|Present Time|
|CHAPTER 3|
|Date: 12/6/2183
|Location: SSV Normandy/Frigate Class Vessel|
|Alliance Command CCEDF Number: 33DEFZE9-87541JSN|
Alright. She'd been here galivanting through her memories long enough. It was time to get the day started and be productive.
She stood up and made her way to the stairs.
"You're actually mad." Garrus spat stupendously, "For that."
"Yeah. Kinda am. Get the highest honor in the galaxy with a toothpick in my damn hair."
She walked past the two incensed souls while Wrex watched disinterestedly from the sidelines.
Seeing that, she thought maybe it wouldn't hurt to go up to the bridge instead to see if anything was up.
She climbed the stairs, away from the ramblings of Ash and rude snorts from Garrus, up to CIC.
It wasn't a surprise to see John at the Galaxy map.
"Joker! Where you going?" Shepard jested with a wave when he caught the Flight Lieutenant hobbling on his crutches to the lower deck.
"To piss, Commander…" He threw a casual salute toward John between his limp, "I thought I'd let my baby drive by herself. I won't be gone long."
Shepard's eyes roll. "I know you won't. I've taken the liberty of expelling the 'secret' stash of Fornax you've kept behind some of the stalls."
It was Joker's turn to scoff rudely.
"Excuse me, madam." Joker mumbled to Tali as he passed her before disappearing into the Normandy's stairwell.
She gave John a quirked brow. "Pornography on the ship?"
"Not no more." Shepard said with a grin, "At least none that I'm aware of."
"Hm. Okay." She remarked quietly with a smirk before stepping up next to the Commander, "What're you looking at?"
John shrugged. "Nothing really. Just wondering how we've had this long to just… breathe."
She nodded nonchalantly.
"It's nice, isn't it?"
"Yeah. It is. Why'd you come up?"
"Just because."
"Ah."
Tali peered at the galaxy map and the icons that John was watching. The Migrant Fleet's real time location was among them.
"…I keep track of them." He said, sensing that her stare was lingering on the blip, "They're just three jumps away."
Her arms crossed humbly over her chest.
She hated thinking about this.
"I know." She replied timidly.
"After this… We can always stop by. And drop you off. Hell. I'll even meet your dad like I said." He turned to face her with a sad and sincere smile.
Her head dipped lower.
"John… I don't— I'm not sure if I…"
Her mind was suddenly wracked with indecision. She'd thought about this a lot lately. More so now than ever.
When push came to shove, what would she do? Go back home and finish what she'd come all the way out here for in the first place? Or stay with John and fight against the reaper's coming?
The answer wasn't clear. And every day that would pass would only make it that much harder to decide.
Well?
She might as well start with what she felt like. John always did appreciate speaking your mind and heart.
"John. I don't want t—"
The PA clicked on, and, as a consequence, stalled her from having to finish her sentence.
"An unidentifiable object approximately 7 kilometers in size is increasing velocity toward predetermined route of destination." The Normandy's VI announced, "ETA 2 minutes until Collision. Calculating alternative route."
"Unidentifiable?" Shepard's hand scratched his chin worryingly, "Is it intercepting us? Our stealth's engaged… right Tali?"
Her stare remain fixed on the galaxy map.
"Yes. Absolutely."
"Pressly." Shepard called out, "Sound Battle-Stations. Now."
"Aye, sir!"
The Radar Intercept Officer gave John an update.
"Object is now on new heading, sir. Plotting trajectory. Course for contact with Ullipses, sir, the planet we're next to."
Lines of worry cross John's forehead.
"Maybe it's the Geth." He turned to Tali with a commanding stare, "Tali, radio Adams and run a full diagnostic on sensory equipment, emission bleed, and hull refrigeration." His frown deepened, "This can't be a coincidence. Intercepting an intended course is one in a billion."
"Aye, John!" Before Tali could even manage to take a step, the radar operator spoke again.
"Wait... Two more unidentifiable objects have been detected."
Shepard's eyes widen. "Two more?"
Flashing lights suddenly strobe around the Normandy's CIC.
"Sir!" Screamed the RIO, "Two-thousand plus unidentifiable objects have been detected entering through slip space."
The VI controlling the Normandy was quick to respond. "Evasive maneuvers engaged. Brace for imminent and immediate collision." A small explosion ruptured against the Normandy's hull, the violent reverberations forcing a panicked yelp from Tali as she braced for it clumsily.
"Engine four is unresponsive!"
"Auxiliary power through subsystem eight and ten down!"
"Kinetic barriers are going down!"
"Mass effect gravitational fields are offline!"
Any who'd been standing during the ordeal suddenly floated off from the floor.
"Mag-boots!" Shepard screamed. Another explosion surfaced against the Normandy, violently slamming those drifting into nearby walls. Spherical droplets of blood from smashed lips and broken noses coagulate in the cabin before splashing around the Normandy's glossy interior.
"Where the fuck is Joker?" John screamed as he and Tali kept their hold on the railing, "We need him NOW!"
One of the crew floated past in an endless somersault and answered. "Pretty sure he's still shitting!"
Joker was not happy.
Just minutes before, where he was busily doing his business and playing a game on his omni-tool, an announcement over the PA alerted everyone to their battle-stations.
A slew of swearing later during mid-wipe, an explosion reverberated through the ship and made him miss. The used piece of toilet paper kissed his right cheek.
That was a bad way to start the day.
Now his time was being spent strapping himself down on the toilet.
Not only that, Joker was unfortunate enough to feel his discarded bowel movement slurp up to get a good lick of his ass.
That was a really bad way to start the day.
...and the one-ply toilet paper (Which everyone on the crew hated) was unraveling generous amounts of its cheap translucent paper around the restroom.
"What the fuck?!"
Judging by the dull screams through the walls and lack of gravity, Joker made the safe assumption that they were being attacked.
Without him at the helm.
If they survived this, Joker would have his ass chewed and made fun of for years.
Years.
"We can't wait for him; we need to get out of here now!" Pressly gasped.
The VI answered.
"Calculating route. 46 percent of kinetic shielding power remains."
Tali screamed to Shepard, her hand swatting his shoulder, "John! I can fly! I need to get to the helm!"
"Right behind you!"
Tali, under the control of her training, leveraged herself parallel to the Normandy's analytic suite. Tightening her hold on the Galaxy Map's rail, she catapulted herself over the CIC and diagnostic station, propelling herself toward the Normandy's helm with Shepard following close behind.
Another impact hit the frigate and forced them to veer into one of the thin pillars that flanked the CIC. Through years of ingrained training, Tali raised her arms to cover her visor instinctively while her chest slammed into the stilt.
Bruised ribs were better than a broken visor.
"Sensors have been destroyed. Auto-Pilot is unresponsive; evasive maneuvers disengaged. Hull integrity compromised. Destruction imminent: ABANDON SHIP. ABANDON SHIP."
The VI was now deaf. And blind.
"We need to go now!" Tali screamed, "Come on!"
Tali propelled herself as hard as her dainty arms could manage, grabbing a hold of anything to push herself a little faster.
Approaching the helm, she plunged into Joker's chair and strapped into its five-point sling.
"What the hell!" Shepard screamed as sat down in the adjacent chair, "We're in a goddamn meteor shower!"
Tali glanced quickly to the window and confirmed it herself.
They were in the middle of a fucking shower of asteroids.
In the span of time it took Tali to grab the yoke, she couldn't help but think about how asteroids were commuting through hyperspace.
As scary as it was, Tali also knew this wasn't really the time to reflect on it either.
"Don't worry about it!" Tali yelled as she banked the Normandy to get some velocity from Ullipses' gravity.
With luck, they'd be out and away in a matter of seconds.
"I'll monitor everything else! Just pay attention to flying!" John ordered. Another ear-splitting explosion smacked the Normandy and the VI was quick to report the damage.
"Hull breach on level 2, sector A/3. Sealing room."
Tali's expression deadpanned. That was her room. Everything she'd collected for the better part of her career against Saren was gone. Good thing she hid 30 copies of her pilgrimage gift secretly around the ship.
Suddenly, the Normandy lurched and forced John's head to smash into his console hard enough for him to lose consciousness. Blood started to coalesce into small bubbles around him.
"John?! John!"
The loud screaming engine replied for him.
The push for survival was beginning to lose its grip.
"Venting atmosphere. Losing Pressure. Life Support is failing."
She wasn't left with a choice. If she didn't land on this planet, she might as well engage the scuttle sequence and wait for death. She forced the Normandy to fall in line with the shower of meteors and headed toward the planet's surface. Without artificial gravity, sensory equipment, or even traditional landing gear.
The Normandy's glass shutters closed in preparation for reentry of atmosphere. Tali felt like she was going to shake out of her chair with how much the ship started shuddering. And the amount of screams from the crew in the back certainly wasn't helping much either.
Keeping careful watch on the altimeter, she watched them enter atmosphere and opened the shutters again so she could see. And as soon as Tali saw the clear to break away from the rain of rocks, she veered off and away to descend close to the ground.
"Mayday mayday!" Tali barked over the PA, "Sensors are down and I'm flying manually! Brace yourselves for impact!"
"What?! What the hell are you doing, Tali!?" A crew member from the diagnostic station called out as he hugged a chair as his life depended on it, "You're going to kill us all!"
"Jared?! I don't have a choice!" Tali answered as she kept her eyes glued to the screen and window, "Everything's failing!"
"Fly back into space goddamnit! We crash, we're dead!"
"And if we go back up, we're all dead!"
Jared didn't know, and Tali didn't have the time to explain that Normandy's mass effect core was done working. If they chanced it and went back out into space, the ship would literally shake itself apart from all the damage she'd sustained.
And while hitting the ground wasn't much of an alternative, Tali knew their chances on a planet with a breathable atmosphere after impact were marginally better.
Tali steered the ship and forced the Normandy's conventional airbrakes open before desperately trying to look for a patch of ground to try and land on.
Tali would also readily admit that she was using the word 'landing' rather loosely.
If you were on the ground looking at the Normandy from above, you'd see a billowing streak of smoke across the hazy white sky, hurtling at a speed twice that of sound, as panels and composites alike careened in wide arcs to the plains and mountains below.
Tali wanted to close her eyes but she couldn't. The ground was getting close and her hands were trembling uncontrollably.
Now or never.
"Brace everyone, brace!"
The ship finally dived into the planet's hilly plains.
Clouds of dirt and mud, easily twice the size of Normandy, swallowed her whole as she slid across the open tundra.
She continued like that for two whole miles until she came to a halt at the top of a hill, with her nose dangling off an undersized cliff that a man could jump down without any worry of breaking his legs or killing himself.
Through the Normandy's window, you could see Tali's shoulders shivering as if she'd just been dumped into a cold and frozen ocean completely naked. Her eyes couldn't have been any wider than a varren's.
She took in a deep trembling breath and released the Normandy's controls before shakily removing her seat belt to get a closer look at John who'd been unconscious for almost the entire ordeal.
"Sound off!" Pressly said from somewhere far off behind her after a fit of coughing.
Anyone still able replied with groans or moans.
Jared, the crew member who'd been closest to Tali, finally released his death grip on his head rest.
"We've done it this time." Jared said with a sullen and shaken look on his face, "Oh we've really done it this time..."
A wet gurgly breath came out of Shepard's mouth and Tali snapped up to get a look at him.
"Oogth... my thucking nohse." John grumbled before looking up to Tali with blood covering nearly half his face, "itsh badth, isn'th itdth?"
Tali let out the breath she'd been holding.
The worst was finally over.
Hours later...
When the crew finally deemed it safe to step outside, and after the casualties were situated, did they make it a priority to finally execute a total damage assessment of the Normandy.
Some of the crew began setting up a perimeter by digging trenches and erecting tents.
Those who were able went in groups to salvage whatever supplies had fallen off the Normandy within a one mile radius.
With luck, they'd find enough stuff to hold them over until rescue.
But rescue wasn't going to be coming anytime soon if they couldn't make a new beacon out of the three that were lost during the crash. Their hope of getting found by comm buoys was out of the picture. The closest one was fifty or so light years away. And the only quantum communication they had was entrusted upon the rescue beacons. Which were, without having to be reminded, broken.
No ifs and buts. They were stranded and it was plain as day.
What a piss of luck. But it wasn't all bad.
Fortunately enough, Alliance protocol dictated that all fleets or ships, unless specified otherwise due to special situations, would report, at the very least, once a week to the brass. When the time for the Normandy to check in would pass, it wouldn't be long for the Alliance to look up the Normandy's submitted course chart of the month to start snooping around to see what was going on.
And not only that, Tali actually pinned a little hope in getting rescued soon. Their next scheduled report was due tomorrow, which meant the Alliance would be out searching in a matter of days.
Surely, it might even come sooner than that. John was a spectre and the best ship in the Alliance would be missing. That undoubtedly would speed things along.
She finished helping some of the crew with digging out a foxhole before walking over to Joker as he sat on a rock.
he held a frown and low-set brows. The way his eyes stared off into nothingness certainly set the mood for everyone.
She glanced at him as she sat down and couldn't shake the idea that the Normandy wasn't the only thing on his mind.
And she was right. She didn't know, but the mishap he'd experienced in the bathroom was nearly on par with the Normandy being gone.
When the Normandy had finally settled from its long slide against the earth, there wasn't a spot on his ass that hadn't been iced and caked with his own shit.
It was immaculately traumatizing. Joker knew that 'immaculately' might not have been the best word to describe the experience. But to him, there wasn't a word out there that could fit as well as that one.
She put a gentle hand on his shoulder and gave him a look. "It's okay, Joker."
He shook his head and stared at his feet and the pebbles around his toes.
"Tali. Had I been at the helm, I could have avoided it. I could've avoided all of this."
She dipped her head.
He noticed her slouched shoulders and quickly apologized. "That's not what I meant Tali. It's not your fault. We're alive. And it's because of you."
"Thanks." She said quietly.
They sat awkwardly together for a minute before they both look to the shower of shooting stars still falling from the sky, even though it'd been hours since they'd crashed.
"Wish I knew the answer to that." Tali murmured before pointing at the spectacle.
He gave them a long glare and cursed the sight and everything about it.
"Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that." Joker thought suddenly.
"Ask away." She said meekly.
"You said they passed through slip-space."
She nodded. "Yes."
"So, You're telling me... those passed through slip. space."
"You saying it any slower isn't going to change my answer, Joker." Tali muttered with the roll of her eyes.
He shook his own head. "That's something out of a bad sci-fi movie."
"I agree. There was a movie like that actually: The Jentarus Requiem. Watched it about two months ago."
"Was it good?"
"No. It was terrible." She said before getting up, "Everyone died in the end."
"You know Tali, that just makes me feel so much better."
She shrugged and kept staring at the sky. The shower of killer rocks that had totaled the Normandy always seemed to have an audience. Someone among the crew was always staring at the disturbing sight.
Seeing enough of that, she turned around and headed inside the ship. As she passed by the helm, she had to awkwardly compensate for the crooked floor since the Normandy's horizontal plane was off about thirteen degrees and to the left.
She saw Garrus busily tapping away on his laptop at the CIC.
"Hey. You see John at all?"
He looked up to her. "Yeah. His nose looked bad, Tali. He's still down with Chakwas." He turned off his computer and reached for his toolbox, "Why don't you go see how he's doing?"
"Was just about to go there."
Before Tali could pass by him, he rose a hand to stall her.
"Hey. Tali. You did good. Most would have panicked in your position and gotten us all killed."
She lulled her head and tried to look complacent. "Of course. My life was on the line too you know." She joked with a small smile.
He grinned and shook his head. "Hmph. Quite."
And with that, he left to go outside.
She went down the stairs to the infirmary. As she entered, she saw John staring at the mirror with his back facing her while he did away with the dressing that covered his entire nose.
Just looking at the bandage wrapped around his head made her feel terrible. Her hands starting wringing anxiously at her waist.
"John…?"
He turned around and faced her. "Oh. Hey to you. You like it?"
He tried to smile but failed miserably at it.
"Sorry," He apologized, "But I've got a raging headache, Tali. Chakwas gave me a shot of Toradol; it'll be a couple hours until it kicks in."
"John. I wanted to say I'm sorry. I—"
"Tali? Really? Look. I'm going to say this once. What you did doesn't merit an apology. You saved people. That's all that matters."
"Shepard." She countered with an angry glare, "John. I wrecked the Normandy. The most advanced space-faring vessel of her time... How can I not be upset with myself?"
"It's Joker's job to be the helmsman. Not yours. What you did was up and beyond the call of duty. Might just have to get you situated with another Medal."
"It doesn't matter if it's my jo—"
"Tali." John warned, "Where was he when you took the wheel? Remind me. You do remember, right?"
"...Yes." She answered quietly.
"Yeah. That would've been Joker's last time to shit if not for you."
There it was again.
She didn't know how he did it.
How he managed to find light at its darkest.
To find pleasure in misery.
Or the laughter inside pain.
He took a step toward her, but it looked like a grossly miscalculated one. He tripped over his own foot and Tali had to catch him in his fall.
"Holy—damnit. ...Sorry."
Tali oofed as she held onto him. "You okay?"
"Yeah." John rasped, "The shot she gave me? She put it in my ass, Tals. Biggest needle I've ever seen in my life. Hurts like hell."
"Is that why you tripped?" Tali teased lightly as he regained his clumsy footing.
"Yeah… I feel like limping every time I put weight on it," he grinned, "and... I'd be lying if I didn't say I'm dizzy as hell."
"Getting punched by a metal console does that, John," she cooed while patting his back, "You should really get some rest. We'll handle the Normandy until then."
"Absolutely not," he said while trying to get up. Before he could argue any further, Chakwas stuck a needle into the side of his neck and yawned as if she'd just finished reading a boring book. Any fight that was left in John disappeared as he slumped every ounce of his weight on Tali. The quarian gave a visible oof and gave Chakwas a deadpanned look.
"Here, Tali dear... help me put him back into bed," Chakwas said through a small grin.
Tali's lips thinned and her eyes narrowed.
"He'll be awake in around an hour or so." Chakwas offered as they laid him down, "I am not clearing him until he's one hundred percent checked."
Seeing how Tali still wasn't convinced, Chakwas crossed her arms defensively. "Tali, you know he'd be in the armory right now had I not done that."
"...You're right. I believe it." Tali gave John a gentle pat on the chest and reached for the blanket to put on top of him.
"Take care of him, please... I'll be back soon."
"I promise." Karin watched Tali's lingering stare and sighed happily when the quarian finally left.
"Oh, John..." She gave the slack-jawed Commander a look, "You have no idea how lucky you are."