5tar
Active Member
The defense theater outside of Aries Starbase
The battle was getting into the first stages; the attackers had already sprung their surprise on the unsuspecting starbase and surrounding ships. Long lances of energy streaked across the endless void, the crossfire was endless. The organized chaos shifted as the defense forces moved into place to make their stand against the Uesu Fleet ships. At first it looked like the sparse amount of Yamataian ships had a firm hold on the situation, but not without losses. Subspace fighters were dropping, and a lead Plumeria got taken down by a collective point attack while trying to advance. The Senbu was pulling behind the fleet, approaching the line with Shizuka's eyes closely attached to Nick's marker on the tactical display.
"No, something wrong with our scanners—someone find the Shosa's shuttle, get on it—there's no way he'd die here, he can't die yet!" her orders came out in a panicked yell over the commotion on the bridge.
The Senbu slowed in its approach, Shizuka having overridden the flight controls through her SPINE uplink. "Check your panel again, Heisho," Shizuka ordered, biting back her emotions as she approached the august command rail. Her eyes were glued to the screen; the scarce remnants of the Fox he was piloting were in plain view. Shizuka's mind was unraveling, memories of the YSS Teppen and her Taisa Endo Saki flooded her head. Flashes, images she had buried deep inside were surfacing; the bloody battle, the lifeless body of Saki, the men she lost and the funeral. Now, she was face to face with the death of someone else she held so dear to her heart.
"Endo-Taisa, all reports say the scanner is working perfectly—I'm afraid to report that Saiga-shosa has been killed in action," one of the twins said in a very apologetic tone to the captain. The Taisa didn't take her eyes off what she was seeing. Inside her mind, the chaos shook her thoughts violently and then the held back emotion began to shake her frame. A tear collected in the corner of her amber eyes.
"Ma'am... we are currently engaged in combat. We need orders," the other twin said in an attempt to pull Shizuka out of it.
The captain gripped so tightly on the rail that her hands turned white. Her eyes lowered to her knuckles, staring intently for a long moment, and then her head rose up to the screen and the display changed to the battle outside the Senbu. "We'll make them pay in blood, for all our fallen comrades—for their critical mistake in threatening the sovereignty of our empire! YSS Senbu, prepare all units for launch. Move us to the line—we'll make them regret ever crossing lines with the glorious Star Army of Yamatai!" Shizuka shouted in fury and with a raised chin and bared teeth she sent her ship into battle.
Kuriko dashed into the armor bay and set about activating Sigmund. As the armor ran through its final diagnostics, Kuriko stripped, threw her clothing into the locker by the panel, and started opening up Sigmund. "It's time to wake up," Kuriko said to her armor before stepping backwards into it. "Awww, you're all warm for me. I missed you too." Kuriko's world went blank before flashing back into existence. "Pride Squadron, report in as you are ready," Kuriko said as she headed over to the armory for her handhelds.
Mayuki was mixed in all the chaos in the shuttle bay, and as the Pride Squad arrived she stopped to wave. “We managed to get your stuff prepped, they are ready when you guys are!” she shouted to them, only to be yelled at herself and had to bow and run off to continue her tasks.
Masako hurried in as well, still complaining about the mild buzz she still had from her night of boozing it up with Chikako. She didn't name her armor because to name it would just make it personal and it was a piece of equipment. She'd get the activation sequence going and quickly stripped down and chucked her stuff into a locker as well and stepped into the suit. "damn it… it's cold in this thing," she sighed.
Sakaki dashed into her Mindy while removing her sword. “Hold this,” she said and offered her katana to someone while getting into her Mindy. Space combat... I might want something to offer me protection... Megami! she then called out and gave her directions to change one of her shoulder mounted guns to a shield cloak.
"Everyone, switch to Death blossom configuration, except drop out the Barrier Shield Module for the Teleportation Module," Kuriko ordered before running back to her armor spot.
"What? Why?" Masako said, startled by Kuriko's sudden directive and began to go about switching out her configuration to the one specified.
"We'll need to equip for the ranges typical of space combat, Boin-chan." Chikako stripped off her uniform and tossed it into a bin, hurrying to catch up with the others and suit up in Ikazuchi. As the hemosynth flesh-lined humanoid shape split open, she was immediately sucked into the Mindy 2a that bore the call sign from her early career as its name, and instantly felt her nervous system link up with that of her suit. Like moving my own body. She grinned and placed the helmet atop her head. The Heisho began feeding her unit her desired equipment layout, requesting only a minor tweak from Kuriko's desired configuration. "Ikazuchi, comply, but add the Aether Saber Rifle and include the eliptoid shield from the last mission."
“Hai, Shifuda-heisho,” replied Sakaki, making adjustments to her Mindy as ordered. While not an expert at ranged combat, I shall do what I can.
"I see. Well damn it, this sortie is already sounding like it's going to be one major pain in the ass," Masako groaned as she adjusted her equipment.
"Pride Squadron, I'll be your operator for the time being. Once you’re prepared for your sortie, standby on the launch line—we have orders to deploy you. We have no target designations at the moment. \For now you’re standing orders are to engage the enemy and assault targets by the Senbu." The voice that came over the mission command relay channel belonged to Akira-taii, his name appearing on the HUD when he spoke. "Report to me when you're ready to go."
Kuriko's heart felt like it would flutter right out of her chest when she heard Akira's voice. "Hai Akira-taii." Kuriko's voice was higher than when she had previously spoken to the team and as the Neko moved over to the line, members of the Pride Wing could see a little more bounce in her step.
Sakaki equipped her beam rifle then stood ready at the launch line. She was meditating on the action ahead, waiting for the order.
Masako was finishing up her refit and picked up a spare aether/scalar submachine gun for a handheld weapon and sighed, bummed they didn't have any melee weaponry for them. Taking notice of Kuriko bouncing around a bit more, she groaned; figuring it had to do with the fact Akira was their Op this time. Ugh, you'd never catch me doing that over a guy like that... how embarrassing. Masako thought as she approached the launch line as well and calmed herself. Time to missile spam everything in sight or that got near the ship. She'd try to be on her game this time around.
"Fufufu... seems like I know Kuriko-heisho's weak point now. I knew that beneath that dour, green facade, there beat the heart of a woman." Chikako chuckled to herself, hefting her rifle onto her shoulder and glancing around. Everyone was equipped and ready, so it was only a question of getting clearance to launch. Something she could only feel would come too soon, or not soon enough. "Pride Squad, weapons checks before we sortie. Quick diagnostics, nothing fancy, but we don't want to have any mess ups in combat when the Senbu is on the line."
Once everyone had checked out, Kuriko opened a link back up with Akira. "Pride Squad is on the line and ready for launch," Kuriko said with no small amount of pride in her voice.
"So being a woman means having interest in the expendable gender?" Masako groaned to Chikako and rolled her eyes inside her helmet.
"Excuse me?" Akira-taii asked over the communications after hearing what Masako had just said about him in open communications. "I highly suggest you show more respect for your superiors. If you keep up your unprofessional conduct over the comms I'll have to report you to the Taisa, and I'm sure right now you wouldn't want that." With that, he moved up the squad's data to his main terminal and glanced over the sheets. "Everything looks good, Pride Team 01, you are clear for launch," he said giving them the last go ahead as the bay door opened up, the atmospheric shielding keeping the engineers from going out with the squad.
"... Clearly our relationship will only become terrible again if I explain myself to the likes of you," Chikako said curtly, nonchalantly putting some distance between herself and the large-breasted Neko. Although she rarely felt the need or desire to express her feelings to others, she still felt fairly in touch with them. Masako seemed like... a different case.
Kuriko eyes slid to tiny little slits. In less than a few seconds the Neko had gone from swooning to enraged. "Excuse me!??!!? Nobody—nobody is expendable!!!" Kuriko snapped at Masako. It didn't help the poor Neko, Masako, that Kuriko was more than a little bit attracted to Akira. "If I hear you talk like that again I'll..." Kuriko's free hand was clenching and unclenching; she wasn't quite able to finish her last sentence.
"It's scientifically proven. Males live shorter lives than females do," Masako said calmly like it didn't bother her a single bit. "I was speaking from a purely biological and scientific standpoint, not a personal one," she said and prepared to launch from the bay. "I wasn't insulting you there, Taii," she said to Akira.
Chikako huffed and stopped mid-step, conking Masako on the head with her shield. "That was pretty lousy, even for you."
"Ow!" Masako said, going off balance for the moment and quickly regained her footing. "Well I'm sorry, I'm largely asexual by default," she huffed.
Sakaki placed her hand on Masako's shoulder as a gesture that spoke, “Speak no more, let’s go fight.”
Kuriko didn't even wait for Masako to signal that she was ready again instead the Heisho launched. "Let's go. Pride Squadron launch!" Kuriko yelled.
Instantly calming at the touch, Masako took a deep breath and clutched her submachine gun and watched Kuriko. As the leader it was her job to launch first, after all. "Thanks Sakaki... I needed that..." she said apologetically over a private telepathic message. And with that, she launched from the bay herself out into the frigid emptiness of space and looked around with her visual field and sensor mesh. "Hmm it's a party out here and we're apparently not invited yet."
“Tsukihime, let us not fail, may we reap the wind of our enemy,” muttered Sakaki as she launched along with her wing. On the way she did as Chikako suggested and began double checking in case everything was good, I suffer no injury in the last mission, but good to be careful anyway.
Ageha finally made it to the bridge, a large knot on her forehead about the size of a chrome egg. When the call to stations was made, someone had left a cart unsecured and it had floated away, down across the corridor from where the Yamataian girl had been running. She had been unlucky enough that the timing was perfect enough that it collided with her, taking her by surprise and throwing her a good six feet in the opposite direction. Her forehead was the first to hit ground, and the wound left behind made it pretty clear as to the reason why she was late. "Gomen," Nanjo-hei told Akira-taii, her commanding officer, with a shortness that she rarely displayed as she took her seat at her console and began to hurry through the information output to see what she had missed.
"Take your seat, Nitô Hei," was all Akira answered Ageha with as she apologized. He was much too distracted with the battle at hand to scold the late communications specialist. "Your team is launched; we're at standing orders to destroy any attackers outside the vessel." At that point Akira updated her information with the current battle layout, and the situation. "Pride team is leading the operation for the time being," he then turned to the other operatives. "I need reports on the other squadrons, you heard the commander—everything is supposed to be deployed."
"Launching," Chikako replied, setting out into the void along with the Pride Squad. Sensors were up, weapons were charged and she had no intention of being left behind if the odds were the enemy was strong or foolish enough to want to attack a fortress like Aries. "What's our danger, Senbu?"
"Excuse my lateness, Shifuda-heisho," the newly minted Nitô Hei reported to Kuriko, sounding quite out of breath. "Anything you require?" Ageha asked, her eyes reflecting the glow of the console as she processed the data as fast as she could and figure out exactly where the Pride Squadron was at the moment.
"N-not a problem, Nanjo-hei." It was clear from Kuriko's voice that she was disappointed, and no doubt the rest of the squadron could guess that it was over Akira-taii, having been replaced by Ageha. "I think we're all good here. Any orders from above?" Kuriko asked.
"Welcome back Nanjo-hei!" Masako greeted the girl joyously, sending an image of a smiley face to her as her voice came up. "We're ok here I suppose. A little tense but that's about it."
“Are you well Nanjo-hei?” asked Sakaki wondering why her friend wasn't at her post. “Please give us direction in our fight.”
As the team deployed into the field, they could see firsthand the chaos that was unfolding out in the battlefield. This was the first time the Pride Squadron saw as a group a major conflict; there was so much crossfire between the fleets that standing still was almost impossible. There was combat everywhere, in all directions—it was daunting. Yamataian ships, which were the epitome of warfare technology, fell to the enemy. It was all happening so fast, and now they had a cloud of Mindys moving down around the line of the ships and towards a downed Plumeria close to the Senbu. But once they identified the repair ship and the deploying troops, they changed targets. What looked like a group of allies quickly opened fire upon the Pride Squadron.
"Senbu we're being fired upon by friendly forces!" Kuriko sent as she simultaneously ordered her squadron to evade. "Are we clear to open fire?"
"Are you serious Kuriko?!" Masako jolted out of the way of the incoming attacks deftly. "Shoot to disable for now, don't give them quarter, they fired upon us first. They're probably zombie armors again!" she said and sprayed the enemy Mindys with the submachine gun she held.
"Standing orders are to destroy anyone attacking the Senbu," Ageha reported to the squad leader. "You guys are leading the op, so please be careful out there." She failed to respond to the individual comments, being focused too hard on making up for her lateness. "Those are not friendly forces, Shifuda-heisho! Weapons free, Pride Squad."
"Understood, Nanjo-hei." Kuriko responded before addressing her squadron, "Open fire on the Mindys—unload all you got." As soon as Kuriko finished speaking all of her missile pods launched their payloads at their targets.
"Ugh..." Chikako grunted as she brought her guard up to soak up the attacks, strafing out left to flank as she fired off an aetheric burst from her saber-rifle. None of this made any sense, and she'd be damn less confused about what was going on if the enemy was something recognizably not theirs, like back in the days of the SMX war! Still, she'd have to figure out a way to make this cleaner. Friendly fire in this sort of condition would be tragic. She opened up communications with Ageha, her tone rather serious. "Nanjo-hei. Give me displays on every unit that isn't registered to a ship docked at Aries, or isn't communicating with the station," she said with a curt growl, unleashing a full volley of missiles at an approaching group.
Sakaki's view was dominated by target signs for weapons fire while in the midst of avoiding the enemy fire. Stay calm, a warrior fears not what is coming at us, only the fear of failure. On that note, she began launching missiles at the incoming horde on command.
On the bridge, Shizuka with a critical eye turned her attention to the downed Plumeria. Its designation was the YSS Colichemarde, an attack ship that was taken out in the first wave of fire. Shizuka turned her eyes up to the battle view and fought internally with her fury. "Move to that ship, have the Pride Squad draw the Mindys away from the Plumeria. We're going to rescue them, have our engineers on standby." She glanced up at the floating tactical display in front of her face. "Have Gold Squad gather around the YSS Makka and have them move to engage the forces that advance past the fleet's defense line. Vermillion is to do the same and rally around the YSS Tategami." Shizuka took command over the room, even with her feelings chaotically spinning around her head—the Lioness still held some sort of composure. She knew that she had to get through this battle if she was going to get her revenge.
"Ara... Ueda-heisho, those are the red-colored targets on your display. The Aries Defense Fleet has thankfully already done that job for us," Ageha said, lightly touching the bulging protrusion on her forehead. She winced, it was still quite tender. "Shifuda-heisho, orders have changed. You're to draw the Mindys away from the Plumeria now."
"Masako, barrage the enemy with your missile pods. It should help to thin them out. Once that's done we'll teleport into the horde and attack them head on," Kuriko ordered.
"What?!" Masako jolted. "That's suicidal!" she protested in a private line to Kuriko. She growled for a moment, thinking for a moment the actual merit to such a plan for a moment. "I'm sorry Kuriko-heisho I'm not going to follow that order," Masako said and opened fire upon the group of enemies with her missile pods instead, having no quarrel with doing that one bit. The blonde was not about to teleport into the middle of the swarm to get surrounded, that was stupidity.
Chikako growled over communications, shaking her head when Masako spoke. "Screw her," she said, charging up her teleportation pack. This was immensely frustrating, and bordered on unprofessional for a soldier. It was, among many things, unforgivable. "Shifuda! We'll deal with this later."
"That's an order, Masako. It's not optional. You will follow that order because we need you," Kuriko responded almost automatically as she began to initiate her teleporter pack. "Let's go!" Kuriko shouted.
"No you don't!" Masako shouted back at her, her nerves fraying and starting to wear on her. She didn't care about being professional as a soldier; Masako had never once thought herself a mature pawn of the empire itself. She was doing this because she'd originally wanted to. I'm afraid... the logic in that order doesn't make sense... I don't care what they think about me; it's never bothered me in the past, Masako thought, continuing to shoot at the enemies with the submachine gun she held.
The cloud of missiles streaked across the space between, the enemy Mindys broke formation and began evading the cluster. The targets split quickly, but the aggressive targeting for the offensive missiles overtook a lot of the targets. The count went down, the AIES scan brought up a total of nine red targets—one of them while evading wide around the flank now was coming behind the group. A Mindy opened up on Masako, who was left by herself, two gauss cannons fire-linked just began a rapid fire stream on Masako; the Mindy based itself to keep its firing solution.
"Akira-taii!" the Pride Squad's communications technician called out in distress. She had been watching the engagement unfold and she could hear their inter-squad discussion. As she could see, everyone but Masako's teleport units were getting ready to jump and the blonde NH-29H was firing right to where they would appear. "Permission to engage slave functionality in Sakiyurai-hei's Mindy. She's about to fire on the rest of her unit!" The Taii gave her the go-ahead and the Nitô Hei forced Masako's power armor to teleport with the rest of her squadron. She didn't say anything to her; Ageha felt embarrassed enough at having to save her this way, not to mention the fact that the buxom Neko probably wouldn't be happy with having her system overridden by the young bridge bunny.
Masako was confused when she was forcibly teleported, saving her life from the gauss barrage but it left her wondering what happened. However, it'd be a few seconds before she'd realize it and sighed internally. Being immature like that and letting her anxiety and fear get to her was a really green thing to do. She'd cancel her missile barrage and switch to her handheld weapon and turn around and open fire on the Mindy that had tried to ambush her. "Ageha... Uhm... thanks... and sorry... I let my own anxiety and fear grip me..." she apologized to their op.
To be continued...
The battle was getting into the first stages; the attackers had already sprung their surprise on the unsuspecting starbase and surrounding ships. Long lances of energy streaked across the endless void, the crossfire was endless. The organized chaos shifted as the defense forces moved into place to make their stand against the Uesu Fleet ships. At first it looked like the sparse amount of Yamataian ships had a firm hold on the situation, but not without losses. Subspace fighters were dropping, and a lead Plumeria got taken down by a collective point attack while trying to advance. The Senbu was pulling behind the fleet, approaching the line with Shizuka's eyes closely attached to Nick's marker on the tactical display.
"No, something wrong with our scanners—someone find the Shosa's shuttle, get on it—there's no way he'd die here, he can't die yet!" her orders came out in a panicked yell over the commotion on the bridge.
The Senbu slowed in its approach, Shizuka having overridden the flight controls through her SPINE uplink. "Check your panel again, Heisho," Shizuka ordered, biting back her emotions as she approached the august command rail. Her eyes were glued to the screen; the scarce remnants of the Fox he was piloting were in plain view. Shizuka's mind was unraveling, memories of the YSS Teppen and her Taisa Endo Saki flooded her head. Flashes, images she had buried deep inside were surfacing; the bloody battle, the lifeless body of Saki, the men she lost and the funeral. Now, she was face to face with the death of someone else she held so dear to her heart.
"Endo-Taisa, all reports say the scanner is working perfectly—I'm afraid to report that Saiga-shosa has been killed in action," one of the twins said in a very apologetic tone to the captain. The Taisa didn't take her eyes off what she was seeing. Inside her mind, the chaos shook her thoughts violently and then the held back emotion began to shake her frame. A tear collected in the corner of her amber eyes.
"Ma'am... we are currently engaged in combat. We need orders," the other twin said in an attempt to pull Shizuka out of it.
The captain gripped so tightly on the rail that her hands turned white. Her eyes lowered to her knuckles, staring intently for a long moment, and then her head rose up to the screen and the display changed to the battle outside the Senbu. "We'll make them pay in blood, for all our fallen comrades—for their critical mistake in threatening the sovereignty of our empire! YSS Senbu, prepare all units for launch. Move us to the line—we'll make them regret ever crossing lines with the glorious Star Army of Yamatai!" Shizuka shouted in fury and with a raised chin and bared teeth she sent her ship into battle.
Kuriko dashed into the armor bay and set about activating Sigmund. As the armor ran through its final diagnostics, Kuriko stripped, threw her clothing into the locker by the panel, and started opening up Sigmund. "It's time to wake up," Kuriko said to her armor before stepping backwards into it. "Awww, you're all warm for me. I missed you too." Kuriko's world went blank before flashing back into existence. "Pride Squadron, report in as you are ready," Kuriko said as she headed over to the armory for her handhelds.
Mayuki was mixed in all the chaos in the shuttle bay, and as the Pride Squad arrived she stopped to wave. “We managed to get your stuff prepped, they are ready when you guys are!” she shouted to them, only to be yelled at herself and had to bow and run off to continue her tasks.
Masako hurried in as well, still complaining about the mild buzz she still had from her night of boozing it up with Chikako. She didn't name her armor because to name it would just make it personal and it was a piece of equipment. She'd get the activation sequence going and quickly stripped down and chucked her stuff into a locker as well and stepped into the suit. "damn it… it's cold in this thing," she sighed.
Sakaki dashed into her Mindy while removing her sword. “Hold this,” she said and offered her katana to someone while getting into her Mindy. Space combat... I might want something to offer me protection... Megami! she then called out and gave her directions to change one of her shoulder mounted guns to a shield cloak.
"Everyone, switch to Death blossom configuration, except drop out the Barrier Shield Module for the Teleportation Module," Kuriko ordered before running back to her armor spot.
"What? Why?" Masako said, startled by Kuriko's sudden directive and began to go about switching out her configuration to the one specified.
"We'll need to equip for the ranges typical of space combat, Boin-chan." Chikako stripped off her uniform and tossed it into a bin, hurrying to catch up with the others and suit up in Ikazuchi. As the hemosynth flesh-lined humanoid shape split open, she was immediately sucked into the Mindy 2a that bore the call sign from her early career as its name, and instantly felt her nervous system link up with that of her suit. Like moving my own body. She grinned and placed the helmet atop her head. The Heisho began feeding her unit her desired equipment layout, requesting only a minor tweak from Kuriko's desired configuration. "Ikazuchi, comply, but add the Aether Saber Rifle and include the eliptoid shield from the last mission."
“Hai, Shifuda-heisho,” replied Sakaki, making adjustments to her Mindy as ordered. While not an expert at ranged combat, I shall do what I can.
"I see. Well damn it, this sortie is already sounding like it's going to be one major pain in the ass," Masako groaned as she adjusted her equipment.
"Pride Squadron, I'll be your operator for the time being. Once you’re prepared for your sortie, standby on the launch line—we have orders to deploy you. We have no target designations at the moment. \For now you’re standing orders are to engage the enemy and assault targets by the Senbu." The voice that came over the mission command relay channel belonged to Akira-taii, his name appearing on the HUD when he spoke. "Report to me when you're ready to go."
Kuriko's heart felt like it would flutter right out of her chest when she heard Akira's voice. "Hai Akira-taii." Kuriko's voice was higher than when she had previously spoken to the team and as the Neko moved over to the line, members of the Pride Wing could see a little more bounce in her step.
Sakaki equipped her beam rifle then stood ready at the launch line. She was meditating on the action ahead, waiting for the order.
Masako was finishing up her refit and picked up a spare aether/scalar submachine gun for a handheld weapon and sighed, bummed they didn't have any melee weaponry for them. Taking notice of Kuriko bouncing around a bit more, she groaned; figuring it had to do with the fact Akira was their Op this time. Ugh, you'd never catch me doing that over a guy like that... how embarrassing. Masako thought as she approached the launch line as well and calmed herself. Time to missile spam everything in sight or that got near the ship. She'd try to be on her game this time around.
"Fufufu... seems like I know Kuriko-heisho's weak point now. I knew that beneath that dour, green facade, there beat the heart of a woman." Chikako chuckled to herself, hefting her rifle onto her shoulder and glancing around. Everyone was equipped and ready, so it was only a question of getting clearance to launch. Something she could only feel would come too soon, or not soon enough. "Pride Squad, weapons checks before we sortie. Quick diagnostics, nothing fancy, but we don't want to have any mess ups in combat when the Senbu is on the line."
Once everyone had checked out, Kuriko opened a link back up with Akira. "Pride Squad is on the line and ready for launch," Kuriko said with no small amount of pride in her voice.
"So being a woman means having interest in the expendable gender?" Masako groaned to Chikako and rolled her eyes inside her helmet.
"Excuse me?" Akira-taii asked over the communications after hearing what Masako had just said about him in open communications. "I highly suggest you show more respect for your superiors. If you keep up your unprofessional conduct over the comms I'll have to report you to the Taisa, and I'm sure right now you wouldn't want that." With that, he moved up the squad's data to his main terminal and glanced over the sheets. "Everything looks good, Pride Team 01, you are clear for launch," he said giving them the last go ahead as the bay door opened up, the atmospheric shielding keeping the engineers from going out with the squad.
"... Clearly our relationship will only become terrible again if I explain myself to the likes of you," Chikako said curtly, nonchalantly putting some distance between herself and the large-breasted Neko. Although she rarely felt the need or desire to express her feelings to others, she still felt fairly in touch with them. Masako seemed like... a different case.
Kuriko eyes slid to tiny little slits. In less than a few seconds the Neko had gone from swooning to enraged. "Excuse me!??!!? Nobody—nobody is expendable!!!" Kuriko snapped at Masako. It didn't help the poor Neko, Masako, that Kuriko was more than a little bit attracted to Akira. "If I hear you talk like that again I'll..." Kuriko's free hand was clenching and unclenching; she wasn't quite able to finish her last sentence.
"It's scientifically proven. Males live shorter lives than females do," Masako said calmly like it didn't bother her a single bit. "I was speaking from a purely biological and scientific standpoint, not a personal one," she said and prepared to launch from the bay. "I wasn't insulting you there, Taii," she said to Akira.
Chikako huffed and stopped mid-step, conking Masako on the head with her shield. "That was pretty lousy, even for you."
"Ow!" Masako said, going off balance for the moment and quickly regained her footing. "Well I'm sorry, I'm largely asexual by default," she huffed.
Sakaki placed her hand on Masako's shoulder as a gesture that spoke, “Speak no more, let’s go fight.”
Kuriko didn't even wait for Masako to signal that she was ready again instead the Heisho launched. "Let's go. Pride Squadron launch!" Kuriko yelled.
Instantly calming at the touch, Masako took a deep breath and clutched her submachine gun and watched Kuriko. As the leader it was her job to launch first, after all. "Thanks Sakaki... I needed that..." she said apologetically over a private telepathic message. And with that, she launched from the bay herself out into the frigid emptiness of space and looked around with her visual field and sensor mesh. "Hmm it's a party out here and we're apparently not invited yet."
“Tsukihime, let us not fail, may we reap the wind of our enemy,” muttered Sakaki as she launched along with her wing. On the way she did as Chikako suggested and began double checking in case everything was good, I suffer no injury in the last mission, but good to be careful anyway.
Ageha finally made it to the bridge, a large knot on her forehead about the size of a chrome egg. When the call to stations was made, someone had left a cart unsecured and it had floated away, down across the corridor from where the Yamataian girl had been running. She had been unlucky enough that the timing was perfect enough that it collided with her, taking her by surprise and throwing her a good six feet in the opposite direction. Her forehead was the first to hit ground, and the wound left behind made it pretty clear as to the reason why she was late. "Gomen," Nanjo-hei told Akira-taii, her commanding officer, with a shortness that she rarely displayed as she took her seat at her console and began to hurry through the information output to see what she had missed.
"Take your seat, Nitô Hei," was all Akira answered Ageha with as she apologized. He was much too distracted with the battle at hand to scold the late communications specialist. "Your team is launched; we're at standing orders to destroy any attackers outside the vessel." At that point Akira updated her information with the current battle layout, and the situation. "Pride team is leading the operation for the time being," he then turned to the other operatives. "I need reports on the other squadrons, you heard the commander—everything is supposed to be deployed."
"Launching," Chikako replied, setting out into the void along with the Pride Squad. Sensors were up, weapons were charged and she had no intention of being left behind if the odds were the enemy was strong or foolish enough to want to attack a fortress like Aries. "What's our danger, Senbu?"
"Excuse my lateness, Shifuda-heisho," the newly minted Nitô Hei reported to Kuriko, sounding quite out of breath. "Anything you require?" Ageha asked, her eyes reflecting the glow of the console as she processed the data as fast as she could and figure out exactly where the Pride Squadron was at the moment.
"N-not a problem, Nanjo-hei." It was clear from Kuriko's voice that she was disappointed, and no doubt the rest of the squadron could guess that it was over Akira-taii, having been replaced by Ageha. "I think we're all good here. Any orders from above?" Kuriko asked.
"Welcome back Nanjo-hei!" Masako greeted the girl joyously, sending an image of a smiley face to her as her voice came up. "We're ok here I suppose. A little tense but that's about it."
“Are you well Nanjo-hei?” asked Sakaki wondering why her friend wasn't at her post. “Please give us direction in our fight.”
As the team deployed into the field, they could see firsthand the chaos that was unfolding out in the battlefield. This was the first time the Pride Squadron saw as a group a major conflict; there was so much crossfire between the fleets that standing still was almost impossible. There was combat everywhere, in all directions—it was daunting. Yamataian ships, which were the epitome of warfare technology, fell to the enemy. It was all happening so fast, and now they had a cloud of Mindys moving down around the line of the ships and towards a downed Plumeria close to the Senbu. But once they identified the repair ship and the deploying troops, they changed targets. What looked like a group of allies quickly opened fire upon the Pride Squadron.
"Senbu we're being fired upon by friendly forces!" Kuriko sent as she simultaneously ordered her squadron to evade. "Are we clear to open fire?"
"Are you serious Kuriko?!" Masako jolted out of the way of the incoming attacks deftly. "Shoot to disable for now, don't give them quarter, they fired upon us first. They're probably zombie armors again!" she said and sprayed the enemy Mindys with the submachine gun she held.
"Standing orders are to destroy anyone attacking the Senbu," Ageha reported to the squad leader. "You guys are leading the op, so please be careful out there." She failed to respond to the individual comments, being focused too hard on making up for her lateness. "Those are not friendly forces, Shifuda-heisho! Weapons free, Pride Squad."
"Understood, Nanjo-hei." Kuriko responded before addressing her squadron, "Open fire on the Mindys—unload all you got." As soon as Kuriko finished speaking all of her missile pods launched their payloads at their targets.
"Ugh..." Chikako grunted as she brought her guard up to soak up the attacks, strafing out left to flank as she fired off an aetheric burst from her saber-rifle. None of this made any sense, and she'd be damn less confused about what was going on if the enemy was something recognizably not theirs, like back in the days of the SMX war! Still, she'd have to figure out a way to make this cleaner. Friendly fire in this sort of condition would be tragic. She opened up communications with Ageha, her tone rather serious. "Nanjo-hei. Give me displays on every unit that isn't registered to a ship docked at Aries, or isn't communicating with the station," she said with a curt growl, unleashing a full volley of missiles at an approaching group.
Sakaki's view was dominated by target signs for weapons fire while in the midst of avoiding the enemy fire. Stay calm, a warrior fears not what is coming at us, only the fear of failure. On that note, she began launching missiles at the incoming horde on command.
On the bridge, Shizuka with a critical eye turned her attention to the downed Plumeria. Its designation was the YSS Colichemarde, an attack ship that was taken out in the first wave of fire. Shizuka turned her eyes up to the battle view and fought internally with her fury. "Move to that ship, have the Pride Squad draw the Mindys away from the Plumeria. We're going to rescue them, have our engineers on standby." She glanced up at the floating tactical display in front of her face. "Have Gold Squad gather around the YSS Makka and have them move to engage the forces that advance past the fleet's defense line. Vermillion is to do the same and rally around the YSS Tategami." Shizuka took command over the room, even with her feelings chaotically spinning around her head—the Lioness still held some sort of composure. She knew that she had to get through this battle if she was going to get her revenge.
"Ara... Ueda-heisho, those are the red-colored targets on your display. The Aries Defense Fleet has thankfully already done that job for us," Ageha said, lightly touching the bulging protrusion on her forehead. She winced, it was still quite tender. "Shifuda-heisho, orders have changed. You're to draw the Mindys away from the Plumeria now."
"Masako, barrage the enemy with your missile pods. It should help to thin them out. Once that's done we'll teleport into the horde and attack them head on," Kuriko ordered.
"What?!" Masako jolted. "That's suicidal!" she protested in a private line to Kuriko. She growled for a moment, thinking for a moment the actual merit to such a plan for a moment. "I'm sorry Kuriko-heisho I'm not going to follow that order," Masako said and opened fire upon the group of enemies with her missile pods instead, having no quarrel with doing that one bit. The blonde was not about to teleport into the middle of the swarm to get surrounded, that was stupidity.
Chikako growled over communications, shaking her head when Masako spoke. "Screw her," she said, charging up her teleportation pack. This was immensely frustrating, and bordered on unprofessional for a soldier. It was, among many things, unforgivable. "Shifuda! We'll deal with this later."
"That's an order, Masako. It's not optional. You will follow that order because we need you," Kuriko responded almost automatically as she began to initiate her teleporter pack. "Let's go!" Kuriko shouted.
"No you don't!" Masako shouted back at her, her nerves fraying and starting to wear on her. She didn't care about being professional as a soldier; Masako had never once thought herself a mature pawn of the empire itself. She was doing this because she'd originally wanted to. I'm afraid... the logic in that order doesn't make sense... I don't care what they think about me; it's never bothered me in the past, Masako thought, continuing to shoot at the enemies with the submachine gun she held.
The cloud of missiles streaked across the space between, the enemy Mindys broke formation and began evading the cluster. The targets split quickly, but the aggressive targeting for the offensive missiles overtook a lot of the targets. The count went down, the AIES scan brought up a total of nine red targets—one of them while evading wide around the flank now was coming behind the group. A Mindy opened up on Masako, who was left by herself, two gauss cannons fire-linked just began a rapid fire stream on Masako; the Mindy based itself to keep its firing solution.
"Akira-taii!" the Pride Squad's communications technician called out in distress. She had been watching the engagement unfold and she could hear their inter-squad discussion. As she could see, everyone but Masako's teleport units were getting ready to jump and the blonde NH-29H was firing right to where they would appear. "Permission to engage slave functionality in Sakiyurai-hei's Mindy. She's about to fire on the rest of her unit!" The Taii gave her the go-ahead and the Nitô Hei forced Masako's power armor to teleport with the rest of her squadron. She didn't say anything to her; Ageha felt embarrassed enough at having to save her this way, not to mention the fact that the buxom Neko probably wouldn't be happy with having her system overridden by the young bridge bunny.
Masako was confused when she was forcibly teleported, saving her life from the gauss barrage but it left her wondering what happened. However, it'd be a few seconds before she'd realize it and sighed internally. Being immature like that and letting her anxiety and fear get to her was a really green thing to do. She'd cancel her missile barrage and switch to her handheld weapon and turn around and open fire on the Mindy that had tried to ambush her. "Ageha... Uhm... thanks... and sorry... I let my own anxiety and fear grip me..." she apologized to their op.
To be continued...
