She paused with her hand poised over the holographic keypad.

She had been ready to place the call, and wasn't certain what caused her to hesitate. She slowly drew her hand back, while lightly biting her bottom lip. With her recent change in vocation, she had learned the benefit of being decisive. However, what she had learned from her time on the Normandy was to trust her instincts, and something was creating reluctance in her to initiate this call.

Start with the obvious: Was there concern that the admiral wouldn't take her call? No, she concluded. In addition to being the Alliance's de facto Prothean expert, she knew that Admiral Hackett was aware that she had resumed contact with Shepard. Even with Shepard no longer officially recognized as being part of the Alliance, Shepard still had their tacit support, and Admiral Hackett kept tabs on her through a variety of back channels, including a certain Asari archaeologist. To that end, she made it a point to make sure that Admiral Hackett received cleansed copies of all the updates she received of Shepard's current companions and activities. Shepard hadn't left for the Omega 4 relay yet, but she knew that was only a matter of weeks, if not days. Hackett would get that update too. Not only did it keep the admiral happy, it also ingratiated a certain agent she had on his staff to him. The admiral assumed that he had a particularly capable analyst, not that he was receiving services gratis from a certain information broker.

In fact, she reflected, she was probably one of the few nonhumans who could reach the admiral so readily. She didn't have the easy familiarity with him that she had with Admiral Anderson, but there was mutual respect, even if she suspected that he did occasionally see through her innocent archeologist persona. Overall, she found him to be an honorable, if single minded, human.

Humanity. Could that be her concern?

As she looked out her office window, she was again amazed at how entangled her life had become with the humans. She had left Hagalaz to spend a few days making sure that she was seen spending time in her office on Illium. Every time she returned to the Asari colony, there were more humans. They were far from being a majority, but their ships were everywhere, they were members of every trade group, and they continued to be an increasing percentage of her customer population. Even when she recruited new agents, no matter how dangerous the job, if the pay was good enough she could find a human to do it. They were quite mercenary as a race.

She knew that wasn't true of them all. She had only just met her first human a little over three and a quarter years before. She allowed herself a smile. That had changed everything.

She had been a precocious 80 when the humans first burst on the galactic scene 28 years ago. She had been working with a small team of graduate students on an isolated backwater of a planet when the first news of the humans came in. It was her first fieldwork since defending her thesis, and she had been as thrilled to be back in the field as she had been to add the title "doctor" to her name. When returning to base camp with a pair of her colleagues after a week of excavating in the nearby mountains, the rest of the team were gathered in the mess tent listening to reports of the Relay 314 Incident, and the Turian's difficulty in containing the new spacefaring race.

Those were exciting times. Information was scarce, (all filtered through the Turians), and the humans quickly became the boogyman of the day. They were portrayed as a mix between the Krogan and the Vorcha, with an insatiable appetite for war, and no regard for costs or casualties. She knew now that the humans had actually caused a great deal of consternation among the spacefaring races of the galaxy during their initial contact with galactic civilization. The Turians were regarded as the military might of the galaxy. If they could be defeated by this primitive race, they must be a fearsome race indeed. She also knew now that the Citadel Council's brokered treaty between the humans and the Turians had more to do with the fact that the militaristic Turians couldn't draw the conflict to immediate resolution than any overwhelming desire for peace on the part of the Council. The humans were primitive, fewer in number, new to galactic spaceflight, inexperienced in space warfare, and still managed to evict the Turians from Shanxi with their first counteroffensive. If they had been unwilling to come to the negotiation table, humanity might soon have found itself on the receiving end of a genophage style resolution to the conflict. Fortunately the council saw promise in the young race, despite early evidence to the contrary.

Individually she had found that humans seldom lived up to their galactic preconception. There were warriors certainly, but barely 3% of humanity ever served in the Alliance military. Compared to the 100% Turian military participation, it made the final result of what the humans called "The First Contact War" even more astonishing. Her own preconceptions were challenged when she finally met a human warrior, and that warrior was far more concerned with delivering olive branches than bullets.

Shepard had first terrified her, and then confused her. Her lack of experience with humans (or with social dynamics at all) had put her at a significant disadvantage in navigating her introductory interaction with both Shepard and her Normandy crewmates. Despite her naiveté and familial ties, the Normandy crew's initial distrust of her quickly transitioned into acceptance, then blossomed into friendship. As their burgeoning relationships were tested by fire, her respect for her human teammates grew in turn. Shepard in particular personified everything the galactic community claimed to stand for. She smiled again. Shepard; colonist, biotic, hero... bondmate. Entangled with humanity indeed.

Humanity as a whole was aggressive and demanding, but they had proven themselves to the galactic community during the Battle of the Citadel. They threw every ship available at Sovereign to save the council when no one else was able. It earned them a seat on the council ahead of races that had been waiting for millennia. While her call, if acted upon, wouldn't exactly paint the humans in a positive light, at the moment humanity had the credibility to burn.

Moving beyond that concern, she reflected upon her data. She had spent a great deal of time examining possible methods that the Reapers would use to launch their offensive against the sentient races of the galaxy. She was grateful that the Protheans had thwarted the plan to use the Citadel as an entry point from dark space, but she knew the Reapers had other options open to them. Even if the Reapers were checked at every turn, they could still travel from dark space via conventional FTL. Hers, like the Protheans before her, would be nothing more than holding action.

Her research in various Prothean excavations and archives had proven invaluable in identifying areas where the galaxy was vulnerable to Reaper attack. Information gathered from the Vigil VI alone would take years to evaluate, let alone gain a full understanding of. (Years she knew that they they didn't have). Given her preference, she would spend all her time as part of the dig on Ilos, at the extensive Prothean ruins there. Unfortunately, Ilos was now occupied by an Alliance garrison, and she no longer had an Alliance security clearance. Technically of course she never had, but being as her role on the Normandy had been as the unofficial intelligence officer, she had had access to most of the Alliance's secure data. That history, along with her visit to Ilos while chasing Saren, had allowed her to justify having knowledge of the activities on Ilos that that the Alliance would normally have questioned. The Alliance continued to be unaware that she had access to every official report coming from the Ilos garrison, as well as regular updates from Vigil itself. She intended to keep it that way.

The information so collected had convinced her that the Reapers had alternative fast tracks into the galaxy. Even though the Citadel had been closed as a shortcut in terms of immediate conquest, the Prothean data indicated that others existed. It only made sense. The Citadel trap spoke to a fairly mature model of galactic invasion. No doubt the Reapers had started with less refined methods in earlier cycles, and those methods were likely still available. The Protheans remaining works referenced the Reapers' ability to maintain short lines of transition between fronts, while the Protheans were forced to maintain long supply lines. Maintaining their logistical infrastructure and economy had been one of the most difficult propositions for the Protheans during their war, and in fact had been the subject of much of her recent research as she endeavored to identify the mistakes of the past.

She had convinced herself. She reached out and initiated contact with Admiral Hackett's office on Arcturus Station. While she waited for him to become available, she prepared herself for what would most likely not be an easy task of convincing him to perform what was effectively an act of war. If only the humans were as warlike as they were portrayed, she mused, some of her tasks would be significantly easier.

The admiral's face appeared on her comm. "Dr. T'Soni", he greeted her neutrally. "I hope you're doing well".

"As well as can be expected in these difficult times," she replied. "I'm continuing to research potential methods to combat the Reapers when they arrive. The battle with Sovereign was nothing compared to what we'll face from the Reaper invasion fleet".

"The battle with the Geth, you mean?" he replied ironically.

This was another reason she could turn to Admiral Hackett. Humanity was the only race taking the Reaper threat seriously. The general populace was still uninformed (something she disagreed with), but the admiralty was working on Reaper countermeasures. She knew they wouldn't be enough, but at least they were trying.

"I've been working on establishing methods to counteract what will likely be an overwhelming initial offensive by Reaper forces..." she started.

"Yes, Doctor, I've read your Logistical Strategies for Materiel Readiness in the Prothean Final Age," he interrupted "Some of my staff disagree with your conclusions, but I think there were ideas with merit. Your paper was well researched. It's amazing how much data you were able to collect during your brief stay on Ilos. While under enemy fire, no less," he continued.

She let the comment pass. She knew he wasn't expecting a response anyway. "I believe I have found how the Reapers were able to shorten their supply lines, and operate on multiple fronts simultaneously," she said. "My data suggests that there is a node in the Mass Relay network that does not only send to one relay, but can send to any relay."

"That would be a game changer," he admitted. "Do you have the coordinates?"

"Yes, Admiral," she replied. "It is the Viper Nebula Relay, in the Bahak system."

The admiral paused for a moment. "I have Dr. Amanda Kenson with me here on Arcturus," he said. "She's one of the foremost human researchers of the mass relay network, and her discoveries dating the relay network as far older than Prothean civilization are why humans are seldom invited to conferences in her specialty anymore," his mouth twitched upward slightly. "She'd be the perfect choice to go to the Bahak system to validate your findings. I'll sponsor a mission immediately."

"Thank you for your call Doctor. I look forward to the next update on Commander Shepard's status." He disconencted.

She smirked slightly last his last comment. That hadn't gone exactly as she anticipated, but she considered it a success nonetheless. At least he hadn't asked Shepard to go.

Liara ran through her potential misgivings one more time, and still couldn't come up with a reason for her initial hesitation. "It seems there was nothing to worry about after all," she thought.

Fini

A/N: Assumptions here include:

FemShep/Liara LI
Lair of the Shadow Broker was completed relatively early in ME2 for the timetable to make sense
Lair of the Shadow Broker ended on a very positive note for Liara and Shepard's relationship
Liara maintains her Illium information broker business as a front for being the Shadow Broker (I always suspected she did that anyway)