Touching the memories of the Slomon K'Hara

[Akura]

The Order hid, striking at the Nomads again and again, until they truely understood the Artifact that they had stolen. They arrived in force, cutting through the Nomad lines and pushing through to a large Sphere.

Sequoia had heard legends of such things, but never did she ever think she'd be seeing them first hand, two decades after their passing. The feelings of dread and anger in the Nomads was overwhelming, their desire for survival, not dissimilar from mankind's own stubbornness.

It was too late though, she could feel the Nomads tiring attempts to try and stop the Order attack, falling short and failing as the Dyson Sphere defences were broken and breached. They were inside the sphere, and it was only a matter of time before the artifact was activated.

The Hyper Gate network collapsed, a tremendous backlash of energy hitting the Nomad's conscious, the unbearable pain and anguish all too familiar to Sequoia now. This time, she could feel Masako protecting her mind from the painful memories, the feelings were numbed this time, holding back the distress in all it's full power.

Sequoia experienced something completely inhuman, a loss of life not only in visual or emotional, she could in fact feel the deaths of the Nomads destroyed in the backlash, their existences wiped clean from the Mindshare, their surviving bretheren lost and confused, and there was darkness.


Almost a decade passed, emptiness, Sequoia could feel a certain warmth, a light in the eternal darkness. Slowly but surely, she saw them rebuilding, there were oceans, a great light under the surface, ready to be absorbed and over many years, they returned to the stars.

Sequoia could feel the minds of the Nomads reconnecting once more, as they gathered, rebuilding and regrowing what was lost, larger and better than before, shaping the very space around them to perfection.

She could feel their pain, their regret and their anger. Never again would they underestimate humanity...

[sadtranslation]

At a certain second Sequoia had a feeling that all the synapses in her brain torn asunder at once. It was an interesting point how her own perception found the ways to interpret the depths of despair of completely different mind with different biology, different society, different way of thought - and still it was a total despair she could feel as well. She wasn't listening to a story, she was a part of it and hereby the question of believing or not believing in what she saw was more a point of her own obstinacy.

She could say nothing against this story being terribly similiar to many other real or fictional pages of human history for the last thousands years. Was it amusing how people tended to blame the past generations for their mistakes and then repeated the same mistakes and made their own, even more disguisting ones? No. After centuries of blaming their own kind for all sins and ising such accusations to justify anything, humanity got a much better scapegoat.

That or something like that flashed through Sequoia's mind in a second before all the feelings of the real world returned, excruciating heaviness of her body pressed her hands to the table and tinnitus drown Masako's words directed to her. Sequoia bended over the table and sobbed, then again and a couple of seconds after sobbing was choking her and her face was wet with tears of bitterness. She couldn't explain that, but what she saw, what she felt, all the years compressed into minutes and hours - that all sucked her emotionally dry.

[sadtranslation]

When Masako carefully helped sniveling Sequoia to sit up more or less straight and gave her a handkerchief to rub away the tears, Sequoia only nodded and mumbled some kind of thanks. She hadn't expected something like that from herself and if she wouldn't be tear-stained, she would be blushing with shame, but seemed that Masako was rather understanding on the case.

"I apologise, you need time to rest, the human mind isn't designed to take on so much information this way"

"I'll be fine", Sequoia snuffled again, but seemed that she really feels better, "but I really won't be able to forget all that."

"What you have learned, is valuable knowledge, the history of another race, forgetting it would be a terrible loss"

"And I don't know what to do with it. Noone will be able to put all that in the words."

"Not all humans can be trusted with such knowledge. You asked to learn of us, so that you knew the direction you were taking with your brothers and sisters was the right one. Sometimes, not knowing is best for some"

[Akura]

Before Sequoia could respond, a door behind her opened, turning Masako's attention away from the conversation. A young Kusari girl in flight gear had entered the room, in her late teens perhaps, she bowed politely to Sequoia, and addressed Masako.

"My apologies, I was not aware you had company" the girl bowed lower out of respect, a look of concern on her face.

"Alex, this is Sequoia Hart" Masako spoke, "Miss Hart, this is my daughter, Alex"

Sequoia was stunned, confusion washing over her. Masako didn't look a day older than thirty, it didn't make sense that she could have a child so mature.

"How...?"

"The Slomon K'hara symbiote suspends the aging of it's host, I've been in this state of perfect health for three decades" Masako sipped her tea calmly, "You may leave us, Alex, there is much you should be doing"

Alex nodded, backing out of the door and closing it behind her.

"I'm sure you have more of those questions, ask freely..." Masako placed her empty cup down, awaiting a response.

[sadtranslation]

"Honestly, what I heard about you", here Sequoia made a small gesture, to explain that she implied not only Masako, but the others like her as well, "was a bit different from what I see. You are portrayed as monsters, almost decaying creatures controlled by one's evil will. Excuse me that obnoxious description, but the images some people tried to express have nothing to do with you.

I mean, you have a daughter, you are a human and that breaks all the misconceptions I may ever have."

"The Order loves to describe their enemies as 'evil', it makes them easier to fight without conscience, acts such as genocide become easier to live with if you think of your enemy as monsters" Masako spoke, calmly as ever, "My daughter is human, as was her father before he died, I have a truely symbiotic relationship with the Nomads, being human isn't impossible."

"Symbiotic... what does it mean? What is different between you and the other humans? How do K'Hara favour you and what do you give them in return?"

"The K'hara require my body, knowledge and skills, and in return, I recieve perfect health, a much longer lifespan, and the enlightenment of the Nomads. I see as they see, I feel what they feel, I know what they know. What you have experienced today is minuscule in comparison."

Masako's words gave Sequoia something to think about. It was too complex, too hard to understand, too unfamiliar to her. It was confusing.

"Is there a catch in all that? What had caused all the hatred towards you? Why do people turn on crusade against you instead of trying to understand - like you help K'Hara understand people? Isn't it the most logical way?"

[Akura]

"Besides being hated and hunted by nearly every human in Sirius?" Masako smiled, "Most of humanity does not want to learn, they fear what they don't understand, and seek to destroy it. Groups like the Order spread ignorance and hate, creating a false veil to explain the Nomads, when in reality, they know little to nothing"

"Reminds me of my own", Sequoia stared at her fingertips while talking, "because all we're doing is not only about a single planet - it's about all the Bretonia with all the disasters and suffering caused by ignorance and itch for gain. We're hated by those who we're trying to save in the meanwhile." Sequoia paused, "that's how I see it, at least. They know nothing, they are just blindly following some popular propaganda."

"As is human nature..." Masako poured herself a fresh cup of tea and sipped, "I have something for you" Masako lifted her left hand, revealing a small and elegant chain, with a rather pretty locket hanging down off the bottom of it.

"Looks innocent enough, no? If you ever wish to talk, just you and I, without the use of any communications arrays or face-to-face meetings, clear your mind and hold on to this tightly, we can speak anywhere in Sirius at any time" Masako handed it over to Sequoia, who studied it with great interest, flipping it over in her hands. "Now unless there was anything else you wished to know or ask, I believe Alex has your ship prepped for departure"

[sadtranslation]

Sequoia nodded.

On the way down to the hangar, making herself comfortable in her ship and launching the engines in the open space of Orkney she was twiddling that unusual present and thinking about what happened. Autopilot made its best to slide in the magnetic fields of the nearby star and a couple of planets, using minimal power. Sequoia needed some time to think out what happened today, so she mechanically twisted about the locket and meditated on the day.

Her order of things, her concept of reality, already battered enough, now turned upside down. The construction, supported by public opinion and beautiful words was crushing, whirling away all her confidence in the future. She could close her eyes and see all that again.

What was the story of Slomon K'Hara in Sirius in the nutshell? A perfect society of individuals, something that humanity attempted to reach hundreeds of times ending in the bloodshed in every certain case, not interested in conquest or enthralment of material world was took by surprise by human stubborness. Following their own goals humans not only encroached upon the distant space where Nomads exitsted. They were met by curiosity and intent to understand that new lifeform in Sirius, but were declared the greatest evil ever and victimized.

What played on humans side? Misconceptions and lack of will to understand what they are facing. The aforesaid stubborness in sticking to black and white conception of reality. Apparently, humans managed to use the doomsday device in the vunerable heart of Nomads, destroying not the physical bodies of Nomads, but the connections between them and the Mindshare, that way dooming to death literally immortal beings.

Nomads rebuilded themselves from almost nothing and attempted to come to co-existance with humans once again - but once again they faced people who never understood what are they fighting , and who never even attempted to understand that all that makes no sense. Sequoia was right here on timeline knowing everything that happened and having no idea what to do with it. It wasn't her subjective truth anymore, it was a complete understanding of the whole tragedy that took place around, but this knowledge only brought frustration.

Sequoia opened her eyes when her Black Dragon was approaching Lewis gravitation anomaly and was going to make another jump that will feel like a galaxy-sized roller-coaster.