RP: YSS Miharu Mission 1 "REAR GUARD", Day 4

Nyton watched Yukari blink from one position to another one farther away in an instant. The sight of the teleportation still made him a little uncomfortable. Plus given Yukari's past dealing with Power Armor made him wonder how she had fared.

"Black Rook 01, firing subspace collapsers."

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His doubts were settled once he saw her punch through the CFS field.

"Black Rook 01, this is Claymere. Good job getting through the field. Everything looks good from this end so far. I'm going to continue attempting to hail Kotori Taii in case something changes." Nyton radio'd to her.

"YSS Miharu this is the YSS Hoshi. Can you read me? We have detected a possible hostile presence. Over." he transmitted.

There still was little signs of reception from the Miharu.

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Mara dipped her head in thanks to Miyoko. "I'll take the solvent please," she said eagerly. Mara seemed pretty vain about her hair - not that it wasn't justified: it was very nice ash blonde hair.

The violet-haired Yamataian shook her head, then pushed back a few strands of hair that dared to be jostled from behind her ear by the gesture in annoyance. "Not until you try washing it out... The chemicals that are most likely to get rid of it would be almost as bad for your hair as the scissors. Now please go try rinsing it out, before I decide to just shave you bald and save myself some trouble." She smiled lightly to underscore that she was kidding- mostly kidding. Maybe.

"Oookay," Mara nodded emphatically and quickly made herself scarce; which left Miyoko alone with the bits of hemosynthetic... stuff.

Mizuho clenched her teeth as it drowned at Kotori's transmission. She could feel it, leafing so effortlessly through her thoughts, pressing against her, giving that carrot-on-a-stick of salvation. That thing Mizuho wished so desperately for. Forgiveness. Atonement. And it touched a nerve it really shouldn't have, unwitting though it was.

As Mizuho did lose her temper... but her rage, so suddenly released, found direction at the beast before her. Did it have more limbs than her? She couldn't bring herself to care just now. "STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY HEAD!"

It was a shriek, this, and the last truly coherent thing Mizuho would actually remember saying when the anger subsided. Her assault came in the form of a springing onslaught, hands lashing towards the base of the foremost tentacles, throwing into this assault all of the - rather considerable - force she could muster. "STAY OUT OF THAT! BLOODY MOTHERFUCKING MEDDLING PSYCHOLOGISTS! ILL KILL YOU!"

She would assault methodically, unyieldingly, striking constantly for anything she could reach that wasn't guarded by carapace (she wasn't sure she could pierce the armored portions; even in such rage she wasn't exactly a blind fighter) - if it could overwhelm her, she would keep hitting back until the life was strangled from her limbs (a long, drawn out process in an NH-17 body... they had been known, after all, to survive in a vacuum for several minutes). If it could not? She would assault tirelessly until there was nothing left of that vile beast.

An interesting look indeed at her thoughts on mental professionals...

Ryszard gave a sigh as he launched and carefully, slowly followed Asher. He was no where near as comfortable in power armor as his friend was and it was obvious as he moved far more cautiously. "Really ought to have you sat down in front of a simulation console and see how well you do on a bridge." he muttered to Asher.

"And to be forward, I do not know how to handle torpedoes so I will need a quick field instruction so I don't blow us all to sub-atomic particles."

Nishimura Ryszard said:

"Really ought to have you sat down in front of a simulation console and see how well you do on a bridge." he muttered to Asher.

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Asher gave heavy laugh as he approached the Shikaku, he landed in the opening where he had been staying before.

"Rys, you know me, I'm as much a bridge body as you're an armor head." He said, looking at the route again.

Nishimura Ryszard said:

"And to be forward, I do not know how to handle torpedoes so I will need a quick field instruction so I don't blow us all to sub-atomic particles."

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"You'll do fine, the commander of the salvage operation will probably guide you through it. Hell, I'm not much of demolition expert myself, so we might be in the same boat." Asher tapped his helmet, remembering that he had decided not to specialize in explosives and demolitions.

Yukari could not focus on Nyton's words. She was rolling ideas through her mind about how to enter a ship ... without force.

With the help of AIES, Yukari had taken only a couple minutes to determine the best way in was through the hole on the other side of the hull, which, as she floated over to it, was just wide enough to squeeze her in, if she went straight into it. The armor had not regenerated yet, but it would not take long.

As she gazed down at the small, open hole, she queried AIES whether it could plot a teleport right into the room. She had her forearm weapons charged; one could be drained to be fed into the teleporter. I wish to use these weapons rarely, and I am no metalcutter.

AIES took half a minute to make the calculation. Yukari gulped, but she nodded, setting her armored feet down on the hull of the Miharu. Her right forearm weapon was drained, and --

She was inside. " ... " The room was a bit of a mess, with some of the basic furniture wrecked, but gravity was present. The door to the room was sealed shut, but as Yukari had already learned, she could not order the door to open. The sound-powered telephone system was equally useless to patch into, as she was in a relative vacuum.

" ... " Sighing, Yukari put her LASR down and looked at her left forearm. The weapon was charged, and she could probably cut a hole in the door quickly; it was not a blast door. She ignited the blade function, but yelped as it stuck partially into the floor. Scrambling she retracted it to only 30 centimeters, which was much less threatening and easier to handle.

It took about 50 seconds to cut a standing oval shape of the power armor out of the door, but the pieces fell away easily enough. Retracting the blade with a breath of relief, Yukari took her LASR in her hands again.

I hope I will not interupt them ...

Taking a tentative step out of the room, Yukari spoke with her mind. "Taii-san ... Yukisato-san ... ? Can you hear me?"

Flailing tentacles with spiny extremities filled Mizuho's world as the beast she was facing countered her frenzied attack. At first, sheer rage and tenacity had driven it back, but the Mishhuvurthyar had several advantages: the first was the number of limbs it had, which also gave it a longer reach and the ability to deliver battering or stabbing attacks easily within the crawlway. Another was the building number of stab wounds that dabbed her skin and clothing with her own blood - not serious wounds, but it was the building numbness spreading from them which was like a cold shower to her berserker fury. Finally, there was also the brutal psionic attacks it kept delivering, each telepathic shriek feeling as if she was battering herself (or her mind, at least) against a wall.

Suddenly, the psychic howls stopped. The hold the creature had on her mind lessened and vanished altogether. Clarity of thought returned and the creature paused its attack for a moment, granting her a moment's reprieve.

She had no weapon and the Ghost Mishhuvurthyar could more than match her fighting prowess with tentacles which individually seemed strong enough to match the muscles of her legs, and higher number of them while having a situational advantage. She, on the other hand, was smaller, unarmed and had little room to maneuver. Her tactical situation was rather bad and with the paralyzing neurotoxin it had repeatedly injected her with, she likely only had a few more moments of fight in her before she lost limb coordination and became helpless.

Was living to fifty really better than dying in a maintenance conduit?

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Yukari's call went unanswered. A second later, her Mindy II's AIES showed her a plan of the Miharu's upperdeck with a spherical region highlighted around the Sensor Dome, the monitor room and a good part of the ship's nose. "PSC field active. No telepathy will get through, Chui."

"Ch, still can't get through." Nyton cursed under his breath. "Miharu, why can we not reach the upper deck? Are we unable to transmit or they unable to receive? If we're able to maintain communications with our Armors then it can't be our transmission system can it?" he asked.

"The issue would seem to be that the communication array of the main hull is offline," Hoshi's C-IES (which didn't mind being called Miharu since it was by extension) replied. "I cannot give you an accurate estimate of when the system might be functional again, but earlier damage control evaluations only reported Class-D damage to that area. It should not take long to repair if the main hull's crew have someone on the job."

The PSC being active was not a good sign.

Yukari let herself float up; she plunged forward down the corridor until she reached the observation room; she hung a hard right and went down the passageway to the front of the vessel, her LASR held menacingly in front of her. In front of the entryway to the monitor room she heard ... nothing.

Her armor's speaker volume turned to maximum, she shouted, "Kotori-san! Yukisato-san!"

"Over here!" Kotori stood to Yukari's right, at the bottom of the chute from the starboard crew area. She was flattened with her back against the wall, to the side of the open hatch of a maintenance shaft. She was still dressed in little more than her yukata, though the Type 28 NSMG she held at the ready with both hands outlined that the Taii was aware of the threat.

"I can't shoot the Mishhu inside, Yukisato is trying to match brawns with it in close-quarters," Kotori told the pilot of the friendly Mindy II power armor. Even though Yukari had shouted, Kotori actually hadn't recognized who the pilot was.

Mizuho shuddered, staring down the creature with an idyllic dislike. She held her position, resolving that attempting to flee didn't exactly work in situations against such a thing. No longer having memories of Seion struck into her mind, she found herself somewhat calmer. Retreat was not an option, assault was not an option...

...she held herself ready, swaying slightly from the haze of the toxins. Defense. She could work defensively. Break off a tentacle if the opportunity came. "Kotori. I seem to have lost my mind briefly. Any chance of help coming? I've developed an intriguing bit of numbness, and it's backed off a bit. Suppose it's waiting for the poisons to lay me flat?"

After a pause, she added, a bit too happily, "If you can't get a clear shot at it without hitting me as well, that's fine. You need to get rid of the beasty, I know."

Nyton cursed again. So there's nothing we can do. I guess the best we can do is hold down the fort, get those torpedoes loaded and provide whatever support we can from here. For now Yukari is our only line to the other ship.

The scanners showed Yukari had entered the Miharu section of the ship. "Black Rook 01, this is the Hoshi. Have you made contact with Kotori Taii yet?" he asked.

"Just get out of there quick! It doesn't matter if it follows: I have a Mindy by my side!"

The Mishhu narrowed its eyes when it realize that it had lost its hold on Mizuho's mind and with a angry gurgle (coming from somewhere beneath the carapace) it surged forward and began swatting and stabbing at her. trying to get an hold of a tentacle proved only mildly useful as it just held her imobile and vulnerable to half-a-dozen stings which made the the muscles in the struck regions go limp.

Mizuho sighed, and accepted Kotori's advice. Launched herself backwards with that lovely thing called 'antigravity'. Mizuho hated it. A lot. But ah well. She kept as much hold to the Mishhu as possible, attempting to drag it out with her, though she couldn't for the life of her determine why she wished to.

There was also an odd question in her mind. How in the hell did she stand to so much of the goddamned neurotoxins? She had seen others laid out helpless by a single sting.

When Mizuho shot out of the entry - the Ghost Mishhuvurthyar half dragged, half-following after her - Kotori shot forward, dropping her weapon in favor of grabbing Mizuho under the armpits and jumped away as the Mishhu burst out of it's confines.

Even with half its tentacles gone, it was still an imposing sight as it rose. The carappace, tough cartilage and rubbery tentacles all were of a smokey dark-grey color which instantly reminded Kotori of how Pumpkin had described the Dark Ones... but there was no red ribbing around the tentacles.

Ghost Mishhuvurthyar, she realized. That would explain how it had managed to get in through phasing, though she still hadnt figured out when it had managed its entry.

The creature seemed about to float into pursuit when it noticed the LASR-carrying blue-gray Mindy II power armor. Two pairs of eyes widened: the Ghost Mishhuvurthyar was powerful, but not enough to look forward to fighting a Mindy.

Masako bit her lower lip at the report, before glanced through one of her sentry drones at Leutre. "Veressis-Hei, please follow military protocol while we're on-duty," she calmly scolded the technician. "And they're picking up survivors not 'Deadmen'," she continued before moving her concentration back to the bay entrance and the hallway outside.

"Anyway, it would take them time to suit the two survivors up and send them back. Just stay calm and continue your scans," Masako replied.

Yukari had been ready to try and pull Mizuho out somehow -- she was a larger priority than killing the Mishhu. But when the Nekovalkyrja was heaved from the chute and into a pile with Kotori, Yukari instinctively raised her weapon.

The sight of the Mishhuvurthyar was unlike anything she had directly seen before. In a way, the creature was almost beautiful, the shiny black of its exterior fazing the stale light of the area across itself. The eyes were equally odd; the redness of them so very odd ... as if they were bright rubies pushed up from burned wood.

Such features were ruined as Yukari put a single 3-round burst from her LASR between the thing's eyes. She shot another burst into its lower portion, then another directly between the eyes.

She switched to automatic through the Mindy's AIES and kept a bead on the thing. Her gaze was cold, though no one could see. She did not even hear Nyton.