CHAPTER 3

The Engineer

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Tali anxiously tapped her fingers against the drive core control panel. Hoping that hours upon hours of painstaking work were about to pay off.

50%

"Come on… come on…"

55%

The drive core began to hum slightly. Tali held her breath in anticipation, hoping that this would finally do the trick.

SYSTEM ERROR: ACTIVATION SEQUENCE ABORTED

"Bosh'tet!" she shouted angrily.

The hum faded as the drive core shut down. Tali fumed as she paced up and down the walkway to the drive core, cursing as she fought to understand what went wrong this time.

"I don't understand it. I've recharged the fuel cells. Replaced the power transfer couplings. Reset the thermal diffusers. I've done this a thousand times… Keelah, why won't you start!" she snarled at the disobedient engine.

Tali was a quarian. Most of her childhood was spent repairing ships and engines in the migrant fleet. She knew engines. Everything about them. At times she would boast that she could make anything fly using nothing more than some eezo and a circuit board.

In the months she had served aboard the Alliance vessel, Tali had become intimately familiar with the Normandy and it's systems. She spent hours maintaining and cleaning the drive core, installing various upgrades, and making quick field repairs. The ship's engine room was her domain. But the Normandy was no longer responding to her. She had tried every start up routine she could think of. Replacing dozens of parts, and diverting power from less important systems.

Nothing worked. Every time they tried to bring the drive core online, some new fault would make itself known and shut the whole thing down.

Frustrated, she stormed over to the nearest power junction, swung open the access panel, and re-examined the mess of wires and fuses, looking for a new solution.

Tali's body ached as she worked. Despite Chakwas' orders to rest, she had spent the better part of two days working down in the engine room of the Normandy. Just hours before the crash she, Shepard and Garrus had made one last, desperate push through the streets of London during the final battle against the Reapers. Sprinting for the conduit, she was nearly crushed by a Mako Tank sent flying from a reaper's attack. With seconds to spare, she barely jumped out of the way in time, only to be rewarded with several sharp pieces of shrapnel in her side.

"Fine. I'll just draw power from the shield array," she growled as she began the arduous task of rearranging the junction box for the sixth time.

Tali's head was in a fog as she laid beside the burning Mako. The shaking earth and reverberating air overwhelmed her senses, and she found herself struggling to get herself back to her feet.

"Shepard! She's hurt!" she heard Garrus shout, his voice barely perceivable over the chaos that surrounded them.

The turian got to her quickly, holstering his weapon and reaching down to grab her by the shoulder. Tali gasped feeling a sudden shock of pain run down her side as Garrus yanked her up. She looked down to see what caused the unexpected sting and was horrified to find several holes in her suit. Holes that were dripping with her own blood.

"Keelah…" she moaned as the pain set in. Tali tried her best to steady herself against Garrus, but the pain only grew more and more intense when she tried to put weight on her leg. She quickly lost balance and stumbled backwards, but before she hit the ground she felt another pair of hands come out of nowhere and catch her.

"I've got you!" Shepard called out, slipping his arm around her back to stop her fall.

Both Shepard and Garrus set her gently by the wreck of the once airborne Mako before ducking for cover alongside her. The enormous reaper looming overhead once again opened fire, this time focusing on the other soldiers desperately sprinting for the conduit.

"Dammit!" Shepard cursed, bringing up an arm to shield his face from small bits of flying dirt and debris.

The heads up display in Tali's helmet was wildly flashing warning after warning at her, its automated systems screaming in her ear about multiple suit breaches and infection warnings. She gritted her teeth feeling a sudden and uncomfortable rush as her suit automatically released emergency antibiotics into her bloodstream. However, with a wound like this, antibiotics alone wouldn't be enough. Tali muted the incessant warnings, reached into one of her many pockets and pulled out a canister of medi-gel.

"She's hurt pretty bad, Shepard! I don't think she'll make it to the beam!" Garrus shouted while watching Tali frantically apply the medi-gel to seal her wounds.

His words took Tali by surprise and she looked up to see Shepard staring down at the bloody holes in her suit. The steadfast and determined look he was wearing before the reaper's attack had been traded for one of fear.

Tali reached out to him. "No! I can make it! Just wai-"

BOOM!

The reaper unleashed another hellish blast of energy, sending an alliance gunship into a tailspin before crashing down only meters away from them.

Shepard didn't wait any longer. He held a hand up to his earpiece and yelled "Joker! Come in Joker! We've got injured that need EVAC!"

"On my way!" chimed Joker, over the shared comm channel. "Coming in close to your position. Be ready!"

"We don't need it!" Tali protested, "I'm fine!" But Shepard wasn't paying attention to her. His eyes were glued to the sky.

Within seconds she heard the familiar roar and could feel the vibrations in the air from the Normandy's engines as the ship speedily closed in on them. It's large hangar bay doors opened wide just as it landed several hundred meters away.

"Come on!" ordered Shepard. With care, Shepard wrapped an arm around Tali, placed her arm over his shoulder and around his neck, and lifted her back to her feet. Garrus did the same to Tali's other side and the three of them ran as fast as they could toward the waiting ship. Tali winced from the sharp pains continuously shooting through her side despite Shepard and Garrus' best efforts to minimize her movement, but the reaper behind them would not allow caution.

Dozens of other soldiers screamed past them as they ran. Some were haphazardly firing their weapons toward the reaper and the many husks that were blocking their way. Others had nearly abandoned their weapons entirely in an effort to run unimpeded. Several other Makos grumbled past them at full speed only for Tali to hear them disintegrate or get blown to pieces behind her.

When they finally reached the ramp, Shepard unwrapped Tali from around his neck and pushed her into Garrus' arms.

"Take her!" Shepard ordered, stepping away from the pair and back down the ramp.

"What are you doing!?" Garrus yelled over the roar of the Normandy's engines.

"Get her to the medbay and get out of here! That's an order!" barked Shepard.

"We finish this together!" the turian shot back in protest.

"Shepard!" Tali blurted out in alarm as she realized what was happening. "I can't stay behind!"

"Don't argue with me, Tali!"

"Please!" she pleaded, with an outstretched arm. "Don't leave me behind..."

Tali no longer paid attention to the pain, the din of battle, or the roar of engines. The only thing she could think about, the only thing she cared about now, was the man walking down the ramp away from her toward certain death.

Shepard finally stopped. Tali's heart nearly skipped a beat, and for a brief moment she hoped she had somehow changed his mind. Slowly, Shepard came back toward her and placed a gentle hand on the side of her muddied mask.

"Get back to Rannoch…" he said mournfully. "Build yourself a home."

"I have a home…" Tali reached to take hold of him, but he pulled away before her trembling hand could reach him.

"Come back to me…" she breathed, reaching out to him again in one last attempt to hold him. One last attempt to hold the man she loved.

They were instantly brought back to the chaos with a sudden blaring roar coming from the huge reaper that was effortlessly blasting away at the now dwindling army racing toward the conduit.

Shepard turned to face the enormous reaper. The commander's determined expression immediately returned, and without wasting another second he jumped off the ramp.

"Go!" he shouted, waving a hand to the turian. Tali heard Garrus curse under his breath before reluctantly pulling her up the ramp toward the back of the hangar. Tali kept her eyes fixed on Shepard for as long as she could, determined to catch every last glimpse of him as he sprinted headlong toward the beam. Headlong toward the reaper.

"Come back to me…" she pleaded again before finally losing sight of him behind the closing hangar doors and flying away to safety.

BANG!

"Keelah!"

The fuses in the junction box exploded in her face as she absent mindedly swapped wires. Fed up with the set backs, she slammed the door of the junction box. It crashed loudly as it bounced back from her throw.

This brought Engineer Adams running from around the corner.

"Tali? Are you alright?" he asked upon seeing the dejected quarian standing by the now smoking junction box.

"Yes. I'm fine," she growled through gritted teeth.

"You don't look fine to me," he countered, walking cautiously up to the quarian.

"Tali, I appreciate all the work you've done since the crash. Seriously, I don't know where we'd be without you. But I think you need to rest," he said, gently placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Not now," she hissed, angrily brushing off Adams' unwelcome hand. "Not while our engines aren't working."

Adams persisted. "Look, Tali, believe me, I understand why you are pushing yourself so hard, but you can't keep it up. You're injured, and Chakwas tells me you are running a fever."

"I've dealt with worse. I'm fine," she responded coldly.

Tali was indeed running a fever and she felt it acutely. At one point in time she would've worried about her illness affecting her work. But not now. She needed to get this ship back up and running. This was her job, and for now... nothing else mattered to her.

"I need to replace these fuses. Excuse me," she said, pushing past Adams.

Adams opened his mouth to protest, but simply shook his head in defeat. He knew there would be no reasoning with her.

"Very well…" he sighed. "We have some more spare fuses down in the storage bay below. Let me know if you need help getting them."

Tali ignored him and stormed out of the engine room, feeling somewhat indignant at Adams and his offer to help. Even with a fever, she felt more than capable of a task as simple as finding fuses.

But the second she stepped foot into the hallway leading out of the engine room, she stumbled. Her head became shockingly light and the room began to spin nauseatingly around her. She reached out a hand to try and balance herself against the wall, but miscalculated the distance and grabbed nothing but air.

Darkness crept into the corners of her vision, and with a loud clatter, Tali fell to the floor. The last thing she heard before she slipped into unconsciousness was Adam's frantic footsteps rushing toward her.