Location: Mindoir
Year: 2170
"Come on, slowpoke, we're gonna miss it!"
Two shadows raced across the lush green fields of Mindoir, their figures silhouetted by the cascade of pink, purple, and orange all around them. It was the night of the Grand Syzygy, a day that only came once every ten thousand years. The orbiting cycles of Mindoir and other planets in the Elysta cluster of the Ismar Frontier would match up perfectly, all five planets aligning one behind the other. With the planets' close proximity with one another, the inhabitants of the colony would be able to see the outline of the planets as the central star illuminated them with its light. With Saleas's and Zeona's quick orbital period, however, it was only sure to last a few hours and they wouldn't even see Melile, the last planet in the system, because of its smaller radius compared to the second-to-last planet Hesano.
"Anasthatha, wait!"
In front of the second figure was a taller one, a young girl in her mid-teenage years. Her long auburn hair, nearly extending down to her butt, was constructed into a braid that was now loosening due to the rush of wind in her face. Hair frayed in all sections except for the top of her head, the hair held down by a cap with the Alliance logo on it. It was old, much of the color faded to a grayish color and crumpled with excessive use. Even one of the sewn stars that made up the logo had unraveled and fallen off sometime over the decade she had it. It was given to her by a passing Alliance patrol, a young pilot slapping it onto her head affectionately when she spoke of her desire to fly a spaceship in the future. Sadly, that wasn't the life for a farmer.
"Ana, wait!"
The second figure, who had fallen incredibly behind now, was a six-year-old girl the auburn-haired teenager, Anastasia, had babysat for her parents who were much too busy working in the fields to watch after the infant. Ana had watched the young girl grow, thinking fondly of her as the little sister she never had. Being the only female child in a family of six, her mom was the only one she could relate to but she was busy most of the time watching after the younger boys. It was nice to have a girl to hang out with, even if she wasn't her age. The six-year-old was named Talitha and had beautiful, wavy brown hair that reached just past her shoulders. She still had the appearance of a child with a round face and small facial features. The second of her two front teeth had fallen out about a week ago, giving her more of a lisp than she had before. Honestly, it was adorable to hear coming from her.
Talitha fumbled along behind Anastasia, tripping constantly due to the rubber boots she wore on her feet. Those boots were made for farm work, not athletics. It didn't help that her jeans were a bit too long for the poor girl. Ana spared a glance over her shoulder, expression softening a bit. Talitha was only half her height and here she was rushing her along. Within moments, she was at the girl's side who had started crying because she felt alone.
"Don't worry, I'm here," Ana cooed, kneeling down with her back facing the small girl. "Climb on," she offered, flashing a white grin at her friend.
Talitha rubbed at her eyes with the sleeves of her shirt. "A-Are we gonna b-be lathe?" she asked, wrapping her arms around Ana's neck and her legs around the older girl's waist.
"Not with my super-fast speed~" Ana replied optimistically, standing up when she was sure that the girl was securely fastened onto her back. "Hold on tight!" she added before darting back off across the field. The grass was nearly waist high the further they traveled away from the village. Some space cows darted off in different directions when the two got too close, Ana heading straight for a large oak tree in the distance. It was her favorite spot to just sit get away from the busy life of a farmer and think or daydream about the future. She was serious when she wanted to be a pilot. She /still/ wanted to be a pilot.
"Okay," the redhead piped up when they reached the base of the tree. It was /enormous/, nearly six feet across and one-hundred-and-ten feet tall. The large roots dispersed across the ground as if the tree were desperately clinging to the Earth beneath it. The branches were lower to the ground, thankfully, and Ana had already tied a rope around one of them to hoist herself up to the higher branches. With Talitha still latched onto her back, she took hold of the rope and started scaling the tree, stepping carefully onto each branch before they were high enough to where they would see the view perfectly. "Down you go," she told the young girl, hefting her from her back and setting her down on the wide branch, taking a seat next to her. "I brought some snacks, too~" She pulled out two small bananas from her deep pocket, handing over one to Talitha.
"Don't tell my mom I took them from the pantry," Ana added with a wink, peeling hers and taking a bite off of the top. Talitha giggled and did the same. She was very prone to copying everything Anastasia did, looking up to her as a role model.
The sun continued to set behind them, the shades of pink and purple getting darker with each passing moment. In front of them, the planets were moving ever so slowly behind each other until they matched up perfectly. It was like a work of art, the smaller planets right in the center of the larger ones, looking like a circle within a circle within a circle. Circleception as the twenty-first century people would call it. The borders were barely even noticeable. The pale yellow color of Zeona melded with the light orange landscape of Odasst before darkening further to a deep red with strips of yellow racing across the surface. They weren't the most beautiful colors in the universe, but it was truly a marvelous sight to see.
"Wow!" Talitha commented with a gasp, pointing at each of the planets and counting them out aloud. "Wait, there'th two mithing," she stated in that cute lisp of hers.
"Saleas is behind us," I replied with a laugh, turning to point at it through the leaves. It was slightly paler than Zeona with a pink shell around it. Talitha grinned.
"And Melile is behind the biggest planet, Hesano," I added. "We wouldn't be able to see it unless we had a spaceship and could get behind the other planets."
"You mean like that one?" she asked, pointing towards the sky.
Out in the distance, from the direction where the blinking blue light that was the mass relay sat, came a ship. It was small, just a cruiser and Ana thought just for a moment that it was a passing Alliance cruiser… another patrol to check on the colonies out near the Terminus Systems.
She was dead wrong.
Soon, the one cruiser was joined by many others and none of the bore the Alliance logo that was known across the land. On the side of each of those cruisers, painted in white were shapes that resembled a face, a mixture between a skull and living person but with four eyes instead of two. They weren't human.
She grabbed Talitha and climbed further up the tree, far enough that the leaves would provide them a good hiding place from these intruders.
"What'th goin' on?" she whispered, but Ana clamped a hand over her mouth, blue eyes wide with confusion and a hint of fear. Something terrible was about to happen, she was sure. But what? Maybe they would just pass over the land and continue on to another planet.
The cruisers flew right past the tree and Ana's gaze followed them as they headed straight for the village. She could see them land a good distance from the main buildings before everything seemed to burst into flames.
"NO!"
Ana nearly leaped to the ground, grabbing the lowest branch just in time so she wouldn't break a leg. The sudden jerk upwards tore a ligament in her right shoulder, but she pushed on, crouching low into the grass and beginning to run towards the village.
"Ana!" Talitha screamed from the branch the redhead had left her on.
"Stay there!" Ana ordered. "You'll be safe!" She didn't say anymore as she tore off for the village. Little Talitha wasn't about to sit and watch as their home burned. She began climbing down, struggling with each branch but making progress nonetheless.
"Momma! Papa!" the teenager cried out over the roar of the flames that surrounded the village. It singed the outer layer of skin, but she just took a deep breath as she leaped right through the fire. What she saw would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Colonists were scrambling all over the place, some bleeding profusely from bullets that tore gaping holes in their bodies. Others were on fire, screaming for someone to help them and put them out. Ana looked on in horror, unable to do anything. It was utter chaos. Bodies were piled all around, women, men, and children dead with eyes wide but unseeing and mouths open from the last anguished cry they managed to let out. None of them had weapons, so they fell like sacks of potatoes. They were just a farming colony after all, though they should have been more prepared for something like this.
Who was the enemy though?
"Momma! Papa!" Ana cried out again, coughing as smoke began to fill her lungs. She ripped off her jacket, using it to cover her mouth as she traversed deeper into the slaughter. "Bryce?! Spence?! Carter?! Anyone!" Most of her cries were drowned out by the screams of others. They ran past her towards the wall of flames, trying to escape. Behind her, she could hear the gunshots, shooting all of those poor people down. The enemy must have set a perimeter to take down anyone who tried to get away.
Suddenly, a little body shot past Ana, heading deeper into the village. It was Talitha.
"Talitha, no!" Ana cried out, running to catch up to her, but colliding into one of the other colonists. She flew back a little way, falling to the ground on her back before quickly flipping over and scanning the area. The smoke was too thick to determine where the little girl vanished, however. She'd find Talitha… just as soon as she found her family.
Again, Ana pushed herself up from the ground, weaving through the crowds of people running in the opposite direction. Her coughs increased in frequency, her voice hoarse from calling out her family's names. The heat of the fire and the unbearable smoke made her eyes well up with tears, as did the fear of never seeing her family again or dying. Up ahead was a bright light, either the light the flames cast across the land or the headlights of the cruiser. She wasn't sure, but she followed it… right to her home.
Standing out in the fresh-cut lawn, all on their knees with their hands behind their heads were her family. Little Bryce, who was only four years old, began to wail in fear. Spence, his twin, imitated it soon after. Ana's mom tried to calm them down, but something lashed out from the darkness and struck her in the side of the face. It was then that Ana's eyes fell upon the monsters that were attacking her home. Batarians. Slave traders, most likely.
"Let them cry," one of the four-eyed brutes shouted, his voice cold, rough, unforgiving. From the way the other Batarians stood behind him without interfering, Ana could deduce that he was the leader. He suddenly bent down; his ugly face mere centimeters from Bryce's. "You scared, kid?"
Bryce's cries only grew in volume, his face red from the energy it took to wail so loud. Tears streamed down his precious face and the Batarian just laughed at him. He suddenly straightened up, pulling out a pistol and shooting both Bryce and Spence point-blank in the forehead. Ana's scream rivaled her mother's and time seemed to slow down as the twins' eyes began to roll back into their heads, their small bodies, devoid of life, falling back to the floor. Carter was the first to move, leaping up as he rushed towards the Batarian leader to tackle him. The other Batarians finally unleashed fire, filling Ana's older brother with bullet holes. Ana's dad managed to grab the pistol in the leader's hands and attempted to shoot, but there were too many of them to take down in such a short time. Some of the other Batarians began shooting at him, the leader slashing his throat with an Omniblade and ripping his pistol out of Ana's dad's hand. The only one who didn't move was Ana's mother. She had heard her daughter's scream when the twins were murdered, turning to face her with fearful eyes filled to the brim with tears.
"Run, Ana!" she shouted, the words coming out painfully slow and reaching Ana's ears only after she witnessed her mom's head falling from her body and made eye contact with one of the Batarians. In that moment, with the adrenaline pumping through her systems, she took off with a speed not known to her before. The Batarians shouted, taking off after her through the village, but she had the home advantage. With her small frame, she was able to squeeze through places that the Batarians would either have to plow through or run around just to get to the other side. The fleeing colonists slowed them down as well, though it didn't take but a bullet to knock them out of the way for good.
As the redhead managed to outrun those chasing her, she began to search for a good place to hide. Everything was on fire, but there were some underground bunkers around for when the extreme rainstorms came rolling in. She noticed a spire through the smoke; the church! Without thinking she dashed forward, now in the direction that many of the colonists were travelling in. She was too distracted by the sheer possibility of escaping this horrible nightmare that she failed to notice the strange beeping occurring right underneath her feet. So did everyone else. The ground began to quake and suddenly burst like lava bursting from the magma chamber of a volcano. The Batarians had set proximity mines around the church after discovering that it could be used as a place for colonists to hide. To reduce how many they would have to shoot, they just set up mines around the church to take out many at a time. Ana wasn't near the mine as someone else had triggered it, but she was close enough to be sent flying through the air and right into the side of the building, knocked out cold.
Hours later, consciousness began to return to the teenager. At first, all she did was listen around her. It was eerily quiet with only the crackle of the dying flames to fill the empty void left by the Batarians. Ana groaned before wheezing and letting out a cough from her smoke-filled lungs. She could feel something sticky and wet on the side of her face, reaching up to wipe it off only to discover it was her own blood. Her hand fell back to the ground as her gaze roamed over the scene before her. Everything was charred and bodies littered the ground surrounded by puddles of blood. The sky was raining ashes, coating her skin with it. Again, she coughed, the stench of death reaching her nostrils and making her dry heave onto the black ground.
"Check around. Make sure you've got everyone," a voice suddenly said through the darkness. For a moment, she thought it was the Alliance coming to save the colonists that survived… if they survived, but she could recognize that crude voice anywhere now. It was the Batarian leader. If he was coming for her, she wasn't going without a fight.
Ana scrambled to her feet, a little disoriented as the blood rushed from her head back down to her feet, and glanced around, noticing that she was next to a shed where they housed some of the tools used to farm. Most of it was burned down, but she managed to find a hoe in the back and gripped it tightly in her hands.
"Did you hear that?" another Batarian asked, alert to the noise coming from the shed. Some of the tools fell, giving away Ana's position.
The Batarian leader and two others went to check it out and Ana pressed herself against a wall, waiting for the opportune moment. As soon as one of the lackeys came close enough, she stepped from the shadows and slashed him right in the throat. The other whipped out his pistol, but Ana knocked it straight from his hands, the sharp blade of the hoe crashing down right in the center of his head, stopping just under his nose. He fell to the ground, bleeding profusely from the split and sputtering before his body stilled. Where was the leader, though? She was sure she heard his voice.
"You're a tough one, aren't you?" came a sinister voice from behind her. She turned to see the leader behind her, his Omniblade out in front of him. Again, she acted without thinking, swinging the hoe at him, but he cut the part housing the blade right off, sending it flying through the air behind the teenager. She gasped with horror as she realized that just a stick wasn't going to get her anywhere. The leader laughed with sadistic glee at the human's predicament, refraining from killing her as he liked to toy with his prey.
Ana began to back up, swinging what was left at the hoe at him, but he kept cutting it down shorter and shorter until there was nothing left. When her options were cut short, she tried to run but the leader grabbed her ankle causing her to fall and bust her chin open. He laughed again, but didn't expect Ana, now enraged, to swing her free leg around and kick him straight in the face. He stumbled backwards, stunned by her initiative and wiped the dirt off of his face.
"Enough games," he said dangerously, moving for the kill towards Ana who was huddled on the ground. He raised his Omniblade so that it was targeted for the back of the teenager's head. Just as he thrust his arm forward to impale her, she turned, slashing the leader with the blade of the hoe right through two of his eyes as his blade struck her in the already damaged right shoulder. Both of them cried out in pain, Ana dropping the blade and trying desperately to crawl away with a triumphant look as she watched the blue liquid seep from beneath the Batarians hand that now covered his wound.
"Why you little-!" he screeched, half of his face bloodied as he pulled out a gun and aimed it at her head. She was afraid, her heart pounding against her chest so much that it hurt, but she held her head up high, sneering at him. At least she disabled him in some way. Now she could just be with her family.
Or so she thought…
The leader suddenly laughed, his voice a mixture of pain and pleasure at the same time. He looked maniacal and she couldn't understand why.
"You'd like me to kill you, wouldn't you?" he remarked, a smile crossing his face. It was the most horrible thing she had ever seen. "But that would be too easy. I remember you. You're the girl my men were chasing after we killed that precious family of yours. You want to join them, huh? Rebellion is your attempt at redemption?" He barked out a laugh, kneeling down in front of her. "I have a better plan for you."
He quickly reached out and grabbed her disheveled braid, lifting her right up off the ground as her face distorted with the searing pain in her head. She reached up to grab the base of the braid, trying to relieve the pain if only a little. And then the leader began to drag her across the ground as she writhed and screamed and kicked in an attempt to get away. No other Batarians joined him, leading her to the conclusion that he, and those two that she killed, were the only ones left on the planet. All of the others must have gone already. As she was dragged across the ground, she noticed a ship in the distance. It must have been his… What a sick, twisted ploy of fate. She would finally get a chance to board a spaceship and it was as a prisoner with no hope of piloting it.
As they arrived, the leader thrust her into the brig. Despite how exhausted she was, Ana threw herself at the metal bars, pounding against them until her knuckles started to bleed. To stop the annoying clanging of the bars, the leader set up a kinetic barrier that would electrocute her every time she touched those bars. It worked as she was sent flying back into the wall, knocked unconscious yet again.
"Hand me the scalpel, will you?"
"What do you want me to do with this… disgusting thing?"
"Eugh, don't wave it at me!"
"It's not going to attack you. It's just the human's hair."
"Will you two shut up and hand me the damn scalpel?!"
"The monitors are going nuts. I think it's waking up."
Ana groaned, opening her eyes to three figures standing over her. One of them held her long braid in his hands and the heart monitor sped up with her heartbeats. She tried to move, but her arms and legs were restrained. One of the Batarians, a doctor most likely, flashed a sharp-toothed smile down at her, tapping the middle of her forehead with a claw.
"You're awake. Good," he remarked. "We wouldn't want you asleep during surgery, would we?"
"Wh-What happened? What are you going to do with me?" Ana questioned, her lower lip trembling and vision blurring with tears. They wanted her awake for the surgery? Knowing these guys, they wouldn't use any painkillers.
"The same thing we do to other humans," he replied casually, shrugging and shoving the other two away when they began whacking each other with the braid. "We don't destroy all of them. How would we make a profit then?" He laughed. "No, we implant a small little chip into your tiny human brain that takes away your willpower so you do whatever we want you to do."
Ana's eyes widened. "Wh-Why? Why are you doing this? We never did anything to you!"
"Hah! Is that what you think? You humans are all the same: stupid. You encroached on our land!" he bellowed, filling a syringe with some strange yellow liquid. "You think you can just go wherever you want and /take/ whatever you want?! You're not welcome in this galaxy! If you were smart, you would have just stayed on that pathetic planet of yours, but /no/ you just had to keep expanding. If you ask me, the human species is a little… overpopulated." All three of the Batarians burst out into raucous laughter then. "But at least we can make a profit off of you," the doctor added after they had settled down. "You'll be sold as an obedient slave and that'll be the end of you."
"Yes, we particularly like the rebellious ones. They're the most fun to break," came another voice from the doorway. Ana's head jerked to the side, watching as the leader stepped into the room. His wound was cleaned up and whatever he used to do that left him with only a scar… no stitches or gauze of any type. A grin stretched across his face, a triumphant gleam in two of his eyes as the others were now glazed over. At least she half-blinded him.
"Solem," the doctor remarked, looking surprised to see him down in the med bay.
"What's taking so long, doctor?" the Batarian asked, his eyes never leaving Ana's.
"S-Sorry, these two idiots were distracted by the human's hair."
"That doesn't explain why /you're/ distracted. Ranting about our anger gets us nowhere. Taking action, now that has accomplished something. Hurry up so we can drop this filth off at Illium."
"Yes sir," the doctor replied, injecting the yellow liquid into Ana's bloodstream. Nothing happened at first before ever so slowly, everything became numb to her. She couldn't feel her legs, her arms, couldn't move them! It was a paralytic, designed to keep her stationary and quiet as they worked. All she could do was look on as they would slowly cut her open.
"Now hand me that scalpel!" the doctor barked once more as one of the assistants tossed it to him. He grinned deviously at the girl who couldn't move, lowering the scalpel to her forehead and slicing through the skin. The pain was terrible, her skin stinging as fresh blood dripped down her face making her vision red when some dripped into her eyes. She wanted to scream, wanted to move but she was trapped inside her own mind and completely aware of the situation.
The doctor cut a slant in her forehead, turning it to make an 'X' where the chip would go before the entire ship began to quake. All three of the Batarians stopped and whispered to each other, wondering what was going on and concluding that it was just turbulence. As the doctor reached down with his scalpel again, the ship rocked harder. Suddenly, the two sides of the door flew across the room, crashing into the glass cabinets and spilling chemicals and tools everywhere.
"Drop everything and put your hands behind your head!" came a booming voice from the door. It was an Alliance soldier, somewhere in his early thirties with dark skin and a blue, camouflage military uniform on. His balding head was covered with a cap that matched his uniform.
The Batarians, unarmed at the moment, conceded as more Alliance soldiers rushed in to cuff them and drag them out of the area. The dark-skinned man stepped up to Ana carefully, putting his gun away so as not to scare her. "It's alright," he said gently. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm an Alliance soldier and I'm on your side."
There was no reaction from Ana which put him on edge. As he approached her, he could see that she was still alive: the heart monitor displayed her rapid heartbeat and he could see her chest rising and falling, albeit with some difficulty. The soldier cursed under his breath. "They used a damn paralytic." The Batarians were terrible at medicine, allowing for all kinds of contaminants into their supply and failing to clean their utensils at all. He was afraid that what they used to paralyze her would last forever.
"Don't worry," he assured her, trying to stay optimistic. "I'm going to get you out of here." With that, he broke the restraints and picked her up into his arms, her head hanging limply over one of his arms and limbs dangling as he walked out of the med bay. He continued down a short hall before coming out to the main area of the ship where many other Alliance soldiers were gathered.
"Anderson," one of the commented, rushing up to the soldier. "Is she…?"
"She's alive," Anderson replied. "They paralyzed her. We need to bring her to a hospital immediately."
"Alliance headquarters?"
"Yes."
That Anderson carried her onto a different ship filled with humans and straight into a separate room. He sat down on a small couch, keeping the teenager in his arms as the ship detached itself from the Batarian ship and headed for the nearest mass relay.
"You poor child," Anderson said, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping the blood from the redhead's face. "What you've been through… It must have been horrible. But it'll get better. You have to be strong." To give her a piece of mind, Anderson closed her eyelids and held her against his warmth. She just listened for a while before the exhaustion took over and she fell into a deep sleep.
She wasn't sure how long it had been when she awoke next. Part of her feared that the Alliance saving her had been nothing but a dream. She still woke up in a hospital, but no Batarian faces were staring down at her. Her limbs were no longer numb, thankfully, and she stretched her toes and fingers. There were quiet voices in the hallway, all female and it was then that she realized she was in a human hospital. Carefully, she sat up in the bed, glancing at her reflection in the window. She looked a lot better and they didn't cut all of her hair, at least. Gauze was wrapped around her head and shoulder and her body was clean and for the first time, she felt relieved.
A nurse came in a few moments later, carrying a tray of food for the girl. She hadn't eaten in days as she now realized.
"You're awake," the woman remarked, sending a chill down Ana's spine as that matched the same thing the Batarian said. "I brought you some food. Your stomach's been rumbling since you got here." She chuckled, setting the tray down on the table beside the girl and checking her vitals. "How are you feeling?"
"Sore," she admitted. "But better than before…"
"Good, good. Is there anything else I can get you?"
"No, but I have to ask you something."
"What is it, dear?"
"My home… Mindoir, it was attacked. Did anyone… Did anyone else make it out alive?"
"If they did, the Alliance didn't find them…"
Ana could feel a lump in her throat rising and simply nodded before the nurse gave her a hug. "I'm so sorry. No one should have to go through that, especially at such a young age."
The redhead let her tears fall silently down her cheeks before breaking away from the hug. "Where am I?"
"Alliance headquarters, dear," the nurse replied, tucking a strand of the girl's red hair behind her ear.
"Who's in charge?"
"Admiral Hackett."
"Take me to him."
Ana was led down multiple hallways, taking an elevator to the very top of Alliance headquarters on Earth before stopping in front of a sliding glass door. She wore simple clothes now: a blank t-shirt, white jacket, and dark-washed jeans with black tennis shoes. The nurse fixed her hair so it looked neater and sent her on her way with one of the Alliance soldiers. Looking in through the glass, she could see Admiral Hackett inside with the same soldier that had rescued her. They were chatting, but she didn't know what about. Hearing her presence, they both turned, looking quietly stunned.
Ana, though her palms were sweaty from nervousness, stepped forward to Hackett's desk, standing proud with her chin pointing towards the sky. "Admiral Hackett," she greeted, saluting him like any other soldier would. "I want to join the Alliance."
"What's your name, soldier?"
"Anastasia, sir. Anastasia Shepard."