A quick A/N: I could say something here, but I think you'd rather open your Christmas present.

14: Calculated Risk

"Something's wrong."

Neik'Hazt vas Qwib-Qwib rolled her eyes as she slowly turned around. Across the room, her counterpart lingered over a console, her own head tilted in concern.

Here we go again. "If I had a credit for every time you said that..."

"I'm serious, Neik. These readings are too far off for this to be just a coincidence."

The elder quarian stifled a grumble as she walked over to the opposing station. Quay'Tana... Poor dear hasn't been able to relax since Cerberus attacked her ship. I might as well humor her; maybe she'll finally start to calm down.. She couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. Neik ignored the perceptive quarian's death-glare as she looked down at the readouts from several of the ship's security systems. "I don't see anything worthy of note, Quay."

"But the systems are slowing down. Everything's-"

"Exactly like the admiral said it would be in the memo." She straightened back up and continued speaking. "We had to take down a few firewalls so they wouldn't interfere with whatever Rael'Zorah and his team are doing."

"But the security protocols-"

"Would make everything take longer." She put a hand on the younger quarian's shoulder. "Look, we already knew their tests would interfere with the internal network. It's okay."

"But-"

"It's okay," she repeated. Neik turned around, heading back to her own station. "As long as we're within seventy percent of the baseline, we're perfectly safe."

"Fifty-three."

She came to an abrupt halt. "What did you say?"

"Levels are at fifty-three percent... and dropping."

The image of the two quarians froze, an alert stamping itself over the image.

Error: Data corruption detected

Tali shook her head as she worked at the console trying to find a backup copy within the ship's internal network. Damn it. Why would Father deactivate the security protocols? It doesn't make any- Bosh'tet! The console shut down completely, its power supply remotely severed. The quarian furiously tapped at the device, trying to bring it back online.

"Any luck, Tali?"

She shook her head, abandoning her fruitless attempt. "No, Kasumi. Just some security footage of some people overseeing the ship's networks. If they knew what was going on, they didn't mention it before the feed was cut."

"We're not done yet, Tali," the other human replied with a gentle tone. As she turned to look at him, Shepard gestured to the doorway across the room. "We're sure to find something on the way."

"Right..." she murmured, actively resisting the urge to fiddle with her fingers. Get a hold of yourself! You have a job to do. She masked the gesture, checking her omni-tool instead. "The data I managed to pull says that the next room should contain a medical bay and security checkpoint."

"Sounds like an odd combo, doncha think?" the thief asked.

"They go hand-in-hand aboard the Fleet. If quarantines are broken by docked ships, anyone exposed would need immediate access to medical facilities," Tali mumbled. "The Rayya had one that we passed by on the way to the trial." The quarian lifted her shotgun, preparing for anything that could lay beyond. "Ready?"

John nodded, drawing his own short-ranged weapon. "Form up and breach. Kasumi, you cover from one of the beds and cloak." The pair took positions without another word on either side of the door as the thief shimmered out of view. The N7 soldier did a silent count, then slammed a fist into the holographic lock. As the door slid open, Tali sent her combat drone into the room beyond. Seconds passed as the droid did its sweep.

"Chiktikka says it's clear."

Tali cautiously stepped into the arey beyond, a hallway that zigzagged its way around a room with a long window and a door. She waved the others in, wary for the telltale shimmer of hidden geth hunters as her eyes passed over an open door across the hall. The quarian suppressed a shiver as her view shifted back to the other door, its interface glowing an angry red.

"Something wrong?" Shepard asked.

Apparently, it hadn't been suppressed enough. "The med bay shouldn't be locked. Maybe... there might be someone inside." She strode over to the portal, kneeling before the interface as she pulled up her omni-tool. "Give me a moment and I'll have it open."

"As long as you need. Kasumi, can you check the other room?"

The quarian had already bypassed the first firewall as the woman walked by her. A few moments later, she stood, drawing her weapon once more as she locked eyes with Shepard through the slit in his helmet. They traded a quick nod, and the human held his palm over the interface. Her heartbeat swelled in volume as her grip tightened on the gun's grip.

Bah-DiDah...

Bah-DiDah...

He keyed the hologram and they rushed into the room. She hefted the shotgun and aimed down the sight, its barrel slowly drifting across the room in the quarian's eyes.

Bah-

Much too slowly.

-Di-Dah

She braced for the blow she knew would be coming, whether from the searing heat of a destroyer's flamethrower, or the series of rapid piercings from a trooper as it overloaded her shields.

Bah-

Tali breathed in as she willed herself to move faster, the gun increasing its slow march by only the smallest increment as several machines glowed at her.

-Di-Dah

"All clear."

Bah-DiDah

Bah-DiDah

Tali let out a breath she hadn't noticed she had been holding as she shook her head. Lit medical instruments beeped innocently on standby, their interfaces prepared for any emergency procedures and completely indifferent to the two intruders' presence.

Keelah, I need to relax. She allowed her weapon to drop as she inspected the room more thoroughly. It's not as if geth would understand the concept of "surprise" any- The quarian's train of thought of was violently derailed as she noticed something on one of the beds in the room. Her legs began to move on their own as the object on the cot grew to take up more of her vision.

That shouldn't be here. Is that why it was lo-

"Tali?"

Her lips worked on autopilot as she continued to be confounded by the item's presence. "This is one of the geth storage units I sent to Father. But it had some unique modifications... Parts from a disabled repair drone, plus some reflex software I didn't recognize. It's from Haestrom."

"Waitaminute. You got it from... there?"

"From a downed hunter. Before then, we'd never seen them use cloaking technology. It was the only piece I felt I could grab quickly, and Quala and Myr'Jorin needed covering fire."

"Myr?"

"Another member of the squad... He took a direct hit from a missile before Quala and I could get to the observatory." She swallowed more than a minor amount of guilt before continuing. "But why is it here of all places? And behind a locked door?"

"So you were looking for parts of unique geth?" The quarian had a feeling more time had passed than she thought.

"Not exactly. The parts had to be in working order. Things that could be analyzed and repurposed, and anything new had priority. Father wanted pieces of tech that the geth had developed themselves... Anything that showed modifications from originals."

"But how'd it get here? We hadn't been here before now, and shipping to the Fleet isn't exactly reliable."

Tali was pulled out of her mesmerized state for a moment, temporarily more bewildered by his words than by the geth hardware as she spared John a questioning look.

"I... might have looked into it after Freedom's Progress, just out of curiosity," the human admitted sheepishly.

"Right," she replied. "I usually leave things I find in secure drops in places that are relatively friendly, or with pilgrims. Kal and Quala brought this back for me when they left the Normandy. But the fact that it's here? I just don't know-"

"I found something!"

Neither of the two was surprised as Kasumi shimmered into view on the other side of the cot, her omni-tool lit. "The checkpoint's computers were recently wiped, but I managed to salvage two things from the temporary storage. The first was a video file. I think it's from the same two officers you saw on the other security vid."

The quarian shook her head, skeptical. "I don't know if that will help for the trial, Kasumi."

"Still, the geth only cut the last computer you were on after you started watching the footage. I'd say it's still worth looking into at least."

She stole a glance at Shepard, who had a pleading look in his eyes. "Alright, show us the vid," she acquiesced.

The thief hit a key on her omni-tool, and a video began to play from the wrist-mounted unit.

"-ve geth? Have you ruptured yourself?!"

Neik had to lower the volume on her auditory pickups as Quay yelled into the ship's intercom. To be fair, she was more than a little angry herself. Her mood wasn't swayed by the image of a relatively calm Paav'Olo, whose voice remained level.

"Precautions were taken. That was part of why you two were brought onboard." Neik turned away, checking her own station as he continued speaking. "We trusted you to inform us if anything was amiss."

Multiple readouts of various types popped up on her console as Neik looked on. Meanwhile, her partner continued her angry rant. "That's a pile of hyelon and you know it! You should have informed us-"

"It was on a need-to-know basis, Miss Tana. We couldn't risk anyone else aboard knowing-"

"Shut up, both of you!" Neik could feel their eyes, both real and simulated, boring into the side of her realk. "Who started the system diagnostic? I'm not seeing a request from the admiral here."

Olo's image bristled. "I didn't authorize-"

"Keelah," Quay blurted. "How many geth are networked?"

"All of them. Rael'Zor-"

"Shut it down! Shut everything down!"

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Neik retorted, her hands already in motion. "Bosh'tet... My inputs aren't responding. They're in the system!"

One of the doors opened, and an unearthly series of beeps and clicks assaulted her ears.

John grimaced as the video feed froze, partly at the sound of a geth assault rifle shot and partly for the sudden yelp just before it ended. He couldn't help but notice Tali flinch, as if the footage had struck her physically.

"The vid ends there," Kasumi declared. "Nothing's logged on why the cameras stopped."

He offered the quarian next to him a hand, resting it on her shoulder as he spoke. "What was the other thing you found?"

The thief's frown was easily visible through her own transparent mask. "It's a file that had several tags attached, likely only visible to specific officers onboard. Some of the data was corrupt, but I was able to piece together the gist of it."

Shepard nodded slightly. And?

"They're notes... on active geth shield systems."

The human's eyes widened. "Wait, did you just say 'active'?"

Tali, apparently, had a similar reaction. "What the hell do you mean, 'active'?!"

"They're a lot more detailed than 'shoot the glowing weak point' or something you could find out just from fighting them, Tali. See for yourself."

He watched over the quarian's shoulder as an image of a geth trooper popped up on Tali's omni-tool, with several tagged areas. She manipulated the image, zooming it in and out as copious amounts of flowing Khelish text appeared and vanished. All the while, he could feel a shiver through her shoulder, one that was steadily growing in intensity.

John gave Kasumi a pointed look. Can you give us a minute?

Thankfully, the thief got the hint. "I'll watch the door, make sure nothing's sneaking up on us."

Tali said nothing, her head moving slowly from side to side as the human left the room.

"Are you alright?

The quarian stepped away, starting to pace across the floor in easily visible agitation. "I... I just don't know, John. I checked everything I sent here, all of it. I passed up great finds more than once, just because there was a chance they might be too dangerous, prone to uncontrolled reactivation or self-repair. But... If Father was actually behind this... And if this actually is tied to Overlord..." She came to a halt, her helmeted head shaking once more. "I just don't know which is worse."

John stepped forward, taking hold of one of her hands. "You didn't answer my question. I asked if you were okay."

She looked up at him, her eyes giving off a sad twinkle. "No, John... No, I'm not." Tali turned away from him, drawing her shotgun as she walked back toward the door.

"But right now, I have a job to do."

The animal itself was an enigma, something that he only knew about from hearsay. Apparently, humans enjoyed devouring its meat. A few even drank its milk on a daily basis (much to his disgust). It had been used for ages as a tool as well, its massive size and strength coming in handy for agricultural work when technology failed. But one thing in particular stood out about its reputation, something he had never experienced firsthand, but was almost universally agreed to be its most negative factor.

"This is all bullshit."

Garrus continued to fume as he paced ceaselessly, with Quala and Kal looking on. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the male quarian tilt his head slightly.

"He means 'hyelon', dear."

"I see..."

The turian scoffed, noting the quarian's almost-black replacement visor. "Somehow, Kal, I doubt it. All of the admirals here are trying to push their own agendas. Gerrel and Koris are being cagey about it, but Xen at least admits it. Even Raan isn't here just for Tali's sake."

"Come on, Garrus," Quala replied. "Shala would never try to take advantage of her like that."

Kal, however, was skeptical. "Of Tali, no. But of the fact that she's here..."

Okay, so he's sharper than I gave him credit for. The turian nodded. "Exactly. She's hoping that something in this trial will sway public opinion one way or the other so she won't be forced to choose between siding with Gerrel or Koris on the geth issue. Xen just cares about Rael's experiments and possibly gaining more influence over the..."

Right then, he noticed a yellow-suited quarian striding with purpose toward Gerrel, with Koris in tow. Their body language spoke of an animated conversation just out of earshot, and Gerrel began to wave Raan over.

"...others. I have to go, Tovo's up to something."

"Tali, overload!"

John heard a crackle of electric energy, a flash of blue-white momentarily silhouetting the table he'd taken cover behind against the wall. He leaned around the side, unleashing a hail of SMG fire into a stunned geth. The green light from its optics died as it wilted. He ducked down again as a trio of plasma bolts flew overhead.

Too close, he thought as he popped in a new heat sink. The human hadn't realized he was taking fire, let alone that his barriers had dropped to zero. That would have been ugly.

"Nix one," Kasumi said over the radio.

"Not the one I hacked," Tali responded, firing her pistol over her own cover.

"No, it was the other hunter. It took a shot at Shep."

"It what?!" One of the synthetics took advantage of the distraction, and her shields flared from weapons fire. "Bosh'tet," she swore, ducking back down.

John stole a peek around his cover. Just three more, but they're getting too close for comfort. As if emphasizing his point, rifle fire pinged off of his recharged shields and he backed out of sight. "Kasumi," he called, "two seconds!" The biotic shimmered with blue energy as he counted off the time.

One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi.

He rose from behind the table, spending half a heartbeat lining himself up for the attack. Shepard made an exaggerated bowling motion, launching a cascade of biotic explosions down his line of sight. The geth reacted with a speed that only a machine could, but even their synthetic reflexes weren't enough to save them from the Shockwave in the narrow hallway. The three troopers and Tali's hacked hunter toppled to the floor, their optics still glowing a bright green.

"Hit them now!"

Tali was already on the move before he'd finished speaking, overloading the synthetics' shields. In no time at all, Shepard's group had finished them off with a few well-placed shots.

"For the record," Kasumi declared as she uncloaked, "that wasn't much time to get out of the way."

"Sorry about that," he replied as he lowered the barrel of his gun to the floor. "I'll remember to give you more warning next time."

A grin split her face. "Don't. It keeps me on my toes. Can't let myself get sloppy now, can I?"

"That hunter didn't get you, did it?" Tali asked, concern evident in her eyes.

"Nah, it only hit the wall before Kasumi knocked it out. It didn't hurt me."

"It shouldn't have had the chance to," she muttered, walking over to a locked door off to the side. She spoke again, louder. "This storage room could have survivors in it. We need to check it out."

As John pondered what her former statement had meant, the thief stepped forward. "How do you know that it's a storeroom?"

"The sign," she responded, pointing at a line of flowing script just to the side of the interface she was hacking.

"I'll have to learn to read that sometime," John muttered absently with a glance at the Khelish text as Kasumi facepalmed.

"It won't help you if you don't know the language, John." The door began sliding open, her hack complete. "But I could teach you... a few... Keelah..."

The room, if it could be called that, was beyond messy. Bodies, or at least fragments, lingered around the edges of the room amidst piles of collapsed crates and shelves. The center of the room was eerily vacant, a large black mark on the floor. At least one of the corpses was whole, its lithe, if broken, frame speaking volumes of years yet to be lived.

Not even the children escaped.

"What the heck happened here?" Kasumi wondered aloud as John semiconsciously suppressed an urge to vomit in his helmet.

An orange flicker caught his eye. He turned to his left, seeing the flash again over what appeared to be a mangled arm.

"Omni-tool," he coughed, forcing the child's body out of his mind.

"Right..." Tali murmured, drifting toward the limb. She consulted her own omni-tool for a moment.

"There's a video on here, timestamped a few hours ago."

"Lock that door!"

Neik'Hazt nearly toppled as she hobbled along the wall, one hand on her pistol and the other clinging to a rail on its surface for dear life. She found a free spot as one of her companions sealed the portal, setting herself down gingerly to avoid agitating her wounded leg.

"The geth have taken over almost the entire ship," one of the four said, his assault rifle held in a manner that screamed of inexperience as he stepped closer. She lowered her gaze as he continued. "What should we do, Lieutenant Olo?"

Neik resisted the urge to look up, knowing that the named scientist would be looking at her for answers. Figures. I'm the lowest-ranked, but they're deferring to me. The one time Quay was right...

Of course, her partner was in no condition to chip in; she had been taken out of the fight before it had even started, shot by several geth when the synthetics broke into their station. Poor girl never had a chance... And I'm lucky I didn't die right then, too.

"We hole up in a side room," she forcibly replied, "and pray that the Ancestors are generous."

"You heard her, Nos. Help Neik into this storage room. Mala, get this damn door open!"

Neik grimaced as the man helped carry her across the threshold. She risked a glance at her leg, a decision immediately regretted. In the initial attack, a single shot had pierced her suit just below the knee as she retreated from Quay'Tana's dead body. The quarian had patched and sealed the wound earlier, but she had been ambushed by a hunter in the previous room. The invisible foe had slammed her to the floor before she disabled it with an overload. In the process, the weakened bone had broken, deforming the suit around the wound enough that her patches simply weren't able to hold together. Skin that should have been a soft lavender was visible, with a disturbing amount of purple and black complimenting the red stream leaking from the hole. Already, she could feel the effects of the exposure sinking in, her skull oscillating between a throbbing pain and extreme lightheadedness as a nasty itch raced along what parts of the limb weren't screaming at her already. The inflamed area around the wound was starting to swell, taxing her hurried suit repair even more.

What little antibiotics her suit had contained wouldn't last for much longer.

"Just set me down here, Nos."

Thanks to the very real possibility of disaster aboard any one of the quarian ships, there had been protocols to follow in this sort of situation. Her last few hours had been anything but a waste.

Neik opened her omni-tool, setting it to record one last log as Nos stepped away.

"This is Officer Neik'Hazt vas Qwib-Qwib, log 3501, timestamp 2938-18-3-1523. Progress report on emergency action aboard the Alarei follows."

She looked around at the others in the room. Nos was kneeling next to a small child, whose suit still hung loose, despite the many belts and ties on it. "Wait, where's Mom?" the youth whimpered.

"We locked down navigation and took the weapons systems offline. As a precaution, we managed to disable communications as well. Their mistake-" She shot an accusatory glare at Olo, who was staring absently at the floor. "-won't endanger the Fleet. A list of confirmed casualties follows. From security: Froc'Dama, Wel'Taris, Thiel'Vadam and..." Damn it. Stay strong! "Quay'Tana. From engineering: all hands lost. From navigation: all hands lost."

The hologram at the door flickered green for a moment. Mala rushed over, her omni-tool lit as she locked the door once more and rescrambled the combination.

"From maintenance: Grol'Tennera, Ela'Zenoh, and Jeen'Kaldt. From research-"

She was cut off as the girl began to wail. "No... That can't have... She's not-" Thankfully, Nos managed to hush her enough for Neik to continue.

"All hands, except Mala'Reet and Paav'Olo are unaccounted-for. Status of all other departments and Admiral Rael'Zorah remain unknown."

Mala squealed with shock, leaping back as sparks began to fly from the door.

So this is it.

Fear began to take hold of her as the girl began to scream. Neik tried to stand, her grip on the pistol tightening in a trained reflex. She sprawled, her broken leg refusing to support her. Paav and Nos hurried over, helping her back into a sitting position.

"Damn it, they're burning through the door. We don't have much time."

"What do we do?" Nos asked, his eyes wider than the two blue giants the Fleet had been orbiting.

Paav hung his head in silence. Jeen's daughter continued to weep from a corner, and Mala looked close to hysterics herself. Neik's gaze drifted back to the young girl, and she was unable to hold back a flood of tears.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." She looked back at her omni-tool, which was still recording. "Jona, if you get this, be strong for Daddy. I don't care what the others in your class say, I never did. Don't you ever give up on your art. I've always been so proud of you."

The sparks vanished, and the door began to slide open. Assault rifle fire poured through before it was fully open, and Mala fell with a yell. Neik gasped as one of the quarian's killers drew a rocket launcher, evidence of recent repair evident from fresh welds that still glowed orange.

"Mommy loves you ver-! "

I won't let that happen to you, Father.

Tali said nothing as she stormed out of the room, racing up the stairs to the next area. She had already drawn her shotgun and was nearly to the next room before Kasumi started speaking.

"Wait! Where are you going?"

She didn't answer, opening her omni-tool and activating her combat drone. She barely noted the word "Commons" written by the door in her native script before slamming the hologram.

As the door slid open, she heard a buzzing sound and saw a green glow through the door. The quarian poked her shotgun through the widening gap, getting off a shot and following up with a kick to the waiting trooper on the other side of the portal. As she and Chiktikka charged into the room, she launched a hacking script at a geth destroyer, the first and largest target she could see.

Then all hell broke loose.

Tali executed the geth she'd kicked with a second shotgun blast as she slid into cover behind a countertop. Several dozen rounds flew by overhead, nearly drowning out the sound of pounding footsteps from the way she had entered the room.

I won't let you bosh'tets near them. Not anymore.

She popped up, scoring a shot on a hunter that had been closing the distance. The cloaked geth fizzed into view as Tali ignored a pair of troopers who hadn't reloaded yet. Her shields were nearly drained when she fired again, silencing the shotgun-wielding foe. As four others finished reloading their rifles, the destroyer she'd hacked exploded in a blast of flame. The troopers who had been firing on it began to turn in her direction, but she'd already launched another hacking routine and retaken her cover.

Not this crew...

Tali launched another holo-drone, this time with an explosive attack protocol. It took all of two seconds before a blast was heard from somewhere over her cover. She stood up, and fired at one of the synthetics that hadn't been knocked over.

Not my father...

She managed to take out two with one pull of the trigger, one of the three plasma balls landing on the geth beside her intended target. The quarian shot once more at a second destroyer before swapping the overheated weapon for her pistol. She willed her breathing to slow, trying to fix the crosshairs on the fuel tank just barely visible over its shoulder.

And damn well not-

The destroyer vanished in a flash of blue-white light, supplanted by a human in gunmetal grey armor. He hefted his own shotgun, firing at a geth not three meters away from Tali.

The quarian blinked in surprise. -John?

Her moment of distraction didn't last, as she trained her weapon on another trooper instead. The geth dropped, a victim of a pair of clean shots to the motor control servos hidden deep in its torso. She heard a wordless whisper, the kind carried along by wind along water.

Bah-

Only there was no wind.

-Di-Dah

And it came from right behind her.

Bah-

She turned her head, seeing a curved black silhouette.

-Di-Dah

Tali lifted her left leg as she turned, drawing her knife.

Bah-

Her foot planted as she spun around, the blade shining as she raised it in the air.

-Di-Dah

The geth's arm moved faster than she could track, arresting her knife-wielding arm with a vise-like grip so suddenly that she almost fell off balance.

Bah-

Her eyes widened as the black mech's green-lit optics swept over her. It adjusted its shotgun, now in its left hand.

-Di-Dah

Tali kicked out at it with her foot, but the hunter didn't budge from the blow. The shotgun's barrel then pressed into her chest.

Bah-

It depressed the weapon's trigger, and she could feel the heat radiating from the gun as the plasma charged up.

-Di-

Ancestors forgive me.

-Dah

The synthetic stumbled, sparking from a sudden blow. Its plasma shotgun discharged, and she could feel the heat as the shot traveled past her arm and into a wall.

"Hey, copycat!"

Bah-

Kasumi shimmered into view, delivering another electrified punch to the geth. Its grip weakened, and Tali's arm came free.

-Di-Dah

The quarian seized the opportunity, pouncing on the stunned synthetic. She sliced across its neck, severing several important-looking tubes. It crumpled in a spray of white and black hydraulic and lubricating fluids.

Bah-DiDah

Bah-DiDah

Tali fired her pistol at the geth until its heat sink was full. By that time, the green glow had long-since faded from the black mech. She sat back against her cover, breathing heavily as she reloaded both her weapons. By the time she was finished, Kasumi had already vanished once more.

Keelah, that was stupid.

She launched another combat drone to assist in the fight, taking another deep breath to calm her nerves. The woman peeked over her cover, counting the remaining hostiles as John and Kasumi continued to fight the geth.

Four left, including a destroyer.

Tali aimed her shotgun at the larger geth, its yellow armor momentarily appearing green as its shields flared blue from her attack. She followed up with an overload, destroying its defenses outright.

Hold on...

Kasumi followed up with an overload of her own, and the geth's fuel tank detonated from the burst of unabated energy. Two of the other geth were caught in the blast, their bodies slamming against a wall from the sudden force. She ducked back down, staring at the fallen hunter.

The fallen black hunter.

The platform colors, they're not the same as-

"All clear!"

She shook her head, pushing the thought from her mind as she approached Shepard. It wasn't long before Kasumi appeared at her side, arms crossed and her brow furrowed in a look she'd never seen on the human woman: genuine anger.

"Tali, what the heck were you thinking? You had me worried sick when you took off like that. Shep here nearly had a heart attack when he heard the gunfire! And that's without mentioning the hunter back-"

John silenced her with a look, then stepped forward. His voice was calm, but she could pick up more than a little concern from his tone. "Tali, what happened?"

She hung her head in shame. "After seeing that recording, I was worried about Father. I... We've been fighting through these geth for so long... And the time that's passed since they heard..." She felt a hand on her shoulder. The woman took a deep breath, holding back the tears that had snuck into the corners of her eyes. "I don't want to find a message like that from him, and we don't have much time left."

"Then we should keep moving. Kasumi, take point. Cloaked unless I say not to."

"Roger, Shep." The thief spared Tali one last look before vanishing, but she could tell it lacked most of her previous anger. A door at the opposite end of the room opened and shut, seemingly of its own accord.

John grasped her hand. "We'll find him, Tali. If not for yourself, then at least believe that for me."

She met the blues of his eyes and blinked. "Okay. I'm ready to go."

"I found a console that looks pretty important. Do you want me to hack it?"

"Negative," Shepard replied, raising a hand to the side of his helmet. "Keep your cover. Tali can hack it."

The quarian nodded, and the two of them walked into the next room. Sure enough, a blue-lit interface sat on a wall, ready for input. She spent a few seconds cutting through security before a wall of text sprang up on the screen.

"What's it say?" Shepard asked, curious.

"Most of the data is corrupted, but from what I can see here..." She took a moment to scan through the document, then looked over a few more. "It looks like they were experimenting on geth systems, looking for new ways to overcome their resistance to reprogramming." Another document opened up, and she frowned. "But there's a marked change. At some point, they began to focus on more detailed experiments... Like if they found a way for it to work... Or if someone gave it to them."

"Like someone from Cerberus?" Kasumi asked over the radio. "Maybe it could clear your name."

"Doubtful," Tali responded. "This is mostly results data, effects of hacking techniques. Without context, I can't understand all of it, but... If Overlord really is tied into this, or if they were reactivating the geth on purpose... Then they did something terrible."

She watches the screen as the geth fires the rocket at Neik and her companions. The little girl screams as Neik tries to say a rushed farewell, and the line cuts to static.

Tali slammed a hand on the interface, closing the terminal. "What was this supposed to accomplish, Father? You promised me a house on the homeworld, not a ship full of rampant geth."

"It isn't right," John agreed. "They shouldn't have been testing on sentients."

There were few things that the two of them couldn't talk about freely. Talking about the geth as if they were alive was one of the few things that was taboo.

And for good reason.

"They're not prisoners, Shepard," she growled, rounding on him. "I only gave Father parts. If he assembled them, they would have made machines. Cold. Unfeeling. Machines."

"But Tali-"

"You saw what the geth did to Eden Prime, what Sovereign did to the Citadel. They're soulless killing machines, and any research that gives us an advantage is important."

"What about Tuchanka?" he barked back. "What happened to 'Why didn't they sterilize us too when they could have?'"

"Because they'd already killed us!" she almost roared. "My people barely exist because of what they did to us, what they keep doing to us."

"Then maybe you should give up on taking back Rannoch!"

Tali glared at him, her silence speaking volumes as she suppressed the urge to strike him. She turned away from the temptation, shaking her head.

"You have no idea what it's like. You have a homeworld to go back to, and several colonies to call your own. If a human ship is destroyed, it's just some statistic for the news holos to bring up on a slow day. If it's one of ours, that's an entire nation of people wiped out. If the Rayya, or either of the other liveships was destroyed, our people might go extinct."

The human didn't speak for several seconds, and when he did, it was much softer. "But you still have a place here, Tali," he replied, placing a hand on her shoulder. "You shouldn't throw it all away in a war you don't need."

She shrugged his hand off. "Don't need? John, if I don't wear my suit and a turian walks into the room after saying 'Hello' to someone with the sniffles, I die. If I took off my mask and kissed you, I could end up in a hospital. Every time you touch a flower with bare fingers, inhale its fragrance without a dozen air filters, take a bite from food someone else has touched, feel a breeze outside on a beautiful day, or whisper into someone's ear without your voice being distorted almost beyond recognition, you're doing something I can't!"

Though she wasn't looking, Tali knew that John's eyes widened considerably at her words. "You feel that strongly about all that?"

Keelah, do I, she thought as she nodded slowly. Strong arms embraced her from behind, and she gave in to the urge to fiddle with the human's numerous fingers as she sighed. "Damn the Pilgrimage," she muttered. "Without it, I might never have known what we were missing. What we lost when we left Rannoch."

"What if you found a new world?" John asked, his helmet nuzzling against the side of hers.

"We'd have enough trouble readjusting to our native environment; a foreign colony would be even harder. It's the difference between 60 years in these... things... and 600. For anyone alive today to see a sunset, we need to get our home back." She patted his arm and drew away, sniffing slightly as she blinked to clear the tears from her eyes. "At the very least, we can take back this ship. Let's go."

"We need to face facts, Raan. There has been no word. There is no reason to think they could have survived."

"But we must trust Shepard's offer of assistance! It has only been a couple of hours."

"I hate to say this, Shala, but my marines lasted less than five minutes. If they haven't said anything by now, we have no choice but to-"

"Keep waiting like civilized people should." Garrus didn't shy away as the three admirals plus Tovo gave him pointed looks, some warmer than others. "Two of the three people on that ship were on the squad that assaulted Ilos and made the difference in the Battle of the Citadel, and you're looking at the third. We took on a company of geth, including a dropship, and won. And that was before Shepard gained the biotic abilities that helped punch through a platoon of geth and a colossus on Haestrom without vehicle support. Neither of those fights were won in just a few minutes."

By then, Daro'Xen had joined in the group, lingering over the argument like a ravenous hunter in the corner of Garrus's vision. She seemed content to watch for the time being, allowing Tovo to speak.

"Two suicidal missions do not make for an invincible team. I'm sure Admiral Gerrel would agree with me on that. Besides, we're wasting time and resources here arguing over it. Every minute we wait is a minute that the staff on this liveship spends gossipping instead of producing a third of the fleet's food."

Han turned away sheepishly as Koris delivered a triumphant nod. "We can't wait forever, turian. We have limits to how long we can afford to wait."

"And what of Rael's experiments?" Xen asked, breaking her silence. "He's spent years working on his projects, any one of which could be a boon to our species. The data is too valuable at this point."

"A terrible loss," Tovo responded, "but not as terrible as allowing this geth threat to continue." He traded a look with Koris, who nodded.

"Agreed. I'm calling for an immediate continuation of the trial, with a vote in favor."

"Opposed," Xen stated simply.

Garrus looked at Raan as Gerrel stood in silence, seemingly wracked with indecision. "Aren't you going to oppose it?"

She shook her helmet. "I've recused myself from the trial. I have no say in this."

He sent a last pleading look to Han as the quarian came to a decision.

"Sorry, Vakarian, but we've waited long enough."

Keelah, that was a lot of geth.

Tali peeked over the railing she'd slid up against, marveling at the massive pile of synthetics strewn about the lower landing of a staircase below her. She didn't dare take her eyes off of the pile as Kasumi reconvened with them. Ideally, she'd have borrowed John's revenant and misted the pile with gunfire until she ran out of clips, even if it is a bit wasteful. There were, however, two problems with that plan.

One, they'd left the massive rifle aboard the Normandy.

Two, they had burned through so many heat sinks fighting them that even Tali, with her many pockets, doubted she could fire enough times to turn them into a proper mulch of scrap metal with what sinks she had left.

And so, she followed the two humans down the stairs. As they waded through the pile of broken armor, dim circuitry, and salvaged limb substitutes, the quarian shivered from the contact of so many synthetics. Her eyes traveled wildly around, not daring to close as she prayed to the Ancestors that none of their hands would reach out and clamp onto her or her companions.

It's for Father. It's for Father. It's for-

"Tali?"

The quarian tore her eyes away from the machines touching her boots. John was waiting by the door the flood of geth had poured in from, its interface red. Kasumi, meanwhile, was fiddling with a terminal off to the side. Tali nodded and started hacking the door. Her fingers danced over the interface as a voice played from Kasumi's console.

"Experiment log of Mala'Reet vas Anin, first entry. Our initial hacking attempts failed. The geth have an adaptive consciousness; hack one process, and the others auto-correct. Still, we're making progress. The admiral is convinced we'll have a viable system in less than a year. This weapon will put our people back on the homeworld, and it's all because of Rael'Zorah."

Her hands froze. "Did she say... what I think she said?"

She stole a glance at Kasumi, who was scrolling through options on the computer. The human selected one, and the voice played again.

"Experiment log of Mala'Reet vas Anin, sixty-third entry. Progress is still stalled, but I got what might prove to be a breakthrough earlier today. I still don't trust Yan's excuse for where he got the code, let alone the fact that I haven't told him what we were doing here, but the program he sent me, it's... astoundingly sound for something from a Conclave member. He was adamant that I bring it to the admiral's attention. I'll see if I can bring it up gently sometime today during trials. Maybe... My bondmate may have saved our project."

Tali shook her head as she hacked, distracted. She's lying! Father would never do something so dangerous. He wouldn't allow his people to die over something like this. He'd never let things get that bad-

The door opened.

In the room beyond, she could see a quarian in a familiar pink suit. The man was laying down on his back, a mirror-smooth pool surrounding him.

The figure wasn't moving.

"FATHER!"

Tali sprinted past a momentarily bewildered Shepard, already reaching for medigel and a suit patch as she stepped into the red puddle. She applied the salve with a practiced hand, quickly bandaging and covering several wounds in the man's leg and torso. She brought up her omni-tool to confirm that he was stable.

Rael's suit said that he had flatlined.

"No," she mouthed in disbelief. "No, no, no. You always had a plan. Masked life signs..."

She checked the medical readout once more. His body had already fallen to room temperature.

Still, she shook her head with a sniff. "Or, or an onboard medical stasis program, maybe."

Tali knew that no such program had ever existed.

"You," she huffed, her vision clouding slightly as she tried to blink away whatever was in her eyes. "You wouldn't..."

"Hey..."

She pursed her lips for a moment, her eyes shutting as the facts all bore down on her at once.

The amount of time that had passed since the loss of contact.

The pool of blood that she was now kneeling in.

The state that the crew and the geth had been in when they arrived.

The bullet hole in the man's visor.

The multiple logs that all seemed to point toward one thing.

"They're wrong!" she burst out. "You wouldn't just die like this! You wouldn't leave me to clean up your-"

"Hey." She felt a hand take hers, leading her upward and turning her away from the body. "Come here."

She fell on the armored bastion, sobs coming unabated to her as he wrapped his arms around her. He quietly hummed something as she openly wept on his shoulder. "Damn it! Da-hamn it!"

"Hush, sis," someone replied, a second set of arms wrapping around them. "We're here for you."

They stayed with her as she cried, precious minutes ticking by as they comforted her. Finally, she found the strength to step back."I'm sorry," she muttered, still sniffling slightly.

"You have nothing to be sorry about," John replied.

Still, she couldn't help but feel guilty, unsure whether it was one of her deliveries, her father's tests, or possibly the program Mala's recording had mentioned that had been the catalyst for this disaster. Tali would have liked to ask her father, but he was in no shape to say anything. Still, Neik had left a message for her child...

"Maybe..." Tali whispered. "He would have known I'd come. Maybe Father left a message."

"Sounds like as good a lead as any," Kasumi murmured absently as John nodded to her.

You can do this.

The quarian knelt down next to the body, opening the man's omni-tool. Sure enough, it was actively recording everything around it. She stopped the program, and opened the newly-created vid file.

"Tali-ah!"

Rael'Zorah leaned on a wall as he tried to catch his breath, his lungs on fire. He held his omni-tool out, ready to fire an overload on a moment's notice as his radio recorded his lack of speech. He tried to think of something to say to his daughter, but the words just wouldn't come. He tried to remember her face, or anything that could help loosen his tongue, but his mind only pictured her realk's former owner.

He shook his head, abandoning the pursuit."Tali, if you are listening, then I am dead." He gulped, his heart still racing from his failed attempt to take down the source of his troubles. "The geth have gone active- I don't have much time. I had slaved their runtimes to a server in the main lab. The hub is inside. It must be destro-"

He coughed, all too aware of the burning in his chest, where a lucky round had pierced his suit. The wound itself wasn't life-threatening, but the wound was quickly becoming contaminated.

I never should have trusted Mala's code. I should have known as soon as Olo mentioned the false sender tag. Hell, even the Mor-

He coughed again, and a metallic taste filled his mouth. Rael began speaking aloud once more. "I've been locked out of the control console by whatever took over the geth. It must be destroyed to stop them from forming new neural links. Make sure Han'Gerrel sees the data. You must-"

He fell forward, his body full of a cold numbness. A puddle -Why is it red?- began spreading around him as his breath hitched in his chest. He rolled over and saw a single geth. It stepped forward, mysteriously silent as an eerie green glow wreathed it.

The quarian's mind went blank as the synthetic pointed its rifle at Rael's face.

"Laenya, I've always loved you."

The weapon's barrel flashed angrily.

"Thanks, Dad."

John bristled at the bitter edge in Tali's voice. The quarian shook her head in disbelief as he kneeled down next to her.

"He knew you'd come, Tali. He wanted to help you." Shepard heard a huff and sniffle as he took a breath. "It may not be perfect, but it's the best he could do."

Tali continued to hang her head. "I don't know what's worse: thinking he never really cared, or thinking that he did, and that this was the only way he could show it." She stood up, and he heard her take a deep breath. She looked at him, and spoke with determination. "It doesn't matter. One way or the other, I cared. And I'm here." She turned toward the door ahead of them, and walked away to hack it open. "And we're ending this."

"You think she'll be okay?" Kasumi whispered to him as Tali moved off.

"I think she has it under control for now," he responded, just as quietly. "After the mission's over, though..."

The other human nodded. "Right. By the way, Shep, did you really believe what you told her just now?"

He stole a glance at Tali, who showed no sign that she'd heard any of their conversation. "Honestly, no," he muttered, as quietly as he could. "Everything about that message was fucked up."

Together, the two humans walked over to the quarian, arriving just as she unlocked the door. A purple combat drone materialized next to her, its surface shimmering brightly in the dim light.

"Now?" the quarian asked, readying her shotgun.

John readied his own weapon. "Now."

With that, Kasumi slapped the interface and vanished. Tali and John burst into the room together after Chiktikka, but stopped short as the drone continued forward.

"What the hell is that?"

A large pane of glass divided the room, forcing Tali's program to fly around it. On the other side stood a towering red geth prime. It stood in front of a console, doing who-knew-what in the middle of a group of columns. Several pieces appeared to have been taken from other geth, patches of white and blue visible on mismatched armor plates scattered over its form. As it turned toward the already attacking drone, John could see evidence of pieces that appeared salvaged from the ship itself, patches of brownish rust visible just behind its defenses. It shrugged off the blow as the drone exploded, drawing a large, yet familiar-looking weapon.

Wait. Aren't primes supposed to be-

"JOHN!"

The human was tackled to the ground just as the glass wall shattered. Shards of the window as large as his forearm crashed to the ground, offsetting the sound of the geth's machine gun fire into the air where he and Tali had been standing.

"John, are you alright?"

He locked eyes with the quarian, who was laying on top of him. Luckily, his shields had held through the attack.

"I'm fine, Tali. Thanks." He glanced at her arm, jumping slightly at the sight of a narrow strip of bluish skin, which had a razor-thin reddish burn mark. His eyes widened with alarm as a faint wisp of smoke drifted from the suit. "Tali, you're hurt!"

The quarian glanced at her wound, hissing slightly at the sight. "I can't fix it up now, not until that prime stops shooting at us."

"But your-!"

"John!" He fell silent. "It only glanced over my skin. The heat cauterized the wound and my internal suit seals already clamped down. I'll. Be. Okay."

The human gave her a look that told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was going to a med bay as soon as the trial was over. The two of them then stood, staying close to the nearest column as the geth's revenant chipped away at its edges. He keyed his radio. "Can we get a dis-"

Before he'd finished the request, he heard the unmistakable crackle of an overload hitting the geth's shields.

"-traction?" The gunfire immediately stopped, and he heard the sound of heavy footfalls as the synthetic searched for Kasumi. The two of them took advantage of the distraction, running in opposite directions to separate columns. The mech sparked from another overload as the human fired his shotgun as quickly as its charge mechanism would cycle. The air around it still shimmered blue as he reached the column, the geth's gunshots not far behind. He reloaded as chips of his cover flaked off from the fusillade, getting ready to throw a Warp.

Of course, he hadn't counted on the thing's fist flying toward his face.

He leapt back with a curse as the geth wrapped its unburdened arm around the beam, narrowly missing him in the process. With an almighty yank, the reinforced structure was yanked from its mooring. All of a sudden, John found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Within a blink of an eye, his shields had been almost completely destroyed by its fire. At that point, he did the only logical thing that came to mind.

He Charged right into it.

The Frankenstein's monster of a geth prime budged only slightly, its powerful legs absorbing the blow. John leveled his shotgun at the mech, but it recovered faster than he'd expected. It lashed out with an elbow, slamming into the weapon with enough force to break an unaugmented human's arm. The human was dismayed as his gun was severely dented. Another burst of sparks showered the synthetic, and the blue aura surrounding it finally faded. The mech, evidently, decided that it would be better to finish him off first.

Oh, crap.

The prime raised its gun arm high in the air, preparing to slam it down on the man's head. He reacted, holding his hands overhead and trying to perform a biotic technique Jacob had showed him once. A pale blue orb appeared around him, its surface wavering even before the blow hit it.

How the hell do people keep these things solid?!

The biotic bubble succeeded only in slowing down the arm, shattering from the applied force. The geth's arm slammed into the human's waiting hands, and he was forced to his knees by the pressure. The bubble, however, had done its job. At least I wasn't turned into paste.

The prime increased its pressure, and the human's muscles screamed in protest.

Yet.

Gunshots continued to ping off the mech's back with little effect. John tried to pull his right arm back to perform a biotic attack, but the massive weight of the mech didn't allow him to do so. It was taking all his strength just to keep from being crushed. And even then, he was only delaying the inevitable.

"Not my captain, you bosh'tet!"

An electronic screech filled the air. The crushing load from the geth suddenly became much more bearable as the geth's head swiveled toward its legs. John followed its line of sight, catching a glimpse of Tali just before she sliced a group of hydraulic cables on its other leg with her knife. As the geth's strength slowly bled away with the white fluid, Kasumi materialized next to it, her omni-tool hand crackling with electrical energy.

John rolled as the thief's blow landed, allowing the geth to crash into the ground with a mighty thud. He was on it in a heartbeat, finally able to unleash his mustered biotic energy in a punch directly to the green-lit titan's head.

It did not survive.

He nearly collapsed afterward, his body lethargic from the recent exertion. Tali bent down next to him, placing a hand on his back.

"Don't worry," he panted. "Just need... to catch a breather... Go... Take care... of the console."

The quarian stepped away, standing at the interface for several minutes as the human caught his breath. He eventually regained enough of his strength to stand, moving with Kasumi to Tali's side.

"Anything interesting?" the thief asked for him.

"I deactivated the program that had activated the geth. It should have shut down any that we missed. That prime was going through the logs, trying to delete everything. I've done what I can, but I can only find one vid file that wasn't effected by the purge. It... should tell us how all this happened... what Father did."

"You sound like you really don't want to hear it," John observed, earning a huff and a shake of the quarian's head.

"No. I know we have to, but I just... I don't want to know that he was part of this."

"You don't have to watch, you know," he told her. "I can present the evidence."

"I can't just ignore it, John. A part of me just... has to know. For Father's sake." She touched an icon, and a video popped up. A familiar pink-suited quarian was standing next to a window. The room on the other side was darkened, but John could make out a table with a figure on it.

What am I looking at? Just then, the quarian in the holo spoke.

"Run test 435-B."

"Running 435-B. Activating geth platform in three... two... one... now."

Tali gasped.

"This hearing has been called back into order. Blessed are the ancestors who've kept us alive, and allowed us to see this season. Keelah se'lai."

"Keelah se'lai."

"On behalf of the accused, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, Gunnery Officer Vakarian vas Normandy has volunteered to speak in her defense. The judges recognize his merit aboard the Normandy, and his status as acting captain in the absence of Captain Shepard vas Normandy."

A murmur went through the crowd at the admiral's words, and the turian at the center of the plaza felt dozens of eyes on him. Garrus stood straighter as Shala'Raan addressed him directly. "Officer Vakarian, do you have anything to say in defense of your crewman?"

Gotta do this just right.

Garrus stepped forward, around the platform that Shepard and Tali had stood at not too long ago. He cleared his throat, preparing to deliver one of the most important statements of his life to date. He met the eyes of each of the admirals in turn, making sure to allow them enough time to notice that he was staring directly at them through his helmet before moving on to the next. He opened his mouth.

"I'm leaving."

He immediately turned around, walking back to the stairs out of the plaza without a single glance at any of the stunned quarians. The spell was broken as he began to ascend the steps, moving past the first rows of onlookers.

"What?!"

"Did he just-"

"This is a formal proceeding!"

Hook, twine, and... How does that human saying go, again?

Garrus turned around, making sure to assume an agitated pose. "Has anything about this hearing truly been 'formal', Koris? Tali didn't even get the standard two day waiting period to arrive. This trial started without her before that time had even expired. Spirits, if we hadn't been heading toward Omega when she got the message, you would have exiled her without giving an opportunity to defend herself!"

"She was given ample time, considering the emergency circumstances," Tovo said, stepping forward. "Everyone here knows the danger that the geth-held vessel amidst our fleet poses. The ship should have been destroyed as soon as it became a threat."

"Really?" the turian asked, no longer needing to fake his annoyance. "And you would convict her without completing a full investigation?"

"Now see here-!" Koris started, but Garrus cut him off.

"We on the Normandy are more than crewmates, admirals. We fight together, live together, and die together. When our scientist was concerned about whether or not his student had been kidnapped, Tali volunteered to help, despite having fought a thresher maw on foot mere minutes before. When a Cerberus experiment gone awry threatened to create a technological apocalypse, Tali was there, fighting the good fight with our squad. When I lost sight of my objective on a mission to find a long-lost friend of mine, Tali did her best to set me straight. When a Reaper attacked the Citadel, pushing us all to the edge of utter destruction, Tali was with us on the ground." He paused, allowing his words to sink in for a moment. "Kasumi mentioned a word in your tongue, 'hesh'nealan'. We've all fought for one another at some point during our travels on the Normandy, and I'll be damned if we're going to take your word for it that she's dead just because of a little radio silence. Shepard's crew -my crew- will go to hell and back for one another. If that doesn't make us hesh'nealans -or hesh'nealani, or whatever the word is- I don't know what does."

Koris leaned back at his words, and Tovo's glowing eyes narrowed. "I fail to see the relevance of your statement," the prosecutor declared.

Garrus snorted, laughing heartily as Koris twitched in surprise.

"The point, admirals, is I actually give a damn. You three, on the other hand," he added, pointing at the judging admirals, "only care about the geth!"

"This is outrageous!" Gerrel declared, a furor sweeping the room. Koris, for once, appeared to be in agreement with him.

"This trial has nothing to do with the geth," he denied.

"Bullshit!" Garrus yelled, slamming his fist on the console in the center of the room. "You just want to make an example of her, as a warning against further aggression against the geth. Gerrel here wants to prop her up, to give hope for war against the machines. Xen just wants to find out about Rael's experiments. None of you idiots care about her! Tali is one of the only reasons you three are still able to-"

"OBJECTION!"

The whole room fell silent, and Garrus's mind blanked for a moment.

"His statements about the admirals needing to care about Tali is irrelevant. If they did, then they would have to recuse themselves from the trial, in order to maintain an impartial judgment."

Garrus's mandibles went slack inside his helmet as the three judges traded nervous glances. He could almost feel the smug radiating from Tovo as the yellow-suited quarian waited for Raan's word on his interruption.

The elder admiral hung her head. "Objection... sustained."

The turian performed a mental hiccup, trying to regain his train of thought. "Fine... But Tali's character-"

"Is pristine, yes, but it alone does not prove her innocence." Tovo interjected.

Damn it! Think fast... "And what about the trial itself? You've been presenting it as if Tali needs to prove herself innocent. Shouldn't the burden of proof be on the prosecution to prove her guilty?"

"A valid point," the prosecutor conceded, "except that it's because of the solid evidence against her that's already been presented that she's in this situation in the first place. She collected geth parts for Rael's experiments on the Alarei. No matter what, that alone makes her a willing sponsor, a responsible party."

"But, if she was ordered-"

"Even if Rael used his authority as an admiral, a quarian's first thought should be to the safety and security of the Fleet. Any rational citizen should have declined, then reported Rael's behavior to the Conclave. Experiments in the midst of our home should not be tolerated."

The turian mentally backpedaled, searching for a lifeline as momentum bled from his side of the case. "But she never confessed to the crime. Tali said she was careful."

"And I've no doubt she was capable of doing so. But nobody is immune to mistakes, Tali admitted as much in her earlier testimony." Tovo turned away from Garrus, addressing the admirals directly. "The facts point to one of two things. Either she sent back something that spontaneously reactivated, allowing the geth parts to kill the crew of the Alarei and produce more of themselves-"

"Which is ludicrous!" Garrus interrupted, but Tovo paid him no mind.

"-Or Tali enabled Rael to perform illegal experiments on the Alarei, one of which went tragically awry and led to this situation we are now in."

Vakarian's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

"In that case, Tali would be guilty of aiding and abetting the largest war criminal our people have ever had the misfortune to know. More than enough to warrant exile. The prosecution rests."

All eyes went back to Garrus, who still stood stock-still.

What the hell just happened?

Raan cleared her throat. "Vakarian vas Normandy, do you have anything more to add?"

I... I don't know... What can I add?

"Anything at all?"

Damn it... Damn that yellow bastard!

"He clearly has nothing to say, Raan," Koris replied, his voice full of smug satisfaction. "I move for an immediate vote."

I'm sorry, Commander... and Tali.

Shala looked uncertainly between Zaal and Garrus, hoping for the turian to say something. "I... Very well. Are the admirals ready to render their judgment?"

I've failed you both.

"Assemble new geth with what we have. Bypass security protocols if need be."

As the footage ended, Shepard reeled from the memory of what he had just seen. Tali's father was reactivating geth? And he trusted the new piece of code? How could anyone have been so careless! He shook his head in disappointment before sparing a glance at Tali.

To call her distraught would be an understatement.

The quarian had walked away mere moments after the footage had begun, alternating between bursts of Kheelish profanity when she heard her father's voice and quietly sobbing to the sound of the geth as it attempted to escape. Mercifully, Kasumi had shown him how to play the audio through his helmet's internal speakers, sparing Tali the discomfort of hearing the entire thing. He walked over, taking a seat on her side opposite of the thief. The human woman offered a sad half-grin to acknowledge him, and he took a deep breath.

"I know it isn't much, but it sounds like he was doing this for you."

"Like hyel, he was," Tali swore under her breath. "He did this for Mother, or some twisted version of her he had in his mind. I never wanted... this."

"But we found him," Kasumi pitched in. "And we have evidence that proves you were innocent."

"I didn't want to find it like this!" the quarian retorted, standing. She began to pace, her hands for once too angry to have anything to do with each other. "Everything here is his fault! I tried to pretend it didn't point to him, but this..." She stopped walking. "When this comes up at the trial, they'll..." Her eyes widened, and she rushed back to the humans. "We can never tell them. Not the admirals, not anyone."

Shepard traded a confused look with Kasumi. "But we might need this information. What if I can't get you off the hook without it?"

"Then I'll die without stepping foot on another quarian ship," she deadpanned, "but at least I'll be happy about it."

"But I don't understand," Kasumi added. "A few minutes ago, you sounded like you almost wanted to spit on your dad's grave. Now you're worried for what this vid says about him?"

"If this record gets out, it will tear his memory apart. My father will have every achievement he's ever made torn down, his name stricken from the manifest of every ship he's been on. The people will hold him as a monster, a-ah... boogeyman to scare children into behaving. None will dare to speak of him in public, and I'd be a pariah among my own people just for being related to him."

"What about Quala? Kal? Shala'Raan?" Shepard took hold of her frantic hands, trying to get her to calm down. "If we do this, you might never see them again."

Tali looked away, quietly mulling over what he'd said. When she spoke again, her voice was full of forced neutrality.

"You're my captain in this hearing, John. It's your decision. But... please. Don't destroy what my father was." She gave a deep sigh, then freed her arms from him. The quarian walked back to the door. "Come on. If we wait too long, they'll decide we're already dead, and none of this will matter."

He spared a glance at Kasumi, who tilted her head toward the console, and nodded. "Give me a moment. I need to download the footage."

Tali said nothing, the door closing behind her with barely a whisper.

"Can you grab the file, Kasumi? I want to contact Miranda. Maybe we can use some of the data from Overlord to convince them that Cerberus was solely behind it."

"Not to ruin this perfectly good staining of a white knight," the thief replied as she walked past him, "but comms outside this ship have been blocked ever since we came aboard. I've been trying to ping Garrus or EDI for news but the messages never got through."

"Why didn't you tell me?!" he demanded as she tinkered with the console. "What if we needed to contact them during the fight? What if it had all been a trap?"

"Already crossed my mind. Whatever's blocking the signal's also blocking everything to and from this ship. We're no more likely as targets than anyone else that was here. It's more likely some defense measure the Fleet had, something to keep the geth from networking outside the ship. Besides, nothing I could do was getting past it. Didn't think you and Tali needed more to worry about."

Shepard nodded. "Touche. Seems like you're going through a lot just to download a single vid though."

"That's because I'm searching."

"Wait," he responded. "Tali already looked through everything she could. Not that I doubt your abilities, but-"

"She's a quarian and knows quarian computer systems," the woman finished. "Problem with that is that sort of mindset has limits. A maid, a janitor, a chef, and a hotel owner would all have their own ideas on where a broom should be. Each is going to look in different places if they need it and it's not in the closet."

"So... you're saying she might have missed something because she wouldn't think to look there?"

"Exactly. Salarians focus on data redundancies. Quarians focus on ease of access. Thieves, on the other hand..." A group of files appeared on screen, apparently untouched and unnoticed by Tali earlier. "...Thieves know where to look to find things that were thought to be lost forever." She opened the first file, and her jaw dropped. John followed her vision, frowning at what looked like a wall of binary code.

"What, exactly, am I looking at?"

The trip back to the Rayya had been a blur to Tali. Save for delivering her passphrase to secure docking permission on the Rayya once more, she hadn't spoken a single word aloud. She was lost in a sea of worry the entire time, both for herself and for her father. The woman wasn't even sure what she wanted anymore.

"I... Very well. Are the admirals prepared to render judgment?"

She was, however, sure that she didn't like the thought that they would have thrown her out before returning. "Sorry we're late."

John followed close behind as she marched back to the platform beside Garrus. The turian, however shook his head softly as Shepard spoke. "Tali'Zorah vas Normandy saved the Alarei. I hope this proves her loyalty to the quarian people."

Koris leaned back. "Her loyalty was never in doubt, only her judgment."

"And it would not be the first time," Tovo added, earning a burning glare from Tali. Shepard took his place between Tali and Garrus, whispering to the turian.

"What's the situation?"

"Perhaps Tali'Zorah can offer something to encourage more trust in her judgment?" Shala asked, ignorant of their side conversation. "Anything at all?"

"Bad," Garrus muttered back. "Tovo took over the momentum and ran with it. At this point, I don't think anything less than concrete physical evidence will sway them."

"Did you find anything on the Alarei that could clarify what happened there?" Gerrel pleaded.

"You're sure, Garrus?"

"Positively, Shepard."

The human locked eyes with Tali for a long moment, the quarian unconsciously reaching for his hand. He walked away, stepping around her to stand in front of the platform.

"John... John, please..."

He closed his eyes and turned away, his helmeted head now facing the admirals. Tali closed her eyes, lowering her head as she waited to hear what happened.

Ancestors, please don't let him-

"I have new evidence to present, recovered while Tali'Zorah stopped the geth attack on the Alarei."

The quarian's eyes shot open at near FTL speed. "No..."

"Well, out with it!" Gerrel urged. "What was the evidence?"

"The parts Tali sent were not the cause of the geth outbreak. Other forces at work aboard the Alarei led to the emergency."

Tali knew that Garrus had heard her last word, and was most likely looking at her with concern. Even so, that didn't stop her from uttering another murmur. "Oh Keelah, no..."

"Admiral Rael'Zorah was performing experiments on fully assembled geth," Shepard continued, showing the schematic that Kasumi had found by the security checkpoint. Xen leaned forward hungrily at the image. "In order to take full advantage of his weapons testing, he needed to model the effects on whole platforms."

I'm sorry Father... I shouldn't have trusted him.

"So you're saying it's all Rael's fault," Tovo piped in, sounding as if he'd just won a seat on the admiralty board. "This just shows how desperate their case has gotten. They're trying to save face by shifting the blame to Tali's father. Selfishness of this magnitude is simply unquarian. I move to have Shepard removed from the trial."

"Denied," Raan shot. "Shepard, do you believe this disaster was Rael's doing?"

"No," Shepard responded. "The tests didn't need operational geth, just ones with active shields. Rael only needed rudimentary programs to run the shields and have them pose in combat stances. No real geth. However, someone aboard the fleet sabotaged his experiments."

"What?!" Daro interjected as Tovo momentarily stepped back in shock. "Why would someone do such a thing?"

"Because," John said, turning to face the audience, "they were working with Cerberus."

Immediately, the room burst into an uproar.

"Blasphemy!"

"How dare you!"

"Why would you say such madness?"

"Order!" The room quieted down as eyes drifted back to Raan. "These are serious accusations, Captain Shepard. Do you have any proof?"

"Yes, admirals," he replied, touching a few keys on his omni-tool. Two enlarged images appeared over his omni-tool, each depicting a program's root code. "The image on my left depicts a program my team encountered on Aite, a human-held colony. Cerberus had established a large base there, chiefly to study methods of permanent geth hacking. The program was not without fault, and someone went insane from trying to control the synthetics. That was Project Overlord, and my team had to pacify the geth there before they could upload the viral code off-planet. That was four weeks ago."

Tali watched as Daro glared intently at Shepard, though she had no idea whether it was from eagerness or malice. The human ignored the admiral and continued. "The other image shows a program that was smuggled into the Alarei approximately a week and a half ago. Its sender tag was scrambled, but most of the program was identical to what Cerberus had used on Aite. Of particular note is this section of code. It would allow for instant, unabated response to a particular signal. What it means is that any hardware that's been exposed to the program could be spontaneously activated and controlled by whatever or whoever planted that code on the Alarei."

"Keelah," Han burst out. "They were probably taking advantage of his geth parts, using his ship for his experiments. If someone got nosy, then this traitor could have activated the geth on a whim."

"That isn't far from my own conclusion," John said.

"Sanir'Tovo," Raan said, addressing the prosecutor. "Do you have any possible alternate explanation for how they could have come across this code? Your experience must give you a unique perspective."

The man lowered his head, glowering at the floor. "There's no precedent for programs successfully doing what they say this one did. Theoretically, it's possible. The only question is if she made it herself."

"I say she's already addressed that with Shepard's testimony," Koris replied. "It's obvious to me that whoever acquired this code must have gotten it through the Illusive Man."

Tovo stood silent, his eyes narrowed in anger.

Does this mean... Did he just...

Raan looked positively relieved. "Are the judges prepared to vote?" Immediately, all three nodded and typed into their omni-tools. By that point, Shala's words were just a formality.

"Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, in light of this new evidence, you are cleared of all charges."

Thank the Ancestors!

"I'll head in investigation into this traitor," Tovo growled, his wounded pride almost as visible as his bright yellow suit as he played diplomat. "If he's still on this fleet, he won't get far."

"Captain Shepard, please accept these gifts of software and resources in appreciation for you taking the time to represent one of our people."

"Pretty sure she's one of our people now," Garrus muttered. John, however, remained quiet as he nodded.

"This hearing is now concluded," Raan continued, addressing the Conclave. "Go in peace, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. Keelah se'lai."

Tali smiled as the human walked back toward her. "Keelah se'lai."

Most wouldn't know it, but there was a difference between pain and Pain.

One was a mere annoyance, a distraction that merely slowed you down. It was something one could push to the back of their mind and ignore, provided their will and their meds were strong enough. Simply put, it was something that could be dealt with if you set your mind to it.

Silence.

A sharp intake of breath.

A still hand twitched, ever so slightly.

"Keelah!" A searing inferno of sensation slammed down. Fireworks of agony blossomed everywhere.

The hand stilled, and minutes passed.

Blurriness, fogginess. A crushing weight. The hand moved once again. The suit was a skintight torture chamber, as if full of thousands of needles and blades for every few square centimeters of skin.

The survivor passed out once more, the Pain allowing not even a single coherent thought.

Note from the author: Yes, I'm alive. And so is this fic! Merry Christmas, indeed ;)
Long story short, classes between Thanksgiving and finals were a beast. I had to get a bit closer than I'd liked to some textbooks.
(It was purely physical. They still have the incriminating photos. I'd rather not talk about it.)

Anywho, big things a'comin!
I'd like to rule out one of the suspects for TIM's quarian Overlord contact here but he/she is so popular (on the poll at least) that I'll save that un-reveal A/N for next chapter, since everyone will have read through this one by then.
That one's been like Barthandelus from FFXIII; it just refuses to die no matter how many times you smack it down, lol.

As for the vid of Rael shown when the squad reached the hub, it's the scene from near the end of "Father Time".
Didn't feel that it needed to be repeated verbatim, but it's there in case you forgot.
(After a wait like this, I certainly wouldn't blame you)

Oh, and if you haven't done so yet (or if you've changed your mind), I'd appreciate if you tell me who you think is the quarian traitor at this point. Poll's up on my author profile!
PlzNTnx :D

Quala'Oro is an OC created by Levi Matthews for Finding a Way, and is used by permission.

p.s. In response to tom80 BSN: Yes, some of them are joke answers.
Hanala'Jarva, for instance, is from DarkDanny's Uplifted series and won't be in this story.
Legion also fails the Turing test. Pretty sure TIM would know he isn't a quarian.