O people, weep for thy children
O people, cry for the lost
O people, morn for thy homes
O people, thy garden is lost
O children, lost and without a guide
Weep for thy parents that disown thee
The garden lies abandoned
Its caretaker has fled
The gardener has left her children
To play alone among her flowers
O people, why do you destroy your children
O children, why do you slay your parents
The garden is stained with blood
Blood of the gardeners, blood of the children
The garden waits for its maker's hand
As the children roam its streets, lost
O people, O children why are you lost
O people, your children mourn you
O people, why do you wander
The garden is here, it blooms in the shade
Your children have kept it, saved it for you
Return to your children O people
Come back to the garden
Let the blood of the past be washed away
Let the sins of the father be forgotten
Let the mothers no longer mourn
And the children play with their parents
The garden is in bloom
The garden is waiting
O people, return to thy home
-A Lament for Rannoch
Vancouver, Earth -Tali'Zorah
July 3rd, 2175
"You stay safe out there. Not even Rannoch is worth your life. Come back to me, you hear?" her father gruffly ordered, enveloping Tali in a hug. "I'm proud of you. Rael would be proud of you. I know he would have wanted to be here."
Tali let the tears flow freely. After all, no one could see them from behind her mask. She was wearing the full traditional suit, along with a purple headdress given to her buy Auntie Raan, who was also crying behind her suit by the shuddering of her shoulders.
Tali turned away from her father and gave each of her siblings a big hug. Davey was trying very hard to cry and nearly succeeding. Sean was doing his best tough guy impression and informed Tali he would be taking over her room. She laughed and told him to take good care of her stuff. Leewie cried and promised to write every day and made Tali promise to write back. It was harder with Gola and Amberly than with the younger siblings, they were much closer in age.
"Don't get something too awesome, or they're be nothing left for me when I go," Gola half laughed, half cried.
"I promise not to take Rannoch back single handily," Tali joked, but that just made Gola cry all the harder.
Amberly was last, and she held out a briefcase for Tali. "This is for you."
Tali opened it and gasped, staring up at her sister in shock. "Amberly, how could you-"
"I've been saving for a long time," her sister grinned, wiping away a stray tear. "It's the lastest model. The GS-37 Savant. Salarian made. I know you always had a thing for salarian tech, even if it's imported so..."
"Thank you," Tali whispered, pulling Amberly into a hug before she could finish.
Next up was Kelly, who was sobbing louder and harder than anyone. "Why d'ya have to go Tali? We could've have gone to college together! You could be an engineer, and I'm a psych major! I'm even on a military scholarship, so afterwards..."
"Hey, you know why," Tali teased. "It's to find all those red wagons we've lost over the years."
Kelly smiled and nodded, wiping away a few tears. "Oh yeah. That reminds me." Reaching into her pocket, Kelly pulled out a deadly looking knife. "For you."
Taking the knife in her hands, Tali gasped softly. "Kelly this is-"
"For a Pilgrim on her journey." Kelly stated firmly, ruining her gravitas by hiccupping. "You don't get to ask me how much I paid for it or where I got it. You just have to take it."
"Thank you." Tali strapped the traditional yr'lin on her leg. It wasn't new, that much was certain, but she also was pretty sure that the blade was going to be good. Kelly might not be the brightest bulb in the closet, but her dad owned a small arms shop. He would have made certain it was quality.
She turned to her mothers and bowed. "Mothers, I take leave of your home, to wander the stars until I prove my worth. Upon my return I will not be the child you sent out, but a woman with a home of her own. Please, bestow your blessing upon me."
Both Kleeah and Marilyn extended their hands to Tali, resting them on her shoulders. "Go now, my daughter. May the Ancestors watch over you and speed your safe return. Keelah Se'lai."
"Keelah Se'lai," Tali echoed. Taking a deep breath, she turned to the last person. The one that it was going to be hardest to part with.
"This isn't goodbye," Johnny interjected before Tali could open her mouth. "This is good luck. Here." He handed Tali a heavy, well loaded pack. "It's got everything in it you'll need. Weapons. Ammo. A field repair kit. Training sims for your suit. Rations for two weeks in the field, water purification kit, space blanket, bedroll, tent, field glass, first aid kit with dextro medigel, emergency broadcast unit, and entrenching tool. And some other stuff I stuffed in there, just to be sure. I already gave Keenah his."
Tali smiled behind her mask. "Thank you, Johnny. I'll come back to you."
"You better. You already made me realize I was in love with you. It would hardly be fair for you to run off and get yourself killed. I'm the marine, that's what I'm supposed to do."
His words sobered Tali. "You stay safe," she whispered, hugging him tightly.
"I'm not worried about me. The corps has my back. May the Ancestors have yours." He bent down and brushed his lips across Tali's mask. "Keelah Se'lai."
"Keelah Se'lai." Turning away for the last time, Tali walked over to Keenah'Brezih, who would join her on Pilgrimage. Keenah's mother was a wealthy shipping magnet, and had even bought them a long range FTL capable shuttle. It wasn't armed, but it was a ship. In days past, the little ship would have been considered a worthy Pilgrimage gift on its own. Times had changed. No longer were the quarians paupers.
"Ready to go?" Keenah asked. He'd finished saying his own goodbyes while Tali was preoccupied with hers.
"Yes. Let's go find a piece of the homeworld."
Ruins of Nk'hat, Haestrom - Tali'Zorah
August 12th, 2175
Tali stepped out of the Far Wanderer and shivered slightly. Not from the cold, although it was night and the temperature was subzero, but from where she was. Haestrom had been one of the bare handful of quarian colonies. Now it was all but abandoned. Occasionally geth patrols swept the planet, but they had easily avoided those. They'd come in ballistic and set down with minimal engine use. Besides, there had been no geth ships on passive or active scanners, so Tali was certain they were safe.
"Wow. Is this what Rannoch looks like?" Keenah asked, stepping off the shuttle behind Tali. He was as well armed as she was; no point in taking any chances.
Actually, Tali and Keenah were better armed than a company of mercs. What Johnny hadn't mentioned was that when he said he was giving them weapons and ammo, what he meant was that he'd pulled some serious strings and given them the BEST weapons and ammo, along with enough mods to make most shipboard arms masters jealous. Tali was carrying an N7 Crusader and a matching N7 Eagle, two of the most expensive and well-made weapons in known space. Keenah had an N7 Hurricane and an N7 Valiant. He claimed to be a good shot with his rifle and able to spray and pray with the best of them, but Tali wasn't sure.
Her auntie Raan had spent last summer training Tali in every weapon known to quarians and in the best ways to take down geth or organics, but Keenah's family didn't have a military background. Just how much use her fellow pilgrim was going to be in a fight was questionable. Tali was pretty sure that she could take a geth squad on by herself, but she didn't want to find out if she could or not. Especially not after talking with Johnny.
A few quarians had advocated making peace with the geth. They'd been known as Regrets, though it was more a euphemism for "traitor" than anything else. Johnny was the first human Tali had ever met who'd advocated any such thing, and he certainly was no traitor. He'd pointed out that the reason the geth had originally rebelled was because the quarians had tried to exterminate them.
"Sure, I agree AI's are a bad idea," Johnny had said. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't treat them like people once we have them, not until they prove they can't be treated like that. The Bill of Sentient Rights is pretty clear, as long as you are a sentient, you have the same rights as anyone else. Why shouldn't that go for the geth?"
"But they're monsters, they slaughtered my people!" Tali had protested.
"Sure. And if they don't prove reasonable, we should wipe them out. They are synthetics after all. But we should give them the chance to prove reasonable first."
They'd talked more after that, and Tali had to admit, Johnny had a point. She didn't think it was much of one, but if there was a chance to establish communication with the geth and find a way to get back to Rannoch with no bloodshed, it might be worth a try. Or it might be better to just kill any geth you saw before it killed you. Either way, Tali knew she wasn't going to win a fight with the entire Collective, so it might be best to talk first if only to save her own skin.
"So what do you think we should look for?" Keenah asked, still standing on the shuttle's ramp.
"First, we stay together," Tali ordered. "Then we start combing the ruins, together. We don't know what's around here. Even if there are no active geth, there could still be dangers. Come on. We don't want to be out of cover when the sun rises. The radiation could kill us."
They poked through the ruins for a few hours, ultimately finding nothing at all. Most of the buildings contents were so decayed Tali began to lose hope, but every once in a while they'd find something half usable buried in a corner somewhere. They even found some design schematics for a very old model of geth buried in a crate. That got both of them excited. It wasn't exactly prime gift material they agreed, but it was useful. They made a copy and Tali put the original in her pack.
About an hour before the sun rose, they headed back to the shuttle and compiled a map of the area they'd explored. It was depressingly small, even compared to the size of Nk'hat's ruins. You never knew where hidden treasures might lurk, and Tali was certain that they were most likely to find some clue on how to topple the geth - or at least convince them to leave Rannoch - on Haestrom. She just had to find it.
Ruins of Nk'hat, Haestrom - Tali'Zorah
September 4th, 2175
"Tali! Tali come quick!" Keenah shouted.
Dropping the wooden fragments she'd been digging through, Tali hurried over to the shaft Keenah had dugout. The beam of his flashlight illuminated dozens of sealed crates, all marked with the symbol of the ancient quarian military. "Keelah," Tali breathed.
"We've hit the JACKPOT!" Keenah hooted. "Come on, let's crack a few of them open."
The crates turned out to contain mostly weapons. Not exactly the find of the century, but as they dug through, bits and pieces of the past were found among the ancient and worthless guns. A schematic of a quarian ship. Records for the quarian government before the Morning War. And details of the geth uprising on Haestrom itself. Tali didn't have time to fully examine them now, but she shoved them in her satchel for later.
They loaded up several crates of the most important finds on a hover trolley, and started back to their ship about a half hour before dawn. It gave them less of a safety margin than Tali liked, but they could make it. Just as they were approaching the shuttle, a mass accelerator barked, and Tali froze, then reached for her shotgun.
"Go for that and I'll splatter your brains on the pavement, suit rat," a turian voice ordered.
"Aww come on Odius. I haven't got to shoot anything in weeks!" a batarian laughed.
Slowly, Tali raised her hands, stepping away from the crates of weapons. "We don't want any trouble."
"Smart."
Half a dozen mercenaries rose from the ruins, and Tali swore silently. She'd been so wrapped up in their find she hadn't watched where they'd been going. At first she'd been more vigilant about ambushes, but as time had worn on she'd gotten sloppy. And mercs... She had expected geth, not mercenaries.
"What have the suit-rats brought us, Stevens?" the turian called.
Rummaging around in the crate, the human held up a old gun. Keenah had thrown it in because it was a model not in their catalogues. "Looks like salvage. Bet there's more where that came from. We certainly ain't found shit."
Good. Tali could probably promise them the location of the salvage, to be transmitted once they were safely in the air. That would buy them their freedom and- "It's back there!" Oh Keelah. "It's back there, in the ruins, please, just let us go!"
The human smiled. "Oh sure. Once we've had our little suit rat helpers load it all onto the ship."
Hours later, Tali gasped in exhaustion as she struggled to load yet another crate on the hover trolly. Thank the Ancestors the mercs had brought their ship close enough that it was a short trip. But it left them dangerously exposed to orbital scans. Tali had put the Far Wanderer underneath ten meters of concrete and covered with a camo-net to hide it from any prying geth, but these bosh'tets weren't even trying!
"Back off you jerk!" Keenah snarled, struggling to his feet after the turian had knocked him down.
The turian just pushed Keenah back down and glanced over at a salarian who was standing guard. "Hey, Belk, you think the female can handle the rest of this on her own?"
"Yeah. The hold is nearly full."
"Good." The turian pointed his gun at Keenah and let loose a full automatic burst. For a brief instant, Keenah's barriers held. But not for long. They were already drained and dying from constant exposure to the sun.
"Ancestors watch over you and guide you home," Tali whispered, averting her eyes from the growing pool of blood.
"You're lucky you know," the turian remarked, striding over to cup Tali's hands in his talons roughly. "I'm not going to shoot you."
"I'm grateful," Tali growled, wishing she still had her shotgun.
"Instead, I'm going to rape you to death."
Tali's mind froze. He couldn't... He wouldn't...
And then she was right. Odius neither could nor would. His head exploded as a deafening mass accelerator report filled the air of the ruined warehouse.
Tali fell to the ground, turning in time to see the salarian go for his weapon, only to be hit with a burst of automatic fire from behind her. Johnny, it must be him! Tali thought, turning to see the face of her savior. Then she went stiff with shock.
The beings trooping into the ware house were about the height of a quarian. They had a single, glowing eye set in the center of their heads. They were emitting a series of electronic clicks and snarls, a sound that made Tali's blood run cold. Geth.
One of the geth took up station over Tali, its gun pointed in her general direction. The rest trooped down into the basement where the supplies were. Tali stayed motionless, staring up at the geth. It must know she was alive. Had to know she wasn't dead yet. Why hadn't it killed her? Why wasn't she bleeding out beside poor, stupid Keenah? She couldn't think, couldn't figure out what to do.
Another geth approached from the outside, its shield flaring from the extreme radiation Haestrom's star emitted. It approached the geth watching Tali and handed it a neatly wrapped package. What was it? Some sort of torture device?
The first geth knelt, laying its burden out before Tali. She goggled at it. It was her weapons, her omnitool, and her satchel.
"I- I thank you," Tali managed, looking up into the geth's flashlight.
Its head twitched, opening and closing like a flower's petals. It emitted more of those strange clicks and scratches. Then it held out a hand. Three fingered, like Tali's own. She took it. The geth helped her to her feet.
Tali was in a daze. What was happening? Had she really just been saved by geth? That was impossible. The geth were the enemy. They hated quarians. Quarians hated the geth. The two sides tried to kill each other. That was how it worked.
A new geth approached, and Tali sucked in her breath. This one was massive, a platform known as a prime. It extended its hand, holding out a small metal disk to Tali. Slowly, carefully, Tali reached out and laid her hand over the disk. The prime pressed it into her hand. She withdrew, holding the disk up. She gasped when the image of a geth appeared on it.
"Creator. You must leave."
"I, what?" Tali managed.
"You are one of the Creators. You must leave," the holo repeated.
"Um, OK. Can... Can I take my things? And the body of my friend? I'd like to be able to return it to his family."
"We find this acceptable. We will aid you in transporting the body. The Collective mourns the death of the other Creator. Now you must leave. You have caused a breach in the consensus. We have reached a consensus that you must leave. We have allowed you to remain for a time, and hope that you have seen the geth mean the Creators no harm. But you must leave."
Tali blinked, then nodded. "Alright. Thank you for saving me. I will depart in peace."
"We are grateful that we do not have to kill you, Creator." With that, the hologram faded, and Tali handed the disk back to the Prime.
She turned around to see one of the geth holding Keenah's body. Tali quickly gathered up her belongings, cradling them in her arms. She headed off for her ship, flinching slightly as the prime fell in beside her. But then Tali noticed something. She was walking in the Prime's shade. It was shielding her from the sun.
Keelah, what is going on here? The geth are helping me. That's not what should happen! Why are they helping me! What does all this mean? Oh father, what would you do? What should I do? I just don't know...
Dock 37-B, Omega - Tali'Zorah
September 15th, 2175
Tali watched as Keenah's body was loaded into the coffin for transport back to Earth. She'd listed him as killed by pirates. That was true enough. What she hadn't done was explain that he'd been held in the arms of a geth on a world once owned by the quarians. She hadn't told anyone that. She didn't know how. The entire trip had been a waste in so many ways. Tali hadn't been able to bring anything from Haestrom back. She had thought about asking the geth, but she had been too shocked, too numb to actually do so.
"That'll be five hundred citadel credits. Or six hundred league dollars. Either way, I don't care," the bored looking asari informed. Tali handed over the dollars and walked away. She'd already paid the fee to have the Wanderer put in long term docking. Now she needed to find a hospital of some sort. She need to get checked for radiation poisoning, and she didn't have the gear to do it herself.
She found a medical station named, appropriately enough, "The Clinic" in a public listing and wearily trooped down to the level it was located on. She was exhausted. She hadn't slept since Haestrom. Whenever she tried, she saw Keenah laying bleeding on the floor, or the hologram of the talking geth. She couldn't think straight, couldn't even see straight really. Her entire world seemed to be collapsing, and everyone she knew and loved was light-years away.
As she walked through Omega, Tali was astonished at the filth and crowding. She was so used to wide open spaces, to having plenty of room to avoid bumping in to people. Vancouver was a big city with a large population, but it seemed like every single one of those people were all shoved into Omega. It was dirty too, and in a poor state of repair with patches and rust everywhere. The League took good care of its equipment, and rarely did you ever see anything anyone used in such shoddy conditions.
The people were just as filthy, and they looked rather downtrodden to Tali. She saw every species of alien imaginable from the Citadel races, as well as the occasional human or krogan. She didn't see any other quarians, and Tali felt very alone. By the time she made it to the clinic, Tali was desperate for someone to talk to. Someone to help.
She stood in the entry way, glancing around nervously. It was packed with batarians, salarians, turians, asari, humans, and other species. She wasn't sure what to do, so Tali just stood there, vacantly gazing around.
"Are you alright? Are you injured?" an accented human voice asked.
Tali turned and found herself eye to eye with a human woman, long dark hair pulled back in a pony tail. To Tali's shock, the doctor looked like she'd just stepped out of a modeling magazine; despite her plain lab coat and lack of cosmetics, she was the most beautiful human Tali had ever seen. She was a few years older than Tali, but she carried herself with a poise and power that made Tali think she was much older on the inside.
"I'm, uh, looking for a doctor," Tali managed after a moment. "I think I got exposed to some radiation and-"
"Ah, I can help with that. Come with me, I'm the head physician here."
Tali blinked in surprise, but she followed the young woman to one of the small cubicles in the back.
"What brings you to Omega?" the doctor asked. "I don't see many quarians here."
"Pilgrimage," Tali replied numbly.
The doctor nodded as if it was natural for a quarian to tell her that, even though only a fraction of quarians went on Pilgrimage these days. "I see. Can you tell me what kind of radiation you were exposed to?"
"Um, ultraviolet and gamma radiation. I was on a planet with a weak magnetic sphere."
"Very well, hold still. This will only take a moment." The doctor waved her omnitool over Tali and nodded. "Yes, you do have some mild radiation poisoning. Can you take off your mask?"
Tali nodded dumbly and removed her mask. The doctor poked and prodded her for a few more minutes, then tsked. "You've not been taking very good care of yourself. You're suffering from exhaustion and malnutrion. When was the last time you had a good meal?"
Since before I watched my friend die, Tali didn't say. She hadn't been able to keep anything down lately. "Um, 10 days?"
"I see," The doctor paused in thought. "Wait here one moment." The doctor stepped out, and Tali sat with her mask in her hands, staring down at the floor.
After a few moments, the doctor returned. She took Tali's mask and slid it carefully back into place. "Right. Come with me."
She led Tali out of the clinic to a waiting air car and helped her sit down. Once she was inside, Tali felt a brief moment of panic and felt for her gun. But she'd left that in the ship. She didn't want to carry around guns, not right now. Not after seeing so much death. Not that it mattered. Tali was so weary she didn't think she'd be able to stop a kidnapping anyway, even if she was armed.
"Omega isn't safe for lone quarians you know," the doctor chided, climbing into the driver's seat. "I suppose it's as good a place as any to look for a Pilgrimage gift, but you shouldn't be wandering around unarmed."
Tali nodded, studying the doctor carefully. "Why are you helping me?" she finally asked.
The doctor was silent for a minute, then smiled at Tali. It was a tired smile. The smile of a person who had seen too much. Like Tali. "My sister is quarian. You remind me of her."
"Oh. What's her name?"
"Ori. I suppose she's not really my sister, not biologically anyway, but I love her, and I think of her that way."
"I understand. I have three human siblings. I love them just as much as my quarian brothers and sisters. They're family."
"Well, then you'll forgive me for babying you a bit. I'm Miri Goldstein, by the way. I'm going to take you to my place. I've got the medication you'll need there, along with some dextro meals I have stashed away. They're very tasty, according to my sister. She's not at home, I've sent her to live with some relatives."
Tali sat silently for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you. I'm Tali'Zorah. I'm sorry to bother you with this. I just watched my Pilgrimage mate get killed by pirates. It was... hard."
"Who?" Miri's eyes locked on Tali, and they were full of only one thing: Death.
"I don't know, they're dead. Some... strangers... rescued me."
"Ah," Miri nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Was it here on Omega?"
"No, it was on another planet."
Miri nodded, eyeing Tali curiously, but she didn't say anything more.
The air car set down in front of a ding apartment block, and Miri led Tali inside. She fed Tali a hot meal, then showed her to a bedroom that had obviously belonged to her sister. There was a toy doctor's kit on a table, and a chest that had to be filled with toys. The bed was quite large, and Tali collapsed into it, exhausted. She slept well, undisturbed by the specters of the dead or the electronic moans of ghosts.
In the morning, Tali begged to repay Miri's kindness.
"I'm good at fixing things, and I noticed your clinic was in need of some basic repair. Please, let me help fix it, I have to replay you somehow."
"That's not necessary," Miri stated, waving a hand dismissively. "I didn't take you in looking for a reward. I'm lonely here, I'm gone often and this place doesn't really feel like a home to come back to since Ori left. You can stay as long as you like, no need to go grubbing about the clinic."
"That wouldn't be right. A Pilgrim is suppose to earn her way, not accept charity. Besides, getting some work done would be a relief. I'll go mad, just sitting here until I'm well enough to leave."
"You really should get more than a day's rest before you go haring off to work," Miri scolded, sounding an awful lot like Amby did when she scolded Tali. "You're in pretty poor shape, Tali. As a doctor, I'd recommend at least three days' bed rest, and a week would be better."
The thought of lying in bed for three days straight put an icy knot in Tali's gut. Last night hadn't been too bad, but if she tried to rest without being exhausted, Tali knew that the terrors would return. "I'm fine, really. Just let me work, I won't push myself too hard."
Miri considered Tali for a few moments, then sighed. "I suppose if that's what you really want, I can't tell you no. The clinic could use the repairs. I've got some business I need to attend to, but I'm going to have my friend Patriarch escort you to and from the Clinic. The doctors will check in on you as well to make sure you're not pushing yourself too hard. And if you do make yourself sick, I'll sedate you until you're healed. Do we have a deal?"
Tali nodded. "Yes, of course, thank you. I promise I'll get the clinic cleaned up in no time."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Miri sighed.
About an hour later, Tali was curled up underneath one of the clinic's archaic medical devices, trying hard not to think about anything but the task at hand. She had spoken to the geth. She'd been set free by the geth. Perhaps, just maybe, there was a way to get Rannoch back without a war after all.
But Tali couldn't see what it would be. Instead, she lost herself in her work, running away from the ghosts of the past.
Authors Note:
As some of you may know, Herr Wozzeck, author of Mass Vexations, contributes to a blog known as the Library of the Damned, where some of the more poorly written stories are lambasted by himself and a team of critics. Now normally, having your story featured in the Library is more of an achievement in infamy more than anything else, not not something I personally would have aspired to. Wozzeck has apparently been reading And the Meek Shall Inherit the Galaxy, and instead of thinking it was the worst AU ever (whew!) he actually liked it enough to write a really amazing critique of it on his blog. I highly encourage anyone to check out Library of the Damned, the writing team there is excellent and the reviews are entertaining, if a bit crude on occasion.
As always, thanks for reading! Next chapter, we have ourselves a roit and propa WAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!