[u]Forsythe & Ellri | Ylva Falk, Vanja & Catherine Black[/u]

Snaps echoed through the room as captain Black stretched her fingers. In the past years she was trained for a lot of things, but dealing with red tape was not one of them. But Mr.Williams [i]insisted[/i] all personnel was interviewed. As if sitting in a room answering questions could tell her anything about how they will perform under pressure. The fact the room setup itself was about as inviting as a waterboarding session didn't help at all. The room was plain and uncomfortable, with miserable lighting and a microphone in the middle. Lovely for interrogations, not so much for interviews. As uncomfortable as she might have thought it was for the candidates, she didn't doubt the one worst off was her.

Not only did she have to wear the miserable dress uniform that buckled up below the arms. She also had to go through all of her staff, which was not only the more numerous part of the Langford's crew, but she also wouldn't get to have a talk with those she wanted to get to know the most: All the aliens. She respected the Tok'ra for having years of experience she hoped to learn at least a few bits from. That didn't mean she trusted them further than she could throw them. From what she was told, they are suffering from an inborn superiority complex and prefer to fight dirty and from the shadows. And the Jaffa? The usual Jaffa tactics and general mindset made her question why were they invited to participate. They nearly turned on Earth when the Ori invaded, and if all they could do when the battle seemed lost was to do a suicide run, well...

Catherine sighed and shrugged her self pity off as she tossed a file on the "rejected" pile. The last candidate was a particularly gung-ho marine sergeant who almost managed to give her a headache with his sheer existence. She needed people with calm minds, not the would be dead heroes. Reaching over to the other pile, she dragged a few more files that would make the next round of interviews. Briefly wondering if she should get lunch first, the thought was cast aside as she held one file in particular. On the outside there was nothing different about it, except it was the thinnest one yet. Her decision made, she told the person at the door to go tell the next batch that they are up. Making herself as comfortable as the plastic chair allowed, she waited for captain Falk to arrive.

Ylva stepped out of the elevator, following the airman to the interview room. As far underground as this facility was, all the lighting had to be artificial. Combined with the untreated concrete walls, the fluorescent lights made for a harsh appearance to the corridors. But that was in no way unusual, for she had worked in similar surroundings many times before. The military, no matter what nation they belonged to, tended towards certain styles. Not that she minded either way. Being military was a part of her life. Somewhere further below, she could, with the aid of her symbiote, Vanja, vaguely sense the large accumulation of naquadah that had to be the Stargate.

The airman interrupted her musing thoughts, stating that they were there. He said something to one of the airmen standing beside the door. He nodded, and pulled out an access card, drawing it through the reader beside the door. It clicked open, and she entered. The room was sparse. It looked like it served just as much for interrogations as for interviews. The only person in the room was seated on the other side of the utilitarian table at the center of the room. She looked to be slightly taller than her. Her rank was a bit unfamiliar, but after a few moments of thinking, she recognized it as the equivalent of NATO group captain. “Captain.” she said, saluting the seated woman.

"At ease, captain. Please, have a seat." Black said, standing up and returning the salute. She was a bit surprised at the appearance of this one. Captain Falk didn't look past 24 to her, yet the file said she was 27. Even so, achieving such rank at that age caused a few alarms to ring in her mind, suggesting this person probably advanced through the rank without having that much in-field experience. Then again, that was hardly the reason she was to be stationed on her ship. “I am captain Catherine Black, CO of the Langford. Please excuse our surroundings, I have to work with what i’m given. Shall we?” she said as she seated herself and turned the recorder on.

“Starting Interview of Captain Ylva Falk. Date: March 28th, 2014. Let me just notify you that you have already been approved for the crew, this interview is purely a formality.” she said, glad all they were recording was audio, as the bureaucrat that would have been reviewing this would notice the large smirk on her face. Sometimes the IOA needed not-so-subtle reminder that all these procedures were unnecessary. Falk probably had higher security clearance than herself. “I am interested in your work. The file says you specialize in biological weapons, yet instead of researching in a lab you joined military. Is there a reason for this?” she started, having a suspicion captain Falk didn’t quite know what she wanted to do with her life.

“There is.” Ylva replied succinctly. “I joined the military to honor my ancestors. When you work in my field, having a military connection is fairly relevant. Though most of that is classified, so I cannot speak of it. You probably know the way things are.” She might have said more, but Vanja urged her not to say more. Ever since blending all those years ago, Vanja had been much like an older sibling to her. She had taught her so much about, well, everything. 

However, as much as Vanja knew about the galaxy, Ylva had personally never been into space, let alone on any other planet. She had been cleared for the stargate program some three months ago, but even then, her access to information had been limited. Thus, their knowledge of the galactic status quo was [i]lacking[/i] to put it lightly. She knew next to nothing about the other Tok’ra, and she had no means of contacting them for a reliable update not filtered through countless Tau’ri systems and bureaucrats. On the other hand, she was pretty sure that if a solution to their lack of a queen had been found, word of it would have gotten out. Thus, she would, using the sciences available, see if there would be any way to solve it. The survival of their species was a prime objective for Vanja. 

“Understandable. What I’m asking is whether I leave you to your own devices in a lab, or whether you are capable of working with the ground teams. If you worked at SGc you might have the luxury of splitting time between your two professions but i’ll need you to make a decision.” Black said, looking further down the file. “Your speciality are biological weapons and destruction thereof. I need to know how far are you willing to go. Can I trust you to invent and deploy something that can potentially kill thousands of enemy ground troops? Because there will be no time to talk about the lack of humanity in such decision.”

“I’m a military scientist, not a pacifist. If they want to kill me and mine, I do not hold back. There’s a reason I don’t often go on field missions. There are few survivors when I do.” Vanja did not let any expression show on their face. “But if you’re asking if I’ll take up a weapon if it comes to such fighting, then the answer is yes. Whether it is with a gun or a bioweapon, I will fight for what I believe in and what I am ordered to do.”

“So long as it does not prevent me from working on my research projects, I will be available as a captain, which as you well know, is my rank.” She thought for a moment before speaking again. “However, I have never been off this planet, so I am not sure if I am ready to fight aliens.”

“Very well, I will try not to impede your work, but do remember Langford [i]is[/i] a military vessel and that we are currently at war with the Lucian alliance.” A small smile crept on Captain’s face. Nonconflicting, yet standing her ground. It was the last sentence that caught her attention. She heard it wearily too often during these interviews. “It’s all right, no one really was. I would have said ‘let me put your mind at ease’, but i’m not sure that applies.” she said, not explicitly putting on record that she thought composing the crew of personnel with little experience was a really bad call. “And as long as you do not pick a fight with the aliens we’ll be having on the ship, you’ll be fine. Speaking of which, how do you feel about them?”

“To be honest, I am not sure. Figuring out how to kill them is easy. Getting along with them, not so easy.” On the outside, she tried not to show any reaction other than calm acceptance tinged with curiosity, but on the inside, the reaction was anything but calm. ‘aliens? here?’ Ylva thought. ‘will that be safe?’ the gears of Vanja’s mind were already spinning rapidly. [i]’This was not the plan. We need to make something to hide my existence from them. Unfortunately, the only thing I know of involves regular injections.’[/i] She tried to phrase it carefully, knowing Ylva’s feelings on the subject. ‘Needles?!? Keep those [b]things[/b] away from me!’ In their shared mind, Vanja could feel the palpable dread Ylva felt whenever even the thought of needles rose up. She had tried to help her overcome it, but it had been of no use. [i]’We’ll find something, I’m sure. There’s got to be something we can mix together in the lab.’[/i] she thought reassuringly. ‘yes, that should be possible.’

“Sorry, got caught up in my own thoughts. I just had not expected any aliens to be present. If they don’t interfere with my work, I won’t interfere with theirs. So long as it doesn’t conflict my interests or those of our people.” She smiled softly, then spoke again. “Going offworld… What can I expect?”

Captain’s eyebrow rose a bit. “I am surprised you weren’t briefed on that.” she said, giving a death glare to the microphone that symbolized the IOA, her voice full of venom. How did these politicians expected them to work when they weren’t informed of anything? “There will indeed be two groups present: Two representatives of the Tok’ra and a fire team of Jaffa. Seven aliens in total. I am certain you can avoid them well enough if you don’t see eye to eye, and from what I was told the Jaffa are not talkative types in the first place. As far as going offworld goes, the planets we will be tasked for visiting are those that couldn’t be dialled. Your guess is as good as mine.” Catherine smiled, nodding for herself. This one she liked so far. “Very well, captain, I look forward to working with you.” With that, she shut down the recorder. Free of the government ears, she visibly relaxed. “Now, is there something you want to ask me?”

“Not really, no,” she answered. She did not have anything to ask or share. If the folder was her records, then it was obvious that the captain did not have the clearance to see much of hers. Which probably was just as well. The less people knew, the better. Getting back to her feet, she saluted, then left the room, heading back to her lab, one of several located on level 21. An airman escorted her up, taking up position outside the room. She did not care, for her thoughts were already churning on the designs for an oral naquadah dampener. It was too bad she had no means yet of designing a virus-based one that could be administered just once. She had no doubt it would take no more than a few hours to whip up something reliable. Till then, she would simply have to stay out of the way.