RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 16] The Nest

Squad 2, Maintenance Tunnel

Takeyu scowled at his slowness, he wasn't fast enough, and now he knew the Neko had gotten off a message even before he had any chance of taking her out. How? The Rippers that were now firing on them was a dead givaway...

He dove behind some nearby cover, and took out his SMG and set it to full power, with their stealth now compromised he aimed for the nearest Ripper and told his squad to concentrate fire.

Of course, now he was wondering: Where was Klein-Shosa's team? With them involved, they'd be able to take out these Rippers quicker.

Konoka shot at some of the Rippers along with her escort, hoping to do some damage. She felt she hadn't contributed all that much to her team so far.....If someone got injured, she'd have something to do, but she wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Instead she just kept shooting. It was the best way to be useful.
And Konoka always wanted to be useful. Helping was her life!

Team 1

With dozens of Star Army soldiers firing on them, the Rippers were caught in a bad crossfire and their shields quickly became full of white circles and holes while their armor was being chipped away. Sune’s aether spray hit the lead one in the arm, sending sparks flying and leaving an orange glow and a smoke trail from it. Konoka managed to hit another Ripper in one of its eyes, knocking it out. As the Rippers took more fire they became less accurate in shooting back.

Takeyu’s target was taken down in about ten seconds by the combined fire of his squad, leaving it full of dart holes and SLAG grenade craters as it fell on the grated deck, blenching thick black smoke.

One of the Rippers killed off the two injured infantry Nekovalkyrja by beheading them with its aether saber and then rushed into the garbage area, pushing back Signe’s team. As ricocheting bullets saturated the corridor, various pipes took damage, filling the sides of the maintenance corridor with jets of sewage, soapy dishwater, and scalding steam.

Another Ripper managed to hit one of Konoka’s escorts in the knees, sending the young neko tumbling over screaming in pain over the comm system. Disgustingly, the neko's now-bleeding legs were covered in brown filth from the sewer tank.

Team 2

Helen could find the NMX using the usual communications channels, but their communications were, as usual, encrypted too.

As the conveyor system brought them out of a dark tunnel and into the light, Ramiro, Helen, Akemi, and the others found themselves traveling through a vast factory, storage, and distribution system. On the other side of a transparent wall they could see thousands and thousands of Rippers, shiny and brand new. On the other side, they could see easily over a thousand NMX battle pods in huge rows being stored for the new starships. Dozens of other conveyor belts guided containers, crates, and equipment towards the NMX’s newest warships. In the vast open area above, they could see hovering transport platforms and Mishhuvurthyar floating around.

Maintenance Tunnel
Team 1

Takeyu gave a nod of satisfaction but quickly changed targets, ordering his squad to now fire on his newest target. "Keep the fire up, the sooner we take them out, the sooner we can address the wounded! Do not let up!" he shouted and fired off a spray toward the nearest Ripper, his drones - which he hadn't used before for some reason given that he almost always deployed them in battle, came launching from their hangers and began to annoy the Ripper like a bunch of mosquitos. Though he kept two in reserve just in case.

He then sent a message to Konoka, alerting her to their wounded but advising her not to run out lest she be shot by the Rippers - and they couldn't afford to lose their medic. Though, seeing one of their Neko's in the sludge with a leg blown off was a bit disgusting to say the least.

Team 1

Sune fired another salvo of aether at the Rippers. At least time with the numbers they were whittling away at the enemy. But time was not on their side. They needed to finish these off and stop more from coming.

Team 2
Waste Facility

Mitsuko nodded in reply...and winced at the sudden noise outside the hatch. The sounds of battle were unmistakeable. At least she hadn't been left wondering for very long. Now she had orders to follow, even if they were a bit hasty. Soon enough her camo systems were on, and she was floating out of the tank. As one of the last out, Murakami could dimly hear unsettlingly explosion-ish sounds coming from the direction of the shuttles. She swallowed hard, realizing their assignment of capturing an enemy ship was now of dire importance.

Conveyor Belt

Zipping past the battle still raging in the maintenance tunnel, she followed the others into the processing area. She did her best not to be distracted by the fighting and dying. Mitsuko kept herself moving forward, focusing on Akemi's back as she moved. It was best not to look at this room, either, past a quick glance to add it to her map.

As the conveyer belt led them out into a much more open area, she suddenly had plenty of fresh data to handle. Equipment and enemies on every side, belts and exits heading in multiple directions. She was otherwise frozen as her head swiveled just enough to slowly take in everything, cataloging and mapping as fast as she could. Mitsuko had little idea where anything was going - including her group - and knew the whole plan was to blow it all up anyways. Even if she didn't know where they were headed, at least she'd know their options. Someone might be interested in how many ships and weapons the enemy was stocking, if they survived to deliver the report.

Murakami certainly wasn't impressed with their logistics, though. Too many confusing conveyers with a chance to mix everything up. She was certain she could fit half again as many Rippers in that storage area, as well. Maybe it was a good thing this place wasn't crammed as full as she could have managed...there was already more than enough weaponry here to kill all of them a few dozen times over.

Meat Chute / Cargo Distribution

As they progressed along the conveyor system, Helen took to a knee and held her aether gatling at the ready for whatever they would find at the end of the tunnel. As soon as she saw the transparent walls along the sides, Helen held her hand up, then brought it down quickly indicating to everyone to get down, then, her armor and equipment disappeared from sight as she activated the optical camouflage of her Kylie. "Activate your camo and do not make a move." Helen ordered, as she soon began to observe everything around her, and figured that the best course of action would be to wait for a maintenance access hatch which would let them out from the conveyor system, or, to ride it out until they would reach the distribution system.

There was a longing thought in Helen's mind, as she looked upon the Battlepods, she wished they were stored in a stand-by state, if only, they would make wonderful tools to be used against the NMX within their own base. Unfortunately, it was clear the pods were stored entirely dormant, depriving Helen of her amusement. This left her merely to remain silent, still, and concealed behind scientific trickery. Inwardly, she wished that the other team would be making good distractions for the time being.

Misato quickly motioned to her unit to follow her, then followed Akemi down the hall to the meat processing room. She remembered being briefed on the fact of the NMX dinning habits but seeing it was something completely different. She kept her rifle moving from door well to door well watching for targets. As she waited for the other teams to go down the shoots she ordered her unit to spread and be ready to cover the others, "We be the back stop here, till they all get out. you four will go first then, and I'll follow last." She switched her suit to camouflage settings all the while moving her barrel to cover the doors.

After the last of the units moved down the conveyor, Suzume followed suit but went backwards so she could make sure no one was going to follow them down.

"Good job Riko, way to screw things up Riko, Nice Rookie Mistake Riko"

Bors said to himself while extanging fire with the squad of Rippers advancing down the maintenance tunnel towards them.

"Frack this!" Boris said leaning out of his cover, sending a grenade towards the Riper squad, quickly reloading and repeating the process.

today is just not my day Bors thought locking in a third grenade, while enemy fire flew by his position. As he prepared to start shooting at the enemy squad again Bors tried to figure out how he could redeem himself from causing this situation in the first place, seeing as he didn't like getting his crewmates in these situations in the first place.

Meat Processing Conveyor Belt

Ramiro's camo was activated before Helen would have even had time to emerge behind him. The moment he saw the Rippers lined up, his assumption was that people would be nearby, and he was correct. His team was quick to follow suit, quickly activating camo and kneeling, making sure to keep perfectly still. Looking back at Helen, he shot off a quick Laser communication, making sure to keep it at very low energy levels to avoid being picked up.

"Warships, new."

"It's like shopping for a new car." Helen replied to Ramiro as she kept an eye out for anything of prominent interest.

Team 1
Konoka's wide green eyes grew wider when she saw one of her escorts shot in the knees. She wanted to give the neko medical attention, as well as the nekos Takeyu had told her were injured, but she knew she couldn't until the Rippers were sufficiently shot to bits.
So, with an uncharacteristically cruel smile, Konoka smirked, "EAT KARMA, squid!" and shot a spray of fire at the Ripper who'd shot her infantry neko, feeling as if justice were being served.

Team 1

Takeyu’s spray and his drones hit the Ripper but it took the combined squad fire plus Konoka to quickly put it down. It stumbled backward and exploded, leaving a burning hulk in the passageway. Sune’s aether and Riko’s grenades finished off the last one, leaving it wrecked in front of the elevator’s pock-marked armored doors. Finally, the last Ripper was taken down by Signe and her team in the garbage pile. The neko crawled out of the access hatch into the smoke-filled maintenance tunnel.

Team 2

As the conveyor belt moved, Team 2 passed through by a cloning facility and its adjacent armory. Looking through the glass, they could see hundreds of humanoids in liquid-filled tanks. These creatures had a human-like body but with black scales and long claws...and tentacles on their backs. Beside them were racks of Impaler rifles and shelves of standard-issue supplies. A shining, sharp-looking, enormous, jet black Mishhuvurthyar was inspecting them while an entourage of normal Mishhuvurthyar followed it around. As the invisible team passed by, it turned and looked at them and narrowed its eyes.

Just then they lost sight of it as the conveyor took them into a ration making factory and adjacent store rooms. In this area, they could see many rows of tables were NMX rations were assembled, and endless crates of canned meat on the walls. In the supply area further in, there were rows of leather jackets, toiletry kits, masks, camouflage uniforms, hats, and a huge number of boxes of various shapes and sizes. A squad of five NMX nekos in tan Army uniforms were on patrol and a handful of Gartegen slaves were loading up boxes and such under the watch of a Mishhuvurthyar overseer.

There were many conveyor belts leading into the area and on the other end there was another conveyor system exiting the area.

Team 1

Sune looked at the wreckage. "Okay people, we do not have time to stand around. Takeyu, take lead in that tunnel you found we moving out.

Quick triage folks, take the wounded into the maintenance tunnel the Shoi found. Once we find another chamber, Konoka you can treat the wounded, and do what you can for them.

Place the dead over by the elevator. Riko-Hei, ready a satchel charge and mount it on the elevator doors. We are going to blow that elevator shaft.

Once we get that set, we move out and I am going to instruct the AIES in the dead soldiers Daisy's to self-destruct when the elevator is about to open and trigger the charge." Sune said, this way he could keep his promise that the fallen would not be processed by the enemy for food.

Conveyor Belt - Supply Room

As the group passed beyond the cloning rooms, Helen felt a chill down her spine. New models, hybrid type... They're giving up on old combat doctrine... and that Mishhu... I think he smelled us... She thought silently, as she soon looked upon the supply room. Her thoughts were forced aside firmly, as she formulated a plan.

"This is our stop." Helen silently transmitted to the other team members, before she stood and established passive target locks on the NMX present in the room. "Move silently, no gravity manipulation, no weapon fire. Get into hand-to-hand range with the runts, rip their heads off their shoulders. I'll handle the big one... Go time. Take them down at the same time, we don't want runners or energy weapons fire." She gave the order, before she silently stepped off of the conveyor, letting the sounds of the packing process cover her movement, as she crept along, hiding in plain sight with her power armor assisted stealth. She found a perfect spot, and lined up a shot on the Mishhu, ready to use the railgun cannon on her armor to dispose of it once the rest of her team was in position.

Ramiro nodded, even though he knew Helen couldn't see him, and silently made his way up to one of the grunts. When he was a few feet away, he stopped and gave it a few seconds for his squad to get into position. Once he was sure that they were all ready to take out a grunt, he sent a quick Laser comm to Helen, though it contained nothing other than a quick pulse to let her know he was ready.

Conveyor Belt - Supply Room

"Please take the one next to mine," Akemi transmitted to Murakami. If the soldier hesitated to do her gruesome task, she would be ready to do it for her. Of the five nekos, she chose to approach the one farthest from her allies. She tried her best to be quiet and also stopped a few feet from her target.

Supply Room

"Don't get too close... we may still smell like shit, If you see them sniffing, make sure its their last breath!" Helen spoke through the laser link, as she waited for the last couple to get into place. "Escorts, block the entry and exit ways, make sure they don't bolt." With that, she was waiting just for the last of the NMX grunts to be covered for neutralization, but, she was also open to the escorts taking them out as well, assuming the others possibly encountering difficulty getting to their targets.