Chapter 60
Over the next couple of days, Aria and Shepard met several times, sometimes hashing out business between the Alliance and Omega, sometimes sparring, most of the time just chatting. It had been a long time for Aria since she had met someone she could safely consider a peer. Though Shepard's line of work was infinitely more...legitimate, the two were both strong women in charge of making decisions that affected the lives of thousands. Despite Shepard being the commander of just a single frigate, she had twice been leaned on to coordinate defensive campaigns consisting of dozens of ships and thousands of people. Aria was the literal monarch of a station of millions, including a paramilitary force of thousands whom she employed to keep the peace. They had quite a lot in common.
Tali had made a friend in one of the station's many engineering sections, a scarred Asari former slave who insisted on wearing an opaque black head scarf named Narek. At first the two were at odds, when Narek discovered Tali fiddling with a broken maintenance access panel. She had assumed the Quarian was trying to sabotage the station, but discovered much to her delight that Tali had efficiently and cleanly bypassed a dying, and rather tricky environmental control circuit feeding power to the systems through an auxiliary regulator. Since then the two spent hours discussing the sad state of the technology that ran Omega. Even after the income from the eezo mining operation and Aria's other side hustles, there was little left over to update and repair much of the inner workings of the station. There were simply too many mouths to feed on Omega.
Tali, being one of the most gifted engineers to come out of the migrant fleet, which is saying quite a lot, had started giving several priceless bits of advice to Narek on how to scavenge and recondition parts. The older sections of the eezo mine on the outskirts were littered with abandoned mining equipment, so Tali suggested breaking down some of their damaged systems into their constituent components and use what was still intact on repairing the station's systems, within an hour of impromptu Quarian engineering lecture and scrounging in the old mines, Narek had ideas and materials that would improve the function and efficiency of her systems exponentially.
"So you see this exhaust manifold is trashed, but the filter is still in really good condition, hook this up to oxygen scrubber in life support and you'll get another ten years out of it before you need to replace the filter again." Tali said.
"Brilliant! Goddess I wish we had more of you guys around." Narek said, tapping furiously into her omnitool.
"Well things seem to be going well between Jane and Aria, so you might be seeing more of us in the future." Tali said, knocking a bolt loose with a mallet from the conduit over her head.
"Jane?" Narek asked.
"Commander Shepard. Her full name is Commander Urdnot Jane Shepard Vas Normandy." Tali said.
"She has Krogan and Quarian names?" Narek asked.
"Yup. She was Krantt to two of our Krogan crew mates for the rite, once finished they considered her Krogan. Once assigned to a ship, most Alliance soldiers of all races take Quarian ship names. " Tali explained.
"Well I hope things do go well. The alliance people I've met so far have been so polite. None of them have even asked me about all this." She said gesturing at her scars and head scarf.
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious, but I didn't want to upset or embarrass you." Tali said. Narek paused for a second, and began slowly removing the fastener on her head scarf letting it droop down to her shoulders. Tali gasped at the sight. The Asari are known for the semi-flexible head crests protruding from the back and top of their heads, however Narek's head was covered in scarred stumps where the crests used to be. The jagged, discolored flesh stood out proving that this was not a birth defect.
"Slavers?" Tali asked. Narek nodded, refusing to meet Tali's eyes. Tali gently pushed the Asari's gaze upwards to meet her own with a hand.
"Thank you for sharing this with me. Do other Asari give you grief over it?" Tali asked. Narek looked away again and nodded sadly.
"That's why the slavers did it. I tried to escape too many times, they wanted to make sure I didn't want to go back home to Thessia. On the surface I would be treated kindly, but my kind for all its patience and wisdom still is quick to discriminate." She said, replacing the scarf.
"Wouldn't they be able to heal the damage in your hospitals?" Tali asked.
"No, our crests are very complicated structures of soft tissue, cartilige and extremely dense nerve clusters. Our medical services can do a lot but repairing complicated tissues like head crests is still in the early stages. Believe me, I asked around." Narek said. This confused Tali, the Asari were known throughout the galaxy as the pinnacle of knowledge especially of the biological sciences.
"If you'd like I could ask our Dr. Chakwas and Dr. Dinan. We've made a ton of huge medical advances lately, they may be able to do something for you." Tali said. Narek shrugged, but Tali could see she was struggling not to get her hopes up.
Sooner than anyone would have liked, the time had come to leave Omega. They had managed to make quite an impact on the station, particularly with the few criminals who were foolish enough to try to take advantage of them. As they returned to the Normandy a considerable crowd had gathered to send them off, at the head of it was Aria herself. To maintain her reputation Shepard simply offered a curt nod before boarding the ship, which she returned in kind before turning and stalking back to Afterlife. Reegar waved at a group of children he'd spent a few hours reading to each day they were there, and Karin bid Liselle a tearful farewell.
On the way to the Omega relay, they passed the angrily red-glowing Omega 4 relay, giving it a wide berth.
"Joker, what's up with that relay?" Shepard asked.
"It's the Omega-4 Relay. The only known situation of a system having two. Nobody knows where that one leads though, nobody who's gone through have ever come back except a secretive species called the Collectors. We should keep an eye out for them Commander, they trade exotic technology for slaves." Joker said.
"Oh do they... I'll have to talk to Admiral Anderson about that the next time I see him." Shepard said.
"Speaking of which, Commander, the Admirals are asking to speak with you via QEC." Ashley said from behind her, startling her.
"Goddamn you and your ninja feet." Shepard said playfully punching Ash's shoulder. She grinned in response.
"I'll go take it in my Cabin. Ship's yours, asshole." She said to Ashley who nodded and headed back to the CIC. The trip to her cabin was short since everyone was back at their stations getting everything up to speed after a couple of days of down time and nobody needed to interrupt her for any thing. She sat at her desk and routed the call.
"Commander, how did things go on Omega?" Admiral Hackett asked.
"Very well. The medics and materials made it safely and Aria was very open to working with us. Since we have more territory than we can use and no need for eezo we don't really constitute a threat to her station, and she's very interested in facilitating trade. My report contains a number of points of interest including intelligence regarding Batarian slave markets operating outside of their space." Shepard said.
"Excellent work Commander as always. That's not the only reason we called however." Admiral Korris said.
"I suspected as much. What can I do for you Admirals?" Shepard asked.
"The order has come down. Some time tomorrow the Prime minister will announce it to the public. We have declared war on the Batarian Hegemony." Admiral Gerrel stated.
"So soon? I was expecting more preparation time." Shepard said.
"This next part doesn't leave the room until tomorrow." Hackett said.
"Of course, Sir." Shepard said
"The Asari Republics and Turian Hegemony have pledged their full support, and will be contributing ships, soldiers and material support." Anderson said.
"My god. I understand wanting to fight against slavery, and free the Batarian people, but this seems so sudden." Shepard said.
"The Hegemony is a looming threat and we need it dealt with swiftly, and soon. There are unfortunately, greater threats on the horizon." Xen contributed.
"Like what?" Shepard asked.
"Tell me, Commander. Have you ever heard of the Reapers?" Hackett asked.
Liara was an absolute mess. She was drenched in sweat, she was pretty sure she smelled awful and her hands were covered in filth and small abrasions from the earth she was digging through. In other words, she was in heaven. The archaeologists there had offered to complete the excavation of the obelisk while she got settled in but she would have none of it. Her motto was no Archaeologist worth their salt ever walked away from a site with clean hands. Her new colleagues were pleased that their impressions of here were so wrong. A woman with such academic credentials they'd expected to show up and lord over them from inside an air conditioned prefab, but she reveled in being in the dirt and grime with them.
"Ok, I think we're ready to move it. Please be careful though, I was able to shut this one down but they're very old and we don't know everything about them. The one in Egypt knocked me unconscious." Liara said. She got a series of nods as the other diggers strapped it down and prepared the obelisk for airlift. She took a few steps back and brushed the dirt off her hands, admiring her handiwork. Just as she was about to get back to the site to look for other artifacts, her omnitool lit up and she answered the call.
"Dr. T'soni, this is Angela Suzuki, mayor of Eden Prime. Is this a bad time?" The woman on the other end of the line asked.
"Not at all, Mayor, how can I be of assistance?" Liara asked.
"I was hoping you were available for lunch. We rarely get visitors out this far and I wanted to meet you properly." Suzuki said.
"Of course, that would be wonderful. I just need to go home and wash up first. Are there any restaurants in town that serve levo as well as dextro?" Liara asked.
"Yes, our restaurants upgraded when the Krogan joined the Alliance. Please meet me at the diner on Clifton Street, your vehicle's navigation system will know how to get there. Thanks!" She said.
"I'll see you there." Liara said. She looked at the chronometer on her omnitool, it was early yet so she felt a good long soak was in order and made her way home. Little did she know that miles above the service a nearly invisible probe of Geth manufacture was peering down in her general location, transmitting information thousands of light years away to a sinister dreadnought and its new Turian captain.
"So I'm guessing you've never been to a Human diner before." Angela Suzuki said to Liara as she walked into the diner wearing a stunning, ornate dress worth more than the Mayor made in a month.
"Actually, no I have not. I fear I may have over dressed..." Liara said blushing. Angela chucked kindheartedly.
"No matter, please have a seat." Angela said gesturing towards a booth at the back of the diner. The Mayor and she were the only patrons at the moment, which suited her well enough. A waitress arrived almost instantly taking their drink orders.
"So you're here about that Prothean Obelisk they found?" Angela asked.
"Yes, they requested I study it to see if it had any more insight about the reapers." Liara said.
"I read the dispatch they put out on that, normally I'd be inclined to think that giant alien monsters from 50,000 years ago coming back to kill us was someone's poor idea of a joke, but then I tasted Nurg's casserole." Angela said
"Nobody's makin' you eat here, mayor." A deep rumbling voice from the kitchen bellowed as a Krogan wearing a hilariously undersized apron walked out into the dining area.
"Just kidding Nurg you know I love your cooking." Angela said chuckling. Nurg grinned and shook his head, walking back to his work.
"Truthfully though we have been making preparations here on Eden Prime. The Geth have been helping us dig deep bunkers into the crust. That's actually how we found the obelisk. Once we got about five hundred meters down we found a hardened series of corridors built by the Protheans. There's still quite a bit down there but the Geth have asked us not to explore until they've stabilized the surrounding area. They're hoping to re purpose the old Prothean ruins to protect the colony's people if either the Reapers, the Batarians or the Council come out to play." Angela said
"That's quite pragmatic of them. I am curious however, why is it that you wanted to meet with me?" Liara asked, sitting back to provide room for the waiter to deliver their drinks and take their orders.
"Well, Dr. T'soni, my husband is from the migrant fleet, and his few interactions with Asari have always been unpleasant. I wanted to get a feel for who you are, and gauge whether or not we were going to have any trouble." the mayor said, pinning Liara to her seat with her gaze.
"If we're being Honest, Mayor Suzuki, outside my mother and a few childhood friends I haven't had many positive interactions with Asari myself. I've always been somewhat of an outcast amongst my peers, most Asari historians and archaeologists concentrate on our own history and those of a few of the council races. For such a long-lived people we tend to have a fairly narrow viewpoint. As a result I've worked alone most of my professional life." Liara said
"That sounds terribly lonely." Angela said.
"At times, but I've made quite a few friends here in the Alliance since my mother took on the role of Ambassador." Liara said.
"So you don't have trouble getting along with Humans, Quarians and Krogan?" Angela asked.
"Not really, no. Part of studying a long dead civilization means being patient and open-minded. Asari while patient are very set in our ways of thinking. The Alliance races seem to have much more dynamic viewpoints. My people will argue for decades, centuries even that they're right about something, your people seem to revel in being wrong because it means there's an opportunity to learn something new. I quite enjoy working with you." Liara said, just before finishing the light meal she'd ordered.
"I'm glad to hear that. Well I'm sorry to be abrupt but I've got to go finalize a trade deal with an Elcor mining syndicate. Lovely people the Elcor, but it does take quite a while to get through negotiations. I'll see you later." Angela said, excusing herself and leaving. Liara disposed of her garbage and thanked Nurg on the way out, she had more human smut to read.