DESPOINA

"CIRCLE 8"

COVERT WATCH PLATFORM

PSI TOPHET

LATE SEPTEMBER 2188

"STILL NO RESPONSE, DR. T'SONI." Glyph told her in its even tones. Liara walked calmly to her window and tucked her hands behind her back, eyed the platform with dubious eyes. It looked for all the worlds like debris, a few broken and exposed decks of a shattered warship. It had only low-band radiation and eezo-mist emissions, nothing more than any chunk of destroyed starship would give off. In the distance, a few blown-apart Reaper hulks, left over from a spillover fight in the neighbouring system. The Blue Shadow was ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

"This was a very well-hidden station," Liara commented, running a check through her omnitool. "Not a single mention of it, anywhere."

"I regret my lapse, Doctor."

"Hardly your fault, Glyph. This was expertly disguised. If one is to secretly spy on Leviathans, this would seem the best way – just never log it anywhere." Perfect secrecy, even from the Shadow Broker. Simply keep no records. "However if this thing is masked, it is masked well. I can't scan anything past what I'd expect to find."

Behind her, Liara's father paced, looking out-of-character in armor. Truth to be told, armor suited her much better. Aethyta had centuries of combat experience behind her, and was absolutely no pushover.

"That's kinda the point. Anyway, well-hidden or not," she grumbled. "We found it."

"We found it because an asari stationed on this sent you a distress signal." Liara glanced back at her father. "Why you and not whatever agency is responsible for this?"

Aethyta smiled at her.

"Because I'm the agency responsible for this."

Liara blinked in surprise.

"You are?"

"'Course I am. Don't get to live as long as I have and not learn something about covert operations. I was a veteran commando and sneaking around crap before anyone on this tub was born."

"How did you learn about Leviathans?"

"I asked. It only takes one really drunk Black Ops Alliance Marine to spill everything to a sexy-voiced asari impressed by his prowess."

"I had wondered where my devious streak had come from." The Matriarch nodded.

Liara turned back to scanning the platform.

"Can I assume that the distress signal was a one-off, used only in the event of an emergency?"

Her father nodded, walked to stand beside her, mimicked Liara's stance.

"You assume correctly. Better to just accumulate data and do periodic retrievals, which is what my girl was supposed to be doing when she called."

"Glyph, check on the system scan and report."

"At once, Doctor T'Soni. One moment, please." Liara felt the atmosphere in the ship tense. Any active scans were a huge risk. The initial communication to the platform had been on an extreme tight-beam channel, through the one the distress beacon had been sent on – which had been left open. The kind of scan they needed now would alert not only any Alliance or allied ships in the area, but the Leviathans as well. The only reason Liara was willing to risk it was because the distress signal sent had aroused no response, which was strange enough.

Aethyta watched one of Liara's crew walk by.

"So, how are my girls treating you?"

"They are an exceptional group. How did you manage to get Death Mistress commandos, not only off Thessia but to swear loyalty to me?"

"They're my Mistresses. I trained 'em, I made 'em. What do you think I did before I moved to Illium anyway? Study drink recipes?"

"Doctor T'Soni – scan complete." Glyph informed her. "No reactions indicated. All non-natural power sources in this area read as either inoperative or in standby mode."

"What?" Liara turned and hurried to the bridge, Aethyta hard on her heels. "That's impossible!" She tapped her pilot on the shoulder. "Take us further in the system."

A nod, and they were quickly underway. Liara ordered deep silent running, but tension mounted the closer they got to Despoina, but no one challenged them. The Blue Shadow went into a high orbit and they stayed in silent running for a half-hour before Liara dared another scan.

Again …nothing.

"Hey – run a scan for lifeforms."

"I don't know if our scans can reach that deep without probe support."

"Try it anyway." Liara ordered Glyph to comply and they waited. Almost immediately, however, it reported,

"Doctor, Matriarch, I am scanning multiple large biomasses in the oceans below. I will scan for quantities, but I cannot detect any lifesigns."

"What? Let me see!" Glyph projected his scan to a large monitor. "By the Goddess!"

Below, in an immense swathe of ocean, floating like islets in a sea of ink, Leviathans gently bobbed. "Tuning" in a closer view, their bodies showed no signs of violence, yet they were indisputably dead.

"Doctor – I have finished my preliminary quantitative scan. My estimated count on surface bodies is six million, five hundred and fifty-seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-seven. If the population is larger, I would say most are underwater or likely on the ocean floor. Aside from simple sea life, I detect no higher lifeforms alive within range of my scans, admittedly limited. I recommend standing down silent running and launching probes to confirm this finding."

"Do it, Glyph. We have to know."

The scans and probes only confirmed it. Aside from the ones on the surface, probes showed them scattered across the sea floor, at least several hundreds of thousands more, possibly more than that. No one had ever managed a census and the Leviathans kept such information to themselves. The conclusion was inescapable.

Unless Leviathans existed on other planets, and there was nothing to say they did, they were now extinct.

"Well, shit." Aethyta said, as the last of the scans came in. "What the hell could kill them all?"

Liara shook her head. Reapers had never managed this far, save for the ones that had followed Shepard and his team when they were first discovered. The Leviathans had enthralled all of those, and none other had come again. She had intercepted reports of the strange beings that seemed to be targeting specific species – could they have done the same to the Leviathans? Regardless, this couldn't be allowed to remain a secret.

"Glyph, send this through our usual channels."

"As you command, Doctor."

"You putting this out?" Aethyta asked, shaking her head at the genocide below.

"Yes. Something very wrong is going on. I think we need to find out exactly what it is." Liara tapped her pilot. Her hands were shaking. "Take us to our meeting with Miranda Lawson. I think this has gone beyond serious. We have to find out what is going on."

The Blue Shadow broke orbit as gracefully as it had entered it, and was soon on its way to the Relay. Aethyta watched the stars go by for a moment.

"You really worried, kid?" She asked, her own trepidation growing.

"No," Liara told her, heading back to her office. "I'm terrified."