"These suits are rated for depths nearly twice what you should encounter," Daenys said as Melara climbed up into the first one, powering on the controls and situating herself in the guide chair. "You'll have full sonic and infrared, as well as guidance lights. The suit can fire holographic grid generator units to provide a full map of your terrain, and has a complement of scanning drones. The lakebed will probably be understandably rocky, but you should be able to walk with reasonable mobility."

"Understood. We shouldn't be more than two hours. I just want to get a grid mapped out, get a feel for what's down there."

"If you find anything, mark its location on the map grid," Liara said, coming up behind her daughter-in-law. "But remember, in depth exploration is what the submersible is for. Do not approach anything unusual until we have our full team and equipment ready to analyze it."

"I promise," Melara said. "I won't take any chances."

"Yes, well…at times like this is when you look like your father the most, and I believe you about as much as I would believe her."

Melara gave her a wry look, then nodded. "Two hours," she said. "We'll be in constant com contact with each other and with you. If we lose contact, even for a moment, we'll resurface immediately."

"Good luck," Dae said, leaning up on her tiptoes as Mel leaned forward out of the cockpit, giving her a quick kiss. "We shall see you soon."

"That you will. Stand back, I gotta close this bad boy."

Liara and Dae stepped backward, watching as the front hatch of the mech suit swung down and sealed.

As it latched, Melara activated the navigation grid and HUD. "Suit is sealed, air pressure stabilizing- I am green across the board."

{Communications check,} Dae's voice echoed through the small space.

"Reading you loud and clear."

{Good, we are reading you as well.}

"Vina, communications check."

{I am sealed with a green board, Captain,} the turian replied from her own suit nearby.

{Melara, the low cliff we identified earlier is still your best bet for entry, and your fastest route to the lakebed. It will give you a direct drop of approximately 182 meters. You can descend the rest of the way on foot from there.}

"Understood. We are heading toward the cliff. We'll see you soon."

{Good luck.}

Vina fell in beside her as she started the suit toward the nearby spit of rock that hung out over the water. Other than the small shore where they had set up camp, the lake had no real gradual slope into the water; it was more or less just a deep pit or a funnel directly down. They'd rely on good old gravity to get them to the bottom, and the suits thrust jets to get them back out again.

"Think you can do a swan dive in this thing, Vina?" Melara asked with a grin as they lumbered toward the drop off.

{I tell you what. I'll do a swan dive if you do a back flip.}

Melara laughed. "My luck I'd land the hatch right on the edge of the rock and shatter it wide open, right before I dropped into a thousand feet of freezing water pressure."

{Now I'm really interested in seeing you do it.} Vina joked.

"Yeah, so much for your next pay raise, smart ass."

As they drew near the edge, Mel halted her suit. "All right. Lights and scanners on. It's going to get dark real quick. Keep an eye out below you and watch your landing."

Their lights flipped on, washed out in the still bright afternoon sunshine, but powerful enough that they'd illuminate a good hundred feet or more once they were underwater.

{After you, Captain?}

"Indeed. Dae, we are now making our drop."

{You are green, my love. We will be monitoring you all the way down.}

"Understood." She tightened her grip on the controls, then took a deep breath. "Here we go."

The mech suit stepped efficiently but ungracefully off the edge of the rock, dropping through air for ten feet before hitting the surface of the still lake with a resounding splash. Instantly, Mel's viewscreen was filled with a wash of white bubbles and a bright blue that was quickly darkening to cobalt. Barely had her suit submerged than her HUD showed Vina's hitting the water as well.

"We are in, at 12 meters and dropping steadily," she reported. "Everything remains green. Scans show we are clear below to 100 meters."

{So strange,} Vina said. {All this fresh water, and not a single fish to be seen.}

"Don't jinx us," Melara said lightly. "Keep saying things like that and the next thing you know, we'll see the huge mouth of a sea monster right before it swallows us up."

{Who is jinxing who now?}

Melara laughed. "Dae, we are at 35 meters. Still clear."

Despite their joking, it was still spooky. The light had vanished quickly despite the clarity of the water. The cones of their external lights showed nothing but blue. She kept an eye on her scopes, reporting their depth every few moments and making sure they weren't about to plummet into a crevasse or on top of a sharp spire or ridge that would send them toppling. Everything remained clear, and after a few short minutes she nodded.

"We are at two hundred and fifty meters. I can see the slope of the lake bed about fifty meters below us now. No notable hazards. Preparing to land."

The ground came up quickly, caught in the external lights only moments before impact. Melara braced herself, the mech catching the silt and stone and absorbing the shock flawlessly. The cab bobbed down slightly, but restrained within the asari felt nothing but the gentlest bump.

The slope was gradual enough here she didn't immediately start to topple forward, a concern that she would have corrected with the thrusters.

"Perfect landing if I do say so myself," she reported, as Vina thumped down nearby. "I'm launching the mapping grid and correlating with infrared…now."

Two tiny probes rocketed away from the suit and deeper into the water, flaring with laser guides that immediately reflected off of every minute detail of the lake bed and sent it back to the suits in the form of a three dimensional holographic display. Instantly, the area for three hundred feet around was displayed in a yellow contour map that showed every spire, every rock, every pit or ridge. Adding the infrared to the display transformed the entire scene into a cartographer's psychedelic drug state.

Not far from them, what looked like an entire forest of stone spires and crags bloomed out of the gloom, some of them standing as high as ancient trees. It faded down a gentle slope into the distance. Melara only looked at it a moment, before she started sending the scanner data up to the surface. "Linking data to you now."

{We are receiving. From the looks of it, it is good we did not drop the suits directly center of the lake. Those spires look capable of peeling them like tin cans,} Dae said.

{We shall have to use this data to plot a precise course for the submersible,} Liara added. {From what I can see currently, they are far enough apart that the vessel should be able to get through them without danger of collision, or becoming trapped. Maneuverability will be slow, however.}

"We'll take what time we can, but we only have two days," Melara said.

{Later tonight when we have the full results of your scans, I will calculate the best route through the 'forest' at the most optimum speed for safety and efficiency.}

"All right. We're moving forward. I'll be on heading 37 bravo. Vina, take 45 Charlie."

{Acknowledged.}

They started off, moving along paths that would keep them in easy sight of each other but which would allow them the widest scanning grid possible given their equipment. The slope was easy enough to handle- the uneven ground and stone formations formed more problems, and they had to pick convoluted paths, or even rely on their thrusters from time to time, to get around obstacles.

An hour's worth of careful scanning and progress came up with nothing other than a more detailed map of this area of the lakebed. It would take them only a few minutes to get back to the surface with the thrusters, so Mel changed the trajectory of their course and mapped out the next section of the grid. Shortly after they altered to their new path, Vina suddenly came over the comm.

{I have something, Captain.}

"Define?"

{A small structure or…statue, perhaps. It is clearly artificial.}

She sent the data up to the surface as Melara made her way over to the other suit. Vina stood amongst a group of 'trees' that had apparently been broken or cracked at some point in the distant past, littering the ground with loose rock and debris. As Melara neared, her lights and her own scanners picked up what Vina had found, lying amongst the debris.

It definitely looked like a statue, worn and eroded, laying on its side and partially face down in silt. The water had, over time, made it nearly featureless, but Mel could make out what appeared to indicate legs, and arms, and the broken stump of a tail.

{It is reading as stone,} Liara reported. {Mel?}

"Same reading here," she said. "Given the leg shape structure, and the tail bit here, it looks like a rakir. I'm going to turn it over, get a better picture of its front."

{Be careful.}

Using the mech suits powerful arms, she reached down and clamped carefully on to the statue. It was nearly three meters in length, and incredibly heavy. Getting a grip on it, she barely managed to shift it onto its side in a cloudy wash of silt.

{It's muzzled, and that bit there looks to be a carving of a horn. Yes, I think this is a statue of a rakir- a fertile male.} Vina said.

{From what we are seeing here, we concur,} Daenys reported. {The composition of rock is the same as what lines this valley.}

{Melara, Lily and I have been going over Neska's extensive files on rakir development. Given your scans, this statue appears to be roughly forty thousand years old- though we cannot say that conclusively without actual samples.}

"Which would mean this statue was carved after the Reapers finished wiping out the Protheans," Melara said.

{Yes. The rakir have been technically out of their stone age for only five hundred years. However, there is nothing in known rakir artifacts that would suggest they had the level of tools or craftsmanship to carve this statue forty thousand years ago. These edges are eroded, but they look to me to have been carved with much finer and more sophisticated implements than the crude chisels the rakir would have had during that time period.}

"But you can't say for sure?"

{Not without seeing the item in person.}

"This statue is far too heavy to be able to bring it to the surface with our mechs," she said. "However a few pieces are broken off. Here. Here is the tail. We can take that back for study."

{That should be sufficient, thank you.}

{Could this be one of the 'People of Stone' that Sihra mentioned?} Vina asked.

"This thing is definitely rock, not alive. Maybe the rakir of old came upon another native species, a bit more advanced? Precision craftsman that weren't actually made of stone, but made people out of stone…statues like this, that the rakir had no real experience with. Sihra did say that it was likely the tale had been long confused. Artisans making stone images of people could have turned into the idea of people actually made of stone."

{Unfortunately, because of the old Council sanctions, study of the fossil record of Nakira was impossible before the uplifting,} Lily suddenly chimed in. {It is not unheard of for two sapient species to develop at different times on the same world. It could be the original inhabitants were more peaceful and could not contest against the primitive rakir. Or they were susceptible to some disease the rakir were not. Unfortunately until we get a much better look at the fossil record across the planet-something that will take several decades- we cannot know for sure.}

"We can speculate until the end of time, but it will get us no closer to any solid answer," Melara said. "For now we'll concentrate on this area. Where there's one artifact there might be more. We have forty-five before we have to start back up again."

She passed the chunk of broken statue- a piece about three feet long- to Vina, before she played her lights over the broken edges of the ragged stone 'trees'. "You know, I thought these columns could have broken because of an earthquake or just erosion but…now that I take a closer look, there seems to be a path of damage leading in that direction. It looks almost like something ran into them."

{I see what you mean. It would have to be…at least a hundred yards long. A crashing ship, perhaps?} Vina asked, looking as well.

"Could be the source of our static signature. Let's head that way, see what we find."

Moving carefully and staying closer together, the pair carefully picked their way along the 'path' of broken and collapsed stone stalagmites. Only a few minutes later, Mel's scan picked something else up.

"I have another statue. This one on its feet," she said, moving closer. "Another carving of a rakir, this one apparently female. There's….some sort of stylization on its stomach. Mama, are you seeing this?"

{Yes. If I had to translate, I would deduce that is an artistic stylization to indicate an infant within its mother's pouch. This suggests a culture with a developed sense of abstraction and art. There are…shadows. Marks on the stone that look…I believe this statue may at one time have been painted. There look to be traces of pigment or stain in the deeper crevices of the carving. But I would need a-}

"Sample, yes. Unfortunately this statue is as big as the last one. We can't carry it with our gear, and I don't see any fractured pieces that may suit."

{Lamentable, but it cannot be helped. We may be able to take a sample later in the submersible. For now it is probably best if you move on.}

They continued on, half an hour crawling past with no sign of any further statues or artifacts as they followed the odd path of broken rock. Mel was eyeing her chronometer, about to suggest they move uphill again and to a clear patch before engaging their thrusters to take them back to the surface, when the scanner targets illuminated the next area. Seeing the grid map pop up, she suddenly trundled to a halt, staring in disbelief.

"Vina, tell me you are seeing this."

{I see it Mel. I don't believe it…but I see it.}

{What is it? What are you seeing?}

"I….I am sending you the new data now, Mama. Transmitting."

{Receiving. One mom…}

Silence filled the mech suit for a long moment, before she heard her mother whisper softly.

{Goddess.}

"I'm moving closer," Mel told her. "I want a better scan with the infrared."

She edged further down the rocky incline, moving until her infrared was able to catch up to the contour grid. What she was seeing only clarified more sharply, eliminating any doubts in her mind.

"This isn't possible. I can't deny what I'm seeing but…how is this possible? They have a completely different scan signature than what Red's artifacts give off. We should have known what this was immediately. Why is this not reading properly?"

{I do not know but…there can be little doubt,} Liara said quietly. {It must have crashed here shortly after the Prothean Cycle. Perhaps it was badly damaged, could not return to dark space with the others. Whatever the case, it is unmistakable. That structure is definitely a Reaper. From the size and scale, one of the smaller destroyers.}

The swathe of destruction lead right to the ancient ship, laying on the lake bed amid the stone 'forest' like a long deceased denizen of the deep oceans. One of its jointed 'legs' was caught on a particularly thick stalactite, angled in such a way that it looked as if it were pointing directly at them.

"I should get closer, get a real look at it, not just scans-"

{Mel, that is not a good idea. We need to approach it carefully. Certain systems could still be intact, and even 'dead' Reapers are apparently capable of indoctrination if precautions are not taken,} Daenys reminded her. {Remember the plan. We need to approach this thing as an entire team, with the proper equipment.}

"There's something odd about it. There's got to be a reason it's not reading as a Reaper but like one of the older artifacts."

{Perhaps it is a form of camouflage. A clever way to hide itself from detection. We will find the answers, Mel, but right now you and Vina need to come back. That Reaper is not going anywhere. We can process the data tonight and go down fully prepared in the morning.}

Melara sighed, then nodded. "Won't serve us to be foolhardy. I'm going to let the drones continue to map the lake bottom, see if they can't get a better remote scan of that thing. Vina and I are on our way up."

{Good. We will see you shortly.}

Vina secured the artifact she was still carrying, and moved away to a spot clear enough to activate her thrusters. As she did so, rocketing up through the water toward the surface, her lights dwindling in the thousand feet of dark and silent cold, Melara looked back toward the ominous ship lying in the distance.

Why were you here? she thought. If you were hiding…why were you hiding?

She shook her head, and moved her mech toward a clearing as well. The answers were not going to come tonight. Not while she was standing here.

Accessing her HUD, she programmed the drones to keep on scanning, then hit her thrusters and rocketing back toward light, warmth, and air.