The aircraft tore through terrain as finely as a chisel through wood. It ruptured the earth in an avalanche of dirt and rock, beating deafeningly against the sides of the vessel. Adrenaline shot through her body, heart in her throat. She was pressing buttons with a frantic focus whilst alarms blared all around her. The words “critical engine damage” flashed in big red letters across a cracked screen, her forward view obscured by debris and a great, billowing cloud of black smoke haemorrhaging from the engine.
Gradually the jet lost its momentum. It slowed until at last it could not contend with the solid earth. She braced for impact as it came to a violent stop, body jolting against the wheel. A sharp pain shot up her side, but she barely felt it in the moment, and fell back into her seat with a shudder, lying limp in a cloud of dust and smoke. Her chest heaved with each heavy breath, sweat pouring down the sides of her face, fogging her helmet’s shield. She waited. She didn’t trust that it was over. Any moment now she would hear Alliance fighters landing nearby, and they would search the wreckage and find her and it would all be over. But nobody came. They had not followed her.
In the wreckage, she unclipped her belts and slowly sat up, forcing open the jet roof with a hard thump with her forearm. The airlock gave way with a hiss and opened outwards, exposing her to the atmosphere. It hurt to lift herself out of her seat, one hand flying to her ribs. They felt bruised, possibly broken, but that wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t figure out where she was, or what she was going to do next. With any luck, she had crash landed on a inhabited planet and she could find help, but if she was alone here, she wasn’t sure she had any hope of surviving without sending out an SOS, and she felt for certain that the Alliance would be the ones to pick her up then.
As she slid down the crumpled side of the aircraft, she caught sight of a bright light through the smoke and moved her hand to her pistol in its holster. She couldn’t see who it was, but it was coming towards her, and as she continued to observe them, more lights began to appear. Small, circular lights. The kind people wore on the tops of their heads. Then she heard it. A garbled, robotic noise that she couldn’t make sense of, but knew exactly what it was.
She limped around the back of the crashed vessel and slumped against its side for cover. If they found her, she wasn’t sure she would win. Not when all she had was a pistol with only a few sparing clips left over.
But damn it, she was going to try!
tali stands on hostile soil. it wasn’t always as such, but those times had been lost to legend. this cluster belonged to the geth, now. her squad is a scattered shadow at her side --- disorganised, unruly. leadership suits her poorly, and they all seem to notice. but her pilgrimage had been heralded a historic victory, affording her a posting decades outside of her own experience. news of commander shepard’s victory on the citadel had reached the fleet, to much celebration. with a quarian at her side? the triumph became a personal one, especially against the geth. that was the official story. this victory, alongside the geth data that they had managed to retrieve saw tali bolstered through the ranks. shepard’s hero status seemed to have rubbed off on her, even after the woman’s death. perhaps even more-so. but the reality of it was this: tali was young, grieving, and well & truly out of her depth. but keelah, she will try. she will beg for courage.
the crash is thunderous. profanity echoes from out vocal modulators, weapons raised to sudden attention. tali’s own shotgun picks-up to match, but her mouth remains shut: she is waiting for something. gunfire? another explosion? nothing good, to be certain. instead, after slight delay, there is a distress signal. ❝ 𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑! ❞ tali demands, attempting to silence the nervous chatter --- it’s a rather shallow, ineffective impersonation. ❝ 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 ... 𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎. ❞ the room falls to stillness, at that. tali feels like she’s seeing ghosts. but what is an alliance ship doing in geth space? argument rises from the silence, her team immediately starting to bicker over the signal’s legitimacy. it takes tali longer than it should to remember herself. ❝ 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚑𝚞𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎. ❞ she instructs, decidedly. some of them look at her like she’s crazy. what if it’s a trap? ❝ 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚖𝚢 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝚙𝚛𝚊𝚣𝚣𝚊. ❞ tali sharply reminds the loudest of the bunch, to which he has little rebut. and into the shuttle they go: making quick pace.
she can lie to the others, but not herself. tali hopes for shepard. it makes no sense, she knows. but she holds out for her captain, still. the sight of a crashed alliance vessel sends her heart into her throat. ❝ 𝚘𝚑, 𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚊𝚑 ... ❞ the whisper is akin to prayer. it was no trap, but it was a fight. instinct overcomes her. she comes out firing alongside her squad: as soon as the shuttle touches the ground. killing geth? this, she can do. the synthetics turn their attention away from their previous target, who tali searches desperately for a glimpse of amongst the chaos. is it ... is it? she almost catches fire for her trouble. but then: blonde. unmistakable, unrecognisable. her heart breaks, just a little. she was a fool to have held out hope in the first place. tali dives to shelter, getting ahold of herself before reemerging to fight. there are so many geth --- too many. she watches a member of her team take a shot from out the corner of her eye. ❝ 𝚍𝚊𝚖𝚗 𝚒𝚝! ❞ panic rushes to flood her tone. sending out chiktikka as distraction, tali steers a path through the open fire: tumbling into cover at the woman’s side. she’s injured, tali realises immediately. ❝ 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚗! 𝚠𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎! ❞
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