The Rescue Mission Pt. 2
Tali leaves mission briefing and enters the elevator. She enters a code and the elevator starts its decent.
Tali lets her mind wonder about her current mission and realizes that she doesn't know anything about Freedom's Progress. "I should have asked for intel before leaving. Shepard would have done that." Tali thinks to herself.
She then looks down to see her omni-tool flashing. She presses a button on it and a screen pops up with a message from Raan…
"Almost forgot to mention that you will be in charge of this mission. Also, along with this message are details about the colony, Veetor, and Prazza's unit. Good luck Tali and please be careful."
Tali smiles and creates a reply saying "Thank you Raan".
She looks through the files sent to her. The file on Freedom's Progress explains how it's a small colony with minor defenses other than a small military force, mainly consisting of mechs and drones. There is also a map that shows the layout of the area, mostly made up of houses. She then looks over the file on Veetor. It didn't have much more than what Tali already knew other than a note mentioning that Veetor didn't like large crowds. "Probably the reason he chose to go to Freedom's Progress." Tali thinks to herself. She then looks over the file of Prazza and his unit. They weren't used very much other than a few scouting missions. His unit consists of ten Quarians: five soldiers, three infiltrators, and two Engineers.
It also turned out that Prazza was involved in the battle with Cerberus, a pro-human splinter group that Tali had a few run ins with during her time with Shepard, when they attacked the Migrant Fleet. After that, he became vocal with his hate of Cerberus, something him and Tali had in common evident from her vocal suggestion to send them away when they came that day under a banner of peace.
The elevator door opens to reveal the Armory. In the Armory, there were tables with different kinds of guns laying on them. There were labels on each table.
"PISTOLS"
"SHOTGUNS"
"SNIPER RIFLES"
"ASSAULT RIFLES"
She goes to the pistol table and picks up an M-3 Predator. Tali checks the pistol to make sure it's in working order. Satisfied with its condition, she then walks over to the shotguns and grabs an M-23 Katana and does the same as she did with the pistol. Quarians always took care of their weapons, obvious from the condition of the weapons. She looks at the other tables and notices empty spaces amongst them. The assault rifle table is almost empty except for one.
"Prazza's unit must have already taken their picks." Tali thinks before she hears voices from beyond the room. She goes through the door on her right side.
Prazza and nine other Quarians are in the room checking the equipment and talking. Two male Quarians, one in yellow and one in red, are heard easier than the others.
"Did you hear about what Tali did in the Mess Hall?" the one in red asks.
"Sure did, Raz. Do you think she's finally snapped?"
"It wouldn't surprise me. I feel sorry for her father." Raz says. The other Quarian notices Tali and tries to subtly tell Raz about her without success. "Admiral Rael must be so disappointed to have a daughter like…" he says before he realizes what the other Quarian was trying to hint at. He stopped immediately.
"Go on ahead Raz…finish your sentence. Admiral Rael must be so disappointed to have a daughter like… what exactly?" Tali says in a stern voice.
Raz turns quickly, "Oh…Miss Zorah…I'm sorry…I shouldn't of…It's none of my business…"
"You're right Raz. It is none of your business. It's nobodies business…" Tali meant to just think it but says it out loud instead, "Bosh'tet."
Tali walks away before Raz pushes the other Quarian for not warning him better. She goes over to another Quarian wearing a white and black suit. "Prazza?"
Prazza looks up to see it's Tali. "Tali Zorah…" Prazza says as he puts out his hand in greeting. Tali shakes his hand. "Sorry about that by the way. I'll make sure they're disciplined when we get back."
"Don't worry about it, Prazza." Tali says reassuringly. "I'm sure the embarrassment of being caught is punishment enough. Have you and your unit been told about the mission?"
"We were told that you will be taking the lead and that you would brief us when you got here." Prazza then looks out to his soldiers. "Listen up soldiers! Tali's going to inform us of our mission and she's only going to do it once."
All eyes were on Tali now. She wasn't the most confident person when it came to public speaking but she put her nerves aside. She presses a button on her omni-tool and a larger version of the map that was sent to her from Raan takes up the room.
"This is Freedom's Progress…a human colony in the Terminus System and the last known location of one of our people, Veetor'Nara." Tali explains. "About an hour ago, all contact with Veetor and the Colony went dark. The mission is simple…we are going to take a ship to Freedom's Progress, find Veetor, and if necessary, bring Veetor home to the Flotilla. Any questions?"
"Could it just be a problem with the communication equipment?" one of the female squadmates asks.
"If it was a problem with the equipment, Veetor would have fixed it by now." Tali answers. "Since communications are still down, the Admirals have dismissed that possibility. If that is the case though, we'll fix it and be on our way."
"Should we assume hostiles will be present?" Raz asks.
"We can't assume anything. We have no idea what's going on there. So until hostiles are confirmed, keep the safeties on and let me do the talking." Tali answers with authority. "Anything else?" Nobody speaks. "Ok, it will take a few hours to get there. Grab some extra nutrient packs and extra medi-gel just in case. We leave in five."
Tali is back on the Normandy again. This time she is in the living quarters. They had just escaped the Citadel, against C-Sec, the Council, and Ambassadors Udinas orders, and were heading for Ilos to stop Saren. She kind of felt a rush of excitement from the disobedience.
It had been a few hours since they plotted the course that Tali realized something. They were about to face an army of Geth, a rogue spectre, and a reaper. The crew was extremely talented, already achieving what would seem impossible for such a small crew but the odds against them were overwhelming and the possibility of death was unfortunately high.
She then looked towards Shepards room…
"No…he's already has enough on his mind." She thinks to herself but she can't remove the thought from her mind. She wanted to experience that kind of…intimacy at least once before she dies. She didn't feel that way a month ago. A month ago all she worried about was finding something valuable to bring back to the Flotilla, something that could help her people. Shepard changed all that when he entered her life.
She looks towards Shepards room again…
"No! Stop it Tali. The mission comes first." She thinks to herself, worrying about these selfish desires that she's having. "What if I were to get sick? What if he's too worried about me getting hurt, that he hurts himself to protect me during the mission? If anything would happen to him, the crew would lose their morale and we would fail. The needs of the galaxy outweigh my wants." She tries to convince herself, but fails.
Evident from her looking towards Shepards room again…
"Would it even be possible? I could take an hour to do research on it. I'm sure Quarians have been intimate with humans before. If it comes to my immune system, I imagine Dr. Chakwas has what I would need to make my system stronger. I have never trusted anyone like I trust Shepard. If these are going to be my last few hours alive…I want them to be with him."
She starts walking towards his door. She tries to walk slowly but it doesn't take long before she's right in front of it.
"I might as well be sure first. What am I even going to say?"
Before she can knock though, she hears a sound coming from the other side of the door. She puts her ear closer to the door where the sound becomes unmistakable.
Ashley was in there…and so was Shepard…and the sounds were their voices making it obvious they didn't want to be disturbed.
Tali, disappointed in herself for bringing her hopes up so high, walks away from the door and heads for the drive core before she wakes up, back on the ship she was on before she went to sleep. She starts to cry again.
After an hour, Prazzas voice is heard over the intercom of the ship.
"Tali, we are twenty minutes away from Freedom's Progress."
Once they were past the relay for the Vallhallan Threshold, Tali told Prazza to inform her if there were any problems during the trip or when they were close to Freedom's Progress. There were no problems at all during the past few hours. "I'll have to mention that in the report" Tali thinks to herself as she thinks of how well Prazza and his squad did the entire time. "Get your team ready Prazza. I'll be up shortly."
Five minutes later, she heads to the bridge to find Prazza and eight of the nine members of his team, one of the engineers is piloting the ship, are checking their gear and weapons.
Raz and his fellow infiltrators are looking over their sniper rifles and testing their tactical cloaks, Dis, the other engineer in green, is checking something on her omni-tool with a pistol at her side, and the soldiers are sorting out grenades with their assault rifles on their backs. They look like their getting ready for anything.
"Remember, finding Veetor is our top priority." Tali explains to the crew. "We find him and extract him if necessary and no weapon fire until I say so."
"Miss Zorah, can you come to the cockpit? There is something you might want to see." The pilot asks over the radio.
"Keelah... I was hoping this was going to be a problem free mission." Tali thinks to herself as she makes her way to the cockpit. She arrives and asks, "Is there something wrong, Kar?"
Kar turns around in his chair to confirm its Tali. He's wearing a blue and yellow suit. "I did a scan of Freedom's Progress and the results just came in."
"And they were?"
A map of the colony pops up and shows only one blue dot. "We're reading only one life sign."
"It must be wrong." Tali says. "Try it again and I will try to link to Veetors omni-tool."
Tali gets in the co-pilots chair and goes to work on the keyboard in front of her. After a few minutes, she finds Veetor. She then gets out her omni-tool and works on it. After a few seconds, Tali brings up the map that Raan gave her. It has a blue dot on it as well at the exact location it was at on Kar's map. "Keelah…He's the only one there?" Tali thinks to herself.
"We're still showing only one life sign, Miss Zorah." Kar says to Tali.
"Why is Veetor the only one there?" Tali thinks before she comes to a terrible possibility. "Did he… go insane and kill everybody?"
"We're coming up on the landing zone." Kar announces over the radio.
As they are going in, Tali looks to where they are going and then looks at her map and realizes that Veetor is at the landing zone. "Maybe this will be an easy mission."
Freedom's Progress is in view. Tali looks past the windows in front of her and can see the landing pad. She also notices a male Quarian wearing a dark pink and white suit, scanning one of the mechs with his omni-tool.
"There's Veetor!" Tali exclaims. "Maybe I can get through to his omni-tool." She presses a few buttons on her omni-tool and she hears Veetor talking, his voice sounding maniacal.
"Mechs will protect. They are coming back for me. I have to hi…They're here!"
Tali looks down at Veetor and notices that he's looking up at their ship. He's holding his arm. "He must have a suit rupture."
"Have to hide!" Veetor yells before he starts running in the opposite direction of the landing zone and back into the colony. Tali tries to talk to him through her omni-tool.
"Veetor'Nara, this is Tali'Zorah vas Neema. I am on the Quarian ship you just saw. We are here to help you."
Tali looks up to see Veetor still running. "He isn't listening." As the ship lands, she gets out of the pilot chair. She notices Kar attempting to do so as well. "No Kar. Stay here and keep the ship going. We may need a quick exit."
"Yes, maam." Kar replies.
Tali runs to the exit hatch of the ship and sees the rest of the crew are there waiting. She looks over at Prazza.
"Veetor has a suit rupture. We need to find him as soon as possible." Tali says to her crew in a hurried voice. "Get weapons ready!"
Tali gets her pistol out and has it at her side as the hatch opens. All ten Quarians pour out with Tali taking the lead. It seems Kips readings were right. No humans have come to greet them or attack them.
Tali goes over to the mech that Veetor was scanning. She scans it with her omni-tool.
"It looks like Veetor was trying to reprogram this mech." Tali explains to Prazza.
"Reprogram it to do what?" Prazza asks.
"He wasn't able to finish what he was trying to accomplish, but it seems Veetor was making modifications to its targeting system." Tali says before realizing what Veetor was trying to do. "We may need to proceed with caution."
"Who knows how long Veetor has had that injury. We need find him now." Prazza exclaims.
"I agree Prazza but this colonies defenses are made up mostly of these mechs. Seeing how Veetor reacted to us and the fact that we haven't seen anybody else, we have to assume something terrible happened here. Veetor sounded scared. He probably programmed these mechs to attack anything that moved, to protect him."
Her theory was about to prove true as a group of three mechs appear with pistols and smgs held out in front of them from the colony. The red U in their black faces light up. "Hostiles detected"
Remembering what Shepard would say in this situation, Tali instinctually yells out "Everyone get to cover!"
Most of the squad gets to cover before the bullets start to fly. One of the soldiers got shot in the shoulder.
"So about that safety policy, Miss Zorah?" Raz asks sarcastically.
"Consider it temporarily lifted smartass!" Tali yells at Raz. "Wait for them to reload!"
The mechs reach the end of their clips and start to reload. Raz peeks out with his M-97 Viper, aims, and takes out one with a head shot. Dis overloads one causing it to explode before Tali takes the last one out with her pistol.
"Please tell me that wasn't it." Raz yells out. "That wasn't even a chall…Oh crap!"
Raz quickly jumps out of the way before a rocket hits the ground near where he was standing.
Tali looks up in the direction where the rocket came from and sees an entire squadron of ten or more combat drones coming their way.
"Plan Tali?" Prazza asks
Tali thinks as the rockets continue blasting their position "We need to get into the colony Prazza." She looks over at Dis. "You and I are going to hack as many drones as we can." Dis nods. She then looks to Raz who is checking his suit. "Are you ok Raz?"
"No ruptures maam." Raz answers.
"We're going to make a run for the colony and get into the first house we find. Whatever drones Dis and I can hack should buy us some time but once the hacked drones are destroyed, their attention will be back on us. Prazza…you, Raz and I will take up the rear and keep them distracted. Dis, you take the lead and take cover in the first house you find."
Tali then looks to the wounded soldier, "Can you run?"
He nods towards her. Tali then peeks over her cover and sees the squadron of drones in front of their position, waiting. "On my signal, Dis." Tali gets her omni-tool ready. She looks over to see Dis has done the same. The screen on Tali's omni-tool shows a mass of dots. She touches one of the dots in the center. The dot enlarges showing the statistics of the selected drone.
Rocket propelled weaponry, flight capable, attack hostiles are a few details shown. Tali notices there is no protection from hacking. She could probably hack the entire group if she had more time, but Veetors injury gave them a limited amount. She alters it to attack friendlies.
"Do it!" Tali yells before Dis and her press a button.
It's silent for a moment before the sound of rocket fire and explosions break the silence.
"GO...GO!" Tali yells before the squad, except for Raz, herself, and Prazza, start running. Once the rest of the squad is out, Tali, Raz, and Prazza run out. Tali looks towards the drones and see they are still fighting amongst themselves.
Dis gets to one of the houses, hacks the door to open, and enters. The rest of the squad follows behind her.
Tali is watching the drones while walking backwards towards the house with her pistol aimed at them. Four of the drones are still intact, but are just hovering in the air. "Those must be the hacked ones" Tali thinks to herself. She then looks to see Prazza and Raz have entered the house. She turns to do the same before…
"Tali! Watch out!"
She hears Raz's voice and then looks towards the drones. Two rockets are coming right at her. Tali closes her eyes…
After a few moments, Tali realizes nothing's happening. She opens her eyes and sees the rockets right in front of her…but they're not moving. She notices they are surrounded by a blue kind of energy. The same kind of energy she saw when biotic powers were being used. "Liara?" she asks herself before she hears…an unmistakable voice.
"TALI…MOVE!"
Tali hears the command and wants to comply but is paralyzed from shock. The only part of her body she can move is her neck but she uses the only working muscle in her body to look to her right…in the direction the words came from.
Tali sees him…The brown hair…The green eyes...The scar that went down from his forehead, over his right eye, and ended at the cheek…the face that has haunted her for two years was running towards her with his hand stretched out towards the rockets.
"She…Shepard?"