A Memory Faded

[Morosz]

He exhaled some smoke then turned arround facing Murray.
"Let me exlpain something for you. Since we picked up the distress signal of this ship and found it drifting above the badlands the CO of the ship refused to submit to direct orders. We were there trying to convince him that we came to help for hours. After nearly 6 hours of convincing he finally agreed to come to Juneau and he did not agree to leave the ship once moored with the station and said that only 10 people from the shipyard may be on board at once. And imagine how concerned this is if you count in that this ship just returned from the omicrons from a qoute unqoute humanitarian mission wich has no actual record whatsoever. The fact that this ship is an Archer class cruiser sent on a mission into the omicrons right before its transfer to battlegroup harmony was complete is concerning. Not only the fact that there is no record of their orders but why would they send a siege cruiser with humanitarian goods when a convoy of C5 bisons and some escorts would do just fine. Then there is this artifact fiasco wich wasn't found in a safe cargo hold or any secure place but in the personal office of the CO along with other things belonging to the order."

Sader took a deep smoke frmo the cigarette then exhaled it upwards.

"But this is still the tip of the iceberg. I remained calm and i was trying to be as friendly as possible even during the interrorgation of the crew wich was cut short thanks to the damned artifact going crazy on Reyes. Still Hemlock recieved a friendly welcome from me in the conference room of the ship and what i got in return was complete disrespect and mocking attitude. And remaining calm and friendly is not that easy after listening to his nonsense for the last 8 hours. Still i managed to do so."

Sader walked to the keyboard and pressed some buttons.

"This is the audio recording taken during Hemlock's questioning." He pressed the play button and the speakers quickly started to play the recording.

Spoiler

"Sharmrock Bay conference room, Juneau shipyard Alaska system, date May the 21st 824 After Settlement. The ship's Co Captain Mattew Hemlock will soon arrive and his questioning will begin. I hope that this will be easier than convincing him to follow us and that we are here to help."

Moment later the opening sound of the door can be heard as someone walked in.

"Sader.."
"At least it's not Jones that found us.. That much, I'll at least admit.."

"Hemlock. Please take a seat.
Thank you operative. If there isn't anything else you may leave and continue the investigation. I'll handle this.

The door closes.

"So. You feel better? I ordered some food for us it should arrive at any moment."
"Could you kindly not smoke on my ship, Admiral? I've kept this place as clean as it can be without people puffing away and ruining the air.
I feel.. slightly calmer.. Medical didn't take nearly as long as I expected.. nor did they do nearly as much.."
[color=#00BF00]"Sorry."

The door opens again

"Perfect timing. Just place them
somwhere on the table then close the door after you left."

Door closing.

"So medical reports so far suggest you are not infected, but i'm a bit worried about your current mental state. You show signs of PTSD wich given the circumstances is understandable. Especially now that you don't really know who to trust. If i had to guess. I would say you are curently still thinking wheter i'm your enemy or not. No suprise in that since i would do the same. Now. Earlier you mentioned you are pretty much retired. This is intresting since if you were conducting a mission you were in active service since if you retired before the mission you would have never got aboard this ship in the first place since as soon as you retire you are just another civilian."

"My 'mental state' is nothing for you to be concerned with. Who I'll trust is my own business, and I don't need you earning it. Not that my trust is anything you'll ever really care about, anyway.

Right now, I barely know who you are, let alone if you're my 'enemy' or not. I knew O'Neill, not his protege. It's nothing personal, and again, you can thank Jones' little party bunch for screwing things up. As for being 'retired', I was being sarcastic. I can't be 'Serious Sammy Dornehold' all the time, now can I?"

"Well then. Let's start at the begining. When did you come into contact with Rear Admiral Knight?

Man, i would seriously suggest you try this out. It's really well made.

"I'll pass. I never actually 'came across' her. My last CO said he was planning on transferring me to her command, but I never got any confirmation from her. As far as I'm aware, he sent the papers, but she never actually signed them.

"When did you recieve orders to move to the omicron delta system?"

"Not long after Anderson told me about the transfer. He heard about the incident in Delta, but ultimately gave the order for us to move out. Once we got back, we were to report to either him or Knight if she had signed the request. Apparently it never got that far..

"Why did they send you and your ship to conduct a humanitarian mission? Why sending a warship wich is needed on the gallic front instead of a transport convoy with esccorts?"

"Because the Bay isn't meant for front line combat. Her whole damn history is bad news, and both myself and Anderson knew that with the kinds of 'friendlies' we could've had out there she would've survived better than she would on the battlefield. Not only that, but she's not even equipped for it. She's got more medical gear than most Overlords, even your Odyssey.

It was a matter of logic over effectiveness."


"Who knew about your mission within naval high command? And when did you depart?"

Anderson knew, as well as his second-in-command.. Don't think the info was relayed to Knight, though. I could be wrong, as I haven't actually spoken to Anderson yet.. since you intercepted us..
As for when we left.. I honestly don't remember... Early May of last year..?"

"You said the ship was on a humanitarian mission. What were you carying. How much? And where was the cargo loaded onto the ship?"

"Food. Water, pharmaceuticals.. some extra hands of medical personnel from Cryer.. The usual when you go on these kinds of missions..As for where we stored them, where else would we but in the cargo hold?"

"Seems you did not get the question. Where did you grab the cargo? Wich station?"

"We got it at Baltimore. Some Cryer transport was meeting us there for the transfer."

""Wich systems did you cross to reach the omicrons?"

"Oh.. damn.. Bretonia..? I think we went that way, but that was over a year ago.. A lot's happened since then, but I think we went through Bretonia, south towards the Omegas, skirted through Omicron Gamma and then on upwards.."

"What happened after you reached the omicrons?"


"Obviously, we did what we could on the Freeport. I wasn't given an objective once we delivered the supplies, aside from providing medical assistance to the wounded, so I had our weapons turned in the station's defense..The Core came for an investigative patrol, which I guess to them consists of a Mako and a fighter escort, and proceeded to order us out. I followed my given orders and held my ground, which they didn't seem to care about, not to mention the passive zone that I'm certain they could care less about..They opened fire, hit the ship bad, and left us adrift. It took me and my crew.. three.. days.. to get the comms back online.. It took another week for some friends I had to arrive and haul us to relative safety.."

"Please continue. What happened after this?"


"Well, in the event you couldn't tell, my friends have ties to the Order. By that, I mean some of them still follow Orillion's original goals, and they took us to the main base at Carthage to fix up the ship. It took a damn long time, I'm guessing since they have other things to do than repair ships that don't belong to them.. The crew and I were offered some amenities through some... 'friendly persuasion', but the repairs took so damn long. It took nearly a year before they finally let us go, but the repairs are, as you can clearly tell, sketchy at best. She survived the trip back, though, and we only really had that transponder to worry about. I'm still impressed that they had a year, and shes still a mess..

"Tell me more about theese friends of yours."

"Pardon? They're tied to the Order. What else can I say about them? Some of them are old vets, some of them are just kids, but they're still friends to me. It didn't suddenly become illegal to be friends with 'labeled terrorists', did it?"

"It's not a de facto crime but it can raise questions. In order to prevent theese questions from being asked i need you to tell me more about them."

The door opens yet again.

"Admiral, information from Agent Nova."

Door closes.

Intresting. Ok care to explain why do you have contraband in your quarters?"

"Contraband? You're joking, right? I wasn't aware impending research material was considered 'contraband'."

"Research materials belong to labs. Not personal quarters. Now tell me. Where did you get it? And for how long did you expose yourself to it?"


"Why do you think it's locked up? I picked it up in Minor near Toledo. We stopped to pay our respects when the Order were towing us, and I combed through some of the wrecks to try and locate some of the other guys who didn't make it. A lot of them had family back here, and I wanted to make sure they had comfort knowing their loved one wasn't a damned zombie. As for 'exposure', I had Norm look it, and he said it's harmless on a physical level. Mental.. it'll drive you crazy if you let it talk to you for hours on end, but it's just another rock with weird.. 'powers'.."

"So you admit that you exposed yourself to it."


"Admit? What is it, a crime? I'm not under any kind of alien influence, if that's what you're implying, 'Admiral'. I'm more than aware of how to deal with things like this. Hell, half my damned adult life was keeping people away from it all."

"Still you deliberatly exposed yourself to an alien artifact's effects knowing that it and i quote "Will drive crazy if you let it talk to you for hours" end quote. So we cannot dismiss the possibility that the behaviour you showed to us so far is caused by the alien artifact."

I was exaggerating. The stone won't drive you crazy. If it did, I'd been in the looney bin already. I only mean that the damn thing never shuts up. I'm acting like this because the Navy has so far shown to me that they're more than willing to send covert operatives to shoot up a warship's crew sent out on a humanitarian mission. I don't need to show you kindness when I myself have been at the ass end of the Navy's respect since day bloody one of leaving for Freeport 11. "If you think that for one moment I'm going to respect a Navy that does that to it's own people, then you can think again. I'd rather listen to the spiel that those Auxesian scrubs dish out than live that kind of life."

The door opens and someone enters Operative Nova's voice is recognized.

"Just what is going on in here!? Commander, please try to calm down. And you, can't I leave you in here to ask some questions without pissing him off!? He was perfectly calm when he came in here. Commander, may I please have the keys to the locks so I can examine the stone?

" "Take the damned stone.. Better I do it willingly rather than have him shove marines down my throat."

We will discuss this later Operative. Both of you please leave, i still haven't finished with Hemlock."

I'm sure we will, Admiral. Thank you Commander."

Try not to worry too much, Cath... It's not like he's going to bite my head off or anything.

Y-yeah.. still.. I don't want you to go mental over this
The door closes yet again.

"So what happened after repairs have been made."

After.. we waited.. We didn't leave until months later when I finally asked if they were continuing our repairs. When they said that was all we were getting, we packed up shop and headed back. You have.. no idea how it feels waiting that long for nothing to happen.... You have a pretty good idea of what happened once we left.."

""How would you describe your relationship with Reys?"

"She's... like a daughter to me... I never-... never had one of my own.. but she fills that void perfectly

"Allright. That's it for now. The guards will escort you to your new quarters aboard the shipyard where you will remain untill the investigation is closed. Acces to the communication network will remain revoked and contacting anyone from the ship is forbidden as well in order to maintain the integrity of the investigation. GUARDS!"
The door opens and marine's enter the room.

"Admiral."
"Sergeant. Escort Captain Hemlock to his new quarters aboard the shipyard."
"Sir, please follow us."

"I was sure we discussed this already. Unless you're either situationally deaf, I'm going back to my room.. Here. On my ship. Sorry, lads, but your boss forgot something... again.."
"I have my orders sir. Follow us willingly or we will use force."

"In your place i would cooperate. This isn't a negotiation. Your quarters are part of the investigation so you cannot go there.

""Listen here you rat-faced bastard.. I've had it to here with your deception and your ridiculous lies and loopholes. You cannot, nor will you, bar me from entrance to my own home, and I'd rather take a bullet to the chest than let you casually go back on your own word, especially since I was so intensive on it before. This place is my home, as well as for the rest of my family here. You'll have to do better than think that I'll just go along with your deceiving little charade. You're worse than Reaper ever was. At least he had the half-decency to just plain frak off."

That can be arranged, guards. Take him to the shipyard now. If he resist. Stun him."

"Aye aye sir!"

"Hold off, Nova wants to see Hemlock immediately. Without an armed escort, unless you'd prefer to argue with her, Sir."

"Nova may talk to him back on the shipyard. On the other hand inform the XO that i want to speak to her. Dismissed."

I'm not leaving this ship.. How many times have I make that clear? Tell her the Chow hall on Deck 8. I'm not stepping onto that damned station until I know I have a sturdy bridge of trust. You.. You even think of placing one hand on Catherine.. There won't be a force alive strong enough to stop me from venting you out the airlock.."
"Do I make myself clear, 'sir'?"

"So be it,."
A gunshot can be heard. And then something/someone falling to the ground.

"Take him away."
END OF RECORDING.

"I remained calm during the entire time. Hemlock was the one who lost his temper even thou i gave him clear explanations why he cannot remain aboard the ship for now. So before you start questioning my methods you should get information."