RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Part 2: The Fight For The Lost

[Fred]

Miharu's rush through the portal had been, from Yukari's perspective, a strange ride through a tunnel of near-bubbly effervescence before the vessel arrowed toward its destination.

And so Miharu emerged from whatever limbo it had been in as it crossed between dimensions, only Yukari had no time to gain her bearings before she - the ship - collided into something that looked much like the prow of a Yui destroyer. The object scrapped across Miharu's back, opening a tear into the starboard crew compartment before it ricocheted off them along with a shower of debris that had formerly been Miharu's.

One moment Kotori had been standing by her, and the next the Taisa had been painfully flung in-between her console and Nyton's. Yukari had no time to worry about that, though, as the recoil from smashing into part of a Yui was tossing Miharu downward toward yet more spiraling debris that seemed like flaked away zesuaium armor, Irim engine pods and broken off portion from old transposition arrays.

The Shosa was frantic with activity as she fought to save the ship. Her fingers flew across the glassy surface of her console, her actions feeling disjointed as she felt like time had slowed down, but not her mind. The timelag seemed useful as it gave her the impression of more time to think and react, but the impression was deceptive as her own actions and responses also felt sluggish.

The CFS wasn't giving her either protective shielding or the precision maneuvering she yearned for it to have, though it did seem to do its job having time not stop for them. She had not the luxury to ponder the issue over, though, and turned to Miharu's remaining gravimetric drive for succor.

The fin-shaped engine drive, motorized at its base, flared teal at its back as it swiveled to respond to her command, maneuvering Miharu away from spearing itself on the dislocated pronged prow of defunct warships.

As soon as she was clear, the broken off docking ring of an Ayame cruiser suddenly loomed out from the nothingness away - straight in their path! Yukari hurriedly veered off, the breakneck maneuver eliciting a loud structural moan from the ship.

The novelty of dodging back and forth blindly in a debris field of death had quickly worn itself thin and Yukari halted the motion of the ship. With no more impending collision threatening to happen, the bridge operators finally remembered to breathe.

Picking herself up with a new bruise purpling on the edge of her jaw, Kotori said: "What's our condition?" The Taisa's speech was still reverberated less than half-a-second after utterance, giving her voice a surreal quality.

 

[Tom]

It was like swimming in gelatin, being in the gate. Tom's mind was willing to go for a dip, but once he found himself in the pool, he found his limbs sinking like a rock. Still, the surreal experience of being in two different times simultaneously was lost on the engineer as he braced himself against the near-collision Miharu had.

He heard the groan and knew what that meant, so he decided to not take any chances with his report.

"Ship integrity down to 23%! Ship holding! Shosa, we cannot take any more hits! Taii! Do not fire any weapons!"

The blunt instructions gave him time to explain the rest of his report lest they end up destroying themselves before he could finish his report.

Tom steeled himself and continued.

"Taii, any use of weapons will severely dampen our chances of survival."

He turned his head to address Yukari next to him, but his words had come and gone long before his head finished its turn towards her.

"Shosa, the CFS can only protect us from the effects of the rift. Therefore, we have no shielding, and all maneuverability must come from the gravimetric drive. That drive is all you may use to move us. Failure to adhere to this will likely result in the protective effects of the CFS collapsing and trapping us here."

"Taisa," he said while still facing Yukari. "We have 5 functioning fusion reactors and the port-side capacitor is charged and working. Reports from Miharu indicated that our CFS can protect us from the time-stopping effects of the gate for 23 minutes while still providing life support."

"In lieu of the ship's deteriorated state, I estimated survivability should we need to separate the Hoshi from the main hull. Once separated, emergency power provided by the support ship will provide us with only 15 seconds of added protection."

"Taisa, we must do everything in our power to maintain Miharu and our CFS bubble."

 

[Nyton]

The bizarre effects of the Rift were not lost on Nyton. His memory recorder was drawing everything it could from his senses to preserve the experience as best it could. The time fractured speech and disorientation only added to his fascination. With all that was going on he had not been quick enough to react to prevent Kotori's less than graceful collision. As it were, Tom's warning in regards to the weapons took priority.

"Very well then, Freeman-Juni. I am shutting down weapon systems." Nyton announced before turning to the others. "While we entered the Rift, I attempted to detect signs of any evacuation from the Gate, before Melisson destroyed it. Unfortunately there were none and I regret to inform that Sigurd, who was still aboard, is now lost."

Perhaps the others would not notice the loss of the android. To Nyton it was like losing a treasured firearm. Sigurd had been a capable hand aboard the ship and while not very personable, a valuable asset. Having said what he had though he immediately attended elsewhere to what was needed. 23 minutes was not a lot of time to work with. They would have to be ready to move into combat immediately.

"Nakamura, status report. We took a hard hit earlier and I want to know if everyone else is alright." he telepathically messaged to Kai.

 

[Rabbit Eclair]

Miyoko flinched a little as the ship leapt into the rift... she'd never really been one to have undue confidence in her work, and having it tested like this wasn't really the most comfortable situation for her. The crash didn't help matters, throwing her already-battered body forward into the console in front of her, her upper body neatly bisected by her volumetric map of the battlefield. When the ship stopped shaking, the sensor specialist gave a pained grunt and shoved herself back to sitting, then started reading the sensor feeds. There would be time to mourn her ribs later.

... nothing. The sensors showed a tiny sphere, containing the Miharu and what little was visible, with nothing beyond. Miyoko's first instinct was to have the ship run diagnostics to make sure the sensors were functioning correctly, but after a moment of thought, she realized the problem. With time frozen outside the Miharu's CFS, getting sensor readings was going to be a little difficult.

"I'm afraid we're only going to be able to see what's in our CFS bubble," she announced, her voice a little shaky from the impact. She started collecting readings from the small space inside of the bubble. Working with the weird time delay was infuriating, and its effects on her speech didn't help, making her have to concentrate just to speak. "If we can make it larger without sacrificing much time, it might be a good idea..." After a few seconds--or minutes, for all she knew, thanks to the lag--of glancing at the readings, she added, "I think we can eliminate this temporal distortion with a little tweaking of the field, Freeman-juni. Just need to run a few calculations..."

 

[Doshii Jun]

Yukari was accustomed to relying on her piloting skills and little else. Going through the Gate turned that custom on its head.

She still was heavily breathing when she felt the barrage of essentially negative information about the ship's status. Miyoko's report made things worse.

Of course that paled next to the point about her crashing their home into wandering wreckage. Whether or not she could see was irrelevant; as the pilot she had to protect the ship. Her failure had put them on a precarious cliff, with only so much time before they fell off into the abyss. Stopping the ship was the only option.

Everything beyond that was blank.

She breathed. Others were talking, working. She had to be calm. Her arms shook from all of the dodging, from the frenzied movements she had been forced to carry out. Her body ... she thought it was like waiting for a distant shout to hit her ears. Her mind was an echo waiting for the rest of her to catch up.

The ship. Think of the ship. She only had gravimetric power, from one engine no less, and no CFS as far as her occupation was concerned. That meant no fancy tricks, no artful dodging. Miharu structurally was unsound and incapable of combat.

Yukari's head hurt, though unlike the Taisa's. The strange functioning of time was unkind to her.

She took long, deep breaths, filling her hemosynthetic lungs with oxygen, holding it, and sharply exhaling it.

They had no weapons. No shields. No armor. No maneuverability. And very little chance of survival. She wondered what the Taisa had in mind.

 

[Fred]

Kotori listened to the reports with narrowed eyes before she laid a comforting hand on the panting Yukari's shoulder.

"Tom, expand the shield bubble to a thousand meters," she ordered, effectively asking the engineer to widen the bubble ten times over - it was draining, but doable: the power Tom had just freed shutting down weaponry would keep their energy reserves at 22 minutes.

"The devil-bitch probably just came in the same way we entered but just smashed through them without a care," the Taisa said before then turned her head toward Yukari. "Once we're set up, we'll go at 200 meters per second - with five seconds worth of response time for you - and follow the swath of smashed ships. In this place, her engine trails won't decay; once we find it we'll be able to track her down. This obviously was a dense ship formation, so she can't have gone very far."

 

[Doshii Jun]

"Ha — hai." Yukari felt her body smooth out underneath Kotori's unexpected touch. She looked up and forced herself to hold her gaze. Knowing Kotori was blind was not what made it hard; it was the blood surrounding her irises.

Red and gold. Not just royal colors, but those of warriors. Of samurai.

Of a heroine, when we are through. Even if I must write it by hand.

For the first time in what felt like weeks, Yukari looked at those hands. Her gloves had seen many better days. There were a few tears in them, probably from when she was flung about from the teleporting Black Mindy on the bridge, along with blood stains and blackened smudging. She frowned. They were very unprofessional-looking. She slowly tugged them off her of her fingers, one at a time, and tucked them between the seat and her left hip.

There was little she could do about the blood on her uniform. Later.

"Already she is robbing our sisters and fellow countrymen of lives they never knew they lost," she murmured. She narrowed the focus of her volumetric monitors to within the 1,000-meter range she had. Without CFS, each movement had to come from the single engine's thrust-vectoring and what was left of Miharu's little maneuvering jet capacity. She could not favor the strong side where the engine was, but she could angle the ship.

Yes, she thought as she prepared it. Within our 1,000-meter-wide bubble, objects will slowly appear. With five seconds, sensors can work very fast. Miyoko's sensor work let Yukari tweak her readouts to identify not only ship types, but ship parts. It would not help if the pieces were shattered from ships without clean breaks, but if she could determine a piece's likely geometry, she could know which direction was the safest way to maneuver.

Five seconds was not much time, but Yukari would make it work.

"I want her to face justice, Kotori-san," she said, voice wavering outside of the time fluctuations. "I want her to answer for her crimes. She must answer for them."

Her gaze did not go back to her friend. She feared what Kotori would see.

 

[Tom]

"Yes, Taisa," Tom said. "Expanding CFS bubble to 1000 meters. Estimated time remaining: 22 minutes. Miyoko, keep me informed of anything you come up with."

The impact caused more damage indicators to flash on his console, most importantly notifying him of the critical condition of the hull. He huffed in frustration, mainly because his technicians couldn't do anything at this point except keep the engines running.

They must feel helpless down there... dammit.

"We will find a way, Shosa," he said. "But to do that, we must maintain our composure. We cannot fall apart before Miharu does."

 

[Gallant]

It was a game of waiting.

The CFS terminals sparkled as the electricity came in odd bursts. Most of the resistors were gone - replaced, at the last minute, by the heavy black emergency cables that had, over the course of this madness, been rigged to allow for better energy flow - with less restriction. The effect was that of a monsterous beast, and with the gloves off, she screamed, angered, metaphorically frothing at the mouth. Seeing the end, backed into a corner, she defied it.

Keep running, Yuzuki prayed, You're all we have left, Okaa-san.

Hardly daring to release the side of the damaged terminal that she had grasped onto, in order to steady herself against the strain the ship was undergoing and the minor shakes and shivers coming from the gradually weakening hull integrity systems, Yuzuki sent out to the engineering crew, 'Everyone alright? If you're still alive, make readiness reports, and any casualty reports, immediately!'

Although, in all honesty, Yuzuki didn't really want to know, anymore. The dead would be irrecoverable, in the ship's condition, and they were very ill equipped to handle any ship casualties anymore. Everything was banking on the wounded thing in front of her, as its tail grew closer, and closer, to the wall.

 

[Rabbit Eclair]

Miyoko started running calculations on how to negate the time distortion... but within a few seconds, the fluctuations left her with the uneasy feeling that she was moving her body from afar like a puppet. She switched over to running the math digitally in her head, conferring with Miharu when possible. It was certainly not her preferred style, since she was usually far more visual, but it still felt better than having her fingers hit a button four seconds after she decided to.

Even with the digital portion of her mind handling the math, the sheer conceptual acrobatics needed to understand what she was thinking about left Miyoko's head feeling fuzzy. If I survive this, I'm taking a nap for about four days straight... After she got herself checked out by a medic who wasn't Sanjuro, at least. Her entire body felt like she'd gone through atmospheric re-entry naked and landed in a pile of rocks. Something had to be messed up in there.

Finally, Miyoko had put together a refined model of the ship's CFS, tweaked to account for the situation ahead of them. The unnerving sight of wrecking appearing a mere kilometer ahead of them and scraping past the ship five seconds later gave her a sense of urgency, but she forced herself to calm down and double-check her math this time. If she screwed up and made things worse, who knew if they'd ever get out of this place alive. Once she was sure it was right--or, at least, as sure as she could be when running calculations on what was essentially three universes nested inside of one another in series like matryoshka dolls, all with different definitions of things like 'time'--she sent the data over to Tom.

 

[Aendri]

Kyou shuddered as they went through the gateway, the sensation not one she liked overly much, or wanted to repeat. When the collision came, She fared decently when the impact from the collision came, the increased weight of her armor serving her better then the unprotected bodies of the bridge crew. As she stood back up, only slightly bounced around by hitting the wall, she looked around. "Everyone down here okay?"

 

[Kokuten]

Asher laid on the floor, slightly curled up into a ball. His knees were tucked in, and his 50mm Gauss shouldered and tucked in tightly. Though the sudden shock had been unexpected, Asher always knew what to do when you fell over unexpectedly.

Asha's Guide T'Falling Over, Drunk Or Not:

Rule #1: "Keep y'head as for from tha' floor as possible."

Rule #2: "Don' fall on y'ass, that hurts."

Rule #3: "If y'sober enough, tuck in, and hope f'tha' best."

"Did they give us a warnin', or am I juss' goin' deaf from all tha' explosions?" asked Asher as he pushed himself up from the floor with an elbow.

 

[Kai]

Kai had almost braced himself for the impact, but by the time he could have done so, it had already happened, and he only ended up accelerating the rate at which his armored body fell to the floor. He picked himself up, wondering what the hell that was before being asked for a status report by Claymere-taii. As Asher spoke, the Heisho answered "There was no warning for that. It seems we have hit something, but we'll be told what it was eventually." he answered, shrugging it off, before replying to the Taii. "We are all allright, nothing more than a little scratched paint, I believe."

 

[Nyton]

Nyton looked over the tactical console. After a second of thought he then called out to Tom. "Freeman-Juni, what about the weapon pods? Can we use those in lieu of the turrets? Perhaps at the least we can use them to shoot down any debris we encounter." he suggested while looking at what he still had available.

"Excellent. Finish getting everyone loaded up and ready. Then see if Kurohoshi-Juni is still incapacitated in the medical lab. Give me a count on who is combat capable and ready." Nyton mentally commanded. With all the activity in the bridge he needed to delegate.

Linking telepathically to Hoshi akin to the Daisy helmet uplink he attempted to see if he could filter out the effects of the Rift on his perception of space. "Hoshi, are you feeling the disorientation of the rift as well or do you still hear things without a time lag echo?" he asked telepathically.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Nyton looked over the tactical console. After a second of thought he then called out to Tom. "Freeman-Juni, what about the weapon pods? Can we use those in lieu of the turrets? Perhaps at the least we can use them to shoot down any debris we encounter." he suggested while looking at what he still had available.

"NO!" Yukari snapped in Yamataian.

All that nervous energy snapped inside of her and made her tense up like a cat. Her eyes flashed burning green at Nyton, bare fingers curled into fists on her console.

"Every ounce of power possible has to go to life support and the CFS! We must survive this!"

She looked at Tom. "No one on this vessel is dying because I failed to pilot us to the enemy. I am not a builder — " she looked at Tom — "or a destroyer — " she glanced at Nyton again — "or even a commander. I guide. I will get us to where we must go. I must."

She paused, then turned her upper half and faced Kotori.

 

[Fred]

@Bridge:

"I doubt the CFS bubble as it is could power the weapon pods anyways," Kotori reasonably added to Yukari's adamant refusal. "If it will save our lives, I will sacrifice time to use the particle cannons. But not unless we absolutely have to."

When Tom entered Miyoko's recommended corrections, their perception of time sharpened to near-normalcy. There remained a phantom impression of wrongness, but their condition was worlds better than it had been before.

The mottled bruising Kotori had earned when she had pulled her previous psionic reversal feat on Eve was starting to fade back into porcelain skin. Though she could no longer see through the ruins of her eyes, the awareness she had of her surroundings was most likely thanks to her skin vision - and the crusty red rags she wore did little to impede it.

Kotori turned her head to meet Yukari's stare and then leaned toward the brunette, wrapping her shoulders in a loose hug as she rested her forehead against the side of Yukari's head. From the corner of her left eyes, Yukari could see in detail the crusted scabbing over Kotori's cheek as well as where clotted blood had messily stuck black hair together.

"Fly," she said softly to Yukari's ear. Then the Taisa pulled away to grab on the backing of Yukari's seat for support and leave Yukari to her task.

In under 21 minutes, they had to find the Shlarvaserroth... and somehow put a stop to Melisson's plans.

@Main Hull, Medlab:

"Medical personnel," Miharu's AI spoke over the intercom. "Be advice that structural damage has rendered the medlab's surroundings atmospherically compromised. For your safety as well as that of your patients, please move to the facilities onboard Hoshi."

@Yuzuki:

Sister-sprites reported in to Yuzuki. Most were busy, the MEGAMI having given them instructions to keep themselves constructively occupied... and that was where Yuzuki spied a pattern.

Salvaged materials were pulled into the fabrication rooms, and then recycled into ammunitions and other supplies which were carted off to the armor bays. The M10 power armors that had been stowed in the port bay were gradually being moved out to a 'more secure' location on board the nearby auxiliary vessel.

Yuzuki found herself part of an increasingly smaller number of people whom were at station in the main hull. Slowly, Miharu was deftly coaxing her crew to work on Hoshi.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Yukari, for the first time since she returned to a Neko body, felt her "heart" stick in her throat.

Her eyes stuck on the dried blood, the scars and bruising, the rags. Her soul focused on the trust and warmth her friend lent her. Her headache evaporated against Kotori's forehead.

At that moment, when she saw her friend so abused, so battered and ruined on the outside, she realized something. Something she had no time to consider right then, but she would.

After they made it out alive.

" ... " She hoped Kotori could see her smile because words bumped against her heart before they could reach her lips. She turned to face her console, her volumetric viewers. Thank you, Kotori.

"Throttle set to 200 meters per second. Course set to follow what wreckage we have found." The gravimetric engine flared to life again, but not so bright as last time. Miharu started to again crawl forward, slowly pushing through the space that they saw.

Her mind went over the moves she made before they stopped, and she tried to correct for them, to carefully get back to that path. Her fingers occasionally slipped along the smooth panel in front of her, to make the ship slide along a plane instead of simply turn on an axis.

 

[Nyton]

With a nod, Nyton acknowledged that the weapon pods were also of no use at the moment. "Very well then, I suppose that is that. Perhaps the pods can be of more use being reconstituted for material to assist with repairs." he suggested while time began to reorient itself a little more clearly. It was then that he had a thought and began to go over the Rift data recordings, specifically when Melisson passed through. Adopting his thinking pose he began to ponder over everything.

"Taisa, I have been attempting to analyze Melisson's actions. While she has always been of a most alien mindset, even this appears to be peculiar. If Melisson's ship is configured to allow her to survive in this place then that should mean either she, her ship, or both are not immune to it's affects. Then she entered the dimension only to go and destroy the Gate behind her. This should mean that she has her own way out. If that is the case then either her ship can generate a Gate or she has her own Gate built elsewhere. Then there is this trail of debris we are following. The sheer quantity of ships allows the loss of these to be a mere trifle. Just the fact that she is moving through this as though enroute to a destination is odd. The requirement for a proper angle determines that she is looking for something...." Nyton stated before trailing off.

Many thoughts began to plague him, all from different different sources. There was one in particular that always baffled him and it was her demanded reduction of Aether usage proposed during the peace talks. Why would she ask that? If Aether was some sort of other dimensionally generated power source then why would Melisson care how much was being utilized? Then again there were so many mysteries surrounding the Dark Ones she originated from that their motivations have always been hard to fathom. Did she even intend on stealing this fleet for the firepower? Would that not go against her Aether draw down policy? Unless she had no intention of returning to their dimension with the fleet. What was her connection to the Aetherverse?

Nyton's face grew hard for a second before relaxing a bit. "We just don't have enough data to go by. If only we could have analyzed those circuit boards we stole from the Gate. There may have been some clue to all this in them." he finally concluded before letting go of his analysis. For now he would file it in the back of his head.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile the nursing staff was busily rushing to transfer patients out of the medlab to the Hoshi facility. The trick of course was moving the patients who required continued treatment. "All patients capable of moving on their own need to assist in the movement of those who cannot. Please move in an orderly fashion. Take any readily transportable supplies and equipment with you, otherwise abandon all else." informed the staff.

 

[Fred]

As Miharu started forward, Yukari concentrating on having the ship glide through the debris, Kotori listened to Nyton and gave him a silent nod, agreeing that Melisson's path indicated a purpose.

Perhaps she had expected Miharu and tried to earn herself some more space? Perhaps there was an optimal position she would start using her psionic amplifiers from? Perhaps there was something she needed to fulfill in this realm of space before she initiated her attempt to take control over the Second Draconian Fleet?

Kotori wasn't sure, and she wasn't going to guess aloud. They had enough on their plate as it was.

 

[Doshii Jun]

It was easier than she expected, at first. The pieces peeked into Miharu's bubble and Yukari would get the ship out of the way. She saw the remains of vessels she had not seen in some time — Fuushigi no Umi-class escort destroyers, their engine pods spiraling like missiles; Arashi-class escort cruisers, tall purple wings making Yukari hike Miharu up until she dodged them; Ender-class gunships, with sparkling turrets requiring deft little maneuvers.

Yuumi-class battleships, where all she could see where the needle-like tips trying to spike them.

A panel from a Ketsueki-class escort corvette, wobbling its way through time.

So far, so good.

Then came the bodies.

Yukari barely noticed one at the edge of the bubble. It was just a hand, fingers spread as if touching certain console buttons. It vanished once it was outside the bubble. Then came a leg and an arm, again at the edge. No blood to be found on them. A whole body popped into view, ventral off the port bow. A Nekovalkyrja, probably an NH-7, bent over herself as if she was draped over a bar. Blue hair and blue eyes, pegging her as a Spacy model. It was cut short, her hair, like Nimura and Ichigo. She almost seemed serene.

The Neko violently exploded into movement, as if the return of near-time returned her to life. Her midsection burst in red spray, a wound she sustained, possibly from the collision of Melisson's ship into hers. The Neko suddenly was struggling, gripping her torso and trying to staunch the bleeding as her body started to decompress in the emptiness of space. Her eyes bulged out and her teeth cracked as she ground them together. She didn't understand what was happening to her. Where was the ship? Her crew? One second they were in battle, the next —

Yukari turned just enough to make her fall out of the CFS bubble. She again was frozen in time.

Kotori's pilot was forcing herself to focus. Thinking about what would happen if power ran out would not prevent it from happening. Finding Melisson would.

Then came the rest of the crew. Clumps of them, sometimes dozens, sliding into the bubble, remaining still for perhaps a couple seconds, then wrenching action, grasping at guns, wounds, eyes, missing limbs.

Each other. Sometimes together in a deathly embrace, suffered expressions softened only by their partner's closeness.

The Nepleslians were the lucky ones. They lasted for perhaps a couple seconds, natural bodies almost instantly losing consciousness and lacking the physical capacity to operate much in a vacuum.

Yukari could not dodge them all, but tried to when she could. She would cry for them later.