Chapter 61: Chains Broken

Saren's heart had been thundering in his chest ever since the assassins show of force. As long as the control chip rested somewhere in his skull, Harper had as much power over him as he wanted. He had to thank the spirits over and over again for protecting Garrus from himself. Now that all of the major Cerberus personnel were going to be away for a few days though, Saren had to take matters into his own hands. The fate of his brother wasn't going to rest on the generosity of Harper not telling him to pull the trigger next time. There was always the possibility of Legion taking over Rael's actions and killing him with such easy access to his brain but, Saren knew even that was better than the alternative.

He luckily found the Geth alone in the drive core part of the ship, "Rael, can we talk for a moment?"

Legion answered first, "This unit is far too busy calibr-"

Rael interrupted him, "With two people in the same body, I think it's certainly possible to multitask. What do you need?"

Saren chose his words carefully knowing Legion would be a problem, "I...I wanted to find out if you knew anything about the control chip in my brain? If the Quarians ever dabbled in that technology?"

Legion was quick to answer, "I see nothing in either of our memory banks discussing the topic. I suggest you move along."

He debated apologizing to Legion for doing what he did to the consensus but, Saren knew any apology would've sounded hollow. Out of the many things he did while indoctrinated for Sovereign, attempting to kill the Geth was the one thing he agreed with. His own use of their forces was proof enough that they were a danger to galatic security. If Sovereign hadn't of had the Geth as an army, would he have gotten so close to continuing the cycle? The simple answer was no, making Saren feel justified in attempting what he did. Shepard might've believed Legion had a soul because of his intelligence, Saren just saw the thing as programming meant to emulate emotions. Even if he had to try and remove the thing himself, Saren's pride wasn't going to let him pretend to apologize.

Rael made an impatient noise and shook his head, "Legion isn't exactly telling the whole truth. Yes, he is right in saying we never placed control chip's into organics, the basic building blocks for the Geth started with them though. What did you want to know?"

Saren got straight to the point knowing they didn't actually have forever, "I need to know how easy it would be to remove it permanently."

Legion answered instantly, "I can already predict with a eighty percent accuracy what your going to ask and the answer is no! You would be too dangerous running around the galaxy without any controls."

Rael rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, a very organic gesture Saren noted. "I do sympathize with your plight, believe me." He motioned to the synthetic body he was seemingly trapped in forever, "Unfortunately, Legion is correct in this instance whether or not I agree with it. Without the Commander here, there's no telling what you would do with that kind of freedom. Once the Reapers are destroyed I'd happily revist the subject with you."

The reply made Saren feel somewhat defeated if he was honest with himself. Due to Rael's previous comments on the subject, he assumed convincing him would've been the easy part. His mind was racing trying to come up with new solutions to his immediate problem knowing he was on a tight time frame. As soon as Shepard returned with Leng, his last opportunity to be free of the chip would be gone. And the likelihood Leng would use him in his private feud with Shepard increased the longer he stayed with the group. If he had to guess, Saren bet the assassin would wait until they were attacking the Collector base and strike at the worst possible moment. It's what he would've done if he were in Leng's place. He couldn't let that happen no matter what it took.

His first instinct was to leave Rael right now and start looking on the extranet for instruction vids for self removal of the chip. However, deep down Saren knew there couldn't be many vids on control chips in general, let alone on how to get rid of them. Plus, Cerberus' AI would certainly detect any extranet search pings coming out of the Normandy and stop him. Realistically, Rael was his only hope, he just had to figure out how to convince him to change his mind. Then he remembered Rael's daughter and Garrus were quickly becoming an item. Threatening her safety wasn't the nicest way to go about this whole thing but, he was running out of other options. Getting out of Harper's control had to be his top priority by any means necessary.

He turned as if he was going to leave engineering but turned back at the last moment, "What do you think will happen to your daughter if I'm forced to work against you all?"

Legion grabbed his rifle pointing it at him, "Making threats to get your way? Maybe you use the indoctrination as a shield to hide your own actions more than the crew realized."

Saren barked back at him full of anger, "No! I am just bringing the facts to your attention. If the assassin orders me to attack all of you, your daughter will be in the crossfire. I don't want to hurt any of you but, you saw what I did to my own brother."

Rael forcefully lowered the gun taking a fake deep breath, "What exactly are you asking me to do Saren?"

Legion snapped back, "What?! There is a seventy percent chance Saren will turn on us for his own goals. Seventy percent! We would be better off kil-"

Rael tapped a few buttons on his omni tool, "I'm sorry Legion, but I'm going to have to take control for awhile."

Saren watched as the Geth slumped for a few seconds appearing to have powered down. Well that was just perfect, he had pushed the pair to the point they had turned each other off. What was he going to do now without any help? While they were just standing there, Saren had plenty of time to wonder where Legion's seventy percent number was coming from. He had done nothing but help Shepard against the Reapers and had full control of his bodies functions for most of that time. Maybe it was just a predjudice skewing the numbers, or maybe his latest actions proved the thing right. There was no denying a selfish component to wanting the chip removed now and not later.

Just as he was about to leave, Rael came back online, "Sorry about that, I had to issue a hard reset to take better control of Legion."

Saren raised a browplate curiously, "What do you mean take better control of him? I thought both of you relied on the other to function at all."

Rael nodded quickly having a scientist's stereotypical eagerness to him, "Your right but, think of it like a battery. We can briefly take higher priority functions from each other for a short time based on what we deem to be emergencies. Now, do you have a place in mind for getting that thing out of your head?"

Saren was still somewhat nervous and skeptical as he approached the elevator, "Higher priority functions? Does that mean Legion could still potentially smash my brain with your arm or something?"

Rael shook his head quickly, "Not while I'm in control no. All Legion can do right now is access the Normandy's external comms, and I don't think he'd be able to call anyone in particular to stop us. Do you have a place to do this or not?"

Saren agreed that no one was going to care if Legion called them asking for help, they were safe enough in the middle of nowhere to do this. "Yes, Shepard's cabin is private enough. Let's hurry before he gets back."

_o0o_

Tali knew that she shouldn't be walking around after only three days of recovery but, she just couldn't sit in the medbay any longer. Zero was fine enough company when she wasn't ignoring her with her omni tool or sleeping, Tali just needed to move around a little. She felt useless having been forced to sit out two missions in a row now and, Jack had locked her out of the engineering deck until Chakwas cleared her for service. A part of her felt it was unfair for Shepard to be treating her like a child about this whole thing, the other part of her knew she deserved it. Her attempt to hide the pneumonia seemed stupid and silly now that Garrus found out while not dumping her. No, she wasn't angry with Jack, not really, she was just restless.

The past three days had also given her plenty of time to reflect on what happened to Kal all those years ago. Tali was torn on whether to be eternally outraged with the Fleet as a whole or, wanting to help Kal see where Gerrel had been coming from. Yes, using an infant for those kinds of experiments was truly despicable but, came from a place of love. Kal had been able to enjoy so many things that she couldn't just because he could take off his suit freely. He fought without having to worry about the slightest scratch being a death blow, he could take an actual shower instead of a suit's artificial one whenever he wished, and he could make love to his cyar'ika as much as he wanted. It was hard not to have envy for Kal's position. Ultimately, she remembered Han'Gerrel wasn't like her father, he was a power hungry murderer...that she could've gotten rid of.

Fortunately, Tali could hear laughing from the cockpit to pull her out of that endless conversation loop with herself. Joker for once was looking away from the cockpit and chatting with Kasumi. The both of them were rather private so to see them up here together was different. She just assumed that since the majority of what she considered to be the crew was away, they felt more comfortable talking to each other. Hopefully the two didn't assume they had actual privacy up here. The combination of all the nameless support staff and EDI's listening devices guaranteed everything they said eventually got back to The Illusive Man's ears. They appeared to be oblivious to that fact and were sharing a bag of popcorn, while EDI was presumedly working on installing the IFF.

Kasumi looked up at her with a smile, "Hey Tali, glad to see my dare didn't cause any permanent damage. How are you feeling?"

Joker blinked glancing in her direction as well, "Wait, you actually kissed Garrus on a dare? I thought Kasumi was teasing me about you two, 'ripping each others clothes off.'"

Tali glared at her as best she could through the helmet, "I wouldn't say that much but...we may have kissed once or twice."

Kasumi mock whispered before she went on, "There was totally tongue no matter what she says."

Tali tapped her foot more embarrassed then frustrated, "Ahem.. Anyways, what are you two doing up here besides gossiping about me."

Joker grinned happily munching on the popcorn, "Oh, just gossiping about Kal on the original Normandy. You know, like how him and Jack kept pretending they hardly knew each other for that first stretch but, you could totally tell they were a thing? Just that."

EDI cut in the immediate silence, "And I have been trying to tell Mr. Moreau that something is wrong with the IFF and our comm systems. He isn't listening to me."

Joker rolled his eyes sounding annoyed, "Mom, we have to keep the comms online in case the Commander runs into any trouble. Besides, I'm telling you, your readings are off. It's radiation bleed from traveling in FTL for too long, just white noise."

EDI was surprisingly just as irritated with him apparently, "I am not your mother Jeff, no matter what fantasies you may have. Furthermore, I have now detected a signal embedded in the static. We are transmitting the Normandy's location."

Tali frowned knowing that didn't make any sense, Zero was the only one using an omni tool right now, "Transmitting? Run a diagnostic as to who we are communicating with EDI."

The command would prove to be pointless when the three of them heard the signature wooshing sound of something exiting FTL. Tali's gut sank when she saw that something was the Collector dreadnought from before. Her fear not only came from the fact that it was here to attack them but, also from the fact that it looked as good as new. None of the hull breaches from Zero's attack on Horizon, or the ones from the Turian ship were present meaning it had repaired itself awfully quickly. She also should've been concerned with the fact that this found them from a transmission inside the ship but, Tali assumed it was merely the IFF. Not even the Cerberus crew would've been stupid enough to actually call this down on themselves and none of the actual crew left had any reason to side with the Collectors.

Joker tensed spinning his chair back to the controls quickly, "Oh, shit. We're getting out of here!"

EDI took a few seconds to answer, "Propulsion systems are disabled. I'm detecting a virus in the ship's computers. Primary defense systems are offline. However, we can all save the Normandy, but you must help me. Give me the ship. Unlock my sealed databases, and I can initiate countermeasures. The maintenance shaft in the science lab will allow passage to the AI core."

Even if she was telling the truth, Tali was hesitant to free an AI under any circumstances, "Why don't you contact Legion EDI? He should be able to perform any task that you can faster."

Kasumi glared at her, "Is now really the time to argue which scary AI can get the job done faster?"

She held up a hand to silence her objection, "EDI?"

EDI responded after a moment, "I am unable to find Legion or Saren anywhere on the ship. Since all the escape pods are still locked, I can only conclude they are in Shepard's cabin for whatever reason. The Collectors have also locked down the elevators meaning they are trapped inside. I am the only AI available to defeat the virus in time."

Tali knew she was telling the truth, for all her own programming skills, she was no match for a Reaper virus. On the other hand, freeing an AI of any kind from set controls went against everything Tali believed in. This kind of ends justified the means mentality was exactly the kind of philosophy that brought about the Morning War with the Geth. EDI was technically only one unit but, Tali couldn't even begin to imagine the kind of damage she could cause with the Normandy. Did they really have time to go free EDI anyway? Surely the Collector ship was going to start firing on them at any moment. Tali's fear grew when instead of the yellow light from it's main weapon, she saw a swarm of shuttles coming at them. They weren't going to blast them out of the sky, they wanted to take all of them for their organic material.

Kasumi helped Joker out of his chair quickly, "Come on, I don't want to be Collector food and this is our only option."

Tali made up her mind moving to Joker's other side, "Agreed. We're going to get through this... We're going to make it."

Joker glared at her while limping forward, "Could you quit saying that? Your making me extremely nervous that we aren't going to make it."

A member of the small security team rushed by them to get to the airlock, "You three get to the escape pods, we'll cover you!"

Tali guided Joker to the science lab door with a huff, Keelah he was heavy for a sick person to drag along with them. "Sorry, I'm just trying to have some positive reinforcement."

Her heart was pounding extremely fast as Kasumi helped Joker into the shaft. At any moment the Collectors could burst through the airlock door and Tali knew from experience all hell would break loose. The small security team would be no match for the actual Collector forces. She guessed they would be picked off by the seeker swarms since Mordin couldn't make jammer hardware for everyone. An explosion made her heart sink just as Joker slid down the shaft, they were here. She saw the security team desperately shooting at the seekers only to be paralyzed one by one, Veetor's paranoia was suddenly very understandable. Kasumi moved down the shaft considerably faster which Tali was grateful for. Just as she grabbed the ladder rungs to go down, one of the Collector trooper's acid blasts flung above her head. Tali recoiled grabbing the hatch to the shaft and swung it over her head.

She landed with a thump back in the medbay. Other than more of the Cerberus security team guarding the elevator, this floor seemed relatively peaceful. Had the rest of the crew not heard the explosion? How many people weren't even aware they were under attack right now? This was the worst possible scenario since the Normandy was a stealth ship. No one could ever imagine they were the ones to be ambush. Her eyes spotted Zero still in bed and a new problem popped into her head. The girl still couldn't walk and wasn't wearing a seeker jammer, she was more vulnerable than any of the rest of them right now.

Zero's face showed she understood the same problem, "Go, I'll cover you from whatever's coming."

Tali shook her head leaving Kasumi to drag Joker to the AI core, "Not a chance, Kal would kill me if I just left you in here alone."

She started unhooking Zero from her medical equipment only for EDI's orb to appear next to her, "Tali, the Collectors are already using the elevator to come down here. You do not have enough time statistically to save Subject Zero. I can only protect you in my core room if you hurry."

Tali grunted just tearing the IV apart, "Then do whatever you can to slow down the elevator. I'm not leaving Zero behind."

The elevator door exploded creating a similar story as to what happened upstairs, except this time windows were exposing them. When she heard the twang of the acid weapons firing, Tali jumped on top of Zero as a last ditch effort to protect her forgetting the girl had biotics. Realizing her spine wasn't burning with the acid, Tali turned her head back to see the window had been replaced with biotic energy. She took the few seconds that must've given them to try and carry Zero forward as Kasumi just now got Joker through the door. Unfortunately, since she was still sick, Tali didn't have the strength to carry her more than a foot before they both fell over. Her head hit the ground with a ringing and she saw the biotic shield disappear.

Zero glared seriously at her, "We don't have time to argue now, go!"

Tali tried to recover from the hit as fast as she could to weakly drag Zero along with her, "No! Errrggghhh... We're making it out of this."

Zero was glowing a bright hot blue, "Tell Kal he was the best dad I could ever ask for."

Without asking, Zero launched Tali forward into the AI core before starting to use her biotics as a weapon. Tali stood up as quickly as she could to go back after her but, Kasumi had already shut the door trapping them in here. Her first instinct was to punch Kasumi and try to get back out there but, she was thinking about the bigger picture. If they all died or were captured, Shepard would lose the Normandy forever before being able to attack the Collector base. She had to let Zero get captured now so they had the opportunity to maybe rescue her later. They had no idea how long the Collectors kept their victims alive, if they could attack fast enough maybe they could save her.

Joker looked up at the ceiling, "All right, we're at, uh, you... What now?"

EDI replied as if nothing just happened, "Connect the core to the Normandy's primary control module." After Kasumi followed the request she continued, "I have access to the defensive systems. Thank you. Activating the drive and opening the airlocks as we accelerate. All hostiles will be killed."

Tali frowned starting to pace around the room, "What about the rest of the crew?"

EDI was monotone, "Other than Rael and Saren, they are all gone. The Collectors took or murdered them."

Kasumi just stared at the floor, "Shit..."

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds until EDI announced, "Purge is complete. No other life forms on board. Securing airlocks and cargo bay doors."

Joker was just as depressed as the rest of them, "Send a message to the Red Rose or whatever it is... Tell them what happened."

EDI quickly answered, "Message away. Are you all feeling well?"

Joker just shook his head, "No. But thanks for asking."