"Jump!" Came Operatives voice over Talis comm, she nearly didn't hear it over the gunshot. Tali staggered back while clutching her wound, looking at Joker then Shepard, she kept staggering back and allowed herself to fall from the edge, she heard Shepards voice shouting out to her as she began to fall through the air.
She landed on a hard metallic surface, she grunted as her back roared with pain, she heard the sound of a door slidding open and Operatives voice. "Get her in now! We need to leave!". Tali had landed on the roof of thier shuttle.
Tali dragged herself to the edge of the shuttle and slowly lowered herself with a great deal of pain and difficulty over the edge, where one of the Cerberus troops was waiting to help her inside. As she was helped aboard she looked up to the the edge of the buidling to see Shepard and other Alliance troops looking down and watching. Some were firing thier sidearms at the shuttle but the shots had no affect on the thick shuttle hull.
Tali collapsed into one of the backseats, she reached for the medical supplys and applied some medi-gel to her wound, she also used some bandages to temporary repair the suit puncture. "I'll be glad when I can get out of a dead mans suit and into my own." Tali grunted.
"You best have that data!" Operative snarled back at Tali, she was sitting in the shuttles pilot seat.
"Oh Operative, I didn't know you cared.. Ofcourse I have it you bosh'tet!" She replied in a pained voice.
"Hmph.. then lets get the fuck out of here!" She said turning back to the controls and taking the shuttle up into the atmosphere.
. . . . .
Shepard watched with the others as Tali was pulled into the Alliance shuttle and escaped up into the atmosphere, he turned round and headed over to Joker. With a fast swing he punched Joker, "What the hell was you playing at?" Shepard shouted at him. The Alliance personnel present didn't know what to do and just stood in thier places and watched nervously.
"Doing what was right! Commander think about it! All shes done, all you've killed people for far less!"
"None of them were Tali!"
"That dosn't matter anymore! The Tali we knew is gone."
Shepard moved in close to hit Joker again, but this time the Alliance personnel moved in to intervene and held them both back. A captain stepped forward, "Will you two control yourselfs!" He said in a stern voce.
"Yes Sir." Shepard said.
"Sorry sir." Joker replied
The captain sighed and activated his comms device. "This is Captain Price to Alliance Command, we have a maximum priority target. Engage the shuttle UT-47A Reg:001756 and the Quarian ship." Captain Price said checking the shuttles details, then looked at Shepard. "Use lethal force if necessary."
. . . . .
The shuttle rocked as another blast clipped the hull, Operative maneuvered the shuttle as they climbed the atmosphere. F-61 Trident fighters had closed in on them and were firing, they had no intrest of taking them alive, they were going for the kill. The Alliance had managed to get thier shuttles frequency and were demanding them to surrender or they'd be destroyed.
"This is Operative to the Normandy" She said yelling into her comms device, "We are heading for the extraction point, we need immediate evac!"
As they broke through the final layer of the atmosphere, she could see the Qwib Qwib. It was under attack from three Alliance ships; one cruiser and two frigates.
"Shit! That ship won't last long enough to cover our retreat." Operative said as they grew closer to the fighting. From the looks of it the Qwib Qwib had just been disabled, one of the frigates had maneuvered along side of it and were preparing a boarding procedure.
Tali struggled to move forward and into the seat next to Operative, "Don't worry, I left a little surprise on the Qwib Qwib." She raised her arm and started typing into her omni-tool, another blast rocked the rear of the ship. "Oh.. brace yourself" She said to everyone.
The transmitter aboard the Qwib Qwib that Tali had placed under the engineering console began transmitting commands she had left behind. It sent a surge throughout the ships systems and caused a overload to build up. The result was a blinding explosion that ripped the ship apart violently, taking the Alliance frigate with it.
"Now thats more like it!" Operative said with a cold smile. The resulting confusion allowed her to slip the shuttle past the other Alliance ships and put some distances between them. Yet the victory was short lived as several blasts impacted them, the fighters had stayed on thier tail and the other Alliance ships had changed course and were closing fast behind them.
"Were not going to make it" One of the Cerberus troops said.
"Shut it!" Operative shouted back at him, "He was right although" she thought to herself, there was no way they could outrun the Alliance ships. The shuttles emergency alarms started blaring as they took another critical hit.
Just then, Tali and Operative were blinded by a sharp blue beam that shot just over the shuttle. The beam impacted the Alliance cruiser violently, a series of explosions spread across its starboard side. Leaving it dead in the water and adrift. As Talis sight cleared she saw the source of where the beam had come from, it was Normandy heading towards them. It has snuck onto the scene with it's stealth systems engaged. A barrage of lasers from the Normandy GARDIANs followed, picking of the pursuing fighters. The other Alliance frigate had started to open fire on the Normandy, but it was no match for the Normandys superior defense and returned fire, sending a volleys of Javelin torpedoes at the frigate. It never stood a chance.
A a male voice came over the comm, "This is the Normandy, you're clear to dock." As the Normandy passed over them.
Operative maneuvered the shuttle into the hanger. Soon as the shuttle was safely inside, the Normandy turned back and headed at maximum speed towards the mass relay as Alliance reinforcements headed thier way from in the distance.
. . . . .
Shepard sat in a conference room with Ashley, Liara, Garrus, Captain Price even Joker was present, they had been instructed to wait there for a debriefing. No one had spoke since they arrived, the rest of the team sat in an awkward silence after hearing about the incident on the roof. Jondum Bau
Ashley broke the silence, "So Captain Price sir.. I hear you may be up for promotion to Rear Admiral."
"Thats correct Lieutenant Commander, I actually was waiting to have an appointment with Hackett later today to discuss my promotion." He replied, then sighed. "He was a good man, he'll be missed." Everyone nodded in agreement.
A knock came at the door then a salarian entered, it was Jondum Bau, a Spectre. "Gettings everyone" He said.
"Jondum!" Shepard said surprised.
"Good to see you again Shepard" Then turned to Ashley, "Spectre Williams" He nodded at her.
"What are you doing here?" Shepard asked.
"Important information I have." He spoke in a typical fast paced salarian tone. "As you are aware, Tali'Zorah hacked some data. Important data. Data only known to a handful of people." He paused a sec and walked to the head of the room. "Alliance and Council have decided you will need to know certain details to help in your mission."
"Mission?" Garrus asked. "You mean finding Tali?"
"Yes and no" Jondum said. "New mission I am to pass on to you, partly to find Tali'Zorah." He bit his lip and started to type into a console and brought up a view screen. "Data stolen, was regarding dark energy, in weaponized form."
"Whys that a big deal?" Liara asked. "Some weapons already use dark energy."
"That's right." Garrus added, "The Normandy is equipped with "Javelin Disruptor Torpedoes" that use it."
"True, true." Jondum admitted, "But not like this." He pulled up blueprints on the view screen of a large weapon. "Many years ago, experiments were made by the Council after The Krogan Rebellions. They weaponized dark energy into a main cannon, a cannon so large that it could only be fitted on a dreadnought class ship. The cannon itself ran the length of the ship. It was hoped that it could wipe out attacking fleets in one go if the council was threatened."
He then changed the image on the view screen to a dreadnought. "Only one was made, a prototype. During a field test in the then uninhabited Dholen system. The weapons trajectory.. was off. The beam hit the system sun. The effects were apparent right away as the star intensified"
"Err ok.. I don't see the threat" Joker said confused, "We've been to Haestrom.. yeah the sun's hot, and aging fast. But that's it." The others agreed with him, even Shepard forced a nod.
Jondum stared at Joker, "The weapon was only at 0.95% firing strength. Estimations showed that at full power, the weapon would of forced the star to go supernova then and there. The Council decided the weapon was a threat to everything and cancelled the project. The prototype and most the data was destroyed, only a small record was kept and given to races on the Council as a warning."
The room went silent, everyone stared at Jondum.
"And now this weapon is in the hands of Cerberus and Harbinger..." Shepard said stunned.
"That is... correct yes. The council wants you to find Cerberus and destroy the data and any prototypes they may be working on." He said. "There is, something else. Data that I feel is irrelevant to your mission, but.." Jondum was interrupted.
"But they need to be told." Came a voice from the door.
"Dr. Chakwas?" Shepard looked at her, "What are you doing here?"
"Commander." She nodded at Shepard and headed to the front of the room next to Jondum. "Like Jondum said, there is some other data you need to see." Jondum was shaking his head but didn't say anything. "This is something that untill recently, only I and Hackett knew.. but with his death, the information had to be shared. While I was passing this information on, we found something."
She started to type into the console, the view screen dissapeared and was replaced by a life size thermal holo of Hackett.
"A few years ago I diagnosed Hackett with a terminal cancer, but being the stubborn man he was, he wouldnt allow me to tell anyone or would he stop doing his duty. So instead hidden thermal scanners were fitted at the entrance to Hacketts room, so I could monitor his condition. These same scanners Tali'Zorah had to walk through."
She paused and typed into the console, Hacketts image was replaced by one of Tali. "I don't really know what to say.. I'm sorry Commander." Chakwas said softly.
"Is that?... By the goddess..." Liara gasped, the others had similar reactions.
"Impossible, yet evidence says otherwise." Jondum stated.
Shepard was the last to see what everyone was so shocked about, then he saw it as he studied the thermal holo.
Tali was pregnant.