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Ametheliana

Head in the Stars
Staff Member
🌟 Site Supporter
🌸 FM of Yamatai
🎖️ Game Master
Kagami Galaxy
Near Kuvexian Border

-

YSS Kaiyō II
Wardroom


"It makes sense," Hoshi said with a voice that demanded attention from the front of the wardroom. She set her face straighter and repeated herself, as these were her first spoken words since the crew had filtered in besides curt greetings to those that had approached her. "It makes sense that the ship is abuzz, and has been, as Love Day is only tomorrow. But those thoughts of anticipation for... Those thoughts of anticipation must be set aside for the time being. The ship is also fast approaching an event of a different kind. Of a different magnitude." She nodded as her head looked over her shoulder and the epic Hinomaru faded away and from the wall grew a volumetric projection that took shape as it grew in size. The structure, which appeared to be a cut-out of a clustering of installations of different types within one station-like protrusion in space, had moved from the screen behind Hoshi to be able to be observed by everyone in the room.

"This is what we will be incapacitating today." She breathed out, a heavy sigh, to look away from the almost crystalline structure and down at her crew. "Our cloning facilities, Yamataian cloning facilities make our own people. This one," Her deep blue eyes flickered up, then seemed to fill with animosity as she scowled, "Clone the races that Kuvexia has subjugated, but, it goes deeper." The volumetric projection began zooming in on a region nearest Hoshi, showing a series of bulb-topped temples. "The Kuvexians have replicated these alien race's places of worship, sort of shrines, and made them into, well, cloning facilities to recreate the leaders and," Hoshi searched for the word as the projection moved on to another place of worship on the structure, of which there were five in total. "The Kami, but that is not quite right. The deities and Gods of the races, the figures that the races worship. The Kuvexians clone them here. Some of these um, these churches," Hoshi looked to Eden, who nodded and continued, "these churches are built on the rubble of older ones. This is not something new, but it is something they are doing, for whatever reason, and have done. It is a way for Kuvexians to subjugate the races they have enslaved or allied." The projection began to show the third, then fourth place of worship as Hoshi walked about the room.

"It is, frankly, disgusting to me. I didn't ask for this mission, for the opportunity to release these aliens from the torment they must feel, but I would have if I could have. As it stands, I will accept nothing but complete mission success. That will not be easy, but it will be what we do. It won't be easy because of many reasons, such as civilian casualties. We want to avoid those. But, it won't be as easy as killing or capturing only Kuvexians. Some aliens of these subjugated races will be working so closely with the Kuvexians that they, too, will be threats. We also don't have a central location determined as where any head of operations will lay. It seems all five of these structures will need to be incapacitated individually. Some of the installations have known failsafes, such as this," Hoshi said and a steepled building was presented closer than the rest of the projection. "Others do not, so we will we be relying on a mixture of brawn, brains, and beauty. Speaking of," Hoshi bowed her head to look at Eden, who again nodded, "The Chusa Teien Eden will be leading the ground team. I want her to field any questions after she gives her own short brief."

"The armor team will," Eden began without a beat of rest, "be deploying in half an hour to an hour, depending on helm. If we were coming from Kuvexian space, it would be an easy entrance, but our trajectory to it means we will have to navigate an... interesting series of debris rings before we can make a power armored approach to the station." Eden nodded to Gravity, "I am preemptively thanking you for getting us through it. If anyone can, I believe it to be you, Nitô Heisho." She smiled, then looked from the blue skinned Nekovalkyrja to the blueish glow in the middle of the room.

"My team will begin here," Eden said as the volumetric projection zoomed in on the bulbous-topped temple structure. The volumetric projection clamped together, like a clam would. "This is what the station looks like from the outside. It has minimal armaments and a maintenance access point we will exploit above this shrine," the projection moved about ambiguously through the maintenance point and into the station to look at the bulbous-topped temple. "Which we will call 'Location 1' for the sake of the mission. Once we are through the maintenance access point and to Location 1, we will need to deduce whether we need to secure a failsafe for the cloning facilities, convince the aliens there to do so, or destroy it outright." The volumetric projection moved on to the other places of worship. "The same with Location 2, 3, 4, and, finally, 5. The second and fourth ones have failsafes," the projection showed a large lever located behind a tall statue in the second location and a trapdoor in the ceiling of the fourth that led to a large series of equipment, which had a large round button as the central point of focus of the projection, though the button was mixed in with lots of others much like it.

"What we know of the Kuvexian language, I am sending to your minds or Mindy, though the knowledge is few and far between. Mission objectives have been sent, too. We don't know much about the alien races being cloned here, we'll be learning as we go in that regard. Rights of first contact can be read when we have secured their freedom, namely after complete mission success. Any questions?" Eden's lower lip moved into her mouth momentarily as her expression became focused on the crew, scanning each face.
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


Gravity raised a hand from her position on the sofa, her feet kicked up on a coffee table.

"Enemy vessels and anti-ship guns are a given on the structure itself, but what about the debris fields, Chusa? Are we able to do any scans for mines and other traps? It can't be as simple as dodging the space junk." asked the pilot, her eyes darting to and fro on the schematics of the structure, looking for possible hiding spots and places to shield the ship from incoming fire. Then, she moved on to the debris fields themselves, and began picking apart what looked like the most direct route to the station.

Once that was done, she took that route and tried to scramble it up with random detours. Because as good ol' Murphy once said: "The easy way is always mined."
 
YSS Kaiyō II
Wardroom


Eden looked gravely at Gravity, "There is a reason they backed the station up against these debris rings. For the most part, the rings are a part of a larger natural space belt. Given that, most of the debris themselves are gaseous in nature, some more volatile than the next. Bumping some of them, even barely, could result in cataclysmic failure of the mission, along with the ship, possibly even the station could be taken out if we make one wrong move. What's more, some of them may be able to be triggered in some unforeseeable way by the enemy. I expect traps, as do you, it seems, and we'll scan for mines and rigs," Eden said, looking to her friend Deio Asuka, who nodded back at her, "once the bridge crew are at their stations. Thank you, Heisho."
 
Sacre shook her head, "Those poor idiots." She muttered under her breath. "Do we know what kind of internal security the station has? It would be nice to know what's shooting back at us. Worst case scenario, we'll have to fight the people we are trying to rescue. Keep in mind our forearm cannons have a stun setting. Soon as you suit up, switch over to stun so you always have the option." Sacre asked, trying to get a better picture of what they would be required to do.

"If I were the Kuvexians, I'd have a failsafe in all five. So in One, Three, and Five. We will have to locate it quickly and efficiently. Judging by their placement in Two and Four, I suspect that they will be in the temple and easily accessible by the clergy. Given that, we should prefer securing the failsafes ourselves either physically or by destruction rather then relying on the natives to do so as some of the natives may be Kuvexian plants. It only takes one of them in the wrong place to trigger the failsafe and likely kill us all. We know exactly where they are in two and four. In two, I think two people flanking the lever will be sufficient. In four, I think that three, two in front of the... 'control panel' and one behind it should suffice. Do we know what kinds of beliefs the natives have?" Sacre asked.
 
YSS Kaiyō II
Wardroom

Eden's face was even more grim, now, as she heard Sacre speak. "Thank you, Sanssinia-heisho, for your thoughtful analysis, of which I agree. To answer your question, each of the five centers for worship works, to an extent, off of the culture of the alien race that is present there. Belief-wise, each of these places will be different in their own ways, but the overarching purpose that these are places for," Eden searched for the term, then looked directly at the Separa'Shan, "war-mongering. They have been built to reintroduce the old leaders and people, or things, of importance to the alien races in order to lead them in battle. To lead them in battle against us. So, the belief of the station, as a whole, is one of Kuvexian rule. The aliens being brought are not teaching the old ways of the aliens they once represented, but are skewing their traditions to align with the corporate government structure of Kuvexia." Eden's brows had furrowed and she looked troubled, now, as she asked, "Does that answer your question?"
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


Elenor raised a hand. "Do we know which races and in particular which religions we're dealing with? Might be a good idea to have a rough database dump to our systems so we can try and talk with some of these people. Maybe sway them to our side using their own religious doctrines. I'm not gonna say we can pull off being clergy of these religions, but we can at the very least prove which scriptures were twisted and manipulated." Elenor asked, having a notepad and pen out, as she was working on some notes of her own.

"In addition, considering the situation, are we expecting a lot of PA equipped hostiles, or is this primarily gonna be us in PA versus them in ballistic kit? Knowing what kind of armaments we'll need for any primary resistance force we'll be facing as we move through would tell us what sort of kit to bring along for the ride."
 
Kiyomori stood there silently, the light of the Holograms flashing before her eyes as she watched and listened with an expression of a frown on her lips. Her tail moved up to scratch her back as she watched and listened to the briefing from their captain Hoshi, and then from their Chusa Eden. She shifted on her feet, before moving closer to get a closer look at the Holograms of the bases she never could understand the whole religion side of life, but then she knew who her creators were and they weren’t exactly gods.

Her mouth pursed its lips as it shifted to the left a little in thought. She thought about the plan of attack as it was discussed, and she heard Kara’s question, then the response before Sacre’s words as she allowed her mind to think it through.

She thought she understood the plan, get in her Mindy, and take out the enemy seemed simple enough, but the others were right, they needed to worry about the aliens that were captured, and she knew that it was likely because of their own fear of death that they might attack. She made a mental note to make sure her weapon had the stun setting on.
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


In the back of the wardroom, Mikael listens on as he has his arms crossed. He didn't particularly feel any compassion for these aliens. And his face for anyone that might have noticed went stone like when Hoshi mentioned some were so close to those that enslaved them.

He then looks over towards the ranger. "It sounds like the clergy sympathizers for the Ku and assassinating them would only make them martyrs. And those always make things messy for propaganda." Mikael says before pondering.

"Perhaps this is an excellent opportunity to gain more information on their religions so we can adjust our efforts..."
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


Saya listened closely to the words of her leaders, eyes on the holograms. She had a question of her own but held her tongue until the others said their piece and eventually piped up.

"What about those that want us to save them? Is rescue secondary? Any plans for extraction of civilian turncoats?" Saya asked as she thought about it. The others had the ideas for the combat side, but the pink haired medic seemed more intent on those they could help.

"I understand our primary mission is to control the sites, but I'm not sure what our plans are for the civilians that want to aid us."
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


"A few of us could bring dorsal teleportation modules and spare AMES, it would serve a dual purpose of us being able to both ferry those we might need to and bug out if a situation becomes too frantic~ I volunteer myself to bring one seeing as I doubt my usual fusion generator would come in handy on this particular mission," Wyatt suggested as he began mentally sending a new loadout off to the armourers, his amber gaze slowly panning across from the volumetric display to Saya as he reciprocated her point with a possible solution - being able to blink in and out of existence didn't seem like it would be a bad thing regardless though he did offer Sacre a nod of agreement, it sometimes seemed like people were too busy using their armour to remember all the functions it was capable of.

It was good to be back on the ship though, he had missed this and was happy to trade the sterile hallways of his Yamataian posting with the equally sterile hallways of the Kaiyo-II.
 
YSS Kaiyō II
Wardroom


Ragnar was frustrated that he’d have point this out; but he did so with his usual gravel and tried to appear detached while reading over some study material for his higher level medical training. “Maybe I’m being grim for pointing this out but turncoats may not be turncoats. Bringing anyone that throws their arms up back to the ship could end very badly. We got three medics here, for crew safety why don’t the shooters do their job and let us sort out the mess?” He sighed and put down the extensive material on pulmonary functions. “I’d rather torch the whole place than lose a single crew member. If I’m busy patching a local or one of y’all up a full charge weapon would secure us better than hoping stun does its job.”

He looked at Sacre and sent her a mental message, “let’s make sure the mindys have triage tags.” Before turning to Saya and similarly sending a mental message, “let’s let the gun bunnies focus on who and how to shoot and the bandaid brigade will pick up the pieces.” He smiled as reassuringly as his big self could.
 
YSS Kaiyō II
Wardroom


Odo stood and listened to the briefing at the back. The approach was going to be interesting, according to the captain. while the rest of the crew asked about possible enemies and plans, Odo though about securing the ship and minimizing damage. Depending on how bad the debris field was supposed to be, they may need to be more rigorous than usual.

He piped up when he had a chance too. "Anything engineering needs to be ready for, apart from normal lockdown and securing procedures?" He asked.
 
"...sschochtehn..."

Off to the side, the beefy snakeman Abart'huse let a small curse in his native tongue slip under his breath. The religious undertones of this mission did not rub him the right way, at all. Considering Essia's recent capture, he came to realize how easily it could have been him there, within that wretched place of trickery and mindgames. As the intel thus far lacked any species specifics, he couldn't rule out the possibility to find some of his own in there..... the thought filled him with disgust for those smelly fishlike "schochten", as he so eloquently put it.

Downing another soft boiled egg from his plate, the snakeman silently listened. One of the newer neko already brought up the question of the potential opposing races, so asking again would be pointless. A part of him wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer, but at this point, there was no way around it. He would come to find out one way or another, and if there were indeed Separa aboard that station, he would make damn sure to get them all out of there in one piece.

Next to him, his dearest aunt Nerai'tha sipped the last of her morning coffee, looking on at the intricate projection. With her keen ear she picked up on her nephew's slip of the footlong tongue. Despite not being as religious as the rest of her close relatives, she couldn't deny feeling the same way as Abart. If only that was all that was on her mind at this moment. Throughout the meeting she was trying not to think about the events of a few days ago...

-2 days ago-

Briefly after their sweet moment, Nerai's time with Mark was once again cut shors by factors way out of their control. His sudden call back to classified places was unexpected, but at this point there was nothing to be done about it. If anything the one consolidation she had was that this time, she knew he was doing fine and well. She knew that it was only a matter of time before they saw eachother again, and they would see eachother again. She'd make sure of it.

Now as Mark walked down the ramp off the kaiyo, Nerai briefly stopped him one more time in front of the rest of the crew who were present. She took a hold of his shoulders, propping herself up on her large serpentine tail slightly. Before he knew it, their lips were smuched together in one last kiss goodbye. Lasting a good ten seconds, Nerai's erratic breaths betrayed her bittersweet feelings within that very moment. With one small tear across her cheek, she broke off the kiss. ".....Be safe out there, okay?"

-Present-

Bringing the cup down to the table, she took a firm breath, before raising her hand to speak up. "Do we have any ETA on reinforcements, should someone aboard call for backup?" The asteroid field made any approach difficult indeed, but the same would go for leaving the location. With movement limited and the Armor teams out and about, the ship itself would be at it's most vulnerable, relatively speaking.
 
YSS KAIYO II
Wardroom


Saya nodded and smiled to Wyatt for his idea, yet all the same nodded to Ragnar as he cut in mentally to her head. She understood his thought process, there was the concern of spies or agents that would try and plant themselves in to cause havoc, but the thought of injuring innocents just rubbed her the wrong way.

"And if we hurt them before we help them, it only serves to drive them to the mindset of hurting us in return. It could cause those that are innocent and simply looking for asylum to actively pursue the idea of planting and causing damage when they get the chance for revenge of what we had just done to them, not to mention it could cause them to panic and cause even more mayhem for our combat experts." She offered back mentally, not in a cruel or antagonizing tone, more so worried.
 
Sacre's eyes flitted to her two subordinates looking at each outher. She wasn't a telepath, but she knew when two were talking to each other. It irritated her slightly being unable to fly or speak telepathically in a society where such abilities were everyday. It almost make her feel like she was disabled, which she wasn't. "That's not our job here. As the captain said, our mission objectives include not injuring the captives beyond what is strictly required. They have all of the rights of first contact, and we'll have to respect that. If it means that we've got to put a few more patches on, then that's what we'll have to do."

Sacre turned back to the table. She could see Gravity plotting out in her head how she was going to fly the ship. She looked so determined and beautiful to Sacre. For a moment, Sacre's mind was taken back to the previous night on the Observation deck. Gravity had been hovering at just the right height. Sacre had run her hand through the Neko's soft hair and their lips had met under the stars. It had been a gently exploring kiss of lovers who knew each outher well and just wanted to enjoy the sensation. It had lingered, at times playful and at other times passionate. Sacre shook her head, getting herself back into the briefing.

"Not really, no. But Elenor stated my question from a different angle." She said in response to Eden's question
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom

Chlorate remained at the back of the group, unusually quiet. No questions. No requests. No words. No beeps. Not even any clanks. Nothing. It was almost like she shut down, but that couldn't be the case since her eyes were lit up. She couldn't say anything, still thinking about her father. Now that Mark was gone, she had none again. This had happened before shortly after her creation, and it didn't feel any better this time. In her mind, sadness was an illogical feeling, yet the robotic girl still experienced it.

Kiki was also sad, though she fared better than Chlorate. She had been looking down like a sad bird, but upon hearing Odo, she seconded "Same... Same question... What will Engineering's duties be in this mission?" She'd dealt with loss before, yet it didn't make her able to make the feeling go away. She chose to try to distract herself from it, looking at the captain, but she didn't have much else to think about right now.
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


Klaus listened half heartedly to the briefing in the wardroom. He paid attention to the important parts and to the crew's questions but he couldn't truly commit himself to it. He was feeling down in these past few days, almost always in a state of melancholy and introspection. The reason? The sudden departure of Mark Oaklen. Mark had been a sort of teacher and older brother to Klaus during his time here, to see him gone saddened Klaus immensely. But that wasn't the true reason for his sorrow.

Mark reminded Klaus of his father. It was as simple as that. To have someone like his father gone, drove a deeper wound on his heart that he cared to admit. The only saving grace was that Mark was reassigned, not dead forever like Baldur Kurogane was.

'Damnit Klaus! Focus! If Mark was here he'd pay attention.' he chastised himself.

Focusing again, on the mission, Klaus couldn't help but tighten his fists in impotent anger. Slavery. How he detested such a thing. Almost as much as the fact that once upon a time Yamatai considered such a heinous crime legal. As listened his rage surged yet again. To desecrate the religions of those they enslaved, truly there was no end to Kuvexian sadism. He wasn't a religious man himself, but Klaus respected anyone who could look into the chaotic mess of the universe and draw altruistic beliefs from it.

Klaus listened to everyone's questions and the Chusa's answers. From the sound of it, it was going to be complicated.
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


Even though the daur had been one of the last to file in at the start of the meeting, she'd found her way through the crowd to stand near the front of the group. With arms crossed over her chest and her weight shifted to primarily lie on one foot, causing her hip to pop out to the side, she'd watch the holograms play in the air above them, her ears cocked and drinking in every word her fellow crewmates and commanders spoke. As the room seemed to buzz with questions and unease at the situation before them, with no general consensus on what course of action to take, the daur found herself just as puzzled on what to do.

Her background brought her from another civilization different from that of Yamatai, one that did hold the belief in a benevolent goddess, one that was responsible for their creation and existence. While she was never the most devout follower of the Kurieste religion, she, herself, could not totally discredit it, for it was all an unknown. Whether any of it were to be real or not did not matter, for she understood that just the belief in such a matter made it real. Such was the nature of these things.

Nora's tail flicked behind her as her eyebrows furrowed. Her chin tucked in as one of her hands moved up to rest under it, her icy blue eyes glaring coldly down at the floor as her brain turned over the situation. If she was being honest...they were damned no matter what they did. On one instance, they leave Kuvaxian's to continue with their forced assimilation practices and exploitation, preaching of the evils of their enemies and raising generations of new threats that would persist for longer than any of their lifetimes. And on the other hand, they are faced with launching a hostile takeover and confirming any such teachings the Kuvaxians have already managed to preach to the locals. Even if the local alien races hated the Kuvaxians, to them, Yamatai may as well be the same thing; another faction using them for their own purposes.
 
YSS Kaiyo II
Wardroom


Alastair was not far off from where Hoshi and Eden was taking center stage. His mind was fully on the mission ahead and the challenges that would face the crew. He knew far too well the power of organized beliefs and the power this held over people. He could not help but think of his family and the almost cult following it had. Sure it was business but at other times the people who worked and served the Belmonts at the compound seemed far to eager to please. Personally Alastair was never a fan of this for was this true loyalty or just sheep following the herd. Hoping to not be on the wolf's menu that day.

He lifted his head up more and looked out at his crew. The mission was going to be dangerous and require people to make tough moral chooses. He wondered how many would be able to pull the trigger when facing down someone who was morally misguided. Chances were high they would be facing people informed how evil the Star Army of Yamatai was. These lies and half truths would manifest into a hatred like none other.

A smile crossed his face as he looked over to Eden and Hoshi. He smiled knowing that his crew would come back alive. That was his unspoken promise to everyone in the wardroom. No matter the situation he would do what was right and protect what he held most dear. May whatever god they worship have pity on them for Alastair shall give none.
 
YSS Kaiyō II
Wardroom


Hoshi and Eden both looked to Elenor, but Eden spoke, "No, to all of your questions. The enemy response teams and their capabilities and equipment are currently unknown. We have some semblance of understanding about the L'Kor and the Elefirn, of which the Kuvexians subjugate. Neither of these races are present on the station. Intelligence reports that most of the races, or all of them, are in the process of being subjugated and this technique, this station, is meant to be a catalyst for such a thing." She looked about, "Some good points were brought up over killing versus containment. I want to bring up one of my own.

"Think about yourselves. When you die on the battlefield, is it the end of your life? Or are you likely to wake up in a medical facility in a safe haven, such as this ship? The whole station's purpose is soul transfer, so we know the Kuvexian's and, perhaps, those they subjugate can say the same for themselves. Think about that, when you take a life on the battlefield, you are ensuring that the soul you killed will wake up, again.

"For that reason, I advise everyone to re-acclimate themselves to the PoW regs. Type 33 PoW handling kits will be in the power armor bay. Every butt-pack could do with a few flexcuffs and tracking bracelets, in my opinion. To answer Fujiwara-hei more transparently, we are executing this mission not to take the installation, but to give," Eden's golden eyes moved over the volumetric installation, then she spoke, "hope. Hope to those whose culture and way of life has been bent to the whims of the Kuvexians." She had looked pained momentarily, then she smiled dimly, "Controlling the sites is meant to support us giving aid to the civilians that have lost control over their own destinies. We want to treat the civilians as if they mean everything to us. If a civilian is hostile, cuff or incapacitate them and move on to the larger goal. Civilians that are friendly, we will direct them to Location 1 for extraction from the station. That means we will want to irreperably incapicate that location's ability to soul transfer, to avoid later problems should they..." Eden thought of a phrase one of her crew had used and said somberly, "should they turn their coats again."

She looked about the room, reminding herself of questions asked as they popped up in her mind's HUD.

"Bringing AMES and teleportation units specifically to move the aliens we encounter was looked into, but there will simply be a great deal of civilians and we couldn't hope to bring enough AMES for them all or even a significant portion." Eden said with a grim look, "Boss will be working on opening up a dock for our shuttles, which should be a bit easier after we have seen and interfaced with some of their technology in Location 1."

"We need our engineers on the ground as the mechanisms at work will likely take some kind of practical knowledge that our engineers likely have."

She looked about, to Nerai, "We have a logistics and medical ships about a day behind us, holding a position." Eden's smile turned upside down momentarily before she spoke again, "We don't have backup, though, so to speak."

She looked about, now with a stern expression with tight-clasped hands, "If that is all? We will be making heavy use of the volumetric capabilities of the Mindy to blend in, so please be fully aware of your surroundings. Again, they have some killing power so beware. Stock up on some of the PoW essentials, though we will not be re-dressing or feeding anyone, ourselves, and so the meal kits, the yukata, and footwear are unnecessary and have been omitted from the supplies, already. I recommend bringing cuffs, as I mentioned, as well as a blanket or pillow. Plan to reach out to those in need," Eden said as he gilded eyes closed, "Yui knows they need it."

With the opening of Eden's eyes, Hoshi spoke out, "Boss, raise us to a Condition Two." To the crew, as she looked at those gathered, she said, "Duty stations." Eden bowed lightly and left the room through the hallway to the power armor bay on the same deck, while Hoshi went to the zero gravity passageway and waited near the entrance for her bridge crew to follow.
 
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