Now a safe distance away, Ma-at appeared as a bright white disk in the blackness of space, casting Normandy in a cool glow as the Kodiak jetted by on its final approach to the hangar deck. The entire squad huddled around the port window as the shuttle flew past and stared in stunned silence at their mortally wounded ship drifting in the darkness amid a cluster of geth ships.

Scorches and spall marks marred every meter of Normandy's hull. It was impossible to even tell what color the ship had been originally. Her starboard wing assembly and engine nacelles were missing, leaving only a jagged crown of metal and conduits behind. Then there was the perfectly circular black hole topside aft, in front of the pair of vertical stabilizers. At some point in the battle, the Normandy's mass effect core went supercritical. The hull above the core compartment blew open and a purpose-built mass effect field propelled it away, sparing the ship from certain destruction but leaving it dead in space.

Kasumi lay on her stomach on the aft bench with her back covered in bandages and medigel. She turned her head to look at her friends gawking through the window. "How bad is it?"

Garrus glanced at Tali, who only shook her head as she continued to stare out the window. "Bad," Garrus said.

The compartment fell silent as the squad took their seats for landing and the Kodiak slid into a hangar deck filled with debris. The overhead lights flickered with power surges, and the aft half of the deck was completely dark. A geth shuttle rested on its landing gear on the starboard side.

Everyone remained seated after the shuttle landed and the side door opened. Doctor Chakwas rushed into the crew compartment, omnitool out, followed by a pair of the standard geth platforms left behind to assist Gabby. Chakwas examined Kasumi's wounds, talking gently to the thief as the geth lifted Kasumi onto a stretcher. Everyone in the squad offered quiet assurances to Kasumi as she was carried out, but looks of concern turned to smiles when she started to laugh.

"Oh, I don't know what you gave me, Doc," Kasumi giggled, "but it's goooood."

Once the sole casualty was evacuated, Garrus motioned that they were clear to disembark. Exhausted, Tali waited in her seat as the others gathered their gear and filed through the door. She craned her neck to peer around them. Between the shifting forms of her shipmates, she caught a glimpse of Commander Shepard waiting for them outside. She closed her eyes and whispered thanks. It was far more dignified than bowling over her friends and throwing herself into his arms...

She made sure her weapons and gear were secure and dropped from the Kodiak onto the Normandy's deck to join her friends as they gathered around Shepard. As usual, everyone downplayed the whole ordeal. It was a ridiculous game they played, especially Garrus and Shepard. The more dire the situation, the more they tried to act like nothing happened.

"Well," Garrus said, crossing his arms. "I hope you and Legion had a nice time on the Xenophon while we were down at the hub fighting for our lives."

"Yeah, it was a great time." Shepard looked down at his armor, cracked and burned all over, then at the turian's relatively untouched ensemble. He looked at the others in the squad. "So did Garrus get in the game at all down there or was he hiding behind his sniper rifle way in the back, as usual? I mean, everybody else here looks like they got shot at."

Garrus waited for the laughter to die down. "There's a school of thought that says the warrior with the fewest scars is actually the better fighter."

Shepard absently rubbed the stubble on his undamaged, unblemished cheek. "Oh, is that right?"

After a few more rounds of insults and laughter, Shepard finally started issuing orders again. With the ship in the shape it was in, there was plenty for everyone to do. As the squad dispersed, Tali waited patiently for Shepard to notice her. His eyes were ringed with exhaustion. "Nice work down there."

"Well you know," Tali stammered. As much as she hated when the others downplayed the danger they faced, she always followed right along. "I did what I could."

"Oh yeah," Shepard said. "Saved your people, saved the geth. Saved me and Legion... All in a day's work, right?"

"Yeah," Tali looked away, embarrassed. "So where is Legion, anyway?"

"Up in Engineering, giving Gabby a hand. You should get up there, she's worried sick about you."

Worried sick, Tali thought. Shepard had no idea what that meant. "Well, I'm glad you two are okay. When we left you… I mean both you and Legion on the Xenophon… I- I'm glad it all worked out."

"That's an understatement," Shepard shook his head in amazement. "Did I hear right? The geth have offered to let the Migrant Fleet go home?"

"Yes." Tali did look at him now. Her efforts to keep from turning into a blubbering idiot were still working, but just barely. "If the Conclave agrees to a cease-fire."

"Amazing. How'd you manage that?"

"I didn't. They decided all on their own."

"You sure about that? What was that you said back at the Conclave? You can only gauge the geth's emotional response by looking at the entire Collective? Sounds like a pretty nice way of saying thank you to me."

Tali blinked at the thought. She'd been so overwhelmed with the geth offer and worry for Shepard, she hadn't thought at all about the reason why.

But the light in Shepard's eyes dimmed, and his smile faded. "Listen... EDI's given me a preliminary damage report, what she was able to piece together from what few systems she can still reach. It doesn't look good." He pulled up his own omnitool and sent a series of scans to Tali's omni. "We may have to abandon ship."

"Oh my," Tali said when she saw the initial display. The destruction of the starboard engine assembly was bad enough on its own and the mass effect core was irreplaceable, but the worst had finally happened. The ship's frame, weakened from the crash on the Collector Base, had finally given way. The Normandy's back was truly broken. "Well... Let me take a look before you decide anything drastic, okay?"

Shepard nodded. "I'd never make such a move without consulting my chief engineer. But it's bad isn't it?"

"It is," Tali said, shutting off her omnitool. She looked about the ruined landing bay, with its emergency barriers and flickering lights. In the middle of it all, the Normandy crew were already spreading out to fix again what had been broken a week before, with the geth right alongside them. "But it's not hopeless. We'll have help."

"Thanks to you."

No, Tali was about to say, it was all because of you, but before she could spit the words out, the ship's PA squawked to life.

"Commander," Joker's disembodied voice echoed in the hangar. "You down there? The geth have gotten us through to Arcturus. Admirals Anderson and Hackett are on the line."

Shepard let out a relieved sigh. "For a second there I thought you were going to tell me the Council was calling."

"Yeah, well, Udina's on the line too."

"Shit." Shepard's head drooped.

"Sorry. You, uh, want me to arrange a preemptive malfunction? Kinda hard not to with the way things are up here, actually."

"No, they need to know what's going on. I'll be right up." Shepard shook his head. "Here we go again."

Tali tried to sound chipper, not wanting to add to the strain Shepard was obviously feeling. "Back to business as usual, huh?"

"It never stops," Shepard said. "Get me that damage assessment as soon as you can." He gave Tali a pat on the shoulder as he walked past her toward the elevator. Miranda was waiting for him by the door, datapad in hand with a to-do list a thousand lines long.

Tali followed behind. Her own message queue was full of messages and automated alerts from the ship's systems, and more were coming in from Legion and Gabby as she walked. Considering the alternative, she was thrilled to have deal with each and every one of them, no matter how serious they were. But instead of joining Shepard in the elevator, Tali decided to take the stairs up to deck four.

The sublevel was coated with residue of smoke and fire retardant. Tali passed Jack's quarters, its floor strewn with storage cartons and boxes that had broken free during the battle. Jack's empty cot lay upside down inside the stairwell. Tali picked it up and moved it gently aside and set it upright, then climbed up to deck four.

In spite of the damage to the rest of the Normandy, Engineering had been spared the worst. Though many of the status displays around the compartment showed red or did not register at all, it was intact and inhabitable. Most importantly, no one was lying dead on the deck. That horrible memory faded along with the faces of Thane Krios and Ken Donnelly, replaced by the sight of Legion standing post at the main console. Tali knew the geth was intact before the shuttle landed, but seeing Legion made it real. After being forced to abandon Legion and Shepard on the Xenophon, she wondered if she'd see either of them again.

Legion stopped what it was doing and turned to face her instead of multitasking as it usually did. "Creator-Tali'Zorah."

Tali blinked. Back to Creator-Tali'Zorah again. Had Legion suffered damage to its memory and reverted to an earlier dataset? The geth's recently repaired armor was in shambles, looking as beat up as Shepard's after their escape. Maybe the damage was more severe than anyone knew. "It's been a while since you called me that. Are you okay?"

"All systems nominal," Legion said. "Damage to our superstructure is superficial, however eighty-three percent of our armor segments are compromised and will require replacement before another engagement."

"Hopefully that won't be any time soon," Tali walked in to stand in front of the geth. The plates around its face expanded and contracted as it continued to stare at her. "Is something wrong?"

"We have information which must be disseminated, but are experiencing difficulty collating the data."

A chasm opened at the bottom of Tali's stomach. It was the geth equivalent of we need to talk. "What is it?"

"We have synchronized our dataset with the Collective. They have shared their experience from Orbital Body 413319. We understand the difficulty organics experience making logical choices in times of duress. We understand that in this particular instance, the logical choice for you was to return the geth to a state of servitude in order to guarantee the survival of your species. " Legion buzzed and clicked as processing power was diverted from its physical actuators while its processes worked some unimaginably complex problem. Whatever loop they were caught in now, the individual geth in Legion's platform didn't seem to be able to stop.

"Hey," Tali took a step closer. If Legion had suffered internal damage to its memory or processors, any amount of additional stress might be disastrous. "Don't worry about it. Cancel query. Whatever it is, it can't be that important."

"Dissemination of this information is highest priority. Before the jump to Ma-at, we asked what your course of action would be if the creators had already assumed control the collective. You did not have an answer."

"Oh gods, Legion. I'm sorry... I- I didn't know what to say, I-"

Legion's shuddering stopped. Its facial plates expanded once, then returned to its original configuration. It stood straight, as if at attention, as it had done in the armory a few days before. "We understand the position you were in. Available data was insufficient to determine the disposition of the collective. Yet you restored consensus to the collective regardless, thus allowing the geth to determine their own destiny. We are grateful."

Tali put her palm on the platform's chest. The difficulty for over a thousand separate entities to express a unified opinion was something few organics could truly comprehend. "You're welcome." She stood on her toes to peer into Legion's main aperture as if it were a window. "All of you." She wrapped her arms around it gave a squeeze. To her surprise, Legion returned the hug. She laughed. "Can you even feel this?"

"We do not derive physical stimulation from such contact," Legion said. "But we understand the meaning of the gesture and judge it appropriate to reciprocate."

"I'll take that," Tali said and gave the geth a final squeeze before stepping back. She looked Legion from head to toe and sighed. It looked almost as bad as when they first found it on the derelict reaper. Where would they be now, she wondered, if Shepard had listened to her then and allowed her to send Legion back to the fleet? "Looks like we're going to have to fix you up again. Along with everything else around here. Where's Gabby?"

"Daniels-Gabriella is in the reactor compartment with standard platforms three and eight, undertaking repair operations."

"Okay. Round everybody up. We need a complete damage assessment as soon as possible. Shepard's waiting on us."

"Acknowledged, Creator-Tali'Zorah," Legion said. With communications down throughout the ship, it turned to the aft hatch to fetch its crew mate.

"Wait." Tali put a hand on Legion's shoulder. "Why have you gone back to calling me 'Creator?'"

Legion's flaps contracted. "We observed discomfort when Mobile Platform Two utilized its diplomatic routines to address you in an informal manner. We judged the best course of action was to revert to the linguistic standards of the collective. We do not wish to show disrespect, especially after you saved all geth."

"No," Tali said. "I never thought it was disrespectful. Not coming from you. In fact... I really like it when you just call me Tali. You think you could start doing that again?"

Legion's flaps expanded slightly. "Of course, Tali."

"Thank you." Tali beamed, happy to be back on a first name basis with her friend. "Especially since drives Vakarian-Garrus crazy."

"We know."

Tali giggled and looked over her shoulder to make sure they hadn't been overheard. "Okay, go get Gabby," she said and ushered Legion toward the aft hatch. "We'll talk more later."