Tully Sohmer
This hard drive was recovered from a drifting satellite in the orbit of Alderaan, a ceramic urn filled with dust was discovered alongside it. The ashes were left, the data on the small device being recorded and returned to the Vigilance's servers for archival.
The currently recovered files follow.
Security Directive, Priority 1: This information is to be hidden from Dr. Shiane until her mental state is adequately evaluated.
"The Memoirs of a Healer"
Ka'ira was born in a slum of Csilla, the eldest daughter of an overburdened family of Chiss. Her parents already struggling to support themselves among the efficiency obsessed Ascendency. The first few years of her life was spent in squalor and neglect. Her father forced to by his work as an archivist, spending only a few hours a night asleep in order to support the family. Her mother was... She was a thug. Zinera was the enforcer for a two-bit gang, running stims and other contraband on and off planet. Her existence was quiet, if neglected. Often left to her own devices to wander the neighborhood, for the most part simply bearing witness to the various petty and violent crimes that ran rampant in her part of town. Her upbringing on Csilla, what little she had, impressed upon her the value of each credit, and every moment one lives. At least that is my theory... She is something of an enigma, my new daughter... Despite all of the deception and violence she lived among, she is still innocent of the world. This three year old child, Ka'ira. will be my apprentice. I have decided I will teach her my skills and she will carry on my legacy, my techniques, and my hope for the future.
- Dr. Shiane, M.D.
My new daughter is most curious... She learned to speak basic fluently after just two months. It's come to the point she's teaching me new words what seems like every day. The girl spends most of her time in the ship's archive, poring over documents. It's a struggle to get her to sleep, with so much to learn, or so she says. She's insisted on helping me with operations, and is clumsy, but her enthusiasm is unmatched and unflinching, even in the face of the most horrific injuries. The other day I was reattaching a limb to a civilian who stepped on an imperial land mine. She sat by the patient throughout the procedure, singing a tune unfamiliar to me... It was... A sight that brought me mixed emotions. I am glad she is learning bedside manner, as my apprentice, but I can't shake the knowledge that she is naught but five years in this galaxy... So young, and exposed to such sights...
- Dr. Shiane
Ka'ira is... Words cannot describe the pride I have, seeing her working with a patient. A young girl, often mistaken for an imperial by those she works to mend. Weaving through blaster bolts as if they weren't even there. I have watched her these last two years, witnessing her acts of valor, and cowardice, even when she believes I'm not able to see her. I watched her carry a squad of Republic shock troopers from the crater of an artillery blast. One by one, dragging men twice her size to safety... She saved them all... all five of them, without my intervention... When I finally found her among the chaos of the decaying city the next day, she was preparing them dinner. Singing to them and smiling, despite the constant crackle of artillery barrages and blasters...
I worry the stress could damage her psyche... She is not even a teenager yet, and most of her life has been spent in warzones with me... Am I truly walking the path of the light? Bringing a child to conflict zones and having her collect lost limbs and possessions from the living and dead... Regardless of my concerns... she does amazing work...
- A Proud Father
Ka'ira came home after a week-long excursion covered in blood, carrying a vibrosword, today... She won't tell me what happened. She won't even leave her quarters... When she arrived she wouldn't eat, drink, or look me in the eyes... The shuttle she arrived in was not mine, and there were trails of blood leading from the living quarters to the cargo ramp.
My daughter is a killer. She's barely into her tenth year of life, and has been forced to end someone else's...
- A Concerned Parent
My daughter is stronger than I realized. She seems to have returned to her senses in the six months since her disappearance. Her resolve is stronger than ever, bordering on an obsession... When she is presented with a challenge to her skills, she throws herself into it. I have to remind her to eat, drink, and sleep... If this keeps up...
In the quiet moments, traveling from planet to planet, I hear her sing, occasionally. She sings of battlefields, blood, and death... I miss the lullabies of yesteryear, but I accept I am responsible for their passing.
- A Headstrong Fool
She is gone, again... My daughter has taken to vanishing for months on end, returning caked in dried blood with an empty look in her eyes... What she has been doing I shudder to think. Her sword is barely recognizable under the rusted fluids. I can feel the pain inside her, the suffering she bears draws tears to my eyes. My own daughter has become a shell of the inquisitive child I met that fateful day on the Outer Rim... May the Force forgive me for my hubris.
The songs have stopped. It took a full year... but she's stopped singing altogether...
- A Failure
Ka'ira returned after three months away... She hasn't eaten in a week... I have confiscated her weapon, as well.
- A Concerned Parent
She hasn't eaten in a month. My little Ka'ira is thin as a rail. Her stomach is distended and her face is gaunt... I will have to take drastic measures, or...
A Young, Starving, Ka'ira: Show
- A Scared Father
You who read this testament to my failure as a father... Know I succeeded in my original goals... My daughter is a Doctor beyond compare. The cost was immense. Her childhood, her family, her future... Her sanity... All lost in a sea of blood and body parts.
I dream of her sometimes, knee deep in an ocean of blood, pulling the suffering from the crimson tide and tending to them... Pulling their heads above the surface and tending their wounds... Only to watch them sink beyond her reach, escape her grasp, when she turns to help another. Ka'ira... I know you won't understand, but I'm sorry. I did not know how much I would grow to care for you, nor what this training would take from you.
- An Old Man, Dying of Regret
This will be my last entry. I have been fatally wounded in an altercation. My last words are a concept I preferred not to ponder, but here is what I wish to say.
Ka'ira, my Padawan, my daughter, my life... I love you, as little as that may mean to you. I wish you could love another the way I love you, but... Please, be safe. Take my ship, my lightsaber, and the knowledge within my archives. I will always care for you. Goodbye.
My Daughter, Ka'ira, Age 13: Show
- A Dead Fool
The holovids contained within were encrypted with an internal password generation program. It took a few hours of work brute forcing passwords with a powerful slicing tool but the 200+ passwords attached to the files were determined and the video within pieced together. Recording follows:
A static snowstorm fills the projection for a moment, showing a point of view from a body-mounted camera. Shifting with constant movement as it quickly passed row after row of injured or sick people on makeshift cots. Noise filling the speakers from patients in agony from wounds and illness. A variety of races represented, all of them wearing ragged, dirty clothes. A simple overhang created from cheap cloth and scavenged metal poles forming the tent casting a shadow across the small field hospital. The patients varied in size, age, and gender from aged grandmothers to actual cribs build from starship parts. The camera stopping and shifting towards a Twi'lek woman, sweat dripping down her body as she panted for breath. A large, ragged, wound across her stomach bleeding profusely as her hands pressed a filthy rag to the wound in vain.
Nearby a woman spoke in a quiet monotone, "I'm sorry..." Before a pair of blue hands gently rolled the Twi'lek onto her side, one hand drawing back and extending the index and middle finger. A gentle glow surrounding them and intensifying until the picture was blown out and distorted, barely catching the movement as the fingers smashed through the top of the patient's spine. The alien stiffening for a few moments before wheezing out a final breath, the hands retreating. "You did not die in vain. I will remember you fondly. Remember, there is no death, only the Force. We all help one another..." Came another barely audible whisper, the glow extending past their fingers and across one hand. Another quick strike severing the dead Twi'lek's arm before the light faded from her hand and the video cut out into static again.
The holovid slowly came back into focus on a large metal plate, sizzling cuts of meat placed across the entirety of the five by five impromptu grill. Blue hands returning, this time covered in blood up to the elbows with a pair of rolled up sleeves occasionally slipping through the edge of the frame. A small cube of salt between two fingers being distributed across the meat along with a sparse dusting of some sort of reddish powder.
"Your sacrifice was not in vain... We all live another day by your grace. Thank you..." Mumbled the voice before a child with an Imperial accent spoke "Doctor, is the food ready yet?" The camera turned to face an emaciated human boy. His cheeks hollow and eyes sunken with exhaustion, the perspective coming down to be face to face with him. "Almost, little one... We will finally have enough for everyone..." His face lit up with a smile and he threw his hands up, letting out a small cheer. "I can't wait! I'll go tell the others!" He spoke excitedly before turning and running off into a sea of tents and bodies. The video pulled back up to chest height and further taking in the area. What must have been fifty or sixty makeshift tents, housing six to seven people of various races each. The area seemingly a central square of a bombed out town, what small structures made up the place to begin with were little more than foundations with crumbling walls and piles of debris strewn everywhere. "I... We can do this... We can survive until the blockade ends... we have to..." Was the last thing in tune until everything blurred together and vanished for a few moments.
A picture blinked into view of the hospital from before, the patients eating solemnly. Those who couldn't feed themselves being fed by gaunt, tired, men and women. All of them devouring their food as fast as they could, the camera itself tilting down towards a small square of metal with a thin slice of blood red meat on it. "I... Thank you again, for your sacrifice, and this meal which may see me through this... nightmare..." Came a trembling voice as a thin, shaking hand coated in dried blood picked the food up and lifted it past the camera. The video distorting again moments later before a message appeared: DATA CORRUPTED, BYPASSING CORRUPTED DATA.
Seconds passed as the percentage bar ticked up to 100, video returning with a picture of the top of a tent. Peaceful, save the nearby groans of pain from before. This time a quiet, tell-tale whistling filled the air, video shifting slightly before the tent ripped itself from the ground, hurling itself out of frame. The camera itself tumbling to the concrete below before springing up in time to catch another clip of whistling, this time looking up to see an arcing red light curve through the sky. A smoky trail following it as it seared the very air in it's path, the artillery bolt impacting mere feet away and blasting the viewpoint clear of the camp. Resting atop the street with a bloody hand outstretched, fingers digging into the ground and dragging the view closer to the flaming, smoking camp. Three more blasts distorting the video and blurring the picture for a few seconds before clearing to show plumes of smoke drift up from a gaping crater in the earth. Sobs filling the audio channel as the hand ceased it's attempts, the camera turning it's gaze to the sky as the owner laid on their back, wailing loudly.
A column of smoke drifted into the atmosphere for a few minutes, overlaid with the guilt-wracked cries of a woman, the monotony was only broken by a shuttle passing through the smoke. Imperial markings decorating it becoming visible as it landed only a few meters away. The unmistakable hiss of an airlock quickly following as heavy footfalls filled the audio channels. A filtered voice calling out in a tinny tone, "Got a survivor here, a Chiss woman. She's covered in blood and badly wounded, please advise... Yes Commander, I understand. Drag her onto the ship and treat her injuries, then I want her bound, gagged, and sedated in the brig. Understood?" A series of voices counting off, "Sir yes sir!" An Imperial trooper's helmet coming into view as it stared down at the camera, "You're going to wish you died here, traitor." The modulated voice hissed out as the view was shifted up to stare off at the crater that once was a hospital. Viscera, limbs, and all matter of detritus scattered about the area and smoldering slightly. Slowly receding as they were dragged up the ramp, into the shuttle before the file cut off with the airlock door sliding shut and clamping into place.
As you can see from the video records, it's believed Ka'ira was running a field hospital in an unidentified conflict zone when it was bombed along with the rest of the city. She was taken prisoner by the Imperials. Our efforts have yielded fruit in finding another set of encrypted files jury rigged to the current set. Preliminary scans indicate more recordings. With an hour or so of an experienced technician's time the last of these files should be viewable.
(Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading this. If you have any suggestions as to what I should do with it, I would love to hear them. Like this, dislike this, leave a comment, send me a message. If you'd like me to write something for you, or know someone looking for a writer... Well... Drop me a line! I'd be glad to discuss it with you, at the very least.)
