Meet the… archeologist?
Disclaimer
Starcraft is the property of Blizzard entertainment.
Mass effect is the property of Bioware.
Any elements used in this story are used only in order to create a story for no monetary gain nor do I claim any ownership over them, beyond the names and characters unique to this story.
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Welcome to the Galactic codex, your request has been processed:
The protheans (Ruins): The protheans were a species that spanned across most of the known galaxy. Even though their civilization disappeared more than 50000 years before the current era, their ruins and the remains of their technology can be found in well preserved vaults across most of the milky way.
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Somewhere in the Artemis Tau cluster
Dr. Liara T'soni
Liara was uncertain of what to make of her situation.
She had been happily studying the remains of an ancient race on a distant and remote world called Therum. Her expertise on this particular race, the protheans, had gotten the attention of some human prospectors that had come across a bast archeological discovery while on the their mining duties and as the human government was made aware of this discovery they had requested that an expert on this type of sites be placed in charge of an expeditionary team.
It was thanks to the government of her people that she was placed in charge of the expedition that began to be organized in order to examine the structures that remained while also valuing if the planet was eligible for continued exploitation or if it had to be cataloged as an archeological site. This would have been decided should a great enough volume of ruins be present and discovered.
Liara was thankful that only a small amount of mining and prospecting had been done in the first place as the site in question had proven to be more than a substantial discovery since her team had managed to make substantial discoveries as they carefully peeled layer after layer of hardened stone, millennia old alloys and eventually eldritch security protocols.
It was thanks to this task and the sudden departure of alliance elements from the system that her team had remained oblivious of the developing galactic situation.
She would eventually come to regret this.
The prelude to her perilous situation had been the sudden loss of communication with an alliance cruiser that had been placed in that system to deter the nearby pirate elements from entering the system.
Such an event could have been linked to a number of reasons that the good professor could have attributed in order to justify it.
But it was the sudden appearance of a message on her private terminal that told her something about this situation was far from normal.
A message sent by her mother.
"Liara…" began the message as she saw a recording of her mother, matriarch Benezia. It had been sent but just an hour earlier and she had missed it by pure chance as she was in the middle of concluding her latest excavation when the communications array had finally been unlocked and patched her message trough.
Liara T'soni was young, to her species and to the galaxy as whole. For she still showed a certain feature that nefarious people could take advantage of: Innocence.
"I send this message in order to inform you of a certain situation in which I require your assistance as it is a matter of utmost importance. When you receive this message my associates will be nearing your location" the older asari approached the camera and Liara could see that something was wrong as there was something missing in the eyes of her mother as she could examine her face "Do not resist" this were her final words as the message ended.
There had to be a mistake.
Her mother had never called her anything save for little wing or Lili in her entire century of life as she apparently never liked the name but gave it to Liara out of respect for her unknown mother.
And what was that about some associates coming for her? Benezia always made it a point of coming personally to retrieve her whenever the matriarch had any business with her but this had not occurred in recent years as Liara had kept out of touch with her mother ever since they had a disagreement a few decades before.
Liara was innocent, but she wasn't stupid and the asari could see that something was wrong.
Liara quickly exited her tent and searched for the only remaining member of her team that had stayed behind alongside her while the rest took a break in the surface "Josh. Go for Kirama and Tesa and tell them to come down from the entrance. NOW" She ordered her assistant as she sensed that something nefarious was about to unfold.
Josh complied with her order and made his way to the elevator that led to the exit.
The young researcher that had been assigned to her by the Thessia's university of Xenology was a bright boy that had gone to the asari homeworld in order to 'Study' and 'appreciate' her people.
She found his understanding of her people as nothing but 'easy' and 'accepting' a crude understanding in her opinion. At first she delegated menial labor to the kid as a way to punish his ignorance, but bit by bit she began to warm up to the young human. She didn't want to leave him a bad impression as her superior and she realized a little late that he truly didn't have any ill intentions with her kind. When she apologized he just laughed and said that 'it was water under the bridge' whatever that means.
Human expressions were… weird.
As the asari saw the human make his way towards the elevator, it fell upon Liara to examine the entrance they had managed to unlock and see if they could use it for defense.
It had taken her team several days of uninterrupted drilling, interfacing and hacking to even unlock the first layer of defenses that stopped Liara from entering the prothean superstructure while not damaging the most valuable components within it.
But once they had unlocked the entrance and peered at the price inside they saw that the structure was but an entrance to a lift that led to an even bigger complex that laid below if her translation on the number of levels was correct.
She assessed that if they moved their provisions and communication array to the superstructure they could maybe hold out until somebody could rescue them…
*BOOM*
A loud noise interrupted Liara and as she realized that it came from the elevator shaft in which Josh had departed, did she understand that…
Oh no.
The asari quickly peeked out of the prothean structure and as a ball of fire came raining from above as it left behind a cloud of smoke, the professor quickly jumped backwards to escape the falling debris as the elevator had been destroyed.
She quickly regained her bearings and saw as metallic objects began to rain in front of her, but before they could do anything she approached the prothean console and smashed a button that would close the door.
The shield activated and stopped the advance of the strange machines that began to rise at the other side of the gate.
This had an unintended consequence, however. As she was safe, but the security mechanisms of the corridor had also sealed her inside of a containment sphere. She began to bang against the energy field, trying to get out.
But this was to no avail.
At the other side of the energy shield a massive figure landed and shook the earth under its weight.
-Objective found- Liara heard as a synthetic and unholy voice spoke these words. She turned slowly and saw one of the metallic objects begin to make its way towards her. And as she inspected the strange machine and its escort, dread began to overcome her.
They had to be geth. /°\
This geth began to pace in front of the sealed way as it never took its singular eye from her -Benezia Matriarch. Objective found, path sealed. Orders?-
Moments later, the voice of her mother was heard from the machine "Bring her to me, her team was of no use to me anyway".
No.
"Break her from whatever place she is hiding within, but bring her alive" it continued.
This couldn't be her mother.
-Understood exalted one- the smaller geth turned around and leaped up as no ordinary creature could do -Patrolling- the machine said before it too made a massive leap upwards and left the doctor with the sight of the smoldering ruins of the elevator.
Liara looked in tears as a hand burned amongst the remains…
They were dead because of her mother.
Benezia had betrayed her.
SSV Normandy, In transit to the Knossos system
John Shepard
His nights were filled with nightmares from beginning to end.
Another nightmare had added itself onto her guilt ridden mind as Shepard now had to endure his nights while seeing the death of his team on Akuze while also having to face the images of death and fear that still eluded her mind.
Shepard could not make sense of the latter and of the former he found some comfort in knowing that this was most likely not induced by ancient technology.
With what little rest he could muster the commander had to face the day ahead as best as he could.
He began to make his way towards the mess hall as he first needed to put his mind in order and he was certain that a cup of coffee could aid in that.
But as grabbed a cup he was surprised to find Kaidan coming out of the med-bay. A container on his left hand, as his right rested on his head's temple.
His subordinate saw him as he made his way to grab some water.
"Hello, commander" Kaidan said while flinching.
"Are you okay?" the commander asked out of concern.
"Sorry commander. It's just the old implant acting up" he smiled trying to hide the fact that he was probably having a mind splitting headache.
"Kaidan, go take a seat at my quarter. Rest there until the headache subsides. That's an order" Shepard commanded him to do so as he was concerned for his crewmate, knowing the pain an L2 biotic could suffer from.
Most people like him were already retired, in large part due to the instability of their implants and Shepard was sure that the only reason that Kaidan had not accepted the offer to retire earlier was out of pure stubbornness or due to the state in which more retired biotics found themselves upon.
Shepard had heard that this retirees had been faring poorly due to some laws that prevented them from receiving the support they needed and this left the commander displeased.
"But…" began Kaidan, but as he saw his commander with a stern look on his face he relented and nodded before he made his way towards the captain's quarter.
Shepard nodded as the door closed and finished making his coffee. He then proceeded to take the elevator towards the cargo bay as he knew that there was still some time before he was needed in the CIC.
He began his ride down to the cargo bay.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
The commander looked at his omni-tool and saw that only a few seconds had passed…
But he swore that his coffee had already gone cold.
Ow.
The elevator door finally opened and was pleased to see his crewmates had not destroyed the place in his absence.
Good.
Shepard could see that Garrus was under the Mako as he was most likely playing with his new toy. The commander remembered that he saw a petition for some older parts of the vehicle under the request of Garrus and guessed that placing a requisition order for them wouldn't be such a bad idea. He would just need to ask Garrus why he needed older part instead of newer ones but that would be left for later as he was busy at the moment.
Shepard then turned to the rest and saw that Wrex was in the same place he had found him just the day before. The krogan looked somewhat bored and the commander guessed that a few questions wouldn't hurt.
He also saw that Ashley was now in the weapons station as she was trying to clean her rifle while also keeping an eye on the other residents of the cargo bay. Shepard sighed as he knew that her most xenophobic leanings were making her overly cautious of the aliens around her. Shepard wouldn't have blamed her had he not witnessed her assault a scared asari once on the basis of the asari making a 'pass' at Ashley.
That had been a weird and uncomfortable Christmas as Shepard found it impossible that anybody could find her attractive in the first place.
Regardless, Shepard turned towards the table were his last companion had been and was surprised to find that the alien was revealed this time around.
Literally,
Shepard only saw a black fabric over his body as he had removed most of his armor that now was resting atop the table as the alien made use of some tools to try and fix it as he had told him before.
His curiosity got the better of him and Shepard saw that the components inside of the armor looked too strange to be any sort of simple mechanism and he realized that however it was that he intended to fix his armor was above his pay grade.
Shepard also realized that he had not even offered him any weapons in the first place.
(I don't require them, Shepard) the alien spoke in his head.
…
He would not grow accustomed to that.
Shepard shook his head and turned towards the krogan first.
"Wrex" Shepard gave a brief greeting.
"Shepard" the krogan replied just as briefly.
…
He took a zip from his coffee "So…" Shepard began awkwardly "How do you like the ship?".
"It's okay…" he said "I heard it was made by your people… and turians".
Shepard could sense some off about the way he spoke of the turians.
"Hmm… sounds to me that you don't like them that mu…" Shepard stopped midway through his stupid sentence as he remembered the situation in which the krogans were at the moment.
Wrex glared at him "A sterility plague tends to do that much…" Wrex replied as he got up to his face with a mad expression.
Shepard closed his eyes in regret for his words as he had forgotten the situation in which the krogans found themselves…
They were dying.
They were afflicted by a lab grown plague that killed all but one child in a thousand and made their race a shadow of their former selves
"I'm so sorry Wrex. That wasn't my intention" said Shepard as he regretted his poor choice of words.
"At least you understand that much…" Wrex said this as he reclined on the bulk head again "Go speak with the others" this ended the conversation.
Shepard sighed and turned towards Ashley who she could see was chuckling at his actions "Oh, skipper…" began Ashley "you always knew how to make friends".
Skipper, that was a new one.
The commander finally got near his old friend "So… We still need to catch up, Ash" the commander tried to begin a friendly conversation with her as they did not have the opportunity to speak openly due in grand part to the hectic events of the last days.
But she just raised an eyebrow at this meager attempt at small talk.
"Is that your best way of saying 'Oh hey. It's been some time, Ashley. How was your last deployment?' Really John? you always knew how to make a mess of things" She shook her head in disappointment "At least you could have brought me a gift to ask for forgiveness" she said in an indignant tone while closing her eyes and extending a hand…
Shepard knew what she wanted and he offered his cup of coffee.
"You are a pirate, Williams" he added as the woman drank the whole cup in one motion and returned him an empty cup "So… Skipper?" Shepard said before she smiled slightly.
"Just a way of getting used to YOU: John the 'I will never command a ship for as long as i live' Shepard got your own tub before your sister. She must be furious" Oh she was, but he honestly didn't care.
He laughed at this.
"Oh, never change Ash…" Shepard remembered that he came to talk to her about something. What was… oh "Nevermind that. Gunnery chief Williams!" He called her to attention, this spooked her and she stood at attention out of reflex as she had most likely gone through this motion several times before "I know of your record and I praise you for it, but know that While I am in command I don't wish for our allies to be treated with suspicion or hate. They are not our lesser so they won't be treated as such. Do I make myself clear?" she frowned at this.
"Sir, yes sir!" was her answer as she held her position.
This was a topic that always generated friction between the two as she did not trust aliens and inwardly hated them for the most part.
But now Shepard was in command and he wanted to make clear that her attitude wouldn't fly by him.
"At ease" Shepard then turned away from her as she just glared at him.
To distract him from the clearly angry Wrex and Williams he turned to speak with Garrus but found that he was nowhere to be seen.
The elevator had departed with him most likely aboard it.
Xiltar was too focused on his work to speak with Shepard so this left him with Tali.
He just hoped that the engineering team had chewed her out due to a mistake or something.
Shepard allowed himself to be amazed at the sight of the core as he entered. Shepard turned to look for the person in charge and was delighted to see Adams focused on his work.
Shepard remembered the first time they had met and remembered how it had been through the recommendation of Anderson that the grizzled man had been granted this position. A genius in his own right as Anderson had described his chief engineer.
"Adams, good to see you" said Shepard while he approached the focused engineer.
"Ah, commander. I hoped you would make some time to come and see us" oh this wasn't good. Shepard thought as Adams continued "It's Tali, sir. I wanted to tell you that she…".
"AAAHHH! VOT,VOT,VOOOT!" He was suddenly interrupted as a distinctively female scream filled the core chamber. Tali then erupted from a grate on the ground and ran from the chamber, screaming.
…
"What the hell was that?" Asked Adams
"You tell me" replied Shepard.
He turned to leave after Tali but Adams continued " Actually, commander. I wanted to praise the girl's work. She had been performing excellently right until that point. I don't know what happened to her…" Adams said as he scratched his head and the both of them looked towards the now opened grate.
"Let's find out then" Shepard said as he descended into it.
Tali'Zorah
Spider, spider, SPIDER!
Tali was running away from the core in utter terror as the vermin was still on her visor. She did not dare touch it even though it obscured her vision and she was blind as to where she was going.
Because of this she didn't watch as she crashed into a large figure and thus falling to the floor after the impact.
Fortunately this killed the spider.
Unfortunately its guts were now a stain on her visor.
She began to scream again as she closed her eyes "GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF , GET IT OFF!" Tali continued to quiver in fear until she heard the noise of a finger going over her visor, cleaning the splat most likely.
She sighed in relief while inwardly thanking whoever had helped her.
(You are welcome) she heard a familiar voice in her head and her eyes opened immediately, XILTAR! (Yes?).
"Don't do that!" She replied in anger as she seated up and looked at the gray creature that had a look of regret in his glowing eyes. Tali felt guilty at this sight "I'm sorry…" She began to calm down from the fright with the… thing.
(Sorry) he spoke as he kneeled and offered her a hand to pick herself up (I reacted as quickly as I could and did not see you running in my direction).
Tali blushed in embarrassment and reached for the hand that Xilatar had been extending to her "Sorry, I was scared because of that… creature" Tali explained in shame as she stood up and began to rub her hand in embarrassment as she recalled how she had discovered the critter while in the vent as it had happened to her once before "I just don't like them…".
(It is alright, Tali'Zorah. I understand) the protoss nodded and turned towards his working station once more.
Tali remained where he had helped her to her feet. And looked at the back of the giant as she saw that he had removed his armor and only had a black fabric over his body.
She might have been hallucinating but Tali could swear that she saw a hexagonal pattern shine briefly through it before disappearing.
She snapped out of whatever trance she was in and she turned back in order to return to the core room. But just as she took the first step she stopped in her tracks as the memory of her embarrassing screaming inundated her mind and as she did this a blush of embarrassment ran across her face.
Keelah, she was such an idiot.
(You are not, Tali'Zorah. You are just… young) Xiltar said this to the distaste of the quarian. The last thing she needed was to be reminded of her status amongst her people by an alien that knew nothing of them (You may be surprised at how much your culture mirrors my own. But you better know that mine discriminates mainly on accomplishments and… alignment… rather than experience and age) Tali remembered that she had told nothing of her people to anybody save for Shepard…
Was he reading her mind without permission?
"Are you an expert on quarians then?" She asked in indignation as he couldn't possibly be aware of her situation in the slightest…
There was no wa…
(I don't understand why my words are seen with contempt) Xiltar said as he turned to look at her… again with this! (Before you decide to yell at me. You may find that my people tend to keep their thoughts to themselves in order to not offend each other) Wait, was she coming out as offensive? (For the most part, yes).
"Sorry… I didn't know" she apologized a little embarrassed at her outburst.
She had not realized that his existence was too different from her own.
(Not that much, Tali'Zorah. We are not so different) Xiltar replied as he continued with his work.
Even though he had once again gone through her thoughts as if they were nothing, she didn't find the will to fight him on this.
Deciding on saving herself the embarrassment of returning to the core she approached to see what the protoss had been working on and as Xiltar extracted something from his equipment, he quickly moved to the side and allowed the quarian to take a better look at his armor.
What she saw intrigued her.
The piece of equipment he had been working on was a strange combination between machinery and an almost organic design…
The chest plate resembled a six fingered hand that was being opened from the front and inside she could see that whatever wasn't outwardly some sort of padding had instead components that did not resemble anything she was familiar with.
However it was that this piece of technology was supposed to work was unfortunately beyond her understanding. Where she thought she recognized some sort of circuitry she was surprised to find that the material was a luminous crystal rather than a metallic cable.
Whenever her gaze fell upon a certain complement that served a greater purpose she could not assign a function to it save for some energy drains.
Tali approached the table as she wished to inspect the technology more closely but as hand barred her way did she realize that her thoughts had not been safe from the protoss.
(You can see. But do not dare to touch it) Xiltar said firmly.
"Em… why?" Tali asked sheepishly as she was curious for the reason.
(It is… dangerous) Xiltar began (It took me several decades of study to even comprehend most of my equipment and the risk of certain components still eludes my knowledge).
So don't touch the big, bad, glowing device.
Noted.
Tali nodded and took a step back to not interfere in the work of the protoss.
She turned to the rest of the cargo bay out of curiosity and was surprised to find it empty.
(They left in search of sustenance) Xiltar explained as he invaded her mind once again (It would not be invasive if you would speak your thoughts rather than remaining silent).
…
Tali almost wished to leave the rude creature alone, but she was still curious of whatever it was that he was doing.
The quarian inched her way forward and looked over his shoulder as the protoss was now kneeling in front of the table while he applied solder to one of his devices.
A triangular pad with a slight curvature upwards that had circuits of light running across its surface.
Right in the middle of it layed a crystal of strange design with several etches that were… letters?
It was glowing, was it radioactive? No, her suit didn't pick any harmful radiation, nor any other type of known radiation… weird.
"Xilatar what is that crystal?" She asked intrigued. He just looked at her with his eyes narrowed
(A power source) she was intrigued by the answer, but as she continued to analyze the strange design her mind began to run wild with both intrigue and an engineer's curiosity.
Why did the circuits run in that fashion and coalesce once again later on?
What about those nodes on the edges? Were they some kind of emitter?
With this amount of emitters one could disperse a great amount of energy should the power source be of enough capacity.
But why would it need to create this much energy in the first place?
Wait, this was…
"A plasma generator…" she whispered the right answer.
Xiltar suddenly stopped his task and turned to look at her with a look of surprise.
(Indeed it is) he spoke excitedly, was he happy? (Yes I am) ugh… was he going to do this all the time?
He just raised an eyebrow.
Never mind.
"Why would you need this amount of plasma anyway?" She asked "Now that I think about it I saw you use a plasma blade on the council chamber. Was that how you…" Tali was interrupted mid sentence by the alien as he just raised a hand.
(That wasn't a plasma blade) Xiltar explained to her surprise (Its nature is… exoteric. Needless to say this device is meant for something else).
"What for?" Tali asked
He just answered by putting the now patched up device on a back slot of his chest armor.
The protoss graved the chest plate and placed it on his back. It sealed shut with a motion that reminded her of a thing she had seen while taking a quick stroll though the citadel as she waited for the shadow broker to contact her.
What did that rude receptionist call them? An octopus?
(It was designed after a similar creature from my homeworld) Xiltar explained as he invaded her mind once again.
Tali just shook her head and continued to look as he finished fastening the chest plate and some pauldrons that he had also removed.
He then made a movement with his right hand and a bubble of energy appeared around him. And as Hexagons began to materialize from the top of him and down to the ground her curiosity was finally satisfied as he understood what the device did…
A plasma shield.
"Indeed" Xiltar now spoke through his armor and seemed satisfied by the result "Even though it hasn't regained its original strength, I don't run the risk of burning once again".
Wait. Was that how he ended up burnt the last time she saw him?
The engineer inside her got the better of the quarian and Tali felt as a thousand questions rushed through her mind.
What was its principle? What was the crystal's material? Was the circuitry made of an alloy from this material? How could she replicate this...
A little tap on her visor brought her back to reality and her gaze met that of Xiltar as he looked at her with a stern look.
"This technology is beyond your understanding and I don't wish for you to be hurt by it" the alien moved his hand once again and deactivated the shield that dissipated in a cloud of ionized air. He then departed for the elevator "You should go back to the core room. John Shepard and Gregory Adams have found the nest of critters you discovered" the doors closed behind him.
…
THERE WERE MORE?!
Afterword
Who can say where the road goes?
Where the days flow?
Only time
Edit - changed the chapter as those before.
Xiltar
And Tali
Become friends (Not really)
Co-op missions