Remnants

by General Rage

From Halo's ashes, a mismatched Alliance is born. UNSC soldiers now serve alongside both Batarian deserters and shifty Jackal Space Pirates. Now Shepard and Master Chief have to keep these strange bedfellows from killing one another before they can stop an emergent new threat to the galaxy. The Next Swashbuckling Chapter of the Wormhole Chronicles.

15. The Call of the Grave

Chapter 14: The Call of the Grave

The Scariest Monsters are the Ones that Lurk Inside Our Souls

-Edgar Allan Poe

Darkness surrounded her in this pit, but the bowels of the Ascendant Justice were the only place she could truly hide. There were only a few scant Huragoks, Engineers, residing here and she could easily avoid them. The creatures only cared about maintaining the ship, paying her little attention even if they did see her. This suited Tali just fine, they were not her target and she could not waste time with them. Every second she was down here was another second that risked her absence being discovered. The guard would not be fooled by the old pillow trick forever. Once they found out she was free, this would get a whole lot harder. She needed to act fast. It was the only way to save everyone.

It was a strange paradox though, the darkness served her purposes, she needed it, but it was also her enemy. For in every dank corner, every blackened causeway, there was the voice. Its voice. The creature calling to her. Every now and then she heard it screech at her mind. Telling her to accept the blackness around her, the embrace the shadow, to fall into death. It was not a plead, it was not a request, it was a demand. One that became more pounding within her mind every second.

Escape is impossible. The grave takes all. Accept it now and the pain will end. This existence is fleeting. Flawed. It would be so easy to surrender.

"Quarians don't do easy," Tali spat back.

Then your descent into the tomb will not be quiet. Your screams shall deafen you.

Out of the corner of her eyes she always thought she saw the shadows creeping closer. Trying to encroach on her, but she pushed it out of her mind best she could. She would not let them stop her. She was close to her goal, her first objective. She just needed round the next corner and... yes, there it was! A network portal, a connection to Fleetcom, the equivalent of an extranet for all the ships flying in their flotilla. That included the Normandy. She'd need that to get what she wanted.

She activated her omni-tool, connecting it to Fleetcom covertly. The channel was still tuned to BBR, specifically to see if they had noticed Tali was gone. So far, still music, no news breaks, no announcements. She was still safe. With that squared away for now, she took DOT off standby.

"DOT, I need you to search for whatever communiques about the relic that had been transmitted in the past two hours," she ordered it. "And pull up all my notes concerning the Slipspace Drive project. I'm going to need them."

"Of course, Tali," DOT replied. "Tasks are now running."

Tali waited for a bit, letting DOT do her work. She took in the music playing from her omni-tool. Apparently BBR was working through the Iron Maiden discography, because they were still on. She could tell just by the music, the almost chanting guitar sound confirmed it. The haunting refrain, filling the maintenance corridors with its sound, it calmed her senses while at same time heightening them.

I am a man who walks alone,

And when I'm walking a dark road,

At night or strolling through the park

When the light begins to fade

I sometimes feel a little strange,

A little anxious, when its dark.

Tali looked around, almost instinctively. Trying to scan the shadows, to peer through the dark. She could feel something out there, watching her. Maybe just another Engineer passing by, maybe. It didn't feel like one though. It felt more malevolent, angry.

Fear of the Dark, Fear of the Dark

I have a constant fear that something's always there.

Fear of the Dark, Fear of the Dark

I have a phobia that someone's always there.

Tali looked right into the shadow as the music kicked in suddenly. An image appeared, an outline in the shadowy mists. Something tall, taller than a huragok. Something she remembered from before. It scratched and clawed from the shadow, gasping and wheezing in pain and rage.

She looked away, trying to let the music drown out the sounds. In due time it did, but her mind kept scraping at her senses. Telling her danger was near. Telling something was close. Something horrible. But she knew it could not be real. The monster was not here, it was out there. It was just trying to stop her, distract her, break her so she couldn't complete her mission. She gripped the wall, trying to steady her breathing.

Have you run your fingers down the wall

And have you felt your neck skin crawl

When you're searching for the light?

Tali could feel the skin on her back crawl, bristle in fear and confusion. She knew this wasn't real. None of what she saw in the shadows was real. This was the voice, the monster, she told herself. She kept telling herself that as she felt hot slime dripping around her. The stench of death permeating her olfactory filters. None of that was real.

Sometimes when you're scared to take a look

At the corner of the room

You've sensed that something's watching you.

Even though her waking mind told her not to. Her instinct said she needed to prepare, she needed to strike. She activated the omni-tool's omni-blade, popping it out. She was scared to look, because either reveal would not be helpful. Fear of was or wasn't there, what tricks her addled mind was playing or if her senses could be trusted. In the end, she turned, pointing he blade forward.

But she saw nothing.

Fear of the Dark, Fear of the Dark

I have a constant fear that something's always there!

Fear of the Dark, Fear of the Dark

I have a phobia that someone's always there!

"Tali?"

DOT's voice brought her out of her trance. She turned back to the omni-tool again, to what she knew was real.

"You got everything?" Tali asked.

"As much as possible," DOT explained. "Your notes were easy to recover. However, there is little information concerning the relic at this time."

Tali moved about to look down another section of the corridor as DOT explained, her mind still racing with fear from her imagined encounter. She just couldn't shake it.

"Security precautions have been put in place," DOT explained. "The system did not respond to requests for the data. It seems much of the current information is either under review or still above your classification access."

"That's impossible, I had full access be-" She stopped herself suddenly and grimaced at the thought.

Miranda, of course. She revoked her clearance to the files. The bitch, she should've realized. Lawson was too clever to not realize the risk. How foolish it was to think she would be so stupid. No, no, she would not risk Tali trying to hack in somehow, to get the intel she needed. She shouldn't have blurted out her plan to everyone, she should've realized that Miranda had her hooks in all of them. How the monster had convinced them that the quarian was crazy now and couldn't be trusted.

"Could you get anything?" Tali asked.

A running series of footsteps distracted her for a moment. She pointed her omni-blade towards the noise, shaking as she did.

"I was able to discern that the relic has been moved to a secure location and that studies are underway concerning possible functions of the device," DOT explained. "Research is primarily centered around possible information transfer or potential mental degradation due amplified energy exposure."

They were trying to at least test her theory, she presumed Shepard had convinced them of the viability. Or at least someone had. Perhaps she wasn't entirely alone, that someone in her crew believed her. At least in so far it was the relic that was at fault for all this. Not that it mattered, they'd try to stop her anyway, she knew that.

"Where could I find the information I need?" Tali asked.

"All security concerns have been directed towards Executive Officer Miranda Lawson," DOT replied. "Her personal computer would be the most likely data storage system. Details about the relic's current location, as well as any research updates would likely be funneled to her system for peer review. As for the main body of research, more than likely with the chief research officer on hand."

"Taq," Tali said succinctly.

"That is highly probable," DOT agreed.

Tali stepped back, hearing sounds coming from the darkness around her, but she did her best to shut them out. To let the music drown them. She needed to keep her head focused, her mind clear.

Watching horror films the night before

Debating witches and folklores

The unknown troubles on your mind

There was a sudden growling snarl from a shadowy corner. Tali backed away from it, her omni-tool focused on the spot.

Maybe your mind is playing tricks

You sense, and suddenly eyes afix

On dancing shadows from behind

Tali turned and watched something wafting through the dark, moving oddly and misshapen. Something reached out from the abyss, trying to bring itself closer and pull her in. Tali moved away further, unsure of where to go next.

"Tali, your heart and breathing rate have increased significantly," DOT informed her. "Are you well?"

"I'm fine, DOT," Tali assured her. "I need you to guide me again. Is there a way to get to the Normandy's docking section from this part of the carrier?"

"I have designated a route," DOT soon replied. "I would advise however to return to the main corridors, as it would be faster and less hazardous, considering it would be sufficiently lighted."

"That's not an option," Tali told her. "Listen, I'm going to feed you some important codes to work through. They'll connect you to the security system. There are a few things we need to do before we get to the Normandy."

"I must note this is a highly irregular procedure, Tali," DOT informed her. "Perhaps we should contact-"

"Override procedural protocol, directive two-four-nine-eight-eight-seven-six-five-two-one-three," Tali demanded.

DOT processed the command briefly before finally accepting it.

"Override accepted, Tali," the AI responded. "Initiating tasks."

DOT was a dumb AI, easier to control that way. She didn't like doing this, but there was no other way. They needed her right now, even though they didn't know it or accept it. She needed to save them, more than herself, she needed to save them. No cost for her conscience was too great and she knew exactly where she needed to go first.

She raced through the dark, quickening her pace, refusing to look at the shadows even as she passed through them. The song neared its end and it again eased her thoughts, her doubts, her fears. They would forgive her, they had to.

When I'm walking a dark road

I am the man who walks alone

---

"You could stand to be more compassionate for once," Garrus told her bluntly.

"I don't have to stand for anything," Miranda replied as they walked. "The simple fact is that she is sick and coddling her is not going to help."

"So putting her in a cell does?" Garrus asked curtly.

"It was Shepard's decision," Miranda shot back.

"Which you pressured him into," Garrus stated. "This is not fair, Miranda."

"Fair is not a luxury we can afford when the people you rely upon have gone insane," she fired off in return. "What would you have had me do? Lock her up in a room on the Normandy? Hope it just passes? She'd have found a way to break out and cause who knows what kind of damage in her addled state. I am only thinking of the bigger picture, Garrus. It's nothing personal."

"Maybe not to you, but it is to Tali," Garrus informed her. "Everything is personal for quarians. I learned that the hard way when I was a total jerk to her when we first met. You are not doing her any favors."

"She doesn't need to like me, all I care about is her getting some sort of care," Miranda explained. "And her not harming herself further. Do you honestly think we should've let her go near that relic again? Assuming it is the root cause of all this?"

Garrus had no answer, which was as good as conceding in Miranda's mind. As they continued to walk to Miranda's room though, it was clear he was not done. He just needed to find a better way to explain it.

"Listen, before this all happened, Tali-"

"Complained to you and everyone about how I was being unfair to her," Miranda cut in suddenly. "I'm more than aware. I know half this ship doesn't particularly like me. I know I'm not the friendliest of this crew. Behind Jack in terms of sheer hatred, Tali is the one who most wishes I was thrown out an airlock. She said as much herself as I recall."

"She wasn't herself, you know that," Garrus tried to insist.

"No, Garrus, she was herself," Miranda stated bluntly. "That was just Tali without the filter. She hates me, I've always known she's hated me since day one. I'm not deaf and blind. I am also not entirely incapable of understanding why, because believe me... I get why."

Garrus crossed his arms, interested in hearing her answer. Miranda sighed, she had opened the door to this now. No going back.

"I've always rubbed people the wrong way," she admitted. "I expect perfection and excellence in everything. I have impossibly high standards. I know no one can ever attain them. But that should not stop them from at least aiming high. Not everyone likes my method of motivating them, but it does work most of the time. If I seem like I am pressuring Tali in her work, it is only because I know she can do better."

"Well I hate to tell you this, Miranda, but she doesn't know that," Garrus informed her. "When you berate her, criticize her, suggest she can be replaced-"

"I did not insinuate that," Miranda said defensively. "I simply asked if she felt she could use outside help. It's not my fault that she interpreted it as an attack on her-"

"Let me finish," Garrus said, pausing her. "When you do these things with her, you're not really motivating her. I think you're just reminding her of her dad. Specifically the father who never once admitted he appreciated her work or her efforts. The one she kept trying to please and failed."

Miranda was silent after that, her stern and frustrated visage slightly fading under the scrutiny. She looked unwavering at Garrus though, refusing to show weakness. Her resolve unflinching as ever.

"I can't control what happened in her family," she attempted to explain. "I... admit I never really considered it myself. I try not to think of my own father very much."

"This ship is full of complicated familial relations," Garrus confessed. "Not all of them reconciled. At least not in the best of ways."

"I can't wrap my head around the idea of trying so hard to please someone like that," she explained. "I gave up on my father rather quickly and spent a long time just trying to find a means of escape."

"The difference is Tali's father did love her, not in the best of ways but he did," Garrus explained succinctly. "I don't know how she feels entirely about him, but I know it is complicated."

"And mine isn't," Miranda reasoned.

Miranda could see the problem now, she didn't even really need Garrus to bother explaining further, or at all. Part of did know this already, Vakarian had just confirmed it. Tali's resentment towards her, the anger, she was letting loose what she never could speak to her father in life. It made sense, but Miranda knew it wasn't the only reason Tali hated her.

The facts were rather plain, so much so Miranda could easily list them off. She was Cerberus when they first met. Her personality clashed so evidently and viciously with Tali's own. Their core values and principles were different. She was more authoritative, critical and harder. Tali was the personable one, fast to make friends, people liked her on those merits alone. And while they were both hard working individuals, Miranda was more of a bureaucrat, Tali the working gal. Her workspace was a desk, Tali's a drive core. They were just so fundamentally different.

But Miranda knew the biggest rift between them, and dancing around it was pointless. Garrus would bring it up soon enough anyway. She broke her silence.

"If you think Shepard plays into this decision-"

"I don't," Garrus told her. "But take Tali's feelings into account. Just because she might have some walking nightmares plaguing her doesn't change anything about her. She probably suspects or knows you talked Shepard into this. How do you think that makes her feel?"

Rejected, tossed aside, angry, vengeful, more so than before. Miranda could see that, even understand it. Tali's fears were unfounded though. She had no interest, not even passing. Shepard had made it rather clear early on he wasn't interested and she was fine with that. She didn't spend two years of her life just rebuilding a sex puppet for herself. She was not some perverse lecher.

"The fact of it is, I hold no resentment or grudge," Miranda informed Garrus rather plainly. "I never have. I accept more often than not that many people don't like me. I'm fine with it. I don't need friends, at least not as many as Tali feels she does. My concern is her work, that is all."

"Perhaps it would do you some good to try and engage her on a level that wasn't purely professional," Garrus suggested.

"We have nothing in common, Garrus," Miranda stated. "The exercise would be pointless. We're aboard the ship, she hates me, I don't care enough to hate her back. Not all of us are going to be friends in life, we need to accept that."

"Letting it fester hasn't done any good either," Garrus informed her. "When she gets better-"

"If, we need to prepare for the worst," Miranda cautioned.

"When," Garrus insisted. "When she gets better the least you could do is sort this out. You don't have to be friends, but you don't need to hate each other either."

Miranda sighed, Garrus had a point, much as she hated to admit it.

"I suppose you want me to reconsider the cell then?" She asked.

"I'm asking you to get her a room, not part of the brig you spruced up to look nicer," Garrus stated.

"It was on short notice, I had to work with what we had," Miranda explained. "I didn't..."

She sighed again, no, no, he was right. She wasn't too proud to not admit that.

"Fine, we'll get her a room," she relented. "Something more comfortable."

Garrus looked pleased with that outcome. She had wanted to give Tali an actual room in the first place, she only ended up in the brig when they couldn't find something secure enough. There had to be something that would work aboard the Justice, she just needed to find it. But there were other concerns.

"Until I locate a suitable place to put her, I need to go over the latest data points Taq managed to pull from the Relic so far," she said, looking over her datapad. "There has to be something we've missed. Something we can use to help her."

"So you do think the relic did this to her," Garrus reasoned.

"It could still be some lingering after effects from her ordeal, but that power surge from the relic happened to her pretty recently," Miranda recounted. "The chances of it being the catalyst are incredibly likely. So, it's the best place to start looking for an answer."

Garrus gave a bit of a smirk, which Miranda did not appreciate.

"What?" She asked him, annoyed.

"It's just nice to see you care for once," he told her.

"I do care about Tali's health," she insisted. "Just because I'm not her friend like you doesn't mean I take any joy in seeing her suffer. I want her to get better as much as Shepard, you, Kasumi or anyone. No one deserves to live a never ending nightmare."

She knew what that was like. At least when she was trapped living with her father she knew what was real and what wasn't. Her father wasn't some otherworldly horror either. But if there was one thing Tali had that she didn't have back then, it was far more friends willing to help her. She didn't count herself a friend, but she'd do what she could regardless.

"Well I don't think I need to tell you that if you do find something, let Shepard know," Garrus requested. "He's still in his cabin. Working up the courage to go see her I think."

"She won't be mad at him," Miranda assured. "She'll suspect I convinced him to quarantine her."

"I think that's a small comfort right now," he told her. "Give him a way to fix this and it will be a greater one."

"I'll try," Miranda promised.

With that, Garrus let her continue to her room. The doors swished open and she entered briskly, placing the datapad down the desk she looped around to sit in her chair. Bringing up the terminal, she opened up the latest information packets sent from Taq. She knew she wasn't the best person to transcribe all this, but Tali was really the only other expert on the Forerunners. Which was why she knew she needed some help.

Figuring she couldn't hate her more than she already did, Miranda had taken Halsey's Journal from Tali's quarters, hoping it would yield some insight on the matter. It didn't exactly have everything she needed, but it gave her a small crash course. She supposed she now understood Tali's desire to learn more about the Forerunners at least. All their technology, their advancements, why wouldn't the quarian want to learn more? What scant information in Halsey's books would only have been the first course.

Taq didn't have much at the moment and most of these were her first couple of notes from over the previous few days. She skipped much of the stuff concerning the "Astral Cutlass" and tried to focus in on the passages referring to what the relic actually did. Which was little, mostly speculation. The theory was it was an amplification device. Something that increased the power output and capabilities of computerized machinery. It would explain how it had kept the security system on the Dauntless wreck alive for so long. That did not really explain how it could be making Tali see visions. It did explain where the power surge that hit the quarian came from though. Tali ripping it from its connection to the system caused a power backlash. The relic probably reset to standby mode and expelled the excess energy buildup to accomplish that.

Miranda hoped Taq would have something new soon. The kig-yar was apparently double downing on her work schedule, pushing herself to perform more tests and experiments. Miranda imagined Taq was more than eager to do so given the circumstances, but she hoped Tali's condition would impress the importance on her. She had heard that the kig-yar had grown rather fond of the quarian pretty quickly down in the Dauntless. Miranda hoped that wasn't just people projecting their opinions onto Taq. They needed her expertise on this and some emotional investment always helped in speeding that along.

As she went over the files, Miranda noted the sound of music in the background. Classical Synth of course, it was soothing, helped her concentrate. She preferred it low though, she didn't want it distracting her too much. However it seemed louder now, which was odd. Then it switched over completely to BBR, she could tell from the loud metal music that now replaced her favored play list. Said music soon hit the high notes and filled the cabin. She would've gotten up to change it back, had she not noticed her door suddenly lock up. The lyrics on whatever song was playing started.

Won't you come into my room, I wanna show you all my wares.

I just want to see your blood, I just want to stand and stare.

In a second she knew what was happening, but it was too late. Her biotic amp suddenly pulsed terrible backlash, a dampener attack, her abilities had been completely shut down. Then her head was smashed against the desktop.

See the blood begin to flow as it falls upon the floor.

Iron Maiden can't be fought, Iron Maiden can't be sought.

Miranda clutched at the back of her head as her hair was pulled behind, forcing her to stand. Even addled by the sudden shock, she recognized the visor covered visage of her attacker. Tali stared back at her fury emblazoned in her silver eyes.

"You made the same mistake people like you always do, Lawson," she snarled at her. "You underestimated a quarian."

Tali forced her into the back wall forcing her hand over Miranda's mouth to keep her silent. Miranda struggled, but Tali slammed her head back into the wall again to keep her dazed.

"I know you're still working for Cerberus," she growled, using her other hand to start choking her. "You thought you fooled everyone, you almost fooled me, but I know now. I should've known sooner, you're a liar. You've always been a liar. Well, Little Miss Perfect, how's it feel to have your lies all crumble around you?"

She threw Miranda into the corner of the wall leading to her bed, smashing her nose against it. She quickly turned, trying to catch Tali in a stasis field. Instead, an omni-blade cut her palm. Miranda retracted it, but soon found the same blade held to her neck.

"If you're hoping EDI will send for help, don't bother," Tali told her. "I know this ship better than any of the people the Illusive Man hired to put it together. Upgraded security myself. All EDI is seeing right now is a loop of you at your desk typing constantly. Still think you're smarter than me, bitch? Still think you're better than us quarians?"

"Tali, stop-"

"Shut up!" Tali shouted at her. "I've had to listen to you and your superior act ever since I first met you. Well you're done. Finished. You thought you could fool everyone, but that's over. Everyone is going to know what a filthy, lying sack of shit you really are, Lawson. And then you'll be in the brig. How's that make you feel?"

"You're not well, Tali," Miranda tried to tell her, the blade close to her throat. "I... I just want to help you. We all wa-"

"I'm so sick of you and your bullshit," Tali sneered. "You never thought I was good enough for him! You resented me more when he chose me over you! Couldn't stand that he fell in love with the alien over your perfect ass and big genetically gifted breasts! Well you're not taking him, you understand? Shepard loves me! And there's not a damn thing you can do about it! Because after I save everyone, they're going to learn how you're a traitor and how you're a liar and I'll be there to just laugh and laugh and laugh until they decide to shove you in the airlock and let the air seep out until you choke and die. Perfect death for the perfect bitch."

Miranda felt her powers star to resonate a bit, she had to make a move now. Tali would kill her otherwise, but she needed the blade away from her throat. She made the only plead she could.

"I don't want Shepard, I never wanted Shepard," she tried to tell her. "It was the Illusive Man's idea that-"

"So you admit it! You're still working for him! I knew it! I knew it!"

Tali moved the blade back and that was When Miranda struck, hitting Tali with a slight Biotic Push to throw her off. Miranda could hardly scream out, her throat so badly crushed by Tali's previous grip. She made for the door, ducking just as Tali lunged out with her omni-blade. Miranda ducked just in time, the blade only slicing some of her hair off. She reached for the door, but Tali grabbed her hair and flung her back over her own chair, the metal music pounding in her head as she tumbled over.

Oh Well, wherever, wherever you are,

Iron Maiden's gonna get you, no matter how far.

See the blood flow watching it shed up above my head.

Iron Maiden wants you for dead.

Tali now scrambled over top of Miranda and brought her omni-blade up, aiming it towards the between space of Miranda's eyes. The quarian's breathing was frantic, harsh, her eyes filled with hatred, her fists tightening. But she held back from what she obviously wanted to do.

"No, it's too good for you," she growled.

"Tali, stop this," Miranda pleaded. "We're crewmates. Allies. I don't work for Cerberus anymore. Whatever you think this is, you're wrong. That relic is messing with your head, this isn't you."

"What is me? Meek little Tali who is just some pathetic little quarian you can boss around? Belittle? Bully into following your every command?" Tali questioned. "No, that's not me. What I am... is better than anything you think. Better than you. And I'm going to prove it."

Tali delivered a punch directly to Miranda's temple, knocking her right out. Tali dragged her by her hair and forced her into her bed. She then reached into one of her storage compartments for some adhesive tape. It had been a smart move to stop by a supply closet before entering the Normandy through a lower airlock compartment in the engine. She had needed to stock up on tools anyway. After binding Miranda's hands, feet and taping closed her mouth, she headed for Miranda's computer.

She could've cracked Miranda's passcode easy, but Tali knew that Lawson would realize what she had done. Worse, she suspected that there was an alarm rigged to EDI and the rest of the ship if unauthorized access to Miranda's files were detected. Besides, this way was more satisfying. Miranda had unlocked the computer for her, now it was just a matter of getting all the information she needed downloaded into her Omni-Tool.

There wasn't much in the way of useful stuff concerning the Relic's true nature, but she suspected Taq was already working along new lines of reasoning for a while now. Tali's imprisonment would've impressed a greater urgency on her. For now this was a good baseline.

What Tali actually wanted was information on where the Relic was now. She looked for it, but found nothing. She had hoped Miranda had been more negligent. She was able to figure out where it wasn't from a lot of suggested locations that had been quickly rejected. At least she knew where not to look. She also learned, by backtracking the source of Taq's forwarded research intel, that the Jackal was currently aboard the Crusty Chorka under close watch. Miranda had suggested it, thinking it would be safer, just in case anything happened.

Perhaps Lawson hadn't underestimated her completely. No matter, Tali could get around all that easy. Taq had to know where the relic was, it was the only way she could study everything. She'd also have more up to date information on the relic. It was her best shot at getting to the voice, the only way she could kill it. She had a plan now. Get to Taq, get her intel, find out where the relic was and take it.

You injure your friends, but you do not kill. You deny them peace, but bring them more pain.

Tali looked to the screen again on the computer and saw the Precursor, the creature, whatever it was. Once again, it was taunting her.

"She's not my friend, but I won't kill her, she needs to suffer," Tali claimed.

Suffering is inevitable. Suffering is life. Death is peace. If you truly wish to save your crew, you should let them die.

"Go to hell, Bosh'tet," Tali scolded it. "Save me the trouble."

We are already damned. Our existence is as such. But it is damnation with solace. Satisfaction. Relief. It could be yours too.

Tali shut the terminal down. She had what she needed. And it seemed a little more, as she spotted Halsey's journal on the desk. Taking it in her arms she looked to Miranda again.

"When you wake up, you'll get what you deserve," she swore. "I won't let you win. I won't let it win."

She exited out of the emergency duct, replacing the cover as she entered. The last bits of the Iron Maiden song echoing in the room as she descended.

Iron Maiden's gonna get all of you!

---

"How bad is it exactly?" Cortana asked.

"Shepard wouldn't say," Chief explained. "Just that it might have something to do with the Flood attack she endured on Halo."

Cortana kicked herself mentally for not being there. She had been engrossed in other tasks in preparation for their return to Reach. She had actually tried to approach Tali concerning her project, at least get an update on the Slipspace Drive's progress. After the first try though, Cortana could tell she was under a degree of stress and let her be. She thought the quarian would come to her for help when she needed it.

Now, out of Chief's head and inside one of the Ascendant Justice's computing terminals, she couldn't help but feel that had been a mistake. Something had happened to the quarian, she was seeing things, nightmares walking around her. It was making her erratic, dangerous, paranoid. Screaming about creatures who existed before the Forerunners. As of now, she was in a sort of quarantine while they tried to fix what was happening to her. Hard to do when no one knew what was wrong.

"It can't be the Flood though," she told Chief. "They burned it out of her, with electric shocks even. She wasn't infected yet, but under some kind of psychic attack from some spores trying to breach her mind."

"That was Mordin's diagnosis," Chief concurred. "But she could sense the Flood, or at least a specific creature form, after the encounter."

"Residual psychic effect of the trauma," Cortana clarified. "But I don't think there are any Flood aboard this ship that could be using that to its advantage."

"Which leaves the most likely suspect, the relic," Chief continued. "Tali got the closest to it when it gave off that energy pulse."

Cortana remembered, they hadn't expected that surge to happen when they pulled the relic loose. Correction, when Tali pulled it loose. It had thrown her for a loop, but she seemed fine. Perhaps this was a lingering side-effect from the pulse then.

"But Linda, Kat and Taq were all there," Cortana recalled. "They're perfectly fine. Why would the pulse, whatever it was, only effect Tali?"

Cortana quickly realized what Chief had been implying before.

"You think the psychic trauma from the spores has something to do with this," she reasoned. "Why else would she be the only one inflicted with these illusionary experiences."

"You were the only other person there Cortana," Chief informed her. "The only one who would've had the ability to process what was going on faster than anyone. Was there anything weird about the energy pulse from the relic? Anything that felt off?"

"Now that I think about it," Cortana thought aloud, placing a hand to her chin. "Just before the pulse occurred, the energy surge from the relic seemed... off. That's the best way I can describe it honestly."

"Off how?" Chief asked curiously.

"Well it didn't exactly match the energy output from the rest of the ship," Cortana explained. "Considering it was powering many significant systems, you'd think it would match somewhat. I chalked it up to a glitch or the surge messing with the sensor read outs I was plugged into at the time. But giving it more thought... why so much jury rigging to make a relic of Forerunner origin, no matter how old, compatible with their own ship? Some I could understand, but that was a heavy duty setup in there. What if there was a different energy supply within the relic itself? Something they were trying to bypass or filter?"

"You think there's something to Tali's Precursor story then?" Chief asked.

"I know Tali well enough to know she does not just make things up from thin air," Cortana explained. "There's more going on here, Chief. I need to go over those ship log records. I downloaded a copy."

"Anything I can do?" Chief asked.

"Get Kat in here maybe?" Cortana requested. "She can help me parse through some of this stuff."

Chief just nodded and went off to find his fellow Spartan. Cortana in the meantime pulled up what files she could and tried to work through them. Surely there was something in here about the relic.

---

Taq was deep in thought as she poured over what data she could pull from the relic. She honestly thought this would be easy, she had cracked Forerunner artifacts before. This one was different though, unlike previous pieces she had uncovered. It didn't follow the same rules as other Forerunner mechanisms. All her usual tricks failed, the various strategies she had used prior all coming up short. She only managed to decrypt bits and pieces of the information within the artifact. She didn't understand why.

True, it could be because this piece was far more complicated, that her usual methods were perhaps just not good enough on their own to crack it, but something felt off. It was as if she was working in an entirely different language, or dialect. That this was not the Forerunner tech she knew. Perhaps it was just older, that made sense somewhat. This was probably an older specimen with different rules, harder to crack because it was so old and out of date with standard Forerunner tech.

Then again, why would it be harder to decrypt? It would stand to reason that an ancient relic would have less security than something more advanced. And if it was older and incompatible, why hook it up to your systems to keep them powered up for so many countless millenia? None of this made sense.

"Ugh, come on, there's gotta be something in all this... junk," she grumbled silently to herself. "What are you hiding? What's your full function? How do you work? Where is the Cutlass? Give me something at least."

Taq decided this was getting her nowhere, she needed a new angle. Perhaps there was something in her backlog data she pulled from the Dauntless' computers she could use to figure this out. Pulling it up on the terminal, she searched through what little she could decipher concerning the relic. It was deep encryption, but she cracked it eventually. Looking over it again more carefully this time would probably yield some results.

The Forerunners kept describing the relic as a sort of amplification device. That was the vague description they used, but not a complete one. They did claim it could be used as a power source, but that was just a byproduct of the artifact's energy output. An output it generated all on its own. It could do more than that though, it could enhance the function of anything it was powering. No wonder they seized upon using it to keep their security system running.

Thing was, the notes suggested it took them some time to figure out how to do that. Lots of experimentation, construction, trial and error. Why would the people who made the thing have so little idea on how to apply it from the start? Taq supposed the relic's function was outside their field of expertise, but you'd think someone would've told them something about what this thing could do. More relevant, that syncing it to their systems would not be so problematic. Not unless, it wasn't their technology to start with.

She was starting to come around to poor Tali's hypothesis at this point, that maybe this thing wasn't Forerunner. Poor quarian, Taq hated to think how she was suffering right now. She was such a bright girl, she deserved better than this. However, if her affliction had given her insight into the relic's true nature, then perhaps something good could come out of this.

Taking the possibility this was not a Forerunner relic into account, she scanned through the notes on the Dauntless' crew's experiments. With that in mind, she found a sequence in their experiments, something that she didn't recognize. They weren't normal symbols, not ones associated with the Forerunners anyway. Taq copied the sequence and returned to her other screen. She had the Relic hooked up to a wireless data uplink, something she could use to pull or input information from and into the artifact without being in the same room as it. That way she didn't have to be stuck with it constantly and risk whatever happened to Tali happening to her.

With the sequence input, suddenly a wealth of new information flooded the screen. Unfortunately, there wasn't much she could do to read most of it. Everything was a mess of strange symbols various confusing datapoints. She worked through the problem all the same and could read a few minor lines here and there. There were similarities to the Forerunner language and computing code, it was just harder to read.

"Amplification require input," she read carefully. "Standby mode initiate. Memory storage functional? Transmission in progress? What the hell?"

What transmission? With her uplink? No, this wasn't about her equipment. It was reading normal, no increase in uploading or downloading strength. The relic wasn't syncing with it, but it was syncing to something. There was no other machine connected to it, no other system, unless it was connecting via wireless. She looked further into the datapoints and could read one other line related to the so-called transmission.

"Resonance detected," she spoke aloud. "Memory storage unlocked. Processing Operation Procedure. What is all this?"

She felt something cool against her back at that moment and froze.

"It's the voice, speaking, screeching, screaming," the familiar electronic filtered speech answered. "What I keep warning of. What you don't see but I hear."

Taq turned around slowly and saw Tali staring back at her, holding a pistol in hand towards Taq's head now.

"Tali," she said, trying to smile amicably. "What a... pleasant surprise. I was just thinking about you."

"I bet a lot of people are," Tali said, suddenly reaching to her head to hold it tightly. "But I'd prefer if you'd listen more, like I'm forced to do. All I can do is listen to it, that thing in the void. The Precursor or whatever it is now."

Tali forced Taq to back away from the terminal and kept the gun pointed at the kig-yar. As she did, she placed and OSD disk into the computer and began downloading. Taq kept her distance and remained wary, unsure of how much the relic has effected the quarian's mind. Her envirosuit was dirtied and tattered, clearly she had been slumming it in the cramped quarters of the ship. Trying her best to stay out of sight and her profile low. From her posture and body language, Tali was not her usual bright and happy self and her silver eyes no longer felt as inviting and bright. They were more pale, vicious, pointed, frantic, just like her.

"Tali," Taq began carefully. "I can understand that this must be... trying for you right now. You're having a difficult evening, I can tell."

"I doubt you understand much of anything," Tali snapped. "You and everyone else don't believe me, you think I'm insane. That... that I'm just cracking because I almost died in a damn swamp with a bunch of killer corpses chasing me!"

Taq stepped back a bit, keeping her hands up.

"Tali, I actually believe you," she tried to explain. "The relic... I think it is Precursor, or at least not Forerunner. The Dauntless crew didn't know how to get it to work with their equipment at first. That could only make sense if-"

"If it wasn't a Forerunner relic, I told you!" Tali insisted, keeping the gun pointed. "I told all of you but you didn't listen! You all just think I'm stupid and worthless! That's what Lawson thought, well she just found out how wrong she is!"

Taq gulped, concern on her face.

"What... what did you do to-"

"She's alive, but she'll be lucky to remain that way when everyone finds out she's a traitor," Tali growled in response. "She was still kind enough to give me everything I needed. Her files on the relic, Halsey's Journal that she stole, this gun, and indirectly how to find you."

Tali looked to the screen quickly and scanned the information on them.

"So, you've managed to unlock it?" She asked the kig-yar.

"I've figured out how to open the networking systems and find out what it's doing," Taq explained quickly. "Tali, it's transmitting something. Something from a memory bank or whatever and I don't think it's a machine it's sending it to."

"Of course it's not a machine, it's me!" Tali insisted. "Why can't you people understand that! There's something speaking through it to me!"

"I don't think it works like that," Taq tried to explain. "There's an outgoing signal from the relic, but there is no inbound signal. It's something from the memory-"

"It doesn't matter," Tali growled. "What matters is I was right, that I'm not insane. Something is contacting me and I need to kill it."

"What we need to do is find a way to sever the connection," Taq tried to argue. "If we can interrupt the transmission-"

"No!" Tali shouted in a rage. "No! Not until it is dead! Not until I've killed it!"

"Do you even know what you're trying to kill?" Taq asked frantically. "Or if you even can kill it? This thing is apparently capable of talking to you psychically across the darkness of space from who knows how many lightyears away. I don't think this is something you can just shoot a bunch."

"Don't tell me what I can't do," Tali snarled. "All my life I've had people outside the Flotilla telling me I can't do anything. That I'm worthless. But they're wrong, you're all wrong. A quarian is going to save your miserable lives, whether you like it or not. So you best get used to that fast."

The download soon completed and Tali pulled the OSD disk out again. She pocketed it and began searching the room, practically ransacking it. Ripping shelves out, pulling out panels, Taq did her best to skirt along towards the door while the quarian was distracted. Maybe she could lock her in and call some Marines. But, Tali turned and rushed her, pinning her against the wall and keeping the gun pointed on her.

"Where is it?" She demanded. "Where's the relic?"

"It's not here," Taq said through gritted teeth. "I'm not sure what it did to you, but I'm not letting it happen to me. Tali, we're trying to help you! Don't you see that?"

"You're not helping me, you're trying to help yourself," Tali snarled. "All of you kig-yar, you Jackals, you're just trying to figure out where your stupid sword is!"

"Listen to yourself, Tali! You're running around, fighting crewmembers, pointing guns in the faces of your allies, this is insane!" Taq shouted back. "You can't possibly think this is the best course of action! You're smarter than this!"

"I am smarter! But I have no choice!" Tali stated. "This is the only way! Now where is the damn relic?!"

"If you're so smart, you figure it out," Taq suggested. "Use your brain, and I mean your brain, not whatever else is in there with you. Maybe then you'll realize you're acting out of your mind!"

Tali did seem to start thinking more, her mind wheels turning. The answer she came to though was not the one Taq wanted.

"The Fallen Serpent," she reasoned. "Your room on Zek's ship. It's the one place secure enough for it, after that nonsense with the Syndicate agents, Retz beefed up security. He consulted me on some of it too. That's why you hid it there!"

Taq knew she had given it away the second her eyes started to dart in desperation, trying to look for something to grab. But Tali pressed harder.

"Get me aboard!" She ordered. "Transmit your access codes, get me on board!"

"I won't," Taq said resolutely. "You're sick, Tali. That relic will not help you. You need to trust in your friends."

"You're not my friends!" Tali screeched. "You're all scheming against me, conspiring! Telling me garbage lies to convince myself I'm insane! I don't need convincing! I am going insane! I know what's causing it! And everyone here is simply helping it along!"

"Well you can't convince me to help you destroy yourself more, Tali," Taq responded. "I'm not going to let a young promising fellow scholar of the Forerunners do that to themselves. The Serpent is far too locked down for you to sneak on board like the rest of the carrier or the Chorka apparently. As for the threats, I don't believe for a second you're going to kill me to get access either! So you might as well just give up now and let us damn well help you another way!"

Tali fumed in anger and then smashed her pistol upside Taq's head, knocking her out. She refrained from doing worse though. Tali's hands shook in a fright, her mind growing more confused and addled. She was running out of time, every second her aggressive impulses grew stronger, her control weaker. The voice was growing stronger, she had to silence it.

"I'm losing myself," she said frantically. "I... I don't want to hurt them. This isn't me. It's... it's the voice, that thing."

As her panic grew, however, she suddenly felt a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It's okay, little one, none of this is your fault," her mother's voice whispered in your ear. "A little pain now will save them an endless torture to come. You are still you, for the moment. The more you doubt, the more you let the monster inside win. You cannot let that happen. You are stronger than this, Tali. Stronger than all of them. And you know what must be done."

The hand left and Tali's shaking stopped, her resolve restored. She couldn't doubt the mission, she had to keep going. She needed the relic and there was only one way to get to it aboard the Serpent to get it.

---

Miranda had woken up tied in her bed with adhesive tape, trapping her limbs and her mouth. Along with the loud music of BBR still playing, no one could even hear her muffled screams. She couldn't tell what time it was, but she suspected it had been a while. All she knew was she couldn't call for help and she couldn't really move all that effectively.

The good thing was she could remain calm, whereas other people would not. That was the thing about tying up people, the idea was they'd keep panicking and be unable actually think things through. Even with her head throbbing from Tali's punch, she always thought it through. Although she had to admit, Tali punched way harder than she had imagined she was was capable of. Perhaps she had underestimated her a bit.

Rolling off her bed though, Miranda knew she could get out of this, even with all of Tali's forward thinking. The quarian had to have known this was a temporary fix, not killing would mean her escape would be discovered. That meant two things, Tali wasn't completely gone for one. True, she said she wanted her to suffer for her treason, but she could've taken the law into her own hands. Tali's morality was still intact and therefore so was some of her personality. However, it also meant that Tali probably didn't think they'd be able to stop her after a certain point. Miranda just hoped that it wasn't too late to do so.

Using her legs to inch herself backwards, Miranda moved towards her desk. She pressed her back against the wall and used it to prop herself up. As she slid up the wall, she was finally able to stand, but only barely. She hopped over to the desk, using her tied hands in front of her to hold herself there. Moving her arm to prop herself against the desk, she opened one of the drawers. Being so meticulously organized had its perks, she knew exactly where to find one of her pens. Reaching inside, she grasped it in her fingers and then moved to use the sharp to start cutting into the tape.

It wasn't easy, cutting tape binding your wrists with a pen awkwardly held within your fingers wasn't ideal. Eventually though, something started to rip. And one little rip was enough. Forcing her hands to part from each other, Miranda tore through the tape, releasing her bindings at last. She raced to rip off the tape from her mouth, stripping it off like a bandaid. It hurt like hell, but it didn't matter. At least she could talk again.

"Help!" She started shouting. "Someone! Get in here! Help!"

She began tearing off the tape on her legs, which took a little less longer than ripping the stuff off her wrists had. As she managed to get the last of it off, she stood and rushed to the door, the sounds of her crewmates clearly audible outside. The door was still locked shut, thanks in part to Tali's actions. She could correct that now though. Using her own omni-tool, Tali hadn't bothered to take that with her at least. She began a quick bypass to override the lock. It took less than ten seconds.

The doors flung open, revealing Jacob and Garrus standing nearby. As Miranda stumbled out, her head still uneasy from Tali's blow, Jacob moved to keep her from falling to the floor. She brushed him off, standing up under her own power.

"Miranda, what happened?" He asked. "We thought you were just pulling a late night or-"

"It was Tali," she quickly informed him. "Tali was here, she knocked me out, tied me up and made off with all relevant data about the relic on my computer."

"What?" Garrus questioned in disbelief. "How did she get inside? Why is she-"

"Just get Shepard," she ordered. "He needs to know. We have to find her before she does something even worse."

---

"That thing in the cellar is not my mother!"

And that seemed to be the cue for the guy behind the lady to jump up, wearing a monster face now and start screaming at everyone while floating in the air. Because of course, why not at this point?

"We are the things that were and shall be again! Wahahahaha!" The possessed human claimed. "Spirits of the book! We want what is yours! LIFE! Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn!"

Zek continued munching down claw-fulls of the salty human popcorn as the vid continued. Slightly amused and a bit disturbed by everything happening on the screen. Although he suspected that was the point.

"I think the take away from all these vids is that the humans have some delightfully twisted minds among them," he told Retz nonchalantly as the human female in the film almost choked to death on an eyeball. "It's kinda awesome."

"They certainly aren't bereft of clever ideas on how to kill people." Retz concurred.

For once, Zek and Retz were having their vid night outside, in a manner of speaking. They had finally convinced Holland that would be a great morale booster if off duty Marines, kig-yar, batarians and whoever else wanted some time off, had a place to watch any vid they wanted. A neutral ground, specifically on the carrier itself. So, with some help from the unggoy and huragok, the latter of which required a lot of supervision from the Marines and Army folks, they set up a nice little theater of sorts in the spacious hangar bay. There was more than enough space there and plenty of it not being used. That way they could get a bigger holoscreen.

For most of the night they had either been watching vids or taking an intermission to listen to BBR and Boz's latest Earth band showcase, Iron Maiden. He had gotten way into them, probably because out of all the old musicians from the humans' home planet, they seemed to be big on telling stories through their songs. Given their ancestors' ancient traditions of doing the same, Zek couldn't help but admire it a little himself.

As for the crowd itself watching the proceedings with them, Zek was happy to see a few humans with them. They had wanted to see the vids themselves, but were far too squeamish about walking onto a kig-yar ship for whatever reason. At least here they were semi-comfortable. Even if most of the crowd was still kig-yar or unggoy. There was also probably one batarian, but Zek imagined he was only here to see humans get killed on screen.

Still, it felt like a success, like they had brought people together. Maybe now Haverson would realize that they were team players. And thus layoff the annoying jerk routine a bit, so he wouldn't get nosey and find something aboard the Serpent that would ruffle his non-existent feathers more. Like the sugar lab he was prepping for one.

"So the guy who lost his hand and has his hair slicked back and stuff, he's the hero right?" Zek asked. "I mean, he's the only one left that seems to fit the bill right now."

"I guess, why you ask?" Retz questioned in response.

"Just saying, little weird to have the guy who was recently going insane in a cabin not long ago as the hero," Zek explained. "You'd think he'd be more confident, cool, collected. Badass."

"Perhaps it's a human thing, the unlikely protagonist," Retz suggested. "Destined for greater things than he or the audience can think he's capable of."

"Heh, well he better get his shit together quick," Zek stated. "Otherwise these... creepy demon things are going to kill everyone."

As Zek took another swig of his ichor, his loins started feeling... full. He probably should've guessed this would happen, he had been drinking a lot of the stuff. Most of it from their new infant Chorka friends. Not enough alcohol in their secretions to get you drunk and keep you drunk for long yet, they needed a bit more growing up. But someone had to give them a "taste" run, so to speak. Problem was just getting a buzz took longer and so he had drunk and now...

"Gotta bleed the little fledgling downstairs," he told Retz as he stood up.

"Why must you always call it that?" His friend asked exasperated.

"Because it annoys you," Zek laughed. "Don't worry about keeping me appraised, I'll run the live feed through my tool."

"Good, I'm not your recapper," Retz responded.

Zek just laughed, this was all good natured by the way. He needed to whizz, and fast. He wouldn't have to go far. There was a banshee nearby he could sneak behind. No way was he going to go all the way to the restroom, this hangar was huge. He'd never get back there in time. For all he knew, Retz would've eaten the rest of his popcorn by then.

Once behind the banshee, Zek began to do his business, watching the vid play out on his omni-tool as he did. He tried to follow the action, was a tree attacking the female now? And forcing its branches through her skin?

"Oh Ocean, humans are fucked in the head," he grimaced.

It was at that moment, her felt an arm grasp around the back of his neck and gun press into his temple.

"Shipmaster," a familiar electronically synthed voice said. "Enjoying vid night?"

"Tali?" Zek asked, struggling against her hold. "The fuck are you-?"

"Shut up," Tali whispered harshly. "You scream and this gets harder for you. Way harder."

Zek had heard the quarian was under the weather or something from Kasumi. She wasn't herself, something about stress getting to her? She needed to be sequestered? He couldn't recall exactly, but this seemed a bit more dire. She was frantic, her eyes constantly darting about like a scared animal. Oh and of course the fact he was now a hostage, that was a bit extreme.

"Your ship command codes," Tali began to demand frantically. "I need full access, now."

"Why?" Zek said, practically choking.

"Not your concern," Tali sneered. "Not that you Jackals are ever concerned with anything but yourselves. You're only alive because Shepard trusted you and all you do is lie to him constantly. Lie to us. Well, now you're going to help us, whether you like it or not."

This did not sound like Tali. He didn't know her too well, but Kasumi always described her as a level-headed, kind hearted sort. Loyal to a fault, always thinking of others, hardly a mean-spirited bone in her body. This was not that Tali. This was a desperate, angry, embittered, crazed Tali. One that wanted access to his boat. That wasn't happening.

"I don't know what the fuck is going on with you, ma'am," Zek stated. "But seriously, I highly doubt Shepard would approve of this kind of coercion."

"Just shut up and give me access," Tali demanded.

"No," Zek said steadfast. "And killing me ain't going to get you them either. They won't unlock for anyone without my say so. You should know, Retz-"

"Consulted with me on improving security for your ship," Tali acknowledged for him. "No matter, there are other ways."

She holstered her gun, but now forced Zek's arm back towards her, bringing it near her hand attached to the arm still wrapped around Zek's throat.

"You should've made it easy," she snarled, even as Zek kept choking.

The position was suffocating him, slowly. He could feel his tongue bulging out of his beak. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Tali hacking his omni-tool, her eyes transfixed on it.

"I may not know the access codes for the Serpent, but I know hacking," Tali claimed, typing furiously. "And while you're clever, Zek, you're not nearly as tech smart as Retz."

He could see her typing in a password into his encrypted files, writing the words "TaqIsHotness" into box. In seconds, the omni-tool was completely unlocked and Tali was transferring the codes to her own tool.

"Amateur," the quarian laughed. "Only took me ten tries. Never make your password a phrase, idiot. You've been watching too many crappy vids."

Zek had no other option, he had to act. He didn't know what was going on, but he was not going to let it stand. He reeled his head forward and then slammed it back, smashing his skull into her face plate. He didn't crack the visor, but he did force her to let go of him. As soon as he was out of her grasp he ran back to theater section and began screaming.

"Guys! Guys! Problem! All hands on deck!"

Retz turned instantly and could see Zek running towards him, Tali behind him, keeping her omni-tool outstretched and her hand on the gun in her holster. Others turned around, tearing their eyes from the holoscreen, even though it was getting crazy interesting with the male hero was running around possessed by an ancient demon.

Several Jackals were soon pointing their weapons at Tali, as Zek rushed behind Retz, holding his throat. Retz didn't budge or raise a weapon, but he did remain resolute.

"Ms. Zorah, is there a problem?" He tried to ask calmly.

"Problems, plural," Tali claimed, keeping her weapon at the ready and pointed at them all. "You're all problems. All of you. From the conniving jackals to the bosh'tet batarians to the xenophobic UNSC. You all have your stupid petty problems. None of you understand, no one but me! I understand it all and it's driving me insane! It's killing me from the inside while you all laugh and joke and watch stupid vids from a culture that's not even yours!"

"She's not herself, Retz," Zek tried to explain. "Something is wrong with her."

"Well that much is obvious," Retz grumbled down to his friend before looking back at the quarian. "Tali, if you're suffering that much... maybe we can help you. But you're going to need to lower that gun and come with us."

Tali looked to her omni-tool briefly, just as it started beeping and flashing green.

"I don't need you, I got what I need," she declared. "I'm going to save you all from your own stupidity. You don't deserve it, but I'm still going to save you. Because I'm not a selfish hedonistic idiot like all of you. I'm quarian, I put the crew first, even if I have to fight them all to do it."

Tali turned and shot one of the plasma coils on the banshee behind her and started running. The crowd itself ran too, just before the small explosion burst forth from the light aircraft. Not enough to destroy the banshee or injure anyone, but enough to create a big ball of fire that no one dared get close to.

"She's got the codes to the ship!" Zek explained, blocking his eyes from the flames. "We gotta stop her!"

"I got her boss!" One of his kig-yar claimed as he hefted a Carbine up to his eye. "One right through the shoulder blades."

Zek's eyes widened and he rushed over to his crewmate. He pushed the rifle up and away from its target, just as the kig-yar tried to fire.

"Hey what the-?"

"Idiot! Don't shoot her!" Zek shouted. "She's a member of Shepard's crew!"

"She attacked you!" The kig-yar whined.

"You wanna explain to Commander Shepard why you killed his chief engineer then by shooting her in the back?" Zek screeched at him. "Seriously? The fuck you thinking?"

The kig-yar backed off, thankfully before Zek needed to explain himself further. He and Retz were the only two pirates who knew of Shepard and Tali's relationship. He would never get anywhere with Shepard if one of his crew killed Tali. Besides, this didn't seem like the poor girl's fault. Something was really wrong with her.

"We need to find out what is going on, Retz, fast," Zek told his friend. "Call up Shepard, tell him what happened and get some people back down to the Serpent. Get Boz to issue a bulletin, non-lethal force only."

"Of course," Retz agreed. "I'll take a party myself to the ship. See to this personally."

Retz took off, his usual hyper focused mode clearly engaged. Zek just looked on as the mess sorted itself out and various vid watchers shuffled about trying to make sense of everything. So much for the inaugural Hangar Bay Theater screening. It would seem they were going to star in their very own vid now instead. As the male hero on the screen strapped on a chainsaw to his stump of a hand, he looked to the camera and declared "Groovy." Something told Zek, this would not be nearly as fun as the fictional human seemed to think it would be.

---

Miranda recounted everything while Chakwas fixed her up, doing her best to follow the good Doctor's instructions while she explained everything to Commander Shepard. He did not take what had to be said well. His stare was a mixture of cold anger and dizzying worry. He didn't even say anything as Miranda explained everything that had happened, he remained dead silent. At some point, Miranda felt like she wanted him to blame her for this. To call her out for putting Tali in a cell and driving her to this. Part of him must've wanted to say that, but he never did.

"None of this makes sense," he finally stated. "This... this shouldn't have happened."

"Tali knows this ship better than most," Miranda expressed. "We... I should've taken that into account honestly."

"No, I mean this shouldn't have happened because it's Tali," Shepard clarified, his voice sick with worry. "She isn't like this. In all the time I've known she has never been this brazen, this violent."

"I'm afraid that's the point, Shepard," Miranda stated as Chakwas finished up the bandages. "She isn't herself. She thinks the world is out to stop her from saving it. She thinks she can't rely on us. For whatever problems she might have, Tali knows she can trust her crew. This is what happens when she doesn't. She's... not in the right frame of mind though. It's not her fault."

It was a small attempt at comforting him, what little good it did. Shepard stopped pacing at least, that was something.

"Yeah," he relented sadly. "Yeah I know. But she is my responsibility. I should've been there when she woke up in the cell. Maybe I could've gotten through to her then."

"Something tells me you couldn't," Miranda insisted. "She thinks I'm a traitor and I've manipulated you. Her mind is finding ways to make people against her into enemies. Well, not her mind per se, the relic."

"So you agree it's causing this?" Shepard asked.

"I'm not ready to lay all the blame on it," Miranda elaborated succinctly. "But something tells me her getting closer to that thing would only make this worse."

"Whatever the case we need to get her back here," Chakwas declared. "In her mental state who knows what kind of damage she could do to herself or others. She is clearly in pain, we need to find a way to help her."

"Can we help her?" Shepard asked, almost pleading. "She's... she's not too far gone?"

"She still clearly cares about you," Miranda assured him. "That much is certain. Her mind is holding onto that much."

Shepard's hope returned somewhat, a spark of a chance lighting up his disposition. Tali was still in there, in some small way. They could bring her out of this delirium, somehow. Miranda wondered if it was wrong to give him that. For all they knew, Tali was too far gone. But Shepard needed something to hang onto, he was too personally wrapped up in this. He had to keep a clear head about this. The best way to do that right now was give him some angle to work with.

Luckily, Miranda didn't have to keep up being the voice of optimism alone. Before long, Garrus and Jacob had entered the med-bay, looking as solemn as when they had left earlier. Which could only mean they had no good news to report.

"How are you doing, Miranda?" Jacob asked concerned.

"Better, not dead anyway," Miranda assured him. "Right now, we have more pressing concerns."

"Do we have any leads on Tali yet?" Shepard asked hopefully, finishing Miranda's thought.

"Besides her assault on Zek at the hangar theater, no," Garrus answered sadly. "Search parties of Marines and Jackals swept the area, but she's nowhere near there anymore."

"Of course not, she's using the maintenance ducts," Miranda informed them. "It's the only way she can avoid detection and move around the ship at will."

As far as they could figure, that was how she escaped her cell in the first place. And the massive size of this ship meant there were a lot of ducts she could hide in. They could go in after her of course, but there was a concern of what Tali would have waiting for them. She knew she was being hunted, she could've set traps. While no one really suspected they would be lethal, no one could be certain they wouldn't be and even if they weren't it would still impede their progress.

Assuming there weren't any traps, they'd still have a virtual labyrinth to navigate. Tali could hide in there for days, perhaps weeks, but they knew that she had a plan that wouldn't need require that long to carry out. What they needed to do, was try to out think the quarian, figure out where she was going.

"Did we get anything more from, Zek?" Shepard asked.

"Just what his all points bulletin warned the Fleet about over BBR," Jacob explained. "She has access to the Serpent's security net now. Retz tried to log in and lock her out, but she's already blocked that function entirely. Anyone with clearance is hardlocked into the system's database."

"So she's still headed for the ship," Shepard reasoned. "Didn't take her long to circumvent the security, she works fast."

"She always has," Garrus agreed. "But at least we know where she's headed. Kasumi is already out there with the search parties trying to lock things down. The rest of the crew is about to head out to join her. We figure if she gets aboard the Serpent or at least tries to, we can cut her off and trap her inside. It should give us a chance to talk to her."

"And then what?" Shepard asked. "How do we break this hold over her mind?"

"Taq is already awake again and double timing her efforts," Jacob assured calmly. "Better security this time too. She's not happy about that it seems, but she's dealing with the extra eyes regardless. She wants to help Tali as much as any of us."

That was good to hear, when everyone worked as a team in tandem, Shepard was always more at ease. His tone and tambour for one somewhat relaxed as he realized this himself.

"I just hate thinking about what's happened," he explained, looking most directly at Garrus. "Tali is one of the most brilliant women I've ever met. It's hard believing that this could happen to her."

"I feel the same, but that doesn't change facts," Garrus told him earnestly. "Something has gotten into her head. And while I'm not sure if the relic is responsible or if any of it is real, it's real to her. Tali is smart, brave, she's all of that and more. We just never thought about how that could make her dangerous because she was on our side before. Though technically, she still is. From the sound of everything, she thinks she's saving us."

"But she doesn't trust us to let her do it, I know," Shepard relented. "If we can just show her that this is all some trick, an illusion. Something... implanted in her head..."

"We don't know what it is, honestly," Miranda informed him. "Until Taq finds something in the relic's data we can use, we got nothing to show her. Nothing to prove to her that she's wrong. Or at least misinterpreting what's she's seeing."

"Well I'd rather Tali be safe at the very least, with or without evidence," Shepard declared. "Garrus, I'm joining one of the Search Parties. If you can contact Kasumi, ask her where I can meet up with her, maybe if we put our heads together we can figure something out."

Before Garrus could even do that though, Joker's voice came over the intercom.

"Shepard, you might want to tune into BBR, right now."

"Joker, I don't time for a bunch of Iron Maiden songs right-"

"It's Tali," Joker stated suddenly. "She's on the air... talking to Boz."

Instantly Shepard's tone changed. He opened his omni-tool and tuned into Buccaneer Buzzard Radio. In and instant, he heard Tali's voice. Although it was almost unrecognizable in tone. Gone was the usual kind, cheery and bubbly personality. In its place, was desperation, fear and anger.

"You don't fear anything, not like you should," she raged. "It's all some fun little game for you. The galaxy your pleasure palace to plunder. Your stage to perform."

"Well it's a, uh... a pretty neat stage," Boz claimed in response.

"More jokes, always jokes," Tali snarled. "This is why you don't understand! Or refuse to! You don't see an endlessly dark, unfeeling, empty chasm of death. A place inhabited by horror you can't imagine. That is why you are insignificant in the face of it! All of it!"

"Ms. Zorah, I really would love to discuss esoteric philosophy and the like, but I really feel it's important that you just give yourself up to-"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Tali shouted back. "Like everyone wants the quarians to give up and die. We're just filthy burdens to you."

"I don't think you're a burden," Boz tried to reassure her, actually sounding sincere. "I think you need help and I think there are plenty of people out there who want to help."

"Help? Please! There's no help, not against this," Tali claimed. "It's out there, they're all out there still. Just waiting in the dark, waiting for their moment. We're just... living on borrowed time. All of us, borrowed time. They're coming for us. All of us! Our only hope is to move now, while we have the chance, while they're still waiting. While they still think we're passive. Don't you understand? I'm trying to save you. All of you! This needs to happen. Sacrifices must be made. I'm sorry you can't understand. I barely do myself. The horrible truth is they are as cold and as unfeeling as space and they will consume us, all of us... unless we burn them. All of them. Every last speck left. I'll purge them before they get to us. I'll save you, even if I have to drag you to salvation, I'll save you! Whatever it takes!"

The call abruptly ended and Boz tried to continue with the program. It was safe to say though that Serpent was on high alert now, if it wasn't before.

"Why would she do that?" Jacob asked. "She's already lost the element of surprise, why let them know she's coming right now?"

"Psychological warfare," Shepard presumed. "The kig-yar might be smart, but given how quick they bought into the quest for that sword, they're superstitious too. She's trying to scare them, hinder their defenses mentally."

"Yeah, but we know she's headed to the Serpent now," Garrus assured him. "We lock her in, we can stop this before it goes any further."

Shepard nodded in agreement and moved to follow Garrus.

"Miranda, you have the Deck," he ordered. "If we get any updates from Taq you inform me post haste."

"Good luck, Commander," Miranda shouted over as he left. "Bring her back to us."

She meant it too. She hoped he'd find her, before this got worse, before whatever was left of Tali was consumed by this madness taking her over. From the sound of that call, Miranda just hoped it wasn't already too late.

---

Retz had expected some kind of perimeter alarm to be tripped by now. Some unauthorized access from an airlock somewhere. Everything had kept silent though, not a peep. He didn't get it, why would Tali make her threat and not instantly pick up on it? She was wasting more and more time. Something didn't feel right. He kept to his plan though.

When they had found Taq and woke her back up, she had reported what Tali was after. The relic was aboard the Serpent, in Taq's room. So, just head there, block it off, find the relic if possible and get off with it before Tali found it. To that end, Retz had gathered up a small squad and began to lead them to Taq's cabin. One of their newest recruits, Krez, their armory chief, Zhad, Sharpshooter Keth and chief engineering officer Kaz. He was the most important out of all of them. Tali's engineering skills would be hard to match, they needed someone with technical know how. Everyone else was there for support and armed with something special to remove Tali as a threat.

"So the Batarians use these babies on runaway slaves?" Keth asked, looking down the iron sight of the medium barrel-sized rifle in his arms.

"Small electrical shock," Zhad informed him. "Minor irritation for a second, total motor collapse in less that amount of time. Target is unharmed, but down and out."

"I'm not used to non-lethals," Keth sighed. "It's not as cool. Less head explosion."

"No killing," Retz reiterated. "Zek's orders. Tali'Zorah is not to be harmed."

"All well and good, but is she going to be as nice with us?" Keth asked. "She held the Shipmaster at gunpoint."

"It's the relic, something about it has messed with her head," Retz reminded him. "We find it, we stop this. Simple as that. Now stop complaining and follow. Taq's room isn't far."

Retz picked up the pace as they marched through the ship's corridors, carefully eyeing the shadows.

"So where would Taq keep the relic anyway?" Krez asked. "She got a secret compartment in there? A false panel? Paper book with a cutout space inside?"

"You've been watching too many vids," Retz sighed. "That's way too old school and obvious. No, Taq will have it stashed somewhere more subtle than that. I won't say more, just in case."

"In case what?" Zhad asked. "She ain't even aboard yet."

Retz really wished he hadn't said that, because right on cue and alarm sounded. Intruders, Tali had seemingly made her move.

"Access alarm tripped! Forward bay! Move you birds! Move!"

The warning PA from the bridge would call everyone towards the front of the ship. It would seem Tali had been a bit careless. Even with access, she had tripped the intruder alarm somehow. That seemed to be the popular opinion.

"Ha! We got her! Let's move!" Keth demanded.

Retz however grabbed him, he did not buy this for a second.

"She's not there," he told him sternly. "Taq's room! Now!"

He ran off ahead, the others following him. As they closed on an intersection, however, one of the doors in front of them shut tight. Retz nearly ran into it, Zhad did, with a huge thump. As Krez helped him up, Kaz was on the locking system.

"I don't get it," he said in a panic. "This door's lockdown function was activated independently. It thinks there's a radioactive quarantine in effect. That our engine core has ruptured or something."

"That's crazy," Keth snarled at first, but his fear soon shone through. "It... it is crazy right? We're not leaking radioactive crap all of a sudden?"

"No, Keth, it's Zorah," Retz informed him as to state the obvious. "She's already on the ship and in the security system somehow. She's closing off access to Taq's room."

"We gotta take an alternate," Kaz insisted. "She can't lockdown every door, she'd have nowhere to run herself!"

Retz agreed and knew where to go next. Heading down a series of winding corridors. He looked for a passage through, a hallway to their destination. But everywhere his head turned, a door shut tight before him. Sometimes within seconds of him glancing at it. Eventually he stopped running for a moment, holding up his fist to halt the team. That was when a door shut behind them, nearly taking off Krez's tail.

"The fuck is this?" Zhad demanded to know. "She got like fucking eyes everywhere now?"

"C-ca-can she see us?" Krez asked nervously. "Is she looking through the cameras? How is she doing this?"

"She got into the security net's main functions and used it to give herself access to control," Retz stated plainly. "She helped us set it up after all."

"Fuck! Bitch has turned our ship against us!" Keth snarled.

There was a piercing shriek from the intercom system, slicing at their ears as the feedback cut deep. As it cleared, a voice could be heard clearly through it all.

"I have every door, camera and security measure ready and waiting. Do not test me further."

"Tali," Retz noted. "I see she also has control over the PA."

"Selective, I can pick which intercoms my voice transmits to. And I can hear through the camera microphones," the quarian growled. "Do not insult me. I have full control over everything in here now. I will use it if I have to."

"Ms. Zorah, please, you've made your point," Retz tried to tell her. "Quarians are super smart and intelligent and wonderful tech wizards. You have nothing to prove to anyone. Now, if you just stand down-"

"Shut up, Retz," Tali sneered. "I know what kind of snake you are. Kasumi learned that lesson and passed it on. Your silver tongue has no effect on me. How does that make you feel? Scared? That your best weapon, your lies, are useless here?"

"Well, it's a bit hurtful," Retz nonchalantly admitted. "But for once I'm honestly telling you the full truth here, so..."

"The only truth is that this galaxy didn't belong to any of you," Tali declared. "The ones who ruled it are gone, their legacy left behind is something absolutely horrifying. Their retribution is coming. They're going to take back what was theirs from beyond the reach of death. This is the only way to stop them! You're standing in the way of your own salvation. You'll see I'm right, you'll realize that I had no choice. You'll even thank me, all of you will."

The comm cut off, leaving a very worried group of pirates.

"If this is her way of helping I'd hate to find out what she does to people she's trying to destroy," Keth stated.

"We are not getting beat by some lousy tech head on our own tub," Zhad declared, before looking over to Kaz and adding; "Uh, no offense."

"None taken, let us just try and focus on getting to the relic first," Kaz replied, pulling up his omni-tool. "We need to stay away from doors, maybe I can try and shut her out through maintenance. I can set some of the doors to low emergency power mode. They won't shut, at least not before a reboot. It should give us some time to get through, not much, but enough."

"Do it, we have got to get that relic first," Retz ordered.

They made their move, Kaz at the front his omni-tool and at the ready. They'd have to take a longer way around to get to Taq's room, but at least they'd get there. Kaz kept switching the low power function to every door they might encounter, hoping it would be enough to keep Tali's lockdown plan from working. For the first door at least it did work, they were able to get through as it slowly lurched shut.

Then the music started blaring over the intercom, now tuned to BBR, which was right in the middle of another Iron Maiden song.

There will be a catastrophe the like we've never seen

There will be something that will light the sky

That the world as we know it, it will never be the same

Did you know, did you know?

"Boz keeps rolling out the hits, doesn't he?" Keth grumbled. "Seriously, this is not helping after that creepy street preacher shit."

"What I wouldn't give for one of Juk's stupid insane theories right now to calm me down," Krez spoke up.

"Don't say that, please," Zhad requested. "That is the last thing we need right now."

The song kept playing, but Retz did his best ignore it. Although he did like Maiden's amazing story telling abilities, he had a job to do. He was not about to fail Zek or Taq, he'd stop Tali from making herself worse and prevent this insanity from taking them all down with the quarian. All the while the damn song kept playing eerily.

They tell us nothing that we don't already know about

They tell us nothing that is real at all

They only fill us with the stuff that they want

Did you know, did you know?

"Okay, just up here," Kaz said, ignoring the lyrics. "We should have a clean shot to the-"

There was a strange, random, sizzling sound to the left. Kaz jumped back, spreading out his arms to force the others to step backwards too. A burst of energy exploded from a wall conduit suddenly, sparks of lightning and energy burst around the width of the corridor in front of them, zapping anything that got too close.

"Holy shit, what was that?" Krez asked frantically.

"She picked up on my idea," Kaz reasoned, just as shocked. "She siphoned the power I pulled away from the doors and shuffled it into a wall conduit to overload it. Damn, she's good."

"Which is why she is dangerous," Retz reminded him. "Shut it down, we need to get through."

Kaz got to work, trying to shut the conduit down remotely. Retz could see him typing away furiously at the commands, but an error message kept popping up suddenly. Kaz maintained his cool, but his frustration was clear regardless.

"I don't know what she did, but I can't get the commands to execute," he grumbled. "I'll try going through them individually. Should take me a minute."

But as Kaz got started, they all heard a sound from behind them. Some kind of whirring electronic sound, peering from behind a corner was a strange purple ball of light, rolling around the ground. It was a combat drone, and Retz knew who it belonged to.

"Damn, it's Tali's Drone," he warned the others. "Cheeky vos paws something or other, do not let it get near us!"

A blast of electro shock energy nearly zapped Zhad, who quickly ducked into cover. The others followed suit, finding whatever they could partially hide behind nearby, mostly alcoves within the hallway.

"The fuck, what about that shit she went on about saving us!?" Zhad complained.

"The shocks are low power, designed to knock us out," Retz explained, checking his omni-tool. "She wants to stall us, not kill us."

"Whatever," Keth spat. "At least no one cares if I kill this fucking thing!"

The sharpshooter fired three clean blasts at the drone. Each found their mark, and electrical shock bolt easily ripped apart the drone's defenses. As it dissipated, there was a sigh of relief. One that did not last long, as the whirring sound soon returned.

Another Drone, faster than before, charging at them as it sparked energy everywhere. They unloaded shocks into it, but it seemed more resistant to the blasts this time. Some kind of armored coating, built into the roving energy ball, protected its stability.

"Shut the damn conduit off!" Zhad demanded as he kept shooting.

"I'm almost... there!"

Kaz's words predicated the energy arcs vanishing and Retz ordering everyone through. They rushed ahead, even as the drone kept after them. Retz kept shooting into it as they raced ahead, the drone eventually pulling back.

"Where did the second one come from?" Krez asked. "How'd it show up so fast?"

"I'm not sure," Retz admitted. "I was under the impression Tali's omni-tool could only control one Combat Drone at a time and required a cooldown effect before it could be recompiled. Something must have changed."

"Yeah, she went nuts," Keth stated bluntly. "Now she's turned our fucking ship into a haunted house!"

"I thought we were done with ghost ships!" Kaz cried.

"It's not a ghost, it's just Tali!" Retz reminded them all. "Get a grip on yourselves! You're kig-yar! Space pirates! You fear nothing but a lack of ichor and riches!"

"I can also fear a creepy drone that wants to zap my ass," Zhad informed him. "Where the shit is Taq's room already?"

"We're close!" Retz insisted. "Alright? We're close. Now would you all stop panicking?"

He wished he had better timing on that phrase, considering the lights switched almost within seconds of him saying that. Not exactly the most encouraging words to say mere seconds after you ask everyone to stop panicking. Thankfully, no one screamed, although Keth did snarl in annoyance.

"Come on! Give us a fucking break, lady!"

"Relax," Kaz told the sharpshooter. "Even she can't kill emergency power, it should come on right about...now."

True to Kaz's word, the red emergency lights activated for their section. While everything was bathed in a crimson menacing glow, at least they could see. Retz knew though that enough time had passed for Tali to pull whatever her intent had been within the darkness. Worse though, was that the quarian was not done intimidating them either. Her voice appeared once more over the intercom.

"This is not going the way you want it to. Back off. Now! You will regret it."

The tone was cold and vicious, even Keth seemed a bit concerned by the threat. Retz, however, was not phased by the demand, and neither was Zhad for that matter.

"Ocean's sake, she's not a fucking God, guys!" He declared.

"As long as I'm in your systems I might as well be," Tali's voice snapped back at them.

"Oh yeah, that sounds perfectly sane and level-headed," Keth grumbled. "You really do need help."

"Help is relative," Tali claimed. "You're the ones in my way after all."

It was then Krez jumped, pointing his weapon down a corridor. Retz turned to it himself, and saw what the recruit had seen. A shadow, darting in the crimson light up ahead.

"I see her! That way!"

Krez ran off before Retz could caution him, but he ran close behind him anyway. The others followed suit, rushing through the darkened corridors and low-level red light. Retz could see the shadow of Tali racing just ahead of them, keeping out of reach. He couldn't help but feel something was off, something was wrong. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Tali seemed to weave in and out focus every few feet. It was a jarring, weird.

He kept going after her though, even when it looked like Tali was firing back at him. Shooting off a blast from her shotgun backwards before continuing to run. Eventually, the quarian rounded a corner, seemingly stopping her run. Krez was still moving though rushed to catch up. The second he spotted Tali crouching just feet in front of him, he fired his shock rifle and hit her dead center. But instead of dropping to the floor in pain from the debilitating electrical burst, Tali just dissipated. She vanished, like a ghost.

The reality was far worse though.

"Hologram," Retz growled. "Damn it, we've been had."

"She must've grabbed one of them packs from the humans' armory or something," Zhad suggested. "Then rigged it up to run at long range. The darkness was to make it harder to see through the damn ruse."

"Why though?" Krez asked. "Just to lead us on a little chase?"

Retz's eyes widened with the realization.

"No, to lead us away from her!" He told them all.

Without another word he retraced their steps, rushing towards Taq's room. They had been led far enough away from it that it took a bit to get back to it. When they finally got to the door, Retz could tell it had been forced open and then forcibly shut. Retz forced an arm through the crack in the door and wedged himself inside. All the while, he could hear the Iron Maiden song still playing.

Can't believe all the lying,

All the screens are denying

That the moments of truth have begun

Inside Taq's room was a mess of overturned furniture, books pulled from shelves, computers broken into and floors and walls torn up. Tali had been here, and she was clearly long gone too. All that was left was a hacked hologram decoy rig. Tali probably set it up so she could remotely control the decoy's actions from her position while she searched. For someone out of her mind, she was still as mechanically focused as ever. When the others in the search team arrived, Krez trying to maintain some level of optimism.

"Maybe she didn't find it?" He suggested.

Retz scanned the room, spotting something out of place. A broken open case of ichor. Except, there was no ichor inside. There wasn't a single bottle. He remembered, Zek had sent a crate up to the room, told everyone it was off limits, that it was reserved for Taq and her alone. No one would dare defy that order for some extra ichor, not when they had plenty. But there were no bottles, probably because Taq had given them away or dumped them out. Because why would she keep a gift from Zek... unless she intended to use it for something else. And why would anyone dare peek into an ichor crate that the shipmaster stated was off limits and wasn't worth the risk when you had plenty of other options? A perfect, unsuspecting hiding place, unless you knew what you were looking for.

"She has it," Retz assured the team. "We were too late."

"Not by much though," Keth claimed.

Retz turned and saw the sharpshooter force a small chair a way from the wall, revealing a missing panel. She was in their maintenance shafts now.

"Damn it, she's going to try and work back to her entry point," Retz snarled. "Kaz, try and see if you can override her access! Shut the damn vents closed or something! Trap her in there! She cannot leave!"

Kaz set to work, but Retz knew it was a temporary solution. Tali was determined to "save" them all. She wasn't going to let something as simple as some closed off vents stop her. They had to be ready for her next move.

---

Tali settled into her nook within the shaft. She couldn't stay here for long, she needed to work on getting out of here. She couldn't finish her mission in here, the Fallen Serpent would not suit her needs. She needed to get back to the carrier and fast. First things first though, she had to get a better look at her prize.

Pulling it from the small bag she now had strapped over her shoulder, Tali got a better look at the relic. She couldn't get the weird uplink device attached to the base off of it, but she didn't need to. She turned the relic in her hands as she eyed the glowing object. It seemed to be even more active now then when she had first found it in the crate. She could feel the energy pooling in her fingertips, the sensation almost intoxicating.

She knew this thing was dangerous, but she needed it. She needed it to save everyone. Already her mind was filled with thoughts flowing freely into it. Tali had to fight to make sense of any of it, to keep the voice within from using this data flood to its advantage. She would not fall prey to it, she would beat it. She had to. All she needed was more information, enough to get them to the origin and kill the source, kill the evil. It was her only means of ending the Precursors and wiping their vile perverted legacy from this galaxy.

She could already see the information circulating in her mind, she just needed to focus in on it. To translate it. Luckily, she had a means to do that.

"DOT, I want you to translate whatever information this thing is beaming out," she ordered. "See if you can find coordinates, a point of origin, anything."

"As you wish, Tali'Zorah," DOT concurred.

Tali now tried to focus on her escape, knowing DOT would keep the investigation going for now. She knew Retz would not be letting her leave as easily as she came aboard. Her trick using DOT to boost Chatika's adaptational software and rapidly decrease the reconfiguration period. But she could not produce more. She needed another method. She also needed a faster way our of this stupid ship. She knew the vents wouldn't work, Retz no doubt had overridden her access encoding. She needed a fresh way off. Luckily, the idea came to her pretty quickly, her mind settling on a course of action. It would be risky, but it was her best chance at getting back to the carrier.

---

Taq adjusted the cold compress on her head and grunted.

"I suppose I should be happy it won't scar," she grumbled. "Thank evolution for thick plated skull caps."

"Need to lie down?" The Master Chief asked.

"I've worked with Zek before, he's a worse headache than anything anyone could give me," she assured him as she pulled up more feeds on her terminal. "Your concern is appreciated, but I have a mystery to crack."

After Taq had seen a medic, she insisted being moved to a secure place so she could get back to work. The Master Chief accompanied her, on Cortana's insistence. On the surface it was to deter Tali returning to beat more info out of the kig-yar. In reality, the AI wanted to compare notes with the tomb raiding Jackal and see if they could crack the relic's purpose together. Tali's sanity, and perhaps life, depended on it.

Cortana appeared on the holopad setup next to the terminal, her own series of screens and diagrams at the ready. She had a grim look on her, telling everyone she did not like what she had found.

"Everything I'm looking at suggests Tali is right," she explained. "Nothing in this relic matches Forerunner classification. Language software, data structure, runtime compilations, nothing. It's all completely foreign. Nothing I've cross referenced from Halo's own systems lines up in any characteristic way."

"Maybe it's just super old and outdated," Chief suggested.

"I have records of several older than dirt Forerunner installations on catalog for reference," Taq claimed. "None of it matches linguistically. This relic, it predates the accepted Forerunner Imperial timeframe. As in, it's from before they really gained any semblance of interstellar power. How they would have tech this advanced without achieving space travel is beyond me. Sure, there might be some other explanations to all this, but right now it's looking like this isn't Forerunner."

Chief could hardly believe it, the idea that the big alien Gods of the Covenant, the whole reason humanity was getting exterminated, the race that built Halo of all things, were themselves not nearly so powerful. Someone out there, before them, was bigger and badder. Of course, the Forerunners somehow replaced them, so perhaps that said something about humanity's ability to survive the Covenant.

While an interesting thought though, if not a hopeful one, it didn't exactly help Tali. Knowing this thing wasn't Forerunner certainly lent some credence to what the visions in her head claimed, but not much else.

"Can you still decipher what it does?" Chief asked.

"A little, we're cross referencing several translating programs just to get a general idea," Taq explained. "It's not easy."

"Far as we can tell the primary function is it works as some kind of amplification device," Cortana explained. "Somehow it is able to boost the various functions of any system, increasing its power exponentially. Like a pick me up or a steroid for machines. If you know how to work it and how to program it, you can have it enhance the various systems of any electronic device. Probably why the Forerunners on the Dauntless used it like they did."

"We already suspected that though," Chief recalled.

"Yes, but the relic does possess its own power source, which is itself amplified by the relic," Taq continued, looking equally as troubled as Cortana. "That's what the Forerunners were tapping into. However, according to Cortana's research, they were having trouble bypassing another system, one that prevented them from using the relic to its full potential."

"What second system?" Chief asked confused.

"I'm not sure," Cortana admitted. "We've yet to obtain access. All we know is that somehow the Dauntless crew managed to shut it off. Or at least force it into sleep mode. They disabled that function completely in an effort to unlock the amplification and power functions. That energy surge that hit Tali? It seems like that was the relic rebooting."

"When we shut the machines plugged into the thing down, that triggered a system restart," Taq explained. "When Tali touched it, the whole thing went into overdrive suddenly."

Chief could only guess why that happened.

"Because of the psychic scarring the spores left on her?" He asked.

"Maybe, who's to say it wouldn't have done that regardless of who touched it," Cortana shrugged, unsure of the answer herself. "What I can say is that when she was hit by the surge, the relic might have detected the psychic scarring and it might have started that transmission thing up."

Taq brought up said transmission, still beaming in from her uplink attached to the relic.

"Constant fluctuation, solid signal," she declared. "It is still squawking like a bitchy teenage bird who wants a new shiny thing from the store. I can only imagine it's talking right to Tali. What I can't figure out is what it is transmitting, how it is transmitting and what is even talking to her in the first place!"

As Taq explained things, Chief noticed the signal on the screen behind her growing more erratic and pulsating. He merely lifted a finger to point that out to the Jackal, who turned and looked horrified.

"Oh no," Taq said in a low tone, before rushing to pull up more screens alongside the transmission. She read off one of them specifically. "Direct Receiver Contact. All functions active. Internal storage to external in process? The fuck is this?"

"What's happening?" Chief asked concerned.

"Tali has the Relic," Taq explained frantically. "At least I think she does. She's... she's touching the damn thing and now whatever the shit is talking to her is increasing its transmission rate. It's feeding her things, information, something from somewhere. The second function is fully activated now!"

"The joke is on the relic," Cortana claimed, already going to work as she accessed the uplink. "It might be transmitting thoughts directly into Tali's head, but with Taq's uplink we can sneak a peek at the origin point. Just a little more and... there! We just snuck right in through the front door!"

She beamed the information to Taq's terminal. After a few solid seconds of reading in silence, the Jackal's eyes widened in revelation.

"Holy shit," she squawked. "That's what it meant by memory! Fucking hell, we gotta get this to Shepard, fast!"

"Why?" Chief pressed. "What did you find?"

Taq looked to the Spartan with a seriously grave expression, her eyes glaring at him in in a mixture of shock and defiance.

"We just figured out who the hell is talking to her!"

---

The Radio was screeching "Can I Play with Madness?" as Retz and his team searched the area. They smashed into every vent covering they could find, trying to locate the quarian before she did more damage to herself. No matter how hard they looked for her though, nothing seemed to show up on thermals or movement sensors, she was like a ghost. Not Retz was about to say that aloud. He wasn't going to give these birds more ammunition to shoot themselves with.

"She has to be around here somewhere," Zhad insisted. "There's no way she could get that far away from us."

"Zorah has been working in ships all her life," Retz informed him. "I find it fairly easy to believe she knows her way around some maintenance shafts."

The light kept flickering around them, along with some doors constantly opening and closing at will. At this point it was just annoying, not intentionally disruptive. Retz presumed that this meant Tali had her haunted house protocol running on random. It was meant to confuse them more than anything.

When a bolt of arcing energy nearly side-swiped him though, he realized that not all of Tali's tricks were so harmless. Her drone was back and it looked as frantic and frayed as poor Tali's own mind. It even seemed to growl at them in electronic static.

"Not this fucking thing again!" Krez groaned in both fear and anger.

"I got it!" Keth assured. "Eat shit synth!"

He fired a few shots at the drone, but it just took the hits. Then it fired back with an energy blast that assaulted Keth's shock rifle. The weapon seemed to sputter and spark suddenly as well as heat up. Keth dropped it, shouting in pain as he trigger fingers smoked. Retz quickly realized the true danger and kicked the gun towards the drone. Moments later an electrical backlash erupted from the weapon and consumed the freakish energy ball, de-constructing it almost instantly. Retz's team were more or less stunned by the scene.

"She programmed it to sabotage our weapons," Kaz observed. "That's... pretty cunning of her."

"This is fucking bullshit, man!" Keth claimed in anger. "She keeps fucking with us!"

At that moment the song on the radio hit the instrumental section, but they were unable to listen to guitar riffs for long. The music faded somewhat, and was replaced with Boz's panicked speech alongside a very angry female voice.

"For the love of the ocean lady! Stop pointing the gun at me!"

"I have the boomstick, you do what I say! Isn't that how you pirates work?"

"I'm a Pirate DJ! There's a difference! I just want to do my show damn it! I'm not built for this kind of pressure!"

She was with Boz. She was in the same room with Boz, BBR Central. Why would she be there? And then Retz realized why.

"Shit no! Boz, do not let her touch anything!"

Retz rushed off in the direction of BBR's broadcasting, his posse following close behind. He kept listening to the conversation as he ran.

"How do I boost it?"

"I keep telling you! This is as high as it goes!"

"Tell me where the system is!"

"This is not fair! I just wanted to listen to Maiden and get buzzed as fuck with my Ichor Rum! This was supposed to be a fun day! It was supposed to be fun!"

"Do you ever just shut- wait... why can I hear an echo?"

"Echo? What echo? There's no echo!"

"You bosh'tet! What did you hit!?"

"I swear! I never even looked at any buttons!"

"WHAT DID YOU HIT?!"

"AAAAAAAAHHHH!"

Then there was a shot and the music switched back to full blast. Retz double timed it station, rushing through the low level red light. He finally got to Boz's room as the next Maiden song started to play automatically. He found the door open, a busted light in the ceiling, a blown off panel from the ventilation system next to it and a cowering Boz shaking in the corner.

"I tried to stop her," he whimpered. "She got the fucking look of death in her eyes, man!"

"What did she do?" Retz asked, kneeling down to to the frightened kig-yar.

"She shoved some green looking thing into the panel," he explained frantically. "Then she typed a few fucking commands, pulled it back out and took off that way! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just... she would've killed me if I did anything. man!"

"Boz, relax, you did good hitting that microphone on," Retz explained. "She's just not her self, but I don't think she wanted to kill you. She would've shot you and not the light otherwise."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe," Boz admitted, slightly calming down.

"Just sit tight," Retz insisted. "You're going to be okay. Make sure everyone knows, you're okay. I need to get after her."

Boz just nodded in compliance and Retz rushed off again. He already suspected what Tali had done. Rumor was the relic could amplify things. Like a booster signal on a radio setup. A setup that someone like Tali could use to override certain lockdown functions, specifically on an airlock.

He made it to the nearest airlock port after a minute or so of frantic non-stop running. When he reached it, the door was already closing. He ran to shove his gun in through the crack, but the door shut tight before he could. He pounded on the airlock angrily before finally just shouting through the metal.

"Tali, this is insane!" He screamed. "You're fighting people who are your allies so you can kill an invisible enemy! Do you understand how crazy that is?"

The intercom answered Retz thusly.

"I have looked into the mind of something truly evil, something that wishes our doom to satiate revenge long since achieved," Tali's voice declared, sounding distant, displaced and fearful. "If I am mad, if it is too late for me, so be it. I know the darkness, it is in me. I can see it, I know what it is doing. If I must sacrifice my mind to stop it... then I will."

Airlock warning light turned on and Retz could hear the rush of air escaping. A few seconds later, the all clear sign turned on and the airlock opened. Tali was gone, but not entirely of course. She was just outside, walking along the Serpent back to the Carrier. Quarian envirosuits had their own oxygen reserve and could double as space suits. That way, they didn't need to get out of one and into another in case of emergencies.

Retz contacted Zek with the bad news. Tali was out, she had the relic and she was coming back aboard the Justice. And whatever her next step was, she was going through with it. Regardless of any cost to herself. After all, she had to save them, didn't she?

---

AN: This took me a bit longer to get out because I had problems writing the third chapter to this one. Yeah, we've gone to a three parter. It was the only way to make sure everyone got enough time to breathe. If this upsets you, sorry. But rest assured, Reach is probably going to end up being just as long given everything that happens there so hey, you're going to get a lot of Reach when we get there... which is soon.

I do hope you don't mind my Iron Maiden obsession here. I hope picking less radio played songs makes this easier on you all. I'd leave links to youtube for you to listen along to scenes, but doesn't work that way. At all. I just hope they added to the experience... and will get you to check out their discography yourselves. In the meantime, look to my profile page for some new stuff, including some behind the scenes stuff and the like. I think there might be a new Hellfox audio too, but if not, hey, do check out the ones there anyway if you haven't already because they're awesome. And do visit the tropes page if you have a chance. Always good to see that updated when it is.

Thanks again for reading and I hope the wait for the conclusion to this arc won't be nearly as long. As soon as the first Reach Chapter is done it will drop, I can promise that much. See you then!