A/N:
Well, we're quite a ways in now friends, and I hope you all are enjoying as much as I enjoyed making/remaking all of this.
Dropping by a hello and telling me what you guys and gals think would be very awesome and gracious of you. Just remember that as authors, we don't do this for money, as our only form of payment here is from words from readers like you. :)
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Enjoy~
-Aboard The Rayya-
Thirty men and women stood silently at attention and waited for Rael'Zorah to arrive.
When Admiral Rael'Zorah did arrive, many of the quarians stood straighter and waited for him to walk up to the pedestal to begin the briefing.
A minute passed by when Rael finally got his papers together to begin.
"At ease, ladies and gentlemen, you may take your seats."
Thirty quarians sat down with a charade of squeaky chairs.
"Information presented to you during this briefing is to not leave this room. This is strictly for your ears only." He cleared his throat as he looked down to his omni-tool to transmit data directly to the screen behind him.
There was an intermittent pause before the screen focused into a specific cluster, which revealed a planet overwhelmed with gray clouds and her sixteen continents.
"Her name is ASPO-D22." Rael began as he glanced behind him to look at the planet himself, "For now, her new designation will be Primerah. The planet was never formally named for reasons I don't know why. Possibly lost in translation."
The slide changed and he started giving basic demographic and geographical information about the planet. "Primerah once belonged to the Peoples Republic of Gormeh. Most of its farmlands are dotted around the peninsulas of the northern continents since its iron deposits and tough tundra further inland complicated agriculture. This is important to know because the inlands indicate to us that dust storms of great magnitude will sweep these iron deposits up and into the air. You know what that means. Poor to no radio communication."
The slide switched again and showed what had to be a satellite image of Primerah's northern continent.
"This is where you'll be. It's an abandoned quarian settlement spanning seventy or so kilometers in length and width. As you can see behind me, there are two walls. The outermost wall and the innermost wall. The outermost wall holds the main city, while the innermost wall seems to be a military base of sort. Most likely an R&D facility, though we can't be sure. The blueprints we've uncovered from the information Tali'Zorah provided suggests strongly that there is indeed a lab and research station, which doubled as a living space."
He took a steady breath and switched to another slide to show the blue-prints he'd found.
"We have reason to believe this research module could give us a good clue as to how the geth have evolved. Answers as to why the geth ventured beyond the veil to ally themselves with a Council Spectre, Saren."
He looked up to see a single hand raised in the crowd.
"A question? Yes?" He waited patiently for the query.
"If you have information pertaining to the geth, would it not already have info on why they'd join… Seereen?" The quarian marine butchered the the dead Spectre's name terribly.
"As of now, no. What we have recovered at the moment is a detailed schematic for how an algorithm works and functions in a single Geth unit. And we can make the assumption that much has changed since the exile... more so than we thought from what we've pieced together." Satisfied with his own answer, he continued his briefing, glancing at Tali who sat at the very front of the row to his right.
"We are on the cusp of finally breaking down the geth, from top to bottom, in detail. I will not lie to you ladies and gentlemen. I would not squander with the resources of the Migrant fleet marines if I didn't believe it absolutely necessary. The better we know our enemy, the closer we are to defeating them." Gripping the podium with whitened knuckles, his gaze wandered through the faces of his audience before continuing.
"You will be deploying in 3 separate corvettes. We've monitored a meteor named: Nocturnal-Sentinel; a giant rock 1 kilometer in length and width passing by ASPO-D22 with a berth of approximately 600,000 kilometers." He shifted his feet into a more comfortable position. "That will be your ticket in. You will anchor yourself and coast in 4 days time until you reach your Target. From there, you will disengage and drift until re-entry of Primerah's atmosphere. Retrieve the target, and exit out by using the meteor you landed on."
And so the briefing continued for an hour longer before they were dismissed; the platoon of soldiers and scientists filing out into the cramped hallway, row by row, until no one but Tali and Juel remained.
"Up for it?" Tali shifted in her seat to look at Juel. He nodded.
"Drifting on a giant rock should hide our emission bleed… seems safe enough. Besides the whole—" He finger quoted, "—Geth could be at our necks at every second our heart beats." His shoulders slumped back at his sides before sighing. "Yeah. I'll go."
"Thank you Juel."
"Don't mention it. Seriously. I might change my mind."
-Hours Later...
"Tali?"
Tali's hands seized tightly around her little multi-tool and screwdriver. "...Dad?"
"Can I come in?" He rapped lightly against the side of her cubicle.
She got up from her desk and opened her curtains.
"What are you doing here? Why are you on the Neema?"
"I..." His stare faltered, "...came to see you."
She gave him a deadpanned and not very understanding stare. "Why?"
Rael swallowed hard.
When Tali never got her answer, her frown turned into a scowl. So she sat back down at her desk and went back to work.
"I see you got a new suit..." Rael said carefully to try and spark a conversation. He felt his neck dampen slightly at her disinterested and splintered attention.
It took her several seconds to reply. Each second that passed in silence made Rael think the ambiguity between them was bigger than he imagined.
"Yup."
She tweaked some stuff on Shala's broken omni-tool before setting aside more space to do her repairs. "You noticed."
His thin frown and worried brows deepen.
"How... have you been?"
"Fine."
"...Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"...I uh, I noticed you got new boots too." He said before awkwardly pointing at them, "You can see I got some myself… they, uh— take some getting used to." His awkward laugh simmered through the air and evaporated instantly.
He'd never felt this uncomfortable in his life. He'd faced down skirmishes in space, fought geth on the ground, and defended the fleet against pirates.
But he couldn't face his own daughter and have a real conversation with her?
She set down her tools and faced her dad with a "what the fuck are you doing?" look on her face.
"What exactly do you need, dad?"
Rael's mouth hung open as he scrambled to think of something to say.
The pang of grief and sadness in his chest started to throb slowly. All he could think of was everything he'd done to neglect his own flesh and blood, even though everything he'd done as an Admiral was for her.
It was catching up to him. And it was too late to change anything. Years too late.
"I—I don't know. Shala had..." He felt himself at a total loss of words. His stare turned glossy and he never finished his sentence.
And seeing as how Tali had yet to reply, he stood with a look of regret.
"I suppose I should go." He murmured quietly. As he moved her curtains aside carefully, she went back to repairing without even giving him a second glance.
He looked back to her one last time. "I'm sure you have things to do. I won't take anymore of your time."
As silently as he could, he absconded himself from what could barely pass as spending time with family.
When her curtains stopped rattling, she set her tools aside and took a breath before looking back at what passed as a door to her little room.
"...What in hell was that." She muttered as she kept staring at the drapes before shaking her head. Her dad looked like an emotional train wreck. His attempts to bond could barely pass as subtle. Him mentioning Shala at all made it clear that the woman finally convinced him to see her outside of work. But what did he expect from her? The old Tali? The one who took shit from people all the time? That died pretty fast when people started shooting at her for a year.
It's not like she forgot their last talk. Because their reunion wasn't all that swell. I mean, someone accusing you of cheating the pilgrimage? That would have a tendency to piss you off. Her dad no less. Calling it animosity against her dad right now would be an underwhelming claim.
She slouched slightly in her chair and shook her head again before biting her lip and looking at the little screw driver in her hand.
It was one thing to be pissed about her dad doing what he did. But it looked like he was trying to own up to it now. And the way she just blew him off wasn't exactly helping.
"Fuck." She took in a breath and closed her eyes before swiveling back around to face her desk. "Fucking fuck."
|Days Later|
|Chapter 8|
|Date: 5/1/2184|
|Location: Gemini Sigma/Julas Cluster/Migrant Fleet/Aboard Live-Ship Rayya/ Study Deck|
"I don't know how you manage to get your hands on any of this. It's like winning a lottery." He toyed with the bladder of juice before stuffing it into his pack.
Tali scoffed feebly.
"It's luck. Really." She replied.
"Okay." Juel said, obviously unconvinced, "You probably get drone deliveries from Abazon or something."
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"It's like, ninety credits for one of those to come here."
They took the ladder down before finally meeting Kal.
"Ma'am." Kal regarded her before nodding to Juel. "Juel.
"Hi." Tali acknowledged as Kal passed by to his soldiers.
"Alright. You know your stations everyone. Check your gear more than I can count... which isn't that high."
Tali rolled her eyes at the joke. Kal was much smarter then he let on. Which made her wonder why it was always so easy for him to pick on himself. Before she could think more on the matter, a voice called her name.
"Tali."
Tali whirled around to see her dad standing right behind her.
That was certainly a surprise.
"...Dad?"
He nodded and faced Juel. "Could you leave us just for a moment? I'd like to have a word with her in private."
Juel gave Tali a glance before nodding to the admiral. "Of course."
Tali waited for him to leave and spoke. "Uh... what are you doing here?"
He took a deep breath and stared distantly at the Rayya's docking station rife with activity. "Just saying good-bye to you." He murmured before glancing at his feet for just a moment, "...Be safe out there."
She gave him an unsightly look as if he were ill. "I... I will."
"Good." He nodded before standing slightly straighter, "I love you."
Tali felt whatever words she had fall right off her tongue.
"Farewell, Tali." He said before cupping his hands together behind his back and leaving.
Tali, for lack of better word, was caught off guard.
Completely.
Admittedly, she kinda felt bad she hadn't said it right back... or it all even.
She looked on until he was well out of sight before finally making her way to their ship.
Stepping inside, she saw both Juel and Kal having a brief conversation before giving her an appraising look.
"That was quick." Juel observed with a grin, "Everything went well, I'm hoping?"
"Better than I hoped." Tali remarked with a sigh, "Are we ready to leave, Kal?"
"Yes ma'am." He brushed his hands off before setting himself down in the co-pilot seat to get access to the radio.
"This is cradle six ready for dust-off and direct departure. How-copy? Over."
"Cradle six, you are granted immediate departure. Releasing docking clamps, you will now be escorted to airlock six. Stead-fast, over."
The magnetic compress liberated the corvette's wings before a giant crane seized the body to haul it over to airlock six.
When they finally entered airlock six, the doors closed behind them to equalize external vacuum pressure.
"Keelah Se'lai. Ancestors watch you." The traffic controller terminated their COM link channel.
"Right." Kal muttered before standing up and speaking over the intercom to his men.
"Okay, everyone." He began with a sigh, "Get settled in, it's going to take a week or so before we hit the Far Rim. Have fun, take stock. You're all dismissed."
He turned to Tali.
"We'll be going over the logistics of our mission in 3 hours, Ma'am." Kal said as he hung the PA's receiver, "I'll meet you there with Juel and we'll get to work."
And with that, he shouldered his pack, gave them both a nod, and headed down deeper into the ship.
"Why can't he just call me Tali?"
"Don't know." Juel shrugged when he picked up his bag, "Come on. Let's get settled in."
"Right behind you."