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Homeworld Return - blackjack
:: 05/05/01 ::
Chapter 12
Jakare's head hung low, nearly perpendicular to her body which was strapped to the restraining harness. Her tears mixed with the sweat from her brow as she rested inbetween the next and last waves of pain. From her major blood vessels, dozens if not hundreds of thin tubes connected to a machine which whirred and clicked - injecting chemicals into her bloodstream so that they could watch her die painfully, she was sure. The dim lighting of the chamber gave the whole scene a surreal quality, and Jakare felt slightly out of touch with her body even as she quivered with the pain. Only a dull red light shone down on her, reflecting off the glimmering body armor of the guards which flanked the door. An instrument panel sat directly in front of her, a technician behind it. Her interrogator had stepped out of the room with the summons of another officer - but he would return soon, she knew.
As the door opened, spilling harsh blue-white light into the room, she looked up and tried not to squint even as the glare burned itself onto her retina. A pair of men stepped into the room, the door closing behind them, but then one of them cursed softly and made a motion towards the man behind the panel. The lights came up slowly, allowing her eyes to adjust at least slightly from the previous dimness.
She had not been able to make out his features very well when the lights were low, but she felt sure that the shorter man was her questioner. The taller one was a newcomer, and yet he carried an air of importance and authority. She found herself finding respect for this man even as she tapped into her reserves and felt burning hate towards him.
He took a step forward and let her analyze him. He was much taller than her, and she found it intimidating, but even more startling were his turquoise eyes. They bored into her far deeper than the tubes did, and seemed to pierce the fabric of her thoughts, shifting through her mind without any effort at all and picking up what he needed. She had to blink once from being drawn into them - they were fascinating… almost hypnotic.
They stared at each other for minutes before he spoke in an accented voice, snapping her out of her reverie. "What is your name?"
She blinked again at this simple question. Obviously, he wanted to know more about her than just military details as the first interrogator had. She weighed the consequences of giving him information, then decided that a mere name was not so vital. "Jakare," she said slowly. "Jakare Ga'artred."
He nodded, satisfied. "You're a fighter pilot, correct?"
She cautiously replied. "Yes."
"Do you know who I am?"
"No."
He half-extended a hand out of courtesy before retracting it upon seeing her bound hands, then settled upon a duck of the head, allowing her to see the top of his head for a moment.. "I am Hjihad Somtaaw, commander of the Kiith Somtaaw forces."
She cocked her head. This was the man who had led the Som'taa into battle? He did not look it. Commanders were supposed to be young and virile, ready for anything and full of bravado. If anything, this man looked worn and tired, aside from his piercing gaze. But she peered then into his eyes and saw a spark of youth in them, a snap of the bloodlust that all of her previous commanders had shown on the outside. This one kept it contained, bottled up inside the teal glass of his eyes. But there was something else that fueled the fire, some unspeakable horror…
His blink nearly made her jump. She looked away from his hypnotic stare and ducked her head in reply to his gesture.
"Why are your people attacking us?"
The direct question confused her. He had meant the question quite honestly, she could hear from his voice, and yet she knew that he and all his kin were Taiidani murderers who had taken the Homeworld away from them generations ago. How could he not know what horrific crimes of near-genocide he and his race had performed?
When she did not answer, he repeated the question.
Quietly, she answered, "Because you stole our world." The blast of shock that registered on his face was extreme for a moment. Then he regained his countenance without a trace of the mental blow that he had just been dealt.
His voice still quivered, though. "What?" he managed quietly.
She was angry now, angry at the scum for not understanding her, for not knowing how much damage his own people had done in the past to hers. "You destroyed our homes, you took our world! You Taiidani pigs slaughtered every innocent man, woman and child that you could! Murderers! You drove us away, you attacked us, you-"
He cut her off sharply. "Quiet!", he bellowed, and she shut up, almost whimpering to herself from the brutal wave of rage. He paused, his eyes clouded for a moment, thinking to himself, and then seemed to step back into her frame of consciousness, eyes wide again with fury, but this time quieter, less explosive.
"Listen to me. I am not Taiidan. None of us are. The Taiidan took our world too, long ago… they stole it from us." She remained silent as he continued, one part of her taking in his every word and feeling intense amazement, the other dismissing it all as a lie, an huge intricate lie - a fabrication.
He started slowly. "We were once the patrons of Hiigara as well. When the Taiidan came, they Exiled us out into the galaxy, on a number of convoys…" He shook his head. "We don't' know much about what happened to them. We know that at least one of the transports landed on a remote desert world, Kharak.
"But all of that was lost, and life on Kharak flourished and grew within the natural boundaries of the desert. That is, it was forgotten until a little over a century ago our scientists found a giant starship buried in the sand of the Great Banded desert. And inside, a chick of black stone with a galactic map scrawled upon it, and a single word - Hiigara."
She found herself leaning into his story further - as far as she could - as his eyes gained a faraway quality as he reached back into the memories. He continued, voice rising and dipping with emotion as he related the story of his people. "So we began building the Mothership, a gigantic colony ship designed to take us to where the map indicated. It took sixty years, but we finished it. Finally.
"I was a junior officer in command of only a Resource collector and its designated escort fighters when we launched. It was such a glorious moment - our first step towards the stars.
"But then we found enemies, and had to return to Kharak. But when we got there, it was all gone and dead, burned by the Taiidani because we had violated a generations-old contract." A tear rolled down his face, a clear drop, and Jakare watched it with amazement. This was not the sort of man to cry.
His voice carried her away from it. "So we left. There was nothing left. All our friends and family left behind, dead, except for those inside the cryosleep modules that the Mothership was designed to carry."
He turned again to her, eyes angry. "So you see, Jakare Ga'artred, I have seen genocide. Were my people to have committed such a heinous act, I would be ashamed to call myself Somtaaw." She flinched at his gaze. He looked above her head again as he continued his tale. "We moved on, and during a six-month period we fought our way through many layers of Taiidani defenses, finding another race of Exiles in the process - the Kadeshi. Their ship was trapped in a nebula, with them stuck inside, until eventually they resorted to raiding passing ships to obtain supplies. Until finally we reached Hiigara and with the help of a band of Taiidani rebels we killed the Emperor and reclaimed our world.
"We are one race," he finished. "And you are slaughtering us."
She felt as if she had been punched, the breath knocked out of her. The story was so convincing, and yet it had to be a lie. It had to be. She could not make herself believe it. Her people were the only ones that had survived the massacre of Hiigara so long ago - she had been taught so from birth, again and again.
But what if their histories had been misguided? What if her teachers had been wrong, misguided somehow? Then their teachings would also have been misguided, and passed down to her.
What if everything she had been taught was wrong? And what if this man was right?
What if?
She closed her eyes, running through the possibilities in her mind. It might be plausible that more of the ancient Hiigarans had escaped the carnage that she had seen recorded in the Memory Vaults. And if there were more, she was obligated to do all that she could to help them.
For the first time, her strong sense of family and ancestry was working against her, binding her to both this stranger and her own people. If what he said was true, then she shared blood with him, shared the same tiny cellular construction, shared a history and a horrible past and perhaps a future with him.
She opened her eyes.
He was staring at her with his piercing gaze.
"What can I do to help?" she asked.
<< Homeworld Return: Chapter 11 <<
>> Homeworld Return: Chapter 13 >>
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