Chapter 9: Tali
Date: 2186
Location: Unknown Planet / Normandy Crash site
Tali stared at the data coming in from the probe that Liara had just sent out. She was impressed with how much information was coming in even as a frown began marring her brow. Her eyes glowed behind her mask as more and more information until she got a notice from the geth VI that she'd left outside. It was alerting her to an unknown ship approaching their crash site. "Garrus!" She cried out. "I'm picking up an unknown ship approaching us from behind."
"I already know." was his reply through her comm. "It's Liara and Cortez. They found a ship on their excursion and it has supplies for the Normandy."
"What kind of ship is it?" She asked her mind going through a million different scenario's where an Ally ship had been found or an old colony ship from one species or another.
"Zah'til." He stated causing her to pause in her think before replying back. "They've been learning that the Zah'til were around before the Prothean's found them. That our codex information was incorrect. They weren't created by the Peotheans, they came before them."
"The Zah'til were synthetics." She stated.
"Liara found a Zah'til ship that's still active. It's got a friendly AI onboard that's free of indoctrination." He sighed. "Ask her if you've got any other questions."
"Ok." She said as she put down her tools and went outside. Once she was outside she couldn't stop the gasp that was released. If that was a shuttle, she'd love to see the actual ship. The shuttle was three times the size of the Normandy. As it was set down the ramp to the inside opened from the back. Liara and James both came out with several devices in their hands that helped levitate items that began to fly about the area. Ship wings, engine parts and miscellaneous items found their way out of the shuttle ship with the use of the strange levitation devices that weren't giving off any element zero pulses.
Tali began to scan the strange devices and gasped as she found that they ran on a mucilage fusion battery backup system that was wired into the electrical systems. The devices were half her size and about as wide as a krogan's body. She then began to record how they worked and saved the data in a special file. If she ever got back to her people she would have something to give them that could help them recolonize their homeworld. She was very excited. Suddenly the device began talking in an unknown language as a tendril sprouted out of it's side and touched the surface of her omni-tool. Suddenly a note app opened as it began to write things on the app. It was asking "who are you", "what is your function", "what is the outside world like" and so on.
"Liara." she spoke softly as to not disturb the device or creature as she was beginning to think this thing was. The former shadow broker looked at her with a smile and walked over to her. Tali held up her omni-tool for her to read.
"It wrote this?" She asked the you woman gaining a nod from her friend. "Interesting. I had no idea it had these skills." She began tapping her own tool bringing up the holographic interface. "It seems to be a mechanical version of it's creators. Interesting."
"You met a Zah'til?" The quarian inquired.
"Sort of." Liara responded as she closed her apps. "It was an AI version, much like EDI." She walked over to Garrus who began to order the crew as they filtered out of the Normandy.
Tali looked back at the creature and decided that if she wanted to learn more about these creatures and their technology, she needed to open up a dialogue with them. "Okay," she said. "I'm going to do what Shepard would do. Answer and ask questions." She brought her attention back to the being. "My name is Tali'Zorah vas Neema, my species is the Quarian race. My people originally come from Rannoch, but we were chased off of our homeworld by the geth. I was born in our Migrant Fleet. My function is being an engineer, though I have also been the ambassador between the geth and my people. The outside world is scary, exciting and simply wonderful. I've learned so many things from my friends that I've made that has allowed me to teach my people back home in the migrant fleet and because of Commander Shepard, my people have been able to return to our homeworld when we made peace with the geth."
The tendril pulled away from her omni-tool and slithered back into the compartment.
Sensing that it was done talking she tried to regain it's attention. "May I ask a question?" She asked causing it's tendril to come back out and touch her omni-tool again.
"Yes." It wrote.
"What species are you of and where is your homeworld?" As she asked it made an purr like noise.
"Zah'til." It wrote. "Homeworld is gone. Burned. Prothean's destroyed system."
"So it's of the same race as the AI from the ship." She murmured to herself. "What was it's name?" She asked remembering some of this from her first embarkment with Faith.
"Zeroth, third planet circulating around Venro a hydrogen planet in the Lumbarx system." It wrote before levitating itself off the ground and hovering away from her, going towards the Normandy where Jeff was just walking out of the cargo bay area.
M-Angel: Yay, I actually updated! I'm very proud of myself. ^_^ Only two chapters left! Let's see of I can meet my deadline of January 1st. If I don't, oh well. LoL!
