Chapter 29 - Zhu's Hope

Data Log Entry: 218400513

- 2247 hours

Feros: I don't even know how to begin. I guess my first clue that something really bad was happening on this planet was when our greeting party got his brains blown apart after saying hello. I didn't need my prothean expert to translate that into a bad day for me. The sinking feeling in my gut agreed. Feros was going to be a nightmare and I haven't gotten to the part about the psychotic plant yet, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

Once we made it past the geth's greeting party and into the heart of Zhu's Hope, we were immediately informed that Fai Dan wanted to see me. Although informed might not be the right word, after saying sorry for almost blowing our heads off because they thought we were geth, it was go see Fai Dan. I asked them, "How long you been here?" Their answer was, "Go see Fai Dan." Attempting to assess the compound's state of readiness I questioned, "Are you all right?" Again their confused answer was, "Go see Fai Dan." It was annoying to say the least.

At first, I thought the colonists might be suffering from fatigue or post traumatic stress from fighting. They were after all settlers, not soldiers. The few who did say a little more than 'go see Fai Dan' stated that they were suffering from chronic headaches. One woman was even bedridden from the pain. But after seeing everyone acting kind of twitchy it made me think otherwise.

While we meandered through the compound, I had Tali hack a Public Extranet Terminal. I swore if she turned around and it said, go see Fai Dan, I would have popped a cap in somebody's ass; since no one would even tell us where to find Fai Dan. But thankfully, my technological genius told me it was about a large number of supplies being delivered to an uncharted region; where to the best of my knowledge, there wasn't a living soul for several light years. Making it even odder was that she said it was encrypted with a top secret clearance. What was a message like that doing out in the middle of nowhere on a civilian settlement? I told her to make a copy so we could look into it later on.

This mission was getting weirder by the minute. I couldn't get a straight answer out of the colonists about what was going on. They kept telling me to see Fai Dan right away. And now, we find encrypted supply messages to remote parts of the galaxy.

I knew this planet was giving me the creeps but even Tali and Liara agreed. This was not a place I wanted to be.

Once I found Zhu Hope's leader, I discovered that he too was acting peculiar. I thought it was related to the fighting, but the hairs on the back of my neck were telling me something else. Fai Dan's assistant however did not seem to be affected like the others. In fact, Arcelia was acting like a royal bitch. She kept attacking me as if I was personally responsible for leaving them out there to die. If I didn't have bigger fish to fry, I would have let Liara send a warp right up her… (COMPUTER ANALYSIS INDICATED SEVERAL LETERS WERE DELETED FROM JOURNAL ENTRY, CODE 3428) Never mind.

In fact, I can barely keep my eyes open. I am exhausted after the day I've had. I will try to pick up again tomorrow after I've had some rest.

S- Out

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