Words peppered the Lieutenant like machine gun fire he didn't waver nor did his hand ever drop to his side. He stood stark still as Captain Jaryk reprimanded him and there was no falsehood in his statements. The remark about retaining Garrou didn't concern Romav, every pilot was essential for this operation and he would need to be a stronger man to guide his team.<br/>As the captain dismissed Romav his hand dropped to his side but the Lieutenant remained on the bridge clearly intent on continuing the conversation.<br/><br/>"Captain, I want to know more about Ensign Garrou. You seem to have history with him but I know so little. I'd like to know what you know about him, whatever file there may be. If he is the lone survivor of A Baoa Qu then he certainly has skill. What's his story, sir?"<br/><br/>---------------------------------<br/><br/>"Hmmm...." Jaryk paused as if contemplating speaking what he should reveal.<br/><br/>"If I am being honest, I cannot claim to know a great deal more than you about Ensign Garrou than you do on a personal level." The Captain was being honest here, he'd spent little time with Garrou before or after their impromptu rescue of him at A Baoa Qu.<br/><br/>"I can tell you what I know, he was given the rank of Ensign moreso out of necessity for his squad to have two ranked officers below their Lieutenant and squad leader before he went into combat at Solomon, they barely saw combat there and were used merely as rear line duty before our full withdrawal was ordered." Jaryk looked at Romav with steel in his eyes, as if he remembered the incident as clearly as it was yesterday.<br/><br/>"At A Baoa Qu, the Ensign's squadron of Cadets. Like so many others they were sent out much too soon, most were hardly competent pilots..." Jaryk huffed, lamenting the loss of so many young men and women barely out of their teens in the final hours of Zeon's stand. "Somehow that man was able to survive, and by the marks and damage to his mobile suit,"<br/><br/>Jaryk looked at Romav, eye to eye to ensure his words held the intended impact, "That Gelgoog R that boy pilots, when I first saw it was missing its right leg and had beam burns all over it. He was in the thick of the fighting. It is confirmed that he show down 7 enemy mobile suits, more so, he fought with a broken machine for at least some of that time."<br/><br/>Jaryk leaned in, his voice quiet, clearly this was only for him and Romav to know. "When I pulled him from the cockpit of that machine, he was almost in a trance, he kept repeating that he would get revenge...I felt something in my bones, there is a fire that burns within that man, but it has torn away at his soul and left him cold to the loss of life that comes with war. I accepted him here because I believe in you Viktor, I believe that you can get him to see the light of nobility and the ideals of Zeon. He could be a strong weapon to possess, but I need you to guide him."<br/><br/>Jaryk dismissed Romav, but as he thought on Garrou, that feeling of blighting cold ran through his body, the same haunting sense he'd felt when he first rescued the boy from his nearly destroyed Gelgoog R. "Was it a mistake to bring him along? I hope not, but too jagged a blade cannot ever be used to make a surgical incision..." Jaryk thought to himself, their campaign would need to be clinically precise, and he began to doubt Garrou could aid them in that respect.<br/><br/>---------------------------------<br/><br/>He had no choice but to leave now. It seemed that the remarks weighed on the Captain and pushing on him considering the altercation would just be a poor decision. He quickly saluted and left the bridge to return to the hangar and to properly take care of the MS-18. So he was one of the sole survivors from those fateful days. He remembered the fire he remembered seeing it in some spacenoids. It was as though without the gravity of Earth pulling on their souls that the people were capable of much more intense passions. Those that used that heat as a crucible created an unbreakable blade. Those without a blade to forge were consumed by the fire. Where did Garrou stand?<br/><br/>Klaxons blared out interrupting the thoughts of the Lieutenant and at once he found himself in a dead run for the hangar. Unfortunately he hadn't caught up with team in time and had to ring out orders from within the mobile suit. The image of the two ships came into view on his heads up display of 2 Salamis class ships normally a simple task but he couldn't afford to be over confident. He secured his helmet into place and the visor with it and locked the harness over his body.<br/><br/>"Two Echelon formations! Ensign Garrou lead Left Echelon with the hizacks and deal with any mobile suits they send out. Take beam rifles, be quick, and draw their fire. I will take the Rick Doms on Right Echelon and will focus on eliminating the Salamis themselves. Doms take bazookas! Stay under the belly and we'll come up behind them. Zieg Zeon!"<br/><br/><br/>The Kämpfer belched out from the gwazine and the force tugged heavily on Viktor's chest and the ships came into view before them, mobile suits came up alongside him and they used the formation to get a good view of the ships before them. "Let's end this quickly! The shorter the battle the less casualties!"