Tali: Mechanist of the Stars by Jade Gretz

https://www.deviantart.com/jadegretzai/art/Tali-Mechanist-of-the-Stars-1261737324

Tali: Mechanist of the Stars ANIMATION

Veil of Borrowed Breath

The planet did not have a name, only a set of coordinates and a bruise-colored swirl on the long-range scans. Tali’Zorah vas Neema had insisted on calling it Hesh’tor—the place that listens—half as a joke, half because the static in her helmet never quite settled whenever the ship passed into low orbit. It was not fear that gave the name weight, she told herself. It was pattern recognition. Engineers survived by listening.

The shuttle’s ramp hissed open and a cold wind slid inside like a living thing, threading between boots and cables. The sky was low and violet, pressed close to the ground as if curious. Stone formations leaned toward one another, ribs of an ancient animal emerging from the earth. The air smelled metallic, like burned rain.

“Atmosphere’s marginal but breathable with filtration,” Tali said, voice calm and precise through the suit’s modulator. “Microspores present. Don’t break seals unless you want a very personal relationship with alien fungi.”

Kal’Reegar chuckled, a low sound full of grit. “You always know how to romance a planet.”

“I try not to,” Tali replied. “It never ends well.”

They were six Quarians in all, engineers first, explorers second, soldiers only because the galaxy made that necessary. Reegar took point with his rifle. Shala’Raan walked beside Tali, her posture straight, her eyes sharp behind the amber visor. Veetor hummed to himself, fingers twitching as if already disassembling the world in his mind. Two others—Daro’Xen’s protégés, quick-witted twins named Keth and Lira—brought up the rear, dragging sensor sleds that whispered across the ground.

The uncharted planet answered them with silence so complete it felt curated.

“Scans?” Shala’Raan asked.

“Wildlife signatures all over,” Lira said. “Large, multi-limbed. Heat profiles inconsistent. It’s like they’re… forgetting how to be warm.”

Veetor stopped humming. “That’s not a thing,” he said softly.

“It is today,” Keth replied.

They moved toward a ravine where the scans showed unusual energy fluctuations—structures that were not structures, hollows in the rock that resonated like lungs. Tali felt it then: the listening. Not a sound, exactly, but a pressure behind the thoughts, as if the planet were waiting for them to finish speaking so it could begin.

The first attack came without announcement. A shape unfolded itself from the shadow beneath a stone arch, skin like layered bark, eyes too numerous to count. It moved with a carefulness that suggested intelligence, and when it screamed, the sound arrived a second before the creature itself, a delayed echo that scraped along the inside of Tali’s helmet.

“Contact!” Reegar shouted.

The rifle’s report was sharp, clean. The creature recoiled, then surged forward, limbs splitting into tendrils that slapped against shields. Another followed, then another, emerging as if drawn by the noise of their own dying.

“Fall back!” Shala’Raan commanded.

They did not panic. Panic was a luxury Quarians could not afford. They retreated in measured steps, firing in arcs, herding the creatures away from the ravine’s edge. Tali’s omni-tool flared to life, projecting hard light barriers that hummed with strain as claws raked them.

“Why do they keep coming?” Keth demanded.

“Because we’re interesting,” Tali said, breath steady despite the chaos. “Because we’re loud.”

A tendril slipped through a gap and struck her barrier, sliding along it like a hand searching for a seam. For a heartbeat, Tali imagined the seal breaking, imagined alien air kissing her skin through the suit’s inner membrane. The thought was not entirely unwelcome, and that frightened her more than the creature did.

They drove the wildlife back with coordinated fire and sonic disruptors, the ravine filling with a mist that tasted of copper even through filters. When the last shape retreated into the stone, the silence returned, deeper now, layered.

Veetor laughed, a short, bright sound that cracked at the end. “That was—did you see how it moved? Like it was remembering us.”

“That’s enough field poetry,” Reegar said. “Everyone check seals.”

They found shelter in a hollow beneath an overhang that pulsed faintly, the rock warm to the touch. Sensors painted the interior in blues and greens, a cathedral of mineral growths that bent toward the center like listening ears.

“This isn’t
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