Chapter 41
Once the Embassy building was completed in Vancouver, Liara helped her mother move into it and then get settled, and immediately returned to Egypt. Like a woman possessed, she dove into the surprisingly detailed Human archaeological records of the culture, and when she arrived at the university in Cairo asking to join in on an excavation of the area around the Sphinx, she was shocked when they insisted that she lead it. While there were professors with the university that had more time in on it, and knew more about ancient Egyptian culture, Liara's reputation preceded her, and her eighty years of study and excavation experience were also considered invaluable.
"How many times must I ask you to call me Mohamed?" Dr. Mohamed Abdallah from the Cairo university and a member of Liara's team asked.
"Sorry, Mohamed, It's a hard habit to break. Could you please give me the ultrasound readings?" Liara asked, he smiled and handed her the data pad.
"Liara don't worry we all put in the work towards our doctorate degrees here, you more than most of us, we're colleagues, no need to get hung up on formalities." He said, returning to his work. They were currently installing mass effect generators under the Sphinx. In the 20th century, a chamber was discovered underneath the iconic monument, but exploring it had been outlawed by the local government at the time. Now, two hundred years later the only thing that had delayed them was interest shifting outward into space, especially since living sentient beings had been discovered. They had found a doorway that opened into the chamber but were reluctant to enter because of instability in the monument. The plan was to use mass effect fields to hold the Sphinx in one piece so that they could excavate beneath and find out what the chamber held without damaging it.
"That should do it. Are all the fields activated?" Abdallah said.
"Yes Dr... I mean Mohamed, all are at full power. We should be ready." Liara said.
"Well then, Dr. T'soni, lead the way!" He said, gesturing her forward. She tentatively grasped the handle of the door, and pulled it open. She was at first hit with the musty odor of stale air, this was to be expected when opening a room for the first time in thousands of years. She took a few steps inside, and activated her helmet's lighting. She was in awe at the beautiful artwork adorning the walls, recognizing many hieroglyphics but not understanding them, she had not had enough time to learn to read Egyptian yet.
"This is completely unexpected! This artwork is beautiful! Mohamed, can you read any of it." she looked over at him to see him pale, shaking and pointing at one of the paintings on the wall. It featured a tall god like creature dressed in traditional ancient Egyptian garb, its skin mottled with spots and it's head four-eyed and triangular in shape.
"What is it Mohamed? Are you OK?" She asked.
"P-p-p-p- Prothean! That's a Prothean! The script underneath it confirms! How did people four thousand years ago know about the Protheans who went extinct fifty thousand years ago?" He asked as he regained his voice.
"Goddess you're right! I need a translation of all of the text in here as soon as we can get it! What's this?" She asked, gesturing towards a black stone obelisk in the center of the room. As she approached it it began to glow with a faint green light. A hand-shaped pattern appeared at roughly shoulder height. Unable to resist, Liara placed her hand on it and was immediately lifted into the air and assaulted by images and sounds that made no sense. She saw what looked like giant black insectoid squid things burning cities with laser beams as thousands of aliens with oddly shaped heads scattered around screaming in terror. She saw the same aliens running around slaughtering other aliens and taking over their stations and planets, she saw a giant station still undergoing construction exploding while attacked by several of the giant insect things, and the Citadel burning, littered with bodies one second, then entirely stripped of all life and buildings the next. She then saw an exterior view of the Milky Way galaxy rapidly rotating into the orientation it's in today, then freezing.
"Liara! Liara are you OK! I need a medic now!" She heard Abdallah yelling.
"I-I'm okay..." She sand holding her head.
"God I was worried there, what happened? That obelisk lifted you into the air and you went completely rigid!" He said
"It's a warning. Goddess I know what happened to the Protheans! How did this beacon end up here?" She asked.
"I don't know, maybe the answer is somewhere in here but right now I want you to go get checked out. Cairo hospital has a few doctors on staff who are versed in Alien physiology including Asari." He said, gently guiding her towards the door.
"You'll work on those translations, right?" She asked as she allowed herself to be led.
"Yes, yes of course." He said. Liara spent the night at the hospital, waiting impatiently for an update from Dr. Abdallah, until finally he provided a preliminary summary. From what he was able to glean from the hieroglyphs, the beacon had for a long time been revered as a religious miracle. They saw the Protheans enemies of the gods, and the giant squid aliens as their warriors arriving to smite the blasphemers. Much more work had to be done, and there was a lot of less significant text to get through. There were also a number of other artifacts in the chamber but Abdallah was far more cautious than Liara and was reluctant to touch any. He'd ordered advanced scanning equipment to be brought down there and used.
Benezia managed to arrive at the hospital before Mohamed was able to return, she'd chartered transportation immediately when finding out Liara as in the hospital. No matter how poised and aloof Benezia had to present herself as in front of the Matriarchs, inside she was a devoted and loving mother, fussing and worrying over her adult daughter any time she came back injured from one of her expeditions.
"Goddess Liara what were you thinking?" She said, hugging her.
"I'm sorry to worry you mother, but did you read my report? Amazing! The Protheans were here, and the beacon could hold an untold wealth of information about them! Serrice will want to hear of this immediately!" Liara said. Benezia held up a hand to stall her.
"I read your report, and I agree that Serrice would love this information, but we must seek permission from the Alliance to give it to them." she said.
"But why? There's nothing secret about it, everyone knows about the protheans!" She said.
"Yes, dear but as soon as you mention it to your colleagues back on Thessia there will be chaos, universities and historians from all over the galaxy will want to investigate for themselves, and many may not be bothered by such things as planetary sovereignty, territory agreements, and the overall might of the Alliance navy." She said. Liara's expression fell.
"You're right. The Alliance have been so accommodating. This despite the way our kind treated the Quarians." She said.
"When I get back to the embassy I'll present your findings to the Prime Minister's staff and we'll see what they have to say about it." She said, soothing her excitable daughter.
"So how are things going in Vancouver?" Liara asked, changing the subject.
"Better than I had any right to expect. Our hosts have been nothing but reasonable. They are enthusiastic about learning from us and are willing to trade knowledge in exchange. I'm surprised about how open they are about their past as well. They used to be so barbarous." Benezia said.
"No more than we were before we took to the stars." Liara said, having studied humanity's past in detail.
"Valid point, little wing. What shocks me is that they turned around so quickly. Our own people toon millennia to realize our stupidity and arrogance. With them, it seems like one generation defeated the previous and have been fixing things ever since." Benezia said.
"How are things going with the Matriarchs?" Liara asked.
"Once again, better than I expected. It would seem I'm not the only one disillusioned by the council. The Asari contribute far too much in money, material and military to the council and get almost nothing in return. The only ones that respect our boundaries are the Alliance, Krogan and the Turians. We even repel Salarian intrusions into our space regularly. All of our complaints fall on deaf ears, Tevos barely takes our calls any more." Benezia said.
"Tevos is a joke, I don't know why she's still a councilor." Liara said, scoffing.
"Well if Rothschild has anything to say about it I'd imagine she won't be for long." Benezia said, amused.
"Oh? I saw their first meeting with alliance. It was supremely nice to see the woman taken down a peg." Liara said.
"It gets worse, Liara. Every month, Rothschild finds a way to smuggle in a crate of Kenna pads to her office." Benezia said giggling.
"Goddess!" Liara said laughing hysterically.
"Oh well at least I don't need to check to see if you're awake." Mohamed said, stepping into the room.
"Mohamed! Come in. This is my mother, Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, Asari Ambassador to Earth. Mother, this is Dr. Mohamed Abdallah, my partner in the Sphinx excavation." She said, introducing the two.
"It's a pleasure." Mohamed said, taking Benezia's hand and kissing her knuckles.
"The pleasure is mine, Dr. Abdallah." She said, smiling at the handsome young archaeologist. Liara silently rolled her eyes, Benezia's flirtatious nature was the stuff of legend in Thessia, and She imagined that would soon be the case on Earth.
"Mohamed, Please. Liara, are you feeling well?" He asked.
"Yes, I'm fine I just had a small headache and that passed an hour ago." She said.
"That's good, I have some new findings for you, that you might find interesting." Mohamed said, handing her a small stack of data pads.
"Excellent! Thank you so much Mohamed!" She said.
"Not a problem at all." He said.
"So, Mohamed, how long have you been an archaeologist?" Benezia asked the now grinning young man. Liara was so lost in reading the new data she couldn't be bothered with her amorous mother making a move on the young man nearly a thousand years her junior. The scans had come back on the artifacts, one of them was a container that had sophisticated looking armor designed for a human body. Notes from within explained that it had been a prototype, the Protheans were considering uplifting the humans to assist them in a war, the name of which she couldn't translate, but had been described as "war against the machines." At the time, the humans knowledge and culture were not very sophisticated but their bodies were uniquely built for endurance, and humans could long outlast Prothean soldiers on marches and long conflicts. A few select ones had been taken from earth, educated and trained to fight, but that war ended, and another worse one began, this one against the giant squid machines, and the Protheans chose to hide humanity instead of uplifting them. Her musing was suddenly interrupted when the conversation happening around her took a turn she was not prepared for.
"Excellent, 7:00 PM at Sobhy Kaber, their Kushari is amazing, and they have developed a Dextro version that is supposedly wonderful." Mohamed said.
"That sounds wonderful, I'll be there." Benezia said, smiling.
"MOTHER!" Liara shouted.
"What?" Benezia asked.
Back in Shanxi, the Normandy was taking off for the first time with Shepard as the Commanding Officer.
"All systems Green Commander." Joker reported.
"Excellent, take us through the relay to Charon then we'll head out to border space.
"Acknowledged. ETA 43 hours to destination." Joker said as he went about bringing the ship to where it needed to be. Shepard sat at her new chair, soaking in the experience. After the wrench event she thought she'd never be given her own command. That didn't mean she'd regretted it, Anderson was like a father to her, but now that she had her own command she felt vindicated. She consulted her omnitool to see if she had any tasks waiting for her attention, however for the first time in what seemed like years she was actually caught up on her paperwork. This was a bad thing, because a bored Shepard was a dangerous thing. Thankfully before the wheels could start spinning in earnest, her name was called over the intercom.
"Commander Shepard to Engineering please." She heard Tali's voice say in an upsettingly neutral voice.
"On my way." She pinged Tali via comm and started heading down. In the time it took her to make it from the CIC to engineering, she had constructed a number of scenarios in her head where she'd done or said something to upset Tali, but she couldn't really think of anything specific she'd done wrong. She opened the door and stepped in to see Tali working at her console off to the left of the Engine core. Curiously, the other engineers were not present. Shepard stepped further into the room and tali pressed a button on her console, the door behind Shepard clicked as its locks engaged.
"Tali?" She asked timidly.
"Jane." She said, her voice low. She turned around and looked at Shepard. Shepard involuntarily shuddered at the unbridled lust in her lover's eyes. Tali marched up to her, grabbed the sides of her head and pulled her down for a passionate kiss.
"Jesus Tali, not that I'm complaining but what's gotten into you?" Shepard asked.
"Shut up Commander, I think it's time we christen this engine room properly." She said, slowly unzipping the front of her jumpsuit.