Chapter 1- Childhood
Mindoir is an idyllic, peaceful colony world on the fringes of citadel space. The colony was nothing remarkable, most of the inhabitants were sick of the fast paced life that Earth provided and wanted somewhere more tranquil to raise a family. Mindoir wasn't known for much, but what it was exceptionally known for was for bio-regenerative farming.
The utopic colony thrived from not only trade with other colony worlds, but also with neighboring worlds from other races. The planet itself was luscious, full of greenery, with high trees and vast open lands of grass. Where the colony was located happened to be in a wide open clearing surrounded by forests, far off in the distance large mountains can be seen, during the winter months most of these mountain tops would be snowcapped. The scenery rivaled those seen of picturesque fairytale lands of Switzerland on Earth.
Sara Shepard and James Shepard once lived in the bustling cityscape of Vancouver, everything moving in exceptionally fast paced, people running around getting from point A to point B. The two left their cushy high paying corporate job as soon as Sara found out she was pregnant. The two decided to move off world to a colony that was quieter, less about attaining the big promotion and more about community and connections.
In the end Sara and James chose to move to Mindoir, the very garden world that value community over one's greedy need. Several months after the two completely settled down on Mindor, their young daughter Kara Shepard was born. Since moving to Mindoir the Shepards had picked up on farming, growing their own vegetables, raising their own livestock. Over the years, life for the family has been very mundane and followed a pretty relaxed schedule. For the most part their days consisted of tending to the farm and livestock, the kids attending school that was available at the colony.
Besides Kara, Sara and James Shepard had one more daughter by the name of Alexia. She was only 5 years younger than Kara, the two of them got along very well. They hung out together with the other kids, frequently disappearing for hours at a time just running around and causing trouble. Overall most of what can be heard throughout the colony was laughter by the children.
This entire magical utopia was shattered one day when Kara was 10 years old. What seemed like any other day completely derailed the minute they woke up. Nothing seemed to be going smoothly. The kids were being more fussy and in a weird mood. The weather seemed to be grey and gloomy. When normally they would already be seeing kids running out to enjoy some time outside in the mornings, it seemed to be quiet.
As the day progressed the weather seemed to be somewhat improving, more people were outside. The Shepards were out tending to their crops and taking care of their livestock. The kids were running around. Things seemed to be returning back to normal after such an awkward start to the day. Sometime in the late afternoon when both Kara and Alexia were both out of the house running around and enjoying the late summer day, a strange shadow started to slowly creep over the central gathering place. At first the people first assumed it was clouds reappearing from this morning, as they looked up, the object that looked like a small dot was getting bigger and bigger, as it started to descend people started to realize that it was a ship. From the outside it looked nothing like a ship typically used by the Alliance. It was in a weird color and shape, and as it landed the people stood dumbfounded around the ship. For the most part the people of the colony never really have left; never really have seen any other ship besides seeing them in vids or through the extra-net.
Once the doors of the small ship opened, the people who stepped out were far from what the colony expected. They were grotesque in appearance, puke green skin tone, with four eyes, and all four eyes seemed to be staring right through your soul. The fear was evident in everyone's eyes.
From a young age, all of humanity had been told stories of how Batarians are savages that leaves no innocents alive, that their goals has always been about annihilation and domination. Batarians has always had a history of enslaving those they feel are less than, that are inferior to their own race. They would use barbaric practices to enforce obedience, from shock collars to torture. Batarians would often leave branding marks on their captors, indicative of whom the slaves belong to.
The batarians would brutally slaughter all the adults, forcing the young to watch, and instilling fear, only to kidnap the kids to force them into a life of servitude. They would break down the will of the people they have enslaved, break down their fight to survive, to be free, in the end they would become nothing more than a shell of who they once were.
On this day after the batarians had arrived, silence were met, complete silence. Everyone stood stock still. What seemed like eons was only a split second. As the batarians stepped out of their ship, they immediately started to go on the chase, they started with the adults in the area, all the children scattering and running away from the commotion, the few children that didn't' manage to get away fast enough were corralled together and forced onto their knees.
All the other batarians that disembarked the ships immediately scattered about the colony, going from home to home, finding any and all unsuspecting individuals. Any of the kids that dared to fight back was immediately beaten to submission. The adults in the other hand were immediately slaughtered in a ruthless manner.
Kara and Alexia were both out and about, right in the midst of the commotion. They along with everyone else that were surrounding the ships immediately scattered. As Alexia was significantly younger than Kara, Alexia couldn't keep up to Kara's pace and fell behind. One of the batarians managed to spot Alexia running away, caught up to her and slammed the butt of his gun harshly against Alexia's temple. Her head was abruptly turned to the side and her tiny body slammed to the ground whiles her head simultaneously hit hardly against the ground. Alexia's vision immediately started to blur, the blinding headache wasn't making vision any easier. Within seconds she blacked out, lost to the world.
In the meantime Kara ran directly home, entering through the front door, the home was eerily quiet; there was no sound besides the soft music that was playing through a digital player. There was no movement at all, something just felt completely off to Kara. She slowly started to walk through the front towards the back of the pre-fab, expecting to see someone, only to see her parents lying in a puddle of their own blood still oozing from a gunshot wound to their temple.
The look in their eyes was complete emptiness, like all life drained along with their life blood. The two laid side by side, their cold dead hands only lying inches from each other, like as if a last ditch effort to hold hands and guide one another into the afterlife. Standing alone in the pre-fab Kara felt cold and alone, her parents dead, her sister lost, her colony invaded, what seemed like a normal day turned drastically dark only in a matter of a few hours.
Out of nowhere Kara thought she heard something just outside her window, some kind of movement, a soft clang. She ducked down to stay out of sight, only to see a shadow move across the window towards the back door. With no other choice but to get down as low as possible, Kara thought of the only choice she had, she immediately laid down in the pool of blood, covering herself adequately and played dead. Not only did she have to find her parent lying dead on the ground, she had to cover herself in her parent's warm blood to hide.
The door of the pre-fab slowly crept open, creaking along with the age of the hinge, as the batarian stepped inside of the pre-fab, all he saw were a large pool of blood and three humans lying on the floor. He thought nothing of it, as all three were covered in blood. He started to walk through the property, opening drawers and anything that may seem even remotely valuable. Finding nothing besides a few credits, he once again walked out leaving the door wide open. Kara released the large breath of air that she didn't even know she was holding.
By the time Alexia regained consciousness, she along with dozens of other kids that belong to the colony was congregated all together with their arms tied behind their backs and their tops ripped open. From not far she saw a giant fire being surrounded by batarians, looked like some kind of ritual. One of the batarians held a giant rod, on the end looked like some kind of stamp. He directly held in the fire, the metal rod getting bright red emanating amounts of heat.
First sign that Alexia realized what was happening was when she heard a loud shrieking cry coming from one of the kids. Accompanying the loud shriek was a soft sizzling as the heated rod touched skin, as the rod lifted, it left a neat scorch mark, a branding, something to claim ownership. The kid was tossed to the side, ignored, left crying through their own pain.
What seemed like forever really was only a minute. Before long it was Alexia's turn, with her top already ripped open and her arms tied behind her back, she was completely exposed and vulnerable. Several of the batarians held her down harshly, completely immobilizing her. The one that was holding the searing red hot rod stopped in front of Alexia, with what seemed like sneering menacing smirk. To Alexia it all happened in slow motion, the batarian hovered over her inching the rod ever closer to the left side of her chest. As the rod touched her skin she yelped out in excruciating pain, she was fighting against the others that were holding her down, but no matter how much she struggled against them, she was never able to get free. Seconds felt like minutes, which felt like hours. Before long the rod was removed from her skin and all that remained was the smell of burnt flesh and an unmistakable mark. Alexia was no longer her own person, according to this mark; she was property of the batarian hegemony.
As the last of the kids were marked and branded, the batarians divided the kids up in groups to different ships, lead them in chains to the ships, being forced and shoved inside, completely disregarding comfort. As Alexia's left shoulder hit the deck of the ship, once again she felt shooting pain radiating from the burn.
Like a well-oiled machine, the batarians had everyone escorted and dumped onto the ships and away from the planet within an hour. All that remained of their existence was a planet that's been ravaged, torn apart, and slaughtered.
Unknowingly, Kara remained lying down in the puddle of blood staying as silent as possible. She had only dared to get up when she heard the engines of the ships powering up. Assuming that they had left, she walked towards the nearest window, looking out of it, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Still drenched in her parent's life-force, she opened the back door, walked out, and was met with silence. All there was the sound of the tree whistling in the wind, and the birds chirping. It was like nothing had happened, that what she had experience in that last couple hours was nothing more than a horrible nightmare. Thing only thing that indicated that it was real, that she didn't dream it was the copious of corpses lying on the ground and blood covering her from head to toe.
Now alone on Mindoir Kara had no way of contacting help, she didn't even know if anyone had gotten word that an attack had occurred on Mindoir. She doesn't even know if help was even coming or whether the batarians would return. Her only option was to wait, at least there was still food at home and in the homes of others.