Date: 21st August, 2311 (ES/GMT)
Location: Hashmal Station, Gliese 876
Subject: Major Tessa Eisenherz (C/O Freyja Squadron)
Interviewer: Dr. D. Raposa (Lv-8, CCTS EYES ONLY)
Transcript Classification: EYES ONLY
//transcript begins (0701 hours)
“So, Major” Doctor Raposa switched on the sheet of silicon, picked up the recording stylus. “For the record, tell me about your involvement with the Horus Project.”
“Alright.” The woman at the far end of the desk set down her coffee and leaned back to regard the doctor silently with eyes the color of cobalt glass. Light caught, glinted briefly off the golden sigel rune pinned at the neck of her dark uniform– the sole, defining mark that identified her as Ultima Thila. One hand reached up, pushed idly through hair that was short and wild, cut sharp to jut at fierce angles like shards of scattered midnight. “What do you want to know about it?”
“Why you volunteered.”
“I saw an opportunity and I took it,” she said levelly. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.” He echoed, nodding as he glanced at the sheet of silicon in his hand, made a few notations with the stylus. “In the last four years, you’ve signed on or volunteered for quite a few missions and projects that others have considered to be crazy or impossible.” He looked up, met her steady gaze with the critical steeliness of his own. “Within your first year of duty with Freyja Squadron aboard the Hephaestus, you volunteered for fifteen separate duty assignments that were considered suicide missions at the time and thirty five more that had an expected mortality rate of fifty to eighty percent.”
“That sounds about right.”
“And then there’s Project Ariadne.” He sighed, glanced at the sheet of silicon again, flicked through a handful of reports. “Project Kvasir, Project Ninsar, Project Amaterasu,” He made a loose gesture, eyes never leaving the sheet. “The list goes on.”
Nodding silently, the major put her booted feet up on the desk and breathed a tired sigh. With little more than an opening of her hand, the cup of coffee darted back to her, shot into her palm as if drawn by some impossible magnetism. Cobalt eyes never left the doctor’s, never wavered as she took a long, leisurely sip.
“Oh yes, and don’t let me forget about your record within the TALENT program.” Raposa gestured with his stylus, indicating her trick with the coffee cup. “The applications for additional training, the numerous reports of all-nighters pulled in the wire chambers...”
“Don’t tell me the military suddenly has a problem with eager students.” She shot back, eyes narrowing, impatient.
“You weren’t a student when you led Freyja Squadron during the evacuation of Iota Draconis.”
“My squadron only ignored orders and stayed behind long enough to make sure the rest of the colonists out before the Coralate blew the planet and opened another ripgate right in our backyard.” The major said levelly, took another sip of her coffee. “A ripgate we later closed with the help of the Grandbois and the Ducornet.”
“I have logs showing that Freyja Squadron is always one of the last flight groups to pull out of combat situations when a withdrawal is ordered,” Raposa continued, “and that you wait until your entire squadron is tucked safely away aboard the Hephaestus before you yourself return to the hangar bay.” He looked up at her, breathed a tired sigh. “The worst incident on record is from two years ago, when the Coralate reached Sirius and blew the Seindrive fleet yard.” He glanced back at the sheet. “It says here that you ignored a direct order issued by Admiral Blavatsky and actually flew back out in the middle of a fleetwide ship to ship weapon exchange to recover a single pilot whose rig had been heavily damaged.” Raposa leaned forward. “The pilot didn’t even live. His family–”
“Is there a point to all this?” She snapped suddenly. “I thought this interview was supposed to be about the Horus project.”
“It is.” The doctor’s response came calm, level.
“Really?” The major pulled her feet off the desk, put them flat on the deck plating again. “Because if you ask me, it seems like all we’re doing here is hashing out every point on my record that you consider to be a fuckup.”
“We’re fighting a war here, Major.” Raposa’s tone rose, took on a serious edge. Setting down the silicon sheet, he caught himself, steepled his fingers, studied her eyes with a critical stare that seemed to analyze every move, every breath, seemed to record every flaw it crossed. “The Coralate has eaten into our defenses so heavily that command is starting to worry over every little resource, especially valuable human resources such as yourself.”
“I signed the waiver.” The major said flatly. “I’m aware of the risks associated with Project Horus.”
“That’s not what this is about–”
“Cut the bullshit, okay.” She shot back, tone serious, level. “Of all the people in the TALENT program, of all six hundred and eighty seven psychokinetically active individuals, how many would volunteer to have a piece of experimental cyberwear reverse-engineered from Coralate technology hardwired into their body on some scientist’s hunch that it’ll give them access to systems we can’t even begin to decode or understand?” She shot back. “How many people did volunteer when the assignment came up?”
Raposa pulled in a tired breath, tapped the stylus against the desk.
“One.” He conceded, gestured. “You.”
“I don’t see a problem.”
“There is no real problem, Major.” The doctor made a tired gesture. “The issue here is that Command is starting to think your track record falls into the category of recklessness.” He paused, let the words sink in. The woman looked away. “They took you for Project Horus because no one else would volunteer, and now they want to know why you did.” He swallowed, paused again. “Why do you push yourself so hard, Major? What drives you to get so close to danger and death as often as you do?”
The major looked away, breathed a tired sigh. In the pause, she studied the wall absently, then closed her eyes for a moment as she drew another breath, this one shaky, almost desperate. Raposa’s lips lowered to the point of his steepled fingers, eyes studying, watching as she turned back, swallowed, gestured.
“Do you. . . have a reason for living, Doctor Raposa?”
The doctor blinked, shook his head slightly. “What do you mean?”
“Is there something in your life that drives you? That gives you a reason to keep on living no matter what happens to or around you?” She looked up again, met his eyes evenly, studying the darkness in their depths. “Some ideal? A goal? A family?”
“Well I ah...” He hesitated. “Yes, I suppose. I suppose that if you put it that way, my daughter would be my reason for living.”
“I had a reason once.” She looked up, and her eyes were impenetrably dark, a blue so deep, so thick with meaning that they snared his instantly, refused to let him go. “And it took losing it before I found myself, before I found out who I really am, what I’m capable of. In that moment, I promised myself that I would live my own life, that I would take every chance and opportunity that put itself before me right up until the very end, no matter the cost.” She drew another breath, pushed the shaky exhale as she made a loose gesture. “It says right in the contract I signed when I entered the academy that for as long as I serve, I am property, owned by the Military complex, Ultima Thila or no.” She shrugged, offered the edge of a smile. “So essentially I’m a tool. They might as well get as much use out of me as they can before...” She swallowed again, unable to finish. Raposa sat up slowly, watched her carefully as he leaned back in his chair.
“Before, like any tool, you break.”
“Yeah.” She nodded stiffly. “That’s why I do so many volunteer assignments, participate as a research subject for so many projects like Ariadne and Horus. That is my purpose.”
“And what about Dimitrov?” Raposa picked up the silicon sheet again, studied her eyes. “What does he think about your involvement in the Horus project?”
“Dimitrov...” She hesitated, swallowed. “He...” She closed her eyes.
“He understands.”
//transcript ends (0706 hours)
