March 26, 2621

I'm once again interviewing Major Hadrick Schaefer. The man hasn't left since his arrival, earlier this month. I dont know how long he intends to stay but I intend to take full advantage of the time I have to spend with him while he is here. We are in Kj's office once again, with him sitting leisurely on the oversized chair, behind the neatly sorted out desk. It seems more like Hardick himself uses it instead of his son.

He lights a cigar and puffs some smoke as we begin the interview.

Good old Cuban Cigars. I'm not a big fan of their polirical history, but damn they know how to make a good smoker.

"Kj seems to take after you in more ways than one."

Ah yeah he smokes to, just not the good stuff, like these.

"Are you not at all concerned about the health effects it could have on him?"

No actually. His lungs can handle the nicotine much better than ours can. Plus he doesn't smoke nearly as much as I do. And when he does do it he has a reason.

"Why?"

Contrary to popular belief, smoking is actually a good copping mechanism.

"What did he need copping for."

There were a number of things he needed copping with. He was augmented a day after he was born, experimented on like a lab rat, lost his Mom when he was seven, and faced verbal and physical abuse from my marines on numerous occassions during boot camp. Let's just say that can take a toll on a young mind. Im just glad it didn't make him...

"Didn't make him what?"

Nevermind. I dont want to think about all the possibilities and what-ifs. Im just glad they didn't happen.

Kjon was just a boy, granted he was smarter and more mature than most, but his emotional state was not mature yet, it couldn't handle the level of training I was putting through. it was to hard, and while I had given him enough time in boot camp for him to learn all of it, I was pushing him. It was stressful. And all of the physical training. Those coupled with all of the other things I mentioned would have been to much for a regular human boy of his age. And Kjon wasn't a human boy, he was pearning concepts that were concidered alien to his people. And his physical training wasn't even supposed to begin until he was a teenager at least. But it was either that or let Weyland starve, and beat him until there was nothing left of him.

We've already gone through all this before, but I figured I might just let you have an idea of what was going on in his head, and how this was affecting him at the time. He was depressed, having trouble sleeping, he had nightmares, having trouble eating sometimes. That's why he wasn't all the way there when I began his training. I'd know this at tne time, but all I did to try and remedy it was by letting the doctors look him over, give him some medication, and keep his mind preoccupied with training him. I didn't know that was actually hurting him. I'd trained many fine grunts in my time, but Kjon was different from them. I'd recognized this of course, but I didn't know what to do about it. I just did what I'd done before, and made em tough. I tried making a man out of a kid. Made one helluva fire-pisser out of him though, so.

Eh actually all I did was make him a little more mature, by breaking him down as much I could. Kjon made himself, really.

"How so?"

When I began punishing his bunk mates for the mistakes he made, that was basically my way of saying, "Hey dumbasses, this is your buddy. He needs to toughen up if he's gonna be fighting xenomorphs with us, but he ain't their yet, and if were in trouble we're going to be relying on him to do his part. So get your lazy butts up and help me."

I didn't know they'd go so far as they did, Jones and his friends, I mean. My intention was to make Kjon understand. I didn't realize he already understood, sort of, and that his real problem was his emotional state.

But when Jones made him snap like that, his emotional state fractured. Sure it made him tough like I wanted it to, but once I began cluing in to the emotional, and mental side effects, I became concerned. Not just for his usefulness as a grunt, but because as training went our father-son relationship began taking form. This kid feared and resected me as his Major, but he also began to look at me as his father. He began to love me as if I was. Sure you know this already, but at the time I couldn't make sense of it. Of course I'd known, and respected his mother, and fought xenos with her bro, not to mention I was the only person he could really trust and look up to, but I was putting him through hell. Why was he treating me like I was his dad, when I was treating him like he was just another grunt. I asked him about this later on during his training, and he told me he understood what the purpose of training me was for. I hadn't realized he'd taken my Bible, and read it. I was wondering where that thing went off to.

"Why did he take it?"

I'd become a big influence to his life, my religion was one of those areas I'd effected. But he'd done it because he wanted to be more like me. He had no one else to look up to, and even though I did make him go through hell in boot camp, Kjon understood it was for my benefit. I was giving him a motivation. He knew how much I hated xenomorphs, shadows as he calls em, and he admired it. He never saw me in combat, but given my family's reputation with his species, and my blatant uncensored disdain for xenos, he built himself off of that. Like I said before, I was the only person who he could look up to, so I was his example. I taught him how to hate, and how to fight, and given what circumstances they'd put him through, Kjon channeled that hate towards the Xenomorphs. They were what brought his clan to this planet in the first place. They are what unintentionally allowed his mother to be captured by Weyland Yutani, and they made her commit honorable suicide. He could have easily blamed us all, and their were a few things he didn't like us humans for, but instead he blamed the xenos. And given the circumstances, I could agree.

That's when we essentially began our father-son relationship. I know I said I didn't care if her regarded me as his dad or not, but I guess the kid grew on me or something.

I officially took him as my son, right around the end of his training. That came as a pleasent surprise to him when he officially became a Schaefer. It was an honor for him, and he did his level best not to disappoint anyone. After he killed that one xeno with his bear hands. OHOHOHO! I knew he was going to make a excellent Schaefer.

He also impeessed me on the Talco mission to.

"So he's told me."

Yeah the kid was a hero.

"Hero?"

Yeah. What he never told you?

"Told me what?"

The kid saved our butts down in that hell hole. He pulled cover duty while we were up to our ass in bugs. We lost only four guys on that entire run. FOUR! out of a total of 44 marines. Yeah we went in there with just that many, and even with how few xenos there were they still had the advantage in numbers, camouflage, terrain, and spacial maneuverability. We may have had the superior firepower to take the bugs on, but with all the other advantages they had over us, we were screwed. But Kjon, He was nothing short of unstoppable. Whenever we were ahout to be grabbed stabbed or pinned, Kjon reacted, and damn was he quick. Sure he used a pulse rifle on the bugs for a moment on em, but for a majority of our fight down in those tunnels he fought with nothing but his wristblades, and a combi-stick. Yeah he just went wild on em with nothing but two gauntlets, and a double edged spear. Granted I shouldnt have been as suprised by his preformance. I trained him to be a marine, and he turned out to be the best there ever was under my command. He held of the swarm chopping at it as though as if it was thin air. He got nicked a few times, but he just ignored the pain and kept moving. And his distraction with the queen, and the two royal gaurds.

He chuckles at the memory.

And he was only ten years old. Sure I said he was to young. But he was smarter than the average "suckling" and they normally begin training when they're teenagers so what's a few years ahead of the game. It may sound all fantastic, but I was there when I saw him whipping the floor with these things. The kid gave us time to plant the C-4 in that hive and blow it all back to hell. That and he manabed to outrun the cave in on a broken leg.

"Kj is essentially what you'd describe as a prodigy of war."

Exactly. Then again all Shaefers are, but we aren't whipping the floor with things that can kill us with their toungues at ten years old.

"Could you say the early training he received from his mother, plus the training you gave had anything to do with his performance?"

The kid was trained at an exceptionally age, and was a pretty quick learner to most things.

"What about the earlier part of his training?"

He was having an emotional hick-up.

"Kj also talked about his hatred for the xenomorph species, for reasons already mentioned."

Boy, Kjon has nothing but hate for those things. Whenever one crosses him, it's as good as dead, and he makes darn good and sure that it is. It gives him pleasure. These things messed up his life so badly, that he began to study em, just to get to understand em better, so that he could kill them more efficiently, and skillfully. He pulls no punches. Whenever he fights them, he fights them with the same brutality and mercilessness they do to just about everything. Kjon knows them, he knows what they're capable of, he doesn't take any chances. If Weyland ever gave him an order to take a specimen alive, Kjon just ignored it. After each throw down with the bugs he'd sweep the area some more just to be thorough. He knows that if there was just one that managed to survive, the mess would quickly begin all over again. Weyland knew this to, along with their impressive adaptability, and merciless aggression. But that's also why he admired them, why he kept them alive for study, why he tried his absolute damndest to control them, teach them. I saw him one time... God had he lost his mind over these things.

"Would you say he worshipped the Xenomorph."

Worship would be an understatement. He was fanatical about them.

"What do you think his ambitions for the xenomorphs were."

Nothing good.

"Did you ever attempt to expose him."

Hell I nearly had the opportunity to put the mother fker down, like a dog at the vet. Weyland was just that out of it. He didn't care about anything else, but the xenomorphs. Except for his daughter, although I chalk it up to her being part xenomorph.

She's a good kid though, smart, educated, selfless for the most part, beautiful, not a fanatic like her dad.

She made the perfect wife for Kjon.

But that's a story for another time.

Anything else?

"One more thing. You say Kj was having some mental problems at the time. Could this have lead to his unstable, PTSD?"

Kind of, it wasn't as severe then as it is now.

"What happened that made it so volatile."

Kjon has been in the Corps for over 21 years of his life, and in that time he's served with some fine men and women. Marines he cared for enough to call em family. His "Hunter Brothers" and "Sisters" as he called em. That's a great honor, especially for humans like us. In that time he's served with those men and women, he's had to see them go.

He gives me a very forlorn look on his face.

You understand what I mean right?

"Yes."

Good.

"Can you elaborate?"

I would, but I wasn't there at when it happened. Weyland forced me into retirement before it happened. Kjon never spoke about it, when he did he was just so distraught to even think about the memory, it was no wonder why he was so upset at the time. If you want to know about what happened to Kjon's friends that day. You're going to have to ask him. I could tell you what he told me, but... I wasn't there. I can't tell you.

I thank Major Hadrick for his time, and I leave him to the silence of what was, and still technically is his office, where he is left to the memories the room provides him, and the smoke of the cigar to keep him company.