Fireflight. It danced and crackled, highlighting, through her glass, lines of steady tension and contemplation.
She watched it flicker and sway. Studied and observed the shoals and ash spiraling away from the heat that warped the air. At its core, embers burned their heavy glow. Above the flames that waved was the dark heavens that blanketed them. It fought for her attention so she gazed up.
Through a thin smile, her breath eased out from how wonderfully regal it was. There wasn't a city, a town, or a line of air traffic to snuff out the galaxy's natural twinkling light.
And just beyond the cusp of the closest mountain to them, lay the Milky Way, its center bright enough to cast a dark silhouette over the horizon.
It was stuff straight out of a picture book. But here, she didn't have to admire through paper and print. It was something she could relish upfront and firsthand.
There were billions of stars in just their galaxy alone to make up what she saw. Billions of them. Across this black canvas was a collective of ceaseless space. To stare up at the sky was to stare at the vastness of forever.
"Beautiful." She murmured.
It was an endless ocean of galaxies in the cosmos. Each with its seas of suns, moons, and planets. Each beholding brines of nebulae, quasars, and black holes. Mind-numbing to think about. A great way to set off an existential crisis if you ever were looking for one.
Her stare fell back to the fire that colored her in its warm marooned hues. Slightly parched, she reached for her flask of water, eyes back to wander the heavens. The flotilla was out there. Somewhere.
And if they ever made it off this rock, she'd have to go back to them. An uncomfortable sadness fell, flames shimmering brightly against her eyes.
She'd delay for as long as possible. But it was only forestalling an inevitable. One day she'd have to leave no matter how much she didn't want to. She wanted to stay with John. But people had to follow reality. And reality said to follow your responsibilities and not chase after a foolish dream of the heart.
At least she could say she wasn't ashamed of it. That much she was sure of. She drank deeply until she was quenched of thirst. She set her flask back where it came from and breathed before looking out toward the shower of shooting stars that stranded them here in the first place.
She was surprised to see them still going strong like that. Maybe not as strong as it used to be if it meant anything. A dozen a minute, give or take. Same pace. They'd come barreling in. Then start slowing down before disappearing from the mountaintops out in the distance.
How irksome. It forced her to let out a long and drawn out sigh. Their situation was a lame space opera come true. Just like that one awful movie she watched last month with its equally awful special fx. Why she even bothered watching it when the ratings on rotten potatoes were the way they were.
...Oh no.
A cold sweat ran across her neck. Her wanderings evaporated under this blindingly terrible itch suddenly on her nose.
Rather dumbly, she went for it; only for her palm to bludgeon against the glass sitting in front of her face. The fact she'd even tried doing that was a testament to how often she was out of this thing.
Her lips tremble and she felt it burn like a frenzy.
"Ah... damnit." Was this how the rest of her night was going to be?
Funny irony how John had once jokingly suggested she tape up velcro somewhere inside her helmet for such a crisis. She laughed it off, knowing full well that wouldn't work given how different her visor was from his.
It didn't feel so funny anymore now feeling this. What she wouldn't give to just take off this stupid bucket.
It continued its reign of torture. She flared her nose, twisted it this way and that, and frowned when it couldn't provide her the relief she wanted.
Her fingers even started twitching at the idea, mimicking the process of detaching the glass from her face. But it was just plain stupid to even consider.
She narrowed her eyes into a squinty glare.
But was it though? Given the circumstances as of late? Was she really fated to just... die and never know what life could feel like? To feel the cold bite of air? The hot touch of fire? To see the stars as they were? ...Or the touch of another's lips?
These could very well, truly, be her last days.
In the few seconds that followed, she tried to reign in these intrusive thoughts but failed miserably because of how unbearable this pulsing thing was doing to her face.
She grit her teeth and shut her eyes to the world, her sadness and, what was now impatience, descending even further.
The stars twinkled their cosmic indifference. When she forced herself to look up at them, she felt a new perspective that was strangely liberating.
The galaxy had hurled its worst at her, and still, she stood. Was she cursed even then to submit to the quarian identity? To believe wholly that her second skin was both her sanctuary and her prison no matter what?
Reality said yes. Her heart said no. And because of that, the bite of recklessness didn't quite have that hold on her anymore. What mattered more was to not feel and be. To void yourself of life's most basic sensations. To deny yourself the present at every turn. It made her realize that to live so cautiously meant never really living at all.
Yet, in a callback, she could remember vividly the lectures and warnings of elders, voices a cautionary echo through her memory. But were those not the same elders clinging to survival in an obsessive madness in the same way they clung to their fears? To pass down what they believed best despite the chance that maybe, just maybe, they were being overzealous in their machinations?
Odd how such a petty tormentor set on a nose could catalyze such a resolve. But, in that same vein, a shadow stretched forth and her deeper past crept, its veil looming. How could she say any of this when her very own mother was a specter of that fate? She had, at her end, succumbed to these very real risks. And here she sat, on the brink of defying the very lesson born out of her deepest loss.
But part of that new and liberating perspective meant seeing the tragedy through a different optic. A different kind of lesson that she'd slowly, rather unknowingly, had come to learn.
Her mother's fate clearly demonstrated something inherent in her blood. In Tali's blood. To yearn for freedom. To feel. To touch the world. To see it raw. What she wanted to do wasn't just rebellion against the prison she wore. This was a homage to the very same yearning her mother had felt. To have a life in its fullest and most unguarded form. Another stroke of irony. Somehow, Tali knew as soon as she'd been gifted that damn clean room on the Normandy, that these feelings mom had were destined to nestle inside her soul.
But now she finally understood. That to live in a shadow, to always wonder, to always remain imprisoned, was its own form of dying.
Having said all this, Tali was still grounded to reality. She wasn't imposing some kind of ultimatum on herself. She wasn't suggesting anything crazy. Nor was she implying that she wanted to discard the very thing that protected her life. Because that really would be a death sentence. She could grovel and gripe all she wanted; her little army of antibodies weren't somehow going to get stronger.
The whole point of this revelation however was that, perhaps, not every breath you sucked in that wasn't through a filter was going to kill you.
Her hands reached up to draw back her realk. She practiced this hundreds of times now. It was no different than when she did it in the safety of her room. But out here, the clasps that lined the back of her neck and around her face felt like shackles.
"Come on, you coward." She muttered defiantly as a challenge, hands pressed against the seals on her cheeks.
Just do it.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
There was this thing Tali had remembered a while back.
Something about sinning if she remembered right. Not an entirely accurate word to use, Tali supposed. But it was close enough to her.
She felt like she was sinning. Helmet off. Open air. Rationalizing it all away just because her heart somehow convinced her to? Preposterous. Regardless of the intent, the itch had been murdered from a two fingered assault. Dead and gone.
She took another shallow breath and closed her eyes before squishing the guilt. She focused on the good instead.
The air. Fresh and crisp. Cold and frosty. It felt cleaner than anything she'd ever breathed before. Then she leaned toward the fire as if to confide in it, face cast in its light and shadow. She could smell its heat. Could take in the bite of its arid smoke. Its hotness hurt. Pain unruly and uncomfortable. But it made her feel so incredibly alive.
An experience that would leave a lasting mark. It would be something to remember forevermore if they survived this ordeal. That sticking thought stayed and neither the stars or the flames could hold her attention now.
God, she hoped they'd survive this. Peace in her heart or not, this was not how she wanted this story to end. What she expected to be silence thereafter in her pondered reflections was not. She heard something. Her back went rigid and her ears twitched at what was the sound of subtle footsteps. She snapped her head toward the offending noise, eyes wide and frightened.
It was John, bundled in a coat, a yawn escaping him as he crossed out from the breadth of the Normandy's neck where there should've been an aerobridge to meet him.
Rooted to her spot, she watched with those same wide eyes, her insanity finally catching up to her as she realized fully what she'd been stupidly doing. She was exposed. She was naked. Her spirit choked and spat and was red in the face from the emotional tug of war now battling inside, all of it happening while a hand crept toward the glass and composites that hid her features from the world. But a compassionate and devoted desire soon cinched that action and her fingers held.
'𝓐𝓱! 𝓨𝓸𝓾'𝓻𝓮 𝓰𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓪 𝓭𝓲𝓮! ' She felt.
'But I want this.' The other feeling argued.
'A stupid wish, you dense moron! Swallow your pill of sense and put it on! 𝑵𝑶𝑾.' Her reason howled back.
Her hand had yet to inch any closer to perceived safety. The here and now, she repeated to herself defiantly. She was staring down an inimitable precipice of opportunity. It was a wordy word, inimitable. But it fit. Nothing equaled its description for this situation. This kind of chance wouldn't be happening again. Her bones said so. Never was she closer than now to what she had so long imagined. And for what other reason had she left her earpiece in if not for the inkling hope that he would just pop out those doors and waltz his way straight to her?
Somehow, in a personal miracle to her, the universe granted this silly wish and it actually happened.
Silence hung in the air as John surveyed the quiet scene around him; where everyone else seemed lost to slumber or on the brink of it.
She still said nothing, but her spirit called out to him. It waved its arms, whistled, and yoo-hooed, but the man didn't have the sense to see it. So emboldened to still make this look like a happenstance, she stood up, still near the fire's apex of light, to make it known where she was.
As he scanned, he found her silhouette and, like a magnet to steel, made his way to her.
Her heart skipped. And, caught in the grip of fear and anticipation, it seemed to have stopped altogether. In but a small passing moment, he was about to see what she really looked like behind all that glass.
His last step had him locking eyes with hers. The only thing separating their gaze was air. His eyes were rushed with concern but were stuck in a daze.
"...Tali?"
She sucked in a shallow breath. She didn't know if she was supposed to smile, or frown, or run away.
Realizing he still had about ten feet between them, he approached more slowly, face still that sloppy mess of shock and awe.
He picked the best words his gumball brain could think of. "Oh my god."
"...Hi."
Oh.
Whoa.
Two surprises in the span of ten seconds. He just heard her voice. Like, without the speaker. He was spellbound by that milky note. Then he realized he'd been boring holes in those angelic and dimly glowing halos with his less ornamented ones like a sorry sap.
"—I'll stop staring. I'm sorry. What happened to your visor?—Why's it off?—Did it break?—Do you have another one?"
"John. I'm fine."
"But where—How—"
"I'm fine." She repeated, swooping down to show him the thing, "It's right here."
Confident he'd seen it long enough, she stuffed it back into her bag.
"Jesus, Tali. Why is it even off?"
"Uhm," she trailed off and sighed with a shrug, "I wanted to pick my nose?"
Still the same Tali. But it still felt so incredibly different. Like he was talking to another person.
Could you fall for the same person twice? Like, even deeper?
"You're kidding me. Is that safe?"
"Look at me."
John met her gaze and swallowed.
"I'm fine." She repeated for the third time.
John finally willed himself to calm down and to stop the breath holding.
"Okay." He said simply.
A million thoughts were running by both of them. And he did the only thing he could do. Stare at the fire and try not to look like some pathetic, frustrated, simpleton who'd come across the most beautiful woman in all the galaxy.
Tali's face was burning. And it wasn't because of the campfire, no.
It was because John Shepard, the man she yearned for with all her heart, just saw her bare and naked face for the first time. She hadn't shown herself to anyone before. And now it was out for him to see.
This couldn't have been happening, even if it had been a little premeditated. Unfortunately, the way she imagined unmasking for him for the first time was supposed to have been much more romantic and less frightening.
She shrugged mentally. You couldn't have everything.
"How'd you do it?" John asked carefully. He wanted to stare again but stopped himself.
"Allergy spray. Pills."
"You're joking." He got another chance to look at her without it looking like he was trying.
"Nope. Fast-acting relief." She joked timidly.
"Huh. Think that'll fix your immunity?" He rasped lightly.
"If only."
"Heh." He turned back to face the fire.
Tali couldn't shake the idea that maybe his reaction was telling her something she didn't really want to know.
And now she was starting to feel disappointed. She was showing him a sacred piece of her. Honestly, she was hoping to get a more positive reaction out of him. A sign. An indicator. A hint even. Something. But it wasn't happening. Did the man she fall in love with not even find her appealing to look at anymore? Did he ever find her alluring?
Was she...? Keelah. Was she ugly? Some kind of nasty abomination? She swore she didn't look all that different from the rest of them.
Is that why he avoided looking at her?
She frowned and suddenly felt like hurling.
"Tali," His hand brushed against her two digits delicately, "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" She muttered painfully, "You're staring at anything but me. Why? You find me repulsive, don't you? —Keelah. I can't believe I even..." Tali couldn't help but feel tears welling in her eyes, "I'm sorry. I should just put my mask back on. I really hope you don't think differently of me or something."
The tears were visible now.
Everything she felt for John. Every moment she had made with him. Every high and low. Every hug and smile. Every shared meal and drink and all the celebrations. It all came crashing down on her shoulders. She'd been chasing something she should've never chased. She'd just been friend-zoned by the man she had fallen so deeply in love with.
How could she have been so stupid to have taken every signal he made wrongly? Every advance as some kind of indicator that he felt something too? It was all just a joke. Her eyes suddenly felt heavy and impossibly sad. The high she had felt moments ago was gone. Extinguished. Now she just felt tired.
Before she could kneel down for her helmet and run off, John stopped her by grabbing onto her arm.
"Stop. Don't." He said sadly.
She stopped and forced herself to look at him. "God. I'm sorry you have to see me like this." Her breath trembled and more tears fell from her face, "I bet Garrus would just have a field day with this one."
She tried to make a terrible joke but couldn't even muster the courage to laugh at it. Her eyes were blotted with tears. She didn't even know why she was crying like this. It was humiliating. Embarrassing. Shameful even.
John's stomach lurched and fell all at the same time seeing what his reaction had done. He hadn't realized how sensitive she was going to be about this.
"How could you say that about yourself?" He looked at Garrus who'd been sound asleep while he cradled his binoculars as if it were a doll.
She turned away and clamped her eyes shut.
He squeezed her arm to reassure her. "I can't believe you think you're ugly. You're gorgeous."
John wasn't lying. Her thin nose and pursed lips. Those gentle, candled eyes. Her skin, a silken velvet. She was a goddess trapped under a layer of glass. And John, for lack of better words, was absolutely awed.
She took one deep breath and wiped her eyes with a glove. "Oh please. Always trying to make me feel better."
He didn't let go. "Of course I got to make you feel better. You think I wasn't looking because of that? Aw Christ, Tali. I wasn't looking because I didn't want to look like a jackass."
She sniffled, sadness still clinging. "You promise?"
He faced her full-on and figured that answering her question with a tight hug would be better than giving her only a plain platitude.
So he did just that.
"Yes." He said, catching her scent when they embraced. It was delightfully intoxicating.
Despite the chilly breeze that nipped at her face, she suddenly felt unfathomably hot. The high started ebbing back. This couldn't be happening. Her dreams might have run pretty wild on the what-ifs, but feeling this didn't compare to anything her imagination had tried stringing together.
"John…?" She mumbled, "Is that true?"
"Yeah." He replied before reluctantly putting her at arm's length, "You're the best damn looking woman I've ever seen in the galaxy. I can prove it."
Kiss him.
"Prove?" She asked with a little sarcastic croak.
He tapped the side of his head.
"It's all right here. It's science. Fully endorsed. Spectre authority."
She wiped a tear away from the tops of her hands and cracked a crabby smile. "I guess I'll take what I can get. Though it would have helped had you told me that before I almost balled my eyes out, you bosh'tet." She dropped her stare to the fire and frowned. "I almost thought I'd been... friend zoned."
He stared dumbly, mind desperately trying to keep his brain taught. Did she really just go there and say that?
"I would never." He mumbled.
"Good." She paused for a moment, "Thank you."
John stared deep into the fire's flames for a long while before facing her again, sensing that this was his moment. "Why would I friendzone the only woman I want?"
Tali's heart stopped. Then it jumped. It lurched and punched her throat before leaping off to dive toward her stomach.
"...I'm not interested in anyone else. Only you." He murmured his whisper.
"Are you... admitting that you want me?"
He took a breath. "Yeah. Guess I am."
Keelah. Oh this was a good dream. Probably the best one she's ever had.
She felt like stumbling backward. "...Am I awake?"
"Yes." He said, catching the quip.
"Not dreaming?"
"Nope."
She smiled and stared distantly at her feet. "Well then. Good."
So that was it. They just admitted it. No dramatic thing where she falls into his arms after they've kicked all the bad guys to dust at the end of a movie. Not that she minded sappy things like that (She was, after all, a Fleet & Flotilla fan). But like she said, she'd take what she could get.
"Gotta ask though because it's killing me. Why'd you really take it off?"
"Well," She started with a thoughtful frown and took a breath while she gandered at the sky, "The air is so crisp. It's cold. Almost hurts."
Then she leaned in toward the fire and felt it nip her nose and eyes again. "And the fire. It's hot as hell. This definitely hurts."
"And?"
She gave him a glance and shrugged. "And... I'm not going to spend what could be the last of our days wondering about what-ifs anymore. We faced the worst the galaxy could ever offer and I'm still here. I'm not going to let my handicap get in the way of everything I want all the time."
She shrugged after. "That and I really did have an itchy nose."
When he smiled, Tali's heart fluttered. She ran a hand through her hair and decided to finally sit down. "I would live like this for the rest of my life if I could."
John sat down next to her. "Maybe someday." He said as he wrapped an arm around a knee, "Then we can retire. Get some beach front property. The whole gang. Spend our days drinking beer and getting fat."
She faced him, "We should get a giant mansion."
"How many rooms should it have?"
"At least ten. A hangar bay. An armory. A garage for all our sports cars. And all the walls and windows have to be bulletproof." She imagined with a faint smile.
A slight chuckle escaped him.
Keelah, she could hardly focus from how much she wanted to kiss this man. The moment couldn't have been any better.
"We can shoot clay pigeons in the sand or throw frisbees at Garrus when he's sunbathing." He added.
"Can't wait to retire." Her hands absently drew lines in the dirt, mind infatuated under her wish for that first kiss.
"Sure will be fun." He nudged her shoulder lovingly.
She nudged him back.
John leaned against the crate behind them both and glanced at her with eyes that crinkled from the grin. Fluffing up reality was a great pastime. They both knew it wasn't really going to happen. That wasn't the point. It was the sentiment that made it worth mentioning and thinking about.
"You know, I can't help but think that maybe crashing the Normandy was the best thing to happen to us." He puffed with sarcasm. Yet, it almost held a little sobriety somewhere in there.
She rolled her eyes. "And why is that, John."
"More time with you. More time to stand back and just... reflect. On life."
"Hm."
"To know that we won't be here forever. And that we have to cherish the time we have."
Tali's smile waned and she took his words to heart. Everything he said was true.
"Though I wish those guys weren't here." Shepard pointed to the slowly falling meteors.
"Yeah," She pouted sadly, "Mood killer."
You know what wouldn't be a mood killer? Kissing him.
"You know," Tali began in a segway, "I broke a lot of rules doing this," She circled her head with a finger, "Taking this off would be like sticking a hand in a blender just to see what it would do after a lifetime of being told not to." She studied her digits and pushed away the anxiety rippling through her.
"After all the rules we've broken?" John touched his sore nose lightly, a rueful smile out on display, "It doesn't surprise me you've broken some of your own. Kinda glad you did. Good initiative."
"You are an awful influence."
He dropped his head into a hang, still all smiles, and he peeped at her.
Her eyes, a steady evanescent aura in this clear night, sought his in the dim light and tried to tell him she yearned for something.
"You're so good to me, John."
"Am I?"
"Yeah."
A silence enveloped the two and it was comfortable and intimate. With nothing to say, he drew himself in closer, hand reaching around her like a band of warmth. Tali, in turn, nestled into his embrace, a hand placed across his chest. A feeling so natural to her soul that she was almost surprised by it.
"I think this means we're together now." He said with a whisper that barely rose above the crackle of their fire. His gaze, soft and tender, held hers as he gently tucked a lock of hair behind an ear.
Oh that made her heart soar. It exploded like a firework. She was dreaming. Oh, she had to be. She cloaked her shock with a veil of playful arrogance. "Is Commander Shepard asking me out?"
"Yeah," He affirmed with a lopsided grin, "I am, unequivocally, asking you out."
"Well," She bristled haughtily and squeezed herself a little closer, beaming, "It's about time."
He traced his pointer gently beneath her chin to lift that gaze up to meet his. In that careful yet assertive touch, her breath hitched and her lips part ever so slightly with an unspoken invitation, a silent plea for him to bridge that gap between them and poise the next moment with a locked kiss she'd been painfully waiting an eternity for.
But what cliche first kiss wouldn't be complete without a cliche explosion a hundred feet away?
Not the best time to interrupt a perfect moment, but the cloud of smoke, screams, and sudden gunfire, needed to be looked into.
"Put your helmet on." John ordered sternly.
She couldn't agree more.
"What was that?" Tali asked before jamming her helmet back on and tucking her realk back to where it was supposed to be.
John didn't get the time to answer.
Garrus rolled off the box he'd been sleeping on and onto the laps of both Tali and Shepard.
"Damnit, Garrus!"
"Keelah, you bosh'tet!"
They both push him off.
Garrus ignored them and grabbed for his rifle.
John reached for his squawking radio.
"Ambush, Ambush, Ambush." Stacker reported, "Hard-contact, Hard-contact."
"Shepard to Stacker, SITREP. Now." John ordered.
"Break, break—sizeable force moving, direction... south-southwest, rough guess. Unidentified—VTOL support in play. Can't pin down their gear or strength. Under heavy, sophisticated fire. We're gonna get chewed up without immediate support, repeat, need backup ASAP."
"Geth?"
"Don't think so!" Is all Stacker replied with.
But, just as John's platoon sergeant had reported, a large gunship flew overhead and it looked nothing like a geth ship.
"Oh, that is not geth." Garrus panned.
"All call-signs, all call-signs. Hold your assigned sightlines. Sweep and clean your sector. Full execute authority granted." Shepard ordered.
A chorus of ayes reported over the radio when Shepard reached for Tali's shoulder. "Douse the fire."
A jerry can beside the three of them, she hoisted it up to topple its contents to extinguish the flames. The embers sputtered and spat and she poured until only a hiss remained. She tossed the empty can aside and John, under the satisfaction they were in the safety of darkness, brought his radio to bear.
"Shepard to Williams."
"Sir. Fireteam ready for tasking."
"Task to issue: Append Wrex. Advance and flank. Chief Kala to overtake and maintain perimeter security. Get to it chief."
"Aye sir."
He called up the Mako crew next. "Jeepnie-1, task to issue. Respond to receipt."
"Send orders."
"Repel and assist our south. Search and destroy."
"Aye. Go for hunt. Wheels hot."
"Orders?" Garrus asked.
"We're going to rally up on our eastern flank. It's our weakest one."
John clipped the radio on his belt, grabbed a rifle, and stuffed a handful of thermal sinks into his coat pocket.
"Let's go."
They made it all of ten feet before they were suddenly ensnared in a volley of effective fire from some new unseen assault, sharp snaps of micro-sonic booms clapping by. Bitter flashes of tracer fire exchanged between the two sides and the three of them dove into foxholes along the scattered marines and crew staging their defense. As the marines cast out flares to ignite a swathe of land in a stark lamp-like glow, John took his quick glimpse to see brown silhouettes easily over two meters tall moving and dancing across the shadows that harrowed and shimmered.
"Where's Sergeant Gallagher?" Shepard demanded.
"Gone, commander." Specialist Mason answered, holding his sightline and casting out his laze of fire, "I'm western flank's new actual."
John swore and grasped for the turian's collar. "Garrus, you're their new actual. Stay here and keep whatever we're fighting away from here. Do not let them in the ship."
"You got it, Shepard."
"Let's go, Tali."
And with that, he left it up to his marines and Garrus to do what they did best.
"Cross the path. Move." They ran quickly and toward the trench that encircled the Normandy's nose.
And they were at it again. Running and gunning, ignorant of the odds stacked against them. But she ran anyway. How could it be any other way? John was leading and she was following. Just as it should be.
A yellow lancet of energy struck out from the blackness. Without time to warn her, he tackled her to the mud to save them from what likely could sever a man in half. His radio burned away, his rifle discarded as they dropped, but to safety they went. She hit the trench with a pained oomph and he wanted nothing more than to apologize, but he scrambled back to his gun now sulking in the grime, blood a ploppy drip from his nose on the mud and over the gun's frame as he regained a hold of it.
Perfect time for a nosebleed.
"John, come on," She said with a pained gasp, "We have to keep moving."
She holstered her pistol and crawled to a conveniently placed rifle next to her before leveling it up and firing it several times just to try and return some fire. She didn't feel compelled to stay up too long to actually aim.
John's face looked like a red waterfall. "Ah. My nose." He wiped away the blood with his shirt before perching his rifle on the trench and firing a volley.
Seeing that he was next to a box of grenades, he pried open its top and lobbed one. Then he remembered the claymores he'd set up at the front of the Normandy's nose earlier that day. He wanted to kiss his fortitude. He pointed to the controller next to her. "Tali, the detonator. Use it."
She grabbed the thing and squeezed, and the six or so claymores clapped up a shroud of dust right where the bastards were hiding.
Despite the boom and rumble, she could hear more of them as she fell back into a kneel. It had become apparent that their numbers were higher than they realized.
"New objective. We have to hold them off here or we risk getting the east and west out-flanked." John reached for a pair of lit flares and threw them over the trench.
"John, you need to stay down. You don't have any of your gear on."
"This isn't the time to be arguing."
"No, damnit. Listen to me." She tossed three grenades over the trench in succession and waited for them to explode, "I'm not going to risk the most important person on this crew and let you become a statistic. Stay the hell down and let me do the work."
She stood, took her sightlines, and engaged. In careful and discretionary bursts, her rounds would point out and she would dip back down and exchange positions to repeat the process.
John, groveling in frustration, resigned himself to cloak the field ahead of him in a blind fire, hoping he might chance a hit.
"How many, Tali?"
She ducked and saved herself from getting a beam of energy that would've gored her head.
"Fifteen or more. This isn't going to work." She scrambled back to the grenades, reached for one, and pulled its pin, "We need backup—We can't do this alone." There was an urgency in the way she chucked the last of them. More explosions chattered the ground. Dust and soot were pulled up into the air and it rained upon them.
God he needed his gear. "How close are they?"
"Pretty damned close. The closest ones are hiding behind the rock about twenty meters to my left and I—" She peered right above the trench to take some more potshots and saw chitin wings glimmer in the night sky.
Keelah. Lihda Tet'shuct'sa tha. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒇𝒍𝒚.
And it clicked. They were fighting collectors. The stories and rumors Tali had heard, mythlike in their telling, now held form. There wasn't any time to be dwelling on the revelation, nor was there time to be sharing her discovery with him.
"—they're getting closer! John."
Shepard donned a helmet and plate carrier lying in the dirt. Not exactly the armor John was used to, but it'd have to do.
"What are they doing?"
She watched the collectors, simultaneously, walk out of cover, form a line, and suppress the two lonely defenders with automatic fire.
"They're rushing us." Desperation creeping, "Tell me you have a plan. Please tell me what to do."
She could see his foul grimace as he stared up from the trench they were in. All he did was flick his rifle to full auto to prepare for what was coming their way. There was no way they could return fire. They were way too close now. If she dared to poke a head out, there wouldn't be a head left to speak of.
She reached for her box of grenades one last time as if, by some miracle, there were more to throw. But it remained empty.
Her eyes were wide. "...John."
"We're gonna kill them. Get ready." He said, yielding himself to the approaching assault.
She tossed her rifle and pulled from her back her shotgun, its safety flicked off to howl at will.
"Get ready." He echoed again with finality.
When John saw just enough of what looked to be a head peeking over the trench, his rifle roared and carved out its sinuses from between its eyes.
Her shotgun sang out its piercing bark. Her shots split a collector's chest and it careened into the trench, legs crunching from the fall. Spitting a spent sink to swallow another, she packed her trigger again and was greeted with another punching roar to catch her second target. The same as the last, it was cavitated center mass and buckled inward, its remains sleuthing a pile over the first.
Bolt yanked back and another sink to battery. A third approached in a sprint, its weapon raised and trailing her. She screamed, unleashing a third spray of shot as she dropped to her back as it fired, nearly missing her. Just under its neck, her rounds hit home and its head ruptured. A puppet missing its master, it toppled and collapsed its souped organs at her feet.
Another sink coughed out and she racked in another. Again, in their assault, one lept into the trench on Shepard's flank, its gun alight and in a charging glow.
The realization was instant. The source of the deadly yellow beams lay squarely in its hands. She scrambled to her feet and didn't even cry out to warm him. In a tight focus, teeth bared in a fanged scowl, she clamped down on the trigger and a sweltering boom cast out. In the fractioned second that followed, she dove in front of John, her body becoming his shield.
The collector's weapon, caught and cored by a slug, still unleashed a lance of searing light that sought her out. Yet, in a stroke of luck, the energy discharged into a defeated arc and the laser gun imploded, turning half of its holder into vapor. What was left of its short discharge struck her. Her barrier warped the air and a fiery aura burst forth, tendrils of amber shining out. But it was too much. Her protective shield failed and she took what was left straight to her unguarded chest.
John's scream of anger and abject terror tore through the air from the sequence that unfolded. She stumbled back, gun shed from her grasp, and fell to the moist earth in a discarded plop, smoke trailing the impact on her chest.
Just as John was about to stage himself in an act of revenge, the Mako reared the hill and scarfed a collector down under its wheel before igniting the rest under a volley of coaxial gunfire. One by one, the turret took a sightline and executed a burst, making short work of the remaining stragglers.
"You're clear commander!" Came the driver over the Mako's loud speaker.
John didn't have the decency to thank Jeepnie-1. He dropped his gun and rushed to the quarian and fell to his knees.
He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her awake, but his training had him open up his OT instead to get a visual of her vitals. Under a mild crown of relief, he saw they looked (kinda) okay and that the beam hadn't even penetrated the suit. From what he could assess, it was superficial.
"Oh. Oh thank god." He turned around to face the Mako's windshield and the two men inside it. He signaled to them with hand motions.
-CIRCLE PERIMETER AGAIN. FIRE AT WILL. KILL ALL.-
The driver gave him a salute. "Aye sir," He said through the speaker, "Perimeter check. Kill 'em all."
The mako pulled into reverse and made headway toward Garrus' position just shortly over the steep ridge.
He pulled in close next to Tali's still frame, her chest still taking in shallow breaths and decided that he try to get her inside. Then he tore his stare up toward the dark dawn of the morning sky to the sound of locust-like wings coming from above and toward him.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
She stood upon a shore. A lone figure. An ink blot in flatness.
It was desolation.
The sands were not whiter than pearls. Its skies were not bluer than the eye of a human.
It was a canvas of bleak, a sprawl under a dome of morose clouds, morbid and obese. Sands, pasty rocks and ashen grains, stretched to eternity. Fog, thick and unyielding, veiling the horizon in a ghostly embrace.
A world of pallor.
The world of Rannoch.
In a breath, the beach was gone, and a plain under the shroud of night took hold, where its blades of grass tower and its hills stretched in the darkness. The air, a biting chill, clasped her skin in an icy grip. So exposed to the elements, she covered her nakedness where she could with arms and shivered. Snow crowned her hair. Shoulders blanketed white. Toes burrowed in the frostbitten earth.
The world worked to conspire again, the grass stretching into a walled chamber, a window fracturing her cell, its single pane through which moon light gazed, its silver beam cast upon a bed and its promise of safety. She yielded to its embrace to hide her frailty. To hide the bare. But, in a pitched shadow, a figure emerged. A quarian. His visage obscured yet unmistakably present, eyes alight and levitating in the inky black.
"Tali." His voice was a cascade of haunting echoes and it resonated a sound so achingly familiar.
"John?" She trembled, eyes wide and sheets twisted against her chest.
A smile, enigmatic and fleeting, danced across his lips and he receded into the void, a trail of silence following.
"Wait." She reached out, the chasm between them yawning. She abandoned the bed and lept. From the abyss below, arms caught her and she found peace, a smile gracing her lips.
ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ ㅤ
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John was not in a good position.
He fired his rifle, rather clumsily he might add, at the four giving chase while he had Tali in a firemen's carry.
He hated to admit it, but carrying her was providing him with a kinetic barrier strong enough for him to run between his choices of cover without getting a new hole for his lungs to breathe out of.
"Tali, wake up. Wake up, Tali. Come on."
As he passed through another stack of boxes, he ran by a squawking radio with Ash on the other side reporting that the collectors were making a tactical withdrawal.
Be as it may, John wasn't too keen on working with assumptions. Especially when he was still on the receiving end of a steady volley of fire. John fired back and ran again. He needed to make his way to the Normandy's cargo bay, hide Tali somewhere safe, and get back to the fight.
A bullet zipped right through his gun and destroyed it. He dropped the useless thing and kept running.
Oh. Not good. His chances were starting to look bleak again. Until Wrex dropped down from the Normandy's roof and mauled the four collectors chasing the commander like a bear would a seared steak.
He planted a kick toward victim one and sent it barreling back to a rock, its head smacking back with a splat of blood. He clutched victim 2's neck and slammed it down, guillotining its head with nothing but the force of his arm. Victim three became the subject of his claymore shotgun and its torso teleported to another dimension. Victim 4 was squeezed into a ball by thought alone, Wrex's ethereal biotic glow shining bright. What dropped looked much like a bundle of sopping clothes straight from a washer. It was a mess when the krogan was done.
Fortunately, John didn't have the heart, or the chance, to see it.
"You're in the clear, Shepard!" Wrex bellowed, turning the corner with his stoic grin. Seeing that he really was absent of his pursuers and that the sounds of combat had ceased, he stepped out into the clearing and finally felt himself catch a damn breath.
Wrex frowned at the blood that blotted John's nose and mouth. "Damn. Your head looks like a hen's used tampon."
"Aren't you supposed to be with Ash?" He spat, setting Tali carefully down on the ground. He gave her vitals another once over, his worry growing with every second that passed.
This wasn't good. She still wasn't conscious. He needed to get her infirm, like, now.
"Couldn't flank. They pressed the whole perimeter. When we cleaned up our front, Ash had me go around here to find you since you stopped talking on the radio. Here I am."
Wrex stood over him and Tali, and the grin waned. "What happened?"
"She saved my life. Took a laser to the chest to do it."
"Is she okay?"
"Vitals are clean. Suit held. I don't know why she isn't waking up."
"Well. Looks like she took it pretty good." He nodded, "It's the krogan in her."
"Wrex."
"Shepard."
John glared at him and hoisted her back up to make his way to the cargo bay. Wrex followed.
"Wrex," A click of static over the krogan's radio, "you find the Commander?"
"He's with me, Ash." Wrex called out over his unit as they stepped up to Normandy's closed hatch, "And Tali's been hit."
There was a sizable pause over the radio. Shepard was banging on the doors to get whoever was on the other side to open up.
"How bad?" Ash finally said.
"She'll be okay." Wrex said.
"Copy. We'll keep you posted if anything happens. Out."
"Open up!" John hollered, fist-banging out another repertoire.
"It's... it's not powering up commander!" He could hear faintly from the other side.
"Get it working."
"Aye sir!"
He immediately turned on his heel to make his way back up and around Normandy's nose, a pained and angry grimace on his face. "Tali, please. Please wake up."
Wrex leered at his own craftsmanship out on display and imparted John with a low snarl when he caught back up to him. "They're collectors."
"I know." John said after a moment of steady walking.
"Maybe they've got something to do with that." Wrex gestured at the falling meteors.
John eyed the sight with a disconcerting stare. Wrex was probably right. It didn't need to be an astute observation for it to be a good one.
A mental sigh and he sent it all wayward. He didn't have the bandwidth to be thinking about collectors right now. A pounding pulse and a mind racing a thousand thoughts, he took his measured steps up the sloped trench, her arms and legs swaying from his careful gait, and prayed to a god he didn't believe in that she would be okay.