|Date: 3/24/2184|

|Location: Gemini Sigma/PODA-D7-77 System/Planet: PODA-S2|

The quarian stood motionless on the cliff side as she watched the sun setting on the horizon. Her eyes, devoid of life, stare on at the fiery furnace that hovered just over the landscape.

"Tali..." John murmured from behind her, "God you're beautiful. More than anything I'd ever imagined."

She gave the man a glance and could see the smile she'd fallen in love with.

She didn't acknowledge him.

His whisper is rich with pain. "Tali. Please. Look at me."

She turned back to the sun's milky tendrils that disappeared behind the rocky mountain. When John tried to touch her shoulder, his fingers crumble to ash.

Whatever was left of his limb had turned to charred embers.

"Tali," He stammered as he crumbled to a knee, "don't let me leave without a goodbye."

She said nothing.

"Please Tals, I love you," His final gasp of breath fills with sand, "Say it back. God, just say it back. Please."

She hadn't a care for what he had to say. And in his last moment of struggle, he fell and turned to dust.

She gave his dead corpse a careless stare as John's ash, carried by the wind, touched her.

The first thing Tali did was scream when she woke from her nightmare.

"Tali! Wake the hell up!" Juel begged as he shook her vigorously with both his hands.

As soon as she caught up with what was going on, she put a hand on his arm to show she was up. "I'm up. I'm up."

He finally let go of her and stood upright before sitting on his own cot in a heavy heap.

"God, Tali. You scared me." His voice lowered to a whisper, "...How bad?"

She rose from the bed and sat at its edge.

"...How loud was I?" Her voice trembled.

"Loud as all hell. I'm surprised you didn't wake half the damned ship. Now answer me. How. Bad."

"I relived it. I can't... I just— I can't take this shit anymore." She forcefully put her closed fists against the side of her head, "How the hell do people just... just get over it!?" She yelled through a choked cry as she pointed accusingly at herself.

Before Juel could reply, a loud trio of knocks rapped on their door.

"Come in." Juel said with a murmur.

The head officer of the mission, Kal'Reeger, stepped in.

"You guys alright?"

"Yeah..." Tali said through a deep breath before placing a palm along the front of her visor, "Just... a bad dream."

Kal sat down next to Juel. "Flashback?"

"Y... yeah."

"Pretty bad one, I'm assuming."

"It was." Juel added by frowning.

"Need anything, ma'am? Water? Some food? I can fetch some if you need it." Kal said before thumbing behind him and standing back up.

"I'm okay, Kal... really. Thank you." Her gaze remain glued to the floor.

"I understand." Kal got the message that she needed to be left alone. As much as he knew it wouldn't help, he decided it be best to try anyways.

"Try and rest, ma'am... Life's a big pisser and it looks like you've been passed the biggest turn. Don't hesitate to come to me or someone else for your problems. I hope you'll consider it. We need you at your best." He gave them both the 'do as I say' look before nodding and shutting the door.

Tali's docile stare watched her hands place a handful of soil into a jar before capping it shut. The view around her was breathtaking... but all she could think about now was the Normandy and John and how doomed the quarians were. And the reapers, of course.

You know. The usual.

She carelessly tossed the jar into her pack with the dozens of others she'd stuffed in there earlier.

The whole operation Tali was participating in was a political front established by Zaal and his anti-war campaign to find a new home to live on. It was noble cause, Tali would admit. If anybody could get them there, it was him.

The poor Admiral actively fought out against the warmongering loud heads of Han, Daro, and Rael.

Shala, however, seemed neutral on the whole ordeal and never even offered an opinion; likely because she hadn't a clue of what position to take.

In the end? It was a dead-end idea with dead-end hopes and dead-end dreams.

Zaal had even said it himself, though reluctantly, that studying planets for possible future colonization was, for all intents and purposes, futile.

More over half the quarians wanted Rannoch back... if not all of them. The remaining percent had demanded they give up the attempt entirely and settle somewhere else. Though the latter seemed more logical, it wouldn't happen.

And there were two reasons why:

The quarian's unyielding sense of sentimentality and because the council would have an eager hand to play into denying them that right to settle down anyways.

So even IF they had somehow managed to find a planet? They wouldn't take it, and the council wouldn't allow them to.

Tali groaned at her political pondering.

The council hated the flotilla. Every path the Migrant fleet would cross would be a nuisance. All of them understandable.

So if they hated them so much, why would they stonewall them at every turn to settle on a new planet?

It seemed like a far fetch, but it was obvious. The council just wanted them gone.

As in gone, gone.

Scuttling all fifty thousand ships in the Migrant fleet with everyone on-board was probably something they'd highly appreciate, actually.

She frustratingly reached for another vial and jammed some leaves she'd just found into its top.

"How many do we have, Juel." She asked before capping what had to be the thirtieth jar that hour.

"A lot. Forty or more, tops."

"That should be enough."

"Niamo wanted at least a hundred."

"Fuck her." Tali loathed with a grumble.

Juel shrugged and hoisted the heavy pack over his shoulder.

-Two hours later...

Juel carefully chambered the .250 lead tipped round into his single-breech, bolt-action gun.

"Too bad we can't sedate them instead." Tali said with a sigh. Juel didn't say anything as he aligned his eye with the rifle's scope. He gave the animal he was about to shoot a good long once over.

The thing was twice the size of an average quarian. The varren-like creature, with its reptilian skin, sparse black hair, lizard like eyes, and huge tusks, stood at a height of two meters on all four of its feet. It could easily have topped twice that height if it were on its hind legs.

"We'd kill them anyways if we did that, Tali."

"I know." She shrugged and zoomed in with her built-in binoculars to watch.

He held his breath half-way through his exhale, aimed at its head, and remembered not to anticipate the shot. The bullet shot out from his muzzle brake with a pounding 140 decibel crack. The animal barely had time to blink before being killed instantly.

"Kill shot." She whispered.

"You know... I'm surprised he died that fast." He kept his eye through the scope.

"Why's that."

"I thought maybe their brain could be near their ass?"

She rolled her eyes and gave his gleaming weapon a glance.

"Where'd you get that gun?"

"Glad you asked!" He said as if he prepared the night before to answer the question, "...People still make guns out of old tech. They're good for hunting. Could you imagine what military grade mass accelerated rounds would do to an animal with no kinetic barrier?"

"I can imagine." She said flatly. When Juel tried to reply, he was interrupted by a long snarling howl in the distance.

"What the hell was that?" He quickly ejected the spent casing out of his firearm before chambering another.

"I have no idea." She got up from being prone and keeled next to a bush before prying her shotgun from her belt.

A pack of ten or more brutish looking animals of the same caliber emerged from the foliage and gave their dead brother a long but curious sniff. Some of the others looked around to see if they could find the offending animal that had killed one of their own.

The two quarians stared on, too terrified to move.

"...uh, what the hell are we going to do?"

"Wait... just wait and we'll see."

Their snarling grew louder and more viscous when ten or so heads turned to face the pair of quarians.

Oops. No hiding it now.

They were definitely spotted.

Their snapping teeth and piercing glares were nothing of short of intimidating.

It was safe to say they were pretty pissed.

"They're sizing us up, Tali. If we don't do something now, they're gonna kill us."

Suddenly, an idea hit him.

"Wait. I got an idea. Follow my lead."

Juel lowered his rifle, stood triumphantly, and unholstered his side-arm before pointing it at the sky.

He screamed, charged like an idiot, and started firing pot-shots.

Tali caught onto the idea and tailed after Juel while firing her shotgun as fast as it would allow her.

Tali, as she charged down the hill firing her shotgun stupidly, swore the lead alpha (Or what they thought was the alpha) shit itself before tucking its tail and running away as fast as it could. With their leader gone, the other beasts came to the same conclusion when Tali's shotgun regurgitated a large fireball of death to streak overhead and smash into a poor unsuspecting tree. After the rest of them had emptied their bowels, the entire group had retreated back from where they'd come, squealing like a pyjak whose food had just been stolen from out of its hands.

When the ugly sound had subsided, they caught their breaths and finally relaxed.

Juel started laughing.

"What?"

"You have an ugly scream." He said between his small fit of laughter, "It was good though... excellent battle-cry. Your shotgun overload was a great touch."

She blushed slightly as she toyed with her shotgun's handle. Too flustered to say anything, she holstered her weapon and bristled.

"Bosh'tet."

"I've got to tell Kal this. Want the others to know what we're up against. Go ahead and get a sample of its skin and feces." Juel stepped carefully around the piles of poop that littered the ground and radioed in.

"This is HighKnight-1 to BaseCenter-1, please prioritize this message, over."

"This is BaseCenter Actual. Go for Highknight message, over."

"We've encountered an aggressive animal... large by nature... I'm sending you some pictures for identification, over."

"Thanks for the heads up, Highknight. We'll relay the message to the other teams. Over."

"They have pack like behavior and are intimidated by loud noises. Keep your distance."

"Roger... anything else?"

"Nothing else, actual. Out." Juel looked over to see Tali clipping hair follicles with her knife and severing a small piece of flesh to place into two more jars.

"You step in their shit, yet?" He gave the large stools a disgusting look.

"No," She chided without ever looking away from her work. She got up and crossed her arms. "Not yet at least."

-Four hours later…

Taren'Gollie took a tired breath and lazily scanned the horizon again before itching his wrist and playing with his gun.

"You know what I hate dude?" Taren decided to say to his partner to strike up a conversation, "These suits."

Jaro'Neel looked up. "What?"

"These suits man."

"Keeps you alive."

"Yeah. That sucks."

"I'll pay you ten credits to take off your helmet then." Jaro said with a slightly bored laugh.

Taren shrugged. "Alright."

Half way between pretending to take off his helmet, Taren suddenly noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Turning to look at the offending distraction, he couldn't help but feel like he was about to piss himself.

"Fifty meters. Ten plus contacts, west bound."

Jaro immediately rose his rifle and looked west.

Suddenly they heard some distant screams from their east.

"Dude. Open fire. Light these things up." Taren and Jaro didn't hesitate. They fired. Soon ten of the giant beasts turned to twenty. Then forty.

It didn't take much to kill one, but at this point, it was more about quantity than quality.

"Holy sh— call for help!"

Taren got to his radio and signaled the emergency broadcast.

"Break break! We're receiving some kind of organized and deliberate attack on our west bound perimeter from local fauna! We need backup now!"

Coincidentally, it was Tali who answered. "Acknowledged, we'll be there in fifteen seconds!"

The screams from the east side of the camp started getting closer. There wasn't any doubt in either marine's mind that the east side had been compromised. The best they could do right now was to keep their sector secured.

Tali and Juel fell in line next to the two marines before taking up positions to help defend.

"What the hell we shooting a—" Juel's face paled when he finally saw them. Dozens of them gunning toward the four quarians like rabid dogs. Juel didn't have to be persuaded in doing anything else other than shoot.

"What the fuck are these?!" Taren yelled frighteningly, "They won't stop!"

Dropping a box of conveniently placed grenades, she snapped open the box and started chucking.

"Ask questions later! Just keep them away!"

At her sixth throw, the first of the grenades started exploding. As anyone would have expected, the air and dirt started turning pink.

Tali didn't bother counting how many she threw, but it was damn near half the box by the time the wave of animals were dead.

"I'm going to the east side. Keep the west clear." Tali climbed out of their hole and began running to the other side of the camp. It didn't take long for Tali to start seeing blood. The bodies of both parties followed.

The unmistakable voice of a man and doctor named Oliak screamed as the last remaining beast inside the camp chomped down on his leg. "Kill it! Fuck! Kill the motherfucker!"

Several of the quarian scientists armed with only handguns dumped a handful of rounds into the disgustingly strong dog-thing with only limited effect. As soon as Tali got into range, she immediately charged the slide on her shotgun before firing and watching the slug suck out the animal's guts.

Oliak fell to the floor and dragged himself away while the others rushed to help him.

"Oh shit…" Oliak murmured as he stared at his gnarled and half torn leg, "I'm gonna fuckin' die."

"Tali," Kal said with blood across half his visor, "What the hell happened?"

"...Bad things, Kal." Tali said slowly with a shaky breath, "…We need to leave this place now. Or we won't make it 'till morning."

Oliak had stopped screaming when the loss of blood overtook him. With a look of pure remorse on her face, she stared at the dying man and his fucked up leg and walked away to start getting a headcount of the mess.

Oliak didn't make it.

No one expected him to.

And, as bad as it was, only five quarians were killed in the attack outright. Anyone wounded was in stable condition and aboard the ship waiting for everyone else to pack up what survived and leave.

At the suggestion of one of the quarian marines, they decided to get a rough headcount of every animal they'd killed.

Estimated number of kills was at around 280 or more. There wasn't any doubt that this had all but disqualified the planet for anything else other than a good nuke testing site.

Kal, Tali, Juel, and a random marine were the last to step off the planet and take one last look behind them.

"A goddamn shame." Kal said pitifully.

"This is my fault." Juel murmured as the ship began lifting off, "Keelah."

"Not your fault." Tali said, "There's no way anyone could've known.

The walked up the length of the ramp as it closed and Juel shook his head. "Fuck."