RP: 188604 [AdVenture Capital] 11 : B7R-604

'5' :: System B7R-604 - Inbound -

Errowyn 'saw' more ships as soon as her Kawarime began detecting the increase of activity of the Rixxikor. Then began to 'hear' the chatter of the communications between the ship. Specially several non-Rixxikor ships that announced itself over open bandwidth communication. That was distraction cue for her.

She went hot as she made the first of the micro-flt jumps into system and exiting FTL with the usual dispersal flash of energy of exiting FTL. She began to broadcast on a disused SAoY broadband radio with an old obsolete code that even vegetable of a person could break while dead asleep. The size and number of Rixxikor ships that were being detected as soon scanned and logged. Making herself look like the advance scout for a SAoY Fleet looking for some serious action.

She programmed several anti-ship missiles on a preprogrammed flight so that they would hit the Rixxikor ships, making it look like they fired upon each other. She fired them from a distance so that they could maneuver and be in position when she approached, yet still out of effective missile range, except for the long range ones which she would have to avoid or destroy as the case may be.

Then to her self, ~~ There ya go buddy-boy.... your door is open... ~~

Rixxikor Colony Ship

"MANG GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!"

The Rixxikor response to Ace was loud and to the point.

"Can't you see we busy? We gottall this colonizing to do and we don have time to deal with you..*BLEEEEEEP!!!*"

A loud, peircing, siren cut off the Rixxikor that was speaking to Spacecase, the video still rolling as he turned around and started yelling at the bridge crew behind him. Nearly half a dozen Rixx were shouting down one another as they argued over the new sensor data and just what it meant.

Additional sensors would turn on from the Rixxikor ship, starting to scan the surrounding area, beams sweaping around... settling on Errowyn's fighter for a moment... then on the missiles she launched... then on Spacecase's craft... the Rixxikor ship even briefly lingering over the Dove.

"YOU PEOPLE-FUCKERS ARE SHOOTING AT US!? I KNOW MISSILES! THOSE ARE MISSILES!" The Rixxikor yelled, "WE GONNA KILL YEW! AND YOU CAT FRIENDS! AND... AND THEN KILL YEW AGAIN!" The Rixx would turn away from the camera, "FIRE THE BIG LA..." He then reached back towards the console and turned off the video feed.

The Rixxikor colony ship would turn away from the planet, breaking orbit and heading towards Spacecase's ship. The occational small missile would break off from the bulky brown and grey hulk... the hull looking like a cross between an asteroid and a junk-yard... the engine cluster in the back starting to glow white hot, as the front of the ship began cackling with energy.

In moments, a beam bright enough to briefly blot out the stars shot forth from the Rixxikor ship... missing the Eternal Pilgrim by a few hundred thousand miles. At this range it would be hard for anyone to make a shot even with high end equipment... but that didn't seem to stop the Rixx!

Mega-Annum Dove- Cockpit

It seemed like a whole eternity had passed before Flynn released his pent up breath. His heart was hammering out of his chest, with both fear, and excitement at seeing the last Rixx ship break orbit. He'd had closer shaves in his lifetime, but danger was still danger. Slowly, he reached forward and flipped on the ship's comms, once he was sure that the last ship was properly distracted.

"Ooh! Kitty's got claws..." he chuckled to Errowyn. Watching a swarm of missiles launch from a fighter was quite an amazing sight. "Thanks for the help. You too, Eternal Pilgrim. When you've handled these morons, meet us at these coordinates."

Flynn reached to the other side of his console and sent both Errowyn and Spacecase the landing zone Uso had selected prior to the mission.

"See you guys planetside. We're rolling." he announced and began to slowly bring the Dove to life. The lights flickered on, and the engines roared to life.

"Ms. Tasuki, we're entering the atmosphere. Now'd be a good time to get your team prepped. We should move fast before the bugs catch on." Flynn called back to his passengers sitting in the hall. He increased the throttle, coming towards the planet at a smooth 45 degree angle. The ship began to vibrate as the friction of reentry enveloped the Dove in a shell of burning orange. in another minute, the vibrations subsided, and Flynn held the ship in a steady course at around 20,000 feet, above a layer of dense clouds, and a good clip of mach 2. Best to keep high and fast just in case there were ground forces looking up.

Planet - B7R-604 (Cavallon)

As the Mega Annum Dove came in towards the planet's surface... it would find that the planet was mostly devoid of life. Occationally the ship would pass over dead patches, small towers that had been abandoned, surrounded by what looked like forest that was in the process of turning to dust.

There was also water... sparkling blue.

Then, over the horizon, their destination started to appear. Just as the brown desert gave way to blue water... the blue water gave way to a white sand beach, a lush green forest, well manicured road ways and what looked like landscaped terrain for miles in all directions. It looked like it would be a perfect city... if there were any signs of people. So far there seemed to be no radio traffic and only sparse signs of Rixxikor ships seemed to be around.

These well manicured roads and serine coastal towns all seemed to converge on a massive set of silver towers in the distance... but their landing point was far from there... inside of what looked like a canyon with a little bit of tree cover.

Once the Dove came in close and got ready to land, a human in what looked like riot gear would pop up from his hiding place, a flare in his hand... waving the Dove further into the canyon... where another person popped up with another flare... a trail of red lights leading them in under the forest canopy... and towards a hanger that was carved into the side of the Canyon.

The Eternal Pilgrim, Bridge

Spacecase would maneuver his ship so that it was facing towards the oncoming Rixx ship. "Errowyn was it? I'll have to talk to her after this is over." Releasing his Junker drones and powering up his weapons. "Is it OK if I kill these guys? If not I'll just disable their ship." Spacecase then powered up the ships shield and had his Junkers disperse in all directions and converge on the Rixx ship.

Cavallon

With an expert hand, Flynn navigated the Dove through the tight squeeze of the canyon, keeping his speed just low enough to make emergency maneuvers if need be. Chuck whined and pawed at his master's sleeve, and Flynn scratched him behind one of his ears.

"Yeah, I know, that was too easy." he muttered to the dog. For comfort, he reached into his leather flight jacket and gripped his Type 38. It was loaded with six light capsules, each with eight shots. On the bandolier itself, in the cartridge slots, were ten standard rounds, each one powerful enough to tear through a Mindy power armor, and each with two shots. To ease his mind, he reached for a box of shells and stuffed his interior pockets. One was full of more light shot, the other full of standard.

Rule Number One of Smuggling: Get the cargo where it needs to go. No matter what.

Rule Number Two of Smuggling: Don't get caught.

Rule Number Three of Smuggling: If you do get caught...

...Handle it.

Now satisfied with his ability to handle it, Flynn drastically slowed the craft as it approached the mouth of the cave. This hangar was more or less exactly what he'd expected for a smuggling run. It was probably owned by an intelligence agency, or some shady individual who would have reason to hire smugglers. Flynn allowed himself to be guided by the ground crew towards a corner of the hangar where a landing circle was painted into the concrete floor. After a flawless landing, he shut down the engines and reached up for the ship's intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking- uuuuuuuuuhhhhh- the weather in Cavallon is a nice, brisk sixty nine degrees with- uuuuuuuuhhh- partly cloudy skies. Thank you for flying Candon's Shipping Service, and we hope to see you again." he drawled into the mic in his best "starline pilot" voice, even adding in the long "uh"s for effect. Again, it was the little things...

'5' :: System B7R-604 - Engaging -

Errowyn watched as the last of the Rixxikor ship moved from orbit to go help its sister ship. She sent signal to the missiles she fired and then watched them plow into the Rixxikor Colony Ship that had fired the its big laser, just near the thrust exhaust ports and followed up by the heavy barrage of Aether Cannon fire into the same area.

She shook her head at the mishmash arrangement of the Rixxikor Colony ship. These made Free Spacers ship look top of the line ship. There would be no hull flying on one of these. She took shots of opportunity make multiple hull breeches as she blasted chunks off the Colony ship working her way to the big Laser cannon to put it out of action.

Cavallon

When the Dove had finished landing, Uso opened the forward cargo bay. Outside was a man wearing a blak uniform, complete with gold buttons, trim, and an overly elaborate shoulder-pad that indicated, at least to Uso, that he had an overlarge need to be taken seriously.

"Thank you for bringing these supplies, our manufaturing has..."

"LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT THERE!" Uso shouted, "We're here for a pickup. How do you get to the city?"

"Tunnel." The man replied, pointing over to a large tunnel that looked large enough to fit a spaceship through. "The materials that we requested."

"Yeah, talk to the shady lookin guy flying the ship!" Uso shouted back, running over to Corgan's transports, "We're on a timetable here! Corgan, get your vehicles moving down that tunnel. Alex, stay close!"


B7R-604, Space!

"We are here to keep the Rixxikor ships away from the planet while our people are down there. How we do that is up to us, but I would like to remind you that we do not have the firepower to effectively fight ships of this size class." Vier replied The white rabit was still on the other side of the system, flying away from the much slower Rixxikor colony ship, continuing to frustrate it by staying out of range.

The Colony ship that Errowyn approached started coming apart when she began shooting at it. Small chunks were taking out of the exterior of the ship before they decided to turn on their ship's shields. After losing a small culster of engines, shield bubbles would start to pop up, covering segments of the ship in patchwork fashion... more and more bubbles starting to appear until the entire ship seemed to be covered in some level of protective field clearly made up of scavanged shield parts from an unknown number of ships.

The colony ship would again take aim at Spacecase's ship. Its main cannon firing at extreme range as soon as it was charged again... the beam once again missing due to the extreme range of the shot. An increasing number of smaller weapons would began appearing on the hull of the craft, either from small tracked vehicles moving out of hangers on the hull, or just from other components being stripped off the top in order to exposed the shorter range weapons.

"GHAHGAAARRLL... COME HERE SO WE CAN SQUASH YOU!" The Rixxikor howl'd

Cavallon- Hangar

"Hmph. 'Shady'..." Flynn grumbled under his breath as he strode down the ramp. The Dove's two rear cargo bays began to open, the floors themselves lowering down on a pneumatic system. On one side were the mechas and other equipment for the operation, while the other contained large shipping containers, each marked with the name of the material they carried.

"There you go," Flynn anounced to the "head honcho" whilst he fumbled in his jacket pocket for a cigar. Cigars always helped calm his nerves after a dance with danger. He punched a hole in the cap and lit it, and took a slow puff. "Top of the line space-age material for all of your manufacturing needs."

Cavallon

"You have no idea." He said, pointing to the containers, "Unload these, take them to Area 4 for processing."

Men controlling Yellow industrial lifters would scoot over to the ship, their wheels carrying them up to the ramp where the mechanical arms of the lifters could began getting ahold of the containers.

"It looks like your friends here have their own responsibilities... but I would suggest you clear out of here as soon as you can. You are welcome to stay of course, but both the Rixxikor and the Elysians have been destroying anything starship like that they find. What little we have left has to be hid underground."

One of riot gear equipped soldiers would end up running over to the officer, "Sir, Indigo is prepared for launch!"

A quick exchange of salutes would follow.

"And if you'll excuse me. While your friends have the Rixxikor ships distracted we will be conducting an anti-Rixxikor operation on the surface. This is your only official warning... and please, feel free to stay as long as you like."

Small, boxy, troop transports were starting to take off from the hanger, heading out into the Canyon and then up into the air... and nearby a flight crew was pulling its equipment away from another craft. Humanoid in shape, with a deep indigo color. Its arms and legs seemed to come down to a sharp edge, almost like blades that extended outward from the smooth polished metal curves of the design. The whole thing easily the size of the Dove, and would tower over the U-1 when fully upright.

Cargo Bay

With no other demands on her attention and no supervision, Sarena's preparations for the mission had been essentially to relax and avoid thinking about it. Thanks to the headphones and media player she'd been able to buy using her allowance from USO, she managed to continue with the same strategy until she reached the brand-new U-1 mecha she'd been assigned.

It still didn't have a ladder, and she still didn't have good balance or any comfort with controlling the machine, so it took a couple of minutes and a loader for her to get inside. As she sat down in the cockpit, she was already sweating, which probably wasn't a good sign, having not started the mission yet. She didn't have much time to relax before getting moving, either.

At least she had the comfort of having brought snacks and her personal weapons. Maybe she hadn't been raised on Nepleslia, but being well-armed still had a disproportionate effect on her sense of well-being. Her mecha's medium plasma cannon was less reassuring, probably because it could turn the room into a lethal inferno if she wasn't careful.

For safety's sake, she waited until the unloading operations were complete before risking a trip out of the cargo bay, which so far saved her from any envy directed toward the Indigo.

Alex rolled his fighter craft out of the cargo bay ahead of Sarena's U-1. As he exited he smoothly transitioned into a standing position with the Unicorn, leaving his weapons 'holstered' on their hardpoints for the moment. When he saw the towering indigo craft he let out a slow whistle. He wanted to know more.

He bent down and opened the cockpit, stepping out onto a waiting hand. "What is that thing?" He called to the man who seemed to be in charge.

The Eternal Pilgrim Bridge

Spacecase would pull away from the Rixx ship taking potshots with his weapons as he did. "Come and catch me then Bug face. That is if you don't end up on the bottom of my boot first."
His Junkers would begin to hit the Rixx's ships shields around its engines and its main laser. Spacecase was hoping to break through and disable those systems.

Cavallon- Hangar

"I'll keep that in mind." Flynn muttered and sat down on a crate to enjoy his smoke. All he had was a hand cannon, so he wasn't inclined to follow the tanks, mecha, and heavily armed infantry to grab the target. Not like he'd get paid any extra for it anyhow. Nope, best to keep by the ship in case they needed a quick getaway. From the sound of things, it looked like they'd need it. A standard round from his revolver could easily penetrate an Elysian power armor, but he didn't want to test his odds against trained infantry, no matter his own fighting experience. The bugs he could deal with, though.

With a small grin at the thought that he had some time to kill, he quickly went back into the dove and came back out with both Chuck, who was dressed in his tactical harness, and a tennis ball. Normally, whenever Flynn docked somewhere sketchy, he left the great pyrenees at the top of the ramp to act as a "proximity alarm" for unwelcome guests. However, being hidden in an underground hangar, with no present danger, Flynn sat by the door and tossed the ball away. Chuck bounded off after it and eventually brought it back, eager to play after being cooped up in a ship for the last few hours. With a loud bark, and tail swinging wildly, the animal waited for Flynn to throw again, which he did.

"You all go on ahead. I'm no good with 'tactical' stuff. I'll keep the porch light on back here." he called to Uso.

Cavallon

"That... is the pride of my small fiefdom here." There was a mark of pride in his voice. From the looks of things... there was a war on... and yet he couldn't help but pause to talk about his machine, "No expense was spared. We managed to reverse engineer one of the Elysians open-cycle reactors so its power to weight ratio if far in excess of what you see in most militaries. We've got Nepleslian electronics, Yamatain materials, The best of anything, anywhere. We even replace the motors inbetween operations so everything is constantly at peak performance."

Uso slamed her first down on the top of the APC she was riding in, "SOUNDS EXPENSIVE!" she shouted, only barely paying attention to what was going on, "COME ONNnnn... LETS GET GOING CORGAN!" she shouted on the all hands channel, ready to get underway... "That means you too mecha team! Check the all hands channel if you need a map."

The ball bounced Flynn tossed bounced right on by... only for chuck to bring it back.

"I hope so, if you leave me here I'm going to be very cross with you. If shit hits the fan, you can consider yourself 'earning hazard pay'."


B7R-604, Space!

"HA! SUCK ACID! YOU ARE FREESPACER BECASUE NO ONE WOULD BUY YOU!" One of the Rixxikor's shouted out, as Ace's junker drones moved in closer, they became much easier targets for the colony ship. While their smaller weapons were only slowly grinding against the powerful shield... the much more numerous weapons on the Colony ship were much more accurate now that the Junkers had closed the distance. At short range they would easily start to land hits, breaking the junker drones that got closest first.

The Eternal Pilgrim, Bridge

Seeing his Junnkers go down pained Spacecase a bit but he would get more later. He began to warm up his FTL again for a short jump to the other side of the planet to assist with that Rixx ship.

'5' :: System B7R-604 - Tactical Withdrawal -

As soon as the Rixxikor got their act together and started to return fire and activate shields. Errowyn prepped to depart as she lightened her attack and gathered intel for opportune time to jump out. Stayed ahead of the activating shield, getting a few more shots of Aether cannon fire in before the Colony ship was fully shielded.

She had to give credit to the Rixxikor for at least shielding their weapons before exposing them. But so far there was no support crafts to come out and really play with her.

It was time to break off from the attack, Errowyn did a mirco-ftl jump, taking note that the M-A Dove had made it passed the Blockade. Once at a safe distance and just beyond range of the Colony ships, she began the slow process recharging the Jump Capacitors for the return home trip.

'5' :: System B7R-604 - Outer Edge -

Errowyn relaxed as much as possible within the confines of her Kawarime as she drifted. She went through the information gathered on the Rixxikor Colony Ship. She took note that of all the missiles expended was very light. 2 light anti-ship missiles. The mixed-matched shields system that Rixxikor ship made an interesting collage of shielding energy.

Space - It only gets worse from here

Onboard the Eternal Pilgrim, the young Julie would climb up into the seat next to Spacecase, sinching down the tape on the space suit that was helping keep the suit compact enough for the small girl to fit inside. Even so her eyes were only barely peaking out over the neckline of the suit.

"Hey... Spacecase... Those ships look like they are not paying too much attention. Maybe we could get between them and let them shoot at each other?" She asked.

--

Meanwhile, the Rixxikor noticed the SAoY fighter jumping away,

"HA! RUN AWAY CAT! GO HIDE UNDER YUI'S SKIRT!"

"ALSO YOU ARE UGLY!"

"AND FAT!"

"AND YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS!"

The Rixxikor communications channels were filling with insults, the crew congradulating themselves on fending off one of the attacking ships.

"HEY! The hairy things are killin' us down there!" One of the Rixx finally yelled out, as he switched the main view screen over from a view of the White Rabit, to a view of the planet itself, showing small transports leaving from hidden areas to start attacking the Rixx on the surface.

"GO STOMP THEM!" A booming voice said...

The Rixxikor ship closest to the planet was still chasing Spacecase's ship... accelerating as fast as it could while firing its weapons inaccurately at super-long range. It lowered its shields around the mid-section and deployed a dozen mushroom looking vehicles that accelerated towards the planet.



Cavallon

Uso's convoy of vehicles started making its way down the main tunnel. The sheer scale of the cavern was massive, lights along either side letting you see all the way down towards the first set of major doors. The ceiling of the tunnel contained all sorts of tubing and pipes... each carrying who knows what.

"Come on Alex. You can't be jellious of someone else's mecha... you just got your own custom-thing. They aren't cheap to make... especally when Aiesu gets ahold of it..."

The first stop the group came to was a large, open, underground area where another tunnel intersected. There seemed to be a few police-types milling about as well as a small snack stand and what looked to be a pair of tanks... but not much else.

The group would then continue down the tunnel. This one was similar to the one before it, only it had a much larger, clear, pipe directly above them carrying what looked to be a river. If the pipe opened up, the U-1 could easily fit inside. There was a small passage way that led upwards about halfway down the tunnel. Beyond that was another set of doors.

"Alright everyone." Uso said, standing up ontop of the APC. "Van Banning wants this guy brought in. He's probably going to run and we're probably going to have to shoot at him. Lets try not to hit anyone that isn't our guy... that's a whole colony of people in there and we don't want to piss them off. We still have his shuttle transponder and he should be just beyond these doors. Move Fast. Be Efficent."

Uso reached back into the APC and pulled out a shotgun, getting ready as the doors opened up...

The next area was a large, open, dome enclosing neon colored buildings that stretched up almost to the ceiling, their ambient light giving the whole area an arcade-like glow. The doors opened into a parking area, where sidewalks and streets then dispersed into this underground city. Uso was begining to wonder how she would end up finding this guy if he had blended into the population... however upon checking the information she had... it looked like the shuttle he took was parked just slightly off to the left... the rear door open, with their target just sitting on a stool.

"UH... Hi guys. Van Banning sent you?" The man asked, standing up and straightening out his ill-fitting suit. He couldn't have been more than 24. "I Uh... Hi. I'm Gunhaver...." It was clear that just saying that felt awkward for him, "It is a Nepleslian name... Did uh, she tell you why she wanted me to meet you guys?"

There was a soft buzzing in the air now, as a group of four drones flew over towards the parking area, their cameras clearly watching what was going on from all angles.

The Eternal Pilgrim Bridge

Spacecase would look at Julie and give her a quick thumbs up. "Gotcha as long as we're careful we should be able to pull it off."
He then quickly recaluclated the FTL jump to put him in between the two Rixx ships. "This might get a bit bumby."

Seeing the vehichles disgourge out of the Rixx ship Spacecase turned on his channel to Uso. "You're going to get some company down there soon." He would then divert his remaining Junkers away from the Rixx ship and have them chase after the vehicles. "That's about all I'll be able to do." He muttered.

With the FTL calculations finally finished Spacecase made the jump.

Cavallon

The worst thing about piloting a U-1, Sarena found, is that it was a lot like riding a bike (not that she'd ever learned how to do that). You couldn't move carefully to minimize the damage, because then you'd just lose balance and fall over. You had to pretend everything was fine, or else things would start going wrong.

There was no good solution, but as a substitute for one, she'd got a song with a good beat and tried to stop worrying about it. At least until it was time to stop, at which point she turned off the music and the mecha lurched to a halt. She comforted herself with the thought that out here, any accidents didn't damage the ship that was going to get her out of here.

Sarena was confused by the scene that confronted her, then, partly because she hadn't been paying attention during the briefing, but mostly because it didn't fit with any version of what she'd imagined the missions objectives to be. This didn't look much like a business meeting or a negotiation. In fact, she was pretty sure it looked like a trap, though what the point of that was, she couldn't guess, either.

She had her mecha heft its plasma rifle, and looked around for something more relatable that might be worth aiming it at than a man in a suit, some camera drones, or a cold shuttle.