Chapter 73
Shepard ran, at full sprint on auto pilot towards the medical staging area. Instead of the panic she had anticipated, she felt numb. Completely detached, like she was a passenger inside her body rather than in control of it. This didn't affect her reflexes however as she effortlessly vaulted over the support beam of a bombed out building that tipped over in her path as she passed. Within seconds that felt like an eternity, Shepard burst into the medical center and saw the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen in her life.
Tali lay naked, her hands soaking in vats of medigel, burns all over her body in a hospital bed. She was barely conscious but obviously in tremendous pain. Shepard rushed over to her, wrenching the gloves of her armor off and carefully placed a hand on Tali's shoulder. She did not react, so she remained as she was. At this Tali's composure dissolved and she began softly sobbing.
"Jane, it hurts. It hurts so bad. Oh Keelah." She cried Dr. D'inan was working feverishly on a chemical synthesis station sterilizing the compound she'd just mixed.
"I know, love I know, but I'm here now. I'm with you, it's going to be ok." Jane said, now risking running her hands through Tali's hair. Tali continued sobbing but soaking in Shepard's presence as though it was the only thing that could save her.
"Keep doing that, it's calming her down." Vil whispered to Shepard as she passed behind her to add the compound to an IV drip hanging from a pole. Shepard kept reassuring her and speaking in a low, soothing voice. Tali gazed into Shepard's eyes and felt as though she were being drawn into them. Before long she realized the pain had completely disappeared, and she was getting vauge sensation from her hands.
"Thank you Vil." Tali said, the tension slowly draining out of her body, her eyes began drooping but immediately shot open when she noticed that Shepard's eyes had gone completely black.
"Jane?" She asked but before the sound came out of her voice the world dissolved int a calming, cool, dark void. She looked around wildly, having no idea what was going on.
"Hello? Where am I?" Tali asked.
"Whoa, keep it down, jeez." Jane's disembodied voice said.
"Where are you?" Tali asked.
"I don't know, are you ok? Does it still hurt?" Shepard asked.
"I'm ok, It doesn't hurt any more. Come Out Jane I want to see you." Tali said. Jane seemed to materialize out of nowhere in front of Tali startling her, causing her to jump. She felt a shadow of the pain of her injuries before it went away on it's own.
"Jane, what's going on, where are we?" Tali asked.
"I honestly have no idea. Jesus what happened? How did you get hurt?" Shepard asked, her concern immediately back on Tali's current state.
"I don't know, I was working on the pirmary heat exchanger for the reactor to stabilize it and adapt it to our infrastructure and it just... exploded." Tali said. She went slightly cross-eyed and adopted a goofy grin.
"Sheeepardd... it was soooooo preeeetty..." Tai slurred as their surroundings morphed into a strange multi-colored psychedelic vortex. Shepard vaguely heard the word "commander" echoing off in the distance but she was too entranced by the sight of her love bathed in brightly colored lights.
"COMMANDER!" A voice sharply demanded her attention and it was enough to snap her out of her current state. The dreamscape with Tali dissolved and she was once again looking down at her burned body in the medical tent, Vil was staring at her, concern and shock in her expression.
"Commander! How did you do that?" Vil asked.
"Do what?" Shepard asked.
"You... You melded with her! How is that possible, you're human!?" Vil asked.
"I, uh... What? Tali!" Shepard said, looking down at Tali
"She's unconscious, you were able to calm her enough to bring her blood pressure down so I was able to administer anesthesia. I have a lot of work to do here, but we need to talk more about this. For now sit down over there." Vil said, returning her attention to her patient. Shepard numbly nodded and sat down.
For hours, Vil and a swarm of nurses worked furiously to repair the damage done to Tali by the reactor failure. Most of it was superficial skin damage, the medigel would have that healed with minimal or no scarring before Tali even woke up, but she had absorbed an alarming amount of radiation and Shepard was terrified given the weak state of Quarian immune systems. During their discussions in high school about the war, one of the things she'd learned is that people who suffered direct exposure to high amounts of radiation routinely damaged bone marrow, reducing immune function. This was all coursing through her mind when she heard a relieved sigh coming from Vil.
"Jane, she's going to be fine. Her hands will take a few days to get back to their normal dexterity but all of the skin damage is healing nicely." Vil explained
"What about her immune system? I don't know if Quarians work the same way humans do but if we get too much radiation it destroys our bone marrow and hurts our immune systems." Shepard asked.
"She did catch a few rads but Quarians have adapted to high radiation exposure during their exodus. Three centuries without the benefits of an ozone layer and planetary magnetic field on those old poorly shielded ships has increased their resistance to radiation. We still don't know how but all of her systems and her immune system are showing normal, minus the inflammation from the burns." Vil explained. Shepard nodded numbly and shakily got to her feet. She approached Vil and hugged her.
"Thank you, Vil. Thank you so much, I'll never be able to repay you for giving her back to me." Shepard said
"Jane, you've done quite a bit for me, and I like Tali, I'm just glad I could help." Vil said. Jane nodded, then looked over at Tali. She didn't hear the first sob escape, but soon enough she was quite aware that she was crying uncontrollably, staring at Tali's quiet form. Vil sat with her until she was able to regain her composure. Her omnitool flashed and buzzed indicating an incoming call, it was from Admiral Raan so she answered it.
"Keelah, no, please no..." Raan said when she saw Shepard was in tears.
"It's OK Raan, she's OK, I just kind of collapsed after we were out of the woods. Some superficial burns and minor radiation exposure, Dr. D'inan says she's going to recover 100%." Shepard said
"Oh thank the ancestors... When they said she'd been injured..." Raan said, trailing off.
"Believe me, I know. I don't have an official report ready but the assault is complete and appears to have been a success. No figures on wounded or recovered slaves yet but the Geth's plan worked, no wholesale slaughter this time." Shepard reported.
"Excellent work as always Commander. I'll let the others know, and we'll await your official report.
"Of Course Admiral Raan." Shepard said. After Raan ended the call, Vil came over.
"Jane, go get some clothes for Tali and yourself and come back here and clean up. I need to get back out there to help the wounded. Don't forget we need to have a conversation later." Vil said.
"Ok, thanks again Vil." Shepard said as she left to return to her ship. She barely made it five steps out of the building before she was accosted by most of the Normandy's crew.
"Tali's going to be fine. Vil expects her to completely recover, but she's resting now." Shepard said. The crew cheered, elated that their Engineer and friend was going to be ok. After expressing their joy to Shepard they dispersed except for Targ who appeared to be visibly upset. Shepard walked up to the young Krogan.
"Go ahead and see for yourself, Targ. She's resting, just don't wake her up." Jane said Targ nodded
"Thanks Commander." Targ said, before walking into the medical center. Jane made it back to the ship, reassuring everyone who remained that Tali would be fine and quickly grabbed clothing for them both. In short order she was back, showered and sitting beside Tali's bed. Afraid to take one of her damaged hands, Shepard contented herself with laying her head down on Tali's chest and listening to hear heartbeat.
"Tali I don't know how I could survive losing you. I don't think I could. I love you so much it hurts." Shepard said. The soothing rhythm of her heartbeat and the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed lulled Shepard into a contented sleep. She hadn't even noticed she'd drifted off until she felt a dull thump on the back of her head. She muttered something incomprehensible and fell asleep again. Then she felt a second thump, this time she whined and brushed the offending object away from the back of her hand. This was met with a soft giggle. The third thump woke her up completely and she was suddenly jolted back to reality when she remembered where she was and why.
"Stop drooling all over my tits you perv." Tali said, giggling.
"Tali! Oh my god, are you ok? Do they hurt?" She asked taking her hands.
"No, just a little stiff. Vil came by earlier and explained everything to me, but we didn't have the heart to wake you up. Now, unfortunately I have to pee." Tali said. Shepard got up and helped her to her feet, she was still wobbly as the effects of the anesthesia were wearing off, but she righted herself and made her way to the bathroom.
"There are clothes in there for you, unless you want to lay around naked I'm ok with that." Shepard said grinning.
"Maybe later, if you're good." Tali said, teasing her. Shepard took the opportunity to start typing up the official report on her omnitool, there had been several reports emailed to her while she'd been asleep. A few people had arrived to report in person however none were interested in disturbing their leader's well-earned rest. All in all, around a thousand total between the Alliance, Turian and Asari forces had been injured, and seventy had been lost, the closest to Shepard had been one of Kasumi's stealth troopers, a Human named Ian MacDonald. Because of the swift, stealthy engagement no ships were lost, though a few had sustained significant damage. Between those in the safe buildings, those aboard ships and the 68 recovered in the city hall building six thousand living slaves were recovered, mostly Batarian, but still plenty of the other races.
One of the Asari, a former commando named Rena, had been in captivity for four hundred years. She was so emotionally broken that she struggled to believe she had been liberated, insisting that the Alliance, Turian and Asari troops were all hallucinations. In a panic Rena had tried to Meld with Vil who shrieked in terror before Rena was tackled to the ground by Grak. This raised eyebrows amongst some fo the dispatched Asari soldiers but Grak as quick with his tongue as he was on his feet calmly explained that the Alliance considered non-consensual melding to be a form of assault, and he was merely protecting his colleague and friend. Rena was gently escorted to an Asari medical ship to be evaluated by the doctors there. Afterwards, Grak wordlessly helped Vil up off the ground and brought her into a vacant medical tent where she burst into tears, the terror of what had almost happened finally sinking in.
The newly minted Lieutenant Miranda Lawson was reporting for duty at her new assignment, a research lab on an ice moon near the center of Alliance space. This place was chosen not for its climate but rather it's location as anyone who wished to attack or infiltrate would have to cross hundreds of light years of heavily monitored and defended space. Despite the morals Humanity and then the Quarians and Krogan had adopted, the research done at this facility bordered on unethical, and that was by design. This moon had been an open secret amongst the citizens of the alliance for years, long before the integration of the Quarians, Geth and Krogan. It was a well known fact that if you tell a human being not to do something, there's a high likelihood that they'll do it just to prove they can, and that included what could easily turn into diplomatic incidents and war crimes. As such, to prepare, a division of Alliance Intelligence had been devoted to exploring what lies beyond the veil of ethics and good taste in order ot be able to better anticipate and prepare for it.
Miranda had been assigned to the bioscience divison given her extensive knowledge of anatomy, chemical engineering, nanotechnology and pathology. She'd been shocked when her first task was to using computer modeling only design a plague capable of reversing the Quarian immunotherapy that had been developed. What was most curious to her was that her commander at the base was a Quarian scientist named Commander Gula Tavo. However, as a trained alliance soldier she was well aware of how to take orders and within a week she had developed such a malady that would theoretically cause a 95% mortality rate if exposed.
"Good. Now cure it." Tavo said, and that was when Miranda understood why she was there. There were other such scientific minds plucked from all over the Alliance all over the station working on diseases, machines, chemicals and everything else that could in theory be used against the Alliance or its friends. They were essentially out-eviling the bad guys before they had a chance.
Each division had extremely sophisticated containment measures in place. The computers used for the virus modeling were entirely disconnected from any networks and all personnel including commanders and heads of state were thoroughly searched for data storage devices on their way in and out. The Nanotechnology divison, once all data was properly stored and filed was exposed to an EMP at the end of each work day destroying anything that could have potentially escaped. For obvious reasons the Geth were excluded from this work.
"Commander Tavo, could you come here for a minute?" Miranda asked.
"Of course, what is it Lieutenant?" Tavo asked.
"I'm curious I've been studying the Quarian genome map and I don't know what these gene sequences are." Miranda asked.
"We are unsure ourselves, the only thing we know for sure is that they seem to have deactivated in our evolution relatively recently." Tavo said, pointing to a few other places on the gene map.
"Here, here and here also went inactive around the same time." Tavo said.
"I saw those, but here, look at this." Miranda said, bringing up an entirely separate genome map, she scrolled in and Tavo was shocked to see the exact same array of genes.
"Is this a new Quarian sequence?" Tavo asked.
"No, sir. They're mine. If you look at this section you can see where my father's manipulation takes place but here is unaltered human DNA." Miranda said.
"That's amazing! Lawson you might have just revolutionized our understanding of genetics." Tavo said, staring wide-eyed at her display scrolling back and forth between the two comparing them.
"I have a theory, though it's purely speculation. Do we have Turian genetic information available?" Miranda asked.
"None on file, but I can get a gene map sent over right now, hang on a second." Tavo said, Within seconds an official data dump from the Turian hierarchy arrived containing hundreds of years of genetic research.
"Keelah I just asked for a genome map. The Turians must be eager to impress the Alliance. They sent us almost everything they have on genetics. This will be fascinating to read over. Here is the genome map." Tavo said, transmitting the pertinent information to Miranda. She scrolled through it an selected a very familiar group of genes.
"Here, it's in the Turian genome as well. How do three species separated by most of the galaxy have the same inactive genes?" Miranda asked.
"I have no idea. I can speculate but have absolutely nothing to base this on." Tavo said.
"Indulge me, Commander." Mirand said, her own curiousity piqued.
"As we know 50,000 years ago the Prothean empire 'mysteriously disappeared' thanks to the Reapers. Rannoch, Earth and Palaven all have significant concentrations of Prothean ruins and artifacts either buried in the crust or on nearby moons or other planets. There's the Mars Archive and the Sphinx in the home sector, The Drakka valley on Rannoch and the Catacombs of Taras on Menae. Could they have been genetic research facilities? Were the Protheans tinkering with our genes?" Tavo asked.
"The information we've discovered so far suggests the Protheans were studying us, and preparing to uplift Humanity when the tide turned in their war against the Reapers, it doesn't seem like they'd have had time. Plus, these genes were inactive 50,000 years ago according to this." Miranda said, pointing at data she was now correlating between the genomes.
"The Inusannon then? Perhaps we were to be their weapons in the war against the Reapers?" Tavo suggested.
"Possibly, Quarians, Turians and Humans had all achieved the beginnings of sentience a hundred thousand years ago. Back then Humans were more physically robust and self-reliant, good traits for ground troops." Miranda said, fiddling with her hair.
"Keelah you were bigger and stronger then?" Tavo asked, grinning.
"Yeah, Cro-Magnon man and our Neanderthal cousins could have easily given Krogan a run for their money in a fair unarmed fight. Of course with current gene therapy we're slowly getting back there. So are the Quarians." Miranda observed, gesturing at her commander's impressive physique.
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Lieutenant Lawson. Now let's get this data up to Alliance Intel, they're gonna have a field day with it. Make sure to copy Dr. Liara T'soni on Eden prime as well, she's our foremost authority on xenoarchaeology especially the Protheans. Amazing work today, Lawson." Tavo said, patting her on the back. She blushed at the praise.
"Thank you Sir. I'll send it right away." Miranda said, internally cheering at her accomplishment.