A/N: Hey guys, just wanted to tell you that this is pretty much lifted from the Mass Effect: Homeworlds 2 comic. Go read it if you haven't!

That's all I wanted to say. Enjoy the chapter!

Today was the big day. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya was looking out of the window of the Honorata. She sighed as she watched the her birth ship; The Rayya, drift away further into the void as they flew away. Today was the day she started her pilgrimage. The passage all Quarians must undergo in order to prove their worth to the fleet.

She had been excited to start this adventure since… Well, she had always been excited for the day she would finally start her adventure. She could still Auntie Raan's hug, even though that was almost 10 minutes ago. Her father hadn't shown up to say farewell to his daughter… But, he was busy with important stuff. At least that was what Tali told herself.

Her father had promised her to build a home for her on the home world… The home world they lost so long ago. She grew up hearing so many things on the flotilla. Every Quarian was fed with a steady diet of stories about how wonderful things used to be back then. Tali hoped that she could be a part of taking back the home world some day. It seemed unlikely, but she could dream.

Tali listened to her Father's farewell message one more time. She must have heard it at least 10 times by now. She wanted him to be there. She wanted him to say farewell in person. But, like so many other things on the Flotilla, that was too much to ask. The message contained advise and all sorts of survival tips, as well as general info on the wider galaxy. That included how most races usually looked down on Quarians.

"Tali?" The Captain of the Honorata, Keenah, pulled Tali straight out of her thoughts and back into reality.

"Yeah?" Tali asked as she walked up to his side.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to start your pilgrimage on Illum? I mean, they aren't particularly happy about Quarians." Keenah questioned with a little bit of concern in his voice.

"As far as I heard, it's only the fleet as a whole they despise. Individual Quarians are welcome… Well, maybe not 'welcome' per say, but accepting at least. I gotta start somewhere, right?" Tali replied.

"I guess so. It's just not the place I would start. I think somewhere like-" Keenah stopped himself as a notification appeared on his dash. "Oh, what's this?" He asked himself as he opened the message.

"What is it?" Tali asked curiously.

"Take a seat. I think you will want to see this." Keenah suggested, and Tali obliged. Keenah showed Tali the screen. Tali studied the contents of it, and she was almost in shock. Not even 40 minutes into their adventure, they had already discovered some remarkable.

"Is that-" Tali was interrupted before she could even fully ask her question.

"Geth ships? Yeah, I think so. This is fascinating!" Keenah replied as he opened a new window on his terminal.

"What are you doing?" Tali asked.

"Alerting the fleet. The Geth haven't been seen outside the veil in over 300 years! This could be big!" Keenah answered.

"Don't. By the time they get here, they will probably be long gone. Send me down instead!" Tali requested.

"You aren't serious, are you? It could be really dangerous. No one knows what the Geth are capable of after all these years." Keenah was hesitant to do this. It felt wrong, and it would look kinda bad if Tali kicked the bucket before she had even started her pilgrimage properly.

"Please, I received extensive training, and I know pretty much everything there is to know about the Geth." Tali pleaded. Keenah still looked at her with a look of disapproval. "Come on. I'll be in and out before you know it." Tali almost begged.

Keenah sighed and hung his head low. "Alright… I'll get you down there. But stay low and don't take any chances. See if you can get a memory core from one of the units. You do remember how to remove it, right?" Keenah asked.

"Of course!" She replied. Keenah nodded slowly, and turned his vessel towards the icy planet where the Geth had been spotted. With any luck, they could in and out without anyone knowing. Then, he could drop Tali off on Illum and be done with it.

Tali absolutely hated the cold. She hated show. She had only made first contact with it about 15 minutes ago, but she already cursed it. Her suit did little to shield her from it. Why would the Geth ever come here? There was clearly nothing of value here. Or was there? It was clear that the Planet wasn't suited to support life, but Geth could care less about that.

As Tali moved through the cliffs, she spotted a Geth patrol walking by. She decided to try and see if she could catch one of the Geth off guard and quickly get it's memory core. Tali knew that whatever was going here, it had to be reported back to the flotilla. No matter the cost.

Finally, as she stalked the patrol for what felt like ages, one of the Geth troopers made it's way around to the rock of which Tali was hiding behind. She got her weapons ready. This had to be silent. She didn't want the entire Geth army after her as she fled again.

She swung out and disabled the Geth in mere seconds. She hadn't expected to get this much excitement so soon in her pilgrimage. She knew she had to move quickly if she wanted to preserve it's memory core. It would self destruct within seconds to avoid falling into enemy hands.

When she opened the hatch on the back, she saw that the process had already begun. "Oh no you don't, you Bosh'tet!" She muttered as she removed it quickly. It went well, she had gotten a mostly preserved memory core.

She sat down to review her findings. It was mostly empty, not much was stored there. But, there was an audio file. It was listed as having been recorded yesterday. She opened it up to take a closer look.

"Eden Prime was a major victory! The Beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit!" A voice proclaimed. Another one followed suit.

"And one step closer to bringing back the Reapers!"

The Geth platform recongized the first one as Saren Arterius, who was a Council Spectre. The other one, the female voice, was not identified by the platform. Tali was curious. What was Eden Prime? And what were the Reapers? She began to poke around for some information in the memory core.

She was shocked to see what it was… The Geth believed the Reapers to be an ancient race of machines that would come around every 50.000 years to exterminate all organic life in the galaxy… Tali could hardly believe it; According to the information, the Protheans were the last victim of these machines. The Geth believed it was about time for the next cycle to begin.

Tali knew she had to get to back to the Honorata fast and in a hurry. But just as she turned around, she bumped straight into Kennah. Tali was knocked on her ass as she looked up at Keenah.

"I was worried..." He admitted. "Did you find anything?" He asked curiously.

"Yes I did… And I don't like it. Have a listen;" Tali played the recording for Keenah, and he was even more in shock than she was. "What is it?" She asked.

"Eden Prime is a human colony. I heard they were attacked yesterday. There are already rumors that Geth are behind, but no one wants to believe it… Keelah, this confirms it..." Keenah explained.

"Then we NEED to get to Illum! Some one there is bound to be able to help us." Tali said.

"Yes… You're right. This doesn't just concern the flotilla… This is a concern for the entire galaxy. First we need to get of this planet though." Keenah replied. Tali nodded, and they both began to walk back towards the ship.

They weren't far away from the ship when the silence was broken by a hail of gunfire. Tali and Keenah took cover and began to return fire back towards their attackers. At first, Tali thought it was the Geth patrol that came back around, but as she took a small peek, she saw it wasn't… It was a Turian, and he was leading a band of, what looked to be, mercenaries. He was probably under orders to kill them from Saren. This information was probably going to be a death sentence for them…

However, they managed to get back to their ship in one piece. But somehow they knew that it wouldn't be the last time they would encounter that Turian…

Keenah sighed as the air traffic controller repeated the same fucking line for the what must have been the twelfth time.

"Are they blocking us from docking?" Tali asked. She was getting nervous. They was no telling if that Turian was currently on their trail, and she didn't want to stick around and find out.

"Yes, they are." Keenah replied.

"Why are they blocking us? Don't they know we have important information?" She asked him, he shook his head.

"Even if they did know, they wouldn't care. They don't much like Quarians there. Let's just hope we can get in at all, because if not then-" Keenah was interrupted by the traffic controller.

"Honorata, you are cleared to land. Please proceed to docking bay F22." The Asari on the other side instructed.

"Copy that. Proceeding now." Keenah quickly confirmed. He sighed again and looked over at Tali. "Only took like half a day" He sarcastically remarked as he began to fly his vessel towards the Asari colony. The Flight down and the docking was done in a matter of minutes.

"Where to now?" Tali asked as they began to head out of the ship.

"We probably need to get this to an information broker. Maybe even the Shadow Broker. They'll know what to do with it." Keenah answered as they got out. They walked along the docking area, and somehow they ended up in some sort of loading area filled with cargo containers. The rest of the crew of the Honorata came down with them, but Tali had a feeling something was off.

That feeling came too late, since just as they had entered the area, Tali realized it was a trap. That Turian they faced on that icy world had come for them. Within seconds, most of the crew of the Honorata were gunned down. Tali watched in pure terror as her friends died before her very eyes. She and Keenah tried to return fire… But it was useless.

It was fight or flee, and they decided to flee. In fact, they managed to hide on a Turian freighter. Tali felt awful, the crew of the Honorata had basically given their life so that Tali and Keenah might escape. They hid in the Cargo bay of that freighter, hoping to God they wouldn't be spotted and traced.

Tali didn't know where the freighter was headed, so for all she knew this could be a long ride. That gave her time to reflect on her choices. She realized she had walked into something bad now, and she needed protection. That meant that the data she was carrying was both a blessing and a curse for her.

They learned that the freighter had docked at the citadel, and that this might be the best place to stay low for a while. Tali and Keenah tried to make their way to someone who could help them. They tried to get an audience with the council, but they were rejected. C-Sec threatened them, telling them to get the hell of the station. The people of the Citadel weren't much better. Everywhere they went, racism followed. No one wanted anything to do with them.

As they were walking down one of the streets in the wards and discussing their next course of action, a shot rang out. It tore straight through Keenah's stomach. He instantly fell to the ground, but he wasn't dead; The grunts of pain confirmed that. Before Tali had time to react, a second shot hit her in the side.

They had to keep moving. They limped all the way down into the tunnels. The Turian, who was named Jacobus, was not far behind them. They could hear him taunting them in the distance; "RUN ALL YOU WANT SUIT RATS! I'LL GET YOU!"

They managed to shut a door right in the Turian's face. It was enough to grant them a few more seconds of breathing. They moved a bit further on until they found what appeared to be a giant incinerator room, designed to burn a lot of things.

"I can't-..." Keenah was coughing up blood inside his mask. It wasn't looking good. "I can't push anymore… You have to get somewhere safe… There is a clinic in the-" Keenah grunted in pain once again, Tali tried to make him sit in a somewhat comfortable position. "- In the upper wards… Go there… Go be safe…" Keenah requested. He was dying fast, and Tali could also fell the bullet she took begin to take a toll on her.

Tali decided to honor his request. She would get to safety, but not before she took out this Turian who had been trying to kill her. She realized she could bait the little fucker into this room and trap him there. She felt sorry about Keenah. She had effectively been responsible for his death… She began to set up the portable terminal she had, and played her father's farewell message. She heard the Turian bang on the door. It was clear he would get through eventually.

She climbed up on the catwalk and prepared for what would happen next. She waited for the Turian to finally breakthrough.

And Jacobus did breakthrough soon enough. He made his way into the incinerator room. He knew both Quarians were badly wounded, they couldn't have gotten far. He noticed one of them sitting against the wall. He was already dead. He wondered where the other one had gotten to.

"You might be good with a gun!" Tali proclaimed from the catwalk where she stood. Jacobus looked up at her and began to train his gun on her. "But I'm good with this!" Tali said as he typed a few commands on her omni-tool and quickly got behind the door and closed it. Within a few seconds, the room began to fire up. Jacbobus looked around for an exit, but there were none.

"… Clever girl..." Jacobus muttered as he accepted his fate. She had played her cards well enough.

Tali didn't look back, even though she could hear the Turian scream out in pure agony. She had an objective, she had to get to that clinic that would fix her up. She knew this might be the end, but she needed to get this information to someone who could use it, hopefully in return for protection.

She would survive… She wasn't done yet.