"DAMN IT YUNO!" Kelly screamed at the Neko. "I Know you're holding back!" The Nepleslian was more furious than ever before; after this, he would be glad that nobody got to see him like this. Despite his broken and slung arm, he stepped forward and grabbed the Nekovalkyrja by the armor's collar with the good arm and pulled her closer. Yuno turned away though, further inciting the man. "Tell me what's happening to my crew!" Seconds ticked by as the formerly formidable Mindy kept silent against the Impulse's rage. Kelly shoved her away, and gestured for a Gauss Rifle. "If you're not telling me, we're going to the nearest observation post to find out for ourselves." The Mindy turned back to stare at him with it's faceless helmet.

"Baka." Yuno inhaled and rolled her shoulders to stretch a little. "I won't tell you. But I'll show you instead." The entire away team shifted and shuffled slightly as the data feed and strength analysis popped up on their HUDs. Kelly simply sat down again, face in hand.

"No, no, no..." He moaned. Yuno hugged herself and leaned back on a wall as Kelly spiraled into the despair she wanted to spare him from.



*****

Yoshiko nodded in reply, not quite comprehending the Freespacer's message in it's fullest, and gave an enthusiastic "Unn!". As they left, Yoshiko reloaded and then holstered her rifle; there was work to be done. She started to bring as many ammo packs out of storage and into the hangar for the Armor teams to simply grab at, provided there was an opportunity to open up and let them pick it up. Hopefully, Yoshiko's thoughtfulness combined with her own initiative would pay off. Several rolls of duct tape were used up as she simply bound the massive magazines and batteries to the hangar floor for the time being.

"Ducky tape." She spoke to nobody in particular, taping down loose magazines and ammunition so that the crew could snatch them up easily.

The concentrated fire seemed to be enough to stop the CD's from firing, causing them instead to simply boost to full speed, careening straight at the Atuan. Before the Frame teams could react, the armors were 'behind' them, and they suddenly revealed their true purpose: Each CD split into three (One CD and two Dark Demons), making their enemies total sixty PA, but the forty 'new' PA chose to swarm the Atuan instead, with the CD's acting as interference to keep the Frame team from going back and helping.

It was fairly obvious that whatever the Frame team thought they had been doing, they hadn't been doing it seriously enough.

The three Zilants took this opportunity to open fire, and began pelting the Frame team with coilgun rounds and other kinetic projectiles. They were nowhere near as dangerous as the CD's Aether beams, but still enough to be a worry.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, the Frame teams could only wonder a couple things. One was why were they being targeted, and the other was why the Yui wasn't just opening fire.

"Shit, damn it!" Shinji yelled, completely confused as to what to do. They needed to stop the DD's from getting back into the already breached Atuan, but there were CD's in the way. However, the couldn't just deal with the CD's as the Zilants were still some threat. Dealing with them wasn't an option either, not only would it give the Demons free reign, but it would also put them dangerously close to the Yui itself.

"F***!" Shinji yelled, unable to think. He had washed out of military training, and wasn't a soldier. He was a test pilot. This was certainly a test, but not the kind Shinji or Meena knew how to deal with. But, he had a duty as a leader. Biting the proverbial bullet, Shinji roared "STOP THE DAMN DD'S! IGNORE ALL THE OTHER SHIT FOR NOW!"

Whether or not listening to Shinji's order was a good idea or not was to be seen.

"Hell's Bells!" Async complained, barely avoiding a coilgun round, a binder flinching out of the way at the last moment, her shields already dropped slightly from ablating the close-call, "As fancy as these newfangled machines are, I'd not mind committing to human sacrifice to get some drone support in dealing with these fecund vermin!"

She fired her graser rifle on the lower setting with one hand, plasma and mini-missiles providing a screen of fire as she closed with a Crooked Demon and drew a chain straight, revving the blade out of the draw and transitioning into an upward slash as the four pistols grasped in her sub-arms were transformed into their saber configuration and arranged defensively, "I'M TIRED OF THESE ASSHOLES!"

Since Victorie was closest to Atuan because of her retaining her sniper position it was op to her to get there first too. She couldn't use Hyper rifle because she could damage Atuan too much.

So they said that enemy was strong ne meele? Victoria smirked at drew both of her Chain swords. She was very good fencer and in mecha she had much better reach. But she was bigger, if she'll keep her distance it should be okay. She can also DUPL and autocannon since those doesn'T need her hand and they shouldn't damage Atuan.

WIth the she lunged for the damaged airlock, opening fire from her on-board gun on armour, since the airlock would probably be the place where most PAs try breaching.

Lucien could sense Shinji's calm cracking from his radio, and it was starting to impact on the Scotsman too. The situation was looking pretty dire, and highly disadvantageous.

"I'm makin' a fightin' retreat as I do!" Lucien radioed to Shinji as he continued fighting off the CD's and DD's with his Autocannon, Vulcan and Railgun. He was starting to strain the capacity of his ammo for those weapons, though.

He decided to start chewing on his mini missile supply, which was only halfway filled when he boarded the Atuan for a few moments after he thought the battle was over. He shuddered at the thought of a third onslaught, for which there'd be a clear, crushing defeat.

Simply put, Taela was frustrated. Sure, Mishhuvurthyar didn't turn up like she had sarcastically predicted, but they might as well have for what it was worth. These Demons were like having a swarm of mosquitoes around you. Mutated, superpowered, mosquitoes with bodies of steel and stingers a foot long. The Neko growled in frustration as she turned to face the semi-new threat, opening fire on each Demon she could. With careful aim, of course. She didn't want to miss, after all.

"Mark, do you have any ideas? I'm running out." She informed her co-pilot, sighing as she fired another round at a Dark Demon.

"Let's just keep up the storm," Mark replied, a little sour that his missile barrage ended up causing little damage, "No relenting, kitty."

To punctuate his thought, Mark dove in with the feathers on the Dark Demon Taela was shooting at, firing a blistering barrage of his own.

"Just keep digging through it all." the brassy voiced Neko ordered. Kelly, even with an arm broken, was at it with the rest of the away team, all reduced from Elite Troops to Manual Laborers. He glared at her as a small volumetric device she carried continued to display the fight in real time.

"Why are we doing this exactly? I don't see how digging through your wrecked shuttle is going to help us any." The dark skinned Nepleslian bitterly spoke.

"Of course you don't. And I never did say it would help. Now keep digging." She snapped. "I want that lockbox as soon as possible; even plasma will have had a hard time damaging it."

"It'd better be a bottle of Deus Ex Machina." Kelly jeered. Yuno's faceless stare replied to him with silence. Kelly kept on digging.

*****

She wasn't entirely sure what was happening outside, but she had finished moving a decent amount of ammunition to the ready racks in the hangar, as well as happily duct taping more to the floor. Yoshiko now faced a grim prospect she had intended to hold off as long as possible; cleanup. She stood there in front of the elevator as a red fluid dripped out. "Hit...hit it Ged." The elevator screeched upwards, revealing the mess underneath to her.

She mewled in dispair. "M-maybe I'll clean up the barracks first."

Unfortunately for Yoshiko, the cleaning would have to wait, as Ged responded to her "I would prefer you found your rifle again, we will be boarded in a manner of moments." The AI's speaker-based voiced sounded a bit grim.

******

@synch was lucky to have her full barrier, as it managed to stop the point-blank direct hits from the Aether cannons of the CD she charged, but from this vantage, the freespacer could see that that was about all they would do for the moment, and then the CD Boosted straight towards the Asura. The chain straight managed to chop off its legs, but that didn't slow down the PA in the slightest, and instead point-blank Plinking and rending as the Type one in its sub-arms began firing madly, then the CD's shield forearms knocked two of the sub-arms out of the way, allowing the vibro-claws to get to work on the frontal armor.

@synch was saved, however, by the second set of Sub-arms stabbing up and into the CD from behind, finally taking out its pilot. damage readouts were going haywire, as two of her sub-arms were gone and the front hatch had now been jammed shut from the major damage those claws had done, which had also reduced her armor effectiveness to next to nothing.

******

Victoria seemed to have the right idea, as her munitions, when they arrived on target, began popping shield bubbles and damaging armors, but it wasn't enough, and the armors on the far side from her were unmolested and made their way into the ship regardless of what the Abwehran did.

Unfortunately, holding back wasn't something they could afford at this point, and Victoria, distracted as she was guarding the airlock, missed one of the CD's careening into her, blasting her shields open, and then starting to hack at one of her shoulders.

******

Lucien's despoerate gamble with the ammunition payed off, as the sheer volume of fire, exhausting nearly his entire supply of ammo, did a number on the nearby demons, Crooked and Dark alike. Unfortunately, he only managed to destroy DD's, damaging the CD's, and leaving himself vulnerable for the next round if he didn't do something. The PAWN-IES reminded him that he had energy weapons built into the frame.

******

The teamwork of Mark and Teala proved devastating to the DD's they targeted, each one going down swiftly in a blaze, and rightly so the DD's stayed away from the Kirin- however, the Kirin's weren't their objective, the ship was, and they left the frames to the CD's, which were much, much better at it. Having ignored the CD's to focus on the DD's, the Kirin's AI notified them just in time to see their shields drop to zero and an aether beam to penetrate their right thigh that a CD had targeted them.

******

Shinji and Meena were in a bad way. Both of them conservative fighters, they had tried to maintain distance, but it hadn't really worked to their benefit. Now their Kirin was alone, closer to the Yui than anyone else, and under fire from both the Zilants and CD's. As their shields zapped down to nothing, Shinji unleashed a barrage of every weapon on the frame as fast as it could fire, hoping it would do something, and then Meena 'dove' below the plane of battle, trying to escape from the nightmare of shells and Aether they had managed to get into.

"Wieder verdamnt!" sweared Vici again as one of enemy armours latched to her shoulder. "Stirb du bastard!" Vici shouted and boosted a little towards on of Atuans airlock while pointin her mechas head towards enemy and opening fire from both of mounted Gamma Ray Vulcans. She pressed enemy against Atuan with her shoulder and then started hacking at it with her forearm blade, while blocking airlock with her own mecha. This battle seemed lost but she won't give up just yet.