(I'm really sorry it took so long to get this posted.)
ON:
Wolf sat up again in his chair and simply asked, "How did you manage to get onboard the Akuro? Did you have support from the fleet?"
Corro paused to scratch his chin to jog his memory. "Well after our engagement with the hostile Mindy and LAMIA's we were able to acquire a shuttle from the Iori, which we piloted after the Akuro, once discovering that the threat was definately on board. The fleet was mostly caught up with tearing the Iori apart to help us. But then again, trying to stand against a Chiharu is not exactly child's play."
"What information led your group to believe that the threat was on the Akuro, and what course of action did you pursue once you boarded the vessel?"
"The being 'Ichiro' contacted us and proceded to call us to the ship. He was claiming he needed his servants to start whatever it was he had in mind. I have know idea why he referred to us as servants. Needless to say, with the fleet bombarding the Iori, a withdrawl from it was in necessary." Corro nodded as he continued. "Once aboard the Akuro we determined that we would go to the bridge to search for the 'Ichiro' being. At this point we were aware that he was an disruption in the KAMI. Our plan was to get to the command bridge and see if we could stop the Akuro from leaving the 5th's staging area."
Now Wolf was interested. He knew that any line of questioning he took could easily end up going no where unless Corro slipped. Now he wished that he had thought through his questions more carefully. "Did you have any prior contact with Ichiro? Before the incident? Before it escalated? It's odd that the enemy would divulge his location to an opposing force, don't you think?"
As Karl heard the part about the servants being gathered, it grabbed his attention. He continued to studiously watch over the monitoring set-up, this time paying special attention to the voice stress analysis. Now, he waited to hear more about the involvement with Ichiro.
"The 'Ichiro' being is rather enigmatic to me. He constantly bombard me and the others with mental comments through telepathy of some kind. At the very start of the incident, when I was attempting to reach the Iori's KAMI, was the first time he spoke in my mind." Corro shook his head slowly. "I don't know what his plans were for us. The bits and pieces of information he gave us really didn't help me understand his motives at all. Apparently he was attempting to control Taii Suzuka as we reached the command bridge, which would account for her odd behavior before. I kept feeling like I was being toyed with when he spoke to me, he was always one step ahead and waiting for us."
"And he called you his 'servants'. You have any idea why this KAMI entity would refer to you as such? Surely there's some reason he wanted your group with him. If your group had ascertained that Ichiro was a being created through KAMI, why did you go to the bridge? Why not head straight to the KAMI terminal to end the struggle? Why take the extra step?"
"We believed that he would defend his terminal to the very end with the sprites that the Akuro's KAMI can generate. He had revealed to us that he did use a single physical form, which he displayed to us many times. Thinking we may be able to catch this form, inflict some harm, or possibly disrupt him by using the stations on the bridge." He sighed. "With only four of us our chances of getting out of this felt slim. We also were thinking on the fly, because as I mentioned before 'Ichiro' always seemed to be a step ahead."
Wolf--rather, Anthony--seemed unconvinced. "Couldn't the KAMI generate sprites anywhere on the ship? The most effective course of action is probably clear to all of you by now, but I understand that in the situation you were in, your group might not have been the clearest of thinkers. I can only imagine the pressure you were under, but that shouldn't be an excuse." Wolf cleared his throat and looked at Corro with a slight apology in his eyes. "I'm sorry if I sound harsh, we're just trying to look at all the angles here."
"That is understandable." Corro nodded. He was starting to feel a bit pressured though. "We weren't entirely sure what he was up to. I wanted to attain as much knowledge as we could about him. You probably are aware how heavily guarded and armored a KAMI chamber is, 3 people with NSPs and a Mindy armor don't have very good odds at getting in. But then I'm assuming, I have personally not been allowed into a KAMI chamber as of yet." Corro scratched his forehead with his left hand before continuing. "We also tracked him to the bridge because he was giving us images of him torturing Taii Suzuka there."
Wolf stopped himself from stating who exactly got into the KAMI room. In that case, two SAINTs and a Mindy breached the room and destroyed the unit, but they were better equipped and had more experience than the motley crew that Corro had been in. After all, Wolf wasn't sure if he wanted to introduce SAINT into the debriefing yet. He could tell, however, that Corro was a bit anxious, and could hear his impatience in thought. "All right, I see. What happened once you reached the bridge?"
Corro shifted upright as he began speaking. "Once we arrived on site, we overheard Taii Suzuka and 'Ichiro' arguing, with physical violence being unleashed on her as a result. Our group engaged 'Ichiro' in an attempt to rescue the Taii and possibly do some kind of damage to him. It was during this engagement that the Taisho revealed herself and began assisting us. He eventually had to resort to using Yukari as a hostage."
"I see. How was the Taisho, emotionally, mentally, and physically? And Taii Suzuka? Ichiro himself?"
"The Taisho was headstrong and stubborn as usual. She seemed rather angry at 'Ichiro', mentioning something about stealing her ship. Physically I can't say about the Taisho, she was wearing Kylie-type power armor. Taii Suzuka was putting up a strong front, her body was battered and blood however. Ichiro himself physically resembled a Geshrin. He proved rather haughty and full of himself." Corro paused thought about what to say next for a few seconds. "I was worried that Yukari's wounds were serious for a while, but she was able to shrug them off. Even when she lost her arm."
"Eh, Nekos are like that." Wolf nodded and said, "So you reached Ichiro and fought him? Did you end up defeating him in the bridge?"
"Yes, though it was confirmed that he was simply a sprite. Then he began creating multiple sprites of himself to combat us. Realizing that this would end poorly I suggested we make our way to the KAMI chamber to destroy it. But it was at that time that his intentions of using the Aether Shock Cannon on Nepleslia were clear. The group decided we needed to stop it from going off by any means possible. And it was a group consensus to overload the generators to destroy the canon's firing ability and the Akuro in the process."
"Hm. Were you aware of any friendlies on the Akuro? How did you manage to get past the Ichiro sprites without support?"
"I did not see any other friendlies on board. To my knowledge we were the only ones. And we didn't slip past the sprites as much as we plowed into them. We were involved in heavy fighting before we were able to reach the generator controls." Corro nodded as he finished.
"Did you take any losses fighting through these sprites? How is it that you weren't killed? I'm not demeaning the skill of you or anyone in your group, but the KAMI can control an enormous amount of sprites, and I would think it would have brought its full force against your group to defend the ship."
"We ended up facing 6 or 7 at the time. I was barely able to hold off the two that engaged me, I have the scars to prove it. Through it all they ignored Engineer Kurodai, to this day I'm uncertain why. He was able to pass through the combat and begin the generator overload. Only after he start this did the sprites attempt to engage him. I have little knowledge of what could have possibly been going on with the KAMI or 'Ichiro' that would ahve caused that lapse in security."
"Perhaps he didn't see Kurodai as a threat." It was the first Wolf had heard of the situation. It simply seemed to him that Ichiro had under-estimated the Thaxarian crewman. From the small contact Wolf had had with him, he had noticed that Ryuuza didn't seem to think that he himself was worthwhile. "So your group overloaded the generators. How did you escape from the Ichiro sprites?"
"Well as we began to overload the generators the sprites just...melted." Corro responded calmly. "They melted right into the flooring and left us to evacuate the Akuro on our own, unimpeded. I would like to assume that the overload procedure had something to do with it, but I'm entirely not sure."
Wolf nodded with a slight, knowing smile that was gone in a second. Inwardly he chuckled at the idea that these kids thought they did it all themselves, but it was unimportant. He betrayed no mirth through his expression as he stated, "All right, I suppose we've gone through it all chronologically now. I'm going to ask a few more general questions and then we'll be through. I know you've basically answered this already, but what exactly was Ichiro? At least tell us what you know, or any theories you have."
"Well to the best of my knowledge 'Ichiro' was infection of a KAMI unit." Corro started off. "It apparently had some very rogue tendencies and was arrogant in much of its actions. I know it had the ability to transfer from one unit to another, but I'm unsure how. Otherwise I would have to guess it was just like a very nasty virus in the KAMI system."
"Ok. Do you have any knowledge of someone tampering with the KAMI before or during the incident? Did Ichiro contact anyone before the incident? Did you ever hear the name 'Ichiro' before it started or before he contacted you directly?"
Corro shook his head slowly with a frown. "No, unfortunately I do not have knowledge of that. I was a officer trainee at the time before the incident so I had no knowledge of who could have caused it. And as for 'Ichiro' that was the first time I have ever hear that name."
"All right. This last one's pretty general. Did you observe anyone at all acting oddly before or during the incident, besides Taii Suzuka?"
"Well the unnamed neko before we lost track of it was rather odd. I wasn't sure if it was up to something or not, but it is worth noting. Before the incident I didn't see much at all besides the general construction madness." Corro paused and thought about who else had act out of place. He could only think of the nekos on the Iori that were mutated or partial-hyrbids. "There were the hybrids on the Iori that were appearing. But that is all I can think of sadly."
Wolf shrugged. "I would think from the description that it was a SAINT agent. They're sort of crazy, covert and all that, but they're just looking out for the Empire. We can probably dig up the information from any SAINT files. Needless to say, if there's no record then we'll investigate. As for the hybrids, we're also looking into the transformation. The KAMI seems to have done a number on those Nekos. Well, that's about all we needed to know." Wolf stood up and moved toward Corro to offer his left hand to shake. "Sorry for taking so long. Thanks for seeing us."
"Ah, well then." Corro was a bit surprised that he would bluntly call the neko a SAINT member, but he probably had some reasoning for it. Standing as 'Anthony' did, Corro took his outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake. "No problem at all. I'm glad I can be of service to you. If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask or stop by." The Nepleslian offered out his hand to 'Thomas' as well, being as polite as possible.
Thomas met the handshake with a firm and polite gesture as well. After the brief exchanging of niceties, Karl began to power down all of the recording equipment that was used and replaced the wrist computer back to its rightful position. That shit-eating grin playing across his lips when his back was turned to the group, but was soon replaced with a gentle smile as he carried the equipment laid out across his arms.
"All right, we'll get back to you if we need anything. Thanks again." Anthony followed Thomas out of the meeting room, and Wolf and Karl took the lift down.
END
