The Adventures of the Lucen: The VykurCorp Conspiracy

by General Rage

Liara T'Soni continued her mission to protect the Galaxy while Commander Shepard is in another dimension. She must stop the Covenant and the allies they've gathered from wreaking havoc in a Galaxy without it's greatest hero. While she's had some success, there's a gathering storm on the horizon and one of her crew of misfits will be forced to confront her past before it clears.

16. Severance Package

Chapter 16: Severance Package

This had not at all gone to plan. None of it had. This was what you got for entrusting a good deal of a carefully coordinated False Flag operation to a bunch of washouts and weekend warriors from various backwater colonies. Orukuri had accepted that though, but he figured they'd at least be able to do some damage. He thought their fervor and fanaticism would translate to something useful if given a loaded gun and pointed in the right direction. But no, they failed, like their ancestors had centuries prior. A complete washout, he should've gone with a different cell instead of the CLC for name recognition.

They could've at least gotten one of the vials off, just a little, maybe killed someone of note like Fedorian or Victus. Hell, even killed that dumb actor, that would've upset someone. But no, not only do they all get killed or captured, not only do none of them manage to get a single bio-grenade off, but all anyone actually cares about or knows of in great detail... is watching some suit rat save the day! And not even from a recognized long-standing enemy of the Turian Hierarchy! No, the damn Quarian saved Fedorian, Victus and Stalaxian from a Geth! Reminding everyone, no doubt, of the Battle of the Citadel. Where humans saved the galaxy from a similar synthetic threat led by a turian. The worst kind of messaging.

Orukuri knew things were in motion now, that quarian was T'Soni's after all. She had probably managed to clear her name and that of her people. He was not concerned though, they had nothing on him, her word against his and a number of people who would back him up. At the very least, any effort to actually investigate him would take time. Time enough to plan his escape. Although it would be easier if Balak would pick up the damn secure line.

"Answer, you damn Batarian, come on," he snarled.

He had tried to reach him on the private quantum entanglement feed they had set up since last night. Balak had not responded. He left holo-messages to him transferred through various secure lines. No response, in fact, Balak hadn't even looked at them it seemed. No one was talking to him. He had kept trying for hours, but nothing.

"Bastard," he growled, finally shutting the communicator down.

It was obvious enough by now, he had just kept hoping if he bothered the four-eyed jackass enough he'd answer out of pure exasperation and annoyance. He at least wanted to talk to him, to be givem the chance work something out. Didn't Balak owe him that much? Didn't the Covenant? After everything he had done to help them, this was how they treated him? One screw up that wasn't even his fault and they just cut him loose. They had the gaul to make that call? They didn't need him anymore? Not his money or resources? He still had his personal private military forces; couldn't they still be useful to them?

He shook his head, no sense in crying about it now. What was done was done. He always suspected he couldn't trust Balak in the end. You can't trust aliens, that was the whole point of this. The Blood Pack had pulled out first after all, along with the Asari mercenaries. Like vermin from a crashing starship, they were only there because they were paid to be. They had no loyalty to him and once it was obvious where the wind was blowing, they pulled out. Balak and that belligerent krogan had probably told them to do so if things went wrong.

It didn't matter. For today, he'd play the part of the good CEO. He'd talk with the board, set up their strategy of how to respond to the situation. Make suggestions for how to recoup relations with the Turian Hierarchy, considering one of their weapon casings had nearly helped kill thousands of their people. There were optics to be considered, how to recover VykurCorps' image with the masses and all that.

It was just a smokescreen, something to cover his ass while he prepared his way off planet and out of Turian space. He had other assets he had kept hidden, even from his partners. He'd use them to set himself up somewhere nice, somewhere far away from the investigators and jurisdictions of the government he despised.

In the middle of planning, his thoughts drifted. Mainly to why this all started. He looked to a picture on his desk, that of a happier time, better times. Zoltriax, his seventh birthday, such a bright young child. From an early age he had been his pride, his joy, the one thing that actually gave him a true sense of accomplishment. A son, one that loved him, who did nothing but make him proud.

It didn't matter he didn't want to go into business with his father and VykurCorp, make the army his career, that was his choice, his patriotic duty. He had taken solace in the fact his son was serving his country. That was good enough.

To know that he was dead serving someone else ripped all that solace away. That he'd never know another day without hearing Zoltriax's voice or sharing time watching the game, because a bunch of humans needed protecting. They very thought tore at his core. His government betrayed him, why shouldn't they get the same in return for taking his son from him?

That wasn't possible now. Revenge and ascending to run the Hierarchy correctly, all over. There was no chance to achieve that lofty goal. What he needed to do was secure himself, so he couldn't be made a spectacle for the Hierarchy's goons.

There was a knock at his office door which brought him out of his thoughts.

"Vykurias and the others are ready, sir," a voice came. "They're just about to start."

"Yes, yes, tell Alkatinian I'll be with him in a minute," Orukuri assured.

He got up from his chair and straightened himself out. One little meeting to cover his tracks long enough to get out. This would've been easier if Balak wasn't ignoring him like he was. Whatever, if worse came to worse, he had his own bargaining chip. The Covenant still wanted that precious artifact of theirs. They needed him if they were ever going to find it.

---

VykurCorp's main office building was certainly imposing, but it did little to intimidate Liara. All the teeth had been removed by now. Orukuri had nowhere left to go. He just didn't know it yet, but her team would make him realize that in a most direct fashion. Palaven's law enforcement wanted to handle this, but Liara had asked them to wait. She believed her team were owed the opportunity to do this their way. Besides, she wanted to leave no doubt who the REAL Spadvius was.

She headed up from the landing pad towards the front entrance quickly being met with security as she approached. This was also part of why she was here, to see how much of Orukuri's influence was left at this company. As she suspected, the security guards moved around her as she got close to the entrance.

"Hold it, what's your business here, Asari?"

"I have an appointment with Spadvius Orukuri," she declared. "We have some things to discuss."

"He's in a meeting, maybe it would be best if you come back later," the security officer told her.

"He'll make time," Liara insisted.

She tried to push past them, but they blocked her path, one of them reaching towards his gun.

"You can't just enter the building without a pass," one of them said.

"Really? Is that official company policy or..."

"You're not getting in," the other officer said.

"Me specifically or anyone else?" Liara questioned.

"She matches the description," the first officer said in passing.

"Which description?" Liara asked.

"Too many questions," the second officer declared. "We'll hold her and tell the chief-"

Liara wasn't about to let this go further. She threw up her hands and sent the two security officers flying in separate directions. Slamming one into a decorative planter and another into an advertising sign. Mere moments later her ShadowNet mercs moved in from their vehicles and swarmed the area, disarming the security guards before they could rise.

"Detain them for now, let's keep this from getting more violent than it needs to be," she ordered before pressing her comm. "Vik, how are we doing?"

"Security Comms offline, they won't be contacting Orukuri."

"Good, do you have a location?"

"Yes, main boardroom, executive level eighty-seven."

"Thanks, keep all eyes on him."

Liara continued into the building proper. This would not take long. Vik was in the system. They couldn't stop her.

---

Alkatinian Vykurias, President of VykurCorp, probably the only other person that Orukuri would ever consider himself closer to. He liked the kid. Sure, he was still young in comparison to a lot of his peers on the board, but he had his father's acumen. Plus, they were chummy enough that he had trusted him implicitly with various other branches of the corporation. Orukuri hated deceiving him, but there was no other way. Alkatinian was just not well versed in the political reality of the Turian Hierarchy. He probably believed in it too much, frankly. It and the Council as partners at least.

If everything had gone to plan, perhaps one day he would've told the man the truth. Then maybe they could've work together in managing the new version of Turian society. Probably not though, Alkatinian was just not one to accept hard decisions like this. He'd never go for it. Simple as that. Which was why he had to cover his tracks right now. Hopefully Vykurias was still gullible enough to fool.

"This is really bad," the Company President explained, looking over everything laid out in front of him on the table. "I guess we should just be happy no one got hurt in the end. But still..."

"Security was Orukuri's department," one of the executives said. "To see how far it broke down... it's appalling."

"There's no excuse," Orukuri admitted, trying his best to appear innocent. "I thought that facility was secure and my men were doing their best to track the bomb casing down. It just... didn't play out the way we wanted."

"This is still the worst sort of thing that could happen with one of our military projects," Alkatinian exclaimed. "Used by terrorists in an attempt assassinate a Primarch on Palaven of all places. It's just distressing. Not to mention the people put at risk, so many lives. Have we gotten any potential lawsuits feelers?"

"A few are rattling around as I understand, but like you've said it could've been worse," another of the executives stated.

"Well, let's try and put a cap on that before it gets worse," Vykurias stated with a sigh. "Have legal begin processing funds towards general compensation to the city and those who were most directly impacted by the events of the day. The parade staff and their families I suppose. That should ease things."

"But none of this is our fault, we'd be accepting blame!" One executive decried. "Let's just double down on what we said at the press conference before all of this."

Vykurias shook his head.

"No, that was when we were working to resolve the security issue and recover the casing ourselves, which we failed to do," he corrected him. "This is how we save face, by admitting to our faults rather than trying to shift blame. It's a bit of a loss of money now, but we will rebound because of our prompt sense of responsibility."

"I would suggest another method would be paring down our military sector for the moment," Orukuri offered. "I can liquidate a few assets, transfer personnel to other departments. We downsize things a little without laying anyone off, shows we're willing to take a hit on things."

"Yes, that sounds like something we should do anyway," Alkatinian agreed. "Far too many R&D labs have been hit by all of this over the past few months. We need to restructure and, fact is, having too many investments made it hard to secure them all. It's no wonder that facility got hit."

Orukuri of course was only giving this idea because it was part of his plan. It took suspicion off him for one because he was sacrificing a good deal of his department within the company. But once he liquidated those assets, he'd add them to his own secret funding accounts to assist in his escape. They wouldn't notice, they'd just assume the money went to the little compensation package. A few million credits was nothing to them, it was how he had gotten away with a lot of this for so long.

"You know we should really consider that the facility's location was compromised internally," another Executive presumed. "How else could those terrorists get inside?"

"Has your personal investigation turned up anything yet, Spadvius?" Alkatinian asked.

"The logs are still being looked at, but we are narrowing down some possible leaks," Orukuri assured. "We'll have something before long, I'm sure of it."

They wouldn't, because he'd already wiped a lot of files cleaned and would be setting up some patsies to take the fall. Another way to obfuscate his involvement long enough to get out of here. T'Soni would have to work hard to disprove that evidence. She'd probably succeed, but he'd be long gone by then.

"I just want to assure everyone though that I understand the concerns surrounding what happened," he told everyone, getting up from his seat. "My privatized military force should have been more prepared for this scenario. As well as faster at resolving the situation when it arose. We should have assumed that something was aimed at our home world above all else. But we were working in the dark and that slowed us down. I think what needs to happen now is exactly what Alkatinian has said, accepting responsibility and accepting our failures. We can only grow back stronger from this, I assure you."

The executives all looked pleased at Orukuri's willingness to take on so much blame so readily. Mainly because none of them wanted to do it. Why would they? As long as it didn't alter their paychecks, salaries, departments, and possible promotions, they were just fine with anyone else accepting the blame. And they wouldn't question it for fear of something falling onto their shoulders. But there was also another way to placate them without looking too much like you were a meek little brown-noser.

"In any case, this honestly could work for us in the long run," he declared. "Why, the fact these separatists got so close is also a failing of the government. Given our collective responsibility, it seems only fair that our private military wing work more closely with local and federal law enforcement, share resources if you will. We could convince the various departments and agencies to sign contracts with us. In gesture of improving both of us in the long run. Fiscal responsibility and economical advancement."

"Eh, a one for two deal, I like it," Vykurias agreed. "We get government contracts, military grants and we make up for our failings by paying a debt to the Hierarchy at large. Honestly, no downside."

"Will they even buy it though given the extent of our perceived screw ups?" One executive asked.

"Of course," Orukuri declared. "Why I have a number of my own men guarding the building as we speak. They're some of the most top-notch soldiers in the whole of Turian space. They'll prove their mettle where it counts protecting our people and make credits for us in the process. Which is equally as important I think we can all agree."

The board all laughed at that. Idiots. It would just make it easier to keep an eye on the company and the government at large while he got away. Seeding his people inside everywhere. In a couple years, who knew, maybe he could try again, but smarter this time. Do it himself, not rely on a bunch of backwoods morons nostalgic for some war their great-great-grandfathers lost. There were probably a few more "greats" in there, but the point was the same.

However, amid the laughing, Orukuri thought he heard something else. Specifically outside the room. A lot of shouting, maybe a few punches, batons batting around, a lot of grunting, all of it getting closer. He briefly wondered what it was for a few seconds before the doors burst wide open, one of his mercenaries flying through it, his body cascaded in biotic energy. He slammed onto the table, interrupting the meeting, before finally conking out onto the hard surface.

The doorway was broken clean open, the automatic systems had been shorted out and the doors themselves smashed clean through by a massive biotic energy wave. They were trying to close still, but kept locking up before they could. Standing in the doorway itself was a single blue-skinned asari in a white battlegear overcoat. Instinctively, Orukuri moved into a defensive position near Alkatinian

"Apologies," Liara T'Soni greeted, stepping into the room. "I hadn't meant to be so... forceful."

If one could look out the door, they would see at least four other security mercs laid out along the hall. They hadn't even been able to get to their guns before Liara had stormed through them, their combat skills no match for her biotics.

"What is the meaning of this?" Alkatinian demanded. "You can't just barge in here, assault my employees, break company property and interrupt our business so... flagrantly. You at least should've asked my secretary to buss you in."

"I'm afraid it was necessary, more than a few of your security staff were very uncooperative," the asari explained. "They simply refused to allow me a moment of your time. I have information about the weapon casing stolen from your facility that almost poisoned thousands."

"This is ridiculous," Orukuri suddenly spoke up. "Don't you recognize her? This is Liara T'Soni, she's the one who helped steal the device with Cerberus to begin with."

Liara glared at him, but did not miss a beat in correcting him.

"We did not steal the casing and while Cerberus attempted to do so, they did not either," she informed them all. "The fact is simply this, Spadvius Orukuri has been lying to you all."

There was a lot murmuring within the room at this, but Liara continued unabated.

"Orukuri has been working with the CLC under the table, alongside various other terrorist groups, to assist in an operation that was aimed at the eventual toppling of Turian society as we know it. He gave them possession of the biological agent and the weapons casing system to help in his efforts to subvert your ruling government and replace it with one aligned to his own interests."

Everyone went silent and looked to Orukuri, who simply laughed, doing his best to keep a straight face.

"Preposterous," he declared. "What hack B-Vid thriller did you get that idea out of?"

"These are serious accusations, Ms. T'Soni," Alkatinian stated plainly. "Do you have any proof?"

Orukuri looked smug for a moment. This was folly. T'Soni had nothing, she was here to bluster, to look strong, to pretend she was worth a damn. But she wasn't. She was just some ditzy blue alien with a delusion that she could anything more than some hanger-on for the "Hero of the Citadel." She thought he could be intimidated, but she was wrong, dead wrong.

So why was she smiling?

"I do actually," she claimed readily.

Liara stepped over to the table and placed an OSD into presentation system. In moments, a holographic display lit up, revealing a small room and three figures. One of them was a Quantum Holographic presentation of Orukuri and the other two were Xeltravius, leader of the CLC and Hanilex, the separatist marksman that had been found dead, half melted on a rooftop overlooking the city centre square.

"And this virus... it will work?" Xeltravius asked.

"It's designed to target turians specifically, it will be the perfect weapon against the Hierarchy for you." Orukuri replied.

"We'll need a proper delivery system, not to mention a place to actually use it." Hanilex informed him in kind.

"You'll attack Palaven directly of course, we'll work out more details." Orukuri laid out plainly. "As for the delivery system, leave that to me. I'll have people develop it for you, when it's time... I'll send it your way."

"Why are you doing this?" Xeltravius questioned skeptically "You're practically betraying your government. Your people."

"My government betrayed me first. I'm just returning the favor." Orukuri declared with cold conviction. "The people are just collateral."

Liara then hit a button on the presentation imager to replay the last sentence again.

"My government betrayed me first. I'm just returning the favor. The people are just collateral."

Liara looked to Orukuri coldly at first, a smile growing little by little as time passed. The VykurCorp CEO just looked stunned. His words kept replaying.

"My government betrayed me first. I'm just returning the favor. The people are just collateral."

Liara crossed her arms as every executive slowly turned to Orukuri, their colleague, as he stood there dumbfounded. Even Alkatinian was shocked at what was playing. And replaying. On Loop.

"My government betrayed me first. I'm just returning the favor. The people are just collateral."

"It seems Hanilex didn't trust you from the start, Orukuri," she commented. "Bit of a rude awakening, isn't it? To find out you're not as slick as you thought?"

The shock vanished from Orukuri's face as he pulled out a sidearm and grabbed Alkatinian around his throat from behind. He then placed the gun to his company president's head and forced him to stand. The board erupted into panic as many of the executives scampered about trying to avoid Orukuri as he forced Alkatinian about the board room. Liara pulled her own pistol and trained it on the CEO turned hostage taker.

"The hell are you doing?!" Alkatinian demanded to know.

"Getting out of here," he declared defiantly and then looked to Liara herself. "You've clearly been in contact with the police, no other reason for you to be here. Tell them I want a shuttle, on the roof... now!"

"I'm not buying it, Orukuri," Liara told him flatly. "This all started when you lost your son. Would you really kill someone who's practically as close to you as him?"

"All business negotiations require some form of sacrifice," Orukuri said spitefully. "I might like the kid, but I'm not going to rot in some Hierarchy jail! I won't be made an example of by them! Not after what happened to Zoltriax! NEVER!"

"Zoltriax? Is that what this is all about? I thought you were at peace with that?!" Alkatinian questioned in a confused panic.

"He died fighting for humans on the Council's orders!" Orukuri screeched, turning the gun back to his President. "He died serving them! Not our people!"

"He died serving the galaxy! He died protecting people!" Liara shouted back. "Something you couldn't process! So you turned your back on everything he stood for!"

"I won't be sermonized by you, Asari! Now get me the damn shuttle or else!"

"You won't kill him," Liara said with a steely nerve in her eyes.

"Don't test me!" Orukuri screeched, pressing the gun deeper into Alkatinian's head.

"No, I mean you WON'T kill him," Liara reiterated, a blue aura creeping up her arm as she spoke.

It was then, out of the corner of his eye, Orukuri saw a chair fling across the room and smash into him. His grip on Vykurias was loosened, moments before Alkatinian gut checked him and bolted away. Orukuri moved to aim his gun... but he got two bullets put through he hand, the window behind him smashing to pieces.

Orukuri dropped his weapon and collapsed to the ground. Liara was already vaulting over the table to quickly kick the gun away and arrest Orukuri directly herself with a pair of handcuffs. He complained of course due to the pain in his arm, but it didn't faze Liara much.

"You... are very much fired, Spadvius," Alkatinian declared as soon as he got his bearings. "Completely! Spirits, I need a drink."

Liara didn't have time to comfort the company president as she was already getting another voice in her ear.

"I didn't kill him did I?" Nel asked. "I shot him where you told me to and everything."

"He's alive, thank you, Nel," Liara assured her. "Good shooting."

"I try, Doc. Oh and the other teams are securing the rest of the building's security. They're not putting up much of a fight honestly. I think they smelled the writing on the wall."

"Let's not assume we're clear yet," Liara warned. "Have someone get to Orukuri's office and secure it. Give Vik access and see what he can find. I want everything locked down when the police arrive."

"Copy."

Liara then pulled Orukuri to his feet and looked back to see Alkatinian getting a drink from a bottle of liquor nearby. His board of directors were slowly poking their heads out, one of them giving Liara a very awkward thumbs up.

"Well... this day just went down the toilet," Vykurias admitted.

"The police will be here shortly," Liara warned. "I suggest you open up all your company logs to them, specifically anything involving Spadvius' department."

"I... I guess that's my only real option," the company president admitted. "You must know we... we had nothing to do with this."

"No but it happened under your watch and a number of people were more than willing to help it along," Liara cautioned. "I'm sure the more you look back at the things, the more all of this will become more obvious."

"I... can't really argue that," Vykurias confessed. "I'm not in much of a position to."

"Your company has a lot of cleaning up to do," Liara said with a tone of finality. "I'll at least help with this one blemish."

Liara pushed Orukuri along, even as he crowed in pain at everything around him. His schemes were finished. His little conspiracy upended, unraveled, undone. But there was more Liara needed from him. They weren't finished with Spadvius Orukuri just yet.

---

"He's just sitting there," Nelanax said grumbling.

"What did you expect him to do?" Wrex asked.

Orukuri was indeed just sitting in the little interrogation room. Not even really doing anything, just staring at his fingers while he remained handcuffed. To be fair, The Lucen'sinterrogation room was technically a secondary storage space near the ship's brig. There was only a security camera pointed inside to give anyone an idea of what was going on. Most everything else besides the chair and the small table was stripped out of it. So there wasn't really much to look at besides himself.

They all wondered briefly if they should give Orukuri some playing cards or just anything to keep him preoccupied. Liara vetoed that discussion. She felt best to keep him alone with his thoughts. He probably had a lot to think about honestly and they had nothing but time. Under direct orders from Primarch Fedorian himself, Liara was allowed to keep Orukuri in custody for the time being. They were still working out exactly where to put him, given that his capture presented some complications.

It wasn't that the Hierarchy was afraid about announcing his arrest or charging him directly or anything. It was the simple fact that Balak and the Covenant would probably want him dead and they needed to prevent that given how much he likely knew. Orukuri was a key player in Balak's little terrorist conspiracy cabal. And he knew things about the Covenant and their weapons, having directly worked and experimented with them. They would not abide his capture. His death, they'd be fine with.

That was part of Liara's strategy here, to let Orukuri think about the simple fact that she was his only lifeline here. That he had to cooperate. However, it was still unnerving watching him just sit there, silently, glaring at his own hands.

"Can we at least play like... loud music and piss him off some?" Nel pleaded.

"No," Liara stated flatly. "I'm doing this right. No forceful coercion. No psychological deprivation. We're doing this clean."

"Doesn't sound very fun, honestly," Wrex admitted.

"I need to be sure everything he tells me is the truth," Liara explained directly. "We have a very specific objective in mind here, we can't forget that."

Liara then looked up at the clock.

"That should be enough," she said with a sigh. "Saya, join me."

The salarian pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on and followed Liara towards the door.

"Can we at least have a snack while you're getting into his head?" Nel asked. "I want to enjoy myself while he's squirming."

"I anticipated that, you can go watch with Vik and Kayap," Liara told her. "They've set things up in his shuttle to watch while Vik will be cross referencing information."

"Kick ass, I hope Bucket has some Graxen left. I mean how much can he pack away with that helmet of his?" Nel wondered aloud as she rushed past Liara.

As the turian left, Liara looked back to Wrex.

"You really think he's actually found anything of use?" He asked.

"He wouldn't have made that deal with the Covenant to attack the Andromeda Initiative if he didn't have something," Liara insisted. "He's a businessman, he wouldn't go into a deal without actually having something to deliver. Especially when his clients this time are murderous religious fanatics with far superior weaponry."

"Point made, just drag it out of him," Wrex reminded her.

Liara nodded and left with Saya. They headed a short distance away from the Brig Monitoring station to the interrogation room proper. Once inside, Orukuri barely even glanced in their direction. He didn't even move his head. He just looked briefly and then went back to glaring at his fingers. Saya propped himself up behind the turian while Liara took a seat across from him at the small table. After a few seconds, she finally started.

"Yesterday was my first time attending a Unification Day celebration on Palaven," she confessed. "It was rather eventful, I even got to be in the parade. Never would've imagined I'd do that ever, but my life has gotten rather... interesting the past few years honestly. I guess the same can be said of you. I doubt a few years ago you'd have imagined you'd be capable of doing the things you've done lately."

"Get to the point," Orukuri grumbled.

"Betraying your people, your government, essentially the entire Galaxy because you lost your son," Liara continued, ignoring Orukuri for now. "I admit, I suppose I can't really understand that. I have no children. But I do have a relevant perspective all the same, I think."

Orukuri snorted in derision, but still didn't look up. That was fine, she was about to hit him in the gut anyway.

"My mother did the same things you did, Orukuri," Liara admitted coldly. "But she had an excuse, she had been manipulated, controlled. It wasn't all her. I can take some small comfort in knowing that. Still hurts though, thinking about how she helped Saren almost destroy us all. So I know exactly how your son would feel if he were alive and had no such comforting thought to placate him. No excuse to give you. Because this was ALL you, and you have only yourself to blame."

Orukuri's fists balled, his angry gaze, however, to a more sullen one.

"You don't know my son," he said sorrowfully in a low tone. "You don't know how he'd feel."

"I know Zoltriax committed his life to service," Liara replied directly. "I know he believed in what he was doing was right. To give of himself to a greater whole. And that greater whole included the Galaxy at large, not just Turian lives, but all life. I know that because I've seen the records, I managed to unseal them. You know what I found?"

Orukuri tried to move his body and head away from her. It didn't matter, he could still hear her just fine.

"Zoltriax Orukuri was in that Secret Pan-Species Taskforce for more than a year before his death," Liara declared. "He could've transferred out. He could've left. He could've rejoined the regular Turian Military. He even had his pick of missions. He chose to go to that colony because people were in danger and needed help. He made all of those choices himself, the same way you did. You made the choice to dishonor his sacrifice and endanger lives for your own ambitions."

Orukuri rocked a bit in his chair as she spoke, she wasn't done though.

"You're right though, I don't know him, I'm not his parent. You are," she reminded him. "So tell me then... what would he be saying were he here right now? Would he be proud of what you did in his name?"

Orukuri took a moment and finally turned back, his head now raised.

"I only did this because he's gone," he claimed.

"This doesn't come from nowhere," Liara told him, shaking her head. "This doesn't come purely out of grief. This reaction... it's because a part of you always felt this way. Tell me I'm wrong. Please."

Orukuri said nothing, but continued to look at the Asari all the same.

"I know what you're doing," he grumbled. "I can't help you."

"Help yourself then," Liara insisted. "You know as well as I do that you're doomed. You don't think we weren't monitoring your communications? That we didn't get a peek into your systems before we arrived? You were trying to call Balak and he didn't even bother to reply. It's obvious what that means, he's already written you off. The Covenant are probably already looking for you. If we didn't get you, they would've. In my mind, that means you owe us."

Orukuri scoffed.

"For what? A few extra hours at best?" He asked. "You can't protect me and you can't win. It doesn't matter that I failed, I was always in this for my own reasons. They just happened to align with the others. Balak's plans are already well underway and separate from my own. You can't beat him, so why should I bother helping you?"

"Maybe so your son's spirit can rest knowing you didn't completely dishonor his memory," Liara declared, crossing her arms. "By doing at least one thing worthwhile."

The turian glowered, not entirely convinced it seemed.

"Let me break this down for you," he began, matching the asari's gaze. "It doesn't matter. The Blood Pack is preparing to consolidate. Balak's people are prepping for their attacks on the Systems Alliance's space. The Covenant are tightening their grasp on the Hegemony, even Balak knows it and doesn't care. So long as the humans pay, because he's just that damn fanatical. And that hold will be complete when the Covenant themselves find what they're looking for."

"Then help us," Liara requested once more. "What do you honestly have to lose at this point?"

"I don't know, maybe the satisfaction that you're not going to completely win on this one thing," Orukuri claimed.

Liara rolled her eyes.

"So you're being a child, you lost so everyone else has to pay?" She asked.

"It's not a question of me losing so much as it's the simple fact you've already lost," Orukuri replied with complete certainty in his tone. "Why should I help you when, on top of ruining everything I was working towards for years, I know its pointless? You can't beat them, T'Soni! It's just that simple!"

"My team took your scheme apart piece by piece," Liara reminded him.

"Barely," Orukuri claimed. "You only barely managed to pull out a win here."

"There were complications, but no more than ones you created for yourself when you got Cerberus involved," Liara insisted. "If we hadn't been here, they would've likely stopped you on their own just for trying to frame them for everything."

"True, but what about the Geth?" Orukuri questioned.

Liara shrugged.

"That... thing... is a problem we'll deal with in time, but the point stands," she insisted. "We held our own, we've more than proven we're capable. We stopped you, Orukuri. What makes you think we don't stand a chance against Balak and the Covenant?"

"Because I had a few handicaps myself on this, they don't," Orukuri claimed. "Balak has made it clear, he's going to injure the Systems Alliance to the point they won't be able to project the same power they once did. They're still recovering from the Battle of the Citadel two years ago, what he's going to do will leave the Attican Traverse completely open to plunder. And once Trox gets the Blood Pack unified he'll have more than enough muscle to pull it off. Not that it will matter, because even if that falls through, the Covenant will be there to finish things off."

Liara laid back in her chair a little, looking to Saya. The Salarian cocked his head, sharing in her interest.

"You seem to know a lot about their plans," Liara observed. "Why else would you be so confident they'd succeed?"

"I don't know everything, I just know the obvious," Orukuri claimed. "Having to constantly talk with Balak, Trox and the Covenant Leadership, like their new Fleet Master, forces you to pick up on things. I don't know the how, wheres, whens or whys, but I do know the broad strokes and none of it bodes well for you. Balak is checking both military and civilian targets for something the Alliance can't afford to lose, can't afford to leave undefended so he can open the way to whatever his real target is."

"And what would that entail?" Liara asked pressingly.

"I don't know! He hasn't shared! All I know is that you can't stop it because it will likely be too far spread out and seemingly random," Orukuri answered, sounding more annoyed as he spoke. "Balak has a list now, is what I'm saying. He's checking to see which ones will matter most. I don't know what's on it, but it all just leads up to the real target. Whatever that is. If I can't figure it out with how much he babbled on about why he needed these weapons here or those experimental mods there, how are you going to figure it out?"

"I have my ways," Liara assured him. "Thank you all the same for getting me started at least."

Orukuri let out a small chortle.

"I haven't helped, the Blood Pack is going to be consolidated long before then," Orukuri warned. "You'll be dealing with angry battle-raging Krogan on every mission! They'll actively hunt you down! That's going to be their primary concern, if only so the Covenant doesn't have to do it themselves."

"Why would the Blood Pack unify under Trox though?" Liara asked. "He's not exactly what I'd call... leadership material. That was Kreave, and he's dead."

"Trox is nowhere near that lunatic's level, but it doesn't matter," Orukuri claimed. "He's been getting a ton of Covenant weapons, some of which I helped redesign. The Pack chapters respect power above all else, as well as the ability to make things explode."

Liara shook her head in disbelief.

"The Blood Pack gets some heavy firepower and Trox becomes their overlord? Please, that's insane," she said, completely discounting the claim. "Even Krogan Mercenaries aren't that easily bought."

"There's a whole bunch of other extenuating circumstances," Orukuri insisted. "I imagine Trox has other bargaining chips and offers to sway the chapters to merge under him. But it's going to happen, the Blood Pack is getting weaker by the day. I'm guessing you already have an inkling as to why?"

Liara nodded, although she was loathe to confirm the information. But Orukuri was talking, maybe not about the things Liara really wanted answers to, but at least it was something. She needed to keep it going.

"The Vorcha are outnumbering them," she answered.

"Exactly, and the thought of the Krogan being outnumbered by their attack dogs within the organization THEY created? The Blood Pack won't stand for it," Orukuri declared. "They all know they'll have to adapt or risk the Vorcha taking over. I'm not sure what Trox will ultimately use to convince them to go along with him or where their little Krush will take place... but that fear alone will be enough to force the Chapters to hear him out."

"Then it sounds like we'll need to show them that Trox, for all his biotic ability, can't solve the problem for them," Liara surmised. "Whatever it is he's planning, we can take him down."

Orukuri offered a mock show of applause.

"Oh good, then you'll just be dealing with the Covenant on a regular basis instead," he forewarned. "Like I told you, no matter what you do, there's just too many parts in motion to stop what's coming. You spent too long on me."

"I'm more than capable of multitasking, much like you are," Liara assured the ex-CEO, before getting to the heart of the matter. "You're more familiar with the Covenant than we originally suspected. You promised Vorsa and his people information on the artifact they're after. You didn't deliver though."

The turian was quick to jump out of his seat and slam his hands on the table.

"They failed," Orukuri said rather defensively. "No thanks to you, sure! But they failed all the same! They were supposed to knock out the Initiative! They bungled it! I didn't deliver because they couldn't do the job! Those were the terms! I cheated no one!"

Saya pushed off the wall and forced Orukuri back into his seat. When the turian looked into the black visor of the STG's agent's helmet, his own face mirrored back at the Ex-CEO, Orukuri calmed himself. Saya remained beside him all the same, as the turian continued in a calmer demeanor and tone.

"They didn't do the job," he clarified. "That's all there is to it."

"I understand," Liara assured him. "But the facts remain that you offered them something, which means you have a working relationship with them."

"I needed their guns, they needed my upgrades, simple as that," Orukuri claimed.

"And yet you still had enough pull to make them attack the Andromeda Initiative," Liara stated. "Why did you want to take them down anyway? What threat are they to you?"

"None, but they were working on incredibly advanced technology," the turian stated. "Tech that could've strengthened my position come the new regime had my plan succeeded. I couldn't just let them... run off with all of it. So the attack was to weaken them so VykurCorp could come in, pick up the pieces and take over the Initiative when the time was right."

It always came back to simple greed, didn't it? Not that it would've mattered. If Shepard's information from the alternate timeline was correct, Orukuri never would've even gotten his hands on the Initiative's tech in the end. It would've been completely useless once the Covenant launched their full-scale invasion. Shortly followed by the Reapers of course. That wasn't entirely important now though.

"And in return for giving your company a massive technological windfall by taking over the Initiative Financial-Wise... what would you be giving the Covenant?" Liara finally asked.

"What does it matter?" Orukuri asked. "The whole point of the thing was to try and get the Covenant in my pocket. Make them grateful that I was on their side so Vorsa would be less of an ass about giving me their weapons tech."

"Well now they're likely going to kill you for that information, Orukuri," Liara reminded him. "Do you want to give them the satisfaction of that?"

Once again, Orukuri scoffed.

"And what, give you the information and satisfaction instead?" He laughed. "There's nothing in it for me, T'Soni. Nothing at all."

"You have the chance to live up to your son's example," Liara was quick to remind him. "A lot of innocent lives could be hurt by the Covenant over this."

"A bunch of big stupid jellyfish," Orukuri said, waving one of his hands dismissively. "Those Hanar are little different from the Covenant in their fanaticism. Who cares if a few of them get wiped off the map?"

"Your son would care," Liara reiterated. "I think he'd care a great deal knowing his father could've prevented a massacre and did nothing to stop it."

"Zoltriax is DEAD!" Orukuri screeched. "He's dead, T'Soni! What matters to him is irrelevant!"

Liara just looked at him, she didn't even respond. She instead let the words Orukuri just spoke hang in the air. In the next few seconds, the turian suddenly took in the gravity of what he had said. It took another minute of silence before he just dropped his head down on the table in anguish.

"Isn't it about time to let this go?" Liara asked him at last. "What has this vendetta gotten you in the end? What has hating so many people for the death of your son done for you? Can you honestly say any of this was worth it?"

"Like I keep saying," Orukuri asked, his head still down. "What does it matter now?"

"It matters to those Hanar who have done nothing to you," Liara insisted. "It matters to all the people you've hurt. And like I keep saying, it would've mattered to Zoltriax. If you don't care about him anymore, fine. But it makes me wonder if you ever did. If his death was, as I suspect, just an excuse to drop the mask and do what you always wanted to do."

Liara motioned to get up from her seat, but Orukuri suddenly sat back up.

"My son always mattered to me," he declared defiantly. "I did all this for him. All of it! I sacrificed so much... because I lost him. You can't just... arbitrarily declare what this was about and walk away!"

"You've done nothing to really prove me wrong so far," Liara told him with a blunt tone.

In that moment, Orukuri growled aloud. He then sighed. This was it; he was out of excuses.

"There's... an encrypted fragmented program in my omni-tool. You probably have it," he began, sounding rather defeated and exhausted at this point. "Assuming your quarian hasn't decrypted it already, its a passcode that unlocks a private datafile I have stored in a shell company server. You can access it remotely with that. I'll give you the server name and the specific location. Once you're in... it will give you everything you need."

"Is there a way the Covenant could've accessed it by now?" Liara asked.

"There are ways, but it would be very difficult and I didn't give them the details," Orukuri explained. "They've narrowed the location down though. Chances are, they're already on Kahje, waiting to make their move."

Liara contacted Vik on her comm.

"Well? You've been listening."

"I'm defragmenting it now, it shouldn't take long," the quarian reported. "Cleverly hidden, but once he started explaining I knew what to look for. Hopefully it checks out."

"I don't suppose I can just ask for the exact location?" Liara said, questioning Orukuri once again.

"I doubt you'll believe me on my word alone," Orukuri claimed. "Once you see the information, you'll see it's accurate."

"Fair enough," Liara said. "You can stew for a bit then. Once we've confirmed things, you can expect someone to stop by to deliver you to your new home."

Liara got up once again to leave, Saya followed. Once they were outside the room, Liara noticed a text from Saya pop up on her omni-tool.

He's leaving out something.

"He still fears the Covenant, of course he's hiding something," she told him. "He probably has an easier way for us to acquire the information on him somewhere."

Saya sent another text.

Personal Serch was clean. Very thorough.

"If the Covenant get to him, they'll try to force it out of him," Liara agreed. "He'll fold, if only to save himself, and because he doesn't completely care if we succeed in stopping them. Just giving us the info in one way is enough to clear his conscience."

Saya texted again.

Lousy morals. Typical Capitalist.

"We got what we needed, hopefully," Liara said. "Vik will cross-reference things and we'll figure it out from there."

It was all they could do. Liara just hoped that there was enough love left for his son still in him that Orukuri gave them the accurate information they needed. That, and the hope that the Covenant would not catch up to him before they managed to find what they were after first.

---

Kahje had regular rainstorms. The planet was mostly water after all, that was just expected. Currently there was a storm over their specific target, creating rough winds and seas. Both were far from ideal conditions to be flying into or even swimming beneath. There was little choice though, Orukuri's information panned out. There was a temple on Kahje, deep beneath the waves, that held what they were after.

According to what Liara could find and what her contacts could uncover, this temple was particularly off limits to many but the most prominent archeologists and scholars. Not surprising, the Hanar were rather protective of anything concerned their faith.

Here though, unlike some religions, the reasoning was a bit of an open secret. There were various depictions of the Protheans inside, depicting bits of their empire's history going way back, to before the Hanar were even "uplifted" as their species claimed. The further you went in, the further back into their history you went. The Hanar recovered a lot of information from just the first few rooms they had opened.

And those first few rooms were all they had ever opened. A good deal of the temple was, of course, flooded. While this wasn't a problem for the Hanar in any real sense, there was a fear that further excavation could damage the temple, weaken it and, due to its advanced age, potentially destroy it. As such an action would be heretical, accident or otherwise, the Hanar restricted going any further into the temple. As they had done with other similar Prothean sites. As much as they wanted to be closer to their beloved "Enkindlers", the Hanar refused to potentially destroy their works in the process. A Catch-22 if there ever was one.

Getting permission from the Hanar to go inside then should've been difficult then. However, it seemed that there was a safer way to reach the temple's inner sanctum. It was one that Orukuri's people had discovered in secret performing covert reconnaissance on Kahje. Using a deep-sea scanner, utilizing advanced sonar and echolocation equipment, the VykurCorp team had mapped out a rough approximation of the inside of the temple.

They had found a path into it, one that could be reached through a series of underwater caverns. Under normal circumstances, a maze one could easily be lost in. They had a map though, one that would take them directly beyond where the Hanar had stopped excavating and eventually towards a large open space.

What had made Orukuri so sure it was this temple to begin with though? What had he found that pointed him here? Why trust this information at all? As had been detailed in the packet Vik had uncovered, VykurCorp had beaten Balak's research teams to the punch. With the Hegemony dragging their feet and failing to find any information of value, Orukuri had taken the initiative and sent teams to potential sites the Covenant had outlined but the Hegemony had held off investigating.

One of those leads had paid off, revealing Prothean Data Logs that suggested a connection to the Forerunners that led back to the very temple in question on Kahje. Something about "interdimensional rivals", it was the best translation they could get out of the corrupted ancient servers they had found. Maybe if it had been a beacon, they'd have gotten a clearer image... or possibly someone's brain would've exploded. You could never tell with Prothean Beacons sometimes.

All the same, it was enough to convince Liara this was where they needed to be. She was the Prothean expert after all. So she got her contacts to get in touch with a few of the right people which quickly got them access to explore the caves under the basis of uncovering "Enkindler Runes" near the temple location. It was better not to make the Hanar panic over the prospect of one of their sacred sites being attacked, as well as a cover if the Covenant themselves were listening in on government communications.

Just to be safe though, Liara sent intelligence to the Hanar government's planetary defense branch about a possible enemy incursion that sought to damage "Sacred Enkindler Sites." It was a general warning, so as not to give away the game should it be intercepted, but now the Hanar, their automated defense systems and numerous Drell that cohabitated on Khaje with them and made up the bulk of the security forces, would be on stand-by. She doubted it would make Vorsa's Sangheili think twice about committing to an attack anyway, but at least it wouldn't be easy for them. They had already lost the element of surprise, that would have to be enough.

Liara still expected to show up eventually though, Orukuri might have just been transferred to a high security orbital prison, but the Covenant would not care. If it meant recovering what they felt was something from their gods stolen from them by the Hanar, they'd stop at nothing to get their claws on it. She had told the Hierarchy to be mindful of a potential assault on wherever they sent Orukuri, but they seemed rather confident they could handle any attempt to free some corpie traitor by either a bunch of mercs or Seppies. Liara had tried to explain it would be worse than either of those, but the Hierarchy was eager to just put this whole situation to bed and behind them. Orukuri had been exposed, him and his minions were behind bars, trials were being swiftly arraigned for all of them, as far as they were concerned this was over.

She really hoped they were right, or at least it would take a while for them to find out they were wrong. When were they ever that lucky though?

Procuring a submersible took some time, especially since they needed one that could navigate the rough currents during the storm. There was some insistence they wait out the bad weather, about three to four days, but that was simply not doable.

They finally got the exploratory sub that was licensed to travel so deep for excavation work. They'd be airlifted to the launch point as that was easier than trying to sail out there at the moment. Stuck in the Submersible for the trip were Liara herself, Nel, Kayap, Saya, Wrex and Vik, plus two Shadownet Mercs with piloting experiencing to help get them inside. Wrex could barely fit in the thing himself and was not particularly happy with the accommodations.

"This is worse than the Mako," he remarked.

"At least Shepard's not driving," Liara tried to reassure him.

"I doubt that will matter given the weather," he replied.

Strangely, Vik was rather okay with things whereas Nel was a bit more on edge. The prospect of any part of the hull breaking and squishing them into nothing in seconds as a result of the intense pressure was a little nerve wracking. Whereas Vik just seemed calmer than normal. Apparently for Quarians, cramped spaces were rather homely. Then again, Vik had been living out of a shuttle for years at this point or in cheap apartments that were already small or made small by his "organized chaos" method of storing items. In fact, he was actually sleeping by the time they reached the launch point.

"He's rubbing it in, you know," Nel claimed just moments before they launched. "He's trying to prove his badass Geth kill isn't a fluke or whatever."

"Nel, just relax," Liara insisted. "This is the highest rated excavation sub on offer. We even got it at a discount given the work we claim we're doing and based off of my reputation. We'll be fine."

"I'll remember that when this bulkhead starts buckling seconds before we're crushed like that one dude's head in the most violent Stalaxian Ripoff vid ever made, 'Bleeding Blue Talons'. Which was never released as a result of that scene actually. It can only be found in some of the darker corners of the Extranet."

"Right, sure," Liara sighed. "I'm positive we'll be fine all the same."

When they were ready, their escort shuttle dropped them into the drink. They were informed of course that it would be a while before anyone could pick them up, at least until the wind died down in a few hours. Liara assured their escorts in advance that they'd be fine, they had their own way out in any case.

It took a bit of time to navigate the alien waters. Their map was detailed but due to the depth and the storm above, there wasn't exactly much light down here. As a result, there also was not much to look at on the camera feeds. Everything was just a murky black, night vision or otherwise.

Vik remained perfectly at ease, which was oddly unsettling given his usual demeanor. Nel was anxious, but she did a good job at not showing it. Kayap could pick up on the turian's emotional state though and it did not help him at all. Saya remained contemplative and at rest. Wrex continued to grumble about the lack of space.

"This is officially the worst kind of situation you could put any krogan into," he growled.

"Claustrophobic?" Nel asked, clearly hoping he was so she'd have one over on someone down here.

"Not exactly," Wrex claimed. "We don't do well in cramped spaces. I feel cornered constantly, it puts me on edge."

"That's technically all that claustrophobia is, Wrex," Liara told him bluntly.

"No, because I'm not afraid of small spaces... I'm agitated by them," Wrex declared. "There's a very distinct difference between afraid and annoyed."

"Yeah, that is true," Nel relented. "So is this the part where you tell us you're not afraid of anything?"

"That's something idiots say who have no confidence in themselves," Wrex declared. "Krogan can be scared as much as anyone. It's fighting back the fear that matters, conquering it, like Krogan do everything."

"Okay, that tracks with you guys," Nel admitted. "So... you are afraid of something?"

Wrex turned a disgruntled look to the turian.

"Just cause I admit it doesn't mean I'm gonna go blabbing about it," he shot back. "That's just dumb."

"You never did want to see Dr. Chakwas back on the Normandy," Liara recalled.

"Oh don't you start, T'Soni," Wrex grimaced. "Besides, all krogan are suspicious of doctors... well, alien ones anyway."

Liara didn't mean to jump in on teasing Wrex, but she needed the distraction herself. She wasn't afraid of feeling trapped, crushed or the dark, she had long since gotten over those things. She did need to take her mind off the mission for a minute though. For every second they wasted trying to get to the inner sanctum of the temple, it meant another second the Covenant could be closing in themselves.

She had told her people to monitor the prison Orukuri had been sent to. The second anything happened, she instructed them to inform her. Problem was, communications this deep were less than ideal. It would be a while before anyone could connect to them through her private channel.

So by the time she learned anything, it might be too late. And that was far scarier than anything else right now. After all they had been through to get here, to stumble now was a dreadful thought.

Finally, they located the cave entrance. The sub slipped inside, drifting through the dark of the underwater catacombs. This place was indeed a maze of tunnels, leading who knew how far and where. They just needed to follow one path though. With their sonar equipped, they were able to trace the way through the winding caverns easily enough, following the map provided to them.

Liara wondered if the Sangheili would've appreciated Orukuri giving them a covert backdoor. More likely, they'd just bust down the front one. Well, Vorsa would, he seemed like the sort to not really care about preserving other cultures' historical religious sites. If a few doors stood in his way to... what it was he was after, he'd just kick them down. All the more reason to act quickly in this case.

The dark of the deep caverns remained all the same, even as they navigated the area. The night vision did little to illuminate much beyond more rocky walls. Things took a change soon enough though. Bioluminecent runes shone on the walls, lighting up the camera feeds. The night vision wasn't needed anymore, glowing blue and green lights presented a far better source of illumination. They easily followed the rest of the cavern up until they finally reached saw a brilliant burst of light ahead.

"I think we've arrived, people," Liara told them.

Nel kicked Vik's foot.

"Wake up, Bucket!" She shouted.

"I was awake," He groaned. "I was just being quiet."

"How am I supposed to know? You're wearing a damn helmet!" Nel complained.

All at once the sub began surface. Apparently there was an air pocket within the temple this deep in. That wasn't surprising. A lot of the temples on Kahje had air pockets. You could go to any of the ancient temples and walk in within their halls rather easily, no scuba or pressurized diving gear required. It made studying the old ruins easier than it should've been.

The reason for the stable air pockets was likely because the Protheans actually were using these places as observation posts, but you couldn't exactly tell the Hanar that. These were sacred holy sites to them, not sterile abandoned scientific labs meant for clinical formal study. No matter how much you tried to explain such to the Hanar, they'd insist otherwise. At most, they'd reframe the term of "Observation" into "Guiding" or "Watching Over Us."

Hanar were very touchy about the subject of their Enkindlers, but at least they were generally peaceful about it. For a race of fanatic Prothean worshippers, they rarely turned their faith into an excuse. In many ways, they were the direct opposite of the Covenant.

Regardless, this temple's insides were much the same to others. A bit worn, not nearly as cleaned up and restored as other Prothean Ruins on Kahje, but intact. In any case, they could actually breathe in here and would have to continue on foot anyway, so everyone was more than happy to pile out of the sub. Vik, however, seemed a bit disappointed though as he claimed he had found the trip rather comfortable. All the same, everyone got to work securing the perimeter and taking in their surrounds. Save for their pilots who remained in the sub for now.

It was only when they were outside that Liara noticed some oddities to their surroundings. Yes, this was mostly Prothean in design, but it seemed... off. Some of the corners weren't the same as other ruins she had visited. The architecture was different. Some of the designs clashed with one another. It looked, for lack of a better word, like some of this place had been retrofitted.

To the layman, with all the damp undersea overgrowth, countless centuries of wear and tear, along with a number of other facts, one could be forgiven for not seeing it. However, Liara could tell just from one of the support pillars as she got out of the sub, this place wasn't entire Prothean in design.

"I think we can confirm Orukuri's intel was spot on," she declared, rubbing her hand over the pillar itself.

Brushing away the creeping watery sea vines on the pillar confirmed it. Part of the support had been affixed with clearly Prothean-made material, patching up something that was very obviously not theirs. Liara had encountered a lot of this in her travels, it had been her first clue to discovering the Protheans were likely not the first galactic-spanning civilization. That discovery would lead her to Shepard and finding out the Reapers were the true cause of the Prothean Extinction. However, while she had encountered Prothean ruins built a top of other ancient civilizations before, she had never seen one that looked like this.

The more she searched the atrium the more evidence she found. Prothean terminals plugged into devices that were most certainly not theirs. Etchings and designs on the walls that simply didn't line up. Again, she had seen this before, but it was always with something much older and covering it up nearly completely.

This was not the case here and a preliminary scan proved it. These two contrasting styles and tech were around the same age. And given that the non-Prothean tech and architecture looked fairly similar to certain other sites she had more recently investigated, including a certain massive ship they had freed from underneath the surface of a moon, she had an educated guess as to what this place used to be.

Liara didn't dawdle though and she refused to let her team do the same. She had them press on through the Inner Sanctum, moving through the halls of the old structure. She bypassed one of the doors up ahead with an old program she had used on many Prothean Ruins she had excavated before. This one took a bit of time, but it did creak open. Thousands of years of rust and rock giving way ever so slowly. The further they went in, the more obvious the retrofits became. More of the Prothean tech and decor gave way to something else, something distinctly more... Forerunner. The blue light and shiny chrome gave it away the most really.

"Okay, what the hell?" Nel asked, noticing their changing surroundings herself. "Are we stepping into some kind of collaboration project here? The fuck is going on?"

"Think of what we already know, Nel," Liara reminded the Turian. "According to what we've already discerned, with help from Shepard, the Forerunners were fleeing their own universe. They established a beachhead here, a foothold in our version of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is highly likely, given the respective timeframes of both our universes, that the Protheans encountered them."

"It makes sense, they did pretty much run the galaxy," Wrex confirmed. "I don't think the Forerunners could just slip in and go unnoticed for long."

"And I doubt they appreciated running into each other," Vik added. "Empires don't tend to... well share with one another. History has proven that."

"We've uncovered evidence that the Forerunners may have been intending to restart their empire here," Liara recalled. "It's unlikely that the Protheans would've appreciated a potential invasion from another universe. But it largely depends on when the Forerunners arrived. It could've been long before the Reapers arrived or even during it. Perhaps even shortly before the Protheans found themselves targeted for harvest. Depending on the scenario, it could've drastically altered their response."

"All I'm saying is, that it looks and sounds like the Forerunners and the Protheans didn't get along," Vik clarified. "You don't need to fix up a place with your own tech and materials unless you took a hammer to it."

As much as Liara was loath to admit it, she knew Vik had a point. She had always tried to be mindful about mythologizing the Protheans. It was entirely possible that the Forerunners could've easily been seen as an aggressive encroaching threat, regardless of anything else. However, they would not know for sure unless they actually tried to access this facility's logs. The Forerunners' technology seemed mostly intact. Perhaps it could provide them answers, Vorsa seemed to think it would.

"Kayap," Liara said, turning to the Unggoy. "You know more about the Forerunners than I do. Where would we look in here for a master terminal?"

Kayap looked about the room, eventually pointing over to a large wall lined with consoles.

"There looks good," he said.

Liara approached the wall, eyeing its consoles curiously. As she did though, her gaze turned to the wall itself behind it all. Despite the wear of it, she could tell there were hieroglyphics, images, a story crafted into the steel of the facility. It did not look Prothean, it was far too different in style from their visual storytelling designs. No, this was most certainly Forerunner. She used a drone with a light to get a better look at the images themselves. While she couldn't exactly read them, they told a clear enough story that she could interpret.

"It seems the Protheans did encounter the Forerunners," Liara stated, her light illuminating a meeting between the two races.

The stylized rendering of a Prothean and a floating humanoid creature that was clearly a Forerunner, at least she assumed as much, was rather clear on how it went. The Protheans with their weapons seemed less than happy to see the newcomer after all. Given the style of the piece, and its construction out of the steel chrome fixture, it was likely from the Forerunner's perspective. She wouldn't let that cloud her judgment, but it was important to note that both the Protheans and the Forerunners were likely unreliable as narrators. Given the rest of the images, Liara had some concerns about the latter in any case.

They showed the Forerunners' exodus from their universe and their seeding of colonies throughout the galaxy. Renderings of ships fleeing holes in the sky and outposts being created out of the earth were self evident enough. As was the central figure in all of these images, a large imposing Forerunner that seemed to hold the galaxy in their hands.

"They're pretty big on themselves, Doc," Nel said, clearly referencing the Forerunners. "I think the Bucket was right on this, the Forerunners had designs on our Galaxy and the Protheans weren't keen to share."

"They were fleeing potential extinction," Liara reminded them. "We can't judge them too harshly by our own standards, especially under that context."

"Still, why display it in art?" Wrex asked.

"If they intended to restart here, I imagine they wanted people to remember where they came from and why," Liara surmised. "These terminals could potentially tell us more. We need to activate them."

Vik took a look at the consoles, scanning them with his omni-tool.

"Hmm, superficial damage, it should still work," he claimed. "We'll need to locate the power source though."

The team scanned around the room, focusing mostly on the wiring that they could find in the room. Eventually, Liara tracked one of the wiring clusters to a section off to the right of the chamber. It led to a small alcove with strange device centered in it. She tried activating, but got nothing.

"I'm starting to think we should've brought Coda," Liara sighed.

"There wasn't enough room in the sub and he's a floating purple ball of volatile gas," Wrex reminded her. "That would've been an exceptionally bad idea."

Liara supposed he was right, but there was no denying that Huragok would've probably could've got this place up and running faster than them. Nevertheless, they had to soldier on. Vik came over to examine the device, but after pulling off a panel and looking around the guts of the machine, he looked stumped.

"I don't know how much of this is Prothean and how much is Forerunner," he confessed. "Let alone how it works."

Liara moved in to take a look herself, it did indeed look like it had been repaired with foreign tech from its original design.

"It must've been damaged somehow and the Protheans tried to get it working again," she presumed. "Obviously it wasn't a perfect fix. I believe that's the power coupling. I've seen a similar make on various digs. So... that should be the conductor... maybe."

"Hmm," Vik grumbled, his own frustration evident. "It looks intact, but I don't know how to switch it on from in here. Usually there's something to bypass, but its just a messy jury rigged-system. I'm afraid of touching the wrong thing and breaking it utterly. Best I can figure, this place has been without power for a good while now. I suppose we could jumpstart it, see how that works. We'd need a sufficient supply of power though."

At that moment, Saya approached holding out his sword. Liara instantly understood the Salarian's plan. It wasn't as easy as sticking the blade right into the machine and activating its current, no that would potentially short the device out. Vik instead guided Saya to place the blade between what he and Liara determined was the device's conductor and main power flowline.

"We just need a jolt," Vik claimed. "Enough to activate the system and see what that does."

Saya nodded and pressed the electrical current switch. In seconds, the burst of electricity flowed from the swore and into the device. A brilliant mix of green and blue lit up the insides and soon the device's console was stirring. Liara quickly got up to it and tried to activate it, but while it was clearly on, nothing seemed to happen.

Not knowing how long the jolt would last, Liara configured her omni-tool to crack whatever security this thing had on it. A lot of it seemed to be gibberish, a language she couldn't understand, but there was enough that was familiar to her that she could translate properly. After flicking a few commands, the device elicited a low dim humming sound followed by a pitched tone. In moments, the entire room lit up and the chamber was bathed in green and blue.

"Well, step one done," Nel surmised. "Think the computer will be just as difficult with us?"

Liara knew one way or another she'd have to see for herself. She quickly headed over to the console and tapped in a few commands. She brought up something on a small holographic screen, mostly in ancient text, but at least this time she could read it all.

"This is a Prothean research terminal," she presumed. "From what I can see here, they were trying to recover information from this place. Information concerning the... visitors, as they're designating them."

"Well, they could've called them worse," Nel stated.

Liara looked through the initial files, finding some mission logs in the lower tier security sections. Possibly what the managerial staff at this place deemed important enough for everyone to know.

"It's fuzzy, but I think our initial hypothesis wasn't far off," she told them all. "The Protheans did find the Forerunners here. They were conducting some kind of operation in secret, though they never found out what it was for exactly. I can't say for certain what occurred given how these logs are written, but there was some kind of fight here. The Protheans won, but the Forerunners sabotaged a lot of their own equipment to prevent their secrets from falling into their hands."

"Hence the mishmashed repair job," Vik observed. "Hmm, I admit its not perfect, but it's still impressive they got it to work. Maybe there's a little Prothean in the Quarians."

"Whatever the state of their patchjob, it worked, they acquired minimal access to the Forerunners' datastores," Liara explained. "Apparently, the Protheans built this entire facility around what is some kind of Forerunner outpost, buried deep in the sea floor. Like the Transdimensional Communication Ship on the moon, just not as expansive."

Liara began scanning a few more logs quickly.

"Why were they on Kahje?" Wrex asked confused. "Seems a bit out of the way from where the wormhole is."

"From what the Protheans pieced together, at least what their explanation is, was that the Forerunners were running their own experiments on the Hanar," Liara said, looking puzzled. "I don't think that was their primary goal, but it seemed enough to concern the Protheans. They did their best to cover this place up. I don't think it was out of concern for being usurped as gods in the Hanar's eyes, but mainly to keep them from getting confused. They had their own designs on the species after all."

"So there's a grain of truth to the Covenant's bullshit about the Protheans stealing shit from their own gods then, huh?" Nel reasoned.

"With the Reapers involved, convincing them that they're actually Forerunner Oracles, it's highly likely that is the point," Liara explained. "This... Inquisitor that they found, it gave the Covenant just enough information to make them come to their own conclusions. The carefully coached conclusions the Reapers wanted them to believe."

"All the best lies have a small bit of truth to them," Vik concurred. "The Protheans did cover up the existence of the Forerunners in our galaxy, but they didn't make the Mass Relays anymore than the Protheans did. They did take tech from them, but the Forerunners were encroaching on Prothean territory. And they working in secret, so if anyone was being the usurpers it was them."

"Exactly," Liara confirmed. "There's more here. The Protheans went on to find a number of Forerunner outposts. Small, but on the edges of their space. The Forerunners seemed to be studying them, preparing, the Protheans reacted. They believe it was some kind of invasion and there was evidence they were sharing information with other secret colonies and outposts. The Protheans tried to crack the Forerunners' network in an attempt to expose the other bases of operation... and find out their plan."

"Well, what did they find out?" Wrex asked.

Liara checked some research logs, shaking her head as she did.

"Very little that Shepard hasn't already shared or we already guessed at," she confessed. "They interrogated captured Forerunners and cracked some levels of their security. They were fleeing an enemy that was consuming their universe."

"Those zombie things Shepard mentioned?" Nel asked.

"Yes, although that's... kind of a crude designation really," Liara corrected her. "Near as I can tell, the Forerunners discovered the wormhole a long time ago in their history. Another species had created it, long before the Protheans even. The species' name isn't listed, but as the Forerunners understood it, they had fled from our universe, escaping a terrible enemy."

"From the Reapers," Wrex grimly deduced.

Liara nodded. It seemed the most plausible.

"For a long time, the Forerunners merely studied the wormhole and refused to enter it themselves, but then their enemy attacked and they got desperate," she said, continuing to translate the files best she could. "A select group saw this as the best way for their species to survive. They entered the wormhole and found a new galaxy to start over in. They began setting up secret colonies... before the Protheans stumbled onto them."

"And what? They start fighting each other?" Wrex asked. "Wouldn't the Reapers have taken priority?"

"By my calculations of the Prothean's version of calendar dating, I believe the Forerunner's arrival and the Prothean's discovery of them were a few years off from when the Harvest would've likely began for their cycle," Liara stated rather grimly. "It appears the Forerunners fled one extinction into the waiting maw of another."

"Talk about bad timing," Nel huffed.

Liara read over more of the logs, trying to discern anything of potential use to them. While this was all very fascinating to her, she had to remain focused. This was not what Vorsa and his Covenant were after. They didn't care about the truth entombed within these walls, only the information that would lead them to what they needed.

"I think we need to finish the Protheans' work here," she finally exclaimed. "Crack the Forerunner's network and we can figure out what they were doing here and why, as well as what Vorsa is so desperate to find."

"Tall order," Vik admitted. "But we can manage. I don't care how old this thing is, I've cracked more supposedly secure datastores than it."

"From what the Protheans surmised, there was something called a geas preventing further discovery," Liara explained. "A sort of... genetic template that granted access more readily if you matched it."

Vik sighed in annoyance.

"Okay, that's tricky, not impossible but way harder to work around," he admitted. "I can't exactly fake DNA like I can a password or a line of code. Bypassing is the only option and I imagine the Protheans felt the same."

"Their logs detail that they discovered a possible virtual intelligence blocking off access to the network," Liara said, scanning through a few files. "Something actively thwarting their efforts at the very least."

"Keelah, that's a whole other mess," the quarian groan, pinching at where his nose would be on his faceplate. "Okay, okay... I'm gonna need help and you were right, we need Coda."

"It's gonna take hours to get him down here!" Wrex argued. "And again, need I remind everyone, he's a giant floating bag of gas! I don't think stuffing him in a sub is a good idea in any situation!"

"We don't have to," Vik assured. "I can connect with him on my shuttle. He hangs out there mostly anyway. He's... really good at organizing my stuff. And also he keeps fixing up the Truth, its... in worse shape than I thought."

"They like to help," Kayap reminded them. "Some just... well, can't stop helping."

Nel was silently laughing a little. The prospect of Coda and Vik being roommates and the former being an obsessive neat freak to Vik's patchwork disorder was amusing in thought. Like some sort of daytime vid comedy, but it was not relevant in the moment.

"Signals aren't exactly the best this deep, Vik," Liara reminded him. "We've barely got a connection to the Lucen as is. How do you propose we get a more stable one to Coda?"

"If this place has a network to other Forerunner outposts, it stands to reason it has a highly technically advanced transceiver," Vik explained astutely. "I can patch into that and talk to Coda. I'll need Kay's help, he's gonna have to translate for Coda anyway. And yours, since you'll know what to look for."

"Alright, let's do it," Liara ordered bluntly. "We don't have time to waste here."

Liara helped Vik locate the communications console while Wrex, Nel and Saya secured the area. They could not let their guard down just because they may have beaten the Covenant here.

Chances are that wouldn't last.

Thankfully, locating the terminal they needed wasn't too hard. The patchwork tech the Protheans had used stuck out like a sore thumb. Pieces similar in function were being used on their Forerunner counterparts. Once Liara found a terminal that looked like a retrofitted comms device, she knew they had located what they were after.

"Think you can get it working?" She asked Vik, observing the not so pristine console.

"Obviously the Forerunners didn't want the Protheans tapping their network," Vik reasoned. "It's okay, we should be able to manage. Come on, Kay. Help me with this."

The unggoy assisted the quarian in taking off the panel for the console carefully. From there, Vik was stuck doing a patchwork of his own, as despite no one being in this room for ages, the hybridization on this device was not nearly so well put together as the others. Obviously the Protheans had struggled getting it online and keeping it there.

Liara presumed the two had things well in hand, so she decided to head back to the main console and keep checking in on the information they could actually access. The Protheans had spent a good deal of time here, studying the Forerunners. Obviously they saw them as a potential threat and deemed it necessary to learn all they could. Perhaps something in their findings could offer greater insight.

It was hard at times to think of the Protheans in militaristic terms, but she had always struggled somewhat in sorting her personal connection with the ancient aliens and objective fact. She liked to think her people and the Protheans had much in common, but ultimately they were of entirely different eras, eons apart from each other. It wasn't hard to imagine that the Protheans thought the Forerunners were a threat, regardless of why they were here. Frankly, given what they had created, according to Shepard, the Protheans had every right to be afraid.

This was species who had developed a massive device that could wipe out a galaxy. If it wasn't for the fact they had only used it as a last resort to stop an even greater evil... well, it was scary to imagine either way. Liara would have a hard time sorting the morality of such a terrible choice in the given circumstances, certainly. But if a race of beings as clearly powerful and advanced as the Forerunners could only see the absolute destruction of all sentient life as the only way to stop a threat... did that say more about the threat or the Forerunners themselves?

Liara couldn't make a full judgment of course if she tried. She had never encountered this Flood, although Shepard did make them sound to be absolutely terrifying. So she prayed that she never did get to study them. It was just hard to parse such a frightening prospect, of developing a weapon so devastating. It made the Reapers seem... small to a degree. Which was no mean feat.

Suffice to say, if that was the apex of Forerunner technology, what else did they have at their disposal? The Protheans would've been just as scared of the prospect as she was, probably more so if they had seen some of the Forerunners' technology in action.

"It's a shame," she thought. "If they had worked together instead... maybe the Reapers could've been stopped."

It was a sobering thought, that the Protheans may have pushed away a potential helping hand just before their civilization came under attack by the greatest threat ever posed to it. How much different would the galaxy have been had the Protheans and Forerunners become friends? Speculation for another day perhaps though. She had to solve the mystery at her feet right now.

Most of what was left in the console, which could graciously be legible anyway, was rather rudimentary. The Protheans had determined when the Forerunners arrived, estimated how many there were, basic understanding of their technology, mostly inconsequential stuff. Interesting, but not terribly important to their present situation. She resisted the urge to get too lost in it.

The estimations were the most relevant. The Protheans surmised the Forerunners were ultimately small in number, at least compared to them. They mainly felt threatened by their technology more than anything else, specifically their ability to construct elaborate complexes so quickly, remain undetected for so long and the speculated potential they had to terraform worlds as well.

"Hmm, I wonder," Liara thought aloud in a momentary lapse in concentration where she allowed her mind to wander. "Did the Reapers learn about the other universe from encountering the Forerunners themselves? Or did they come across information like this at some point?"

Either way, it was a possible explanation for why the Inquisitor had reacted like it had. Once Sovereign was destroyed, it fell back on what it knew about the Forerunners from the previous cycle. Low on resources and in need of a means to get the harvest back on schedule, it found its way to the Wormhole that the Forerunner Incursion first came from. Then, after reporting back its findings to its fellow Reapers, set about its plan to disorganize a forewarned Galaxy.

Still didn't explain what was so important that the Covenant were forcing their new allies to take up archeology to find it. Obviously, even the Inquisitor didn't know everything, which meant neither did the Reapers. Which was a confidence boosting thought, if she pulled this off, Liara would be ahead of all their enemies for once.

A sudden spark followed by a tremendous clank broke her out of her concentration. She looked over to see Vik pulling himself out of the comms terminal, Kayap feverishly connecting wires. As Vik ran a bypass module through his omni-tool, the Quarian looked excited.

"I got it! I got it! I mean, I think I do anyway."

The console soon came to life, shining bright green and blue. Through his omni-tool, Vik began to patch his comms back to their ship, or more specifically their shuttle. Kayap in the meantime, kept adjusting the signal manually through the inner workings of the terminal, following Vik's directions as he went. Liara hurried over to them, so she could assist if need be in connecting the ancient terminal to The Lucen.

"We should be online momentarily," Vik said when he noticed her. "I'll just patch into my shuttle's comm and-" that was when Vik paused, his eyes focusing on his omni-tool screen. "Oh, wait, I just connected to the ship's communications node. Um, we got a hailing frequency from them."

Vik quickly patched Liara into the frequency instead of contact Coda. In moments, a frantic ShadowOps Merc was speaking into her ear.

"Lucen to T'Soni, do you read? Over!"

"I'm here, what's going on?" She asked, sensing this was probably bad.

"Shit, ma'am, apologies, we've been trying to reach you for over an hour now! We got word through our contacts monitoring the prison station."

"What news?" Liara asked, already suspecting the worst. Then it was confirmed.

"Orukuri... he's dead."

That hit hard, even though Liara knew it was inevitable. Orukuri has seemingly sensed it himself. The death of the traitorous businessman wasn't saddening to her, he had made his bed. The problem came with what it meant.

"The station got jumped by a bunch of ships," The ShadowOps Merc continued to explain without missing a beat. "Descriptions match those Covenant dropships. They stormed the place, wasted little time with the guards, found Orukuri's cell... well, you can imagine what happened once they got to him. We tried to tell you sooner but there was so much interference from the storm and the depth... don't know how we got through."

"You didn't, doesn't matter," Liara assured him. "Did the Covenant get anything out of him?"

"Cell camera footage is spotty," the Merc admitted. "Bastard looks like he's trying to cut a deal with the big hinge-jawed asshole standing over him. Doesn't last long, he forces back an exoskeleton plate on Orukuri's back... we think there's some kind of OSD in there from the look of it."

The information, he had it on his person. It was his last gamble, give the Covenant what they wanted and they'd let him live. Maybe even take him with him if he showed he could still be useful. Apparently though, the Covenant didn't seem to think the same.

"Then the Sangheili it... well Orukuri is... considerably shorter now, I'll just say that," The Merc concluded. "Then the Covies extracted. It took time to get this all confirmed, the attack was about two hours old when we received the all the data."

"Which means, coupled with the delay in reaching us... the Covenant have known where to look for this temple for about three hours," Liara reasoned grimly.

"We haven't seen anything enter the system-"

"Doesn't matter, they're likely already here," Liara informed him. "Thank you, we'll handle this ourselves. Inform the Hanar, let them know what's happening, quickly."

With that she closed communications and turned to Vik who had an equal look of concern.

"Get Coda on the line NOW," she implored. "We're about to have company."

"How long do you think we have?" Vik aked.

There was a muffled sound and the room shook slightly. Liara didn't have to venture a guess what that was. She knew it wasn't the storm raging several fathoms above them on the surface.

"Practically none, I wager," the asari estimated. "Work quickly."

As Vik got to work connecting with Coda, the others quickly took up positions where they could in the open space in the room they had entered through. Nel and Wrex took cover near a support pillars while Saya activated his cloak. Liara took up position near the rampway, pressing herself into the side of solid wall along the upper section.

"I got Coda on the line," Vik's voice reported through her comm. "We're going to try and re-establish power to some of the temple's defensive systems. But it will take a few minutes."

"I'd prefer it to be now," Liara told him.

"Well, Coda says if we do it wrong the system will label everyone inside the temple as hostile," Vik explained. "That would include us."

"Okay, let's avoid that then," Liara anxiously replied. "Take whatever time you need... just don't take too long."

"Sure thing," Vik chuckled nervously. "That's the usual timeframe most every engineer works under anyway."

No sooner had Vik said that did the door to the room start to rumble. First there was some banging, then shaking and finally a burst of fire blew the locking mechanism apart. A sangheili forced the door open wide and roared a command in his native tongue. Buzzing through the gap in an instant were dozens of swarming little yanme'e, firing away with their plasma pistols.

"We got bugs everyone!" Nel called out as she opened fire.

The giant insects flew about the room, firing at every angle. They were mostly a distraction though as Liara saw several kig-yar move in next, the sangheili close behind. Their strategy was plain, overwhelm their small force and take the temple's inner sanctum quickly.

Liara would not let them. She used her biotics to create a singularity, plucking many of the yanme'e from the sky. Wrex fired a concussive shot at the swirling mass and the ball of bugs exploded into various pieces. One of the legs actually hit Nel in the head, spraying yellowish-green blood all over her armor.

"Ugh, gross," she groaned.

Nell continued blasting into the sky, ripping apart the various yanme'e that were swarming about raining down plasma on her position. She fired a cryobeam at the one that tried to charge, freezing the insect solid before she smashed its head with the butt of her rifle as its icy form hurtled towards her. She then ducked into cover as plasma and needle fire hit her pillar.

"Hold the room," Liara ordered everyone. "We need to give Vik time!"

She sent out a throw attack that smacked two of the Yanme'e from the air, giving Nel a chance to recover. She then turned her attention to the kig-yar advancing up the center of the room, their shields blocking most of her shots. When she landed one that hit the bird-alien in the hand, it gave her the opening she needed. She sent another throw that hit the kig-yar square in its center of mass and hurled him into his fellows, knocking them down hard. A sangheili responded by saturating Liara's cover with plasma fire, forcing her to duck down.

"Go for their leaders!" She called out.

Someone was already working on that, as an electrified blade cut down the sangheili shooting at Liara, digging deep into the alien's neck. Saya pulled the blade viciously as the Covenant officer fell and turned it back to cut down a kig-yar before he could reposition his shield. Saya then rolled himself over another of bird-creatures nearby, shooting him in the head as he landed on his feet beside the Covie.

Grabbing the now dead kig-yar's shield, the salarian defended himself from plasma fire, before firing several shots into the attacking Sangheili. The shots hit the Covie's shields, but didn't drop them. However, a stream of bullets cut into the Covie in the next moment.

"Take him!" Nel called out, her weapon still smoking from the shots.

Saya ran forward, sheathing his sword for the moment and grabbing the plasma pistol of the fallen kig-yar. He fired a blast from it. The last bit of the sangheili's shield fell as the STG Agent fired two rounds from his pistol square into the sangheili's head.

He then dodged the incoming plasma fire of a second sangheili, pulled out his sword and slashed deep into the alien's skull as he closed in. An explosion erupted overhead as yanme'e parts fell down around him. Wrex had fired a carnage shot that obliterated one of the insects closing to attack the salarian.

"Fall back, you're a sitting pyjak!" Wrex warned.

Saya was already putting his cloak back on and quickly moved away from the enemies closing on him. Wrex in the meantime kept up the fire, blowing away all the yanme'e that buzzed about him with his shotgun before letting loose a powerful biotic burst that blew away at three of the insects that were trying to close on him.

A sangheili then rushed in, kicking him out of cover. The krogan was pushed back, but did not fall. The Covie came in with a plasma sword, but Wrex unloaded his shotgun onto him as he closed. The Sangheili deflected the shot best he could with his sword and raised it to strike Wrex. The krogan charged a powerful biotic punch, blocking the sword by swinging his shotgun into the forearm of the attacker. He then delivered the devastating biotic blow to the Covie's stomach, sending him clean into a wall on the opposite side of the room.

"Too many," Wrex said, as plasma bolts flew around him. "Have to pull back!"

"Come to me," Liara told them. "I'll draw what fire I can!"

Liara opened fire on the yanme'e as they swarmed, smashing them into the ceiling with her biotics or shooting them when they got into her crosshairs. She managed to take down one as it skittered about one of the support pillars, her bullet taking out one of its eyes. One of her biotic throws knocked one of the insects into the other mid-flight, sending both tumbling down to the floor below. For her part, Nel dropped a smoke grenade to try and cover their retreat back to the ramp. She joined Liara around the same time Wrex did.

"Where's Saya?" Nel asked.

"You know him," Wrex replied. "Skulking about the shadows, like most Salarians."

"In this case that's useful," Liara informed him.

"I know, just pointing it out," Wrex clarified.

A plasma bolt nearly hit Wrex's head and in return he let loose with his assault rifle, gunning down the kig-yar who had shot at him. The Covenant kept closing in though, one sangheili racing out in the open as the smoke faded. Even under sustained fire from Nel, the Covenant officer managed to get to cover behind one of the support pillars and let his shields recharge.

"Ugh, they're not as easy to pin down as you'd think," the turian grumbled.

Liara then heard a sound coming up from beside them. Two small pillars rose from the floor, creating small square platforms above their heads. Seconds later, something began to materialize atop them in a glowing flash of blue light. It appeared to be some kind of strange device triangular in shape with a circular base and a glowing center. Suddenly the devices began to whir and they each shot out a sustained beam that cut into the swarm of yanme'e. The bugs instantly being vaporized on contact with the beam.

"Vik got the turrets working!" Liara realized.

"Alright, way to go, Bucket!" Nel cheered. "Now we got ancient interdimensional alien lasers on our side!"

The Forerunner Turrets lanced the area with their deadly beams. The yanme'e quickly scattered to cover while the kig-yar attempted to fire on the turrets. Instead, the turrets turned on them, quickly eating through their shields and taking them down. The sangheili suffered similar fates if they stayed out in the open too long. One of the Covenant officers attempted to toss a grenade at the turret, but Wrex fired a concussive shot that interrupted him. Not only did he soon get hit by the turret's beam, but the grenade exploded at his feet seconds later.

More Covenant were pouring into the room though. Liara wasn't sure how many had come here, but she suspected there were plenty waiting to move in. The Covenant weren't going to take chances here, they wanted the information inside this place. Luckily, more turrets were soon activated, on the ceiling and lower floor, all of them adding to the defense of the system of the temple. However, Liara could still see her people were under heavy fire and the Covenant weren't about to let up soon.

"We need to pullback while the turrets are still active," she said. "The Covenant are pinned for now, we can fortify the main chamber."

A turret blasted down a sangheili as he attempted to take down one of the turrets. Another vaporized a yanme'e as it tried to flank another. Despite Liara's caution it didn't seem like they were at risk.

"Come on, we're kicking ass here," Nel insisted.

"The Covenant won't just keep bashing their heads against a wall," Liara warned. "They're going to switch this up soon. We need to move, now."

At that moment, a sangheili came into the room, armed with a fuel rod cannon. They took aim at one of the turrets on the ceiling and fired. The blast severely damaged the turret and a follow-up shot destroyed it utterly. Nel took a shot at the Sangheili, managing to score a kill before he could get to cover, but it was clear the Covenant weren't going to stay pinned for long.

"Fine pull back," Nel agreed.

"We can funnel them into the next room," Liara assured them. "Let's move."

They raced to the back door, as a yanme'e suddenly lunged off the wall, having snuck behind the turrets' line of sight. However, a blade suddenly dug into his stomach and ignited with electricity. Saya appeared over the dying insect as his cloak deactivated and he joined the retreat back into the inner sanctum.

The doors shut tight behind them as they entered. They could still hear the turrets outside and the fighting increasing. Over at the main console, Vik was working feverishly, Kayap at his side.

"We might need more defenses, Vik," Liara told him. "A lot more."

"Coda is connected remotely, he's trying to activate every security measure he can find," the quarian explained. "It's not easy, that storm is still causing quite a bit of a delay between inputs. Right now, I'm just trying to get the intel we're after."

"How much longer?" Liara asked.

"Not long," Vik insisted. "The Protheans actually were closer than they realized. The only thing they lacked was the proper access. It seems the Forerunners were really big on genetic locks, but Huragok seem able to override them. Coda is giving me cascading access and actively translating it, I just have to crack the code from there."

The doors shuddered with a massive explosion. Nel quickly set up her assault rifle to aim right at it.

"They are seriously not quitting guys!" She stated, gritting her teeth.

Kayap looked to Vik.

"Go, I got this," he assured the unggoy.

Kayap bounded away from the terminal and brought up his grenade launcher, aiming it at the door himself. Wrex took aim as well, while Saya had already finished laying out explosive gel around the entrance way.

"Almost got it," Vik said, anxiousness rising in his throat.

There was another blast against the door.

"So do they!" Wrex called out.

Liara took up a stance with her team.

"Whatever happens, they do not get that data!" She ordered.

Seconds later the door's lock exploded and a swarm of yanme'e flew inside. They quickly ran into Saya's explosive gel line. It detonated at the flick of a switch. The bugs were blasted apart from below. Just as quickly, the kig-yar and sangheili flooded in. They were met by Nel's assault rifle fire and Kayap's grenades. A number of them were blown apart, but still more managed to weather the fire and break through. Wrex opened up with his shotgun to take down more while Liara let off a singularity that caught others.

One pair of kig-yar managed to get through, rushing over the barricades. They were cut down by Saya's blade, one to the throat the other the chest. However, Saya himself was bowled over by a sangheili who had come up from behind the kig-yar. The salarian was slammed into the console just near Vik. The quarian turned about and activated his combat drone while pointing his shotgun at the charging Covie. He fired one blast as the drone barrelled into the sangheili and exploded on impact, killing him. Vik breathed a sigh of relief.

And then the bug jumped out of the shadows.

The yanme'e tackled Vik against the console and snarled loudly in the quarians face. It then slammed what appeared to be a portable drive into one of the console's sockets. It almost seemed to be laughing as it did. Vik hit the insect with a burst from his omni-tool, the overload at this close a range fried the bug's brain. It still smacked the quarian away as it happened. At least it wasn't choking him anymore, but the yanme'e was still alive and strangely cackling.

At least until the console started blinking green.

"You just ran out of time, bosh'tet," Vik growled.

That was when things completely turned. Various ports and vents throughout the inner sanctum opened up and out flew several strange silver flying machines. They were odd looking robots, sleek in appearance, chrome in finish, clearly highly advanced yet simple in design. From their triangular faces they shot out orange beams of light that cut into the Covenant but avoided Liara and her team. The yanme'e at the console was one of the first cut down as an orange beam sliced through its head.

What had been starting to look like a last stand, instead turned into a trap for the Covenant. The machines flew about the room, saturating it with lasers, cutting apart the Covenant. They fought back of course, the plasma weapons bringing the machines down relatively easily, cutting through their shields, but there were simply more of them. And with Liara and her team back the robots up, the Covenant began to retreat. Not that they could, the temple was now full of the machines and the Covies already inside the structure had nowhere to really run.

It was over as quickly as it started. Vik hadn't watched most of it. He had gotten back to the console to try and pull out the device the bug had installed. When simply pulling didn't work, he used his omni-tool to short circuit it completely and the device ejected from the port.

Meanwhile, Liara had seen to chasing the Covenant out of the room, only for the machines to cut most of them down. The rest had retreated entirely, falling back from the temple, even as the machines were chasing them out.

"Fuck yeah," Nel cried out as she surveyed the scene. "We did it!"

"Coda did," Kayap said. "He activated these guys after all."

Kayap motioned to the flying machines who soon began to re-enter the vents they had inhabited.

"I believe Shepard encountered these machines," Liara remembered. "He called them Sentinels."

"How come the Forerunners didn't use them against the Protheans?" Wrex asked. "They seemed plenty capable."

"It's possible they didn't get the chance," Liara theorized. "The logs mentioned the Protheans struck hard and fast in an attempt to prevent just this sort of scenario. They might have even disabled the security system in advance."

"Well they saved our asses, so I'm fine with them working for us now," Nel stated. "Rousing success!"

"Not quite."

It was Vik, he was holding the now destroyed device the yanme'e had plugged into the console.

"I think this is some sort of portable upload transmitter," he said. "The Covenant really weren't taking chances. I don't think they suspected they'd be able to escape with the information. So they took precautions just in case. That bug connected to the computer as I was unlocking the last of the data."

Liara grimaced.

"How much did they get?" She asked him.

"Not all of it at least," Vik told her. "But likely a good deal. My disruption of the upload with any luck corrupted a lot of it, but they can reconstruct it with enough time if they're that dedicated to getting at it."

Looking around at the aftermath of their firefight, Liara imagined they were indeed that dedicated to acquiring the information in here.

"They won't get the rest of it at least," she insisted. "By tomorrow, the Hanar will have security all over this place. The Covenant won't be able to break in unless they go all out. And that will lead to more trouble than I think Balak will want right now."

"All the same, they're still in the race for whatever it is they're looking for," Wrex reasoned.

"Which is... what exactly?" Nel asked. "We still have no idea what they're after."

"We might have an idea actually," Vik said. "I told you, we cracked it. We have the Forerunner's files. Come on."

They headed back inside, where a massive map of the galaxy was now hovering over the back of the wall behind the console. On it were a number of little dots, hundreds of worlds spread out everywhere. It was incredible. Even if the Forerunners that had escaped their universe were small in number, they had spread out very far and wide.

"I think there's a message or something, but I can't figure it out," Vik explained. "It's a totally different language."

"Not to Coda I imagine," Liara reasoned. "Give him a feed, see if he can help us out."

With Kayap on stand by Liara activated the message. It was in text form, but it had visuals. Most of it was diagrams of the galaxy, abstract forms Liara couldn't make out. But through Kayap, Coda explained.

"He says this is an outline of the Forerunner plan," Kayap explained, listening intently to Coda's translation. "They escaped a terrible enemy, a gruesome fate. It's congratulating the survivors for making it this far, for being chosen to restart the Forerunners anew... something about a mantle being passed on. Coda's being weird about that. Anyway, the Forerunners were wary of this new universe having threats, dangers, of the enemy following them somehow, so they were making plans. They were going to be ready this time, the whole galaxy would be."

"Under their leadership, I presume?" Liara asked.

"Sounds like it," Kayap nodded. "They were small in number, but they believed their technology was far superior. And they had even more than that... something... something they're calling an inheritance? It's weird."

"What isn't at this point?" Nel asked.

Liara hushed her and bade Kayap to continue.

"They had set up a number of secret colonies to slowly rebuild the species," Kayap explained. "But they also had science labs, research facilities, places they intended to use to amass powerful technology. They would bring this galaxy to heel like they had before."

"So they did intend to conquer the Protheans," Vik scoffed. "Typical, you'd think being knocked off their pedestal would give them some perspective."

"They didn't think the Protheans could face what they had escaped from or what could still be lurking here," Kayap continued. "They believed they could, knew they could. They brought relics of great power, from something called a... time before? I... don't know, it's more weird words."

That got Liara's attention, because it was eerily similar to what she had been told was happening beyond the wormhole.

"Shepard is currently hunting a number of ancient artifacts," she told the others. "Relics of power they're called. From what they've gathered, a Forerunner ship was supposed to pick some of them up, but it never got to them all in time before the Halo rings were activated. What if it was just one ship of many with the same mission?"

The insinuation was not lost on the others, not even Nel who summed up the concept in layman's terms as always.

"You mean some of the Forerunners' ultra powerful mystic Alien-God shit is in our universe and has been for who knows how long?" Nel asked. "That's what the Covies are after?"

"One of these relics sent Shepard hurtling forwards through time to a now alternate future," Liara reminded them. "Imagine what the Covenant could do with that sort of power."

"But what exactly are they looking for?" Wrex asked. "How do they know its even here? They have to have a clue or they wouldn't be looking for it."

"Probably got it from that comms relay ship they found," Nel reasoned. "Or maybe their new pal the Inquisitor told them about it."

"Regardless hw they learned about this exodus they clearly are after something specific," Liara insisted. "Or specific items. Shepard's relics seem to make up a larger whole, at least that's their working theory. It might be the same for whatever they're after."

"So the Covenant are searching for a potentially deadly superweapon of unimaginable power," Vik sighed. "Great, it's as bad as we feared."

Liara headed over to the console and tapped a few commands. In moments some of the dots on the screen were highlighted in green for them all. Liara nodded as she looked them over.

"Those were the Forerunners' primary research sites and science outposts," she said. "Whatever the Covenant are after, we'll likely find clues to there."

"It would still be a lot easier to figure out what to look for if we knew what the Covenant were after," Wrex grumbled.

"We can figure it out, unlike the Covenant we have all the relevant information and they only have a fragment they need to decode," Liara assured him. "That buys us time. At least a little. We took apart Orukuri's conspiracy. It was hard, but we managed it and now we know what the Covenant are after. It's another piece of the overall puzzle."

The others gathered around Liara as she spoke.

"We finally have a direction, an idea of where to go and how to accomplish our wider goal," she explained. "If we can disrupt the Covenant's plans, get these relics before they do, we can use them to strike back against their fleet surrounding the Wormhole."

"And kick their slimy asses out of our universe!" Nel laughed. "Badass!"

Not only that, thought Liara, but enable Shepard a safe way to get back home without having to worry about an armada of ships waiting for him.

"So we're going right after these relics then?" Wrex asked.

Liara shook her head.

"We still need more information," she confessed. "We don't know what we're looking for, you said it yourself. And everything we've learned says Balak and Trox are making their own moves and soon. After what happened here, there's likely to be some tension between them and Vorsa. This whole operation was way more open then Balak would've liked. He told him at the summit to not attack Kahje openly and Vorsa just did exactly that."

"He'll need to rein him in," Wrex surmised. "Before he ruins Balak's own plans."

"And Vorsa will not be happy about that, given he's a short-tempered asshole," Nel added.

"So we keep disrupting what the Swords of Khar'shan and the Blood Pack are planning," Liara continued. "While working towards discovering more about the Covenant's plans at the same time. Now that we know where to look and for what, it's time to narrow it down further. We just need to stay after them, keep them angry, scared, paranoid. Before we know it, someone will slip up and we'll have all the pieces we need."

The team looked to each and nodded together.

"I'm really feeling this," Nel said. "Anyone else feeling this? It's fucking good, that's what I'm feeling. We're gonna fucking take these bastards down, one by one."

"Let's not get overconfident," Vik said, sounding a bit more serious than usual. "We still have more than a few problems out there than just Balak, Trox and Vorsa. Cerberus for one, they've made it clear they're not out of this just yet. Not to mention the Singular. And... who knows what else."

"We beat them before, Vik," Liara reminded him. "We beat them today. And as long as we stand together, we'll do it again. We might not be the perfect people for this job, but after everything we've been through so far... I know we can do this. Look what we've accomplished so far. We saved the Andromeda Initiative. We took out a cell of terrorist turians. We dismantled a corporate conspiracy. Now we know our next steps, it's time to take them."

She put her hand out and, with very little hesitation, each one of her team joined her in the same gesture.

"Alright then, let's beat Vorsa to these relics," Wrex said.

"And kill us some assholes along the way," Nel added.

"Expose their lies... show the galaxy the truth," Vik said stoically.

"With you, boss," Kayap spoke up. "Always."

Saya just nodded in the affirmative.

"Excellent," Liara told them. "I'm glad to hear that from all of you. Let's download what we can from the computer and clean up here. I'll call the sub back and we can get out of here before the Hanar sends their security forces to lock down this area."

Everyone agreed and set about their work. As they did, Liara admired them from afar. Vik and Kayap were assisting each other at the console, while Saya, Wrex and Nel were gathering up weapons from the fallen Covenant and salvaging some from the downed Sentinels. Liara smiled as she watched them and thought about everything so far as she did.

This team had started out so ragtag, misfitted, wrong in every way. She picked them because she hadn't had a choice. Because she needed a team and they were it. It just fell into place that they all got stuck together on this. However briefly, Liara had probably considered just putting together a bunch of ShadowNet Mercs instead.

But no, this was better, this was what she needed. None of them were perfect, all of them had stumbled, every one of them had fallen at one point or another, even her. However, they all pulled together where it counted. For years, Liara had felt a hole in herself after the destruction of the first Normandy. She knew a part of that had been Shepard being gone. But another part of it was this, the team, the squad of friends. The family created out of a sworn duty and chosen mission. It wasn't like the old one of course, it never could be. But she was proud of what she created... no, what they all had created.

The Lucen's crew would have more trials ahead of them of course, things to resolve, but at this moment, Liara was more than certain they could face it. The galaxy still needed heroes, and however broken and hurt some of the ones she had gathered were, they had proven themselves. Whatever came next, she was happy to face it with this team, this fire-forged little family of theirs.

Balak had lost his corporate ally, before long he'd lose a lot more. And Shepard would get home safely. She'd make certain of that. They all would.

---

AN: I'm immensely sorry this took so damn long to update. I was honestly so focused on Remnants and other crap that this got lost in the shuffle, more so because, let's fact it, the story is basically over as these last two chapters will show. So apologies on the lack of a resolution on this for so long. But now we're done and I'm happy about that. I hope my little homage to RoboCop and I guess maybe the Abyss was worth the wait. Anyway, we'll get back to our Lucen friends eventually, once Remnants is wrapped. And who knows, maybe I'll actually get it done much faster! It's a new year, anything can happen! More thoughts on this in the epilogue.