A/N: A small taste of the batarian lifestyle. Hope you weren't expecting kittens.
Batarians eat those, I think.
Next up will be salarians, in interview format.
Perspectives on Biotics: High Sergeant Bthurak Shrath, of the Potency Grithak of Khar'Shan.
A perspective how the Hegemony recruits it's biotics, in late 2172.
The hard notes of the Hymn to the Emperor's Glory echoed out across the broken streets of Mushar, washing across the shuttered storefronts and cobbled together buildings. As he piloted the armored ground-car across the lopsided concrete that passed for a main avenue, Bthurak Shath pondered on the sorry state of events in the Batarian Hegemony. Another revolt had rocked the Hurth District of Khar'Shan, and the retribution had been brutal even for the Hegemony – four hundred executed immediately, with ten thousand more enslaved and three towns firebombed into ruins.
The village of Mushar had gotten off lightly, by comparison, only having been stomped on by four regional SIU units. Empty broken buildings with shattered doors and blood stains in long trails spoke of the fate of anyone not subservient enough. And now, just to make sure the message was run home, his unit was deployed to draft at least twenty biotics. They'd rounded up sixteen potentials so far, but that meant he still had another twenty four to find – at least half would die in the processing.
His sensors blipped, and he tapped a control on the panel of the scout vehicle. Manual buttons, of course – haptics relied on optronics, and the embargo against the Hegemony by the Citadel races made optronics far too expensive for most lesser uses, such as controls on shitty scout cars enforcing the Tithe on backwater low-caste planets.
The reading was weak, as it turned out. Not even strong enough to be Honored. He grunted and turned down another street.
Bthurak wasn't a biotic himself. Thank the Dark Gods, he'd never shown the predication to the viral disease the Hegemony used to induce Girifon's Curse. Instead he was something worse, a grithak, the tallyman of the Culling. He went out and selected those to be selected for the honor of service and death to the Emperor.
Given his low-caste status, his existence was about as good as it could get. He had an apartment in a nice town. He owned his own ground car, had two wives and two pleasure slaves, and his children attended a good school. Given than many of his caste never got beyond living in the factories they slaved away in, he considered himself very lucky.
He tried to be impartial in his duty, not picking out higher-caste targets for spite but only going after the highest spikes on the special sensors. He didn't abuse his chosen targets, either – the agony of being elevated of Fated or Honored, much less the Glorious, was surely torture enough.
When it came to training batarian biotics, they were the only species that didn't let other races biotics or even their own biotics get involved. Each one of the Immortals had to find their own paths to control of the Potence, or else get tossed into the recycling vats. Bthurak assisted in this process as well.
He grunted as his commanding officer entered the pilot's cab. Ivthak Racek was everything Bthurak wasn't – intellectual, high-caste, cruel to those doomed to join the Immortals, and strangely tolerant of lower-caste batarians. He sat down next to Bthurak, checking the scanners. "Ah, another quiet night with only minimal spoor. Should I feel disappointed or delighted, I wonder?"
After six years working alongside Ivthak, Bthurak could read his moods, and he was in a good mood tonight. "Hard to say, Great One. This far out into the reeds you can't expect the peasants to be tough enough to endure the Trials."
Ivthak sighed, shaking his head, his four eyes tracking across the night. His skin was pure high-caste yellow, the color of the sun, his bearing regal. His uniform had the sigil of the Fist of Khar'Shan upon his shoulder, the ribbons marking his time in the SIU, and was a mix of elegant style and reinforced kinetic sheathing. It's dark green shades were trimmed in the white of an officer, along with the bold white stripes of a castellan of the Emperor.
Bthurak checked the scanners again as he reflected. Like most of his prey, his gray skin marked his low caste, and his simple black uniform was only marred by the red bar indicating he was a member of the grithak. In the Empire, the lower castes were rarely even given the chance to serve in the military – for him, the ranks of the grithak were as high as he could go.
For Ivthak, this service was beyond slumming it.
"Pardon my insolence, Great One. But why do you lead these searches yourself? It is … well, below you to honor us by direct association."
Ivthak laughed. "That's why I like you lower-caste types, Shath. You aren't stupid or arrogant enough to think you are equal to me, unlike the middle-caste, and less dangerous to my health if I misspeak, unlike my peers. Given the … strangeness in the capital, doing my service to the Emperor at a distance is a Pillar-damned sight better than risking my eyes in more elevated and visible positions."
He gestured through the window at the battered village, sneering. "And I hate the Immortals. Unskilled mutant trash, injected with poisons and then treated as if they were suddenly high-caste themselves. The effrontery bothers me, as does the concept they should be rewarded for shortening their pointless lives."
Bthurak nodded at this. Batarian biotics were made, not born – the only thing 'special' about them was their susceptibility to having their bodies altered to be of use. They were injected with a special formula known as the Grace of the Emperor, which mutated their nerves somehow, and then they were crammed full of eezo, letting the blue poison warp their bodies until they either manifested the Potence...or died.
Training the surviving unfortunates that made up the Immortals was not hard. It was done from well known principles: some stolen from asari slaves during long ago raids, some earned through centuries of experimentation and battle, still others bought on the market by clever traders from over-greedy salarians or stupid monkey humans.
Condensed into simple courses of experimentation, practice, drill, and reward/punishment schemes, the training of the Potence varied on their strength. The weakest were the Honored, those whose bodies would only withstand a small amount of eezo. These unfortunates lived the longest on paper, but in practiced died the fastest, as they were used as support units for the front-line infantry. Capable of little more than barriers and throws, the Honored were dismissed almost as living shields, and produced only when more powerful results weren't possible. Most were just soldiers, really.
On the other hand, the Honored were pretty safe. They didn't have enough power to do much damage.
The ranks of the Fated made up the bulk of batarian Immortals. Strong and with a great command of the Potence, they could easily match human or turian biotics. They focused on what made the Potence valuable – the ability to control and dominate. Most batarian Potence abilities were used in the control of unruly slaves, suppressing revolts, or demonstrating the might of the Emperor.
Fated batarians were feted as heroes, given rewards and deference close to that of the highest-caste. They were organized into small strike groups and used in slaving runs, suppression, assassinations and other dirty jobs. Likewise, their skill-set was also grander than that of their inferiors, and Bthurak usually enjoyed watching the idiots float themselves with their own Potence, or blow their comrades up by messing up a warp or a net invocation.
The Glorious were the rarest of the potential victims, usually batarians already affected with Girifon's disease, augmented to truly dangerous levels by the viral therapy and then injected with enough eezo to normally kill a couple of krogan. They glowed with power, so much that your skin would tingle and your eyes would water as they passed.
The Glorious would only live a few years, the eezo burning their bodies from the inside out, but they could do things no other biotic could. He'd seen a Glorious batarian go head to head with an asari war priestess once, the two of them tearing down most of a town before the asari used a biotic charge to slip past the literal waves of warpfire he was throwing to kill him. More than one Glorious had detonated himself, the power too great to regulate.
Training the Glorious was dangerous, as half the exercises in the Potence that they practiced with were badly understood or poorly translated. He'd seen Glorious trainees try to do a biotic charge and end up flinging internal organs – or their skin – down the long halls of the training school rather than their entire bodies. He'd seen on Glorious manage a singularity, and then crush his own body with it as it grew to the size of an aircar.
Still, for batarians power was both law and goal, and he checked the scanner again as it got a much higher spike return. "Great One, spike level seven, about three streets up. Borderline between Fated and Glorious based on the computer's findings."
Ivthak smiled, displaying his healthy black teeth. "Good work." He tapped the mic clipped to his uniform. "Sergeant Mithka, take two squads down the way, three streets up, the drones picked up a return. Hand scan everyone and don't shoot them, the spike is high enough this may be a Glorious."
The hard voice of the capture squad made a subservient reply, and Ivthak folded his arms as he watched the squads double-time ahead of the scanning ground-car "Let's not draw this out too long, Bthurak. I'm going in the back to finish my nap, but wake me at dawn. If they find anyone worth the Process, go ahead and do it in the field, so the stupid peasant can stop frothing at the mouth by the time we get them back to the training fields."
Bthurak nodded, and Ivthak ducked back into the trailer behind the ground car. His boss was strangely lazy sometimes, napping and almost acting as if he was frightened to head back to the capital. But it wasn't his place to complain or question – and sometimes it wasn't even safe to wonder. The Dark Gods were cruel and capricious.
It took a good hour of searching to find their target, and Bthurak got out of the car to inspect the quarry personally. The squad had broken in the target's door and drug him out by his feet, his terrified wife grunting at them in the tongue of submission to not take him. A trooper backhanded her across the face, shattering teeth and sending the stupid bitch stumbling back, and Bthurak clucked.
"If he tests positive, you'll regret that later on, Yutha."
The big trooper snorted. "And if he doesn't?"
Bthurak shrugged. "Put a bullet in him and enjoy his wife for all I care." He pulled up his battered omnitool, loading the scanning program into memory and waiting for the tool to respond. With the embargo, the quality of even second-hand and salvaged omnitools was dropping, and he was thankful to have one at all.
The program finally loaded, and he knelt down to examine their target. Lower-caste like himself, with the gray skin and lack of eye folds of all their kind. Dressed in dark blues, with heavy leather boots, the batarian looked as any other villager did. Stupid, sullen, confused and terrified.
"I am High Sergeant Shrath of the Potency Grithak. You have been assessed as a possible Gift to the Emperor. I will take a blood sample. If you resist, your wife will suffer. Defy me twice and die."
The male spat but nodded. Bthurak took his hand, making a small cut with his service blade and then holding it to the square materials plate on the cuff of his omnitool. The flickering reddish screen changed it's display as the program ran, and Bthurak sheathed his knife.
The results came up a moment later, shining red letters of fate. "Level 7.8. Glorious."
Bthurak smiled. A single Glorious was worth twenty Fated, this completed their quota nicely. "The Emperor has blessed you with his Grace. What is your name, sacrificed one?"
The man glared back at him, clenching his jaw. "Balak. Ka'hairal Balak."
Bthurak gave the man a sardonic grin as he pulled out a large injector-spine. He nodded to the troopers, who grabbed Balak's arms to hold him in place. "You will live for the Emperor, now, Balak, or die trying. Welcome to the ranks of the Glorious."
He plunged the spine home in Balak's chest, and tossed it away after withdrawing it. "Load him in the carrier and make sure he's secure. I'll let the boss know of our success and we can get back to base before sunrise."
Balak screamed, twitching in agony as the Grace of the Emperor raced through his body, and the soldiers dragged him away. Balak's wife gave a low moan, eyes filled with misery. She knew that being a Glorious was a death sentence in a very few years, and her future without a husband was bleak indeed.
Bthurak considered for a moment before pulling out his pistol and shooting her twice, once in the heart and once in the eyes. It was the most merciful thing he could do, given that Balak would be mind-wiped to forget about her and his past. Leaving her to the tender mercies of a village full of frustrated and terrified males would be …
Well, something Ivthak would probably do.