RP: YSS Resurgence Mission 15: The Pathfinders (YE 46.5)

[Wes]

RP Date

YE 46.5

RP Location

Concordia Sector

YE 46.5

RECREATION ROOM

After their summer shore leave, the crew of the Resurgence was back in action and the ship was lifting off once more from her hangar in the Central Fleet Depot in Central Uesureya on Planet Yamatai. As typical, Aoba called a meeting of the crew to discuss the next objective, which was held before breakfast in the recreation room where everyone was doing their morning workouts. Hachirobei Sakuko, now noticably pregnant, stood near the end of the track that ran around the room, taking and recording runners' times as they completed the last part of their Physical Fitness Test. As they completed the run, they headed over to Aoba's presentation where Julia Meadows was handing out water bottles.

Doctor Poppy crossed the finish line and slowed to a walk, breathing heavily and glistening.

"As you know, Acuna was a major NMX stronghold in the Concordia Sector," Aoba told the crew."After we helped spearpoint the invasion, the Rikugun Legions have moved in and are trying to clear out the resistance, which is likely to take a long time because the planet is covered in dozens, maybe hundreds, of small bases. You did a good job and we made good use of the new teleporter technology, although we can't forget the loss of our comrade. I also want to thank everyone who came to the service at on Nataria. It meant a lot to his family to have such a strong showing of support there. The next step in establishing and securing our foothold in the area, in the eyes of Taisho Irim, is to find out what's out there that can reach us. When we discovered Concordia Station, and the Concordia Sector, we found that the station was a hub of a network of wormholes that the NMX were using to spread throughout the larger Kagami Galaxy. As of yet, most of these are completely unexplored. The Taisho has requested that we become part of the team that will help look into them. Questions?"

"So are we just going to be going through a bunch of wormholes and seeing where they lead to?" Sanda asked. She was doing better since the last mission. The time off at the beach and getting to spend some time with her husband had helped. As had the councling sessons. But she still wasn't quite back to her old self and she might not ever be. The horrors of that last mission had scarred Sanda deeply, deeper than she had ever been scarred before.

"We're going to be part of a team of explorers investigating the wormholes, and new systems and planets and and space ruins we come across," Aoba said. "We'll be working with SAINT crews and Concordia Sector Operations, a special task force set up to support operations in the Concordia Sector," Aoba told Sanda.

Yoshiro was fascinated by all of this but he was going to do his job no matter where they went. He was angry about the loss of a comrade in the last mission and wanted his chance at revenge. He started polishing his salvage sword and smiled. "As long as I get a chance to kill my enemies, then I am all good." Yoshiro said. "Those Mishhu are going to pay for messing with us."

Yayoi stood stoicly beside Sanda, she could tell her battle sister was doing better, and she knew begrudingly that was the power of psychologists, and the beach. She listened as Sanda asked her question, and then heard their captains reply to that question. Yayoi nodded her head silently to acknowledge his words.

Chiheisen Takahashi finished up a water bottle to the side. The Elysian put the cap back on the bottle as she listened to the briefing. She still seemed a little distant, well, moreso than usual, after the events of the previous mission.

Cassie huffed across the finish line. "You know...maybe...I should get...one of them Minkan bodies..."

"Come on, Cassie," Hayden laughed, still running in place after he'd crossed it long ago. "I don't got nothing like that! I don't even have cardio augs!"

Kokoro faceplanted onto the ground after she crossed, the neko evidently didnt like running for an extended period of time. "Ahhhh! Why cant we just float everywhere!"

"You've got even less of an excuse," Hayden looked down at Kokoro. "Are you a Neko or a Ne-can't?"

"My legs are short! My hips are wide! My ass is fat!" Cassie objected.

"Is that really a downside though?" Kokoro floated upside down slowly, looking at Cassie while rossing her arms.

Euikoshi laughed in amusement. "Short stacks for the win," she said, striking a pose.

Hayden, tellingly, didn't respond to any of that, and went off to stretch.

Pidole stared at Cassie for a moment. Not an angry stare, just that thinking stare she was always doing. Her beetle made a "thinking" pose with one of its legs rubbing its chin area.

Yoshiro was doing pratice kata with his sword as he listened to the conversations going on. He was smiling at Cassie's statment.

"So why don't we just send a bunch of robot probes out first?" Wong Caihong suggested. "We have some we could use, and Euikoshi can science them up and Pidole and I can modify them as needed."

"Yeah, that way we don't jump right into the middle of another enemy base and we all get killed this time." Sanda said. A little harder than she had intended. Despite the hilarity of Cassie's complaint, it hadn't even registered with the tattooed woman.

"Go ahead and send the first probes out with sensors to locate the wormhole openings so we know where the network starts," Aoba nodded. "Then we'll start sending them in to see what's on the other side. In the meantime, perhaps some of you can meet our helpers on Concordia Station."

Yuri nodded as she huffed and puffed but had no pigs houses to blow down as she sprinted with the others. "probes would be perfect, to gather intel." She said.

The intercom came on and a volumetric image of Gabriela Lively appeared near Aoba. "Sir, course charted for the Concordia Wormhole. Shall I proceed?"

"Yes, full speed ahead," Aoba said.

"Aye aye, captain! Prepare for space fold," Gabriela replied, disappearing.

"If there's nothing else, I will return to the bridge," Aoba told the crew. "Enjoy your breakfast."

"I consider that last one a standing order," Hayden quipped, once the Captain was heading out.

As the exercise hour ended, the crew began to shuffle over to the showers.

"Spoiler alert," Cassie said, stripping off her Star Army T-shirt, "Pretty sure we find more Mishhu bases. I wouldn't be surprised if they got star fortresses waiting on the other ends of the wormholes. They've have had one in Concordia if we hadn't kicked their ass out and said that weird AI that kept making Pidole's eyes glow. Heh."

Yuri's clothes started flickering, before they disappeared entirely as she joined Cassie to the

"Yeah! SO WE JUST SICC EM!" Kokoro shouted as she grinned, floating along with the rest to the showers. She seemed tired of all that running. "They wont know what hit em! Hyehyehyeee!"

SHOWERS

"First!" Hayden yelled, his long, quarter-ID-SOL legs almost eerie in the speed of their stride versus length. It was almost like he could run another test and max it, and the artillery pieces on display as he yanked his wet shirt over his head while still sprinting full tilt towards the showers backed that up.

"Sí, probablemente nos encontraremos con una maldita armada completa y volaremos en pedazos antes de que sepamos qué nos golpeó." Sanda complained as she undressed and washed. Even the refreshingness of the water after a workout did little to bring the ranger out of her doom and gloom mood.

Poppy shared a shower head with Euikoshi and the two shampoo'd each others' hair. She was a little worried about some of what they'd seen in the previous missions. "I'll do everything I can to keep us from ending up like the YSS Dragon Sword. When we go out there they're going to try to turn us against each other."

Yuri stepped into place beside Poppy and Eukoshi but on a separate shower head. As the water cascaded against her body, she listened to Poppy speaking, "Hai, i'll do my best to assist you. Poppy-Sempai!" She said to poppy, then began thinking.

Julia, the ship's caretaker (space maid!) collected all the exercise uniforms in a basket and hauled them off to the laundry room near the crew cabins.

Chiheisen silently stood under a shower head, the Elysian simply listening to the others converse, effectively covering herself with her now drenched wings. She glanced towards Sanda with a rather sombered expression, before continuing to bathe.

After getting cleaned up, it was time to get dressed for the day. The uniform of the day was the usual Type 42 duty uniform or Type 42 bodysuit, which were the Star Army Regal blue with the occupational panel color on the front and shoulders. After toweling off and air-drying for a few moments, Poppy and others started suiting up.

Yayoi was silent as she suited up, but she wouldnt be silent for long. "hmm.. I wonder if our Empress does another request thing.. hey mom, what would you ask for?' Yuri asked her mother.

Yayoi glanced towards her daughter, for a moment. "probably.. permission to use a Eihei body.. I've heard a lot about their capability, and would be very useful as a ranger. What about you?" Yayoi asked and very much regretted it, because she had a feeling she knew exactly what Yuri might ask.

Yuri grinned widely, with as much Yuri level excitement as she could. "I'd ask if i could hug her! I mean I managed to hug our Imperial Premier! so she's next!" Yuri said innocently.

Yayoi facepalms.

WARDROOM

The air was thick with the breakfasty aromas of fresh-brewed coffee and sizzling bacon. Vanilla-scented crispy waffles and piles of fresh strawberries and lovefruits sat next to Rossa's fresh-basked croissants and Julix's fiesta egg breakfast medley. It was feeding time on the Resurgence!

It went without saying that a certain Nepleslian infantryman attempted, to the best of his ability, to be first in line at breakfast as he had to the showers. Hayden heaped his plate with everything, and plopped down at a table. His shoulders took up the space of a pair of Nekovalkyrja, giving him the entire side to himself.

Bidole the beetle came buzzing past in the air, helping itself to a strawberry and carting off.

"Sup, little dude," Hayden greeted Bidole as it flew by.

Stuffing her face accross from Hayden, Kokoro was chowing down on two separate plates of food, the Navy haired neko not even speaking from how much she was eating. Running made her hungry...

"So..." Cassie said, her hair still looking damp, "Who wants to go meet these dudes on the station? I'm down."

"Mmhm, you sure are." Eyebrows wiggled as Hayden chuckled between bites and shielding his own tray from Kokoro's maniacal shoveling.

Sanda had a full plate of food, mostly eggs and bacon but she wasn't eating with anywhere near her normal gusto. She took a flask from her pocket and poored a generous amount into her coffee cup. She held her cup up towards a window and very quietly said, "May the stars guide you my battle brother, Lyons."

"I know my boy would have wanted you to bring enough to share with the class, Heishō," Hayden punctuated his words with a big, full forkfull of everything on his place. "I already had to set the other Heishō straight."

Sanda managed a smirk and poured some of her rum into Hayden's coffee cup.

Hayden held it up and knocked it back far too quickly for how hot the coffee was, and sputtered a bit before getting himself under control and swallowing. "Smilin' down."

With one hand holding a tray full of food the other face palming, she took her seat beside Sanda. "I've created a nut" she mutters as she does so, her senses of smell began acting up picking up on Sanda's drink. And Hayden's words. "as long as you two get sober enough before you get on duty.." Yayoi finished her words. Mostly because she got distracted by Hayden.

"I've never been drunk on duty in my life." Sanda snapped at Yayoi. She took a big gulp of her drink, barely even noticing the hot tempurature. She grabbed a piece of bacon and raised it to her mouth to eat it but suddenly lost her appittie and just tossed the food back on the plate.

"May i try some?' Yuri asked remembering how Yayoi never allowed her to drink but now that she was a adult, and was free, she thought she could try it.

"Don't get between a soldier and her rum like that, sugar." Hayden admonished Yuri in his smooth drawl, although his eyes on Yayoi implied Yuri was just a proxy.

Yuri frowned, but understood.

"My man also frowned on wasting bacon." While it was another of Hayden's jokes, it sort of trailed off and didn't land the way they usually did, and he ended up just looking back down at his plate and hesitated a moment before shoveling the food in at near-Kokoro speed.

Pidole and Euikoshi took up a corner booth, already hard at work looking at a modified probe design, which was projected out of Pidole's triangular teal communicator on her jacket. It looked like a little torpedo full of sensors and its parts expanded out from each other to show the interior. They got deep into what Cassie described as "nerd shit."

Chiheisen sat at the end of the table Sanda and Yayoi were sitting at, with a gap in between chairs to provide suitable space for her wings. She still didnt seem very sociable.

Kokoro's ear twitched a little as she looked towards Yayoi, raising an eyebrow. She didnt say anything, her mouth was full of food which she was still chewing on.

Cheilith sat with the other team members, eating her eggs and bacon and watching the normal life of the ship unfold around her.

"Hey," Yoshiro said to Kokoro. "Last mission...did I see you speaking Mishhuvurthyar?"

Cassie stopped in mid-bite. "Hrm? Wait, what?"

It would take a boarding party to get Hayden to stop mid-bite now. But he did look up.

Kokoro made a little choking noise as she spat out what she was biting into. She hit herself in the chest reflexively, before responding. "NANDAYO?! What are you talking about?" She raised an eyebrow angrily, a sweat drop sliding down her cheek.

Yayoi choked on her food the moment Yoshiro spoke to Kokoro.

"Errrhh..." She blinked repeatedly as she stared at her food, before responding. "Ohhh! T-that.. yeah- i was just trying to repeat something I heard from a Misshu before! It kinda scared em off!" She laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "Was it that convicing?"

"Very." Cheilith commented.

"Yeah it totally was." Yoshiro said smiling encouragingly. "Do you know any other Mishhu words? I could use some new matieral to insult them with the next time I see them."

"It's true it was the same Mishhu that Rossa gunked up with corn starch?" Cassie asked Yoshiro and Kokoro.

"That's what the bastard told us when he had us chained to a wall." Sanda said she drained the rest of her coffee. Taking out her flask again she filled the cup with just straight rum this time and drank downed it as well before standing up. It was beginning to feel crowded in the Wardroom.

Kokoro laughed with a nervous grin, before nodding towards Yoshiro. "Well i can try findin out more to hurl at them! Hyehyehye..."

Yuri widened her innocent eyes "oh my Mishhu insults..hmm.. too bad i dont get chances. Plus not sure its a good idea." Though hopes Poppy hadnt mentioned to her mother she'd been crying while they were missing in action.

"It must've been horrifying," Poppy sympathized. "You hear these horror stories about the Mishhuvurthyar practices on prisoners and how they literally treat captives as cattle. And it was a race against time for me to get those parasites out."

"I got one of them," Hayden chimed in before Poppy even got the "t" in "out" out of her mouth, nudging Yayoi.

"it was.." Yayoi started, but stopped. as she took note of Yuri's presence and Chiheisen's leaving. Though she reached out to touch where the parasite was extracted. Yayoi glanced to Hayden as he nudged her, and her eyes narrowed not liking the contact. "Hayden-hei, mind explaining why you think we are close enough to nudge?' she asked annoyedly. as the Stick lifted up her butt once again.

"I mean, my hand was all up inside your body cavity and all, Heishō, so I figured, you know. This wasn't near that close!" Hayden made a little wiggling gesture with his fingers, meant to evoke Parasite tentacles.

Cassie's eyes bulged at the mental image. "Gross!"

Yayoi's eye twitched, dangerously "we are at breakfast, Hayden-hei!" She said grossed out by his words. She didnt think about how the parasite didnt try to control her.

Chiheisen got up from her seat abruptly as Poppy was speaking, the Elysian leaving her food half eaten on the table as she made her way outside of the Wardroom quickly. Kokoro watched with a new spoonfull of food in her mouth, furrowing her brow.

Yuri got up "i'll meet you back in the medical bay, sempai!" Yuri said, and hurried out. giving Chiheisen a float by shoulder pat before she went to the lift.

"We might be able to find a Concordian guide who knews the region better than we do," Poppy speculated. "We should check the station," she suggested. "Maybe I can charm one," she giggled, thinking back to the governor of Koenic who continued to send her flowers.

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Liza, Yuuki, and Yoshiro

 

[Lizalopod]

YSS Resurgence
Hallway outside of the Wardroom

Sanda had gone out into the hallway where it was quieter. Her right hand had started to shake again. It had started doing that ever since she'd gotten back from that mission. The wierd part was that it was her cybernitic arm. It wasn't suppose to do that. Her theripist said it was subcouncious triggers on her implants.

Chiheisen gribbed a disposals bin tightly a bit aways from the entrance to the wardroom. The Elysian let out a shudder as she made an attempt to hold back, but couldnt. She gagged and threw up into the bin, her wings visibly ruffling quite significantly as her body shook.

Sanda couldn't miss the Elysian doubled over throwing up into a trash bin. She knew how she felt. Sanda walked over and grabbed Chichi's hair and pulled it away from her face so that she wouldn't acedently throw up on her own hair. "It's ok. You're ok. Just let it out."

Chiheisen jumped visibly as Sanda pulled her platinum hair out of the way, letting out a slight shudder as she tried to speak. "Heisho.. your assistance isnt-" She recoiled and threw up once more, cutting herself off of what she was gonna say. A small whimper escaped her, gripping the bin so tightly her knuckles went white.

"I know." Sanda said very softly. She had been in the same situation a few weeks ago. A particually bad night had left her throwing her guts up and screaming loud enough to wake the dead.

"Arigato.." She groaned out as she glanced towards Sanda wearily... "I cant stop.. thinking about.. it" She said in between heavy breaths.

"I know..." Sanda's voice breaking slightly. "I use to never have trouble sleeping, now it seems almost every time I close my eyes I can see... that room."

She glanced towards Sanda, the Elysian's wings quivering softly as she finally stopped hurling. "Is it.. ever going to get better.." She said softly, her eyes welling up with probably the most emotion anyone on the resurgence had seen from Chiheisen. She had clearly been holding it in all this time.

Sanda was the poster girl for being a bad ass. Lighting tattoos over her body and even on her face. A tough fighter who never let things get to her. She wasn't one to show emotions either. But now... Sanda reached over and tenitivly and placed an arm around Chiheisen's shoulders, being very careful not to put any presure on her wings. "Yeah. It'll get better. Not right away. Demonio, maybe not for a long time. But it will get better."

Chiheisen slowly shyed into Sanda and ended up leaning on her. She remained rather silent, appart from the occasional whine, which indicated the Elysian was likely crying. As resilient and serious as she always was, the birb was still rather green. She remained like that for awhile, her shaking legs slowly lowering down to the ground.

Sanda wrapped her other arm around the birb and just held her. It gave her more strenght, being able to help out the younger soldier. Her husband, Caffran, had been there for Sanda and had helped the Ranger get through the worst of it. Now Sanda was able to be there for Chiheisen to help her through it. They would get through it as soldiers of the Star Army did, together.

(JP with @Cowboy !)

 

[Yoshiro Tanaka]

Dojo
YSS Resurgence

Yoshiro was in the dojo training in hand to hand combat with a dummy shaped vaguely like a humanoid. He was sweaty and bloody, his hands used to hit the dummies. He wasn't going to let the Mishhu take another body part so he practiced hard.

Wardroom

Yoshiro was hungry so after showering, he went to get some breakfast at the wardroom. He saw Sanda there and was glad that she was okay. He ate his food in silence and went over plans for the mission.

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

After breakfast the crew had got to work on the mission to map out the wormhole network from Concordia Station. Those who were involved with the probes worked on those, while the others had a chance to form small teams to visit the station or prepare for exploring the unknown.

Approaching the location of the Concordia Wormhole, still a secret to the public, the ship disappeared into the anomaly and was flung to a faraway part of the Kagami Galaxy where that was mostly unexplored.

Rollbar

Up in the rollbar, Euikoshi, Pidole, and Caihong loaded the worm-seeking probes into the launch tubes. In a minute, they had fired them all off into the unfamiliar space of the Concordia Sector to go see just how many wormholes were in the are and where they were located. The probes began to spread out in a search pattern, looking for spatial anomalies.

Yoshiro's quarters

Yoshiro was in his room sharpening his blades that he uses in combat and smiles, knowing that he has scored attacks on his enemies with the blades. He was thinking of revenge on the Mishhu that he had fought. "Blood for the blood god!" Yoshiro said as he sheathed his blades and headed to the shuttle bay to prepare his armor for the mission ahead.

Medical Bay

Yuri finished filling the away teams bag with medical supplies as well as that of the away teams medic which would likely be Poppy. "Sempai, i finished getting the away teams medical stuff prepared. anything else i should add?' she asked to be helpful.

"No, I've got what I need?" Poppy smiled. She was dressed in a form-fitting bodysuit Explorer Uniform that looked like a Type 42 Bodysuit, and she had her trusty sidearm on her belt. Grabbing her medical bag, she waved and headed down to the shuttle bay.

Yuri saluted "take care Sempai, i'll look after the Medical bay, and keep the captain and medical bay company!" Yuri called out to her.departing mentor.

Shuttle Bay

Beryl Leyton's cargo shuttle was ready to go for the team to visit the Star Army's new hub on Concordia Station. She waited to see who the team leader was for the away mission.

Yayoi made sure that her hidden blades were sharpened, to monomolecular levels so that they would be useful, and made sure her Mindy's weapons were ready too, though she trusted the armorer. Before she like Yoshiro got her armor on.

Yoshiro took his armor and put it on. "I shall feed my blades the blood of my enemies and they shall tremble before me and beg my mercy." Yoshiro said as he climbed in to the armor. He prepped his armor weapons. "They will pray to whatever gods they believe in for mercy for I shall have no mercy to give them!"

"The Mishhu have never begged for mercy in all their miserable existence." Sanda said tesitly. "How the hell are you going to make them? Talk them to death?" Sanda was dressed in her Explorer uniform with her everyday kit plus a rifle.

"That's good because I have none to give anyways, Sanda." Yoshiro said. "I wouldn't show any even if they could."

Sanda just snorted and shook her head. She was still feeling off from the last mission and was really irritable, which she supposed was a step up from felling nothing at all.

Poppy arrived and took her seat in on the shuttle's bench seats along the wall, raising an eyebrow at the others. "You expecting combat?" she asked the infantry soldiers, seeing they were all suited up in armor.

"Expect, hope, seek. Thin lines," Hayden quipped.

"Yoshiro, i do not think its possible for the Mishhu to beg for Mercy, they do not have the feeling of fear" Yayoi said as she snapped the Mindy Power armor into place. then glanced to Poppy "i always expect trouble, ever since Hanako's world, and the mission with the Delsaurians the one Yuri went on." Yayoi said with a tone of voice of displeasure.

"Expect anything, be prepared for everything." Yoshiro said with a smile

Kokoro rushed into the shuttle, gasping for breath as she rushed to take a seat. Late as hell, but at least she had made it! "SORRY! I took too long suiting up!"

After everyone was loaded up, it was a short trip to one of the many shuttle bays on the station. A security soldier and a large robot working for the station's central artificial intelligence escorted the team to the Star Army's makeshit sector headquarters.

As the team approached the entrance of the Concordia Sector Operations Center on Concordia Station, they were greeted by a pair of regal blue banners flanking the doorway. Each banner bore the Hinomaru insignia of the Star Army, a symbol of pride and honor. The doorway itself was made of reinforced metal, with sleek, modern lines that hinted at the advanced technology within.

Upon entering, they stepped onto plush regal blue carpets that muffled their footsteps, creating a sense of calm and quiet. The reception area was spacious, with a large Star Army symbol inlaid into the floor, surrounded by intricate patterns that radiated outward like the rays of a star.

Operations Center: The main operations center was a hive of activity. The walls were adorned with more regal blue banners, each one meticulously maintained and hanging proudly. Control panels and electronic equipment lined the walls and filled the room, creating a symphony of blinking lights and soft hums.

Large holographic displays dominated the center of the room, projecting real-time data from various sectors of space, including the wormhole network. Operators in Star Army uniforms moved with purpose between consoles, their faces illuminated by the glow of the screens. The air was filled with the soft buzz of communication, as team members relayed information and coordinated missions.

Workstations: Individual workstations were neatly arranged in clusters, each equipped with the latest in Star Army technology. The desks were sleek and minimalist, with integrated touchscreens and holographic interfaces. Personal terminals displayed mission briefings, star maps, and tactical readouts. Ergonomic chairs provided comfort for long hours of operation, with the Star Army logo embroidered on the headrests.

Command Area: At the far end of the operations center was the command area, elevated slightly above the rest of the room. Here, high-ranking officers oversaw the entire operation. A large, semi-circular control console dominated the space, with multiple screens displaying critical mission data. Behind the console, a massive holographic projection of the Concordia Sector provided a strategic overview of the region.

Conference Room: Adjacent to the command area was a secure conference room. The room featured a large oval table, surrounded by comfortable chairs upholstered in regal blue. The walls were lined with soundproofing panels, ensuring privacy for sensitive discussions. A holographic projector in the center of the table allowed for detailed mission briefings and strategic planning sessions. The Star Army symbol was prominently displayed on one wall, serving as a constant reminder of their mission and duty.

Break Area: Even the most dedicated officers needed a break, and the operations center included a small, well-appointed break area. Plush couches and chairs provided a comfortable place to relax, while vending machines offered a selection of snacks and beverages. A large window provided a stunning view of the stars, allowing personnel to momentarily escape the confines of the station and gaze out into the vastness of space.

Security Measures: Security was paramount in the operations center. Access was controlled by advanced biometric scanners and reinforced doors. Security personnel in Star Army uniforms were stationed at key points, ready to respond to any threat. Surveillance cameras monitored every corner of the room, ensuring that nothing went unnoticed.

In the headquarters they could see:

• A robot soldier in Star Army colors
• A green alien dude in an orange logistics uniform
• A tan-skinned female engineer
• A Delsaurian security officer
• A purple-skinned clerk
• A shady looking Rixxikor in a trenchcoat

"Welcome back to the Concordia Sector," a blonde elf with slender features greeted the Resurgence team. She was wearing a SAINT uniform with the SAINT Patch on the shoulder. "My name is Taii Lemeli Sylvan, I am the SAINT coordinator for the sector. This is the Star Army's improvised headquarters. The Resurgence will be assisting us, so welcome to the team and feel free to look around and talk to people," Lemeli said.

Chui Poppy Pink, the ship's doctor introduced herself with a respecful bow, looking around at the pretty nice setup the Star Army had established. "The last time I was on this station, it was covered in ice and we had to fight off a bunch of Mishhu trying to replace the central AI."

"The Empire thanks your crew, for the AI you saved has been a valuable ally since then," Lemeli told the Resurgence away team. "We are still trying to figure it out but it has been very agreeable and its security robots have been helping us out."

"I have not been on the station at all. This is a new thing for me." Yoshiro said. He bowed with respect and looked around in awe.

Yayoi bowed with respect but said nothing, as she knew the Resurgence Crew is here to serve. Though subtly she glanced to the Delsaurian Security Guard, remembering the Species, and the and the mission her daughter was on.

Sanda just stood in the back with her arms crossed in front of her. She remembered the mission. It had been a tough fight and she had lost part of her leg during it.

"Some of the Concordians your ship revived have returned to the station to assist the Star Army as well," Lemeli added. "They have their own headquarters area on the station, while this one is ours."

"So what can you tell us about this place?" Sanda asked. "We didn't exactly get to stick around and find out once we secured the place."

"Great question, the Concordia Space Station was built over a thousand years ago to serve as a hub for the central AI, whose purpose is still a mystery to us. But we know that when the machine war happened and species were being wiped out, this station chose to hide millions of Concordians in stasis, against their will, in order to save them. The station sits in the space where multiple wormholes emerge, essentially serving as the grand central station of an ancient wormhole network spreading out through the Kagami Galaxy. The NMX discovered the network before we did, and they're using it to spread into new places and recruit more forces to use against us. That means we're playing catch-up and trying to stop them.

Despite her annoyance, Sanda's intrest was starting to pip. "So does this station have maps or charts to all these Wormhole routes? That would save us a bunch of time."

"We don't have anything of major use but we're continuing to try to get information out the AI. Because it's a sapient being, we're prohibited from just borrowing all its memory banks for deep scans," the intelligence officer chuckled. "There is a bit of a language barrier. It can speak Trade but it doesn't speak...human scale intelligences...well. It's used to talking to other mega-minds, if that makes sense. It's like finding a gnat trying to talk to you, and we're the gnat."

Yayoi listened as the conversation happened around her. Since they secured the station, she hoped it meant they can use the network instead of the NMX, or the tecntacled monsters. "have you tried saying please?' she asked feeling a little annoyed before it was explained to them. But it felt like something Sanda wanted to say.

"We're as nice as we can be so it doesn't kill everyone," Lemeli replied. "Remember..." she said, making the gesture of waving away a flying bug. "With something this powerful we must stay on its good side."

Just then the away team got a message from Euikoshi. "Here's your update. There's eight of them, including the one home. Eight wormholes. We're going to start on the probes for the next phase."

Yayoi nods her head silently.

Poppy looked to Sanda, "That's a lot of exploration missions," she commented.

Yayoi continued nodding her head. "agreed" She said

Sanda let out a big sigh. "Yeahhhh. That's what I'm afraid of. Every one of those wormholes probably has a big Mishhu base set up already just waiting to..." Sanda cut herself off, squeezing her fists. This was really not like her to be this flustered and anxious about the potential of a fight. Usally she was the first one in line for a fight. Her confidence in herself had really been shaken.

"We haven't started on the wormholes yet," Lemeli told the team. "The Concordia Sector itself is largely unexplored and vast and our efforts have been focused here. One thing is clear: This sector was once a major war zone."

Just waiting for us to say hello too Yayoi thought silently remembering something a old squadmate would say.She nodded to Lemeli, as she was correct, Concordia Sector was huge, Yayoi was sure of it. Yayoi glanced towards Sanda, for a moment having sensed something was wrong.

"That's where we come in?" Poppy asked. "Wormhole scouting? Let me get my latex gloves," she joked.

"Wait, what about these robot killers that were trying to exterminate all life a long time ago... Have you learned anything about them from the AI?" Sanda asked wondering if there were any other threats they should be worried about.

"I'm sorry, I'm not authorized to speak further on them at this time," Lemeli said. "Rest assured SAINT is conducting an investigation on the subjects and will pass along any need-to-know intelligence once we're able to substantiate and verify it."

Sanda snorted and rolled her eyes. Typical spook answer.

Yayoi grunted in annoyance, as Sanda had snorted. But her annoyance was directed at Lemeli, because of course the typical spook answer.

Hayden cut in, "'S'aight, just let us know when you need the triggers pulled. We got you."

"Thank you and good luck," the elf SAINT agent said, nodding and then returning to the command area.

"Hey, I think that clerk over there is a Concordian," Poppy quietly told Sanda, nodding her head at the purple-skinned woman with the cybernetics on her head.

Sanda looked over where Poppy indicated, taking in the woman and her cybernetics. The Ranger shrugged. "Well I guess we've gotten all we're going to get from the Spook." Sanda looked again at the Concordian woman. "She does have some interesting looking cybernetics." Sanda admitted.

"yeah i recognize them from their pod" Yayoi replied to Poppy.

"Let's continue to meet the people here and then we'll head back to the ship," Poppy suggested. "Maybe some will have some quests for us," she grinned. The Resurgence was starting a new chapter of exploring and Mishhuvurthyar-hunting, and once again they were called upon to the the Star Army's Pathfinders...

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Liza, Yuuki, and Yoshiro

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

The crew returned to the YSS Resurgence after their visit to Concordia Sector Operations and got ready to start exploring. They had an informal meeting in the dojo.

YSS Resurgence - Dojo

"Eight wormholes seems like a lot," Cassie commented as Poppy brushed her hair from behind. "Do you think we should, like, given them temporary names?"

Yuri looked over to the senior ranked women as Cassie began speaking. "yeah, something to make it easier for navigation?" she asked after a grunt as she performed a sit up, then allowed herself to fall back, ignoring the sweat on her body as she fell back on the towel.

Sakuko raised her hand, "Since the captain is keen on letting us figure out how to do the missions he gives us, I was wondering if we should ask him to bring the ship through the wormholes or if we want to just send shuttles through so Resurgence can be free to do other stuff."

Sanda was running through knife drills. Stabbing, slashing then switching hands and repeating the drill. Sweat was beginning to form along her forehead but she didn't slow down till she had finished her routine. She paused just long enough to comment. "I would send probes through all of them then prioritize which ones to explore first based on what they find." She changed her stance and grip on her blade then launched into another set of drills.

"Maybe we can name em depending on what the scans from the probes say!" Kokoro let out a huff after finishing a set of push ups, floating upwards to allow her body a moment to recuperate. She grinned, looking at Poppy. "What if we name em after some of the crew? that'd be funny!"

"yeah, we can name it using bad places in Mythology, for bad places" Yuri said as she sat up again.

"The first wormhole looks extremely hostile," science officer Kawa Euikoshi said, looking over the results from the first probe. "It sent back images of vast installations made by presumably ancient civilizations and then was attacked and destroyed. I'll need some more time to review what little data we got but it's certainly of interest."

Yayoi glanced over to the others, as like Sanda she too went through knife drills mimicking her, but making sure that she was used to knives before she used her hidden blade on a dummy. But frowned muttering 'need a update" she said to herself

"Sooooo... Yoshiro! Or maybe Yayoi?" Kokoro joked as she looked towards Euikoshi, returning to her pushups on a mat laid out on the dojo's floor.

Yayoi eyes Kokoro "excuse me?" she asked with somewhat narrowed eyes.

Still slashing Sanda muttered, "So you think Yayoi is the scariest one here? Debo estar perdiendo mi toque."

"Uuuuuuuuhhhhhh!" Kokoro chuckled nervously as she did pushups. "I mean shes uh.. definitely up there!"

"Yayoi did survive behind enemy lines on Hanako's World," Cassie pointed out. Then Poppy scratched behind Cassie's ears and Cassie closed her eyes and reflexively stuck out her tongue.

"Yeah! mama's really scary, especially when she is in lecture mom mode, and especially in telling bad boys to buzz off mode too!" Yuri said as Yayoi blinked her eyes as they spoke of her. Though she didn't like that Yuri thought she was scary now, rather she hoped that Yuri understood she had to be stern, but still. It kinda embarrassed her when Cassie spoke of her surviving behind enemy lines.

For a moment the memory brought back flashes of memory that caused her to narrowed her eyes, but also almost smile, as she remembered Kuvexians are defeated.

Sanda took a quick pause from her workout to wipe the sweat off her face and to retie her pony tail. She didn't argue the crews collective thoughts about Yayoi. Sanda had the same thoughts herself about her 'Hermana'.

"I think we're going to need the ship to shoot our way in, penetrating their defenses," Euikoshi told Sakuko and the others. "Then we can bypass remaining defenses using the big teleporter pad and scout the surface of the planet."

Poppy raised a finger, "We know they destroyed our probe but does this necessarily mean they're hostile...I mean we haven't got a chance to try talking to them yet, maybe they're just really paranoid about stuff coming through the wormhole, especially machines. After all, there was some war with the machines mentioned by the Concordians."

"Blowing up a probe seems pretty hostile to me." Cheilith commented.

Yuri looked at Euikoshi as she listened to her words 'yeah I'm with Cheilith, to be honest, then again.. the probes are machines.." Yuri said as she slammed against the towel covered mat.

"Do we know if they tried to contact the probe before they blew it up?" Kokoro asked, her head bonking against the mat as she finished her last pushup, letting herself fall on the mat to rest.

"They didn't," Euikoshi said. "As soon as they saw it, a ship fired on it. The starship was a warship of unknown configuration and type. Not likely to be NMX."

"Interesante." Sanda set her blade down and again whipped her head with a towel. She was beginning to breath heavily from the workout.

"So maybe they could be a species that are currently at war with machines, or are fearful of machines, since Probes are mechanical?" Yuri asked as she looked up at them from where she lay prone.

"Possibly, or the probes could be giving off something hostile, but your idea might have marrit Yuri." Yayoi said as she glanced to her daughter, though concerned why she's just lying there. She glanced towards Sanda, "Hermana, am i holding the knife properly? and do you have some Nepleslian tips?" she asked her.

"What kind of equipment do you want to bring to a surface expedition?" Beryl asked. "Do you want a camp site setup?"

"It would all depended on what kind of mission it is? Are we talking PA suits or a stealthier approach?" Sanda turned to Yayoi and raised an eyebrow. There were few people who were as skilled and enjoyed knives as much as the tattooed Nepleslian girl and Yayoi was one of them.

"Euikoshi said they have ships, as in multiple ships, right?" Cassie shrugged. "Sooo...there's a chance the Resurgence will have to deal with them instead of being able to pick us up. Shields up and all. So I think we should have enough supplies to hold out on our own for a while, in case we're temporarily stuck there," the gray-furred catgirl soldier suggested.

"Yayoi and I have been trained in holding out as long as possible, even longer sometimes. We could keep the team alive down there as long as we needed to with as much or as little equipment as we needed." For the first time since her ordeal in the last mission, Sanda was being to feel like her old self and was becoming excited for the prospect of the upcoming mission.

Yayoi nodded her head "she's right" she said while taking note of Sanda's behavior which pleased her, and actually almost caused her to smile. "We are indeed trained, and this time.. even if Yuri's on the mission, I'll be a part of the mission. I don't want what happened on the Delsaurian home world to happen, to happen again.' Yayoi comment.

"The Sanda must be protected," Cassie grinned.

"Do you want me down there?" Poppy asked the away team. "Or do officers need not apply?" she smiled, pointing at the gold stripes on her sleeve.

"Usually I say officers need not apply but I could make an exception for you Pops." Sanda teased.

Yayoi nods "yeah you'd be welcome, and.. preferred to come on the mission, Poppy' she said to the Chief Engineer.

"Need someone to patch us up when we get broken." Cheilith said.

"A-ffirm," Poppy nodded. "I'll grab my gear and I'll be ready to teleport when you are."

"I love camping out on unexplored hostile-as-hell planets!" Cassie grinned. "This will be awesome and or suck!"

"With our track record... Which is it more likely to be?" Sanda asked jokingly.

"I'm thinking...be prepared for a fight," Euikoshi answered Sanda.

"Siempre." Sanda grinned in a predatory manner.

"If we bring the teleporter receivers we can use them as portals to get ammo and medical boosts," Poppy pointed out. "I will be carrying the medical supplies so maybe designate someone to carry one or two? Last time trying to have the pad and the medical kits was a bit much."

"Are we thinking going with or without PA?" Sanda asked.

"With," Cassie said. "At least for combat arms soldiers," Cassie said, making exaggerated wine slurping sound effects.

Yayoi nodded her head "understood" she said, as Yuri still laying there blinked "huh.. not sure if i have a Mindy yet.."

"I'm sure Norita can set you up before we go." Sanda told Yuri then asked the group. "How large a team do you think we should send?"

"I'd say what we send standard..but perhaps more considering where we might be going?' Yayoi asked as she stretched her arms.

"Team Alpha to explore, Team Bravo to guard the camp," Cassie suggested. "Colby and Hayden their buds can secure the camp site while we check out the alien ruins and stuff. That way we don't come back tired to find alien face cuddlers in our beds."

"yeah sounds like a good idea!" Yuri said to Cassie, then glanced to Sanda 'yeah i can ask.. wait, Poppy-sempai do you use Mindies?" she asked her mentor.

"Yes," Poppy answered still lingering by the door on her way out. She had worn hers on the last mission.

Sanda nodded. "It's always good to have some backup."

Yayoi nodded her head in agreement.

"Sounds like we have a plan. Lets get our gear and meet up in the Hanger Bay." Sanda said.

"I'll also provide backups to anyone who wants to make one before we go," Poppy offered. "See you all soon."

Yayoi nodded "I'll take you up on that offer." She said and moved towards Yuri "come on up, you'll need to drink water, and.. a back up too I'd say." she said extremely hesitantly.

Poppy Pink nodded, her pink hair dancing in the air behind her as she left the dojo on her way to the medical lab to help with the mind scanner machine and to grab her medical kits.

Poppy's comment about back ups sobered Sanda like a bucket of cold ice water. She took a couple of deep breaths then headed for the medical lab. There was something she needed to ask Poppy.

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Liza, Yuuki, and Soban

 

[Cowboy]

Resurgence Med Bay

Sanda hesitated outside the Med Bay doors. Twice she had turned away to but had come back both times. She clearly had something on her mind. Finally the lighting tattooed Ranger took a deep breath and walked in. She looked around the room. It looked like Poppy was getting ready for the upcoming mission. "Pops..." Sanda stopped and cleared her throat. "Dr. Pink..." That just didn't sound right, not after all the missions they had been through together. "Poppy, could I get your medical option?" Sanda hesitated then added, "Privately?"

Once they were alone, Sanda still seemed ill at ease. As if what she had on her mind weighed heavily on her. Maybe a part of her was embarrassed to ask her question, or to hear it's answer. But Poppy was comforting and made Sanda feel at ease. It was probably what made Poppy such a great doctor. Taking a deep breath, Sanda began. "So... the thing is...I'm... late." She finally managed, looking a little embarrassed. "Its that time of the month and I'm... late." It felt like a weight had lifted off her shoulders just being able to get that out. "I need... I would like... you to run a test to confirm."

That was the easy part, now for the hard part. "I also have a... question? Moral dilemma? Not sure what to call it." Sanda closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. "That last mission was... hard. It hit hard and not just physically. You know I'm not a fan of mind backups. I don't think a person's soul goes back into a new body some lab creates, even if it's got all the old memoires. The only reason I'd ever consider a back up is that I would hate for my family, like my husband and sister to not have me around. Infierno, you guys would completely fall apart with out me." Sanda joked but it lacked conviction. "So I've been considering getting a back up... but my question is... If I am... You know... and something were to happen to me. No lo permita Dios, and I was brought back... would I still be.... You know?"

 

[Wes]

Medlab

Poppy gave Sanda a warm and reassuring hug.

"Oh Sanda...it's completely understandable to feel anxious about these kinds of decisions. It's great that you're thinking through all the possible outcomes and being mentally prepared. I will run the test for you and we'll see. Mind backups are a complex and personal decision, and while I'm here to help you, ultimately it's your choice. Just know that your essence, your core, isn't necessarily tied to one physical body or another. Your memories, experiences, and essence are a part of you, and even if you were to be brought back through a backup, those facets would remain. There's a lot of parts that go into making you who you are, from memories to hormones, your body, even your gut bacteria. And it's true that I can't necessarily 100% replicate those, but I can come close enough that I don't have a problem saying it's still you. It's not some questionable AI copy. That said, if you were carrying a child and died...when you awake in a replacement body it wouldn't be with you, so keep it in mind. There's no shame in asking for some personal leave if you need time."

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

The YSS Resurgence, flanked by her sister ship, the YSS Renaissance, shimmered in the light of the wormhole's interior for a few moments before emerging into the unfamiliar star cluster on the other side. Immediately, hostile ships began to close in and open fire.

YSS Resurgence Bridge

"Evasive pattern Gabby Two," Aoba ordered, "Return fire with turrets and keep us moving towards the habitable planet."

YSS Resurgence - Teleporter Operations

The team was set up on the large Apollo teleporter, making last minute prep to go down and see what was happening on the planet. Cassie had her guns and two teleporter pads and Poppy had her medical gear. Pidole was ready for any damage the ship took so she'd sent Wong Caihong as the impromptu combat engineer. The B team was there to set up a base camp. Even in the teleporter room they could feel the dulled shifts as the ship manuevered and the thumps of weapons fire.

Cheilith was there dressed in her armor and waiting for the rest of the team. She knew that when they activated the teleporter, they would have to drop the shields. Which was a dicey proposision in combat.

"So what are we going to do on the op?" Yoshiro asked as he checked his weapons. He wanted to be sure that he was as prepared as her could be for the mission ahead.

Sanda was geared up and loaded for Mishhu. Besides her standard PA loadout she had two duffle bags of extra gear. The Ranger was prepared for any thing. She was also looking a lot more like herself after her conversation with Poppy. The ships doctor had given Sanda some comforting words. She had also gotten her test results back on the thing that had had her so stressed out... Negetive. Although there was a little disapointment wrapped up in her relief.

"I believe the plan is to get in past their defense, using the large teleporter. We then assess the situation. After we have some intelligence on the planet, we can use the teleporters to get out. We can take a few days if we need to."

"Oh, I'm-a assess something, all right," Hayden laughed and gave a snort. "Assess what a LASR round does through the dome." He checked his weapon and sauntered confidently over to Cassie.

"Let me carry those, pads Heisho."

Yayoi stretched her Mindy covered arms, after preparing herself for the mission. Her eyes though were on Sanda as she took note of her behavior, and almost smiled, as she felt pleased that Sanda seemed normal again. Her attention went to Hayden, who she didnt get a good feeling from, and hoped that he doesnt turn out like Yoshiro, or how Yoshiro usually is rather.

Kokoro put on her MINDY's helmet, covering the dumb grin on her face. She removed the shotgun from her back, making sure it was ready to put a hole through something if the situation require it. "When we droppin!- er- teleporting!"

Yoshiro nodded as he made sure that his sword was as sharp as he could make it.

"In ten, nine, eight..." Pidole's voice counted down as she watched the team from the controls of the teleportation chamber. The ship meanuevered into position and when the time came, it dropped a window in the shields and the team vanished in a large flash, appearing on the surface of the planet with a large bang.

It was night and the around them was a vast, grassy plain dotted with strange, luminescent flora. The air was filled with the sounds of alien wildlife.

As soon as the team appeared on the planet, Sanda raised her rifle and did a visual scan of her surroundings while moving a few steps away from the team. Her suit's scanners were doing reading of the surrounding as well.

Yayoi mimiced Sanda, immediately holding her rifle up and scanned of their surroundings, a Ranger behavior, as she folllowed Sanda's movements, keeping her hetero chromia eyes on her surroundings and any danger.

Poppy looked around, trudging through the waist-high grass a little to take a look and get her bearings. There were ridges and gullies of varying terrain, flower-like plants, and little streams, as well as a few rock outcrops. In the distance there was a very dark looking forest treeline and jagged mountains.

The larger of the two moons was in a waxing gibbous phase, with more than half of its surface illuminated but not yet full. Its pale blue hue cast a gentle light across the landscape, providing enough illumination to navigate but also creating deep shadows that could hide potential dangers. The smaller moon was in a crescent phase, showing only a thin sliver of light. This moon has a distinct reddish tint, adding an eerie glow to the environment. The crescent moon hung lower in the sky, partially obscured by the horizon.

Hayden pulled rear security, pointing back away from the main direction of the group, weapon up and eyes open. "This grass like this is where in the sims the gribblies pop up out of it and snatch ya up. I shoulda brought a flamethrower."

Yoshiro was watching the area ahead, scanning with his eyes and his weapon. He was also trying to keep his wits about him but he was jumping at shadows occasionally. "I hate this job sometimes" Yoshiro said. "I don't like jumping at shadows like this all the time."

"Esto es para lo que vivo." Sanda whispered to herself. Part of her really wished she could change out of this Daisy and into some fatigues. She would much rather feel the night on her skin and trust her instincs than have to rely on her suits scanners, no matter how hi-tech the stuff was.

As she approached a small stream, the gentle trickling of water provided a brief moment of calm amidst the tension. Poppy knelt down and gave it a scan for any signs of contamination or harmful bacteria. "Fresh water," she noted. "Looks like something we could use if we need to refill our supplies."

Yayoi glanced to Sanda before she took note of the small stream, a protective instinct and perhaps a effect of being stuck on Hanako's world or some other reason caused her to point Mindy's weapons at it, namely her Aetheric Pulse Cannons, and her Rifle to make sure nothing jumps out.

"If you've ever lived in Funky City, pretty much all other water than that is fresh, Doc," Hayden laughed but didn't take his eyes off the front sight of his weapon.

A sudden rustling in the grass nearby caught Poppy's attention. She stood up slowly, her eyes narrowing as she tried to pinpoint the source of the noise. The grass parted slightly, and she caught a glimpse of something moving—a quick, darting shadow that disappeared almost as soon as she saw it.

Poppy activated her Mindy armor’s enhanced vision, scanning the area more thoroughly. The grass rustled again, and this time she saw it clearly: a small, insect-like creature with bioluminescent stripes along its body. It skittered through the grass on multiple legs, its mandibles clicking as it moved. "Seeing some local life-forms," she told Yayoi. "Some sort of...bobcat-beetle?"

"See what I told y'all. Hell with this grass. We all finna get snatched." Hayden narrowed his eyes and kept glancing at the armor's sensors on his helmet's HUD.

"Calm down Hayden. As long as you keep your eyes open you'll be fine." Yoshiro said. He was jumping at every little bit of noise and really didn't need to speak about it.

Hayden's boot caught on something hard. He looked down to see a strange, spiky plant that seemed to react to his touch. The plant’s spikes began to glow a bright orange, and before he could react, it released a cloud of spores into the air. His Mindy's filters activated immediately, but the spores clung to his visor, obscuring his vision.

"WE GOT FLORA TOO! Rear security down!" Hayden pushed a panel to activate the faceplate cleaner and shook his head as if that would help speed up the process. "Can't see nuthin'. Damned Mother Nature's landmine up in this here."

"Hawk tuah, spit on it," Cassie joked, suggesting using saliva to clear off the questionable spores.

Yoshiro went over to help Hayden get the spores off. "Hayden, you okay?" He asked.

Yayoi facepalmed at Hayden's antics worse than Yoshiro, she thought as she kept her focus on their surroundings,

"Oh you would think of that, Heisho," Hayden quipped back at Cassie as the cleaning system started to finally work its magic. "Thanks, Yosh. All good here."

The rustling in the grass grew louder, and they realized the insect-like creature Poppy had spotted wasn’t alone. More of them appeared, their glowing stripes forming a disturbing pattern in the darkness. They moved closer, attracted by the disturbance. This had an unfortunate effect of basically making a large glowing arrow pointing at their position which was visible from above.

"for fucks sakes, calm down" Yayoi said annoyedly as she took note of the bugs and their bioluminescence, the bugs and the pattern.

"We need to move." Sanda said quietly but with emphasis. She had noticed the pattern on the bugs and was not likeling what she was seeing. "Keep the chatter down to a minimum." She added with a glare at Hayden.

"Let's get moving people." Yoshiro and got up quickly and quietly.

Just as Sanda finished speaking, a faint hum filled the air, growing steadily louder. Cassie glanced up and saw the silhouette of a scout drone hovering above them, its sensors likely drawn by the disturbance. The drone emitted a series of rapid beeps, scanning the area with an eerie, blue light, "Contact, one drone," Cassie said.

"Do we shoot it?" Kokoro half whispered over comms, glancing over towards Sanda and then Yoshiro.

The drone’s scanner light focused on the glowing insects, and then swung towards the team.

As soon as the drone appeared, Sanda activated her Daisy's stealth and moved away from the rest of the group, her rifle raised to target the drone. Her mind raced. If it had just been herself and Yayoi, she would have relyed on stealth to leave the area. But most of her team wern't Rangers, more's the pitty, and were very un-stealthy.

Yoshiro was about to say something about the drone but saw Sanda doing something. He activated his stealth system and dropped to the ground.

Yayoi activated her stealth tech and moved away with her own Neko flying as to not disturb the grass.

Within moments, beams of energy fired from the drone’s underbelly, targeting the glowing insects and the grass around them, setting small fires and causing the insects to scatter. Cassie and Poppy hit the deck, using the tall grass and their Mindy stealth systems as concealment. Eventually, after a minute of searching, it left on its own.

From night the sky, they could see the fire-covered shooting stars of drop pods coming down from orbit, heading straight for their area. There were 7-8 of them.

"Unidentified contacts. Possibly hostile." Yoshiro said as he scanned the area. "Seven, possibly eight contacts."

"See! Flamethrowers. Brother drone knows what's up!" Hayden stealthed and went airborne, just high enough to be above the flaming grass and bugs within. "What I told y'all?" He rotated slowly, providing overwatch from above with his signature obscured.

"So, uh, we still want to set up a base of operations?" Wando asked. "Where do we want to put it?"

"someplace hidden, like a cave system" Yayoi muttered to Wando, as she watched the drone leave, and then the drop pods that were approaching.

"Okay, looks like there's plenty here. This planet looks like a world from one of those block building games," Wando said, carefully moving around in search of a cave entrance, careful to avoid the orange spike plants that didn't like being touched.

Sanda had been searching for just such a location to set up a base camp as soon as she had teleported onto the planet. Finally, she saw something that looked promising. She did a quick tap on the teams coms and marked a location about half a klick to the South. "This way, quickly and quietly."

"If we set up a base here do we have to pay these exterminators for their services?" Hayden wasn't about to touch the ground again, and rotated in the air to face the map ping. "I got point, Heisho."

Yoshiro followed the team, still stealthed and moving as quietly as he could.

There was a series of thumps as the drop pods landed. Minutes later, alien scouts began to emerge from the treeline in the distance, their dark metallic green armor blending with the shadows but their luminescent blue markings giving them away. The hostile soldiers moved swiftly, their advanced energy weapons at the ready. They spread out in a tactical formation, clearly experienced in dealing with intruders. Yayoi could see their insect-like eyes glowing blue, scanning the area for targets.

Yayoi stared at the creatures, and hoped in Yui's name these werent Rixikor or a evolved species of them. She quickly signalled her team to remain quiet as much as she could, as she edged away to join her team, and away from the aliens.

Covering the distance quickly through the air, Hayden finally settled down in front of the entrance. "Advance party at the cave. Scanning." He focused the armor's sensors and his weapon's optics into the dark entrance, viewing it in illumination other than visible light. "Empty so far, team. Entrance secure."

"Engage or lay low?" Cassie whispered, training her weapon on the lead scout.

"Do not engage. We are here on a recon mission. Only engage if we are compromised." Yoshiro said.

The alien scouts began to blind-fire into the grass, with most of thise shots just hitting plants. Then they threw grenades for a while. After about ten minutes of chaos, they performed a tactical withdrawal, leaving the team a little crispy but mostly intact. The drop pods began shooting back up into space.

"Impacientes somos nosotras? Interesante." Sanda said as she watched the alien scouts and their tactics. She had taken some video of the aliens to review later and to review to see what sort of weapons, armor and tech they were packing.

"Sounds way more fun back there than staring into this cave," Hayden remarked on the comms during the aliens' loud sweep. "Still nothin' here. Y'all comin?" Though his armor remained in stealth camo mode, the map showed him as hovering near the entrance, backed into an alcove where he was covered on most sides and could fire either into the cave or at the approach to it.

"I wouldn't call those guys friendly," Poppy said, finally rising out of the grass. "Is anyone hurt?" She checked the map and headed in Hayden's direction.

"I am ok." Yoshiro said, his armor a bit singed but none the worst for wear.

"Beryl to team, vehicles are available if you want us to teleport them down," their supply specialist advised via subspace radio.

"Stand by Resuregence." Sanda responded. "We're still scouting out a place to set up. Once we do that you can send down the TVs."

"Got one of them mole-people drill-tank things like in the old movies?" Hayden asked. "Looks like we're going underground for this episode."

"LSTVs and STVs, and a tank," Beryl replied. "Also we can deploy aerial drones."

"Oh, nah, we good, there's plenty of aerial drones down here already. They had them laid out nice for us like a goodie bag waitin' to welcome us," Hayden continued his routine.

"I'm not a SAINT spook but I'm pretty sure we can tell that was some sort of previously unencountered organized military," Cassie speculated. She moved some piles of rocks around near the cave entrance to set up a rudimentary bunker and fighting position.

"Lets check this cave out. Poet. Back me up." Sanda said she entered the cave with her rifle up. She stayed close to the wall, scanning the area from floor to ceiling.

"On it, Heisho." Hayden steadily moved forward as the others came in, making room for them behind him and going in deeper. His sensors and the muzzle of his weapon swept the nooks and crannies as he followed the other wall from Sanda's.

Yayoi checked her armors status before she began moving towards the caves silently, though pleased that the aliens didnt manage to destroy their armor. She had her Mindy's AI review the aliens weapons tech based on what they'd seen.

"Roger that. Covering." Yoshiro said and covered Sanda's back. He was watching a bit more intently this time, still stealthed.

As the team cautiously moved into the cave, the ambient light from the moons outside gradually diminished, replaced by the dim glow of red bioluminescent fungi clinging to the walls and ceiling. The interior of the cave was expansive, its ceiling towering high above, creating an echo with every step they took. The air was cool and slightly damp, carrying the earthy scent of mineral-rich soil and stone.

The initial chamber was wide, with smooth, worn rock walls indicating that water had once flowed through here. They could still hear it somewhere around. Stalactites and stalagmites dotted the space, some joining to form impressive columns. The ground was uneven, with small pools of water reflecting the bioluminescence from above. The fungi provided enough light to see but cast eerie shadows that danced with the movement of the team.

As they ventured deeper, the cave revealed more of its natural beauty. Intricate rock formations created by centuries of mineral deposits added to the surreal atmosphere. Narrow passageways branched off in several directions, hinting at a vast network of tunnels and caverns yet to be explored. Some of these passages were partially blocked by rockfalls, while others opened up into larger chambers.

"Places like this make me wish I was in my explorer suit instead of the Mindy," Poppy said, "I just want to take my helmet off and be here as a person instead of an armored knight. It's beautiful in a way."

"I always prefer my explorer suit to a PA. Unless going into known combat." Sanda said. "I did pack two explorer suits just in case though." She added pointing two one of the two dufflebags she carried on her back.

"Thems the words people say before they get snatched up. You take off your helmet like 'oh it's so pretty, I wanna see how it feels here' and BLAP, you got a sucker worm on your face. Game over, man, Game. Over." Hayden chatted as he continued sweeping his side of the cave, then halted once he realized he was following a path that took him away from the group. "All right, it's getting wider here following this wall, I'm getting farther away from y'all. What should I do, Heisho?"

Watching Sanda's back as the team still moved along, he marveled silently and was in awe at what he was looking at.

"There's enough room in here to set up a little firebase," Colby said. He and his team plus Caihong dragged some tents and generators across the cave floor on anti-grav hoversleds and looked around for a relatively flat spot.

"Lets make sure the area is secure before we start setting up." Sanda cautioned Colby.

Yoshiro scanned the immediate area and walked out from the center of the camp continuing to scan for enemies or hostile organisms. "Nothing so far." Yoshiro said.

Yayoi began moving again, this time to make sure that the area was secure, from both aliens/locals and insects. She kept her eyes and her ears peeled for any sign of danger, including from the environment.

While the cave provided excellent cover and numerous natural features for setting up a base, it was not without its hazards. Loose rocks and narrow ledges posed risks, and the team had to navigate carefully to avoid triggering rockfalls. The bioluminescent fungi, while beautiful, were slippery and could make footing treacherous.

The cave also showed signs of current inhabitants. Nests made from soft moss and lichen were tucked into alcoves, indicating the presence of small, nocturnal creatures. Occasionally, the team caught glimpses of these creatures—small, bat-like animals with translucent wings that fluttered silently overhead.

After Yayoi and Yoshiro's scan came back clear, the team was able to finally relax a little and get set up for exploring the planet.

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Liza, Yuuki, Yoshiro, and Soban

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

Unknown Planet - Cave

After the area had been thoroughly scanned and declared secure, the team began setting up their small base camp within the expansive cave. The chosen spot was a relatively flat area near the back of the cave, away from the entrance but close enough to still keep an eye on any potential threats from outside.

The camp consisted of several small tents arranged in a semi-circle around a central space, each tent equipped with advanced environmental controls to ensure the team could rest comfortably despite the cave’s cool, damp atmosphere. Anti-grav hoversleds, now emptied of their contents, were parked along one side, ready to be used for quick transportation of gear if needed.

Portable aether generators hummed softly, providing power to a series of workstations set up within the tents. These workstations were equipped with computers, communication devices, and sensor arrays to monitor the surrounding area for any signs of movement or danger. The glow of the red bioluminescent fungi provided just enough light to see by, casting eerie shadows on the cave walls, but the team had supplemented this with portable LED lanterns, which bathed the camp in a warm, steady light.

Cassie and Colby, with the help of Wong Caihong, had taken the time to construct a rudimentary bunker near the entrance to the cave using the natural rock formations and some of the supplies they had brought. This position would serve as a first line of defense should any hostile forces attempt to breach the cave.

In the center of the camp, a small area had been cleared for the team to rest and eat. A few folding chairs had been set up around a portable heat lamp, which emitted a gentle warmth and light, simulating a campfire in the otherwise cold cave environment. The team members gathered here could recharge mentally and physically before their next task.

Poppy placed her Mindy armor's helmet beside her on the sandy floor of the cave and pulled out a ration pack, pouring a little water into the main meal's flameless ration heater and placed it at an angle against a rock or something and the funny smelling steam filled the water to be followed by the rich aroma of Yamataian orange chicken and rice. "I'm just your doctor, but..." she said, speaking softly to minimize the echoes from the cave's walls, "I'm thinking we send out a small recon team, maybe just a couple of us, really low key, to scout out the area. We don't want to draw attention to our presence or the camp because, from what we've seen so far, these aliens don't react nicely to surprises. Thoughts?"

Yayoi observed her surroundings silently taking note of possible vulnerabilities, and possible escape areas followed by definsible spots, that the others might have missed. But became distracted when Poppy began speaking. "Agreed, Thunder and I can go, maybe one more, but since we are keeping it low key.." Yayoi said, before glancing over.

"Sanda and Yayoi seem like a good idea but Yayoi already said that so I think that we send them out."Yoshiro said as he ate a hot dog. "I hope I didn't overstep my bounds in saying that, Yayoi." He had made an MRE 8 as he spoke.

Kokoro swallowed a chunk of a beef hotdog from her piece of the rations, the neko seating next to Yoshiro. She nodded along, grinning widely. "I'm down to go too if you guys need backup! Beats sitting here!"

Yayoi glanced towards Yoshiro as she grabbed field ration number 6: pork curry, and wild rice with apple juice. "you were correct, we are a good idea, as we are Rangers, and are trainned for that.still back up would be recommended" She said glancing to both Poppy, and Kokoro.

"I know I just set up my medical tent but I'm happy to go as well, if you don't mind having an officer along," Poppy offered. Being prior enlisted, she often joked a little about her newfound status as an actual officer.

"I'm ready to rock and roll, too," Cassie chimed in, sinking her teeth into a salty country ham slice she'd produced from her Type 38 ration. "Not bad."

"Cassie and Kokoro can go if that is good for back up. I want to stay and help out at the FOB here so I can keep things as organized possible." Yoshiro said as he munched on his seasoned fries.

"Roger that," Cassie said, rapidly stuffing her face with food like some shounen anime character and then grabbed her plasma rifle and headed up towards the cave's exit.

"Kokoro, you sure you're up for this? " Yoshiro asked Kokoro. He was concerned for her and wanted her to be careful.

"Dayo! Of course!!" She grinned at Yoshiro, the nekovalkrja nodding enthusiastically as she munched on food.

Yayoi and Sanda both finished their meals, in a skill that Rangers have, and headed
to the cave's entrance. Yayoi wielding a NSP in her hand, and a Aetheric Pulse Cannon in her Mindy..

"Okay then. You guys are go for the mission." Yoshiro said. "You guys be careful out there and come back safe and sound."

As the team stepped out of the cave’s cool, dark interior, they were immediately struck by the contrast of the alien night outside. The two moons still hung in the sky, their light casting a strange, ethereal glow over the landscape.

The vast plain before them was dotted with the strange, luminescent flora they had encountered earlier, their soft glow providing a natural, albeit unusual, source of light. The grass here was waist-high and swayed gently in the cool night breeze, creating a constant rustling sound that mingled with the distant calls of alien wildlife.

In the distance, the jagged outline of a mountain range was silhouetted against the starry sky, with patches of dark forest at its base. The terrain was uneven, with small ridges and gullies breaking up the otherwise flat landscape, making it a challenge to maintain a clear line of sight.

Kokoro had just managed to get her helmet on as they were heading out, having finished her meal. Her eyes scanned the nights sky from behind her Mindy's visor and the landscape curiously. It looked quite different to what she was used to, but it was quite the sight.

Yayoi took a moment to observe the alien night life, but while she preferred Yamatai, she had to admit this world had its beauty.

As the team moved out, Sanda took point, leading them southward toward the area she had marked earlier. Cassie and Kokoro brought up the rear, their weapons at the ready, eyes peeled for any threats.

"Do not engage hostiles unless you are shot at. We are on a stealth mission. We are here to gather intelligence, not to start a war." Yoshiro said to the team over comms. "Watch out for drones and use your cloaking devices on your armors."

"Watch out for those angry orange crystals that don't like being stepped on," Cassie reminded the others, trying her best not to kick one as they moved through the tall grass.

"that goes without saying, Poet, as its obvious, I remember the drones, but that is wise." Yayoi said as she once more toggled her Mindy's stealth on, and disappeared into air once more.

The path ahead was marked by a slight incline, leading toward a series of low hills that bordered the plains. The ground here was more rugged, with rocky outcrops and patches of dense vegetation that could provide both cover and potential hazards. As they approached the hills, the team could make out the faint outline of what appeared to be unnatural structures—ancient, weathered stones that jutted out from the earth, partially obscured by overgrown vegetation.

Cassie looked at the path towards the ruins. There were tire tracks in some of the muddy spots. It looked like they weren't the only ones headed this direction. She pointed them out silently to the other members of the Resurgence's away team.

Yayoi was the first to spot the telltale signs of ancient ruins. Her keen eyes picked out a partially collapsed archway, almost entirely consumed by the surrounding plant life. The stone was worn smooth by time and weather, but the faint traces of intricate carvings could still be seen, she thought it hinted at the advanced civilization that once thrived here.

As they drew closer, more of the ruins became visible—a series of stone pillars, some broken and toppled, others standing defiantly against the passage of time. The ground beneath their feet began to change as well, transitioning from the soft grass of the plains to a harder, more compact surface, likely the remnants of an ancient road or plaza.

The sounds of the night seemed to quiet as the team entered the ruins, the rustling of the grass and the distant calls of wildlife fading into the background. It was as if the ruins themselves commanded a reverent silence, demanding respect from those who dared to walk among them.

As they ventured further into the ruins, the team found themselves surrounded by the remnants of what must have once been an impressive complex. The layout suggested a central courtyard, with smaller structures surrounding it, though most of the details had been lost to the ages.

That's when they saw a parked pair of military-looking vehicles in front of a large temple-like building. A pair of scouts were pulling security on them, while everyone else was apparently inside.

Yayoi lifted her hand, as she spotted the vehicles. She took note of the beings that appeared to be scouts which seemed like they were doing security. She thought based on the limited number the rest appeared inside the vehicles.

Cassie couldn't see Yayoi's hand because it was invisible due to Yayoi's optic camouflage. "Want to sneak inside and see what they're digging around for?" she transmitted securely.

"yeah, i'm interested in finding out" Yayoi responded via transmission.

Together the team quietly approached the temple entrance, bypassing the parked vehicles idling near it and the two guards looking after them. As they stealthily made their way inside, they could see that this was no primitive set of ruins. Despite their outward appearance, the insides of the ruins looked like some sort of structure or bunker built by an advance ancient civilization. There was evidence of technology everywhere from volumetric projectors to floating platforms. And in the center there was a vast elevator shaft going down into the ground to some sort of facility...

= = =
OOC: JP by @Wes @Charaa @Lizalopod and @Yoshiro Tanaka

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

Unknown Planet - Ancient Ruins

The team from the YSS Resurgence, their forms concealed by the stealth systems of their Mindy power armor, moved silently through the ancient temple's entrance. The scouts outside remained oblivious to their presence as the away team bypassed the military vehicles idling near the entrance and slipped inside the ruins.

Sanda took in the ruins with her lips pressed together underneath her lightning marked helmet. This place was way bigger a find then she had originally thought. She sent a message to Yoshirio back at their makeshift base. "Thunder to Poet, this place is a lot bigger than we thought. Try to get in touch with the Res and report." Sanda then sent a short video feed of the ruins and giant elevator that led lower into the facility.

"I bet the cave moss listenin' to us. Bugs watching us, reporting back to home base." Hayden glanced around, still stealthed and floating as point. "And if they not watching, they scared to be down here, well that's even worse. Probably watched us run in here on their BugVision screens laughing their thoraxes off in bug-ese clacking their chelicerae together."

"Remind me to look that word up," Poppy said.

Yayoi narrowed her eyes as she heard Hayden's paranoid ramblings. "enough Hayden-hei" she said in an annoyed tone. as she followed her team and looked down at the giant elevator. She attempted to think of a way to use it without alerting their possible enemies.

"This kinda sucks." Kokoro silently pouted inside her MINDY, glancing back towards the guards momentarily as the group moved in. She double checked that her helmet was keeping her voice mute to the outside world.

"What? Waiting to shoot these guys?" Cassie chuckled at Kokoro's comment. "I mean..."

"I brought a frigging shotgun for a reason dayo!" Kokoro grumbled.

"Kokoro, it's not always wise to shoot at people who can call in an army's worth of reinforcements." Yoshiro said. "We are on a recon mission besides and we need to be stealthy." He kept scanning the area for enemies.

"I'm kind of worried you didn't know a biology word, Doc. Hayden ain't gonna lie." Despite Hayden's constant comedy routine, he was doing his job as point security. Although, essentially invisible, it's probably not obvious.

"It's not that...it's that I don't think it means what you think it means," Poppy explained.

Ancient Ruins - Interior

As the team ventured deeper into the temple, the environment shifted dramatically. What had appeared from the outside to be ancient, weathered stone walls gave way to a sophisticated, hidden world beneath the surface. The temple's interior was a striking contrast to its exterior—a complex, advanced structure that had clearly been built by a highly advanced civilization long since vanished.

The air inside was cool and still, untouched by time. Dim, blue-tinted lights flickered to life as the team moved deeper into the temple, revealing walls lined with intricate carvings and symbols that glowed faintly in the darkness. The architecture was a blend of the ancient and the futuristic, with large stone pillars standing alongside sleek metal surfaces and advanced technology embedded into the very fabric of the building.

Floating platforms hovered silently above the ground, waiting to transport anyone who dared to step onto them. Volumetric projectors displayed holographic images of unknown symbols and maps, cycling through information that the team could only begin to decipher. The air buzzed faintly with the energy of dormant systems, hinting at the possibility that much of this technology could still be functional.

In the center of the main chamber, the team’s eyes were drawn to a vast elevator shaft. It descended deep into the ground, its sides lined with complex machinery and cables. The shaft seemed to beckon the team to explore further, to uncover whatever secrets lay hidden in the depths below.

"Are we taking this down?" Poppy asked.

"Not yet." Sanda whispered. Even though their suits were state of the art and had secure comms, Sanda liked quiet when she was being all stealthy. And the darn active camo meant her team couldn't see her hand signals.

"We should secure the upper chamber first and see if we can get an idea of what the hell this place is before we go exploring further into it." The Nepleslian Ranger said as she moved around the room examining things.

Yayoi nodded despite it not being visible, as she looked at the information, and silently she used her Mindy's systems, Sensors anything she could use to take down the data, and everything she could for Eukoshi later.

"Every time we leave the ship we end up confronting some Ancient Progenitor Civilization. There's going to be another Incomprehensible Machine God down here, taking over our brains, turning us into cyborgs." Hayden started the routine up again.

The aliens had some sort of heavily armed scout units that were patrolling the area they were in, through it looked like the bulk of their group had already gone down deeper into the ruins. Of those left, the Resurgence team could see their science personnel (?) messing with the ruins systems that had maps, trying to compare them with known star charts.

"If we could get their maps for SAINT..." Poppy suggested.

Cassie’s voice came over the secure comms, her tone steady but tinged with curiosity. “This is no ordinary ruin. We need to find out what’s down there—and what these guys are after. But we need to stay quiet. No unnecessary engagements unless we have no other choice.”

"Lets contact the Resurgence first and see if they'll send us Euikoshi." Sanda suggested. "Also, we should report in so that the Captain knows what's going on down here."

"Okay, but she'll have to start at the base since that's where the teleporter pad is," Poppy reminded Sanda.

Sanda was able to reach the ship without too much issue. "Resurgence here, this is Euikoshi, how is the scout mission going?"

"We've found some kind of massive, ancient.... Temple. Lots of high tech stuff. The aliens on this place are exploring further but I recommend bringing a science officer who knows what we're looking at." Sanda explained. "We also wanted to update the Captain as to our status."

"You need me to go play 'Escort the Science NPC Quest,' Heishō? I can make it back." Hayden volunteered.

Yayoi narrowed her eyes in annoyance "NPC?" she asked in an annoyed tone, once more bothered by Hayden's behavior. "yes, go escort them safely" She said finally.

"And SILENTLY..." Sanda added.

"Okay, I'll be down there in a few minutes," Euikoshi promised Sanda, and got up to get suited up. "Out," she said ending the transmission.

Cassie eyed the large shaft. “Whatever’s down there, it’s big. I can feel it. Let’s see if we can get to it before they do.”

Hayden turned around and flew back towards the camp, the little boost of his armor's engines making him momentarily visible as a little flash of plasma and a wobble of his camo.

While they waited for Hayden to return with Euikoshi, Sanda said, "Lets set up a comm relay point so that we can keep in touch with our base-camp incase things go south."

Kokoro, if she was looking, could see that on the screens of the aggressive military force's maps, it said the name of their faction. Apparently, they were called the "Xynar Dominion." And they appeared to speak some form of Trade so their screens were actually legible if one could get past their exotic font choices.

Not a stranger to... interesting font choices... Kokoro tilted her head as her eyes were attracted to the displays which were providing some welcome information... "Dominiiion, Xyar- No- Xynar Dominion? This is pretty readable, is this what these guys call themselves maybe?" She glanced towards Sanda, then towards Yoshiro.

As she waited for Euikoshi, and Hayden's return, Sanda got a ping on her comms for a private channel. when she temporarily switched. "what do you think of Hayden-hei?" Yayoi asked her.

Sanda shrugged. "He talks a lot of crap, but he does his job. Kind of like some of our other team members..." Sanda turned her attention to what Kokoro had found. "I don't know, keep reading and see what else you can find out."

Kokoro nodded as she kept scanning along the displays for any useful information she could read out.

Yayoi nods, before turning her attention to Kokoro

Cassie focused on securing their current position, producing small drones and motion sensors and setting up a low-key security network that would let them see if any additonal Xynar forces were entering the site of the ancient ruins.

Yoshiro turned to Kokoro and wondered what she had been looking at. "Kokoro is that something we should report to the captain of the Resurgence?" Yoshiro asked "it looks fairly large and attached to something possibly."

Kokoro could see by spying on the Xynar soldiers that they referred to this place as a "Research Facility." Furthermore it was one part of a vast complex that once covered the entire planet.

Poppy approached the edge of the main shaft down and listened. In the depths of the facility she could hear what sounded like...combat? "Hey...do you hear weapons fire? Are these Xynar fighting something down there?" she asked.

Sanda went over to the edge where Poppy stood and listened with her eyes closed. After a moment she opened them and looked around at the elevator, seeming to weigh her options.

Yayoi followed Sanda, and listened with her Nekovalkyrja senses.

It definitely sounded like there was some intense firefights happening down below. There was also some screaming and shouting echoing through ancient facility, and some robotic growling noises.

"Sounds like it doesn't it.. and screaming as well as shouting, and robotic growling? either way down there, are potential allies!" Yayoi said.

"Look alive now!" Sanda ordered the group. "Safetys off, but keep your fingers OFF the triggers."

The Xynar soldiers up top began to look increasingly concerned and agitated as they listened to the communications from below. They began heading back to their vehicles outside to call for backup, leaving the Resurgence team alone for the moment.

Poppy closed in on the elevator down. "This could be our chance to go in unnoticed,"

Yayoi took note of the Xynar Soldiers's Behavior which was telling to her.

"Kawa-sensei, we're missing the fun, you're about ready, right?" Hayden transmitted, more or less right before Euikoshi appeared. "Oh, hey, Professor."

Euikoshi, now planet-side, followed Hayden back towards the ancient ruins site. The Resurgence was going to be rolling in exploration awards she thought to herself. So many discoveries! "Let's see what we can learn!" she grinned. Soon the two were sneaking past the Xynar vehicles and into the ruins with the rest of the team.

One of the elevator platforms came up from below but everything riding it was dead. The remains of Xynar troopers, cut into cubes by lasers, lay piled in a pool of blood on it like some sort of bizarre plate of meat.

"You know...this might be one of those dungeons where we should check for traps," Cassie said, raising one finger in the air.

Sanda looked down the elevator shaft again and back at the butchered aliens. She was sweating and felt a little short of breath. ¿Qué había ahí abajo? She thought.

"There's nothing I can do for these guys," Doctor Poppy said, though that was kind of obvious already. "...well, besides get a DNA sample."

Yayoi gasped audibly through the comms, and muttered something like "are the Rixxikor here?" No she also knew another species that could do that too... "collect a sample, so we can know more of the species, the Xynar Dominion, genetically. also.. keep an eye out..I don't want to think of it, but we may have Mishhu here." She said.

"Whoever this evil bastard is deserves death. We need to either find him or point someone who can toward him." Yoshiro said with anger in his voice.

"Alright," Poppy said, taking Yayoi suggesting and placing a chunk of Xynar flesh into a small sample container and sealing it closed.

"Oh sure, always into the death zone, time to experience the horror..." Cassie whined. "Why can't we ever just nope out of the bad situations? But no, we're gonna go down there aren't we?"

Sanda shook herself out of her fear ridden brain. "Honestly, I'm with you Cassie. But we're the Star Army. And we've got a job to do." Sanda took a deep, steadying breath then said, "Load up! On the elevators. NOW!"

"If we nope out of this, then more people are going to get hurt. We need to do something about it now otherwise more people are going to be hurt." Yoshiro said.

"The question is, if this was a research facility...what were they researching?" Euikoshi pondered. "And why do the Xynar want it? I have a feeling it's critical to the security of Yamatai to find out." She and Poppy looked at each other and got on the elevator, as did Cassie.

"Both equally good questions" Yayoi said "and I want it ended possibly."

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Liza, Youkey, Yoshiro,

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

Unknown Planet - Ancient Ruins

As the elevator platform shuddered and began its slow descent into the dark depths of the ancient ruins, the dim blue lights lining the walls of the shaft flickered to life, casting eerie, wavering shadows across the team. The hum of the ancient machinery echoed off the cold, metal walls, vibrating through the soles of their boots. The air grew noticeably cooler as they descended, carrying with it a metallic tang that hinted at the age and purpose of the facility they were about to uncover.

As the elevator came to a halt, the team found themselves in a vast, open chamber, its sheer size almost incomprehensible. The walls were lined with enormous, smooth pillars that seemed to stretch up into darkness, their surfaces etched with glowing, pulsating symbols—remnants of a long-forgotten language. The architecture, though ancient, was clearly advanced, blending organic curves with sharp, angular structures. The atmosphere was thick with the sense of something both ancient and powerful, something that had slumbered undisturbed for millennia.

Euikoshi immediately pulled out a handheld scanner and began wandering around, while Cassie cautiously looked for signs of traps or defensive systems. Poppy pulled out a set of binoculars and began looking at the remains of the Xynar soldiers scattered around the area, hoping to find one that was still alive. Maybe one of them could say what happened.

Yoshiro took point and watched for enemies. He was angry at whoever did this but he had to focus on what was going on around him so his teammates wouldn't get hurt.

Kokoro glanced to one of the fallen Xynar decorating the floor, her nose scrunching a bit under her helmet. "Can we tell how old these things are? And what like... happened to them?" She asked, holding her shotgun at ready.

Sanda had her weapons up and ready as the elevator desended. As soon as it reached the ground she was moving. Moving towards the nearest cover. Once there she continued to do a visual scan of the surrounding area, looking for cover and possible places of attack.

Yayoi followed Sanda, like a imprinted duckling, her weapons both hand held and Power Armor, ready and primed ready to fire at moments notice. The bodies didnt seem to phase her though.

Poppy glanced at Kokoro. "They look like they were killed in the last few minutes," she estimated. The team could see the remains of Xynar soldiers scattered across the chamber, their bodies broken and twisted, some still smoldering from energy weapon impacts. The smell of burned flesh and ozone hung heavy in the air, mixing with the metallic scent. Scorch marks and deep gouges in the floor suggested that a fierce battle had taken place here.

"That is gruesome, to be killed so quick..." Yoshiro said grimly as he looked at the soldiers dead and dying. He was holding back his rage but just barely. "Keep your head on a swivel, people. This isn't looking too good."

Sanda moved over towards one of the Xynar bodies and knelt beside of it, studying the wounds and calculating the angle the attack would have come from.

Sanda could see the impacts came from multiple directions at once and cut their their armor with ease.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here but..." Euikoshi said, "Do you remember the robot guardians that came out of the walls on Concordia Station...? I was thinking that maybe we shouldn't point guns and look threatening because whatever just killed these guys might assume we're with them. What do you guys think?"

"..." Kokoro glanced over at Euikoshi, likely with a raised eyebrow under her helmet. "The concordia wha- Errh.. yeah" She lowered her shotgun, still glancing at the bodies warily.

In the center of the chamber, the team could see what appeared to be a central hub, a raised platform surrounded by consoles and volumetric displays.

"I found something." Yoshiro said pointing over to a raised platform but not touching anything so he wouldn't set off an alarm. He lowered his weapon to be safe but watched out for his team.

"I'm guessing that's the controls? Maybe we can use that hacking AI from the Acuna mission on them," Euikoshi pondered.

Sanda lowered her rifle, but just barely, as she looked around. Multiple attacks from mulitple direction. Not a fight that they wanted to start.

As Sanda and the team moved cautiously forward, their eyes were drawn to the far end of the chamber where massive, dormant machines stood sentinel. These towering constructs, made of an unknown alloy, resembled ancient warriors or guardians. Their eyes, dark and lifeless, seemed to follow the team as they approached, but there was no immediate sign of activation. However, the faint hum of energy emanating from them suggested that they were far from deactivated, merely waiting.

"What are those things?" Yoshiro asked, looking at the constructs nervously. He tried to look less threatening so they didn't attack them.

Yayoi looked at the constructs, making sure her weapons were lowered as she glanced at the constructs. She noted how despite being cloaked they seemed to follow the team.

"This place is huge!" Cassie exclaimed. as the team trekked across the vast chamber to the central control area.

Yoshiro continued to look around for things as he traveled the chamber to the control area. He made sure to walk as slow as possible and watch where he was going to make sure the constructs would not do anything dangerous or outright murder them.

Eventually the Resurgence team reached the elevated central platform. Inside it, holographic images that flickered to life depicted complex equations, star maps, and what appeared to be dimensional gates or portals—evidence of the interdimensional research that had taken place here. The technology was far beyond anything they had seen before, yet it still seemed functional, waiting for someone with the knowledge to activate it. Euikoshi immediately recorded everything, making a record for later analysis.

Sanda almost whispered to Euikoshi, "So, does any of this look simalar to the Concordia station?"

"Yes, it does," Euikoshi said.

"What is going on over there...I have never seen that before but of course I am a soldier not a scientist." Yoshiro said in amazement.

"Yeah, all this is great, let's talk about how 'why they lit them up but not us' is the main question on my mind right now," Hayden said, looking around with his eyes still tracing the lines between the security system and the bodies on the floor.

"The fuck!" Yayoi audibly and very rudely said as she saw the holographic images just flicker to life. as well as the advanced technology here.

"Oooh!" The opposite reaction, Kokoro was pretty distracted by the pretty holographic lights, her eyes darting around at the information being displayed.

"Ok then," Sanda said a little irritably to Euikoshi. "Can you do something then?" The Ranger pressed.

"Kokoro, get your mind back in the game." Yoshiro said to Kokoro. "No time for distractions." Yoshiro said as he lightly bonked Kokoro on the head to get her attention.

"Wuh-!" She shook her head, before looking at Yoshiro... "Right- Gomenasai..."

"It's okay, Kokoro. Just don't get distracted. I don't want to see you get hurt or worse." Yoshiro said in a gentle voice.

"I'm going to need a little time to study all these and then I'll be able to tell you more about this. I need to set up a translation system and see what kind of access these old systems will give me, once we figure out how to interface with it..."

Poppy looked at a dismembered Xynar soldier carrying a sort of handheld computer, its interface cables hanging off the edge of the floating platform, its face frozen in a screaming expression. "I think the other guys were also trying that," she observed, glancing around again for signs of hostiles.

"Maybe, those constructs there did it?' Yayoi asked as she pointed to the constructs looking at them.

Cassie continued to look around the huge chamber. "I got a doorway here," she told the team, marking it with a large glow-stick. To one side of the central hub, another elevator shaft led even deeper into the facility. The faint sounds of distant battle could still be heard echoing up from below—energy blasts, the clatter of machinery, and inhuman growls that sent a chill down the spine. Whatever was down there was still active, and it was clearly hostile. "Um, some sort of activity down there...sounds chaotic..."

Sanda went over to the doorway Cassie had marked and listened. The sounds of battle were unmisstakeable. Sanda looked around the room, thinking.

"The facility appears to be in some sort of emergency safety lockdown," Euikoshi said as she began to translate the ancient computer systems. "But I don't think it's to keep the Xynar out..."

"...it's to keep something in?" Poppy guessed.

"Why don't we ask those guys? Ayo, Killer Statue, my dude, what's going on down there?" Hayden faced one of the constructs. "Y'all good? I NOTICED YOU HAVE NOT SHOT US YET. I want to say I appreciate you for that."

"Hayden, what are you doing?" Yoshiro said.

Yayoi silently slapped her forehead in a show of irritation at Hayden's behavior.

One of the huge alien mecha came to life and stood in front of Hayden for a moment looking at him before passing by him and proceeding to the elevator that went down into the deeper levels. As it passed Sanda and boarded the elevator, its arms transformed into guns and they began to glow as it disappeared down and out of sight.

"Well, shit! This isn't good!" Yoshiro said.

"Wait, remember the Concoria station was a sort of stasis chamber for a huge population. What if this is another such place, but it's for keeping things in?" Sanda listened again. "We only saw a couple of scout vehicles outside. We've already seen way more bodies of the Xynar soldiers then what would have been in those few patrols. Either they've got a much bigger garison here, or there are more players here then we've seen yet."

Kokoro almost jumped when the mech started walking towards Hayden, before.. leaving him alone and walking off... "..Uh.. werent there like, some of the Xynar people back where we came from?"

"See? They already woulda, if they was gonna." Hayden said after he finally stopped looking up. "Whatever they got going on it's between the bugs and them."

"Great, I just hope that those constructs don't hurt anyone too seriously." Yoshiro said.

Sanda looked at the mutilated bodies of the aliens around and snorted. "Yeah, hope they don't hurt anybody." You could hear the eye roll in her tone.

"This is something we need to let the higher-ups know about," Euikoshi said, "This is big, very big," she said. "It gets deeper as it goes. But essentially this is the hub of an ancient project to explore the universe, but not just one universe..."

"Agreed" Yayoi said as she looked into where the construct had gone. She couldnt help wonder what was the construct or its purpose.

"Then the Mishhu must want this very bad for whatever purpose that they have?" Yoshiro asked.

Sanda spun around and looked at Euikoshi. "What are you saying?" She suddenly felt very small, like this place was suddenly very much bigger than she thought.

Cassie looked at the elevator with the combat noises coming from it. "Poppy, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Poppy rubbed her chin. "I'm thinking that if you explore enough universes, your risk goes up. These guys thought they had all the answers but eventually they got a bad roll of the dice and they found something they couldn't handle. Maybe that's why we're standing in deserted ruins instead of in a thriving city."

"Great..." Yoshiro said. "Do we implode or turn inside out or something?" He was genuinely nervous. Yoshiro didn't understand much of this as he was trained to be a soldier and not a scientist. "So are we talking about what they call alternate dimensions?"

Yayoi blinked her eyes as they spoke of Universes. "I've heard a rumour that some Star Army ships had gone through portals to other universes but I....never believed it." Yayoi said, though what was scaring her, was what could be found in other universes, such as a Yayoi...that didnt have a figurative stick up her butt, or one that behaved like Yuri,or worse.

Sanda turned away from the conversations and tried to get a link with the ship. "Resurgence this this Thunder. Come in Res."

The signal came in strong in spite of the local interference from the energies inside the ruins. "Thunder this is Resurgence. Request SITREP, over."

Sanda thanked the Stars that she reached the ship. "Resurgence, we've found hostile aliens and some sort of ancient massive... thing down here. Concorida size and tech level stuff."

"Hey should we bring a pad down here, you think?" Hayden wondered aloud.

"Yeah, that would be great for studying this place," Euikoshi said. "I could teleport in, do research, and then teleport back to the ship for lunch and sleep."

"Aight. Hayden needs a battle buddy, who's coming?" Hayden asked the team, then asked the ship, "Resurgence, this is Simril, could we get a couple more pads sent down to the, uh, pads?"

"Is the team doing alright?" Resurgence asked.

"The name of the military force we encountered is the Xynar Dominion," Euikoshi added, "It looks like it was their ships guarding the wormhole exit. They have troops planetside to investigate the ancient facility. Speculation: it stands to reason they know or think there's something valuable here they can use and are willing to fight for it."

"Recomendation: Inform the First Fleet to get a stong presence here. This is something we don't want falling into the wrong hands." Sanda added.

"I think, due to our use of stealth, the Xynar are still not yet alerted to our presence on the planet," Euikoshi pointed out.

"Oh, and the place's security systems kill them but not us," Hayden got in his part before announcing, "Let's go get those pads!"

"Yeah, the ancient guardians are aware of the away team," Euikoshi sighed as she looked in Hayden's direction. "They seem preoccupied with something in the lower levels, though. We are thinking it's something...unpleasant."

"Recommendation noted, Sanda. If it's safe, set up a teleporter pad in the ancient facility," Aoba ordered the team. "It'll make it easier for us to defend it when these Xynar make their next push into the ruins. Also, you'll be able to visit the ship for rest and resupply."

"Aye Aye Sir." Sanda replied. She was glad that Aoba was taking things seriously, although she would have been surprised if he had done anything else. "Alright team, you heard the Captain. Lets lock down the place as best we can. Set up a safe area for the teleporter and lets get our backup from our makeship basecamp over here."

Poppy nodded, while Euikoshi began deploying the pad just how Pidole had taught her. After a few minutes, they had a working pad to "SHING" onto the ship (it made a spooky metallic sound like that when used).

"Roger that." Yoshiro said and started to set up defensible positions for the team. It was scary after hearing all this stuff about alternate dimensions and stuff like that but he was a soldier and he was going to do his duty no matter what happened. He continued to make defensible positions and a safe place for the teleporter.

Yayoi nodded her head and moved to secure the area for the pad placement.

Sanda looked up the elevator shaft that led topside. "We're pretty well defended down here at the moment, but I would feel better if we send some people topside to take out those few patrols up there. Then we could have a warning of anyone trying to enter the place."

"On it," Cassie said, heading to the elevator to the ruins up top. She pulled out a knife, planning to put the last of the Xynar team down quietly.

"Don't go alone!" Sanda warned. She would have done it herself, and enjoyed every moment of it, but for some reason she felt she needed to see to the defences down below. It was as if she had something to prove.

"I got her, Heishō," Hayden volunteered, without any delay, "I'm with you!"

"If I have the right codex, maybe I can make the systems here recognize us as members of the builders' faction," Euikoshi speculated. "But where could we find it..."

On the opposite side of the chamber, partially hidden behind a collapsed pillar, the team could see a massive, reinforced door, sealed with a complex locking mechanism. The ancient symbols etched into its surface suggested that it was not just a door, but a vault—a place where something of immense importance had been stored. The locking mechanism was intricate, designed to only open for those who knew its secrets, and it radiated a faint, ominous energy.

Yayoi turned her focus on the collapsed pillar, her Mindy's sensors detected a massive reinforced door. This caused her to approach it like a curious cat, though her sensors would alert her to any danger. "i think i see something partly covered here, looks like a door of some kind." she called to the others.

Kokoro shuffled over once Yayoi alerted the rest of the team to the massive door, tilting her head. "Woah! Hell of a door-" She squinted, her eyes taking in the locking mechanism. "Looks pretty hard to break into... and hell- the mechs would get mad- are the controls to unlocking it back at the control center place?"

Sanda moved over to the other elevator shaft. the one that descended deeper into the facility where all the fighting sounds came from. She stood by the edge, peering down into the darkness, trying to see what was going on below. Ready to fight whatever was down there.

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Yoshiro, and Lizalopod... AND YUUKI

 

[Wes]

YSS Resurgence
Wardroom
YE 46.5

The wardroom was filled with clatter of utensils and the warm, comforting aroma of freshly cooked food. After the intense tension of the ruins, the scent of Yamataian chicken katsu with steamed rice, rich curry, and pickled vegetables was a welcome balm. Grilled shrimp and scallops with citrus glaze, buttery garlic breadsticks, and a crisp mixed green salad completed the spread, courtesy of Julix and Agrippina Rossa, who moved efficiently behind the serving counter, providing the crew with much-needed sustenance.

Poppy, already digging into her meal, looked up as Science Officer Kawa Euikoshi stood at the head of the table, her expression serious. She held a datapad, eyes flicking over the data she’d been analyzing. The chatter died down quickly, and all eyes turned to her. She simulcast the briefing to the away team members still on the surface.

"Alright, here’s what we’ve got," Euikoshi began, her tone crisp. "The facility below isn’t just another derelict. I’ve decided to name its builders the Aetherian Progenitors. They were way beyond us in tech—capable of things that make our most advanced science look like child’s play. And their main interest? Exploring alternate dimensions."

She paused, letting that sink in. Around the table, the crew exchanged glances. "What we found is the control hub of a vast interdimensional research complex. Think of it as a cross between a scientific observatory and a fortress. They were mapping the multiverse, opening portals to different realities, and cataloging what they found."

Poppy frowned slightly, her fork paused mid-air. "Until they found something they couldn't handle?"

"Perhaps," Euikoshi continued, her voice tightening, "they discovered things out there that could kill them. Or worse. This entire complex is fortified with dimensional gates, containment systems, and those guardian constructs we saw for a reason. It’s not just a research facility—it’s a last line of defense."

"But...defense against what?" Poppy asked, her face grim. "Whatever did that to the Xynar? It's already down there?"

"Exactly," Euikoshi said. "The Xynar Dominion knows what this place can do, and they want it. Control over this technology means control over untold power—potentially an infinite number of dimensions, resources, and strategic options. They’re willing to risk everything to get it."

Cassie leaned back and chewed thoughtfully on a breadstick. "Makes me feel warm and fuzzy to know the killer statues are on our side, at least for now."

"Maybe," Euikoshi said sharply. "But the facility’s security systems are in some sort of emergency mode, and they’re not targeting us... yet. If we trigger them by mistake, we might end up like those Xynar troopers. Or worse."

Captain Aoba, stroking his beard, leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "Recommendations, CSO?"

"First," Euikoshi replied, "we need to secure that vault door we spotted. Whatever’s behind it might have the key to controlling this facility or shutting it down. Second, I need time to work on these systems. If I can make them recognize us as allies—or at least not enemies—we might gain access without getting ourselves diced into bits."

"And if we don’t?" Cassie asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

"Then we’ll have to do this the hard way," Euikoshi said grimly. "Which could mean a lot more fighting, and not just with the Xynar."

Aoba nodded. "Let's avoid this mission turning into a cautionary tale."

"Recommendation noted," Poppy added. "We’ll set up a proper teleporter pad down there. We need to be able to reinforce and resupply without walking into another ambush. If we need to we can pull out at moment's notice. I don't want anything to happen to Sanda or anyone else."

"Good plan," Aoba’s voice crackled over the intercom. "Get it done. And Euikoshi,...I want every scrap of data you can pull from that facility. If the Xynar think they can turn this place into a weapon, we need to know how to stop them."

There was a murmur of agreement, and the crew dug into their meals with renewed determination. Those who has stayed planetside were able to rotate in and out to eat or to get the food delivered in insulated hot-packs to the teleporter pad in the cave or in the ruins.

 

[Wes]

MISSION 15: The Pathfinders

YE 46.5

Unknown Planet - Ancient Ruins

Yoshiro was hard at work securing the defensive perimeter and was exploring a bit while working with a smile on his face

"Feelin' a bit excited eh?" Cassie asked Yoshiro with a giggle-snort. She shrugged and made her way towards the elevator to the lower levels. "I, for one, am a bit less enthusiastic about what we'll find down there."

After eating on the ship, Poppy and Euikoshi returned through the teleporter pad, with immediately continuing to glean more information from the ancient computer systems in the command center in the center of the main floor.

Sanda was topside standing by the doorway leading into the facility. She had her helmet off and was just listening to the sounds of the planet, the wind blowing her hair. She had set up a line of defence outside the entrence to keep the Xynar Dominion out if/when they showed up again. The Ranger's Daisy pinged that there had been a teleportation inside so she picked up her helmet and rifle and headed inside.

After decending down to the command center on the main floor, Sanda approched Poppy and Euikoshi and asked, "How are things back on the ship? They picking up any activity from our neighbors?"

"Tense," Poppy told Sanda. Everyone's a little on edge that we're poking around at what might have wiped out a civilization more advanced than our own, and that there's another military actively doing it too."

"I mean, we kinda sneaked in under their noses- Do they even know were here yet???" Kokoro snorted as she floated upside down, slowly moving towards poppy. Her armored tail swished calmly. "So whats the plan? Did we get orders?"

"They know our ships are here. It's only a matter of time before we get found on the surface," Poppy told Kokoro.

Yayoi scouted by the door discovered before ready to fire should any kind of scary boogy man jump out at her.

Sanda chewed on her lip thoughtfully a moment. "Any word on when our reinforcements might show up? Like the whole damn 1st Fleet?"

"No," Poppy simply replied. As most of the team gathered at the elevator below, Poppy followed along carrying her overstuffed bag of medical supplies and took a deep breath.

"Miércoles. On our own again. I guess we should be used to it by now but for once I think I'd like some serious fleet-sized backup." Sanda snorted. "So what's the plan? Try to open the fancy doors?"

"Agreed, Hermana, a fleet-sized back up would be apreciated, ah well, either way i am sure we can handle things" Yayoi said as she stood beside Sanda.

"So like. Were sure the mech guys wont get mad at us if we try to open that right? They probably tried to kill these Xynar guys for a reason" Kokoro glanced to one of several of the dead Xynars on the ground. She realigned herself, standing up properly.

"Maybe they've been waiting on this time hoping for a helping hand," Euikoshi optimistically proposed. "I should mention we should try to get in that vault to see if there's a sort of digital keychain in there to unlock these control systems. But by all means, you can look down there if you want. Tell me what you find."

"Perhaps they want to be left alone and will try and kill us." Cheilith shrugged. "Hope for the best, try and avoid the worst."

Yoshiro was still looking at the ancient architecture and admiring it all. "How old do you think this place is?" He asked. "It looks really ancient despite the tech."

"I have been looking for organics to carbon-date but nothing so far," Euikoshi said. "The exact age is difficult to determine due to the unique materials and construction methods used by the Aetherian Progenitors, but the structure's wear, along with its integration into the planet's geological layers, suggests an age spanning at least several million years. Their
civilization existed long before any of the current known species in the galaxy, and their technological prowess was far beyond contemporary capabilities. The facility has remained mostly dormant and undisturbed over the eons, preserved in a state of emergency lockdown, which has kept much of its technology operational despite its immense age."

"Whoa..." Yoshiro said in amazement. "You would make a great archaeologist when you retire, Euikoshi, I mean that."

Kokoro blinked several times in uncharacteristic silence as she turned to look around at the current room they were in, the vault door.. mechs, the controls... "Im getting the sudden engineering urge to take something appart and seeing how it works.. this stuff is.. really well preserved if its that old!!" She squeaked for a moment.

Cassie hopped onto the elevator to the elevator to the locked-down lower levels. "LEEROY...JENKINS!!" she hollered.

"Is she just going in?" Poppy blinked. She took another deep breath and hopped on the elevator platform with Cassie as it began to descend. "Here we go, I guess!"

Cheilith shrugged, jumping and joining Cassie and Poppy on the elevator. She pulled out her aehther sword and held it in a close defensive posture.

Yayoi jerked when Cassie hollared. "yes" she said

"¡Otra vez no! No voy a salvarle el culo esta vez!" Sanda cursed as she quickly secured her helmet on and grabed her weapons. She was going to have to have a talk with Cassie about her doing this when the mission was over.

Yayoi sighed and muttered something that sounded like Cassies a youngling, before she made sure everything was secure and followed to make sure Cassie was safe.

Yoshiro ran to stop Cassie but she had already jumped. "Well, when in Elysia, do as they do." Yoshiro said and jumped down.

Kokoro giggled as she hopped onto the Elevator with the rest of the team. "Well! guess were goin!"

"Hey, yo, wait up!" Hayden followed taking up the rear and making sure they weren't folowed.

As the elevator descended further into the depths of the ruins, the atmosphere grew colder, and the hum of machinery became a low, throbbing vibration that resonated through their suits of armor. The blue-tinted lights lining the shaft grew dimmer and more sporadic, flickering with a failing energy that suggested the facility's systems were stressed or damaged. Occasionally, sparks flew from exposed wiring, and strange symbols flashed intermittently on the walls—warnings in a language long forgotten.

"What is that?" Yoshiro asked about the noise. He took pictures of the symbols as best he could for Euikoshi.

"Scanning..." Poppy said, looking up the elevator shaft. She was going to measure the depth by bouncing laser off the ceiling but blast doors closed behind them every so often as part of the containment protocol.

Sanda's grip on her weapons tightened a little bit more with each blast door that closed over top of them. She had never felt claustrophobic before but the lower she went the more trapped she felt. If Cassie got them all killed because she just jumped onto the elevator without warning Sanda valued to never speak to her again.

Cheilith stood close to the other members of the team, like a coiled spring ready to leap to her friends defense.

Lower Level: The DIMENSIONAL CORE

The elevator came to a stop at what appeared to be the heart of the ancient facility—an enormous, multi-leveled cavern that stretched out into the darkness. This lower level was dominated by the Dimensional Core, a massive, spherical structure suspended in the center of the chamber by thick, glowing energy conduits. The core pulsed with an eerie, shifting light that alternated between blues, purples, and reds, casting unsettling shadows on the walls. It was surrounded by a lattice of metallic frameworks, platforms, and walkways that spanned the cavern.

"Wow...this is..." Yoshiro said and he trailed off, awestruck.

"Anyone else hear boss music?" Cassie asked.

Cheilith nodded at Cassie's observation as she loooked around the space. "On the plus side, it looks like a fun place to have a fight."

Yayoi blinked as she looked around "Oh, achikochi de hageshiku fakku shite" she said to herself as she saw this chamber and the technology here. Not only that but the remains of a battle that had been fought here.

The moment the team stepped off the elevator, they saw that this level had become a war zone. The remains of a fierce battle littered the platforms and walkways. Scorched and shattered bodies of Xynar soldiers were strewn across the area, some still smoldering from energy weapon impacts. There were deep gouges in the metal floors, and some sections were twisted and melted, indicating the use of powerful weapons or perhaps encounters with something extremely hot or corrosive. The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning metal, plasma discharges, and something more organic—a sickly sweet scent that suggested the presence of something unnatural.

"Smell that, guys?" Yoshiro asked, grip tightening on his weapon. He was alert and ready for a fight

Cheilith took point, moving a bit deeper into the structure than the rest of the team to protect their front from whatever caused this mayhem. She hovered slightly above the floor so that she wouldn't trip on the bodies scattered around.

"Yep..." Kokoro raised her shotgun up a little as she followed behind Cheilith. She glanced to the deep gouges on the floor, attempting to scan the ground with her helmet in a likely futile attempt to discover what caused them.

Poppy lightly jogged around to each body, looking for any signs of life, with Cassie following her as a battle buddy to provide overwatch. It was her duty to provide care if there were any wounded. After a inspecting the ones in the area she looked at Sanda and shook her head. "Recent," she simply said.

Sanda nodded and drew her bayonet and attached it to the end of her plasma rifle before taking her sheild off her back. "Cover me." She said simply and began scouting out deeper into the room, her rifle and shoulder cannon moving steadily around searching for a contact.

"Covered." Cheilith said, watching from behind Sanda with her aether rifle ready if anything came after her teammate.

Yayoi made sure her Aetheric Pulse Cannon was ready to fire as she shut off her Mindy's oflactory sensors to not let her smell. She'd smelled enough bad stuff in her life time and didnt want to smell more. "got you covered, Hermana" she added her voice.

Hayden continued with rear security, watching back the way they'd come to ensure nobody was lurking back there, following them.

Poppy's voice sounded a little nervous as she as she and Cassie followed behind Sanda. As they closed in they saw a group of Xynar firing plasma rifles at some sort of shadow. A second of these shadow creatures came up behind them and from its mass it shot out tentacles and ripped the Xynar apart into chunks. There were more Xynar around, all in retreat or desperately fighting for their lives.

Yoshiro was scanning the area. "Possible hostile contact. Xynar infantry, and an unknown creature" Yoshiro said into comms.

"Mishu?' Yayoi asked her team as she watched the scene unfold stoically.

"Not Mishhu-" Kokoro corrected her, maybe a little too quickly as she watched with the rest of the team. "NNnandayo.. Why does it always have to be tentacles..." She cursed out under her breath.

"Unknown. All i know is it tore a soldier in half with little to no effort." Yoshiro said.

"Do we have a translation of the Xynar language?" Sanda asked Euikoshi. Maybe they could get the Xynar to regroup and find out what the hell was going on down here.

"Negative," Euikoshi responded. The signal was very bad down here from all the interference from the ancient system and weird interdimensional energy.

As the team advanced deeper into the core chamber, they began to encounter new adversaries: Dimensional Aberrations. These were nightmarish creatures born from the instability of dimensional breaches and failed experiments. They were amorphous, shifting entities with distorted, otherworldly shapes, almost like shadows given life. Their forms flickered and changed as they moved, creating a disorienting effect that made them difficult to target. They emitted low, guttural growls and had tentacle-like appendages that lashed out at anything nearby, disintegrating matter on contact. The aberrations seemed to be patrolling or hunting, as if drawn to the energies of the Dimensional Core.

Some of the ancient guardian constructs that the team had seen on the upper level were also present here, actively engaged in combat. These massive, humanoid machines moved with surprising agility for their size, and their weapons—integrated energy cannons and plasma blades—were deployed with deadly efficiency. They were clearly designed to protect the core at all costs and attacked both the Xynar and the aberrations without hesitation. However, they seemed to be ignoring the Resurgence team for now, possibly still interpreting them as non-hostile or simply as non-priorities.

"I advise not engaging the Xynar. It seems the entities are defending themselves and any hostile act is considered threatening." Yoshiro said

"I agree, the less attention we attract, the better," Poppy figured. She recorded everything and tried to send video back to Euikoshi. "This battle can't have gone on for a million years...the Xynar must've released these things by mistake," she guessed.

Yayoi watched the creatures silently, ready to attack should the creatures have the ability to sense the cloaked warriors. "agreed, and we do not know the creature's weaknesses either." Yayoi added.

"It looks like they're shoot-able," Cassie shrugged. "Ehhh...but yet...not touchable..." she said as she jumped out of one's way, only to watch it disintegrate a large machine it slammed into, causing the machine to spew energized liquid plasma out in a shower that rained down on Cassie like splattering acid. Thin whisps of smoke rose from her armor where it hit.

"It looks like they can bleed." Cheilith observed, holding her fire until the monsters presented a clearer threat.

"I'm rooting for our friend Big Robot," Hayden added.

"..." Kokoro blinked for a moment as she looked at Cassie, before her ears perked up in alarm. "Oh SHIT. CASSIE, THE ACID THEY CAN SEE YOU!" She yelled into the comms, whipping about to aim at the creature passing by, not shooting, but making sure it didnt go after the anthro.

"I'll try to stay low," Cassie said. "My armor is holding."

"Kokoro do not engage or show any hostility. The creatures will only attack hostile organisms." Yoshiro said

"Aw--tea----urgence. Approx---thousand Xynar converg--five mikes---" a garbled transmission came in. "Hostile ships--recommend you---"

"Repeat Resurgence. You are breaking up. Repeat." Sanda said. Things were going from bad to worse really fast.

"shit, sounds like trouble, what i can make out." Yayoi said

"We should get out of here. The ship might need us." Cheilith suggested.

"Team, Euikoshi--we just lost the teleporter pad's connection to the ship," Euikoshi warned the team. "They must have had to put the shields up."

"Stranding us down here. I need my teleporter pack back." Cheilith noted with frustration tinging her voice.

"Everyone fall back to the elevator and get up to the ancient temple. I set up defensive positions for us. We're going to have to hold out until the Resurgence can teleport us." Yoshiro said " unless someone has a better idea of what to do."

Yayoi stepped back, as she did she took note of the distortions and recorded it all.

The sounds of battle, both near and far, continued to echo through the cavern, punctuated by the screams of Xynar soldiers, the mechanical roars of guardian constructs, and the alien howls of aberrations.

Throughout the chamber, the team could see areas where the fabric of reality had become unstable. Dimensional rifts flickered like tears in the air, showing glimpses of other worlds—alien landscapes, distant stars, and sometimes things that defied comprehension. These rifts were unstable, and approaching them caused intense gravitational anomalies and spatial distortions. Objects nearby appeared to warp and stretch, and the air itself shimmered as if in a heat haze. Occasionally, smaller aberrations crawled out of these rifts, adding to the chaos.

It was increasingly clear that whatever was happening here was escalating, and they needed to act quickly to either secure the Control Nexus and shut down the Dimensional Core or risk the entire facility—and possibly the fabric of their reality—collapsing in on itself.

Scattered around the core and the surrounding platforms were strange, glowing crystals and nodes that seemed to draw power from the core itself. They pulsed with energy and were marked with more of the alien symbols. They could have been batteries, data storage units, or something more volatile.

"Is there a way to shut this down, Euikoshi? We need to stop whatever's happening so we can at least escape and tell our story?" Yoshiro said

"Above my pay grade. I pull triggers and make witty commentary," Hayden deferred, even if no one was asking him.

"I think if we can get past the rifts and these...aberrations..." Poppy said, not sure what else to call them, "I see what looks like controls on the other side. Maybe we could get Euikoshi to them?"

"Get her down here then." Sanda said. She began searching for a way through the chaos. "I'll find us as safe a path as I can."

"That's something I can do. Right behind you Heishō." Hayden answered.

"Euikoshi, Poppy, hide the teleporter pad and come down with us, we got some more controls down here," Dr. Poppy sent.

"Roger. On my way to the elevator. WHOA!! We got a fight upstairs," she said running across the huge chamber as fast as she could as Xynar reinforcements began to flood into the facility in droves. As she took the eleavator down she took a last look at hundreds of Xynar ganging up on one of the ancient guardian robots. A Xynar Hovertank drove into the base firing its main cannon into another of the guadians with a huge bang.

"Hayden, make sure they are safe, they are my teammates after all. You be safe too, that's an order." Yoshiro said

"I knew I should have brought a bigger gun," Hayden raised his weapon nonetheless, keeping cover despite his assessment of it. "I got you."

Yayoi moved into position preparing to defend Cassie and her team from attack, hoping her stealth can cover Cassie.

Beyond the core, at the far end of the cavern, lay the Control Nexus, a raised platform surrounded by more of the ancient consoles and volumetric displays similar to those above but more intricate and complex. This was the central control hub for the Dimensional Core, and it was partially operational. Holographic interfaces showed cryptic data on dimensional stability, energy fluctuations, and defense systems. However, many of the consoles were damaged or flickering erratically, possibly due to the ongoing conflict and damage to the facility’s systems.

Adjacent to the Control Nexus, there were sealed containment vaults—massive, reinforced doors with the same complex locking mechanisms seen in the upper level. These vaults were connected to the Dimensional Core and were designed to hold or isolate dimensional entities or devices. Some of the doors were still closed, but others were hanging open, their locks broken or overridden. Whatever had once been contained there may have already been released, either by the Xynar in their desperate attempts to control the facility or by the facility's own failing containment systems.

A chirp alerted Cassie that all her defensive work from earlier had been overrun by hordes of Xynar troopers.

"Resurgence actual, do you read? Do you read? We are under heavy attack by Xynar forces and are moving to defend. Will teleport when we can." Yoshiro said

There was no response for now. Maybe the Xynar were jamming them, or the dimensional instability was getting worse.

Euikoshi arrived at the base of the elevator and had to look away from all the dead bodies. "Holy shit," she said, sounding queasy. Then she saw the growling shadow demons, the growing rifts, and the general chaos. "HOLY SHIT!" she repeated.

Sanda marked a path on her teams HUDs that was less chaotic. "This way! Move it people!"

Kokoro moved to make sure Euikoshi got to the rest of the team without incident. "Holy shit is an understatement! Cmon!"

Yoshiro headed in the path marked on his HUD. He was going to make sure that no one gets hurt on his watch.

"Moving!" Euikoshi said, taking Kokoro's lead and doing her best to avoid getting caught in the epic crossfire of guardians, aberrations, and Xynar invaders. There were energy beams, plasma bolts, and armor-melting monsters flying through the air all around. As the team moved, they had to detour several times to avoid broken sections of platforms or unstable rifts that threatened to suck them out into unknown universes forever.

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Yoshiro, and Lizalopod... AND YUUKI And Soban

 

[Wes]

YE 46.5

Unknown Planet - Ancient Ruins - Lower Level: The Dimensional Core

The ancient facility groaned as the chaotic energies of the Dimensional Core intensified, sending tremors through the cavernous chamber. The once-stable blue lights that lined the walls were now flickering erratically, barely managing to illuminate the dark, multi-leveled abyss. An unsettling hum resonated throughout the vast space, a low, droning noise that seemed to emanate from the core itself, growing more discordant by the second.

Around the Resurgence team, the war zone stretched into a hellscape of fractured reality. The shadow-like aberrations prowled the platforms, flickering and shifting in their impossible forms as they tore through anything in their path—Xynar soldiers, guardian constructs, and sometimes the very metal of the facility itself. The air was thick with smoke, plasma discharges, and the acrid smell of burned metal and flesh. Dimensional rifts sporadically opened and closed, warping everything around them with gravitational anomalies that twisted the environment into surreal and dangerous shapes.

The Dimensional Core, a massive, pulsing sphere of interwoven energies, remained the focal point of this chaos, its surface shifting through an unnerving array of colors—blue, purple, red—each pulse sending out waves of disorienting light. The core's energy conduits thrummed with power, but they were clearly under strain, the occasional flare of electricity arcing wildly from damaged nodes.

The team had little time. Euikoshi's breath came in sharp gasps as she skidded to a halt behind a ruined pillar. "This is it," she shouted above the noise. "The Control Nexus is our only shot! If we can get there, I might be able to stabilize the core or at least slow this chaos down!" She glanced at the growing rifts with dread, the glimpses of alien landscapes and twisted realities sending a chill down her spine. "But we have to move now—before we're overwhelmed!"

Sanda led the team through this hell scape. Sevearl times she had to suddenly stop and fall back due to new rents suddnely apearing in their path. But the Ranger stayed true and kept the team out of the path of the worst of the fighting. Althought it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so. Finally, they were within just 50 feet of the raised platform.

Euikoshi clutched her equipment tightly, her face pale as she navigated through the escalating bedlam behind Sanda, staying low. Her eyes were locked on the Control Nexus, the raised platform where the potential solution lay—or perhaps, their doom.

Yayoi followed Sanda, and Euikosi closely, her right hand on her Aetheric Pulse Cannon ready to fire on anything that could see the stealthed away team.

Guardian constructs, massive and relentless, continued to engage both the Xynar and the aberrations with cold, mechanical precision. Their energy cannons flared with each shot, vaporizing anything that moved too close. But there were too many foes, and even these ancient defenders seemed hard-pressed to keep the core safe.

Yoshiro had his hand on his plasma rifle and watched the fighting that was going between the constructs, monsters and the Xynar. He wasn't sure what to do but was ready to protect his teammates. He was manuvering through the chaos and headed toward the Control Nexus.

Kokoro gripped her Aether Shotgun tightly as they moved along, flicking between targets as they passed them, just in case. "Its kinda getting worse..!"

As the team made it to the Control Nexus, Euikoshi immediately went to the controls. "I'm going to try to redirect the power flows and/or seal the dimensional rifts. But I don't know how much access I'll have. I'm deploying the hacking AI that we used before in the Mishhuvurthyar base on Acuna, maybe it can make sense of some of this ancient code. You'll have to defend me while I work," she explained, shouting over the chaos and gunfire.

"Do whatever you need to do!" Sanda yelled over the noise of the fighting. "Kokoro! Give her a hand, we'll cover you!" Sanda put herself between the science officer and the fighting going on around them. Her sheild had taken some stray hits but was mostly intact.

Yoshiro put his hand onn Kokoro's shoulder. "I got your back, Kokoro, don't worry. Take a breath and go help Euikoshi out." Yoshiro said and let her go to help Euikoshi to do what she needed to do.

Kokoro breathed out, before nodding! The mindy clad engineer scurried off after Euikoshi to see if she could be of help, keeping her gun on her hand..

At the far end of the core chamber, the elevator they'd come down on was starting to belch out legions of Xynar who hoped to capture the facility for their Dominion. As they tried to make a patch to the control Nexus they came under attack by the guardian robots as well as the dimensional aberrations, but they came in such numbers that they might reach the Star Army team anyway. Poppy and Cassie worked to stop some of them, pushing some the Xynar so they fell over the edge of the damaged walkways and into the distorted rifts where they were uncontrollably hurled out of the universe.

Plasma beams impacted on the wall behind Euikoshi and Kokoro as the Xynar spotted them in the control Nexus and tried to remove them by force. By now there was so much distortion, smoke, and fire, that stealth systems just weren't working that well. Not only were the shapes of their Mindy armors visible but also there were stealthed Xynar the Star Army team hadn't been able to see until now, who had their own advanced Mindy-like camouflage systems.

Holding his plasma rifle, Yoshiro charged the Xynar that attacked Euikoshi and Kokoro. "No you don't!" Yoshiro said as he drew his sword and started to cut down the Xynar or at least try to. "You Xynar fucked around and now you're going to find out that you don't mess with the Star Army of Yamatai!" His plasma rifle firing and sword slashing the Xynar and the few abominations that attacked him.

Yayoi stoically and silently added some power to her shields, as she attempted to block some of the Xynar attacking them.

"Routing power away from the damaged sections to stop rifts from forming," Euikoshi said. The team could see a change in the rate of portals opening.

Sanda raised her sheild to block the incoming shots from the Xynar fired at Euikoshi and Kokoro. The Ranger gritted her teeth as she took notice that the Xynar had their own stealth suits. She hated not being able to return fire, but there was too great a risk that they would come under fire from the Gardians. "Hurry up!" She wanted to get into the fight at close range and see just what these Xynar were made of.

"Anything you need me to do???" Kokoro gritted her teeth as she watched some of those plasma shots fly by, raising her aether weapon back to where they came from. She didnt fire yet, seeing as Yoshiro and Sanda, and Yayoi were covering them.

"I want you to use this console to target and close the dimensional rifts," Euikoshi told Kokoro. "It should destabilize them them. If you can close the rifts while the aberrations are next to them, they could get pulled back where they came from...I think."

"Hey, like, we're worried about angering the killer statue robots right? What if... what if they know we're their bros? Like, let's ask if it's ok to shoot or something," Hayden pondered, "Talking to them worked last time right?"

"Sure, why not?" Euikoshi shrugged. "I'm also having our hacking intelligence override the lockdown protocols and mark us as friendlies. No ETA on it though. But if we can control the security systems we might be able to lock out the Xynar reinforcements."

"Hayden, tell the constructs that we are on their side and we are trying to help them."Yoshiro said as he stabbed a Xynar in the heart and shot a another Xynar in the leg with his plasma rifle.

It took a moment for Hayden to process he was being given the go ahead to do it. For just a brief moment, Hayden was finally silent for a while. "Oh! Right. On it." He scanned the area for one that he could get to without exposing himself too much to the crossfire, flitting around in stealth high up towards th ceiling.

Finding the closest match, he unstealthed nearby within its field of vision and waved both his arms, while being wary of lines of sight from the ground. "Hey, my killer robot dude, remember me? Hey," Hayden mimed the process of shooting and pointed at the nearest cluster of Xynar and the nearest eldritch rift horror, and at himself, then back at the targets. "May? We? Shoot? Them? With? You?" Another gun motion, and he pointed to his weapon.

After a moment the large robot replied, "ASSISTANCE IS WELCOME. DO NOT DAMAGE FACILITY."

"Right!" Kokoro hesitated as she took in the, alien interface on the console, before slowly beginning to pick up on it and utilize it. She began to pick off and close the rifts closest to the away team, while selectively leaving the ones being engaged by Xynar to be closed later.

Cassie continued to try to hold back the waves of Xynar troopers. "There's too many of them!" she shouted. "We need a plan."

"Keep fighting, Cassie! Don't give up!" Yoshiro said to Cassie. "We've almost reached our objective!" He stabbed another Xynar "Time to get some!" He kept returning

"ALL RIGHT SON," Hayden roared over the comms, "It's ON!" He perched near the monstrous construct's shoulder and used it as a sniping nest, raining fire on selected targets from the cover of its bulk. "You heard my man!"

"¡Finalmente! Weapons Free!" Sanda yelled even as she began firing her plasma rifle and shoulder mounted gauss cannon. She began retuning fire first at those who were shooting at her before turning her aim towards the exposed stealth suits that were trying to be all sneaky. Pathetic bastards didn't have a patch on the Yamatai Rangers.

"Copy that," Yayoi said as she fired her Aethic Pulse Cannons, but made sure not to damage the facility as requested.

Poppy screamed as the platform below her was damaged by a Xynar plasma grenade and fell out of under her, dipping one side into a swirling portal to alternate dimension where everything was made of blocks and there was a blocky sheep visible thorugh the portal. She scrambled up the dangling walkway just as it fell away, barely making it up with the assitance of her Mindy armor's antigrav systems.

"Poppy, you okay?" Yoshiro asked as he stabbed some more Xynar and kicked a Xynar right in the balls. He was actually tired of the Xynar's bullshit and decided to fight and talk trash like he always did.

"I'm okay!" Poppy shouted, taking a few plasma hits as she ran into the control Nexus for cover. "Ow, ow! Once we save the facility we got to choose what we're going to do with it, maybe sooner or later, because there's hundreds of them and less than 10 of us in here," she pointed out.

Eukoshi bounced in front of the million year hold computers. "I think it's working! It's stabilizing! Keep closing the remaining rifts, Kokoro!"

"Hai!" Kokoro nodded as she sped up the pace at which she was closing the dimensional rifts. She stopped selectively leaving some out, working on closing as many as she could. This did however, mean that the Xynar were less and less impeded by the dimensional rifts and monsters.

"Hey trashbags, you want to fight me? Come on! Let's groove tonight!" Yoshiro said to a Xynar.

Hayden switched shoulders, to fire from atop the construct in the other direction, "My man, you got any advice for us? Can we use our call a friend on this one? You know someone that can speed up this process of making the universe stop coming open"

One of the huge guardian robots made a sad wail as it crashed down on its face near Hayden, after being shot to hell by the Xynar, who were starting to bring tanks and heavy weapons down the elevator now that their infantry owned that side of the chamber.

Yayoi focused her attack on the Xynar, making sure to come to the aid of the other Guardians if the Xynar got to be too much for them.

"Entonces es una pelea justa." Sanda muttered as she used her sheild like a club and bashed a Xynar that rushed the platform. She slashed at the next one with her bayonett attached to her rifle before firing again. She kept her gauss cannon firing at the larger vehicles that the Xynar had brought.

Euikoshi raised an eyebrow and ran to Kokoro's console. She changed its mode to a sort of control mode and she explained, "Okay, Kokoro, if my understanding is correct, you can use this to move the rifts. You see the elevator over there that we came in on? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" she asked.

Kokoro paused as she glanced towards Euikoshi, before grinning under her helmet. "Hyehyehye... Lets throw them all somewhere nasty!" She began flicking through the options on the console, trying to find the worst rift possible to hurl at the Xynar.

Yoshiro fired mini-missiles at the tanks and heavy weaponry that the Xynar. "Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!!!" Yoshiro shouted and continued to fire his plasma rifle and mini-missiles at the Xynar tanks.

Yayoi turned her head, then the realization hit her on what they planned, and almost smiled. Interesting idea, she thought as she fired on the Xynar.

"As a last resort, we may have to escape through one of the rifts," Poppy pointed out, seeing the hundreds of Xynar soldiers trying to bumrush their position.

"And leave this place for the Xynar to claim? Not that they're giving us much choice in the matter." Sanda agreed. She took a jaring hit to her helmet that rang her bell and almost cracked her HUD. "Quieres jugar duro, ¿verdad?"

Cassie looked down at her fat duffelbag of explosives then at the control Nexus. "I mean, we could..." she reluctantly offered. "What a waste though."

"I am not sure that we should. This is a place that has cultural significance to its people." Yoshiro said and looked around. "This place is too valuable to them and if we blow it up, what happens to our trust level with these same people?"

"Could really use a Rikugon Legion right now," Poppy said. "I wonder if we have teleportation back online. Unfortunately the pad is hidden on the main level. If we can talk to the ship they might be able to move it down here. If it's the end I'd rather go down fighting and wake up in the medlab than surrender to an unknown military force."

"Sounds like a good idea, we could also used that to escape too if need be" Yayoi said, not quite keen on a dimensional hopping trip. Though waking up in the Medlab after respawning, may not be fun especially

"Wasnt there heavy interference preventing us from communicating?" Kokoro grinned as she found a pretty nasty rift to play with. Something about demons and hellfire, fun. She motioned Euikoshi over to make sure they pulled off their little stunt. "I think we can use this one!"

Eukoshi told Kokoro, " As we clear the rifts....the comms interference is clearing up. Here, sweep up that tank, then put it at the elevator exit."

"What if we could just push them all through one? Just like, flush them away..." Hayden got to pondering again while continuing to fire from his still-operational construct.

"Dammit Hayden, I'm a doctor, not a plumber," Poppy chastised.

Sanda wasn't keen on the idea of waking up on the ship. She'd rather take her chances trying to escape from an unknown military force. But they weren't dead yet. "I could try to make a brake for the teleportation pad." Sanda suggested as she paused to let her gauss cannon reload itself with another mag. She only had two left for the big cannon. "If anyone could make it, it would be me or Yayoi."

Yayoi nodded indeed, she believed that Sanda was correct in them making it, but she said nothing, mostly became distracted as she watched the rifts move.

Hayden tapped his new friend, "Hey, we can get a lot more assistance if those two can get back to over there," he gestured in the direction of the pad after pointing at Sanda and Yayoi. "Can we, you know, coordinate assistance?"

"CURRENTLY OCCUPIED," the guardian robot said, as it went on a rampage, machine-gunning its plasma cannon arms at the Xynar soldiers. Its heavy weapons were essentially starship grade, and their power armor couldn't hold up so it was mowing them down by the dozens.

Kokoro grinned as she worked with Eukoshi to move the rift towards the tank at first, trying to get it to fall in. "Hold that thought Heisho!"

As Kokoro moved the rift, the Xynar forces it touched began to be ripped to ribbons and disintegrated as it and its shadowy aberrations touched its distorted edges.

"Go for it," Poppy told Sanda. "Good luck and watch yourself," she said. Just then one of the dimensional aberrations entered the control Nexus and began reaching for Euikoshi with its shadow tentacles. "Watch out!" Poppy screamed.

Sanda was in the process of setting her shield down when Poppy yelled out her warning. Sanda quickly picked back up her sheild and threw it side armed like a frisby as hard as she could at the abomination to distract it while she fired her plasma rifle at it.

Yoshiro saw Sanda in trouble or so he thought but he took his sword and slashed the tentacles. "No one hurts my team!" he shouted and then became a whirlwind of slashes. He then fired his plasma rifle into the thing. "Take it like a demonic aberration and die!"

Sanda's shield burst into flaming chunks in a shower of sparks as the aberration's tenctacle slammed into it...something that shocked Poppy because she'd never seen Zesuaium break like that before. These were nasty entities indeed. But they weren't immune to aether, and the dark shadow stumbled back as it took hit after hit of aether and plasma blasts.

Kokoro gritted her teeth as she saw the abberation reach out for Eukoshi, before breathing out as the rest of the team handled it. She continued to move the rift for the tank, trying to scoop the metallic beat up and send it to hell- no literally... "Hey so- if were going to move this to the elevator next- Sanda wont be able to leave and get the teleporter pad.. right??"

Yayoi fired her Aetheric Pulses at the creatures, having seen how it affected them. She wondered if they came from the dimension similar to Aether.

Yoshiro continued to fire his plasma rifle and stabbing the thing. "HAHAHAHAHA! TIME TO DIE YOU CHEAP SPECIAL EFFECT FROM THE WORSE MOVIE EVER!!!!" Yoshiro shouted and continued to laugh maniacally and continued stabbing and shooting this abomination.

Sanda didn't waste any time gasping at the fact that the abomination had destroyed her Zesuaium shield. They needed a way out of there and fast. Sanda slung her plasma rifle across her back and drew her sword. Arc. The blade seemed to flash with currents of lighting as she drew it from its scaberd. She quickly saluted her team then took off at dead run at an angle away from the main fight. Koyama had taught her well.

"We'll have to time it for her," Euikoshi told Kokoro. "Let's get started!"

As Euikoshi continued to work, the dimensional core began to stabilize and the erratic lights and distortions began to calm into a blue glow with a steady hum. Fires raged around the chamber and there were hundreds of bodies stacked up but it was starting to get less chaotic. The guardian robots seemed to be winning now, and were focusing on the aberrations, trying to put them back into the containment cells on the sides of the chamber using some sort of glowing energy nets.

The rifts had caused no end of damage to the room. The floor was uneven in many places and in other it was completely gone. Sanda moved with quickly. Whenever she came upon the Xynar she struck quickly and deadly. Koyama had taught her well. She didn't waste time on fights she couldn't win instantly. Dissarm or mame whatever was in front of her and keep moving.

Yoshiro started to move, continuing to cover his teammates. Fighting if he needed to and avoiding fights that weren't important, firing and stabbing.

Yayoi knew Sanda would make it, she was quick and strong. But yayoi knew in a heartbeat she'd hurry to catch up and aid her if she had to. For now she covered Sanda's run, firing at the creatures to stop them.

Kokoro held off on moving the one rift to cull more xynar, waiting for Sanda to go up the elevator to get the teleporter.

Once Sanda was through and Kokoro moved the rift in front of the elevator, the Xynar were essentially blocked from sending more troops down into the dimensional core level. For a moment, the away team was able to get a respite to catch their breath...

Kokoro laughed maniacally as she watched the rift eat away at the Xynar forces. "HYEHYEHYE!!! YEAH!! EAT SHIT!!!"

Yoshiro took a breath while there was a break in the action. "That was fun. I want to do it again." Yoshiro said as he watched the Xynar get eaten up by the rifts and laughed maniacally as it happened.

= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Charaa, Cowboy, Yoshiro, and Lizalopod... AND YUUKI