RP: YSS Miharu Mission 1 "REAR GUARD", Day 5

Nyton looked at the rundown and shook his head. The information was speculative and almost useless. "I suppose there would be few recorded instances since if a NIWS is destroyed that would mean that the rest of the crew fared no better. Most likely the ship was destroyed in the process. However this leaves us with little to go by. The armor and regenerative abilities make it hard to kill plus it can generate its own weapon payload."

Nyton's thinking pose resurfaced. Maybe the data from the Sakura's NIWS wasn't completely useless. Perhaps it wasn't mere coincidence that Pumpkin steered the battle outside of the ship. Outside of the ship... outside... of course. That's it! "Fighting it within the confines of the ship places us on unequal footing with it. This thing was developed to fight in close quarters with overwhelming firepower. However if we remove it from the ship itself it would fare no better than a normal Armor in open space. We could then kill it with our anti-ship weaponry. THAT should be strong enough to destroy it." Another thought crossed his mind. "What is the teleportation radius of our Mindy? If we could catch the NIWS within the field of teleportation and take it to a predetermined coordinate where our ship's weapons are already trained in, the Mindy could deposit it there and fly away while our ship's weapons lock in and kill it."

"The unit alone can cross up to 3 astronomical units," Miharu replied to Nyton. "However, bear in mind teleporting within the asteroid field could potentially be dangerous if the suit materializes within another solid object. Though this would have the added bonus of destroying the NIWS in the process as well."

"Sir, that's good and all, but what if Daisy power armors encounter the thing first?" Mara asked as she idly kicked her legs. "We're going to have some Black Mindy armors to contend with - the NIWS could jump in the fray in a place of its choosing for maximum possible impact."

Nyton ignored Mara for the timebeing and looked again at the schematic. Something had caught his attention and he wondered if they would be able to make full use of it.

"Perhaps we won't need to split up our forces so much if one objective could be obtained quickly. I would like our Daisy group to travel with a Mindy unit to counter the NIWS. If the teleportation unit is able to grab the NIWS and pull it outside either into an asteroid or ship weapon then the rest of the Daisy units should be okay unless there is more then one NIWS. Since we're limited on Mindy's though we have to streamline our personnel as best as we can." Nyton said without looking at Mara.

Nyton then pointed to the torpedo tube passage. "We have a couple of options available to us but it depends on how feasible it is to use this. If we were able to place a shape charge inside the torpedo tube just above the bridge we could create an opening to then either drop some kind of anti-personnel device to knock out the bridge crew or allow a drone to look inside and confirm a jump point for a teleportation Mindy to port in and subdue them. If we need to, perhaps the Daisy group could head for engineering and create enough of a diversion to draw away their attention so another smaller team could use the torpedo tube to assault the bridge."

Nyton then turned around to face Mara. All the planning to counter a NIWS would be nothing more than reference material if it turned out to not be present but this preparation was vital. "I would like to have at least two Mindy Armors available for this operation to allow maximum coverage of the teams. One with the Daisy group to handle any NIWS, and a second to teleport onto the bridge and quickly incapacitate them. With any luck, the Mindy that enters the bridge would have weapons drawn and already aimed at the personnel. We would only have to capture one member, the Taii. Upon insertion immediately kill the comm, science, navigation, and tech officers. Knock out the captain, port out and deposit the Taii in a prison. After that the Mindy could rejoin the battle to clean out the rest of the ship."

Nyton then looked toward the holo-window. "Miharu, is it possible to assault the bridge through the torpedo tube like I have specified?"

"Blowing a hole in the hull to access the bridge, either through the torpedo tube or the dome itself would expose the bridge's occupants to vacuum. This would be a serious hazard to their continued survival, despite their being nekovalkyrja," Miharu replied. "There is also very little room to fight in inside a Nozomi's cramped engine section."

Mara sighed. She was getting the impression Nyton didn't like her much. And why were the others so silent? Didn't they have questions too? "Sir, shouldn't the priority to get to the monitor room and disable the ship's MEGAMI first before dealing with the bridge anyways?"

Leutre paced back and forth among the halls of the Sub Deck, occasionally sparing an anxious glance at the hyperspace fold drive.

This wasn't good.

Yesterday was, however. The smiled as he recalled the hours he and Miyoko had spent plucking away at the Mishhu technology, at all the colorful strings of curse words he had invented and all the hair he had nearly pulled out. But that was what he lived for, and that was he came here; To spread his creative wings and intellectually flourish. But last night as whetted his appetite for engineering...and now he was absolutely ravenous. Leutre glanced at the hyperspace fold drive once more as he passed it. It was just sitting there, almost begging to be torn apart piece by piece. Carefully inspected, cataloged, and re-assembled...probably minus a few parts. But knowing his luck, someone would probably throw him out an airlock for sabotage.

Leutre swore and kicked the nearby wall. Then, without really thinking about it, he screamed. Just because he hadn't vented his frustration on anything in weeks. Normally the occasional rousing pirate raid or barfight would solve this problem, and in some cases, the careful application of explosives. Screaming was the closest he would get to safely releasing his anger around here. It felt good, and no one was around to hear him, so he screamed some more.

"Well, I don't know, this wall IS pretty interesting..." Takuma said sarcastically. "So you're ready for me?" he said, standing up and stretching for a second.

"Nn." Miyoko gestured at the curtained room. "Go ahead and strip down to your skivvies. I can give you a gown if you'd like."

Walking in, Takuma threw off his uniform and dropped it out of the way. "Nah, I'm okay without one."

The medic shrugged and stepped to the side, taking up position outside of the room and staring into the distance. "We can get the basics over while you're doing that... have you been sick or injured recently? Any direct involvement of combat or that sort of thing?"

"No serious injuries, just the occassional scratch here and there. Never got a chance to get into actual combat on my last post, so no recent combat."

"And did you get a medical exam when you transfered onto the Umi too?"

"Yes, pretty in-depth one, if you ask me." He shuddered thinking about it.

"Well then you're in luck, since I have no intention of doing a thorough exam if you just had one and haven't had any problems since. Your body's Yamataian, not Geshrin, correct?" She stepped into the room and propped herself up on the table next to him.

"Yep, Yamataian from the start!" He threw up his hand in a "woo-hoo!" type of manner. "Well, from the start of my service I mean."

"Good, good. I'll try not to waste either of our time, then. Can you lie down on the table?"

"Hmm," Takuma said, examing the table for a second. "Well, it appears I can," he said after he sat down.

"That was the first part of the physical, actually. If you're too sickly to climb onto a table, we just jettison you out the airlock..." She leaned over and gently spread the lids of his right eye apart. "Try to stare straight ahead, if you could." A few minutes into her inspection, she asked, "So, you're another natural-born, hm?"

"Yep. My parents didn't like the idea of handpicking what I would be, and just let nature take control. At least thats what they told me." Takuma said. He found a dot on the ceiling and stared at it till she was done.

"Well, I more meant that you weren't a neko. Fairly obvious, given your gender, but I just find it a bit weird that this ship has as many nekos as it does people who were born Geshrin and Nepleslian. That's not very common on a warship." She switched over to inspecting his other eye. "Hopefully it'll be good for the sprites. I didn't get much contact with you people when I was young, and I still don't know what I'm doing on the ground."

"Well, I personally don't think you missed a whole lot," he said. "Once you've seen a few places, you've practically seen them all. That's one reason I joined the Star Army, to see other places and the wonders of space."

"I suppose." She pulled back from his eye. "Well, those seem fine. Have you had any headaches or dizziness? Any problems hearing?"

"If you just asked about my hearing, then no. If you asked about the weather, then we have some problems. No headaches or dizziness that I recall."

Miyoko stared at him for a second before shaking her head and chuckling slightly. "Come on, don't confuse me. I do that well enough as it is. Now, could you pull your gown up to your chest? I just need to make sure your squishy parts are in good condition, and we can get you backed up and on to something more important."

Takuma did as he was told and continued to stare at the same dot on the ceiling.

"Just relax and tell me if this hurts or if you feel a weird pressure. Alternatively, scream." She began firmly pressing his stomach at intervals. "So, any rousing war story behind how you got up to Jôtô, or did you just put in your time?"

"Nah, nothing much in the way of war stories, just doing my job mainly. Hoping this post will get me some good ones, though."

"You may want to wait until you actually hear our assignment to wish for some battles..." Miyoko withdrew her hand and leaned on the table with it. "Well, it sounds like there's nothing in there that shouldn't be in there. I just need to take a quick quick listen and then I can give you a bill of clean health." She leaned down and pressed an ear against his abdomen. "Just breathe steadily unless I say otherwise."

Obeying what Miyoko said, Takuma breathed steadily. "So, do you have any interesting war stories?"

She hesitated and looked up at him, not lifting her head from his stomach. "One. I'm not even sure I'm authorized to tell you just yet, though. No offense." She went back to listening, and several seconds later she straightened up and backed away from the table. "Well, that will do it. If anything goes wrong with you while you're here, you know who to come to. Unfortunately, the only backup center on this half of the ship is currently being occupied by Ito-hei, so you'll have to hang around here for a few minutes unless you're up for a nice cross-ship walk."

"Well, in that case, be sure to tell me all about it when its not under wraps anymore." Takuma got up from the table and went for his clothes. "Actually, I wouldn't mind walking across the ship. Probably the most of a tour I could get, given the circumstances."

"That works. But I'd suggest putting your clothes back on."

"Good point, don't want my first impression to be of me walking across the ship naked." He laughed and downed his uniform. He started to leave but stopped at the door. "So... is there a map anywhere nearby?"

"I can lead you there, but if you want to see one, MEGAMI should cooperate. It's a really short trip, though." She stepped out the doorway and into the main passageway, floating in the zero-G as she waited for him.

Takuma spun around before floating over to her. "Thats another good thing about space, there's more freedom when moving!" he said. "As long as the ship doesn't play a trick on me, I could use the map."

"... then tell the ship, not me." She floated to the far side of the small compartment and landed in the short junction that connected the two ships. "But like I said, it's straight down this hall."

"MEGAMI, please pull up a map of the ship," he said, to what seemed like plain air. After a few seconds, a map revealed itself in front of him. "Now if only it accepted other commands, like materialize me some coffee." He was half expecting coffee to appear in front of him, but it didn't. He continued down the hall after Miyoko.

"... and actually, call me a horrible tour guide, but I really don't know what these rooms to our sides are. This is only my second full day on the ship..." True to her word, the other medical lab was only a short walk down the hallway. Miyoko opened the door and stepped into the cramped room, gesturing him in.

Takuma looked inside and found the ST backup machine. He walked over and lied down on it. "Let the mind washing begin!", he said sarcastically.

"Mm, of course. I assume you have no problem with getting conked out while it's backing up so you're not in pain?" She pulled the device down on his head and began making adjustments.

"You assumed right." he said, watching the device being fitted onto his head. Looks like a puzzle, he thought.

"Well then, if I'm not back when you come to, feel free to go report for duty. If the headache lingers afterward, come to me and I can give you something for the pain." She reached over and flipped the machine into motion. The device quietly began humming, and a blue light emitting from it was the last thing Takuma saw before his consciousness faded.

Masako listened quietly and careful to the debate going on between Nyton and Mara. She had planned on answer Nyton's suggestion before on non-lethal rounds, but Mara had jumped in fairly quickly. The arguements both were bringing up also shed some light into how hard these planning meetings were, this being her first. Odds are if there is going to be a Mindy on our insertion team, the pilot is going to be me, she thought as she crossed her arms under her breasts and began to think harder.

The only other two Nekovalkryja on the ship were Kotori and Yukari, and Masako wouldn't have been a proper Armor Wing Leader if she allowed both the CO and XO of the ship into such a combat situation. The thought of fighting an NIWS did make the young neko swallow hard to keep her lunch down, but if anyone had a fighting chance against it, it would be her in a Mindy. She also remember the tedious task Kotori and she had been through, reading up on the Mindy II and all of its configurations. Thinking back to that was almost enough to give the poor armor leader and migraine.

"Claymere-Juni's plan has potential versus an NIWS," Masako finally spoke up during the calm between Mara and Nyton. "If we need non-lethal action, we can just bring a sidearm taped to the armor itself," she finally provided input Nyton's previous suggestion. "A Type 28 Pistol will do fine for such need, but a Type 28 SMG is also capable."

Pausing for a moment to get her bearings, Masako looked at both Nyton and Mara. "Two Mindy II's is half of our Mindy force, we must use them with care. A Mindy II teleporting onto the Bridge of the Nozomi is one method of dealing with that, but I'd much prefer having said Mindy teleport into the monitor room and deal with the most likely threat, the Megami." Masako explained. "With the Megami out of the way, our insertion will go through more smoothly, that and it is more plausible that the commanding officer of the Nozomi is in the Monitor Room rather than the bridge." Masako suggested as she remembered the Nozomi and Mikomi from her brief times on both. "Though it the Taii is not in the Monitor Room, a lone Mindy II can make it to the bridge easily with the Megami deactivated."

Sigurd, whom was also present at the meeting, even though he wouldn't actually participate in the assault, stepped forward. "It strikes me that you are working on the assumption that the Black Spiral will have a crew with identifiable rank. Seeing they no longer function within the Star Army of Yamatai, nothing forces them to be in uniform."

The tall custodian continued with: "If they wish to appear as a Star Army soldier, their skin holography should prove sufficient to mask them so, but the commanding officer would not be immediately identifiable as a Taii or any other rank we recognize, especially inside their own vessel where they have no obligation to look like us."

Rei groaned as the ST backup system disengaged; even put under, there was an undercurrent of discomfort that bothered the Yamataian woman whenever she went through the process. Taking a moment to grab her bearings, she helped herself off the machine and put on her clothes which she removed for the exam.

Checking her chronometer, Rei scratched an itch behind one ear as if just waking from a long nap. "Good day, MEGAMI. Could you direct me to Takuma-Hei's position? Or, if he's occupied, to our section officer so I can go on duty?"

Nyton cracked a slight smile as everyone finally began to speak up. It's about time. I was beginning to worry I had lost everyone's interest. he thought.

"Good points, all of them. Even yours Sigurd." Nyton said. He looked at Masako. "Kurohoshi, we will use your idea of strapping smaller sidearms to stun anyone we wish to take prisoner." Nyton then looked at Mara. "According to the schematic the bridge and the monitor room are close together so if we go with the shape charge plan we can throw the bridge into enough chaos that the organic chain of command will be paralyzed long enough to allow the Mindy to attack the monitor room which is right next door. If anyone survives the vacuum exposure then they will be less difficult to capture afterwards."

Finally, Miyoko walked in to the briefing, abashedly slipping in to avoid interrupting. She bowed to Nyton before taking a seat. "I apologize for being late- I had to take care of backups for the new crew members before I could come."

Takuma sat up and groaned. He felt like he was up all night partying. There was no one around, so next to do was to report for orders. "MEGAMI, please tell Ito-Hei to meet me at the armor bay." He left and headed down to the armor bay.

"Takuma-Hei has instructed me to direct you to the armor bay. He awaits for you there," The Miharu told Rei. Getting to an armor bay wouldn't be complicated - it'd just require her retracing her steps to the auxiliary vessel and going on the side she hadn't arrived in to meet... with whoever was going to give her more work to do.

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Seeing Miyoko sit next to her, Mara helpfully transfered a textual transcript of the discussion so far to the yamataian's memory to put her up to speed with the current going ons.

"The shaped charge plan appears to have two drawbacks," Sigurd spoke. "The first would be that it would need to be a charge which would be of sufficient power to get through a zesuaium-reinforced starship hull - I do not believe we have anything like that on board for the moment. Secondly, damage on any part of the ship would come back to haunt us once we would have taken control of it - if we are to capture it, it might be wisest to leave it as undamaged as possible."

"If we need an entry point to get into the Nozomi, we could always just go through the rapid launch bays," Mara pointed out. "That means squaring off against its Mindy power armors, though..." The sprite's voice trailed off; fighting Mindy 1F suits with Daisy power armors was not a pleasant prospect.

"The Black Spiral Mindy armors will need to be pinned down in that position." Sigurd said with emphasis. "Assume the Black Spiral often defaults with the teleportation module in their loadouts; if defending their ship is not a priority, we could just as well receive unwelcome visitors aboard the Miharu while most of our armor assets will be absent."

"Ah, thank you, Megami." Rei thanked the computer and grabbed her things, so thoughtfully left in the same corner she had dropped them off at before the exam, before heading out to the Armor Bay to meet with her superiors.

Good, they're thinking. Too bad we don't have anything strong enough to blast through the tube though. I always wanted to see if that would work. Still, we need a plan of attack. We haven't even begun to establish contingency plans in case something fails. Nyton thought as he heard their feedback.

"A typical Nozomi class vessel has a payload of sixteen Mindy Armors. Howver we cannot be sure of their numbers since Black Spiral does not operate like a typical Nozomi. Plus, like you mentioned they more than likely have teleportation units installed. In order to remove that as an advantage we need to force them into the defensive by attacking something of value within their ship. Plus if we make them fight inside the ship they have to be more careful or they could teleport themselves into something solid. A Nozomi is not very spacious so forcing them into the halls could limit their movement." Nyton said.

"So again, we are back at the start of it. If we try to enter from the bays that puts us only a little ways off from the monitor room. We would have to fight quickly in order to endanger anything of value such as the bridge."

Miyoko finished reviewing the information Mara had given her and looked up thoughtfully. "Will the Miharu be close enough to our point of insertion to allow us to take drone weapon pods with us? Assuming that they wouldn't automatically identify the enemy vessel as a friend and start taking orders from its MEGAMI, the additional firepower could help even the unbalanced numbers and give us suppressive fire."

"Hey, good thinking!" Mara grinned widely at Miyoko. "The Miharu should be close enough for visual contact when we actually make the assault, so, we should be able to use them safely enough." The sprite thumped one fist decisively in the palm of her other hand. "With them we'd definitely stand a chance against the Black Mindy armors!"

"You are leaping to conclusions and assuming that the Miharu will be in visual range," Sigurd countered. "A cluster of pods also take enough space to be unwieldly inside the confines of a ship the size of a Nozomi-class scoutship."

Mara glowered at Sigurd. Bite me, you stupid NovaCorp android...

"Armor-assisting pods are powered by the host armor, as I understand it. As long as we acquired them before leaving, shouldn't we be able to use them indefinitely? And even if they are too unwieldy for corridors, it should at least give us an edge our initial assault on the armor bay, if we choose that path..." Miyoko trailed off, suddenly looking uncertain, and leaned back in her seat. "But, then, this isn't exactly my specialty."

"It is not a matter of speciality, but of practicality," Sigurd answered. "Consider four Daisy power armors walking inside the confines of a corridor 5 feet wide in a combat situation. Add two-dozen a meter-and-a-half long plasma cannons, six assigned to each." He paused. "While this provides awesome fire support, it also adds a lot of clutter in the space where armors are firing, dodging and trying to move."

"Furthermore," Sigurd continued, "your argument holds true for Mindy power armors. However, Daisy power armors do not have combined field systems, therefore, each unit would only have fifty shots or so."

Mara didn't like Sigurd getting the last laugh. "If the Miharu extends her CFS bubble over the enemy ship, they should remain at peak power."

"True," Sigurd nodded along.

Mara bristled.

Asher scratched his head, listening in on the conversation of how to enter the enemy ship. He kept his eyes glued to the holographic projection to see what he could learn. He then looked into the NIWS information, he noted the qualities of it and reflected upon the information. He scratched the spike goatee on his chin, and figured it was his moment to pop up.

"Not to act late or anything much, but according to the information on the NIWS, it's mind is basically a computer system focused on hunting down Mishhuvurthyarian organics and technology, does it have the same effectivability with Yamataian technology? Along with that, having a computer system for a brain would make it vulnerable to a sort of EMP Device, correct?" Asher coughed into his fist, and cleared his throat for a moment. Though, he wasn't done yet, the concept of the Armor-Assisting Pods was the current debate.

"Though, back on the subject of the Armor-Assiting Pods. The pods do take up a lot of space, and would greatly assist in taking the Armor Bay, correct?" Asher scratched his head. "Why don't we just storm the bay with the pods? That added firepower should give us enough time to figure what we're up against. I'm unsure, but if it's plausible, we can just jettison the Pods in the bay when we've secured enough intel to strike the bridge." The broad Yamataian coughed again into his fist, finishing his bit.