Sterile

"This…this is big."

"No dren Renaez."

"Yeah, but I mean…I thought I knew big, y'know? The command carrier? But this? This is something else."

"And you're talking too much. Now shut up."

Gilina Renaez did do such a thing, but not just because Haute-Marne told her to. True, he was a commando, one of several that had disembarked from the Marauder, all of them armed and armoured. But she'd lived around people like that all her life, and was used to it. What she wasn't used to was being in the cavernous hanger of a cavernous ship that if not nestled in the centre of the Migrant Fleet, she would have assumed would be a small moon. A liveship. One of three maintained by the quarians. Quarians themselves who were the other reason she'd shut up. Quarians who were armed, armoured, approaching them, and as she noticed, outnumbered the Peacekeeper team.

"Drad," one of the commandos breathed. "Bringing out the heavy guns, eh?"

"I told you to be quiet," Marne hissed.

Rovio did so. But given how the line of quarian soldiers came to a halt, as what she supposed was their leader walked forward, she supposed Rovio would have fallen silent anyway.

Certainly she would have, she reflected.

"I will say this, before you say anything else," the lead quarian said. "You are here because we allow it. You will leave when we demand it. You will comply with whatever directive we provide. Is that clear?"

Marne stepped forward. "I'll work under those conditions. But keep in mind, we've got a command carrier within range of your fleet. If need be, we'll bring more. This Marauder," he said, gesturing back to the Peacekeepers, "is just the tip of the asteroid."

"Then we agree. We make this easy on each other."

"Agreed. But one other condition."

"What?"

"You only. The rest of your," the quarian cast his gaze over the Peacekeepers, "crew, stays here."

Gilina couldn't see anything behind the quarian's mask, but if she had to guess, he would have been scowling. Or, doing whatever the race of space nomads did to convey displeasure. Marne was half a head taller than him, but it was the liveship's commander that held all the cards. And guns, she noticed.

"Fine," Marne said. "We'll do it your way." He looked back at his squad. "Stay here."

Some of the commandos fingered their pulse rifles. Out of the corner of her eye, Gilina could see that the quarian soldiers' grips remained as tight as ever on theirs, their faces hidden behind their visors. She began to wish her own vacuum suit had such polarization.

Marne began to walk off with the quarian commander. Instinctively, Gilina took a step forward. Instantly, a quarian raised his weapon.

"Stay put," he said.

"I…I think I should go with him," she stammered.

"Why?"

"I'm a tech. He needs access to your database, right? Well, I could help and-"

The quarian grabbed her right hand. Specifically by the fingers – not too hard, but enough to cause the tech to wince.

"Four fingers, one thumb," the soldier said. "Too many. Human hands."

"I'm not human, I'm sebacean."

"Same difference. You're staying here."

The quarian shoved her back and returned to his position. Gilina glanced back at the other commandos, all of them uneasy, but not so uneasy that they'd be willing to assist, she suspected.

"Nice guys," she murmured, glancing at Rovio.

"Space nomads. Don't get many visitors."

"So are we. You don't see me biting everyone's head off."

The commando slapped her on the shoulder, a bit harder than she cared for. "Eh, don't worry tech girl. We'll be in and out before you know it."

"Right," Gilina said. "Out."

"This is fahrbot! How many arns have we been here?!"

"Four. Why?"

"Frell, you know why!"

Gilina just sat against the Marauder, fiddling with her omni-tool. It had been four arns. The commandos were getting restless. And the only reason the quarians weren't keeping them in line because they seemed to be just as bored as they were. One of them had even sat down with Ticino and started playing some kind of card game.

"Hello?"

She just remained put though, barely awake. She wondered if Crais had anticipated this. Maybe that was why he'd given all the commandos enough oxygen to survive this long. Maybe he was laughing his rear off…that he never laughed notwithstanding.

"Hello?"

The tech yawned. If she were a commando herself, she wondered if she'd be as willing to wait. If she'd have it in her to go marching into the liveship like Djancaz-Bru herself and-

"Hello?"

"What?!"

The tech sat up straight. The source of the words recoiled, and instantly, Gilina felt lower than a hynerian. A quarian was in front of her. A quarian who was very small, very short, and unless quarians experienced dwarfism, was likely a child.

"I'm sorry," Gilina said. "I'm-"

She trailed off. She had no idea how to talk to children, let alone alien children. Usually when she saw children they were crying as their criminal family members were hauled away or executed.

"You…your father wouldn't happen to be Stirum vas Nemas?" she asked.

"No," the quarian said. "My father commands this ship. He's not a criminal."

"Oh. Good."

"Why?"

"Oh, because we're here to pick up Stirum, and the commander of the ship is so disgusted with him that he's actually willing to hand him over." She sighed, glancing back towards the exit from the livehsip's hanger. "Eventually."

"Oh, he will. Dad always comes round in the end."

"Dad?"

"Oh yeah. I'm his daughter."

Gilina sat there, unsure how to proceed. It wasn't the child that made her wary, it was more the notion of pissing off her father. The ship's commander that Marne had gone with. On the other hand, this child was at least willing to talk to her. Not like the other quarians who were busy playing card or comparing their rifles with the Peacekeepers' pulse weapons, she thought, as she glanced at them. In the absence of comparing manhoods due to suits, the tech supposed that was the next best thing.

"You're not like the others are you?"

Gilina glanced back at the girl. "What?"

"Your crew-family. You're different."

"That's…true," she admitted. "I'm a tech. Not a commando."

The girl kept standing there. Gilina bit her lip, searching for a topic. She wished the quarians didn't insist on covering their faces. Why they couldn't wear sensible suits like-

"Why do you wear suits all the time anyway?" she blurted out.

"Pardon?" the girl asked.

"You live on ships, yet you're always in suits. Seems a bit excessive."

"You've got suits," the girl said. "You're wearing them."

"Yes, because it was a condition of coming here," Gilina said. "But we live on ships too. Yet we don't have to be encapsulated all the time."

"But, but the disease!" the quarian blurted out. "What about disease?"

"Oh, we're immunized against anything and everything," Gilina said. "What? Aren't you?"

The girl shook her head. "No. Our immune systems…we need these suits, y'see? Our immune systems were never strong on Rannoch, and…well, they've only got worse here."

"Rannoch?"

"Our homeworld!" the girl yelled. "The one those bosh'tet geth stole!"

Gilina bit her lip again. The girl was aggravated, she could see that much, but she wasn't sure how to deal with it. Rannoch was their homeworld, the girl had established that much, but that was the first she'd heard of it.

"Look…" the tech began. "For what it's worth…I know how you feel."

"You do?"

"Yeah, I'm a Peacekeeper," she said. "I grew up on Kenshin before I was conscripted. Would have been…oh, say, about your age."

"Kenshin's a planet?"

"Um, yes."

"Then you don't know how I feel," the girl snapped. "You got to live on a planet. I've never been off this ship."

Gilina stood up. The girl remained in place.

"Beggars, thieves, that's all people like you say we are," the quarian murmured. "Where's those immunizers you mentioned, eh? You think we like being in these suits? You think you had it tough? Well, when you walk around in a suit for eight years, we'll see how you like it."

Gilina heard footsteps. Glancing back, she saw Marne return with the commander and their quarry, his hands bound in handcuffs, escorted by a pair of quarian soldiers. On cue, all of the quarian soldiers in the hanger stood to attention. So did the Peacekeeper ones.

Frell.

Gilina stood to attention. Marne glanced at her, but kept walking. The quarian commander kept staring at her. She trembled slightly, but-

"Tali, what are you doing?"

What?

"Tali, answer me."

Gilina realized that the commander wasn't talking to her. That the girl she'd been talking to for the last few microts was named Tali. And that this Tali was the daughter of the man walking in her direction.

Frell!

"Nothing, father," the youngling said. "Just talking."

"Well, go home. Then we'll talk some more."

For a moment, Gilina thought the girl would hit her father. Just the way her shoulders seized up, her hands clenched…but the moment passed just as quickly. And for a moment more, she smiled as the girl raised her fingers up to her. Some kind of salute, she wondered? Or to frell off?

"My daughter," the commander said as he walked forward and his daughter walked away. "A little…direct."

And you aren't? Gilina stood up as straight as possible. "It was…no problem, Commander."

"Admiral, actually."

The quarian stood there. Gilina stood there. She realized how Marne must have felt earlier.

"Well, that'll be all," the admiral said. "Keelah se'lai."

The translators had failed again. "Pardon?" the tech blurted out.

"By the homeworld I hope to see one day," the quarian murmured, before heading off.

Gilina nodded. She wanted to say that she hoped to see her homeworld someday as well. But didn't. In a way, she didn't feel she had a right to. Even if a Peacekeeper ship would be the only home she would ever know.

And boarding the Marauder, she prepared to return to it.

A/N

So, making my way through season 1 of Farscape, the last episode I saw was They've Got a Secret. How and why I consider it an excellent episode is irrelevant to this piece, but one thing that really stood out was one of the conversations between Aeryn and John, the former casually mentioning how the Peacekeepers are without disease due to their technology, the latter grimly reflecting that the same couldn't be said for life on Earth. Short moment, but a really powerful one. So, in that spirit, decided to give the quarians' equal consideration.