2011-03-11 - Stressful Interrogations

It has only been a short time since the rescued (or captured, depending on your viewpoint on it) pilot had been brought out of stasis and back to the world of the living. Since then, she's mostly been staring at the same four walls after some ineffectual attempts at starting conversation with the Argama's medical staff. There is that whole 'can't say too much to the possible enemy' thing going on, but at least she isn't shackled or under hot lights being questioned by uniformed men with guns, so it's certainly a step up from the last time she woke up.

For now, the young white-haired woman is sitting (as much as one can sit in zero gravity) with her legs folded beneath her, a book held in one hand. An intent look shows in her storm-blue eyes, following the words across the page if only for the fact that there isn't anything else particularly to do.

It's not actually zero gravity, but might seem like that to some people-- the Argama has a sophisticated artificial gravity block system that allows it to operate smoothly in peace and wartime situations. The veteran crew operates well under limited gravity, and so many areas that would be under Earth conditions in other ships are a little more free.

ELSEWHERE

"It's certain a situation we've encountered before," admits Quattro Bajeena, the nominal leader of the AEUG and all-around shady individual. "That doesn't mean it's a situation we should attempt to pre-judge."

The blond slips on his sunglasses as he turns toward the door. "The best thing to do now would be to talk to her."

LATER

The medical bay doors slide open, admitting Quattro and his current ally, Bright Noa. The red-coated man does not say anything immediately, preferring to let the captain of the ship lead. He's had more experience with children.

ELSEWHERE

"That doesn't erase the fact that we found her in a BAHRAM mobile weapon," Admiral Bright insists with a fold of his arms over his chest. "I've got a bad feeling about this entire situation." He lets out a reluctant sigh, "Chairman Wong Lee insists we ought to find out as much as we can. So either way, it looks like we'll be doing it your way."

LATER

"Good afternoon," Admiral Bright greets Alina as he steps beside his red-clad colleague. He has a clipboard in his hand, one that undoubtably contains as much information as the Argama has collected on their latest find. Unfortunately for them, it's blessedly little. "I'm Admiral Bright Noa, captain of this ship, the Argama. This," he motions to the blonde man next to him, "..is Captain Quattro Bajeena, director of the Ayoug. Could you please tell us your name?"

Explicitly no mention is made about the doctor's report of Alina having memory loss. You can never let it slip what you do know, else someone intending to trick you could take that tidbit and run with it.

The sound of the door sliding open is enough to draw the young pilot's attention, her fingers easily sliding over the page to dog-ear it. After being refused a pen - likely due to her being a ninja with the ability to take over a ship with a writing utensil - she hadn't even bothered trying to ask for a bookmark. Her eyes catch Quattro first, and then flash to Bright as she sets the book down, shifting to a standing position. The set of her shoulders, the way she stands, it all screams soldier. A look that doesn't quite suit the fact that she's wearing essentially pajamas.

With a slight inclination of her head, she acknowledges the introduction, looking from one to the other. These aren't common pilots, but people of rank, so it's far too easy for whatever training she had - regardless of if she remembers it or not - to take precidence. "The medics mentioned your name. Although this is the first anyone has said of this ship." Paranoia perhaps? Or just the crew being trained well enough to be tight-lipped. "Also, if you don't mind me saying, sir, did you know you have a chicken on board?" She seems about to say something else, but realizes that it probably would not be proper. Straitening her shoulders, the young woman nods once, "I'm not actually certain of my name, as strange as it sounds. 'Lin' is the only name I remember, but I can't be absolutely sure." Her eyebrows draw inward a bit, obviously not all that pleased that her own attempts at ressurecting memories have failed thus far.

Quattro Bajeena alights next to the bed, his arms crossed and expression neutral. He is a difficult man to read by physical expression alone.

"Can you tell us the extent of your contact with the A-LAWS and the Earth Federation?" he asks, passing by mentions of the hazing chicken.

Bright makes a slight face at the mention of the feathered stowaway. "Yes, I'm aware of the chicken." Unfortunately. Deeply unfortunately.

Quattro takes the next round of questioning, which leaves Bright to scribble something on his clipboard.

With neither being surprised about the lose bird on the ship, Lin has little else of actual matter to report for the time being - as she doubts they wanted to know the number of tiles on the ceiling. Her eyes follow the blonde-haired man, since he is the one with the next round of questions. "I'm afraid neither are familiar to me. The last thing I remember before waking up here was being interrogated by uniformed men. They had a symbol like arrowheads on the uniforms." She mimes a motion towards her shoulder, the description seeming to match one of the commonly used logos for the A-LAWs.

"Before that, just a flew glimpses of a medical unit. And only flashes of anything from earlier than that." Her eyes close for a moment, as if she were actually trying to remember, even as one hand moves down to scratch at her opposite forearm. The blue tattoo-like markings seeming to be a bit of a bother.

Quattro tilts his head toward Bright. This is one of the few ways he can inform the admiral that he is looking at him because those stupid sunglasses prevent a lot of meaningful human interaction.

The blond returns his gaze to Alina.

"There's a mobile weapon in the hangar bay of this ship. Do you know anything about that?"

Bright Noa's eyebrows lift at Quattro. He looks about as pleased as someone who anticipates being surrounded by ten A-LAWS dreadnoughts ought to be. Which is to say, he feels like he's being set up.

A few clacks of Bright's regulation shoes and he stands beside Quattro again. There's the sound of scribbling and the Admiral tilts the clipboard to his colleague. There's a single word there with a punctuation mark and underlined thrice:

PRESSURE?

Just what kind of information is passing between the two men via those quiet glances is a mystery to Lin as she returns to standing at attention, although the fingers of one hand definitely seem to shiver slightly now and again. "If it's the same one they asked me about, then it's an Orbital Frame." From one interrogation to another - at least this time she can be thankful that her hands aren't bound and she isn't being yelled at... yet.

"They were particularly interested in it. Where it came from, who designed it, who I worked for." Her eyes lift towards both men, those haunted eyes seeming a bit unsure, "Probably the same information you're looking for, I'd guess." Her lips press together slightly, taking a deep breath through her nose. "I can tell you the same thing I told them. I don't know. What I can tell you is that they claimed me to be it's pilot. I believe the terms they used were: 'If you shot her so hard her brains got scrambled and she's useless, I'm going to have you and your squad courtmartialed.'" Her memory does seem to be particularly good for recent events, if nothing else, although the exact words seem to be hard for her to bring back to mind.

Quattro looks invisibly to the clipboard tilted toward him. The question he is posed with seems safe, so he turns his attention to it more physically, taking the clipboard and pen, writing further--

No pressure-- she's saying nothing-- suspicious

The blond ace returns the clipboard, nodding as if he was signing off on something. Maybe he is, in a way. "Lin, this is a military ship. The lives of its crew are of paramount importance. You can understand why someone like you piques our interest."

Before her-- Rachel, vouched for fiercely by Cagalli Athha and Theresa Testarossa.

Before that-- girls like Sarah and Emma, men like Camille Bidan's own father. New allies and betrayals, both of which resulting in deaths. The Argama is a dangerous ship.

"We can take you somewhere that you can recuperate in peace, off of the ship and away from the war."

Bright Noa makes a thoughtful expression at the written reply. The Admiral is by no means an authority on the behaviors and capabilities of Newtypes. He's just dealt with many of them. And married one. Though suspicious, Lin's lack of 'pressure' at least registers as a good thing to the Admiral. It might completely rule out Lin as the result of some super-soldier experiment.

Quattro's insistance on moving a potential problem off-ship is just the cue Bright was looking for. "Do you recall having any family, Miss Lin? Or perhaps a place you're from? If you can offer anything you might remember about a place you've grown up, or people you feel comfortable towards, it'll certainly help us help you in returning home."

The information that the Argama is a military vessel is nothing unexpected. After her brief conversation with Macua, the young woman had pretty much come to her own understanding of the situation. "I had come to that conclusion. Loose lips sink ships, and your people are remarkably well trained." Try as she might, that one hand still wants to twitch - which is something that would be in the medical report, the early signs of DTs coming from her exposure to metatron. Closing her hand into a fist and then relaxing it again, she tries to make that feeling go away, to no avail.

"If you think that would be best, I'm certainly no one to tell you what to do. But so far as I can tell, I am a soldier, a pilot. I feel it when you talk to me. The way my body responds." She stands a bit taller, even if confusion is evident on her face as to exactly why the behaviors come as second nature. "I'm not sure that there's anywhere you can take me that won't be dangerous." After waking twice to different types of interrogations, she isn't expecting a great deal of this world she can't recall.

Still, something about Bright's words have her looking at him peculiarly. It's almost as if she is looking /through/ him rather than at him. One of those blue-marked arms lifts to the pendant at her neck, and her vision seems to clear as she lifts it. "This, and the Orbital Frame seem to be the only things the other men left me with. I don't know about this holding any answers, and I haven't been able to get near the 'frame to see if it can offer any insights."

"I do think it's for the best," Quattro says. Lin merely acquiescing and not voicing an opinion either way seems to have put him on edge. He remains conspicuously silent for a moment, observing.

"If you think that the mobile weapon might hold some answers for you, then it's worthwhile to let you see it. Are you well enough to do that now?"

"That.." Bright mentions as he fiddles with his collar. "..might not be something we can do right now. The Chief is still running tests on the machine. I'd rather have all our answers together before we go about putting Miss Lin back in the seat."

That's Captain's code.

For 'I don't want a hole blown in my hangar.'

Bright's shoulders raise, the fabric of his uniform rustling slightly. "I'm inclined to agree with Captain Quattro on this. While I can certainly appreciate that you're a pilot, Miss Lin, considering you remember nothing of where you come from is too great of a risk on you than I'm willing to take."

So that's the way it is, then? The white-haired pilot simply nods, although a worried expression passes her features. Just where would she go, could she go? Closing her eyes, the young woman tries to push these thoughts from her mind, taking a couple of slow breaths before nodding her head and looking at them both with a more serious, trained expression. "I don't suspect that I have a choice in the matter either way. So do what you must." Her hand reaches for the book, fingers trembling on the edge of it before she picks it up, trying to hide the weakness that keeps wanting to show itself.

"If you don't have any other questions, I'd like to finish this and get it back to Miss Huitl." The stiff-stance breaks, and the young woman settles herself onto the bed, looking down at the book almost reluctantly. "I'll be here when you figure out just where you're going to ... drop me off." She was about to say 'dump me', as that's certainly the feeling that comes along with it, but thankfully has the wisdom to hold her tongue.

Quattro narrows his eyes behind his aviator shades.

"Why would you want a choice?" Quattro asks. "Why would you want the choice to stay on a military vessel for the sole reason that you are a pilot? Do you know what we're fighting for? Are you just interested in piloting again?" he presses, turning a slight utterance into a full line of questioning.

An unease sets into Admiral Bright's shoulders. A passive-aggressive acceptance? he wonders to himself. Not unlike a child who hasn't gotten what they wanted, but just shy of a temper tantrum.

While Quattro questions Lin further, Bright's mind wanders back to the partially-terraformed planet just a few scant hundreds of millions of miles apart. Maybe its longer day is what turns out so many damn crazies.

The young woman's head turns quickly toward Quattro with his line of questioning, seeming perhaps confused, and a little affronted by his words. "Why would I /want/ a choice?" Lifting one hand, Lin runs it through what little of her hair remains, touching the scars that mark her scalp before answering, "Why would anyone want to have choice stripped from them? But let's not fool ourselves. I'm a prisoner. Do you think I believe for a single moment that I'm going to be released to recover somewhere peaceful? I might not have much in the way of memories, but I'm not a fool."

She has no idea what information is on the clipboard, or what they think of her, the only thing she knows is what she sees with her own eyes. "I don't know who you are, or what you fight for, but I can take a guess and say you aren't allied with the men who had me captive earlier. The last thing they said to me was that if I wouldn't answer willingly, they'd be glad to pick apart my brain piece by piece until they had the answers they wanted." The tension passes down her shoulders, barely controlled, although the emotion shows in the slightly glassy nature of her eyes. "I don't much want to die. And I can tell you right now that if they get a hold of me again, that is /exactly/ what's going to happen. I'm going to die for something I can't even remember."

"You'll probably die on this ship if you stay," Quattro replies. "And maybe for something diametrically opposed to your beliefs. You keep saying you're a prisoner-- that's true in a sense. As an amnesiac, I have to take offense at your assessment that you couldn't exist peacefully somewhere. It presumes information about our operation." He notably declines from giving more information out concerning whatever beliefs might be held on this ship. He's waiting for the woman on the bed to get frustrated and make a mistake, maybe displaying more than she should know. It does not pay off.

"If you're afraid of the Federation finding you again, there are Katharon safe houses. There are sovereign groups among us where the Federation government has no jurisdiction."

Quattro leans forward. "If you have the urge to fight for something, then tell me. It might be a clue to your past. If you're just doing this to be passive-aggressive, then tell me. It'll make this transition a lot easier."

"Captain Quattro is right," Bright affirms calmly. "Until we can glean any more information about who you are or where you come from, we have no right to risk your life in otherwise dangerous environment."

"Better to die on my feet than on my knees, or worse laid out on some hack doctor's operating table like a human science experiment." The image is enough to cause her fingers to clench - the thought that those men had left in her mind when they put her into stasis, and the same haunting nightmare that still lingers. She takes a breath, fingers clenching on the book. "As an amnesiac, I know two things. And that is that every time I open my eyes, I've got a new set of uniformed men asking me questions I don't know the answers to. I don't really expect that is going to suddenly change."

Her eyes look from the book, back to the two men - the two quite high ranking men. Something about talking back to them feels wrong, as if she were expecting to be reprimanded for it. "Right now, the only thing I care about, the only thing I want is to not go back to where I was." She pushes the book down into the bed next to her, the questioning is clearly getting to her, and she's walking a tightrope line of self-control. "And I'm not trying to be passive-aggressive. I just don't know what to tell you. I don't know what it is you want me to say. How can I convince you that I'm not a threat to you?" She stands up, keeping the bed between herself and the two of them.

Being upest certainly isn't helping the tremmors in her hands, which have gotten noticably worse. "As for why I'd want to stay... The truth is that up until this conversation, everyone here had been actually nice to me. It's a pretty stark change from the last time, let me tell you. I thought maybe if I was just given some time, I could figure all this out." And it doesn't seem as if she will have the time to do that, so the evil you know versus the evil of the unknown. "All I know right now is what I feel. Apparently I'm a pilot, and a soldier. I don't know what else I can do." Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Quattro tilts his head toward Bright again. This look lasts for a brief moment before he returns to the girl in front of him.

"I can fathom your response to this. Yet, we would be remiss to act on your personal comfort alone. It would endanger the lives we supervise on this vessel and in the rest of our fleet. The fact of the matter is that we cannot trust you, especially with the weapon you were found with, even if you feel you have a connection with it."

SOME TIME AGO

"Rachel, have you ever heard of a man named Char Aznable?" Quattro says, his hand straying near the gun hidden in a holster behind his back. "He took an assumed name, too."

NOW

The blond ace frowns. "You're not going anywhere near the sensitive areas. We've had too many bad experiences with new pilots in this situation. Too many deaths. We'll see if you can be cleared for civilian duty on the ship while we find a place for you to prove yourself. That's the most I can offer. Anything more would be irresponsible. You understand, don't you?"

"Like any ship," the Admiral begins to explain, "There's plenty of maintenance that needs to be taken care of in order for our operations to run smoothly. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, the standard things. It'll be the best we can do for you until we can find a safe location for you to move to so you can begin your rehabilitation."

The words that Lin fully expects to hear aren't the ones that actually come, which forms a bit of a disconnect in her already addled brain. There is a momentary shift of her expression, from that look of panic to pure confusion. She takes a step back, as if trying to regain her balance, which is harder than it should be with the fact she's only recently come out of stasis. "I'm not sure I quite understand." She steadies herself on the bed, the energy of this interrogation and the lingering DTs having sapped much of her strength. "Is this giving me a chance... or just a way of keeping me occupied until you find someplace else to send me?" Because the admiral and captain don't seem quite on the same page there, at least as far as she can tell.

"This is giving you something to do until we make a decision. Your attachment to the Argama is likely due to the trauma you experienced. It should pass. If you really do want to pilot in order to help our organization, and if you really do have a military background, then it should come as no surprise that you'll be assigned to where you can do the most good," Quattro says, his tone decisive.

Bright Noa nods in agreement. "In the mean time, Miss Lin, I want you to keep up with regularly scheduled check-ups with Doctor Hasan," the ship's doctor, "If you suddenly start to feel any kind of discomfort or pain, see him immediately."

Attachment? Well, she's not about to argue with them further that it is more of an attachment to her own life than to the ship itself. At the very least, she isn't just being dumped off somewhere in a world she barely remembers - which comes as a plus. "Okay." She blinks, some of the tension easing out of her shoulders. Had some of the color faded from her tattoos as well? Must be a trick of the light. "I think I'm going to have to, anyways... he wouldn't exactly tell me what this is about." She looks at Bright this time, lifting her hand to show the tremmors in her fingers. Still, she closes her hand into a fist and then places it down onto the surface of the bed, nodding.

"If you could spare someone to show me the ropes, I'd appreciate it. I can't remember ever doing laundry, or cooking, or cleaning." The poor girl has either forgotten this along with the rest of her memories - or lived a very sheltered life. "Besides, that way you can make sure someone keeps an eye on me."

"Well," Quattro remarks with a smile. "You are a prisoner. It's good procedure."

He turns and leaves the medbay, kicking off from the ground to float out the door.

'You are a prisoner. It's good procedure.'

So much for subtlety!

"It could just be a symptom of psychological trauma," Bright squints at Lin's fingers. "Or space-madness. We see it a lot, unfortunately. Get some sleep, Miss Lin. You'll need it."

Admiral Bright follows after Quattro, his hand absently rubbing his eye.

Prisoner or not, at the very least they weren't just going to send her out into some unknown world to possibly fall right back into the hands of whomever had threatened her. It's a relief, if only a small one. "Thanks." She offers in a softer voice, settling herself once more to the bed as she plucks up the book, tracing her fingers over the pages as she tries to get control over the shakes. "I don't have space madness." She mutters to herself, only glancing up once as the two men depart.