Chapter Text
The derelict geth ship floated before their front viewports, as dead as a ship could get, which didn’t necessarily mean it was uninhabited. A frozen spiral of coolant trailed behind it, spilling from one of the engines, and more importantly it wasn’t emitting any power signals on any of the known geth frequencies. Geth didn’t do escape pods, obviously, but they also weren’t picking up any signs of a central server, suggesting that it had been removed in some form or fashion. In any case, there wasn’t enough juice on the ship to fuel even a single platform, but just to be sure, two of the marines had already cased the ship and returned to report that she was theirs for the taking.
Which was why Kal’Reegar, and only Kal’Reegar, stood watch over Tali’Zorah as she gathered inert geth tech for…whatever reason they’d been sent here.
He had his guesses, but it wasn’t his place.
He did his best to keep a respectful distance while still keeping her in sight. Their first mission, he’d stayed a little too close, but at the time she’d chosen to chew out the entire squad, punctuating her rant with a demonstration of her accuracy with a shotgun. Impressive, especially given how inaccurate most models were, although hers seemed…experimental. She guarded it jealously and he hadn’t yet come up with a good enough excuse to get his hands on it. Out of professional concern, of course, and not a personal need to feel the recoil try to knock him off his feet.
Meanwhile, four missions in, he felt he’d found the limits of his position, the boundaries within which he was allowed to operate more or less freely. At least five meters back from Tali’Zorah at all times; mouth shut whenever Commander Prazza opened his, including but not limited to when he gave orders, attempted strategy, or tried to tell Tali’Zorah how to do her job (or worse, to do it for her); damage control over helmet-to-helmet communication when he thought he could get away with it. Shooting whenever geth presented themselves as targets. The usual.
This particular mission, the ship was small enough that his five-meter rule was proving troublesome, especially as she kept sticking her helmet up in spaces too small for him to see into, poking at wires and circuit boards and then emerging more quickly than he expected, leaving him right on her heels with no excuse for being there.
The third time this happened, she turned around and put her hands on her hips and said, “All right, Reegar. What is it?”
“Ma’am?” he said, striving for neutrality as he backed up with military precision.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “Do you not think I can handle myself?”
“Ma’am,” he said again, this time meaning of course not.
She snorted. “Do you think I’m just some useless little tech? That I’m only good with the gun when there’s nothing to shoot at? That I can’t take care of myself?”
“No one can see their own six, ma’am,” he said, and this time she made a noise of disgust.
“There’s nothing on my six in here, except you,” she said, jabbing a finger in his direction, and he nearly took another step back. “Literally nothing. Dramda and Yeetza checked it out. I’m checking it out right now. The whole place is dead, and the server is gone. There’s not even enough geth in here to turn on the lights, let alone screw in a lightbulb. I’d be over and done with this mission if I didn’t keep tripping over you whenever I turn around. So tell me, what’s your problem? You really think I’m that helpless?”
He had to say something. “Not helpless, ma’am.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Then what are you thinking?”
He thought many things about her. Most of them weren’t particularly helpful at the moment, and what he said nearly betrayed all of them. “Speaking plainly, ma’am, with all due respect, I think you’re one of the best marines I’ve ever met.”
“Reegar,” she said, and he thought she thought he was mocking her, “I’m not a marine.”
“Exactly,” he said, “ma’am.”
She stared at him and he stared a point just over her shoulder, not budging from parade rest, and finally her hands fell away from her hips and she said, “Really?”
In her voice was—something, something young and hopeful, maybe, or maybe she’d just dropped the hardnosed bravado that enabled her to keep Prazza in his place. Whatever it was, it left him unable to speak—and he wasn’t much for words, anyway, but all of the actions that came to mind were—anyway. Words. Words were better here.
But not by much. “Ma’am,” he finally said, meaning yes.
“Oh,” she said, shoulders slumping, sounding surprised, which in turn surprised him by…twinging, a little. Making him wince. He’d been doing his job and doing it well, was what she meant, but that it meant that she thought he thought…oh, hell. Now she at least knew the truth. Or at least part of it. Or at least—“Then…”
And suddenly he wasn’t doing his job well at all.
She lifted her head and looked at him, tilted her helmet. “I’ve read your record, you know.”
She waited for a response and gave no reaction when all he said was, “Ma’am?”
“I read everyone’s records. Yours was particularly interesting. A lot of classified protocols I had to override,” she said, and he almost smiled, because of course she did. “You’ve been busy. Very decorated, though not as much as you would be if they could talk about what you’ve been up to,” she said, and his back straightened, as if he could stand any straighter, as if he should even bother being proud that she’d noticed that. “Some of the marines on this squad are brand-new, working off nothing but potential. But not you.”
He almost added thank you, but this was going south and she didn’t need to know he—anyway. “Ma’am.”
“So what I don’t understand—what I haven’t understood,” she said, and he could feel the force of her pointed stare through her visor, “is why Prazza, who’s led one raid against a few geth troopers, is the one commanding the squad, while you’re always standing in the back.” She crossed her arms and said, “Behind me.”
She was smart. He knew she was smart, and this wasn’t even particularly difficult to figure out, especially given their current circumstances, but she still—he still—couldn’t quite breathe. And then when he could, he nearly said, best place to be, which would have been—unhelpful. “Ma’am.”
She stared at him a few moments more—and he’d been working so hard to avoid her attention that he hadn’t prepared for the full force of it, the strength of her consideration, the strength of his desire to be considered. Hell. He kept his gaze just beyond her shoulder. If he met hers, he’d be undone.
And then she sighed and looked away, putting a hand to her helmet—he’d noticed her doing that a few times before, wondered if she’d picked it up on that human ship—and said, “Let me guess. You’re not allowed to say anything.”
He chose his words carefully. “I have,” he said, and in an instant her gaze was on him again, as thrilling as a hailstorm of bullets headed his way, “my orders, ma’am.”
“Your mission is one of utmost importance,” Admiral Rael’Zorah said to the squad of marines standing before him, each one handpicked for the position by the head of the Admiralty Board himself. Kal was proud to be there, but that mattered less than the mission. “Your service will help us win back the homeworld.”
He’d heard the Admiral was a zealot, but to hear him say that—it wasn’t the words; it was the conviction in his voice that made him—thinking the head of the Admiralty Board was mad was probably treason, and so he stopped the thought before it could complete itself. “Prazza’Drindle vas Shellen,” Rael’Zorah continued, “you will assume command of the squad, insofar as its military activities are concerned. You are all, of course, subject to the orders of your team lead, whom you will be assigned to shortly.”
Kal nearly missed the last part of the Admiral’s words. Prazza? Command to Prazza? The blustering idiot thought that because he’d fought off five geth with a team of six marines at his back that he was some kind of hero. He had a good head for tactics, sure, but his insufferable tendency to ignore advice made him the kind of leader destined to get people killed. Prazza? What was he even doing here, if they were just going to hand the whole thing over to—
oh, right, not just Prazza, but some scientist that a homeworld-crazed Admiral had handpicked for whatever secret project he had in his suit—
“Dismissed,” Rael’Zorah said, and damn, he’d missed whatever else the Admiral had said. Not that it really mattered, since he wasn’t in charge, and he turned to go with the others—
“Kal’Reegar,” Rael’Zorah said, and he stopped in his tracks. “A word with you, if you please.”
He turned slowly, giving the others time to gawk, giving them time to leave, giving himself time to clear any and all extraneous thoughts from his mind, leaving only attention in their wake. He finished his turn in time with the door closing behind the last of them, drew himself up to full attention, and said, “Sir?”
Rael’Zorah seemed disinclined to speak, and so he directed his gaze to the opposite wall, leaving himself open for consideration. The briefing room was sparse, just a blank screen on the wall and a few lights in the ceiling, not so much as a desk, let alone chairs. When he’d been one among many, the Admiral had commanded the space; now, man-to-man, he noticed less important details, such as the fact that Rael’Zorah was a good ten centimeters shorter, and his suit was immaculate, and he wasn’t wearing any of the awards he’d accumulated. He thought the suit might also have some extra layers of microfibers, but he didn’t want to shift his gaze to look more closely. The Admiral had held him back; the Admiral could break the silence.
“Look at me,” Rael’Zorah said then, which was exactly what he didn’t want to do, but without moving an millimeter he shifted his gaze until it met the Admiral’s intense stare. Quarians didn’t deal much in facial expressions, for obvious reasons, but he found that he didn’t dare so much as press his lips together, lest the Admiral read into it too closely. He held as still as if there were four geth around the corner and he only had three slugs in his rifle, and after a similar feeling of eternity, Rael’Zorah said, “You are wondering why I did not give you command.”
“No, sir,” he said, which was strictly true for the immediate present.
Rael’Zorah snorted. “You are right to wonder,” he said, “and if you weren’t, then you’d show yourself to be a bigger idiot than your record implies. Do not give me platitudes about a marine not needing brains so long as he has a bigger gun,” and now he did have to press his lips together, if only to avoid a laugh. “Clan Reegar is far too intelligent to subscribe to such nonsense.”
“True, sir,” he said. Rael’Zorah looked at him expectantly, and hell, the man hadn’t made it to head of the Admiralty Board by being an idiot, either. “Doesn’t have to be a bigger gun. Just better. Sir.”
“Ha,” he said, and Kal nearly shivered, “ha. Truly, reports of the Reegar wit did not do you justice. Is your family proud?”
He’d hit a sore spot, but he didn’t so much as wince. “Proud as they can be when you’re a family full of legends, sir,” he said.
“Ah,” he said, holding up a finger in a quarian nod, pausing for a moment before pointing that finger at Kal. “You have another mission, Reegar. Perform well, and your legend will outshine all the others.”
“Sir,” he said, not quite a question, cautious at the note of zealotry creeping into the Admiral’s voice.
“Your mission,” he said, and then he stopped, apparently changing his mind about where to begin, which in someone as directly spoken as Admiral Rael’Zorah was tantamount to system failure. “Prazza and the others—their mission is to take orders, to go where they’re sent and defend what’s necessary, to fight against the obvious targets. You, Kal’Reegar, are to defend the Fleet’s best hope for the homeworld.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, still cautious, and in response Rael’Zorah turned on his omni-tool.
A holo of a quarian woman appeared, and while he dimly noted the unique whorls and spirals of her hood, his eyes more immediately fell upon the swing of her hip and the shotgun resting against it. “You have heard of Tali’Zorah vas Neema,” the Admiral said.
He swallowed, hard. “Yes, sir,” he said. Babysitting the Admiral’s daughter. Fantastic. Though she’d allegedly faced a whole hell of a lot of geth on her Pilgrimage, and that gun did look—wicked—
“She is your team lead,” he said, pinning Kal to the wall with his gaze, “and she is your assignment. Her safety and survival are paramount. Whatever other mission objectives may come your way are secondary to ensuring that she returns to the Fleet. The others are expendable. She is not, and the mission does not override that. Your concern is not whatever mission the others pursue. She is your mission. She. Must. Survive.” He paused for breath and finally released Kal from his death stare, looking instead to the holo, and something in the glow of his eyes hardened, which wasn’t saying much, but it made the severity of his gaze all the more intense when he looked back to Kal. “Do you understand?”
He swallowed again. He’d thought the Admiral a zealot when he mentioned the homeworld; this was a whole new level of idolatry. “Tali’Zorah is the mission, sir.”
“You are under orders,” Rael’Zorah said, and he could have sworn he heard the final click of a lock in his words.
He was doomed. Doomed to trail behind the daughter of the head of the Admiralty Board and hope against hope she had enough sense not to get them all killed.
Given her father’s apparent penchant for impossible tasks, that hope was a dim one.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“You are the best, Kal’Reegar,” Rael’Zorah said, and his shoulders almost slumped at that, because what was the point of being the best if this was what it got him? Of course, he wouldn’t have traded having to be as stupid as Prazza in exchange for command, but this was—impossible. “Do not fail me.”
“Sir,” he said, putting all his energy into the straight line of his back and the neutrality of his voice, leaving none at all to wish that he’d hurry up and be dismissed.
“One more thing,” the Admiral said, and this time he had to clench his fists behind his back to keep from reacting. “She must know nothing of this.”
“Sir?” he said, and he couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice.
“She is very intelligent,” the Admiral said, and great, of course she was, “and will no doubt come to understand your role in time. But you are not to speak of it, to her or to anyone else. You are not to tell them of your orders. If she asks, you may confirm or deny, but you may not elaborate. What anyone else thinks does not matter.”
“She is the mission,” he repeated, and Rael’Zorah raised his finger again.
“Good,” he said. “Your mission begins tomorrow, and continues until I personally release you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, still clenching his fists, now against the despair rising within him.
Rael’Zorah stared him down again, impossible to read, and he eventually returned his gaze to the opposite wall, not quite allowing himself to long for release. If the Admiral was disappointed that he wouldn’t hold his gaze, his voice gave no indication of it. “Very well,” he said. “Dismissed.”
He saluted and walked away, but he felt the Admiral’s gaze on him even after the door slid shut behind him. He’d been dismissed, but that didn’t afford him any relief; he belonged to the Admiral now, and the old loon was handing him off to his daughter.
He hadn’t had the slightest inkling of what he was in for.
“Your orders,” she repeated. “To guard me?” The light from her eyes dimmed as she narrowed them. “To protect me? To—oh, ancestors. This came from my father, didn’t it?”
She sounded unhappy, which was a mild way of putting it, but within five minutes of meeting her he’d known she would absolutely despise him if she knew his true purpose, and he’d known in far less time that the last thing he wanted from this life was for Tali’Zorah to hate him. So he’d tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible—but of course she’d read their records, of course she’d notice him hanging behind, of course she’d wonder. She was brilliant. And he was doomed all over again.
But at least he could answer the question. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She threw her hands in the air and turned away from him, making a noise of exasperation he’d never heard from her before. Sometimes, when a particular code bothered her, she’d turn on her external speakers to mutter at it, but this was more of a gah, frustrated and exasperated and powerless. He understood the feeling.
“Let me guess,” she said, still facing away, both hands up by her helmet, though he couldn’t tell what she was doing with them. “I am the mission?”
“Yes,” he said, though at this point it wasn’t just the Admiral’s orders that made the statement true. “Ma’am.”
She sighed, long and hard, and he grabbed his wrist behind his back to stave off any desire he might have had to reach out to her instead. She turned back to him, one hand to her helmet, the other dangling by her side, downcast, staring at the blank deck between them, and he wanted to throttle her father. “Well,” she said, in a small, resigned voice, “it’s nice to be loved.”
He blinked. He hadn’t—that was a strong word, and he—what?
She looked up then and said, “Thanks for the babysitter, Father,” and he relaxed, put the word she’d used (in relation to her father, of course, definitely her father, nothing to see on this end) far from his mind. And then she was looking at him, and he didn’t dare think about anything else. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to be,” he said. “Orders are orders. I’ve had worse.”
He heard skepticism in her voice. “You must be so bored, though. I’ve read your record. Escort duty doesn’t sound your speed.”
He broke his stance long enough to bend his elbows in a quarian shrug. “Only boring because you can take care of yourself, ma’am.”
“But you’re still going to follow me around,” she said, a flat statement that reminded him of her father.
“Orders are orders,” he said again.
She narrowed her eyes at him again and damn, now she knew they were stuck together, and while like her father had said he’d known eventually she would figure it out, he hadn’t counted on the…consequences of that. He was going to have to get a grip if she was going to keep looking at him like that. Looking at him at all, really. But he held his position, kept his gaze level, careful not to meet hers, and eventually she sighed again.
“Well,” she said, “if you’re going to be following me around, you can at least pull your weight. You know anything about geth data storage structures?”
He considered feigning ignorance, but he knew he couldn’t maintain the lie. “Some,” he said.
“Great,” she said. “Can you stick your head in there and see if you see one?”
“Can’t watch your six with my head in a duct, ma’am,” he said, as plain as could be, but she looked at him for a moment before responding, as if she thought he was being sly.
He could play that game. She was brilliant. Surprising her would be fun.
“Fine,” she said, “then give me a boost so I can check that panel up there.”
“Couldn’t you just demagnetize your boots?” he asked. A living geth ship didn’t bother with gravity, let alone a dead one.
She stared at him levelly, hands on her hips, a challenge in her voice. “I could,” she said. “Give me a boost.”
She wanted him to roll his eyes, so he didn’t. Instead he dutifully stepped closer—mistake—and held out his hands cupped together for her to step into and then she was up and his helmet was pressed against her leg and every now and then her balance shifted and—he was always thankful for his suit, because only an idiot resented it, but the longer she took the more he was starting to feel a little idiotic.
He was a professional. She was the mission. And the mission had amazing legs.
She finally stepped off his hands and then floated in front of him, pushing off the ceiling until she was just a little above his height. “Thanks for your help.”
“No problem,” he said, “ma’am.”
She stared at him, and he got the distinct impression she expected him to be resentful. He couldn’t tell her how very wrong she was, or how much he was enjoying her attempt to be taller than he was. He shifted back into parade rest.
“At ease,” she said immediately, and he relaxed a fraction. “I think we’re done here.”
“If you say so,” he said blandly, and she narrowed her eyes again. “Ma’am.”
“Come on,” she said, a little disgusted, her boots clanging against the deck as she remagnetized them. He turned aside to let her pass, turning back just a hair too early, just enough to brush her shoulder with his. Her boots were locked to the deck and she didn’t so much stumble as tip too far forward, just for a moment, before righting herself and continuing on her way. He waited, gauging the distance, and without looking back she called, “I know you’re back there. You can make it three meters instead of five.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, allowing a bit of his grin to color his voice, and she twisted her fingers at him over her shoulder, but the burst of static coming from her speakers sounded a bit like a giggle.
The Admiral had doomed him, all right. But he had to admit that overall, he didn’t mind. Assuming he survived the upcoming onslaught of Tali’Zorah’s consideration. In front of her was far too dangerous; behind was the best place to be.
Those legs. That mind. And that gun, hanging on her hips (hips weren’t bad either).
Far safer back here. For now.
He closed the distance to two meters, just to see if she’d notice, and of course she did, glancing over her shoulder just long enough to see him before shaking her head—and he’d never seen a quarian do that before, but the meaning was all too clear. But she led on without speaking and he followed in kind, and their footsteps perfectly matched, not that he noticed beyond professional habit, of course. He was following orders, nothing more and nothing less, and if the mission happened to be perfectly suited to him—
Well. Eventually she’d figure it out, and there’d be hell to pay. But for now, he might as well enjoy the view.