6. Zaeed

"Diary? Can't say it's really my cup of tea. Could be useful to record my memoirs, maybe. After all, who doesn't appreciate a good war story? I remember one mission not long after we formed the Blue Suns, before Vido started letting batarians in, this was. We'd been hired to retake a space station over-run by batarians. The Alliance wanted to hush the whole thing up in case the job went south. That's why they contracted it out to us in the first place - plausible deniability plus they saw us as expendable. Vido insisted this was the perfect way for the Suns to make a name for itself - handle a high-risk suicide gig and actually survive. 'Course the fact the Alliance was offering big credits didn't hurt, either. Getting aboard the station turned out to be easier than we thought - we paid off the Shadow Broker and he gave us the name of a ship the batarians were using to fly in supplies and fresh troops. After that it was just a matter of hijacking the ship while it was in port and flying right up to the station."

"We met stiff resistance right out of the hatchway, but we were all young and full of our own sense of invulnerability. Those batarians didn't have a chance. That was the good news. The bad news was, as soon as we arrived and started shooting, the batarians in the rest of the station killed the hostages. Now, this may sound harsh, but the reality of it was this: with the hostages dead, we had no reason to take a softly softly approach and Vido and I hashed out a plan - secure the life support module of the station and just shut off the O2. We all had hardsuits rated for vacuum and zero-G and from what we'd seen of the batarians so far, they hadn't."

"We lost a few of our men on the way to the life support module. The batarians figured out what we were trying to do and moved to reinforce that position. Heavily. But they had too many men clumped together in the corridors and a few grenades took out entire groups of them at once. Good times."

"The Alliance rep wasn't too happy about the loss of their people but in all fairness, once the batarians boarded, they were as good as dead. And Vido turned out to be right in the end - that job was good for our reputation."

"Sometimes, I really miss the old days, before Vido pulled his little coup. These merc bands around today, thugs, all of 'em. Got no pride, no self-respect. They're all just out to rake in as many credits as they can, however they can. Still, I never thought I'd get the chance to plug so many Blue Suns, almost makes it all worthwhile. Shepard isn't what I expected - sure, I saw the vids when she was made Spectre a coupla years back but all the chest-pounding bravado and bullshit from the politicians and media made me ill. She looks different up close, in person than she does on the vids. Of course, part of that would be whatever the hell Cerberus did to her after she died. The woman has enough cybernetic hardware that it glows faintly under the skin. Gotta wonder, if she dies, does that hardware still keep ticking along or is it all powered by her own heart? I'd ask that Cerberus woman, Miranda her name is, but she'd just give me that superior look of hers and tell me it's classified."

"Think I'll head to the mess and see what disaster the cook has prepared today..."

7. Tali

"At first, I was really uneasy about working with Cerberus crew, especially after the way that Miranda person wanted to take Veetor away on Freedom's Progress but I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by how well everything has gone since Shepard picked me up on Haestrom. Haestrom...so many good people died there and for what? Data on exploding stars? I hope the Admiralty Board gets some use out of it, I really do. The only good thing, aside from Shepard arriving was that Kal'Reegar made it out alive. I didn't spend a lot of time around the marines the Fleet sent but he and I got on well. I sort of miss him, actually. Not just him, the whole Flotilla. After my Pilgrimage, I requested a place on the Neema. She isn't the largest or most modern ship in the fleet, far from it. I chose her precisely because she requires so much care and attention. Being an admiral's daughter, I could have opted to join a more prestigious ship but wanted a chance to prove myself based on my own merits and the Neema,bless her, gives me chances to do that every day. Usually when the air-scrubbers stop working or the H-VAC system backs up. Keelah, the smell!"

"Normandy is nothing like the ships in the Flotilla though. She's smooth and quiet and the drive core...I couldn't believe the humans could engineer something as advanced as the Tantalus core I saw in the SR-1 but this new version is light years ahead of the old design. It's just a shame that the whole thing is in the hands of a group like Cerberus. I trust Shepard implicitly and Ken and Gabby have been absolutely wonderful to work with but the Illusive Man? Humans have a saying: I trust him as far as I can throw a piano. And the AI? It disturbs me that the crew, even Shepard refer to it like it's a real person. I swear, I heard Joker flirting with the thing yesterday. Madness. Miranda says the AI has many protocols and lock-outs preventing it from taking full control of the ship but honestly, that's what we thought about the geth. We believed we had them under control and well...look how that turned out.

"Hey Tali, how are your numbers for the flux capacitors looking?"

"Kenneth! Don't interrupt her! She's in the middle of-"

"Aye, probably talking aboot what a great specimen of humanity I am, no doubt."

"Your self-delusion is staggering, Kenneth."

"Ah, the numbers are fine, Kenneth. Where was I? Oh, the AI. Hmm. It's made a number of attempts to...make friends with me since I arrived. Keelah, that's creepy. Shepard says she trusts it. Normally I hold Shepard in the highest esteem but as far as I'm concerned, she's wrong to put such faith in a glorified pocket calculator."

"The rest of the crew have been great to me, though. The cook, Gardner, even offered to try making some dextro-amino based food. But after seeing what he did to last night's meatloaf...I think I'll stick with my nutrient bars."

"Good idea, Tali, God only knows how we'd all git along if you suddenly dropped dead!"

"Kenneth!"

"Aye, right. Sorry, lass."