They were some of the sweetest words Tali had ever heard, even if she Xen said them: "The geth signal is destabilized. The geth fleet is offline."
"Civilian Fleet, prepare to withdraw. The Patrol Fleet will cover you once the Heavy Fleet is in position. Whenever you're ready, Admiral Gerrel."
She threw a tech mine, watched it adhere to one of the Primes. The thing stopped, shuddered, then turned on its own fellows.
"I'm really ready to not be here, Legion!" Shepard called, throwing several tech mines of her own, which caused the nearest geth to fizzle and spark, processors overloading.
"We have a retreat vector for the nearest shuttle bay, Shepard-Captain."
"Alright, everyone follow Legion! Go!" Shepard barked.
Tali took a moment to cast around, found Legion, and immediately began making her way over towards it.
"Admiral Gerrel?" Tali's stomach clenched at the aghast sound in Raan's voice. "What are you doing?!"
"I don't like the sound of that!" Vega called as he reached Legion's position and took a knee in order to add to the suppressing fire.
"Raan, check your screens," Gerrel answered, a hungry note in his tone that Tali just knew didn't mean anything good for anyone.
"Don't be an asshole!" Shepard shouted ineffectively.
"The dreadnought is helpless!"
"Seconded, Vega!" Alenko called.
"He can't really…" Liara breathed.
…don't do it, don't do it, don't do it…
"No barriers and the main gun is offline!"
Damn…he was going to do it…
Shepard arrived, the last of the unit. "Let's move! I don't like the sound of this!"
Legion turned and started off at a jog that the others could easily match. As soon as Shepard was through, it brought the heavy safety door slamming down to give their retreat a little cover.
"We could remove their flagship if we strike now!"
"Your quarian admiral is rapidly become a liability!" Javik snarled, probably to Shepard but maybe to Tali herself. "We should introduce him to the airlock!"
"Damn it!" Raan pleaded, and Tali wished the woman would sound a little tougher, a little firmer. It wasn't the tone of a leader; it was the tone of an ineffectual old woman… "This is our chance to withdraw the Civilian Fleet safely!"
"That is the mission objective!" Liara agreed.
"Are you insane?!" Tali demanded. "We're still onboard!"
But the Admiralty Board wasn't on the working channel. Even if they were, Tali doubted Gerrel would have listened.
"We can't waste this chance! Heavy Fleet, all forward!"
"How long does it take to replace an admiral, Tali?" Garrus growled, his easy lope allowing him less difficulty in keeping up with Legion than Liara was having.
"Take out the dreadnought!"
"…Patrol Fleet, hold position!"
"You do that and the Heavy Fleet gets wiped out! And if we die…"
Raan wasn't the only one who promptly cursed Gerrel. Several of the crew's more idiomatic phrases came out as garbled tone rather than actual words.
"What the hell?" Tali demanded, more because she couldn't keep quiet than because she didn't understand.
"Worry about breathing!" Shepard panted. "We'll deal with Gerrel later!"
"I'm liking Javik's plan, Shepard!" Liara declared darkly.
"Shepard-Captain. We suggest commandeering a geth fighter rather than trying to arrange pickup via Normandy. This dreadnought will not last long."
"I have apprised Cortez that pickup in the Kodiak may be impossible," EDI announced.
"Then we'll take the geth shuttle!"
Legion did not deviate course, though it did pick up the pace as the first shell shook the ship. Tali took this to mean it had not entirely trusted the plan to go to plan and had picked out a shuttle bay whose fighters were still in place. If things went smoothly, Cortez could pick them up. If things went badly…alternate escape method.
The chatter between the admirals became nothing more than background noise, which the ground team ignored in favor of running.
Tali's leg muscles began to burn, her lungs began to ache. Breathing became a ragged, painful exercise. Each step became an effort and she just knew that if she didn't attend to her feet she would stumble, fall, and lie there gasping for air. It would slow the whole escape, maybe even end up fatal to someone else, as well as herself. So she paid attention to her footing and wished she'd kept up with her exercises while with the Flotilla.
She hoped she wasn't the only one having problems...
"Shepard to Fl—shit!" Shepard screamed as something punched through the ship just behind them, jarring them as they ran.
Garrus shot out a hand to catch her elbow, pulling at her until she regained her own footing and could run again.
"Hold fire! I repeat: hold your fire!" Shepard snarled.
"They're not responding!" EDI relayed.
"I'm not sure they're even listening anymore!" Cold terror gripped Tali's stomach…until she realized that what she was feeling was nothing compared to what Shepard had to be dealing with. Shepard had been spaced once already; the long walk through the docking tube had drained her considerably.
The threat of it happening again, and this time her crew going with her…
Tali was going to kill Admiral Gerrel.
"Shepard-Captain, we have taken control of docking protocols. Permission to go ahead and prepare the ship?"
"Granted! EDI, go with him! If you can paint us as friendly, do it!"
Because no one wanted Garrus' so-superbly calibrated Thanix cannon carving them in half.
EDI said nothing, merely picked up her pace to match Legion's.
Within minutes, they had a view of deep space.
When Tali looked back, she found Shepard's head bowed as she ran, as if she could block out the sight of space beyond the open doors.
Again, Tali felt a surge of murderous rage directed at her own idiot fellow Admirals. She was with Javik, too: space the bastard. They could always get a new Admiral…or run on four. Or let Shepard speak for the Heavy Fleet since she was obviously better qualified than Gerrel.