Feron knocked lightly on the door of Liara's suite. She had been staying with him in the ambassadorial quarters aboard the Destiny Ascension since she had left the Normandy. He was still undercover as the Drell ambassador so it was been relatively easy let her stay as a guest of the Hanar Illuminated Primacy.
"Come in." Came the reply. Keeping the tray carefully balanced on one hand he opened the door with the other.
Liara was where she always was, bent over her terminal. She looked up and smiled when he entered; the bags under her eyes became more pronounced. She looked tired but the smile was triumphant.
"What have you got for me Mr Fyr?" even in the surveillance free privacy of her cabin she still referred to him by his current alias.
Feron sat the tray down on the desk.
"Tea: it's an Asari blend."
Liara lent over the pot and breathed in the smell of the stewing leaves.
"Mm. Thank you. What about-" Before she could finish he pulled an OSD from the pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to her.
"You think of everything. That means we have everything we need."
"So you spoke to Dr Yrenna?"
Liara took a sip of tea, closing her eyes to savour the taste and nodded.
"Not many people have heard of the Lazarus project so the concept was new to her, she was very excited."
"And the sample?" Feron asked. Liara had emptied her cup so he took it and the tray, ready to leave. She nodded, eyes still closed.
"How are you feeling?"
Liara furrowed her brow in thought.
"Nervous, exhilarated, nostalgic. I haven't been back to Ilos since we were chasing Saren and I didn't exactly get a chance to take notes. I know we will be busy but this project will take years, I'll have plenty of time for a little Prothean archaeology on the side. Most of all I am anxious to be under way."
"Then I guess its time for Akil Fyr to tell the Hanar that he is taking an indefinite sabbatical."
Opening her eyes Liara began tapping keys on her terminal again.
"I am almost done here; I will meet you at the ship in twenty."
Before he left Feron actually bowed. "I'm looking forward to it. I've never been to Ilos."
Once she was alone she tied up the loose ends of the command prompts that would allow Glyph to keep the network ticking over while they were in transit.
Since the emergence of the Shepherd the shadow broker had been in high demand. She hadn't sold anyone the whole truth and she doubted it was the kind of thing anyone would guess. There were conspiracy theories of course and even rumblings of a cult. None of it was an immediate concern.
Liara powered down her terminal, checked her bag containing her hard drives and personal effects then left the cabin.
As she wound her way through the Destiny Ascension's spacious corridors several Asari crew members stopped to greet her by name. She was polite in response but always moved on quickly. She was too excited for idle conversation, since her meeting with Elizabeth aboard the Reaper she had felt a new sense of purpose. It was as though her grief had dried up and hardened to a sharp point that was letting her slice through the veil that had seemed to envelope her these past few months. She had sent lengthy messages to Garrus, Tali and her father, she had not give any details but Tali and Garrus at least would know that her disappearance was related to her role as the shadow broker.
At the door to the hanger was a bored looking guard with a pistol at her hip. "Papers please."
Liara had her ID card ready. She liked that about the Asari government, they had a real sense of tradition.
"Matriarchal envoy?" Said the guard, looking quizzically at the card.
"Yes." Liara said, careful to keep her face neutral. No such position existed but she had enough pull with enough high ranking matriarchs to get the card fabricated in case she ever needed heightened security clearance. Just as well.
The guard stood to one side with a curt 'ma'am' and she stepped past her into the hanger. The cavernous chamber was bigger than the biotiball stadium back home in Armali city, that is to say very big indeed.
The floor space was mostly filled with row upon neatly ordered row of fighters and interceptors but here and there was a silhouette of a larger ship.
Liara set her bag down to check her Omni-tool. "Berth one oh four." She muttered aloud. At her feet the Sari symbol for two was painted on the deck. She sighed.
What felt like an unnecessarily long time later Liara rounded the prow of a fuel skiff in berth 103 and nearly bumped into a Turian in an ochre flight suit.
"Oh I'm so sorry." She said automatically. The Turian eyed her up and down.
"T'soni right?" He said after a pause that was just too long.
"Yes." She squirmed under his appreciative gaze.
"Groovy. Your doctor friend is already aboard so we are just waiting for our Drell associate and we can get our merry little scientific expedition under way. Name's Farfax by the by."
Liara chose to ignore his strange manner of speech and unsubtle body language in favour of waiting out the clock.
They stood together for fifteen minutes, Farfax humming some sort of military anthem to himself, until Feron arrived. And arrive he did, with all the swagger one might expect from a representative to an entire race. He played the part well, his suit was sharp and his eyes were unreadable.
"Madam T'soni a pleasure to see you again. Shall we depart?" He said.
She smiled at the theatrics but continued to play along.
"Excellent idea Mr Fyr."
"Fantabulous! Let's buckle up and take this new relay network for a spin. All aboard the Ilos express!" Farfax said. It was a sentiment shared by many of the pilots in the citadel fleet. Ships had been coming and going without pause since the network was reactivated.
The ship they would be travelling on was a small commercial passenger liner, the inside was dark with dim lighting strips guiding them through the aisle to first class. Liara and Feron took seats together on the left side of the craft while Farfax moved ahead to the cockpit. The vehicle was empty save for another Asari sitting across the row. The fact that she didn't look up when they entered coupled with her heavy rhythmic breathing told them that she was fast asleep.
"That's Dr Yrenna?" Feron asked softly.
Liara nodded. "I'll let her sleep though. Even with the relay network the journey will take two hours."
They spent the brief time before taking off adjusting their head and arm rests, stowing their bags underfoot and otherwise killing time until Farfax chimed in over the intercom.
"All righty folks we are A-OK. Stand by." Outside the portal at the end of the row the hanger started to move. Or to be more accurate the ship they were on began coasting out into space. The ships internal mass effect fields were powerful enough that there was no way to be sure and sensitive enough to match the Destiny ascension's perfectly. The perks of flying first class.
"Trajectories locked." Came Farfax's voice from the ceiling. "Hitting the relay in 3, 2, 1." Again there was no physical sensation but Liara could see through the window as the scorched face of Bekenstein blurred away and was replaced by a torrent of swirling blue energy. A few seconds later they exited the relays twin in the Salarian's home system. They would have to get used to this fragmented style of travel, there were a lot of connections to the Mu relay.
After the second time Farfax stopped announcing the jumps and Liara pulled the blind down.
"I might read if you don't mind."
"Of course not, I think I'll do the same."
Liara retrieved a datapad from her bag and began to refamiliarize herself with Dr Yrenna's work.
Feron on the other hand stared blankly ahead, occasionally his lips would move silently and Liara knew that he was utilizing the Drell power of perfect memory to recall something he had read in the past.
Liara had never spoken to Yrenna one to one but she had attended two lectures by her at the University of Serrice. The first had been a one off talk on Prothean genetics she had given forty years ago.
The second had been given just after the humans had been granted an embassy on the citadel and covered the potential effects the emergent humanity might have on the Asari gene pool. She had just reached the section detailing the surprising number of similarities in human and Batarian genetics when a sputtering cough caught her attention. Dr Yrenna had woken up.
Stepping past Feron's idly staring form she crossed over and sat next to her former lecturer. Yrenna had turquoise skin and a pointed face so covered with swirling white markings that it seemed a little cluttered. Liara remembered her making an off hand remark about being teased for her markings as a child.
"Dr Yrenna? I'm Liara T'soni."
She stifled a yawn with the back of one hand and clasped Liara's forearm with the other. It was a Turian gesture, Liara wondered if she had a Turian father.
"T'soni. You are a doctor yourself now or so I hear and after only fifty years of field work. Impressive."
Liara was unsure whether that was a clumsy compliment or an underhanded insult, Yrenna had always seemed blisteringly intelligent but rather guileless so she decided to take it in the spirit in which it was apparently given.
"Thank you for agreeing to work with us."
"It was a unique opportunity. I understand that this is a black ops project (it isn't my first) but I am curious about this biomechanical construct you want to build. Once we have grown the sample and integrated the cybernetics what are you planning to put in it?"
Liara had to try not to show the smile she was feeling. She had spent the last several months in stagnation and here was this woman talking as if the result of their near impossible task was a forgone conclusion.
"Simple VIs at first then we'll see."
Yrenna nodded. She was not, it seemed, a woman of strict scientific morals. Results were what mattered to her. 'Just the kind of woman I need.' Thought Liara.
Yrenna didn't need to know the truth, Liara had seriously deliberated with herself before telling Feron. She would probably tell her something close to the truth when the time was right. Something about taking the fate of the galaxy away from the all powerful machine intelligence and putting it back in the hands of organics. And that was true, at least in part. Of course she was reasons of her own: a little under eight months from now she would have a child of her own. If that child could have her father back…
She spent the rest of the journey talking with Dr Yrenna and filling her in on all the pertinent details of the project.
Whatever the end result it would be better than a lifetime spent in mourning.