April 22, 2621

Today's interview is very different than usual. Our interview takes place in the KJ147 Colonial Marine Corps Honored Arms Cemetery, located 15 miles North of New Hadleys Hope. Kj has already filled me in on what the topic of our session is today. I am honestly not looking forward to it. Most if not every single marine who served on KJ147 has an honorable burial place here, as opposed to the less respected burial grounds they were placed a year prior. Back then we still believed Weyland's lies about the marines, how they were to lazy or to corrupt to do their jobs. In actuality they were fighting, not just for there lives, but also for the lives of their friends and families who they loved, and were in turn disowned by because of these false claims.Work is still being done to fix the mess Weyland caused, and what we've done to dishonor those who bravely sacrificed everything for us. Names are being taken, Holes are being dug, respects are finally being paid, and the marines who died so horribly, are now having the chance to rest peacefully among their fallen brothers and sisters. The area has a spiritual feeling to it ,unsurprisingly, one of grief and loss, yet also one of peace. Workers are woeking tirelessly by the hour still constructing the expansive gate that surrounds the perimeter. There is a tarnished silver plate that stands above the front gate that reads "Sacrificium est actus dandi bonum ad aliquid melius. Memento nostri sacrificium pro te." Kj greets me with a forlorn smile, which dies soon after. Judging by the setting and his attitude about the Marines, it comes as no surprise why he is upset as he is. As we stroll through the field of stone crosses, I see pictures of the marines immortalized on their resting markers. Some are old and managed to escape the threat of dying to the xenomorphs, others are much younger, many of them were not even legal adults when they passed away. Kj pays his respects to each of them with as we walk by. He occasionally scowls at a crowd of mourning colonists, but is still respectful of their loss. We finally come across a spot with four lone individuals marked in a row. Kj perks a weak smile on his mandibled face in recognition of each of them, talking to them as if they were still alive. Their names are as follows, William L. Paxton, Michelle Roberts, Taylor Banks, and Richard Green. After a few moments of talking to his passed friends, we begin.

Sorry about the little... you know, I just had to say hi... know heh.

"It's fine, I understand."

Sorry, but no you don't. No offense.

"None taken."Right.

"So where would you like to begin."

Well heh... Sht to be perfectly honest I don't know. This is a hard one to talk about. I know I've been through some hard sht before, believe me I have, but... (sigh) It's even harder just to look back on some of the most emotionally traumatic moments of your life. I'd say that this is number two of "worst moments of my fked life." Second only to Mom's death. Although I'd really rather say their tied because this time I actually saw my friends die. I really wish I could give you a fully detailed explanation for how my friends went, but... (shivers) i-it-it's just to painful, plus no matter how you tell it really, it can only really come out as a watered-down reenactment at most. Detailed yes, but nothing close fo what the experience actually felt like.

"May we start with how you any your friends met? Would that be better?"

Y-Yeah, yeah. That would bebetter.

So I guess I can start out by stating how much I hate social functions.

"Why do you say that?"

Well it's not for reasons you think. I am a longer most of the time ,yes, but I do enjoy friendly company when I can receive it. I was no different when I was a teenager. I'd attended my first "yearly colonial marine Corps functional"

when I was fourteen, I didn't mind the idea of going at first, in fact I was looking forward to it, seeing my fellow warriors gathering together where we could just chat and sht, and the idea of meeting marines stationed at other facilities. And the dances, ohh man was I looking forward to that. We wouldn't be partying mind you although we would be having a good time. Outside of wearing a two sizes to small, military styled tuxedo I was excited for the event. Hadrick was a little less than enthusiastic as I was, but he'd been to these functions before. He didn't dislike them mind you, it's just they sort of reminded him about the first time he met his wife, and whenever he's reminded of her he always thinks back to his last moments with her before... you know.

It's hard to forget that sht, you know, once a person becomes a part of your life they become a part of you, even after they're gone they are still a peice of you. Believe me, I found this out well before I even met theses guys here.

It had been a month and a half since I'd killed the Predalien, and while I'd learned it was a good idea to be humble, especially in the celebration of victory I couldn't help myself, besides, it was September 13 which is my birthday. Should a guy especially a Yatja like myself not have any fun on his birthday?

"Was the convention what you expected?"

He looks at me as if I hadn't heard him.

Of course it wasn't, at least I should say it wasn't all bad. It was lively, festive in a calm manner, and everyone was enjoying themselves, everyone except for myself I should say. I honestly didn't know what I should have expected, alot of people who didn't know about me were very uncomfortable around me, plenty of marines knew who I was which helped, but even some of them felt very uneasy around me. Thankfully though there were plenty of buds around me who knew me personally, and getting to hang out with them was fun but alot of these guys were from my division who I saw almost every day. I wanted to interact with new guys you know, break my introverted nature and hang out with other guys. Some people were cool, others not as much, they still hated my kind, and were judging me for what I was rather than who I was. They weren't disrespectful towards me or anything, but their looks said what their thoughts reflected. Even with Hadricks help introducing me to alot of his other old war time buddies it was awkward.

"How did the dance go."

Went well. Of course I was one of the unlucky guys who none of the other gals wanted to danced with. As you might already know during that time the marines were holding lesser restrictions around the age for for someone to join the marines. Anyone at the age of 15 and older could join, and there were alot of those kinds of marines, so it wasn't like I was being a creep or anything. I was at my most polite, respectful, and at my friendliest. I know I'm anything but handsome, but whenever I asked the girls during a slow dance song, they would always be so nervous, they'd be respectful yes, but after I'd ask and be rejected, another person without mandibles which there were an excess of would step in and ask and they'd accept without hesitation. Eh... I can understand though. It still hurt, but I'd been through much worse. It'd be stupid of me to cry over something so minor as failing to socialize, when I've come face to face with death so many times, and not given a damn about that. It's not like I was begging for attention, but it would have been nice just to have some.

But like I said though it wasn't all bad. They had free cigarettes there which were good, and that's around the time I started smoking.

"What else did you enjoy about it?"

I met a familiar face, who just so happened to be returning to my facility. Yep Michelle Roberts. Hehehe. Boy you couldn't imagine how excited I was when I saw her face at the functional. She was pretty excited to see me to, I hadn't had very much contact with her within the monsths that followed up to the functional, but I still appreciated seeing her after three years. I was suprised when I actually saw her though, not that she was there mind you, but how she looked. She had gone of from looking like a petite teenage girl to looking like a muscular model from a marines weapons magazine. She didn't look like Stacy did. but she'd definitely grown to become quite the looker. I guess the only way I could properly compare her to is like a Russian woman, muscular, and hot. I also met three of her friends who also just so happened to be transferring to my facility.

He makes a short smile over towards the other three graves, but it quickly faids.

Her boyfriend Richard Green, and her other two friends Taylor Banks, and William "Wacko" L. Paxton, He he... (sigh)

"How did they feel around you when they first met you?"

Like everyone else, they weren't to bad, but I could see they weren't comfortable around me. Michelle could see though that I wasnt really having much of a fun time so she sort off had something to do with coaxing her friends into socializing with me, she made the excuse that they were all transferring to my facility so one way or another I would have to get to know me sooner, she was especially hard on Rich. He like so many other marines hated Yatja like me for the same reasons almost everybody else did. He had lost his sister ,Laurie, to one of my kind and was very spiteful towards me for it. He made no attempt to hide his disdain for me, and I let him think what he wanted to. William was a bit of the same way but he had less personal excuse, but he was more of a stereotypical wisecracking moron, so he had less excuse. That's actually one of the reasons why we called him Wacko, was because he could never keep his trap shut for two damn seconds, and was always doing stupid crazy sht, but he did it because he was always that way, and he never meant any harm when he did it. Taylor, he was alright, he hadn't had the kind of experience with my kind so many other marines had but he wasn't a stereotype like William the "Wacko" here nor many of the other marines were, considering it though, although a lot of the marines had had personal excuses for hating my kind, like Rich, most of the were just stereotypes like William, although they were also more serious than he was.

Overall while the functional didn't go as poorly as it could have I've honestly had better birthdays training out on the field over at the barracks than I had at that stupid functional.

A week afterwards and Michelle, Rich, Taylor, and William were part of the division. As they spent more and more time I tried to get along with Taylor, Rich, and "Wacko". Taylor was a pretty cool guy, geeky, and talkative at times, but he had no problem with me and I enjoyed his company whenever he was present. The guy was very helpful to, and while not much on the physical side if you looked at him first he was pretty tough, and very helpful. The guy was like the little bro I never had-if that bro was 5 years older. Rich, and Willie-"Wacko" on the other hand... ehh. Seriously I don't know what else I could do, I was respectful, friendly, and while I wasn't kind or courteous to them I did have integrity for those guys, and while I do think I made some progress, they still didn't like me. I would occasionally loss my cool when ever they got on my wrong side which they did fairly often.

Michelle and Taylor even tried to get em to loosen up. I over heard an argument they were having in the shower area, The four of them were furious. Michelle was arguing with Rich, William and Taylor were berating each other, I'd bet good money that Taylor would've won that argument. Michelle was trying to be as friendly ,yet persuasive as possible to Richard, telling him all about the Talco mission, and that I'd saved her at least three times in that fight, and of how supportive I was to her brothers death. Richard wouldn't buy into any of it though. He told Michelle that I was like all the rest of my kind. A bloodthirsty savage monster. Michelle was still adamant though. Then Rich just went of like a grenade, expositing his story.

He and his sister went on a mission together with a bunch of other tough hombres, Tenerac a small colony over in the south-western hemisphere of the planet had been besieged by shadows. The area around there was full of nothing but dense wet swampy jungle. I've been on missions around that area myself, over the years, and a bunch of times fairly recently. While their is land overthere, there's a whole crap ton of water there to which leaves any land area inside it muddy, and mostly unstable to build on, any other terrain is just merky shallow water and trees, you better believe that place has a lot of trees, that just seem to materialize. Because of this there are very few colonies in that area, and the ones that are there are quite small, there's also alot of radio interference in that area so comms are limited outside those colonies, as such people need to walk from colony to colony in order to keep up with communication, and often times people get lost, and we don't receive communication from those colonies, We go there a bunch of times because of this and this is more of the reason why we go there, rather than to hunt shadows which is suprising to say. We get word that some people who went out to check on the other colonies were sent out and haven't come back, and it's mostly just because their lost, or had an accident, and we help em out and call it a day.

"What work do they do in those areas?"

There are alot of oils, and fossil fuels in the south west hemisphere. The work those guys do to siphon it out of the ground and make it usable for our vehicles, tools, and some of our appliances is nothing short of grueling. I've seen some of those guys work before. Hell I've even been in some of their fossil pits, where they dig that stuff up, and it's disgusting. Not to mention the stench, God. Sorry dear Lord, but still that stuff is enough to make you gauge your intestinal track, and I could smell that stuff a mile from the hole itself. They use drills to burrow into the ground, and whenever they hit a fuel deposit it spays out in your face, and it's gross, I've even had to go down with a bucket and pale the stuff before, just to look for bits of shadow, which is hard when you also consider the fact that it's dark as hell down there to. Now don't get me wrong I don't mind getting down and dirty, nor am I afraid of the dark, especially in the south west, but damn it takes an oceanic amount of soap to get the grease off once you've been hunting bugs in a oil hole like that for 15 hours. I've got to hand it to the colonists over there though, they are very hard working unlike the bums over in New Hadleys, and a bunch of the other eastern colonies. That and they are very respectful, and polite people, especially to me, and people usually run when they see me. I may not be big on most colonies, but if I were to ever retire someplace, it'd be over in the southwest. Just get me away from those oil holes.

"What about the mission with the Greens?"

Right, about that. One of the search parties from one of the neighboring colonies had reported in about the Tenerac colony. The place had been torn to pieces like a war had gone on their, place was trashed. Rich didn't give all the details but I did look into the story myself after he finished explaining, and I got some pretty decent footage, and photos of what happened to. Obviously fighting shadows in a marshy area like that it suicide, since it's their most easiest adaptable environment to set up a hive in, and their excellent swimmers, and the place is waist high in water most of the time. But those guys set out to save what survivors they could and God bless their brave souls for it. Although I must say it wasn't the smartest move, but they had to do something. I of all marines could understand. Obviously though the mission went about as well as you could have expected it to. Now while there weren't very many colonists in Tenerac, only about a hundred or so people, their was alot of wildlife in that area. Place swarms with all sorts of oversized insects, and earth animals, especially after from other colonized planets too. More than plenty of hosts for some shadows. Richard, Laurie, and the rest of their team fought through Hell itself sustaining heavy casualties as they went just to get to Tenerac. By the time they got their they were low on ammo, down to only Rich, Laurie, and a few other guys, most of which were badly wounded. To make matters even worse they were in the colony, which was the center of the shadow's hive. You'd think that after enduring that kind of hell, anybody left alive would do the Smart thing by calling it a day, and bugging out, but that's the thing about us marines, we're persistent, mean, stubborn sons-of-bches. That and we do what we can to win, even if we know we can't, we go down charging. Laurie, and Rich had that same mentality when they went in, and they had gone to far to go back at that point.

"Were there any survivors?"

Yeah, a couple kids that'd managed to evade the bugs somehow. Rich and his sister fought like animals against the shadows to protect those kids. So did the remainder of their team. The recordings I managed to find via, some sneaky methods-since that stuff was held in Weyland's-personal-secret-shady-closet-for-nobody-esle-to-see drawer. It was spectacular, and also very sorrowful to see. On their way out fighting against the hoard of shadow's that intercepted them in their escape, a pack of predators came out of nowhere. Slaughtered some of the shadow's and allowed Richard to make his escape with the survivoring kids. Richard's sister ,Laurie and the rest of their team on the other hand...

He gives a long disheartened sigh.

You can already guess how the outcome came. And which of the two took Laurie's head as a trophy.

"As for Tenerac and the hive of xenomorphs?"

We got payback.

"How?"

Air strike. Light that marsh up like it was Nagasaki on August 9.

I could understand Richard's spite for my species, and I honestly couldn't blame him. I felt the same way about the shadow's and how they took Mom from me. I snuck into the documents Weyland kept concerning the incident along with all of the photographs and footage from Richard's body camera to substantiate it. I'd like to say I didn't get caught but I did, That little stunt earned me a meeting with Charles Bishop Weyland himself. And I must admit, for a scumbag of his reputation, he is awful polite most of the time, when he has things under control.

That was the first time I met the man. He was middle-aged, not old but definitely coming up in his years, His hair grey a combed back, he wore a fashionable dark business suit, like one you'd see on an executive when he's at a meeting. His office was very civilized to, looked alot like a library room in an old European mansion from the 1600s to 1800s, with the bookshelves, the carpeting, the curtains, furnishing, just everything about it said wealthy and powerful.

"What did he do to you?"

Well first he politely congratulated me for my success in sneaking past his security systems to get to the document, reminded him to update them, and formally introduced himself. All while His combat androids held me in place on a comfy leather chair with M41As pointed at my head.

I made a sarcastic comment telling him I wanted for him to just get to the point. He laughed a little. He told me that he admires, a person who likes to get down to business, especially one who has a sense of humor. I could see he wanted to talk about the document I'd broken into his underground lab area to get to, and that he might have wanted me to keep my trap shut. I told him this, and like he'd said before, he likes someone who's straight to the point, and that's exactly what he wanted to. But not everything he wanted from me. He had his androids release me as he poured himself aswell as myself a glass of nonalcoholic champagne. He told me that he's been keeping an eye on me since he gave me to Hadrick, that he knew from Hadrick teaching me, that I knew some of his more shady business, related to the shadows. But what he didn't know was why I would take an interest in any of it at the time. Personally I wanted to slap him on the face and say duh... because I'm a marine sworn to protect you Ooman fcks, but I was still pretty sure his androids were still pointing their M41As at me, so as much as I wanted to let it out, I held my self control. But in all honesty It wasn't just because of that. I answered him honestly, about Michelle, and her boyfriend, Richard, his overall hatred for my species, and the story I overheard him say in the showers. I told Weyland that because of it I grew curious and wanted to see what happened for myself.

I couldn't tell he was trying to figure me out. It seemed like a blatant lie, but given the fact that he'd been watching me, he knew I was telling the truth. I just sat there straight faced waiting for a reply. He eventually turned around to look at me, but he had nothing to say. So he just drank the rest of the champagne in his glass. Finally he asked why it would make him so interested to go through all this trouble, especially for how dangerous it was.

I answered him saying "You know Weyland, I maybe a crab faced freak that came from a barbarous people, but I was born among you Oomans, and raised by your marines to become one of them. They taught me not just how to kill, but they also taught me your Ooman virtues, the meaning of honor, duty, respect, honesty, courage, hard work, integrity, loyalty, everything. And I took all of it seriously. The marines have been the closest thing to a clan I've ever had, even if they don't see me as one of their own, I'll always see them as one of my people, others I'll even regard as family, that even goes for Corpral Green."

I could see the look in his hazel eyes, he knew I was telling the truth. He knew the marines creed, and I'd just demonstrated my loyalty to them by expressing my concern for one of their lessers. That I cared for Richard even though he didn't care about me.

Weyland expressed his admiration for my loyalty, but he wasn't going to let me just go and walk away like nothing had happened. He at least wanted to punish me. Or at least scare me into keeping what I'd seen a secret, at least to everyone except Richard, and the others. He even asked himself what he was going to do with me now.

Not wanting to be disrespectful, nor waste good nonalcoholic champagne, I took a slug of the stuff, and saved him the trouble of worrying about me spilling the beans, and me having to deal with him comming after me. I promised him that I wouldn't tell a soul unother than Michelle, Richard, Taylor, and William.

"He didn't believe you, did he?"

Of course he didn't. Even though I took out most of my hate and agression towards the shadows, I didn't forget that it was Weyland who cursed me to begin with. Weyland never forgot it either.

He asked me how he could trust me. I responded saying that even though he owns the Corps, it's apparent he doesn't own the marines themselves. And since Wey-Yu and the Marines are enemies over the conflict brought between us with the shadows, with Weyland wanting to study them, and the marines wanting to kill them-myself included- I honor my enemies. I aslo told him that whenever I make a promise, I keep that promise, or else I don't make it at all. And yes you may be wondering why I would have done that for Weyland. Believe me I could see the same question mark floating above his head to. I told him for how much I wanted to harm him like he did me, it was my respect for the man who made me what I am now that I go as far as to make him a promise that he benefits from, when I should have torn him apart instead. I looked him square in the eye as I told him this. He gave me a similar look, only his was sly and cunning, while mine was enraged.

He could see it in me that he could trust me. So he ordered his androids to lower there pulse rifles.

He wished me well, but I had one more suprise for him before I left.

"What's that?"

While I ran through the documents I found a photographed copy of Weyland and his daughter ,Jennifer. Her name had been writen on the photo in cursive. I could see the look of worry in his face as I mentioned her. I told him it didn't matter how I knew, nor did it matter that I knew, I just wanted to say that just to fck with him, and I succeded. I wasn't going to hurt her, I told him this, I aslo explained that if I had the intention of doing so I wouldn't have even told him. But I did recommend that he stay out of my way, because I promised him that If he ever screwed me again, I wouldn't look the other way again, and that weither it would be him or his daughter would depend on how bad he pissed me off.

He was shocked, I could see the fear in his eyes. I wanted to see it. He knew my threat had credibility to it, I was only fourteen, but I could kill things that could and would squash Jenny like a bug. So if I wanted to I could, but I didn't, but if he forced me to I might.

After finishing my champagne and began walking out the door, I told him to tell his daughter I said hi.

I was met with no opposition as I walked out of his underground lab area.