Author's Note: Firstly, as I must always do, I have to ask that you please review. Any thoughts or comments are sincerely appreciated. I need your feedback! Also, if you like this writing style, I would like to make it known that I have a second, darker series entitled 'A Creed Unhinged'. It can be found upon my profile page (just click my 'Raxuslives' name near the top of this page).

Beneath the Veil

"Nemo liber est qui corpori servit."

(No one is free who is a slave to their body.)

As the door closed, a slight pop could be heard as the air within the chamber pressurized. Soon after a thin white laser began scanning across the room, searching for and addressing any contamination concerns that it noticed.

Standing alone within the decontamination chamber, Tali'Zorah caught herself unconsciously tapping her foot, impatient for the cycle to complete. It wasn't the movement of her leg that caused her to suddenly notice this, but the feeling of the corrugated floor beneath her feet. For the first time in a long while, she could actually feel the ground without a layer of fabric between it and her three toes.

Reflecting on that, Tali spread her arms slowly, breathing in deeply. She had to enjoy the freedom while she could. As the quarian people's immune systems had degraded during their exile, they had been forced into environmental suits, for their own protection. Some of the oldest quarians spoke of a time when the envirosuits were only worn during large meetings and parties, or during a pandemic. Tali could hardly believe that. Presently, once a young quarian received their first suit, it could be years before the opportunity presented itself to remove it.

Tali found herself smiling, despite the fact that the decontamination cycle still had nearly five minutes left. She had been so excited to receive her first suit, at the age of twelve. Back then, it had represented a sort of liberation from the clean-rooms and bubbles that children were kept in. Tali sighed. As she had grown, that nativity had faded, as she learned what the suits really were. Glorified prisons. It really hadn't been that bad, being suited upon the Fleet, but her pilgrimage had changed her outlook dramatically. As Tali had explored the galaxy, hunting for something useful to give to the Fleet, she had witnessed exactly what she had been missing.

It had been early on, only a few weeks into her pilgrimage, that Tali had landed on Enaram, a Hanar world nearly covered in water. As she waited for the next commercial transport to arrive, Tali found herself staring out of the window. A young family, an asari, a turian, and their two children, were playing along the beach. Initially, Tali had been confused. One of the children, her face plastered in a smile, was floating in the surf. The quarian girl had naturally assumed that something was wrong, for no quarian child would ever experience any fun from floating in water. But then it had hit her. That child was swimming! Looking back on it now, she couldn't really blame herself for taking so long to realize that. The Fleet barely had enough water to sustain it's population, which meant there was never enough for something as frivolous as swimming. More importantly, Tali reminded herself, swimming was inherently boring to any quarian. Most of the fun came from feeling the cool water, the waves. An envirosuit robbed you of such pleasantries.

A red light suddenly turned on, bringing Tali out of her memories, to announce that the chamber cycle was down to one minute. The young quarian was glad, for she was quickly tiring of being cold. Living in a temperature controlled suit for so many years had made her skin sensitive to any sort of climate change. Even though the decontamination chamber was actually tailoring the environment to what her old suit had maintained, the fans cycling the air through the room's filters still created a breeze, giving her a permanent chill.

Looking down, Tali rubbed her hands together, although this caused her shoulders to itch. The simple white gown she wore was uncomfortable, its fabric abrasive from years of repeated sterilization. But she had to admit that it felt good to wear something that wasn't form-fitting. She understood the reasons why the suits hugged every curve, but it just got annoying after awhile. Glancing over her shoulder, Tali caught a glimpse of her old suit, lying within the room she had just left. As she returned her gaze forward, Tali chided herself. She should be happy. It wasn't every day that a quarian got a new envirosuit.

Quarian society was necessarily communal, as the supply of just about everything was short. As such, quarians never owned anything, besides their suit. And with each quarian's suit being custom-made for them, it was unheard of for one to be replaced, except under an emergency. Or, as in Tali's case, when a young quarian returned home from their pilgrimage.

Thinking of her pilgrimage, a deluge of images suddenly stormed into Tali's mind. Dealing with Fist. Meeting Shepard. Fighting husks, mercenaries, geth. Battling Saren. Watching from an escape pod as- "No!" She gasped, shaking the thoughts from her mind. Shepard was gone now. It didn't matter what she had felt, what fear had prevented her from expressing.

The sound of the decontamination chamber's door opening allowed Tali to push those thoughts away. With a sigh, she stepped into the austere room. As with everything in the Fleet, this room served multiple purposes. The battery of equipment pushed against the wall marked the room's original purpose as a surgery area, although Tali knew she was one of three returning quarians to receive a new suit and thus use this room today.

Walking across the floor, Tali again found herself suddenly surprised. The normal sound of walking was absent, her soft feet making far less of a racket then her steel boots had. Regardless, she soon reached the center of the room and the table that stood there, upon which lay her new suit, broken into its twelve component parts.

Tali, her latent curiosity kicking in, picked up the largest piece, what was effectively the torso segment. Comparing it to her old suit, she noticed that the honey-combed design was larger, and the garment on the whole seemed more reflective, more shiny. As she rubbed her fingers across the fabric, she marveled at being able to feel the exterior with her skin, its mildly slick surface passing quickly between her digits. Slowly, after making sure everything was here, and inventing a couple of other ways in which to buy time, Tali sighed. "Going to have to. Better make it sooner." She mumbled, allowing the gown to slip from her shoulders. Standing naked before the suit, she ran her hands, one last time, down her sides, across her hips, reveling in the feeling of skin touching skin. But it was time.

Once again grabbing the torso portion of the suit, Tali bent over, sticking one foot into the hole intended for her neck, and then quickly following it with the other. As she began to pull it up, she quickly found herself tugging. The envirosuit was designed to be incrediblytight, in an effort to prevent any suit breaches from spreading contamination. And even though the 1/10th inch thick fabric was naturally pliable, it still took Tali a couple of minutes to pull it up her legs, where she stopped.

While the Fleet had special sterilized rooms for quarians to relieve themselves of bodily waste, the rest of the galaxy did not. As such, quarian envirosuits were built to retain any waste by sealing it into a "middle" layer in the suit. Luckily for the quarians, their heavily regulated diet created only the smallest amount of purely liquid waste. Tali however, looking into the suit wrapped around her legs, took little solace in that fact. To make sure that the suit correctly captured any waste, a 'Foley Catheter' had to be inserted through her urethra and into her bladder to drain any waste that did developed. Tali, deciding that getting it over with quickly was the best option, inserted the thin, latex tube with as much haste as she could afford. With a quiet grunt she slid it into place, before continuing to pull the suit up, until it covered her from neck to mid-thigh. With a bit of creative flexibility, she was able to move her arms into their correct sleeves, which ended halfway down her bicep.

Spinning slowly in front of the full length mirror, which had been thoughtfully provided, Tali took in her new look. She hadn't noticed it before, but a section of the suit was a lighter, more reflective color. Tali's face flushed a bit as she realized just where that shinier portion fell across. Leave it to the men who designed it, Tali thought, to make my ass and breasts a bit more shiny.

A final spin brought Tali back around, to once again be facing the table. With the first portion on, she found a bit of the giddy feeling she had felt during her first "suiting" returning. Forcing restraint into her movements, Tali grabbed the second portion of the suit, which she quickly identified as a pair of boots. Examining them closely, she discovered that there was very little that was different from her old suit. As she pulled them up, Tali was only forced to pull with any force when her foot refused to go into the "shoe" part correctly. As the shin guards were a separate component, it was the metal bracing around her Achilles tendon and atop her toes that were impeding her progress. But with a final twist, they fell into place.

In reality, the "shoes" were thigh high, to match up perfectly with where the torso segment ended. Once Tali had drawn both sides up, she suddenly noticed that the component seals, the system that locked the various parts of her suit in an air-tight fashion, had changed from the old design. Her reputation as a crack quarian machinist was safe, however, as she quickly determined that they utilized a friction based system, radically different from the old system of pressure seals and clips. After a couple seconds of fiddling she smoothed out a couple wrinkles that had developed, pleased with the outcome. It was almost impossible to see their connection point, and her shroud would eventually cover it completely.

"And what is next?" The quarian then asked herself, examining the remaining ten pieces. Answering her own question, Tali picked up the pair of gloves, turning them over in another quick inspection. Each pair were elongated, to reach the middle of her bicep, in order to link correctly with the torso portion of the suit. Placing one of the gloves back upon the table, Tali found herself rather impressed by the amount of articulation that the glove's three fingers had, despite each having a protective metal layer that stopped just short of the backside of what would be her palm. Before she placed the first glove on, Tali squeezed upon the wrist section of the glove she held, feeling a cylindrical appendage jutting out, into the interior, of each glove. The quarian's face shifted into a visage of discomfort.

Each glove, on the inside of the wrist, featured a thin, malleable tube. Tali had never enjoyed having what were essentially a permanent hypodermic needle in each wrist. Especially because, during combat, they occasionally fell out. A simple program on her omnitool automatically reinserted the needle, but she had never grown to like it. Holding one of her wrists up to the light, Tali frowned at the various track marks that marred her skin. Despite the use of pain relievers, she had yet to meet a quarian who didn't have sore wrists.

Knowing it was inevitable, Tali held her left arm above her head, before using her right hand to slip the first glove on. As she slowly pulled it down, the young quarian felt a gentle prick as the needle pierced her skin, followed seconds later by a single trail of blood rolling down her arm. As the end of the glove reached her bicep, where her the torso section ended, she again found that friction seals had replaced the old system of clips. It is a more efficient system, Tali mused as she repeated the action with her other hand. Soon, both gloves were on, and she found herself sealed in from the tips of her toes, to the top of her neck.

She sighed, running her hands slowly along her sides and hips, mimicking the path she had used before putting on the suit. It just wasn't the same. Even if she utilized the nerve stimulators that came standard on any quarian envirosuit, it just couldn't compare with the feeling that came when skin touched skin. Human psychologists had recently put forward a theory, linking their race's "phantom limb syndrome" with the quarian experience of, despite the stimulators operating at peak efficiency, something still being "wrong" when touching something. Being outside Tali's field of expertise, she didn't really know what to make of that. Instead, she continuing suiting up.

The next part of her suit was the gold neck "brace", which she promptly picked up. This was the first piece of her suit that was really included just for her aesthetic tastes. While the essential portions of quarian envirosuits were dictated by necessity, most quarians modified their suits in various ways, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the crowd. Tali, in partially designing her new suit, had settled on a purple and gold color scheme. Shepard had once mentioned that he liked those colors the most, although Tali quickly pressed that thought from her mind. Thinking of him won't bring him back, Tali! She kept repeating it in her mind, but her cognitive processes refused to acknowledge the fact.

Acting quickly, Tali began placing the brace upon her neck, the fine movements that act required succeeding in driving the thoughts of Shepard from her mind. As her attention moved to more benign thoughts, the quarian girl reflected on the term "neck brace". In reality, the golden rings were purely for show, as evident in the fact that the lowest rings were unnecessary. It had been her father's longtime friend, Shala'Raan who had suggested letting the lowest loops hang down. Thinking of that, Tali again found herself blushing. If she remembered right, Shala had smiled and noted that "The gold coloring of the lowest rings will draw everyone's eyes, to your... er.. ehem!"

Allowing her smirk to fade, Tali focused on closing the last golden ring, which reached to just under her chin. Again checking herself in the mirror, the quarian fiddled a bit with the lowest hanging rings, making sure they were evenly spaced. Pleased with the outcome, she then looked upon the table for the fifth, and most important portion of her ensemble, the helmet.

If the envirosuit was a marvel of engineering, the helmet could be seen as its centerpiece. While only weighing a couple pounds, the helmet contained an incredibly complex air filter, voice modulator, food pump, olfactory emulator, and the mainframe which regulated all of the suit's functions. Currently, her helmet was broken into it's three separate pieces, the chin and side part, the rear portion, and the faceplate. Leaving the faceplate for later, Tali grabbed the other two components, turning them over slowly. The rear piece, which housed the mainframe and air filters, had two short tubes projecting from a central location, where the base of her spinal cord would soon rest. These tubes, one for passing air to her mouth, the other for removing it to the filter, connected to the chin part of her helmet, to allow the triple set of filters the helmet provided to work correctly.

Tali gave special attention to the chin of the mask, which she knew would soon be what most people recognized as part of her "face". She was quite happy to see that the electronics that drove the circular light which blinked when she spoke had been made even smaller since her old suit. This allowed for a larger olfactory array, which produced any smells that she would be able to perceive, once fully sealed in. For the rest of the sentient universe, any sort of natural smell was produced by their olfactory glands being stimulated by chemical stimuli. To a quarian however, because of their weakened immune systems, this tiny amount of foreign material could kill them. As such, the olfactory emulator attempted to replicate any odors it encountered, and then passed them to the wearer.

Again falling into her memories, the young quarian, when she had been a child, had never known what she had been missing. Walking through the Rayya after she had been suited, Tali had found something amiss. It had taken her a few days to realize that the helmet was in no way capable of replicating all of the smells she experienced throughout the day. That thought piqued a hint of sullen sadness within her. Being inside the suit, there had been so much she had missed throughout her life. A quick image of an embarrassed Shepard holding a flower to her mask, after she admitted that her suit couldn't replicate the smell, flashed before her eyes, before she pushed it from her mind.

Her quick reaction didn't stop a single tear from welling in her right eye, as she positioned the helmet segments around her head, before clipping them tight. Work had always succeeded in driving out the emotions that occasionally threatened to overwhelm her. She had to admit, though, that as time passed it was getting easier. The days right after the destruction of the Normandy had been hard, with just about everything reminding her of Shepard.

Screwing and locking the helmet onto her head securely, Tali suddenly found herself at ease. The view she held now, with the sides and bottom of her mask creeping into her peripheral vision, was so familiar. Taking a second, the quarian looked down, pursing her lips together. After a few seconds, she began rocking her head slightly, indulging in the feeling of the room's air passing against her forehead. She had intended to put on the helmet's visor next, but instead found herself reaching for the shin guards. It will be a cold day in hell before I put that mask on before I have to, she declared to herself.

Of all the pieces of her new suit, the shin guards were the only portion that had remained wholly unchanged. Running from the top of her ankle to just above the knee, the metal guards wrapped around her recurved legs. They were quite easy to move into position, but difficultly arose when she went to fix them into place. Just above each ankle, Tali had a hole drilled directly through each tibia and its surrounding flesh. She had gotten them upon receiving her first suit, their purpose being to act as a "hardpoint" upon her body, in a way to anchor the suit directly to her person. Tali had been unlucky enough to be one of the last group of quarians to undergo the surgery, as those who now received their first suits simply had an extra bracing mount wrapped upon their leg, which provided the same amount of support.

That is not to say that there was inherently anything wrong with the procedure, for the ½ inch holes, once properly coated with carbonic fiber, were incapable of being infected or injured. It just hurt like hell to receive them in the first place. Especially when you underwent the surgery without any anesthetics or painkillers. Her father had convinced her to do so, because "it was a Zorah family tradition". It had taken her a couple of weeks until she talked to him again.

Opening the small ports her suit had installed for just such a purpose, Tali inserted a metal bolt through the hole in each of her legs. She then took a couple seconds to make sure it was secure, and that the seals that prevented the hole from compromising suit integrity were connected correctly, before standing back up to her full height.

While the shin guards were the most unchanged, the next piece of her suit was the most familiar, at least in Tali's opinion. Slowly, the quarian girl picked up the long piece of purple fabric, silently wishing she had touched it before placing her gloves on. It was her veil, or shroud. No one that Tali asked had been able to tell her exactly why her people wore such a garment, but its acceptance was universal. Shala had said once that it was a symbol of modesty and discretion, least the quarian people forget all that they had lost. Tali couldn't have said if Shala was right, but she had to admit that this particular veil was beautiful.

It was actually the same one she had worn during her pilgrimage, only modified in a couple of ways. From the "hood", the veil ran down into a squarish section that would eventually lie on her back, until it ended in two parallel strips, about three and a half feet long.

Eager to see how it looked upon her, Tali began by placing the hood upon her head. Unlike the old design, which had been a rather tight fitting garment, this hood was enlarged, allowing her to drape it around her neck. Seeing a picture of a cobra, from Earth, had given her the idea. Once the hood was atop her helmet, she locked it into place by utilizing a couple of hooks. She then let the rest of the veil fall behind her, like a cape, while making sure that the portion that fell between her breasts and shoulders aligned correctly. This movement caused the squarish back portion to fall correctly by itself, allowing Tali to grab the two parallel strips that hung almost to the floor. With these strips, she wrapped them back around her hips, crossing them at her belt line. From there, she wrapped them back around her thighs, before locking the ends together, on the interior seam line, where no one would notice it. After a couple moments of stretching and bending, to make sure that everything was relatively secure, Tali looked into the mirror.

It was better than she had expected. The golden highlights along the running edge of the section of the veil that crossed her chest matched perfectly with the rings upon her neck. Overall, Tali determined that the look was... sophisticated, with just a hint of flirt. After a couple more seconds of self-examination, she once again turned towards the table, intent on permanently securing the veil. To do so, she picked up a series of straps, all of which were designed to do just that that.

The entire ensemble was one piece, forcing Tali to slid the straps over her head. It consisted of three straps that formed a brace along her back, before circling her upper torso, and a singular strap that worked itself up to just below her throat, before circling around like its lower brethren. Twice below her neck, and then four times upon her back, the straps linked to her veil, via what was effectively a stylized clasp.

Pragmatically, Tali tightened the lowest straps first, breathing in deeply as she did so. It was currently "in-style" for the straps to be as tight as possible, even though they restricted breathing by a fair degree. Luck had shined on Tali in that regard, for she had always worn her's tight. By now, her diaphragm had gotten used to the restriction, and she barely noticed the change in her breathing pattern that occurred as she finished pulling on the straps, before securing them with the clips that adorned them.

With a quick flip of her nimble fingers, the quarian then secured the strap that circled her neck. Another quick check of the mirror confirmed that everything was as it should be. The next portion of her suit were the bulkiest: four attachments, all of which were intended for her arms. She started with the pair that were fashioned to attach to her biceps, just above the elbow. Each black "pack" had three, externally visible segments. Each of these segments held a different fluid, ready at any time to be piped down to Tali's wrists, and into her bloodstream. One segment held morphine, another medigel, and yet another held adrenaline. The remaining three all held antibiotics.

Tali was careful to attach each pack's three respective "export" hoses carefully. Any breaches there could transmit foreign material throughout her bloodstream. Once they were in place, the young quarian grabbed the other two "packs", which she slipped onto the backside of her wrists. Each of these wrist packs had eleven small ridges upon them, which served the same purpose as the larger repositories that now graced her upper arms. These smaller packs, however, were designed to be changed frequently, allowing Tali to change the chemical compliment she traveled with to suit her particular needs. Once again, she was careful to properly secure the "export" tubes that extruded from the wrist packs, the fear of infection driving her to triple check her work.

Finally satisfied, Tali was happy to see that she was almost done, for the table that had held her suit was now mostly empty, with only her belt, knife, and visor remaining upon it. She grabbed the belt first. Designed to resemble the straps now adorning her chest, the belt was a simple affair. Tali looped it around her waist, making sure that the drooping portion that acted as a pistol holster was correctly placed upon her left side.

She then picked up her knife, the same that she had taken upon her pilgrimage. Two simple straps attached it to her left shin guard, although she accidentally tapped her ankle as she secured it. The steel bolt there shifted within her leg, causing a stab of pain to run up her spine. That was another reason why the quarians outfitted with the ankle-bolts were reluctant to remove their suits; the bolts shifted whenever touched for about a week after they were replaced. And it hurt.

The pain receded quickly however, allowing Tali to once again turn to face the mirror. Eleven pieces were now it place, leaving a solitary portion of her suit unaffixed. The facemask. Picking up the purple mask, Tali found herself hesitating, contemplating on what putting it on would mean, for she was conflicted on that regard. One side of her welcomed the chance to return to the suit's regulated environment, it's familiar cling, the enhanced vision and hearing the helmet rewarded. But a larger, far more vocal portion of her consciousness bemoaned the loss of smell, of feeling, of freedom that the suit forced upon her.

From her travels abroad, Tali had also learned that the suit was a potent symbol. The other species of the galaxy routinely failed to see the quarian behind the mask, instead labeling her people with a simple set of stereotypes and accusations. Vagrant. Thief. Scavenger. The words hurt. Tali had once read that the first step that sentient beings went through to rationalize the persecution of a group was to objectify or bestialize their targets. The average quarian, completely covered in their suit, with only their eyes showing any sort of life, had accomplished this step themselves.

But there was nothing she could do about. As much as she hated the filters, the seals, the suit itself, she needed it. With that conviction, Tali raised the visor to her face, taking the chance to gulp in one last deep draught of unfiltered air. Sliding the mask into place, two clicks sounded as each side was locked in. The quarian girl hesitated in breathing now, a sadness welling inside her. But as the suit was a necessity, so was breathing. Slowly she exhaled her last breath of fresh air, the filters in her suit noiseless as the carbon dioxide passed through them, out of the port just beneath her speaking light. Her first inhalation was hard, like sucking through a straw. Each subsequent one, however, became easier as the filters cleared themselves for operation.

Tali then raised her left arm, activating her omnitool. A couple button presses had the device successfully synched with her suit, after which she then began activating the suit's various subsystems. The first was a series of "heads-up-displays" that alighted before her eyes upon her visor. She shifted her focus to these, while still typing on her omnitool. Secondly, she ran a suit diagnostic, checking to make sure that all of the seals were correctly air-tight. They were. Next she fired up the suit's environmental systems, tuning them to be a little bit warmer than usual, to draw out the chill she had carried since first removing her old suit. After that, only the biometrics remained. Turning them on, Tali moaned a bit as her suit automatically dumped a large dose of antibiotics into her bloodstream, followed by a small hit of morphine to ease the accompanying discomfort. It was the second drug that elicited the moan, its sweet feeling of icy bliss racing throughout her body, leaving her a bit lightheaded. Quickly, however, that feeling faded as her body began to digest the antibiotics it had just been exposed to, thus diluting the morphine.

Falling from the brief high, Tali, for the last time, examined herself in the mirror. In an attempt to remove the despondent feeling of sadness that was building within her, she placed her hands upon her hips, and forced a smile onto her face. "The suits a prison, sure," She said to herself, "but I must admit that I look good in it!"

Only silence greeted her remark. After a short while she let her hands drop back to her sides as her shoulders slumped in depression. Well, she thought, that didn't cheer me up. Letting loose a final sigh, she turned her back to the mirror. As she walked towards the decontamination chamber, Tali raised her omnitool again, hitting a single button. Her purple facemask, which before had been relatively clear, quickly clouded, until most of her face was obscured. The chamber door opened with a sharp tug, and Tali stepped inside. She was thankful for the facemask polarization. No one would see the tears running slowly down her cheeks.

"Damn these suits..."