Chapter 10

"Tali!" Gabby shouted in the engineering room, "You doing ok in there?"

"I'm fine!" Tali replied, shouting back to make sure Gabby could hear. She continued to crawl the ducts in the engineering room looking for the source of the Normandy's recent power failure, which was odd and happened at the most inconvenient of times, with the whole mission Kasumi and Garrus's teams were on. Power had to be restored in order to resume communication and it'd be nice if EDI were around just in case the Normandy was ambushed by mercenaries or slavers. Tali crawled around on all fours, scanning parts and equipment with her omni-tool, crawling around again and then doing more scanning. It was a very annoying job even a quarian would hate and Tali was no exception, but she wanted to save the engineers trouble and decided to go in herself. Besides, she was much more familiar with the Normandy than the rest of the team so she knew exactly what she was doing, where's Gabby or Ken may accidently muck something up. After valiantly enduring much crawling, head bumping, elbow banging and lower back pain Tali came across the port where she could affect the ship's power source, which was a small box designed to be affected by an engineer's omni-tool. She opened the box up to examine all the digital displays held within, each one representing a different part of the Normandy's engineering or electrical system. Slowly and carefully she wirelessly connected her omni-tool to the box and began clicking buttons and shifting wheels on her omni-tool, swirling things around in a complicated fashion. After five 10 minutes of tinkering with the ship's electricity the power finally came back on, the engines were restarted, and the Normandy was back in the business of pissing Cerberus off.

"Ok, power's back on, we should be good to go," Tali radioed back to her fellow human engineers.

"Excellent," Ken replied all pumped up and rubbing his fists. Gabby went straight back to work but Ken continued to stare at Tali manically which she didn't realize until she turned to her right for a moment to see her accomplice smiling like an idiot.

"Need something Ken?" Tali asked, wondering what was up with him.

"So… Shepard…" he replied playfully.

"What about him?" Tali asked still typing away at her computer. She began typing faster than usual, depending much more on the backspace button now and sweating underneath her enviro-suit. She knew exactly where this conversation was going.

"How did you two go?" Ken asked bluntly. Tali blushed as red as an apple, but luckily her face was hidden under her mask.

"Kenneth!" Gabby threatened menacingly, but Ken was going to ignore this time. His curiosity for what quarians looked like was getting the better of him.

"I… don't know what you're talking about," Tali replied stuttering, words rushing out her lips and light speed. She knew exactly what he was talking about but she wanted to do nothing more than avoid the question.

"Come now my dear girl, what is it like for a quarian lady to sleep with a human man? Did you get it on video?" Ken asked teasingly with a stupid grin on his face. Gabby decided his perverted habits had gone too far again and used all her strength to gut him with her fist, which made him give off a big yelp.

"Can it Kenneth, we have work to do," Gabby lectured angrily. Ken could only grunt as he tried getting back up to his feet, his hand resting on his hip as he tried sucking the pain in.

"Damn it girl, what the hell?" Kenneth complained. Gabby didn't bother to even look at him. Instead she just kept on typing away at her keyboard doing her engineering work and Kenneth went on to do the same. Tali breathed a sigh of relief, letting her take the moment in for a while, and then punched in a code on her omni-tool to signal Kasumi back on Illium.

"Kasumi, you there?" she asked calmly.

"Tali?" Kasumi asked out of surprise, "we've been trying to contact the Normandy for ages."

"There was a power cut but we're back online. How is everything?"

"We found an operative but…" Kasumi really didn't want to tell her friend the bad news.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Creator Tali'Zorah," Legion interrupted, "target is dead. He consumed cyanide to escape capture."

"Well that's a shame, we need to warn Garrus's team to make sure they know about that."

"Hmm yes," Mordin examined from behind, "cyanide capsules hidden in molars, problematic, wish crew would remember."

"Wha – Mordin, when did you - " Tali stuttered out shocked to see Mordin appear from nowhere.

"Tali, you requested some tests taken regarding your immune system. I have them," Mordin informed, mouth moving quicker than a hamster on coffee. Both the human engineers glanced at the aliens with curiosity, even Gabby, she was just better at hiding it then Ken.

"Oh, um, sure Mordin, let's look at, ah, everything," Tali replied nervously as the two of them went to Zaeed's quarters for privacy. Once in Mordin took in another deep breath before speaking.

"Have taken the tests Tali, your immune system seems to have strengthened since intercourse with Shepard. Still, recommend taking these immuno-boosters in the future, less severe allergic reaction."

"Oh, thank you," Tali replied as she took the immuno-boosters, "anything else?"

"In near future, extra herbal supplements recommended. Use caution with more artificial medicine, higher doses can be harmful, immuno-boosters should be enough. Also, obvious Shepard didn't self sterilize properly last time, give him this for future," Mordin recommended professionally as he handed Tali a vial of something strange.

"Thank you Mordin, Shepard and I will do things better next time," Tali thanked.

"Good, now if you'll excuse me Tali, I still need to work on cure for kepral's syndrome, Shepard's personal request, as even agreed to fund whatever is necessary, can't let him down." Mordin paced out of the room and back to his station in the lab, leaving Tali to brush her fingers over her new medicine. As she thought about what she was going to do with them her omni-tool beeped and she, put her supplements away to answer the message. It was from Shepard.

"Hey beautiful! " Tali let off a grin like no other. Even in the middle of an important mission he still made time for her. In her mind she even began questioning whether he really was an Alliance N7, because they were meant to be far more disciplined.

"Hey handsome," she typed back.

Keelah I need to lay off the breaks and actually start writing something. Anyway here is chapter 10 of my first ever fanfic. Enjoy!

-Frostbrandt