Chapter 54
"Admiral Cavitus' failure was not unexpected." Saren said at the distorted holographic image of his benefactor.
"Indeed, and it provided us with invaluable information about their fleet's response times. Still, it would have been better if we had captured one of their commanders." The benefactor said.
"You should have allowed me to act when I had the chance." Saren said
"Negative. The councilors must not know of our involvement in this. At least not yet." The benefactor said.
"What's my next move?" Saren asked.
"You will return to Kar'Shan and put together another strike force. We will continue harassing the Alliance until we are ready to make our move. If the Hegemony gives you any resistance, remind them of the terms of our agreement." The benefactor said.
"Understood." Saren said, disconnecting the call. He punched in a course to Kar'Shan on his ship and engaged the stealth systems. His transport contained stolen Alliance stealth technology that would cloak his transit from within Alliance space to the Batarian side of the border. Saren was disgusted that he had to step foot on that stinking pile of excrement the Batarians called a homeworld, however he was definitely not about to disobey orders from the benefactor just because of his distaste for the place. Besides, the Alliance were in dire need of being put in their place, and he was more than willing to be the one to do it.
Tali woke abruptly with a gasp, barely holding in the scream that threatened to escape as she shot up to a sitting position in bed. Shepard, startled into consciousness jerked, fell out of bed and yelped as her butt hit the floor.
"Tali, are you ok?" She asked, leaping to her feet and scanning the room.
"I'm fine. Sorry, Shepard. I didn't mean to worry you. I was having a nightmare." Tali explained, her hand over her chest trying to will her heart to slow. Shepard looked confused for a moment, then as realization hit she grinned and giggled, pointing at Tali.
"I told you not to watch Dawn of the Dead." Shepard said. Tali crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.
"It's not funny, Jane. Keelah your people have sick imaginations. The thought of the dead getting up and hunting the living.." Tali said, shuddering.
"I don't see what's so scary about them. They're stiff, rotten and slow you could knock them over by coughing on them, and you wouldn't even have to I could outrun one with a broken leg." Shepard said, still chuckling.
"You're awful and I hate you." Tali said, her insincerity obvious.
"So I guess I'll delete the next one in the series from our vid screen." Shepard said, manipulating her omnitool.
"No!" Tali yelled, grabbing shepard's hand and pulling it away from the omnitool, and in the process pulling her tumbling into bed on top of her. Shepard sat up and held her hands up in the air too high for Tali to reach, and began tapping on the haptic controls again, and Tali responded by shooting her hands out and ticking her ribs. Shepard howled with laughter and tried in vain to wiggle away.
"Ok I give, stop, please I'm going to pee." Shepard said.
"Ok then. No deleting the movies. Now go make me breakfast." Tali said, smiling.
"Yes ma'am." Shepard said saluting, as she walked by tali slapped her on the ass. Shepard yelped, then darted faster towards the kitchen. She reflected on how happy she was with Tali, she couldn't believe her fortune. She put on the news while gathering the ingredients to make breakfast, and heard the date on the news. This made her smile. Today was Tali's birthday, and Shepard had a big surprise waiting for her.
Breakfast was done quickly, and Tali was sighing in content. Shepard had made her favorite breakfast, that intoxicating fruit smoothie with a side of vanilla yogurt, that even after all this time, even without needing to pass it through managed to remain her favorite food. Tali went to clean up but was interrupted by Shepard taking her glass and bowl and cleaning them for her.
"Oh, um. Thanks. I don't mind cleaning up though, you made breakfast." Tali said. Shepard responded by grinning and shaking her head, but saying nothing. Tali shrugged and just assumed it was a "Jane's going to be weird" day. She brought up her messages on her omnitool and was immediately shocked at the sheer number of birthday wishes from her friends and family. She smiled fondly as she read them. Everyone from the Normandy crew to the former crew of the Tonbay, she even got messages from Denuva, Targ's grandmother, demanding she come to visit so she could make her famous dextro-friendly mock varren pie. Tali knew well enough not to turn that offer down, the giant elderly Krogan was uniquely skilled at making disgusting sounding food that tastes amazing. Tali was confident she'd gained at least five pounds the last time they were at Tuchanka. Her musing was interrupted as an envelope was slid in front of her by Shepard with her telltale beautiful cursive script stating "Happy Birthday!" written on the front.
"Open it, love." Shepard said. Tali smiled and nodded, carefully opening the envelope and removing the document inside. It was a two-way boarding pass for two from Earth to Rannoch scheduled to leave two hours from now.
"We're going to Rannoch? Keelah, I have to pack!" Tali said.
"I've already packed for both of us, the bags are by the door. You don't have to do anything. The rest of your presents are on Rannoch." Jane said, wrapping her arms around the seated Quarian from behind.
"You didn't need to go through all this trouble, Jane." Tali said. Smiling and leaning back against her lover's chest.
"Trust me, it's my pleasure. You know... I think of a couple things we could do in two hours..." Shepard whispered into Tali's ear causing her to shiver.
"I haven't even been awake for an hour and this is my favorite day ever!" Tali said, turning her head and kissing Shepard passionately. After an hour of lovemaking, the tired pair went to the shower, which inevitably lead to even more. They both staggered with goofy grins out of the shower with twenty minutes to spare having depleted their hot water tank, and soon enough they'd locked up the apartment and were on their way.
The Flight to Rannoch took very little time, between their now free use of relays as well as the Alliance's advanced ftl tech, they were landing in the newly established spaceport outside of Kerah on the southern continent of Rannoch, which had become the primary hub of organic sentients on the planet. At the spaceport, their bags were moved to a ground transport by a crew of Quarians and Humans, and before she could ask where they were going, they were underway again. A few minutes outside the city, they entered a suburban looking neighborhood, there were affluent-looking houses with very large human-style yards all over the place. It was in front of one of these houses that they stopped. There were dozens of vehicles parked in the yard, and almost a hundred people milling about around the property. Tali was confused, until she realized she recognized all of them. Her friends were gathered at the same house ,and all had stopped what they were doing and yelled in unison "Happy Birthday Tali!"
She was stunned, and brought to tears immediately. Everyone came up to greet her, some shaking her hand and others, most of them, hugging her fiercely. Denuva nearly broke her ribs, but the gesture was taken in the spirit with which it was intended. Karin Chakwas was next, hugging Tali very carefully.
"I'll send you some bruise cream after the party, dear." Chakwas said having seen Denuva's rough handling of the Quarian waif.
"Thanks, I'm probably going to need it." Tali said smiling. Connie came by and the two struggled valiantly for a whole forty seconds to not talk shop until their conversation dissolved into what was essentially incoherent technobabble to Shepard. She took the opportunity to find Rael who was talking with Admiral Anderson and Admiral Raan.
"Excuse me, Admiral Zorah, has everything been settled with the city?" She asked.
"Jane, how many times do I have to ask you to call me Rael when we aren't on duty? Keelah I'll probably be your father in law soon enough." Rael said. Shepard clamped down hard on her instincts and forced her face to remain entirely impassive.
"Ok, then, Rael, is everything in order?" She asked.
"That's better. Yes, it's all settled." He said, handing a giftwrapped package to her.
"Thanks, I really appreciate this." Shepard said.
"It was a marvelous idea. It's times like this I wish Lua were still with us." Rael said. She had noticed in the last year that whenever he mentioned his deceased wife, his reaction had changed from palpable despair to fond, if not slightly sad reminiscence. The stability of life in the Alliance had finally let the man grieve and move on, and Shepard was glad to have had a small part in that. She looked over to see where Tali was and noticed she was at the center of a large group of engineers, science officers and other technically-minded people all deep in a conversation that would likely collapse Shepard's frontal lobe if she tried too hard to listen. She walked over to them.
"Alright nerds, I need to steal my girlfriend for a minute." she declared. Admiral Xen looked imperiously down her nose at Shepard, which was difficult given the almost thirty centimeter height difference.
"I'd stow that nerd talk if I were you, sailor, some of us still outrank you." Xen said, trying and failing to look deadly serious.
"Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am." Shepard said, in mock seriousness, snapping off a sloppy salute.
"That's marginally acceptable. Remember, Chambers, you have to keep the rabble in line, lest they forget their manners around their betters." Xen said to Simon who was as always glued to her side.
"I'll try to remember that." Simon said grinning, offering a last Happy birthday to Tali before wandering off with Xen to go mingle with the nerds in peace. Shepard took Tali's hand and guided her up to the porch of the house on the property, and got everyone's attention.
"Hey guys. I just wanted to say thanks for coming. There will be time for cake and presents after, but right now we wanted to give Tali her big present, and we wanted you all to be here to see it." Shepard said, then turned and handled the giftwrapped package to Tali. She opened it, and inside was a stack of documents and a set of keys, which Tali immediately dropped, as she brought her hand to cover her mouth as she gasped.
"Keelah are you serious?" She said, turning to Shepard and Rael who were both smiling fondly at her.
"It was his call." Shepard said gesturing at Rael
"It was her idea." Rael retorted, pointing at Shepard. Both grinned. The document was the deed to the property they were currently standing on, and the keys, well that was obvious. Tali squealed and hugged Shepard and Rael at the same time, crying and incoherent but elated.
"Th-thank you both. Daddy, you kept your promise!" Tali said
"Without the Geth I don't think I could have. It turns out our ancestor, your great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother led a small group of Quarians who fought off the military in defense of the Geth. The name Zorah means quite a bit to them. They've taken great pains to maintain this property in honor of her. They even buried her according to Ancient Quarian tradition in the back yard." Rael said.
"Creator Zorah, we knew your ancestor, she gave her life for us, without her and those like her our light would have been extinguished three centuries ago. We are certain she would be proud that her home now belonged to you. We had to repair damage from the fighting but otherwise the inside is exactly as she had left it." The unit reported.
"Can we go in and look?" Tali asked. The platform stepped aside and gestured with it's hand towards the door. Tali walked up and unlocked the door, stepping inside and looking around with wonder at everything. The furniture while outdated was in pristine condition and looked beautiful and comfortable. There were paintings of Tali's family going back hundreds of years, when the Geth unit caught her staring at one that looked hauntingly like her mother, he walked up to her and spoke.
"Creator Zorah, if you can provide images of the Zorahs from after the morning war, we will happily add them as well." It said.
"Thank you. Keelah thank you so much, you and all of the Geth. This gift is priceless." She said. The platform, not knowing how to respond looked curiously at Shepard who mouthed "you're welcome" silently at it.
"You are welcome." It said. It gestured forward to a closed door.
"This is what she referred to as her "shop" It is where she performed her work." The unit said, opening the door and ushering Tali, Shepard and Rael in. As they stepped in and turned on the lights, they were stunned to see the contents of the room. In the center, underneath a lighting rig was a large bed, with restraints at all four corners and a recording device aimed at it. Against an adjacent wall was a dresser with synthetic, phallic objects lined up, bottles full of what looked like oils, and half-empty boxes of ancient Quarian prophylactics. In the back was a wardrobe full of extremely revealing garments.
"Geth. What did my ancestor do for a living?" Tali asked.
"We do not know the word, let us consult Rothschild AI." It said.
"NO WAIT!" Tali yelled, but it was too late. Bursting out of her omnitool a cackling Rothschild erupted into existence and immediately collapsed to the ground laughing uncontrollably.
"Rothschild AI has informed us that the word for her occupation is "pornographer." It said. Shepard was struggling not to burst out laughing along with Rothschild. Tali was worried that his obnoxious, howling laughter would attract attention, but fortunately the room was expertly soundproofed. Shepard examined some of the toys on the dresser.
"Wow, looks like that apple didn't fall too far from the tree." Shepard said grinning at Tali.
"Keelah I didn't need to know that." Rael said, hiding his face behind his hand.
"Jane!" Tali said, scandalized.