RP: YSS Genesis [Episode 3] Frozen Wranglers

Lina gave a nod and smirked at Rikou. "Someone's most likely grooming you for the future, I'm sure you will make a great captain," she winked and then looked at the stations and walked over to one.

"I studied the ships schematics and station placement after I was assigned, though naturally things could've changed," said the Shoi as she ran her hand down along the side of one of the consoles and then looked over at the Taii. "Taii, who are the newer operators? I can probably help teach them how to operate a vessel outside of what they learned in training."

I have plenty of experience given what I had to go through during the Battle of Yamatai, there is even combat footage of my old ship in action so I might be able to use that as a training tool... she rubbed her chin in thought.

Spencer watcher the two engineers scuttle around and past him with some mild agitation forming on his weathered features. It was that kind of look that a pasty nerdy kid gets just before he runs off in tears. Being too old and too Nepleslian for such behavior, Spencer settled on kneeling down to the now-damp uniform left by Yoko on the floor of the airlock entry way.

"Hmph." He muttered to his datapad, holding up the outfit between his forefinger and thumb, "Young folks don't know how to respect anybody these days. AI, when the Head Engineer gets done foolin' around and snippin' all the blue wires, kindly let her know that the Quartermaster has her clothes and will return them when she danes to allow a supervised inventory sweep."

"Doncha worry, Boss!" Shimei responded to Shinon, as she moved forward, closer in toward the Comet. As she got closer, her armor was buffeted and bumped around by turbulence caused by the bits of ice, small and large alike.

"I'll keep both my eyes on her for ya, Shoi." Brando called back, as well, feeling the same effects, though from about a hundred yards behind Shimei, he wasn't in anywhere near as much turbulence.

"Oi, I can see the surface of the comet!" Shimei suddenly called out, sounding rather cheerful. "I'm pretty sure my harpoon is in, but I don't think I can get close enough to test it, as bits are coming off, but the harpoon seems stuck in pretty far!"

"You should probably ignore trying to get a lock and just fire the harpoon, Mako-Hei" another voice called out- it was Kin, the squad's XO for the time being. "I think I registered a hit!" he called a few moments later, tugging on his line to see if it held- It didn't, and now he got to reel the cable back in. Chuckling, he reported to Shinon "I got a hit but it didn't stick, I'll fire again as soon as I can!"

************

The Taii looked over those on the bridge for a moment, noting that the entire current bridge crew was now present. "Well, Those two in the Origin uniforms, Dakota Orven, and Adam Pascal, are fairly green, but they are familiar with the systems, and the two in the Star Army uniforms, Kotoko Hamadi and Yuzumi Hibiya, have some experience in the field, but are unfamiliar with the systems, so I would suggest having them teach one another what they know."

"Sound's like a plan to me," she glanced at the two groups of operators. "What say you four? Teaching each other your skill-sets and the knowledge that you possess will mean that in a sticky situation, the four of you can cover each others jobs in the event something happens."

She then glanced at the operators terminal for a moment. "Umm, Rikou, I was never really told what the ships current mission is.... if it's alright, can I ask what it is?"

"Uh," Evelyn said after a small bit of silence. "So I guess I should head back to reorganize the new supplies," she said.

"It was nice to see someone from the homeland! Drop by the Medical Center or shoot my communicator a message sometime," she called over her shoulder on her way out. She did her best not to trip or something else as stupid along the way.

Shinon did not want to endanger the group more than was needed. Flying this near a comet was dangerous enough and Shimei was even so close she could see the surface of the frozen giant. "Okay Kazako-hei, that is close enough." Shinon said over comms, while she watched over Mako. "Everyone, just fire your harpoon and pull on the wire to make sure it is lodged tight. We can't go too close to the comet."

Amethyst had about walked up to one of the anchor points, she turned around as she heard Yoko running up.
Her first reacion was to smirk sweetly as being clad in tight white and blue did work well for Yoko.
In her distraction though, it took a while before she realised what Yoko was shouting at her.
"He-- oh, what!? Shi-Ooof" was the last thing Amethyst exclaimed before catching her AMES suit with her face and making a saving step backwards.

She bundled the suit under her arm "Lead the way!" and started to follow after Yoko. "If we're gonna crawl again, maybe being weightless to begin with might be faster?" she yelled up after Yoko in hopes of being of any use other then an audience to the girl's polymer clinged rear.

"Dis shua as hell isn't time foa teachin lessons!" Yoko called over her shoulder, her voice oddly muffled through the shiny helmet of the AMES. "Hea, this one!" she spoke again at Amethyst, pointing her finger at the doorway opposite from the one they went through earlier. Words besides the gateway prominently stood at attention, marking it as "ARMORY" towards which she rapidly walked.

As Yoko came to the access panel, she calmly reached a hand out to open the doorway. Her mind however was thinking things along the lines of 'OMGWTF THIS ISN'T NORMAL! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!' and 'WE'AS ALL GUNNA DIE! WE'AS ALL GOINNA DIE HEA!'. Things like that - and the fact that the AMES had a a heads up display that was streaming to her the power fluctuations live? The lives of Heads of Engineering were, assuming they were on the ball, filled with fear. Of course, she did her best not to so much as let a peep of this to Amethyst.

Until she pushed the button to open the doorway.

Which didn't open. She, naturally, pushed it again. And then, calmly, again. "H-hey, Genny, why's we not allowed in? W-we're supposed to have access since we'as gotta go through the armoary to get to the s-stuff that needs fixing, y-yaknow?" By then, Yoko was furiously mashing the access button, panic finally starting to consume her like a dark cancerous abomination from the far reaches.

These readings...in any ship but this untried prototype!

[Engineering

"Warning, anomaly detected in ships life support system!" said the ships AI to anyone in engineering.

Multiple alerts were going off, displaying various types of failures in the shield generator and life support systems.

Outside Armory

"Please input code to enter Weapons Storage," said the AI.

A chorus of "Yes Ma'am" greeted Lina at her suggestion to the bridge crew, though her immediate turn to the Captain made them decide to wait for further instructions- besides, they were trying to keep the ship as stable as possible to help the armor team on the outside be able to find them and bring the cables back.

"Ah, yes!" Rikou responded, enthusiastically. "Origin has requested that we retrieve one of the many comets from the Asteroid ring, and put it into a decaying orbit over the planet Ake. The reasons for this are twofold; One, it will make an excellent stress test for the craft and its systems, and, it will help Origin's efforts to terraform to planet for future habitation."

************

"Acknowledged, Ma'am." Kin responded to Shinon, having just finished reeling his harpoon back in. Locking and loading it, he relayed orders to the two other remaining harpoonists. "Alright. On my count, take the best aim you can, and fire. Three... Two... One... Fire!" If Space were capable of carrying sound, the noise of three Gauss propelled harpoons flying through its emptiness, then through the cloud of ice dust from the comet itself. Again, were it not for the silence of space, three nearly simultaneous Thunks could be heard.

The three Power Armor pilots then tugged on their lines, and reported in. Kin was first, with a satisfied "Secure!" Mako was next, hers also being secure, last, though, a disappointed grumble was heard from Bridget Nova. "No dice, I'm reeling it back in!"

Kin's voice manifested itself in a private channel to Shinon's armor. "Ma'am, I think it would be advisable for the three of us with our harpoons set to return to the ship, so that we can string the cables properly. is that alright? The rest of you can cover Nova-Hei while we're gone."

"N-no way..." Yoko stuttered, her eyes darting to her AMES' HUD yet again as even more problems were cropping up. "Friggin system cascade, right on the first day!" she quickly grumbled under her breath, despair quickly being replaced with anger. The head engineer wasn't sure what code she was supposed to type in - she had one to access engineering panels, but that was it! "Hea I goes," she sighed, punching in the code as Amnythist likely looked on.

"If we's don't make it in time and tha ship blows up and shit, it's been nice knowin ya," she smiled at the other engineer from behind her polarized helmet.

"Move out of the way, girl." Spencer seemed to appear out of the bulkhead, a feat which was made even more suspicious when he draped Yoko's clothes over her shoulders and pushed her away from the door to the armory. He cast an icy glance over his shoulder before typing in his override code and leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed.

"I hope the ship does blow up at this rate." He snapped, "It'll save us the trouble of havin' to deal with an incompetent engineer what doesn't read her security briefs properly. Hmph."

The code panel blinked a few times as the digital display said: 'verifying...' several times with the ... repeating itself. Then, there was a hiss as the door locks disengaged and the door opened up with very little noise.

"Access Granted," said the AI. "Have a nice day!"

"Okay you who got your hooks in, head together back to the ship." Shinon said right after Kin messaged her. She would told them to that anyway. "The rest of us is staying with Nova-hei. Nova-hei no rush, just do your job and we can all go back for a cup of hot cocoa." Shinon said and smiled.

"Hmph!" Yoko grabbed the clothes she left at the airlock and piled into the weapons storage room. "I'd like to see yous recalibrate a fluctuating grav-metric field with a quantum reg-pat," the Nep raised Geshrin grumbled under her breath. The engineer laid down her pile of clothing again and quickly opened up the access hatch into the vital systems of the ship. As she clambered into the duct, Yoko grumbled the whole way in, muttering incomprehensible gibberish now that her fear of becoming part of a giant explosion was replaced with anger.

Anger towards an older Nepleslian man with a neatly trimmed chinstrap beard and broad shoulders and constant frown and @&#$! It was so frustrating to get scolded by him! What was he, her dad?!

As she thought this, Yoko inspected the nearest console to deal with the most frightening problem first; power regulation. They'd still have air and have an alright temperature inside for a good while, even if life support went down, and the shields weren't vital either. "Genny! Get an emergency shutdown of the shields and switch life suppoat to tha backups - we's don't need the shields, and I don't want it blowing up on us right now either, yaknow?" she asked the AI urgently. That could be handled by the AI, while the power flux problem she'd deal with personally.

Turning to the power console, she eyed the readout. "Now, what we gots hea?"

Engineering

A message suddenly flashed across Yoko's screen, with the words 'simulation ended'. This was followed by the ships onboard AI sayin the same thing. "Current Simulation has ended Yoko, you may review the results at a later time. Currently, your presence is needed elsewhere."

"Please assist the armor teams in securing cables from comet to ship, you'll need to take a space walk."

An AMES-clad figure, holding the helmet in the crook of her arm, passed by Spencer and into the room where Yoko had just gone into the conduits. Her shock of hair was a brilliant red, and her thick-rimmed glasses glinted slightly as they passed between Spencer's vision and one of the many light sources in the room.

"That will do, Spencer, I need you to help me push the drums of the larger cables out of the main door so we can help out the other teams- Go grab a suit if you can." The junior Executive ordered the quartermaster, as she continued on into the room, before tapping on the edge of the open hatch to get Yoko's attention.

"Looks like I'll have to run your department through some more drills- the Other Engineers did just as bad." she leaned inward, holding out a hand to help Yoko out so they could get on to their next task.

************

"Yes, ma'am." Bridget Nova responded to Shinon, watching the other harpoon-shooters leave as she waited for her lead wire to retract the harpoon for another shot.

The other group would find their sensors easing up as they went farther and farther from the source of the particles, the obscuring 'fuzz' caused by the tiny, reflective and refractive ice particles becoming less as they moved into clearer space, until finally it cleared completely, and they had no trouble seeing the ship with any of their sensors.

"We are in the clear, Shoi." Kin announced to his superior, and he then ordered the two with him to move forward. "Make sure to keep your lines from tangling," he urged, taking care to keep his own straight as it reeled out from the comet and toward the Genesis.

"Sure, whatever." Spencer replied to the AMES suit coarsely, still a little sour towards Yoko. "I'll go throw one on and be back in a horse's spit."

And just like that, he was gone. A single horse's spit later, Spencer returned, garbed in his own AMES suit, with the helmet under one arm and a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

"What are we gonna do with them wires, Miss?" He puffed, leaning on the doorjamb again. "I don't reckon we're gonna run an extension cable all the way back to the station to power the ship with, in 'lou' of better engineering staff."

The AMES suit silently clambered out of the maintenance way, gruffly taking the redhead's offered hand out of common courtesy. "Not like the layout of this ship makes it any easier yaknow," she shrugged, bending down to pick up her pile of set aside clothing. "It's like, someone made it all to be weiad on purpose. And the sec-brief didn't help foa crap - I gots access to the armoary upstairs, but not this one down hea," Yoko sharply spoke, directing the words at a certain someone.

"Meanwhiles, I gots some engineeas with access to one side, but not the other - guess which category I fall into?" she asked, one hand on her hip and the other holding the bundle of clothing. "We worked out a kinda thing where the guys who could go in would open the door and shit for the ones that couldn't, or we'd just keep the haves and have-nots separate in the places they can get into," the head engineer explained. "Couas singlin us out would screw evarything up!"

"And to top it off - " she stopped abruptly as she eyed her clothing. "Why the hell is my clothing all moist?!"

"We're stringing the cables back to the comet our Power Armor team just captured" Sierra explained. "The guy wires we had to use in the harpoon guns won't be enough to pull such a large object in any sort of useful speed, so we have to use the stronger cables in the drums. Now! Out with them!" she finished, putting her own helmet on and knocking one of the drums over, rolling it out the hangar bay doors and into space. She took the tether gun attached to the AMES, and shot the barrel, attaching it to the ship so it wouldn't float away.

************

Shinon's radio set would suddenly be alerted- She had a message from the Genesis.

Please finish the last harpoon tether and move to help crews run the main cables to the harpoons.

Click to expand...

With it was beamed more complete instructions on attaching the cables to the guy-wires they had shot earlier, as well as how to properly attach them to she ship's anchor-points to allow the Genesis to drag the comet where it needed to go.