"Checkmate," EDI stated as her rook took Tali's king. The small black castle-shaped symbol dashed across the terminal screen and eclipsed the white crown of the King piece.
"Bosh'tet," Tali muttered as the game reset. "Why the hell do humans think this is fun?"
"Well, to be fair, Tali you are playing against a 'VI,'" Joker said, surrounding the final word of the sentence with air quotes. The Quarian let out an exasperated groan.
"Ugggggggh. I wish I wasn't playing at all." Tali rubbed the front of her visor like she was pinching her nose. When she came onto the Normandy today, she had been expecting to work on EDI's systems as well as help the retrofitting team down in engineering by inspecting the Tantalus Drive Core. Instead, she had been bogged down for an hour and a half trying to get onto the Normandy due to the extremely long process of being searched in order to access the docked ship and the even longer line of other retrofit team members who needed to be searched. This meant that despite arriving 15 minutes early, Tali started an hour late. After that, she moved onto what she had hoped would occupy her for the rest of the day. Inspecting EDI's systems, which took all of about two hours and which was finished before lunch. Everything on the checklist that the security team had given Tali was done, and their corresponding tests came out positive. She had tried to head down to assist engineering with the drive core only to be told that she was not authorized to work on those systems… or any other system on the ship that she had called home for the past couple of months.
So, with nothing else to do, she had gone to hang out with EDI and Joker… who was, for some reason, allowed on the ship for 'consultation' purposes. Ironic, considering that everyone else on the retrofit team avoided the loud-mouthed pilot like he'd give them all a suit breach. Tali, unfortunately, was his friend, and that meant it was easier to spend time with him than any of the strangers currently onboard the Normandy with them.
"Would you prefer to play a different board game? I believe that we could all have some fun with Monopoly." EDI suggested her blue holographic sphere be pulsating with each word.
"Yeah, and you'd be the bank, I bet," Joker responded.
"Of course. I am the most qualified."
"You'd just give yourself secret loans!"
"Are you accusing me of planning on committing embezzlement Joker?"
"C'mon Tali back me up. She'd totally cheat right?" Joker looked over to Tali. "Tali?"
The purple-clad Quarian was packing up her Alliance-issued tool set into her personal backpack. "I think I should just leave. There's nothing to do here anyway."
"Thats the beauty of it! Tali," Joker got up out of his leather chair and limped his way across the cockpit. He planted both his hands on her shoulders. "Tali… you are getting paid to do NOTHING! This is the kind of stuff people dream about!"
"Joker, maybe you're one of those people who enjoys being lazy, but some of us like to be productive with our time." Tali said, putting her backpack down and crossing her arms.
"With all respect, Ms. Zorah… what do you intend to do once you disembark?" EDI asked. Tali paused at the question.
"I-I-I suppose I'll go find Shepard and-"
Joker cut her off. "Tali, Shepard's gonna be in a bunch of legal meetings all day getting his story straight for all the shit that's coming his way. He won't be done till later this evening."
"He said he'd be done by this afternoon…"
"Well, he's delusional if he thinks that. Those lawyers are absolute money vampires. They're gonna bleed him and the Alliance for all they can get." Joker exclaimed, raising his hands up to his mouth, pointing his two index fingers out from his lip, and making a hissing noise.
"Joker… what the hell are you doing?"
EDI chimed in. "He is attempting to emulate the stereotypical depiction of a vampire. A mythological monster wherein a deceased human arises as an 'undead' entity and sustains its immortality through the ingestion of hemoglobin. It has its origins in Eastern European-"
"Wait, did you say… these things live by eating blood?" Keelah humans were so gruemsome.
"Yep! And money is essentially the lifeblood of every person in the galaxy… besides their, you know, actual blood." Joker said, pulling Tali down into a seat next to him on a nearby workbench. The conversation devolved from there into a human-monster discussion that went on for the next two hours right up until lunch, when Tali finally fell asleep after Joker and EDI got into an argument on what monster each Normandy crew member would be.
—-
Tali yawned as she opened her eyes.
"No no no! EDI Shepard would be a werewolf. I mean, cmon look at him! Chiseled jawline, grizzly stubble-"
"Joker, Shepard's resurrection from the dead would make him an undead cybernetic construct such as the Necrografts from Starfinder 3rd Edition." EDI retorted in a surprisingly heated tone.
"Are you two still going on about this?" Tali said as she blinked the sleep out of her eyes.
"Yes, Tali, we are. I see that you're done with your mid-day nap." Joker said turning his chair to look at her. During some point while Tali was sleeping, Joker had moved back to his pilot's chair.
"Not really…" Tali mumbled as she shifted into a more comfortable position on the workbench. "I'm going back to sleep. Wake me when something interesting happens."
"Such as the end of your shift Tali?" EDI asked, with an odd sort of amusement in her synthetic tone. Not that the sleepy Quarian cared.
"Yeah…" Tali yawned again before closing her eyes again.
"Tali… Your shift ended thirty two minutes ago."
"WHAT!" Tali bolted up and looked at her helmet's HUD. The chrono meter read 4:32. "I wasn't even asleep for that long!"
"Uhhh you were asleep for half the day." Joker said as he watched Tali scramble to her feet and scooped up her personal backpack.
"Half the day for us, Joker. For Tali she barely had enough time for her midday rest." EDI stated. "She will most likely be partially sleep-deprived for the rest of the day until she goes to bed tonight."
"What do you mean sleep deprived, how much time do Quarians spend sleeping?" Joker asked.
"They approximately need twelve hours however their natural sleep patterns at one point varied slightly based on the season. They are crepuscular, meaning they are only active at dusk and dawn, which on Rannoch last about six hours each day." EDI stated. "Although Tali's sleeping habits are significantly different from those of other Quarians due to her time on the Normandy."
"Not as different as I'd like," Tali said as she glanced out one of the cockpit windows. It was mid-September on Earth, and while the sun was not as high in the sky as it could have been, it was still far too bright to agree with Tali's circadian rhythm. Well, either that or it was the fact that Earth had a 24-hour day/night cycle, leaving her body with 8 hours left to perform its daily processes.
Tali stumbled her way out of the cockpit and through the boarding bridge back into the dry dock facility. Unlike most other Alliance facilities she had seen the ones on Earth were constructed mainly of concrete rather than steel, similar to the buildings on Haestrom. Apparently, this ship yard had been around during humanity's earliest efforts to colonize Luna in the 2070's. What had started as a couple of engine shops had grown into an expansive series of maintenance docks and construction facilities, all of them dedicated to the Alliance military.
The Quarian entered a nearby elevator and pressed the button for B1. The decades-old machine shook slightly as it descended to one of the complex's internal tram stations. While the Vancouver shipyards were impressive, they had been expanded rather than updated, and as such, most of their technology was quite dated. Still, when compared to the Migrant Fleet, even this antiquated tech felt modern when compared to her former home's ancient vessels. Tali felt a chill as she stepped out of the elevator despite her temperature-controlled enviro-suit. The Migrant Fleet, despite its ramshackle makeup, at least felt like somewhere you could call home. Tali reminisced on the bright and colorful tapestries that hung from the walls in Rayya and Neema's crew quarters. She thought about the plants that grew along the walls of the ships and that were tended by her people in their free time to bring some greenery into their sterile environments. Compared to this concrete hell hole, it was paradise.
Stepping out onto the street to wait for the bus wasn't much better. She had gone from a stone dungeon to a forest of blindingly bright, glaring towers that hovered over her and the rest of the people on the ground. She drew no small amount of eyes to her form. Most people here had never seen an alien, much less a Quarian, in person. A small child holding onto his mother's arm even pointed at her with his free hand.
"Daniel, it's rude to point fingers!" The woman admonished her son. She looked up at Tali. "I'm so sorry! He's just excited. He wants to join the Alliance when he grows up."
The bus pulled up to the stop and opened its doors. The vehicle was also antiquated. Its design not having changed since the 2130s. Only a few people stepped off and Tali along with the mother-son duo, got on board. The woman and her child each took a seat while Tali simply stood and grasped onto one of the overhead hand holds. There was nowhere else to sit with the bus being packed.
"That's good. There's a lot you can do with the Alliance. I have a few friends myself who are… erm, what do you call them? Aster… Astronauts?" Tali said, tapping a finger against her helmet's vocalizer as the bus started to move.
"We don't really use that term anymore. It was meant more for when space travel was more uncommon and difficult." The woman replied with a small chuckle. "Still, your knowledge of English is pretty good if you know that word!"
"Well, it shouldn't be a surprise, given how much time I've spent around humans."
A look of interest crossed the boy's face. "Are you a pilgrim?"
"No, I finished my pilgrimage two and a half of your calendar years ago. I'm… just a contractor for the Alliance."
"Thought so. I saw you coming out of one of the junkyard." The boy's mother replied.
Tali furrowed her brow. "No, that was one of the dockyards. The waste processing facility is over on the South side of the complex-"
The woman let out a small laugh. "That's just what we call it here. It's sort of a local nickname."
Tali let out an amused but derisive snort. "Trust me. I've seen actual junk. The things being built there are cutting edge tech, even if the buildings aren't."
"I guess you're right. The Flotilla still uses ships that are thousands of years old, right? I heard that from my friend Nylina. She works at the Asari embassy down on Third Street."
Tali hissed softly. "We've only been away from our home world for three centuries, not anywhere even close to a millennium! Contrary to what they may tell you, plenty of Asari remember the Morning War and what we look like under these suits."
Tali had said that last part a little too loudly. An awkward silence descended on the entire bus, souring the mood. Tali decided that it would be best to just endure the rest of her commute in silence. After about ten minutes, the bus arrived at the Alliance Headquarters' barracks, and she got off. She hurried her way towards the large building and scanned her Omnitool's access code at the door. As soon as she entered the expansive lobby and made way over to the elevators, she heard someone call out.
"Hey, Sparks!" A massive brown-skinned man with several tattoos lining his hulking body walked over to her, and when she said massive, she meant it. While he was only ten centimeters taller than her, he was bulging with muscle. Despite all of Jacob's exercise, he could never hope to compare to this behemoth of a man. He walked heavily over towards her, and for a second, the Quarian thought that this was a security guard about to throw her out for being an alien in an Alliance military building. Instead, he held out his hand.
"What's up? My name's James." He said it in an easygoing voice with a warm smile. They both stood there staring at each other for a second before Tali hesitantly grasped his outstretched hand. He grasped and shook it. "I'm Shepard's bodyguard."
"Bodyguard, so what, you're his handler or something?" Tali asked, bristling slightly. Her boyfriend came here of his own free will. The Alliance didn't need some bar bouncer-esque brute to keep him in line. She was about to tighten her grip in a display of dominance that the human would understand before James guffawed.
"Oh, hell no! God knows that if the Commander tries to do something, he's gonna do it! No, I'm just here to help make sure he doesn't get offed by a terrorist or something. You know, one of those jump-on-top-of-the-grenade kind of guys." James said as they broke the handshake.
Tali grimaced slightly. "Isn't that a bit grizzly?"
James laughed again as he keyed for the elevator to open and punched in the code for access to the officer level once they were inside. "Nah, don't worry about it too much. From what I've heard about the Commander, he's more likely to shove a bomb down the guy's throat rather than let it kill him. In actuality, I think the Alliance just needed somewhere to put me."
The elevator doors closed, and they began to ascend. This ride was significantly smoother than the last one. Tali felt a slight ache in her chest. Despite James' bravado and outgoing attitude, Tali could see that he was frustrated beneath the surface. That he was hurting in some way. "I guess you've got nowhere to go either then, huh?"
James' smile faltered and then disappeared completely as he turned to meet her mercury-colored eyes. "...No, not really."
"Then we've got something in common."
—-
"So I see that you met James," Shepard said as he sat down to eat dinner. Tali had already finished hers in the time it took for her boyfriend to make his. Because, well… it's literally prepackaged… in a tube. Tali felt very awkward sitting there eating while Shepard went through a lengthy process of prepping his meal.
"Yeah, he's… nice," Tali said about their new next-door neighbor. She put her elbows up on the table and placed her head in her hands. They ate in silence for a while until Shepard finally spoke up.
"Do Quarians ever eat solid food?"
Tali shook her head. "Nope. It's too difficult to grow on the Migrant Fleet."
"Well, what about outside the migrant fleet? We've served together for months, and I've only ever seen you eat nutrient-paste."
"Companies only really sell nutrient paste. Besides its too expensive to import dextro food on a large scale and we can't raise our own crops or live stock on the Migrant Fleet." Tali said despondently.
Shepard cocked an eyebrow at that and put his food down. "Well we aren't on the Migrant Fleet anymore. So… how about we get you a real meal?"
Tali perked up a bit, curious at the idea. "What do you mean?"
"Well…" Shepard thought for a moment. "We order some food that's compatible with your biology, and we cook it enough that any bacteria present dies while being in a clean room."
"Shepard, I uh…" Tali trailed off. She was trying to think of an excuse not to try it. But she couldn't. There weren't any cases where a Quarian on their pilgrimage had been able to afford to pay someone to sterilize their kitchen for a germless meal, and a room for said Quarian to eat it in safely. As for Tali herself, it hadn't been practical aboard the Normandy for them to quarantine and sterilize an entire deck just so that Tali could eat dinner. But neither Shepard nor Tali were lacking for time nor for money, and their kitchen wasn't in the middle of the crew deck of a warship. It'd take some time to clean the kitchen sufficiently and find some Dextro-compatible food, but it was possible. So why was she hesitating?
"I don't… think I should." Tali said slowly.
"Why not?" Shepard asked, furrowing his brow.
"I uh… it just wouldn't be right-"
Tali regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.
"You don't like the fact that you'd be enjoying something no one else on the Migrant Fleet can." Shepard deduced. Damn, she hated it when her Bosh'tet of a boyfriend was this perceptive with her. He crossed his arms. "Tali. They exiled you. You aren't under any obligation to starve yourself for the sake of some sense of duty to them."
Tali crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. She scoffed as she looked off to her right in a nonchalant manner that not only made her look confident but also helped her avoid her boyfriend's piercing stare. "I'm not starving myself, Shepard. I have plenty of food! Why would I ever want to eat some real-I mean regular food?"
The answer to that question came from Tali's own stomach, which, despite being already full of the bland nutrient paste, growled both loudly and hungrily at the mention of real food. At the mention of something that would actually have taste to it, and that would leave her feeling full. Something that would be fun to eat…
Tali lowered her crossed arms to her belly to try and muffle the chorus of rumbles that was now emanating from the unhappy organ. Shepard gave her a small smirk as her own body betrayed her convictions.
"How about this," Shepard suggested. "Consider this your reward for all your service to the Flotilla. You helped stop Saren and the Geth and played a pivotal role in destroying the Collectors. Besides, it's a human custom to treat your girlfriend to dinner."
"Well, I have given a lot for the Fleet a little… acknowledgment would be nice…" Tali trailed off. "And I have always liked your kind's dating culture."
—-
Thus, over the course of the next two weeks, Tali and Shepard got ready for dinner. The main problem they realized wasn't getting a hold of Dextro food or even getting ahold of proper cleaning supplies, it was Tali's own stomach. The Quairan had never actually had solid food before in her entire life. If she tried to eat anything solid now it would… not go well.
So the day after she had agreed to the idea of a solid meal, Shepard sterilized their shared kitchen with starship-grade decontamination equipment that he got from the requisitions officer in the barracks and used the clean space to deposit cut-up pieces of solid Trurian MREs that he had gotten from the Turian embassy into half of her nutrient paste capsules. In the other half, he filled it with a type of dextro noodles similar to human ramen. Dr. Chakwas had advised that this meal plan would be enough to prepare Tali's digestive system for an actual meal. Thankfully, Anderson had been kind enough to pull some strings to get him access to everything.
Tali's stomach growled at her again as she sat in the decontaminated chair in the completely disinfected kitchen. Her body was already fairly familiar with her boyfriend's, so he could go without an envirosuit. It was due to all this that she was able to sit there with her mask off.
Her long, forked tongue flicked out to taste the air around her. While Quarians had noses similar to those of humans, they lacked the sense of smell. Instead, their noses were meant primarily for breathing rather than sensory input. Their tongues were their primary way of interacting with the air around them, similar to the way the snakes native to Earth did. Tali rarely tasted the air because most of the taste was muted by her suit's filters. However, now the air around her had actual taste to it. Hidden amongst the thick taste of chemicals were the 'smells' of cooking meat and frying vegetables. Something she had never tasted before. She was now very glad that she had let her boyfriend talk her into doing this dinner.
Speaking of which, said dinner was almost done cooking. Shepard had gotten started as soon as he got back from today's legal meetings. The topic of today's discussion was the Hegemony's petition to the Citadel Council to have Shepard tried for the destruction of the Bahak system in an intergalactic court. The move by the Batarian envoy had dominated the news cycle on all major stations available on Earth. The Alliance, in response, issued an official statement claiming that there was no need for a trial and that the Citadel had no right to interfere with an internal matter. Unofficially, Anderson had reminded the rest of the Council that the vote to reinstate Shepard's Spectre status had been a unanimous one and that while it had not been common knowledge at that time, it could easily come up in a court hearing. Needless to say, the other Councillors' already frosty opinion of Anderson had chilled even further at the comment. Still, it was unlikely that the Council would risk that much of their reputation for the Batarians.
The oven's timer chimed its completion three times before Shepard finally turned it off. Due to the small layout of the apartment Tali was actually able to feel the blast of heat that came from the oven when her boyfriend opened it. The feeling of the hot air on her face felt nice, especially when the only kind of heat she was familiar with was the hot and humid mugginess when her suit's climate controls were overwhelmed. It only lasted a second before her boyfriend closed it again after having retrieved the meat of her meal. Using a long knife, he lifted the piece of Dextro meat off of its platter and put it on her plate. He then scraped the fried vegetables out of their frying pan and put them onto the plate as well.
He said something that her Omnitool didn't translate along the lines of 'Bon Appetite,' before placing Tali's dinner before her. She really needed to download some more human languages onto her translator.
The food in front of her was the dextro equivalent of a rib-eye steak and some fried vegetables that were once native to Rannoch but had been raised off-world for Turian consumption. While they may be primarily carnivores, the Turians did occasionally enjoy the odd vegetable as a dessert or delicacy. They hadn't been eaten by her people since their collective flight from Rannoch.
And now her human boyfriend had gone through the trouble of disinfecting their entire kitchen solely for the sake of giving her the chance to eat it, fully knowing that he himself would be unable to. Tali's face flushed as the immensity of the gesture finally hit her.
"Thanks, Shepard." She flicked her tongue out to taste the air around her meal, just shy of actually touching it. Her stomach growled at the prospect of ingesting real food. "Ooooooooooh, it tastes-er smells so good!"
"Well, I hope it lives up to the hype," Shepard said, sitting down next to his girlfriend. He was sweating slightly from the heat of the kitchen, but his eyes were bright and full of anticipation at Tali's reaction to all his hard work.
Tali took a deep breath, picked up her fork, and shoveled a scoop of vegetables into her mouth. Her eyes widened as the neurons in her mouth flooded her brain with ecstasy. She quickly began to wolf down the cooked plant life of her homeworld, not even bothering to chew it.
"Hey, slow down; you'll choke if you aren't careful." Shepard gently admonished her, an affectionate smile decorating his features. "Besides, don't you want to try the steak?"
Tali finished swallowing what she had in her mouth. "Good point. It does look good…"
Much to her boyfriend's confusion, Tali put down her fork and completely ignored her knife as she simply picked up the piece of steak and shoved it into her mouth. This is when Shepard learned that the reason Tali wasn't chewing her food was not because she was just that hungry. It was because… Quarians just didn't chew their food. Shepard's eyes widened as Tali's jaw split down the middle of her chin and cheeks, revealing two jaw-like appendages and six rows of razor-sharp teeth. Two rows on the roof of her mouth and two on either side of her lower jaws. The two lower jaws expanded outwards and downwards, unhinging from her skull as they latched onto the sides of her steak. Then, tilting her head upwards, she let gravity pull the slab of meat further into her mouth. After a few seconds of the Quarian running her forked tongue along the meat and savoring her meal, Tali finally decided that enough was enough and swallowed the steak.
Whole.
Her lips closed around the meat, and a loud gulping sound was emitted from her throat as a large bulge appeared, traveling down her neck before disappearing behind her ribcage and finally settling into her stomach.
"You were right, Shepard," Tali said before stifling a small burp. She rubbed her now full stomach with a very satisfied smile that was only made more pronounced, considering her jaw was still split. "That was amazing."