It's been a long time my friends, but back at it with another chapter! I'll try and be a bit more spontaneous with releases over the next few weeks/months.

As the two of them disappeared back into the sewage pipe, Tali and Mission picked up the pace and left into a series of enclosed corridors. The two of them managed to walk side-by-side in the tight space, there was an awkward silence between them, Tali started to wish that she had taken Carth's place and escorted Nick back to the apartment. They passed by nests of rakghouls quietly and quickly without engaging them.

"So..." Mission said, throwing the words out there trying to start a conversation. "Where are ya from?"

Tali thought for a second, she really had no idea what to say, but she decided to be vague about. "I've lived on ships my whole life, never settled down anywhere." Tali hoped that it would be enough to satisfy Mission's curiosity.

"What brought you to Taris?" The young Twi'lek asked, she knew that Tali was hiding something and she wanted to find out what it was.

"We uh... had to do repairs, we were set down for a few days and then the uh... Sith came and now we cant leave." Tali had stuttered a bit in her speech, she hoped Mission wouldn't catch on.

Mission's smile died down a little, she seemed to be taking the hint. "Okay. I gotta ask though: What's with the suit?"

"Didn't I already tell you?" Tali stated, the confused look on Mission's face frustrated her "I can't live without it, if I take it off for a few seconds I could die." Tali said a little coldly, Mission took the hint and didn't ask anything else. Suddenly however she stopped dead in her tracks.

"What is-" Tali asked before Mission waved a hand up stopping her.

"There's someone ahead, I'll go have a look." She activated her stealth generator and started moving towards a part of the corridor that opened up in front of them. Tali could see the slight splashes in the muck below as Mission walked, completely invisible, up the passage.

After a few minutes, Mission materialized in front of Tali with a worried look on her face. "It's the slavers, Zaalbaar is around here. I know it."

"What do we do?" Tali asked as she pulled out her new pistol and gripped the handle, it wasn't perfect and her hand was cramped slightly but she could at least hold the blaster.

"I say we just run in an take 'em all out. They don't wear armour and they wield axes not guns, we should be able to take them out from a distance." Mission said confidently as she pulled out a pistol from her jacket.

Tali nodded and the two of them exited the passageway onto a small catwalk suspended high above a sewage grinder. They were greeted by a squad of Gamorreans; they turned around and charged the pair as they opened fire. The first wave were gunned down in seconds and the last two were killed even quicker, one of them shrieking in pain as he tumbled over the railing and fell from the catwalk into the grinder below. Mission shivered as the thought of being ground to pieces crossed her mind, Tali paid it no attention.

The two of them continued into an old water treatment plant that was completely crawling with slavers. Tali stepped out and spotted two Gamorreans at the dead end of a small corridor with two doors on the left side. She opened fire and the two slavers were put down in seconds. Mission hurried up behind her and stepped out into the corridor, it seemed empty and she lowered her blaster as she investigated one of the doors.

"That blaster of yours is really powerful!" Mission said as she shot a smile at the Quarian. Mission continued to work on the lock. "Now there's a sight to see."

"What is it?" Tali said as she came up behind her and had a look at the lock that Mission was working on.

"It's an old mechanical lock; modern hardware won't do anything to crack it. Taris has got to be the only place in the galaxy where you would see one of these. I've got a little gadget that will crack this lock." Mission pulled out a small device that looked as though it had been made out of sub-par salvage, but it managed to unlock the door in a few seconds.

Tali advanced into the room, it was small flood room with a drain in the centre and another door that was malfunctioning. Beside the broken door there was a pool of blood surrounding a severed arm that looked as though it had been bitten by some animal. Next thing Tali knew was that she had been thrown to the ground and there was a huge being on top of her ready to smash her faceplate and kill her. She heard a high pitched whistle and the beast stopped and turned around, it looked towards Mission and then stood up from Tali and walked over to her. Now with a good glimpse of the beast, Tali could see that it was covered in fur and stood at over a third taller than Mission.

"Big Z!" Tali heard Mission exclaim as she embraced the creature tightly, Zaalbaar held the young Twi'lek with similar affection. Tali pulled herself up and approached the two with caution. The creature turned and greeted her with a series of wails and moans that Tali couldn't comprehend.

"This is Zaalbaar, he's a Wookiee and he's sorry for attacking you like that." Mission nudged the Wookiee.

"It's fine, he didn't recognize me. Maybe you should have gone first." Tali said as she wiped some of the muck off her suit, luckily she had no breaches, she would need to make sure that she didn't have any more falls until she could do some maintenance.

"Haha yeah..." Zaalbaar made a few more groans and wails. "Wait... what? You're doing what?" Mission looked confused and a little interested.

"What is it?" Tali asked as she approached the two.

"This is big... Zaalbaar says he owes you a life debt!" Mission said with surprise, as if she didn't believe she would ever say it.

"Life... debt?" Tali questioned in a confused tone. Zaalbaar wailed a little more.

"It's basically a bond, you saved his life so he now serves you and will do what you order him to." Mission explained slowly to make sure Tali got it all down.

"What if I don't want him to swear his life to me?" Tali quickly asked as she eyed the hulking Wookiee in front of her, he wailed and groaned as she said the words.

"You can't just refuse, you have to honour his debt. He must really trust you if he swears a debt to you." Mission said slowly while shaking her head. "Are you sure about this Big Z?" The Wookiee groaned and Mission smiled, Tali didn't know what he said but it removed the frown on Mission's face.

"Um... thank you. I accept your life debt..." Tali said, a little dazed. She didn't really think it was necessary that he swear away his life, but more allies would make a difference.

"Great! Now that you've helped me find Big Z I can get you past that forcefield and into the Vulkar base."

"Let's get to it." Tali remarked as the three of them back tracked their way through the treatment plant and through the sewers, getting closer and closer to the Black Vulkar base.