A/N: This upcoming segment is one my most favorites for this story. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did writing it all. Just FYI, it's going to last a couple chapters.
|Date: 5/10/2184|
|Location: Far Rim/Il-Ma System/Approaching Nocturnal-Sentinel/Aboard Corvette Class Ship: Event Horizon/CIC:Pilot Deck|
"This rock is massive." Juel muttered as he watched the port view camera.
"Touch down in three." Kal exclaimed as he motioned to those behind him.
The corvette trembled when its feet made contact with the ground.
Juel and Kal lean their heads back in relief.
Phase one was done and over with.
Kal unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of his chair. "Let's go ahead and get ready."
"For what?"
"We're going topside to see how the other teams are doing."
"Whoa. What? Out there?" Juel pointed to the small window, "Do we even have a rover?"
"Juel. I ain't walking to meet them. That'd be ridiculous." Kal said as he shook his head, "Who'd wanna waddle out in the vacuum for two hours?"
Juel shook his head and shrugged before waving Tali goodbye. "Take care Tali. I'll be back soon."
She didn't bother replying.
Her mood wouldn't allow it.
And even though Juel knew why, it didn't stop him from feeling terribly shitty for her. Her mood had been a real drag as of late, (more than usual) and he was starting to worry. If it were really his guess, she'd been pale under that mask of hers since John's death. Hearing that message probably made her look like death.
She hardly ate anything lately... and the lack of sleep was chipping away at her already crass and acrid attitude. The woman was slowly killing herself. With one last reluctant stare, he turned the corner and made his way to the cargo deck with Kal.
Tali stared blankly at them before leveling her gaze back at the empty metal wall before her. It'd been two days of travel before they finally landed on this rock. Two days since she heard John's last words in Garrus' email. She never did reply to Garrus. And she wasn't exactly in an eager mood to reply either. She was sure he expected that. He'd understand.
Ten minutes pass and she still hadn't moved from her chair.
The pilot had left minutes ago with one of his buddies and no one, not a single crew member or marine, had come up to her to ask for her help or bring her attention to an important matter that needed tending to. So she sat and waited for nothing. Waited for the mission she didn't want to do anymore. A mission she wasn't motivated to finish or even work up the courage to worry over. The mere idea of staying another four days on this shitty asteroid only made her feel worse. Her hands gripped the armrests until it hurt.
Her lips parted into a long and drawn-out mutter. "Fuck."
Hands on her visor. Then woven tightly around her chest. Then grasping her knees. She finally got up and decided maybe it be best to just go to her cot and hide under her covers until someone would come along and bother her with work.
Before she could take two steps off the bridge, her radio squawked.
"Hey, Tali." Juel said over the radio.
"Juel." She greeted, mildly relieved, "What do you need?"
"Reeger and I are leaving now in the rover." There was a pause and she could hear Juel shouting at Reeger for running over a giant rock, "Keelah, Kal! Slower! The thing beats walking, but I don't want to spend an hour fixing it!"
She could hear Reeger mumble a half-sincere apology in the background.
"Anyways, Tali, just let us know if anything happens, okay? We're meeting up with the second corvette in about thirty minutes."
"Okay." She mumbled. Crestfallen. No work then.
There was a bit of a pause and Tali wondered if he was mingling over some words to say. "For what it's worth, Tali... know that I'm here. Hope you feel better soon."
He closed the channel and didn't leave it open for her to reply.
|Date: 5/10/2184|
A chime is heard from the far end of the room.
…
…
Liara picked up the phone.
"Garrus?"
"Hey Liara. I know I said I was gonna get back to you earlier but I finally had the time to talk."
"That's okay. What's up?"
"I sent the message two days ago. She, uh... she still hasn't answered." The turian sighed, "She's probably taking this pretty hard."
"I guessed that."
A stubby answer, Garrus mused. There was some silence on the line. "I never did ask: How bad was John when you found him?"
"Space did a good job of preserving his remains." Liara managed to say before placing a sweaty palm on her forehead.
Garrus' reply was hoarse enough to hear the prominent plucking of his vocal chords. "Seeing that there wasn't a planet to fall into anymore; I'm making the assumption that his remains floated in vacuity. How'd you find him?"
"It was difficult. Almost impossible. Radiation from Ullipses' star made it nearly unfeasible to find an eezo bleed anywhere." Liara shook her head, "So we started searching for debris. And we found him inside a VTOL. The same one that got us off Ullipses."
"How's Cerberus treating you?"
"Better than I had anticipated. We may not like them Garrus, but what choice do I have? No one else has the time, resources, or even the energy to do what we're doing."
He wanted to tell her that there were a lot of choices that she could be making. Like letting Shepard rest as the universe intended things to be. But he decided to give her an answer she wanted to hear instead. "Not much."
"How well do you think she took it?" Liara asked him, bringing them back from their digression, "How long do you think it'll take before you hear from her?"
She was hoping whatever answer he was going to give would abate the anxiety she'd been harboring, if only slightly.
Again, another answer from him waxing the edge of empathy. "She's... going to need time to digest that. I have no idea when or if she'll ever reply."
"How long did you know?" Liara asked.
"Elaborate."
"How long did you know they were together?"
He tossed up an open hand even if she couldn't see it. "I—I don't know. I just know they loved each other and that's all that counts."
Garrus glowered and stared at the grates under his feet and wanted to chuckle at the absurdity of it all. Resurrecting spaced mummies was pushing this into the realm of magic and not even soft sci-fi.
The turian's voice suddenly lowered into a low growl. "Tali needs to know what you're doing. Who you're involved with. And what they're trying to do."
"She can't."
Garrus rolled his eyes with a sneer and pressed his fist into a tight ball. The glove chaffed under the pressure.
"You're making a mistake."
"Then I'll pay for it. There is no good reason to bring up Tali's hopes only to watch her crash again if it doesn't pull through. You know that. So it's not happening."
He couldn't argue the logic. Being told you were bringing someone back from the dead and using Cerberus to do it? He wouldn't know if Tali'd hug Liara or punch her in the mouth. This whole thing sounded like a perversion of science, but who was he to know. But he shook his head disappointingly anyway. "I don't know what else to say, Liara."
"You don't need to say anything."
"If this works, then you're giving John a second chance. This'll be the first person ever brought back from being this dead."
"It's a second chance for Tali too. Goddess allowing."
"I hope the amount of effort you brought bringing him back will recompense the pain Tali will feel. She's going to feel betrayed, even if John is back."
"It's not a mistake, Garrus. It's not."
"We'll see about that." He remarked quietly, "Liara. I'm going to have to call this short. I've got to get back to work."
Liara frowned, "Who are you working for?"
"Oh. You know." He stared off listlessly to Omega's hellscape, "Pretty mundane stuff. Tidying job. Tossing out the trash. Uhm. Cleaning house."
"You're killing people—"
"—I'm killing people." He said with her, dropping the stupid charade instantly.
Her eyes narrowed. "Right. Well. Be careful, Garrus."
"I will. I gotta go, Liara."
"Goodbye, Garrus. Talk to you soon."
And with that, they hung up their phones.
|Date: 5/12/2184|
|Location: Far Rim/Il-Ma System/Departing Nocturnal-Sentinel/Aboard Corvette Class Ship: Event Horizon/CIC|
"That's our window." Kal pointed to the monitor overhead, "Okay, bring the landing gear up. Let the rheostats do their thing."
Kal grabbed the radio's receiver. "Maintain disciplined radio silence, everyone. This'll be the last transmission we do before we hit the planet's atmosphere. Communicate with low-level light flares if it becomes necessary."
The other two ships acknowledged his command before terminating their channel.
Kal's hands met his lap before leaning back in his chair to get a better look out of all the screens around him.
"It'll be another day or two before we hit the planet's surface." He said as he faced both Tali and Juel, "You're free to do whatever. l'll call if I need you."
Juel waved goodbye before turning the corner with Tali down to the bunks.
"You feeling any better?" Juel stooped under a panel to the roof of a service duct somebody had opened to repair.
"Better than yesterday." Her voice flattened when she dipped under the grating herself.
"Good." Juel said, "Have you replied to your friend?" He sat down at his cot and started going through some of his things.
"No. I haven't." She sat down on her own cot and crossed her arms to hide the slight trembling from sobbing the past hour.
"You should. I remember you telling me that you haven't spoken to him since leaving them."
"Later." She muttered.
"Tali. I'm being serious." He murmured, "You hold out on it, and you'll lose them someday." Juel gave the wall next to him a long sideways glance while frowning sadly at some of his memories, "I've... done it one too many times."
"I won't." She spat rudely before throwing the blanket over herself, "I just need some god damned time."
"...More than your soul could ever afford, Tali." Juel said before patting the end of her cot.
"Keelah Se'lai." Her eyes squeeze shut and remembered how Raan had said the same thing to her all those months ago.
|Date: 5/16/2184|
|Location: Far Rim/Il-Ma System/ASPO-D22/Departing Corvette Class Ship: Event Horizon/
"I want firearms hot and ready." Kal said as he motioned for the rest of the team to deploy onto the ground, "Get cozy with 'em, folks. Dine and dream about her. Touch them hot sinks and whisper sweet nothings. Just not in front of your significant other."
Several of his marines chuckle.
Kal's attention turned to Tali and gave her a nod.
"The others have landed one click to the east, and two clicks to the southwest ma'am."
"Thanks, Kal." She murmured.
Juel, behind both Tali and Kal, swore loudly while he replaced the rover's wheel Kal had managed to break on the asteroid.
Kal thumbed behind him to Juel.
"Juel's, uh, pissed, ma'am." Kal managed to say before massaging the back of his neck embarrassingly.
"Kal. He's got a good reason."
"Not that we need it anyways. We have the transport in the back." And on que, the corvette's undercarriage started lowering an M-29 Grizzly with a crane.
"Uhm... Where's the gun?" Tali asked.
"Yeah, that's what I said." Kal motioned for her to follow when he approached the APC.
"Had to make room for more passengers. Carved out what firepower could by rigging a turian crafted thirty-thirty coaxed anti-tank gun. A little overkill for what we're doing, but I don't do anything but with geth."
"Impressive." She said, "I hope we'll never have to use it."
"Couldn't agree more." He climbed to the top and opened the driver door.
"After you, ma'am."
The M-29 Grizzly was an icon for colonizing space.
And while the name resonated with many, it never made up for how shitty the suspension system was.
Juel groaned, as did several others, when they went over another steep rock and jostled around like a gaggle of idiots.
Five point seat belts didn't do much, other than keep you from slamming into anyone else. And while they shouldn't have taken it for granted, Juel couldn't help but feel about how much a far cry it was from say, some of the old hoverdynes they used back when he was in the marines.
Conversation was mostly absent also. If anyone wanted to talk, they had to do it through the suit radios because the cabin was so damned loud.
A miserable experience, put simply.
"Ayguhr-1 to Ielsima-1, radio check, over."
"Ayguhr-1 this is Ielsima-2, reading you five by five. Go for Ieslima-one actual."
"Copy two, some windstorms are picking up five clicks east of here, break..." Another vicious tremor rumbled across the car, "... and the forecast looks bad."
Kal looked over the data scrolling across the truck's windshield. "So it looks like a storm is gonna stick with us for the rest of the week, over."
Great. More reason to leave this rock.
"Copy, one. The outlook doesn't speak highly for our stay." She replied slowly while her voice went deeper into static.
"Agreed. What's your estimate on signal strength then?" He leaned back as he maneuvered around some of the random rocks and dead trees that would cross their path.
"A hundred meters, one. Nothing more. From our readout, high concentrations of iron definitely litter this continent. Intelligence was on the money. Coms can't push through those deposits."
"And neither will the Geth." Kal asserted as his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
"I'd like to entertain that idea, Ayguhr-one. Let's not get our preconceptions hopeful now... over."
"Noted, two. Let's maintain radio discipline until that storm hits. I don't want a surprise waiting for us in the storm."
"Copy last, one. Anything else?"
"That'll be all. Stand by for future updates. We'll keep you posted. Out."
Kal hung the receiver, sighed, and kept driving before glancing at Tali.
"You alright?"
"Yes." Tali lied, "I'm just thinking."
Kal's brow furrowed darkly at her slouched posture. "...Right."
"Seriously... You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine."
Kal saw Juel, who'd been sitting next to her, shake his head before crossing his arms and mouthing: 'Leave it be, Kal.'
Leave it be.
Lx-3F Low-Level Light Flares (Firefly)
Overview
The Lx-3F Low-Level Light Flares, colloquially known as "Fireflies," represent an older generation of signaling technology that, despite advancements in communication systems, persists in active use within various naval forces across the galaxy. These forces include, but are not limited to, the navies of the Batarian Hegemony, the Hanar Illuminated Primacy, the Volus Protectorate, the Systems Alliance, and the Quarian Migrant Fleet. The enduring preference for the Lx-3F among these diverse factions highlights its unique utility in specific tactical scenarios.
Functionality
The core functionality of the Lx-3F revolves around its ability to emit low-intensity, pulsing light signals, designed for short-range communication between friendly vessels. This method of signaling offers a discreet alternative to electronic communication methods, effectively minimizing the risk of detection by hostile or monitoring entities. The Lx-3F's design ensures it does not produce heat signatures, further enhancing its stealth capabilities.
The device is notable for its versatility, offering a broad spectrum of colors and a customizable sequence of flashes. These features allow for complex signaling without compromising the emitting ship's position or operational security.
Tactical Application
A notable application of the Lx-3F Flares is within the Migrant Fleet, particularly for operations within geth-controlled territories. The quarian fleet employs the Lx-3F to facilitate covert communication among its vessels, enabling them to coordinate maneuvers and maintain formation while minimizing the risk of geth detection. This application underscores the flare's value in situations where electronic silence is paramount to a mission's success.
Conclusion
Despite their classification as an obsolete technology by modern standards, the Lx-3F Low-Level Light Flares continue to play a critical role in the operational playbook of several galactic naval forces. Their capacity for secure, stealthy communication in sensitive environments ensures that these "Fireflies" will remain a staple of military signaling equipment for the foreseeable future.