Pripyat - Ship Log

[Chronicron]

>log_begin
>time=1716.14.03.836
>logtype=audio
>source=interrogation
>source=nemezida
>source=scec.s.voron

N: State your name, regiment and rank.

V: Voronin Chudomir Vladislavovitch, Expeditionary Corps Security, Senior Sergeant.

N: What was your post, Senior Sergeant?

V: Rostok Research Depot. Primarily making sure the ground teams are out of the harm's way from unwanted visitors. The Core, the Corsairs, everything else you could find in Chi.

N: Hm. You must realise that every officer and employee stationed at Rostok is marked for termination. Question is, why would you approach the Pripyat in that case?

V: The Pripyat used to be our headquarters. One thing I knew for sure that Grachov would know what happened out there, or he would have a solution for… Something. Then I saw that it wasn't the Pripyat that I knew. The rest you already know.

N: Grachov. Do you know where he was during the assault on Rostok?

V: Last time we checked in, he and the Pripyat were transferred to the army’s reserve. He never told me the reason behind it, we all assumed it was a decision from the higher ups.

N: So you are not at all aware that he was the one who requested the transfer?

V: Negative.

N: Very well. What can you tell me about Task Force “Sipukha”?

V: Don't think I've ever heard of it.

N: You haven't?

V: Negative.

N: Mm. What I have here, Senior Sergeant Voronin, is the list of names and ranks, all within Task Force “Sipukha”. Yours isn't at the very top, but it is nonetheless there.

…

N: You were not wrong when you assumed that the Pripyat you approached was Task Force “Sipukha's” Pripyat. When we were investigating your detachment, we found the Pripyat itself adrift in Jiangxi's orbit. Everyone on board was found dead, save for one. Major Anatoly Grachov. Its last black box readings showed that he sabotaged the ship, stole his XO's identity and fled our space, leaving every single bit of data about your little operation for us to find in a gambit of saving his own skin. Only to find out that one does not simply leave the Coalition, especially when meddling with its internal affairs.

V: You already know everything then. I have nothing to comment on. Why am I not shot yet?

N: Because you might be the last surviving specter of a conspiracy that rooted out any possibility of us establishing a foothold in the Omicrons and to gain a vanguard against the alien threat that we face here twenty four seven. Not to mention all the possible discoveries and findings on Vanuatu and their potential applications in our technological development. Tell me. What happened that day?

V: It's not the order of events that I would say I have a fuzzy memory about. The station's headmaster left Rostok half an hour prior to the onslaught, without us realising that he initiated total lockdown. At first we thought it was a malfunction in the system, those happened quite frequently. We never knew that we would come under a siege led by the Order and the army. All six hundred of us locked down in a melting pot from which there was no escape. Some started taking the easy way out, going out on their own terms, not burned by capital fire, sucked into the vacuum of space or crashed by armature. When the station's reactor reached critical, the emergency protocols kicked in. The lockdown was lifted and those of us who were still alive and conscious ran for the docking bays and life pods. “Sipukha” in its entirety went to fend the Order off to give the scientists a chance at escaping. We knew for sure that the Order was going to target the life pods and we couldn't allow that to happen. Some of the personnel joined the fight, but you can imagine how well that went. I made a call for “Sipukha” to retreat and provide coverage to the very few life pods that shot off into the nebula. Only me and four others made it. We searched for the pods but found only one of them. What was left of it, rather. Since then we spread out, assumed now identities, laid low. I took on escort jobs for the Zoners, made an honest living until I saw the Pripyat’s transponder. Thought that if it was Grachov, he would know what exactly happened.

N: Did you know that the reason behind the station's assault was a security concern? Mainly because the Order suspected that the station had been infiltrated by the alien minions.

V: We were never told, but we figured that might have been the reason. I don't believe it, though.

N: Care to share your theories?

V: The Order didn't like it that we were conducting research in the Omicrons without their mandate and without them getting the share of the results and fruits. Our station's defenses have been firing on their vessels periodically, but I don't think someone sabotaged them. It's almost like the Order used deliberate tactics to create a tainted picture of anything that had to do with Rostok. Convincing enough to make the army kill their own people en masse and to hunt down the life pods.

N: Were there any other survivors?

V: If there were, I wouldn't know. We cut ties in an event if one of us got caught by either the Order or the Coalition.

N: Is there anything you can tell me about the Sukhoi wing of Task Force Sipukha?

V: Sukhoi… They were the designations for the quick response squads on Rostok. They were all destroyed in the assault.

N: Do you recognize these ships, Comrade Senior Sergeant?

V: I do. These are our bombers. However… There's something wrong about them. I'm not sure…

N: Ships that look like they're not supposed to be there, but they are there nonetheless. Ghosts, probably?

V: If that would be a way to describe them…

N: Those very bombers were sighted with Expeditionary Corps Security transponders, flying alongside alien and compromised rheinlander ships. Under the callsigns of the Sukhoi wing.

V: Can't be. I saw them all get shot down.

N: You and the other four unnamed musketeers were not the only survivors of Rostok, Comrade Voronin. These doppelgangers, to put it mildly, have expressed their desire to behead comrade Tykovkin multiple times. Their motto appears to be “Rostok Lives”. Do you have anything to say on that matter?

V: Negative. Unless one of us got caught by the Nomads and got their mind probed, which is still a possibility. Then they would use this as a terror tactic.

N: That's what I'm thinking.. Of course, the Supreme Council is unlikely to trust your word, especially considering how ships with your transponders were sighted assaulting the Coalition and its allies. However, a bill was passed down not too long ago to outlaw the Order presence in our space. The public version is that they were found guilty of assisting the Corsairs and in providing them with the blueprints of highly sensitive technology, a courtesy which even we were never bestowed upon. Now the Order faces extinction, and in an event if they find themselves forced to turn to our aid, they will be reminded of that one time they crossed the line. Which still leaves us with a question of you, Comrade Voronin. What are we to do with you?

V: You have me now. Death has been breathing down my neck ever since my MND days, it's an old acquaintance.

N: Yet I believe there is something you are not telling us. Take him for the preliminary.

>log_end