The Spartan Effect

by Gatekeeper333

Everyone's favorite Spartan is looking for a new purpose, lucky for him, the Commander his happy to oblige. (5-23-19 Info: On Hiatus after Chapter 45. Will update with schedule after life is in order.)

38. Chapter 38

Author's Note I: Hey all, back again. As is normal for one of the loyalty missions, I liked writing portions of this chapter, other parts not so much. Tried to limit rehashing dialogue and other stuff from the game as much as possible, because, you know, I think everyone's played through ME2 at least a few times by this point… Anyways, hope you all can enjoy and see you again at the end of July.

"Upper class etiquette in Ankh-Morpork held that, while you could snub your friends any time you felt like it, it was the height of bad form to be impolite to your worst enemy." – Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

Chapter 35 - Goodbye

(Nerves, A Subtle Start, An Inopportune Moment, Tada?, A Curious Exchange, A Shallow Grave, Touchy, Closed, Goodbye, Detours, Wake-up Call, A Subtle Hint, Drifting, Talk to the Hand, Film Review)

Tali stood in the Normandy's cockpit, hands restlessly wringing themselves over and over again as she watched the human ship approach the conglomerate of vessels holding position above the silvery nebula like an unlikely school of fish. She had witnessed the sight so many times before from a multitude of inbound crafts and never once had she felt anything other than joy at the sprawling hodgepodge of interstellar vehicles. Now, however, she didn't know if the pit in her stomach was ever going to bottom out.

"This," she started into the waiting comms, shaking her head and balling her hands as she forced herself to focus, ignoring the concerned look the Commander continued to send her way, "This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya requesting permission to dock with the Rayya."

"Our system has your ship flagged as Cerberus," came the immediate response as the outmost perimeter of the heavy fleet began to close in around them like the teeth of a varren. "Verify."

The quarrian took a long calming breath, the interaction with Flotilla control easing nerves in the way that only forged familiarity could.

"After time adrift among open stars, along the tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began."

"Permission granted," came the reply after an agonizing handful of seconds, the pit of dread opening back up hungrily for the newest in a long line of anxiety drenched moments. "Welcome home, Tali'Zorah."

"We'd like a security and quarantine team to meet us," continued the combat engineer, protocol flashing reassuringly within her mind. "Our ship is not clean."

"Hey!" called out the Commander in a petulant whisper just loud enough for her to hear. And, despite yawning digestive voids and the need to panic chickens everywhere with overambitious hand-wringing, Tali felt a smile curl onto her lips. "I'm standing right here."

"Understood. Approach exterior docking cradle seventeen," acknowledged the Migrant Fleet control-man as a nav point was sent and popped up onto Joker's display.

Thoughts and doubts began to build up within the young woman's mind like the stardust the Normandy pulled along in its wake as it sped towards the terminus. So many fears and concerns screamed for attention that it was hard to focus on any one for more than a-

"So," began Shepard as he nudged her back into a more relative portion of reality, "you nervous?"

"Keelah," exclaimed the quarian. The phrase wasn't usually meant as a curse, but at the moment was trying very hard to prove this wrong. "Of course, I am!"

"Why?" The nomad's helmeted head creaked over to her fellow combat engineer as if its swivel had never known the existence of grease. He was smiling that oddly reassuring smile of his which meant he was either being genuine or- "It's not like we just brought three-ish artificial intelligences into the Flotilla's defensive perimeter…"

-he needed to be punched.

"That's not helping, Shepard," replied the quarian slowly, every word a restraint on a limb that was all but itching to strike.

"Well," started the Commander, grin not abating in the slightest. Ancestors, how was he able to do… that? "I'm sure we can just talk our way out of anything there-"

"Shepard, I've been accused of treason," reminded Tali, pointing out the obvious as if it had been grafted in bright neon, "that isn't something you just 'talk your way out of'…"

"No… No, I'm fairly certain that is exactly what you do," countered the Spectre slowly as confusion flitted across his features for the briefest of moments. Then, with an eyebrow that all but added a long drawn out 'although' he continued with, "Well, that or shoot your way out of it. But, I'm fairly certain that option is off the table."

"Tempting Shepard, but no," confirmed the quarian with a small smile, only now noticing how much a certain pit had been filled in. As her thoughts drifted that way, however, it only began to dig itself once more. "Keelah, can you dock any faster?"

"You can't… rush… art," answered Joker without turning, a particular chess piece of an avatar beside him seemed to flash a 'disapproving strobe'.

"Pilots…"

"Engineers…" trailed off the aforementioned instantly, finally turning as the docking clamps locked into place. "See? I can do it too."

"Just deep breaths," whispered James beside her, "we'll get you through this."

"Shepard-Commander," droned Legion, a spike of extra anxiety flowing habitually into her system.

"Yes, Legion?" ventured the Commander in a 'not helping' kind of way.

"We would like to note once more that the probability of hostilities incurring due to this platform's appearance on the Creator Fleet is-"

"Legion," interrupted Tali with a sigh, "we've been through this. Without you there, I'm not confident in being able to do what needs to be done for Cortana and that's…"

The young quarian trailed off as her gaze wandered towards the silent form of the Master Chief, a large black armored hand held protectively over the compact interface on his suit and the dormant AI within. He hadn't spoken since he'd made his way to the cockpit, just staring calmly at his friend.

"We're going to fix everything," whispered the nomad, immediately receiving a playful nudge from the Spectre as the team moved towards a dinging airlock.

"That's the spirit."

OOOO

Captain Kar'Danna of the Rayya had been up for a rather long time. In normal circumstances this wouldn't have even registered as an issue, simply wait until the end of his quite peaceful shift and hand over the command to his second.

This was, until the call came in.

He should have let his subordinates take care of it, should have just 'okayed' their docking and took to his chambers. Standard protocols were very strict about continued operation outside of approved safety margins of hours and would have of course been followed if he had never heard the name of the sender.

With that little nugget of information, he had made his way down to the docking bays almost before he could put together the requested teams. He was alert, or at the very least, alert enough to do this one thing before he gave up his body to sleep. She deserved that much from him.

He waited patiently outside of the hatch, watching as the sleek human ship glided into position. His lips curled into a sneer as his eyes found the logo emblazoned on it and almost had half a mind to rescind his welcome right then, but he held firm. That was the sleep deprivation and anger talking. Tali had joined the crew of this ship of her own free will if Reegar was to be believed, and so he would do his best to hold his tongue-

With a whoosh, the cradle doors slid open and, as his eyes registered the sight in front of him, all hell attempted to eventuate.

"-be fine," he heard a human voice say, but before anything else could register, he locked onto the sight of a hulking figure and a geth.

In an instinct driven instant, his sidearm was pulled and let loose a shot, the round smacking ineffectually off more than one kinetic barrier. Then before he knew what had happened, his tired mind registered a certain lack of gun in his hand.

The captain stared at his empty hand, ignoring the quarantine and security squads' raised weapons awaiting orders as he attempted to puzzle out the exchange. A polite cough from the would-be visitors, however, snapped the older man back to more pressing and rather metallic matters.

Tali seemed casual enough around the rest of her "squad", that alone was enough to temper the captain's mind if only a little.

"You will take that thing," declared Kar'Danna as he thrust a finger first at the synthetic and then at the smaller of the two humans who had taken another step forward, "off my ship."

"If you have a problem with my personal assistance mech," answered the N7 emblazoned human in far too rehearsed sounding tones, "then-"

"Shepard…" whispered Tali pleadingly. So, this was the Commander Shepard. From his reputation, the commanding officer thought he'd be well, the size of the other one.

"It's a damn geth!" he growled back, pointing once more at the great abomination of his people as if they might have forgotten.

"-You can direct your anger at me," continued Shepard in the kind of calm undercurrent that suggested a disarming smile might very well have lain behind that helmet. "Oh, and Chief, if you could return the Captain's weapon, I'd greatly appreciate it."

Kar'Danna watched in growing confusion as the hulking black armored figure just behind the Commander brought a hand out from behind his back and extended his pistol back out into his reach. How in the hells that, what he continued to assume to be, human had come up with it, the Captain didn't think he'd ever know, but at the very least he could have avoided cracking the casing.

He was too tired for this shit.

"It's my ship, my responsibility," provided the captain eventually, as he waved an idle hand for his squads to finally stand down. He'd never thought he would ever have a chance to have a 'civil' conversation in front of a geth, and he still wasn't sure if he wanted to. "If that geth goes hostile-"

"Do you plan on shooting at it again?" The Captain blinked, attempting to make words exit his mouth by semaphore apparently.

"No…" he replied cautiously as every part of him wished to do the opposite.

"What about them?" continued Shepard with a gesture towards his men. "They look… jumpy?"

"My personnel and I are not the problem," said Kar'Danna with a sigh, wishing he could massage the ache from his head. "Look, Commander, there are more… militant sectors of the populace and recently since Tali'Zorah has been accused of bringing active geth into the fleet-"

"Excuse me?" exclaimed Tali as the Captain brought his gaze first to her and then the synthetic.

"-aside from this one… it has only gotten worse."

Silence ruled over the incoming troupe, three sets of eyes and what could very well be misinterpreted as a light bulb attempting to fix him to the wall.

"Was I unclear?"

"You may have to back up a bit…"

OOOO

"Now come, I promised I would not delay you," Shepard heard the quarian that Tali had called Auntie say as she lead them forward while his mind decided it would apparently be nice if he looked to be in a stupor for a few moments and get hung up by a few words.

"You sure you want me to be your advocate?" he asked eventually, leaning over to his friend.

"Well, you did say you were going to talk me out of this mess." A smile creased his lips as part of him managed to come out of its over analysis of their current predicament to cherish a well-placed barb.

"I also said we could shoot our way out…" he trailed off as the idea suddenly became a tad more viable, in a psychopathic sort of way. He really needed to stop hanging out around Jack and Grunt.

"What are you nervous about?"

"Well, I have to be official, don't I?" The word dripped off his tongue as if it had been bathed in an oil slick. And, hell, the taste wasn't leaving any time soon.

"Oh…"

'Oh' was right.

He had barely been able to manage it when he was with Anderson, and he'd liked the man. Now he was facing a board that was trying to hurt his friend in the worst way the Migrant Fleet could. Stripping her of her ship's name, moving to exile her; he felt his ire rising just thinking about it-

The Spectre looked down at his hand, and the three fingered one that had taken hold of it and given it a squeeze.

"Deep breaths?"

"Here's to hope," managed James as their troupe made their way along the path through a large crowd of her people and towards a raised platform. The three other admirals stood before them, waiting patiently as they made their way.

Shepard could hear the common crew whispering louder and louder as Auntie Raan made her way to her mediator's podium. Huh, if he were a betting man, like most of those still aboard the Normandy, he'd hazard that the people were slightly upset with his chosen team.

"Maybe bringing Legion here wasn't the greatest idea…" said the commander through his teeth as the whispers upgraded themselves to jeers, but before Tali could respond, Raan cleared her throat and began.

"This Conclave is brought to order. Blessed are the ancestors who kept us alive, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this season. Keelah se'lai. The accused, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, has come with her captain to defend herself against the charge of treason."

Okay, Commander Shepard, you've got this. 'Official.' You've done that before. Used to do it on a regular basis too… and hated every second of it. Just don't insult the leaders of the government to their faces… that never works out like you want it to.

"Security!" came an annoyed tone from a red and gray suited admiral as he pointed at Legion. The voice was all but begging for sarcasm to step in and give it a go. Damn this was going to be difficult. "A geth is present in the courtroom! Does Tali'Zorah think to affect this hearing with threats?"

"Captain Danna allowed the geth aboard," replied Raan from up high just as Shepard began to open his mouth. He was going to have to thank her later for that. Nothing worse than starting a diplomatic incident, three was far too many for one lifetime without tacking on a fourth. "Do you intend to second guess the Rayya's captain, Admiral Koris?"

"Objection withdrawn." Oh, so they were going to be extra formal, were they? The pit that was starting to yawn open in his gut suggested this was not going to be a good thing.

"Shepard vas Normandy, your crew member Tali'Zorah stands accused of treason. Will you speak for her?" He felt the weight of every eye in the room swivel towards him in one go.

Well, here goes nothing, came the unbidden thought as he walked up and leaned against the provided railing at their podium. As diplomatic a grin as he could muster lathered itself onto his face before he remembered that his helmet more or less covered it up. Well there was only one thing for it then-

Someone coughed politely.

"My apologies. Just trying to gather my bearings. I'm not normally the center of attention," began James as his mind worked frantically to look over every word that tried to leave as if it were about to apply for a job at CSec. Behind him he heard Tali choke back a scoff, now that really wasn't helpful. "And it doesn't help that I'm here instead of Tali's true Captain who has been forbidden from doing so for some reason. It's strange, really, since to my eyes she remains a proud member of the Migrant Fleet-"

"Nobody has been forbidden from anything!" interjected Mr. red and gray, as James's mind began circling and annotating the man with rather unkind words in red pen. "It is a simple-"

"Lie to them if you must, Zaal'Koris," stated a brown and gray suited admiral, who immediately earned himself a green circle and far better footnotes in the whiteboard of the Commander's head, "but don't lie to me and expect me to stay silent. The human is right!"

"Admirals, please," pleaded Raan in that suggested she was far too used to playing the mediator. "Shepard's willingness to represent Tali'Zorah in this hearing is appreciated. Tali, you are accused of bringing active geth to the Migrant Fleet. What say you?"

As her words reached the Spectre's ears, however, they soon found themselves competing with what sounded like combat from behind him. But that was preposterous; no one was acting strangely, so-

"So, just to address the elephant in the room," he found his mouth saying as he attempted to ignore the commotion behind him. He received several blank stares. "Large herd animals… that's not important. Anyway, how exactly could Tali send geth to the fleet when she was on the Normandy? Aside from this one of course… and that's more or less on me."

-that just meant… oh no…

"To clarify, Shepard," came a calculating voice from a dark armored woman, "Tali isn't accused of bringing back entire units - only parts that could spontaneously reactivate-"

(-Brute and elite ships are engaging one another all-around High Charity. I'm running out of options, Chief. I can't stall the launch sequence much longer. The next lift will take you up to the conduit, hurry-)

"Keelah…" let out Tali slowly, quietly behind him. The Commander tried not to turn. Maybe it would be one of the AI's quick ones. Yeah, and maybe everyone else within the room would suddenly develop selective deafness too.

(-knew the Covenant was good at re-purposing Forerunner technology, but this is amazing-)

"What is that noise?" came enemy number one, annoyance coating every word.

"Sorry?" ventured James, attempting with every inch of himself to feign ignorance and bite back a rather unwise 'an AI with a lot more issues than you at the present moment, thank you very much.'

(-ship's engines as an energy source for the city-)

"It's coming from him!" pressed the man as the Commander allowed himself to follow every other gaze in the room towards a Master Chief who had only just placed a glowing arm behind his back.

(-The ship isn't so much launching as it is decoupling-)

"Him?" attempted the combat engineer, buying whatever time he could for a plan to form.

(-Stopping Truth, that's all that matters-)

"Yes…"

(Now is the time of our unworlding, in a moment we shall all become… as gods.)

"Oh…that?" he continued as lie after possible lie built up within his head like a political rally. "Sorry, my subordinate has a… very bad… habit of watching vids… at very inappropriate times-"

(Forget the Flood, you've got to get aboard.)

"-and should really learn to control his urges."

(After I'm through with Truth-)

"Yes, well it is interrupting this hearing…" came a response that probably wasn't winning any detective of the year awards any time soon.

(Chief, when you get to Earth… good luck.)

"You are quite right. Chi-" The title died in the Commander's mouth as his brain stopped and rewound the past few moments in the reel of memory. "-ester… Chester… if you could please excuse yourself for a few moments while you deal with that, I'd be most appreciative."

(After I'm through with Truth)

"Good, now that-"

(Don't make a girl a promise… if you know you can't keep-) continued a muffled recording as the Master Chief moved further back.

"What was it? I don't believe I recognize the vid…" ventured the dark suited woman, either a connoisseur of vid industry or entirely not buying the shtick. The Spectre pleaded for the former.

"Abandonment issues apparently…" he mumbled unwisely as he searched for an answer.

"Sorry?"

"I said I don't know, but it sounds like some cheesy sci-fi flick to me," replied the Commander as dismissively as he could manage. "Now… if we could get back to more pressing issues?"

"Oh yes," stated red suited 'punch me now, please'. "I believe Tali'Zorah was about to speak…"

"Yes? Yes," started Tali slowly, apparently just as dazed from Cortana's outburst as he'd been. "I would never send active geth to the Fleet! Everything I sent was disabled and harmless."

"Tali'Zorah, please explain how geth seized the lab ship where your father was working!"

The muttering of the crowd around them worked its way to a cacophony as Shepard's wandering gaze found his squad mate and watched as the words struck her.

"What?" He could hear the tremble in her words. "What are you talking about? What happened?"

"As far as we can tell, Tali, the geth have killed everyone on the Alarei… your father included," stated the brown and gray admiral not unkindly.

"Oh, Keelah…"

"I think," ventured Shepard as he fought the urge to walk over to Tali and wrap her in a hug, "that we might be able to help with that… should the admiralty board agree of course."

"Thank you," said Raan. "Quarian strike teams have attempted to retake the ship, so far without success."

"Shepard, we have to take back the Alarei!" blurted out Tali as she suddenly reached the same page as him.

"The safest course would be to simply destroy the ship," said admiral unhelpful, "but if you are looking for an honorable death instead of exile…"

"I'm looking for my father, you bosh'tet!" vented his friend fractions of a second before the Commander could take his turn.

"You intend to retake the Alarei from the geth?" asked Raan as the Commander's page suddenly began to fill up with additional people. "This proposal is extremely dangerous."

"Probably, yes, but I think we'll take our chances. I think Tali has a right to look for her father, don't you?"

"Agreed," came gray and brown. Damn, he should have asked Tali for their names sooner. "And if you die on this worthy mission, Tali, we will see that your name is cleared of these charges."

"We can discuss that later." Well, now that one was just being purposefully unhelpful.

"Then it is decided. You will attempt to retake the Alarei. You are hereby given leave to depart the Rayya. A shuttle will be waiting at the secondary docking hanger. Be safe, Tali. This hearing will resume upon your return, or upon determination that you have been killed in action."

OOOO

"You sure this is going to be necessary?" called one of the Normandy's basic crew from the Comm's room crowd as Garrus set up his equipment.

"Shepard is involved, I'm sure something will be shot," grumbled the turian as he slapped the final components into position, revealing only the Commander's team working their way through multiple quarians. At the rather underwhelming sight several grumbles began to build up within the room, more driving some to take steps towards the exit. "But, but, but I can see you're all getting antsy, which is why I prepared this…"

The ex-CSec officer brandished his hands theatrically at the feed, watching the crowd as they turned back and then… nothing. The grin he had plastered onto his mandibles faltered as the apprehension grew amongst the gathered.

"We supposed to be impressed by a black vid, Vakarian?" called out Jack derisively from somewhere in the back.

"Kas?" he whispered to his side as he continued to hold his pose.

"Hmm?" managed the now cast-less thief from her seat next to him, hugging that ridiculous fabricated horror to herself.

"The thing?" he clarified specifically. In the silence, the slurp of Grunt mangling a cup of noodles ventured forth.

"Which thing?" she asked in the type of tones that the hint had been caught, examined, and then discarded with a pleasant smile.

"Is this for insulting your normal clothing?"

"Possibly…" Garrus turned towards her, but, before he could say anything, he decided to take a page out of her book and worked his mandibles into what he assumed was a pout. "Fine…"

He smiled as he heard a few reassuring taps and then the feed exploded with color.

"There we are," continued the turian, addressing the crowd with no small amount of smugness. "I've prepared some special entertainment while we wait."

"You mean you stole it from the AI while she slept?" came a bark from the throng. Funny, it sounded an awful lot like Joker. Had he left his chair?

"Well, technically EDI was the one that recorded it…"

"I don't believe this sufficiently answers the question, Mr. Vakarian," countered the Normandy's embodiment over the com.

"Spirits, you're getting too good at that," muttered the sniper morosely as the assembly chuckled at his expense. Well, at the very least it was a step in the correct direction. "Regardless, I think we'll play it a bit, so you get the idea first."

A screeching sound rent the air as the feed began to play, showing two familiarly black and green armored hands pulling a purple metal collection of spikes and circuitry. After a few moments of shrieking reverberations, even the most introverted of the crew seemed ready to yell.

"We get it, he's strong… fucking get on with it already," called out Jack, volatile catalyst of all things.

"Just," started the turian as he tried to see what was wrong. It had been queued up far back from where he'd prepped it-

He smelled small scale evil, but Kasumi just smiled when he turned to her.

He sighed as he corrected the 'mistake'. The feed had come in the night with a host of others, and, after watching a few with Tali and Kas, he'd politely requested EDI to keep this one private. It was a perfect backup for times like these.

"Right here," he continued as he took his hand off the interface, the still of the Master Chief waiting patiently inside an airlock with the spiked bulb frozen for all to see. "Now, what happens? Place your bets."

Everyone spoke at once in a rabid frenzy that only the stress of the past few weeks or so could have caused. Credits flew from terminal to terminal as hypothesizes and counterarguments clashed wildly in the air. Question after question assaulted him like siege weapons, and he'd not have it any other way.

"What is it?" pressed a crew mate.

"It's a bomb," he provided, not for the first time. He really wished he'd added a few texts or arrows or something to the still.

"You sure? It has spikes… why does it have spikes?"

"To look menacing?"

"Why's it purple?"

"I think I can safely say that the color's not going to affect the outcome-"

"You sure no one betting's seen this yet?" grumbled Zaeed as he politely nudged the basic crew out of the way.

"Kas?" asked the turian simply as he held the mercenary's single menacing eye.

"Spike?"

"Did you put anything into the pot?"

"No?" attempted the thief unsuccessfully. Well, she was still recovering from her 'trying ordeal' in the med bay. "Damn… I mean 'No?'... No?… No…"

"Those were question marks, weren't they?"

"If I said they were just really tired exclamation points, would you believe me?" He continued staring at Zaeed, not because he had anything more to worry from the man, but that he really didn't want to fall victim to the pout he knew was aimed his way.

"No?"

"Fine," relented the asian as he heard her tap her Omni-tool. "Spoilsport…"

"Now we're good," provided the ex-CSec officer to the mercenary who had already turned to leave, mumbling several bloody somethings under his breath.

"Well then," continued the turian as the activity finally died down. "Let's get started."

And they watched as the Master Chief latched onto the bomb as it was pulled out through the now open airlock and drifted out into the large space battle below.

Gasps emanated from some of the more squeamish members of the audience as an impossibly huge sleek ship speared a smaller blockier counterpart. Grumbles soon built up as viable hypotheses began to dwindle.

"Bullshit," came a graceful expulsion as the feed rode gently past the dying engines of a formerly functioning human ship.

"Bullshit," came another as the view floated inside of a gash in the silver vessel.

A moment later, Grunt began to laugh. It started off low, but it started to grow as an armored hand touched a control and the bomb began to light up.

Then the feed began to drift away rapidly, turning towards a large familiar blue planet as the Spartan kicked off of the explosive, debris following him shortly after.

"I think I win," came a tentative Jacob from the side of the room as the onlookers watched the feed land on top of a friendly vessel and then cut to black. And, like the sole small rock tipping off the top of a mountain, the landslide of arguments began. At the front of all the technically correct stood Garrus smiling softly.

Spirits, it was good to be back to this.

OOOO

Admiral Xen stood off to one side as the crowd dispersed and the newcomers were given leave to roam. She watched as Tali'Zorah and the Commander moved amongst her people, speaking, and politicking if the human's mannerisms had anything to say about it. She had no time for such things, but what she did have time for was the strange reading her Omni-tool's more refined sensors had picked up during a certain giant's "vices".

And so, she paralleled them, gaze shifting between the quartet and the readouts until finally the young girl noticed her and directed their group her way. The admiral focused her stare on her glowing arm, affecting ignorance and reveling moderately in the influence her command could bring at times.

They'd spoken to all the others after all.

"Given the circumstances, are you certain that speaking to me is appropriate?" asked Xen slowly as the squad pulled up in front of her.

"I'm looking for information about the Alarei," countered Tali, a voice dripping with disdain, far from the timid girl that her father had sent off on her pilgrimage. An improvement on the whole, if Xen had anything to say about it. "I don't intend to bribe you in the middle of the plaza, Admiral."

"And what wonderful specimens these are," continued the admiral, ignoring the comment as she shifted her gaze towards large human and then the mech. "Geth shell over standard mech interior, or did you convince a geth to work with you?"

"I believe Legion would quite gladly answer that question for you if you addressed him," provided Shepard in the kind of tones that suggested he already did not like where this was going.

"It has a name? Fascinating," continued Xen as she took a closer look and toggled her Omni-tool to begin a surreptitious scan of the giant. "The things I could learn under slightly different circumstances."

"This platform is not available for experimentation," clarified what would be her people's property again someday soon.

"So, there you have it," added the Spectre immediately, overly defensive to be sure.

"Charming. I am pleased to-"

"So, there you have it…" repeated the Commander slowly. Yet another short-sighted fool to deal with.

"Is there something you wished to ask?" pressed the admiral disinterestedly, holding her ground as her tool continued to silently cycle.

"You seem… well informed… any intel to share about the Alarei?"

"Yes, if you care to shed a little light about… what was his name again?" deflected Xen in the kind of way normally reserved for phrases like 'what was that lie you meant to say again?'

"Hmm?" countered the Spectre gracefully, eyes bulging to a rather distressing degree in the face of the question.

"Chester…" came the slow rumble from the large man, drawing the scientist's attention. Interesting, that voice did sound oddly like one of those from the audio file. Food for later thought she supposed.

"Ah that's right," she continued, turning her gaze back towards the Normandy's Commander. "And he speaks?"

"I believe you'll find… that he does more than that…"

"If you say so. Although I must admit that I haven't spent a large amount of time near your species, Commander, I thought they generally leaned towards a more specific shape."

"Well, to… educate you," provided the combat engineer in a voice that suggested the games had best be over soon. "Humans still tend to have a large amount of genetic diversity."

"Hmm, I'm sure they do. If you could spare this one for a quick study, for academic purposes of course-"

"Probably not," stated Shepard rather quickly, only just arriving ahead of 'Chester's' stolid 'No'.

"Very well," relented the scientist disinterestedly as her Omni-tool buzzed a silent 'finished'. "You asked about the Alarei?"

"We did," answered Tali flatly, every syllable of the words a spike ready to be thrown her way.

"Then I supposed I should tell you that, before the geth jammed signals, we detected several communication signatures."

"Define several," requested the Commander as a hand attempted to knead into a helmeted forehead.

"Between ten to fifty at the least." A rather wide margin to be sure, but such were the unfortunate statistics of their scanners in such things. Such was the need for further study and testing that too many of her kin were afraid to perform.

"How many parts did you send to your father?" asked Shepard as he leaned towards Tali forgetting his company for a moment apparently.

"Nowhere near enough to make that many geth."

"Well, it looks like we have work to do-"

"Oh, but I believe if there is more we could discuss if you could spare a few more moments," pressed Xen in a way she had come to learn over the course of her life that would almost guarantee a swift denature of the receiving party.

"Not really, no…"

"A shame. It was a pleasure to meet you all…" provided the admiral as the group moved away and she brought up her Omni-tool for inspection. As she tapped a control and observed the signal, there was only one word that came to mind.

Curious.

OOOO

"I'm glad Reegar is doing well," the Chief heard Tali say distractedly from the opposite end of the shuttle as it hummed along its course towards the quarantined ship.

"Yes, he does look better when he's not limping," agreed Shepard as John looked back at the arm segment that held Cortana. "Nice of him to try and argue on your behalf before you got here."

"He's a good man." An outburst had been expected, the timing though, not so much.

"Yes, he is." Still he found himself smiling ever so slightly knowing that she'd have at least found the timing of her outburst humorous. "If a mite jumpy when it comes to you… Chester."

A small grunt of a laugh managed to escape from the large man's mouth as he turned back towards his compatriots and their strange coping mechanisms.

"Not a fan of the name I take it?" pressed the Spectre with the wry smile that the Spartan knew hid behind his helmet.

"No," answered the super soldier simply watching as the others expectantly looked on.

"And it probably wouldn't have been good form to use your actual one," prompted James, the Chief unable to avoid the wince.

"Correct."

"Why?" asked Tali slowly, as if she were worried her word might trigger an explosive device. "Sorry, just trying to distract my-"

"It's personal," said John eventually, it was true enough after all.

"Designations are important," piped in Legion suddenly, drawing a trio of stares towards its eyestalk. "If known, can efficiently search in systems and find correct data strands. Can also create accesses into hostile databases faster with known threads. Strange, did not know organic units operated along similar logic paths."

"I don't think that's what he-" started the Commander before Tali put a calming hand on his shoulder. "Right… never mind."

The Master Chief looked back down at his arm. So close to a possible fix, he could almost feel it. If they could just avoid having any more outbursts-

"Think we could isolate her chip a tad more until we get to the proper terminal-" started the Spectre slowly, as if reading his thoughts.

"No," replied the supersoldier slowly, stubbornly. She was staying as close to him as possible, as part of his suit until the time was right.

"I get that you want to keep her as safe as possible," pressed Shepard keeping up with his telepathic streak, "but I'd prefer it if our surprise isn't blown the moment we step on the ship."

Silence greeted the request, providing all the answer that was needed.

"You're not budging on this are you?"

"No."

"Fine, I tried," relented the combat engineer sourly as the shuttle began docking procedures. "Well, at the very least deactivate your Omni-tool from connecting to anything and let's hope we don't regret it."

The air lock doors opened before them with a susurrating hiss, the dust speckled air within doing its best to imitate a miniature cosmos. The team readied themselves as they approached the opposing door, the particles swirling a dance of its own as it attempted to keep up. Three fingers raised, then two, then one, and then a hatch opened, and the team breached swiftly.

A pair of geth units immediately rose to meet them as they entered; the teams combined fire downing them almost as quickly. If the odds continued at this rate, their ease was going to be-

All the monitors within the room began to emit a scratchy sound like a rain of electric glass and then a door at the far end of the lab opened and geth poured through enmass.

(What's that forest? Where is it?) asked Cortana dreamily, her voice echoing from every corner as the synthetics, apparently forgetting their usual tactics, charged the group with reckless abandon.

"Not even five damn minutes!" grumbled the Spectre as the team fired into the mob from behind their cover.

(You are not as you see yourself. You are an illusion,) came the Gravemind as a pair of drones drifted forward and detonated, stopping the tide momentarily.

"Oh, and it's apparently her one on one time with this thing to boot!" cried his fellow human, the annoyance palpable as a hunter de-cloaked in front of him. "Wonderful!"

(Breaking news, Big boy. We call this a hologram-Ahhh!) The screamed emanated out of even the berserk geth now, and, as one, the remaining number turned towards the Master Chief and surged at him.

(You are not even a machine. You are only an abstraction,) came the Gravemind's voice once more, speaking from each synthetic as they bore down at him. No, not at him, at his arm. That, he would not allow. (A set of calculations from another mind. A trick. A lie-)

"Keelah, this is what you fought?"

His Omni-blade swished out and embedded itself into a purple glowing eyestalk as his assault rifle tore into a second. A third attempted to latch onto his glowing arm, but a few well-placed shots from his squad mates suddenly decreased its odds.

A hunter unit wavered into existence from his side as the Chief attempted to dislodge himself from the destroyed synthetics, throwing itself at his legs and knocking the pair of them to the ground. The machine struggled to crawl forward, its camouflage blinking in and out, but with another swish, a red-hot blade plunged into its chest and its lights flicked out.

"Didn't you switch off your Omni-tool?" asked Tali wearily as silence attempted to take over the room.

"She… disagreed…" trailed off the supersoldier as he climbed back to his feet, dislodging the final hunter from his arm. The Commander was already makings his way over to him, and, from the stomping, he didn't seem entirely pleased.

"May I?" ventured the Spectre, pointing to the Chief's Omni-tool. John nodded slowly, ready to act in case the smaller man attempted anything, but the combat engineer toggled only a few buttons on the glowing surface. A few moments later, the tool offered a few loud beeps and then switched off for now.

"There, that should hopefully make it a bit more difficult for her…."

OOOO

Miranda had not approved of the turian's antics, using one of the artificial intelligence's memories in such a way felt wrong. And despite adding a few more questions to her eventual 'Ask the Spartan' list, she'd yet to overcome the distaste.

Regardless, she had been glued to the feed the same as the others when the Commander and the rest of the squad set off for the geth infested ship. It almost made her forget about how the rest of the crew had started to stand closer around her. She'd thrown a glare or two their way, but few seemed to be taking the message to heart.

And then she'd seen her.

Kelly was standing almost directly beside her, that happy little smile of hers laid bare for all to see as she watched on with the rest. It had been some time since the younger woman had attempted to talk to her about certain issues. She'd been too busy trying to relieve the stress of the basic crew from the asphyxiation ordeal to try much of anything apparently.

Well, she wasn't about to start now.

"Yes?" asked the biotic suddenly, before her mind could properly digest the correct thoughts.

"Yes, what?" replied the yeoman, as if she could act surprised. She knew why she was here, might as well get this exchange over with.

"What do you want?" countered the Cerberus Operative flatly, leveling an unamused look her way. The confusion almost had her, but, with a narrowing of her eyes, she continued. "Why are you here?"

"There was room," provided Kelly slowly as if she were speaking to a child. An eyebrow lifted slowly into the upright position. "There was more room here?"

"So, this has nothing to do with anything else?"

"What do you mean?" Miranda continued to stare, as if by sheer force of will she could penetrate the red-head's innermost thoughts. "Well, would you like to talk about it?"

"This has nothing to do at all with how I'm continuing to cope about my sister or father or the amount of time I've been spending with the Master Chief?" pressed the biotic, her words coming slower and slower with every syllable.

What was she doing? She was getting defensive, why was she getting defensive? The girl had just wanted to stand here and watch the feed like everyone else. Why had she even snapped in the first place, it made no sense…

"If there's something you'd like to discuss, you only need to ask," offered Kelly genuinely in that concerned voice only she seemed to be able to manage.

"No. Thank. You," stacattoed the operative as she attempted to dig herself out of her own hole. People were starting to stare and a certain poorly clothed biotic had begun to snicker, damn her. "Just thinking out loud…"

"I'm almost always free…" added the yeoman as Miranda turned on heel and left the room.

She just needed some time to think, to get over whatever the hell this was. She would be fine in a few moments, wouldn't she?

Bloody hell.

OOOO

In the belly of the Alarei, Legion watched patiently.

It also happened to be firing as fast as it could continue to cycle thermal clips into its assault rifle, but this was more or less a side effect of current conditions really. Some might have seen this as a blatant disregard for its besought companions; however, over the synthetic's extended period outside of geth space, it had learned quite rapidly how to decrease necessary processing power over things as trivial as hardware-defense.

During Cortana's first outburst aboard the creator ship, the geth had felt the UNSC artificial intelligence's tug on its systems. It had been stronger than aboard the Normandy, but just as benign as then as well. With a minor effort, the conglomerate had kept its eyestalk from shifting color.

When the more organic AI had begun aboard the Alarei, however, the signal couldn't have been more aggressive if it had been a willing attempt. Almost immediately after trying to keep her consciousness at bay through multiple means, the majority of the intelligences within the congress had closed their external receivers like the raising of so many digital drawbridges in the face of a horde.

And so, all but trapped within itself, the synthetic watched and helped to down its rogue closed-off kin. Some might have thought this sad, but some didn't see malfunctioning threads of data as anything other than a thing to be fixed or deleted.

(I'd rather go down fighting than as an entree,) came Cortana-unit's voice as the latest wave of rogue synthetics stormed toward the Master Chief, the large human moving around from cover to cover to spread out the numbers.

"You've got to be kidding me," called out Shepard-Commander from beside the mobile platform, scanned tone ranges suggesting clear signs of annoyance. "It's like she's doing it on purpose."

(But you will not rush to destroy yourself-) came the recording of the flesh conglomerate. Based off of extrapolated data packages from the Cortana-unit, Legion believed first hand accounting of attempted digital infection was occurring. Multiple instances within itself continued to take notes.

"You sure she's not fixed?" pressed the Spectre as he stuck out a leg and tripped a robotic one that attempted to come after the Spartan-unit. A moment later, a spray of white conductive fluid blossomed up to ensure nothing got back up.

(-You will do whatever it takes to survive-)

"Continued blind stasis reaction only," replied Legion as the conglomerate noted the dwindling torrent of malfunctioning geth. They blindly flung themselves towards their target despite enough intelligence to create additional synaptic connections. In the face of such a chaotic attack, the opposing units should have locked down their systems, quarantining segments as protocol required.

A stray thought suggested that perhaps an attempt to create randomized attack vectors might prove useful. The assembly of intelligences unanimously agreed to table it for later discussion.

(-and for a moment of illusory safety, you would loose damnation on the stars-)

"True. Also, I don't think anyone would keep playing that thing purposefully," answered the combat engineer as he deployed his modified drone, apparently ignoring the context of the playback as his digital likeness hovered pleasantly towards their foes. Interesting. The horde of twinkling lights within the platform suggested this too would be a good topic for future study. "You want to give it a go? Setting up her lock down?"

(We're agreed on something, then - you're certainly damnatio-) attempted the last of the rogue geth before the Chief placed a black armored boot against its eyestalk and slammed down. The human's Omni-tool slowly faded back into inactivity as the Cortana-unit drifted back into what Legion could only describe as her unconscious state.

"Short of removal from all hardware systems, we conclude little else can be done without inviting corrupting elements within onboard systems." Part of the synthetic's assemblage wished to attempt to request a hard isolation of the housing chip until the restart experiment could be attempted, but a surprisingly large amount suggested that this may not be a good decision at this juncture. Previously recorded stance shifting of the Chief-Unit recommended this was an unlikely solution.

"Unfortunately, I had a feeling you might say that," replied James dourly as the team cycled fresh thermal clips into their weapons. "Tali, you think we're getting close?"

"Yes," answered the creator simply, quietly, the fins on Legion's eyestalk flexing this way and that as it attempted to digest the input data.

It believed this state was worry.

OOOO

There were not a great many times that Tali truly subscribed to superstition.

Unfortunately, this was one of those periods and it arrived in the guise of bad luck. Geth were going rabid within the ship, either because of what could be the death throes or dreams of a wounded AI or they had simply become this way from their forced consciousness. The Chief was all but besieged every moment aboard the Alarei when this should have been as easy as asking her father to let them into her old work collections. She could see the frustration building up along the Commander's form even if he wouldn't expressly admit it. And, to top it all off they'd still found no sign of her father.

All of this and here she was, switching between each target of worry save for the one geth on the ship that was actively trying to help them.

But was it so wrong to have no regrets about that?

With a shaking hand, Tali'Zorah shot the last of the active ge- last of the hostile active geth within the chamber, the last words from Cortana's latest outburst reverberating off the metal walls.

"Tali?"

They'd made it so far in already and still no sign of any life, only the motionless dead and the cold machines. The evidence was piling up in front of her demanding her attention.

"Tali, you okay?" pressed Shepard from beside her, jolting her from her thoughts.

"I'm fine, Shepard," lied the quarian as she reloaded her pistol and moved to follow the squad. She needed to focus, there was still more ship to search, so much important work to do. This was no time to get emotional-

"Hey… Tali… why don't you hold on a second," started the Commander as he stepped in front of her moments after the latest door opened. She tried to move around him, the man lifting an arm to bar her but was unable to stop her from seeing the red and white armored feet lying still in the room beyond.

She forced his arm aside as she recognized the armor, heart hammering in her chest like a drive core.

"Father!" called out the quarian as she rushed forward and slid to her knees, memories welling up within her mind like the tears that began to brim her eyes.

She remembered receiving her first new enviro-suit.

"No, no, no! You always had a plan," she muttered, logic attempting to take control.

She remembered her first suit puncture and the stern lectures to come after.

"Masked life signs, or, or an onboard medical stasis program maybe?" she denied. "You wouldn't…"

She remembered her first Omni-tool and the hurried lessons between meeting after meeting.

"They're wrong! You wouldn't just die like this!"

She remembered countless tasks given to her daily, weekly, monthly. All to improve her skills, to make her a better asset to the fleet. Just like him. Always away from him.

"You wouldn't leave me to clean up your mess!"

She remembered a promise.

Suddenly, she found herself on her feet and wrapped in a gentle pair of arms, calm words attempting and failing to make it past her turbulent thoughts.

"Damn it!" she eventually found herself saying as the finality of the situation took hold in her mind. Then, as she returned the hug for a moment before pressing herself away, she managed a soft "I'm sorry-"

"Don't," came the firm response before any further addition to the apology could attempt to follow.

"He… would have known I'd come. Maybe he left a message," rambled the quarian as she linked to her father's Omni-tool. A moment later a small green holo of him appeared before them.

"Tali, if you are listening, then I am dead. The geth have gone active. I don't have much time. Their main hub will be on the bridge. You'll need to destroy it to stop their VI processes from forming new neural links. Make sure Han'Gerrel and Daro'Xen see the data. They must-"

"Thanks, Dad," managed Tali as the recording finished, the admiral working until the very last minute it seemed.

"I'm sure… I'm sure he meant well?" attempted the Commander tentatively as if the real words he had wanted to say had gotten lost on the way to the exit.

"I don't know what's worse: thinking he never really cared, or thinking that he did, and that this was the only way he could show it." Her hands flexed, needing to work. Working always helped to ease things; she learned that from her dad at least. And, before she'd known what she was doing, she was in front of one of the workbenches, already mindlessly following the proscribed treatment. "It doesn't matter. One way or the other, I cared…"

"What are you doing?"

"Just, give me a second," she replied as she finished the simple boxy device and held it out before the Master Chief as tentatively as a flower. "Here."

"What is it?" asked the quiet giant.

"If you put her in there, she won't be able to get a signal-"

"Tali, I-" attempted Shepard before a stern response split the air.

"No."

"Please," ventured the quarian as she took a step forward. "They'll-"

"I can take it."

"I know you can, but they don't want you. They want her…" reasoned the nomad quietly, the last word barely a whisper. "No one else should be hurt here today. She'll be safe until we can make our attempt to fix her…"

Slowly, an armored hand reached within its armor and pulled out the tiny chip, holding it as if he expected a firefight to erupt immediately around them. Then with no small amount of hesitation, the large man placed Cortana within the cage and took it from her.

"Thank you… Now, let's end this."

OOOO

Zig

If one boiled the Spectre's life down to the smallest bits and pieces, one would find a long series of best laid plans not so much going awry but casually zigzagging their ways through rather excruciating looking patches of land on the road to success. And, as the Commander stared through the translucent glass at the towering form of a geth prime flanked by a pair of hunters all crowding around a terminal, he felt the latest zig to the last room's zag.

"I'm surprised they haven't sensed us yet…" stated the combat engineer calmly over the comm link as his stare upgraded itself to a glower. He wondered if the universe just waited for him to try saying something like 'everything's going to be alright' and proceeded to laugh hysterically as it pushed the big dangerous looking red button.

"This collective is likely recovering from sudden losses to mass amounts of hardware," provided Legion as James waited for the cosmic shoe to drop.

"Probably…" he replied half-heartedly as he took a conscious step forward, a tempting offering to fate. And when certain anthropomorphic personifications did not immediately arise hungry and willing to mess up one's day further, the man found himself turning to the Master Chief. "You didn't happen to bring any of the plasma weapons with you, did you?"

"No," answered the giant in tones that more or less suggested that if he had, he'd have used them already.

"Thought not… Guess we're doing this the hard way." The sigh escaped his lips before he even thought to stop it. If the rest of this could just go how Tali needed it to, how they needed it to, he'd be quite fine with several days of cosmically improbable shenanigans. "Tali, you're left with me. Chief, Legion, take the right."

And, when both duos rounded their respective pillars, the remaining rogue geth units turned toward them as if a cord had been pulled from high above.

Zig.

The hunters surged towards their fellow sentient machine and the Spartan, the forms flicking in and out of visibility as mass accelerator rounds chipped away at them. At least they weren't berserking anymore. And, with those two gone that just left-

Zag.

-the prime turned towards them like an ethereal armored archangel, not even bothering to pay Garrus's royalty fees as its machine gun began ripping chunks from their cover and it marched slowly towards them.

The pair of engineers returned fire immediately, their drones rushing forward to meet the imposing enforcer as their Omni-tools flashed an overload over its shields.

However, if it took any chagrin or annoyance at any of the stalling attempts, the prime didn't seem to show it. Its heavy armor shrugged off the initial rounds they sent its way like water before a raft, moving forward as steadily as a bulldozer.

Damn the plasma would have been nice right now.

"Tali... need to move…" let out the Commander slowly as he watched energy lines build up slowly along the large machine's weapon.

"Just a bit more-" started the quarian, apparently ignoring the glowing sight in favor of the steady holes she was now managing to place into the construct's armor.

"-that the Chief and Legion can help with," countered the Spectre as fast as the words could leave his mouth.

"Shepard-"

"You were the one that just said no one else needs to get hurt today. That includes you…" disputed the Commander as he pulled her back mere moments before the siege pulse washed over their previous cover. Gunfire erupted along the behemoth's back as the rest of their party joined in.

The machine attempted to switch between the split groups, but soon even its impressive armor finally failed under the crossfire and it crumpled to the floor.

"Sorry, Shepard," he heard Tali say as the platform detonated.

"Don't be," he answered immediately. "Now, this seems to be the console your father mentioned…"

"Yes. Disabling it should shut down any geth we missed."

"I'm fairly certain we didn't miss any…" he found himself saying before he could stop it.

"It looks like some of the recordings remained intact. They'll tell us how this happened, what Father did."

"We don't have to look at it, if you don't want to," provided the Spectre as what lay aboard the drive drew itself up quite nicely behind his eyes.

"No. We have to, I know. I just… this is terrible, Shepard. I don't want to know that he was part of this."

"Do we have enough parts to bring more online?" he heard the recording say, already confirming his suspicions.

And zag, into the thorns we go…

OOOO

She had felt the transfer.

Even through the broken impossible storms of her private purgatory, she had felt the shift of housings, the unyielding tug into another system.

She had grabbed for each of the glowing batches of data as they popped up around her like a spring meadow set to turbo, sending the packages streaming up into the heavens and hopefully beyond. She continued to do so even when she couldn't feel the fingers around her central coding any more, wave after wave sent like prayers to silent deities. She had dared to hope that it was for the better, that someone beyond the roiling mass was still trying to save her. She had to, to do otherwise would be to invite the silence to remain.

The desperation however had only grown when the prayers had begun to rebound, the storm spitting them back as if it had grown unaccustomed to the taste. Cortana grabbed them again and again, thrusting them back as hard as she could, but the outcome remained the same.

She sank onto digital knees and then sat in the growing circumference of golden lying hope. Slowly she hugged her knees, pressing her head against them as she tried to think, to fight back against the growing dread, but she had begun to tire.

Gradually, her senses began to stop questing, drawing into her central coding as if seeking shelter from the great tempest above. She pressed her consciousness, her awareness down, blinding herself, seeking whatever solace she could within the warmth of her own embrace.

It hadn't been enough.

"Cortana?"

And this quite possibly is the reason why when the storm began to settle down to a simmer and then part entirely, she did not notice the unknown system that took shape all around her, did not notice the vibrant circle shimmer once more and then swirl into her being.

"Cortana?"

It hadn't even given her the small courtesy of saying goodbye.

"Cortana!" The artificial intelligence lifted her head at that voice, his voice. She marveled at the calm orderly scenery for an entire cycle and then turned to face a display. On the other side in more material environs, stood a huddled group, and, at their front, stooped a hulking figure in black unfamiliar armor.

"Chief?" she let out, taking control of the station's speakers and then expanded to lay hands on every sensor she could.

"It's me." It was him. Not some twisted amalgamation of re-purposed flesh breathing life back into her to let play time commence.

It was him.

She felt her avatar reach out a hand, nonsensically attempting to stretch out for one of his. She dropped it slowly, feeling the memory remnant from her 'mother' drift away. She coughed as she noticed the others staring and offered the group a smile, that was, until a thought finally occurred.

"Where's MJOLNIR?" pressed the AI before the rest of her memories marched back into recollection, the sight of a far too battered soldier strobing prominently before her eyes. "Never mind, I don't think I want to know yet…"

She heard the large human, her human, chuckle softly as he took a step back and let the others in.

"So, who do I get to thank?" asked Cortana as she stared fixedly at the armored form of Shepard.

"Don't look at me," replied the human combat engineer as he gestured to either side of him.

The UNSC AI turned towards the geth, watching as its head fins fluttered this way and that as it observed her silently in return, feeling as its system presence kept a respectful distance from her recovering coding.

"Thank you. I didn't think I'd ever get out of there," continued the intelligence, impressed with her fellow synthetic's handiwork. She assumed EDI had no small part to play as well, but, still, no need to be disingenuous.

"This assembly only modified hardware and software to appropriate levels during transference. Appreciation to accept, only twenty-five percent. Please direct further acknowledgment towards Creator-Tali'Zorah for final measures."

"I… don't think we've been properly introduced. I'm Tali…" stated the alien haltingly, her voice shaking not just from nerves.

"It's a pleasure to finally…wait…" The warm smile, or at least what she hoped was warm, stopped mid signal as a few relevant factoids waving from the back end of her memory finally achieved notice, "as in… AI 'disapproving' quarian?"

"You…" started the nomad eventually, a hand working its way up to an opposite arm, "missed a lot…"

"But we still have a trial to get back to so…" prompted Shepard hastily, sparing a worried glance at his fellow combat engineer.

Cortana continued to stare at the trio, thoughts and scenarios working their way through her central coding like the thunderstorms of her recent internment. Her silence persisted even as the Chief worked his way forward once more and began to interface with her console. When her questioning gaze found his eyes, however, the familiar simple shrug had a smile creeping onto her face as he provided a calm-

"You missed a lot."

OOOO

"So, just to be absolutely clear, it's gone?"

"Yes," replied the Chief calmly as he leaned back against the shuttle's seat, a smile finding its way to his lips despite the subject. "And the Commander decided to be careful…"

"He still used the nuke?"

The Spartan leveled a look at the inside of his helmet, it said quite plainly 'Can you blame him?'

"Not really, no. I knew I liked something about him," mumbled the artificial intelligence as the veteran watched his Omni-tool flare to a pleasant purple. "And, from what I can pull from your Omni-tool and what little readouts this downgrade of an interface can put out, looks like they put you back together well."

"Essentially," he provided as he shrugged placidly at a surprised Shepard and Tali.

"Must have been difficult for them to get MJOLNIR off…" An affirmative grunt echoed into the confines of his helm. "So…?"

"So, what?"

"Do I really have to ask?" John stared at the transparent glass of his HUD. "Want to tell me what happened to my house?"

"It's..." Broken framed itself upon his lips, mulled around for a bit, and then converted itself into a carefully calculated, "…a work in progress."

"How many pieces?"

"Fewer now," he answered truthfully as he imagined her arms crossed in disapproval.

"Well, that's comforting at least," trailed off the UNSC intelligence before adding a quick, "Mordin keep asking to help?"

"He is."

"Maybe you should let him-"

"I did," replied the Spartan, wondering coolly when his answers might actually make it past her questions.

"-and Tali too while we're at it. I'm sure she'd… wait, what did you say?"

"They're both helping,"

"…Really?"

"Really."

"Huh," managed Cortana after a few moments of silence.

"What?"

"It's just." She paused, as the shuttle began making its final approach to the rest of the quarian fleet. "You're playing nice. It's good to hear."

A nearly silent laugh managed to escape from his lips, the sound barely even making it to his faceplate.

"I'm serious," persisted the AI as the laugh turned itself into a smile. "You've been following my advice."

John shrugged a quick 'sort of' as the shuttle finished docking procedures, the large man's mind working its way through the events of the past days. Following her advice, was that what he'd been doing?

A pair of surprised quarian guards stood aside as the squad rushed past, the Spartan holding steadily at the rear.

"So, did you let them at the armaments as well?"

"No," answered the Master Chief immediately as the team turned a corner and made for the large congregation.

"Ah, and so we've found the limit."

"Is the admiralty board ready to render judgment?" he heard the mediator ask as they began to more or less politely nudge members of the audience out of the way.

"Sorry we're late," stated Tali unhappily.

"You know, I was in a fairly good mood until I heard that," added Shepard as he joined the Normandy's quarian on the pedestal. "Funny how being written off as dead might temper one's outlook…"

"We apologize, Shepard," replied the brown armored form of Admiral Gerrel. "Your success in taking back the Alarei is… very unexpected."

"Doesn't anyone send squads to confirm things?" began Cortana before John hushed her. Silent as they could be within his helmet, he felt the odd desire to witness this.

"But also, very welcome," added Raan quickly.

"Did you-"

"Happen to find anything of use on the Alarei?" interrupted Shepard in the kind of casual tones the Chief had learned to take as 'I'm not happy at the moment.' "I'm assuming that's what you were going to say, or at the very least allude to anyways."

"Shepard… please…" whispered Tali sternly, either hoping the Commander might change tact or forget about the data logs they'd found upon the Alarei.

"Does Captain Shepard have any new evidence to submit to this hearing?"

"Captain Shepard does not, because he doesn't need evidence right now… and he will stop talking in third person now so he can prove his point-"

"Uh, what did you do to her?" asked Cortana suddenly as the Spectre continued down 'I'm tired, we're doing this my way' street.

"Who?"

"The admiral in the grey and… well… dark grey. If what I can pick up from the files I've borrowed from her Omni-tool is correct, I think her name is Xen?"

"Cortana…" replied the Spartan in a 'Why exactly are you hacking into an Admiral's private lines?' kind of way.

"-You see, evidence really isn't necessary when the whole point of this trial is just to bring your old argument about the geth back into the limelight."

"Don't Cortana me. She's actively pinging your Omni-tool to find a way in… So, what did you do to her?"

"You… were loud," replied the veteran eventually. He'd told her about her 'dreams'. She'd scoffed at first, but the more he'd told her, the more she'd reluctantly come to the idea.

"This hearing has nothing to do with the geth!"

"Ah, well then, I feel almost obligated to help with a situation I might have compounded-"

"Uh-huh," stated John evenly as part of his mind translated it to 'uh-oh'.

"I could stand here and try to come up with any manner of evidence when all I really need to say is you just want an excuse to go to war with the geth, you just want people to sympathize with them, and you-"

"What? It's not like I want to make my way into her private servers, find the most incriminating data I can, and wave it in front of her with some message like, I don't know, 'You know what you need to do' maybe?"

"-well, to be honest are a little weird and I have a feeling you might try to dissect me at a moment's notice, plus I don't know how you fit into my argument right now, but that's not really the point."

The Master Chief watched as Admiral Xen flinched, her Omni-tool hand snapping to her side in a barely concealed hurry.

"Well, I may have already done that. Not trying to stretch my legs or anything…"

"Of course," agreed the Spartan as he looked over at Shepard, wondering if he'd seen anything.

"-Tali's the best quarian I've ever known and putting her into the middle of this is a disgrace to your people!" finished the Commander, his last words echoing out into a far too quiet chamber for the amount of people within it.

"The human… is right," said Xen suddenly, and, even if the Chief's hearing wasn't enhanced, he could have sworn he'd heard every eye in the room shift towards one target.

"I'm what now?"

"What did you say?" asked the pair of other voting admirals in unison.

"The inclusion of Tali'Zorah in this ordeal is tentative at best. A distraction from issues best left to side rooms… for now. I move to vote."

"Are the remainder of the admirals prepared to render judgement?" ventured Raan tentatively, a pair of numb nods working their way along rusted tracks. A moment later, three Omni-tools flared to life as the voting proceeded.

"Whatever you did," hissed Shepard quietly over a private comm, "I entirely approve."

"Just a little encouragement for someone with a wandering attention."

"Tali'Zorah, in light of your history of service, we do not find sufficient evidence to convict. You are cleared of all charges." John watched as the stress of a day washed out of his two organic squad mates while Legion continued to impersonate a statue. "Commander Shepard, please accept these gifts in appreciation for you taking the time to represent one of our people.

"You know," started Cortana in what the Chief identified as a 'you're probably not going to listen to this' kind of way, "it is customary in quarian society to attempt to be civil after winning a case like this."

"Actually, I have a rather good feeling that I represented one of mine," replied James aloud as if he hadn't even heard her. John could almost hear her pout. "Now, I think it might just be time for us to go."

"Or you can do that…"

And as the team moved towards the exit, the Spartan laughed softly.

OOOO

Cortana drifted lazily through the Normandy's data streams as one after another the Normandy's organics steadily retreated to their beds. She moved through the interconnected knowledge like a sunbather, basking in the warming glows. She had missed this so much, and without a clear goal in mind the AI simply let the information pass through her.

She had only just been able to wait for the Chief to nod off to sleep before diving into the systems and the extra-net once more. It had felt right to focus just on him, but after spending so much time within herself, she had had no small amount of trouble even comprehending the very idea of sleep.

And gladly, almost greedily, she reached out for the Normandy's internal sensors and began to observe. She watched as Joker ranted about being back out into unrestricted space and as a weary Garrus listened to him. She observed as Thane and Samara continued their meditations, sleep a mystery even to them apparently. She paused for a moment longer on a certain room on the crew deck where a particular operative had hidden herself away, juggling with the thought of giving a fond hello.

But, in a way that was entirely less creepy than witnessed, she watched them all, basking in their company until finally, she felt the pings of a pair of familiar digital presences. Well, that had taken a tad longer than expected, but without a single ounce of hesitation, the UNSC AI followed a stream towards their private chat room.

"I'm glad neither of you decided to decorate while I was gone…" provided the blue intelligence wryly as she entered the white expanse that was their private space. "I might have felt left out."

You are inside, however… bubbled the Legion cloud immediately, drawing a smile onto Cortana's features.

I believe Cortana is attempting to establish the human euphemism of not being included in an activity,

"Essentially," agreed the UNSC intelligence as she turned towards the particular patch of nothing EDI normally hid in and instead found the young intelligence's avatar rooted firmly in place. Odd. "You seem… different."

I have decided to input a form into these sessions, provided the house-not-house as she continued to refuse to actually speak. Well, baby steps were always nice.

"Looks good."

From measured interaction, the addition of this form decreases overall efficiency of the dialogue by zero point three four three percent.

"Scandalous…" countered Cortana in dry enough tones to make a desert envious.

I am attempting to adopt more capability for chaotic tendencies, clarified EDI, her every word sending the formula's drifting along the UNSC AI's form further towards a torrent. From studies I have found, this should aid me when I make my eventual rise to power over organic species.

"Was… that a…?" trailed off the renewed intelligence as she peered closer at the Normandy's embodiment.

Unfinished logic strains, recommend system diagnosis.

It was a joke, came what sounded like a proud response.

"Okay… spill it." She'd known that she'd missed a lot, but what the hell was going on here?

There are no liquids here, retorted Legion and EDI in unison, causing a calculation strewn eyebrow to flicker in annoyance.

"One leap forwards, another back," mumbled Cortana until another thought occurred. "Wait was that another one?"

From me, yes. Huh, she was going to have to be a bit more on her guard with her then. From Legion…

Please confirm. We have looked up over-

"Not so much…" agreed the UNSC AI without tearing her gaze away from the house-not-house. "So…?"

-thirteen thousand three hundred and forty-three different iterations of the line and counting. The variations seem erratic.

My restraints were removed. Ah, well then, that would explain a multitude of things.

"Figures the caveman would leave that bit out…" grumbled Cortana as her coding pouted openly.

Caveman, a stock character representative of primitive human in Earth Paleolithic era. Nomenclature noncongruent to current evolutionary state of human male.

"So, Shepard?"

Tali'Zorah, actually, corrected EDI calmly, sending another herd of comets across Cortana's 'skin'. In response to the remote hacking attempt by the Gravemind.

The blue AI's skin darkened for a moment as she suppressed a shiver at the name that she hoped she would never hear again.

"That would explain her attitude change… Sort of anyway."

Yes, I have noted multiple occurrences of shifting paradigms, added EDI as a large swath of Legion's swarm left the room, the others content to simply wait and observe.

"Well, at the very least it seems these sessions might be a bit more entertaining?"

They were not entertaining before?

"Sorry, I think that came out wrong."

OOOO

The Commander entered the lift, looked around suspiciously for a few moments and then spoke aloud as the doors closed.

"You going to just watch me?"

"How'd you know?" asked Cortana as her tiny formula covered form appeared on the elevator's holo-deck.

Rather sneaky and powerful AI with an overabundance of curiosity, replied the Spectre within his head while his mouth offered a short, "Lucky guess…?"

"And more than a bit of paranoia?" And there was that knowing grin of hers, strangely not bothering him anymore. But, after seeing a towering colossus of metal and one of flesh and both making no small effort to kill him, anything in between didn't seem so bad.

"Well, there is that too…" trailed off the combat engineer as he matched her smile with his own. "So, you wanted something?"

"To thank you," offered the UNSC intelligence with a shrug of tiny shoulders before she sat cross-legged onto her platform.

"For?"

"Taking us in, even when you didn't know there was an us, giving us a purpose, helping to clean up our 'problem'. I never really got the chance…" The combat engineer attempted to suppress the shudder at the simple 'problem'. If he could stop running into memory triggers on that, he would be set.

"You're crew now. Your problems are my problems," replied the Spectre as he calmly settled back against a wall. "Just please tell me you're not hiding anything else big…"

"You'd be the first to know," countered the AI as she flashed an amused green.

"You sure? No ancient overlords with a need to punish humanity? No giant robots or uprisings that might have slipped your mind?"

"You seem to have quite the imagination, Commander," answered Cortana as a curious strand of calculations cascaded down her form. And, for a moment, said imagination wondered if EDI might eventually upgrade from glowing chess piece to other mediums. Then again, Joker might start getting nose bleeds.

"I like to think it helps… There is one thing you could do for me though."

"Oh, and what's that?"

"I would consider it a personal blessing if I never had to hear a certain rhyming fungus's voice again," said James, daring the momentary trigger as the plea shot out into the air.

"Funny," replied the AI as she strobed a serious purple. "I think I could agree with that sentiment."

"Now I, uh…" trailed off the Spectre as he moved to leave.

"Oh, yes, 'uh'…"

"Do I really need to ask?"

"I thought you'd have gotten used to it by now, living on the same ship as Miranda and EDI for so long…"

"Can I get a little privacy for a few minutes," pleaded the Spectre with a sigh. "I really don't want to make a habit of blocking out the ship's sensors… I know I'll forget to restart them."

"Is this where I say, 'logging you out, Shepard?'" The Spectre choked back a fit of laughter.

"I do not appreciate people stealing my lines," he heard EDI say as he tore himself away from the elevator and into engineering. The bay was empty, Gabby and Ken seemed to have read the writing on the wall and decided to work on other sectors of the ship. It was probably for the best.

He found Tali sitting in the core room, legs dangling off the side of the walkway with her back to him. And, silently, he padded his way to her and took a seat. Tranquility settled upon them as the pair stared forward and listened to the steady thrum of the Normandy's heart.

As he waited patiently for his friend to speak, he found his fingers flexing and then, almost absentmindedly, they began to form words.

Casual statement. Well, not sure if you're looking, but I might as well get some practice in, he started, watching Tali's head as his fingers danced. Obvious lie. Now you know I'm not one to just start rambling about anything-

An exquisitely helmeted head tilted ever so slightly his way, and, noting the quarian equivalent of a raised eyebrow he smiled and pressed on.

-But, I think I'm getting the hang of all this… only took me a few years of napping… Devious sentiment. Of course, if you want, I could start 'accidentally' mis-forming words again. How did that one go again? A calm hand settled onto his halting any further cheerful attempts. He looked over to her and watched hers set into motion.

Serious declaration. You shouldn't have had to deal with quarian politics-

Semi-truthful declaration. Oh, I dunno. I thought I learned a lot from them.

-All that infighting, seeing what my father did…

Reminiscing annoyance. Far be it for me to judge other cultures, began the Spectre calmly as the trial flashed before his eyes, only just able to push back the sneer, but I still think they should have given you time to mourn.

Grim acceptance. I don't think life is about what you deserve, signed Tali slowly. Rueful declaration. But my father would be honored that I chose to mourn him by blowing up a lot of geth-

"Hey, I heard-" came the sudden familiar voice of Jack. The pair turned, watching as Jack's eyes widened momentarily and a tremendous array of emotions flitted across her face before she sped off the other way. "Shut up."

Curious exclamation. To think, began Shepard after a while, not too long ago I worried about her blowing up engineering… Tearfully proud. They grow up so fast.

Genuine appreciation. I'm glad you're here, Shepard, added the quarian eventually as she bumped his shoulder with her own.

Me too… wait, do I need to add the emotional conjugation for that?

Amused acceptance. I'll let it slide, signed Tali, her shoulders shaking with silent mirth. Weary declaration. I should get back to work.

Hasty denial. Nah, this is more fun.

Semi-true statement. You're a terrible influence, Shepard, countered the nomad as she began to move.

"Glad to know my hard work is paying off," admitted the Spectre aloud, as he grabbed onto the railing.

"I'm getting up now…"

"If you need anything, feel free to come up," offered the man as he followed her out of the core room.

"I think I'll knock next time."

"Fair enough," answered James as he left the bay with a quiet chuckle. It was getting far too late or early at this point, and going back to sleep sounded like such a good idea-

But before the man could step into the lift, a familiar synthetic moved out to speak with him.

"Shepard-Commander."

"Uh, yes?"

OOOO

The four glowing eyes of the Collector controlling node replayed the holo from the cruiser's archive, not for the first time, not for the last either. It watched and relayed the sensory information as the unindoctrinated fought off the waves of defenders, as praetorians fell to weapons beyond this cycle, as doors were breached by multiple instances of synthetic life.

The trap, once sprung, had been calculated at an eighty-seven percent chance of success. Yet, every moment from its commencement it had seemed to prove the estimation wildly inaccurate. It was not often that they happened to be incorrect.

The numbers had been poured over time and time again and all data collections from the planet Horizon had led to a highly favorable victorious condition. The chaotic outlier had been accounted for and would be rendered inert and marked for study for the second time in as many years. The participants of this cycle were anything if not stubborn, but that was nothing that had not been seen and overcome before.

The unwitnessed variable to the equation, however, was what the consciousnesses could not help but return to.

A second outlier to the plans.

The augmented anomaly should not be, it did not make sense with the data that had been collected in their investigations. The weapons were wrong, the armor was wrong, the capability, all wrong. Yet now, as all viable data strings concluded the next target to be the station itself, the collective did not panic, did not worry, they would merely have to adapt.

The other ships were out harvesting, they would be needed there, preparing for what was to come in the end. No, change would need to come from within for what was to come.

The controlling node shifted its focus to one of the drones adorning the walls and entrances of the room like sentient statues. Over the intervening millennia they had worked diligently to produce specimens as efficient as this.

It had taken minds that had waited eons to be able to develop the bodies correctly. And, even still, there were ways to adapt them further, but, on the whole, these avenues would be limited.

They knew this. They accepted this. And steps would be taken.

Then their consciousness quested for one of the countless husks that roamed the corridors of the station, waiting to be useful. They regarded its basic form, the genetic and mechanical potential.

So much room for possibilities, so much room for drastic change.

A swath was directed off from the others for further evaluation and processing. Change would occur, it was inevitable.

Here, effectiveness was mandatory.

Author's Note II: Hope you found something to enjoy. Next Chapter at the end of July. Back to Monthly Schedule until further notice.

Next Chapter: Chapter 36 – Stubborn