Dragon's Teeth: Mass Effect 1 (Shenko)

Chapter 5

Milky Way/Serpent Nebula/Widow System/Normandy

After addressing the crew over the intercom, Callie ordered Joker to the Artemis Tau Cluster to begin the search for Dr. T'Soni. She felt certain that if anyone could help explain Benezia's involvement with Saren, her daughter would be the one to ask.

While they jumped through several relays to reach the Artemis Tau Cluster, Callie headed to the lower decks to check in with the members of her crew.

Her crew, she thought in disbelief. This mission had somehow taken on a life of it's own. From the moment she'd boarded the Normandy, events had unfolded in a whirlwind of activity and rapidly changing objectives. She was having trouble sorting it all out.

She met with Ashley in the cargo hold who regretted the loss of her squad. After accepting Shepard's reassurance that she'd done her best, she relaxed enough to share that she maintained a close relationship with her family.

She was the eldest of four sisters, her mother an army wife, while her father had passed away several years ago. She confessed to enjoying poetry and her general distrust of aliens stemmed from her grandfather. He had been the only Alliance officer to surrender to the turians during the First Contact War, and her family had been black-balled from the Alliance ever since.

Callie told her she respected Ashley for not letting her family's history interfere with her desire to serve in the Alliance. Ashley was a good soldier and a credit to her uniform and she was glad to have her as part of her crew, but Callie believed humans needed to cooperate with other species, not treat them with distrust and suspicion.

Ashley thought Shepard she was being too idealistic, and said so, but assured her that it wouldn't be a problem. She'd never worked with aliens before, but promised she wouldn't let her feelings interfere with her job. Callie accepted that. Ashley didn't seem like someone who said one thing while doing another.

She moved on to speak with Engineer Adams, Wrex, Garrus and Tali. Wrex struck her as a crafty, intelligent krogan who hid his thoughts well. Though aggressive like the rest of his race, she felt confident that at the very least, he would follow her orders.

Garrus seemed like a wild card. On one hand he was eager to help stop Saren, but she sensed that if given the opportunity, he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice innocent people to get the job done. Although he struck her as being capable, she made a note to keep an eye on him.

Tali was enthralled by the Normandy's drive-core when Callie found her in the engine room. She told her that on the Flotilla, (where her people had lived for the past 300 years since their war with the geth), she had never before worked with such advanced technology.

She then told her how her people had created the geth. They'd been designed to do work the quarians couldn't, but the geth had then evolved into self-aware A.I.'s. The quarians had panicked and tried to destroy what they'd created before anyone could find out. The geth had fought back, defending themselves and driving the quarian race from the only home they'd ever known.

Callie had a hard time feeling any sympathy for the quarians. When their plan to eliminate what they'd created backfired, they'd lost their home and their way of life. As far as she could tell, the quarians had made no effort to attempt peace with the geth. Instead, they'd created a life in the stars, living on ships that destroyed their immune systems - condemning them to living their lives in environmental suits. Without which, they would die.

Tali didn't agree with her, so Callie let the matter drop. Tali had lived with her people's history of their war with the geth her entire life, while Callie was an outsider. Not that she felt it changed anything. Regardless how the quarians told their story, the results were the same. After trying and failing to destroy their creation, the geth had won and the quarians had spent the past 300 years living as exiles. The rest of the galaxy saw the quarians as little more than scavengers, and and did whatever was necessary to keep the quarian flotilla out of their star systems. What sympathy Callie had for the quarians was tempered by the knowledge they only had themselves to blame. Seriously... what race wouldn't defend themselves from being wiped out?