Situation Report said:
Klein to Eucharis
Shosho, have encountered cloning facilities where vital intel has been located, acquiring related materials. Team has taken a distribution center, and is poised to take a ship as soon as intel gathering is complete. Currently engaged in combat against inferior models of Ripper power armor. Excuse me.
Cloning Room
There was a yell from Helen as she propelled herself at one of the Rippers, charging them as a short aether-saber projected itself from her forearm. Head-on combat was something easier to deal with than most situations, especially with units as clumsy as Rippers. A combination of her own reflexes, as well as the abilities of her AIES, allowed her to predetermine the firing angles of each weapon on each Ripper. She knew where every shot was going to possibly come from before it was made, and it allowed her to throw herself at the enemy, weaving through the incoming fire. Even with that advantage though, she was not untouchable.
There was an audible thud of solid metal on metal, as one of the 50mm rounds caught Helen in the thigh, causing her to stumble briefly. Her leg and hip felt like someone had slammed her against a bulkhead at hypersonic speeds, but the damage was able to be dealt with as capillaries and veins ruptured with hemosyntheic blood, which went to work as soon as the concussive forces freed them from their vessels. Zesuaium plate armor was to thank for keeping the impact to the concussive, instead of the penetrating and taking her leg.
As a blast of aether sheared over her back as she brought herself back up from her stumble, Helen dug her armored feet in, as she then propelled herself at a sprint at one of the Rippers, raising her armored fist, as she brought the blade of aetheric energy across in a sweeping motion aimed for one of the Ripper's arms intending to shear it off, as her other hand brought the Aether Gatling against the midsection of the Ripper, aiming straight for where she knew the brainslave would be nestled within the armor. Helen pulled the trigger as she unleashed all four barrels at once, spinning them in the process, as she used the weapon on a continuous aether projection setting.
While Helen did her work, she kept an open line of communication with her escorts and team. Her SPINE connection to her AIES did most of the talking, as she directed her escorts to open fire on precise portions of the Rippers, feeding the newly cloned Centurions target information that they could act on. Mainly, Helen wanted the heavy weapons on the Rippers to be taken out, for the sake of the cloning facility, as well as themselves, and to make the Rippers easier to deal with. Though, she also marked the targets as to where the brainslaves would be nestled within the armor, providing the escorts the option of the quick take-down. Then, she received a pair of very useful messages, one from Mitsuko, which she was sure to respond to.
Code:
Klein to Mitsuko, we will be heading to the starship docking area once we have captured a viable body from their cloning facility... AIES link indicates you have company, handle it, and make sure that blast shutter stays open by any means, even if you have to take out everything around it and rip it out of its rail!
As she replied to Mitsuko, Helen redirected her escorts to provide cover, as she disengaged from the Rippers, and went about opening up one of the cloning tanks which indicated that the occupant was complete and viable. As she opened the tank, she looked upon the body, and could not help but to appreciate the design, as she picked it up in her armored grasp, and carried it quickly to the ST apparatus where she set it down.
Once the
nightmarish body was in place, Helen quickly moved to the other portion of the ST machine, grabbing the deceased escort in the process, propping her against the side of the machine facing the Rippers, before she went about removing her helmet, then taking a seat behind the cover offered by the deceased, as she spoke to Reika and her own escorts telepathically.
"Activate the machine, copy setting, make sure that its on write only, not recording. Anyone who can get to the controls." Of course, Helen had already stored her vital intelligence related memories in her power armor, so really, it was more of a precaution than anything else, as she prepared her thoughts for awakening in another body, at least, a duplicate of her thoughts, in another body.