A female scream echoed through the corridors of the occupied Ascension Project. Kahlee Sanders, a specialist involved in programming VI support for the new L4 implants, had just discovered something terrible.
On the docking bay Tali heard her cry. So did Tisiphone, the biotic radical at her side, and Hendel Mitra, one of the Project's staff members on strike. And so did Paul Grayson and Kai Leng, who had just come to retrieve Paul's autistic daughter Gillian, one of the remaining students; something which Mitra was resisting firmly
Everybody sprung into action. Mitra ran towards the scream, and Tali turned to follow, but something at the edge of her vision field caught her attention. She let herself fall and heard a shot ringing above her. Luckily, the quarian skeleton was far more flexible than its human counterpart, and Tali was at top physical shape. Her pilgrimage had seen to that. Gracefully, she rolled off and landed on her knees. During the fall, she had drawn her knife from its sheath at her boot, and now in one smooth motion she threw it to from where the shot had come from.
She nearly hit the mark. Kai Leng would maybe have been protected by shields, but his instincts took over and he fell back into a kneeling position to avoid the knife. This gave Tisiphone enough time to slam him with a biotic punch and raise a barrier. What's going on? Grayson was drawing a pistol, too, but Tali did not stay to watch. Tisiphone was already dragging her backwards, into a retreat. Better combat instincts than me, it seems. After all, what exactly happened was irrelevant. What mattered was that they were in a combat situation.
What they found when they ran back was nearly as shocking: Sanders and Mitra were wrestling with Toshiwa, trying to get him under control. Gillian stood next to the fight, and she looked somewhat dazed. She even seemed to have trouble just standing upright and maintaining her balance. Her eyes were somewhat glassy and even more devoid of expression than normal. When she became aware of Tali arriving, she stumbled towards her. Tali had to run up to her and catch the child to prevent her from falling down.
Meanwhile, Mitra managed to land a well placed punch right into Toshiwa's face. The pharmacist remained conscious, but was so dazed that he stopped all resistance. Sanders bolted up from the fight and shouted: "He... he drugged Gillian. Injected her with something. And whatever it was he took it from a large, hidden reserve. This can't be the first time!"
"Her biotic powers..." Toshiwa said in a dazed, confused voice before shutting up again, apparently remembering he was not among friends anymore.
Tali looked at the child that still clung to one of her arms; something that was, as she knew, very rare for Gillian. A helpless child mistreated for her biotic powers. Like so many had been before her. No way you're getting her, Grayson. She began to type on her omni-tool.
Just as Grayson and Leng came running along, an air seal on the corridor was closing in front of them. Tali had hacked herself into the station's systems to buy them some time. However, the triumph was short lived. Shortly before closing entirely, the door seemed to open again. Somebody else had access. Ancestors damn it!
"They're coming through, run!" Tali ordered the group. After all none of them were armed, while Grayson and Leng were.
The group did just that. Tali and Sanders helped Gillian along, while Mitra and Tisiphone dragged Toshiwa with them. Gillian struggled a bit against Sander's touch, but was too weak and confused to put up any real resistance.
"The pharmacy!" Sanders shouted. "Of course!" She pointed to a room door. "Quick, in there!"
Tali had no idea what Sanders was planning, but she had sounded very secure about it, and that was enough for the quarian. The group entered a middle sized room, stacked full of electronics and packages of medicine.
"This room has its own lock system," Sanders explained hastily while she typed on her omni-tool. "Some of the medicines here could be a bit dangerous if released into the general air system. Now, hopefully this should keep them out."
Watching through a window to the corridor in front of the room, Tali could indeed see how Grayson and Leng became increasingly more agitated the longer they stood in front of the door. Leng especially seemed to have lost all his suave, and finally angrily raised his pistol and fired at the window - which did not crack. Apparently, the group was indeed safe in the room.
Which meant Tali could take care of other things. She turned around, focused on Toshiwa and began to hack his omni-tool.
This proved to be surprisingly difficult. As she began to make her way through its file orders and processes, she noticed how some were protected by high-end security systems the likes of which she had never seen before. No, wait, that's not entirely correct... keelah! I need a data dump now! As some files were deleting themselves in front of her, she dumped as many as she could onto her own omni-tool. She trusted its quarantine programs to keep any danger contained; after all, she had written them herself.
The same data self-destruction routine I encountered on Nepheron. On the Cerberus facility! [1] "You son of a clanless bosh'tet," she muttered. Speaking up she told the others: "It seems we have a powerful enemy."
"I know," Tisiphone answered. Tali turned around to face her. The biotic held up a packet of medicine. "New Dawn Pharmaceutics, but with no registration numbers for the medicine or anything. Unregistered medicine. And you know what's gone through the news recently. New Dawn is a Cerberus front company."
Not only had Tali heard, in fact this had been among the data she had unearthed on Nepheron. Heavily encrypted data, but Shepard had simply sent it to all intelligence services in the galaxy, so now, bit by bit, the unencrypted juicy news about Cerberus was hitting the limelight. The Alliance, of course, had not been amused how openly Shepard had washed their laundry, but at that point Shepard had already begun to absolutely not care.
"Cerberus," Tali said. "This all is a Cerberus operation." Cerberus most likely had been involved in the cases of deliberate eezo contamination uncovered by Shepard, so it made sense they would go to even further immoral lengths in the name of 'biotics research'.
"Oh god," Kahlee whispered. "Gillian, she... she always was more passive after medical visits by Toshiwa; quieter, more withdrawn, less stable. I thought it was only fear of doctors, but..."
She sounded hurt to the bone. Tali knew the VI specialist and Toshiwa had been a couple, but it appeared plain now that Sanders had known nothing of what the man had been doing. She had been betrayed, too.
"You think he caused her condition?" Mitra asked. He seemed to be boiling.
"Caused or worsened it," Tisiphone cut in aggressively.
In a smooth movement, Mitra turned around to Toshiwa, and hit him square into the face with his fist. The pharmacist stumbled back and was caught by Tisiphone, who grabbed his collar and pushed him hard against a wall.
"Is this true?" she asked. Her voice thundered and she loomed over Toshiwa like an impeccable predator. Her face was hard as stone, with not a trace of mercy to be found. Sparks came from her blue glowing right hand. She now looked every bit the mythical demon of vengeance she had named herself for.
It made Tali uncomfortable. Not that Toshiwa would not deserve it, but Gillian was also in the room, watching. The quarian put her hands on the girl's shoulders, and tried to shield her from the violence as best as she could.
"Her biotic potential..." Toshiwa stammered. "Cerberus thought... we have to think of the future of humanity! Kahlee, you know her powers! She's the strongest biotic we've ever seen here! If we could harness that... there are dangers out there! You, quarian, you of all people should know that, you've been on Shepard's mission! If our soldiers all had such power against those threats... I mean... what's one girl compared to the safety of all of humanity?"
"Fuck humanity," Tisiphone responded, "Only humans matter."
She whirled around with Toshiwa still in her hold and slammed him into a nearby desk with a large biotic push. The desk was hurled back and even managed to make a dent into the wall behind it. Several cracking noises could be heard. When Toshiwa came to a halt, he could not move again. He moaned. A puddle of blood began to form beneath him.
A shocked shriek came from Sanders. Tali went down on one knee and pressed Gillian to her as tight as she could, something the girl simply let happen.
Shouts could be heard from outside the room. Tali paid no attention to them and kept focusing on Gillian. When she looked up again, the room's doors were open, and members of Tisiphone's group were coming in. Alerted by Tisiphone before she had begun working on Toshiwa, they had chased away Grayson and Leng, and even more importantly, they had brought everybody's weapons along.
"I'm very glad to see you, Yong," Tisiphone said.
"Ah, it's not over yet," the man answered. "There are armed people inside that ship, and a second one is coming up towards the station. No insignia, no registration, no communication with us. They're trying to storm this place and already have people inside!"
"They really want Gillian," Tisiphone, who was still towering over the nearly motionless Toshiwa, commented
"They're not getting her," Tali spat out aggressively. Nobody does, and especially not Cerberus! Of all people Cerberus. The organization that had been Shepard's nemesis - and thus it would also be hers.
"This station cannot withstand a coordinated attack," Mitra judged. "if that second ship docks..."
"That means we need to get away before they do," Tisiphone concluded. She sounded eerily calm and analytical for somebody who had just broken several bones at once in a man. "They're after us, not the protesters. We endanger the protesters."
"If we use that lousy shuttle we came with..." Tali began.
"They'll shoot us down, yeah," Tisiphone agreed. "So we take their ship." Everybody in her group nodded. They all seemed to trust her; if she said they would take that ship, then they would take it. She looked down on Toshiwa lying in front of her. He whimpered silently in pain. "But before I need to take care of that filth in human form. So, where's the nearest airlock?"
"No!" Sanders shouted. "You can't do that!"
"I can, and I will," Tisiphone answered. She called up a holographic map of the station on her omni-tool.
"No... no..." Toshiwa whimpered.
Sanders tried to reach and attack Tisiphone, but she was blocked by several of the biotics in the room. Tisiphone ended her omni-tool programm. She and one of her companions took Toshiwa and dragged him behind them, still alive, leaving behind a trail of blood.
When they came back, without him, her eyes were nearly as empty as Gillian's. Still, she walked upright and showed no other sign that this business had bothered her. "All right then. Let's destroy the rest of them. And then get the hell out of here."
She looked everybody in the face. When her eyes met Sanders, the VI specialist scoffed. "You must be crazy if you think I'm coming with you, murderer!"
"Fine, stay here," Tisiphone said, "I'm sure Cerberus will be very gentle with you."
"Please, Kahlee," Mitra added. "You'll endanger everybody else here if you stay. And think about Gillian! Somebody needs to stay with her"
Sanders hesitated. "Fine," she conceded, finally. "I'll do that. For her sake. I'll watch over her." She glared at Tisiphone. "But don't get too comfortable, murderer. I'll watch my back, too, and I'll watch you."
Tali would have assumed the BAaT survivor to react in an angry fashion. Instead, she did not speak, and even nodded. Then she turned around, while the others followed her. They were going into battle.
Shortly before they reached the docking bay, she spoke up again: "You know who we're up against. Cerberus, who poisoned entire colonies so more biotic children could be born. Biotic children to be abused for their powers. Cerberus, who had no problems with hundreds of foetuses dying in the process and even more being born malformed into a life of pain. They are the sort of people who had us tortured! The sort of people who continue to mistreat us biotics! And you know what these specific people did. That they exploited a poor, innocent girl for her powers. They they ruined her entire life!" She paused. "So to us, that scum shall no longer be considered people or human! We'll go in there, and we'll destroy it. The order is: For Gillian, and no mercy! No quarter is given, none is expected![2] Kill them all! Their fate is sealed!"
A roar answered her. Tali did not take part in it. To her, there was no need for such extreme retribution. However, she knew that they needed to eradicate the Cerberus presence on the station, and that they needed their ship. That was the only way to get Gillian to safety. Thus, she would play along.
The biotics stormed into the docking bay. As Tisiphone had expected, the Cerberus troops had already positioned themselves there, making use of its corners and pieces of equipment standing around as covered positions. Soon, crossfire raged all across the vast room. Impact holes began to adorn the walls, and several pieces of equipment were destroyed. There was no real tactical element to the combat. Everybody sought an enemy and then battled it out.
The Cerberus troops were tenacious in their defence. They cleverly used their cover, they minimized their movement, and they were very efficient in helping each other. The biotics, on the other hand, were ferocious. They threw themselves into battle, clad in dark energy, without regard for life and limb. Tisiphone, especially, was a bolt of black lightning, a roaring storm of revenge that seemed to be everywhere at once. Without regards for her surroundings she growled and screamed, firing and releasing biotic attacks.
It was impossible to tell who had the upper hand. The biotics' wild, mighty push seemed to dazzle resistance for a bit, and there clearly was fear in the eyes of some of the Cerberus troopers. What they saw probably looked like a powerful juggernaut adorned with mystical powers to them. However, their line held, and their discipline worked in their favour. While the biotics fought with reckless abandon, that meant the Cerberus troops could stay in their cover and target one after the other. And while Tisiphone's No Quarter order helped to sow fear, it also hindered the biotics: Tali saw how they gunned down fleeing Cerberus troopers, and wasted time on humiliating and killing disarmed enemies. They remained true to their word: No mercy was shown, no surrender accepted.
Among this madness, Tali tried to remain calm, to fight more rationally. It was difficult keeping an overview of this battle, but with the experiences gained on her missions with Shepard it was possible. She would stay in the background, hack into Cerberus omni-tools, sabotage Cerberus weapons or appear wherever reinforcements seemed needed. And as the battle raged on, she noticed something. Where's Grayson? Where's Leng? Both seemed to be absent. They must be inside the ship. That was bad. They could plan and prepare ancestors know what in there. She had to do something about that. I wonder... Her omni-tool's processing power was meagre compared to the electronic might of an entire space station or even just a ship, but she had to try. Let's see if Ican flush them out.
She sought cover behind a piece of electronic equipment. Bullets flew past her, but she willed herself to pay no heed. Instead, she knelt down, laid her shotgun on her knee and focused on her omni-tool. One by one, she slipped sleeper programs into the various ship systems. She enslaved program routes, terminated certain security processes, routed all command functions to her tool. And then she struck. All over the ship, the illumination went out, doors opened and closed erratically, and the atmospheric mix in the ventilation system changed. She could not see it directly, but her omni-tool reported her successes.
They have to leave now, if they don't want to asphyxiate. Tali kept the ship under close scrutiny. She wanted to see where Grayson and Leng would exit. They were dangerous, and as far as she was concerned best be eliminated. Not due to a desire of vengeance, as Tisiphone had, but mainly to end a danger to their group and to Gillian. So she watched, hoping to catch them, and...
…her shotgun was pushed from her knee and flew away several meters. It ended up spinning on the floor, far away from her. Shocked, she looked into the direction of the push. She saw Grayson standing in a corner behind the ship, though he barely could keep himself straight. He collapsed on the floor, but she still could see a faint blue glow about him. A Red Sand addict. Red Sand gives temporary biotic powers...
She had no time to finish the thought. Instead she went up and ran. If Grayson somehow had been able to leave the ship without her noticing, then so had Leng. And running into the direction of her gun would be suicide; Tali had no doubt Leng was watching it very closely. She had barely walked three steps when a hail of bullets hit her so far mostly untested shields. She whirled around, and, as expected, faced Leng. The human had come surprisingly close, standing only some few meters away from her, holding two pistols. But Tali had expected his presence, and released a sabotage program onto the twin pistols.
Leng, though, merely smiled. He simply threw the guns away and drew two other ones. "Quick thinking little bitch," he commented. "But not quick enough."
Tali let him talk. She had to admit he was well prepared, but it would not be enough. She had learned a thing or two from Shepard, and one lesson was to never just let your enemy blather on. Either shoot them while they're still talking, or else use the time to get an advantage. By the time he had finished, she had quickly patched together the next sabotage hack. When Leng rose his next set of pistols, they jammed.
By that time, Tali's right hand had wandered to her right boot - only to find nothing there.
"You're looking for that?" Leng asked grinning. Two more pistols lay in front of him, and he held up her knife. The knife she had thrown against him. "Very well then. This will be way more fun anyway. I get to stab down Shepard's little whore with her own knife. Sabotage this."
He lunged forward. However, it was a very well guarded attack. He held back his right arm, his knife arm, and held his other hand in front of him, to ward off any counterattacks. Clearly, Leng knew how to use a knife.
With no grenades, no guns and no weapon, Tali could do little else than to back off and avoid the knife. Against a close combat weapon, shields were useless, too. Leng started several attacks, stabbed high and low, stabbed right and left. Tali had to dance away from them, holding her arms away from her body and trying best as she could to present her narrow side to Leng. She hoped to avoid his fierce charges long enough for the battle around them to die down and thus for somebody to come to her help. She whirled around, jumped, ducked and jumped up again. She danced back and forth, and at one point used her arm to block his. However, Leng simply kept on attacking.
The only useful function of her omni-tool was its flashlight. Amidst the stabs aimed at her, Tali managed to set it to a narrow, high energy setting, hoping to flash and blind her enemy. Sometimes it worked and Leng's attacks were cut short by light overwhelming his eyes. But all in all it still was a very poor defence. While he kept on attacking with the knife, she only wielded a simple beam of light in defense.
Finally, one stab hit. The knife, her own knife, cut through her envirosuit at her left upper arm, leaving a long bloody wound. Searing pain shot through her body. Shortly after, she had a smaller cut on her right lower arm. Straining to ignore the pain, she stumbled some steps back. Leng paused. His grin widened as his prey stood in front of him, hesitating and bleeding.
That moment was all the time she needed. I'll show you how much a quick thinking little bosh'tet I am. Willing herself to ignore the pain, she quickly typed a command sentence on her omni-tool. It was one she had hoped she would never have to use, and it was a shame she had to use it now, with all the data from Toshiwa on it. But it could not be helped. The tool began to emit a series of ever quickening beeps.
Leng lunged forwards again. And again. And again. During one of his attacks, Tali danced besides the knife, slipped the omni-tool over her wrist and let it fall to the ground. She dived and rolled away from the scene, taking care to not look back. Leng growled and was about to jump after her - when he was hit by a blinding strike of light.
It had been Tali's last resort; a 'going down with the ship' omni-tool program that would overheat the tool to become a very low-yield tech grenade. Just a minuscule flash grenade, actually, surely nothing that could even only injure someone - yet it was enough. Immediately, Tali jumped up again and could pass the confused Leng. In rage, he stabbed at her blindy, but she ducked below the knife and ran.
It took only two or three seconds, and afterwards Leng could focus on her again. He growled and brought the knife to an attack position again - only to face Tali holding a pistol. The quarian, of course, had run to where Leng had let his guns fall down. She had to admit, his tactic to bring several light weapons had been, theoretically, a good foil against her sabotage attempts, but he had ruined it all again with his own cockiness.
Tali fired and fired and fired. When the pistol overheated, she simply picked up the next. With an enraged howl, Leng ran away. And he was fast. With the battle around them still not subsiding, he was quickly lost in the chaos.
The ship! With her omni-tool lost, the captured systems were most likely in a chaos. There was a chance that Tali could take control of it from the cockpit, but she had to act quickly, before Leng could pre-empt her. Hastily, she ran up the ram towards its entrance - when a sudden flash of overwhelming pain hit her right arm. Her own knife stuck inside it. An expert knife fighter indeed... Against too slow objects, mass effect shields were useless; they had to be or they would also stop all air from entering. And Kai Leng had used that fact. A wave of nausea, cold and dizziness hit her, but she dragged herself into the ship. The first thing she did there was to close the door behind her.
Tali leaned against the wall, and slid down. She set her helmet's filter to the highest levels, mindful of the atmospheric changes she had caused on the ship. Then, she carefully began to remove the knife from her wound. It was a long, painful process. Agony rocked through her arm at every inch of the way. She hoped her limb would not suffer any long term consequences.
At three different points her envirosuit had been breached now. She now realized how knives, in a way, were actually more deadly to quarians than bullets. Bullets usually did not leave such large holes in the suit. There was blood all around her. She tried to apply medi-gel as good as she could without an omni-tool. Strange to be without one... The last time she had been was... Must have been eight... or nine... Oh that's not good. Tali felt how her thoughts were slipping from her. Shock from the blood loss. Maybe infection already... No... can't sleep just yet... not yet...
She waited some moments to see if the medi-gel worked; a futile gesture since she had no omni-tool to check on that fact. Then she painfully got up again, and half walked and half crawled toward the ship cockpit. Luckily, she encountered no closed or sealed doors. Sloppy security. What she did encounter, though, were hastily opened weapons lockers. Apparently, the Cerberus troops had suited up in a hurry and then had just left everything behind, confident they would return after a victory.
It was another lucky break for Tali. Among the items in the lockers she found an unequipped omni-tool. True, it was not hers and it was decidedly sub par, but she got it to start properly, and it would hopefully help her in the cockpit. Said cockpit turned out to be relatively large, since it also doubled as the ship's 'command centre' of sorts. It was more of a ship bridge, really. Still, the helmsman's chair was easily spotted. She dragged herself to it and booted up the ship's systems.
The systems' security was cutting edge, as she had come to expect from Cerberus. And all she had against it was a cheap, commercial level omni-tool with no pre-written intrusion tools. Hacking on the fly against Cerberus security while suffering from blood loss... at least I'll have quite a tale to tell. If I make it out of this. She barely even had the energy to curse this foreign, cheap piece of electronic shit on her wrist anymore. It simply would have to do. Come on...
Internal security and the doors were the first things she took control of. If she was unlucky, Leng had used the time to already enter the ship again, but she just had to trust that her good fortune would hold. Next she started up the main reactor. Every such step was a constant fight against Cerberus security programs, while she had absolutely none, but somehow she managed it. Hastily and thus inevitably sloppily written command routines, poorly designed scripts and most of all, her ingenuity and cleverness were her weapons. While it was a struggle, it seemed to be enough. After all, the security programs were still reeling from her first takeover of them.
Then she stumbled about something interesting. What's this... Point Defence? Seriously, point defence? A giddy feeling spread in Tali. What she had discovered appeared to be like a miniature version of the Alliance Navy's GARDIAN system. She breathed in and out. The ship had light GARDIAN lasers aboard. Time to fulfill Tisiphone's order. Time to kill them all. After all, a good quarian always follows orders. A silly giggle resulting from blood loss and relief rocked her.
And then she released hell on the Cerberus troops in the docking bay.
Battle-grade lasers cut through them, through their shields, through equipment behind which they had sought cover. The weapons proved to be heavy enough that mere foot troops had no defence against them, but light enough for Tali to aim them without causing friendly fire to Tisiphone's biotics. If it had been a regular GARDIAN system, the latter would most likely not have been the case, but as it was, Tali could wield it as a precise, never ceasing instrument of death against Cerberus.
Moments later, she cleared the ship's atmosphere and opened its doors again. Fortunately, Tisiphone understood. Two biotics ran to take up position at the ship door. They kept every angle of the docking bay in their line of fire, in case some Cerberus troops had escaped. And some had, Tali knew that. At least Leng had. The rest of the biotics spread out in the room again to provide security. Informed by Mitra, Sanders came running into the room, carrying a struggling Gillian. As she passed the various biotics, they joined her in running to the ship, building a tight safety cordon around her.
A shot rang. One of the biotics fell down. Two of his companions stopped, and began to drag him behind them. Another shot rang but it missed its aim widely. What happened there? But Tali could not wonder anymore. As soon as the wounded biotic had been brought aboard, as last of the group, she closed and sealed the doors and began the undocking process.
Moments later, Tisiphone and some other biotics came running onto the bridge - and saw a a wounded quarian sprawled on the helm chair with hardly any energy left, filling it with her blood, yet determined to stay awake, still clinging firecely to the control console and even controlling the ship.
It was Tisiphone who first broke the shocked silence and who walked up to Tali. "It... It seems I owe you," she said quietly and respectfully. "Maybe we all owe you our lives. Now, rest. Yong will take over."
The man already came running onto the bridge, but stood still when he saw the helm chair still occupied. He looked at Tisiphone, and the two carefully and respectfully helped Tali up from it, and then basically carried her to another seat. The captain's seat, the quarian noted with some amusement. As did Tisiphone: "You've earned it", she said with a grin. "Don't worry, we'll get you to medical as soon as we can actually man that station."
The docking bay's doors opened, and majestically, the ship began to rise. Moments later, it left the confines of the station, and was free in space. Soon, soon we can leave this all behind us...
But they did not. Instead Yong took the ship on a course that would lead it to a planetary orbit above Elysium. What is he doing? The biotic stood in front of the helm's chair, completely focused on the controls in front of him.
"They're taking the bait!" another biotic, who seemed to have taken over the sensors, announced enthusiastically "They're coming around to attack us!"
Attack? Another attack? That was not good, especially the way the ship was flying. Tali noticed how their movement was anything but smooth, and looking at a small holographic map her chair could conjure up, its course was terribly inefficient. What's Yong doing? She already began to get up again. It appeared she would have to take the helm again.
Before she could leave her seat, she was softly pushed back again by Tisiphone. "You stay where you are. Yong knows what he's doing."
"But..." Tali began.
"He's an expert pilot, actually," Tisiphone said. "Don't worry. This ship's reactor and systems are excellent. Once the Cerberus ship gets too close, we'll be out of here in no time."
"The... Cerberus ship...?" Tali asked. "Oh." She had all forgotten about the second Cerberus ship that had been approaching the station.
"We've sent live footage of Gillian over to them," Tisiphone explained. "And they think we have no idea how to fly this ship." She grinned. "That's all intentional."
"You were right it seems," Mitra agreed, "they have no interest to meddle with our occupation. They've just come for Gillian. Two entire ships for her!"
Tisiphone nodded. "So for now, we're diverting them away from the station. They've changed course, away from it and towards us. Since they think we can't handle the ship they also think they can overpower us. So, we'll let them catch on. Once they have, we'll use our superior engines to get away, and they'll be far enough away from the station to not bother with it again. At least, we hope so."
Tali just nodded. This made sense to her, but she had no more power to comment on it. She saw how Sanders entered the bridge. The VI expert shot angry glares to Tisiphone, but did not say anything. Probably because Gillian stood at her side. The girl looked ghostly pale. Even though she still hardly carried any facial expressions, Tali could see she was afraid. She wished she could smile reassuringly at her, but that was hardly possible.
"They're coming dangerously close," the impromptu sensor 'specialist' reported. She sounded worried.
"We'll still wait a bit," Tisiphone ordered. "We need to drag them out further. They'll want to make sure, and our shields can take some punishment. Wait... Wait..."
"Energy spike!" the woman at the sensors shouted. Moments later, everybody aboard felt a slight dizziness, as everybody and everything ever so slightly changed in mass. The ship's mass effect field generator had been affected as their shields had been hit. Hitting a ship in lower orbit than them. How very Cerberus. Had the shot missed it would have hurled straight on to Elysium. The planet was still thinly enough settled that it almost certainly would not have hit any settlements, but given that it had been accelerated to some percentage points of c, the ecological fallout could potentially have been grave.
"Okay, that's more than enough," Tisiphone decided. "Yong, take us out of here!"
"With pleasure!" the man said and began to type hastily on the console in front of him. Immediately, Tali felt lighter. The mass effect field generators were lowering everybody's mass as the ship accelerated. And suddenly, the flight was very smooth indeed. It appeared Yong did know what he was doing.
"Detecting three squadrons of orbital fighter craft scrambling towards us," the sensor 'specialist' announced. "Elysium is surely wondering what the hell is happening here."
"I hope they wipe the floor with those Cerberus bastards," one of the biotics growled.
"They can't afford to be any sympathetic to us, either," Tisiphone answered. "Not after their Declaration of Non-Compliance. They'd be branded as haven for terrorists and pirates. We have to get away from them, too."
"Get away to where?" Sanders asked aggressively. "In all your lack of planning, have you ever considered that little detail?"
Tali turned in her chair and looked towards her. The blonde VI specialist was shivering in suppressed rage, and next to her Gillian looked absolutely lost. The girl's plight touched her.
"There's..." she began weakly. "There's a place." A place where Sanders was a celebrity and where they would appreciate a captured ship. However, also a place where their arrival would be a serious breach of security and a place where such things were the first issues she was supposed to think about. In any case she had everybody's attention.
She looked again at Gillian. A biotic. A biotic child. An innocent and vulnerable biotic child abused for her powers. Just like the kids on BAaT had been. And finally, an innocent and vulnerable biotic child abused for her powers by Cerberus. It made her head dizzy. This would have pushed all of Shepard's buttons, all at once. She could imagine how he would have raged about it. And thus she knew what she had to do.
"The Migrant Fleet," she managed to get out. Her father would be furious. She did not care. "We're going... home."
And with that, she passed out.
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[1] The Assignment 'UNC: Hades' Dogs' of ME 1, written about in chapter 16 of TFHS.
[2] Since I also mentioned international law last chapter, in fairness it should also be mentioned that the order to not give quarter has been explicitly defined as a war crime already all the way back in the Hague Convention of 1907...