RP: Shepard, Kaiden & Ashley

[keelah_selai]

Down the stairs to the lower deck. Around the base of the drive core to the maintenance shaft entrance. Up a ladder, and into the duct tunnel. Up a second ladder and turn to the left. Crawl for a sixth of the ship's body and another left turn. Up a short ladder, and out into the room housing the AI Core...

The AI Core was dark and silent, just like the Engineering deck. Tali had never spent much time here - both Legion and EDI frightened Tali a little. She'd been trying to make amends, for Shepard's sake, ever since her argument with Legion, but it was hard work, overcoming years of ingrained prejudice. There was something...off about the room, though. Tali couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong or different. It must be the lack of noise, she thought, and moved quickly to the electrical panel on the doors.

Just a few moments, and the doors to the Medbay sparked and slid open with a metallic groan.

Comments

[cmdr_shepard]

"Tali!" Shepard said with Kaidan. He stood as well but shoved Kaidan back down onto the bed. "Come on Kaidan, you've lost a lot of blood." He turned back to Tali and grinned as wide as Kaidan did. "God, it is good to see you, though. I don't know who else made it but..." Shepard breathed deeply and shook his head. "I'm glad you're here."

[keelah_selai]

(OOC: Ashley, you are welcome to jump in whenever!)

Tali rushed forwards, but slowed her steps after a moment. That feeling of something being wrong, being off, just got stronger as she looked back and forth between Shepard and Kaiden.

"You two look awful!" Tali realized how rude that must have sounded, and ducked her head in embarrassment, before looking back up at the two humans. She shook her head, and walked closer, arms reaching out for comfort.

"Kaiden, how did you get here? Keelah, Shepard, what happened? Did I sleep through the Relay?"

[kaidanmod]

"Thanks, Tali," Kaidan said dryly. "Can you make him sit down, please? He-- Wait. Relay?" Kaidan repeated, blinking. He rose again slowly. "What do you mean?"

[cmdr_shepard]

Shepard clasped arms with Tali, but he was frowning. "The Relay?" There was only ever one relay they talked about like that, all capital letters. "The Omega 4 Relay? Tali, that was over a year ago. Almost two, now."

[keelah_selai]

"What? No...no, you'd just told us to our gear prepared, I'd gone down to Engineering to finish cleaning up the output on the multicore shielding, and..." Tali's grip on Shepard's arms tightened, and she trembled slightly.

There was a frightened note to Tali's voice. "It's all gone belly-up, hasn't it. I slept through the Relay entry and whatever happened to all those other ships that never made it back happened to us."