Doctor and archaeologist extraordinaire Liara T'soni was feeling nervous.

Her unease might have had something to do with the fact that the ship she and a few dozen others were sharing at the moment was a prototype Turian design, never before flown on a long mission until now. It's not that she didn't trust the Turians, they were more than competent designers when it came to spacecraft, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't care for the look and feel to it: Long, sleek, and constructed to use limited space in an efficient yet stylish manner. It's just that, given what little she overheard of the near-indecipherable jargon emanating from the young Quarian in charge of engineering, Tali'Zorah, the ship's drive core and main functions were incredibly complex, and given the untested nature of the vessel itself, accidents were bound to happen.

The anxious feeling gnawing the Asari's gut may have also stemmed from the Council's latest bright idea of ordering this particular mission to be jointly operated by a multi species crew, in order to "Foster a stronger bond between the galaxy's many races, and bring our kinds closer together", or some other nonsense. Under normal circumstances, this would hardly be a problem, given the fact that interaction between Council races was fairly frequent. The trouble with this situation was the Krogan clan leader who joined the mission after the Asari councilmember curiously suggested it. Cooping up Salarians and Turians in the same ship with a Krogan on a mission with an indeterminate end was a recipe for disaster, not to mention that fact that the ship happened to be named after the bloodiest battle in Turian history. Which was fought against the Krogans. In the Turian's defense, they might have named it something else had they known a Krogan would be a part of its maiden voyage. And while the Quarian engineer certainly seemed capable, many people looked down upon Quarians as being roving, thieving vagabonds. She would withhold judgment, mainly because she had never met one for herself until now, and could only hope others would be as open-minded.

While low in quantity, Liara was convinced that the severity of the problems that faced this expedition more than explained her worry. She did her best stop her mind from fretting about what could happen, and instead get her body to start working toward making what should happen, happen.

The makeshift office set up for her was surprisingly spacious, given the more military aspect of the Digeris. Given the nature of the primary objective for this little trip, however, she supposed it did make sense. Taking a moment to stretch and work out the kinks in her muscles, Liara rolled her chair forward to the console on her desk, and began to reread the mission briefing and parameters: Volus merchant vessel outbound from Palaven experienced unexpected FTL drive core malfunctions, was forced out of light speed near an unexplored region of space. They detected a weak, unknown signal that suggested possible intelligent life, was unwilling to risk precious cargo to investigate further. It all seemed very run-of-the-mill, save for that mystery signal. It was uniquely separate from any other signal used by any known race, and it was so faint, Tali submitted that, barring an existing, primitive culture discovering inter-system transmitting for themselves, it was likely an antique, dying transmitter set to ping automatically, suggesting the possibility of ruins from a previous civilization, hence Doctor T'soni's reason for being here. The chance to uncover and learn from untouched remains of a previously unheard of race excited her immensely. What was their physiology like? What kind of art, architecture, and literature did they produce? What was the reason behind their extinction? Countless more questions buzzed around in her mind, but she did her best to calm them down. She hadn't even seen the planet that these ruins might be on, if they even existed.

Her thoughts on the subject were halted by a deep, gravelly voice originating from her omnitool.

"We're about 5 minutes out Doctor, figured you'd want to be up at the cockpit for when we drop out of FTL."

"Yes, thank you, Captain Vakarian." She replied, "Are we picking up that errant signal?"

"We are, but it's even weaker now than when the Volus first intercepted it. Tali's convinced whatever is making the signal is on its dying breath." The Captain said, a slight warble in in his Turian vocal chords she couldn't decipher.

Could be nervous, like me. Or excited. It's hard to tell with Turians. She mused, headed past the ship's galley toward the elevator that would take her to the large second floor that housed the cockpit, among other things.

"Also, Captain, I keep telling you, you don't have to call me Doctor. I may have the degree, but many Asari still consider me young enough to be a child, so please, call me Liara." She said into her omnitool.

"Nonsense, you spent decades working to earn that title, the least you could do is wave it around." He replied, a hint of amusement in his voice, "Not like you can do much else with it…"

"Excuse me?" she questioned, angrily.

His resonating laughter echoed from the glowing device on her arm, "I'm just messing with you, Liara. Now hurry up and get your blue butt up here, we'll be dropping out of FTL any time now."

She glared at nothing in particular as the drab grey metal walls slowly slid past her view as the elevator continued to rise. The captain of the Digeris was quite entertaining to be around, but Liara believed he could be too informal at times, though she would admit that she enjoyed his company, his relaxed stance on most things aside.

The smooth stop to the rising elevator floor let her know she had arrived at her destination, the doors making a faint hissing noise as they slid apart, allowing the doctor passage into the bustling, organized chaos that was the Command Deck. Various crewmembers scrambling around, or focused intently on the blinking lights of the consoles in front of them, all making sure that the Digeris was running at peak efficiency. It reminded Liara that, as un-Turian as Garrus Vakarian might be, he still expected nothing less than excellence from his crew.

Stepping up to the cockpit, Liara found that the captain had beat her there, the much taller Turian taking up the space immediately behind the pilot's chair, staring out the viewport. He turned and nodded in her direction when he noticed her arrival.

"Doctor." He said in greeting, either forgetting their previous conversation already, or simply having decided that he was going to call her that.

"Captain." She returned the greeting, her eyes moving past his scarred face as she took in the mosaic mess of color that was FTL travel.

"To think, all this time, so much expansion, yet we never realized there was a completely unexplored system of planets right in our backyard. With the admittedly slight potential for intelligent life, no less." Garrus thought aloud.

"When you're wrapped up in the big affairs of an even bigger galaxy, it's easy to miss the little thing that's right in front of you."

Garrus' mandibles tilted in the equivalent of a Turian smirk, and replied, "How very insightful of you. Shall we add Philosopher to your ever-expanding repertoire of job titles?"

The Asari gave him an unamused stare, then decided to give in to temptation and meet his remark with a little barb of her own.

"That's a lot of big words for you, captain. Have you been socializing with our resident Salarian medical officer too much?"

Garrus tilted his head back in laughter, "See? Now you're getting it. Great fun, antagonizing people, did it all the time back in C-Sec." A thoughtful expression replaced his jovial one. "To be honest, though, that may have been the reason most C-Sec people didn't like me."

Liara merely grinned and shook her head. Very un-Turian indeed.

The playful atmosphere quickly dissipated when Liara heard heavy, measured footsteps behind her. She held in a gasp as she whirled around to face clan leader Urdnot Wrex.

While the large hump on his back gave him an almost hunched over appearance, the Krogan stood even taller than Garrus, and also sported a bulkier, more powerful build. Deep scars traced from the right side of his neck to past his jaw, over his eye, ending at the beginning of the bright red crest adorning his head, where several other old wounds traced horizontally across his upper forehead. When he spoke, his voice was similar to Garrus', though where Garrus had an avian-like trill to his speech Wrex possessed a deeper tone, more akin to rolling thunder.

"We're almost there?" he drawled, the deep bass of his voice almost making it difficult for Liara to decipher his words.

"Yes, and I'm glad you're here, Battlemaster. You'll be part of the team that goes down planet side should we detect anything interesting." Garrus says smoothly, no hint of caution or nervousness.

Wrex's reptilian eyes narrowed, "You sure you want a Krogan to be part of that group? Even with the chance of making first contact?"

"I trust you won't start shooting without good reason." Was Garrus' firm reply. Whether he was being sincere, or vaguely threatening, Liara couldn't say.

Before the conversation went any further, the lavender skinned Asari pilot spoke.

"Dropping out of FTL in 3…2…1…"

Garrus brought his gaze back to the reinforced cockpit window where the blur of color outside flashed briefly, then quickly vanished as it was replaced by a most unusual sight.

Where stars or planets might have been expected, the individuals facing the front viewport were treated to a scenic vista of a massive ship graveyard. Where the inky void of space was expected, the space around the hulking masses of ruined metal had a strange bluish-grey hue to it. A harsh sun shed light all around, its rays burning through what almost looked like clouds in space, somewhat akin to a nebula, but not quite the same.

Liara was struck speechless by the sight. The seemingly endless sea of decimated ships was tragic, yet that tragedy was mingled with the natural beauty of this particular patch of void. It was the kind of thing poets and musicians wrote about.

"Must've been one hell of a battle here." The Krogan Battlemaster says approvingly.

Liara held back a sigh. She supposed not everyone could appreciate such things.

"Are the stealth systems engaged?" Garrus asked the pilot, more concerned about keeping a low profile, in case someone was in the area.

"Yes sir, stealth systems are engaged, and holding steady. We're running silent, no signs of detection." The pilot replied, then added, "Just so you know sir, it's gonna be difficult for us to pin down a potential threat in this graveyard. A low-powered ship could hide itself just as well as our fancy stealth drive core can hide us."

The captain nodded curtly, "Noted." He said, "Take us through slowly, her kinetic barriers are tough, but there's no need to push Digeris to her limits here." The pilot acknowledged his order, and began skillfully maneuvering the ship through the countless wrecks.

Garrus turned to the other occupants of the cockpit. "I guess we can safely say there's something in this system worth exploring. I'd tell you two to get ready and gear up, but it looks like that's been taken care of." Garrus smirked to himself. While the Asari and Krogan in front of him had very different motivations, they both had their reasons for wanting to get off the ship and plant their boots in the dirt. Or snow. Or whatever terrain they encountered.

"Will it be just the three of us, then?" Liara asked, feigning nonchalance. In truth she didn't really care for the idea of potentially playing Turian-Krogan diplomat.

"Looks like it." Garrus confirmed, either unaware of her unease, or deciding not to acknowledge it, "I'm sure our savvy engineer would love to try and figure out whatever tech our mystery race might have had, but I'll need her to remain onboard, in case the stealth drive core decides to misbehave." Garrus squeezed past his soon to be squadmates to exit the cockpit. "Hang out here, or in the shuttle bay, I don't mind. Not much to do until we locate a suitable planet to investigate. I'll be in the armory, need to calibrate the scope on my sniper rifle."

The Krogan was already on his way to follow the captain's example and vacate the cockpit, when Liara lightly grabbed his shoulder.

"Wrex" she blurted, then, collecting herself, continued in a calm manner, "Regardless of what people may think of your kind, I just want you to know that I don't have any reservations about working alongside you. I have no doubt you will do all you can to fight should we encounter any trouble." She said earnestly.

The Battlemaster's face was inscrutable, his eyes holding Liara's unwavering, though clearly nervous gaze. After a handful of seconds, he inclined his head toward the Asari. "Appreciate it, Doc. Looking forward to seeing you in the field. Even though we'll probably be standing around looking at dusty relics." He said, continuing his walk toward the center of the ship.

Liara let out a breath he didn't know she was holding. It wasn't exactly a pact of friendship, though she seriously doubted Krogans were inclined toward such a thing, but she would take what she could get.

Uldren Sov was furious.

His heavy footfalls echoed through the large chamber as he nearly stomped his way across the narrow catwalk to his sister's throne, long, narrow glow rods attached vertically to either side of the path to offer some illumination. While the Queen's body language atop her decadent seat suggested she was relaxed, her eyes remained sharp and alert, the pale orbs fixed on her brother as he approached.

"Why" he practically growled through gritted teeth, "why did you order my men to stand down? They had a perfect shot to eliminate the threat!" he all but shouted, unable to comprehend why she, of all people would be so careless with the security of the Reef.

The Queen didn't respond right away, instead offering him little more than a tilt of her head and a raised eyebrow before saying, "A ship far larger than anything we possess drops in from beyond the borders of the Reef, outfitted with technology we do not understand, filled with aliens that we have likely never met, and the first thing that comes to your mind is destruction." She gives him a mocking smile. "How unimaginative."

Uldren turned to yell incoherently, his vocalized anger reverberating throughout the throne room. Whipping back around to point a finger at his sister, he says, "Do you realize the position you put me in? My task, above all others, is to maintain the safety of our borders. How am I supposed to do that when the only person who outranks me tells me to not do my job?"

Feeling some sympathy for her kin, she explains, "As I expected, they moved on. These beings may have technology beyond our own, but the Darkness shielded us from their sight. Your first priority is indeed the safeguarding of our realm, and it remains safe. Whoever these newcomers are, they will likely meet the Guardians soon."

"Assuming they don't get torn apart by the Fallen or the Hive." Uldren mutters, still fuming, but nevertheless understanding the Queen's reasoning.

"That is also a possibility." She concedes, as she leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees. "That is why you will follow them, rather than attack them."

Uldren was taken aback. "My pilots had little trouble staying hidden in the graveyard, they'd stick out like sore thumbs anywhere else." He reasoned.

"They will just have to keep their distance. A vessel that large in a system this small will be far more noticeable than a sore thumb. Even with its ability to make no detectable noise, I believe that this alien ship will not be able to hide forever." The Queen stands and slowly walks toward Uldren before gently placing a hand on his shoulder. "Please do not think that my actions today insinuate that I have no trust in you, brother." Her soothing voice intoned, "Sometimes I have plans even you are not aware of."

He let out a theatrical sigh, "Fair enough, your Majesty." He said, before bowing at the waist, then turned to leave the chamber." I'll send my best men to try and keep an eye on that alien ship. Any information they gather will go straight to you."

"That is all that I ask, Uldren."