Chapter 48
"Hello Mrs. Bailey. My name is Miranda Lawson. I'm oriana's older sister." Miranda said to her omnitool's display.
"Hello, Miranda. Your sister is such a dear, I'm so glad Jack's got a friend close to her age." Cate Bailey said.
"I'm glad to hear that. Oriana is a good girl, she can be a bit stubborn though." Miranda said
"And I'm sure she didn't pick that up from someone in her life." Cate insinuated, knowingly.
"No comment. Anyway I Was hoping to talk to you and Mr. Bailey about something if you're free." Miranda asked.
"Of course, hang on a second." Cate said, and fetched Armando.
"Hello Mr. Bailey, I'm Miranda Lawson, Oriana's sister." Miranda introduced herself.
"Pleasure to meet you, Miss Lawson. Your sister's been a godsend, it's good to see Jack come out of her shell like that." Bailey said.
"Thanks! I'm glad to hear it. I had a question for you. We have a shared associate, Colonel Hastings from Alliance Intelligence." Miranda said.
"Yes, he helped us relocate here after... some trouble back home." Bailey said.
"Understandable. He helped us with similar trouble. From the same people no less." Miranda said.
"I see. I'm guessing you're wanting to know about Jack." Bailey asked.
"I have a theory that I was hoping to confirm with you, I'd asked Angus first but he insisted on my asking you. I believe... I think we're Jacks sisters." Miranda said.
"When Oriana introduced herself I remembered Angus telling me there were two girls here he'd moved to get away from Cerberus, I knew who you were immediately." Bailey confirmed.
"Have you talked to Jack about it?" Miranda asked.
"No, she's had a really rough time, I won't go into details without her permission but it was good that we got her away from them when we did." Bailey said.
"I can't imagine. Our father is an animal, he would do anything he could to achieve his goals." Miranda said.
"Glad to see we're on the same page about that. I can talk to Jack if you want, but I have to ask, are you looking to take her?" Bailey asked.
"No, Definitely not. She will always be welcome in any place I call home of course, but I grew up without parents, biological or adopted. She's found you two, and I would never do that to her. Just please.. Let us be a part of her life." Miranda asked, her voice quaking at the end.
"Oh thank God." Cate said.
"I just want her to know she has two older sisters who care about her." Miranda said.
"Of course, why don't you two come over for dinner tonight. We'll have a talk with Jack so she's ready." Cate said.
"Thanks, we'll be there." She said, and then after some more small talk they ended the call. Miranda heard Oriana stirring in the next room, so she went downstairs to prepare breakfast. Oriana wheeled into the room, ignoring her sister and heading straight for the food.
"Ori, I need to talk to you about something." Miranda said.
"Oh god look Miranda I know where babies come from and I have contraceptives, ok?" Oriana said.
"No, god no, That is not what I was going to say why do you think I'd subject myself to that talk again?" Miranda asked.
"Oh, ok, what's up then?" Oriana asked.
"It's about Jack." Miranda said.
"What about Jack? You're not going to tell me to stay away from her are you?" Oriana said defensively.
"No, very much the opposite actually." Miranda said.
"Good. Ok, go on." Oriana said.
"Well I spoke to the Baileys today, you know how Jack has dark hair, brown eyes and her last name is Lawson? That's not a coincidence." Miranda said.
"Hold on. Wait a second. You didn't know she was our sister?" Oriana said.
"What?" Miranda asked, shocked.
"Miranda if she let her hair grow out she'd look almost exactly like me. Same skin tone, same eyes, last name Lawson. Jesus we figured this out months ago." Oriana said.
"What the fuck and you didn't bring it up?" Miranda asked.
"Why? Doesn't change anything. She's still my best friend." Oriana asked.
"You fucking suck." Miranda said.
"Not as much as you, cheerleader." She said grinning.
"We're going to their house to dinner so everyone can laugh at my expense I guess." Miranda said.
"Cool! Mrs. Bailey's cooking is almost as good as yours!" Oriana said.
"Flattery will get you nowhere, brat." Miranda said smiling at her younger sister. She found it so easy to forget her sister was smarter than she was. Oriana was just such a normal teenager, Miranda was proud that she'd been able to give her something close to a normal childhood, well as close as they could have managed being the children of a war criminal.
Back on Earth, Liara was presenting her findings to her colleagues at the University of Cairo. She was accustomed to going in front of esteemed academics and explaining her theories in great detail, what she was not accustomed to was being listened to raptly and being asked intelligent, non-patronizing questions.
"So these 'reapers' they called them, the Protheans knew they'd lose the war against them?" Professor Adriana Renault, another of the heads of the Archaeology department asked.
"Yes, according to what we've been able to extrapolate from these records cross referenced with the findings on Mars, the Protheans left Earth a hundred years before their fall to the Reapers. We don't know anything specific that occurred afterwards, however it seems as though a team was left behind on Earth, enough to teach a group of humans how to preserve the information and artifacts we found. " Liara explained
"And these humans, what happened to them?" Mohamed asked her.
"They formed a secret society, the rest of humanity was unready to handle the concept of interstellar society, so an elite group of intellectuals were chosen from around the world and trained using the obelisk you found along with the writings left behind by the Protheans. Every thousand years the artifacts were moved to another continent, it even spent some time in North America, specifically in Southern New Hampshire. Then four thousand years ago, this society was hunted down and exterminated by the Pharaoh at the time, however not before they'd buried the artifacts and built the Sphinx on top of it. Cats were sacred to the Egyptians, so they banked on it never being plundered." Liara said.
"Fascinating. What else can you tell us?" Renault said.
"We're learning more every day, but the most important thing we've discovered is that the Protheans expected these Reapers to return. As you've seen from the obelisk, the memories it implants into your mind show what the Protheans had started to face, and that was at the beginning of their war. They also recognized the reapers from old cave drawings and artifacts they'd found all over the galaxy." Liara said.
"This is extremely troubling, especially what we've learned lately." Mohamed said
"Yes, and what's worse is, the Protheans learned space travel through the information left behind by the Inusannon, a race that mysteriously went extinct 50,000 years before them, and there was vague reference to two races going extinct 50,000 years previous to that. Theoretically if we're interpreting this correctly, we could be close to overdue for another attack from these machines." Liara said.
"We will report this to Prime Minister immediately. Keep working Dr. T'soni. Any additional funding, personnel, equipment you need is yours." Renault said.
"Very good, thank you for taking the time to hearing my findings." Liara said, gathering her materials.
"One last thing, Dr. T'soni. The University of Cairo is a prestigious academic institution. We are blessed to have some of the finest historians that Humans and Quarians have produced. What we don't have is an expert on the Protheans, and it seems like every month we're finding new evidence of them either on Earth or in and around its space. We would very much be honored if you would accept the position of Head of Prothean Studies for the University of Cairo." Renault said.
"Goddess.. I... yes of course! I would be honored!" Liara said, completely overwhelmed with happiness. This had been her dream, studying the Protheans for a living. The chances of her doing so for the University of Serrice was minuscule, Prothean "experts" were a dime a dozen, and Asari tended to live in the moment rather than dwell on the past.
"Yes! Suck it Oxford!" Mohamed shouted, creating a ripple of laughter to cycle through the room.
"Forgive Dr. Abdallah, his disdain for that institution aside he advocated for your hire quite enthusiastically, not that we required much persuasion. Your work here has been nothing but exemplary. We'll contact Thessia and Earth Immigration to make sure if they require some sort of work papers to keep it legal, I don't foresee any issues to be honest. We'll get all the paperwork ready for you. In the meantime, I'd love to tell you to go take a week off to celebrate but I'm guessing you're going to head straight back out to the sphinx after this." Renault said, smirking.
"Goddess have I become that predictable?" Liara said.
"Yes and we love you for it. Go have fun Dr. T'soni." Renault said, taking her leave. Liara walked over to Mohamed and hugged him.
"Thank you, Mohamed, this is a dream come true for me." Liara said.
"It's my pleasure, I'm glad to have someone who shares my love of Prothean history on board. Now don't worry about any of that paperwork, I happen to be 'good friends' with the Asari Ambassador." Mohamed said, grinning.
"Ugh, don't remind me. You know she's a thousand years old." Liara said.
"Yeah, she doesn't look a day over five hundred." Mohamed said. Liara rolled her eyes, then boarded their transport which was indeed headed back to the Sphinx.
The Crew of the Normandy were readying the ship for departure. After passing the rite, all of the adolescent Krogan that had been assigned to the Normandy had requested to serve under Battlemaster Commander Urdnot Jane Shepard vas Normandy, and all had been accepted without a second thought. The young Krogan had gotten along with the rest of the crew so well nobody wanted ot break up the band, there was also the fact that they were all very qualified for their roles. Six of them including Kurg and Grak served as marines whereas Targ was rapidly proving her worth in Engineering. Tali found herself wondering how she managed to keep the systems going in there without her before, and Engineer Adams came to think of the girl as a surrogate daughter.
Shepard was looking down at her omnitool going over her checklist with Tali and Targ when suddenly a great shadow formed in front of her, as though a cloud had drifted into the path of the sun, which was behind her. She turned around and was shocked to see the towering beast of a Krogan who called herself Targ's grandmother. Shepard grinned at her, then looked at targ.
"At ease Targ, pretty sure your grandmother would eat me if I didn't let her say goodbye to you." Shepard said.
"You know you humans are no fun, you're not afraid of anything." Denuva said, smiling down at Shepard She just laughed and stepped aside so she could hug her granddaughter. She surprised Tali by picking her up in a bear hug too.
"You two don't be strangers now. I expect letters young lady." She said that last to Targ.
"Of course, grandmother." Targ said.
"Don't worry Uvenk Denuva, if anyone asks I'll tell them you growled at me and I pissed myself like Tevos. Your reputation is safe with me." Shepard said.
"HA! I wish we'd met you humans earlier." Denuva said, slapping Shepard a bit harder than she'd meant to on the back. Thankfully the armor prevented a slipped disc. Shepard took it in stride.
"Reegar, you're up." Shepard said, Tuuv ascended the ramp waiting by the entrance with it's three-fingered hand print. All of the Krogan, upon accepting their assignment to the Normandy had also accepted the offer to take Quarian ship names, and Reegar gave out the traditional Quarian blessing. The Quarians were deeply touched by this gesture, the Krogan wore their names with pride. As each was dubbed 'Vas Normandy' they pressed their hand against the lucky hand print and boarded the ship. Shepard mused to herself that pretty soon there'd be alliance ships flying around with Krogan hand prints next to the entrance.
Ashley Willams was in her element. She could see herself one day commanding her own ship, but what she specialized in was organization. The role of executive officer was seemingly built for her. Her keen eye to detail served her well in managing everything seeing to the nutritional needs of the new Krogan crew, to making sure Normandy's operational and language databases were constantly updated. The only downside to this razor-sharp focus on her duty is that she frequently fails to see what is directly in front of her.
"Give her a second." Shepard said, grinning
"Oh I remember." a familiar male voice said. That brought her out of her trance
"Who's what now?" Ashley asked looking around only to squeal in delight as her eyes rested upon Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko. She rushed into his arms, kissing him passionately, resulting in wolf whistles from the bridge crew.
"Get a room you two." Shepard chided, kicking Ashley in the butt and walking off to check with Joker about ship status.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Ashley asked
"I was on Tuchanka dropping off supplies, I needed a lift back to Cochrane station, and your lovely commander obliged." Kaiden said.
"Lovely, is she?" Ashley said in mock jealousy.
"Oooh, someone's jealous..." Kaiden said grinning.
"Shut up and let's go get some food. Gardner's been working on this Quarian pasta dish you should try." She said.
"Lead the way, milady" Alenko said, taking her hand and allowing her to lead him.
"You know you guys gotta stop rubbing it in, some of us are on a dry streak." Joker said to Shepard.
"My heart bleeds, Moreau. We both know you're married to the Normandy." Shepard said.
"Don't listen to her girl, she doesn't know what she's talking about." He said, stroking a console. Shepard's omnitool came to life, there was an urgent message waiting for her from Admiral Anderson. She excused herself and went into her cabin to take the call.