Daro's fingers wearily typed at the holographic keys of her omni-tool, attempting to repair the mining laser for what must have been the sixth time this week. Eighteen hour shifts every single day. Triple overtime with no pay. It was like she was a slave, taking her from her Pilgrimage and the Flotilla to work in these abysmal mines. She suddenly felt a great deal of sympathy for those unfortunate enough to be taken during the occasional batarian raid. She couldn't imagine doing this until her body finally keeled over, exhausted to the point of death.

Which wasn't to say she didn't feel damn close.

Daro let out a pained sigh, letting her arms droop to her sides. Every muscle screamed at her in agony, her tendons felt tight, tense. Everything hurt. She hadn't slept or eaten today and the heat was getting to her. The suit that clung to her skin worked it's climate controls hard to maintain a measure of comfort. It wasn't succeeding. She caught sight of a group of her "co-workers" lounging about as she slaved away in the scorching heat. Typical alien laziness. She wished she could wipe the sweat from her brow, the intense work causing her to perspire viciously inside the suit, regardless of how cool it tried to keep her. She had done mining work for the fleet before. Every quarian had. It was a fleet responsibility, as was tending to the crops on the Live Ships. That was nothing like this. Hard labor, she could handle. This was torture.

The fact she had been hired by this small mining firm had spoken to their desperation, the economic situation on Caleston apparently forcing the majority of the populace into poverty. She had naively hoped that the foreman had recognized her skills when he had chosen to hire her. Instead it seemed he had intended to work her until she dropped dead. Story of her life; everything had a catch. Not that she had a choice in the matter. She needed to eat and there was almost no chance of her getting a job elsewhere. It was meager pay, but she had been saving just a little each week in the hopes of buying passage off-world. Her efforts to broker a deal with Eldfell-Ashland had failed. She needed to start over somewhere else. That was fine with her. She'd just work harder to get what she needed. She wasn't above doing the dirty work, as long as it got her what she wanted.

"Hey, bitch! I don't see you working!"

A sneering voice spoke up from the gallery of dirt-encrusted faces. She recognized it as belonging to a turian who apparently had a particular problem with her presence. Turians hated quarians more than the average alien. Turians believed everyone should have a place, a purpose. Those who didn't wear face paint to show their allegiances were automatically looked down upon. Quarians didn't even have faces. Nomads with no home, no place anywhere.

"Stupid quarian whore. I can't believe my taxes actually go to supporting your kind of filth here. Lazy bucket probably never had to work a day in it's life."

Daro turned to glare at the turian, he and his throng of filth cackling at her misfortune. Just words. She returned to working away at her omni-tool. Always with the words. "Bitch" and "whore" had replaced "freak" and "pariah". She couldn't decide if that was worse or better. Probably worse. She was too tired to really think about it. She had long since given up reasoning with them, trying to explain the Pilgrimage and her reasons for coming to Caleston. They were a minor annoyance at best, ignorant of her and the people they so casually cast to the dirt. It didn't faze her. She was a proud daughter of the Fleet. Even if they hated and reviled her, she knew this mining equipment like the surface of her visor. Pressing one last holographic key, the mining laser roared to life as the beam reenergized, tearing away at the stone and filling the mine with deafening noise; her cloak billowed out into the wind with a violent sweeping motion. She walked away from the laser, mocking applause and jeering remarks her only companion. She paid them no mind. The surveying equipment was next. At least that was on the surface, away from the other miners and their buffoonery.

A blaring siren suddenly sounded, greeted with jubilant cries from the other miners. Their shift was over, as was hers. Thank the ancestors. Daro walked towards the lift, the foreman's voice cutting through the noise of the deactivating laser and stopping her in her tracks.

"Not you, Xen. Come see me in my office. Now."

Daro took a long sigh before turning around and taking the private lift to the foreman's office. Sitting in the cramped elevator, she ran through the numerous possible reasons for this no doubt disciplinary chat. It would likely involve the fact that the sole mining laser was offline for nearly the entire shift. Offline primarily because of the fact he was willing to overwork aged equipment in a desperate attempt to make a profit. He needed someone to yell at. Naturally, he chose the quarian. Having a bad day? Yell at the quarian. Lose your wallet? Blame the quarian. Want some target practice? Shoot at the quarian. They don't feel pain, they're just suits that seem to stand and talk on their own. They aren't people like the rest of us.

The lift came to halt near the entrance of the mine, the foreman's office built into the rocky walls of the descending tunnel to the mine itself. Daro took a deep breath before walking into the office, a small space even by quarian standards, made even more cramped by the clutter of papers and tools scattered across the floor.

The foreman, a bloated and sweating human, sat behind his worn desk, the warm glow of his terminal exposing his dry, cracked skin for the creviced mess it was. He didn't bother looking up as he waved her in, typing furiously at his console. Typical. Just ignore the suit. She won't mind. It's not like she's just spent the past 18 hours breaking her back for you. She doesn't want to go home and get some rest, she won't mind being worked half to death without a break. Bosh'tet. His face was red and was sweating profusely as he typed. Daro found him revolting. There were no fat quarians, the reason being that no one person had more than another, food being a carefully monitored commodity. No doubt the recent economic plummet had made his life rather stressful; such a girth clearly required a great deal of sustenance. A desperate man who made a profit over other people's hard work. It wasn't hard to hate him, especially not when you came from a society where everyone helped the other, and did so whether they were the captain or a child. Even being a social outcast, Daro had always offered a helping hand to her fellow quarian, and a hand was always offered her, even if it was done grudgingly. She cleared her throat in an effort to gain his attention. She wanted nothing more than to be without his presence. He looked up from his console, his lips curled upwards as he spoke.

"Give me a reason why I shouldn't fire you."

Daro was taken aback by the blatant disdain in his question. What an odd thing to ask. Humans were strange. Was he trying to trick her? It was an obvious answer.

"You hired me because you needed the best engineer you could find. I am worth seven of your best on my worst day." Her tone spoke volumes. 'Idiot. I'm tired. I want to go home. Stop wasting my time.'

The foreman's stubby fingers came together as though pondering what she said, slowly standing from his desk, he gazed out of the steel shutters of his office to watch his employees exit the mine into the billowing sandstorms of the surface.

"I know you don't have anywhere else to go, quarian. There isn't a single place on this planet that would hire one of your kind." Daro narrowed her eyes. Of course she knew that, he hadn't stopped hammering it into her head since she got here. She did what he asked and didn't even complain, why was he wasting her time like this?

The foreman pressed a key on the side of the window frame, closing the shutters loudly as he continued speaking, a single, flickering, dull light faintly keeping his face visible.

"I've been generous. Now it's your turn."

Daro raised a brow under her visor. Generous? Like hell. What was he taking about? This didn't make sense. Damn humans and their games. Couldn't anyone ever just speak plain? She had always hated that about other people. She held no secrets, she wasn't afraid for her opinions to be known. It irritated her when other people weren't blunt and honest in their meaning.

"I've been working triple overtime without pay. I don't know what else I can do without you working me into the grave. If you want the repairs and drilling to go faster, hire more engineers." Daro had a hard time believing this repugnant lump of a man ever managed to get a business degree. Even growing up in a system as communal as the quarian's, she was able to ascertain that much at least.

The foreman slithered behind her, his hands creeping to her shoulders as he rubbed them through her suit. Daro felt herself go rigid. What the hell was he doing?

"I can think of a few... other ways you can make yourself useful." His voice was quiet, but sounded oily and cracked. Demanding even. She could feel his pudgy little sausages rubbing into her suit, but didn't know what to do, momentary shock locking her into place.

His hands slowly slid lower from her shoulders, stubby fingers gripping at her armored bust. Daro's eyes widened in horror as the realization of his intentions struck her. Her hands moved swiftly, despite her exhausted muscles, pushing his arms away, using fluid momentum to push him to the side in an elegant display of quarian martial arts. Strength through fluidity and manipulation of the natural world's laws of physics. She was an expert. The foreman staggered and fell against the wall, caught off balance. She could feel his burning gaze on her back. Her eyes narrowed into a sharp glare as he circled out in front of her. He brought his sweaty face up to her visor, his face going red as he shouted and spat at her.

"Listen to me you stupid slut, I don't give a damn about you! I could throw you out of this place and I wouldn't loose a single second of sleep over it. So you had better get down on your knees if you know what's good for you." Daro was appalled. Get down on her knees? Did this imbecile have any inkling as to what that entailed for her? Didn't he know that removing her mask, especially in such an unsanitary and ill-kept setting could kill her? Was he completely oblivious to the social stigma with even showing another your face in quarian society? Daro was disgusted. This fool mistook her for a common prostitute. A common sack of glands and organs to be used at his leisure. The irony made her sick to her stomach. Not good enough to be treated like a person, but he was eager to make her his personal pleasure toy? Rage at the injustice and indignity of her predicament cascaded against her heart like a roaring supernova, scorching entire worlds in it's heat.

Daro's voice came out clear and cold as glacial ice.

"No."

The foreman staggered back as though physically struck. Foolish ape. He had likely expected her to bend to his will like an asari hooker. What he should have been expecting was a bullet in his thick skull.

"W-What?"

"No." Daro's voice was frigid, threatening to freeze the foreman in his place. "I will not be your whore." Words couldn't kill, but hers came as close as one could ever hope to expect.

"What the hell makes you think I'm giving you a choice in the matter?" Daro's boss sounded menacing, clearly trying to intimidate her. It wasn't working.

"As charming as you are, I am not in the habit of dating swine." Her word's cut like daggers, threatening to leave the man bleeding on the floor, drowning in his own fluids. "You will never touch me again." Daro's finger was aimed threateningly between the man's eyes. "You will keep me on as an engineer, and if you ever so much as look at me in a way that makes me uncomfortable, I'll personally set every piece of equipment you own to self-destruct in your face. You need me to make a profit." Money. That was a language this worthless fat sack could understand.

The foreman's lips quivered as he tightened his fists with white-knuckled fury, his voice cracking as his shouts turned to screams of impotent rage.

"Get out of here! You're working quad-shifts for the rest of the week! If you so much as show up late, I'll have your ass arrested for vagrancy, damn bucket-faced bitch! Get out of my office!" Xen scoffed at his notion of what constituted an office. Without a word, she turned with an elegant motion as she exited the office, a sly smirk across her lips as she turned her head to look back at him.

"I'm also taking tomorrow off as my monthly vacation day. I hope you don't mind." The smile was evident in her voice.

Daro exited the office, hearing the foreman's screams of rage and the loud crash of him overturning his desk as she descended the staircase out into the mine entrance. She took a particular satisfaction in putting him in his place, leaving him in the dark of the mine as she emerged out into the howling gale of the surface. Volcanic dust and ash replaced jagged stone as she began the long trek back to the shelter she had made her temporary home. Daro pulled her mother's cloak tighter around her body as the sandstorm swept by. Arrogant bastard. She would not kneel to that slovenly piece of refuse that dared to call itself a man. She was a proud daughter of the Fleet, a soldier and a scientist of her people, fighting for the home her parents had loved, even if it had never truly accepted her. She was not somebody's pet, to be touched and groped at it's master's beck and call.

She had never shared her body with anyone before. The concept of sharing herself with that animal was nauseating. She hadn't met a man in her life she could honestly say she had wanted in that way. Of course she had thought about it from time to time, but there wasn't a man for her, not one she had met. Most had shunned her, and she had been content to be alone, the love of her parents and her thirst for knowledge sustaining her. Part of her wondered if there ever would be someone for her. Even if she returned home and found her place in a new crew, would anyone care to see her as who she was? Maybe once she left this awful world and found her way home, she could try. Joining a new crew was a new beginning in the life of a quarian. A new start. Her heart yearned at the prospect. To find love, far away from this desolate barren waste of a world, someone who saw past the mask she wore on her face, past the mask worn on her heart. That's all she had ever wanted. Someone who cared. Her parents had filled that role, and Shen'Reth had always been there, but they were in the past now. She needed to move forward.

Wistfully, her eyes trained upwards as she saw the tell-tale silhouettes of starships of all shapes and sizes soaring up into the heavens. Daro sighed mournfully at the majestic sight. Part of her wanted nothing more than to risk stowing away and forgetting about this hellish planet. Risking capture and whatever cruel punishment imagined by her captors seemed almost worth it in comparison. Even the turian shelter she laughably called her home was little more than a varren's den to hide her from the wild jungle of sharp steel and jagged mountains. Every night she had to swallow her pride as she made her bed in a place filled to the brim with glares and hateful words. Every day she awoke to return to a black pit filled with people who spat on her or tried to exploit her. Was this punishment? Had she offended the Ancestors in some way? She'd never know. She was a woman of science, never having put much purchase into spiritualism and superstition. She had no patience for fairytales.

Nothing could have prepared her for this though, not science, not religion. All of her training, all of her parent's warnings, all of the strength her pride gave her, none of it could have adequately prepared her for being cast out into a galaxy that despised her and spat on her kind. She hated that she was forced to scrape at the bottom rung of life just to survive. She hated that her people were treated like refuse for mistakes made generations ago. She hated that she was forced to suffer in the empty spaces between worlds to bring back a gift for a home that never wanted her. She really hated how a person who saw her as dirt would at the same time be so casual about taking her to his bed, against her will no less. She wasn't a person, just a thing, a suit, a toy, no better than a nerve stimulator. That she had feelings or dreams of her own were of no consequence.

Daro sighed as she walked through the street's of Syneu, the throbbing bass resonating from a nearby night club breaking her from her somber thoughts. It was still relatively early and she was in no rush to return to the so-called "shelter". A drink would do her some good. The door to the club opened with a barely audible hiss, letting her pass through yet another door at the end of a short hallway for the purpose of keeping the sand out. Furious rhythms and pounding bass met her at the entrance, the smoky club filled with patrons returning from their work shifts. Dark red light left everything half in shadow, dark silhouettes of bodies moving to the beat on the dance floor. Daro weaved her way through the crowds as she approached the bar, hailing the turian bartender leaning against the large rack of neon backlit drinks behind him. Daro didn't bother shouting, instead adjusting the volume of her voice modulator as she slammed a credit chit onto the bar.

"Something strong."

The turian shrugged as he pocketed the credit chit, his talons pointing at the rack of drinks as though searching for one in particular. He returned with a clear cylindrical tube filled with a dark blue drink, a small notch in the top. He leaned closer to speak into the audio enhancers of her helmet.

"Quarian-safe."

Daro examined the cylinder, realizing the notch was meant to interface with the feeding tubes of her helmet. The turian winked as he resumed his relaxed leaning against the drink racks. Daro let a slight smile escape from behind her visor. It was nice to see at least one person cared enough to help her when she paid for it. Her hand went to one of the feeding tubes of her helmet, gently working at the magnetic clasp that kept it attached as she twisted the notch at the top of the cylinder. The small hole in the lid allowed her to slide the tube down into the drink like a straw of sorts. The overpowering scent of the drink immediately made itself known to her. Daro gingerly sucked at the tube, letting the strong flavor of the alcohol fill her mouth. It wasn't half bad, really. She rarely made time for luxuries like this. Maybe she would come back tomorrow. Constant work with no recreation was taking it's toll on her. She needed a distraction. She'd never been one for alcohol, but at this point, she wasn't above much of anything.

Daro nursed her drink as she let the music of the club wash over her, feeling her thoughts drift back to home. Even if she was not wanted aboard the Khalos, she would find a new home. She had always been fond of the Moreh, her mother's birth ship. A lab vessel. The people there focused only on the advancement of the quarian race, there was only the work for a better tomorrow. The perfect place to make her ancestors proud of her, if they truly still existed as more than ether. She wasn't opposed to the idea of afterlife, but she wasn't entirely convinced of it either. Not enough data on the subject. Until science gave her a solid answer, there was no answer. It didn't matter at any rate. She had other concerns at the moment that didn't involve death; at least, she hoped it didn't. First, she needed to find a way off of Caleston. Second, she would find a new place to search for a Pilgrimage gift. Then it was just a matter of getting it. Then she would have her glorious return home. A deep feeling of longing settled into her. She would find a new home, no matter the cost, and people would respect her, maybe even love her. Was that so much to ask for? Was that too much to dream for?

A shadow fell over Daro, turning her visor behind her to meet the face of the same turian from the mines. Three humans and another turian flanked him. His mandibles twitched as he grinned at her. Cowards. They traveled in packs. The quarian's knew no such weakness. They had all learned to survive on their own through pilgrimage, and had returned to a family the size of an armada, ready to serve as a part of the community, or as a solitary unit.

"Remember me, bitch?"

Daro smirked as she came to the realization that she had never bothered to learn his name.

"No, I'm afraid not. You are thoroughly unremarkable."

The unremarkable turian tilted his head to the side, anger showing in his tone, in his body language. Turning back to her drink, Daro had hoped the lumbering fool would leave her be. She knew it was an empty wish.

"The boss cut our wages today. Said the drill going down cost too much time. 'X minus y' and all that." The turian made quotation marks in the air as he spoke. The others nodded and snorted at his words.

"We have you to thank for that. Stupid suit. Probably has no idea what I'm talking about. There a calculator in there, bucket? I bet you couldn't do simple math without it."

It was clear where this was going. Daro silently cursed herself for leaving her weapons back at the shelter. Her knife would have to be sufficient. They didn't appear to be armed, but their intention was doubtlessly malicious. Daro pulled the feeding tube from her drink, reattaching it to the magnetic clasp of her helmet as she stood to face her would-be attackers. Her silver eyes narrowed into a glare that could kill.

"You only have yourselves to thank for what happens next."