Prelude
Emptiness, pain, and nightmares are all symptoms one gets when they live on Omega, if they're weak. If they are strong callousness, vicious behavior, indifference, and ruthless greed tend to be the symptoms of Omega. The young, old, sickly, and likewise weak die or get enslaved quick here. No one looks out for them on this station, and those that do more than likely have ulterior motive. Look at me for an example. I was weak, frightened, and young; however I was good with people. I can get just about anyone do what I ask, depending on the situation of course. For example, one time when I was six I didn't have enough cash to eat that night. So, I waited outside a speeder kiosk, and spotted a part for a decently priced engine that was on sale near the front. When I thought no one was looking I swiped it. However, I also knew that in the market district there was a batarian male who sells used speeders and parts and would willing to pay a little bit for this in exchange for not asking how a kid got a hold of a part like this. When I went to sell it all of his eyes went wide and a smile popped up on his face, but I wasn't as stupid of a kid as he thought. I noticed his head tilt to the right and I knew what that meant to batarians.
He figure he just hit gold because I was just a human child; something he probably thought was far beneath him. Yet, when I walked away I had a fistful of credits and a grin across my whole face. Apparently, with an arrogant batarian flattery and convincing, veiled insinuating lies that your father was in the Blue Suns is an easy way to get a batarian merchant on Omega to give you a better deal. If he had seen through me I have a feeling that talk would have went far differently. One important part to remember for a good lie is to know enough so that if say someone asks you who your fictitious father works under you can bullshit him into believe he is a small time local enforcer. Situations like this would end up bringing me attention as I grew up, some of it good and more often bad.
When I was nine my mother left me in the market district outside of the human district with only fifteen credits and the clothes on my back. Looking back I can't say I'm surprised. She was an exotic dancer at a local club and not at an "upscale" one like Afterlife. No, she was one of those dancers from some dark corner club whose entrance is hidden in an alley with minimal lighting. I went there once with her because she had forgotten a jacket or something in the dressing room and didn't remember until she got home. I didn't see the entrance at first, but when she knocked on the door and a scarred batarian thug opened the door smoke rolled out of the entrance. It bit at my throat and stung my nose. It was a wet, wretched mist. That should have tipped me off as to the kind of place I was about to enter, but what eight-year-old child expects to know what the inside of a strip club slash brothel is supposed to be like? When we walked through the door the lighting changed dramatically. The various lights outside were replaced with darkness as the thug closed the door. The after a couple seconds I was slowly able to see as I followed my mother. There were red lights coming from what looked like lines around the corners of the rooms, and the smoke seemed to be a mixture of stage props and drugs, but there was another more musky scent to the place. As we walked back to the rear of the place I noticed the girls on stage.
They weren't doing anything one wouldn't expect out from an Omega club, but at my age it was still shocking to see women of different species doing strange things while completely naked. However, once we reached the end of the main room and began walking down a hallway I noticed that the hallway had enclaves taken out on both sides for what looked like private dances. The most horrifying part had yet to come though. We took a right at the end of the hallway and while we walked along here I noticed there were closed doors on the left side of the hall, and chairs on the right. One or two of those chairs look like they were taken by more thugs and bouncers of different species. When we got to the end of the hall I recognized this sealed off area as a management and dressing area. My mother walked right up to a spot with a crappy little chair and a mirror and I realized that was where she got dressed for these shows. It was still hard to wrap my mind around the idea of my mother participating in this. Yes, she was far from an affectionate mother, but the thought of her doing these things made my young stomach curl.
As she was picking up her stuff a human man walked up to her. He was probably in his fifties. His hair was starting to recede a bit and the grey was already throughout his hair. His face was hard and yet and the same time upsetting. He didn't make me afraid the same way the batarian or krogan thugs did, but I knew he was just as rotten if not more.
"Hey Sarah there's a client of yours who wants to know if you're interested in giving him the private room experience. I know you're off the clock, but money is money right?" The man asked my mother.
"Sure, money is money. Which client?" My mother replied.
"Krom. He said he's on his way and will be here in a few minutes," the man told my mother.
"Fine, you think you can get someone to watch after my kid for the hour Max?" My mother asked. I could tell she was only asking so that I wouldn't cause her problems rather than my safety; which was smart on her part because I had no interest in staying here a moment longer.
"Sure, I'll have Sarek look after him," Max replied. My mother walked out of the dressing room with only a nod, and Max walked up to me.
"Come on kid. Go sit on a chair near the batarian with the scar under his chin," the man said to me with little care. So, I walked out and looked at the chairs and it looked like there was only one thug sitting there now. He was a batarian in thick, dented armor with spikes decorating it. He had a large shotgun attached to his hip, and I shuddered to think what he could do with that thing in close quarters. His face was severely scarred under his chin. Whatever had made it had probably torn off the lower part of his face. I didn't have any clue what could let someone survive a wound like that, but here he was. His four eyes were focused on a curved knife in his hands. He seemed to be twirling it around when I suddenly heard him say "sit down kid" with a clipped gravelly voice. I did as he said as quickly as I could because in my eight-year-old life no one had ever scared me that much before. I had a feeling even I wouldn't be able to sweet talk this guy.
I sat there for a couple minutes until I spotted another batarian come walking down the hallway. What surprised me was that the people in the lobby had mostly been humans with only a couple batarians and krogans as protection. He was rather tall with that green skin they have. His four eyes seemed almost lazy to me. He walked down the hall to Sarek and asked him where Sarah was. Sarek sheathed his knife and led him two doors down and opened the door for him. When he got back to the seat next to me he fixed his eyes on the door to his left. Right above the entrance there was a little clock counting down and it had almost reached zero. When it hit zero Sarek seemed to get a little on edge, and after a few seconds of waiting he stood up. As a human child sitting down looking up at him I wasn't sure if I was more impressed or frightened.
He knocked on the door loudly with his spiked fist. He only waited another moment before he activated the switch to open the door giving me a good view of the inside. The room was empty other than a single bed in the middle of the room, and the room itself was small. This only helped me focus in on the scene in front ofme. I saw a human male, probably in his mid-twenties, on top of a very young human girl. I knew enough about the world to know that they were having sex, but from the sight of his left arm pinning her down and his right hand over her mouth and the fact that Sarek had barged in I also knew that this was no longer a vice of prostitution but of rape. For one moment the only sound I could hear other than the club music in the background was the rough wild slapping of flesh on flesh. That was right up until Sarek took a step forward and pulled the man's leg so loud that I thought he might rip it off.
The man tumbled backward out of the room, almost hitting me. As I looked into the room I realized, to my horror that the woman wasn't moving. There were tears running down her face and marks across her body, and the only way I could tell that she wasn't dead was that her bare chest was rising and falling so slow I barely saw it. Sarek apparently saw the same thing because as soon as he figured out she was alived he turned his attention to the man crumpled on the floor next to me. I skid to my right to avoid whatever was about to happen. The sight of Sarek towering over the naked man curled up in pain next to my leg was a clear visual of how this situation was about to play out. I turned my head to the right, something I have regretted for years since, and I accidentally saw into my mother's room. It must have opened when Sarek hit the switch, but neither my mother nor the batarian man had noticed. The situation was very similar to the other room. The batarian man was on top of my mother, and the only sounds that reached my ears were the slapping or raw flesh and grunts and moans. It felt like forever that I watched in sickening horror, but I have no idea how long it truly was. However, my attention was forced away from this scene as I heard Sarek struggle with the human in front of me. Apparently the man had grabbed that knife of his and stabbed him with it.
The struggle from the fighting seemed to snap the other nearby people, including my mother, out of whatever was going on. I tried to walked backward as quickly as I could because their fight seemed to be everywhere. I had thought Sarek would win hands down, but now that I saw how big the human was I knew it was going to take some work for Sarek to deal with him; especially since he'd been stabbed. Sarek suddenly pushed the man backward against the wall without doors and pulled out his shotgun. Inside the small hallway the sound from the gun thundered like an explosive, and when the round hit the man it tore through his flesh with ease. His body crashed against the wall and blood sprayed across the hall. Bits of his flesh were wrought from his body and scattered about. A good amount of this even ended up on me, and the feeling of warm, wet pieces of flesh slowly working its way down my face sent my mind into overload. I turned to my mother and I saw horror in her eyes, but it was dulled as if this wasn't the first or last time she'd witnessed this. My memory starts to blank out after this. The combination of witnessing a rape, my mother selling her body for creds, a man exploding, and then to top it off the blood running down my mother's thighs sent me into a meltdown.
I remember my mother getting mad at me for some reason. I think she blamed me and said something like I ended her session early and she lost some money or something. The main afterthought pounding through my head for days after this was if my father was one of these people. Was he just another scumbag that Sarek wiped off the face of the galaxy? I never did find out. A prostitute with a penchant for red sand, alcohol, and beating her kid didn't make the best mother, and that day was only one example of much she didn't care. Years after this Aria T'Loak would ask me every now and then what made me such a broken little shit. I think that this day might have been that final straw.
So, there I was in the market district with absolutely no clue what to do. I knew I would never see her again, and the fact I never did is disturbing thinking on it. After all she would be the kind of woman who would show up again asking for some creds, and over time I eventually made a decent name for myself. I would have figured she would have found me looking for a handout. She never had much pride so she would have definitely done that, but seeing as I never heard even whispers about her I would hazard a guess that she died, either at the hands of one of her clients at the club or from the red sand, sometime after leaving me.
Being a nine year old, bastard son of a likely deceased hooker and some piece of crap thug was not a safe occupation on Omega. I knew I would die within a day or two if I didn't find somewhere safe to lay my head and get some food. There was no law on Omega so I knew I might be able to find work, despite my age, and then I remembered that batarian vendor from when I was younger. I remember after I finished selling the part to him we ended on friendly terms. Plus, with the way I am with people I shouldn't have a problem being selling stuff, and if my memory serves he wouldn't object to having someone who could steal things discreetly from others. So, I walked quite a bit and found him, and it was ultimately for the best decision I could have possibly made as it changed my life for the better in ways I never would have guessed.
The market was absolutely packed with ever species known to the galaxy. Due to my height it is rather hard to get my bearings through this sea of people. Yet, I eventually found what I was looking for, and I was happy to notice that he wasn't that busy at the moment. Walking up to the speeder vendor the smell of fuel and old metals crashed against my nose, and I made the decision to limit my time around such smells whenever possible. However, when the batrarian caught my image coming into view a light smirk slowly appeared on his face.
"Got something you'd like to hock boy?" he asked.
"In a way," I replied. I let a playful smile pull at the corners of my mouth. If I was going to get this job I'd have to be careful because failure meant that I would most likely die in a really bad way.
"Whatcha mean? Do you or don't you?" he asked with his brows crumpling together lightly. I could tell he wasn't so much annoyed as he was confused. He was a business man, and the last time I came here I made us both a decent chunk of money.
"Well, do you remember the last time I was here?" I inquired.
"Well obviously," he replied with sarcasm teetering into his voice.
"Might you say that I was decent at being a salesman?" I asked
"Hmm, you were alright," he said with a little humor in his voice, "you got more money out of me than I thought you would for your age. Why?"
"Well, I kind of need a job at the moment," I said. I let the words hang there for a moment, letting him get to the conclusion.
"And you thought of me?" He said with laughter in his voice, "why are you coming to me."
"Because you know me and that I know my way around people. Because at the moment it's either get a job with you or with the Suns. And because I think I would be able to help you out a little bit so you can focus more on making money and less on menial tasks," I said. Letting him know about my situation is risky, but I have a good feeling he isn't the type to do anything based of it. The gamble was whether or not it would pull on his heartstrings.
"Let me get a look at you kid," he said with a little more seriousness. At this point he is interested in at least me being a cleaning boy or something. Or at least I hope so. I know I'm not all that much to look at if you're looking for someone to do labor for you. I'm not short, but I've never been taller than people my age either. My inky black hair is long and matted. It has sunk down to my shoulders and electric blue eyes. My skin is pale and without many blemishes other than the dirt and grime from living on Omega. I have an average build that's not too meaty but not emaciated like others. Hopefully he'll think I'm at least worth keeping around.
"You're not all that impressive kid," he said as my heart froze up, "but you've got a little bit of spunk. So, you'll at least be interesting to have around. You're too young to help sell anything, but if you can clean and keep the storerooms in order I'll hire you on," he offered. Relief flooded through my veins as he spoke. I've never been this relieved before in my entire life. If I had to have gone to the Suns I would most likely have been used as target practice.
"Absolutely," I said a little too quickly, "I can get to work immediately."
"Sounds good, you'll get six credits per hour of work, and there's a mat in the storeroom if you need a place to lie down. Which you look like you need to," he replied. Six credits an hour was under what I was hoping to get, but this was not a time to haggle. I could tell this was his only offer.
After we were done talking about what I would be doing as a janitor he told me to get some sleep, and I would start in the morning. The place he mentioned in storeroom was little more than a small plat of insulation from a speeder, but the material felt like heaven to me. I was tired, and grateful for the little bit of cushioning.
This is where my story begins.
