"You're sure you'll be okay?" Oriana was surprised with herself, what with how concerned she was now for Miranda.

Her 'big sister' nodded in reply. "Jacob and I have worked together plenty of times. We know how to watch each other's backs. Are you going to be okay?" Miranda put a hand on her shoulder.

Jacob gave Oriana a guilty look over Miranda's shoulder. "Sorry, but we really should be going," he said.

Miranda nodded. "In a moment."

Oriana put her hand on top of her 'sister's'. "I'll be fine. More than fine. I have some of the deadliest people in the galaxy looking after me."

She saw Miranda look over her shoulder and stiffen in surprise. Oriana looked behind her and saw the last person she ever expected.

Jack slouched against the entrance to the hangar and gave them all an amused look. Then she pushed off of the bulkhead and walked towards them. Oriana wasn't sure what to do. She had a crazy notion to call EDI and tell her to get her drone in here, but what the machine could do against the biotic was anyone's guess.

Jack must have sensed her worry, because she looked at Oriana and winked. "Relax, Ennesby. Just seeing off some old friends."

"I see," said Miranda. She had removed her hand from Oriana's shoulder and had moved her body so that her right side faced Jack. Jacob was also standing ready with his arms at his sides.

Jack gave them both an amused look. "So you're really doing it. Sticking your hand into the lion's mouth. You know what Cerberus will do to you if they catch you?"

Miranda nodded. "Pretty much the same thing they were going to do to you."

The biotic gave a short, nasty laugh. "Yeah. I gotta give you credit for having some big hairy ones, cheerleader. And you too, boy-toy."

Neither Miranda or Jacob replied. There was a sudden move from Jack, and Oriana flinched in spite of herself. But it was just Jack's hand, extended towards Miranda. The former still had a slight smirk on her tattooed face.

The once-XO nodded and carefully shook Jack's hand. Then Jack extended the same hand to Jacob, who reluctantly shook it as well.

"See ya. Wouldn't wanna be ya. Fuckers." Before anyone could blink, Jack turned on her heel and stalked out of the hangar. Once she was gone, Oriana took in a long and ragged breath.

Miranda and Jacob looked at each other. "That was our cue to get the hell out of here, I think," said Jacob. Miranda nodded, and they got into the shuttle. Oriana waited and raised a hand to bid farewell to the departing vehicle. She kept it raised until the Normandy's hangar door closed. Then she went looking for Donnelly, and managed to buttonhole him as he was coming out of Engineering.

"Was that your idea?"

He looked genuinely puzzled. "Was what my idea?"

"Making Jack shake hands with Miranda."

She jerked back in surprise as Donnelly let loose a guffaw.

"Ha! Make Jack do something. That's rich. No, lass, I may have suggested tae me wee daft scunner that she should understand how dangerous Miranda's mission is. But if she did anything, it was on her own."

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The Quarian liveship swelled in the forward windows. It rapidly grew from a small sphere to a huge ornamented globe which blotted out the stars. Shepard had always wanted to see one of these ships, but not like this. He could feel Tali pacing behind him. Without looking, he knew that she would be wringing her hands together in a familiar nervous mannerism. It was something that he hadn't seen her do in quite a while.

"We've got a channel open," said Joker.

Tali stopped pacing and took a deep breath. "This is Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya, requesting permission to dock with the Rayya."

There was a slight pause before an almost mechanical-sounding quarian voice responded. "Our system has conflicting reports on your vessel. Some still have you flagged as Cerberus. Please verify."

Tali stepped up beside Shepard. "After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began."

Another pause, and when the voice came back on it had lost its robotic quality. "Permission granted. Welcome home, Tali'Zorah."

Shepard could feel Tali's relief right through her mask. "We'd like a security and quarantine team to meet us. Our ship is not clean."

"Understood. Approach exterior docking cradle 17."

"Will do. Thank you." Tali nodded to Joker, who closed the channel. She turned to Shepard. "I can't thank you enough for getting me here. I'll let you know when the trial is-"

"Whoa, whoa," interrupted Shepard. "Sorry, but if you think I'm going to let one of my crew waltz into a dangerous situation by themselves then you're crazy." He gave her a little smile. "And I know you ain't crazy, my fair lady."

Tali clasped her hands in front of her. "It's not dangerous, Shepard. Well, not physically dangerous. If I'm found guilty, I'll just be exiled."

"Not gonna happen," interjected Joker. His usually cheerful face was set in determination.

"I'm coming with you," added Shepard, and held up a hand to forestall her objection. "Yes, I am. Anybody who picks a fight with my crew picks a fight with me." He thought a little bit more. "We need somebody else. I'd prefer having an extra set of eyes to watch our backs. This is your ship we're going to. Whom do you recommend?"

Tali leaned back a little as she thought. "We need to keep a lower profile. You are an obvious choice to come along, being this ship's captain. And you cut an, um, impressive figure, so all eyes will be on you." She gave a vague up-and-down gesture at Shepard's body, and he smiled in spite of himself at her awkwardness.

"So if they're all looking at you," continued Tali, "then we need somebody they'll overlook. Kasumi is a little too obviously a sneaky-type. They'll be on guard against somebody like that. We need somebody small, but who punches 'way above their weight class' as Marcus would say. Yes...I think it should be Jack."

"Jack?" Shepard didn't bother to hide his surprise at Tali's choice. "You're getting along okay with her, then?"

Tali shrugged. "She's a...real sweetheart, once you get to know her."

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Jack was now getting a taste of how the bucket-heads lived. She was sealed up inside her armor, which had been sanitized in the airlock as usual. But then there had been another round of scrubbing and washing and buffing inside of another portable chamber attached to the outside of the Normandy's airlock. After that, they had been pronounced 'mostly' clean enough and allowed to enter the ship proper.

The three of them were met by the Rayya's captain, a gangly guy in a beige-colored environmental suit. He was flanked by two guards who had rifles at the ready. Jack didn't like the look of that, and began to figure out just how she would take them out if Shepard gave the go-signal.

The quarian captain wasted no time in getting to the point. "Captain Shepard. Tali'Zorah told me a lot about you. I wish we could be meeting under more pleasant circumstances. I thank you for escorting her." He peered behind Shepard's shoulder at Jack. "And who is this?"

"May I introduce my adjutant, Jacqueline Naught," replied Shepard. "And technically, I never made the rank of Captain. I'm not even in the Alliance military at all anymore."

Jack all but rolled her eyes at that. For somebody who could be an absolute badass, Shepard had the bad habit of sounding like a pedantic dork a lot of the time.

Kar'Danna shrugged. "You are the leader of your ship, and responsible for the lives aboard it. In our eyes, that makes you a captain." His manner became more formal as he continued. "May you stand between your crew and harm as you lead them through the empty quarters of the stars."

"Keelah se'lai," murmured Tali. "It's an old ship captain's blessing, Shepard."

The Commander gave Kar'Danna a short bow. "Tali has helped the Normandy's crew out of many difficult situations. I'm just here to return the favor. But I thank you, sir. Keelah se'lai."

The quarian captain returned the bow. "Technically, I'm supposed to take Tali into custody pending her trial, however I don't think that will be necessary, do you?"

Shepard nodded, and Jack couldn't help but feel just a little disappointed. It would be nice to teach these bucket-heads some manners.

"Good," continued Kar'Danna. "Tali, you're considered confined to the ship until the trial is over. The trial also requires me to be officially neutral, but I'm here if you need to talk. They're charging you with bringing active geth into the Fleet as part of a secret project."

That was not what Jack was expecting. She was thinking this was some kind of bullshit penny-ante political charge against her buckethead friend. This shit sounded serious, however.

"That's insane!" spluttered Tali. "I never brought active geth aboard. I only sent parts and pieces."

Shepard, to his credit, didn't let it pass without comment. "You sent geth materials back to the Migrant Fleet?"

Tali stood her ground. "Yes. My father was working on a project. He needed the materials." Then she stared off into the distance as she thought further. "If I sent back something that was only damaged, not permanently inactive...No! No, I checked everything. I was careful."

Kar'Danna didn't comment on what Tali had said. Instead, he looked at Shepard. "The hearing's being held in the garden plaza, through those doors. Good luck to you all."

Getting to the plaza went almost smoothly. Jack did want to give a good old-fashioned squishing to one of the assholes they ran into while making their way to the hearing. The fucker had the nerve to say that if Tali couldn't get a quarian captain to stand for her, then she was as good as convicted. Jack almost went into manners-teaching mode at that point, only to be stopped by a look and a shake of the head from Shepard. He might be a massive dork most of the time, but Jack was willing to follow his lead.

They did encounter a couple of bucket-heads whom Jack didn't want to squish, including somebody whom Tali referred to as her 'aunt'.

"Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. I am glad that you came. I could delay them only so long."

"Auntie Raan!" Tali gave the taller quarian a hug. "Shepard, Jack, this is Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay. Wait, did you just call me..."

Admiral Raan looked down. "I'm afraid so. Admiral Koris insisted on your name change."

"Is that bad?" asked Jack.

Tali nodded. "They stripped me of my ship name. That's as good as declaring me exiled already."

Raan put a hand on Tali's shoulder. "You have more allies than you think. Unfortunately, I will have to recuse myself during the hearing due to my ties with your family."

Shepard shook his head. "That's unfortunate. Does Tali have a defense counselor, someone who speaks for her side?"

"Yes," replied Raan. "As her named ship's captain, it falls to you to plead her case."

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Tali looked a little sheepish at that. "Er...so you would speak in my defense."

Jack expected Shepard to start blathering like a dork about how he technically wasn't a lawyer either blahblahblah, but he just nodded and said "I'll do everything in my power to help you, Tali."

The buckethead straightened up when she heard that. "Thank you, Shepard. I could not ask for a better counselor."

Now Jack did roll her eyes. She was getting really sick of all the ridiculous footsie these two were playing with each other, and she made a promise to herself. If these two weren't together after this whole mess was over then she was going to strip Shepard naked, tie him up, and stick him in the airlock with a big red bow on his head. Then she was gonna send in Tali with some antiseptic wipes and a jar of lube.

The hearing itself was a real shit-show. At first the asshole that had taken Tali's name, Admiral Koris, tried to keep Shepard from speaking for Tali. But then he got the name-change he'd insisted on thrown right back in his face. That was nice. Jack began wondering what it would look like if she squished Koris' head. Would the suit helmet crack first, like a hard-boiled egg, or would his head just kind of turn into mush inside his suit? What color was quarian blood anyway? Had she ever killed a quarian? She was prety sure she hadn't. She'd have to look up later what color they bled. It would help with her imagination.

Her happy musings were interrupted by an exclamation from Tali. "What do you mean, the Alarei is lost? What about my father?"

"He was on board the Alarei," replied Admiral Gerrel. He didn't sound happy, either. At least this buckethead had been on Tali's side. "We've tried to send in marines to retake the ship, but no luck so far. Somehow it's been overrun with geth."

Koris snorted. "Somehow? Please. Tali has admitted she sent geth components back to her father. Clearly she was dangerously careless and incompetent."

Shepard gripped the railing in front of him, and Jack heard the metal under his gloves give a little creak. She smiled in anticipation. Watching Shepard go full-bore apeshit on these assholes would be the next best thing to squishing them herself.

"Let me get this straight," Shepard said with deadly calm. "You have an active invading force in the middle of your fleet at this very moment, and you thought the most productive thing to do would be to put a member of my crew on trial?"

Koris suddenly realized he was facing a man who had taken down a Reaper. He began waving his arms. "Well, we had to determine how it occurred! We couldn't have it happen again, which is why we started this investigation!"

"Ah, an investigation. I'm glad you clarified that for me, Admiral Koris. Because we simple humans would call this a witch-hunt." Shepard let go of the railing and stepped back. The sheet metal was bent where he'd been gripping it. "In any case, this hearing is pointless without further facts. Not to mention you have a serious security problem that needs to be taken care of immediately. The crew of the Normandy stands ready to aid the Migrant Fleet."

"We gratefully accept your help," said Gerrel smoothly, before Koris could object. "If you can retake the Alarei, then we will be able to access her records and properly determine how this unfortunate incident took place." He glared over at Koris. "Something we should do before throwing around accusations of treason or incompetence."

Koris continued to bluster. "Well, the safest course of action would be to simply blow up the Alarei. But if Tali is looking for an honorable death instead of exile-"

Tali pointed an angry finger at the admiral. "I'm looking for my father, you bosh'tet!"

Admiral Raan raised a hand. "So be it. This hearing is adjourned until Tali'Zorah's return. Tali, you and your crewmates will be flown to the Alarei and then you will attempt to retake it. Please rest assured, if you fall in the course of this duty your record will show that you acted in service to the Migrant Fleet. Any question of your loyalty or competence will be stricken from the record."

So there was a fight coming up, which sounded just fine to Jack. She hadn't had a chance yet to kill any geth. From the pictures she'd seen, they kinda looked like robotic bucketheads. If she squinted, she could imagine she was squishing Koris.

Of course, they couldn't go directly to the shuttle and get started with the squishing. There had to be an interminable round of walking around and talking to everyone. It looked like Shepard was trying to get a sense of the politics involved in this whole mess. And those politics were definitely messy. Tali was just the pawn who happened to be caught in between the factions led by Koris and Gerrel. Gerrel's side wanted to try and retake the buckethead homeworld of Rannoch. The asshole, Koris, wanted to see if they could make peace with the geth. Even Tali's 'aunt' had her own fucking agenda, and had deliberately not told Tali about her father.

If Jack were captain, that last bit of news would have been enough to unleash hell on all of these fuckers. But Shepard had just nodded and kept moving on. The last two bucketheads they met with were a twitchy guy named Veetor and a taller marine named Kal'Reegar. Jack liked him, or at least didn't feel like killing him right away. The marine was no nonsense, and went through with them what had been tried so far by the two strike teams.

"I can give you some schematics of the Alarei as well, for what that's worth," said Kal'Reegar. "The geth have a nasty habit of restructuring bulkheads and whatnot. You might not find the layout the same anymore."

"It's better than nothing," replied Shepard. "It's good to see you up and about, Kal."

The quarian shrugged. "And it's good to see Tali with you. It's great that somebody's looking out for her."

----------------------------------------

The shuttle ride to the lab ship was tense. Tali kept wringing her hands, to the point where Jack almost snapped at her to cut it out. But she settled for reaching over and putting her hand on Tali's shoulder. It was a sappy move, but at least it got Tali to stop twitching.

"It's okay, buckethead. We'll go kick some ass, get the info, and show those fuckers how wrong they were."

"Are they, though?" asked Tali. "I wonder."

"Of course they are, Tali," replied Shepard. He was was seated across from them and doing his own little nervous habit of tapping one foot on the deck.

"I keep going over it," said the quarian. "I keep wondering if I did mess up somehow. Did I send something that wasn't fully deactivated?"

Jack waved a hand dismissively. "No way. You're a perfectionist. Besides, how hard could it be to make sure those components weren't dangerous?"

"Harder than you think," replied Tali. "The structure of geth mentality is a lot different than other AIs. Take EDI, for example. She's centralized. If you take out her quantum blue box, then she'd be dead. But geth are much more diverse. There really isn't a notion of 'individuality' with them. There are separate processes, but each is less than intelligent. They don't exhibit sapience until enough of them join together." She leaned back. "I thought that Father was testing weaponry on inactive geth components. He must have been doing more."

"There's no way it could be a huge mistake?" asked Shepard. "Somebody flipping the wrong switch or something?"

Tali shook her head sadly. "No. There's too many steps involved. Whatever my father was up to, it wasn't entirely innocent. I hope that what we find can help exonerate him, or at least shed a positive light on his actions."

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Jack had once nearly come to blows with Tali. At the time she had figured the buckethead was dangerous, but not too big of a worry. Now the biotic knew that it was a very good thing they hadn't thrown down. Tali was a machine when she was on the job. She was always in the front, hacking doors and sending false signals into the geth network to get them looking elsewhere. And the geth were being bigger trouble than Jack was expecting. There were some sneaky bastards who had cloaks similar to Kasumi's. They were a real pain in the ass.

They found some data logs as they went along. One was from one of the buckethead scientists, who mentioned something about deliberately taking down firewalls. Jack wasn't a security expert but that sounded reckless to her, and from they way Tali's shoulders drooped the buckethead thought so as well. There was more. Another log, from the same scientist talking with somebody else.

The other person sounded pissed. "Who's running this system diagnostic? I didn't authorize...oh, Keelah. How many geth are networked?"

"All of them," replied the scientist. "Rael'Zorah said to-"

"Shut it down!" yelled the other quarian. "Shut everything down! They're in the system!"

The log ended right after that.

Jack almost hated to ask it, but she figured somebody had to. "Tali, it looks like your father-"

"I know what it looks like," snapped Tali. "But we can't draw any conclusions yet."

Further on, they broke into what looked like had been a medbay of some sort. There was a scrap of a biomechanical armature on one of the beds; the part definitely looked like geth.

Tali pondered it. "This is one of the storage units I sent to father. Looks like parts from a disabled repair drone, plus a reflex algorithm that I didn't recognize. I got this on Haestrom."

Shepard prodded it with his rifle. "Why did you choose this?"

"It was something we hadn't encountered before," replied Tali. "Anything new was a priority for my father. Anything that looked like technology the geth had developed themselves."

Jack had missed out on the Haestrom mission due to circumstances that she didn't like to think about. But she had heard how nasty it had been. "You salvaged this in the middle of a war zone? Damn, Buckethead. I don't care what you say, you really do have a pair."

Tali shrugged and didn't reply.

The next log they found was worse. The pissed-off researcher from before had been cornered in a room by the geth, and was leaving her final words to anybody who might find them. "We've disabled navigation, and the ship's weapons are offline. Our failure won't be dangerous to the Fleet." There was a hissing noise off screen, and the quarian's helmeted head leaned closer to the camera. "They're burning through the door, I don't have much time. Jona, if you get this, be strong for Daddy. Mommy loves you very much!" There was a squeal of rending metal and then a final, terrible scream.

Tali shut it off and didn't look at either of them. "There were twenty crew on this ship, not including my father. I...I hope he doesn't have that much blood on his hands."

Jack decided that now was not the time to try to buck up Tali's courage.

They did finally find one hint as to what had happened. It was in a large console tucked away near a stairwell. Tali began dancing her fingers over its surface, and nodded in satisfaction. "This might have something. Most of the data is corrupted, but a few bits are left." She scanned through various logs much too fast for Jack to follow. "They were performing experiments on geth systems, looking for ways to overcome geth resistance to reprogramming."

Shepard frowned. "I've killed my fair share of geth, but this sounds sadistic. Was he testing logic weapons on the geth you recovered?"

Tali glared at him. "It's not like testing weapons on prisoners, Shepard. I only sent father parts. Even if he assembled them, they wouldn't be sapient. You saw what Saren and Sovereign did with the geth. Any research that gives us an advantage is important."

"Let's focus on why we're here, guys," said Jack. "Tali, does any of that shit help you out with your troubles?"

Tali calmed down. "Doubtful. This is mostly results data. Effects of different disruptive hacking techniques. I don't understand all of it." She scanned through more of what she could find and suddenly shuddered. "Oh no."

Jack touched her shoulder. "Buckethead? Talk to me. What is it?" Shepard glanced behind them as he made sure no geth were sneaking up on them.

Tali's silver eyes met hers. "Jack...Shepard may be right. They may have been reactivating the geth deliberately. I don't know. Nothing here says specifically. But if they were...then Father was doing something terrible."

"Terrible?" Jack felt like there was a band around her chest, keeping her from breathing properly. "You mean he really might have been doin' torture. On the geth."

Tali nodded.

"Just like Pragia," continued Jack.

After a little pause, Tali nodded again.

"Fuck. Hang on guys, just give me a moment." Jack turned and stared at a nearby bulkhead. It was clean and pristine, not at all like the half-ruined hulk of a building they'd found on Pragia. Jack considered geth the enemy. But they could feel. And the thought of somebody doing to anybody else the same things that she had endured...even if that 'anybody else' was an enemy...

Jack screamed and punched the wall. There was a blue flash. A sizable dent was now in the middle of it, as if it had been hit with a grenade.

"And now they know we're here," muttered Shepard.

Jack glared at him. "Sorry. I'm okay now. Let's keep moving."

Tali was still staring at the console, clearly ignoring what was going on around her. "What was all of this, Father?" she murmured. "You promised you'd build me a house on the homeworld. Was this going to bring us back home?"

Jack realized that no matter what heinous shit her father might have done, Tali was still her friend. She put a hand on her shoulder. "Maybe it's time for you guys to move on and forget about getting back Rannoch."

Tali rounded on Jack. She was clearly pissed. "Jack, you have no idea what it's like! You have your choice of planets to live on! My home is one hull breach away from extinction!"

She wasn't sure why that mattered. "So find a new home, then. We've done plenty of colonies ourselves."

Tali slumped. "We'll have enough difficulty re-acclimating to our own native environment. Adjusting for exposure to a foreign colony would be even harder. It would be more like 600 years instead of 60."

"No more talk. We move," said Shepard.

They went up the stairs, alert for any mechanical buzzing or chirping that would indicate the presence of the enemy. The room at the top of the stairs looked empty, but Shepard pointed silently at a couple of corners. After a bit, Jack could see the hazy wobble in both locations that indicated cloaked geth. He made the gestures that indicated how they would hit them.

And hit them they did. Jack slammed one against a wall with a shockwave while at the same time Tali distracted the other with her drone and blasted it to bits. A few more shots and the room was cleared. The door to the next room hissed open.

Jack was the one who saw the body first.

It had a large hole right through its chest, with burn marks all around the entrance wound. She felt a little tingle in her neck as she realized that the ornate decorations on the quarian's cowl looked an awful lot like Tali's. Maybe that meant...

"Father!" yelled Tali as she rushed past Jack. She knelt by the corpse and began checking it over with shaking hands. Her voice was almost crooning in her grief. "No, no, no...you always had a plan. Masked life signs, or, or an onboard medical stasis program maybe. You, you wouldn't..." Tali trailed off, and Jack saw Shepard move past her and towards the pair on the floor.

"They're wrong!" screamed Tali into the air. Her hands were clenched into fists. "You wouldn't just die on me like this! You wouldn't leave me to clean up your fucking mess! You wouldn't.."

Shepard gently pulled Tali to her feet and embraced her without a word.

She clutched at him and sobbed into his armored shoulder. "Damn it! Damn it, I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry about," murmured Shepard. He held her until her sobbing stopped. Jack knew enough to just stay out of the way.

Tali sniffed and stepped back. "Maybe...he would have known I'd come. Maybe he left a message." She knelt back down beside the corpse and activated its omni-tool.

A male voice sounded tinnily from the omni-tool. "Tali, if you're listening, then I am dead." Her head dropped in fresh grief as the voice continued. "The geth have gone active, and I don't have much time. Their main hub will be on the bridge. You'll need to destroy it to stop them from forming new neural links. Make sure Han'Gerrel and Daro'Xen see the data. They must-" There was a gunshot and a burst of static, and then the recording ended.

Tali stood, still staring at the ground. Shepard stood by her awkwardly. Jack silently urged the dork to say something to her. And he finally did.

Shepard placed a gentle arm around Tali's shoulders. "He knew you'd come for him. He was trying to help you. It's not perfect. It's not what you wanted. But it's the best he could do."

Tali leaned against him, clearly glad for the hug. "I don't know what's worse," she murmured. "Thinking that he never really cared, or thinking that he did, and that this was the only way he could show it." Her head came up. "It doesn't matter. One way or the other, I cared. And now I'm here. And now we are ending this."