Mass Effect: Objects in Space - Chapter 8...

The continued tale of the crew of the Normandy SR2, as they transpire AFTER the events of Mass Effect 2. For those who haven't played it - SPOILERS will ensure. You have been WARNED!

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Tali'Zorah vas Normandy knelt down beside engineer Kenneth Donnelly, and reached out gingerly toward his neck. She pressed her finger against his jugular, feeling for a pulse.

"He's alive." She said, her shoulders sagging with relief. Engineer Daniels burst into tears, dropping to her knees beside her friend. Tali placed a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "We need to get him to the infirmary, and fast. He doesn't look good."

Standing over the body of the commando leader, he nodded his agreement, dropping his spent pistol to the ground and gathering up the Cerberus officers own weapon, a custom modified M-6 with an improved heat sink and red dot sight. It wasn't a bad piece, and this ugly bastard wouldn't be needing it any more.

"Prick." He said to the rapidly decomposing mess pooling on the deck, before firing a round through the man's face to be certain. Daniels jumped at the report of the weapon, and set off sobbing again.

"Tali'Zorah?" He said, turning away from the corpse and looking back to the three engineers.

"Miss vas Normandy!" He repeated, louder this time. Tali seemed to come out of a trance and turned to look at him, her head cocked to the side, puzzled.

"I need you to look into something for me. I think Cerberus has locked down the shipboard AI. Do you have any way of checking that from down here?"

"I... supposed I could, yes." Tali said, her composure returning quickly now she had a task to perform. "But what about Donnelly?"

"I'll take him to the infirmary to see the Doc, but I need to know you two will be safe down here. I didn't fight all the way down here just to have you get killed the moment my back is turned." He said, walking over to the Normandy's chief engineer. Tali merely nodded, and began to work on her omni tool. After a brief pause she looked up at him, her eyes glowing behind her mask.

"Yes. Yes EDI has been restricted from accessing the Normandy. There appears to be a firewall in place that has her trapped within her own core. I can bypass it but I'll need to get to the AI core to do so, and the Normandy is in danger of a full mass effect core meltdown. I cannot afford to leave the engine room." She said, apologetically.

He seemed to think on this for a second before gesturing to Daniels, who was trying to stem the bleeding from Donnelly's wound.

"What about her? Can't she keep the core from going critical whilst you fix EDI? With the AI back online, and with full ship access again, could she not handle your core problems?" He said, cringing as the pain in his wounded ribs flared up once more.

"Of course! Keelah, how could I be so stupid?" Tali said, springing into action. "That's why the core isn't responding to the re-routing of the coolant I performed! With EDI penned into her own AI core, the coolant valves will be expecting the correct overrides to be input manually at the routing station!"

Turning to face him, she placed a hand on his elbow, and bowed her head in respect.

"Thank you, for all you have done." She said, before turning to Daniels and kneeling down beside her. He barely noticed, his fingers gently tapping his arm where she had touched him.

"Gabby?" He heard Tali say as he pushed his confusion aside and turned to face the distraught woman. "We will take care of Kenneth, but we - I need you to do something for me - our lives depend on it. I need you to monitor the core and prevent it from passing the zero-threshold. I need you to buy me some time. Can you do that?"

Daniels nodded in response, pulling herself back to her feet and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"You can count on me, Tali. Just don't let him die. I don't have anyone else." She said, before hurrying to the consoles over by the mass effect core. Tali turned to regard him, waiting for an order.

"Take this." He said, retrieving an assault rifle from one of the dead commandos. "It's not quite a shotgun, but it's better than nothing. You'll have to take point, I'm in no fit state to fight any more. I'll carry Donnelly."

"Understood, just try to keep up." Tali said, taking the assault rifle and checking it's thermal clip before tapping on her omni tool. Reaching into a pocket, she removed a small disk and tossed it into the air. An orb of holographic light burst from the disk, and it hovered there, awaiting instruction.

"Chikktika, come girl, follow me." She said, and set off toward the port access door. Crouching down, he hefted Donnelly as best he could and hoisted the unconscious engineer over his shoulders in a fireman's carry before setting off after the quarian.



Mordin Solus was pleased with himself, despite the circumstances. The crew seemed to be responding well to his orders, despite him being a non-human. They had once been a Cerberus crew. Now they were his crew; Shepard’s crew.

Satisfaction. A sense of purpose. It felt… good.

The damage was minimal. The fires were mostly out, and the deck had sustained no casualties. Jacob was organizing the crew to contain the rest. The air felt thin in the combat information centre, the fire sucking in the oxygen to fuel their continued defiance.

Joker was even beginning to complain again - the lack of the AI to berate his lack of discipline was getting to him. Mordin suspected something more than a working relationship between the two. The implications were… best not considered. Bodily fluids and electronics rarely mixed well. Perhaps he should say something?

“You did a good job professor. You should be proud of yourself.” A woman’s voice spoke from beside him, a thankful distraction from his current train of thought.

“Incorrect assessment. Did not ‘do a good job’. Implications of word usage ‘good’ suggest less than excellent performance. No, Yeoman Chambers, did not do ‘good job’. Did excellent job.” Mordin replied, without looking at her. “Now, if you will excuse me, must check something. Need to go. Will be in infirmary if you need me. Joker has bridge.”

Without waiting for a reply, Mordin crossed the CIC and stepped into the elevator, and descended to the crew deck. As he walked toward the infirmary he almost collided with crewman Hawthorne coming the other way. The man hurried past him, shouting back over his shoulder as he ducked into the elevator.

“Sorry Doc, can’t stop. Thane has wounded in the shuttle bay.”

“Understandable, please continue.” Mordin replied, before striding into the infirmary, looking for Doctor Chakwas.



Donnelly weighed more than a damn elcor. That couldn’t be good. He was struggling to support the wounded engineer, he had been running on empty for too long already, and his reserves were almost gone. He couldn’t pass out in the middle of the damn elevator; he just refused to let that happen. It would be embarrassing. His ribs were screaming from the extra weight, the pain causing his vision to swim, until all he could see was red.

He shuffled his weight onto his other foot, and moved Donnelly into a more comfortable position. The pain in his ribs subsided, allowing the red hot sensation of the fusion burn to creep back into his consciousness. He must look like crap. He kept catching Tali’Zorah stealthily glancing at him when she thought he wasn’t watching, her glowing eyes regarding him carefully.

Her concern was… not unwelcome. That just made him even more determined not to pass out. He really was going soft. He didn’t need any more friends. He remembered the last time he had truly trusted someone, and how that had ended. Death. Pain, and death. He needed to keep his guard up, not to let anyone get that close again.

The damn quarian was looking at him again. Maybe she could see he was about to pass out too. What was taking the damn elevator so long? Thankfully it had not taken long for it to arrive on the engineering deck, but it had still seemed like an eternity. Going up one floor to the crew deck seemed to be taking even longer.

The damn thing finally stopped on level three, and Tali’Zorah stepped out onto the deck, the assault rifle he had given her panning left and right as she checked to ensure no more Cerberus soliders were lying in wait. Glancing back to him she gave him the all clear, waving him forward.

They entered the mess hall to be confronted with what was essentially a field triage station. It was filled with wounded crew, some sitting against the wall, holding minor injuries. The more serious cases were laid out on the mess tables, those with even basic medical training tending to their wounds.

Ignoring them, the pair headed straight for the infirmary, and the AI core housed behind it. The door opened, and Doctor’s Chakwas and Solus turned to look at them as they entered. The salarian hurried to help him with Donnelly, Tali stepping out of the way to let him pass. Doctor Chakwas turned back to one of the operating tables, already busy working on another wounded crewman.

“He’s been shot.” Tali’Zorah said by way of explanation, before pushing past them toward the AI core. She stopped in her tracks as she saw who it was that Chakwas was tending to.

“Keelah…” She managed, clearly shaken, her voice no more than a whisper. Once Solus had helped him secure Donnelly on the second operating table, he leaned past the salarian, curious to see what had the quarian so upset.

“Well, that explains a lot.” He said, looking down at the unconscious form of Commander Shepard. The Commander was covered in blood, and stripped to the waist. Doctor Chakwas was busy trying to dig shrapnel from his shoulder. He looked a mess.

“Help me with this.” He said to Solus, and - turning his back on Shepard - began to remove his armour. Unlocking the pressure seals of his helmet, he pulled it off, tossing it onto the Doctor’s desk.

“What a goddam mess.” Zaeed Massani said, as he dropped into the Doctors chair and ran a shaking hand through his blood slicked hair, finally able to rest - his ordeal over, for the moment.