Nate and Tali found themselves in a cargo hold. It was relatively empty, except for the few weapons laying on a nearby crate. He took a careful step forward. His leg was no longer broken. Or rather, not yet broken. There was a stairway to his left, so he waved Tali to follow.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I think we are where the Cerberus experiment took place. The problem being that two years ago there was no Cerberus here. My guess is it's a civilian cruiser passing by. I don't want to think about what could've happened if no one was here right now. We'd be stranded in space," he explained.

"Let's get going. I don't want to know what people will think of us "hitchiking" on their ship," Tali expressed her thoughts.

They creeped up the stairs, armed with the M-8 Avengers found on the crates. A door opened in front of them. A lone man stood behind it facing away from them. He was armed and seemed to have a long beard.

"What should we do?" Nate whispered.

Tali made the impression of stabbing someone in the throat. Nate did not question her and pulled a knife from his sleeve and jabbed it into the side of the sentry's neck, covering his mouth with his hand. He swiftly pulled it out and dragged the body out of the doorway. No one had yet noticed them.

"That's what you call an ace up your sleeve," he smirked, "Must be a pirate ship, any Quarian laws against forcefully overtaking ships?"

"We tend to look bad on thieves. But it's not like we have a choice."

"We do. We do it the fun way, shooting every single f***er in the head, guns blazing, or take it quiet and heighten our chances of survival."

"Let's just see how it turns out," Tali proposed.

Nate didn't reply and looted a pistol from the corpse. He moved on into the room. It was a mess hall, albeit an empty one, with just a few rum bottles. Nate had read about the 17th century pirates and was surprised they had kept their fondness for rum all this time. The ship certainly wasn't small. It lacked in janitors though as it was pretty dirty and the floor was stained. There were two doors in the room, excluding the one they had just come trough.

"I say we pick the left one," Nate proposed.

Tali nodded and they took cover on each side of the door. He activated the door and carefully peeked in. It must have been someone's private quarters. Two figures seemed to be passed out sitting on chairs near table. Nate walked up to them and sliced one's throat swiftly with his knife. The other's treatment wasn't much better. While looking trough the bodies' belongings Tali was already near the other door. They once again took cover and opened it. It was a small hallway, with yet another door in the end. Logically they proceeded towards it, when a voice cut them off.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" it asked. It was certainly human, but did not seem like one a pirate would have. Well, a stereotypical pirate anyway.

"Keep your hands where I can see them. We are coming, but don't try anything," Nate warned.

They proceeded into an almost invisible doorway on the side of the corridor. They opened it to find a man sitting in a corner. He was pretty muscular and had Asian features.

"Kaung Myat, Migrant fleet marines. At your service," he greeted. His eyes widened. "Tali'Zorah?" he asked.

Nate stared in confusion. "You don't look Quarian to me," he said.

"I am not. My mother, or rather stepmother was. Until the Batarians came. Can we just get going? I'll explain later."

The trio moved back into the corridor.

Tali whispered to Nate as quietly as she could: "Aren't you afraid of unknown people? On a pirate ship?"

"You seem to know him. Besides, we need all the help we can get if we are to stop the Reapers," he replied.

They moved trough the corridor to find a cockpit behind the door at the end of the hallway. It was populated by a single pilot, who was obviously very drunk and relied on his autopilot for any hope of keeping the ship from crashing into debris of the nearby asteroid field. Nate walked up to him from behind and slit his throat.

"God I hate all this blood! I ruined the chair and this guy's clothes!" he complained.

"What's the plan?" Kaung asked.

"The plan? Join Shepard, kill the Reapers and have fun. Like always."

"Shepard's alive?" he asked.

"What year is it?" he queried in return.

"2185," Kaung replied.

"Oh. Well, I'm going to sleep. We've had a long day with Tali."

"We're just goi-" He was cut off short as a huge, colossal figure appeared in the distance. A second later the Normandy was no more.

"Oh keelah… it's the Reapers. It's over. This is the end. We have failed," sat the Quarian deeper into her seat.

"We can't let them win. We have to find an embassy or something. Contact the Alliance," Nate vocalised his thoughts.

"There should be one just a block away." She input new commands into the taxy. It made an U-turn and sped straight towards the ground.

"You have arrived," the VI informed them.

They opened the doors and ran towards the skyscraper with the Alliance logo on it.

He could hear muffled explosions in the background. Nate activated the intercom: "This is private Halls. Requesting an audience with anyone of any responsibility. I have the Normandy's chief engineer with me."

"Come in. We have captain Anderson here."

Nate opened the door and stepped into the lobby, Tali accompaning him. "Over here!" an administrator waved them over, "Take the elevator to floor 28."

"Oh, great. That's bound to take two hours for the elevator to reach," Nate remarked. He and the Quarian stepped into the metal box of boringness and surprisingly no more than two minutes later they arrived.

Captain Anderson faced them. "I gather the situation is as bad as I think it is?" he asked.

"The Normandy is gone, yes. Along with all crew except for the two of us. It also appears that the Shadow Broker is allied with the Reapers."

"I have contacted the Alliance. Their ETA is just a bit less than a day. The local squadron's anyway. The Asari and Turians are also moving in, but they're going to take longer."

"What's the plan?" Tali asked.

"We hold out until reinforcements arrive. Intel shows about 30 or so Reapers. According to Shepard's info, this is nothing compared to what they actually have. Must be just a scouting attack.

This is not going to end well, let me tell you."

A/N: Excuse me for the date 2185, I have no clue if it is correct or not as the year in which ME2 takes place, but I'm too lazy to check it out on the ME wiki. Also, to anyone wondering, Anderson is on a vacation pretty much. Until the Reapers appear that is. Have a good day, I'm going to sleep as it is 2AM at the time of writing :)