A/N: You wanted more? Here's more!
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|Date: 5/17/2184|
|Location: Far Rim/Il-Ma System/ASPO-D22
Kal was right.
The dust storm couldn't really compare to anything Tali had ever experienced in her life. She'd heard of the stories and the vids about people trudging through giant storms and getting swept away into oblivion. She was aware of the dangers. She understood them. But it wasn't the same until you were actually going through the real thing.
And the howling in her ears and the ghostly silhouettes that played across her eyes were terrifying.
Sure, she'd been through worse.
She'd faced the geth, krogan, and even Saren himself. She probably had the highest body count here. But there was something about it that made it... different.
The winds were gusting at an excess of sixty to seventy kilometers. Anything beyond what they could touch with their hands wasn't visible anymore.
In all honesty, she was surprised they hadn't been swallowed whole by some raging vortex yet.
Who the hell knew; maybe they were about ready to walk right into a sweeping tornado.
So far, seven people had lost their Realks. When that happened, many stared dumbly at the flying clothes before deciding it be best to take theirs off to avoid something as embarrassing and as awful as that.
To keep everyone from getting lost in this horrid weather, Kal ordered the platoon to stretch a cord between them and hold onto it as if their life depended on it.
Which, for all intents and purposes, it did.
Tali's grip tightened on the rope.
They needed to get out of this weather.
Like, now.
"Keep moving," Kal said calmly over the radio, "I see the station. And it looks like a good place to set up camp too."
Eventually, they reach the building Kal was talking about. It was hard for Tali to make out, but it looked to be around three to four stories tall.
"Moraah, Pilah." Kal called for his demolition experts, "Directional charges on the door." He said before pointing at the large hinges.
They did as they were ordered and set up the plastic explosive.
After a headcount twice over, Kal finally gave the okay to level the door.
Tali couldn't wait to get inside. Her Realk, ever since they traversed across this sandstorm, felt more like trudging around with sacs full of sand tied to her belts.
Which brought Tali to think about what a terrible coincidence it was to having to ditch their rides back at the gated walls that surrounded the inner part of the settlement right when the sand storm was picking up.
Kal had considered blowing a hole through the wall so they could drive the rest of the way there... but firing HE or sabot rounds through buildings and walls that have been aging over the past couple of centuries probably wasn't the best way of doing things. Especially when they were supposed to be searching through said buildings. So they ventured on foot into the abandoned settlement and made their way to the research centers in hopes of finding a depository filled with stuff they'd come all this way for.
It was better than having to walk on foot through the entire city... but it wasn't exactly convenient to muddle through three kilometers worth of thrashing sand to finally get there.
It'd soured everyone's mood, so most of the walk there had been carried in silence.
Tali checked, for the umpteenth time the past five or so minutes, the belts that fastened her realk closely around her.
There was no way she was going to lose this.
Eventually, the entire team lined their backs against the wall and waited.
"Sora, Maal, and Dyavo. On me. We clear the building first before we move in. No chances."
Kal motioned for everyone to stay outside before he took his small team with him inside.
Tali had counted the minutes that passed by and the pounds she took on just from all the sand massing in her pockets.
Wow. Being out here really sucked.
"Anything of yours break yet?" Juel asked.
She shook her head. "Nope."
"Lucky. My candy got sand in it. Ruined. Bah." He dropped his bar of turian chocolate and watched it blow away. "That's an ill omen, that there." Juel mumbled mostly himself. He tapped her shoulder to get her attention. "How're you feeling?"
"Distracted." Tali answered truthfully, "Better this than staying on the ship." She added dryly.
"If you ever want to talk..."
"You'll be the first to know, Juel."
"Good."
Kal stepped out from the door and waved the rest of the group in. "Okay people. It's clear. Move in one at a time. Check your things and then we do another head count." Kal said through the radio.
Everyone stood up and grabbed for their things. One by one, they started moving in.
When Tali finally stepped into the dark room, she couldn't help but smile sadly at it all.
She was in a quarian building.
An oxymoron by today's standards.
And by the looks of it, they were definitely in some kind of foyer.
Tali couldn't help but wonder if this had been a shelter at some point for refugees running from the geth. She shrugged and thought little of it.
After they had taken stock, they formed up and had their team leaders report to Kal.
No MIA.
Good.
The last thing they needed was to find out some poor quarian got lost out there. In this storm, it'd be impossible to find them.
The team spread out across the foyer and got to work.
While Tali, Juel, and several others pushed over some furniture over to a growing pile of junk, others had tied down a tarp over the door to keep the blasting wind and sand out.
After that, they cleaned the place up as best they could and set up camp.
"Weird." Juel said while he unpacked his gear.
"What?" Tali asked between unshouldering her backpack and gun on the wall.
"We're in a quarian building. Who gets to say that?" The flashlight mounted on the side of his head turned on so he could get a better look of the giant room everyone was in.
"I was just thinking the same thing." She murmured quietly.
They both continued staring at the wall, and for once, didn't have anything to say to each other.
Her frown deepened.
It was pathetic to see what'd become of her people.
Handicapped, immunity deprived, victimized nomads.
There wasn't any hiding it.
They'd been kicked to the dirt.
Though a more accurate analogy would have been something more along the lines of 'being kicked to the void'.
Literally.
"After we get settled in, I want everyone to group up into teams of two and spread out." Kal said, "Bring whatever you can back here. Old tech and artifacts are a plus. You find an OSD and I'll owe you a drink. Let's go people."
"Green. Then red." Tali said.
Juel tapped his chin thoughtfully while he looked between two pieces of warped metal. "Green?"
"Then red." She repeated. She stood behind him and toyed with a small metal ball-bearing she'd found on the floor.
"A lizard?"
She shook her head. "No."
"A monkey."
"Definitely not."
He grumbled confusingly. "Then what?"
"A Toucan." Tali answered.
"What the hell is that?"
"A beautiful earth bird. John showed me one time on the extranet."
Juel guffawed and stared dumbly at her. "Now, how was I supposed to know that?"
She blinked several times and clicked her tongue. "I... I don't know." She dropped the rusty metal ball and suddenly felt stupid with herself.
He crossed his arms after facing her. "How're you feeling?"
"Better..." Tali, for a brief moment, looked away and wrung her hands together in some pointless attempt to keep the conversation off her, "Focused."
"Right." He shook his head, despite knowing she really wasn't all that much better, and turned back around to resume his aimless browsing.
"I am." Tali whispered sadly.
Juel didn't hear.
"You wanna know what I think is weird?" Juel played with the handle to a filing cabinet and shook it.
"What?"
"If this place is as important as the geth say it is... then why aren't they here?"
"I don't know."
"Who knows." Juel mused as he kept inspecting the metal cabinet, "Maybe it is important. Or maybe we're just wasting our time." He finally opened the drawer and ruffled around its old contents.
"Maybe." She mumbled.
"I think I found something." Juel hissed.
Her pulse heightened. "What?"
"A credit chit. Ha!"
Other than the six credits Juel found, they'd found nothing.
The other search teams also came up empty handed.
Not a good sign. Come next morning, they'd have to double their search efforts if they had any hope of bringing something back.
They had a big window of opportunity here. If they didn't find something whithin four days time, they'd have to leave. That or wait three long years before they could leave on the meteor they came riding in on.
And that wasn't exactly an option.
"What've we got." Kal asked Juel.
"Other than some money I found and a bag of bolts from team four... nothing."
Kal nodded thoughtlessly and shrugged. "Was afraid of that. I don't know if we'll be lucky, considering the place is over three hundred years old."
"We'll see what happens, Kal. I'm turning in for the night. See you in the morning."
"Take care."
Juel waved him goodbye before walking to the other side of the foyer where Tali was busily preparing her sleeping bag.
Juel set his up next to hers and laid down before opening his tablet to write something in it.
"It's not dusty here…" Tali murmured. She shut her eyes and got comfortable, or as comfortable as she could sleeping on this shitty concrete floor.
"One of the guys found a broom. Swept the place around the pads." Juel replied. Seeing as how there wasn't the extranet for him to watch a video or an eezo report to read, he put the tablet down and closed his eyes.
Tali laughed softly.
"What?" Juel opened one eye and peeped at her.
"No eezo report tonight, huh? That habit will die with you, Juel."
"I suppose it will." he agreed.
"You wanna hear a story?" Tali said, facing him with an elbow propping her head.
"It's late. I'm tired."
"Bedtime story then." Tali mused.
"What kind?"
"It's the one when I first met John." She answered.
"Well, damn. You should've said that first." Juel pat his pillow and faced her while still lying down. "I'm waiting."
Tali took a moment to collect her thoughts and began.
|Date: 1/28/2183|
|Location: Citadel Wards|
She'd been at this for days.
Her situation had been deteriorating badly.
Running and escaping and dodging and repeating that process more times than she wanted to count.
This wasn't some pilgrimage anymore. This was an absolute struggle for her life. How in living fuck did she end up in this?
She took a look at the tightly woven bandage around her suit puncture and shook her head. In the dim red light of this empty and far too clean alleyway, she felt sick just looking at it. This nasty suit puncture was a result of the choices she'd made over the past several hours. All of them made out of desperation. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have ever considered Dr. Michel's offer on speaking to the Shadow Broker. It was shady as hell. But she was out of options. C-sec wasn't helping, nor any governing body that she'd run across beforehand either. At this point, it was all about whatever she could get onto her plate. Be it an organization (she used that word loosely) whose purpose was to extort information or not.
So she waited where they told her to meet and glanced at both the exits continuously. The anxiety wasn't unfounded at this point. It wouldn't be a surprise if Saren's men were the next ones through one of these doors.
Really.
It wouldn't be.
She blinked the sweat out of her eyes and winced. She was sweaty, grimy, tired, and crippled with pain. If this didn't work, this'd be it. She gave them a run for their money, but she wasn't naive. She knew she'd been losing this fight since it started.
A slight hiss of a door opened and she reared her head at the three shadowy figures walking slowly down the steps. A turian, who Tali guessed to be the leader, was flanked by what had to be either his guards or paid mercenaries.
When they finally stepped into the red light, Tali's eye's narrowed into slits. The turian's facial tattoo didn't really help settle any of the anxiety in her gut.
"You Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?" The turian rasped with a cautious whisper.
"Yes." she replied with a quiet murmur. She glanced at their shouldered weapons. "Where's the Shadow Broker?"
The turian ignored her question. "The evidence. Where is it?"
Tali took one step back. "Where's Fist?"
"They'll be here." He stepped toward her, and with something that could only pass as a turian smile, slid a hand along her shoulder and down her arm.
Tali near pissed herself and stood up straighter before slapping his hand away.
"Do not touch me."
All the turian did was laugh impishly at her trembling voice. The salarians at his side seemed nonplussed about his behavior.
Tali took another step back.
She knew she was in a bad way. But this was entirely something else. Is this what it was coming down to? Getting on your knees and succumbing to a bunch of thugs pumped with nothing more than hallex and sex on their minds?
"No, no, no. The deal's off. I asked to meet with them. Not you."
Half of her stepped into the pitch dark to unclasp a pair of tech-mines without them noticing.
"Don't make this hard." The turian said with a slender sigh, "I can help you. More than the Shadow Broker or Fist ever could."
Tali felt her throat tighten when he took another step toward her.
"You know, I had a quarian gal once." He began, "Most beautiful girl in all the galaxy."
Tali kept quiet while the grasp around her tech-mines tightened.
"She tried to leave me. For some shit thing. Pilgrimage, if I recall correctly." He stared straight into Tali's eyes, "Wanna know what I did? Killed her. Mounted the dumb bitch right before too."
Tali couldn't muster the courage to say anything.
So a deep rumbling voice answered the turian instead.
"Then I hope you enjoy the void for your sins."
A giant krogan, one dawned in red armor with a crimson headplate, stepped out of the pitch dark and swung his fist so fast, the turian hardly had the time to blink, much less yelp in surprise before having his face look much like a coconut who'd been set against the broadside of a sledgehammer.
Tali lurched back from the krogan and wondered how the hell a figure that large managed to sneak up on all of them like that.
The salarians behind the turian didn't fare much better either.
Apparently, the krogan with scars running along the length of his face, wasn't alone.
Three humans, clad in standard Alliance TA-50 armor, and a turian in citadel security AFAD (Advanced Firearms And Detainment) gear, fired into the backs of the two salarians and had them killed instantly.
A mere second later, dozens of C-sec officers, also in AFAD gear, along with what had to be a detachment of human Alliance soldiers, came in from both doors and secured the alleyway.
Tali stood stunned and frozen.
That was seriously unexpected.
"Clear!" the first group called out.
"Clear!" the second group shouted.
Not a moment too soon, a human, with an 'N7' symbol etched across his chest plate, approached her slowly and stowed away his weapon.
"Are you Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?"
Tali, visibly shaken by what had transpired over the last minute, nodded weakly and dumbly at him.
"It's over ma'am. You're safe now." He reassured.
Tali glanced over to the multitude of C-sec and Alliance personnel pouring over the alleyway with flashing lights just outside the doors. Then she noticed the mines still in her hand and decided to stuff them back into her pouch before taking a breath.
Keelah.
It was over.
She shook her head and kept her gaze on the floor before leaning against a crate to catch her breath.
The man stepped in next to her, waved off his team and a number of C-sec agents to stay back and give the woman some space.
"Take your time ma'am."
"You can... just call me Tali." She whispered after closing her eyes.
Wow.
Closing her eyes for anything longer than a second. She hadn't done that for a long time.
The elcor sitting on her shoulders finally fell off.
"Of course." He took a sterilized bladder of cold water out from his pocket and handed it to her. "We also have turian provisions available if you're hungry. We understand that you've been on the run for days. Eating was probably difficult."
She stared at the pouch suspiciously but took it anyways. If this guy were trying to poison her, it wouldn't have mattered anyways. If these guys were here to kill her, she was already dead.
"Thank you..." She muttered before drinking deeply, "You have no idea what a relief it is to get help. I'm in no position to complain... but I wish you would've come sooner, truthfully."
"Completely understandable, Tali. I wish I'd found out sooner myself."
"Why... why are you here?"
John got straight to business.
"Sources indicate you have information confirming Saren's direct influence and involvement on the raid of Eden Prime."
Tali nodded again, slower this time. "Yes... I do. Who are you?"
"Lieutenant Commander John Shepard. Systems Alliance." He extended a hand to shake with hers.
She took the hand in hers and shook.
"You're injured." John said as he pointed to her red blotched bandage, "You need any medical attention?"
Tali's brows furrowed.
What a one-eighty.
Just hours ago she'd been rejected by just about everyone on the Citadel.
Now she had every species here jumping head over heels to make sure she was safe.
But it looked like the humans were the ones that'd be leaving the best impression on her.
Obviously because Dr. Michel was the first one to help her.
And now it was this kind gentleman.
"It's fine." She said earnestly while glancing at the large bandage, "I've already got it looked at. Maybe later when I'm in a clean room."
Shepard looked back at the krogan, his two marines, then the turian C-sec agent.
"We need your help." Shepard said.
Tali looked at John and smiled. "How can I be of service?"
"Play it again, please."
Tali pressed the play button on her omni-tool and it repeated.
"Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."
"And one step closer for the return of the reapers."
After the audio had played across the council chambers, everyone had remained deathly quiet.
"Thank you, Miss Zorah." Councilor Valern said with a hushed sigh, "You've been most helpful."
"Of course, sir." Tali said meekly.
Shepard, who'd been standing next to her the whole time, nodded to her with a determined look on his face.
He certainly made up for her lack of self-confidence.
Which she'd been lacking a lot lately, considering her circumstances.
That and it wasn't everyday Tali got to speak to the Citadel's most important figures personally about matters made galactic.
"The proof is irrefutable." Sparatus announced, "Saren will be stripped of his Spectre status effective immediately and efforts will be made to apprehend him to answer for his crimes."
"I recognize the other voice speaking with Saren." Tevos mentioned, "It belongs to Matriarch Benezia."
"She may have been affiliated with the strike on Eden Prime." Shepard observed.
Tevos agreed. "Benezia is a powerful biotic and her following numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands. A formidable ally for Saren."
"I'm more interested in the reapers." Valern chimed in, "What do we know about them?"
Tali piped up when several pairs of eyes stared at her for an answer.
"Only from what I've extracted from the geth's memory core." She said as she looked over her omni-tool again, "The description labels them as sentient machines spanning heights numbered in kilometers... and were responsible for committing complete genocide to the Prothean empire and its peoples."
"Troubling." Valern said simply.
Tali nodded and continued. "But they vanished soon after. The geth revere them as gods... and that Saren is the prophet for their return."
"Captivating..." The salarian councilor mused, "I've never considered synthetics capable of religious sanctity."
Tevos was inclined to agree with Valern. "A predisposition for religious precept occur commonly in organics." Tevos said factually, "and while it is surprising the geth have done so; we have to remember they are the only race of synthetics of which we know exist today. And a basis or study for synthetic culture remains... clinically absent."
"This is asinine." Sparatus argued, "This prophesying is a front for Saren's true motive. A means to possibly control the geth? Maybe. But nothing more."
Tali listened to them talk with rapt interest. This was about as interesting as it got to interstellar politics.
Most of the time she'd ever come across CS-PAN (Council Space - Public Affairs Network), it was either rife with different transportation departments from each ward "discussing" a possible appropriation of towing punishments for overstepping into a ward's population boundary or extending/changing around a bill about product shipping costs from Illium to council space.
Boring shit.
Tali doubted anyone truly ever watched CS-PAN, but if they were, this'd be the day to watch it.
"Regardless of the circumstances, Saren must be brought to justice and stopped before he can achieve his goals," Tevos said before looking both Valern and Sparatus in the eye, "Whether that be the conduit or not."
"What do we do from here?" Anderson said aloud to get them back on track.
The asari councilor glanced to Sparatus and gave him a look that he was not in the mood for receiving.
It was far too often Tevos did that during interstellar affairs, whether it was on the podium in front of thousands, or in a room discussing simple things like council tariffs or expediting a contract about his own goddamn car insurance.
Right now, the look she was giving him was telling him to shut the hell up and just let the humans have their Spectre.
And while Sparatus would readily admit the humans had an admirable military doctrine, they had gained so much already. Faster than anyone to date since the Council's birth!
Then this happened.
The raid on Eden Prime.
With Saren behind it all.
Tragic and pointless waste of life.
But Ambassador Udina's attempts were about as transparent as the glass of water sitting on his podium.
Udina was funneling a tragedy to push in favor of promoting the human agenda.
His agenda.
Playing the simple card of: 'Never let a crisis go to waste.'
And make no mistake. His fellow cohorts saw through his attempts of diplomatic harassment and endless politicking too. But the difference between Sparatus, and the other two council members, was that they didn't care.
Sparatus knew all the same how this was going to end.
Tevos was be in favor and Valern would quickly follow.
But he was going to argue the point regardless out of principle, whether or not his decision was in the minority.
"No. It's too soon. Inducting another Spectre within minutes of another Spectre's acquittal due to inexcusable war crimes is not, under any circumstance, sensible."
Tevos' stare remained leveled and calm.
"Permission to speak, councilors?" John asked between the silence.
"Speak." Sparatus said.
"I understand the caution, sir.." Shepard started, "A military man of your stature understands that this is above politics. Udina may get his Spectre, but you'll get Saren."
Bright kid.
Political ramification was going to be end of this old turian.
Sparatus nodded thoughtfully and downed whatever remained in his glass of water.
Fuck it.
Whatever.
"Very well." Sparatus relented with a sigh.
Tevos held her head high. "John Shepard. Step forward."
Tali stepped aside to give John the room he needed.
"It is the decision of the council that you be granted all the powers and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel." Tevos began before pausing, "You are the first human Spectre, commander. This is a great accomplishment for you and your entire species."
John, without thinking of anything better to do, saluted them. "Orders?"
Sparatus nodded approvingly at John. "You're hereby authorized to use any means necessary to apprehend or eliminate Saren."
"Yes sir."
John held his rigid stance all the way through and Tali commended him on that.
If it were her in that position, she'd have trembled the entire time.
Seeing as how nobody else had spoke up to mention something, Tevos decided to clock off. "Good luck, Commander. This meeting is adjourned."
Tali smiled brightly at Shepard.
She was standing next to a newly appointed Spectre.
And it was all because of her.
|Three hours later...|
Tali stood with her arms hanging over the guard rail while her glossy gaze stared at John's new ship.
Her name was Normandy.
And she was beautiful.
Her impression of humans soared. What was better than being polite with kick-ass ships and state-of the art technology clipped to your belt?
Nothing really.
Before she'd even left the flotilla, humans always somehow floated their way into a discussion.
They were advanced.
Sophisticated.
Intelligent.
But they were aggressive.
Dangerous.
Entitled bosh'tets.
Naive even, at times.
But the thing that struck Tali the most?
They looked like quarians.
Save for the two extra little digits at the end of their limbs and lack of faysakt, they looked alike.
Well... that and their straight shins. She forgot to mention that.
So far the rumors only seemed half true.
Aggressive?
Hardly.
Tali supposed their aggressiveness would have to be instigated first (Like most people).
Naive?
Pfft.
Sure, whatever.
Dangerous?
That she could agree with. Humans looked deadly. But not as deadly as that krogan that'd been hanging around with them.
Tali had been so wrapped up in her thoughts, she hadn't noticed John step up beside her.
"She's the most advanced ship in the Alliance. Fastest too." John said as a way of greeting before leaning on the rail himself to get a better of the Normandy.
Tali, shaken out of her trance, nodded. "I can imagine. Her engines nearly make up half of the mass alone."
Shepard watched Garrus and Wrex enter the aerobridge with their bags of gear and sighed.
Today was one hell of a week.
John wasn't really ecstatic about being inducted into the Spectres.
Powers like the ones he was given came with a giant burden of responsibility.
And while he had no doubts about knowing how to shoulder them... he knew the realities of what it was to be a Spectre.
Many of them were faced with challenges John thought impossible.
Many of them had made choices John would hope to never come across.
But if the time would arise, could he ever make a decision that would determine the fate of thousands?
Could he do it with a hundred?
Fifty?
A million?
He didn't know. And he was hoping he never would. But hope never really got anyone anywhere. And considering that John wasn't particularly lucky, it'd only be a matter of time until he did.
"We're getting ready for dust off in an hour." John told her, "If you have any second guesses, now's the time to take them into consideration."
And there she realized, she didn't have to do this. She could turn away now, go back to her pilgrimage, and put it all behind her.
The elevator was right there, with its doors open and ready to take her back down to C-sec.
But the impulse didn't come.
"How dangerous do you think it'll be?" Tali asked, facing him.
Shepard frowned and shrugged. "Depends on how long we'll be doing this. Hell, maybe this'll only last a week and we can all get on with our lives. Or maybe it won't."
She nodded and looked over the Normandy once more.
"You don't have to go, Tali. You're not obligated to. And I can't guarantee anyone's safety. Just keep in mind that no one will think any differently of you. You did more than most. Hell, you might have just single-handedly saved the entire galaxy."
Tali couldn't help but chuckle slightly at the thought.
"Those reapers do sound pretty bad." She joked.
"Yeah. They do. I'll let you have the deck to yourself, Tali. Think it over. Hard."
As he stepped off toward the aerobridge, Tali's gaze peeled away from the ship to him.
She made her decision.
"Shepard."
He turned around and faced her.
"...Need an engineer?"
He smiled.
|Present Time|
|Date: 5/18/2184|
|Location: Far Rim/Il-Ma System/ASPO-D22
"…And that was it." Tali finished before glancing at Juel who'd fallen asleep long ago.
She smiled.
It wasn't a surprise to see that happen.
Half way through the story, Juel's eyes looked about as focused as a man without a brain.
At that rate, he was going to succumb to his snoring before she'd get to finish.
Which he did.
But she told it anyways.
Not because she had an audience to give it to, but because she wanted to hear it again for herself.
It certainly put her in a cheerier mood.
She laughed softly, shook her head, thought of John for one last time, and set her head against her pillow before finally falling asleep with the barest hint of a grin on her face.