7/13/15: Please read update notes on chapter 1.
Chapter Four
Daniel watched EDI as she studied the gate. By now he knew she must have every last detail of it memorized, but she seemed fascinated by it. She reached out and rested a tentative hand on its surface.
"The amount of basecode in this device is…"
"Overwhelming?" Daniel said.
She cocked her head and dropped her hand from the gate, turning to face him. "No, I am not easily overwhelmed, Dr. Jackson. It is simply a significant amount of information to decode and process. It would seem crossing between universes is more complicated than x=y. And the device is ancient. Dr. Solus believes it could be as old as the relays. Millions of years… fascinating."
"That wouldn't be surprising," he replied.
Mordin had given up looking at the gate long ago and was deep in his own thoughts. He and EDI had studied the gate, scanned it countless times with their omnitools, and had some heated discussion about things Daniel couldn't begin to comprehend. But Mordin had withdrawn into his own thoughts and mumbled to himself as he paced back forth in front of the gate, often gesticulating wildly to accentuate his thoughts. "Transversal? No, no. Preposterous idea. Singularity inversion? No, insufficient energy source."
A computer they had setup and connected to the gate beeped loudly. A big splash of red letters in alien language flashed on the screen. Daniel couldn't read the language but in the many hours they'd been working he had quickly learned that it meant "simulation failed." EDI went to the computer and, quicker than should have been physically possible, entered a new set of parameters and restarted the simulation.
Daniel shook his head, frustrated. He had to get back to Pegasus, but Mordin had been pacing for two hours; not a good sign he guessed, and the beep followed by "simulation failed" had popped up more than twenty times in five hours. He glanced at Shepard, who Liara had coaxed into taking a nap in the corner. She'd left part of her omnitool lit up with the countdown for them. They only had twenty minutes left, and he did not believe she would find their progress to be significant, if anything things were going backwards. The more Mordin and EDI learned about the gate, the more they believed that reactivating it and ascertaining the coordinates to send him home would be a monumental task. He'd told them everything he could about the device, but the presence of the alien symbols only complicated things. Liara had spent the entire time on a computer terminal in the corner. If she was having more luck than the salarian and android, she wasn't sharing.
Daniel and EDI turned to the sound of the elevator door sliding open. Lt. Asil emerged, somewhat slowly. This was the first time they'd seen her since they'd left the medic's office, and, though she looked exhausted, her condition seemed much improved. She walked towards Daniel, taking slow, deliberate steps and he approached her, meeting her halfway. He reached out and clasped her upper arm for fear that she would fall over.
She greeted him with a pained but reassuring smile. Her sapphire blue eyes were watery, as if she was on the verge of tears, but she steeled herself against them.
"I'm glad to see you up. I'm… sorry about that," he said, releasing his grip on her arm. "Are you ok?"
She nodded uncertainly and took a deep breath to steady herself. "I think so. I'm still not quite myself. The doctor prescribed me some mental blockers. It's dulled the memories, calmed the headaches, and, unfortunately, messing up my biotics, but I can walk… somewhat. Feel like I'm moving as gracefully as a three-legged elcor."
"Well, I'm guessing that's a bad thing." Daniel chuckled. "But it's a start."
"Just don't ask me to fight any reapers for a few days," she joked. "Any luck here?"
He shook his head and glanced over his shoulder at the gate. "Not much I'm afraid. I can't fault Dr. Solus or EDI. They're obviously geniuses, and they seem to already know more about the gate than I do, but I know from experience it's a complex technology. This isn't going to be easy."
"Your experience," she said with a disbelieving shake of her head. "Your experience is beyond anything I could imagine, Daniel. The few images I processed before my mind nearly collapsed in on itself were… breathtaking and quite terrifying."
He shrugged. "I wish I could remember, but I know it's maybe better that I don't."
"Maybe so."
There was a moment of silence between them before she spoke again. "So, you say it takes two of these gates to function?"
He nodded affirmatively. "A stable wormhole is generated between two gates."
"The one you came through in your universe. Surely your friends will come looking for you?" she suggested. "You seem nice, and not at all… Cerberusy."
Daniel laughed. "Cerberusy?"
She straightened her shoulders, though it sent a stabbing pain straight between her temples. "I stand by my made up word, Dr.," she said with a mocked tone of authority.
"Well," Daniel said with an equally affected air of diplomacy, "this is your home planet, so I will defer to your judgment and accept that I am not 'Cerberusy.'"
"Smart choice, I'm terribly stubborn."
"Ah, now stubbornness. That is something I have a bit of experience with."
"Anyway, I would think your friends are missing you and would come after you. I certainly hope if I vanished through an energy wave that my commandos would come after me."
"I think Sgt. Mileta would be after you in a heartbeat. She seems quite loyal to you. I was starting to worry she might just shoot me."
She nodded knowingly. "She's good soldier, if a tad excitable."
"Well, I'm sure my friends would like to come after me, but there was that explosion at the facility that forced me through the gate. They're either injured or don't have the power to reactive the gate on their end, or they would have already done so. While it will be helpful if they manage to reestablish a connection, it won't immediately fix the issue of me being stuck here."
She arched an inquisitive eyebrow.
"You can only enter the wormhole through the gate from which it originates. If I'm to get home, we have to be able to activate this gate."
"That does indeed complicate things," she replied.
"Of course!" Mordin shouted, smacking his hands together in excitement. "Knew it was familiar. Liara! Liara! Quickly, quickly. Extranet. STG Library. Mission Archives. Level 4. Will need my security clearance."
They were all taken aback by his sudden outburst and regarded him curiously, though it was not loud enough to awaken Shepard, but Liara didn't miss a beat, instantly switching over to the extranet and typing as he spoke.
"I have my own code to the archive, Mordin," she said innocently. "What am I looking for?"
"Information on planet Kitara – Operation Firebrand."
Liara's brow furrowed as she struggled to place the name, quickly though she realized she'd never heard of it. "What is Kitara?"
Mordin took a deep breath and then released it in a long, rapid spiel. "Kitara is no longer. Destroyed by STG during rachni wars. Massive breeding planet for rachni. Salarian scientists incorrectly calculated that destruction of Kitara would decrease rachni war capacity by nearly fifteen percent. Bad math, got it wrong! Beside the point! Covert STG and turian team deployed to Kitara to carry out mission. None survived but mission was successful."
Liara's eyes grew wide. She couldn't believe what Mordin had just said, yet she knew he was not one to make a mistake. "Mordin… a joint turian/salarian mission during the Rachni War? That would have been centuries before the turians entered Council Space."
Mordin smiled, a glint of mischief in his large black eyes. "Indeed. Good story to that. Will come back to it. Important thing is planet was destroyed by destabilizing core."
"Impressive. How did they destabilize the core?" she asked. Liara was bursting with curiosity and could barely contain it. If it was true, if the salarians had contact with the turians centuries earlier than was known, it would be an enormous revelation. Still, she knew they had to stay on track for now at least.
"Salarian brilliance! Details are few however. STG captain, Tiraki, sent small classified databurst to STG command before planet was destroyed. Once on Kitara, team realized that original plan presented too high rate of failure. But team discovered that planet had been inhabited before the rachni. Remnants of a civilization with advanced technology. Civilization destroyed by rachni." Mordin pointed to the gate. "Tiraki described discovery of a similar device! Discovered its function and modified it to destabilize the planetary core."
EDI looked to Daniel. "Dr. Jackson, do you believe the stargate could be used in such a way?"
Daniel considered it and finally nodded. "The stargate is a powerful piece of technology, and I've seen it on multiple occasions do things it was not designed to do. We've seen it destabilize a star before. So, it's theoretically possible."
"Dr. Solus, how does this help us?" Cerine ventured, eager to get re-involved.
Mordin blinked twice, taken aback by the question. "Not obvious?"
Cerine glanced at the others, who appeared just as uncertain as her as to what Mordin was driving at. "No, Doctor. I'm sorry…"
Mordin blinked again. "Now we can begin search!"
Cerine glanced sidelong at Daniel and shrugged, mouthing silently, "Search for what?"
Mordin continued, unfazed. "We stand on shoulders of Protheans. Protheans stand on shoulders of those who came before and so on. The eternal question!"
"Which is?" Daniel asked.
"Who came before us? If all the great civilizations of the past eons have developed their technology from the ones who came before them, then where does it stop?" Liara chimed in.
"You believe the gates predate the Protheans?" Cerine asked, skeptically. She wasn't fluent in history, but she knew enough to know the Protheans were ancient and that there was very little knowledge of those who came before them.
"Without doubt," Mordin affirmed. "May predate relays themselves. Perhaps relays based on their design?"
"I believe Dr. Solus is suggesting there are too many similarities between that gate and mass relays to dismiss a connection between them out of hand," EDI said. "Perhaps, these Kitarans created the stargates."
"Do you believe the reapers stole the gate technology from the Kitarans and engineered the relays?" Liara asked.
"Perhaps. It would make stargates hundreds of millions if not billions of years old," Mordin explained. "Could explain their rarity. Lost and destroyed over eons, or destroyed by reapers to cover tracks. Unlikely odds that only two gates ever existed: Thessia and Kitara. If only the two gates, then must be connection between the two worlds. More likely that the ancient civilization used gates to travel throughout the galaxy."
"Exactly!" Daniel said.
"So the Kitarans built our gates then?" Cerine asked.
"No, I don't think so," Liara replied, the archaeologist in her taking over. "The mass relays are for all intents and purposes timeless, and the stargates, as Mordin says, perhaps even older. The Kitarans' destruction is relatively recent. I would have a hard time believing that those who built these stargates were wiped out by the rachni only 2,000 years ago. If they were advanced enough to build the stargates, then the reapers wouldn't have spared them for so long, especially if the reapers stole the stargate technology from them. They wouldn't leave witnesses or that kind of knowledge behind."
"But the similarities between the two? If the Kitarans didn't build them… Surely the fact that they had a working gate," Cerine pressed.
"Whether built by Kitarans or not," Mordin explained, "obvious that Kitarans had the means on their world to activate the stargate. It was used to destroy their planet."
"We don't know that. All you've told us, Mordin, is that the Tiraki and his team found a gate and learned its function. We have no way of knowing if the Kitarans knew what the gate was or how to use it. Tiraki may have just gotten lucky," Liara explained.
"True," Daniel replied, "but unlikely. I think it more likely than Tiraki found information on Kitara that helped him use the gate."
She chewed her lip for a moment as she considered it. "Perhaps the Kitarans didn't build the gate, however it is certainly possible they found the gate on their world, just as we did, and were able to make it work."
"But how did one end up on Thessia?" Cerine asked.
"Who knows?" Liara said, somewhat wistfully. "As old as they appear to be, there could be any number of ways. There's currently no knowing who made them or for what exact purpose."
"Well, in my universe, the gate builders built hundreds, thousands of gates throughout our galaxy. We simply found the gate and learned how to use it."
"If that's the case, if there were so many, then the reapers have done a near perfect job of erasing their existence," Liara lamented.
"But, we know where to begin search. Could lead us to the builders or at least technology to use the gates," Mordin reemphasized.
"Who built them is perhaps less important at the moment, because if Kitara was destroyed, where would you suggest we begin searching, Dr. Solus?" Daniel pressed. "I do appreciate everyone's help here, but I have to get back home. My friends… my world is in danger."
"If Kitarans could use the gates, and they function as Dr. Jackson suggests, then unlikely that they were concentrated on a single world. Perhaps there are more Kitarans. Kitarans who escaped rachni."
"How would we find them?" Cerine asked.
"Ask those that destroyed them," Mordin answered simply.
"The STG?" Cerine asked, confused.
Mordin shook his head vehemently and corrected her. "STG orchestrators of Kitara's final destruction but not the cause. Not the cause!"
Liara frowned. "No, he means the rachni. We talk to the rachni. Shepard's not going to like any of this."
"Rachni owe Shepard," Mordin said definitively.
Liara couldn't stifle a chuckle. "Well, let's hope they share your opinion, Mordin."
"Wait!" Cerine said, snapping her fingers. She turned to Daniel, her face a mask of excitement. "In your galaxy, there is a stargate on Earth?"
Daniel nodded. "We had two actually… long story."
Liara caught onto Cerine's thought. "Where were they located?"
"Antarctica and Egypt."
"It's a start, Dr. T'soni. A possibility," Cerine said.
"Earth is a complete warzone. And there's no guarantee we'd find anything. Just because Dr. Jackson's Earth had a gate doesn't mean ours will."
"But what are the odds?" EDI asked. "As of now we have two choices. We seek out the rachni in hope of finding the Kitarans, who may be long extinct, or we seek out gates on Earth that might not exist."
"We have no choices," Liara reminded her. "We follow Shepard."
The buzzer on Shepard's omnitool went off. In one swift instant she was awake and then getting to her feet while simultaneously shutting off the alarm. She yawned and stretched her arms, and then noticed everyone staring at her.
"Yes?" she said, mid-yawn.
Cerine pushed Daniel aside and approached Shepard, stumbling as she did so and having to throw out a hand to grab the edge of Liara's computer station to steady herself. "I would like to volunteer, Spectre Shepard."
Shepard regarded her curiously and looked to Liara for an explanation, though Liara merely shrugged. "Firstly, you can hardly stand, Lt. Secondly, volunteer for?"
Daniel tried to interject something, but he wasn't quite sure what to say. What the hell is a rachni anyway?
Cerine blushed. "Umm," she turned to Mordin with a pleading glance and then back to Shepard, "to assist Dr. Solus with his search."
"Tsk. Tsk," Mordin replied with a grim look. "Foolish to volunteer to travel beyond the rachni relay. Even more foolish to go to Earth. Admire bravery though. Unable to conduct search myself. Prior commitments to Commander Shepard. Believe search should be carried out though. Stargate technology is promising. Should not be abandoned readily and would like Dr. Jackson to be able to return home."
Shepard held up a hand to silence them. "Mordin, start from the beginning. Tell me everything you've learned but please make it quick."
Mordin smiled broadly and nodded. He then turned to Liara at her computer terminal. "Liara, please begin with report on Operation Firebrand. Very exciting!"