|9/26/2183|
|Location: en route to planet: Virmire|
Tali yawned and stretched. She'd been at this for close to eight straight hours.
Another line of text popped up on the screen for Tali to review, but she didn't have the heart to pay attention to it. She yawned again for what had to have been the umpteenth time the past ten minutes. Still ignoring the text, she stretched and squeezed her eyes shut to shunt the tired droopy bags forming under her eyelids. Smacking her lips, she peeled her drained eyes open to try and read the monitor.
"Hey."
That caught her off guard.
"Ash," Tali whirled around and faced the gunnery sergeant, "What can I do for you?"
"Ah, nothin'. Just checking up on my favorite little quarian."
"Oh."
"So what you up to?"
"Uhm..." Tali thumbed the console behind her, "Working? I've only been doing this for a year, Ash."
"Yeah. Look. I was wondering." Ash took a spot next to Tali and leaned against the rail, "Are there any quarian biotics? Like—is there such a thing?"
"Just two." Tali answered, "Way back then, we had way more. Maybe about... twice as many as humans do now, I think?" Tali shrugged, "Why you ask?"
"Kaidan and I were having a conversation. Made me curious. Have you ever seen them in the flotilla?"
Tali pressed a couple buttons on her console, yawned again, and replied. "Uhm... no. Just in vids."
"Could they kick Liara's ass?"
"Maybe? I don't know. They're both in the migrant fleet marines. Heavily revered." Tali replied.
"Guy and girl? Or what?"
"Both guys."
"Ever had a crush on them?"
"Wha? Why would you ask that?"
"Cause Tali, we've been fighting Saren for a while now. I hardly know anything about your love life."
Tali's hands balled into small petite sized fists and placed them on her console. "Does it look like I have a love life, Ash? Look at me."
Ash looked at her and nodded.
Tali shook her head. "Well, I'll have you know that quarians either hate talking about their love life or won't shut up about it. Doesn't seem to be an in between. Though I'll tell you now it's all hush-hush at the same time."
"Lame."
Tali couldn't help but roll her eyes.
"Lame or not, it's true. I've never even had a crush with another quarian. Well, maybe this one time, but I wouldn't really consider it a crush. And it was such a long time ago."
"Spill it."
"Ash, I'm busy."
"Every time I pass by the door, you're yawning and leaning on the railing."
"Ash is right, Tali." Adams said from the side with his tablet, "You never do that when you're busy."
If Tali had two more fingers, she would have given Adams the bird.
"Fine. You wanna know why I didn't have a crush, Ash? Call me shallow, but I'd like to know what kind of face the man has before I fall for him." Tali pointed at her own face.
"That's not shallow, Tali! Feelings are never enough, right?"
"That's not what I meant." Tali stammered, "What if he never keeps his scrubbers clean? What if he never cleans his teeth? What if his ears are packed with sludgy wax because he never takes the time to book an appointment for a clean room?"
Ash's expression went blank. "So... you do that to Shepard? Check to make sure his ears are clean? Watch him brush his teeth? Or when he showers?"
Tali's jaw almost fell off her face.
"No? W-Why would I do that?"
"Creepy."
Tali took one giant breath, gripped the edge of her console, and puffed her chest. "This conversation is over."
Ash laughed the whole way out until the door closed behind her.
When Tali tried to give Adams the glare of a lifetime, he was whistling away on his tablet as if he was never around for the conversation.
"Adams, I'm going to take a break."
"You do just that." he replied, "…and don't come back. Second shift's already ten minutes in, and Oksana doesn't need another thermal ambulatory lecture. She'd be here now, but I told her to wait because of you."
She waved him off with a sigh. "Okay. Make sure you tell her to—"
"Tali." Adams said curtly before giving her the look, "You're relieved."
Tali gave up and nodded. "Sorry."
She walked out to the opposite hallway Ash left out of, avoided looking over to where she usually was, and made her way to the elevator. She pressed the button to go one deck above: storage.
"Tali, wait up!" Garrus walked quickly to Tali and joined her for the ride up, "Hey."
"What."
"I said hey, Tali. It's polite to say it back."
"Hi." She replied without ever looking at him.
Garrus sighed and shook his head. "Okay. What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You are the most transparent person on the Normandy. Second to Shepard. And maybe Marcus. Drop the fruit."
"Ash." Tali said simply.
"Ash... Did it have to do with her laughing her throat out of engineering?"
"What the hell do you think, Garrus?"
"Ah. She was probably ranting about your obsession with John."
Tali reared her head and stuck a finger an inch from his little square nose. Which was hilarious to see from Garrus since she had to stand on her tippy toes to do.
"I DON'T HAVE AN OBSESSION OVER HIM."
"Call it what you want. But everyone sees it. Save, you know, Shepard."
Before Garrus could even get the chance to explain further, the elevator door opened and Tali ran out down the hallway to her room.
Garrus shook his head.
He was so close this time.
Had she stayed for ten seconds more, she would have realized that she wasn't chasing some loose end.
Pity.
Best if they find out for themselves, Garrus supposed.
"Take care, Tali!"
Tali put both of her hands together and gave Garrus what amounted to the middle finger.
An Hour Later...
Shepard was a very smart man.
A man forged by training, countless repetition, and experience forged by the System's Alliance.
A man forged by honor and courage.
Justice and integrity.
And above all, a heart.
It showed in his personality.
His posture.
His career as an Alliance officer.
And what he was doing reflected none of that.
"What are you doing?"
John looked up to see Tali walking up next to him.
He kept swiping downward on the haptic control as fast as he could. "Spinning the galaxy map as fast as I can."
Tali's deadpanned look didn't leave much to the imagination. "Wow."
The Milky Way's spirals were spinning fast enough to imitate the way a child would hold a pin-wheel out of a window on a windy day.
And judging by the way Pressly was shaking his head told Tali that he'd been watching the entire time. The XO grunted, sat down in his collapsible chair, and sipped his dark brew and ignored the nauseating whirl of galactic colors.
"How long have you been doing this?"
"Nearing a minute." John replied to Tali.
He kept spinning it.
Garrus looked up from the CIC hub and stopped typing on the keyboard. "No. It's definitely been more than that." He corrected right before he took a gulp of his turian tea.
Tali stared dumbfounded at the spectacle. "How do you have the patience or will to do that for anything longer than a minute?"
"I don't know." Shepard said between glaring at Garrus who'd already returned to typing on his keyboard.
"Huh." Tali seemed unconvinced.
"Pressly." John called.
Pressly looked up from his coffee. "Commander?"
"I'm clocking out."
"Will do."
A little red hologram marker winked into existence in front of Shepard just as he was about to step down.
"Christ," He sighed, "What now?" John touched the alert. A transverse section of the Normandy's vital systems popped out in front of him.
When Tali was about to explain to him what he was seeing, he pointed right at the display and turned to her.
"Carburizer module's telling me that someone dilated eezo bleed. It's too high. Pretty sure the Tantulus' computer would have tripped this and shut it down by now. You do this Tali?" John stared at the readout and frowned, "Looks like something you'd do."
Whoah. John could talk tech?
That was honestly pretty impressive to her.
"Maybe." She replied in a confused mumble.
He looked closer and flipped through several of the holograms before finally piecing together what was going on. "Uh, Garrus? You do this?" He looked through the hologram to Garrus.
"Nope. Wasn't me." Garrus said without ever bothering to look up from his computer.
He pointed at the quarian. "Then it was you."
"Really? Care to entertain me?" Tali said in an act of small defiance.
"Well. You used Noehman's Law." (Tali heard Tasàmih's Law due to quarian translation)
"Oh. And tell me about Noehman's law, commander." She said as she stuck out a hip.
There was no way John knew what he was talking about. She was waiting for him to trip up at some point.
"Vacuum radiation and charge static bleeds into our gun's barrels in a special way before dissipating into the Normandy's EES."
Tali's jaw felt like dropping.
"...and the readouts here for the carburizer are telling me the same thing. Except it's through the IES. You opened the gun's doors, turned it into a heat sink, and got it to cool off the K4. Marked increase of nearly seven percent. That's like two or so extra hours of spy time without giving away our position."
Crazy. She was just swooned by logistics. A hot flash was coming.
"You've never told me you were—"
"A machinist? An engineer?" Shepard smirked, his grin imitating something that could pass as an ego, "I am… but I downplay it for the girls with cool masks and backward calves."
He laughed.
Swoon… definitely a swoon.
"So you're really a techie huh?"
"Yup." He answered with the dip of his head.
"There's a set of attenuators in the primary power transfer system—" She signaled for John to finish for her.
"—that channels power into the field bleed for proper electrical dissipation." He added confidently prior to pushing his explanation further, "They're T-6 AGB junctures housed within a deck panel just to the left of the A-5 heat temperance thermal duct."
Holy flying—
"If you're at the right spot? You can feel her hum." He leaned back on the rail and faced her with this huge smile on his face, "I couldn't keep it quiet forever, Tali."
She closed her mouth.
Maybe she was obsessed with John.
Shepard bit his bottom lip in thought. "So, uh... How come nobody told me about doing this without my knowledge? I mean, we turned off our gun for this."
"We did. Adams sent you the request days ago. You signed it off yourself yesterday." Tali leaned forward with her arms crossed, smirking.
"Well," John's nose scrunched up embarrassingly, "guess I should start reading the paperwork I sign off then."
"Probably."
"Come on." He turned the hologram off, "Let's go."
"Okay." She said quietly.
"So it'll be a day or so before we make it to Virmire." John said when they were walking down the stairs.
"What do you think we'll find?"
"With any luck, a means to an end." Both John and Tali saw that breakfast was being served with a dozen or so of the second shift crew lining up with their trays. John snatched a sandwich off a platter and went into his quarters with her.
"Luck. We've been without luck for almost a year." She shook her head when the doors closed behind them.
"Very true." He sat down at his table, "You, uh, don't mind if I eat do you?"
"Nope. I love watching you shove wet fleshy things in your eat hole."
The sandwich hung right over his mouth when he gave Tali a bewildered look. After looking at the sandwich, he couldn't help but see it lose its luster.
"I—you know..." He watched some of the mustard ooze out of his sandwich and winced, "...I just lost my appetite."
"I was just joking, John." She said. She held her hands up to mollify herself, "Calm down."
"Yeah... I just thought of this... thing... and I don't want to eat anymore. You can have it though." He pushed the plate to her.
"Here." He picked out a piece of cheese covered in tomato juice, "Just a bite. You'll love it." He put it near her mouth-piece.
Tali went cross-eyed when she stared at the yellow square thing dangling like some kind of sick concoction of highly viscous gel.
She swat at it to get it away from her face."Stahp!"
He pushed the square even closer to her.
"I don't even know what the hell that is!" She exclaimed. She grabbed the cold disgusting thing from his hand and put it back on the plate before grabbing his napkin to clean her fingers.
"It's just cheese. It comes from cows. Earth animal."
"In squares? It comes out of them in squares." She pointed as if she were accusing it of trying to murder her.
"How have you not seen these before? No. It's processed, Tali."
"How am I supposed to know that?"
"I don't know? You've have been around us for what? A year? We eat weird shit."
She shook her head and took a deep breath before sighing.
Then she snorted before laughing a little.
"I don't know why, but I just thought of what my dad would do if I did that to him."
"You know..." he pushed the plate aside, "You've told me a lot about you and your family."
"Yeah. of course."
"But you've hardly ever heard me talk about mine."
"You've made it out to be a sensitive issue." She shrugged, "So I never asked."
"Well, what do you want to know?"
Tali never actually thought of a question to ask him when the time came.
So she chewed on her tongue and started with the first thing that came to mind.
"Earth... what was it like?"
"Knew it only from a vid up until AIT. Lived on ships my whole life. Father was a Captain. Mom was an XO on the SSV Demeter. About as cookie cutter as it gets when it comes to military life. They were both good to me. Still are to this day."
"Wow. Prestigious."
"I was pressured a lot by my parents. But I don't think it could compare to you."
The sandwich he pushed aside beckoned to him with a cold glare of glistening mustard. He took the piece of shit sandwich and tossed it into his waste bin.
He'd never get Tali's joke out of his head.
Shoving wet things in his eat-hole.
Jesus Christ.
"Anything worth mentioning when you were young?"
"Uh..." John looked up and sifted through his memories, "Yeah. There's this one time? Brad (Childhood friend) we found this really clear saran wrap. Like, you couldn't even see it. We'd tape it across doors for people to run into. Took the adults two weeks to catch who'd been doing it. Grounded for thrice that long." John shook his head at the childhood memory, "Brad and I were idiots. Sometimes more so him than me."
"What's the worst thing you did with him?" Tali asked.
"Uhm... Oh. Well, he and I rigged the doors to the chapel and mess to scream like a goat every time someone would open it" John shook his head, "They'd fix it and we'd come back a little while later and put it back."
Tali couldn't help but shake her head too and laugh. "How annoying. You were a little brat weren'tcha."
"Yeah..." He laughed a little bit, "You have any stories like that?"
"Me? Oh no... Nothing like that." Tali replied instantly.
"Not even one thing?"
Tali chewed on her lip and shrugged. "Well. There was this one time..."
"Well come on, let's hear it."
"I don't even know where to start..." Tali put her elbows on the table, "...Well, there were these two rival 'clans' on opposite ends of the Rayya... and the Rayya's a big ship, you know that." Tali started, "And guess which family was 'unofficially involved'."
"The Zorah's." John guessed, "I can't believe your dad would be involved in that…"
"He was. Believe it. He was a different man before my mom died… busy like he's always been… strict as always... But different."
Tali continued. "It was all healthy. But I think the worst thing we did was sneak into their quarters during their sleep cycle and take all of their curtains... to you that'd be like taking a door to everyone's room. And privacy is a big thing for us. So…"
"Oh. I see." John leaned in, "What did you do to the curtains?"
"About the worst thing we could have. Dumped them at the trading decks. It took them weeks to find them all again."
"That's pretty damned evil."
"Yeah. It was. Apparently it pissed them off enough to hold back on the revenge until something good came along for them to use."
"What did they do to even the score?"
"Don't know yet. The whole rival thing died down after that. But I'm pretty sure they're still conspiring against us." Tali shrugged and looked down, "Not that it matters. When I get back, I won't be on the Rayya anymore."
"You make it sound so depressing." John said with a frown.
"Well… no sense in sugar coating it. Right?" She shrugged, "What's the point of icing a cake if you're not going to eat it?"
John had to stop himself from shaking his head and laughing at her.
He really needed to stop using analogies in front of Tali. She'd taken a liking to them a lot lately.
Though hearing her use them was nothing short of adorable.
And if he didn't know any better, Garrus was beginning to use them a lot too.
"So… About Virmire…" Tali's hands starting mingling with each other, "Do you think we're ready for it?"
"We haven't spent two weeks of planning and countless drills for nothing Tali." He said in a more serious tone, "…I'm planning on taking him down when we get there."
"Ugh… just thinking about PT…" Tali looked sideways, "Or drills… If I have to do another drill… I quit."
John leaned in close and put the barest hint of a smile on his face. "Well. I hope you like the airlock then." He leaned back and kept his stare leveled, "Nobody leaves John Shepard. Nobody."
"Eat shit, John." She retorted with a snide laugh. She flicked what looked to be a small piece of cheese toward him.
The small crumb flew true and went straight into the back of John's throat. His eyes crossed and he started coughing hoarsely.
Tali stared absently at him hacking and suddenly felt extremely embarrassed with herself. Flicking that thing probably wasn't the best idea.
When John finally composed himself, he stared past his teary eyes to her. "I… probably deserved that."
Tali shrugged, crossed her legs, and placed both her hands on a raised knee in the cutest way she could.
"Probably." She mustered to say.
|Chapter 10|
|9/28/2183|
|Location: Hoc System/Sentry Omega/Planet Virmire|
She sat in the sand and watched the water recede from Virmire's shoreline.
She sighed, amidst the soothing sound of waves, and hung her head low.
"How long."
"Two hours." John replied.
She faced the shore again.
If she weren't at war against Saren, and their mission was to relax on the bleached white shores of the ocean…
She might have enjoyed the view.
Everything about this planet was… wrong.
The bright waters. The rich foliage.
It was all wrought with death and fear. All of it because of Saren.
"How're you feeling?" John asked while he played with the sand absent-mindedly.
There was a long pause as they both listen to the tranquil waves of water.
"Scared." She answered finally.
"Me too." He put a hand over hers and squeezed before nodding, "But we'll get through it together. All of us."
"I believe it." Tali said quietly but proudly.
She squeezed his hand back.
"Good." He willed himself to say.
The calming waves nearly touch both their feet. And the glowing sun glimmered timidly along Virmire's clouds.
"Where are the others?" She asked before wrapping her arms around her knees, "How's Wrex?"
"Pissed. But dealing. The others are all getting ready."
"And what about you?" She turned to him with her sad eyes, "Shouldn't you be with them?"
"Did everything I could. There's nothing else to do except wait. And wait we will."
The waters finally lap across their feet and go up to their knees.
"It kills me. You know?" Tali started with a sigh, "All this waiting… and to know this could be it? That this could all finally end."
"I have a good feeling." John supplied with a straight face he'd been taken to wearing a lot lately, "I know I shouldn't say anything like that… but I just do."
"You should feel that way." Tali answered before picking some of the sand that got in-between her toes, "Otherwise you wouldn't be a good leader."
"Gee. Thanks." He joked before bumping her shoulder lightly with his.
"It's true."
He nodded. "I know. You're right." He leaned in and rest his arms over his knees, "You know you can always go whenever you want. None of us would think differently if you did."
"John?" She kept facing the ocean.
"Yeah?"
"This is more important than my pilgrimage."
Shepard didn't have the heart to reply to that.
"And I don't want to leave." She added.
"I think you made that clear when you stuck with me after all we've been through." He said through a slight smile.
"You know it's true." She added, "And just so you know… if anything ever does happen? It'd be great if you could drop it off at the flotilla. My gift, I mean."
Shepard wanted to shake his head. It was par for the course these days to hear Tali joke about things like this. The thought of Tali actually not making it irked him immensely. He never forgave himself for Akuze. He didn't forgive himself for losing Jenkins either. But the idea of losing someone else again? John was, by all intents and purposes, used to death.
It came with the job.
It was part of the job description, really.
But he'd be lying if he wasn't more than ready to write that off his résumé and deny himself any job that even mentioned any of the aforementioned shit. Losing people sucked. Period. And when you let people closer than any normal soldierly comfort would allow…
Well.
It usually wasn't a good idea. But he did it anyway. There was no way he could keep fighting on without several hands on his shoulders to back him up when times got rough.
And times weren't getting much rougher than now.
These days, John couldn't help but fantasize about drinking a beer while smoking up some BBQ on a shitty three pronged grill in his open backyard. And he'd have Tali in a nice sundress sitting on the picnic table sharing a beer with him and complaining about how he should really get to mowing the lawn before it gets disheveled and ugly.
"I won't have to." He said after shaking himself out of his trance, "I'll make sure of it."
"I know." Her thin lips turn into a small smile.
"Good. Now, chin up."
Tali shook her head and snorted obnoxiously. "Easier said than done, John."
"True. But what captain would I be if I didn't try." He murmured. He put his hand over hers again and pat it warmly. Her shoulders sagged at his touch.
"John."
"…Yes?"
"Keelah'Selai."
His mouth hung open for a moment and he swallowed. "Keelah'Selai, Tali."
"This is where we split up. You know the mission parameter." Shepard let his weapon drop between his legs as he eyed the terrain. "We'll cover more and attack more efficiently if we engage in tandem. Maintain disciplined radio contact."
He turned to his team. "Garrus. Tali. Let's go." He motioned with the wave of his hand and they fall in line.
"Ash. You have Wrex and Liara. Diverge right. Assume krogan. Engage with caution and watch your vectors. We'll meet you at the bomb site."
"Aye, sir." They slip off the rocky incline and disappear as they start rappelling down their canyon wall.
John's radio squawked. "All teams. Displace to external hard points and prepare for standard assault."
"Roger, Mannovai. Engaging choke-points. Sector index one advancing on perimeter… Receiving standard suppression."
Shepard's voice joined the charade of radio chatter. "Shadow team prepared and organized for infiltration. Standing-by for final go."
"Roger, Shadow. God Speed. Initiate infiltration run."
"Kaidan. Good Luck."
"Likewise sir. My marines and I will make it through."
"Good. Keep your men and the STG in good hands, Lieutenant. We'll cross this fire together."
John rappelled down the long gray canyon wall with Tali and Garrus.
Ordinarily, rappelling down a canyon wouldn't have been an option.
Fortunately, the mist from the nearby waterfall was dense enough to hide them from being seen. That and the weather was perfect.
The sky was overcast and the clouds were dark and gray. John took in a breath and let a grim smile show. The air was cool and clean… not burnt and tainted with the residue of war.
They'd be the first to change that here. If, with any luck, this island would cease to exist if they could pull this off.
Garrus slipped and stumbled before bracing both his knees against the stone to steady himself.
"Whoah, Garrus. We've practiced this a hundred times. You should have this down by now."
"Yeah, except the course back on Pinnacle wasn't slippery and covered in moss." Garrus muttered when he regained his footing to continue down. Garrus stole himself a second to glance down and shivered. "So that's what it's like to almost die."
"Let's make this fast…" Tali said between a jump, "STG isn't going to be able to hold out too long against the geth."
"Agreed." John said before finally reaching the ground. He unclasped his harness and watched Tali do the same (before they both helped Garrus take off his since his waist was so oddly shaped).
They gather around and take a knee next to each other.
"Our objective is at the next bend there." John pointed. A hundred meters out was the bend he was talking about. "If we don't take out this outpost fast, our op has a good chance of failing."
John breathed in before sighing.
"We'll use the rocks and riverbank to cover us. Watch for patrols and stay in formation. Let's move."
The move quickly until they finally take the bend and perch themselves to take a look at their objective.
Garrus peered through his scope to get a better look.
"What do you see?" John asked between sips from his canteen.
"Exactly what we expected." Garrus murmured. "Contacts. Four combatants. Three geth and a krogan." Garrus said before aiming down to see the krogan's belt.
"Shit. Anything else?" John asked.
"Yeah… and the krogan's kinetic barriers are on. He's expecting a fight." The turian said before opting to switch to his sub-sonic ammunition, "What's the plan, Shepard?"
"You've got a good vantage point. Keep a bead on the krogan. He's your priority."
Shepard motioned for Tali.
"Tali, I want you to move up close." He stood next to her and pointed to the rocks and river, "The boulders will cover you and the white water will hide your footsteps. When I give you the go, you're going to ambush before running up to disable their radio. We won't have much time after we shoot."
"Okay."
"Don't worry. I'll keep you covered in case anything goes wrong."
"I know." She nodded, slid off their hiding spot, and joined the river's rushing waters.
Garrus didn't hide his surprise.
"I'm surprised you're letting her do that." He said when Tali was finally out of ear shot.
John looked at the turian before sighting down his own scope. "Me too."
"She can handle herself, Shepard. Don't worry."
"I know."
Tali ambled forward cautiously and glanced backward occasionally to make sure everything was going as planned. At the last seven yards, she lay prone and crawled slowly until she was within four meters of a geth soldier.
"See me?" Tali asked through their radio.
Tali kept her shotgun cradled in an upright position to keep the sand off it.
"Yeah. Stay right where you are." Shepard answered, "Garrus and I will be firing in sync. Wait after the second volley to ambush."
"Okay."
A crack of two rifles overtook the noisy rapids.
Fleshy impacts.
Two more 160 decibel cracks ring around the calm ambiance.
Thump.
She rolled across her side, and fired her shotgun.
The geth soldier closest to her swallowed the fiery hot round with its chest before falling over and getting swept away by the river's rushing current. By the time the river had pulled the geth soldier down under, she noticed the dead (but still twitching) krogan laying next to a disabled geth.
After she got up, her radio went off. "Tali, last one got behind the building," Shepard spoke after a grunt, "Just stay there and we'll get him together."
"What about the radio tower?"
"Just wait. I don't want to take any chances, Tali."
Tali didn't get the chance to reply. That last soldier John had mentioned perched itself at a corner before firing at her.
Fortunately enough, she managed to fire a slug from her weapon straight through the geth's gun. Unfazed by the sudden disadvantage, the machine lunged forward and tackled her down to the ground.
She screamed in panic as soon as she realized what was going on. Tali's life was now teetering on the sharpest edge of a knife.
A one on one fist fight with a geth was nothing short of total suicide.
The quarians could say all they wanted to, but you couldn't beat them without leverage.
The geth had three hundred years to work out the kinks in their platforms. Sure, they stayed relatively the same, but they were a far cry from the platforms centuries just prior to their exile.
Which meant you weren't going to find some weak spot or special technique to take down a geth with only your fists and wit. If you wanted to waste a platform, it would be with nothing else other than a rain of bullets or your pet krogan who pumped more than his fair share of iron at the gym.
Every geth on the ground was prepared with a whole manuscript of executables dictating where and how to kill a quarian with a swift kick or steady hand. And she was sure that the geth had learned, in the short amount of time since traversing out of the far rim, how to kill any other species in the galaxy just by feeling around the extranet. And since she was still alive, the geth had a reason for it. Probably to use her life as a way to keep her friends from putting a hole in his oblong shaped head.
Both John and Garrus started sprinting.
"TALI!" Shepard boomed in a frenzy of fear as he clumsily ran through the shallow waters to her.
The promise he made to her on the beach echoed ominously in his head.
He was not going to break that fucking promise.
NO. Fucking. Way.
The geth calculated its options in nanoseconds. While Tali struggled, it pinned her deeper into the sand with a single arm and reached for her sheathed knife. She gasped from the ungodly pressure and could feel the dagger slip out of her sheath slowly.
Tears were streaking across her face and her breath was unbearably hot.
She desperately tried to fight the geth for her dirk to forestall what had to be the inevitable.
She was going to die at the hands of a gift she'd been given by father himself.
And it was going to be with that very knife, the one cradled in the hand of an enemy of an entire species, to end Tali'Zorah nar Rayya.
A cry of anger, fear, or pain (Tali couldn't tell which) bubbled from her lips as she pushed her hand closer and closer to the dagger hovering dangerously close to her chest. She could hear, somewhere in the background, the screams of both John and Garrus getting closer and clearer.
They wouldn't make it in time. There just wasn't any way.
"Tinsk Jajuma ul geth'sa Tet'shuct." Tali spat in her last act of defiance. She had said it loud enough for John to hear her say:"I hope you die well, you low-life slaving fuck."
That struck the last fragile cord of anger left in him. John pushed so hard, his knees and legs were sure to give out on him.
She resigned herself to knowing that this would be it. That this had to be the end.
Yet she still struggled in some unmerited amount of hope that she could make it.
The geth rose the knife, faced John and Garrus, and sent their way, Tali's long serrated dagger.
"Oh shit."
Garrus had just enough time to watch his thigh swallow Tali's knife.
He tripped, dropped his rifle in the river, slipped on some moss (again), and smashed the top of his helmet against a rock.
Garrus was definitely out of the fight.
John pushed on and screamed a hoarse cry of rage.
He was going to KILL that fucking thing.
"Get the fuck off." John said through a sneer. He dove and tackled the geth by catching it on the shoulder with all his might.
Tali didn't get the time to tell John to back off and run.
They'd been over this before.
Never get closer than three meters of a geth. Ever.
But John saw this as an exception.
The geth took the tackle in stride and somersaulted back upright before plowing a kick right into the center of John's chest.
When John stumbled back and hit his back against a rock, he felt like it was a good time to finish off the stupid fuck with his gun.
Only to have the weapon that would've saved them all kicked right out of his grasp.
In a moment of shock, John tried to throw a punch before realizing the geth was preparing what only had to be some quarian form of ju-jitsu or something.
And quarian ju-jitsu it did.
Had he not been wearing a full bearing helmet, John's head would have snapped further back than an owl's. Fortunately, the gyro motors in the neck of his suit (which served like seatbelts) stopped his head from doing just that. But it didn't protect the blood spurt that spewed out from John's mouth and nose.
Nor did it look like it could protect his consciousness. He crumpled down to the floor like a lifeless ragdoll.
To Tali, she couldn't tell if he was dead or alive.
As leisurely as the geth could, it retrieved a new weapon from his fallen brother before approaching the quarian who brushed herself off patiently.
It waited.
It continued to stare patiently for orders, unbeknownst that its IFF was severely compromised.
Tali's shotgun, still hot from the incendiary rounds that passed through the muzzle brake just earlier, kissed the geth's stoic eye.
"Jaj'umal." Tali said through a flat hiss.
A single pull of the trigger warped the synthetic head into a pulpy mess of artificial fluid and shrapnel.
It hung for a small moment before finally dropping into the sand to join its fallen comrades.
There wasn't time to reflect on victory.
"John!" She screamed as she ran towards him. As fast as her hands could, she analyzed his suit to see the damage. If it were bad enough, she wouldn't be able to touch him, lest he become paralyzed.
She let out a small sigh of partial relief. Nothing broken.
"John." She dropped to her knees, and rolled him over slowly. The inside of his visor was painted with blood and a crack splintered the corner. He stirred back to life and faintly started feeling for the locking mechanism to unclasp his helmet. She took the hint and helped him take it off.
He was a sweaty marred mess.
He spit out a mouthful of bloody saliva and gave her a smile. "You okay?"
Any anxiety that remained in her was gone. Her head fell on his chest plate in a giant heap of relief.
"Yeah. Keelah. Keelah that was bad..."
"I almost lost you." He whispered quietly.
He stared at the thick rolls of gray clouds and light pelting of sprinkling rain.
"You didn't. I'm still here." She reassured. She took a cloth out of her pocket, wiped the blood on his nose delicately, and handed him his canteen.
"Drink." She said.
He nodded and pointed clumsily at the outpost they'd just got done raiding (Albeit poorly.)
"Go. Go and get that radio turned off." His head fell back into the sand. His head was swimming. If he got up, he'd probably lose his breakfast (not that he ate much that morning anyways).
"Aye, John."
She got up and ran to the small outpost, omni-tool lit.
"Told you she could handle herself." Garrus said as he approached John with a limp. He held onto his wet rifle and Tali's knife that dripped with his blood.
"It almost killed the three of us." John murmured. He slowly got up to a sitting position and decided he start replacing the visor on his helmet with a spare one (after drinking half his canteen of water, of course).
"But it didn't. That's all that matters."
"How's your leg?" John asked.
"Medigel's doing its thing. But after this I'm going to have to check into the doctor."
"How long before you can walk again?"
"Minutes at most. Think she'll apologize?" He flicked the knife repeatedly to get his blood off. When that didn't work, he knelt down and cleaned it with a puddle of water by swishing it around.
All John could do is shake his head. For getting stabbed by Tali's huge ass knife, Garrus seemed pretty okay about it.
He smiled. "It wouldn't be Tali if she didn't." He watched the quarian busily tapping away on her omni-tool while she tampered with a power box.
John snapped the new glass in and put his helmet back on. After that experience, he'd never go without a helmet.
"Yeah..." John growled and winced as he got up, "Let's go."
The vision swam through his cloudy head and he groaned.
"Not gonna lie." John rubbed at his temples, wiped away the dried blood at the corners of his lips (From when the geth had kicked him in the face), and sighed frustratingly. "I'd rather not do that for a third time."
Tali knelt by him while Garrus kept point.
"Think you've got everything you need from it?" Tali asked quietly.
"Yeah." He said simply. He pointed to the desk and Tali's pack. "Grab anything of Saren's that's suspect of conduit research. Then we leave and finish this."
"Just sit and wait. I'll handle it." Tali ordered. She slowly brought him to the rail so he could support himself.
"Good..." He leaned heavily on the rail and looked like his life and breakfast depended on it. "Cause I'd hate to throw up on Saren's papers."
She rushed over to his desk, stuffed dozens of papers into a manila folder and one of Saren's data pads.
This would have to do.
They didn't have the time to turn the place into an investigative crime scene.
"Got everything that looks useful, Shepard." She called out, "I think it's time we go."
"Couldn't agree anymore, Tali. Garrus! We still clear?"
A different voice boomed out instead.
"YOU ARE NOT SAREN."
Tali yelped and leapt back in surprise. The last item in her hand fell to the floor and scattered to pieces at her feet.
John, still near the beacon, looked up and saw a giant red hologram surface in front of Tali. Garrus, who was next to the exit, turned around slack jawed when he faced the red projection.
Tali didn't dare respond.
The thing in front of her continued.
"RUDIMENTARY CREATURES OF BLOOD AND FLESH. YOU TOUCH MY MIND, FUMBLING IN IGNORANCE, INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING."
Shepard, as carefully as he could, made his way to the hologram to face it. Garrus stood where he was, and for lack of better word, stayed frozen.
Holograms shouldn't scare anyone. So why was this one so good at it?
Tali whispered timidly at it.
"What... what are you?"
"I AM BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION. I, AM SOVEREIGN."
It suddenly clicked.
They were witnessing firsthand the horror they were fighting so hard to stop.
"Keelah..." She looked at John with the widest set of eyes he'd ever seen, "John... it's... it's a reaper..." Tali's knees threatened to buckle while her voice whimpered at the terrifying figure. John finally stood next to her, but kept his hand on the railing.
"REAPER... A TITLE PROVIDED BY THE PROTHEANS TO GIVE VOICE TO THEIR DESTRUCTION."
"What should we call you?" John barely spoke above a whisper.
"WHAT YOU LABEL US IS IRRELEVANT."
"Reaper it is, then." John stated evenly before placing his hands behind his back in a show of confidence. He felt nauseated beyond what felt normal, but kept the façade up.
"What do you want from us? Why are you doing this?"
"ORGANIC LIFE IS NOTHING BUT A GENETIC MUTATION. AN ACCIDENT. YOUR LIVES ARE MEASURED IN YEARS AND DECADES. YOU WITHER AND DIE. WE ARE ETERNAL. THE PINNACLE OF EVOLUTION AND EXISTENCE. BEFORE US, YOU ARE NOTHING. YOUR EXTINCTION IS INEVITABLE. WE ARE THE END OF EVERYTHING. YOU FIGHT TO STOP US. BUT THE CYCLE CANNOT BE BROKEN."
"Cycle? ...What cycle?" Tali asked while her fingers wrung anxiously back and forth.
"THE PATTERN HAS REPEATED ITSELF MORE TIMES THAT YOU CAN FATHOM. ORGANIC CIVILIZATIONS RISE. EVOLVE. ADVANCE. AND AT THE APEX OF THEIR GLORY, ARE EXTINGUISHED. THE PROTHEANS WERE NOT THE FIRST. THE DID NOT CREATE THE CITADEL. THEY DID NOT FORGE THE MASS RELAYS. THEY MERELY FOUND THEM. THE LEGACY OF MY KIND."
"What do you gain from this?" John asked with a furrowed brow, "Why would you create them just to leave them behind?"
"YOUR TECHNOLOGY IS BASED ON THE MASS RELAYS. OUR TECHNOLOGY. BY USING IT, YOU DEVELOP ALONG THE PATHS WE DESIRE. WE IMPOSE ORDER ON THE CHAOS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. YOU EXIST BECAUSE WE ALLOW IT, AND YOU WILL END BECAUSE WE DEMAND IT."
"Shepard..." Tali whispered hoarsely, "They're harvesting us..."
"THIS EXCHANGE IS OVER." The sentient war-machine concluded before the red hologram faded away.
John's hard set jaw grimaced while his hands, having already balled into fists, tighten. He swallowed his nausea away with a giant breath.
"We need to rendezvous back with Ash's team." He said, "Garrus. Lead us out."
"Got it."
"I can't believe..." Tali murmured weakly and gave another quick fleeting glance at where Sovereign's holo once stood.
"Neither can I, Tali... we can think more about it later." John intoned with a lowly frown.
She nodded meekly and followed.
The group of three move forward at a quick pace.
Their COM beads flare. "Commander!"
"Alenko. Sit-rep."
"Condition three, we're holding!"
"Roger Alenko. Stick with the OPORD. We'll meet you at the bomb-site. Try to maintain radio discipline, over."
"Copy last, out." The flame of static ended and they advanced, once more, back toward ground zero where Ash and her team were waiting.
After all the close calls they'd been through, John was smiling.
The Normandy's entire marine detachment (Around forty marines), were gearing up for the coming firefight.
And it was good to see the majority of the STG also make it to ground zero.
Things were starting to wrap up quite nicely. Better than John hoped.
The geth and Saren, by now, knew what was coming.
And judging by the lapse of fighting, they also knew the bomb they were busily planting was big enough to bathe a quarter of a continent in radiation. One big enough for them to regroup and formalize an assault with a full head-on strike.
Stacker approached the Commander and saluted. "Commander. Good to see you in company."
"Likewise, Sergeant. Give me a quick rundown." He nodded to both Tali and Garrus to find some work to do.
Garrus joined up with Wrex and Liara, while Tali stayed close by to help Ashley and a salarian spray some quick foam concrete around the bomb to protect it.
"Perimeter's been secured, Commander. We've got crew-served weapons set at every god damn vantage point we could find. Cloaked sniper teams are on the ledges for support, and we've got drones patrolling."
"Good work, Sergeant."
Ash jogged up to Stacker and John.
"Williams. Status on the ordnance?"
"Nuke's pretty much ready. Waiting for Tali here to initiate that timer."
John waved over Tali.
"Tali. You're on. I want that timer set at fifteen minutes. Enough time for us to get the hell out of here. Get 'er done, Tali." He gave her a knowing look and a proud smile.
"Aye, Shepard." She walked to the bomb, omni-tool lit, and interfaced with the nuke's computer.
John glanced at his wrist watch.
Something was off.
Shit.
"Where's Kaidan? Operation Order dictated he was supposed to be here almost ten minutes ago…"
Ashley answered for John. "Kaidan said he found some of the STG Locked inside a prison… Had to help them get out."
John bit his lip and nodded several times as he thought. "Get him on the radio. Now."
"Aye, sir." William's activated her bead.
Gunfire erupted through the radio and she spoke. "This is Final-Fire one to Jaëto team. Report status, how copy?"
"This is Jaëto team! We're pinned down! Receiving heavy and advanced fire!"
Ashley's voice remained calm, but she couldn't hide the fear welling in her eyes.
"This is Final-Fire one, stand-by for immediate support. Locking in on your transponders, over."
The highest ranking salarian STG officer, with the name of Lieutenant Jidahye (The one in joint command of Final-Fire with Stacker), overheard Ashley and voiced his dissent.
"You do not have authorization to change the order of operation, Gunnery Chief Williams. Belay offer of support immediately."
Before John could get in-between them, Ash whirled around and made it out to look like she was a second away from shoving a fist between his wide eyes.
"You can shut the FUCK up. You can cram the chain of command right up your fucking one holed ass."
Unfazed by the cloaca insult, Jidahye opened his mouth, only for Kaidan to finally answer back on the radio.
"Negative, Final-Fire! Negative! Remain at the bomb-site as per mission parameter!" His voice screamed over the gun-fire.
Ashley faced the commander with the biggest set of pleading eyes he'd ever seen.
"Commander…" Her eyes were red and blotted with a tears. "John. I can't."
"Go, Ash. I won't stop you." He leaned in close and put both his hands on her shoulders to help ease her tension. Even though he knew it wouldn't help, he did it anyway. "You come the fuck back in one piece. You hear me?"
She nodded and wiped the tears away with her glove forcefully before putting her helmet on.
"Thank you."
She clicked the safety off her rifle before running to the NAV point that would lead her to Jaëto, and hopefully, Kaidan.
Jidahye stared on and blinked in total bewilderment.
"Commander Shepard. Was that wise?"
"No." John replied, "But I'm not going to stop her." John fixed the salarian with a glare to not push the issue.
It really was a fly in the face of everything he stood for. He was now risking not one, but two of his own.
But could he really live with himself if he refused Ashley a chance to try and save Kaidan? Could Ash look at him the same had he refused her permission?
He likened it to being in a situation had Tali been in the fray and he powerless to do anything about it.
There'd be no way in hell that would happen.
The STG member reluctantly nodded and resumed whatever task he was working on beforehand.
"Drones just pinged! We've got contact! Geth inbound! Get the fuck ready! We're going hot in five!" A marine shouted, his voice echoing around the walls. Salarians and Humans alike start shouting and rushing around.
"Steadfast!"
"Hold the fuck up!"
"Get ready!"
"Get that shit up!"
"Load up! Load Up!"
Shepard ran over to Tali and knelt down next to her. Suddenly, the sounds of dozens of machine guns opening up on the geth could be heard. In-between all of that, biotic attacks, no doubt from Liara and Wrex, would explode in tandem.
"Tali? You've got this handled?"
"Of course." She said whilst she typed away on her omni-tool, "Rushing water, gunfire, geth, all while I work on a -nuclear- explosive." She blinked at him and clicked her tongue. "Cake-walk."
"Damn right, Tali." He remarked wryly. He pat the foam concrete cover she and the others erected around the front of the nuclear device. "Stay down, and I'll stay right here."
"Got it." She pressed several more buttons and stared at him. "Ten seconds till I arm the bomb and set the timer. Anyone with a HUD will see the count-down."
"Do it."
John pressed his button for his mic. "Ash. You've got a fifteen minute window to get Kaidan back before evac, how copy?"
He waited for a reply and got none.
"Did she answer?" Tali asked as she worked.
"No." He shook his head and started regretting the idea of letting her go on her own like that.
The firefight continued to fill the air.
Stacker's voice screamed over the radio.
"Withdraw! Withdraw to second firing line! Bound up and maintain overwatch!"
John ejected his half spent heat sink and peeked over the slab of cover. He squeezed a couple rounds off and saw a trooper go down sixty meters away.
"It set yet?"
"Yup." She watched the timer on her omni-tool and sat with her legs crossed in the water. "The timer should be on your hud… now."
John's Radio squawked.
"Jaëto Team to Final-Fire two actual, over."
John's eyebrows lit up in surprise. That was Kaidan.
"This is Shadow." John said while staring at Tali work, "Go for Final-Fire two actual, over."
Kaidan was quick to reply.
"Shadow? What the hell just happened? The geth just fell back on us here. What's going on, Commander?"
"Not sure, Jaëto. Can you move back to us?"
"Roger, Shadow, we're advancing on you! ETA ten minutes, over."
"That's cutting it close, Jaëto. Timer's set at fifteen."
"We'll make it in fi—..hen…a—we'l…—a"
"Jaëto, relay last, over."
The radio stayed silent.
"Shit." John tried again. "Jaëto, I say again, relay last, over."
"John!" Tali hissed to get his attention.
John looked up and realized the gunfire had stopped completely.
When he looked up over their piece of cover, the marines and STG forces alike murmured amongst each-other in surprise when the geth, in a cohesive fashion, collectively ceased fire before dropping behind their wide array of cover.
"What the…"
The only thing John could make out was the soft rushing water and the purr of a small mass effect core.
"Eyes high, people!" Someone announced. Dozens of rifles point up at the hoverboard above them all.
Saren Arterius himself, in the flesh, stood on his hoverboard, twenty five feet above them all.
"Do not fire." He boomed like a god. His voice alone demanded attention. Since the Geth weren't shooting, and since he looked to be unarmed, they listened.
But that didn't stop them from reloading and keeping their guns leveled and ready to fight again.
Stacker whispered over the radio to John. "Orders, Commander?"
"Hold your fire. Be ready for anything. Eyes peeled."
"Copy."
The sinister ex-Spectre observed his surroundings like a child would a squashed beetle he'd just got done crushing and dissecting.
"I seek Shepard." Saren announced. His glowing eyes searched among the dozens of human marines and their faces.
John observed his options. The first thing John caught wind of was the slight sheer around Saren… which gave him the suspicion that the power fueling his kinetic barriers was immense enough to stop anything, short of a mass accelerated cannon. No doubt Shepard's sniper teams had already come to the same conclusion when they got a bead on the crazy turian.
They weren't going to get the luxury of getting a positive ID on killing Saren by retrieving his body. Bits and pieces of him would have to do.
John made his decision and leaned in to Tali. "Tell the engineers near the back to get an RPG ready. Thermobaric warhead. 140 millimeter please. I want it aiming right at his face. I'll signal you for them to fire. Stop the timer. Set it back on when I say or when you feel like it should be."
Tali nodded happily and messaged the combat engineers in the back to get the weapon ready.
"Right here." John stood up and walked toward Saren.
Saren lowered his hover board so John could get a better look out of him. He stopped his dissent ten feet above the Commander.
"I applaud you, Shepard." Saren smiled and gestured around them, "The geth were utterly convinced the salarians were the real threat."
John hid his grimace.
Saren's smile made this fantastically awkward and appallingly uncomfortable to do. It was almost like Saren didn't give two shits for how close they were to actually annihilating his sordid home in a sea of nuclear fire.
If John hadn't known any better, it almost looked like Saren was amused by how pathetic it all was.
But then he had to remind himself that Saren was a masterful manipulator and tactical genius. So John didn't bother with Saren's two ton shovel of bull-shit.
"You want to talk? Talk." Shepard thumbed Tali and the ordnance behind him. "You've got thirteen minutes before the nuke detonates."
Saren's eyes gave the nuclear device an unamused look but spoke a little quicker. "The choices you have been undertaking are impalpably senseless. Have you not seen the visions on Eden Prime? Have you not seen the destruction wrought throughout the entire galaxy eons ago? Or the visions in my very office? I am working to prevent all of that from happening again."
John's grip on his weapon wanes. "And in what way is that? You've got a lot of convincing to do for me to believe the shit you've done here is defensible." To make his point, John gestured around him, the same way Saren had and pointed at him.
"I've seen the cells. And I've seen the cadavers. Entertain me, Saren. How long were those people alive during autopsy?"
"They were administered anesthetics." Saren supplied, "It doesn't do well to have a screaming specimen during study."
John was sure if Saren's heart was connected to his airway, he'd have chilled the commander's five o' clock shadow with ice.
John shook his head. It took every ounce of will power to not stick the hand cannon on his hip right at the sick fuck's face.
"You've betrayed the very foundation of what it is to be a Spectre. Or even a living being. You were supposed to protect the galaxy."
"You cannot possibly understand what's really at stake. The means to an end… the galaxy knows no meaning of it." Saren countered angrily. To Saren, Shepard was missing the point completely.
"What's there to understand? The reapers are a threat to our very existence! And. You. Are. Helping. Them."
"Do not martyr yourself for pointless revolt! The reapers are unstoppable. The Prothean Empire tried to fight, and they were annihilated in its entirety. Trillions upon trillions dead. But what if they had surrendered? What if they had bowed to their invaders? Would the protheans still exist today? Is submission, not preferable to extinction?
John took a small step back and shook his head. Saren had his head so far up a reaper's ass, it was unbearable to even listen to.
"Do not sacrifice yourself under the pity premise of freedom." Saren added. "Join me. We will save everyone."
Yup. John had enough of his shit.
Shepard gave the signal and threw himself in the water and warped his kinetic barrier to absorb the coming shockwave.
In that amount of time, the order he'd given to Tali for the combat engineers to shoot the dumb-fuck with a missile, was carried out at expert timing.
At this distance, John wasn't completely sure the stunt he was undertaking was really worth it. Even with the advanced armor he was wearing and upgrades Tali had installed to his onboard computer, could it really withstand the explosion and the thousands of pounds of air pressure coming his way?
I mean, Tali didn't voice any dissent in the matter…
So…
Yeah.
Well...
He was about to find out.
Saren disappeared under a cloud of fiery smoke.
As a matter of fact, the explosion was big enough to catch wind of one of the fuel pumps near the geth and ignite the air in a froth of blazing fire. Any geth close to it ignited. As per programming protocol, they fell in the water to extinguish the flames before any real damage could be done.
The Battlefield was silent after that.
When the smoke finally cleared, Saren was nowhere to be seen. Only his still floating hover board remained.
The exchange of gunfire resumed. Now the geth were really pushing hard. Whatever load the STG and Alliance marines were handling doubled. Which meant they didn't have the time, nor man power to take on more than the Geth. And with Saren, who could still be alive, somewhere in the middle of the field near the nuclear weapon, meant it was up to Shepard and his personal team of misfits to combat the crazed ex-spectre.
"Is he dead!?" The Commander yelled out in a cry before he was suddenly pushed.
Violently.
Obviously not dead then.
He must've been launched twenty feet, because he skipped along the water like a flat stone against a lake.
He got back up from the staggering blow, saw Saren, and squinted from how unbelievably bright his biotic aura was.
"You will not undo everything I have worked for." His mandibles split into a wide sneer.
Had Wrex not pummeled Saren right then and there, John's face would have been missing from Saren's next biotic attack.
When they tumbled into the shallow waters, Wrex managed to punch Saren's gut once before the turian's biotic energy flared.
Wrex was hurtled like a giant meaty bullet. And just like the Saturday morning cartoons, the thin concrete wall he'd been thrown into swallowed his armored hump whole while his legs dangled pathetically three feet above the ground.
John leaned forward and fired full auto at Saren and watched every round hit home.
But his barriers weren't busting!
"Futile Shepard."
Garrus joined by firing his own weapon at the sicko gray turian.
"Take him down!"
The ex-Spectre snarled and charged. John had just enough time to watch a biotic field leave his talons.
Shepard caught the blast in the chest, his armor perverting under the force, his consciousness knocked freely from his head.
For the second time that day.
"Commander!" Deprived of time to reload, Garrus charged Saren, waved his gun like a bat, and struck Saren across the face.
The stock made contact and blood ejected from the blow.
Saren stumbled and fell to a knee.
Within that short skirmish, Wrex had managed to pry himself out of the dent he'd made and tackle Saren again.
This time, Wrex grabbed a hold of Saren's neck and plunged his head under water.
"Drown you bastard." Wrex growled. Pieces of Saren's fringe broke and snapped… and before Wrex could do anymore damage, the pale gray turian exploded into a colorful miasma of biotic lights and sent anyone within ten meters around him flying.
Wrex flew again, and amazingly, added another hole to the wall.
Right next to the last.
Garrus flew up high, lost the grip on his gun, and landed straight onto his back before curling up in pain. (Dropping sixteen feet onto your back, armor or not, would do that.)
And the worst of it all, Tali was in the blast's radius. Right before Saren's biotic explosion, Tali had her shotgun armed and ready to unleash a slug toward Saren's head to help her friends. But it caught her in the chest, and forced the gun out of her hand in such a way that dislocated her right shoulder.
She gasped at the pain and stumbled back, both from the violent force and from the unbelievable wave of shock that suddenly muddled her brain.
"Shi—shit." She grit her teeth through the agony, forced her omni-tool on, and keyed the countdown timer to resume.
Three of the strongest people she'd ever known had barely even touched Saren. Their strengths combined couldn't take him down.
So what hope did she have in beating Saren with a dislocated shoulder? What hope did she have when his set of fiery eyes trained on her and the jerry-rigged warhead?
She unholstered her pistol and took aim.
Hell if she knew.
But she was going to try anyways.
She pulled the trigger on her hand-cannon.
A supersonic crackle and a brilliant arc of kinetic energy flashed from Saren's barriers.
She fired again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Saren didn't even have the decency to feign any kind of worry or surprise. He slowly walked toward her the same way he would if he were taking a leisure stroll through grassy park.
What the fuck was powering his barrier?
A fucking reaper?
"Don't you take another step toward her." Liara growled, her hands alit and burning aglow.
Saren stopped in his tracks and faced the asari head on and smiled. "Ah. I was wondering when the last member of Shepard's team of oddities would show up. A pleasure, Dr. T'soni." He smiled, his mandibles gaping wide while he felt for whatever remained of his fringe.
Liara replied by sending his way a blast of biotic energy. It was the strongest biotic attack Tali had ever seen come from Liara.
But it was nothing compared to what Saren was capable of.
Between the two of them, the tussle of energy was strong enough to crush plates of steel.
Saren barreled through the attack (Unfazed of course) and threw her to the ground with a biotic fist.
"Die."
Saren's boot rose into the air before he stomped down on Liara's stomach.
A second time.
A third.
"STOP!" Tali snarled at Saren. She stood up, right arm limp, pistol trailing his head.
Saren's breath was labored as he set his glowing eyes back on the quarian. Liara coughed blood and rolled over her side and moaned.
Liara was positively out of the fight.
"You're a goddamn monster." The quarian growled.
"A necessary sacrifice. Don't you see?" He rose his hands in the air to show Tali the fight around them. The marines and STG forces alike continued fighting to keep the geth at bay.
They were doing an excellent job… but there wasn't any way they could keep it up forever.
The geth, however, could.
"You're meaningless crusade against the inescapable is in vain! Cease this struggle, Tali'Zorah!"
"No." Her pistol wavered and she hunched over in pain to cradle her flaccid arm. "You're wrong. You're going to lose. No matter what you do. You just don't know it yet." She dropped her gun, stared him straight in the eye, and stood tall.
His glare withered into rage and he stayed silent while the bullets continued to fly around them.
"…Then you will suffer."
She was knocked violently back by a biotic blast. Before she had the time to sit up, he grabbed for her neck, rose her high into the air, and squeezed.
She gagged while her vision blurred.
But Saren made a big mistake.
During Liara's short tussle with Saren, she'd snuck her knife into her belt and waited.
An hour and a half earlier, Tali almost died at the hands of a geth wielding her knife.
Now it was time to repay that in kind by doing it to Saren.
She thrust into the rubbery seal at the side of his chest.
Hard.
Six inches of quarian fabricated titanium disappear into his flesh.
He dropped the quarian and stumbled backward in disbelief. His surprised face was almost worth the pain when he looked at the dagger's handle.
"…You just don't know it yet." She repeated in a whisper to Saren as she lay in the water.
For the first time since the start of this whole debacle, Saren was speechless. He pulled the knife out with a grimace, knelt down to the quarian, and sheathed the knife back into her leg for her.
"…Well played, Tali'Zorah."
He glanced at her omni-tool.
Eight minutes, sixteen seconds.
It was time to leave.
He cradled his bleeding wound carefully and stepped onto his hoverboard.
"It's not over." Saren said through a hoarse whisper. "It never will be." When he flew away to safety, he glanced, one last time, at the quarian who'd all but sealed his envelope of defeat. It was a major setback, truthfully.
But Sovereign was nothing, if not resourceful.
Tali lay still and flexed her one good hand around the groove of her waterlogged pistol, eyes nearly wavering from the pain.
"John…" Her glossy eyed gaze remained motionless, her body unmoving.
The radio in her helmet squawked. "Normandy to Final-Fire one actual, en-route to LZ, how copy?"
Stacker answered Joker's radio call. "This is Final-Fire one actual, we're getting overrun! LZ is not cleared for approach!"
"Understood. Approaching LZ to provide immediate relief support. Stand-by."
"Belay that!"
"Negative, Final-Fire. We're getting you out of that. Out."
"Look alive! Look alive! Armor inbound! Right side! Right side!"
The combat engineers near the back shoulder RPG's and get a bead on the tank.
"Stand down! Stand down! It's Jaëto Team!"
Sure enough, salarian STG and human marines flank what appeared to be an MBT with Kaidan and Ashley sitting atop the armored vehicle.
Where the hell did Kaidan and his team find a tank?
More importantly, how the hell did they even learn how to use it?
Tali flicked her eyes at the details and managed to roll her eyes despite the shitty situation she was in.
The ports were big enough to berth krogan. No doubt for Saren's cloned army of them. Which meant it couldn't have been that complicated to operate.
The giant turret turned toward the geth and fired. A giant splash of water and bits of geth flew up in the air.
Ashley and Kaidan clamber off the tank while it was moving and run toward what was left of John's team.
"Holy shit…" Kaidan knelt by Tali while Ash helped Garrus and Liara, "What the hell happened?"
"Saren…" Tali muttered hoarsely to Kaidan. She cradled her useless arm religiously while she still lay in the water.
"Where's the Commander?" Ash called out, "I can't find him!"
"There!" Kaidan pointed. John, who'd woken back up by now, struggled to get up before taking two shaky steps to help Wrex get out of the wall Saren threw him into.
The krogan's arms and legs flailed helplessly.
"How much time is left, Tali?" Kaidan got her up to a sitting position as carefully as he could.
"Seven minutes… fifty seconds…"
He blinked in surprise. "We've got to secure the LZ now."
"Joker's already on his way…" Tali murmured while darkness threatened the corners of her vision. Her jaw hung loosely. She swore she was falling into shock.
"In this combat zone!? That's crazy!"
"I know…"
Joker, being on que with Tali's answer, brought the Normandy over the horizon. Everyone's radio's crackled.
"This is Normandy to Final-Fire, clear LZ and prepare for exfil. Relief support standing-by, over."
Stacker answered the call instantly.
"Negative, Normandy! I told you you're not clear for approach! Exfil zone still hot!"
"Understood, Final-Fire, Approaching LZ." Joker acknowledged.
"Belay! I said Belay! Do not approach, god damnit!" Stacker screamed over the radio.
Stacker's warnings went unheeded. The Normandy roared overhead, and her point defense guns opened up onto the geth below.
Knowing that Joker wasn't going to change his mind, he screamed to his team. "That's it people! Let's move! Advance! We need that landing space cleared now!"
"We're out of time!" When Kaidan helped Tali up, he was surprised to see her slowly walk opposite of the exfil zone and toward Shepard and Wrex.
Ash gave Tali a confused look before hoisting Liara over her shoulders in a firemen's carry. "What is she doing? We need to go."
Kaidan waved Ash off to get Garrus and Liara to the LZ. "Ash? Go. Meet up with Stacker and help him get the exfil zone clear."
Ash nodded. "Okay." And the three of them slowly make their way to Stacker.
One shaky step after another, Tali went to Shepard. "John..."
"Tali..." He turned around and rushed to her while Wrex trudged past them both.
John immediately frowned. "Fuck. You look bad."
"I'm fine... the—"
"—Normandy's here. I know. Let's go. We can't stay any longer. We've got to get out of here."
"Let's move people, let's move! We are on borrowed time!" Stacker bellowed through the radio.
"More geth incoming! Watch out! Behind us!" Said a salarian over the radio chatter.
"Holy fucking shit! It's a whole 'nother company! Move! Go!" Another marine exclaimed.
Just as the radio reported, John watched a whole company of geth jumping from the walls behind them.
This was bad timing.
If they didn't defend this center, they'd lose the nuke. That couldn't happen.
John pointed to the Normandy and the relief support running out of her hangar on the other side of the battle-zone. "Tali! Go!"
"No. I'm not leaving you behind." She asserted with a trembling tone when she realized what he was about to do.
"There's no time to argue Tali." He said through a deep breath, "Go. Now."
A salarian and marine helped Tali along in-spite of her meager protests. "John. Please."
He watched her fight with them all the way toward the Normandy. And when Tali was far enough away, John gave her a single nod, a nod of sadness and regret all crammed into one, before facing what would possibly be the last battle he'd ever fight.
Kaidan walked up to Shepard and shouldered his rifle.
"Commander." He said evenly while the geth took up their positions.
"Kaidan." John nodded. He glanced behind him one last time to Tali who struggled against the men who ran to the Normandy carrying her.
He was going to miss her.
And Ash was never going to forgive him for having Kaidan join him.
"Commander!" Stacker called through the radio, "Exfil! Now! We need to go!"
Kaidan and John both look to each other.
"Negative, Sergeant. Continue extraction. Wait for us if you can. We have to defend this bomb site."
"Roger that! We're coming back to help!"
"Negative, Final-Fire." John asserted, "Stay on the Normandy and we'll fall back when we can. You have your orders. Now follow them."
"…Acknowledged, sir... Make it back in one piece."
John clicked the radio off.
"Been an honor, Commander." Kaidan breathed with a tired sigh.
"Honor's mine, Kaidan."
Kaidan took a steady breath. "…I'm sorry, Shepard."
"Why's that?"
He faced John. "…Because the Normandy still needs you."
Kaidan, with all his might, warped a biotic field around John. Before the commander could even register what was going on, Kadien threw him thirty to forty meters toward the Normandy.
"Run! Go! Now! I'll keep them off your back! Go!"
"Kaidan!" John screamed as he stood back up without a gun in his hands, "What are you doing?!"
"GO!" Kaidan didn't get the luxury to argue any further.
The geth were on the lone biotic now.
But John stood still and couldn't will himself to move.
He'd gone so long without losing anyone…
But the galaxy was ready for its due. And John, for that moment, cursed it all.
It was going to happen again.
He was going to lose another man.
And just like every time past, John didn't have a decision in the matter.
It was time for him to make a choice.
Saren was still alive and the Reapers were still coming.
He took several steps backward, watched Kaidan one last time, and started running for the Normandy.
"Kaidan! What the fuck are you doing!?" Ashley cried over the radio.
"Making sure we succeed." Kaidan replied with a shallow breath, "Shepard's coming back to you. Make sure you have him before you leave."
"No! No! God NO! Kaidan!"
Every step John took toward the Normandy was a nightmare.
Every step he took to distance himself from Kaidan felt like betrayal.
And to hear Ashley begging for Kaidan to come back had all but destroyed John's emotional integrity.
He pushed on, and vaulted over the floating bodies and rubble that had accumulated over the battle.
The last of Final-Fire and its tertiary strike teams boarded the Normandy before scrambling around in the cargo bay to get the wounded stabilized and under control. When John came aboard, he saw Ash standing by the Mako with half her weight on one of its wheels while she wept fiercely.
"Stand by for immediate departure." Joker called over the intercom as the hangar bay doors close.
"I love you Ash. Never forget that." Kaidan murmured through the radio.
Ash, with a fist against her chest, fell to her knees. "Please, Kaidan! Please!"
He didn't reply.
"Kaidan… Kaidan?" Ash whispered into her bead.
John had closed his eyes and flexed his fingers tightly until they hurt.
He lost Kaidan.
He just lost another man.
As Ashley cried, John walked silently to her and put a hand on her shoulder. The sadness that radiated through her was painful to touch.
"I'm sorry…" John cracked with a shrill sigh, "I'm so, so sorry…"
Ash fell on her hands and cried.
Thirty seconds crawl by and the entire time John listened to Ashley's whispered pleas.
"Green light on ordnance." Joker called from the PA, "Saren's base is gone."
Stacker came up from behind Shepard. "Commander." He said as calmly as he could amidst the bustling ambience around them.
"Sergeant…" John choked, "Give me the rundown."
"Twenty four casualties." Stacker gave Ashley a quick glimpse, "We lost some good people today, sir."
"How many KIA?" John asked.
"Four so far. Eighteen wounded. Seven badly."
"Where's Garrus, Tali, and the others?"
"All up in the Infirmary except the krogan."
"They okay?"
"They'll live."
"You're relieved Sergeant. Thank you."
John turned back to Ash. "Come on. Get up. You're bleeding. We need to get you to the infirmary."
He grabbed for her hand and led her to the elevator.
She sniffled and limped slowly with him. "…I'm glad you came back, Shepard…" She muttered as she wiped away the tears that wouldn't stop coming, "It would've been worse if you hadn't made it either."
"He threw me, Ash." John rasped slowly, "And told me to go back…"
"I saw." Ash croaked as they entered the elevator, "I know. It's not your fault."
The ride up was quiet.
"Just promise me we'll get him, Shepard."
"We will." He gave Ash a hard glare, "We're going to kill Saren. I promise you."
When the doors opened, Ash kept her stare on the ground, and decided she go straight to the showers and strip her gear there.
"I'm going to bandage myself up. Go see Tali and the others, John." Ash murmured before swallowing hard, "They need to see you made it back. And to give them the bad news."
"You gonna be okay Ash?" He asked when he stepped out of the elevator.
"No. Not even remotely."
"If you ever need me… you know where to look."
She didn't reply.
The doors closed on her and John walked to the infirmary.
"John?"
"Tali."
Tali's felt more tears well in her eyes again.
"God damnit, John." She cried in a sneer, "I thought you died."
John turned his head away.
He certainly felt dead right now.
"Don't you ever do that to me again." Tali rasped with a glare while she lay in her bed.
"I'm sorry." John murmured before closing his eyes.
Tali's jaw hung loosely.
She was beginning to realize what happened.
"Kaidan…?"
John shook his head. "No."
Tali, in a moment of shock, dipped her head to ingest the news.
Kaidan... was gone?
But... that meant...
"Ash?"
"She's a level down." John muttered his reply. "She isn't taking it very well."
Tali slipped a hand into his and squeezed as tightly as she could.
In spite of the flurry of the Normandy's medical staff tending to the wounded, they sat in total silence and lost themselves in self-reflection.
The steady thrum of the Normandy kept John's ears distracted while he swallowed another shitty shot of vodka.
With his uniform disheveled and shirt untucked, he drank in silence to try and erase the memories in his head.
Fifteenth shot on an empty stomach.
I'm... pretty fucked up.
He stared emptily through the bottle of vodka and downed another glass of crap before closing his bloodshot eyes.
Fuck.
"John..." Tali croaked from the other side of John's door.
"Uhgh." Came John's reply. Shepard tried to rest his forehead softly against his table, but smacked it instead. His head felt like a thousand pounds.
There'd definitely be a bruise there in the morning.
John could barely make out the noise of his door opening, but hardly paid attention to it. A two fingered hand delicately removed his empty shot glass and bottle of vodka from the table before stowing it neatly away on a shelf.
"John." Tali repeated.
"Uhgh."
John kept his head on the table and Tali sat in silence, watching him.
"I thought you could use some company." Tali said slowly.
Shepard didn't reply but rolled his head to get a look out of her.
She was in a restrictive sling to keep her shoulder from moving.
"Tali." He slurred, "I'm... so sorry."
"You don't have to be." She replied. She unshouldered her bag and grabbed for a bottle of water for John to drink.
"Here."
John had to try twice to grab the bottle. He gulped down half and felt like heaving.
"I fucked up, Tali. We lost good people today."
"We lost ten marines. Including Kaidan. The STG lost eighteen."
John facepalmed and shook his head. "You'd think I'd get used to this by now."
"No one should ever get used to it." Tali supplied with a frown, "Ever."
"I should've taken the Mako back to him..." John argued, "Something... there must've been another way."
"John."
He looked to her with his red, sad, and tired eyes.
"You told me once... that you have to pat yourself off and march forward. Kaidan made a sacrifice. One he knew he had to make so you could live. Saren is still alive. And we have to kill him. And stop the reapers."
He nodded and knew without a doubt she was right. But his heart still wasn't convinced.
"What happened to you when we fought Saren...?" He asked.
"Biotic blast. Forced the shotgun right out of my hand and dislocated my shoulder."
John nodded meekly. "And?"
"Liara tried to help me but she got trampled..." Tali explained, "Then, when Saren picked me up, I stabbed him right under his armpit."
"Fuck yeah." John slurred, "Hope you got the fucker good."
"I did." Tali nudged her chair over next to John and pat his back comfortingly. "Funny thing though. He dropped me, pulled my knife out of him, and put it back in my sheath." She looked at the knife still strapped onto her boot and suddenly realized she hadn't made an effort to cleaning the blade yet.
No doubt Saren's blood was pooled at the bottom of the thing.
"That's uh... huh. I'm surprised he didn't just kill you there." John slurped, "Though I'm not complaining. I'm glad he didn't."
Tali was inclined to agree with John's drunken observation and pat his back again. "And you remember the rest."
"How's Ash?" John asked.
"About as intoxicated as you are." She shrugged, "She told me what happened between you and Kaidan." She shook her head slowly and her eyes glossed over.
"I'm sorry, John."
He was silent and Tali listened to his raspy breathing.
"Me too, Tali." John finally said, "Me too."