Daenys's concern over the young infant rakir- and her horror of the reality that his people would never accept him, even were he to survive- clearly had not dissipated as she followed Melara back toward the infirmary. Her brows seemed perpetually knit, and while Dae was not usually a 'chatterbox' as the humans would call it- she was also not usually this silent.

Mel looked at her worriedly as they stepped inside the medical facility, but her eyes were drawn away almost immediately as Lily waved her over.

"I do not know how they do it," the younger asari said as they approached. "It is astounding to me their sheer strength of will."

"Both still live then, I take it?"

"Yes, and look to keep on living. It will take several days of nutritive therapy before they will be completely out of the woods, but the doctors are confident. They think Sihra at least will be strong enough in the next two solar days to surgically remove her shackles."

"Has she spoken?"

"No, they are keeping her unconscious for the moment. The less stress on her right now the better, and being in this alien place would certainly be an incredible stress."

"I understand."

"How is the baby?" Dae asked. Lily looked over at her.

"Stable, it seems," Lily said. "With the proper protein formula he's been eating well. They're limiting it to tiny doses to keep from shocking his system but his very appetite is encouraging." Perhaps seeing something in her aunt's eyes, she said, "Would you like to see him?"

She led Mel and Dae over to the far corner of the room, to a small incubator pod. Within, curled on his stomach and bundled tightly in cloth to simulate the close environment of the pouch, was the tiny rakir infant. He looked no larger than a pound or two, his pale skin showing just the start of fur. Its color made him look as if he were dusted in gold.

His ears and closed eyes looked huge on his head, his mouth and nostrils almost nonexistent. His skull was obvious with his starvation, the bones in his hands as fine as a bird's.

"He is so small," Dae said softly as she looked.

"He is three months old," Lily told her. "When rakir are born, they are only about four inches, completely hairless, eyes sealed shut- almost embryonic, like most marsupials. They make their way to the pouch and then stay there, nursing constantly, until they're finally old enough to venture out on their own at about six months of age."

"That's a fairly fast rate of growth," Mel said, trying to ignore the way her bondmate was nearly nose down on the pod surface, softly cooing at the little being inside.

"Rakir mature relatively quickly, especially for a top-of-the-food-chain predator species. They reach puberty at ten years of age, and are considered full adults at fifteen. Their average lifespan is only about fifty years old at the moment, but a lot of that is due to the violent nature of their society. It is clear that they can live much longer than that in ideal conditions. The Ubuut was nearly seventy five when he was slaughtered, and may have made it another five years."

"Can you tell if he is Afflicted yet?" Dae asked, looking over. Lily shook her head.

"I was discussing that with the base doctors. They have only been able to examine a few bodies of prepubescent males, most left abandoned in the wild due to some kind of birth defect, or else young children just out of the pouch that wandered off or were killed through some accident. Comparing the results of those autopsies with those of grown male rakir, both fertile and Stunted, has not revealed any early indication system, no sign that might differentiate between a babe that might grow fertile, and one that will be Stunted. There were no notable variations in any of the infant rakir males. So far, this young male matches those other infants, save for his protein deficiency, and that is due to his starvation. Still, they do not want to do any extensive testing on him until he is much stronger."

"Does he have a name?" Dae asked. Mel glanced at her with an internal groan as Lily looked surprised at the question.

"I…no, I do not believe so. Rakir are not named until they leave the pouch, and no one here has-"

"Well, he is out of his pouch now, and he needs a name."

"Dae, I'm sure they'll come up with one," Mel said gently.

"Every sentient being at least deserves the dignity of a name," Dae replied. "He still may not survive, right? He at least deserves to have that, to be a person, even if it is only for a short time."

"Well, why don't you name him then, Daenys?" Lily said with an encouraging smile. "I am sure the doctors will not mind."

Mel gave Lily a look, her niece returning a presumptively innocent one. Dae looked back down at the baby, then nodded.

"Aleu," she said, the asari word for 'warrior'. Lily smiled a bit, then nodded.

"I like it. What do you think, Mel?"

"I think that I need to be getting back to the Normandy," she replied. "We will be staying for at least a few days, Lily. I am putting the Normandy into a patrol orbit to further safeguard this system. You are welcome to stay here and help the doctors if you would like?"

"I would. Rakir physiology is fascinating and I would like to help if I can. Notify me when you call Grandmother, so that I can join in on the call."

"I will," Melara said, then looked at her wife. "Dae? Are you coming, or staying here to put more nose prints on their isolation pod?"

Daenys gave her a sharp look, then straightened. "I am coming. Lily, I will see you later."

"Try not to worry, Aunt Dae," Lily said, giving her aunt's bondmate a hug. "I will take good care of Aleu."

"I have no doubts."

On the way back to the shuttle, Dae looked askance at the Spectre walking beside her. "You are angry?"

"What?" Mel looked at her with a blink. "Angry? Why would I be angry?"

Dae's expression was knowing. "I know that we have had this conversation-"

"Dae, love…" Mel stopped at the entrance to the shuttle bay, facing her wife and pausing a moment to focus her thoughts before she met her eyes. "I know that you want children. My concern with this has very little to do with that. I just do not want you to get too attached, that's all. I don't want you to get your heart broken if he doesn't make it."

"And if he does make it?"

"Dae-"

"If he lives, he's going to need a family, Mel-"

"There is no reason that family has to be us!"

"There is no reason it should not be!"

"Daenys, the same thing that has stopped us from having daughters is the same thing that makes this a bad idea," Melara replied. "I'm a Spectre and an Alliance special agent. You are a Thessian tactics officer and a House assassin-"

"I could quit!"

"And what- buy a house somewhere? Raise him by yourself while I'm off for months on end in the deepest armpits of this galaxy?"

"We could stay on the Normandy with you."

"No! In case you've forgotten, my ship gets shot at on a regular basis! Having you on board is one thing- you're my wife, a matron, and more than capable of defending yourself. He's a baby! It's no kind of an environment for a child and it's far too dangerous!"

"So what happens then, Mel?" Dae asked, folding her arms. "We just…do not ever have children, of any kind? Or do we wait until you retire and are ready to settle down somewhere? I know just as well as you do that the only thing that will make you retire before you are too old and feeble to lift a rifle any more is some kind of horrific injury that makes you physically incapable of continuing on!"

"That's not fair-"

"No, but it is true. So far as I can see, my love, we have three options. We either never have children, I go somewhere and raise them with you 'stopping by' every few months-provided you are not just killed somewhere- or we raise them together aboard the Normandy. Those options do not change whether those children are asari, rakir, or spotted green toads."

Mel let out a sound that was both a sigh of frustration and a laugh, glancing at her wife. "You shouldn't talk about the krogan like that."

Dae shook her head, lowering her voice with a soft smile. "Mel, you know what I mean."

She stepped forward, sliding her arms around Melara's waist, speaking gently. "I love you. That is never going to change. I know you want children, Mel…and I also know why you are terrified to have them."

Her bondmate didn't look at her, so Dae lifted one hand and gently took her chin, steering her gaze. "Your parents did not have it easy, Mel. I know that. There were a thousand different horrible things that got in their way, time and time again. They were beyond fortunate that they were able to finally have peace, to be together at last. They had to fight for it. They had to compromise. They had to make sacrifices, but that did not stop them having you or Irie. It was not always perfect, but you two had a good life, and they gave you the best of everything they could. You were not deprived because your father had to go on missions and train N7 soldiers, sometimes for weeks on end. You knew you were loved, and she was always there for you, every time you needed her. We have to fight and compromise as well, and I know whatever our circumstances, you will always be there for your children as well, whenever they have need of you."

"It isn't that simple, Dae," Mel said softly.

"I know," she said gently, again meeting her love's eyes. "But there is no danger with that little boy, Melara. He cannot possibly ever be Ardat-"

She knew immediately it was the wrong thing to bring up. Melara instantly stiffened, emotional armor as rigid as steel coming down behind her eyes, before she abruptly stepped back from her wife. "We need to get back to the Normandy," she said tautly, before she turned and strode through the door toward the shuttle.

Dae silently berated herself before she hurried after her wife. While she knew the hidden fear behind Melara's recent excuses against having a family, it was not a subject her wife handled well. She was terrified of having a daughter that would turn out to be Ardat-Yakshi. The fact that they were both asari made the risk very real, however infinitesimal it was.

Even after all these centuries, the memory of what happened with Bethayla preys on her mind, she thought, and felt her own private misery, as small as it was. Dae knew without a doubt that Melara loved her…but she also knew that had Mel's first love not turned out to be Ardat-Yakshi, the Spectre captain would be with her now. She never would have given Dae a second glance.

Even now, Mel had a hard time letting go of her feelings for Beth. Dae had long ago learned to live with the idea that she would always be second in her own wife's heart, never quite measuring up to that particular ghost, that specific 'might have been'. She was all right with that. She grew up with Mel after all. She saw the pain she went through regarding Beth. She was aware that Mel's heart was taken when she started wooing her herself, decades later. It was not a secret nor had she gone into this blind. She was not jealous- rather, she was well aware of her fortune that Mel was with her now, and if she had the ability to cure Beth of her genetic curse she would have done so in a heartbeat. Sad as it occasionally made her that part of Mel's heart would always be secreted away for another, the happiness she had in her bondmate was far greater, and she was infinitely glad she had a hand in helping Mel to heal.

That did not mean, however, that her own happiness wasn't important. They were both at that age, when asari started to think about family. More and more over the last few years, her yearnings had turned toward raising daughters, nurturing and caring for the young. Mel's had too, however she tried to hide it, but her fear of having a daughter- only to go through with her what she had with Beth- it was a difficult obstacle to overcome.

It seemed to Dae that this little rakir presented the perfect answer, that he'd been put in their path for a reason. He needed someone, needed them. He would be outcast, taboo among his own people. He would struggle with that, feel isolated, out of place. He would have a hard time finding his own value and path in life. Dae wanted- with a ferocity that almost scared her with its suddenness as well as its power- to help him find that path. To show him that he was loved and valued for who he was and not for the horrible thing that had happened to him and his mother at the start of his life. And she knew just as fiercely that, would Mel allow him into her heart, she would be an exemplary role-model and as wonderful a parent as her own had been.

To Dae, it didn't matter if her children were asari, rakir, krogan, or any other species out there. Every life was precious, and every child needed a home and someone to value them. While she still wanted the experience of being pregnant and giving birth (there was never any question in their relationship which one would take the task of carrying any daughters), she was more than happy to put that aside if it meant she still had the opportunity to be someone's mother.

Perhaps if she opens her heart to this little rakir, when she sees having and raising a child is nothing to be afraid of, she will soften on us having our own daughters as well.

Even as she thought it, she felt a bit of guilt. It wasn't right to manipulate Mel into making a decision she wasn't comfortable with, and this wasn't just Dae's call to make. They had to be a team, especially in matters such as this.

Her mind still on that helpless little boy in the infirmary, Dae silently climbed aboard the shuttle after her wife, and hit the control to close the door.

As highly advanced and sleek as the massive lab was, when the only illumination came from the equipment banks and all other light sources were extinguished, Irie always had the feeling she was in some sort of cave.

It wasn't a frightening cave, of course. It was comforting, well worn, secure. She had that sensation now as she sat down in the main control chair for the megascope, that comfort giving some ease to the nervous, excited energy fluttering in her stomach.

Like ghosts moving through the near dark around her, her lab team was quickly powering up the scope, making a thousand needed adjustments, double-checking the computers and the VIs to ensure that everything was exactly where it was supposed to be and functioning precisely as designed.

"We have two minutes to full power," Irie said, checking her own display.

"The booster relays are powered and functioning," her chief assistant- a human woman named Leanne King- glanced over from her station, the faint yellow light of her interface reflecting through her wild curls to give her almost a kind of halo. "All seven responsive and returning well."

"Our power transmitters are showing green across the board," someone called. Irie was too intent on her own work to note who it was, one wary eye kept on the transmitters herself.

This was their fourth attempt in six months to get the megascope online. The biggest problem was the sheer amount of power it required. Ninety different solar collectors worked around the clock for nearly a year in order to charge up the massive batteries buried beneath the facility. Each battery was the size of a seventy story building, and had taken nearly fifty years to construct and install- there were twenty of them. Because they were literally sitting on top of enough power to dissolve the entire planet, the hundreds of safety checks and installed fail-safes were necessary to make sure that didn't happen. There were ninety geth on the team that regularly inhabited the computer, only occasionally emerging to use their platforms now docked quietly on a lower floor. Without their instant calculations this wouldn't even be possible for at least another century.

Their first two attempts to power up the scope had resulted in overloaded transmitters that instantly shut down the system and required a partial recharge of the batteries. The third attempt, one of the transmitters had proven faulty, leading to an entire battery not adding its charge to the scope itself, which was more than enough to cause a failure of its activation.

Now, every micrometer of every bit of equipment from those batteries to Irie's chair had been inspected and reinspected a hundred times. They were ready to try again.

If it fails this time, they may well pull our funding, she thought as she input her final figures. Just as quickly, she pushed that thought out of her mind. While it was true this project had cost literally trillions of credits and had- as yet- not really provided anything but promising hypotheticals- the chances of them actually cutting her funding were slim, and for one vital reason.

None of them want to step on the toes of Del Shepard and Liara T'Soni's eldest daughter.

Whereas at one point, her sister might have had that same thought with a bit of bitterness, Irie accepted that she was granted some considerations because of her parentage. It was true, after all- she was the child of the Hero of the Galaxy. It would be one thing if she were lazing about indolent, frittering her way through the galaxy as a spoiled brat, and taking advantage of her family name to live a life of decadence and ease. However, this work was necessary and promising, and she considered her family history as just one more resource toward getting it accomplished.

"We have ten seconds to full power," Irie said as the final checks were done. "Stand by for megascope activation in six…five…four…three…two…one!"

She hit the final command on her display, and instantly all indications around the room turned green, signifying activation. Deep beneath her, she fancied she could feel the strong hum of the city of buried batteries, as they all put their power forward into the scope at once.

"All transmitters holding solid, showing good across the board!"

"We have a successful activation, signal reaching the relay boosters in three, two, one!"

"Boosters one through three are active!"

"Boosters four through six are now active!"

"Ma'am, booster seven is showing active, we…we have a return signal!"

Irie's heart was pounding as her fingers flew.

This is it. It is really going to work!

"Activating Archer's projectors," she said, not missing even in the dark how every head in the room turned away from their station to focus on the center of the lab, even if their bodies did not follow suit. A warm glow began where they all looked, slowly illuminating their faces.

"Projectors active…my friends, we are receiving image!"

The glow had formed an oval in the air, roughly the size of a large elevator. For the first few moments that it was visible, the center of the oval was only hollow. Glancing through showed only the other side of the lab. As the image was received, however, it formed in the center of the oval as if on a view screen, coalescing into being until it was crystal clear. King let out a sound that was almost a cross between a laugh and a sob of joy. Irie, eyes wide, stepped out of her chair and approached the oval, staring in awe.

"We did it, ma'am," a batarian man said softly from the left. Without looking at him, Irie snapped her fingers and indicated his station.

"Report."

"Everything still green across the board. We are showing a stable horizon at Launch One, transmitters are working to optimum levels. We can maintain this image for five minutes at our current power levels."

"Are we recording?" Irie asked, though she knew perfectly well they were. However, to finally succeed and then lose documentation of what they were seeing due to a simple oversight, would be absolutely unthinkable.

"We are recording, that is verified."

Irie stepped a bit closer to the oval. Looking through it was like looking through a window into three-dimensional space- though the 3D aspect of it was an illusion caused by the projectors. In the frame of the oval of light, the beautiful, swirling image of a galaxy shone with a serene light, looking almost close enough to touch.

"Readings?"

"We have target verification, gathering data now," King said.

"Location confirmed with red-shift differentials," the batarian said. "That is Andromeda."

King turned from her own station and went up to Irie's side. "No one has ever seen Andromeda from this close before, gotten these kinds of readings. Doctor…there are no words! You were right. I mean, I never doubted for an instant but…oh, my God, you were right."

"We have two minutes left at this power level."

Irie didn't bother looking over, too rapt with what she was seeing. "Can we get closer?"

"Yes, we should be able to get an even closer image but it will cut our available power down to one minute."

"Do it, and verify everything is still recording," she said, her sharp eyes missing nothing as the image sailed in even closer to their sister galaxy.

"Data feeds are still at optimal."

"This is absolutely astounding!" King could not contain her excitement, her voice little more than a breathy squeal. "To be standing here, to be seeing this-"

"What are those?" Irie asked, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

"Wh-what?" King asked, peering closer at the image as Irie pointed. In the almost endless field of light from Andromeda's trillions of stars, tiny black specks- like grains of sand- could barely be seen. "I…I am not sure. That is strange…"

"Dovuk, can we focus the image on one of those specks and move in by 3000?" Irie asked.

"I can," he said. "But that would all but eliminate our power. You'd get about half a second of image before the scope shuts down."

"Do it."

"Yes ma'am. Coordinates input…zooming….now."

The image jumped, and for an instant- just an instant- something appeared in front of Irie's eyes that made her jolt with shock, taking a reflexive step back as her heart felt like it had stopped.

Then it was gone, the image and the oval both fading away as the power ran out.

King's enthusiasm seemed to have given way to shock as she gasped. "Was that-?"

Irie was already turning, her heartbeat having resumed in a thunder of anxiety as she all but rushed toward Dovuk. "Did it record? Did it record?" she demanded as the main lab lights came back up.

"Y-yes," he said, his fingers shaking as they moved over his interface. "Yes, it recorded. I have the-"

"Pull up that final image now. Pull it up and put it on still."

"This is…this isn't happening," the batarian said under his breath, pale-faced as he did as she asked. The image came up on his personal display, and as she saw it Irie stiffened and went still.

King let out something that sounded entirely like a sob this time, with no mirth to it whatsoever, before her hand clamped over her mouth. Someone, Irie wasn't sure who, had come up beside her.

"Is that…is that what I think it is?" was asked in a fearful tremor.

Irie looked at the black ship hanging still and silent in front of the bright glow of stars beyond it. She looked at the triangular shape of it, the eight 'legs' hanging docile, and after a moment she was finally able to speak, even if it was only in a breathy whisper.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. It is a reaper."