"Run!"
Alina, Meerla, and Dehira all drop their supplies and turn to run away, though in the latter's case, it is more of an aggressive hobble. As the monster charges towards them, T'lena draws her pistol and fires as quickly as she can pull the trigger. Eight times she fires before the gun disables itself from overheating; the shots strike against the enormous horns crowning the beast's head, leaving little more than barely visible pock marks. Desperate, T'lena holsters her gun and concentrates. A swirling corona of azure energy swirls around her before she throws it out in a biotic push. If the maneuver had been performed by an asari commando, a highly trained warrior with centuries of practice, then it would have been powerful enough to stop the beast, perhaps even pushed it back. T'lena is not a biotic commando by any means, so her push is not nearly as powerful, but it did have enough force to shift the monster's footing slightly, causing it to stumble and fall. As it falls face-first into the ground, its horns acts as a plow, digging into the earth and kicking up great clouds of dust. T'lena turns tail and sprints away, quickly catching up to the others as the monster skids to a stop.
"Quick, get up!" she shouts, pointing towards a curtain of vines hanging down along the ravine wall. They scale the vines to escape while the monster collects itself, Meerla struggling with only one arm to climb with. Having reoriented itself, the beast snarls and begins to stomp towards them once again. T'lena throws another biotic push at its face, but it barely staggers the now-prepared creature, yielding as much efficacy as a slap to the face. Knowing that her pistol is all but useless, T'lena reaches back to draw her shotgun. She braces herself for the pain that is sure to come; a weapon as powerful as her shotgun is normally fired with two hands, but with one holding onto the vines she is climbing, she has no choice. Pulling the trigger on her scattergun, several fragments of metal, each the size of a grain of sand, are shorn from a solid block and launched at supersonic speeds, impacting along the face and back of the approaching beast, tiny spurts of blood bursting from its body where it is hit. T'lena and the beast both cry out, the monster in anger from the shots peppering its body; T'lena from the pain coursing through her arm. Holstering her shotgun, T'lena grits her teeth and fights through the pain, clambering over the edge of the cliff.
"Keep running!" she shouts to her companions. The monster leaps up after them, the ground shaking under its mighty weight. T'lena draws her pistol and fires blindly behind her as she runs.
They run past a gnarled, dead tree and a field of cacti; their suits protect them from the sharp spines as they charge through the fragile desert plants. Despite the fear and desperation fueling them, the asari, already weakened from their previous ordeals, begin to feel their strength slipping away. The monster grows closer with each thunderous step; it soon approaches behind Dehira, who has fallen to the rear despite T'lena being the last to run due to her injury. With a bellow, the beast makes a sweeping headbutt, catching the nurse with it. At the last moment Dehira erects a biotic barrier, shrouding herself in a violet aura. This barrier, along with the meager shields that the suit provides, protects her from the worst of the monster's blow, which would have undoubtedly utterly broken her otherwise. The blow throws her up, sending her tumbling through the air like a stringless puppet, striking the ground some distance away.
"Shit!" T'lena curses when she sees Dehira strike the ground with a thud. Without turning around she shouts, "Keep going, I'll catch up!" while she charges the beast, drawing her shotgun. It was stupid of her, some might have said when observing her actions; if the beast is distracted with Dehira, then it will not pursue the other three. Logically the guard would agree with them, but at this moment she is not thinking logically. She has already lost so many colleagues - even some friends - when the Descending Tide fell; for all she knew, the four of them are the only survivors. The only reason she is here now is to protect the others because they could not protect themselves, and she will be damned before she allows herself to fail in that duty. Three times she fires before she reaches the monster, tiny droplets of blood bursting out from the monster's flank with each shot. She holsters the weapon and, with a wrathful cry, she leaps into the air, a swirling azure aura enveloping her. She comes down on the monster's head, her biotics-augmented fist striking like a great hammer. The impact rattles the beast like no other blow she has given before, sending it staggering back. One of its horns, having been peppered by the gunfire, is riddled with minute cracks and faults. The impact of T'lena's strike stresses the faults to their breaking point, shattering the horn under her fist.
While the monster is stunned, T'lena picks up the fallen Dehira, draping the nurse's body across her shoulders. The nurse gives a soft groan of pain, but is otherwise limp in the guard's grip. T'lena runs back to where the others were; they are nowhere to be seen, but there is only one path forward, so T'lena goes on, trusting that she will catch up with them eventually. Unfortunately the path soon turns into a steep hill; she soon loses her footing and sends them both tumbling and sliding uncontrollably down the hill. They soon come to a stop at the bottom of the hill, their descent cushioned by a large puddle. T'lena pushes herself up and wipes away the mud splattered across her visor before hoisting the still limp Dehira.
"Please don't do that again," she groans softly as T'lena slings the nurse's limp body over her shoulders. T'lena sees two paths, one ahead and one to her left; she desperately looks around for a sign of where the other two may have gone.
"Psst, T'lena, over here!" She hears someone whisper to her right. She turns to see Meerla poking her head out of a small hole in the rock face, hidden by plant roots and barely large enough to crawl through. "C'mon, before that thing finds us again!" T'lena gently sets Dehira down, allowing Meerla to drag her through before falling onto her stomach and following. Past the hole is a small cave, perhaps 50 meters from one end to the other and half that in width, with another equally small hole in the far wall. The interior is bare apart from a few stubborn plants poking through the dirt. The trickle of running water can be heard faintly through the thick stone walls.
"Is she okay?" Alina asks as the three gather around their fallen colleague.
"No, I'm not," Dehira softly groans. "Help me get my helmet off before I throw up." Meerla, being the closest, releases the seals on Dehira's helmet and slides it off. She takes a deep breath before suddenly breaking into a violent coughing fit. Meerla and Alina quickly turn to her side in case she really did decide to vomit. As she coughs, Dehira begins to curl in on herself to try and alleviate the pain coursing through her body. T'lena and Meerla watch on, uncertain of how they can help her, while Alina fidgets nervously. "Oh goddess, it stinks in here," the nurse gags out once she finally stops coughing. Morbidly curious despite themselves, the other three remove their own helmets. They smell a faint, noxious smell reminiscent of rotten eggs. Already unpleasant for the three healthy asari, the stench is outright sickening for Dehira, who is already nauseous from her injuries.
The others slowly move Dehira so that she is sitting upright, pulling her to a nearby wall to prop her against. Stifling a pained groan, the nurse activates her omni-tool, enveloping her arm in layers of holographic constructs and casting an amber glow through the cavern. She presses an icon on her omni-tool's interface and slowly waves her hand over herself.
"How bad is it?" T'lena asks as Dehira looks over the results of her scan. By now Alina has slipped her helmet back on, relieving herself from the stench.
"Not great, but better than it could have been, considering the circumstances," Dehira replies. "Got a couple of broken ribs and more sprains and contusions than I can count. No concussion though, so that's something. It didn't show up on the scan, but based on this pain I'm feeling I probably have some internal bleeding as well."
"Why didn't it show up?" Meerla asks. "That sounds like a pretty big thing to miss."
"It's complicated," Dehira says in between short, shallow breaths, "and I don't remember all the technical details, but basically my omni-tool syncs with the suit's built-in life support monitor and shares information. The problem is that the LP on this suit is pretty basic, so it can only detect surface-level injuries; for anything deeper, I'd need a better suit or an MRI scanner."
"How bad are we talking here?" T'lena asks. Dehira gives a weak shrug.
"Hard to say," the nurse admits. "If we were someplace civilized, I could just get to a hospital and be fine. As it is, depending on how bad the bleeding is, it could be a few hours or a few days before I die. Either way, it's going to hurt." Alina retreats to the far end of the cave and begins to pace back and forth.
"Goddess, we're going to die here," she mutters to herself, wringing her hands nervously. "No food, no water, monsters all around us…."
"Alina, you need to calm down," Meerla says as she approaches the pacing asari.
"'Calm down?'" The engineer echoes in a harsh whisper. "How the hell can I calm down? In case you've forgotten, we're stranded on this backwater rock, the only one of us with more medical experience than putting on a band-aid is bleeding to death, and there's a monster out there looking for us. Hell, it's probably outside waiting for us to stick our heads out so it can eat us!" The four asari quickly turn their gaze to where they had entered the cave, expecting the beast to suddenly burst through the wall. After several tense seconds pass by without incident, they turn their attention back to the more immediate matter.
"Listen, I know you're scared, we all are," T'lena says as she approaches the panicking Alina and gently grasps her shoulders. "But panicking isn't going to help anybody. So I need you to take a deep breath and relax. Can you do that for me?" Alina gives a shaky nod and inhales deeply before slowly releasing it. Two more times she performs this exercise before she visibly relaxes.
"Okay, I'm good now," she says. T'lena gently pats her shoulder before releasing her.
"We can't stay here," the guard says as she grabs her helmet from the ground. "Even if that creature can't break through these walls, we're dead without any food or water, and Dehira needs medical attention badly."
"But what if that thing's still waiting for us?" Meerla asks as she fastens her helmet back on. "Wouldn't it be better to wait a while for it to lose interest first?"
"No," T'lena rejects, grabbing Dehira's discarded helmet, "that's a risk we can't take. You heard her; we don't know how bad her injuries are, but she may not have hours to spare. We need to move now."
"And where would we even be going?" Meerla pressed. "I know we're desperate right now, but what exactly is the plan here?"
"That water we're hearing has to be going somewhere," T'lena says as she pulls Dehira to her feet, one arm slung over her shoulders while the nurse leans into her side. "We can follow the stream to wherever it drains; there will probably be some locals settled nearby; we can try to ask them for help then."
"That's…" Idiotic is the first word that springs to mind for Meerla. Desperate is another one. "...a long shot," she finally decides. "Even if we find any natives - and there's not guarantee that we will - we can't communicate with them. I had an ex-boyfriend I've melded with a few times, but not deeply enough that I could suddenly speak his language without a translator. Unless any of you girls have any experience?" When everyone shook their heads, she continued, "So that's one major obstacle right there. And that's if they're even friendly to begin with. I've got to be honest, this plan is hinging on a lot of 'ifs' for my liking."
"...I am aware that this plan is flawed, and desperate," T'lena reluctantly admits. "But do we have any other options?" No one answers. "I didn't think so. Let's escape through that far wall over there; even if the beast is still here, it probably won't be on that side." Once they reach the wall, T'lena passes the task of supporting Dehira to one of the others while she goes down on her stomach. Drawing her shotgun, she crawls through the hole, checking to see if anything is awaiting them. Seeing nothing but a mud bank and a shallow stream nearby, she calls the others out, pulling Dehira out by her arms and pulling her to her feet. The follow the path of the stream, going slowly so as to not slip in the mud and potentially injuring themselves further. The stream soon drains into a large marsh, explaining the noxious scent they smelled earlier. Unlike the desert they had crashed in, the marsh is filled with life. Bunches of grass and other plants sprout from the water and nearby mud flats, while birds and insects flit about through the air. Several meters away, a small herd of gigantic armored beasts with heavy shells and spiked tails are trodding away, occasionally sipping from the water or nibbling on the grasses. But the thing that catches their attention is the alien being approaching from a distant path.
While it is difficult for the asari to make out details from the distance it is at, the alien seems to have a face and build similar to a male quarian, except with a pale pink complexion instead of ashen gray, but with limbs more like those of an asari or batarian. He is wearing clothes made from both cloth and leather. Long, dark strands of hair hang from his head, which is covered by a wide-brimmed hat to protect him from the sun's rays. In one hand is a small box while the other holds a long rod for fishing.
"Hey!" Alina shouts while waving her arms, being careful not to run towards the stranger so as to not frighten or provoke him. "Over here! We need help!"
While unable to understand her words, the alien recognizes her distressed tone and rushes towards them.
"Nē, anaa wa dōi shiasu ka?" the alien asks, looking at them in a mixture of confusion and concern. "Wa'ashi wa sono yōa yoroi o mita ko'o ga nai. Anaa wa koo kara kie inai noesu ka?"
"I know you can't understand me, but please, our friend needs help," Alina says, pointing to the limp Dehira. "She's been hurt really badly. You need to help us."
The alien gives the injured asari a quick glance before nodded resolutely. He sets down his box and fishing rod to pull out an item from one of his numerous pockets. Loading it into a small crossbow made from bone mounted onto his forearm, he turns away from them and shoots into the air. After a few seconds, the object bursts into a bright green flare. A few minutes later, they hear the trundling of wooden wheels swiftly approaching them. Cresting the hill is a large wooden cart piled with hay and furs, being pulled by a trio of small, furred bipedal aliens. They halt at the coast of the marsh and begin to call to them, beckoning them over with shrill yowls. The five of them wade through the hip-deep waters of the marsh to get to the cart, T'lena holding the weakened Dehira in her arms so that she does not have to struggle through it. The taller alien gestures to the asari to lay Dehira down on the cart while he confers with the smaller beings in his incomprehensible language. T'lena gently lays Dehira down on the cart, placing her helmet beside her.
Finished with their conversation, the three smaller aliens begin to turn the cart around while the taller one approaches the three standing asari. He speaks to them and, while his words are lost to them, his gentle, reassuring tone eases some of the tension weighing on them. The three small aliens set forth, two pulling the cart from the front while one pushes from the back. Despite their diminutive size and great burden the aliens move with surprising swiftness; the three asari try to keep pace, but their exhaustion and weakened constitution from over three days of hard travel with minimal food means that they frequently fall behind.
They follow the cart up hills and into a mountainside, the trio of furred aliens navigating the narrow paths as if they had known them their whole lives. Sometime into their journey Dehira gives out a pained cry, causing them to stop. One of the aliens reaches into a sack hanging from the side of the cart and withdraws a bottle of pale green liquid. It makes to proffer the bottle when one of its companions stops it. The two argue for a minute before the first one slaps its face with its free hand. It reaches into the bag again to produce a bottle of water and an empty flask. It pours some of the green fluid into the empty bottle, filling it a quarter full, before filling the rest with water and shaking it. It offers the concoction to the asari and, through a series of gestures and pantomimes, conveys to them that it is medicine to ease Dehira's pain. Being the closest, Meerla takes the bottle and approaches Dehira.
"Here, drink this, it'll help," she says as she pulls the nurse into a sitting position and gently pours the medicine into her mouth. Even through her fatigue, she manages to slowly drink it down. "Feel better?"
"Yeah actually, I do," Dehira replies with surprise. "Whatever they gave me is pretty strong stuff. Didn't even taste that bad either. I'm really tired though; be nice to finally get some rest."
"Well, we're almost there." None of them actually knew how much farther it was to their destination, but it reassured the wounded asari nonetheless, who settled back down, in less pain and slightly higher spirits than before.
For hours they wind through the mountain paths, making only a few brief stops to eat. The aliens munch on strips of dried meat, some of which they offer to the asari. They chew slowly so as to not upset their stomachs, unaccustomed to solid food after so long. It is tough and gamey in taste, but after four days of eating nothing, it tastes heavenly to the asari. By the time they reach their destination, the sky is turning orange as the sun dips low into the horizon. Before them their path is barred by a large gate made of wood, reinforced with metal, bone, and animal hide. Even though the gate towers above them, the asari can see past it to see, of all things, a large sailing ship perched atop a mountain and split in two; between the halves, a torrent of water gushes from the mountainside. One of the aliens shouts to an unseen gatekeeper, prompting the gates to open with a mighty groan. The great doors slowly creak open, allowing them passage into this strange sanctuary.
At long last, they finally can feel safe.
Translation: Hey, are you guys okay? I've never seen armor like that before. You're not from around here, are you?
Let me know what you think.