AN: Not mine I am just playing in the sandbox of my fantasy. Sadly English is not my first language so apologies for all mistakes ad errors. PM me and I will correct them. Cheers and enjoy.

Prologue One

Henry "Indiana" Jones PhD had a bad feeling about this adventure from the beginning. He knew that this journey will end as a catastrophe and his gut feeling wasn't proved wrong so far and it had begun so innocently. Fate or whatever deity, who is responsible for this mess… Screw you!

It all had begun in the summer of 1947, when Indy was not so contently digging alone in what was going to turn into a ruins of an unknown ancient civilization that was long ago lost to the mists of time in the remote cliffs somewhere in Utah's middle of nowhere.

He wasn't very satisfied because he was doing preliminary dig alone and he was hopping that he would find something by now…

Well something more than few crumbling walls in the rocks and pottery shards anyway. All had changed when the chopper arrived one day, as it was carrying his long time friend, medium, archeologist, paranormal-scientist and old crush Sophia Hapgood.

When she landed in his base camp she revealed that she had changed her employers and was currently working for CIA and she had roped him into working for them too, as she had showed him an artifact that looked like flywheel from the end of nineteen century but in reality, it was thousands of years old and amazingly enough still functioning. And that was supported by the fact that Soviet science team led by Dr. Gennadi Volodnikov had allegedly found the legendary foundations where the tower of babel once stood. Plus that thios new "flywheel" came from that dig site. WWhat was even more strange on this was that Volodnikov, who led the expedition there, wasn't an archeologist. No he was theoretical physicist interested in alternate dimensions whose goal was supposedly to find a weapon more powerful than the atom bomb to give soviets a head start in a starting Cold War.

So after meeting Sophia's boss Kevin Turner Indy was intrigued enough to visit the soviet dig site. Where he found out that there was some kind of ancient infernal machine that could open doors to other worlds but when the Babylonians tried to turn it on it tore down the whole tower of Babel and some crucial parts were moved into hiding places.

And so began the great race where Indy traveled around the world, with soviet soldiers on his tail, while numerous traps traps and a lot of stranger things.

His first stop was in a fabled Shambala monastery, which was located in a Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. There he met strange monk and something what could only be described as some sort of an ice golem. He was able to defeat it and to recover the first part of the hidden part of the machine that was stored there. It was a device that could unleash strong tremors and could bring the whole mountains down with a frightening ease.

After that he traveled through portal that took him, into much friendlier climate of Palawan Island in the Philippines. There he met more Soviet soldiers (what a surprise) and inside of the ruins he met a stone and lava golems for a change. All of them tried to kill him but the part of machine that he recovered there made his life much easier, as it made him invisible, when activated.

It astounded him to no end how such a advanced technology that was light years away from current earth technology ended forgotten Where humanity could have been? But from certain signs he found on tablets on both places, he started to have a certain suspicious feeling that these artifacts weren't of terrestrial origin, but if that was true what had happened to their creators and why did they had left them here? All of those questions started to worry him.

He was shortly reunited with Sophia who helped him with traveling to Mexico as his next steps according his leads guided him there, it lead him into Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan. There he found secret passages, which lead him to a third piece of machine, which enabled him, to fly. Although when he was using it, it enveloped him in blue glowing field it was really strange feeling to be hovering in the air enveloped in a blue light. This certainly rated at the very top on his scale of weird. But what was even worse when he grabbed it, it had activated huge mechanical snake (it had to be a fucking snake!) which tried o eat him. He managed to out smart it and impale it on a huge spike.

But every good deed must be punished accordingly and as he cleared the pyramid, Volodnikov's men captured him. Luckily he managed to escape and to retrieve his pieces of machine that had been confiscated.

The last part was located in a pyramid in Sudan. And it was guarded by laser shooting, ten feet tall freaking robot of all things. It wasn't very intelligent though so destroying wasn't that hard when he was at the surface he was confronted by Turner and Volodnikov who showed surprisingly alone.

Turner was demanding the pieces, but Volodnikov just warned him that Turner is more like gangster than an agent of a government and he left. Indy handed the pieces to Turner. But deep inside he was disturbed, by Volodnikov's words, as the small rotund Russian played more than less fair with him and he had never directly ordered his men to kill him plus he didn't seem to be too keen for world domination.

Indy plagued by Russians words traveled to Babylon following Turner. He was surprisingly, aided by Volodnikov in this endeavor. When he arrived there he found out that Turner somehow wrongly activated the machine and it has trapped Sophia into what could be described as energy field bubble and it is slowly getting smaller and smaller threatening to crush her.

He tried to negotiate with Turner, but he was just muttering that he will use the machine to destroy the Communists and secure the world for the Western Powers and wouldn't listen to a reason. He tried to take the last part from Turner but the encounter ended in a showdown where Indy shoot Turner dead. Then with a great difficulty he managed rearranged the wrongly placed pieces of machine to the right sockets in hope that it will free Sophia as the bubble that she was trapped.

He was somewhat successful as Sophia was released, but he, on the other hand was now trapped in a similar bubble, but this one wasn't getting smaller, no this one was slowly getting brighter as the machine pumped more energy into it. He shook his head to get rid himself of this reverie and he opened his eyes and shouted.

"Sophia! That is no use!" he was aware Sophia, who was desperately trying to shut the machine off. "Sophia, please let it be and get the hell out of here, pronto! Get on the surface find Volodnikov tell him what happened here… and tell him that I am a fool that should have listened to him. There is no need for both of to die here. Please listen to me and get the hell out off here!" He would never openly admit to anybody that he was wrong, but facing nearly certain death tends to change ones priorities. He saw that she had veiling tears in her eyes.

"No I will find a way to shut it down!" she yelled at Indy. "I wont let you in it Indy, no I won't" She glared stubbornly at him and returned to her efforts.

Indy saw figure of Gennadi Volodnikov standing in the entrance of the room, he looked stunned and he was silently observing the drama, that was unfolding inside of the machine. Indy looked at him and he shouted.

"Gennadi! Please I beg you take her with you and get out of here pronto as I think that this machine will explode in any given moment and if the previous explosion tore down the tower of babel I don't want you two to stick around. Please do it as a favor to me I beg you."

The rotund Russian grimly nodded. "Horošo, I will" he grimly answered he gave Indy a military salute and surprisingly swiftly for a someone of his built, he ran to frenetic Sophia and unceremoniously he threw her over his shoulder and started to run for it away from the infernal machine.

Sophia was screaming and trying to free herself. "Indy. No! Let me go!" but she fought with no avail as the Russian doctor held her in a firm grip.

Indy shouted at the retreating pair. "Sophia I am sorry. Spasibo Volodnikov do svidaniya.*" He then closed his eyes as the blue glow of his bubble began to be too bright for him to keep them open.

Volodnikov managed to get clear from the complex where the machine was with protesting Sophia on his shoulder in a record time and he kept running. He was about five hundred meters away from the entrance when there was strange noise originating from the complex the sound started to grew on intensity and suddenly there was an intensive blue flash, followed by shock wave that threw him on the ground curiously there was no sound of explosion as one would expect.

After few minutes or maybe an hour tops, Indy heard as the hum of the machine started to rapidly grew in pitch and suddenly he knew no more as the darkness and feeling of emptiness enveloped him…

When Volodnikov managed to get back on his feet he saw that in place where the complex with infernal machine stood was gone, that there was only a huge crater left. He turned to Sophia who was openly crying on the ground he tried to calm her but with a little of success.

* Thank you Volodnikov farewell.

Prologue Two

Thessia T'Soni's Complex 2180 A.D.

One hundred and one year old Liara T'Soni was nearly bouncing from the walls from excitement. Her mother finally after all these years accepted her chosen career. And even more than that she even proposed that she will finance her field expedition to new probable location Prothean ruins it was located on Zatheria in Armstrong cluster. It felt wonderful such an opportunity never knocked on your door twice.

Although, she would be alone for a better part of her expedition and she had to keep her findings quiet for some time. So far she was exited beyond measure from the prospect of what she could potential find there.

She checked all of her equipment and went to give her goodbyes to her mother. She was kind of sad that she had to leave her now, as her relationship with her mother remarkably improved in the last years. And they become very close. She was quite happy from this change and it tore her heart to leave her for so long. After tearful goodbyes she had boarded ship that took her to Zatheria.

Few days later

Zatheria was remarkably dull planet. It could be described as bare rock with water and breathable atmosphere, nearly no life forms on the surface that were worth of mentioning. In short no one would ever consider this planet worth of any close attention.

That changed several months ago, as mining company R*E*D PLC. (Reliable Excavation & Demolitions, Public Limited Company), bought license to build small mining base and to do several small mining probes to discover if there is any hidden resources in the planet. The mineral which was in the soil completely blocked all surface scanning so the had to do it by the old fashioned way and had to drill exploratory wells. When they were digging their first exploratory well, suddenly they discovered something what looked like as a collapsed ventilation shaft.

After some digging around, they have found an opening and they broke into vast system of mines and tunnels their test revealed that the tunnels and ruins. Old ruins that were bearing remarkably similarity to Prothean ruins and that made them highly interesting. Unfortunately they didn't have any good archeologist to verify the finds.

Funnily enough Benezia had some stocks in this company and when they had discovered that vast net of tunnels and some ruins, they had put the quiet word to their share holders that they were searching for an archeologist who would evaluate the ruins, if they had any feasibility before they announced the discovery officially.

And Bennezia recommended Liara as she was meeting their requirements for the archeologist and her family stocks in the company would guarantee that she would keep it quiet until it could be officially announced to the council. And if the ruins were valuable it would do wonders for Liaras reputation as an archeologist after that debacle with her article about Prothean extinction.

So that's how she ended in the mines. The deal was that, she was to be send there alone and had six months to do her research and to bring some conclusive results to the board, while the works at the mines were suspended. Then they would present it to the rest of the Galaxy.

She had made her base camp inside of the mines near the one of the biggest chambers found so far. There were only three disadvantages that she found so far.

One, she had no signal there thanks to the mineral in the soil created nearly perfect shielding. Therefore it was blocking all signals in and out. She was nearly cut of from the rest of galaxy and the only way to communicate with rest of the galaxy was through the miners base on the surface and it was done through the landline, which was extremely old fashioned as it used physical line. It was really extremely clunky and beyond old fashioned, but it was the only way. Which neatly lead to disadvantage number two.

The line went through the only direct way out of the mines it was what used to be the first shaft created after discovery of the ventilation shaft and which broke into the ancient tunnels. It was the only one secure way out. After discovery of the tunnels it was decided that for the better connection with the surface this shaft was converted into reinforced elevator shaft. It held all cables necessary for the landline communication and extranet connection into the Liara's research camp.

To maintain secrecy Liara was down there alone. She had all supplies and equipment to live down there in her base camp and do her research for six months. The R*E*D relocated all of their personal into other operations on the other side of plane or elsewhere and Liara was basically left there alone with very limited contact with the rest of the galaxy. That was the disadvantage number three.

XxX

Liara sighed she had a bad feeling something was going to happen, something bad, but she didn't have the slightest clue what.

"You are getting paranoid girl, you know? It's because you are living in these tunnels for nearly two months with no outside contact." She said out loud to herself and snorted humorlessly.

"Look at yourself, you are speaking with yourself." She shook her head and continued. "I have to call mother, at least I need to talk with somebody." She gave the room, where she was, last glare and turned to head back into her camp.

The room, which she left, was the biggest room discovered so far and it was close to her camp not even Two hundred meters away. But this room frustrated her to no end, she had found out that the ruins were indeed of Prothean origin so far, and from the one OSD she had found that this place was used as a research facility, didn't know what this room served for or what were that device inside of it, or even if it was a device. There was strong possibility that it was shrine filled with sculptures of some long forgotten Prothean sect. and the disc talked about different place.

The room was a circle shaped dome, there were six heavily engraved obelisk like structures standing in a circle inside of the room and there was seventh standing outside of the circle her guess was, that the seventh object, based on its shape and position, was either pulpit or a control panel. Against the later spoke that there was no obvious control interface.

This room was leaving her in tears for weeks, as she couldn't figure it out. She had found several relics from Protheans and a relatively undamaged disc that she had been trying to decipher but she had little luck with that. Only thing that she managed to decipher from it so far, was a short message to some Prothean named Ketal, that the mass transportation machine is not responding as it was expected to and that the project should be canceled and resources plus personal should be moved to other projects.

Liara hoped that the room she found was that device that was mentioned in that short message, but so far she had found nothing else what would support her theory.

She entered her living module and threw herself on the bed. And groaned into her pillow. This place was slowly driving her over the edge. She felt that this might be a biggest discovery about Protheans in centuries, but she was still missing something, except the room she had found nothing in the tunnels so far. The truth was that so far she had visited only small fraction of them They were not secure and she had found several animal carcasses few kilometers from her camp and some of them were relatively fresh and as she had no reliable maps and couldn't use navigational beacons, as the signal would be jammed by its surrounding, she didn't dare to explore further, without more assistance.

From what she found was clear that Protheans left this place long before they disappeared from the face of the galaxy. And only the dome room was left there unstripped of its equipment.

She lifted herself from the bed it was three weeks since she actually talked to someone. Truth to be told the communication with the rest of the galaxy, hell even with the rest of the planet were bad even with that land line it was problematic at the best as the signal on the planet surface was often interfered so quality of calls were bad at the good days, and on the others they were impossible due to number of electrical storms, so she mainly stuck to writing her messages and sending them through her e-mail.

Although Liara wrote a letter to her Mother four days ago she felt the need to speak with her or really anyone, when she thought about it.

Her mind set on the task, she picked herself from her bed and walked to her computer and logged in. She then opened the com-line and tried to dial her mother she was unsuccessful. Only after her second attempt to dial her mother she had noticed that there was an icon blinking on the screen saying that this station had no signal.

"That's odd the forecast said that there shouldn't be any storm today." She mused out loud. She swiftly tapped few controls and diagnostics showed her that the landline was cut from the surface station. She frowned.

She had a bad feeling about this situation she opened one of the drawers in her table and picked a pistol she had stored there. She checked if it was in working condition and exited her shelter and looked at the wall of the tunnel the cables that were hanging there were uninterrupted. She followed them till she reached elevator shaft it was about one kilometer away from her camp. What she saw there was a huge shock for her.

The elevator cabin was left down there, but it was destroyed and its railings torn. It looked like it was deliberately sent down here with explosives and detonated down here. This room was reinforced and that reinforcement might act as a sound muffler, plus the distance and that her camp was behind several curves of the tunnels, would explain, that she didn't heard the explosion.

This was bad. She looked up from the bottom of the shaft. She was roughly two hundred and fifty meters under surface. Liara felt faint. She was trapped there.

She looked around of the shaft walls.

"No I can't possibly climb that, although the blast created some cracks in the walls down here. I don't have any climbing equipment and I doubt that even with one, climbing over two hundred meters on smooth concrete wall is beyond my abilities. What happened up there?" She thought and shook her head.

Again she searched the bottom of the shaft but she didn't find anything that might help her or what might throw some light on why would somebody blow the elevator up. After finding nothing she slowly and shakily returned to her shelter.

She didn't know how she got back into her shelter, she felt like she was dreaming a dream and bad one at that. She sat on her bed for hours thinking what to do. She never noticed that she had fallen asleep.

On the surface seven hours prior

The large Turian was pacing in an empty office in a building he discovered not even an hour ago. He was named Capitan Borak and he was fairly well known pirate. Who right now, needed place to hide, as he had Spectre on his tail.. Zatheria seemed as an ideal hiding place no colonies nobody would be there. To his surprise he found what looked like an empty building it wasn't exactly locked and there was a number of mining equipment there. One of his men was scurrying databanks to find why nobody was there. There was a large shaft leading under the surface, but one of his overeager Batarian minions blew it up. He killed the idiot right after he found out. "Moron who knows what valuables lies down there." He thought bitterly. He would deal with the tunnels later after his crew will have the building secured and after Tellak was done with the deciphering the data they found.