The Homeworld was everything Tali could have hoped. She regretted and resented the continuing need for her environmental suit, because the suit meant she couldn't really experience being on the Homeworld of her people. One of the first quarians to be there in centuries. She couldn't smell or feel the air. Anything she touched was felt through the barrier of her suit.

She sighed heavily. Maybe, somehow, this would all get resolved and she would take the risk of an open-air exposure, just long enough to let the Homeworld's air touch her face, to find a native flower and smell it herself. After all, weakened immune system or not, this was her people's original environment. Surely it would be more forgiving than others…

Night had settled over the region in which they were operating, turning the sky velvety blue-purple, with the two moons hanging brilliantly in the air—one lilac, the other an odd shade of turquoise. No one had ever said what beautiful colors Rannoch's atmosphere allowed. Stars gleamed like bright lightbulbs across the sky. She regretted being unable to smell the air, which she imagined to be soft with springtime…

…or she did, until they found the first chunks of wreckage, still burning disconsolately to light the sand and rocks. The faint creep of the acrid odor did get past her filters in the most unpleasant way.

She, Vega, and Garrus moved carefully forward from the drop-off point. Cortez hadn't been happy about running two operations concurrently, but had deferred to Vega's and Garrus' insistence that this rescue needed to happen. Shepard would have agreed with them.

Which was why the pilot was lying low, waiting to see who finished first: Shepard's team assaulting the geth servers or this team trying to rescue Koris. She felt sure he was doing whatever humans did to hope for good luck, so that Shepard and the second team wouldn't need extraction at the same time.

Tali's stomach squirmed. As much as she did not personally enjoy Koris' company—the sting had not yet gone out of that stupid trial—he was one of the voices of reason now. They needed him. More than that, he'd done something more useful than either Xen or Gerrel had so far by taking out the cannon with his ship. Xen was probably sulking aboard her lab-ship, and Gerrel—who knew what that idiot was doing? Nothing useful, as far as she could tell.

In fact, Tali had been drafting a formal request that the Admiralty Board put him on trial for treason, not the least because not only were the quarians in a war with the geth, not only had the Civilian Fleet been unable to withdraw when the opportunity presented itself, but he'd also nearly killed two Council Spectres without a second thought. The Council was not going to look favorably on that, and Shepard wouldn't leave it out of her reports.

But she would, Tali assured herself, be willing to work with the quarian people, so when the time came for the Council to get involved, Shepard could stand with them and say 'this is what happened, but the quarians took care of the problem. There's no need for further sanctions.'

But oh, if only there was time to stop and enjoy the view! Even blanketed by night, the Homeworld was beautiful. She imagined the air would be sweet and warm—

"I am still unable to raise Admiral Koris on the radios," EDI declared. "It appears the geth have built some sort of jamming tower. It is interfering with quarian transmissions. You will need to disable the tower before I can raise him."

Meaning it wasn't interfering with EDI's own. Not for the first time, Tali wondered how EDI dealt with comm interference when using her mobile platform.

"Then we'll just have to knock over the tower," Vega answered. "Can you pinpoint it?"

"Of course. Navpoint sent. There are hostile units present. You will undoubtedly come into conflict with them."

"Enough to swarm us?" Vega asked, stopping. Tali had noticed he ran a little hot and cold when it came to leading this operation. Fortunately, Garrus was always there to put in an encouraging or advisory word when the unease flared.

"I do not believe the number equates to overwhelming," EDI said carefully. "I simply wished to inform you that there are hostile units present, and enough to defend the tower against most small incursions."

"Well, Shepard used to make do with three-man teams," Garrus put in, examining the navpoint on his omnitool. "And since one of us is Tali, and since she has a way with the geth…" The turian grinned at her.

Tali felt herself blushing a little. "True enough," she agreed, hoping she sounded as cool and nonchalant as she did in her head.

"Okay. Then let's go knock over this tower…Garrus, you want to manage the hardware part? You can do it faster than me, and Tali's our geth expert." It wasn't uncommon knowledge that Vega was not technically inclined as Shepard was.

"I'll set a speed record," Garrus answered with a chuckle.

"Good. Right…let's get on this." With that, Vega took off at a trot.

Tali fell in behind Garrus, wondering what the Homeworld would look like in the light of day. She could see strange dark shadows which were probably rock formations, black against the velvety sky. Except where wreckage burned, there was very little color in the moonlight. The sand shifted strangely under her feet.

"Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?" Garrus glanced back at her before returning his attention to the path ahead.

"Is it…does it smell nice, here?" Tali asked.

"It smells like a dextro world," Garrus answered a moment later. "Kind of fresh, softer than Palaven."

Anywhere was softer than Palaven, Tali mused idly.

"It's not bad, as homeworlds go," he concluded.

Tali nodded, agreeing. Except for the hostile geth units, it didn't seem too bad for a homeworld. She looked forward to having it back.