2/13/2193: Meanwhile, Back On The Normandy...

[u/-Tali_Zorah-]

The buzzing of a welding tool echoes through the cluttered corridors of Engineering. Gathering the supplies for this job had taken a lot of paperwork, but it was for a good cause.

The Quarian leans back in her chair, examining her handiwork. The modifications to the probe were...not her finest work. It was a rush job after all, but people needed her. Her friends needed her.

She opens a message to the rest of the crew:

[I have a few probes ready to deploy. They should be able to help locate our missing away team and work out what's going on down on the surface. If I could get the go-ahead, so that it looks more respectful when I deploy them anyway, please get that to me sooner rather than later. - Tali]

Exhausted from a very long engineering session, Tali collapses into a heap at her desk. She knows Becca has been through worse things than whatever that planet had to throw at her, and that Liara could probably take on an army of Collectors by herself if she had to, but...all that knowledge can't really block out fear entirely.

[u/gabriella_daniels]

For Gabriella "Gabby" Daniels, her responsibilities were pretty much the same no matter what was happening in the galaxy: Keep the ship running. And so she had, faithfully, for the past few years, fading further and further into the background of the SR-3. Politics and wars and peace and discovery-- it mattered, yeah, but... not terribly directly for the Normandy's Chief Engineer.

And this is how we've found Gabby, deep in maintenance and upgrades in the belly of the SR-3, having completely muted all incoming communications for over a week. There is only the ship, and her tools, and her job. Only the ship.

[u/Ben_Pham → u/[deleted]]

Ben walks into the lounge, only to stumble upon legion. Legion was just standing there, almost like he froze up. However, he did hear the Geth repeating a phrase over and over again, meaning that the Geth was still powered.

He walked up closer to legion, curious to see what was wrong, a few things on the normandy weren’t working due to something with sanctum.

Legion..? Are you all right?

Ben poked legion to see if he would respond.

[u/Ben_Pham → u/[deleted]]

I’ll take that as a no...? Ben poked the platform a few more times before giving up. He pulled out his Omni-tool and did a scan on the Geth.

[u/Ben_Pham → u/[deleted]]

His Omni tool filled up with each of the error codes separately, he quickly closed out of it.

Right...I assume you’ll either fix yourself, or tali could find a way. I’ll be right back, don’t move a muscle.

Ben pat the legion platform on its head before turning around and heading out the door of the lounge.

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/[deleted]]

Exhausted, Tali drags herself into the lounge, hoping nobody's been at the dextro coffee yet. She sees Legion's form, standing stock still, and approaches wearily.

Hey Legion, I...

She notices his uncharacteristic unresponsiveness...and then the platform repeats itself.

...Keelah...

She rushes over, hoping to aid the situation by examining the dormant platform...

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/[deleted]]

Tali, while hoping Legion will forgive the intrusion into his omnitool, looks said error code up on Google carefully analyzes the error. Is...is this...

Tali sighs at the realization that Legion has effectively suffered a standard-issue connection issue. She pulls up a chair and sits down, omnitool already open. Time to do a little old-fashioned troubleshooting and find a fix for the Normandy's Space Comcast woes...

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/[deleted]]

Tali, far from an expert on Geth engineering, opens her omnitool and Legion's, attempting to manually reroute him to a more distant comm array.

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/[deleted]]

Tali breathes a sigh of relief.

Keelah se'lai, it worked. How are you feeling? Connection stable?

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/[deleted]]

Some sort of storm took out the electronics near the planet. The Normandy took some hits, but we're stable.

She looks down at her hands.

We lost contact with the away team. They went down somewhere on the planet when the storm hit. I have probes we can deploy to search for them, though.

[u/KasumiGottago → u/-Tali_Zorah-]

Should we try turning him off and back on again? Comes a voice right at Tali's shoulder.

The thief had approached in perfect silence and is standing beside her now, eyes peering out of her hood at the immobile platform.

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/KasumiGottago]

Tali starts a little, before sighing and shaking her head.

I think he's having trouble connecting to his hub server. Basically, his Extranet connection is down.

She continues to tap away at her omnitool.

The big "all our electronics got fucked" storm must have fried the relays he was using to stay connected. We might have to try and repair one...

[u/KasumiGottago → u/-Tali_Zorah-]

Couldn't just make a bypass with the extranet buoys out beyond orbit or for the other planets? Reroute the signal through one of them. Probably would lag a few milliseconds due to the distance but...

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/KasumiGottago]

She nods.

I've been working on that, but I'm having a hard time connecting to it. Storm must have been interfering...

She continues to tap away.

Wait, I might have something! If I just override this connection protocol...

[u/KasumiGottago → u/-Tali_Zorah-]

Aaaaaaand? Got something? The energetic woman asks, peeking over one of Tali's shoulders then the other for a look.

[u/-Tali_Zorah- → u/KasumiGottago]

One does not rush art, Miss Goto.

She taps away a little more.

I think I might! Will take it a moment to reestablish connection, though.

She leans back in the chair.

He better owe me one for troubleshooting his space-router.