RP: YSS Miharu Final Mission: The Battle For Yamatai

Her comrades and friends were battling their enemies inside the captured Chiharu…a once majestic ship that had been a defender. Now it had been desecrated by her builder’s enemies and used upon the very world she had been made to protect. Just like many of the Nekovalkryja she had heard about.

But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. Now was the time for combat. While her friends took care of the enemy leader, Masako would fight in the void to protect the Mokuren. Her breathing seemed loud even over the battle chatter as she maneuvered her Mindy to get a clear shot. Targeting two of the three Battle Pods with her Shoulder Pods, the Warrant Officer fired a pair of missiles towards each as she switched her GM-02 to saber mode. Shifting her relative altitude to the Mokuren down, Masako lifted her rifle up so the aether blade would hopefully penetrate the third Battlepod in a vital spot…or maybe even leave a gash along the ventral part of her enemy.

Aboard Sprufnikkamazzar's stolen Chiharu

Rolf's leading shot of aetheric energy crossed down the length corridor, eliminating a portion of a Neko officer's stomach a couple hundred meters away.

With him on point, the group reformed and flew to last visual of the target. It was a junction with another main corridor, one that extended about 30 meters toward the stern and stopped. The corridor went the same way in the other direction about 75 meters.

No one occupied the short side, which was lined with two wide doors on either side and two very short doors at the end. Down the other end were a four personnel, all NMX Neko officers in a huddle of some kind of deep conversation, the hands of one of them sharply moving as she leaned forward on the balls of her feet. She appeared to be snapping at the others.

Nimura, taking up the rear of the group, hoisted her aether submachine gun, its bayonet catching the light of the fire all around them. "He had only 25 seconds to escape, and the hall was under fire. He could not have gotten far."

Tom's knowledge of Yamataian vessel design led something to click in his mind — symmetry. The top corridor, the one leading from the command bridge where Rolf and Nimura had been, as well as the one leading from the Pit, which they had bypassed, had been symmetrical in size.

The thought was cut short. The group of Neko to the right of the group had split up, taking cover in the doorways of the corridor. Rolf, with his brilliant shield against the licking orange flames, was the most visible target at the junction. One of the Neko shouted something and hurled a round object toward him, while another on the other side was obscured by a small blue flash as a tiny line of the same color snapped out and struck Rolf's shield. The damage was not minimal, but his shield held. A second shot cracked against it, and other energy bolts started pouring down the corridor from sidearms.

"HOLD THEM!" one the Neko was heard shouting.

* * *

Outside the Mokuren

The two missiles lanced out from Masako's shoulders and found their targets without trouble, the two battlepods struck right on their cockpit windows. One burst into a ball of fire; the other was blasted apart into harmless chunks.

The third twisted out of the way of Masako's rifle, firing just a couple of shots at the Mokuren before slinging itself away from the battleship, trailed by a pair of LAMIA snipping at its heels.

Nearly a dozen other LAMIA closed on Masako's position, identifying themselves as Mokuren armors. They attached themselves to Masako's signal, giving the Neko a squad of her own.

One of their cheerful faces showed up in the corner of Masako's HUD. She had a lock of blue hair hanging just to the side of her right eye, which was a flat grey color.

"Ready when you are, Kurohoshi-sama!" the NH-12 chirped.

The Neko's Mindy highlighted a warning — another group of battlepods, one armed with a torpedo, was closing from 800 kilometers. It was two seconds from acquiring a lock.

* * *

Above Yamatai

The battle was turning in Yamatai's favor. Because of the sacrifices by Kotori's fleet, many of the NMX's most powerful warships and many of its veteran commanders were neutralized. Smaller vessels were filling a few of the gaps by grouping up and targeting large YSE vessels, but starfighter and bomber wings sent from Yamatai's surface were bringing them down, too, along with the still-massive number of LAMIA armors carving up those typically anti-armor/starfighter warships.

Desperation was setting in.

Unable to mount a coordinated, fleet-wide strategy, the solidarity of NMX command began to falter. A flotilla of about 200 vessels was grouping toward Yui's fleet and making a break for it; Yukari, from the Mokuren's bridge, estimated they would escape, but they had just one cruiser among them, with 21 pocket battleships and another squadron of heavy patrollers. The rest were scouts and supply vessels.

Another cluster of vessels was rushing to aid Sprufnikkamazzar the Tiamat but they consisted of a speartip of heavy patrollers and a few Hands of Fear. Under the onslaught of several Yuumi battleships and an assisting squadron of Plumeria-class gunships, they were not going to survive.

Landfalls were being made, but a substantial infantry presence on the ground already was engaging the enemy, and landing vessels were being picked off too often to give the NMX the swarming numbers it needed to mount a sustained offensive. Some did not make low orbit, as cover, on average, consisted of a lone squadron of battlepods.

The Mokuren was clear of the Tiamat's CFS field and had removed a few of its massive guns from operation. The battleship's CFS was coming back on, and no NMX vessels currently were firing upon it. Yukari did not let herself breathe. Hovering inside of her own mind through a SPINE connection, she was able to take in the entirety of the fleet's situation while also guiding the Mokuren. The fleet's strength was at 72 percent of where it was when the battle began, and that was encouraging.

A warning blipped on the edge of her vision. The Tiamat was pressing ahead. Sensors indicated it was reaching speeds of 7,000 km/s and accelerating still.

The flagship's course was Yamatai.

When the realization struck her, Yukari grit her teeth and squeezed the arms of her chair. Sprufnikkamazzar might or might not yet be dead, but it was clear he was not about to die quietly.

Stopping the massive warship was not possible with weapons. It would hit the planet much sooner than it could be destroyed. Disabling its engines was not enough either; it had enough velocity as it was to do serious damage to the planet. Knocking it off course was unlikely; it was too large.

Sensors indicated Tiamat's CFS system was operating but low on power. The ship would hit the planet within eight minutes.

Yukari cast off any hesitation.

"All graviton-beam capable starships not absorbed in combat. Close on Mokuren and prepare to bombard the Tiamat. We must eliminate its gravitic shielding and stop it from ramming Yamatai!"

"Ballsy!" chuckled Rolf as he took the brunt of the small arms assault. He held ups his two empty hands before bracing himself. The Malifarian's 50mm shoulder mounted cannons began to take aim. His HUD marked the several individual targets down the hallway, highlighting them on his team's displays as well. What followed was a brutal barrage of Aether and terribly powerful solid rounds.

His right arm, both set to SMG, took the right side of the hall, while his left handled the left, the same went for his right cannon and left cannon. All the weapons worked in terrible conjunction providing murderous suppressing fire onto the defending Nekos.

"Lil' kittens oughta' know betta' than t'fuck wit' tha' big dogs!." laughed Rolf during his gunning fire.

Yuzuki did not immediately recognize the guns the enemy were toting, but she knew enough to estimate their inferiority as soon as they struck Rolf's shielding. They were copies on a more devestating original; nothing more, and nothing for powered armor.

Whether or not it would matter, she activated her armor's optical camo; unarmored nekovalkyrja would not have the benefit of triangular, or even broad-range scanning, and were reduced to visuals. That was a safe assumption. If Yuzuki had been alone, with the taste of blood in her mouth, she would have closed the distance immediately and taken them the same way she had taken the ripper - though, perhaps with her forearm weapon this time. This was not a good strategy, now. Rolf was laying a heavy amount of fire in the direction of the entrenched NMX, and it wouldn't do to be caught in the crossfire. Friends could kill just as well as enemies.

Instead, Yuzuki drew up beside Rolf, powering down the meter-long aether saber attachment in the same instant that she brought the rifle to her shoulder, taking aim. It took the ASG a second of preperation as it gathered the power for scalar heavy, which was just as good as a grenade. She took another second, her tongue darting over her lips beneath the cover of the helmet, wetting them, running over her incisors. The thrill was humming through her like liquid lightning. Her teeth tingled from it.

Yuzuki put the shot, which would explode in radius on impact, near the center of the entrenched Nekovalkyrja, as near as she could estimate. Indirectly placed, behind them slightly so that their cover would be worthless against it, it would probably kill them immediately and likely painfully.

"Wuff," she quipped.

Then, she pulled the trigger.

A part of Masako’s mind was a comfortable when the Lamia pilot spoke to her with the ‘sama’ honorific. After all, she was a Warrant Officer, not a Flag Officer. However, most of Masako’s mind (that wasn’t dedicated to life support) was focused on the matter at hand – protecting the Mokuren from threats. A battlepod group with torpedoes was CERTAINLY a threat.

Basic calculations based upon her units’ weaponry range versus the Battlepods ‘theoretical’ torpedo range gave Masako some confidence, considering the GM-02’s range was 588,000 miles (approx. 946,000 kilometers). A piece of Masako could only casually wonder where all that range had gone in current technology.

Probably considered wasteful given current Power Armor roles, would be the Warrant Officer’s guess as she raised her Rifle. “All units – Target any and all Battlepods with Torpedoes as Primary Threats. Any Battlepods with Anti-Armor armament are Secondary.” She ordered before giving a more silent signal to fire – by firing her own GM-02 at one of the Battlepods 800 kilometers away.

Tom offered cover fire from his position, not offering himself to the front like the more well-armored Rolf or Yuzuki. Something was nagging at him, some small bit of design theory that creeped its way into his mind despite the distractions of combat.

The target they were hunting... it was no way it could have made enough progress to escape their pursuit. Either they had taken a wrong route, or there was something else at work.

As he fired a tight burst at one of the soldiers attacking them, he caught a glance of the wall.

At that moment, it dawned on him.

"Something's wrong with that wall over there," he said over the comm channel. "I need to take a look at it. It shouldn't be there!"

"I can cover you while you check the wall Freeman." Nyton offered while he moved into position to do so.

Aboard the Tiamat, halfway to the bottom of the bridge superstructure

Rolf's first volley of railgun rounds turned one Neko's body, from the waist up, into a splatter of red paste that washed the wall and deck. Another Neko threw herself inside a room just as the shell exploded against behind where she had been, crushing the doorway and putting a jagged, three-meter-long tear into the wall.

The other two, a bit farther forward, tried to spin out of the way. An aether bolt caught one high on her chest and kept going. She crumpled with barely a whiff of smoke coming from the hole Rolf made. The other one had moved early and was behind the wall leading into a door.

The two Knights had ignored the grenade thrown at them, but Nimura had not. She had stabbed the orb with her aether saber rifle, destroying it before it could explode.

Railgun rounds and aether blasts kept coming for a few seconds more until the sides of the little hallway were sufficiently blackened and shredded that Rolf stopped.

One of the Neko popped out and took a shot at Yuzuki just after she spoke. The bolt missed, scarring the ceiling behind the Black Knight as she took aim and put down her grenade shot. That was when the other Neko did the same, prone on the floor of the doorway.

Yuzuki's grenade shot exploded right by her waist. The concussive effect, being so close, was enough to swat her aside and back into the room. The Mindy armor registered the sound of that Neko officer's head taking a couple of knocks that put her out of the fight. The fore Neko went faster; the concussion sent her head face-first into the doorjam. Yuzuki knew the Neko, if she ever woke up, was going to have a massive lump on her head, but for now she also no longer was a threat.

Tom went to the wall, unfazed by the mayhem behind him. His only shoulder drone slipped from his shoulder and floated by his side, ready to assist him with his analysis. A few quick measurements showed the corridor was 4 meters wide by 4 meters tall with a rounded ceiling.

A preliminary scan showed the corridor's end partially was a volumetric panel. There was about a meter-and-a-half covered by the panel, with the rest being solid wall — not hastily constructed, but purposely erected bulkhead that would stop an errant shot.

Tom's drone rose up to eye-level, and Tom's eyes and thoughts told it right where to go.

Nyton kept a visual feed on his HUD of what was going on behind him while he covered Tom. Tom gave him the drone feed instead, and the two men watched as the drone's tip peeked behind the panel and into the face of a door. The drone flattened itself on the ground and tried again, this time piercing the panel and finding more corridor before it. It angled upward and saw that the door had failed to close all the way. There was a meter of clearance.

Down the rest of the corridor, which was metallic and had no carpet, there stood two NMX infantrywomen wielding Impaler rifles and Parasite canisters. They were guarding a single wide door and had not noticed Tom's drone.

The feed from Tom's drone was cut off by Yukari's face — and a dull rumble registered by everyone's armor. Tom's CIES unit reported it was talking with the Tiamat, and stated the massive flagship had lost its primary defensive CFS, but backups remained.

"Black Knights, the Tiamat is attempting to ram Yamatai," Yukari's face said. "Yuzuki-san, take Eastwood with you and disable the ship's primary powerplant. We need the ability of the ship to generate gravitic shields to be permanently eliminated."

A counter of four minutes came on for Yuzuki and Rolf to see in their HUDs.

"Taii-san, complete the original mission with Freeman and Nimura-san. The NMX commander cannot be allowed to escape!"

* * *

Outside the Mokuren

The shots from Masako's rifle sliced through space, but only one connected with the battlepod carrying a torpedo, and it was a glancing blow, as the maneuverable fighters scattered. The LAMIA fired after them, but the fighters gracefully dodged and spun to keep the small armors busy.

The one that had escaped from the last group and was chased by LAMIAs was barreling back toward Masako, trailing radiation from the glowing hardpoint where a heavy turret had been. It was just 700 kilometers away when it fired its remaining box of four missiles.

Masako's musing about where all the old power had gone was given an answer as her eyes widened. The missiles were too fast to dodge.

Her mind, drilled and practiced as it was, willed her armored self to dodge anyway while she brought her rifle up. There was no time to pull the trigger, but Masako didn't need it. Just as the lead missile was about to hit her, the Mindy armor suddenly slid down as if she were flopping into bed and streaked across the pock-marked hull of the Mokuren. That missile and one other lost her and headed toward better-armored LAMIAs; the others chased after her. She could see them behind her.

Masako flew around antennas and weapons blisters, rolled hard and out of the way of roaring deck guns as if she was rolling out of bed, always moving, juking, flipping and sometimes even appearing to run along the hull. When she came close to the engines of the battleship, missiles closing in, she fell forward onto her free hand and pushed to send herself away from the ship.

Just before she hurtled through space, Masako dropped her four Offensive Weapons Pods. The missiles continued to track her, seemed to be closing on her head, close enough she could make out the warheads.

They exploded amid four streams of white light. Her weapons pods rejoined her as she righted herself and hoisted her rifle again.

Where the power had gone, her armor informed her, was into the CFS, which allowed her to do the before-impossible thing she had just made look easy.

The battlepod group was being warded away from the Mokuren, but Masako knew they would make another pass. Her LAMIAs were being drawn away to take out an escort harassing the Yuumi battleship.

Rolf held a spot in the middle of the hall, his forearms aimed off in two different directions, ensuring that whatever else popped its head out was dead. The soldier looked both ways, before retreating into cover as he received Yukari's message. He took the moment to look over his forearms, wiping off what grime or dirt they may have accumulated, and double-checking their functionality.

"Black Knights, the Tiamat is attempting to ram Yamatai," Yukari's face said. "Yuzuki-san, take Eastwood with you and disable the ship's primary powerplant. We need the ability of the ship to generate gravitic shields to be permanently eliminated."

Click to expand...

"They're gunna' be bringin' all 'dere heavy stuff out t'defend tha' ship's Captain." noted Rolf, before thumbing off into the direction they needed to go. "All we're gunna' get iss' a bunch matyrin' bitches who'll just fight t'die." Went the man in a somewhat bored and grim tone.

A counter of four minutes came on for Yuzuki and Rolf to see in their HUDs.

Click to expand...

"That's mo' like it!" went the Malifarian, almost dancing to as he began to turn around and head towards their destination. He slapped Yuzuki's armored rear before blasting off, "Last one there takes the blame!"

Yuzuki jumped slightly as the zesu armors panged together, metal-on-metal, though she barely felt the impact of Rolf's hand on her ass.

"Blame for what?" she muttered testily, re-summoning the meter-long aether blade as she spurred the Mindy on after Rolf. "Breaking it?"


The engineering sprite - technical sentry, rather - pictured the layout of the Chiharu-class flagship in her head. It was an old model of ship that had seen long service, though if she had to admit, Yuzuki was hard pressed to remember much about its subsystems. The engineering plant was down, down, down, but it was not the same type of setup pioneered by the Miharu - in fact, many of the primary engineering controls had been destroyed when Nimura had lanced the bridge wings into fiery melted oblivion. What was left would be the individual engine panels themselves - no central control station. That had been the bridge.

As she bolted down the passageways, Yuzuki found her mind racing along at a breakneck pace, trying to calculate everything at once.

This Chiharu would use a KAMI instead of a MEGAMI, if the NMX had not replaced its original OS, or enabled the spartan backup. If the ship's computer were paying any attention, the task that Yuzuki had been given would turn into a foully difficult one; disabling a ship's systems remotely required the network, and the network was the realm of a KAMI.

Bridge destroyed, the controls were in the hands of the KAMI, or whatever had replaced it.

At the next intersection, Yuzuki veered away, leaving Rolf to continue along his present course.

"Rolf," Yuzuki sent telepathically, person-to-person, "I am sending you the co-ordinates of this ship's Electronics Suite system components. There are two of them on this level, and one central command core at the heart of the superstructure. If you take one, I'll take the other, and we'll meet in the middle - they must be destroyed completely before I can take control of the plant downstairs."

A bare second of silence decided her. The briefest of smiles flitted across her lip as she felt the thrill rising again, and the world became moment-by-moment.

"Whoever gets to the core first wins. Ready-set-go."

A pearly grin worked its way up the side of Rolf's face as he heard Yuzuki's orders. More objectives? More difficulty? A better race? This mission was going to be a lot more fun than he thought it would be. His thrusters burned brighter as they propelled him down the hallways at dangerous speeds. He brought his forearms up, activating both his shields to empower the full CFS shield which guarded him. He burned down the corridors barreling over anything foolish enough to get in his way.

"Leave it to a gearhead t'make this shit interestin' f'me! Heh!" he laughed heartily as blazed on, intent on beating Yuzuki to the core.

Nyton wasted no time acknowledging. He knew what they had to do. "Freeman use your drone to strike them from an opposite angle while we storm from the front. Rush right through them and pursue the target!"

On the Tiamat, base of the command superstructure

Tom was not the soldier or operator Nyton was. He knew that. So did Nyton.

The Raltean still had prowess.

His drone stayed on the ground and went left along the wall closest to him inside the room where the infantrywomen stood. They didn't see it by the time it turned to face them and put a stunning NSP shot into the near one's helmeted head, sending her stumbling into her comrade.

Tom could see panic in the conscious one's movements as she spasmed and shoved her fellow trooper out of her way and crashing to the floor. She aimed her rifle at the drone too late; a second stunning NSP shot plunked her in the temples to help her on her way to joining the other one.

Tom gave the all clear. Nimura flew overhead and through the volumetric panel to confirm the all clear. When she did, Tom and Nyton joined her.

Nimura had racked one of her aether rifles to pick up one of the weapons of the NMX trooper. She then tossed it at Tom, who caught it with his damaged arm.

"Not as good as a LASR," she said. "Better than no LASR." She reached down, picked up the other one and tossed that to Tom, too. The rifles were made for unarmored infantry, making them light in his armored hands, like they were pistols.

The room's only door came next. Nimura made short work of the locks that joined the two halves of the sliding door together, a clean swipe of her aether rifle sundering them. She pulled the door apart just enough to let Tom's drone slip in.

Nyton and Nimura saw what Tom did. The area was about 35 meters long, about that wide and 15 meters tall. It was all shiny, plain metal, all the way around, with no protrusions, no cargo, no stations — nothing that could be used for cover. It was a big, hollow box, one Tom quickly confirmed was not part of the original Chiharu-class deck plans.

There were two craft inside. One was a Type 32 Shredder-class gunboat, which took up a majority of the floor space. Its thrusters glowed with a dull yellow, suggesting to Tom that it was getting ready to leave, but wasn't ready yet.

The other was a Ravager. Its back faced away from them. It was still. Datafiles suggested it should have a kind of propulsion pack on the back loaded with weapons, but the mecha inside had none.

Nimura's and Tom's faces appeared on Nyton's HUD. Their expressions asked the same question: "Now what?"

* * *

The Tiamat's keel, main sensor dish — Yuzuki-san, 3:55

It was an experience unlike any Yuzuki knew. As she flew down passageways narrow and wide, usually close to the ceiling, she saw hundreds of beings. Maybe more, all of them crowding and jamming to get wherever the hell they wanted to go. Shots were fired, sabers were swung, bodies fell every which way.

Chaos amid flashing red lights and warning klaxons.

Everyone was trying to get to the escape pods. Somehow word likely had spread that the ship was on a suicide run for Yamatai's planetary crust. No one wanted to go down with the ship, but a minor, AIES-assisted query to the vessel's computer that less than half of the escape pods were functioning.

Only one shot came Yuzuki's way, from an old Type 28 pistol, fired by an astute Neko sailor who knew a threat when she saw one. It struck Yuzuki's leg, harmlessly panging away.

Upon reaching the KAMI IES system component at nearly the bottom of the corridor, Yuzuki was unharmed and unharassed. No one was there to stop her, and the heavy Zesuaium door leading to the servicing area open.

Her aether SMG made short work of the area, including the series of wall-mounted components. The banks and columns of electronics had no armor or shielding to speak of. She turned and flew back toward the superstructure's base, where the core was.

She came to the entrance to the KAMI core, again with the door already open. This time, she was not alone.

She screeched to a halt and got a shield up just in time to block a Gatling gun round and take cover in the space between the wall and the door's frame.

Rolf was not in sight, but that was good. What Yuzuki saw next was a hellish firestorm of aether blasts, Gatling rounds and missiles streaming through the doorway and into the corridor, smashing into every visible surface, ripping chunks out of the deck as the noise of explosions battered Yuzuki in her hiding spot. The fire lasted for almost eight seconds, then stopped.

3:31, went the clock.

* * *

The Tiamat's command tower — Rolf-san, 3:54

Rolf had it easy. No souls interrupted him as he rocketed back up past flickering flames to the top of the command tower. Where Nimura and he had made a stand against their Ripper opponent, he banked right instead of left, heading to the end of the corridor.

The Zesuaium door guarding the area was gone, his sensors told him, replaced by a Durandium sheet. Where the Zesuaium was he could not tell, but the three-walled room was lined with removable columns of electronics.

Rolf raised both arms. Five seconds later, all was slag.

Satisfied, he turned. He knew he was going to beat Yuzuki — or thought he knew.

At the edge of the main passageway back down to the core, a Neko with a burned yellow uniform pointed a sidearm at him. Part of her face was melted and scarred, along with some of her hair being singed away or stuck to the gel-like brown skin of her cheek. She was sobbing from her one good eye and held up an NMX sidearm at him with one hand, shaking it. Her other arm was partially fused to her side.

"KILL ME!" she shouted. "KUH, KAAGHH ... KH, KILL ME WITH HONOR!"

3:47, went the clock.

Honor? The Neko was dying in battle, that was all the honor she needed, but she didn't serve to suffer. Rolf didn't have time to waste, he made a half-turn and aimed both of his arms at the tortured Neko.

"No time."

He fired two shots into her upper body, one into her body and one into her center of mass. With that, he turned, a thruster blast making the rapid turn before shooting off again. While he was aiming to get to the core first, if Yuzuki hit any snags, or if he hit any snags, they'd need to link up as fast as possible. Not only that, it's doubly satisfying not only beat someone, but save them too. The thought was delectably satisfying.

It isn’t a Ripper.

Before the smoke from the discharges had obscured her visuals, Yuzuki had caught a glance at the puke-colored quadrupedal thing, and its appearance had surprised her. She had been expecting more of the same fare as she had found on Melisson’s flag ship; the mishhuvurthyar weren’t supposed to have more than one or two frames! Judging roughly, this thing could take her out with a concentrated volly, just as it had blanketed the corridor in fiery pain. She wet her lips again, then caught her lower with an incisor and worried at it, staring hard at the opposite wall.

Every part of her body was burning with the need for action, and the clock was ticking.

She needed the KAMI in-tact, here; this was the central nervous system of the ship. It wouldn't be as simple as turning the entire area into blazing, molten slag. She would have to take control from this room, because the alternative was a mad dash through over seventy decks, finding each and every gravimetric projector this ship had.

Not simple at all.

Weighing her options and coming up a few short, Yuzuki slung the ASG over her shoulder, onto the attachment there, and energized the twin forearm sabers instead. This would have to be as quick as the Ripper, and just as clean, or she was done for.

Yuzuki tasted salt in her mouth and realized that she’d bit through her lip, not hard but enough to draw blood. She licked it clean.

Of course, if I’m wrong…

She didn't give herself time to think about it. Instead, she rounded the corner, spun immediately to the side - blew off as much chaff as she had, missile pods open and blazing wings of smoke and counter-measures - made a mad dash with her sabers leading.

The Raven-haired Warrant Officer heard her blood sing in her ears as she barely escaped with her life and wished she had a more balanced loadout for this mission. Instead, she turned with her back to the Mokuren and surveyed the scene through her AIES. Frowning, she opened a channel to the LAMIAS.

“Squad, the Battleship can handle the escort. Return to the Mokuren for CAP!” she ordered as she kept her sensors active for any more Battlepods and small attack craft. ”The Mokuren must survive.”

Part of her mind took inventory of what she had and cringed at the loss of her offensive missile armament. However, she still had her GM-02 and Forearm Weapons. The Barrier Shield Module didn’t hurt her chances either.

“We just need to save Yamatai,” she mumbled to herself.

Tom's voice broke over the communications channel of the team.

"The shuttle is getting ready to depart. Our target is an important official, and I don't think he wants to go down with the ship... he must be on that gunboat. That ship can be our way out of here too..."

Tom gripped both the guns he had been given. The comparison to a pistol was spot on: compared to the LASR, they felt like pea shooters.

"The Ravager... we don't want to fight that thing... I suggest we either take it out now or try to commandeer it somehow before it's activated."

Nyton looked over the situation and quickly tallied things up. "Nimura and I will strike the Ravager while it is looking away to try and take it by surprise. Freeman, you go stealth and infiltrate the ship while we keep their attention. Either commandeer it or destroy it but make sure our target does not escape."

He knew his weapons were not as lethal as Nimura's but he figured he could support her during the strike. He quickly reloaded his LASR with an AP round magazine and got ready for the charge.

Re: Final Mission: Yuzuknockdown.Nimuraleftbehind

On the Tiamat, command superstructure main corridor — Yuzuki-san と Rolf-san

3:35 read the clock, as Rolf reached his target. He had wasted no time, only the Neko, cleanly drilling her and rushing back down through the lingering fire to the computer core, where he had said he would meet Yuzuki.

He nearly was wasted himself — a warning from his HUD gave him just enough pause to avoid being atomized by the wall of weapons fire that came from the KAMI's room.

One big thought was produced from seeing all of the aether beams and fist-sized solid projectiles lay waste to the hall leading to the core.

Wh' th' fuck?

Rolf held his position against the wall, but he stuck out the edge of his armored foot to give him "skin" vision to see down the hall. There was acrid smoke, a couple little fires — produced by the heat of the aether — flickering on the floor, big tears and rends all over the fucking place. The hall went from polished Yamataian vessel architecture to a war zone in the span of a few seconds.

Movement, off to the left side, just visible in the hazy light coming from the KAMI's room. Two white beams lanced out of a shape against just to the left of the doorway up ahead.

Before Rolf had time to consider just what Yuzuki was doing, she was turning, moving, pressing forward —

* * *

The Render was surprised. Maybe Yuzuki was, too.

In one smooth motion, Yuzuki had jammed herself into the room, blasted off all of her missiles and was following them up with another mad charge.

The Render was in too close quarters to respond with its own much-larger missiles to counter what the pesky Mindy armor had fired. Every narrow, blunt-headed projectile collided with its shields. The left-leg load was enough to wipe its shields out, stunning the brainslave computer responsible for managing the mecha's systems. The pilot, bathed in red light and strapped to her pilot's bench, barely had moved a centimeter when the other volley crashed into the mecha's squat torso.

The aetheric distortions created by the ARMA missiles blinded the brainslave's sensor-based vision of the area, robbing the pilot of any reading on where the Mindy was. She manually flicked her readings to the visual forward camera and saw only smoke from her own weapons. The brainslave's insanity level was spiking; she punched a button to cut it off but was too late. She screamed at it and it screamed back.

From the center of the smoke was a flash of eye-melting white. It filled her viewscreen then vanished.

" ... ?"

She brought her head down as she took in a lungful of the stale air inside the cockpit. A blade of the same white light had pierced the armor of her magnificent frame, cut through her spall-shield, and lanced itself into the right side of her chest, just beneath her breast. The wound was getting bigger as more and more of her body was being eliminated by the heat from the blade. She watched herself evaporating for another split second before she stopped seeing anything; her eyes had melted from their sockets.

Yuzuki kept the blade inside the cockpit another second more, then pushed away from the frame back toward the floor. A black-flared wound remained on the frame's belly; she could see it, the damage she had done.

That focus kept her from seeing the Render's claw rushing for her back. She saw it too late to do anything about it. The Render smacked her aside like vermin, and Rolf heard more than saw the dull thud of Yuzuki colliding with the wall nearest him inside the KAMI room.

The Render's aether guns fired a blast at the inside of the room, but not where Yuzuki was. Rolf's armor told her she was dazed but not unconscious, and her AIES was trying to get her back in the fight, but that was a few seconds away. The Render stomped the floor, shaking the floor, and started to turn toward the KAMI's vault behind itself, another blast of aether scarring the ceiling.

It was going to destroy the KAMI.

Rolf's AIES highlighted a target for him — the location of the frame's brainslave computer, located just above the series of cameras on the frame's front, below some orange-colored armor. Destroying it would end the frame's rampage before it could destroy the KAMI.

3:25, went the clock.

* * *

The Tiamat's secret hangar — Nyton-san と Tom-san と Nimura-san

The plan was affirmed by Nimura and Tom.

Nimura pried open the door and the three armors slipped inside, stealthed. Nimura took up a position on the ceiling from which she could attack more vulnerable systems located near the frame's face. Nyton took the wall nearest the door, placing himself close to it without touching it, and hoisted his AP-loaded LASR into a firing position. The rounds likely would not penetrate the frame's armor, but vital systems and joints were highlighted by his AIES as potential targets he could attack.

Tom floated off the ground slowly, holding his Impalers close to his body as he came near the frame. It was an engineering marvel, in a way; instead of appearing flat and squat as a Ripper, or grotesque and deformed as a Mishhu, the Ravager was curved, sleek, with the shielded secondary arms balancing the oversized forearms and claws of the primary arms. Its legs had the necessary bulk to keep the frame's top proportional. The clawed feet looked deadly, but stable, functional.

In short, it did not look like a typical NMX design. It appeared ... Yamataian.

Radio signals pulsed from the Ravager. Each armor's AIES decrypted them as soon as they were broadcast — "Door guards, status."

Nyton considered having his AIES respond, but he knew that even if the signal was the same, the location would not be. Nimura stopped herself from replying.

A second passed. Tom was within a meter of its leg when it suddenly started moving. It deftly tromped forward and put its large hands on the back of the gunboat — and started to push.

Tom saw the door to the ship closing, as the ship's engines flared hard with yellow-orange exhaust. He flew forward, hard and fast, as he heard Nimura shout at Nyton to do the same, quickly before it was too late. As he crossed around one of the large engine orbs on the back, his AIES told him Nyton was following at the same clip. The target was an airlock on the starboard side of the vessel.

Tom swore when he saw it was closed, but as Nyton came around he fired at the door with his LASR, and Tom added to the volley with his Impalers. Nyton did most of the damage, and both armored men gave the door a damn hard shove when they met it.

The pockmarked door caved in, and both armors fell into the gunboat just as the engines roared to life, flooding the secret hangar with plasma exhaust. Nyton brought his head up from his collapsed position on top of the door. He looked out of the airlock portal long enough to see the smooth walls of the hangar give way to the black void of space, sprinkled with bursts of fire from dying starships.

The airlock door behind Tom and Nyton opened. A light infantry soldier armed with an Impaler stumbled back upon seeing him, raising her rifle.

* * *

Outside the Mokuren — Masako-san

Masako's LAMIA squadron curled away from their pursuit, rushing back toward the Mokuren. Of everyone, Masako was best able to see the Tiamat head for Yamatai, glittering bow missing pieces and scored with aetheric energy.

Another pair of battlepod bombers were incoming, the Mokuren told her, streaming out from 20,000 kilometers off the starboard stern, coming in slow to deliver their torpedoes. Her LAMIAs would not rejoin her in time to engage them, and the Mokuren's energies were focused on the graviton projectors.

She was the only one who could stop them. Her four weapons pods surrounded her, ready to follow.

"Son of a bitch!" growled Rolf, side-stepping just a bit as Yuzuki took a bullet trip into the wall. He wanted to go help her up, so they could both take the mecha on, but it looked like there was no time. Even with its pilot dead, the Render was still moving, and aiming to kill the console.

He raised arm to fire.

His mind instantly devised a plan of attack on the target. A SDMM would make a big enough hole for him to pepper the device with unrelenting aether and mass rounds.

No! Not enough time! Not a sure enough method! was the response to that. Those components were armored, and the missile had a travel time, not to mention the collapse took a few seconds. He needed a solution now.

His arms came back down and his boots left floor as he blasted up straight towards his target, forearm blades burning to life. Charging and lancing the component was the riskiest and deadliest way of doing it, but the Aether Blades would guarantee the destruction of the armored component. Failure meant the deaths of millions, he figured, his life was worth that much.

Pay attention, y'fuckin' cocksucka'!