AN: This chapter might be a little on the heavy side for some people. Nothing particularly graphic, but there are definitely some unpleasant themes and ideas here. If you're the sort of person who has trouble with that, keep that in mind

May 5, 2089

An icy planet soared through the void. It's atmosphere was breathable, which suggested some sort of oxygen excreting microbe must have existed there at some point, but that was long in the past, perhaps in a warmer time. The only things that lived here now were extremophile microbes, and the ever-stubborn species known as homo sapiens, who, in their eternal quest to name inanimate objects, had dubbed the world "Tahun". It was a fairly small colony, no more than 80,000 people, but it was growing rapidly.

When the miserable ice cube of a planet had been discovered 16 years ago no one had thought it of any value. It would be cheaper to colonize Antarctica, and the weather would be nicer there, too. The vast amount of hydrocarbons beneath its surface might have been of value for the polymers and plastics industry, but Jupiter's moon Titan had entire seas of the stuff, and was much closer to home. Which is why it dominated the polymers industry.

However, a collection of manufacturing startups had been looking to cut into the markets in the frontier colonies, where they wouldn't have to deal with the relentless competition on Earth. They hatched a hare-brained scheme: they'd use the hydrocarbons of the planet as a cheap power source for factories and light industry, producing products which they could sell to the colonies on the fringe of civilization, and at a reduced price thanks to the cheaper transport cost. The best part of all: the emissions of the hydrocarbon powerplants, which would've cause problems on Earth, could be a boon on Tahun.

Climate Change, the very phenomenon which had caused so much trouble decades ago could now be harnessed as a sort of poor man's terraforming. The companies pitched it to prospective colonists: steady work and steady pay, and you get to see your grandchildren grow up on a world you helped to warm!

They didn't get any takers.

So, they instead went to the poorer regions of Earth, and recruited prospective colonists who couldn't afford to get on a ship to one of the good planets. While the overall standard of living for most humans was higher than it had ever been the wealth disparity between the former "first" and "third" worlds was still noticeable. Most of the colonists had come from South East Asia, primarily Indonesia and Malaysia, though there were also some Vietnamese, Thai, and the odd Chinese who came along too.

Sixteen years later, and the planet had, in fact, warmed. By a fraction of a degree. As it turned out, the carbon output of a single small city was not really comparable to the carbon output of an entire civilization running on fossil fuels. In time, however, this would change. While the comparison of their tropical motherlands to the ice cube they now called home was not a flattering one, it had still grown on some of them. Especially the children born there. They had begun to settle in, finding satisfaction in their new lives.

In the void between the planets orbiting Tahun's star, a flotilla of batarian ships burned on an intercept course with the icy world.

The batarians had run into a roadblock in their incursion into human space: they didn't know where anything was. The UN had been fiercely protecting the location of Earth and her colonies, and the batarians had essentially zero intel to go off of. What made matters worse was the region where human space resided seemed to have the lowest density of Mass Relays in the explored galaxy. The lack of relays was probably a logistical headache in peacetime, but in a war such as this one, it was a "geographic" advantage. This meant that finding any human settlements to attack had proven something of a challenge as each individual star system had to be explored using conventional FTL, which took time.

The Batarian Expeditionary Fleet had over 2000 ships, more than enough to thoroughly explore human space. Or at least, it should have been. While the humans had yet to reveal a large fleet, individual ships and pairs of ships would inevitably fall upon any lone frigate or cruiser exploring an uncharted star system. All of these factors combined together to make progress very slow for the BEF. When a settlement or piece of infrastructure was discovered, a raid fleet was dispatched from the main formation to raze the settlement and seize captives.

The human settlements discovered thus far were of minimal strategic value. They lacked meaningful infrastructure or resource extraction facilities. For the most part, it was more profitable in the long run to just sack the settlements and drag the population away in chains. The flotilla heading for Tahun was here to do just that. Lead by a Heavy cruiser, escorted by four light cruisers and a dozen frigates, the flotilla easily swatted the pitiful excuses for orbital defenses aside.

Captain Arnolak, leader of the batarian flotilla, observed the scout reports on the planet below with disinterest. This would not be a challenge. The colony was made up of only a single city, sitting in a valley between glaciers.

"Land our troops. Let's get this over with." he ordered.

Within Tahun City, the Tahun Defense Force was fully mobilized and awaiting enemy attack. Their detection grid had picked up the incoming batarian fleet hours ago, and the population had been herded into the emergency shelters while the Defense Force troopers suited up. Their gear was the same as any other light infantry in human space: a full face helmet, chest armor, gauntlets, shin guards, and knee and elbow pads, all worn over a flak-resistant jumpsuit, dyed mottled white in their case. The TDF troopers also wore a hooded white over coat over their gear, the same mottled white color as their jumpsuit. It was more for camouflage than for warmth, as their suits were designed for temperature regulation and heat-retention.

The UN was still scrambling to reinforce the colonial garrisons with troops from the nations of Earth, but moving such vast amounts of troops, and their equipment, and their supplies, through space to humanity's scattered colonies on such short notice had proven to be a logistical nightmare. No reinforcements had reached fringe colonies like Tahun yet, but the UN had been able to ship automated weapons systems to upgrade their defense grid. It was better than nothing.

The batarians had attempted an aerial attack on the city, and had been unpleasantly surprised when an array of autoguns and SAM sites had opened up on them. As their dropships unloaded troops, a frigate hovered in the background, preparing to provide sturdier (albeit less precise) air support to the advancing troops.

The batarian troops made their way into the city, clearing buildings with quick, clean sweeps. These were no pirates or mercs, these were warrior caste men. Professionals. The TDF troopers were dug in inside bunkers, pillboxes, and tunnels. The batarian troops methodically cleared the TDF out of every fortification with a professional efficiency. Their kinetic barriers gave them an advantage over the barrier-less humans, and each skirmish was a forgone conclusion. The TDF resisted viscously, often dying to a man. When a particularly stubborn fortification or automated weapon was encountered, the hovering frigate would move in and pound it with its secondary cannons.

The TDF fought back desperately, but the outcome had never been in doubt.

Budi clutched his knees closer to his chest as another vibration was felt in the civilian shelter. Fear gripped his heart as he thought about his father, out fighting with the other TDF troopers, and his mother, who he had lost track of in the scramble to get to the shelters. He was 19, old enough to be out there fighting, in his opinion. His father had disagreed, telling him he'd just get in the way of the people who were actually trained for it. Budi hadn't argued too much. In truth, he'd never had the bravado other young men seemed to possess. He was secretly relieved to not be out there. Another vibration, stronger this time, shook the shelter, and reaffirmed this feeling in Budi's mind.

Twenty minutes passed, and the faint echo of gunfire and explosions had died away. Suddenly, a hole was burned through the door, and a team of batarian soldiers stormed in.

"Out! Get out of the shelter now!" they screamed in English through their Omni tools. Those in the crowd who understood English moved to obey in fear, with those who didn't understand soon following after them, getting the hint.

There were perhaps a thousand people of all sorts crowded into the civilian bunker, and they scurried out to the front of the bunker, where more batarian soldiers waited. Out of the many other bunkers came thousands more civilians, each of them looking on the batarians with fear. They stood there, shivering in the freezing cold, until a batarian walked up in the center of them. He looked to be an officer of some sort. Behind him, dirty, battered, and bloody TDF troopers were dragged into a line and forced on their knees.

Some of the troopers cried, others clutched at wounds, and others just kneeled there quietly, looking up at the sky. The batarian officer nodded to another batarian, who nodded back and then barked an order. The soldiers gathered behind the POWs opened up with automatic fire. The POWs were quickly dispatched. The crowd looked on and shrieks and gasps of horror were uttered. The batarian who had vocalized the order walked among the bloody remains, firing shots from his pistol into any who were still twitching.

Without any words at all, the officer had sent a clear message: "You've lost."

The logistics of being enslaved were surprisingly complex, thought Budi. The batarians had begun gruffly asking them their age, profession, skills, education. It was like a job interview, but with a gun pointed at you. Those with valuable skills were prioritized, being herded into transport ships that had landed at the edge of the city. Budi, being an apprentice electrician himself, had been quickly snatched up by the batarians. Budi found himself on a batarian transport ship, going into space for the first time since he had made the trip to Tahun with his parents at the age of three.

Crammed in the shuttle with the other captives like sardines, Budi wished he had a window to look out of. If only to give his home one last look.

Down on the planet, around 10,000 people had been left behind, the batarian slave ships apparently being at their capacity. They were mostly a mix of children, the elderly, and those lacking any useful skills. It was always surprisingly easy to get parents to leave their children behind, as it gave them the hope that their children could escape the fate of slavery, even if they couldn't. Under normal circumstances, they would've probably been right. Unfortunately for those left behind, Captain Arnolak had orders to deny any and all assets to the enemy, particularly economic infrastructure like that in this colony.

He turned to his weapons officer. "You have permission to fire whenever ready."

The heavy cruiser took careful aim, and fired its spinal mount once on a carefully calculated trajectory.

In the small colony below, the confused and panicked survivors were trying to collect themselves and figure out what to do. Then they heard a loud and terrible sound like thunder, and before any of them could think to wonder what it was, the entire city was destroyed in a kinetic explosion as powerful as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The captured colonists would never know the fate of those they had left behind.

May 9, 2089

Budi sat on the floor, huddled together with his fellow captives. He was exhausted. It was hard to sleep when your ears were bombarded by the shrieks and sobs of people being assaulted by batarians in the night. It was the sort of noise you couldn't just tune out. Budi's ear throbbed where a batarian had punched him yesterday, but he counted his blessings. At least all he had to deal with was a beating. His female counterparts were not so lucky. He was just glad none of the batarians had seemed interested in men.

The one thing Budi wasn't was hungry. The batarians distributed food regularly in the form of what seemed to be some sort of military rations. Doctors regularly went through the crowds, examining them for disease. It wasn't out of the kindness of their heart, they just didn't want to waste any of the merchandise.

Budi remembered seeing stories of human traffickers and the UN's seemingly eternal war against the industry. Yet, it seemed for every trafficker brought to justice by the Rangers, another two took its place.

Now we're fighting an entire civilization of traffickers.

In what had become a much more frequent occurrence in the past few days, Budi cried.

May 11, 2089

Budi was woken out of his attempt at a nap by what felt like turbulence. Have we finally arrived at our destination?

On the one hand, the thought of getting off the damn ship was a very appealing one to Budi. On the other hand, his knowledge of the fate that was awaiting him filled him with fear. The turbulence stopped, and batarians filled the room, kicking at the captives and gesturing for them to stand up. They were herded to the front of the cargo bay they had been held in, and then the massive doors opened.

As a wave of freezing air hit the crowd, Budi was glad that he had been wearing a coat when he'd been captured. It wasn't as cold as Tuhan, but that wasn't a difficult criteria to meet.

The crowd was herded out of the ship by the batarian guards, and into a fenced off area. The terrain of the planet reminded Budi of the images he had seen of the rocky shores of Antarctica on Earth, except that terrain seemed to stretch over the entire planet. All of the captives had been injected with something when they had been first sorted back on Tuhan. The purpose of that injection became clear as they were roughly grabbed by batarians in the fenced off area, who preceded to scan the injection sight. It was some kind of way to identify a slaves information at a glance, Budi suspected, because he was herded off into a group with a few people that he recognized as fellow electricians from the colony.

He and his fellow electricians were taken to a huge warehouse-like building. Budi saw people of all sorts in the building, mainly aliens of the various species he had heard about on the news. He couldn't help but gawk at them, and he was pretty sure a few of them were gawking right back, particularly those strange blue ones. Asarai? Asri? He couldn't remember.

The building had heaters scattered throughout the floor. With his coat on, it was becoming uncomfortably warm. So much so that Budi was almost glad when the guards gruffly ordered the assembled captives to remove all of their clothing. Budi had learned quickly on the ride here that protesting would only lead to beatings, and then the order would be carried out anyway. Best to just get it over with. Most of the other captives had apparently gotten a similar memo, as they hurried to comply just like him.

One of the aliens, a "turian" he was pretty sure it was called, loudly protested in an incomprehensible language at the order. The guards dragged him from the crowd and began to savagely beat him. They were still beating him when Budi hurried to stand in a line with the other nude captives.

There was some sort of office that they were apparently standing in line to go into. Budi could hear screams coming from within, and an icy cold hand of fear seized his heart. None of the captives talked to each other in line. They had all learned very quickly and very painfully on the trip here that captives were not permitted to speak to each other.

When Budi's turn came in the line, he was shaking with fear. The guards shoved him into the office. Inside was a batarian dressed in what looked like his culture's equivalent of medical scrubs.

"Lay down on this table." He ordered.

When Budi hesitated, the guards in the room seized him and slammed him down on the table. Budi screamed in fear as they held him down. They jerked his head to the right, as the doctor prepared something. It made Budi struggle more.

"I'd advise you to hold still. Struggling will only make it more painful." the doctor said, sounding bored.

Budi obeyed, reluctantly. Being unable to see what was being done to him was aggravating. He tensed up, and felt the doctor press something against the back of his head. Then, without warning, he activated it.

For a moment, Budi wasn't there. He physically couldn't process the amount of pain he was in. Then it hit him like a bus. He couldn't tell if he screamed. It was like nothing he had ever experienced. The brief moment that the procedure took was an eternity, and for that timespan his entire existence was pain.

By the time he had regained his sense, the pain having receded from unbearable to merely agonizing, he was surprised to find himself sitting on the ground in another fenced off area, surrounded by other slaves. Then, the cold hit him, and he began to shiver. He glanced at the people around him. None of them were human. He saw a turian male. He was barely moving, not able to handle cold the way the other beings could. To his surprise, there were a few batarians with him, and for the first time he saw a batarian female. She was nude, like the rest of them. He couldn't help but glance at her along with the others, comparing her to the males beside her, and the females of his own species. Not that he had much experience in that department.

In terms of anatomy, she was very similar to a human woman (minus the face). The biggest difference was her skin, which had an alien texture to it, and had strange ridges of a sort on some of her joints. In comparison to her male counterparts, her face and head were smoother, lacking the protrusions and crests of a male, other than a long straight crest starting on her forehead and ending somewhere on the top of her head. Like the male, she was bald and had four eyes, and she seemed to be a little bulkier than an asari or human woman, although that could just be this individual and not indicative of batarian females as a whole.

Budi didn't get to observe his fellows for long, as the group of them was taken away by guards soon enough.

The group was brought to some kind of gathering area. As he grew closer, it became clear to Budi that this was some kind of slave market, and the group that had led them away had purchased them for resale. He and the other slaves were made to stand in front of a shop on a small elevated platform, on display. Nearby heaters kept them from freezing to death in the cold.

A batarian with a heavily scarred face approached at the head of a small group and eyed them all, until his eyes fell upon the female Budi had seen earlier. He leered at her with an unbreaking gaze for several long moments. She didn't meet his eyes. When he and his group led her away, Budi was pretty sure she wasn't just shivering from the cold.

One by one, buyers came in and made off with the merchandise, until only Budi remained. He wasn't sure if that was a bad thing, but the angry looks his apparent owner kept giving him didn't fill him with hope.

Eventually, an elderly batarian male approached, eyeing him up and down, reading the floating sign next to him listing his skills. He seemed to contemplate the purchase before walking off. On his way out, he spotted a sign and stopped to read it. He then turned back in towards the shop and spoke with the owner. He turned to the human, and spoke through his Omni tool.

"I don't need another electrician, but they say all proceeds go to the war effort, and I'll always back a good cause."

Budi didn't react. Or, at least, he tried not to.

The elder payed the owner through his credit chit, and then owner handed him a device. The elder turned to Budi and pressed a button.

Budi had thought he had experienced the worst pain of his life in the doctor's office before, but only a few hours later he was proven wrong. Every neuron in his body screamed in anguish as he collapsed in a heap. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped. He barely heard the elder speaking to him.

"Had to make sure everything's in working order."

Weeks later

Budi had been surprised to be taken back into space once again. As it turned out, his new master was the owner of a small asteroid mining operation, and Budi was immediately put to work under a turian woman by the name of Rira. If she had been surprised at meeting an alien from a brand new species, it didn't show on her face. All that was there was a blank, utterly vacant expression.

Over the weeks, Budi worked harder than he ever had under the turian. He woke at six in the morning and got off at eight in the evening. He barely had time to think, all he could do was mindlessly work, his entire life was work.

At night, before exhaustion claimed him, he was besieged by images of the years, the decades that lay ahead of him. It was enough to make him despair. On one particularly dark night, he contemplated just getting it over with, skipping the decades of misery. The only thing that made him hold on was the memory of his parents. His mother, lost. His father, almost certainly dead, having died to give him a chance to live.

He recalled again when he had watched the Rangers on the news, bringing down human trafficking rings. The tearfully grateful rescued victims embracing the rangers as they handed out water and food. It gave him the most dangerous feeling of all: Hope. It was absurd, of course. There was no cavalry coming to rescue him, no light at the end of the tunnel.

But, that hope was all he had.

Hey all, sorry if this was depressing. I just really wanted to establish what kind of enemy the humans are facing in this story, and explore what the reality of the "Evil, Slaving Batarians" trope in Mass Effect might look like. In the real world, we all hear about terrible things going on in the world, but it's difficult to wrap our head around something on a macro scale. It's the smaller, human stories that make us truly understand how terrible something can really be. Or, at least, that's what I was going for.

As always, thank you for reading and please share your thoughts in the comments.