/* Big Country "Far From Me to You" _Why the Long Face?_ (1995) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE STAR-CROSSED Appendix: Happily Ever After Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2010 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited EPILOGUE I: THE WALLACE LINE FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2356 OMEGA, SAHRABARIK SYSTEM_ Kei Morgan returned slowly to consciousness, and the first thing she realized was that she had no memory of -losing- consciousness, which was usually not a good sign. She sat up, feeling muscles that had obviously been used for off-label purposes protest all over her body, and groaned. She knew she was in a bed, she could feel that much - quite a nice one, too, a lot better than the one she had at home in Eleanor City, better by -far- than her bunk on the Lovely Angel. She also knew, with less surprise and less alarm than she might have expected, that she was naked. Apart from that? Nothing. Last thing she remembered was parking the Angel very sloppily in downtown T-Bone Junction on Pandora, driving like a complete idiot to Moxxi's Red Light, and demanding one of everything. That's what happens, she told herself, when you mix cordrazine, killer frost, bloody-eye, and intense frustration. She rubbed her forehead with the heels of both hands, felt the throbbing recede a little, then tried prying her gummy eyes open to have a look around. Okay, bedroom, logical place to have a bed. Frickin' HUGE bed. Big window, high floor. Whoa, okay, -much- higher than any floor on Pandora. And it's night out, that doesn't really -happen- on Pandora. ... Is part of the city on the -ceiling?- "Where the fuck... ?" she muttered, her voice feeling (and sounding) a bit like crushed glass. "It's about time you woke up," said a voice from off to her left. She turned, nerves jangling, and saw another figure stretched out lissomely atop the rumpled covers next to her, just as curvy, just as naked, only rather more... blue. "... Aria?!" "You've been out for 73 hours, and for six or so before that you were talking mostly in an ancient hanar dialect," said Aria, sounding amused. "That must have been a hell of a party." The asari got up from the bed, shrugged into a silk robe, and knotted the belt loosely. "You know," she said, more seriously, "I'm not usually one for preaching to people about their bad habits - people's bad habits are how I make my living, after all - but if you don't slow down a little bit on the combat stims you're going to kill yourself, Detian or not. I found -26- killer frost empties in your rental runner alone. Don't worry about your deposit, by the way. Scooter knows better than to bill a friend of mine." "How the hell did I get here?" Kei asked, shaking her head and then regretting what it made her brain feel like it was bouncing off of inside her skull. "Moxxi called, said you were tearing up her place and would I please come and take you away before you killed so many of the local bandits that she'd have to close the Underdome for lack of staff." Aria laughed. "You should've seen yourself. Maybe Moxxi has vids. Those would be worth a laugh later." "How do you know Moxxi?" "Sorority sisters at Vassar." Kei rubbed her hands down her face. "I didn't know you took in strays," she said wryly. "I usually don't," Aria said. "Compassion's bad for my image. I wouldn't want it to get out that I have a soft spot for fucked-up redheads. That kind of thing doesn't really play for the queen bitch of Omega, you know? But I figure, well, if anybody can keep a secret... " She shrugged. "You need help, Kei. You're a mess even by -this- place's standards. I thought so when you were here before and now I'm sure of it. I'm no good at counseling... " The asari smiled darkly. "But it might be that I have an untapped talent for tough love." Kei's first instinct was to say something nasty and get out, but something in what Aria was saying made sense - and she remembered what that merc on the ring station had said, the one who'd helped Ben get away. "Maybe you should get a life." She put her face in her hands and let out a sound somewhere between a sigh, a sob, and a bitter laugh. "Man," she said, "how messed up do you have to be for -Omega- to be the place to get straight?" "About as messed up as you," Aria replied. Kei got unsteadily out of Aria's bed. "I should call Yuri. Let her know I'm not coming back for a while. She's gonna want the Angel back, too." "I'll take care of it," Aria told her. "You get some more rest. Or take a shower, at least. You still look like shit. I'll send Grizz up with some soup or something in a bit." She smirked back over her shoulder. "Try not to maul him." Kei stood by the window and listened to Aria leave. The door made a distinctive sound when it closed after her. Shit, Kei thought, she locked me in. She's really serious about this. Then, in spite of herself, she laughed. I'm in rehab on Omega. Overseen by the most notorious asari crimeboss in the galaxy. Who would ever believe it? "Maybe you should get a life," that old merc had said. "Maybe I should," Kei mused. EPILOGUE II: THE HIGH SIDE THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2356 DENEB COLD STORAGE COMPANY ROSEMUND CITY DENEB III, DENEB SECTOR_ There was a certain protocol Gryphon followed in order to survive as the most wanted fugitive in the galaxy. He and Raoul Duke had developed it decades before, right after the fall of the Wedge Defense Force. It had relatively few rules, and all of them were a bit flexible depending on the circumstances, except one. The one paramount and unbendable rule in the Hutchins/Duke Escape and Evasion System was this: After any encounter with Kei, whether at home or in the field, the home base MUST be moved. No matter what. Even if there was no reason to believe she had any inkling where it was, even without any evidence that she or anyone else could track him there from wherever they -did- meet, Kei was the one and only inviolate priority interrupt in the System. If you see her, you pull up stakes and move on. Immediately. Transferring operations like that was no small job; Gryphon might travel light, but traveling light was a relative concept when part of your personal kit was a Veritech fighter. New territories had to be scouted, arrangements made, blind purchases transacted, unwitting agents acquired through elaborate cover organizations. Having an AI to act as majordomo for these things had simplified matters considerably in the last 20 years, but it was still a big production number. And in this case, the man and the AI weren't strictly on speaking terms, which made everything that much more difficult. The dismantling of the Deneb Cold Storage Company and groundwork for a new headquarters elsewhere - in this case, on the Coreward Frontier, on a newly-contacted, barely-charted world called Grushka - were all carried out in what can only, and with apologies for the pun, be described as a frosty silence. It wasn't until they'd left the atmosphere that either one spoke more than the bare minimum required to accomplish the task. When Vision appeared on the central VDU and addressed Gryphon, it was the first time she'd tried to raise the subject with him since the towering argument that had erupted when he'd regained consciousness to find himself halfway back to Deneb in a fighter that wouldn't return to manual control. "I said I was sorry," she said. Gryphon's eyes flicked briefly to her face, then went back to the navigation panel. "Uh-huh, I heard," he said. "Pretty sure I didn't believe you, though." Vision scowled. "Okay. Fine. You want to be like that? Let's be like that. I'm not sorry. I'm NOT sorry I planned ahead. I'm NOT sorry I made arrangements to keep you from getting yourself killed. And I'm NOT sorry I prevented you from dragging an unsuspecting kid into the maelstrom. Okay? Happy now?" "Yeah. Ecstatic." Gryphon verified their route to the fueling station at Corrado Core with Deneb ATC, then returned his attention to her. "Let me tell you something," he said. "If you had bothered to investigate the situation a little, instead of just -assuming- you knew what was what, you'd have known that I wasn't dragging anyone anywhere. I can't, I can't even put into words how offensive it is to me that you just assume Tali was... " He made an I-can't-find-the-phrase gesture. "... A bit on the side. And I'll tell you something else. She's going to find me, or I'm going to find her, and when that happens, if you pull a stunt like that again? You're -fired.-" "You can't -fire- me," Vision said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not your employee. Legally I don't even -exist.-" "I'm not kidding. I'm really, epically pissed off at you. I thought maybe I'd calm down if we just didn't talk for a while, but no, I think it's just been storing up. I think what really gets me is that I had a -plan- and you didn't even ask." "Your PLAN was to confront Kei in a drunken rage and get your fool head blown off." Vision put her virtual hands on her hips and said sarcastically, "I'm fuzzy on how that version ends any better for your quarian friend." "That's not what I was talking about. You're right that the fight had to be prevented, that I'll grant you, and that's the only reason I haven't already told you to go - what the crap?" A squadron of Ferret patrol fighters in the markings of the Deneb Defense Establishment were forming up on his wings and behind him, close enough that he could see the pilot in the cockpit of the one to his left make a commanding gesture. "Valkyrie QJ-392, there is a problem with your spacecraft registration," said a voice on the comm. "Follow us back to Dalton Station for processing. Any deviation would be... unwise." Gryphon palmed the facebowl of his generic CVR helmet. "Are you kidding me?" he grumbled. "I thought you took care of that," he said to Vision. "I -did- take care of that," she replied indignantly. "They've got the right number, there must be something wrong with the record." She looked away for a moment, plunging into the local net, and then let out an outraged yell. "The new record's been duped. Some dumbshit local slicer... oh, for fuck's -sake.- Working for -Eclipse-. They duped a bunch of records last night for some kind of switch-and-dash GTV job and didn't even have the courtesy not to fuck it up. These guys probably just want to make sure we're not shipjackers." "Will the record stand up if they run that kind of check?" "I doubt it. We only expected to pass automated ping beacons." Gryphon sighed. "Nothing's ever going to go right this year, is it?" he asked rhetorically. "Valkyrie QJ-392, this is your last warning. Alter course and follow us back to Dalton Station -immediately- or we start shooting." Gryphon said, "Oh, hell, I don't have -time- for this," and went to full throttle. The Ferrets didn't have much of a chance; they didn't have the speed or the acceleration to keep up with him for long, nor the firepower to do much damage before he got out of range. Only the wingleader was on the ball enough to even get off any shots on target, and his mass accelerators didn't have the punch to get through the Valkyrie's shields. The best he could do was rattle the spaceframe a little with a couple of center-mass shield impacts before Gryphon got a tone back from his navicomputer and kicked in the warp drive. "Holy shit, did you see that?" "Was that what I think it was?" "Sure as hell looked like a drive blowdown to me. Dude just went over the high side." "Jesus, poor bastard. Whoever he was, I bet he didn't want to get away -that- bad." "Cut the chatter, Grey Flight. Let's head back to base. It's gonna take me a while just to figure out how to report this." EPILOGUE III: ANY QUARIAN ALIVE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2356 QNV ARCHANGEL ON STATION AT HALO, SCANDIA-CN38 SYSTEM_ Tali'Shukra nar Kythera felt a strange pang of homesickness as she guided the 25 or 6 to 4 toward the Archangel - not for the Star Destroyer, where she'd never actually lived, but for the blue-green- lined ring near which the ship hovered. She knew the home she yearned for wasn't actually down there any more. Indeed, she'd just come from spending a month helping the people of Goodyear get settled in their new home, a green and pleasant moon called Euphrates in the Kebera system. Kebera lay spinward of Scandia in the Kresge, in an area that the Migrant Fleet had mapped a few years before. Though it hadn't been called a trade - Halo was a gift, not yet even officially accepted, and Kebera a donation - everyone agreed it was a good one. Tali had taken point on the evacuation and relocation of the Goodyear colonists, their effects, infrastructure, livestock etc., with the good-natured help of a couple of quarian freighters' crews. Captains Aadev and Lembik were happy to have something more interesting to do than move fuel and protein stocks around the Flotilla, and their crews had enjoyed being the first quarians other than Tali that the Goodyearites had ever met. More than one friendship had sprung up along the way. The people of Goodyear, under the circumstances, were a lot less willing than most humans to indulge in the popular stereotypes of quarians as dishonest tramps. Now her work was done, which was a problem, since it was by burying herself in the work that she'd distracted herself from the lingering pain of her shockingly sudden dispossession. Miranda, Scott, Garrett, all her friends from Goodyear - especially Mordin - had tried as best they could to help her, but there wasn't really anything anyone could do. She'd just had to thank them cordially for their attempts at kindness, get on with the job, and hope they'd take the hint, which, after a while, they did. And at least she'd managed to persuade them not to name the new settlement Harrisburg or, worse, Shukria. In the end, they'd gone with New Goodyear - not the most imaginative name, perhaps, but one with some history after all they'd been through. She parked the Kodiak in the hangar bay the aero-traffic controller directed her to, waited for decon (a team other than Vedik's this time, for which she felt obscurely fortunate - she didn't really want to face him yet either), and then reported to Admiral Zorah. Captain Dakka was waiting with the admiral in Kevirin'Zorah's study, and at the sight of him, Tali felt her heart sink. She should have been pleased; his presence most likely meant that her gift had been accepted, the thing every quarian her age dreamed of. If it hadn't, he'd have been forced by custom to send a subordinate to the meeting, to issue a formal rejection of her petition to join his ship. But if it had, then it meant the time of her days being her own was over. She'd be expected to buckle down and pitch in as a member of the Archangel's crew. She wouldn't be allowed to go out and roam the galaxy, searching for a man she couldn't even tell anyone she knew, much less was in love with - not while there was work to do, and there was always work to do on the Flotilla. The various possessions she'd accrued during the pilgrimage would go into the general pool - the shuttle, her Cyclone, and so forth. Individual quarians owned very little, preferring to make things for which they had no immediate need available to the fleet as a whole. This was the way it had always been, the way Tali was raised. She knew it was the most efficient way, the -right- way to manage limited resources. Selfishness could have no place in a society as precariously interdependent as the Flotilla's. But, she decided, she'd be damned if they got her shotgun. "Tali'Shukra. Welcome home," said the admiral. "Rael'Dakka and I have good news for you." "The Conclave voted yesterday to accept your gift," said the captain. "They haven't decided what to -do- with it," he added with a chuckle, "but our ambassador to the Federation filed the datawork this morning. Halo is officially ours." Admiral Zorah added, "The rest of the Flotilla is on its way here as we speak, and the Office of Navigation and Fleet Management is working on a parking arrangement. It appears the Migrant Fleet is to migrate no longer." "With your gift accepted by the Conclave and endorsed by the Admiralty," Dakka went on, "I'm finally free to say what I've been willing to say since you offered it: It gives me great pleasure to add your name to the roster of my crew. By the ancient custom of our people, you thus become an adult; you are Tali'Shukra nar Kythera no longer. Welcome to the Archangel." "Thank you, Captain," Tali replied, trying hard to prevent the strange and contrary grief welling up inside her from getting into her voice as she remembered the traditional response to the captain's words. "I'm honored. I'll do my best to uphold the fleet's finest traditions and add to the legend of this great ship." "I'm sure you will," said the captain sincerely. "You've made a hell of a start already." Then, turning to Kevirin'Zorah, he said, "Admiral, I'm needed on the bridge. I trust you'll take care of explaining Tali's duty assignment to her?" "I think I can manage that all right, for an old man," Zorah replied, clapping Dakka on the shoulder. "Thank you." The captain bowed to his newest crewmate. "Keelah se'lai, Tali'Shukra. Congratulations." "Keelah se'lai, Captain. Thank you," she said again, forcing herself to sound like she meant it. She watched Dakka leave, then turned back to face the admiral, but he was distracted, poring over something on his omni-tool. A bit at a loss, Tali wandered the room, eventually finding herself standing in front of one of the big windows. Without consciously realizing it, she raised a hand and placed her fingertips against the cool duracrys, gazing off past her own reflection, through Halo, and into the depths of the galaxy. Somewhere out there... After a few more moments, the admiral stopped futzing with his omni-tool and joined her by the window. "You know," he said, "a posting to the Archangel is one of the most coveted assignments in the Fleet. There are thousands of young quarians who would give their CO2 scrubbers to be where you are right now." Was he trying to make her feel even worse? Tali turned to face him and nodded, hoping she didn't look that transparently miserable. "I know, sir. And as I told Captain Dakka, I'll do my best." Zorah chuckled. "Your best would have you replacing Dalra'Shal as chief engineer within five years. Not bad work if you can get it. But you know, I've been thinking, and... if the Migrant Fleet truly is to stop migrating and settle here in Scandia, well, this ship's not going to -need- all that many engineers. She's one of the newest hulls in the fleet, with energy systems that haven't even been properly run in by our standards, and if we're just going to be tooling around the Scandia system at point two c, well... I think Dalra and her team can get by without you for a while." Tali regarded him silently, her head on one side. What was he saying? "Besides," Zorah went on, "you're a unique resource - the only quarian with first-hand knowledge of life on Halo, and our closest contact with a scientist who knows more about its ecology than anyone else alive. It would be a waste to have you slaving away in the engine room of a ship that hardly ever uses its engines. And you know how we quarians feel about wasting resources." While she stood there, not daring to speak, Kevirin'Zorah crossed the room to his desk, sat down, and started poking at his terminal. Tali walked slowly toward him, stopping a few yards from his desk, and just stood there, not daring to hope what she hoped he was saying. "I've logged your personal vessel as a scoutship of the Archangel," he said, "with you in command and a crew of, well, nobody. Your mission is to search the galaxy for information about the origins of Halo... " He glanced up, met her eyes, and winked. "... and the whereabouts of certain missing... friends of the quarian people." Tali stared at him, dumbstruck. "... how did you know?" she eventually managed to ask. The admiral guffawed, slapping his desk. "You ought to see the look on your face, girl," he said. "Even through your helmet it's a sight to see. I'm an old campaigner, Tali. I know how to read a report, and I've read yours and Dr. Solus's." He got to his feet, rounding his desk, and put an arm around her shoulders, guiding her to walk with him as he paced across the study. "I'm sure you've heard the old stories about how my pilgrimage took so long they thought I'd been killed, or decided not to come home. As Kevirin'Zorah nar Irvola, I served eight years on a Wedge Defense Force vessel called the Normandy," he said. "We were a special operations ship - fast and quiet, an experimental sort of fighting scout. We transported strike forces and special agents all over the galaxy and helped them with their missions. Serious heavy hitters, the top people the WDF and 3WA had." He stopped, patting her far shoulder with his hand, and told her, "I -knew- 'Dan Harris'. Not outstandingly well - he wasn't a regular member of the Normandy's crew - but well enough to recognize him in a pair of after- action reports... and see his hand in what happened here last month. As for your feelings, well... reading your report, knowing the rest, it was easy enough for me to spot what lay between the lines." "... Then you... know -why- I... want to leave," Tali said haltingly. For some reason she found it acutely embarrassing that any other quarian should know that - particularly this one. "Of course," said the admiral kindly. He patted her shoulder again, then left her and went to stand by the window once more. "Because our mutual friend is out there somewhere, and you want more than anything else to see him again." "It's... frivolous," Tali admitted, hanging her head. "Selfish. Maybe even irrational." "Bah," said the admiral. "Of course it's irrational. That's why it feels so strong." She glanced up at him, shocked. "I haven't been an old man forever, Tali'Shukra," he said cheerfully. "Anyway. You have your orders. No one can recall you, no one can question you; your mission is under my personal seal as admiral of the fleet. I may ASK you to come back now and then, to help with the ongoing investi- gations into Halo - particularly once Dr. Solus's work on Euphrates is done and he joins us here to head up the research effort - but apart from that, you have a free hand." He gestured to the window. "Go and find our friend. If anyone can keep him safe until the galaxy regains its sanity, it's you... and if any quarian alive deserves a chance to pursue her own happiness, well, that's you too." Tali's eyes filled with tears, causing her helmet's automatic cleaning system to spring into action. "I... " She swallowed the painful lump in her throat and tried again. "I can't tell you what this means to me, Admiral. Thank you. Thank you so much." The phantoms of Kevirin'Zorah's eyes gave her a fond smile. "You're welcome. Thank -you.- You've given our people a home, whether they're ready to accept the idea or not. You've earned the right to be as selfish as you damn well choose. And - we've known each other a long time. If you're not destined to call me Grandfather, you can at least call me Uncle, can't you?" Tali looked at the floor. "I'm... I'm sorry about Vedik. I didn't know." "Bah," Admiral Zorah repeated, waving a hand dismissively. "He's a big boy. He'll be fine. Either he'll find someone else while you're gone, in which case problem solved, or he'll wait until you come back, whenever that may be... in which case I might beg you to take pity on the poor lad, but we can cycle that airlock when we come to it." Tali chuckled. "All right... Uncle." The old admiral spread his hands in farewell. "Go in peace, Tali'Shukra vas Archangel. Find your future... and try to be happy. Keelah se'lai." /* The Traveling Wilburys "Heading for the Light" _Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1_ (1988) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Star-Crossed Appendix: Happily Ever After E P U (colour) 2010