RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 25 - Part 2] The Chopshop (YE 38)

[paladinrpg]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Umeshu felt the adrenaline returning to her body when the readout showed the deadly beam she brought into existence crashing against the Kuvexian vessel and promptly dropping its shields. Indeed a part of her was vindicated -- this, this was the alpha strike that the Shosho wanted back on Higaflan! She needed to keep it up... this moment of zen in battle that could erase all the past mistakes. And so, when the orders subsequently came in to press the assault into space, the purple-skinned operator was more than happy to oblige.

Hashimoto-taii immediately began the Eucharis' evasive maneuvers to try to turn the turreted anti-ship battery fire into glancing blows on alternating sides of the Princess' ship, giving the WARMS-linked shield routines more time to compensate and spread the damage out along the CFS. She, however, did not deviate much from the original spaceward bearing out of the planet's gravity well at full speed, keeping the enemy vessel within effective range of the front-facing Main Weapon Array -- which as soon as it was recharged, would begin rapidly firing in it's weaker 'Pulsed Mode' configuration at any target of opportunity that stood out on the opposing ship that was rapidly getting larger on the viewscreen.

"Natsumi-sempai," called out the grey-paneled operator to the white-haired XO behind her while the ship bucked and accelerated forward, beginning Umeshu's ride-by strafing maneuver. "Is there enough time to arm the twin torpedo tubes with Aether warheads? If we launch at closest approach, they should be unable to stop them!"

 

[Gunsight1]

Bridge

Even as Umeshu spoke her question Natsumi was already inputting commands into the system to make it happen. "Already on it!" she replied to the purple skinned operator.

She ordered the ammunition handling system to rouse out two aether warhead tipped torpedos and load them into the tubes.

Far down in the ships interior, mechanical systems cycled through the inventory of weapons stored in the torpedo magazine, until the desired weapons were brought up to the loaders. Then arms grabbed onto the cylindrical weapons and hefted them into the breaches of the torpedo tubes, sliding them firmly into place before retracting out of the way as the breech hatched slammed shut. In the tube, the computer link activated the warheads and slaved over control to the bridge.

"Torpedoes loaded, tubes one and two!" Natsumi called out as the pair of indicators winked green. "Both weapons spooled up and reading good to launch"

 

[Wes]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

"Fire torpedoes," Hanako ordered.

When Natsumi sent them away they quickly found their mark, turning the other ship into a blazing hulk that would no loner be of use in the battle. One enemy ship remained now, and it fired on Eucharis with all its might, shaking the gunship. The shields gave out and the ship's armor was tested taking many hits, including several that damaged the main weapon array and hitting in the engineering area several times. The Eucharis's aether reactor was hit and main power went offline. The lights throughout the ship turned went out, leaving only the eerie red glow of the emergency lights.

 

[Zack]

Medical Bay

"Magic, well... the fireball from words kind." Wazu said, slumping back against one of the examination tables and sitting down on the floor. He checked his datapad's clock... and then just sat there for a while.

...

The awkward pause finally ended when he checked his datapad again,

"2 hours to pickup the rest of the crew from the light house and get to saftey. Another 48 to sleep and recover... then we can talk about magic all you..."

The entire ship rumbled, and the lights turned red. His body ached just at the thought of having to get back up. His hands took a firm hold of the side of the examination bed to help pull himself back up to standing.

"Come on, lets go see if we can help Jax."

Wazu would feel around for his datapad and start typing a message before stumbling out towards the hallway, trying to remember where the main reactor was. At the moment he didn't have the focus to keep track of Marcus, or figure out if he was going to follow along... but assuming he did he continued to narrate his thoughts,

"Feels like we still have emergency power, gravity is still on... but if we can not into FTL then we are going to have more problems."

The message for Jax was simple

Jax,

Need a hand?

-Wazu

 

[Blizzard]

YSS Eucharis - Wardroom

"...Wait for it...! Wait for it...-!"

*KABOOM!*

The ship rattled, and the lights went out. On Jax's communicator, the main gun and engineering went red.

"It's goin' down!" he cried and rose from his seat.

Wazu,

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS!!!1!!

EnGInEERiNGNoW!!!

GET AN AMES@#!

-Jax

That was the best he could do as he sprinted back to the zero-g.

"Let's go, Becker!" he called back.

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

"CHERRY!" Jax shouted fearfully into the darkened space. This was the second time he'd left her here to take the brunt of the damage, and the thought that she might be dead because of him made him queasy. "Cherry, are you alright?!"

He took several, deep breathes and took in the scene before him. The main generator, as well as the backups, were molten slag. There were several hull breaches and melted sections of deck scattered haphazardly.

With his mind still scrambled, Jax still retained a shred of rational thought. A strategy formed, and boy, was it crazy!

Getting power back up was priority. Umeshu would need her guns and propulsion systems to keep their enemies at bay. Hull breaches could be handled later, or if Cherry didn't need to be carted away, Marcus and Jimmy could handle that. It didn't take much to install a hull patch- the instructions were on the damned things!

They needed enough power for propulsion, weapons, FTL, and shields. But where to get that kind of juice?! The only power source left were the two anti-matter generators in the wings! They couldn't possibly handle that task...!

...Unless...

"Shosho," Jax hailed over comms as he waited for Marcus and Wazu. "I-I have a plan. It's risky. We need to cut life support from all non-essential compartments in order to further chill the coolant. That'll let us run the anti-matter generators past the red line when we plug them into the main. There's a chance of critical component failure, but it's the only way I can think of to keep us in the fight, ma'am."

It was a... reasonably sound idea. Normally, such a tactic would be used to drive the entire system past its limits. In this instance, two smaller generators were going to be overhauled to fill in the gap left behind by one large one, and maintain normal levels of operation. They could open the radiator arrays at the end of the pylons, and whatever heat was left over could be routed to CFS.

Okay! He was feeling pretty good about this!

As he waited for a reply, he tuned in to Umeshu's comms.

"Taii, in our current state, it'd be a good idea to fire the main gun in short, rapid bursts instead of fully charged blasts. It'll be easier on the other systems..." he suggested.

He paused woefully. They were facing death... again. In case they didn't make it, he wanted to say so many things. He wanted to say he loved her and that he was sorry about the things he'd said in the shuttle and that if they survived he was going to get her clothes off and-

Whoa! Getting off track!

"...Good luck." he muttered and cut the link. Now it was all up to Hanako to OK the daring plan.

 

[Zack]

Engineering

Wazu eventually showed up in Engineering with his enviromental suit's plastic bubble pulled back over his head.

"I do not know where...."

Before he could finish Jax would machine gun out his ideas. He would take a look over at the Aether generator, and then back over to Jax. The calculation was not difficult to make, Jax was the ship's engeneer and Wazu's knowledge of this ship largely came from pictures taken years ago. It would be far better to support Jax's plan than the suggest one of his own.

"Artifical gravity can go next, and we could vent half the internal air pressure from all rooms except the bridge. Also, I thought this ship has flappy radiators we could use?"

Naturally there was a question of what other systems could be turned off. The more things that were off, the less latent heat would be generated, the less heat generated the hotter the reactors could run. Then there was venting the ship's atmosphere. Letting out half the ship's air would spread the remaining air and its thermal energy over the newly vacated space, dropping temperatures across the ship just like expending a CO2 cartridge. Then there were the radiators... anything that could add surface area to the ship would increase the rate heat was radiated away from the ship... but Wazu had no idea Jax was already ontop of that one.

Wazu had only been in Engineering for moments, but it already seemed like Jax had asked for permission hours ago. He could practically hear his own heartbeat screaming in his ears as they waited,

"What about the mindies? How long would it take to plug them into the ship's power grid?"

 

[Rhysis]

Medbay

Marcus didn't expect an immediately accepting reaction to the topic of magic. After all, from what he knew, this universe didn't have any. Still, that didn't stop it from being immensely common on Ayenee. Marcus was content to just sit there quitely...until...

When the ship was hit, he nearly lost his balance...an impressive feat for a genetically modified martial artist. Without speaking a word, he started to follow Wazu. That plan changed pretty quickly. He knew enough about the personnel on this ship to know that Jax would be headed to engineering. While it wasn't far, Marcus wasn't prepared for entering a potentially hazardous environment. The first Marcus had been wearing a jumpsuit. He would have to go get that, first.

With the speed that his enhanced legs provided, Marcus flashed through the corridors, dodging and weaving when necessary, and made it back to Cabin 5. He quickly grabbed the jumpsuit and put it back on, then headed to engineering. He was slightly behind Wazu, but only by a few seconds. He pulled his own suit's bubble over his head and went in.

"Alright, Jax, give me a job."

 

[paladinrpg]

YSS Eucharis, Bridge

"Yosh!" Umeshu exclaimed, nearly leaping out of her seat with elation as the torpedoes fired by the Eucharis both found their mark, guided by Natsumi's firing pattern that ignited the Kuvexian vessel like a festival lantern. The insulting defeat at Higaflan was now rightfully avenged. However, in the push to deliver as much damage as possible to disable or destroy the first enemy ship, Hashimoto-taii had left her figurative back exposed... a fact that the second combatant in the heavens was quick to exploit.

The purple-skinned operator, hooked up via SPINE, gritted her teeth as she also now felt every bullet and beam that shredded into the Plumeria-class's armor like knives trying to reopen old wounds under the bandages that rested under her protective jumpsuit. The main weapon array she had fired so decisively before now was a sparking mess, but more worrisome was the lower back punch Umeshu then took as the stern hull was pierced in multiple places near engineering. Aether reactor and even backup fusion power all failed at the same time, as their enemies knew exactly where to hit to stop their escape dead in its tracks.

Wait... was Jax there when it exploded...?!

"Nngh... " grunted the Taii, as she refocused her eyes in the dim emergency lights, and thankfully heard the young engineer's voice coming over the comms. She was relieved he was alright, and trying hard to find a solution to their dire situation. With no power meant no propulsion nor protection... but she might just have an idea to help get around that. Just like an aikido throw, sometimes you can use a fall to gain an advantage over one's opponent.

"Howard-Hei, forget about the array for now. Can you... get me power to the Graviton beams instead?" requested Umeshu unexpectedly, sounding winded but not ready to admit defeat just yet. "I can use them to latch onto the wreck of the Kuvexian ship and swing around it with an gravity whip technique, preserving our momentum and using the remains of its hull to briefly shield us from the enemy fire. That should buy you some time to get the CFS and our guns back online..."

Jax then heard a small voice in his mind privately encrypted from his admirer, that seemed to send a certain tingle in his neural net. <"I know you can do it, too, Jax-san... We're going to make it out of this together. And finish what we started in the lighthouse...">

 

[Wes]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

"Evasive maneuvers!" Hanako ordered. "Make them work to hit us!"

When Jax called her, she responded, "I don't think we need cooling. We need power for the shields and weapons. I have a swarm of enemy fighters about to be on top of us."

Hanako grabbed the intercom phone. "This is the captain. Enemy fighters are incoming. All available personnel not on the bridge or on damage control, report to the armor bay and deploy in Mindy armor for defensive space combat."

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

As soon as Jax opened the blast shutter into engineering, he was sucked through under the opening door as three decks worth of air rushed out of the main zero-gravity passageway and out into space. The interior of engineering was a mess. Gravity was offline in the engineering compartment and it was full of pieces of equipment and debris, but that didn't last long, as the rush of air pushed it all out into space, including Cherry, through a jagged hole in the front of the ship where the enemy fire had struck. It was unclear if she had been alive or not, but there was no response on the radio and now she was somewhere outside. Wazu narrowly avoided being sucked out as well. The main aether generator had a large hole blown in one side and the entire wall across the from the hole had melted quite badly before the generator had automatically shut itself off. It was still glowing a molten orange. Everything in the room was burned or singed. On opposite wall, one of the secondary generators looked salvageable if the coolant systems were repaired. Also the capacitor room upstairs didn't show any signs of damage.

 

[Wes]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

The ship shudder again as a barrage of aether got close enough to hit the ship, tearing into the dorsal armor as the gunship irregularly darted around to avoid the worst of it.

"Bridge, Victory," Victory called on the intercom. "I think Chief Engineer Takeda may have been in main engineering. I can't contact either of them. That means Jax is now the ranking tech. I've connected the portable aether generators in the cargo lift damage controls station to the power grid and I am going to hook up some of the other ones. We can pull power from the anti-matter generators but it could limit your positron railguns to a slow rate of fire."

"Please do that," Hanako ordered.

The main lights in the ship interior came back online.

"Better but there's still no shields," the captain said. "Join the armor team," she told Victory. Next, Hanako dialed the power armor bay. "Armor team, report status."

"Bridge, this is Mango. We're working on it, captain!" the cook replied. "We've got myself, Lime, and Miyako in the armor bay. Also three new Nekovalkyrja that Charisma must have created when the ship was captured...I mean, used as bait," The sound of the armored bay doors noisily opening could be heard in the background.

"Fighters incoming and launching torpedoes," Charisma's voice warned.

"Deploying," Mango said.

On the main viewscreen, they could see that outside of the ship, fighters swarmed the Eucharis, which had its quad anti-fighter turrets now firing in all directions. The Nekovalkyrja in their Mindy armor suits began to take on the fighters with their aether sabers beams.

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

Becker hurriedly but carefully floated over to Jax, his helmet light shining in Jax's face. "Jôtô Hei! I was worried you were going on an unscheduled spacewalk. Are you alright? It looked like you hit the door kind of hard." Becker glanced over to Marcus. "Good call on the spacesuit, Mr. Rodia."

 

[Blizzard]

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

What... the hell... just... happened...?

Everything had been going smoothly. There was a plan, there was hope. The fear of death was a good reason to try and win this fight, but he'd felt an even greater surge of willpower when Umeshu had invoked "The Great Motivator"- a driving force for almost every man since the dawn of time.

Then... it... happened.

He had been briefly aware of tumbling, an impact, then weightlessness.

His ears were still ringing from smacking against both the door and the floor as he was sucked through. Everything was blurred mush, and only one thought repeated in his mind as he took in slow breaths.

Cherry...

Gone...

Sucked into the cruel vacuum of space because of him. He'd left her here. Again. He should have volunteered to stay and allowed her to leave. He should be a lifeless corpse among the dark sea right now instead of her; his flame extinguished for no reason other than a cosmic roll of the dice.

He sensed a presence. Then, was nearly blinded by a light. He stared at the light like an infant, completely unaware of the danger that surrounded them, and where they were.

"Becker..." he whispered, remembering a name to match the muffled voice that pleaded to him. Slowly, he raised his hands in front of his face and curled his fingers in Becker's light. The blur faded, and the ringing subsided. Adrenaline resumed its flow, and he reached onto his hips to thrust himself back to the zero-g.

"I'm alright..." he muttered groggily. He looked back at the slagged components and gaping hole. A fighter whizzed past with a Mindy on its tail. His fists clenched as a surging rage welled up within him.

"Let's waste these fuckers and go home!" he snarled. He received a status update from his FAR, and felt sick to his stomach when he was informed that he was now in charge. The nekojin hailed Umeshu on the comms once more.

"Um- Taii," he corrected, still a bit loopy from the blows. "You should have enough power to slingshot us around the Kuvi wreck."

"We're still alive, Shosho," Jax continued, "We'll get our shields back up."

Finally, Jax turned to face the room's other occupants with a cold determination that was uncharacteristic of him.

"Gentlemen! I don't know about you, but I personally want to get out of this alive!"

"Becker, you're with me! We're gonna get shields and FTL back up! Jimmy- Marcus- I want you two to start putting on band-aids!"

Jax pointed to the Damage Control Station on the wall behind them. It was a sliding panel in the wall with a big sign above it that said "Damage Control Station". Kind of tricky, right?

"I'll send you the locations of those things. Get inside and grab yourselves a few rolls of tape and all of the hull patches you can carry. If you find a hole, follow the instructions on the patch, and then tape around the edges. If you see a fire, put it out. If the mini generators are still inside, hook them up and route power to the anti-fighter guns and other, lesser systems. If we still have Mindys aboard, do the same with them. Let's try and divert as much juice as we can to the big guns and shields. AND FOR GOD'S SAKE WATCH THE BLAST DOORS!"

Jax floated to the station and pulled out one of the two generators, then hooked it up to the main engineering console. The machine booted, and Jax began to cut off the coolant flow from the ruined backup generator. He returned to the damage control station and retrieved a tape dispenser and some sealant.

"Becker, get me a section of tubing big enough to fit on this!" Jax called back while pointing at the section of pipe that needed to be repaired. For good measure, he used the goo-gun attached to his suit to secure himself to a bulkhead while he worked.

 

[paladinrpg]

YSS Eucharis, Bridge

Umeshu responded with a polite "Arigato" to Jax-san, and prepared to throw herself back into the fight as power began to flow back into the ship's crippled systems bit by bit. With the backup generators and the anti-matter still functioning, there was at least enough to power the sub-light engines and keep up a steady stream of the anti-fighter turret fire.

The Taii acknowledged the Shosho's command for evasive maneuvers by successfully engaging the graviton beam projector on the stern and locking onto the still flaming Kuvexian wreck with its golden-hued emissions. Using it like a pivot point, the Eucharis was whipped around it like one would swing around a pole, accelerated by the maneuver right through the diverse array of weapons fire trying to hit it and to the other side. The remaining gunship's aether weapons would be useless for a precious moment as Hanako's flagship was now effectively hidden behind the hull of the defeated Kuvexian ship that now laid between it and the opponent, denying them a clear shot.

Though this protected them from the patrol ship's barrage, it did little to stop the fighters that had begun to swarm, however. Small beads of sweat formed on her purple forehead, as the ex-samurai martial artist gave it all she had... doing her best to weave, yaw, and roll the Eucharis to make it a harder target. But they were naturally much faster. The best she could do was to then try to organize the automated quad turret fire into discernible patterns, leading the Kuvexian starfighters and/or trying to force them into tighter zones for the Mindy's that were now deploying to pick them off before they could launch the torpedoes that could quickly end the bloody, tight quarters brawl the crew had found themselves in. Umeshu even gave the Active Jamming system another go of it, as rapid EM and scalar pulse emissions aimed to hopefully disrupt the enemy fighter's and/or their torpedo payloads' sensors.

In the back of her mind the Neko couldn't help but keep imagining Jax-san heroically fighting his own way through the mangled mess of the Eucharis' damaged power systems with only a wrench in hand and a singed cat ear atop his head. It was a cute, idealized picture that made her hope they wouldn't be making any more work for the poor engineer this day...

 

[Rhysis]

Engineering

Marcus nodded to Becker. "Ayenee does a good job of training your instincts."

He watched as Jax recovered. He was no medic. There wasn't much he would be able to do in order to offer assistance. But, he seemed to be alright, as he soon started issuing orders like he'd been doing it his entire life. ~"Good job, Jax. Way to step up."~ He thought to himself.

Then, his own instructions came. He moved over to the damage control station, and immediately started grabbing patch kits to work on the hole in the wall. It wasn't all that complicated, anyway. The included instructions were Army proof. They could have walked a child through it. The patch was soon in place, and secured.

Marcus quickly followed up on the rest of his instructions. Grabbing the fire extinguisher and the plasma cutter, along with the remaining patches, he headed for the cargo bay, stopping at every location along the way that a fire existed or a patch was needed. He'd learned...no that wasn't right...he'd been given basic information on the layout of the ship. He knew backup generators could be hooked up in the cargo bay. He also knew there were two damage repair kits, each containing two generators in the same room.

It took a couple minutes. He wasn't an engineer, any more than he was a medic. But, he'd had some basic experience, and he'd watched Jax do it. Eventually, all four backup generators were hooked up, and pumping their combined power into the Eucharis.

 

[Zack]

Hallway

The environmental suit Wazu had on puffed up as the pressure dropped... cushioning him a bit as the vacuum sucked him towards Engineering. The engineer flopping down onto the hallway floor and rolling a bit before coming to a stop.

There was a sharp pain in his shoulder and chest again, but it was best not to think about such things.

"..., ... .... ... ....... .. .... ... ... ... ......... .....?"

Wazu then waved his hand around a bit. There was no air around him except what was contained in his pressure suit. so no one could hear him speaking, or asking what they were going to do about the person who got sucked out of the ship. He couldn't quite hear what was going on either without having switched to the correct type of space-suit.

He would watch Marcus run off, extinguisher in hand.

He would then see Jax pointing at a broken section of pipe.

Wazu would push his back against the nearest wall, getting himself upright again before stumbling towards the damage control station, grabbing some tubing, hull patches, and a CASTER tape roll, bringing all of this over to Jax's spot inside Engineering. He'd set the patches down besides Jax, and then start preparing appropriately sized strips of tape to hand the ship's engineer once he was ready.

 

[Rizzo]

Graxlat Scrapyard, NMX Carrier

Candon recalled his drones as Tsuguka took over control of the decoys and connected his SMG to the power cable in his gauntlet. He would need all the firepower he could get for the fight inside. With his CFS shielding him he sped toward the enemies with his SMG spitting heavy shots. Plasma blazed and bullets whipped around him as he danced evasively until a holographic missile streaked into his armor from the sky.

It was a convincing light show but Candon wanted it to be convincing. With his computer locked on to the exact coordinates that would put him in the reactor control room all that was left for him to do was make a scene. Plumes of holographic smoke trail behind him has he cut power to his gravity Drive and let his inertia carry him downward arc. His teleportation device had been charging before he had begun his fake attack run. A moment before he hit the ground it engaged, creating a real explosion in leaving a crater. But he was gone.

As the atmospheric flare caused a miniature sunset to streak through the battered substructures for just a split second, Tsuguka used the distraction to press forwards, and stick her bayonet through the skull of a rat-thing. More a task of pure inertia than strength. Knowing Candon's condition would have to wait for a pace. The enemy evidently cared little for a unified defensive strategy, which meant she was already surrounded on all sides.

The very moment the soldier hit the ground after the strike, a hail of bullets clattered against her left-hand shield projector. Didn't have to be accurate, or an ambush. Every leap brought her into a whole new wave of firepower, the best she could do was spit-fire a few rounds back to force them into cover, then immediately dart away again, lest the intensity grew high enough to score more than just lucky glancing blows.

Drones would be a more adequate defence against enemies that correlated and focused their targets carefully, of course, but right now it seemed like they did little but quarter the shots sprayed randomly at her.

"You're alive, aren't you, Candon?" A strained voice. They had finally lost sight of her for just a moment, giving her respite to duck down behind a massive pile of disused steel girders. "I hope they didn't replace the reactor with anything else..."

"Yeah, kinda," Candon replied as he stared down the barrels of several plasma based weapons, "Let me get back to you on that." Candon had exploded into the middle of a trap. Several Rixxicor packing dirty plasma and three Graxlat with riot shields made of something heavy.

One of the Graxlat was shouting his demands for the lone soldier to surrender but Candon wasn't keen on giving up so quickly. At the enemy's request he set his SMG on the floor and kicked it away. At the enemy's request he powered down his reactor. At the enemies request he began to open up.

The chest hissed as the seal was broken, immediately his six drones snapped into the air and with three lightning fast volleys the Rixxicor in the room dropped dead. Candon restarted his reactor but it would take a minute for him to have full power again. The three towering Graxlat charged at him from all sides. Candon dashed forward into a roll between two of them as the three monsters collided, shields clattering as they clashed together.

From his back Candon raised his forearm weapons and fired a spray of weak bolts that quickly fizzled out. Across his screen came the words he couldn't stand: POWER LOW, REACTOR SHORT CYCLE ERROR.
"Brilliant," he thought to himself as he realized his weapons were useless. With nothing but his battery running the armor slightly augmented strength was all he had.

The three Graxlat screeched with laughter.
"You Yammies so small!" the taller of the three taunted in crude Basic as the disabled soldier pulled himself to his feet, "You armor and gun no work, what you do now, little kitty?"
Candon pushed the pain from his cooked foot to the back of his mind as he put up his fists, "Looks like I'm going to have to kick your asses in a more hands-on fashion."

The confusion over the scenario cost Tsuguka precious seconds, torn between thoughts of backing Candon up, and immediately retreating as was ordered. The soldier had thought she had lost the enemy, but junkyard was filled with malicious eyes.

Distracting drones couldn’t do anything to divert the sole Graxlat aggressor swinging a piece of rebar at her from above. Rolling back to her feet allowed her to pursue thoughts of a counter-attack, but this came literally seconds before a cascade of fire rippled between the two of them. Culminating in the explosion of an ill-aimed Rixxikor rocket, the resulting shockwave sent both members of the melee flying backwards helplessly.

Tsuguka collided with a broken old crate, before pinging off into the dirt like a ragdoll…
Did they know that she would be weaker at close range? Was it planned? Or simply a result of the enemies getting denser and denser?...

Her head rang, vision full of scorching blurs. Body working on autopilot despite the pain.
Barrier didn’t react fast enough to deal with renewed aggression, and Tsuguka found herself blocking a renewed melee attack with her actual arm rather than the energy shield. The first frenzied impact smashed the emitter there, and the second cracked against her helmet with tremendous force.

A desperate stab. Her bayonet went through the left foot of the assailant, just enough to give her an opening, with a leaping knee to the face. Random gunfire was already ricocheting between them again.

Without even checking the coordinates, Tsuguka used the tiny lull to blindly teleport herself out of danger. The roof of an adjacent hanger. A glance was made towards the massive hulk of the NMX hull, but she knew there was nothing she could do to help her Heisho now…

Her head rang with concussion. Wasn’t really sure if her arm was broken or not.
One last fleeting gust of duty entering her heart. It felt like the least she could do was confirm what had happened to Mao in the crash, she owed Shosho Ketsurui that much at least.

Looking up into the bleak overcast sky as the lynx ran, a pit in her stomach formed. The Eucharis had gone back to feeling like it was on other side of the universe. And for what?... Had the they really made the right decision, throwing themselves back onto the bombfire like this?...

 

[Blizzard]

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

"Becker! Hurry it u-!" Jax called out as he he began to remove the damaged section of pipe. He felt the vibration of someone next to him on the deck.

"Oh, there you are! Th- Wazu?! What're you doing here?!" he asked in surprise when he looked over his shoulder. He received no reply, just a silent stare of confusion.

"I thought you went with the big guy! I guess he can handle hull patches on his own..." Jax shrugged. Again, no response. Like he didn't even exist...

It still didn't click, so Jax reached forward and snapped his fingers a few times in Wazu's face.

"Uh, Jimmy, you good?! Now is not the time to let battlefield stress get to-"

He stopped.

"Oh... Oh- OH!" he realized, feeling quite stupid. He wasn't wearing an AMES, and he wasn't Yamataian, so it was clear that he had no way of verbally communicating with the scientist in the vacuum. There could be some problems with that, but at least Wazu picked up a hint and brought some supplies.

"Becker," Jax called back to the other tech. "Change of plans! Man the engineering console and keep an eye on our status. Power flow, what systems work and what doesn't, you know what I mean?"

Now, he turned back to Wazu, and took the length of tubing with a gracious nod. He slipped it in place, and lo and behold, it fit like a glove! Next, he plucked the length of tape from Wazu's fingers and delicately wrapped it around one of the ends.

He starred at it for a few seconds, before realizing that this would be a very tedious, inefficient way of doing this.

The nekojin then proceeded to squirt generous amounts of sealant around the edges of the pipe. Once those dried, he covered each end with a hull patch. And once that was done, he plucked the tape dispenser from Wazu's hands and and began to wrap tape around the edges of the hull patches, and in no way was he conservative with it.

The end result of all of this was an ugly, clunky-looking patch job that wouldn't break even if he'd unleashed Tugs upon it and told her it was plotting to destroy Yamatai.

"Alright, Wazu, let's get back!" said the nekojin, and regardless if Wazu could hear him, he began to float away from the generator and back to the console. He motioned for the scientist to follow. Once he'd returned the supplies to the Damage Control Station, he gave a nod to Becker which signaled him to send coolant back into the line and activate the generator once Wazu was a safe distance from the machine.

 

[Rhysis]

Cargo Bay

Marcus watched the effects of the generators as the power flowed into the ship's systems, and his mind did a quick review of everything that had happened since he left Ayenee a few days beforehand. ~"You and your Galacom buddies owe me big time for this one, Ed."~ Marcus noted, mentally, to have a discussion with the Executive from his company's partner corporation when he went back to drop off the Marcus Rodia who was currently unconscious in the ship's Medbay.

The idea of traveling back to Ayenee made him slightly uneasy. Why? Everything he knew, even if it wasn't really his own memory, was from that universe. It should have felt like he was planning on going home. Instead, it felt like he was leaving his home. "Guess he did a pretty good job of programming out the family ties. Visiting Katarina didn't even cross my mind until just now." Marcus shook his head to clear the thoughts. He had other things that needed to be done. The hull had been patched in every spot that it was breached between engineering and the cargo bay, but there were other holes. He grabbed more patches, and another fire extinguisher, then moved out of the cargo bay and began a methodical circuit of the ship, seeking out anything that needed his attention.

 

[Zack]

Engineering

"..., . ... .., . .. .. ......" Wazu sighed, watching as Jax waved his hands around in-front of him. Luckily he did not need sound to get his intentions across. When Jax bounced away form the reactor he did the same, pushing off towards the wall on the other side of the room and stumbling across the floor a little before finally reaching the other side of Engineering, his plans to just float across dashed by the realization the artificial gravity was still on.

". .... ... ... ... .... .., ... .. ..... .. .... .. ... ... ......... ... .... .... ....." Wazu said, entirely to himself as he stood by console with the others, his hand bracing himself against the lip just in case they got thrown about again.

 

[Rizzo]

Candon's backward flight was stopped by the wall. The room was far too small for the comment he'd made. The moment his feet touched the floor his body was back in motion, charging at the mighty beast. The Graxlat lunged at him but Candon had been counting on that as he fell onto his own back and slid under the Graxlat's legs, leaving a dishonorable punch in the groin. The other two moved in fast slamming their shields into the floor to stop the sliding armor that had left their strongest doubled over in pain. Using the metal shields like a springboard Candon lifted himself up with his gravity organ and used his elbows to lift himself off the floor to plant his feet on the shields and jump back towards the first attacker. He threw his body as he leapt off the shields causing a mid flight back flip over the violated creature and delivered a powerful uppercut punch to it's face as he landed in front of him.

A spray of blood painted the ceiling as hundreds of pounds of force collided with the snout of the Graxlat toppling it over into the other two's shields.

REACTOR DIAGNOSTIC IN PROGRESS…

The three Graxlat spread out with their shields up, moving to box Candon into a corner. It was working.
The soldiers were wise to his ways and surely knew that he'd make a move before they drew too close. But Candon had no idea what to do, they were working together like a pack of wolves now and his battery wouldn't last forever. If he waited a moment longer he would be boxed in, he made his move.

Candon ran as fast as he could on a dying battery for the gap between the huge Graxlat and his comrade on the left. His body stopped mid dive, as the bloody-nosed leader swatted Candon to the floor and grabbed him. Candon struggled to break free but it was to no avail, his movements were now notably weaker as the battery neared empty. The big Graxlat moved him into a necklock and held him tight as the other two ganged up on him, landing blow after blow on his torso.

DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE, REACTOR RESTART INITIATED.

The quiet rumbling of his aether reactor was a sweet sound but was it too late? With every punch something broke inside Candon. Ribs, organs, all were fractured, broken, or damaged in some way. With renewed strength and the automatic injection of painkillers Candon began to struggle and move. The other two grabbed his legs and restrained the walking fighter jet but Jax had given Candon a way out. Smoke and screams poured from the Graxlat in charge as Candon engaged the recently installed intake heater.

Candon broke free of its grip and fired his railgun quarter charged into the big one's chest, silencing it forever. With a quick pass of his wrist mounted aether blades the other two fell dead, each decapitated. Never again would Candon shut down his reactor on the field.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Graxlat Scrapyard

The sky was on fire. Tsuguka moved like a panther through the ashen snow, darting quickly from one gutted building to the next, volumetrics projecting a skin of pure black. Every once and a while yet another fuel dump would burst into flame, adding to the chain reaction which had spiralled out of control ever since the Eucharis’ defensive guns had cut the equivalent of a few city blocks to ribbons.

Shuttle crash site shouldn’t be too far now.

Rixxikor continued to swarm everywhere in ever increasing numbers, but most of them couldn’t seem to make heads or tails of what the commotion was about, only becoming agitated because of some deep seeded collaborative aspect of their insectoid species. The red lynx sliced one clean in two, simply to get past unnoticed. Nothing but cold merciless logic in her heart, like an angry wraith. Couldn’t fire her SMG, or they would all converge upon her like a house of bricks, that was certain. Only hope of survival was to exploit the artificial nightscape her mothership had created, and make every swing of her bayonet count.

Another one. And another. It was easy when they didn’t know which direction to face.

The bugs perhaps had reason to be angry. They were unlikely to have chosen their part in this. Tsuguka wasn’t really even sure why she had followed Candon so blindly, other than the fact that she had always aspired to. Setting an entire world ablaze for rightful justice didn’t feel as romantic as it did in her daydreams. After a certain point, Tsuguka just had to accept that as a born weapon of war, it seemed this was her natural catharsis.

“…Reprehensible, really…”

There wasn’t anything left of the shuttle, just a crater. Not too surprising given its ramshackle construction. Only smouldering fragments.

Smouldering fragments, and the blazing haft of a Zesuaium Odachi embedded into the dirt.

Everything about Mao had seemed immortal. Effortlessly spiritual. Otherworldly and superior. Perhaps the samurai had kept some injury a secret from them, or spent too long making sure Hanako got out of the shuttle okay, but… Biased speculation would change nothing. Not when there was only one logical conclusion.

Tsuguka dropped to her knees, something nameless exhausting in her heart.

“…Candon, can you confirm your condition?...” A transmission, voice stern and unflowing. “…At… At the crash site… It’s…. a no go…”