RP: 5th XF [5th Expeditionary] Mission 00X-01: Master and Servant

ON: Taiie no Iori

At several miles long, the Iori proved quite a trek for the two SAINTs. A shot here, a shot there, but little else held the pair up from reaching their goal. Several decks up, the doors to the sealed floor were open. The walls of this floor weren't like the others -- pristine, glistening metal, polished so well one could see their face. The corridor from the lift shaft was empty and stretched for nearly 40 meters. At the end, the corridor bent to the right. It was quiet. However, once the pair were safely and wholly on the floor, there was a loud click. It was hard to hear where it stopped.

Despite the long search for an alternate route to the Taisho's deck, the Neko showed little in the way of exhaustion. But it was very annoying to have to go out of the way because of the lift blocking the shaft that the other party had gone up. Not that the Neko was sure they had gone that way—after all, there was that lift in the way when she and Umon got back to the spot where the Neko had left the party—but the pair would likely have caught up with the others if they had gone in the same way. Hopefully the others hadn't gotten themselves killed; they could still prove useful.

She stepped out of the lift and heard the click. Stopping momentarily, she listened for the direction, but was unsure and thus ignored it. If there was a threat, she would spot it with her low-light amplification. She looked back to make sure Umon was following and started toward the corner.

Umon continued to stay in a state of alertness, with a bit of anger building up inside. His GP-7 never left the position of alertness as he constantly scanned the areas around him and his partner. As the team exited the lift, he heard a slight click which aroused his mind into suspicion. With a quick movement, his left paw clicked on his light amplication goggles and then he flew by his partner like she was standing still. As soon as Umon rounded the corner, he began to check the ceiling for movement, but seeing none, he flattened his left paw above the ground and ducked down. He did not like this one bit, as he had used a somewhat similar tactic to dispose of a less-prepared opponent during training. Umon hugged the wall and began to move forward slowly, hoping that he was just over-reacting.

There was no other click. The hall once again seemed empty. Once around the bend, the two could see Katsuko's offices about 80 meters away. The door was clear to the inside. Other than drops of water on the fine marble floors, nothing seemed abnormal. Unless, of course, the corpse of Ushiba Matsu was abnormal. If they looked, they could see it beyond the glass doors, lying in a slightly bent heap with a hole in her head.
When Umon rushed ahead, the Neko followed a bit behind. By the time he had crouched, she was leaning against the wall at the corner, GP-15 pointed straight up and head sticking out just enough so that the Neko could perceive that there was no movement down the hall. Nevertheless, she quickly spun around and to the right, letting the large weapon fall to a ready position, and relaxing the gun slightly when she saw nothing but Umon moving along the wall. The situation looked normal, until the Neko saw that there was a body in the room down the corridor. It was too far away to tell what had happened, so the Neko crouched, figuring that there could be hybrids or other enemies.

On second thought, if the unfortunate crewmember had been killed by a hybrid, she wouldn't likely be in one piece if the neko pinned to the wall in the Akuro bay was any indication of normal Neko-Mishhu hybrid behavior. She began to move forward relatively quickly compared to Umon, but awkwardly because she was crouched and still holding the heavy weapon. In lieu of using telepathy and possibly divulging their position to someone who might hear, the Neko waved her left arm forward a bit to encourage Umon to move a bit faster so they could check out the situation and investigate the body in the room.

With the encouragement from his partner, Umon moved down the hall faster, as he now stood almost fully upright and kept the pace with her. His right paw was held securely on the GP-7 as he jogged down the hall, and when he saw the dead body in what looked to be an office, the fur on the back of Umon's neck stood up. As he neared the office, he slowed his pace down considerably and kept his weapon prepared incase there was an funny business about to happen. He then nudged the glass doors open quietly so he could squeeze through the door. Umon looked at the angelic corpse that laid there, a peaceful look upon the face and odd-colored eyes. Umon decided to respect the dead, and then he reached over with his free paw to close her eyelids gently, hoping that sound from earlier was nothing.

"Touching." The voice came over a loudspeaker behind the pair. It was followed by the same click from earlier. A Mindy 1d stood off to the right side of the room, opposite the statue of Chiharu and Irim. It had its aether rifle out, but it was not on. "SAINTs are supposed to be colder, I thought."

Having stepped in after Umon, the Neko surveyed the area quickly, noticing the power armor to the right when the voice began its speech. Reaching around to the pack that housed her newfound grenades and the old grenades for the launcher, she felt around for the sole EMP grenade, which was a bit hard to do considering all the material in the pack and the other two frag grenades, but she eventually was able to discern the EMP grenade by the slight difference in shape as she spoke to hopefully keep the power armor from attacking.

"Cold? Don't worry. He'd tear you apart limb from limb if he felt like it. In fact, so would I. I'd quite enjoy it. If there's a pilot in there, you could step outside and we'll demonstrate. I don't believe your rifle is on, by the way.â€

ON: Space outside Taiie no Iori

Yukari's state of mind was not one of rational, coherent thought. She saw things ... or thought she did. She felt things ... warm things, all around her. Was it one thing? She wasn't sure. The LAMIAs did not touch her Kylie, which floated in the dead of space, weapons ready but not targeting anything. She curled her fingers and brought her arms close to her. Her world was restricted to Ichiro's strong link to it. She heard a sucking sound ... didn't she? The sound of her soul being taken away? She kept floating.

With Yukari ignored, this left many opponents to the other three. Perhaps a bit too much. Ryuuza's life was saved from decompression by the timely activation of the hangar emergency atmospheric forcefield, only to be faced by two of the LAMIA armors that landed before him, both lighting their aether swords and closing in. The waste heat of the lit weapons quickly warmed the thin air left from very cold to being uncomfortably hot.

Corro wasn't in much better straights. He was the only one whom could rescue the Tharaxian engineer, and yet he was the one with already the most opponents against him. Missiles from LAMIAs crashed around him, the near misses enough to sear the paint of his armor. Above the glows of the explosion, the Mindy was silhouetted, diving forward to slash with it's aether sword, the drones about it buzzing erratically as they struck the Phalanx with several glancing blow, one particularly jarring one just over the armored hand holding the battery-powered aether rifle.

Shoi Aldich's misery was shared as Ayano's Mindy was rocked by lances of incandescent positive energy, the armor alloy smelted to an ugly black mess over the left side of the hip and the left pauldron scorched off, the adjoining weapon rack was twisted and useless as well. Luckily, the Yarvex over the shoulder still seemed intact.

For precious moments Ayano flailed around in her Mindy, the passing kick from the other Mindy not helping her efforts at recovering her composure at all. The SPINE connection between herself and the Mindy was different enough to the SLICS that she had become familiar with during her power armour training to be vaguely distracting; at least now her damaged eyes were no longer a problem, having been replaced by the Mindy's sensor network. The engineer had the armour release its nodal support bits while she countered the wild rotations, bringing herself to a stop just in time to have a series of aether beams slam into her left side, slagging armour where they touched.

Not allowing herself a moment to recover Ayano jumped the Mindy away, bouncing through a series of sharp direction changes as she waved a scalar beam in the general direction the shots had come from, searching through her sensors for the offending LAMIAs' exact locations. Spotting one of the enemy armours she spun around, taking a moment to line up the Mindy's aether rifle before triggering a three second blast, her hand twitching to flick the beam back and forth over the area she targeted.

As the drone impacted the Super Phalanx's gauntlet, Corro reflexively released his tight grip on his aether rifle. However, he didn't lose his momentum as the sudden appearance of the Mindy through the scything fragmentations and fire of the missile barrage. Without any of the Super Phalanx's standard systems he did what he could to stave off the advancing Mindy. Throwing the shield up in front of the charging Mindy, Corro put a buffer between him and the offending armor's weapon. He then released his grip on the shield and backed off slightly as he activated the plasma projectors on the Phalanx's hands. Wait for it... He mutter in his mind as he began charging plasma on his palms.

Ryuuza took the opportunity to flee. He would have had to be a stupid beast to attack a damn power armor with a wrench and a NSP at his disposal. He exited the hanger and shut the door behind him as he ran down the hallway as fast as his relatively strong and athletic legs could take him. He slid a bit as he made his way to a cramped emergency stairwell. He tripped and rolled once down it as he recovered by landing on his butt and standing up and jumping down the stairs, accurately skipping 3 or 4 steps per step he took. He began making his way to the hangar that was located a few decks down from the one he was on. He was panting but not ready to take a break until got there. He was currently two decks down and was beginning to gasp a bit for air but it didn't stop him.

"Yuka-san," a voice said inside Yukari. "Yuka-san, it is your friend ... I need help. They are here to take me away, Yuka-san ... I need my valkyrie."

The Yamataian woman turned her head toward the Iori. Without so much as a "good-bye," she began to leave the battle. "I am coming ... master ... " she said over the comm in Japanese.

With Ryuuza gone, the two LAMIAs that had been threatening him changed their focus to Corro. Bright flashes erupted in the hangar, making the shadows cast dance about each other in sharp contrast as they attacked with sharp white tongues of aether snaked around him along with the Mindy's drones as he tried to evade, his priorities changed as his main opponent, the Mindy, had simply activated it's stealth functions and vanished from sight.

Shards of blackened armor flaked off the Phalanx. He couldn't take much more of this.

In the meantime, Ayano met a little more success. Her drones swarmed about her, laying a withering pattern of fire that wiped out the next missile salvo her enemies sent at her. As space around them was wreathed with explosions, her own counter-attack hit home, slagging a part of the targetting LAMIA's shield, roasting over the chestplate armor and then coring in. A plume of white flame erupted in it's back before it's aether generator failed, the ensuing breach consuming much of what was left of the LAMIA.

The second LAMIA made a plummeting dive toward her, breaching through the defensive perimeters of her drones and came in - too fast! - with it's aether sword lit.

It came for an overhead slice, the sword streaking down and then... the LAMIA fell apart, shredded from behind by three ardent aether bolts. It exploded, shrapnel bouncing harmlessly off Ayano's Zesuaium armor to reveal another LAMIA hover right by her - probably the one that had stealthed in the beginning.

A small communication holowindow opened up in the right corner of Ayano's HUD, showing a small green haired, red-eyed neko yelling a rather immodest "Tamaya!"

Ayano grinned as the LAMIA she had targeted vaporising amidst flames of purest white, pleasurable warmth spreading through her body as the Mindy rewarded her for the kill. There was no time to dwell on it though as the other LAMIA drove towards her, aether sword arcing down at the Mindy. Hissing to herself as she realised it would be onto her before she could do much to defend herself the engineer tried to contort her vitals out of the blades path, switching her own rifle over to its sword mode to attempt to deflect the LAMIAs aether sword.

And then it was suddenly exploding, fragments crashing into her own armour as the blast cleared to reveal a third LAMIA. Ayano stared at the holowindow that popped up inside her helmet for a second before managing a short, confused laugh, aether rifle lined up with the LAMIA as she hoped that the Neko's joy at the other power armour's destruction didn't turn into a desire to see the Mindy follow the same fate. A quick check of her sensors revealed Corro under attack inside the hangar bay they had left, and Yukari's Kylie safe and unmolested elsewhere.

"Umm ... wanna go kill those other LAMIA over there with me?â€

SET: YSS Munin

"The Iori's launching its weapon pods!" the tactics officer shouted. "LAMIA 2bs are incoming! Armor wings, prepare for assault!"

"Gosei, Kenryoku prepare torpedoes!" Kazuhiko-Taisa yelled in rapid-fire speech she hadn't used since the betrayal. "Ick-Fay, target the Iori!"

The gunner officer confirmed the target as more shouts could be heard. "Deus, how much can we disable?"

"About one third, I imagine. The Iori will recover quickly."

"Our LAMIAs?"

"No, Taisa."

Kazuhiko bit her lip for just a second, then let go. "Ick-Fay, ready! ... " The wave of LAMIA 1Cs was overwhelming; they were all leaving the Iori to fend for itself while they raced toward the fleet. Taisho, please understand.

" ... Fire."

SET: Taiie no Iori

The Munin's attack did the trick.

Power to the portion of the Iori where Yukari was suddenly died, as the aether generator connected to it went down from the blast. What was once emergency power was now just darkness. Lights flickered in other parts of the Iori.

Yukari, however, didn't notice. She could only hear the voice of her master, calling her home.

SET: YSS Munin

"Taisa! The Ketsuekis are moving in to help the armors!"

"Tell them to hurry, I'd hate to have a personal message go to waste." Kazuhiko-Taisa sat back down in her command pod. She paused for a moment, happy the Ick-Fay worked well enough ... but sad at what she was about to order.

"All ships, proceed with maneuvers."

In an instant, the black of space lit up brilliantly with the light of battle.

ON: Taiie IV system

The lights flickered inside the hangar. They finally weakened, leaving the bay lit by the dim of the starfield. That lasted for only a moment, however, as streaks of white hummed through the scene outside, with pink-white flashes reporting back. Volleys could be seen coming from the Iori's weapon pods. They were quickly followed by aether beams from the Iori and the LAMIAs swarming away from it. A Ketsueki corvette slashed across the stars, pods firing through a cloud of drones. It was vaporized a moment later by the blast of a large aether beam.

More beams criss-crossed. Explosions. An Arashi escort, the Hayabusa, hurled anti-matter rounds toward the Iori, but the vessel was too close. Its anti-matter turrents suddenly shut down and the ship began to explode on its own. As it ran away belching flame, a Nozomi was barrelling down right at them, superweapon glowing in front of it. LAMIAs rushed around it and carved it to pieces, but not before it took out a few LAMIAs and several drones. The Iori shook, briefly, from the impact of something. The klaxons remained silent.

As the aether rifle slide into his grasp Corro blinked once at the LAMIA in front of him. He was somewhat bewildered by it. His gaping mouth then flattened into a concentrated frown as he nodded at his savior. He took hold of the rifle's grip with his left hand. Corro then rolled from his stomach to his back in a jerky motion. On his back he hefted the rifle's barrel onto his left knee as a prop. The now dead lights suddenly plunged the Nepleslian into almost absolute blackness. The flashes outside the hanger now were the only source of light to him. Crud... Corro muttered in his mind as he tried to bring the weapon to bear on the Mindy in the bay, but with no such luck.

Ayano winced away from the aether beam that slammed past her head, glad for the protection that the Mindy's Zesuaium armour provided. Springing sideways she kept up her automatic fire for another second before ceasing; the instant her aether rifle stopped firing she activated the Mindy's active camouflage and tweaked its CFS for stealth. Kicking off from the floor the engineer sent her Mindy soaring up to just below the ceiling, switching her Aether rifle back to beam mode and sighting in on the enemy Mindy, waiting precious, nerve-racking moments to find an opening to exploit in which she would fire.

Ryuuza turned his ship around and found a target. He aimed before sending fire upon the target. The Fox sent out a few pulses of aether beams at the LAMIA each lasting five seconds and now waiting for the three-second wait period before firing again. Ryuuza was making sure to keep a distance so as to be able to avoid the LAMIA's weapon fire. He wasn't sure how well he was doing obviously because he wasn't too experienced with fighting with a Fox but he did know how to fight.

Ayano was gone, the Phalanx was starting to recover enough to bring its weapon to bear and a LAMIA that should have been an ally suddenly proved to be the contrary. The cold, crazed mind of the NH-17R inside the attacking Mindy did not let the fact that she was alone against three faze her -- she proceeded to systematically take them down.

Her drones came back to life and blurred forward savaging Corro's Phalanx with yet more directed fire - several of them hitting the beam rifle he was struggling to aim. The back of the weapon crumpled under the assault, the battery pack undone.

The Mindy soon followed, flying sideways as it fired another gout of white fire, this time with the purpose of finishing off the Nepleslian pilot. Luckily, the LAMIA straddled him, shielding him from the beams with her own Zesuaium shield.

"Ita!" the miniature Neko winced as her mecha crackled from the assault, made to discard the warped shield before leveling her own weapon. "Eat that!" Aether pulses of her own rifle which forced the Mindy to break its attack in favor of obfuscating itself once again to avoid subsequent attacks.

As his LAMIA ally leapt to his aid, Corro added to its own firepower by firing his own aether rifle from underneath the LAMIA's legs. Guided by the flashes of light, he aimed as best he could but eventually fell in favor of rate of fire over accuracy. Each shot he made bucked the rifle from his knee, though the power of the shots quickly diminished. Unable to move and shoot would be a problem Corro realized, but being defenseless was far from what he desired. A cornered dog bares its fangs. He mused to himself as he continued to fire after the silhouette of the enemy Mindy.

Waiting in hiding in a situation like the one Ayano was in is a double-edged sword; when it worked it worked well, but wait too long and it could turn out bad. As the Mindy broke off it's attack and faded Ayano sent an aether beam stabbing out after it, scooting across the ceiling to get closer to the pair of friendly armours while she launched a pair of SDMMs at the Mindy's estimated position. Sliding to a stop up against the wall Corro was against Ayano deactivated her stealth, hoping to have the enemy Mindy at least divide its attention.

Ryuuza continued releasing his wrath in the form of aether beams toward the drones. Ryuuza then began making his way toward the hangar. He stopped sort of the entrance and spoke through a loudspeaker on the shuttle. "Hey Corro, need some help?â€

ON: Taiie no Iori

The fighting had stopped as quickly at it began.

The 5th had lost six ships: The YSS Port Xenn, Saya, Motoyama, Kaname, Sumire, and Yô. Twenty-six were moderately damaged. The Iori was ravaged, its combined field system run down by too much fire and its LAMIA wings decimated. The 5th had lost nearly 800 Mindy, Kylie and Hoplite pilots. The battle hadn't lasted more than eight minutes. With its defenses down, Ichiro had somehow negotiated a standstill to the fighting. The catch -- if the 5th did not leave, and soon, the Akuro would self-destruct in an aether explosion so powerful it could annihlate Taiie IV. Kazuhiko-Taisa relented.

"C'mon,â€

ON: Taiie no Iori, approximately 800 lateral meters from KAMI room

The hallway seemed quiet, too quiet. Corro followed after Ayano and the NH-12. The emergency lighted corridors didn't give off much heat, making the shirtless Nepleslian shudder. Blast it. Don't feel right following this path. He released his hand from the NSP's grip in is waist. Flexing his fingers he turned around to look back in the direction they had come. The lights seemed to be dimming out behind them. Corro shook his head and turned back to the trio. His jaw clenched tight he kept silent.

Though Ayano's initial follow up of Ichiro's indications seemed rash, the NH-12 in the M1 Lamia quickly took point with something more like a soldierly approach, rapidly floating up to corners, using one of her shoulder nodes to look over to the next corridor before she turned, weapon at the ready, rechecked her assesment that the corridor was clear and then beckoned the others as she began crossing that particular stretch.

"Mmmm...â€

SET: Taiie no Iori, en route to the Akuro

Ichiro calmly stepped into the lift near the KAMI room. It took him up just one deck. He stepped off and into the hallway, Yukari still in his arms.

He smiled at the stunned Yamataian, amazed she could still look so visually arresting covered in blood, sweat and grime. She had truly been through hell and back. Her nakedness made her seem so fragile, so weak ... but she was the Valkyrie. She would be the one to do the impossible.

The auxiliary engines of the Akuro caused the station to shake some as they started up. Ichiro grinned at the vibrations; the thought of his escape from the doomed star fortress send giddy shivers up his generated body. Most of him had been transferred to the KAMI system of the flagship; the drones would soon go into berserker mode to free up his "mind" for the task at hand. Nepleslia's system defenses were not those of Yamatai, after all, and the Chiharu-class was superior to anything the Nepleslians had except the Destiny, which he could fly circles around. Ichiro knew he would succeed.

The plan was striking in its simplicity. Arrive on the outskirts of Nepleslia's defense systems. Arm the Legacy Cannon and vaporize its moon. Send encoded transmissions back to the Emperor about the details of the shot, then threaten the planet directly. Uesu would be hard pressed to explain away a flagship attacking an enemy. Of course, Nepleslia would be able to see from the engraved fortress on the armor of the Akuro what ship it was, and they might even threaten retaliation. Uesu would step down to save the face of Yamatai ... and Ichiro would step in, Valkyrie and Princess at his side. He would have to use much of his processing power to convince an entire population he was the rightful ruler ... but it could be done.

Then, the impossible. His Valkyrie would have to act fast, but she could do it, with help.

The very soul of Yamatai.

Yui. Yukari will kill Yui.

Ichiro would take care of the PANTHEON side. Yukari would storm the palace and kill Yui. Then find any clones and kill them too.

He would eradicate the Nekovalkyrja race the same way he destroyed Nekos on the Iori, with a bit more power at his fingertips. With the Geshrin and Yamataians in their rightful places as rules of the Star Empire, peace would return.

And life would be better.

The dirty work that would come before was necessary. It had to be done, after all, as the Nekos would not lay their lives down for their masters. But that was acceptable.

Ichiro looked down at Yukari's naked body again and smiled. He let his feet leave the ground to avoid the shaking, and he flew to where the Akuro lay waiting for him. Its auxiliary engines continued to flare to life, shaking the Iori fiercely. He crossed the long docking tube to the ship and quickly made his way to the tall superstructure. He entered the bridge room and flew up to the fleet command bridge, putting Yukari down at the Fleet Tactics station.

He looked her over once more, then generated some sprites to hold up her up. A weapon without armor was no weapon at all. He synthesized the proper undergarments, red hakuma and a white top for her. The head was easy -- an old half-helm style with three feathers on each side. He trimmed the bottom off the back of it, to let her hair flow. He left the grime and blood, to detail her as a warrior.

Ichiro smiled at his creation, then waited for everyone to arrive.

ON: Taiie no Iori, one deck above the KAMI room

The Mindy sighed as Ichiro flew away. She said nothing, the other two following her being her only concern.

Dammit, I want my weapons. The Neko was probably not capable of taking on something like the Mindy that was accompanying them with her weapons, but she wanted them for security, and to kill that joker Ichiro. As she followed the Mindy, her thoughts were mostly on Ichiro: his plan, the implication of Yukari and the others, the role of the SAINTs in Ichiro's plan, and how the pair would manage to turn and cap the son of a bitch. But she had noticed that Umon was very nonchalant in talking to Ichiro; maybe he was just trying to exude confidence, but the Neko wanted to know if he had something in mind. Pressing her fingers behind her left ear, she thought through the Codec, "What's up? You have a plan or something?â€

SET: Katsuko's offices

The door flew open with a pop and hiss.

The private office was open. Ushiba Matsu's body still littered the floor, blood emptied onto the floor. Glass was everywhere. Walls were scarred and sliced through. Small craters were imprinted into the very atmosphere from the gunfire. The beautiful office was destroyed.

And the ground shook.

Taisho Motoyoshi Katsuko stepped out into what was left and frowned. A call to her KAMI went unheeded. However, she recognized the vibrations.

She didn't need a computer to know what was happening. She could feel it. It was what made her a Taisho. The Akuro. My ship.

Someone is stealing my ship!

Katsuko deftly stepped over the body of the security guard she'd never met and left the ground. She weaved through the bloated bodies, the wounded NH-17, the discarded LAMIA, the occasional crevice left from an aether beam. It didn't take her very long to reach the small platform where she noticed a Neko, Mindy and furry white beast get onto her ship. Her blue hair bristled, but she waited until they were farther along before slowly floating down the transparent tube.

As the other group broke off toward the bridge, the Taisho figured it was better to find a weapon first. Even better, a Kylie. She knew it was a dim hope, but Yukari had ordered several from the depot, last she knew. At least, she was supposed to. And where the hell is she?

Katsuko didn't care. She quietly headed for the nearest hangar bay.

...

SET: Katsuko's bed

Shimizu Akina lay spread eagle. Her throat was ripped out, blood tossed uncerimoniously across the sheets and blankets thrown on the bed. Katsuko's survival knife was thrust through her screaming mouth, pinning her to the pillow.

Her hemosynthesis had not turned on. No scab could form, so most of her blood pumped senselessly onto the sheets and soaked through the mattresses. She had bled for hours.

For that entire time, sensors inside of the bedroom -- installed by Katsuko -- had registered the dying Neko for medical help. No response came. As a back-up system, a soul-transfer machine inside the office began creating a body for the Taisa. However, when it requested recent ST data, it found nothing. In fact, it found no data at all on any crewmembers of the Iori. Logs left behind suggested all ST backups for the Iori were eliminated.

The moment Katsuko stepped on the Akuro, Shimizu Akina died. Independent cameras dutifully recorded her last, bloody breath.

SET: Flight Control Bridge, YSS Akuro

The Taisho groaned as she pulled herself into the open blast door of the Flight Control Bridge from the Port Hangar Bay. A sudden wish she had not chosen to take on the NH-22C Yamataian body as she slumped into the chair before the dark, half assembled control panel. Her hands searched for the small hatch inset into the underside of the panel, forcing it open with her fingers to get at the NSP inside.

Stealing my damn ship, busting up my base. I'll have you--whoever you are.

Katsuko returned to the hanger bay, hearing the voices of Corro and the group traveling with him as they arrived-she ducked into one of the armor storage alcoves, she pressed back listening as they spoke. Feeling the hardness of metal against her back she halted, then her eyes drifted back head turning.

Good Job Yukari.

She smiled slightly,eyeing the Kylie, not of joy but out of the sheer emotional difference this was from the helplessness she felt hours before on the Iori. She kept motionless her eyes locked on the shadows in the direction of the voices.

SET: Fleet Command Deck, YSS Akuro

" ... " The Geshrin tapped on Yukari's protected temple. Her eyes lazily lolled about in their sockets before rapid blinking seemed to bring her out of it.

"Wake up, Valkyrie," the Geshrin said to her mind, a toothless grin on his face.

"Euuum?" Yukari rubbed dried blood from her eyelid and looked up at the Geshrin. "Nani?"

"You took a long time," he said. "I was afraid you would not wake up."

The Yamataian had been slumped into a chair -- on a bridge? This is a Chiharu -- the Akuro? "Where am I?" Her mouth was incredibly dry, but her head was throbbing like nothing she'd ever experienced. Her brain wasn't functioning properly either as she could feel her secondary memory not quite in reach. It was easier to talk. She couldn't remember where she'd been before her and everyone reached Katsuko's offices. Japanese was easier than English.

"We are on the vessel which will overthrow Yamatai," the Geshrin proclaimed boldly. "We are going to destroy Nepleslia."

Thinking hurt a little too. She didn't know why she was wearing a samurai outfit, or a strange helmet, which she took off. She could feel how dirty she was, but Yukari focused on the now. "Was this the point all along, Ichiro?" It was a guess.

"Of course," he said nonchalantly. "We must remove Uesu."

The first words to Yukari's mind were not the ones she expected. "You are a computer, Ichiro." Talking really ... sucked? "One that Uesu can control. You will not win."

"The people will speak," he said, making her brain throb harder. "And you will kill him, as he cannot control you." He looked at her and frowned, tight-lipped. "Where do these thoughts come from, Valkyrie?"

"My mind, Ichiro." It could have been random sounds for all Yukari knew. Her head really hurt. "And I am not 'Valkyrie,' though it is kind of you to say so. I have a name."

"Your name is no more. Or it should not be." Ichiro pulled out the tachi from his sash and pointed it directly at Yukari's nose. "Do you serve me?"

"I serve the 5th Expeditionary Fleet," Yukari said with a wince. "And this is very foolish. Nepleslia still has the Destiny, which could defeat this battleship easily. We lack proper resources."

Ichiro poked the tip of the sword into her cheek, drawing a small rivulet of blood. Yukari didn't wince this time. "My programming was flawless. You are the Valkyrie."

"Your programming was eliminated by the stun bolt," Yukari said loudly, pulling her face away from the sword. She let the cut bleed. Her memory was coming together again, from the timeliest event backward. "It relied on my primary memory most of all, and that was shut down with the stun bolt."

"An unpredicted turn of events," Ichiro said calmly. "You will still help, or I will kill your crewmembers."

"You cannot complete that threat, Ichiro." Yukari wearily stood up from the chair. Her stomach roared; she sat back down, suddenly feeling much weaker. "Freya did not leave here of her own will ... and left you obstacles." She managed a weak grin. "If she had not, we would not be helping you."

The Geshrin smiled wide. "I have you hear for a reason, yes. I suppose we shall have to wait for all the important players to arrive, before I test their faith in this cause."

TO BE FINISHED IN MISSION 00X-03 -- Starting at 18:30 PDT 20 May 2006