"You're a bosh'tet Tom." Why was Tali so pissed at Tom? There just didn't seem to be a discernible reason as to why, I saw this on the shuttle too, as soon as Legion mentioned Shepard directly interfacing with the Geth collective Tali just seemed to randomly get angry at Tom. This was exceptionally rare too, as normally the two were comforting each other, it wasn't a secret that they...what was that human saying? Had a thing for each other?
"Relax Tali." Ironically Tom himself was anything but relaxed, he had beads of sweat running down his forehead, and my visor told me that his vitals were going a little bit crazy, because I'm pretty sure for humans that 120 beats per minute is a little...much. "Shepard isn't in any danger, he'll be fine, just relax." What did he mean by that? This was getting a very odd.
"What's going on? Do you two know something I don't? And Tali, why are so pissed at Tom?" I decided to cut the snark this time, this was serious.
Tom's heartbeat got even faster, now it was at 140 beats per minute, which is probably unhealthy.
"It's uhh..." His heartbeat was 155, definitely unhealthy at this point.
"You can tell him Tom, her voice was a little less pissed now, but it still held an edge to it.
"I can't anymore I-" Tom passed out.
"Tom!" Tali was terrified, I doubted she'd ever seen a human faint before except by Shepard's fist, but I knew this wasn't going to be an issue, since his heartbeat was slowly dropping, he'd passed out from shock.
"Is he going to alright, Garrus?"
"He'll be fine, you just stressed him out too much, his heartbeat was at 165 when he passed out, so that's probably the cause, and it's dropping slowly." I reassured.
Meanwhile
"Is that...Tom? On his computer?"
"Yes, Shepard-Commander."
"Why is this stored in the Geth collective? I know you and him are friends and all but..."
"This event is significant to the Geth due to it being the first time when an Organic being interacted with us in a non-hostile attitude, on that computer he is looking at me for the first time, he was the one who initiated communication, we must admit that this is a litte odd considering standard human behavior.
"Why would this be considered odd?"
"We calculated that the odds of him shutting down his terminal at 4.5 seconds after seeing us were 98.44%, and his chances of initiating communication in a non hostile manner 0.1337%."
"Heh, Organics aren't know for always staying true to statistics, and don't spit out a bunch of numbers after I finish this sentence as I don't want to hear it, let's continue, we'll discuss this later."
Legion nodded. "Acknowledged."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"He's waking up."
"Shouldn't we help him?" Tali said, panic laced her tone.
"There's nothing we can really do, he just needs to wake up on his own."
"Okay."
"Gah, how long was I out for?" Tom rubbed his eyes as he got up.
"Around 3 minutes, are you alright?' Garrus asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine I just passed out, I've had this happen before, it's not particularly unnatural for me to faint under extreme pressure, I'm fine."
"I was worried Tom, are you sure you're okay?" Tali still seemed slightly perturbed.
"No worries I-" Tom was cut off as Shepard's pod opened and a slightly disorientated Shepard stumbled out, but he managed to catch himself before he fell.
"Well that was...interesting to say the least." Shepard said.
"Are you alright Shepard?"
"Yeah, just a little dazed from the whole thing, there wasn't really any danger though, I'm okay."
Garrus would've admitted that he was little uncertain that they were getting out of this one though, as several Primes started powering up, he knew Shepard would get them out of here alive, but there was probably going to be some casualties.
"Uh Shepard, several Primes are powering up." Garrus said, reaching for his rifle. Tali also quickly had her hands on her holstered pistol, just in case she had to draw it at a moments notice.
"We have transfered all the Geth programs from the sever in these Primes." Legion said.
"Why?!" Shepard held a tone of anger in it.
That's when all of the 'eyes' of the Primes turned blue, indicating a loss of Reaper control.
"They want...to join us."
"Well that's a relief, alright, back to the Normandy everyone!" Shepard commanded.
The one thing that stood out to Garrus through the entire mission was this one simple fact:
Tom didn't even seem slightly paranoid at all when the Primes started powering up.
...
"Thank you Shepard for disabling those Geth fighters you saved around 20% of our Live ships." Raan was very grateful.
"Don't mention it, also where's Admiral Koris and Admiral Zorah? I wanted to talk to them."
"Koris sacrificed his crashing ship while you were disabling the fighters, Admiral Zorah was on it when it went down, we got a little communication through, indicating that everyone survived the crash, but a Geth search party has been sent out to take them out." Raan sounded ever so slightly distraught.
"Give the coordinates of the crash site, I'll go and rescue them."
"Thank you Commander, I'll have the coordinates sent to your Omni-tool, good luck."
...
"Tali, Liara and James report to the shuttle bay with full gear, we're going to be rescuing two Quarian admirals."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Every time he closed his eyes he could just image all of those families destroyed by the Reapers, it was tearing him apart. Why couldn't he have just warned the Alliance? They just wouldn't believe him, especially since he was busy with other things and he didn't want to draw any attention at the time, now it had come to haunt him.
Was this PTSD? Unlikely but possible, he wasn't particularly weak mentally however, so he cast that thought aside. Maybe it was Survivors guilt, yeah, that had to be it. Out-living so many people and KNOWING about it was definitely something that he could see effecting him, this was insane.
He wished he could go back, and fix several things, regretting stuff means a lot of things, but it mostly means that no one is perfect, what a difference between machines and organics. And that's when Garrus walked in.
"Uh, hi Garrus." Tom sputtered, he wasn't expecting this.
"Hello Tom, I just wanted to talk about some things, you never finished about why Tali was so angry with you earlier, can you tell me now?" Garrus was suspicious. "And how were you so calm when Legion downloaded those Geth into the Prime units? Even Shepard was caught off guard and he was in the server."
Tom's mind raced at a million miles per minute. The gig was up, Garrus knew he was up to something suspicious, he was 100% screwed. He may as well come clean, what else could he do? There wasn't much else he could think of, and he could never take Garrus, he was bad enough at unarmed combat as is. I hastily disabled EDI's ability to monitor the room, he couldn't risk her knowing as well.
"You know Garrus, do you remember that conversation you had with Shepard? Do you remember the ruthless calculus of war?"
"How do you know about that?!"
"Oh and how is your sister doing? You're worried about her getting off Palaven safely aren't you?"
"Spirits, how do you know about all of this? Only Shepard knows those things. It's almost like you've be-"
"Been there before, and I have Garrus, that's why I wasn't terrified in the slightest when those Primes came online and why I knew about both of those conversations you've had with Shepard, and no, I wasn't monitoring either of those things. Also, do you remember that conversation you had with Ashley? In that Citadel elevator three years ago? I know that too, you want me t-"
"You've made your point, how do you know?!"
"Let's just say I was never supposed to exist here, I was transported here with knowledge of the future from a time when Humanity could barely escape Earth's orbit, I know what's going to happen, and when, I could never tell anyone, it would never make sense, let's just say I was sacrificing a billion over here to save the rest of the Galaxy, because my knowledge would be useless if I revealed everything so quickly."
"Why haven't you told Shepard about all of this then?"
"I try to do it in ways that show I don't know the future, like how Section leaked the location of main base of Cerberus, which is hidden in the Horsehead nebula. And for a second do you really think that Shepard would or anyone else would believe me? The only reason you do is because you've pieced it all together. Do you think I didn't want to tell Shepard or anyone else? No, true to be told it's tearing me up inside, I wish I could've done something to save everyone I-," Tom's voice started breaking up. "It's just I want to save the-mm all, all those families, it's all my fa-ault."
And then a bewildered Turian watched as a grown man shed tears.
...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Koris, Zorah, I'm dropping two of my squad mates down to help you stay alive while I save those civilians, okay?"
"Copy that Shepard, the help is appreciated, I doubt we'd both be able to make it out alive without your help." There was some gunshots on the other end of the line while Zorah talked.
"I hear you, transmit your coordinates and my squad members Tali and James will come to provide fire support."
"Transmitting the coordinates, please execute haste however, I don't believe the civilians will last longer then 20 minutes."
"Got it, I'll be there in 5 minutes."
...
"Everyone stay in cover! I'll take out those Geth troopers while you get to cover!" Shepard said shouted as loud as he could before opening up hellfire on the Geth troops that were advancing, fortunately there was one solider down there that providing cover as best as he could.
After several dead Geth bodies later Shepard's shuttle landed behind the cover the civilians were hiding behind. "Everyone get in here, now!" Shepard shouted as he shot a Juggernaut that was getting too close for comfort. There were no casualties as the shuttle lifted off with the Quarians in them.
"Zorah, we've got the civilians, how are you faring down there?"
"We'll be overrun soon, but we can hold position for long enough for you to get here, make haste." Zorah seemed to always have a calm presence, even while under fire.
"We're coming, hold tight."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Tali had never seen her father in action, but when she did, it was a pleasnt surprise to see him have leadership that was only slightly weaker then Shepard's.
"Cover our flank Tali! We can't have that pyro get too close!" He shouted before spraying down a Hunter that he had seen cloaked with pretty keen eyesight.
"We've got a Prime incoming!" Liara shouted before shooting the hulking Geth with her Paladin several times.
"I'll get a tactical scan on it, focus fire!"
"The calvery has arrived, we'll keep them off your backs, we'll land at your flank and keep you covered while you retreat, Shepard out."
The battle was virtually won after that since the heavy firepower Shepard was packing was a welcome assist, soon the battle was very much in their favor, and as soon as the Geth presence was decimated Shepard landed.
"Get in before reinforcements arrive, I don't plan on having any casualties, Vega how's your thigh?"
"It's fine Amigo, that Medi-gel helped out."
"Good, Cortez, get us out of here."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
...
"Can you at least tell me how the war ends?" Garrus was a little uncomfortable, considering Tom had just finished crying and weeping, he figured the burden of knowing what was going to happen was at least enough pressure to hurt him more then anything he could do to him physically, and he'd been nothing but helpful when Shepard had recruited him, it still was a little off putting to know that he knew that his squad would've been decimated.
"Yeah, I-" Tom sniffed. "We win, but in every single ending, Shepard sacrifices his own life to kill or change the Reapers, and in every single ending I saw the Reapers are no longer a threat, the Crucible is the key."
"Is there anything else I should know?"
"Oh, there's one other thing you deserve to know, and it's that both your sister and your father make it off Palaven alive." That was some instant relief for Garrus right there.
"I think we should stop this decision now, since my counter measure which prevents EDI from listening in isn't going to last much longer without her getting suspicious."
"Thank you for tell me this, I understand that it took a lot of courage to tell me up front, although I still need to do one thing, disable your counter measure quickly." Tom complied without resisting.
And then Garrus did the one thing he had wanted to do after hearing that Tom knew the future.
He punched Tom's lights out. It wouldn't fix anything, but he got a grim satisfaction from seeing Tom unconscious.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"EDI, I need you to patch me into Admiral Hackett, mark the call as urgent."
"Will do Shepard, patching him in now."
"Shepard? What's the call for? It was marked as urgent by your AI." Hackett was surprised.
"I have extremely valuable intel that could help us win the war, but I can't say anything since this channel may as well be bugged, I need you to come to my ship as soon as possible, we'll talk in my cabin there since I'm sure it's not bugged at all."
"How valuable is the intel? Why does it warrant this kind of response?"
"It could help us win the war like I said earlier sir, but if anyone else knows that we have this kind of intel it may as well be worthless."
"Very well, I'll come with my ship, where do you want to meet up?"
"I'll send the coordinates to you now, you need to know this, trust me." Shepard was absolutely certain this intel was good, considering it showed where Kai Leng had gone, and it had even had a bit of video footage which was invaluable. He could only hope the Illusive man still didn't know he had this intel.
A/N: Yeah, the plot is getting thicker and thicker, this where it all changes. Sorry for the cliffhanger, but it just seemed perfect to end it off there.
Reviews:
BrotherCaptainSheperd: Eh, that seems a little too soft.
redcollecter: That would be telling.
Pietersielie: You're welcome, thanks for your support!
general-joseph-dickson: I hope this chapter peeked your interest, because you have quite a good understanding of literature and how people communicate and such.