RP: Blackguard [Blackguard] Two of Clubs

NSS Big Deal
Wardroom

Quilly was taken aback by the offer to buy her wings, so surprised in fact that she'd looked toward Francis for assistance - knowing the redhead only needed a the slightest possible excuse to take a man's attention and chew him out with it. She didn't want to bring up the talk about her lack of Brain Spider to someone she'd only now met, and was just about to push the conversation out of her mind when someone else mentioned it - Lux mentioned something about Elysians, which piqued her interest. I wonder what they did? Maybe the requisition can help out, she thought to herself. Might need this dude's money just to help with the experiments. Karabuki, Karabuki, Karabuki...

The demo-medic was focused on mulling over her possibilities, though they were hazy at best - she'd only become a full surgeon in the past week. Tobias managed to snap her out of her funk though, with a datapad she managed to catch with surprising proficiency given how obviously surprised Quilly was to see it flying her way. The blue-eyed islander scrolled down the article quickly, recognizing the Slayer quickly.

"Oh, I've been looking for one of these! The flight-focused design and modular packs is great for our sort of operations, since we keep finding ourselves in a new level of hell every month. Light armaments on the base armor kinda suck, but it's intended to work with the packs anyways. It doesn't give me headaches, unlike what the Mindy's customization is like - no wonder Masato left the other cats. Anyways, I was planning on experimenting with a few options with Molo's help in our downtime. If you're looking for something more mobile than the Hostile, it's your best bet."

The quail pulled out her own micropad and began dual-wielding, using Tobias's device as a catalogue and submitting a request to Mathias:

Requisiton Request:
ACE unit: Mathias
Recipient: Ash, Quilly

1x Slayer Armor, measurements and fittings attached
2x Each:

• "Ostro" WIND pack for Slayer Armor
• "Mistral" WIND pack for Slayer Armor
• "Scirocco" WIND pack for Slayer Armor

1x Experimental Elysian-and-Lorath compatible Brain Spider

Quilly frowned at that last item. It felt wrong to put in a request for an item that didn't technically exist yet, not to mention one that might not be referenced. She sent a follow-up request to the ACE:

Brain Spider may not exist yet. If so, don't crack your resistors.


"Okay so thanks for the help, Toby. I'm gonna see if these bad boys can let me hack a couple packs together," the half-hacked Nepleslian felt a warm impact on his back - one of her wings, allegedly valued at five-and-a-half thousand KS. "Maybe get a custom rig installed so I can actually fly around like a normal person!"

Wardroom

"I've been occupied trying to get that bomb in your head active to worry about small potatoes like that, kid." Leo Hargraves intoned, always prefering to appear outside of Tobias periphery before walking into view, Throwing himself down onto the wardroom couch and spreading all his limbs with a contented sigh. "Best case they check over the 'corrupted' data they download from your head and I get into a new network on the sectors largest military station and start playing with that. Worst case is I end up replacing this ships ACE and seal you in your room with no life support. Win-win either way."

Tobias' vision seemed to fragment in his cybernetic eye as the form of Belladona Lux turned with an after image with her dataslate and began walking towards him. His vision corrected a moment later as the woman turned exactly the same way, Striding over towards him data slate in hand.

"I've got a surgical suite booked on the station, we're just waiting for Devone to come back and fly us over. Just enough time to get you settled in your bunk so hurry back." She stated and, turned away to talk to someone else.

"First one who didn't feel you up at the first meeting." Hargraves chuckled. Images of Duece coming to mind

Nearby, one of the hologram projectors built into the walls and ceiling flashed as the semi-transparent avatar of a pre-teen boy in shorts, long socks, and a black dress shirt with matching short black hair materialize as the AI looked deadpan at Gustav before intoning in a monotone voice at him.

"The Jackdaw Heavy Corvette you are currently on has twelve avaliable cabins open between the ship's brig and the number-one Fabrication room on the second deck and forewards of the ships second-deck communal laboratory and showers. Considering those already declared the optimal deck layout is as follows

Cabin 1: Haisley/Masato
Cabin 2: Quilly/Carina
Cabin 3: Caffran/Francis
Cabin 4: Molotra/Lupin
Cabin 5: Gustav/Eric
Cabin 6: Tobias/Vana

Please note cabin accommodations can be changed either at this moment or via a request to myself or Lieutenant Devone."

The ACE faded away, its query considered done. As it did so the wardroom began to mostly empty by all but those actually off-duty.

Ship Cooridors.

"Then I'll take your word for it." Lt.Devone nodded as he pulled up his datajocket and with a few button presses sent something to Caffrans own as it vibrated. "Staff lists of Team-4, though it is mostly your team, Karabuki, Sousmith, and Lux. Teams four and seven were both re-activated this month by Read-Admiral Troy on orders from the Grand Admiral himself so we only have what we've managed to recruit in that time.

We, Team four are departing tomorrow for a new mission; Team nine station in the Hray-class gunship Fist of Audacity is going to be shadowing an experimental Highlander-class long range vessel that is doing a stress-test run from here to a distant sector that the rest of the fleet will also be departing to though it will take them several months if not longer due to the stations slow FTL capabilities. The Big Deal will be following behind for emergency support due to the Highlander vessel being experimental in nature and the Audacity being mostly a chaperone. The journey will take us roughly a month and a half so use that time to get your team on track and learn to work with Karabuki; He is an excentric sort but come from the Aces team and is one of the best marksmen in the fleet."

With that, the Lieutenant dismissed Caffran.

P-1-7 Malaise System - The Following Day
The Big Deal exited from the Z-gate in the Malaise system the following day after entering the Big Greens own built-in Z-gate and was immedietly escourted by an NPF Cobra Gunship several thousand Kilometers ahead as it gave priority transit to the military vessel. It took almost three days at a cruising speed for the Jackdaw Corvette to get far enough out system to be able to safely enter FTL. But when it did the sector began to fall behind within hours.

As it traveled west and north along a specified path the early trip was anything short of peaceful in those first few days. Logistics staff and marines worked tirelessly to stowe away months worth of spare supplies. Spare parts, medical supplies, ammunition, new powered armor fresh from the assembly line, and enough layered plates of Zanarium that the ships weight ration had to be adjusted an entire 2% just to compensate as armorers and engineers alike poured over the valueable material like it was their first Lewis Pasco day gun.

Some had an easier time though not by much as Tobias, Masato, and Quilly were all put on light duty as Quilly was put on mostly bedrest for a week to learn to adapt to her new cerebral chip and the feeling in her skull she would need to get used to, and Masato did the same but for an experimental version that while not able to act as a brain spider did, was at least able to translate enough data from his digital mind to be able to make an 'attempt' at growing a new, Nepleslian brain around his recovered cereberal chip with what he was told was only a 27% chance of being a braindead meat puppet but if sucessful could later be transfered into a new body should he ever find himself in the good graces of Yamatai enough to get such an opportunity or get a new ST and become immortal again.

Tobias was the worst off. The procedure to even access his bran spider requiring him to be semi-lucid enough to respond as Belladona Lux cut through the Durrandium reinforcement on his skull to access his cerebral chip. While only needing to remove enough of the reinforcement and skull about the size of a large coin the pressure and static feeling inside his skull was nauseating as the NSMC doctor used a tool to connect to his brain spider via a cable connection, and, after several hours of diagnostic and defragmentation informed Tobias that the minor corruption of his brainspider was cleared away completely and that he wouldnt require any invasive surgery to remove and replace the cerebral chip.

With the remote connection he could usually have to the chip disconnected Tobias had to wait until the connection was restored to find, indeed, that all the data he had downloaded from Leo Hargraves own cerebral chip was indeed expunged and he could die at any point and not need to worry about the attack-virus implanted into Leo Hargraves by a member of the Forged would not supplant his personality if he died. Scowering what he could of his own brainspider it seemed entirely that Tobias was free of the old man.

Though experience told him that was not at all the case.

FTL 1900-Lightyears outside Kikyo.

Just over a month into the voyage outside the kikyo sector an Alarm rang inside the Big Deal mere moments after exiting FTL. Within moments of the sensation of vertigo as the ship pulled out of faster than light travel a claxon alarm sounded two notes before being silenced as the ships ace, Mathias sounded.

All crew, General quarters.

Less than a minute later the captains voice came onto the ships general comm.

"Naval crew remain in general quarters, Lieutenant Devone, Assemble your marines in the power armor bay immedietly."

NSS Big Deal

NSS Big Deal - Room Cover

Gustav, after organizing the bunks with his partner Eric, spent some time making sure that all the other members of the squad were settled and happy with his new spaces. He encouraged some to personalize their areas to make them feel more like home and foster a sense of belonging. Meanwhile, he kept an eye on the general layout of the room, ensuring that communication between team members was easy and efficient.

During this time, Gustav also took the opportunity to check his personal equipment and perform some routine checks on his combat equipment. He made sure his rifle was in perfect condition and checked the loading of his motorized armor. He wrote in his diary the things he used to do on the ship to kill time.

With the room organization underway and all the members settled in, Gustav decided to take a short break in the common room. He reviewed some tactical reports and caught up on the logistical details of the upcoming mission, there was nothing else for him to do. While there, he briefly interacted with MATIAS to learn more about the ship's overall situation and relevant updates.

During those, Gustav reflected on the team dynamics and the personalities of the new recruits. He considered strategies to strengthen his body in combat and ensure that he was prepared for the challenges he would face. Camaraderie and teamwork were key elements to success on missions like these, and Gustav was determined to make sure he was useful.

After a while, Devone called a quick meeting to inform the crew of the situation: Gustav had recognized the voice. It seemed like the meeting would be in the power armor room. Without delay, he hurried to clean his suit, and head towards the indicated area.

- Recruit Gustav reporting for duty

NSS Big Deal
On the way out

Quilly, despite the requests for bedrest, was making herself quite the busy little bird. From armor tweaking to a surgery on Haisley to debug the cybercat's errant tail, mixing in the occasional wager in the wardroom and chewing out anybody who got injured just while the ship was on the move, the darker-skinned Elysian quickly made herself at home on the Big Deal. As of yet, she hadn't managed to figure out what her special little cerebral companion was capable of, at least in the context of Elysians, but some things don't come so easily.

Power Armor Bay

Quilly's diminutive form seemed to simply manifest in the Power Armor Bay, wings pleated neatly against her back as she awaited the briefing. Her Slayer armor was working with the standard Mistral WIND Pack at the moment - her customized packages weren't ready for a live deployment yet. She had to internally suppress a sigh seeing that Ensign Devone was making the briefing - she really, really hoped the doe wouldn't take the same slow, intermittent progress for the briefing as she had when talking about the Big Deal.

The Bullying Room

Haisely was perched like some kind of reptile-bird creature at her, kind of impressive but somewhat cobbled together station she had assembled with some help from Masato in the time spent during their travel. The once errant tail of hers was swishing slowly behind her after the cyberkat had to ask for help in a moment of weakness, wounding her pride for a few days afterwards. The young hacker was, for once, trying not to wake her roommate while she worked for fear of actually pissing him off during the long voyage, though she'd never let him know that.

As the alarm sounded her ears perked up for a minutes while she shutdown all her non-essential programs for the time being, moving the majority of her resources to run a certain server she kept mentally connected to at all times. With all the time and power at her grubby fingertips Haisely had finally spent some time getting used to her new mental mods and all the abilities and uses of being able to interface with her own computer, and terrorizing Masato occasionally.

"Oi, wake up dumbass." the Nepleslian said as she walked past their beds towards the door.

PA Town

Haisely arrived soon after the other two and looked around the room, noticing Quilly's wings the cyberkat shrunk in her shoes, she still hadn't had the guts to properly thank the Elysian... Or speak to her much at all. Haisely's eyes drifted to the racks of armour, wondering if her own set had been moved down here yet since confirming it was finally operating normally.

With a brief internal pep-talk she made her way over towards the Elysian, slowly.

"uh... hey quilly, you come here often?"

NSS Big Deal

As soon as Caffran had seen the billeting arrangements he had contacted Lt. Devon and requested to for him and Vana to be switched. Although a vet of many battles, he didn't like the idea of constantly sleeping with one eye open because he was afraid of the man-hating Frances knifing or shooting him in his sleep. He had thought about switching him and Tobias, but didn't like the idea of Tobias getting knifed either. Caffran still wasn't thrilled with the idea of Vana sharing a room with Frances, but knew his little sister could take care of herself. Besides Porky would be there to make she no body bothered her.

Caffran had spend the rest of the day greasing a few palms to get his PA back up and running. It took a bit of doing. He had to call in quite a few favors and wound up paying a good bit of his own money to get things moving in the right direction. It might not be as good as it had been before, but at least it functioned and had that massive whole in the back plated up.

PA Bay

Vana and Porky entered the Power Armor Bay ready to get to work. Her hair was tied back with a red bandana. Porky sniffed around the bay at then made a bee line to Haisley and Quilly. He seemed fixated on Haisley's new tail and was watching it move the way a cat watches a mouse. "No Porky. That's not a new chew toy for you to play with." Vana said out loud as she approached the other two women.

NSS Big Deal

The bulk of Tobias' time spent on the way out from port had been spent doing his best to integrate himself into the crew, doing his best to confound any attempts to read too deeply into his own true service record by putting up a persona matching whatever falsified records were in his file these days. The time was both much more relaxing, and much more tense than he had expected. Having Hargraves out of his head was a relief, the threat of having his personality subsumed if he were to die was no longer present, but he couldn't shake the lingering feeling that as he filled his days with training, maintenance,, idle gambling and gossip that old digital ghost was still lurking over his shoulders, just waiting for a chance to throw him for a loop.

It was almost a relief when the call came to assemble in the Power Armor bay.

Power Armor Bay

Tobias had grown fond of his Slayer, its weapons array more comprehensive than the slightly older Raider. It seemed like NAM had finally found a way to marry the firepower of a Hostile with the lighter PA's mobility, a combination he was more than happy to utilize even if it meant a tradeoff in armor. He had, like Quilly, selected a Mistral pack; primarily for its drones. He'd selected a balanced loadout for his missiles, with his back-mounted launcher carrying BOLTs, and the calf-mounted ones carrying ARROWs. A good old reliable HPAR was his weapon of choice, stowed next to his armor in the PA bay.

The power armor was intimidating in its demeanor, all spikes and curves when compared to its forebearers, it almost appeared like some kind of undersea creature. Adorned with a single main monoeye in a cross-shaped track on its half-circle head, it gave the appearance almost of a monster. It stood in stark contrast to the visual appearance of Tobias, though to those who had gotten to know the lengths the former operative would go, it seemed almost fitting.

Power Armor Bay

The powered armor bay was an example of controlled chaos. At least twenty other marines of the ships compliment of over fifty were entering their armor cradles while a much smaller amount of navy engineers went down the line performing pre-flight routines and last minute adjustments.

The teams armors were nearest each other in a single row alongside one line of cradles allowing them to suit up by squad. Each armor had been pre-fitted for them and locked via biometric data and memorized passcodes known only to them, the ships AI, the ships quartermaster, and their own squad leader in the form of Caffran who could pull it up on a simple file.

While suiting up was relatively fast there was the feeling in the air that there was no general rush as many simple idled in their armor or near their cradles.

[Euphoria online.] Francis' clipped tone sounded over the teams specific net as a stock M11 Raider pulled out of its cradle and tested it's movements. The light scout armor DIoN green save for the custom camo paintjob that was hardly native to any marine field book as it looked like at least several dozen mustard-yellow stripes in eccentric tiger stripes across her armor. Turning, Francis pulled first a large PA grade shotgun and beffor pulling the stock ribbon out of the breach maglocked a Svafnir pistol not unlike Caffrans. Finally the combat specialist pulled a large Tomahawk off of a rack and stared at it while pressing down on an activator as the edge within seconds began to glow an intense red-white. Turning off the heater-weapon to cool down as she maglocked it to her chest the Misandrist combat specialist began to look about in the rehearsed way of someone looking through their HUD settings while the others did their own pre-flight routines.

"Officer on deck!" Someone shouted near the point when just about all of them were ready as Lieutenant Devone came onto the powered armor deck.

"At ease!" He shouted before sending several rapid fire orders about.

"Brown, Canterburys team needs a gunner, you're it." Was one such order as he pointed towards a young SOL and then to Caffran and his team before going back to issuing orders. Having yet to armor up yet the young Sol was somewhat behind as for his size his option for issued power armor were that of the VOID tactical armor with it's considerable firepower, the Cyclops armor made excluisively for ID-SOL based around heavy armor and close quarters arrangements, and the Aggressor juggernaught armor. As well as an array of weapons available for him and his armor. As if to aid him and help catch up one of Canturburys team came over as the Hostile medium armor with the 40mm Scout cannon on its back sauntered over to remove it's helmet as a sharp face with even sharper filed teeth greeted him in the form of Sergeant Karabuki who game him a good once over before his sultry voice started offering options.

"You're a gunner, correct? Good. The VOID and Aggressor armors would suit you best. I would choose the VOID and take either an HPAR, Bulldog, or if you wish to fufil your role best a Gatecrasher. Come, let's get you suited up, private." The mutant offered all of the above, pointing to each suit of armor and weapon in turn. As he helped Bobby choose his armor and weapons several Hologram projectors came to life as the form of the dwarfistic Captain was projected several magnitudes of his original size into the center of the bay. Nearly ten foot tall and projecting from the waste up the captain was half-dressed in his uniform partially unbottom and the clear sign of unkempt hair likely having woken him as he stared ahead in a way that implied he was looking at a screen.

"As soon as the Big Deal dropped out of FTL at our scheduled rendevous with the Highlander and it's escourt the Fist of Audacity we received this encoded message from a beacon that the metadata identifies as being from the Fist." A rapid wall of several thousand lines of code scrawled by in a holographic format beside the captains head.

"The Highlander ran into some trouble about Twnety-six hours ago. At least Fifteen small to midsized vessels six AU system-west managed to interdict the Highlander as soon as it dropped out of FTL. MATIAS has already found traces of several FTL sensor buoys implying the Highlander if not expected was at least detected several lightyears out and intercepted as soon as it dropped out of FTL Being a currently unarmed testbed vessel the ship was quickly surrounded under their guns and boarded within a matter of hours. The Fist managed to remain undetected but did not engage due to the number of vessels of which MATIAS is now compiling a dossier on from the Fists ACE aI.

The Fist is currently orbiting several AU out from a local station it has identified as the home base for these vessels. It is roughly on spec for a civilian station but gives off enough LADAR readings to show it has some teeth. The Fist has been monitoring this station since the Highlander was towed to it and all the comings and goings."

A holographic image replaced the captain for a moment of a cylindrical station with a large conical tower in it's center and several ships docked or orbitting around it.





"We have reason to believe that some of the crew and the ship itself are being held here." The captain intoned, showing a graining image of the Highlanders profile near the station followed by several lines of code and HUD elements pointing to locations.

"The planet it orbits is inhabitable with planet-wide super hurricanes and is of little importance. There is a chance there might be an instalation there but that comes sencondary to this,"

An image of a yong Lorath woman identified by her small black wings on her back with black hair with a shock of DIoN green on her head was shown with a border around it and NAM markings identifiying it as some kind of portfolio image from NAMs personnel reccords.

"This, Marines, is Director Ree'Lena Adept Occhestan of NAM and a joint liaison to our LSDF friends in the lorath protected space. Adept is NAMs chief shipwright and was onboard the Highlander for its test run from the Kikyo sector to here. Adept has in her head the plans for every single piece of information pertaining to NAMs shipwright operations as well as detailed knowledge on nearly every vessel, weapon, and much of the technology we use on our boats to the point that if she was taken alive is quite possibly the largest security risk for the SMDIoN since that neko bitch killed and kidnapped half of NAMs research staff in 38'." The captain intoned direly before becomming very sober with his next words.

"If Director Ree'Lena Occhestan can not be recovered she must otherwise be liquidated and her Cerebral Chip destroyed entirely if it can not be recovered. Likewise any data that may have been downloaded from her devices or the highlander itself such as the location of the Kikyo Sector and our territories within it are of the utmost import.

Team-9 Is currently MIA as of further notice. Team-7 from the Fist will be participating in this operation. Orders are as follows:"


Enter and reconnoiter the unidentified station.
Identify or obtain the location of the crew of the Highlander including priority target Adept Occhestan and MIA Team-9
Recover primary target or her brainspider. Liquidate otherwise.
Recover any sensitive data in the station's mainframes including starchart data, affiliation records, etc.
Plant antimatter charge on station lodestone if possible.

"Team-7 will be attempting to place beacons for our curbstompers on several of the enemy vessels that we will fire from several AU out in exactly 17-hours, as well as placing timed antimatter charges that will go off under those vessels shields. The Fist will be on support for any cleanup. Your shuttles leave in exactly one hour marines."

The captains image winked out as silence overcame the bay.

"Surface scans of the station are comming in now." Francis broke the silence as the passive scans from the station began uploading to each of their HUDs.

"Canturburry your team is on support." Devone took over as soon as the captain's hologram disappeared. "You will loiter in the AO until needed for backup or support. The rest of the team is with me." The Lieutenant informed as he suited up in an Agressor and a marine attached a large cylindical pill-shaped device to the swell of his back covered in warning markers and the large blocky text of WARNING on it marking it as an antimatter charge in the low kilotons.

"Suit up and prepare to load up we touch off in sixty!"

NSS Big Deal

Barry may have been made for combat, but he wasn't experienced in the Art of War. He had every aspect of the perfect soldier, or almost every aspect. He may have had the size, the smarts, the willpower and the loyalty; but he didn't have the experience. It made the sudden call-up to the Blackguard unit all the more confusing to him, considering he had heard of their unit and the hundreds of epic tales behind it. They were rugged, tough and some of the best the Nepleslian Marines could offer; and yet he was called up. His first few hours onboard the Big Deal had been spent exploring the ship, where he could anyway, and idling around awaiting orders.

When the order to assemble came, Barry made his way to the Power Armour Bay.

Power Armour Bay


Brown stands out amongst the crowd considering his immense size and stature, but seemingly attempts to move himself into one of the corners of the room, away from the crowd gathering; though he can't make it far before he's given orders by the Captain. Listening to the Captain for a moment, Brown nods when given his orders and spots the other man approaching him at a considerable pace, and gives him a cheery-looking wave with his right hand, which in of itself looks like it could very well wrap around the man's head whole and still have some room left to wiggle his brawny fingers.

He intently listens to the man speak, and agrees with his choice of Powersuit. Choosing the VOID Armour and the GATECRASHER HMG; the ID-SOL begins suiting up for his first /actual/ mission.

NSS Big Deal

Gustav, having made sure that everything was in order on the quarters deck, headed to the power armor bay. The anticipation in the air was palpable as he watched his squadmates preparing for the mission. He watched with satisfaction as everyone equipped themselves with their armor and checked their weapons.

As he approached the power armor bay, he heard Francis's breathy voice echoing over the team's network. The euphoria in his tone indicated that he was ready and eager for action. Gustav smiled at the determination and enthusiasm of his team.

"Well, after months I'll finally be in an interesting scene"

Lieutenant Devone, leading with authority, gave quick and efficient orders, assigning roles and ensuring everyone was at their designated positions. Gustav prepared for his own pre-flight routine, checking his armor configuration and making sure all of his weapons were ready for the mission.

While he prepared, he watched as Bobby Brown, other new recruit, received instructions from Sergeant Karabuki on his choice of armor and weapons. The experience and guidance of the team leaders was essential to ensure that each member was at their best.

Hearing the news about the situation of the Highlander and the enemy station. The captain's seriousness made clear the seriousness of the mission before them. Furthermore, when Devone announced that Fist Team-7 would participate in the operation, Gustav felt the urgency of the task ahead.

With the power armor bay humming with activity around him, Gustav focused on the task at hand; He took his personal diary and wrote some notes about what was about to happen, so that later he could complete a much more complete writing. The mission was about to begin, and the NSS Big Deal was about to face a crucial challenge in unknown space.

"I guess it's time to train the newbie, like me"

The captain's words echoed in his mind: ""Suit up and prepare to load up we touch off in sixty!"". It was the moment of truth, and Gustav mentally prepared himself to face the unknown.

NSS Big Deal
Power Armor Bay

Quilly's unarmored head looked to Haisley as the cybercat sauntered up to her, only now realizing that, for once, there was someone shorter than her. She wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. Much to the cat's horror, Qully chuckled at the greeting, "What, ya flirtin' with me already? Don't let Masato find out!" The way her wings spread out behind her almost seemed to make the bird more intimidating, but she did her best to keep cool again. "Nervous, hun? It's no different from our usual fare, it seems. You'll be fiiiine~ Here, let's go bully the new guy once you're suited up," she suggested.

Barry found himself being scrutinized by two startlingly short soldiers as he donned his VOID. The one on his left, with almond-shaped blue eyes and wings on her back, gave the ID-SOL a look like he'd just fumbled a ball catch in the playoffs, but for the team she wasn't supporting. Once whatever examination she was conduction was completed - taking just long enough to be uncomfortable.

"An ID-SOL for real, huh? Hope you're ready to get'chya space legs! Quilly ash, by the way," She held out a black-armored hand to shake, which would be easily dwarfed even by Barry's on its own. "Figured it'd do good to introduce myself, in case I need to put your guts back together out there. Gives you somethin' to curse at~"

PA Bay

Haisely scoffed at the Elysian's quick wit with a dismissive wave, her apparent nervousness gone in an instant as she was given a friendly mocking. "Well, I was planning to thank you, but I think we're even now. Besides its not like that..." The cyberkat trailed off quietly while her gaze was drawn to the recently reassembled Zytone suit she had brought on board the Big Deal, since Quilly was already getting ready, or had successfully done so, she figured no point in dawdling for once.

Scampering over to the suit the short Nepleslian quickly disrobed and tossed the unnecessary clothing into a pile near her bay before retrieving her pilot suit from its resting place, draped over the barrels of the shoulder mounted cannon. With the grace of and swagger of a typical lazy cat the hacker pulled the leg sleeves up to her hips before fiddling with the armour, prompting the helmet and torso to open, finishing getting dressed Haisely zipped up the front of her suit before climbing up and sliding back into the large armour.

Several minutes later, the now decidedly taller Haisely Goenkof thudded her way across the bay to join her feathery friend in 'greeting' the new guy to the squad.

"Haisely is fine, been a while since I saw a SOL... I do tech." The cyberkat looked him over slowly, committing his image to her neural cloud to ensure she didn't shoot him later by mistake.

The giant seems to look around himself for a moment, as if taking in his environment, as he gets used to the suit. It wasn't as heavy feeling as he expected, thanks to the powered nature of the armour piece, and it felt much more comfortable than some of the non-powered pieces he had been given to wear over the course of his enlistment training into the Nepleslian Marine Corps. It didn't feel like his movement had been stifled all that much, if at all, and it almost felt as if everything about his physical state had been given some sort of boost; which was true to an extent.

He observes as not one, but two people approach him and just stares back at them for a moment, one which felt like much longer than a moment; before nervously accepting the hand of Quilly with a hand that utterly dwarfed hers. The hand was only seemingly made larger by the suit the man inhabited for the time being, as he enthusiastically returns the handshake. He seems to be very excited to make their acquaintance, considering they /might/ actually be the first people to approach him and talk to him outside the lab assistants and the drill instructor at basic.

"Hello!"

It's almost as if he's ignoring the underlying intent here.

"I'm Barry, it's nice to meet you."

You can almost /tell/ there's a stupidly wide and warm grin behind that helmet.

Powered Armor Bay

HUDs came to life in an ocean of greens and blue icons representing the other marines for green and their team for blue as they filtered out only the necessary data. With final pre-flighting done at least four teams of marines were suited up. Of those two loitered, clearly on standby, while the Lieutenants team, mostly in Hostiles and a long Aggressor stood waiting by the door to the cargo bay while Caffrans team followed up and did the same.

"MATIAS says the distance to our target is roughly three astronomical units." Karabuki radioed, following up with a simple map outline over a flat surface that showed distance and nothing else in the great empty of space. "If these hostiles have a passive sensor range of less than that then it will take us roughly..." He paused, doing the math until francis butt in.

"Ninety hours flight time at one third 'c'... I think... " She remarked, getting a Tutt tutt from the mutant in response.

"And how fast is the ship going?" He asked, looking at her and then a few others as the door to the cargo bay opened. Once openning the two teams moved inside and dawned theri helmets. Once all were sealed up the air was cycled into void as the door opened up into the empty bay and the open black of space.

"Oh... Oh fuck." Francis swore, looking behind them at the closed bay door likely looking for an out. "That's super fucking lethal, isnt it?" She asked, though she still stepped forwards after the first team moved up.

As if to answer the teams radios crackled to life with a higher authority than caffrans stepping on their channel as they were patched into another conversation as the captain and the lieutenant conversed, clearly including them to listen if nothing else.

"It'll be just over two days flight to the AO. Good luck Devone."

"Thank you, sir."
"Thank you, skipper." The two devones answered nearly at the same time as Lt devone and his team entered one of the Zatch shuttles and Caffrans the other with Ensign Nearl Devone waiting for them in a flight suit ushering them in before the hatch sealed and pressure and oxyogen returned. Buckling into their seats they barely had a moments preperation when the hellcat of a pilot pulled out of the jackdaw corvette like a delsaurian in the open causing many to be pushed back into their seats.

With the way she flew they would be there in no time...


110,000km from target - Two days later.

Two days of cramped flying, cold rations, and suit filtration from daily needs the shuttle neared its area of operations. Getting up to speed nearly forty hours before the shuttle had gone almost entirely dark and passive, relying on it's coating speed and the lack of inertia and friction mass to slow it down to essentially glide at hundreds of kilomiters an hour while only ever powering up breifly to course correct.

The other shuttle was likely doing the same a few thousand kilomiters away if the Ensign, in her long-winded conversations were any indication. Still dark in the shuttle a light source not native to the craft or their own suits came through one of the hatch windows as the bright-blue gem of a world of oceans and storms no larger than a tennis ball in size relative to their location reflected the light of the distant sun back at them and revealed their target.

"Moving... To phase... two" Devone murmured quietly over the radio as the shuttle rapidly descelerated using compressed air and single-use rockets to avoid any sensor wash as over the course of several thousand kilomiters the shuttle ground to only ten thousand or so kilomiters and hour in speed as a red light turned on in the shuttles interior letting them all know it was time to get ready to depart. Within a minute of the light going on it turned green and the depressurized cabin opened to space as one by one the marines stepped out of the shuttle and within an instant it was gone from view. Gyro-stabalizers attempted to right each of them as they cartwheeled in the void nauseatingly until thrusters kicked on and after several minutes of vertigo and course correcting they were all at least in a semblance of being stationary.

"Euphoria, Im about fifty klicks from Kilgee." Francis radioed as, no more than a distant blue icon to any of them she began to fly towards the closest marine to her until she was within several kilomiters and the process repeated until, while not within visual sight of each other they were all no more than a few kilomiters apart.

"No sign we've been detected," Karabuki commented over the comm as their thrusters took them slowly over what would take the course a couple hours to reach for the station. in the distance ten green icons could be seen clustered about ten thousand kilomiters ahead of them as the Lietenants team was ahead of them and radioed in to Caffran.

"Team nine has three vessels mined. One shows signs of being active but even if it leaves the charges are on a timer. Four more have beacons on them for curbstompers and cruise missiles. They've returned to the Fist which you should come into visual contact with in the next few minutes. Canterbury your teams job is to loiter somewhere covered on the stations exterior. It's a big station but my team will infiltrate and try to find a data connection, once we do we will locate the primary and secondary objectives.

Your team will be on standby to hit secondary objectives and make and hold us an exit once we have the target. Once the signal is given Nearl will burn out way for extract and the Fist and Deal will start engaging the ships and station; We don't want to be around when that happens. On the off chance your team is closest to the primary objective, you will enter ahead of us but will move if my team is pre-occupied, understood? Good. Order your team accordingly we're less than forty from the target."

As if spoken to existance as soon as the comm channel was dropped they could see it. Not yet the station but instead a black-against-black in space as the manta-shaped hull of the Hray Gunship came into view just a couple kilomiters from most of them. White and green and black and gray the ship was almost impossible not to miss were they not flying right over it as every exterior light was off and the ship for all intensive purposes seemed adrift in space.

Right up until one notices some of the exterior point defense weapons following them as they flew by and a single, brief yellow light on the ships exterior flashed twice and then went dark again.

As soon as they left the ship behind the station came to view in the distanace as a pinprick of black against the backdrop of blue from the planet it loited in orbit of.

NSS Big Deal

After happily accepting Haisely’s Terms and Conditions, the following month had been something akin to a montage for the man known as Matokai Masato: organizing his equipment, helping Haisely with constructing what could be genuinely described as one of the greatest computing rigs of all time, practicing on the vessel’s gun range, doing laundry, having a dinner date with Haisely, undergoing that incredibly painful surgical operation, recovering from said operation, averting his eyes (at Haisely’s request) as she changed clothes early one morning, organizing his equipment again, having breakfast with Haisely, performing maintenance on the Big Deal’s numerous armors, doing laundry, exercising in the ship’s gym, helping with a totally minor reactor emergency in Engineering, suffering through a lovely bout of PTSD afterwards, going on a lunch date with Haisely, and so on. Life was good…

…until, on the day it all mattered, it wasn’t. Masato had known that something was wrong when he was woken up very early in the by what felt like the worst case of heartburn he’d ever suffered - and was promptly learned that something was indeed very wrong when, after stumbling his way to the communal restroom down the hall and messily evacuated the contents of his stomach… from both the front and rear ends of his digestive system.

After doing his best to clean up the mess he’d made, the Minkan - too tired to realize that he ought to have visited the sick bay - staggered back to the quarters he shared with Haisely and fell into an uneasy slumber.

When Haisely woke Masato up barely two hours later as she exited the room, his response was to groan and sleepily mumble something along the lines of “five more minutes, onegaishimasu…” - only to bolt upright and (still clad in his pajamas) make a mad dash for the communal restroom as his stomach once again decided that it needed to violently purge its contents.

One sick bay visit (complete with diagnosis of ‘severe food poisoning’ and complementary assortment of curative medication) and change of clothes later, a still somewhat woozy Masato shambled into the ship’s power armor bay; after noticing that everyone else had suited up and was boarding one of the ship’s shuttles, the Corporal hurriedly suited up in his Hostile and joined his squadmates.

The Final Frontier

The shuttle ride had, of course, reminded Masato why he hated shuttle travel - especially when the pilot flew as insanely as Ensign Devone did - and why he utterly hated being crammed into one space for an extended period of time without anything to do; though finding out that him and his squadmates had been relegated to ‘benchwarmers’ (Masato was pretty sure that was the correct Nepleslian term) had of course been a bummer, anything beat being cooped in the shuttle… and the Minkan wholeheartedly welcomed the vastness of space. Here’s hoping the station doesn’t have a fighter squadron on-call or a point-defense grid capable of tracking power armors… though knowing my luck, it probably has all of that AND a minefield or three…

NSS Big Deal
Power Armor Bay

Quilly grinned cheekily under her helmet as the ID-SOL shook her hand. She quickly introduced herself, including discussing how - with words that held the weight of personal experience - that no, she would not allow him to "tough it out". Unfortunately, before she could keep the conversation going, they were together called to board the shuttles.

Shuttles, en route to the AO
The Elysian proved to be an inconvenience for most of the journey, her large and armored wings forcing her to take up an annoying amount of space for someone of her, well, normal size. To help offset that, at least, she was able to team up with Haisley to install a program onto her supporting drones - allowing several of the marines to pass the time playing poker, blackjack, UNO, heck even some really weird version of """poker""" that was borderline incomprehensible. With the bird's help, the silent trip over to the station was significantly less boring. It also helped offset the inconvenience of her wings.

Now in space, approaching the station
Quilly's position was closer to the back of the squad as they approached the station, keeping an eye on the squad and the black around them. Things were... Quiet. Space is always quiet, but it still felt weird. Luckily, nothing was going wrong yet - but she did tense up when she noticed the Fist of Audacity arrive. The gunship's presence was as reassuring as it was concerning - if it was needed, things were going well beyond south. While she was watching the escort craft, though, she noticed that, of all things, the point defense weaponry was tracking the marines.

"Hey Masato, do you think it's a bit, uh... Odd? That they're tracking us?" Quilly mentioned via telepathy, indicating the silent Gunship. "It's... It makes me nervous."

Long Walk Out A Short Airlock

As he drifted through space in his Slayer armor, Tobias could hear little beyond the pulse of RCS thrusters and his own breathing. When Francis approached him, he gave a thumbs-up as a silent signal of his status before firing a few bursts from his thrusters to follow the group in toward their objective. The one-two flash from the Audacity was a signal of some kind, though he wasn't privy to its meaning. There would be plenty of time to think it over though, on their long drifting trip toward the station.

As they began their journey, he clicked his comms on, set to tightbeam laser to ensure security.

<<Anyone want to play Eye Spy?>> He cracked, attempting to lighten the mood for the newer squad members who were less hardened than the crew that had been with him since that jungle moon so long ago.

Shuttle

Haisely had been planning to just go into a borderline coma state of sleep for the duration of the ride and skim her new private repository back on the Big Deal but when the strange bird lady known as Quilly asked if she could modify the drones she'd brought the Cyberkat shrugged internally and decided it could at least be something to do and might even be a bit of a challenge given the tech level of the devices involved. After a while it became clear this wouldn't take too long and so the nepleslian was thrilled when asked to also include a horrific butchering of poker crossed with some kind of deck builder which Haisely promptly spent the next 8 hours trying to master in a hyperfocus state.

By the 2nd day Haisely had noticed Masato actually made it onto the shuttle, and despite her attempts to make everyone else and even herself believe she didn't care about anybody she couldn't help but feel a little bad for the minkan right after getting pissed that his bout with death had cost her sleep with the motion detectors going off in the night. Given she still hadn't tried out the mental communication she'd had included with her neural mods Haisely decided she might as well scare the crap out of him as payback for waking her up several times, and so she gave it a go.

The system was a bit weird compared to what she was used to even in VR, and so rather than start spouting off and hoping it didn't go to everyone in a 50 mile radius, the cyberkat instead tried to 'sense' other neural networks nearby before feeding the data through her custom (and untested) optic software which would essentially allow her to overlay her tech vision as an augmented reality. It was a minute of mental gymnastics and tweaking before she could bear to enable it again without vomiting, and then with it finally semi working she was able to track down the distinctive yamatain signature on the boat... Then she waited until the stepped out to complete their space walk portion of the journey.

Space Walk

<Boo! You finally get something to stop painting the bathrooms all night, cause when we get back I wanna sleep without you keeping me up at night... Dumbass.>

After firing off her message she made sure her incoming wasn't going to block anything in response and specifically added Masato's signature to her whitelist to avoid any other peskie yam tech getting to her.

Hearing Tobias' voice come through the comms the nepleslian looked around, the bulkier armour of the Zytone feeling weightless for the first time she'd worn it. <<I spy a big fuckoff ship nearby.>>

Shuttle

Caffran had his team ready to go as soon as they arrived. The trip out had been uneventful which was good, other than Vana constantly fiddling with Porky's EV suit. The suit was a prototype that the tech boys had been working on for animal handlers. It was a good suit, the only problem was the helmet. A Gunhound used its head more than any other part of it's body for fighting and when you covered that with a helmet it severely limited what the animal could do. And unless Porky got some serious implants that completely redid his skull and organs he would need a helmet for work in space. Still there were some work arounds. For this mission though, Porky would have to wear the helmet until they got into the station.

Vana was suited up in her armor, but was lacking her trademark sniper rifle, which had made her a little mopy. Instead she had a shotgun. Caffran had his standard loadout. His NAM auto cannon, along with his Svafnir. Plus his Straight Silver and VBCS blade.

SHUTTLE

Space seemed to stretch infinitely around them as they floated towards the unknown station. Starlight flickered in the darkness of the void, and the nearby planet seemed like a jewel suspended in the immensity of the cosmos. As they approached, the station began to take shape, standing out against the black background.

The ID-SOL, in his Slayer armor, pressed forward determinedly, his voice echoing over the comm channel as he attempted to lighten the mood with a game of Eye Spy. The camaraderie among team members was palpable, even in the coldness of the space.

The season was getting closer and closer, and with it, danger and uncertainty. But together, as a team, they were prepared to face whatever awaited them on the final frontier.

Gustav preferred to stay clinging to his standard marine equipment, attentively observing what he could see outside the window, he wanted to appear professional, a good first impression for him.

However, he was still slightly nervous mixed with excitement, he didn't know what things could happen and it was better not to ruin it, but it was also a chance to get a good story to tell in his diary later.

- I hope everything goes well