"I must say Tali, you look good. And new suit adds to it." John spoke to mechanic while they were riding down in the elevator. She seemed to fill out new suit little more than before...
"Thanks, so are you Shepard." Tali replied happy that Shepard noticed slight change. "I got the suit after my Pilgrimage." Suit was similar to previous one only higher grade, more vibrant in purple color and better armored. And either the suit or Tali herself made fabric hug and accent her body much more than before...
John opened doors leading to engine room. He also warned Tali about Jack skulking in sub-deck.
"How can we help you Commander?" Thick scottish accent came from fiery haired engineer Ken Donnelly who stood above maintenance hatch, holding few tools.
"Donnelly? I want you to meet your new boss." John pointed at Tali. "That's Tali'Zorah, and she's the best damn engineer I've ever seen. No offense Gabby" Shepard looked down at greased down redhead engineer Gabriella Daniels that raised from from the duct.
"No problem Commander. We could use an extra hand here" Ken's accent was amusing to listen for Tali.
"Tali, just so you know, Both Ken and Gabby served in Alliance."
"We were both on Peruggia, we saw Sovereign first hand" Gabby pulled herself out from the shaft. "Got offer from Cerberus after Commander got shat on by brass. We were vocal about actions against him. So it was discharge anyway, we jumped occasion in helping Commander." Daniels continued while wiping her hands in a rag.
"Aye, We didn't spend a day as Cerberus before Normandy" Ken finished with a smile.
"See Tals? It's not like I've strayed too much." John laughed. "Tali please be nice, and you two better listen to Tali or I'll skin you" Shepard finished pointing at redhead duo and turned to leave.
/.../
After getting aquainted with Ken and Gabby, Tali decided to not jump into work immediately as she usally did and explore a bit, maybe visit Garrus and talk to Shepard.
Entering mess hall she saw Garrus sitting with Shepard and...a krogan? Not Wrex though, this one was more of brownish orange color and lacked any scars.
"Hey Tali, come sit with us" Garrus waved at her. "You're lucky that Shepard made a trip to Citadel and bought some good food. You would be munching on a paste if not for this" Garrus chuckled from above his plate filled with unknown dextro-amino food.
"I usually do." Tali sighed sitting next to them.
"Have you met Grunt? Our new resident krogan, not so nice and cuddly as Wrex but he comes around" Garrus pointed at krogan sitting nearby.
"You Tali? Battlemaster spoke highly of you. Despite the suits, you quarians are still squishy." Grunt growled and went back to eating while Shepard choked on his pancake laughing.
"Don't mind him Tals, Grunt is up for about a week or two so he's got some catching up to do" Shepard explained. "He's a super-soldier, made by warlord that's been trying to eradicate Genophage through genetics"
Tali's eyes widened. A clone of krogan? Their old crew was eclectic but this is just plain crazy.
"Anyone else that I should be aware of?" Tali asked. Better take the whole picture at once, she still had some maintenance to do on the core.
"Well you've seen Miranda, she's XO and only Cerberus hard ass here. The Ice Queen." Shepard started run down on his crew when australian voice ranged behind him.
"I see you enjoy finding new descriptions on me." Miranda smiled like a panther and left to her office carrying her tray.
"Well that's her. Charming as ever." Garrus chuckled. "You should go to Armory and talk to Max, Shepard's little brother. He's got something for you."
Tali moved on her seat. "You have a brother Shepard?"
Garrus only shrugged, "Nobody knew, he joined after Shepard had a talk with the Council. Guy just appeared out of thin air. Took over as arms master after Shepard lost one of Cerberus operatives that were with him while they were pulling me out of Omega. Also that's where I got this" turian touched his scarred face with a talon.
"Kheelah, that's a rough. But why were you on Omega?"
Garrus lost his smile. "After Shepard was gone I got fed up with injustice and went to Omega, there's only criminals there. Builded a team and almost taken out three major players there...But got set up and my team was killed. Shepard pulled me in the last minute."
"I'm sorry Garrus" Tali saddened.
"Thanks, but don't worry, it's nice change to see an old friendly face". After that Garrus explained Tali how everybody turned their backs to Shepard, including Kaidan.
"What a bosh'tet, I'm not gonna question Shepard" Tali assured. Being close to Commander bring her some peace. He was always good to her. Never treated her like a second rate person.
"We have a new girl on the block and you didn't told me? You're a bad captain Shep." A cheerful chirp appeared along with Kasumi's body next to Tali making her nearly fall from the chair.
"Kheelah I almost had a heart attack!" Tali yelled. Little hooded human smiled.
"Meet Kasumi, thief and resident stalker that love to startle others with this stunt" Garrus shaken his head finishing up remants from the plate.
"Thief?" Tali asked confused.
"An obtainer of fine arts, technology, tasty liquor and personal cuddle toys" Kasumi laughed. "Kelly shouldn't be pressing me so much about my past. One night without her teddy bear should suffice" at this she pulled small, very used teddy bear from somwhere.
"Terry! I knew you stole him Kasumi!" sudden shriek startled everybody. Kelly Chambers ran to Kasumi trying to get her plushy toy back but Kasumi only dissappeared in thin air. "She really should learn not to touch personnal things" Kelly gasped pouting but quickly changed into usual friendly expression seeing a shocked quarian. "Hi! I'm Kelly Chambers, administrative assisstant to Commander Shepard!"
Tali didn't like the way Kelly was speaking Shepards name. With so much reverence. A sting of...jealousy? She tried not to think about it. She liked Shepard but outside a few moments of girlish fantasy she never considered herself being 'on the market' for Shepard.
"I'm Tali. Tali'Zorah vas Neema" Tali said praising her visor, she couldn't force herself to look friendly. Kelly immediately sat down next to her. "I've read your dossier, impressing technical skills and fierce loyalty to Commander. I'm sure this would be very helpful to him personnally and proffesionally. He's been through some sour things recently" Kelly showed very concerned look.
Tali definietly will keep her attention on this exuberant girl. For Shepard's sake.
"Have you met Max yet? Quite the character, contradiction to Commander despite being family..." Kelly's musings were interrupted by Kasumi throwing a teddy bear at her, "Next time you play shrink on me Kelly, I'll have Max put a stinking bomb in your toy" and vanishing again.
"I-I gotta go, We'll talk later" Kelly blushing tried hiding her teddy bear and ran to her sleeping pod.
"She's weird" Tali muttered.
Garrus chuckled flairing his mandibles, "Yeah, a psychiatrist, everybody from team is shoving her off, guess she feels left out. But then again we're not the sharing types..."
"I quess you're right" Tali nodded. She agreed with 'not sharing' in many ways...
"I'll be going back to Battery, you should check out with Max, nothing more crazy than here, just don't mind he's jokes or his music. He's worse than Joker."
"It's not that bad" Shepard countered.
"Please not you too" Garrus stood up and left.
/.../
Tali entered armory and stammered. She liked music but this was something new. She watched for a while man with his back turned to her, tinkering on a workbench with some gun. He was slightly swaying to the rhytm while singing lyrics along. She noticed that the song was quite rude and disrespective to women from what she learned about human idioms and terms.
"You're Max?" Tali decided to step closer. The man stopped working and looked up. "And you're Tali. Now that obvious things are outta the way, what I can do for you?" he laughed. Tali blinked a few times. She noticed some similarities between him and Shepard. Only Max was slimmer and had longer hair but the same steel blue eyes.
"I just wanted to know everybody...and heard you had something for me?" Tali unsuredly asked. It was awkward and nobody ever gave her anything as a gift.
"Ah, Right. The very-special-order-for-very-special-girl" Max laughed and pulled a wapon from under his workbench. Gun was purple and had black swirls painted on it, similar to Tali's cowl.
"Compliments from Logan...I mean Commander Shepard" Max rolled his eyes at the title. "Some shady organization, who's name we won't mention, aqaired a few of geth weapons. Sended to us. This is a Geth Shotgun my dear. Had to re-engineer few parts but now it's all tailored for you." Jester handed gun to Tali. She took it and felt how light it was, and perfectly fit her three digit hands. "Logan had given me a list of things this had to do and he's lucky I love my brother because otherwise..." Jester chuckled.
"Shepard ordered this?" Tali couldn't believe this.
"Yeah, a sort of a welcome gift. Now listen carefully even if you're a serious girl and not a Princess Ice Tits"
Tali supressed chuckle immediately knowing about whom he was talking.
"Three barrels, triple shot each time you pull the trigger. You can pull and hold to charge it up. Tooks up to 3 seconds so mind you. Managed to expand it to 7 shots per heat sink and charged shot does not expenses more than normal from the clip. Because it's an energy weapon, it basically shots balls of electricity with some flavour so no pre-charging like with the regulars. You follow?" Tali nodded impressed at tech skills of the man and the idea of a gun tailored for her. "Recoil is absent as a kickback but gun will went up after shot, so watch it." Jester clasped his hands, "And that's it, you want a backup, take this" he handed her a modified Predator pistol.
"Thank you. That's some piece of work" Tali was stuttering still in quite of a shock.
"Thank Logan, besides, I reverse engineered the generator from this and got myself a neat little toy. Want to have a look?" He approached one of his many boxes. Pulled a thin metallic cylinder and handed it to Tali. "An energy grenade" Jester said with pride in his voice. "This baby basically explodes in a ball of same thing your shotgun spits. Any synthetic melts inside, tech armors fail and any drones explode." Tali felt little dreaded holding device in her hand but an image of geth being melted into scrap was enticing. "Only drawback is cost. To make it hard kicking and safe to carry takes a lot of materials and I'm running on fumes. We gonna have to dock somwhere soon if I'm to make more barrels of laughs."
"Oooh what the new toy?" Chirp announced that Kasumi arrived. Tali decided to leave the Armory and go back to engineering. After doors closed, little asian glanced at Max while holding a steaming cup.
"Ohayo gozaimasu 'Sumi" Jester smiled. "Look, sorry for that thrashing of your liquor cabinet. But I have an idea..." Max came closer to hooded thief. "How about I'll bribe you with nice little upgrade for your cloak and you settle for now?"
"I'm listening..." Kasumi smiled and took a sip from the cup. "I actually have a little thing I may need your help with."
"I'm down if there's a chocolate in your cup and you'll share" Jester laughed.
"You're a hard bargain but well, I think I like funny guys..."
/.../
"Commander, Kasumi Goto requested your presence. She's in the Armory" EDI's voice called while Shepard was riding up to CIC.
"That's convenient...Alright, be there in a second."
Shepard was greeted by aura of mischief as Kasumi and Max were here, that meant trouble.
"Alright what you two got into?" Shepard asked cautiously.
"Remeber that little thing I needed your help with Shep? Well time table went up and we have 48 hours now." Kasumi was speaking softly but without her usual smile.
"Care to give me some details then? And why here? You need Max too?"
"I need your help to recover my old partner's greybox. A memory implant. Man named Donovan Hock has it. And he's throwing a party in two days. In his mansion on Bekenstein."
Shepard took a glance at her. Hooded thief looked tense. This was hitting her close to home.
"Okay, I see we're on the clock. But I'm a man of assault kind of entry not heist kind of entry."
"You'll enter the party as a guest.I got it all set up. Even got you an evening wear" Kasumi smiled.
"Evening wear? And I'm supposed to just walk in on some high society party?" Both John and Jester laughed hard.
"No way this bloke will pass as a man of business" Max fought for breath stil laughing.
Kasumi only rolled her eyes under hood. "Hock is a criminal, just in a suit, so as his guests. Murderers, liars and slavers all the way."
"Still, his face is quite known, even after ittle change. And if someone ask him shop? You're done." Jester beamed at a sudden thought. "Unless...You can swallow your pride a bit brother."
John raised his eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Simple, we'll go together. I can play deranged but serious long enough to get us inside. And in case you'll need some distraction or explosion, I could give a hand."
"What do you think Kasumi?" John asked little woman.
"Even better, but I got only one suit, for you Shep."
"Pleeeeease" Jester opened one of the lockers and pulled a tux with military streak, black with shade of crimson . "I've told you I'm more refined than you Logan" Max raised free hand to hooded thief.
Kasumi laughed and slapped a high five. "Okay so you two are on. All the details I'll give you while we dock to Beks"
"See ya there 'Sumi" Max hanged back his suit. "And to think I was saving this for better times..."
"Commander, Zaeed Massani is looking for you. He's on his-" EDI's announcement was interrupted when Zaeed barged in the Armory with mad look on his face.
"Sheperd! Zorya is no go. Damn bastard moved from there! We have one and only chance to get him now! We need to get to Bekenstein. He'll be at some fancy party."
"Party on Bekenstein you say?" Max smirked at coincidence.
"Calm yourself old man, you're in luck. We're already heading to this party" John smiled and went to set a course.
"What?"
"I take it you're not a suit man Massani?" Max chuckled at scarred mercenary that was utterly confused.