RP: NSS Altomir [Mission 1.2] Bal'Sharok Boogie

It felt like they had been faced with the monstrous Dream Eaters of old. Those things, those beasts from his legend, from which the Iromakuanhe had stolen their own VANDRs from, were a bane of existence not seen in many years. Now they were to fight something similar, something capable of bringing fleets to their knees and military lords to the front of the field. What was presented to them here seemed impossible. He brought his hands to his head as the Admiral began listing off these impossibilities, with him receding to find some kind of solution in the back of his mind.

Only one, with the the Dream Eater of the Nuocr. Mu'Klamal had come to fight this dreaded beast over open sand where his troops were at a clear disadvantage. The beastly construct of old had cut through his lines, bathing itself in fresh blood, but this had been the intent of the cruel Mu'Klamal. For when the beast was fully bathed, all of the Wyrms in the sky came descending for a meal that they could smell for miles. The Dream Eater continued to slaughter, but the more blood it drenched itself in, the more beasts came, and eventually overwhelmed it.

Was Vanderhuge, like Mu'Klamal going to paint their blood on the sides of this ship for some kind of beast? No, he had to shake that thought. They were all that is left to fight directly, they were more than expendable.

"Perhaps... It is... It is an alien ship. Myself being alien amongst your people, I know that I require... ah... adaptation when it comes to surviving in the culture and environment," Saveli looked over at the others, more acclimated, technically smarter than himself. The idea of offering something seemed a little embarrassing at this point, but he pressed on. "Engineering can be of the same caliber. As you said, Rok'Veru has a harsh wilderness and environment, perhaps even something in the air. What's helping this alien ship adapt to this environment?"

Although Flint's reaction to the other questions was within the realm of reason for the situation, listening to Saveli speak garnered a slight hint of annoyance spread across the Grand Admiral's stone-chiseled face. The ID-SOL turned his head towards the Iroma and raised his brows in speculation.

"Well, billygoat, you aren't wrong," Flint answered Saveli's question coarsely, crossing his arms across his broad chest. "But it's not hard to be here. Rok'Veru has some very bothersome nature. I imagine that the NMX would have just as much trouble out in the jungle as we would, but that isn't going to help us here."

"I think Private Borzakov meant what sorts of advantages we might have inside the city, Grand Admiral."

Flint turned his head towards the authoritative voice coming from the other end of the armor bay, just as its owner came to a somewhat wobbly stop. Admiral Violetta De Luca was there, the 3 Nepleslian youths trailing behind her while the leader of the group assisted her movements by supporting her on his shoulder. The female officer wasn't having the best of days, if the thin white caste on her leg was any evidence, but she looked stable for the moment. In lieu of her full regalia of her military jacket, Violetta wore the simple white undershirt of the uniform, although she did at least manage to keep the skirt. The lead of the three young men glanced warily over in Bernhard and Alex's directions as he continued to help Violetta approach the group. "I'm sorry, sirs. She made it clear she was going to come here... I just figured I'd help her do it so she doesn't break anything else," the young Nepleslian said apologetically.

Violetta cleared her throat and attempted to stand straight up, faltering slightly as she rose only to be caught by the arm of the youth at her left. The Admiral remained standing and dignified, however, despite her disheveled appearance. "I ran an outfit in another city on Rok'Veru for a couple months. I recall that all flight-capable craft on Rok'Veru's surface require special equipment."

"Well yeah," Flint said, still looking very skeptical on the direction of his briefing was taking. "Emission dampeners on all thruster ports are required by Rok'Veru law."

"Right. Emission dampeners. But in all the time that I was here, I did not ask why our vehicles needed this equipment," Violetta continued to explain. "I had just figured it was for the purpose of preserving a natural balance, or something like that."

Flint responded with a hefty chuckle. "Admiral, if Nepleslians were worried about this environment, Rok'Veru wouldn't have 24 hour-a-day deforestation service positions open to keep all the encroaching plants from worming their way through our sediment layers and crumbling our structures."

From a few yards towards the side of the armor bay, Jott Sarkis Yu had been listening to the conversation as he continued his secondary checks on all of the marines' armor systems. At the mention of the emission dampeners, however, the Delsaurian paused for a moment before turning around, his metallic legs clanking heavily against the steel-plated surface of the floor. "They are for the kipwings," the Delsaurian engineer answered Violetta's claim, a number of eyes swirling around towards him. Flint's eyes were no different, however his previously annoyed expression became all the more harsher when Jott spoke up, and upon noticing, the Delsaurian male drew back a bit in response. "S-s-sir! Emission dampeners are for the kipwixle population, or kipwings, for short. It's to reduce the number of kipwing-related accidents involving flight-capable engine and thruster systems."

The Grand Admiral allowed himself to relax his every-growing glare as his eyes wandered off to the side for the briefest of moments. "Kipwings? Where have I heard that name before?" Flint pondered aloud.

"Sir. Kipwings are avian-esque flying predators about the size of a motorbike with feathers like hardened steel and blood with the consistency of cement. Nasty creatures.

"They only breed in intense heat, like volcanoes and magma vents. They also get drawn to heat emissions from vehicles like moths to a lamp. So, imagine a large flying rock in your engine and then multiply it. 'Cos you don't get just one.

"I remember we had a bio lesson on it in high school and I was glad that our family wouldn't have to deal with them in the clinic. Dissected one. Flying heat-seeking rock is the best description. I would hate to fly into one. Are the Admirals um... thinking what I'm thinking?"

Bernhard spoke up for the first time with an explanation of the kipwings. As a private soldier, he usually didn't even attend strategic meetings with the higher ups. He hadn't spoken personally to an Admiral since the 87I briefing. He also didn't really contribute much to the various tactical meetings at the platoon or squad level. Bernhard Greer was a good medic and a solid soldier, but he was not a combat leader. But this was a simple mathematical equation.

Kipwings + flying NMX machine = WIN!

"Oh yes, let's make it a flying bird orgy on the NMX ship. Blow out their engine intakes and depopulate the species by a few dozen while we're at it. Only problem there is, why hasn't it happened already? Their stealth systems? Something that drives them away? Or did they take a page outta our books and are using dampeners too? " Yuriko rolled her hand as she stared at the back of Bernhard's head.

"Don't get me wrong, somethin' like that'd be one fucked up way to get your squeaky clean'n shiny ship messed up. Funny too, just first, y'know you gotta find out why they haven't tried to y'know breed," The Geshrin woman performed air quotations. "With that thing yet."

Alex frowned at De Luca and 3 youths who helped her arrive. She took a deep breath and looked at the leg, it seemed her stitching held, since there was not blood so far. It was still not good idea for her to walk.

"I am sorry admiral, but if you want to move around don't walk," she said. "Let those three buggers carry you. I would not want to have on the table again with bleeding leg. This thing does not have that many blood packs."

"Anyway, so we have to find the thing, find out how they chase away the rock-birds and disable it." Alexandra summarised everything. "If it will be just dampeners then it should be fine, but these are NMX. They can use scalar field for all we know and just kill the birds. I suggest we also make plan B, if this does not work. Which I think will be a big bomb."

"They have 'em," the lead of the Nepleslian hoodlum youths answered Yuriko's observation, shifting a bit underneath the weight of Violetta De Luca on his shoulder. "Those dampener things. I saw enough of their aircraft flyin' around, none of 'em left emission trails. The doctor is right; if their ships and shit didn't have 'heatplugs', the kips woulda torn 'em up."

Flint let a grainy "Hmm..." rumble through his gruff throat, his eyes following each of the conversations as they appeared. "It's unorthodox, but I have seen these birds do something similar to what Bernhard is implying. It's worth a shot; we don't have the numbers for an orthodox plan of attack. Although," the large ID-SOL turned to Alexandra, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "A Plan B doesn't sound too bad, either. We have two rotorwings on the flight pad; a two-pronged assault would have a better chance of success than a single one. We just need to rig up an explosive powerful enough to ground this son of a bitch once we get it on there."

Violetta De Luca nodded along with Flint's assessment. "Does anyone have experience with explosives? I have a small amount of knowledge, but an expert would be appreciated."