RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 11.1] The Torchbearers

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Mikael raised his right eyebrow under his visored full helmet and just looked up behind him for a sec when the tank registered Hanako entered the TC's seat. He turned back to the front, grabbed both of the joysticks controlling the treads, and then drove the tank slowly from the Eucharis to the ground below.

He drove a few meters from the ship and then slowed down to a stop. He scanned what surroundings he could see from his viewport.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Mitsuya II Surface

The terrain seemed to be mostly barren, aside from some ruins ahead. Beneath the snow was debris and the charred trunks of trees that had been flattened by the blasts during the NMX attack six months ago.

"MEGAMI says there are signs of possibly intact bunkers," Hanako offered, laying back in her seat the tight, protected interior of the turret. She looked around using the remote machine gun's camera. "Take us towards that hill about 3 up on the left. There is a possible structure I want to check out. Go ahead and deploy drones."

Behind the "Troll" tank, the six-legged TASHA tank robot jumped out of the ship and galloped ahead of the team's tank, darting around and exploring the area in search of items of interest. It kicked the carcass of what was once a UOCPF light utility truck donated to the UOC by the Yamataian government, knocking the snow off so the team could see it. A charred skull was sent flying by the kick and landed in the snow nearby.

No threats appeared yet.

"Kiko, how are you doing? This is your first real ground mission, right?" the Taisa asked.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

With the group rolling out, Helen revved the motorcycle she was sat upon, and from it came a high pitch whine of the electric engine she had installed on it. With a toggle of a gear switch, she was off and down the ramp as she steadily drove her motorcycle in a weaving pattern, checking the flanks of the group, as well as surveying the area. Much like Takeyu, she was unsure of who was distinctively the group leader, but she left most of the judgment calls to the Taisa for the time being.

"Santo Hei Papadopoulos, maintain your point position! As the Taisa said, move in the direction of the hill as indicated." Helen ordered as she gestured in the intended direction as she looked to the TASHA tank, and wondered just what role the support vehicle was playing in their movement through the wasted lands. "Taisa, is the TASHA here in the function of forward support, rear support, or as a firing platform?" she asked, trying to get a better picture of what-was-what.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Eucharis Bridge

With the Away team now clear of the gunship, Sune brought the ship into the air and set a course for the crashed ship. The drone had already arrived by the time Yaichiro had arrived.

"Hello Kage-Chusa, on our approach to the colony we detected the wreckage of a vessel of unknown origin. It does not appear to be Yamataian, UOC or even NMX. Its quite large and we were detecting signs of power.

I thought your engineering skills would be of more use in assessing the ship, and if necessary checking its systems should we decide to board."

Sune punched a command into his console, and the visual data from the VCMAD appeared on the main screen. "There she is,"

The image showed an approximately kilometer long ship, which appeared to be a 'flat' shape with it narrowing down toward the front and it sagging downward along the edges in a slant like fashion on both sides of the ship (/=v=\) The rear side of the ship has four 'wing' like protrusions with the conning tower sticking out at a forty five degree angle.

The forward section looked like someone took a hot iron to it. It was largely burned away, melted and broken. The main bridge coning tower is completely gone, replaced by a broken hull with wires sparking.

The main hull of the ship was pitted and scarred by energy strikes that burned through in places exposing the interior. Along the hull there were a series of regular shaped openings, where it seemed something had been ejected.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Yaichiro took a look, analyzing what he saw in front of him, taking in the structures and damage visible to him. It was an interesting study, trying to determine the craft's origin.

"Hmm...not any craft I've ever seen, even in this area of space -- pretty unusual given its size, and it seems like it'd be hard to overlook. There are some potentially telling elements though..." he focused on the conning tower first.

"This armored conning tower indicates a few things. I'd say that this angle of conning tower indicates that craft is designed to be capable of atmospheric re-entry with as little shield energy as possible, which the wing configuration on the back seems to agree with. While it's hard to tell to what degree shields would be needed to supplement it and just how much lift would be made, the whole thing seems built to be a lifting body.

It seems to have a relatively small cross sectional area for its size as well, rather then relying on incredibly advanced stealth systems alone. It may have on board systems to supplement this, but given the conning tower structure, I'm not sure if they would be as advanced as ours. That's more an obsolete structure in modern craft, geared toward enhancing visibility as well as more crude forms of sensor technology."

He then zoomed in on some of the holes, but not just the escape pod holes -- he also analyzed the damage to the hull, both that which just made dings and that which penetrated. "The hull seems pretty thick, and is strong enough to protect against some decent energy-based and kinetic weapons for a time, more than most civilian hulls. This makes me think more strongly that it is meant to re-enter atmosphere without shielding, but I'm not sure yet if that means it uses shields less in combat. These regular openings are likely escape pod hatches, so we should keep an eye open for such pods, but it's more likely they were launched in space."

Yaichiro, after some thought, did his best to ponder its role.

"From what I see, I'd say it's made of technology more primitive than ours, but is an expensive craft to produce. Not the kind a pirate would cobble together with obsolete technology, but something a less technologically advanced society's company or military would make when limited to this level of technology. The type of damage I see also indicates that it launched its escape pods and attempted to re-enter the atmosphere under duress -- possibly while under attack to buy time for its crew's escape pods as a distraction."

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Mitsuya II surface, away team
Kiko kept her eyes on the split-screen display of the areas to the tank's side. "I am uninjured, and this is my first mission on ground, ma'am. Or did you mean that as a personal question?" She blushed a bit, embarrassed to not know which she meant.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Takeyu nodded as he heard the Taisa's order. He kept the properties screen open and configured both drones to search for heat signatures, and to send him an alert in case they found anything.

A small opening in his left shoulder opened, and a five inch long tactical drone hovered out. It floated there for a few moments, seemingly getting its bearing before taking off into the distance ahead of them.

The second drone came down a few seconds later, this one just hovered for a full five seconds before turning around and looking at the tank and the other members of the squad - as if it was thinking something - before taking off into the distance to fulfill its role.

After watching the drones move away, but still tagged on his HUD so he could make out their positions clearly, he keyed the squad comms. "Drones up," he said and raised his rifle and continued forward, two video feeds appeared on his HUD and he sent the feed over to the Shoi as well as the Taisa. He didn't know if they wanted to monitor what the drones were seeing, but he knew that they would want to be kept in the know.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Kumiko took off into the air as they left the ships bay, not going too high, only about 50 meters or so, just enough to get a good line of sight around their squad, and hopefully not high enough to make her an excessively attractive target. Once she'd reached her target destination, she deployed her NSDs, forming a loose ring around her with them, with instructions to relay meaningful movement to her HUD. Finally, she activated her active camouflage system, so all anyone would see looking up were her drones, and if they could guess what those were on that alone, she'd come down and shake their hand. "Endoh-Hei, in position. Are we headed straight for the base?"

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Eucharis Bridge

"Now you see why I asked you to the bridge. Your engineering skills are invaluable in this matter.

The ship still has power, so there could be functioning computers that might give insight into who they are or were. There might even be the possibility of survivors. Though to look at the beating the ship took and the impact of landing. That would be very remote."

Sune programmed the VCMAD to perform an orbit of the crashed ships. He spotted some activity outside the ship. He instructed the camera to zoom in. The image of a group of men and women were setting about erecting shelters.

"We have some movement near the ship." Sune said pointing to the screen, "The question is are they from the ship or survivors from the attack on the planet. Either way they look like they could use some assistance. Perhaps we should go down and take a closer look.

I propose we land the Eucharis a few miles from the crash site with the other crew members aboard. We take Victory and Lime with us in Power Armors and assess the situation. Your thoughts Chusa?"

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Eucharis Bridge

Yaichiro pondered the matter, contemplating the pros and cons of it. He did not like splitting the Eucharis' crew into so many groups, nor having all the officers off the ship save for Blueberry and Blackberry.

"While I definitely see the need for investigating, I don't like that particular idea. That leaves the top four ranked of the ship's six officers off the ship and split in three different directions overall. We're still heading a Task Force, and should keep enough of a Command presence on the ship to handle that accordingly if things go badly.

We may need to consider bringing in one of the other ships from the Task Force to investigate it. We don't have the medical personnel available to process and treat them all promptly, nor the resources to send out another team without jeopardizing the mission.

In the meantime, even if we assign another ship to it, we should keep observing with the drones and gather as much data as possible. The Eucharis has friends this time -- we don't have to take everything that comes solely on our shoulders."

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Michael closed the faceplate of his armor when the Taisa sank into the tank's turret, hefting the massive transphase rifle into a ready position as he sprinted... actually, no. What Michael did wasn't sprinting. What Michael did can only be described as a Gravitic Powerslide, rapidly returning to his position at the front of the formation.

Panning to his left and right with the rifle while walking towards the hill, Michael couldn't help be feel that he was being set up for an ambush, the Hikael's Quintessent Wave Differentialometer scanning the front.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Alpha Team

Takeyu watched and listened, monitoring everything he saw before him. He was still getting used to open ground combat, instead of combat aboard a ship or station which he knew more about.

His drones mellowed around rocks, burned trees, debris, and other stuff that could potentially be used to hide someone or something. One drone descended next to rock and looked it around, flying around it, then heading back up into the sky and continuing another search elsewhere.

Ship Crashsite

The girl was happily doozing away when she was startled awake at the shout of one of the salvers; she looked over in fright when he started examining the food crate and saw the cracks on the sides.

He was cursing wildly, to which the girl was covering her ears at. She saw one of the slavers motion to another as they picked up two male Jiyuuian slaves. She observed them being taken to a piece of the ships debris in the distance, she didn't know why they were being taken there, but it obviously had to do with the food crate.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

UOCPF Complex

Other than the alpha team, there didn't seem to be much activity in the area. One of the drones found another artifact: a half-buried UOCPF shuttlecraft with its nose in the mud and its charred, partially melted backside protruding a little above the normal snow-covered ground.

The tank managed a bumpy but reasonably face pace through the rubble until Hanako pointed at the suspected shelter location. A small mound off in what was once a forest had a debris-covered partially melted arched entrance door on one side.

"Did anyone bring a plasma torch?" Hanako asked.

Orbit

A single NMX scout ship folded into the system, staying far beyond the task force's weapons range.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Kumiko paused, before remembering the Taisa most likely hadn't been given the loadout lists or even the assignments. "Taisa, I have my Mindy's forearm projectors. Those should serve well enough in the same role." Until receiving orders otherwise, she would stay stealthed in the sky though.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

"Kumiko, remain in covering position, you have the better capacity to rapidly respond to any problems that may arise while breaching the door... I'll handle opening it, my armor is better suited to close-quarters engagements if there is a problem beyond that door." Helen explained as she drove her motorcycle in the direction of the door, before she brought down the kick-stand and dismounted the vehicle.

"Takeyu, come here and watch my back." Helen spoke as she approached the door on foot, and looked back to the Troll Tank without even turning. "Taisa, I can breach the door whenever you're ready... though, I could try my shared LSDF-Peacekeeper codes since it seems this area was wrecked before I dropped my cover in the Matriarchy." As she spoke on the matter, she eyed the melted keypad that drooped beside the hatchway before she activated a home-brew program within her Kessaku-OS, and with it, she began to transmit on a Lorath-style Neural Interface frequency while attempting to ping a transceiver.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

"Aye ma'am," Takeyu moved up behind the Shoi and then did a quick check of his weapon before he started keeping an eye out for possible hostiles.

While waiting, he sent an order to one of the drones to return to him. The drone appeared over a rock, noticiable only becuase it was still tagged, and it moved up just behind the Shoi.

"Drone two available for recon once door is open" he said telepathically to the team.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Eucharis Bridge

Sune listened to Yaichiro's comments, and considered them. He then noticed a message from the task force that an NMX vessel had entered the system.

"Your reservations are duly noted Kage-Chusa, but the Taisa considered this derelict ship worth investigating. And since there is now an NMX presence in orbit; our priorities are changed. We need to contact those people out there. Assess their situation, and offer what assistance that we can. The other crew members have served on the Eucharis since before I came on board. I am confident that they can handle anything that comes up."

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

Yaichiro raised an eyebrow. It sounded like he hadn't been told everything before being asked to give an overall opinion.

"I didn't realize the Taisa had knowledge of and any specific orders regarding the matter. That might have altered my options.

But yes, the situation has changed...we need to move the ship after all and provide cover to the site should the Mishhu starfighters pass the Task Force at FTL and try to attack from above the planet...and get the people at the crash site out of there while providing cover with the turrets if needed. The fact the Mishhu are here makes it more important that someone be ready to command the Task Force, even if it's just one of us, or hand it over to one of the other ships in the interim. That and the Taisa should be informed so she isn't stranded not knowing where the ship is."

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

UOCPF Bunker

"Open it gently," Hanako ordered.

She looked back to Kiko. "I was just asking; that is all."

So far it seemed like they had arrived far to late to help. Even the bodies, what few they could find, were merely skeletons whose flesh had rotted away in the summer and were now iced over in the silent white snow blanket. If there was no one left here, perhaps they could try more systems until they found some remnants of the UOC.

Orbit

The NMX Scout left the system before it could be intercepted by the task force.

Re: [Mission 11] The Torchbearers

"Looks like the bunker systems were compromised by the explosion." Helen commented before she began to check over the corpses for any intelligence related finds, as well as identification to be conveyed to any UOC authorities if contact were made. After gathering what she could in a discarded emergency kit container, she returned to the outside of the bunker. "Taisa, I would imagine that if there were remains of the UOC, they would be isolated to the original 'Yugumo Cluster' area of space. Though... I don't doubt that the Lorath Matriarchy would already be involved with attempting to re-establish contact, and correcting whatever problem has befallen the UOC, that, or conducting a peace-keeping occupation."