

..Tanda reached over and looped her arms around Tali. "Hnnh. Well, I'm softer than a Turian."

"You are... I mean, you're full of germs, but all humans are, and... oh that wasn't helpful, uhm... softer, yes!"

"I'm a germbag, but apparently a cute one." She pushed her forehead to Tali's, and as promised, kissed her faceplate.

"Ack, ack, smudging!" ... It was cute, as she could see a holo-HUD spring to life to counter-act the mussed visuals.

"My apologies." Tanda blushed hotly, or maybe it was better to say another interlude in her blushing ended. She was... Still very much a humanocentric Imperial officer, not really thinking through Tali'Zorah's perpetual confinement to the suit.

Tali pulled a cloth out of somewhere to rub at it - oleophobic glass, of course, but... "Don't, it was romantic, I just wasn't expecting it..." She giggled. "... Look at me. I have, I think, a human girlfriend."

"Well. ...I would say you do."

"Here's to falling in love with your ship's captain!" Tali laughed and shouted.

"Had some kind of fantasy about this in the past...?"

"Wouldn't you like to know..."

"I'm quite glad that you're still trying to keep secrets from me. It makes you even cuter, and that requires some effort..."

Tali's thoughts had moved on to more prosaic matters. "...Oh Ancestors, but I'm going to have to teach you how to dance properly..."