The Desending Tide was part of a squadron meant to reinforce one of the fleets pushing into rachni territory, but along the way had run headfirst into a rachni flotilla. Although the two fleets were roughly equal in size, slightly favoring the asari, the rachni's near suicidal tactics allowed them to deal far greater damage than the asari. With more than half the squadron destroyed, the asari were forced to make a fighting retreat. With several systems within range of the mass relay, the bloodied remnants of the fleet scattered in the hope that it would spread any pursuers too thinly, allowing some of them to return to fortified space and push back the invaders before rescuing the stragglers. Unfortunately, the Descending Tide was so damaged that it only made two relay jumps before the stresses of FTL relay travel proved too great for it to bear. Thus the Descending Tide finds itself in its current situation, a sinking ship desperately searching for land before its crew drowns.
Down in the crew quarters of the Descending Tide, a young maintenance engineer named Alina M'ressa tosses and turns in her sleeping pod as she vainly tries to rest. Though her body is weak from exhaustion, her mind is unable to rest, filled with the images of her sisters-in-arms lying dead at their stations, or being packed up and tossed into rooms to be ignored like trash.
Klaxons blaring loudly startles Alina from her fitful slumber, causing her to jump and smack her head against the cover of her sleeping pod. As she rubs her forehead to soothe the soreness, the voice of her captain pours from the loudspeakers.
"Attention, crew of the Descending Tide! This is Captain T'ania. You are ordered to report immediately to your nearest escape pod. This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill! We are abandoning ship, report to your nearest escape pod immediately!"
Alina shoves the pod cover off and takes off in a sprint without bothering to step into her boots, joined by the other crew members roused from their slumber. As she runs, the ship shudders beneath her feet, causing her to stumble. Fortunately, the Descending Tide is a small ship; Alina soon reaches the escape pods, where security personnel are guiding the panicking crew to the pods in a semi-orderly fashion, assisting the injured where necessary. She is hurriedly pushed into one of the pods and secured into a safety harness. Two other asari are already secured: one in casual clothes with an arm bound in a sling, the other wearing the violet starburst of the medical team and holding onto a cane, the name "Dehira" printed on her jacket.
"T'lena, stick with them!" One of the guards outside shouts to the one securing Alina. She nods in acceptance; after the other three are safely bound, she settles into the last remaining seat and fastens herself in. "Good luck and Goddess guide you!" the asari from outside shouts over the cacophony of sirens and panicking women before the pod door slams shut and the vessel is jettisoned. As the pod enters the void of space, the noise of sirens and explosions abruptly cease, as if the chaos they left behind has suddenly ceased to exist. The silence, broken only by the soft hum of the pod's internal mechanisms and the whispered prayers of the asari with the broken arm, hangs over them like a heavy blanket ready to smother them. For several minutes they wait in agonizing anticipation, uncertain if they will survive planetfall, or if the rachni will shoot them down, a swift death that they will never hear coming.
A great impact jostles the descending pod from the rear with a force that would have thrown the passengers about the cabin if they had not been secured. The crew is shaken, but otherwise unharmed, and the entire vessel begins to rumble around them as it enters the atmosphere. A jolt wrenches the passengers to one side as the pod's airbrakes deploy to slow its descent. It is quickly followed by a brief, loud screech as metal is violently torn from the outside.
"What was that?" the asari with the bound arm asks, close to hyperventilating in her panic.
"Ah crap, those were the airbrakes," T'sena groans. "Hold on tight, ladies! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!"
With a thunderous crash the pod strikes against the ground, the occupants deafened by the terrible screeching of metal dragging against earth. Several bone-rattling minutes later, it finally slows to a stop.
"Is everyone still alive?" the security guard asks; the others, battered and bruised from the descent, give weak groans of affirmation. Satisfied with the response, she disengages the harness holding her to her seat. Pain and disorientation causes her to stagger, but she soon regains her footing and assists the others in removing their restraints. Once free, none of them make any movement to stand up, bound by the pain currently coursing through their bodies from the rough landing.
"We can't stay here," the crippled nurse said after a few hours, leaning onto her cane to push herself to her feet. "Assuming the oxygen scrubbers haven't been damaged by the fall, we only have a few days until the CO2 levels get high enough to suffocate us. And that's if we don't cook to death first." Although many laywomen believed that space was a universally cold wasteland, the temperature can actually vary wildly depending on how close you are to an energy source like a star. While the escape pod is designed to protect its occupants from such hostile forces, it seems to the asari that some part of the pod was damaged from the crash, since in the few hours they had spent convalescing, the pod's interior temperature had become noticeably and uncomfortably warmer.
Once the remaining three are released and they regain their footing, T'lena reaches down to open a drawer hidden beneath the seats. Pulling out three white suits with matching helmets, she passes one to each of the underdressed crew members.
"Here, put these on," she tells them. Alina has no trouble donning her suit, but the two injured asari struggle with their suits until the two unharmed crew help them.
"Can you walk?" Alina asks Dehira when the nurse hisses in discomfort from placing pressure on her injured leg.
"It's fine," she says through clenched teeth as she continues to suit up. "I just twisted my ankle a few days ago, I'll be fine."
Unlike T'lena's combat armor, the emergency suits the others are wearing are little more than especially sturdy spacesuits; except for the helmet, they are made entirely from a flexible polymer weave, with its only protective measures being a sealed air supply and a weak kinetic barrier meant more to protect the wearer from random falling debris than bullets. They also lack hard points to secure weapons to, though that is a minor detail since the only weapons that they have are currently secured on T'lena's person.
"All right, stay behind me," T'lena says as she approaches the door, pistol drawn. She reaches out to press the door's release. She cries out in shock when bright sunlight shines through the doorway, momentarily blinding her. When the stars fade from her eyes, she blinks and mutters under her breath, "Crap."
Before her is a field of alabaster sand, marred by a single black line of scorched glass where the pod had dragged along the ground before stopping. T'lena carefully steps out, the brittle glass crunching beneath her boots as she takes in her surroundings. Behind her, in the direction that the pod was falling, is a tall, impassable cliff blocking the way. Ahead of her, tall spires of stone jut out from the the dunes in the distance, barely visible through the haze of the midday heat.
"All right, it's clear, come on out," T'lena says, beckoning the remaining three out. Wandering off into a desert is a risky proposition at the best of times, but without any way to replenish their meager stores of food and water, staying with the pod would spell certain doom for them. Alina and T'lena empty the pod of its remaining supplies; as the most able-bodied of the four, they carry the heavy jugs filled with water, while the nurse carries the rations and the one with the bound arm has a bag of equipment slung over one shoulder, including a transponder to alert them should a rescue crew find their abandoned escape pod. As the one with the best armor and only weapons, T'lena leads the party with Alina at the rear to support the nurse, whose cane provides poor support for her injured foot on the soft, constantly-shifting sand.
After many long, exhausting hours of trudging through the desert, the sun finally sets on the four, bringing a respite from the unforgiving sun.
"Let's camp here," T'lena says, stopping at a rock outcrop and dropping her pack with a thud. The night desert quickly grows cold, but with no wood nearby to make a fire, their only source of heat is a solar-powered hot plate normally used for camping. Cranking the cooking machine to its highest setting, the four asari huddled around the glowing coils for warmth.
"What are the chances of us catching anything if we take our helmets off?" Alina asks as Dehira pulls out some rations and cups. "Because I think I'm going to drown in my own sweat if I don't take this helmet off."
"Our chances are pretty low," the nurse replies as she opens a packet of rations, dropping a two-inch cube of compressed powder into four cups and filling them with water before placing them on the hot plate to warm. "Past experience has taught us that there aren't too many pathogens that can infect different species, so there's little reason to assume that it would not be the case here. And even in the unlikelihood of there being something that can affect us, most diseases come from consuming contaminated food or water, or being transmitted through a bite. I haven't detected any bugs, nor have I seen anything other than rocks and the occasional shriveled shrub, so I think we'll be fine."
Satisfied, Alina disengages her helmet's seals and pulls it off, taking in a deep breath and revelling in the cool desert air against her sweat-drenched skin. The others quickly follow her example. By now the water has come to a boil, dissolving the cubes into a dark broth. The four asari each take a cup and sip at the brew, Alina grimacing in distaste. The cubes are artificially-manufactured blends that contain all the calories and nutrients an asari needs to survive while also easily dissolving in hot water, allowing one to drink it through a straw should they be required to keep their helmet on. The resulting brew is both incredibly salty and rather bitter in taste unless heavily diluted; unfortunately, they cannot afford to use their water so frivolously, so they can only silently endure it.
"How's the arm, Meerla?" Dehira asks the asari with the broken arm.
"It's bearable for now," she says as she looks down at her wounded limb. The cast binding it was small enough for it to fit into the sleeve of the suit, but the movement still caused it to ache. "I'm not looking forward to later though, with no painkillers to keep it down."
"We might have something for that," Dehira says as she begins to rummage through the first-aid kit. "We'll have to ration it though, so you'll still be pretty uncomfortable, unfortunately." As she continued to search for medicine for her patient, Alina turned to T'lena.
"So why did you come with us?" she asked the security guard. "I thought security was supposed to be the last to leave during an evacuation?"
"Normally yes," she replies, sipping at her "soup" with a grimace. "However, there's an exception where, if two or more of the evacuating crew are injured so that they cannot defend themselves, one security personnel is allowed to accompany them for protection." Satisfied with the answer, Alina continues to sip at her now-tepid, bitter broth. Few more words are exchanged before they turn to sleep, T'lena taking the first watch.
For two more days they traverse the desert, with little more than rocks and the occasional cactus for company. Dehira's foot heals enough that she no longer requires her cane to move, but she is still slow, walking with a noticeable limp. At night some small talk is exchanged, like how Meerla was a fire control officer before her arm was injured during the Descending Tide's first encounter with the rachni, or how Alina's aunt was part of the team that developed the translation software that allows them to communicate with the various alien races that the asari have encountered without anyone involved actually learning a separate language. But as time passes by, their supplies and morale continues to dwindle. Even with strict rationing and their suits filtering their sweat and urine into potable water, the four asari drink over over two gallons of water each day, and the escape pod only had eight gallons stored away.
It is on the fourth day that they begin to feel hope again. The rolling dunes make way to flat, rocky ravines. Large, featherless bird-like creatures circle overhead, their shrill cries breaking the silence. Small bugs and reptiles crawl along the rock faces, uncaring of the alien beings walking among them. In addition to the plentiful cacti, dark, woody vines hang from the sides of the ravines, creating curtains of brambles. Small, green bushes also grow, hinting at a source of water nearby.
"Hey, I know you said that we can't get sick here, but can we still eat the food?" Meerla suddenly asks Dehira. The medical worker considers the question for several seconds.
"I don't see why not," she finally concludes. "However, I'd have to scan whatever we're planning on eating beforehand. Unlike bacterial infections, chemical toxins are pretty universal. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was wondering if we could eat that," Meerla says as she points upward. Some of the vines, instead of creeping down the sides of the crevice that they are currently walking through, instead extend across it, with a single fist-sized fruit growing from the center of the vine. "It'd be a nice change of pace from the crap that we've been drinking lately."
"Maybe," Dehira says as she considers the high-hanging fruit. Turning to T'lena, she asks, "Think you can knock that down?"
"Not a problem; I could do with something other than soup too," the security guard says as she walks forward to stand directly underneath it. She draws her pistol and takes aim before firing a single shot, breaking the vine and knocking the fruit loose. The thunderous crack from the gun echoes through the ravine.
Thump.
Catching the falling fruit with one hand, T'lena returns to the group and presents it to Dehira. The nurse activates her omni-tool, shrouding her hand and arm with light as she scans the fruit.
Thump.
"Seems okay," she says as she peruses her readings. "I'm not detecting any toxins, but we clearly can't eat it like that; it's hard as a rock. Think you can try breaking it open so I can scan the inside?" Nodding, T'lena finds a seam in the fruit's shell to dig her fingers into and begins to pull. It offers more resistance than she is expecting; when she finally breaks it, rather than splitting in half, it explodes with a loud pop and with enough force to trigger her kinetic barriers.
Thump.
"Well, wasn't expecting that," T'lena says, looking down at her hands in disappointment. Scattered around her feet are fragments of the fruit's hardened husk, along with what seemed to be its seeds. "So much for that idea. Shame, I was looking forward to having some fresh fruit tonight."
Thump.
"Girls, do you hear that?" Alina asks, drawing everyone's attention to her. They stand in silence as they listen for what she hears.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
With each thud, the ground quakes beneath them, so soft that it is barely noticeable. And with each thud, it grows a little bit louder and the quakes a little bit harder. Too frequent and regular to be a random event, it has to be made by something. Something big, something heavy.
"Girls…?" Alina whispers in terror, pointing a shaking finger at a point behind them. They turn to see what she is pointing towards, and feel fear flowing through them as well.
Rounding the corner ahead of them is a hunched winged beast, almost as long as all four of their heights combined. Its scales a light tan to blend with the sand, its tail sports a large, studded knob of bone while its face bears two large, forward-facing horns and long tusks jutting from a mouthful of sharp teeth. As it approaches, each footstep shaking the earth, it regards them like one would a particularly repugnant insect.
"Girls," T'lena whispers as they slowly begin to back away. "I think we should-"
The beast rears up and gives a thunderous roar that they feel deep in their bones. Bound in its rage, the monster lowers its head and begins to charge at them.
"RUN!"