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Two hundred and ninety-one years since the Geth War. Two hundred and ninety-one years of wandering without a home, scattered across the stars. Two hundred and ninety-one years packed into too tight spaces, of mothers forced to choose between unborn twins, of bubbles and suits.
And on this day, this terrible day, the anniversary of when it all began, no Quarian would dare touch food to their lips, no one laughed or held their heads high--to do so would disrespect all their ancestors.
This was the Day of Mourning.
This was the day the Quarian people remembered why they were exiles.
So when the Admiralty Board called an emergency meeting, Tali knew whatever the reason, it was damned important.
“Gerrel, just tell me, what was so time sensitive that it couldn’t wait for the end of weeping? We should be resting.” Tali, weak from the fast, struggled to keep up with Han’Gerrel quick stride. She was a little surprised by Gerrel’s brisk pace, but then, he had been the one to call the meeting.
“There is no rest for an Quarian admiral, Tali.”
Tali rolled her eyes beneath her mask. She could practically hear the “your father Rael understood that” in Gerrel’s voice. Just another reminder her presence on the admiralty broad was really only symbolic. The pair continued in silence through the vacant corridors of the Moreh, whose crew, like on every ship in the fleet, confined themselves to quarters out of reverence--though everyone one knew the practice also served as an acute reminder of all they had lost.
They strolled past a lone pair of marines standing guard outside the corridor that lead to Xen’s private quarters. They saluted sharply as the Admirals walked by. Tali still wasn’t sure she’d ever get use to that.
In the anteroom, they meet up with a tired-looking Shala’Raan. She acknowledged them with a nod, but said nothing, as they approached the doors of Admiral Daro’Xen’s captain’s quarters. The door swooshed open, and they entered, Koris and of course Xen, already waiting inside. Koris sluggishly shifted his weight from one leg to the other as he stood near the center of the room. When the door sealed and locked itself behind the trio Koris spoke.
“Alright, we’re all here. Now what the hell could be so important that you would call an admiral summit on Mourning Day?”
“Patience, Admiral. Wait until everyone is situated and comfortable.” Xen’s voice sounded forever smug to Tali, and honestly it was damn irritating given how light-headed she was feeling.
“I am also curious why you and Gerrel have called this meeting, today of all days. What is this about?” Raan sounded even worst then her body language let on. She was by far the oldest member of the admiralty board, and the fast put the greatest strain on her.
“As I previously stated, the issue we are gathered hear to discuss is of the utmost importance to the security of the fleet, and is very time sensitive.”
“Yes, yes. Get on with it, Gerrel.”
“Admiral Xen has made a breakthrough that could change everything for the Quarian people.”
“And what’s that?”
“Why, a weapon to use against the Geth, of course.”
“That’s why we’re here?”
“Yes, Zaal’Koris. And if you’ll shut up and listen, you’ll learn a great deal why this weapon is different.”
“For years Rael--rest his soul--and I worked on countless strategies to finally defeat the Geth once and for all. We both knew any effort on our part would have failed--but now, we have something that tips the scales in our favor.”
“We’ve developed a system that will completely devastate the Geth’s ladar scanning technology.” As Xen launched into her long winded explanation of white-noise and adaptive algorithms, Tali found she was having a difficult time concentrating. She wanted nothing more to go back to her quarters, curl up in a ball and try to ignore the sharp pangs of hunger. The science seemed sound, and seeing as it was Xen, it was sure to be, but Tali didn’t like at all where this seemed to be leading.
“Alright, so you found a more efficient way to jam their signals, what of it?”
“No. Don’t belittle this discovery because of your shortsightedness. It doesn’t merely jam their ship-to-ship detection. It burns out their eyes with a red-hot poker. They’re not just blind--they’re deaf and dumb.”
“...And they would be defenseless against us. We could punch a hole through them with the heavy fleet, planet-jumping system to system and have a strong enough position to retake Rannoch within a week.”
“What?! You want to go to war with the Geth now? You want to risk a frontal assault? And abandon our treaty with the Council?! We can’t seriously be considering this! Admirals, if you do this detestable thing, then next Day of Mourning there will be no Quarian people left to mourn!”
“Only if you presuppose that we lose, Koris. But with my weapon--we won’t.”
“No weapon, no cause--even a return to Rannoch--is worth the risk of seventeen million Quarian! Not to mention the untold numbers of Geth you will have to exterminate. We’ll be committing genocide! Besides we can’t be sure it will even work!”
“It will work. Of that there is no doubt.”
Koris looked back and forth between Xen and Gerrel. Aghast.
“You war-mongering bosh’tet!” Gerrel was visibly shaking from fatigue or anger--probably both. Then he shoved his index finger towards Gerrel, shouting, “Your bloodlust will be the doom of our entire race! And when we’re all dead, drifting in our fleet of tombs, our extinction will be on your head!” When he finished he stamped his foot, and ground it into the floor. You could feel the entire room recoil at Koris’s outburst. Pointing a finger at Gerrel was insult enough, but his last gesture proved he was enraged beyond all pretenses of civility.
“No.” Tali said quietly. This had gone on long enough. “No! Stop this!” She jumped to her feet, and threw out her arms pleadingly, “Okay? We’re all tired, we’re all hungry, and we’re all really irritable because of it. Let’s reconvene after the end of the weeping--”
“This cannot wait, Tali. If we’re compromised at any point we won’t get a second chance, and it may be another century before we have another. We have to decide here and now. What if the Geth are developing a weapon to use against organics? And launch yet another attack like they did on the Citadel? You were there. You remember the destruction they caused.”
“Those Geth were different! They followed Sovereign, the Geth on Rannoch have no interest in organics.”
“Enough!” Xen voice rose just slightly, her cool mask of indifference slipping for just a moment. Then, in a manner far more collected, and just shy of threatening asked, “Tell me, Tali’Zorah, who told you of these allegedly ‘heretical’ Geth? ...Oh. That’s right.”
They were railroading--using her youth and inexperience to undercut her. And there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it. She didn’t have to see Xen’s face to know she was grinning as she turned away from Tali to address her Aunt.
“You’ve yet to speak, Raan. I know in the past you have remained neutral. And admittedly in the past, I myself have abstained from Gerrel and Koris’s little pissing matches. But we have an unparalleled opportunity here. One that--”
“Don’t insult me by pretending that this is anything more than a means for you to pursue your own experiments, Xen. Still--”
“Still, victory is within our grasp. For the first time in three hundred years, we can go home. Can you imagine it, Raan? Next Day of Mourning, lifting your face up to the skies on the homeworld? No more tears. Save those shed in joy.”
And that’s when it clicked for Tali. This whole meeting was a farce. It was no last minute emergency. Gerrel and Xen didn’t give a damn about making their case to her or Koris, this was about getting Raan to break the tie. Gerrel and Xen were prepared, using the fast to catch the rest of them tired and off-guard.
And she’d bet they’d both eaten too, the bastards.
“Enough! We put it to a vote.”
“Agreed. No commentary, just aye or nay. I say, aye.”
“Nay! Emphatically.” came Koris’s response.
“Aye.” Xen said, supercilious as always.
“Nay.” Tali responded, an edge of rebellion in her voice.
All eyes turned to Admiral Shala’Raan vas Tonbay. The room held its breath. And then, after a long silence, a voice, strained and quiet that it almost could not be heard, said...
“Aye.”
And they were at war.
“The ayes have it. Contact all the Captains and order them to begin preparations to recall our sons and daughters on Pilgrimage immediately. When the Days of Weeping have come to an end, we ready the fleet for war.”
Tali dropped back into her seat, and placed her head down into her hands. So. This is how the fate of her people was decided. By egotistical old men and women behind closed doors, with dirty tricks and fallacies.
She didn’t catch Koris's parting shot before he stormed out of the room. But she came back around in time to catch her aunt’s wrist as she walked past. Pulling her back, searching for something in the expressionless mask that hid her face.
“Why? Why Auntie Raan? The Reapers--”
“Are not here. We cannot hold back phantoms, child. But I can give our people a homeworld.”
Tali’s shoulders dropped, defeated. She let her aunt’s wrist go, shaking her head despondently as she felt her presence leave the room.
She was alone with Gerrel and Xen who remained unmoved. She ventured a look their way, unable to hide the disgust in her voice as she spoke. “Admiral Gerrel.” She paused a moment debating her next words, but thought to hell with it anyway. “You didn’t call this meeting on the Day of Mourning because of security measures.”
“Young Tali’Zorah, one day you will learn that in war, you must use every advantage.”
Both admirals stared each other down, locked in stalemate, each hoping their determination would somehow convince the other they were wrong, that someday they would see things their way.
Gerrel sighed. Tali was Rael’s daughter, by rights, he should have been as much of an uncle as Raan was an aunt to her. It was a tragedy that politics had come between them. “Will I see you aboard the Neema?”
“No.” Tali replied. Slow and weary. “No, I don’t think so.”
* * *
Later, much later, Tali sat alone in the Morah’s starboard observation deck, staring into the vast expanse of stars. Pinpricks of light hundreds of thousands of years away, blinking, indifferent, in the endless night.
Tali rose on wobbly legs, and pressed a hand to the window.
“I’m sorry, Shepard. We’re going to war. When the Reapers arrive...ancestors be with us, we’re going to war. Keelah se’lai.”