Milenya could only dimly remember being carried out of the facility and onto the ship. She felt completely spent, exhausted, and fell asleep even before Dr. Beruut got her peeled out of her now defunct armor.<br/><br/>The first sight that greeted her when she finally became conscious and fully aware of her surroundings, was the now-familiar confines of her own bunk in the tech lab, and the blank screen set above her. The little room was darkened, the lights muted.<br/><br/>She shifted onto her side and just stared blankly at the opposite wall for a long while, before triggering her omnitool to see if there were any messages. The only one that immediately came up was one from the Salarian, admonishing her to spend time recovering and not exert herself.<br/><br/>She could do that easily enough. Just sit. Sleep. Relax. Read.<br/><br/>Read. Yes. There was a whole pile of research to go through, analysis reports and data from the dig site disaster. And it would be easier to deal with than anything requiring that she get out of bed.<br/><br/>*****<br/><br/>She'd read through it, off and on. That first day, she'd napped frequently between reading a few pages or scanning an analysis. She'd gotten out to make it to a meal, and then wobbled her way to the showers during an off-cycle to get clean, but little more than that. The second day, she'd felt better. The supplements Dr. Beruut had dispensed had done their job, and now she was able to focus.<br/><br/>She looked at the summaries she'd compiled. One was on the structural materials found at the site. They were highly advanced, incredibly durable, and even in the degraded state they'd been found in, had an amazing thermal and structural profile. At the same time, they were not so far different than the known Prothean structural metals. More advanced, yes. Longer lasting, yes. But in terms of material science, they were an evolution of what was already known to be possible. Or perhaps, given their age, the Protheans had reverse-engineered the material and adapted a version for their own use.<br/><br/>The reports on the artifact, however, were far more puzzling. It was an enigma. It had been held in that structure, powered by the comparitively more primitive power cells. Power cells which, themselves, were some forty million years old. What little data about what was going on inside indicated some resonance, energy applied to resonate with or perhaps cancel out another signal, but no sign of what that signal could be or even, truly, what purpose it would have served. And the material the artifact's casing was made of was identical to another known material; the Citadel's outer shell. Which was also the material the Mass Relays were made of, and different from the other constructs at the site.<br/><br/>Which was another piece of evidence that implied very strongly that the Protheans did not make the Mass Relays or the Citadel. This artifact, this enigma, had been in use roughly million years before the Prothean Empire existed.<br/><br/>There were questions, though, inconsistencies. The structure around the artifact had been dated in the hundreds of thousands of years. The power cells, in the millions. And yet the power cells were consistent with the level of technology found in the structure, but not the artifact. That was a mystery for which she had no explanation, only vague conjecture; what if the power cells belonged to an older civilization than even the one that had built the site? Yet, there was no proof of that, and probably could never be proof.<br/><br/>Well. One thing at least cleared itself up when she checked the raw data. Dr. Moslev had made some major miscalculations in estimating the age of the site. It, too, was around forty million years old. There were rounding errors, and then there were careless rounding errors. Moslev or whatever his name was had made the latter.<br/><br/>That had still led her into a brief exploration of speculative theories about the Protheans, the Prothean Extinctions, and so forth. Most of the 'papers' she'd read were obviously wild-eyed, far-fetched theories, but there were a few that explored what little fragmentary evidence there was. And the two best papers were published by a Dr. Liara T'Soni. They were not very well received, judging from the publications they appeared in, despite making no concrete claims and only laying out the known evidence.<br/><br/>She remembered meeting the woman once, a little more than a year before. The maiden had, apparently, given up her archaeological pursuits to take up office on Nos Astra and work as an information broker. Very, very young for that profession, not that Milenya disapproved, it was just very surprising. And as the daughter and sole apparent heir of the influential if now deceased Matriarch Benezia, Liara had naturally been invited to many high-level social events on Illium.<br/><br/>The young Asari had left the impression of being very intense, focused, and reserved, carrying herself with an assumed grace more fitting to a Maitriarch than a Maiden.<br/><br/>Perhaps she'd look the younger woman up when they got back to Illium.<br/><br/>There was nothing more she could add to the summaries, though. She leaned back in her chair, debated with herself, and then sent a copy to Cantenelli. After a moment's more thought, she sent a copy to Falkris. There was another enigma; she'd caught an undercurrent between Cantenelli and Falkris that implied some deeper game was going on.<br/><br/>*****<br/><br/>Illium was always a hot world. Even at the higher elevations of Nos Astra, built in the northern reaches of what was this world's temperate zone, temperatures often reached into the low 40's on the human's Celsius scale. In many ways, the whole city seemed to exist in twilight, both because of the frequent cloud cover and because it was simply more comfortable in the late afternoon and evening. Milenya had dressed accordingly, wearing the midriff-baring, light dress in purples and lilacs, with her pistol settled at her hip.<br/><br/>In the past two days, Ashana had been in a contemplative mood clearly wanting to be left alone to think. She overheard Firas and Sorv talking about plans to resupply and booze it up.<br/><br/>That left her wondering what she should do. She needed a new set of armor. As attached as she was to her old archeological expedition suit, she needed something more capable of standing up to the stress of combat. She probably could use a rifle, too. Maybe some mods for them. More than that, though, she wondered what she should *do*. The Acheron would be gone for a few days, maybe a week or two, disposing of the excess hardware they had picked up from the base.<br/><br/>As she contemplated the Nos Astra skyline, she wondered what Kala was doing. And Shira'Va. She'd been by the med bay a time or two, sitting with the Quarian through the treatments for the allergic shock.<br/><br/>Strange to think that she was now one of those who knew what a Quarian looked like under the suit. She wouldn't mind spending time with either of them. Something about Kala had captured her attention, and Shira, well, was someone she'd like to know better.<br/><br/>And she assumed Darion would go with Firas and Sorv.<br/><br/>So for the moment, she waited to see which of the others might be along.<br/><br/>Well, that was an idea. She pinged both of them with a casual invitation.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>