Tali was nervous. She was glad of the helmet behind which she could hide that nervousness, but the fact remained that if she wasn't careful her shakes would start to show.

It shouldn't be so nerve wracking. Shepard was a good friend. And she wore Shepard's ship-name, still.

But the fact was that she was on the Admiralty Board and the quarians had gone to war with the geth just when they needed not to be, and Shepard was probably under a lot of pressure which meant that her patience for this sort of stunt would be somewhat less than it would be otherwise.

It didn't matter that she, personally, hadn't agreed with this war. She hadn't stopped it. She'd gone along with it, which made it her problem.

"Captain Shepard," Raan began as the Admirals began filing into the war room. "It's a pleasure to see you again. Although I do wish it were under better circumstances."

Tali's mouth twitched at this pleasantry. The last time Shepard saw Raan, Raan had been serving up one of her crewmen by recusing herself rather than fighting against the injustice being done.

"Admirals," Shepard answered diplomatically. Her eyebrows did lift when they lit on Tali herself, and a smirk played at one corner of her mouth. She didn't give any other indication of recognition. Astute woman that she was, Shepard would keep business business, and they could be old friends in private.

Standing with Shepard was Garrus. Tali's heart and stomach fluttered at little. He looked better than the last time she saw him, though she wasn't sure she could articulate how. Alenko was back and, like Garrus, stood close to Shepard. If he was here, it meant he was getting things squared away with Shepard.

Good.

Tali liked Alenko. Not knowing much about whatever had happened between Shepard and Alenko—no one had wanted to talk about it, and she'd have died before she asked Shepard—her opinion of him hadn't dropped as low as, say, Garrus' had.

Her inner romantic hoped that everything broken had been fixed enough for them to get back together.

And, standing near Alenko was Liara, who looked disapproving.

Excepting Wrex, it seemed Shepard had the old crew together. Standing in Wrex's place was a solid brick of a human, shorter than Alenko but no less broad through the shoulder. His whole presentation as of solid neutrality, of waiting to see which way the winds blew.

"Welcome aboard the Normandy," Shepard allowed, her bright eyes taking in the five of them.

…was this going to be awkward…?

"Admirals, there's no nice way to say this—I was under the impression that the quarian Flotilla would be involved with the war on the Reapers. What's going on?"

Well, that was a nice way of saying 'you're fighting the wrong synthetics, what the hell?'

Standing off to one side was a distinctly alien creature, four-eyed and frowning with the most potent disapproval Tali had ever seen. Her blood actually went cold; she could imagine this fellow bustling the whole Admiralty Board out an airlock. That was how pissed off he looked.

"Seventeen days ago," Gerrel began proudly, "with precision strikes against four systems the quarians initiated a war to retake our homeworld."

Shepard's eyes narrowed.

"Which was a clear violation of our agreement with the Council to avoid provoking the geth," Koris snapped.

Tali glanced at Koris. It had been just plain weird to discover that after having agreed so strongly with Gerrel and despising Koris so vehemently during her trial she actually was more in Koris' corner than Gerrel's.

Xen sniffed. "A treaty violation is nothing compared to recovering our homeworld and advanced AI technology."

Shepard's mouth thinned. "I understand wanting to retake a homeworld," she began slowly. "Most people on this ship are in pursuit of that goal. But seventeen days ago? Don't you think it somewhat…unwise…to declare war in the middle of another war?"

She'd said as much herself. The Reapers didn't need to put themselves out over destroying the quarians: a few hull breaches was all it would take. And if they managed to retake Rannoch…well, it put them all in one place. All it would take was a decent bombardment from orbit.

"Indeed," Koris said shortly. "And this time we might have destroyed our people for good."

Gerrel's scowl was audible. "We'd driven the geth back to the home system," he announced, cuing his omnitool, which Shepard indicated he should synch to the pedestal in the center of the room. "Then, this signal began broadcasting."

"The Reapers," Shepard breathed, watching the lights flicker.

Tali watched Shepard, knowing what she was thinking. She had 'killed' the geth who thought the Reapers were right. To see the geth having turned to them anyway…

"Win?" Koris demanded, breaking Tali out of her thoughts. "You insisted on involving the civilian ships. We need to retreat now or we lose the Liveships!"

Shepard leaned on the pedestal. "Where's the signal originating?"

"Here," Gerrel answered, bringing up and enlarging the dreadnought.

"Okay. Normandy's a stealth ship and geth ships don't have windows. We send in a boarding party and take out the signal."

"Yes," Xen agreed after a split second's thought. "That should throw the geth into disarray."

"At which point you hit the relay and get your civilians out of system," Shepard said firmly, as if she didn't trust the quarian leadership to stick to the plan.

"Good," Koris jumped in. "Our civilian ships have seen too much fighting already…are you certain you can disable the signal?"

"Chances go up if I can borrow the quarians' geth expert," Shepard looked pointedly at Tali.

"No need to ask. I already volunteered," Tali answered, receiving grins from Garrus and Shepard.

"Hey. The gang's all here," Garrus noted brightly. She hoped it was brightly.

"Alright ground team, we're moving quickly," Shepard declared, which sent her ground team—sans Garrus—trooping out briskly. "Admirals, please stay here or on the mess deck."