Been a while since I last put a chapter up, I'll be putting two more up today.
Tali regained consciousness to see the ceiling of some kind of through the purple tint of her visor. She slowly turned her head to see lights, she felt safe and comfortable. She twitched her fingers and her legs, nothing broken. She moved her head over to the right to see a man sitting at a desk. Tali stirred, the man turned around to see his strange companion struggling to get up. Tali sat up and held her head in her hands, she had a nasty headache.
"Don't try to move to quickly." The unknown man had stood up and was sitting in a chair by her side.
"Wh- where am I?" Tali asked, slightly frightened by the man, he looked human but something was off about him.
"You're on the planet Taris, it's currently under martial law by the Sith. Nothing is getting on or off the planet." The strange man shook his head as he said this. Tali was puzzled at the mention of this 'Sith' faction, were they the ones that attacked her on the Quarian ship?
"Sith? What are the Sith?" Tali asked completely bewildered by what the man was saying.
The man looked very concerned "How don't you know? They are currently waging war against the Republic." Tali was even more confused by the mention of this 'Republic'.
Tali remembered, she was in a completely different galaxy that played by different rules. "Keelah..." Tali leaned forward. "You will not believe any of this."
"Why wouldn't I?" the man said obviously intrigued by what the strange alien was saying.
Tali proceeded to tell the man about how she came from a different galaxy and everything that had happened since they had arrived in this galaxy. The man didn't seem as confused as Tali would have thought, he seemed intrigued and sympathetic to her problems, he simply turned to her and smiled while offering his help.
"Why did you leave your galaxy?" The man inquired after Tali had finished speaking.
"There was... a war that tore the galaxy apart and forced many species to flee." Tali was not willing to go into details about exactly what happened. There was a short silence after she said this
"So um... what's your name?" The man caught her drift in that she didn't want to speak about it.
"My name is Tali." She replied, "What is yours?"
"Oh I'm Carth, Carth Onasi."
Carth had explained exactly what the war was and who was fighting it. He maintained that the Sith were evil and had to be stopped. They wanted to cause destruction against the Republic and the Jedi who were sworn to defend all life. Afterwards Tali revealed to Carth what had happened before she came to their galaxy, she told him her race and why she was constantly wearing an envirosuit. She was awed by this man who had never been to her galaxy so easily understanding the plight of her species. She talked of Shepard and how he had saved her and then vowed to destroy the reapers. Carth listened on in awe at everything Tali had been through, he had never heard of such a story and these 'Reapers' intrigued him.
"So, your species – the Quarians – there aren't many left?" Carth asked Tali
"No there aren't, so many died in the Sith attack. I assume the rest were captured by the Sith. I need to rescue them!" Tali said adamantly, she needed to find her people so that they could find somewhere else to colonize.
Carth looked on sympathetically, "I understand, but before that we need to get off this planet and rescue Bastila."
"Right, Bastila. She's a 'Jedi'... right?" Tali remarked to Carth.
"Right, and probably the most important one for this war. Her battle meditation made it possible to kill Revan." Carth replied obviously in awe of Bastila and her abilities. "I heard that some pods crashed into the lower city and under city."
"Then let's go get her." Tali said triumphantly while standing up.
"Wait. While you were out I did some scouting, the Sith don't seem to have captured Bastila yet, but I did hear some rumours about the Sith looking for Republic troops," Carth said, "But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't worry about a grunt like me. I also heard there's a gang war in the lower city which means that it may be difficult not to get shot at while we are down there."
"Those Sith might also be looking for me, I fought some when they invaded the ship." Tali turned to him worriedly, she didn't want to be a burden on Carth.
"Hm? No, I don't think so, I didn't hear anything about the Sith looking for people with your description. With any luck nobody will know who or what you are." Carth reassured her, he was being truthful even though he was a little unsure of it himself. "But maybe I should do the talking, just to be safe of course."
"Well, we shouldn't waste time. The sooner we get off this planet the better." Tali stood, grabbing her pistol from the table. She was just about to grab the rifle when Carth stopped her.
"Wait, don't take that rifle. It's a Sith rifle and they might recognize it. If they do then we are done for." Carth took the rifle and laid it on the table. "I looked over your weapons when I pulled you in here, they are projectile weapons. I assume they had little effect on the Sith armour?"
"Yeah, my friend, Garrus, fired a very powerful sniper at one of them and he shrugged it off like nothing." Tali asserted while she holstered her weapon.
"Sith armour is Durasteel, it can take grenade blasts. It's not surprising that the rounds had little effect. However most people don't have access to military grade hardware, your weapons should be fine for now. There is a problem with your suit however." Carth pointed at her suit.
"What's wrong with my suit? I can't take it off you know." Tali backed away a little while putting her hand on her chest.
Carth gave her a reassuring look, "It's not that. Your armour is a little weak, and blaster fire would melt it quite easily. We should consider upgrading the plates to be energy resistant."
"It's fine, I have a barrier that acts as a shield. It absorbs energy at the cost of losing strength, it does re-generate over time. However it was quite weak against the Sith so maybe an upgrade would help." Tali replied, pushing a button to demonstrate her shield.
Carth's worry disappeared and he seemed more convinced. "Okay then, we should get moving. Our first objective should be to get to the lower city and start looking for those escape pods."
"I agree, let's get moving." Tali said following Carth out of the apartment.
Once the door was open Carth saw a Sith officer hassling two Duros in front of them, he had two military droids guarding him. Carth motioned for Tali to stay behind him as they tried creeping away.
"Everyone up against the wall now! This is a raid!" The officer shouted into the two Duros faces. Tali was disgusted by this, she wanted to help these poor aliens best she could.
The Duros started speaking in a language that Tali could not understand, Carth understood some of it. "Already? This is the second time this week, why won't you Sith just leave us alone?" The officer responded by opening fire into the Duros, he fell to the ground with a gaping hole in his chest. Tali was horrified by this display,
"That's how we Sith deal with loud mouth aliens! Now the rest of you, up against the wall!" Carth stopped her from stepping forward and ending the officer. The officer heard this and turned, "Humans hiding out with aliens?! They're Republic fugitives, attack!" Everything went so fast, Carth pulled out his blaster and dropped one of the droids before the officer could react. Tali had pulled out her pistol and started shooting the officer, the bullets tore the fabric of his uniform and pierced his skin. He screamed in pain while firing a blast at her, her shield absorbed the energy and she continued shooting into the officer. He fell to the ground dead.
"Bosh'tet!"
The second droid was pre-occupied with Carth, who had shot it's photoreceptors causing it to go blind, it completely stopped moving allowing Carth to disable it manually.
The Duros, who had crouched down when the firefight broke out, stood up and thanked Carth and Tali for their assistance. Carth spoke to the Duros and told Tali what he had said.
"Carth, what did the alien say?" Tali inquired
"He said that the Sith have been looking for Republic fugitives for days now and they were becoming more desperate and forceful." Carth told Tali who seemed worried about the Duros possibly betraying them, Carth thought she may ask this "He also said that in return he would move the bodies somewhere else so it looked like the gangs had taken some shots at them."
"Oh! Could you tell him to leave one of the synthetics?" Tali hastily asked.
"He can understand you Tali." Carth turned and looked at her.
"Actually could you just leave one of their arms?" Tali asked nervously, the Duros had no idea why but obliged, she helped save his life after all. He began moving the bodies.
"Why did you take one of the arms?" Carth asked as Tali grabbed the arm and started to analyse it.
"I want to see your technology and see if I can put some of my own knowledge to use. Using my omni-tool I can hack a synthe- er I mean droid's core and have it fight for us." Tali replied as she started to dissect the technology in front of her.
"Will it take long?" Carth asked, feeling bogged for time.
"Keelah... your technology is... superior to ours. Quite superior in fact. Wait till you meet EDI." Tali continued to work.
"Who's EDI? Another one of your friends?" Carth asked, a smile coming onto his face.
"No, she is the ships AI, she does have a physical presence though." Tali replied in a happy tone, still working on the arm of the fallen combatant. "And... there! I've tapped into your technology, I should be able to hack their cores and cause them to fight for us." Tali dropped the arm and turned back to Carth, she was grinning under her mask though she doubted that Carth could tell.
"Let's keep moving. Not going to get Bastila just by standing here." Carth said trying to focus on the mission.
"Keelah, I can agree to that." Tali replied smiling under her visor.
The two of them continued around the apartment ring, Tali constantly fascinated by the structure and technology around her. Carth stopped for a moment to speak with a Twi'lek vendor. He bough himself some better armour and light vest for Tali.
"Here." Carth said offering the vest to Tali, she put it on. It was skin tight so it didn't hang and offered her decent protection. Although the brown colour did not fit with her purple suit.
"Thank you." Tali replied, now wearing the vest. It wasn't over encumbering her and she till felt nimble and fast even with the energy resistant plating.
As the two stepped into the apartment elevator, it began descending at a rate that Tali was unfamiliar with. She slightly jumped at the jolt made when the elevator stopped, Carth chuckled lightly as the Quarian adjusted to the new surroundings. As they stepped out of the elevator, Tali could not contain her excitement as she saw the magnificent scenery surrounding her. Giant buildings reached sky high while sky taxis transported people to where they were going, it was an impressive display and Tali was mesmerised by it's beauty.