A/N: I own nothing except the laptop I wrote this story on.

I'm still privately seething about Zaeed's idiocy as we approach a decontamination vent that will lead to the shuttle bay that leads us to the Alarei. The Quarian on guard is a young fellow, clearly from the way he carries himself, and he's clearly never been out of the Migrant Fleet. At least, that's the energy he gives when he sees several non-humans escorting Tali to the door. He does stand at attention, and try to give off a sense of confidence.

"Tali'Zorah vas Neema…er, sorry. I mean vas Normandy."

Welp, that didn't last long.

Tali, to her credit, doesn't seem all that upset.

"No offense taken." She said diplomatically. "The change in name was not my choice."

"Right. I still apologize." The guard said. He activated his omni-tool. "Per Admiral Raan's instructions, the shuttle is prepared for you and Captain Shepard vas Normandy."

"Let's head to the Alarei." Sis said. She seems quite focused. I don't blame her. Tali is clearly one of her dearest friends, and I doubt she appreciates said friend being put on trial for something that seems so desperately out of her control.

"Of course." The guard said. "I'll unlock the shuttle now. Good luck with those geth, Tali'Zorah. Keelah se'lai."

There's that phrase again. I assume that it has something to do with Quarian religious practices, but I don't think now is the time to engage in a philosophical and/or religious discussion. Tali is too busy fidgeting with that shotgun of hers.

The shuttle that takes us to the Alarei is cold, darkly lit, and somewhat cramped. I'm not one to complain. COBRA training prepared me for that sort of thing, and I didn't exactly live the high life on Omega. Still, I'd be lying if the Normandy hadn't spoiled me of late.

"You okay, Tali?"

Garrus' voice cuts through the silence, and it sort of startles me. The reverb within Turian voices, whilst somewhat of a common thing for the species, is particularly pronounced in Mr. Vakarian's voice. He's currently adjusting the ammunition for his rifle; I can see that he's updating it to be primarily anti-armor and anti-synthetic ammo. Makes sense; the geth aren't organic.

"I just want to find my father, Garrus. I don't understand how this all happened."

"It sounds like a terrible accident." Garrus said. "I know you. You wouldn't be sending this sort of thing to the Migrant Fleet."

"Is there any possibility that the stuff you sent could, I dunno, re-activate itself?" I find myself asking. "That geth colossus on Haestrom had a self-repair function. Do all geth have that?"

"No, I was extremely careful." Tali said. "There were some parts that would have been great for the research, but the likelihood of reactivation was miniscule. That was enough for me to not send it. I am sure that I cost my father and his team months of time in research, but I wanted to make sure that everything was safe. I couldn't imagine creating a situation like this." She lowers her head. "They all make it seem like this is a suicide mission, and that it isn't a rescue; it's just a recovery mission."

"Keep the faith, Ms. Zorah." Thane said, breaking his meditative silence. "We will find the answers you are looking for. You also have a solid team at your back. Your closest friends on the Normandy, for example." He gestures to Sis and Garrus.

"...Thanks, Thane." Tali said. "I appreciate that. I mean, I also have you and John. That's a lot of firepower."

I don't say anything else. And neither, I notice, does Sis. We share a look. And the thought between us is mutual.

We're gonna need the firepower.

…

The Alarei is sufficiently far enough away from the rest of the Migrant Fleet that it takes some time for us to reach it. When we do dock, it's somewhat foreboding. The entire ship seems like it's offline.

That probably means the life-support system isn't working. If there's anything unmasked on that ship…Well, best not to think about that.

We disembark, and upon entering the first room, it is dark and quiet.

Too quiet.

Much as I hate the cliche, it was the truth. Sis turned on the team-com, and radioed in.

"They're waiting for us. Look for anything that warps in the light. The Geth will use cloaking."

I raise my two Predator pistols, and aim carefully. Scanning the horizon of the room, I don't see anything.

And then a shot rings out to my left, jolting the silence. Garrus had fired off a round into the distance. It looked like it was aimed at nothing. But then a now-decloaked Geth slumped to the ground, its flashlight eye shattered from Garrus' bullet.

And then the rest of the welcoming party revealed itself, and began to open fire.

"Flank them!" Sis barked. "Thane, John, head right and cut them off!"

The Drell takes point ahead of me, and it takes all of my speed to keep up with the man. We carefully creep down the side of the room, hiding behind a low railing and wall, until we are practically right on top of the enemy. I can't see them, but I know they're there. Thane looks back at me, and signals for me to follow his lead. I nod.

I watch as he leaps out of cover, and throws a biotic blast in the general direction of the Geth. The explosion illuminates their outline, which up to that point was hidden thanks to cloaking. Well, I have a pretty trained eye, and the outline was good enough for me. I fire a few shots at each, just enough to get them to reveal themselves.

Whereupon a pair of shots from down the hall, each into those flashlight eyes, puts them down for the count.

"Nice shooting, Garrus." Tali's voice crackles into my headset as soon as the fighting is over.

"Thanks, Tali. I've had a lot of practice breaking those lightbulbs." He sounds somewhat cheerful about it. It reminds me of my encounters with him when I only knew him as Archangel. He's no one to fuck with.

"Move up." Sis ordered, and the rest of the team move to catch up with Thane and I. I look over at the Drell, and see that he's breathing somewhat heavily.

"You good?" I ask.

"I am fine." Thane said. "I use biotics sparingly, given the effect it can have on my condition."

I feel a cold stab in my stomach. I forgot about his Keprel's syndrome. I shudder.

"Take it easy, Thane. Remember I've got your six."

He looks at me, and I think I can see an amused twinkle in his eye.

"I am dying, John. Not dead. Though I appreciate the thought and the support."

As the others clear the room, I walk into a nearby office. There's a terminal on the corner, and it's blinking like it has been used recently. I press a button, and a video turns on. It's a Quarian scientist, probably one of the folks that worked with Tali's dad.

"Something's slowing down the systems. We're taking down the firewalls to rebalance load distribution." The scientist says. "Rael'Zorah ordered us to bypass standard safeties. Following security protocols will take too long."

Oh, fuck.

I turn the terminal off. This is bad. Really, really bad. If that man was talking about what I think he was talking about…well, maybe it wasn't because of that. It couldn't be.

I hope it isn't.

"Room's cleared. Team, move up. Eyes open. There will probably be other geth in the ship. Keep an eye out for survivors."

"Shepard, you make it sound so final. My father has to be okay. I know it."

I cringe. Do I tell either of them what I've overheard?

For now, I say nothing.

…

Making our way through the Alarei gives off the impression of walking into a horror movie. It reminds me of that cheesy space horror film that doesn't feel so cheesy now. What was it called? Oh, right. Alien. In space, no one can hear you scream, and things of that nature.

That film seems positively quaint compared to the things we've uncovered in the galaxy since.

After clearing a few more rooms, we come to our first set of locked doors. That gives me a sense of relief. A locked door could mean that there are people on the other side of that thing that barricaded themselves inside so that they could avoid the slaughter. Because I've seen a few dead bodies throughout the halls.

"Stand aside, everyone. It isn't calibrations, but it's close." Garrus walks up to the door, and activates his omni-tool. He presses a few buttons, muttering to himself. And then he chuckles. "What is it you humans say? 'Cross the red wire with the blue wire,' or things of that nature?" The door lock disappears. "Well, whatever the case, I unlocked this door. Didn't see any wires."

"Very funny, Garrus." Sis said.

There's no one inside the room, and that is very disappointing. But there appear to be some crates off to the side of the room. They catch the attention of Tali.

"Shepard, look at this." She points to one of them. "This is one of the storage units I sent to father."

She looks it over, and I watch the conversation between the two play out.

"Looks like parts from a disabled repair drone, plus a reflex algorithm that I didn't recognize." Tali said. "I got this on Haestrom."

"What made a part worth sending back to your father?" Sis asked.

"It had to be in working order." Tali said. "Something that could be analyzed and integrated into other technology. Anything new had priority. Technology that the geth developed themselves. Signs of modifications, clues to their thinking."

Artificial intelligence designing their own tech? If I wasn't living in the type of world sci-fi writers of the past could only dream of, I'd be wetting myself. But that's just me.

"How did you get these things to your father?" Sis asked.

"Sometimes I left packages at secure drops in civilized areas." Tali explained. "Someone on Pilgrimage would see that it was shipped home. For very valuable finds, I'd signal home, and Father would send a small ship."

"Haestrom was a war zone," Sis said. I detect an impressed tone in her voice. "How did you manage to send things back through all of that?"

"These suits have more pockets than you'd think." Tali said, a sly tone in her voice. "Quarians have learned how to salvage whatever we can whenever we can." She then adds a necessary qualifier. "Within reason, of course. We're not Vorcha. But we repair what most people would throw away."

Before I can help myself, I speak up.

"What about iDroids? Your people find use for those?"

Tali looks over at me and puts a hand on her hip.

"That technology…wasn't necessarily the highest priority." She said, with a hint of an apologetic tone.

Next to me, Garrus nudges me in the ribs.

"She's calling you out of date, Johnny boy."

"Another word, Vakarian, and I'll hit you in the other cheek with another rocket."

"John, I'll pay you a million credits on the spot if you can tell me which side has already been hit."

Damn Turian.

"Both of you, shut up." Sis said. She turns back to Tali. "Continue."

Tali nods and continues explaining. "There are hundreds of ships in the Fleet that were salvaged wrecks, either found dead in space or purchased for next to nothing."

Sis points to the crate. "Does that salvaged gear give you any idea as to what happened here?"

"No. I don't know." There's a trace of panic in Tali's voice. "Shepard. I checked everything I sent here. I passed up great finds because they might be too dangerous, prone to uncontrolled reactivation or self-repair." She sighs. "I don't know which possibility is worse: that I got sloppy and sent something dangerous…or that father actually did all of this."

I think about that video log, and I shudder.

…

Again, it's terrifyingly quiet in here. There are only a few geth here and there, and they are easy to deal with. But I was expecting a massive overload of the things, and it just isn't happening. I'm on edge, and I'm starting to feel a headache from it.

I turn to Thane.

"Hey Thane."

"Yes, John?"

"Do Drell have prayers or anything like that for anxiety?"

The Drell taps his chin in thought.

"Not in the sense that you mean. But if you need a prayer for serenity, I think that Amonkira would be a worthwhile deity to ask for, given the context."

Ahead of us, Sis turns around and cocks her head to the side.

"Exploring a religion change, John?"

"I'm no theologian, Jane." I reply. "Just looking for something here." Thane smiles.

"Pay your sister no mind, John. Amonkira and the pantheon do not discriminate in whose prayers they hear." He then looks thoughtful. "Well, I suppose they aren't a fan of prayers in favor of wicked deeds. That would be bad."

As we walk through a narrow hallway, I see another computer. It's blinking. I look around to see if the others are paying attention, and then I slide my iDroid next to it. It synchs up the video file, and soon the audio is in my headset…and mine alone.

"Who's running this system diagnostic?" A woman Quarian voice comes through my ears. "I didn't authorize…oh, Keelah, how many geth are networked?'

"All of them…" another, haunted-sounding male Quarian voice, replies. "Rael'Zorah…"

"Shut it down! Shut everything down! They're in the system!" The first voice says, and then the link goes dead.

The icy pit in my stomach grows colder.

…

After a few more rooms of deadly silence, we run into a squadron of geth patrolling the hallway. They don't seem to have seen us yet. Sis motions for us to stack up behind her. As we do, she goes through a series of hand signals as if on instinct. I recognize them immediately.

Three hostiles. Dead center. Run and gun.

I can tell that Thane and Tali are lost, but Garrus nods and raises his rifle towards the squadron. Sis looks at me expectantly. I nod, look down the hall, and see some crates in between us and the geth squadron.

I reach into my bandolier, and pull out a concussive grenade. I take a deep breath, and start running.

The geth turn around as I'm halfway to the crates, but luckily I've already primed the grenade. It's one of my favorite (and risky) tricks. I throw the grenade at them while running, and then dive towards the crates. The bullets are whistling past me, but none hit.

I land safely behind the crates right as the concussive blast detonates, but I'm shielded from the shockwave by the cover. I hear some shots from behind me, but then two deafening booms that can only be heard from a shotgun. Tali runs up behind me, ejecting her spent rounds.

"Was…was the dive necessary, John?" She manages to ask, helping me to my feet. I shrug.

"It's fun."

"Keelah, do all of you Shepards have a flair for the dramatic?"

"Wait till you meet our mom." I said. Tali chuckles.

"I did. At the funeral for your sister. Lovely lady. Complete opposite of you two bosh'tets."

I shake my head and cross my arms.

"You clearly never saw her at a Christmas party."

"John!" Sis' scandalized voice rings in my ear.

"Kidding!" I say in response.

…

We clear another room, and I see another terminal. I'm about to activate it on the sly, but Tali presses it first. We see a Quarian speaking into the terminal. There are explosions and sounds in the background.

"We locked down navigation. Weapons are offline. Our mistake won't endanger the Fleet." It's the same woman Quarian I heard on the other tape. I feel my stomach drop a bit. This is not a video log. It's a goodbye note.

The sounds in the background are getting louder. The Quarian looks over to her side, and looks at the camera again.

"They're burning through the door. I don't have much time. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

This poor woman. I watch Tali. She's standing rigidly, as if frozen in shock.

There are more explosions. And now I see the telltale signs of bullets whistling through the air.

"Jona, if you get this…be strong for Daddy." There's another explosion. "MOMMY LOVES YOU VERY MUCH!"

A hail of bullets come racing in from the right side of the screen, and the Quarian slumps down to the ground. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

"...Keelah." Tali whispers.

Poor kid.

…

"Have we seen anyone alive yet?" Garrus asks, after clearing another room of Geth. This was a rough one. Tali had to save my ass twice, and I refuse to elaborate. Goddamn cables jutting out from the ground caused me to trip.

I absolutely did not lose a fight to a geth hunter. No sirree.

"Garrus…" Tali said, and there was a hint of warning in her tone. Garrus' response was, understandably, defensive.

"I don't like it either, Tali, but we're running out of ship, geth, and bodies. I can't imagine the Alarei had an entire battalion of scientists here. That would detract from the whole 'secret mission under the Admiralty Board's nose.'"

KA-CHACK.

Tali racks her shotgun. Garrus is silent. Sis, to her credit, steps in between them.

"Everyone, cool off." She looks around, and spots a set of terminals at the far end of a room. "That might be useful. Tali?"

Distracted from her brief impulse to murder, Tali looks over at the screens. "Maybe." She walks over and begins scanning the thing with her omni-tool. "This console might have something. Most of the data is corrupted, but a few bits are left."

After a few minutes of typing, she turns back to us.

"Their research…it looks like they were performing experiments on geth systems, looking for new ways to overcome geth resistance to reprogramming."

"Did you know what kind of tests your father was running?" Sis asked.

"No…" Tali replied. "Father just told me to send back any geth technology I could find that wasn't a direct danger to the Fleet." Her breath seems to catch a bit. "I suspected he might be testing weapons, but I thought he was just working on new ways to bypass shields or armor."

"Do you think your father testing weapons was right?" Sis asked. I wince. This is not the time for a discussion on ethics, Janey…

"It's not testing weapons on prisoners, Shepard." Tali said, somewhat testily. "I only sent Father parts. Even if he assembled them, they wouldn't be sapient." She points a finger at her. "You saw what Saren and Sovereign did with the geth. Any research that gives us an advantage is important."

Not wanting to get bogged down, Sis changes the subject.

"Could any of that data clear your name?" She asked.

"Doubtful." Tali said, resignation in her voice. "This is mostly results data. Effects of different disruptive hacking techniques. I don't understand all of it." She looks at her omni-tool again. "But…they may have been activating the geth deliberately. I don't know. Nothing here says specifically. But if they were…then Father was doing something terrible."

Oh fuck.

I feel like I'm gonna be sick.

"What was all this, Father?" Tali wonders aloud. "You promised me you would build me a house on the homeworld. Was this going to bring us back home?"

"Maybe it's time for your people to let go of reclaiming your homeworld from the geth?"

Why. Why. Why did I say that?

She is, understandably, furious. And lets me know it.

"You have no idea what it's like! You have a planet to go back to. My home is one hull breach away from extinction!"

Normally, I would have told her to quit crying about it and move on. But, instead, I try something else. I barely know why, but I'm still talking.

"You're right. I don't understand. But…you've got a place here, Tali." I offer. "I've been through revenge missions. Hell…" I take a deep breath. "Torfan was a revenge mission for me. You see what that did. Don't…don't throw away your place in a war you don't need."

"Don't need?" She practically hisses. "John, if I don't wear a helmet in my own home, I die! A single kiss could put me in the hospital!" She sounds close to tears. "Every time you touch a flower with your bare fingers, inhale its fragrance without air filters, you're doing something that I can't!"

"Tali…John isn't your enemy, here." Sis finally cuts in, having been watching for a moment. "I know you're angry and hurting, but he's not the one to absorb it."

Tali is silent for a moment. She looks away. And then she speaks.

"That's…not inaccurate. Fine. I'm sorry, John. You aren't the source of my anger, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

I smile, and shrug.

"Apology accepted. I should have been more thoughtful, and not just run my mouth."

"Also true. But you're a Shepard, speaking bluntly runs in the family." Tali replies. She sighs. "Damn the Pilgrimage. Without it, I might never have known what I was missing. What we had lost when we lost our homeworld."

"Have the Quarians considered colonizing a new world?" Garrus asks.

"Trust me, it's been discussed." She replied. "We'd have enough difficulty reacclimating to our own native environment. Adjusting for exposure to a foreign colony would be even harder. It's the difference between 60 years and 600. For anyone alive now to watch a sunset without a mask, we must take back our home." She sighs. "At the very least, we can take back one ship. Come on."

…

Tali is pointedly silent for some time after that. As she leads us through the Alarei, she takes the lead in knocking out geth stragglers here and there. I notice that she seems to be working out some issues with each shotgun blast. There's one time where she steps on the head of a downed geth trooper, and fires point-blank into its flashlight eye. I wince. It's reminiscent of Torfan.

And what I did to more than one Batarian.

After winding our way through several hallways and deeper into the abyss, we come across a holopad that is blinking. I press play.

"First entry," the voice of a female Quarian speaks up. "Our hacking attempts failed. The geth have an adaptive consciousness. Hack one process, and the others auto-correct…Still, we're making progress. Rael'Zorah is convinced we'll have a viable system in less than a year. This weapon will put our people back on the homeworld. And it's all because of Rael'Zorah."

"Somewhat…hearty support of a scientist there." Garrus mutters after the log finishes playing.

"They are desperate, Garrus." Thane said. "And desperate people will believe in just about anything. Prior to the Hanar saving my people, we were reduced to some systems of belief that are positively barbaric. All because people thought it would save the species."

The rest of us are left to meditate on these words.

…

I'm so focused on clearing a hallway that I nearly trip. Cursing slightly, I look down at what caused me to nearly eat shit, and do a double take. It's a Qurian. Judging by the body structure, it looks male. He's facedown on the ground, so I turn him over.

I don't really know what I expected. It's not like I can see his face.

But I also didn't expect to hear Tali behind me.

"Father!"

She races up next to me, and takes a knee next to me.

"No, no, no! You always had a plan. Masked life signs, or, or an onboard medical stasis program or-"

Then she freezes.

And grabs me by the shoulder.

"John, he's breathing!"

A/N: Hi, everyone. For those of you who have been following me for a long time, you might be surprised to see that this story is updating again. I have to admit, I got a good chuckle out of the number of 'omg I thought you were dead' messages and reviews. Not because it is a trivial thing, but because I did not think that I had written something that made people as happy as my writing seems to have made.

Blessed Be The Peacemakers is an interesting story to me. When I started writing this thing I was wrapping up college and I was, naturally, in a period of life transition that often affects, well, every kid that gets their diploma. I was still a kid, I suppose. And I was pouring a lot into my writings. For all intents and purposes, I was gonna wrap this bad boy up, and then move on to the next thing. And then a few things happened.

First, the political environment of the US changed after I started writing this story. It felt like a body blow, as I looked around and realized that the world I thought I was entering was far, far different from the world I was actually entering. It felt more difficult to write something that, if we're honest, was a pretty angry fic (especially in comparison to others like, say, And So We Fight, which is a much more romantic story in the traditional sense.)

Second, I started my job. I've been in this career ever since I graduated college, and I plan to stick to it until it's time to clock out and retire somewhere. But when you're new to the workforce, it's difficult to manage that and the writings that you had a lot more time for in college than you do now as a working stiff.

And third, as I'm dealing with everything else in my life, my world got rocked again with the tragic suicide of Linkin Park's singer Chester Bennington. That devastated me. I cannot begin to tell you the number of LP songs and albums I'd cycle through as I was writing…well, just about everything I've ever put on this website. They were my favorite band, and they were the soundtrack of my life. And just like that, they were done. And Chester was gone.

On top of that, my family of origin never really liked my hobby of writing on FF. Or much of my so-called nerdy hobbies, to be honest. I won't belabor the details, but suffice to say that the stereotypical "It's a waste of your time!" energy was strong with them. So everything I wrote was basically done in secret, and with a growing sense of shame and guilt.

It didn't help things that, for lack of a better way to put it, I wrote BBTP with some very key people in my life being the stand-ins for key characters in the story. Commander Jane Shepard, most specifically. Some reviewers over the years have objected to her behavior in the story, noting that she is too harsh at times, too judgmental, and ultimately not as sympathetic as the shining paragon I want her to be viewed as should be behaving. Part of that, I think, is based on a sense of disappointment that she isn't depicted the way these readers feel she should be. Which obviously I cannot control.

But these critiques also have a point. Because it turned out that the person/people I was using as my inspiration for Jane Shepard were not the people I thought they were. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Kind of hard to approach a character who you specifically viewed as a stand-in for someone you cared about only to discover that the real world inspiration for that character did not extend the same care towards you. I'll leave it at that.

Eventually, all of this became too much.

And so, with this combination of factors, I quietly decided "fuck it. I'm walking away." And went dormant. I figured that no one would miss me that much.

And life went on.

I got older. I settled down. I cut ties with and set firm boundaries with toxic people. I matured and grew. And I got married. To someone who loved me, yes, but also liked me and understood me. And a few years down the road, the topic of hobbies came up, and I confessed to my partner that I used to write fanfiction for video game series that I enjoyed.

Imagine my surprise when they and their sibling responded, sincerely, "That is so cool!" And now I realized that maybe my hobby wasn't all that weird. Maybe it was innocent and fun and fine after all.

And I started clicking and re-reading my stories again. I have to chuckle at how cheesy some of my old tales are. A few of them are stuffed with references and rip-offs. If I had a favorite TVTrope, it'd probably be "Shout-Out". And I remembered how much I enjoyed doing this, and started thinking about my stories again. And then I decided, a few weeks ago, "Eh, what the hell" and logged into my account again.

The number of personal messages from readers, all positive, were enough to make me tear up. I did not realize that so many of you enjoyed this stuff so much, and your words of concern and kindness were simply overwhelming. For those of you that ever sent me a message, thank you. I'm sorry that I never logged back into my account until recently (I lost the password, for one).

The sheer number of reviews periodically trickling in over the years. The kind words. And the itch started desiring a scratch…

Finally, the last piece. Almost symbolic, in a way. Seven years after their hiatus, my favorite band reunites with a new singer and a new direction. Linkin Park is back? It must be a sign.

Then I guess I needed to follow suit…

I'm a grown-up now. I am proud of my hobbies. And I want to see this story through to the end.

On one hand, my dear readers, we're not quite as close to the endgame as I might have thought six years ago. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

But on the other hand, for the first time in years, I can say this with confidence: I know how this story ends. And I think that I am excited to see how my own personal growth influences how these characters I have grown to love will grow for the remainder of the ride.

I only hope that you will join me on the ride.

Alright, enough rambling! Let's fucking do this, baby!

The Fighting Irishman