RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 16] The Nest

Team 1

Sune looked around the chamber. "Okay people, fan out and look for some sort of manual hatch. There must be some sort of maintenance hatch for them to get in here. We need to get through one and into the ship before anything happens to the shuttle. If the shuttle breaks off this place goes to vacuum and we'll be unable to open any hatch without setting off more alarms." He called out.

Team 2

Takeyu sighed, "And if we let it dry out more, it might still not work, this crud is everywhere and in everything, it'd take you an hour at most to get what will be left out of the shuttle."

He stepped over to the shuttles exit, and looked toward Sune's squad,
"Second squad, protect first's back and help them search for a way through. Keep your eyes peeled, and monitor your sensors, report if you see or hear anything."

Then glanced back at the technician who had spoken. "How confident are you that just waiting for this thing to dry out, means that the electronics will work?" he asked and waved second squad forward. Then he sent a message laser communications to Sune.

Shuttle 2 - World of Shit

Clad in the metallic shell of her heavily modified Kylie armor, Helen opened her eyes as if waking up from a nap. In truth though she was irritated, endlessly irritated far beyond her ability to articulate. First came the shoddy plan, then came the shoddy entrance, then came the worst joke that she had ever heard in her life, a joke so bad it caused her to grab the back of the pilot's head and force their face into the muck before she strode out from the front end of the shuttle, holding her personal Zen Arms Suppressed Submachine Pistol brought from the YC-28 above the muck, she did not really find the notion of cleaning fecal matter out from the weapon to be a worthwhile usage of her time.

Helen waded through the filth, until she stepped out of the shuttle and looked around to the rest of the group. "I don't know what the hell all of you are waiting for, time is not a luxury." Helen said firmly, before she turned to her group. "Forget the shuttle, we don't have time to waste on that mess." Helen informed her group, as she strode over to the hatch which served as the separation between them, and the station interior. She looked upon it, eying it closely, checking for sensors and alarms which would possibly tip off the enemy... but she found nothing, who would put an alarm on a tank of piss? Well, she would, in all truth, just because of what they were about to do.

Helen turned to the group, before she spoke; "Everyone, weapons charged, locked and loaded. Refrain from using weaponized aether systems or scalar pulses. Solid munition weapons and melee only until we have established a secured perimeter and have determined the route to our objectives." she ordered, before she turned back to the hatch. "My escort, eyes forward, squad leader prepare to clear the hall." With that, Helen quickly operated the hatch before kicking it open, then standing aside for her five-man escort to pour into the hall to secure it. "Fan out! Make space for the others!" Helen ordered, before she went through as well and cleared the way for the others of the group to pour out from their world of shit.

"Eyes open everyone, look for a diagram, schematic, or personnel which we can use to determine our course of action. Suzume, I want you to get to work pulling the aether reactors from the shuttle, I want them ready as improvised explosives since the shuttle won't be using those reactors any time soon, we can use the generators to help dispose of this station if the other team encounters difficulties, or at the very least, to cripple any defensive efforts that may come our way." Helen stated, as she hugged the wall near the entrance to the waste tank.

"Ramiro, I want your group on point from here. I'll be behind your group, Reika you're behind me, Akemi your group is paired off with Suzume's. Mitsuko, your group will be sandwiched in the middle." Helen stated, laying out their order as she took a look around.

A huge howling gust of air came rushing into the tank as the air from outside came rushing in to equalize the pressure. Outside of the tank were a long maintenance tunnel with metal gratings for floors and a huge pipe running along the left side (the one carrying black water into the waste tank) and several other smaller pipes running here and there. Like the tank, this area was only lit by red auxiliary lights. A control panel was outside the hatch door but it was a primitive one that only displaced some data on the contents. A little down the hall, there was a ladder leading up to a hatch next to a drainage pipe labeled with a wrinkled sticker that said “Blood” in marker.

Maintenance Tunnel

Upon looking around, Helen's power-armor enhanced optics spotted the ladder and the sticker. "Ramiro, check out that ladder." Helen ordered, as she prepared to move her team along and behind Ramiro's own escort group.

Shuttle 2

"Of all the places to breach into the fortress, we just had to pick the waste disposal facilities." Reika muttered softly, simultaneously shuddering with her revulsion inside her armor. Despite that, with only a moments hesitation she began trudging along with the rest of her team, her rifle lifted above the muck as she waded through the filth to the shuttles exit.

As they vacated the transport and stepped across the threshold into the literal bowels of NMX station, Reika fell in behind Helen as she was instructed by the officer. "This is freaking ridiculous -- even the squids will be able to smell us after walking through all this crap... it's not exactly conducive to close-quarters stealth." The neko's soft-spoken voice was heavily laced with annoyance and sarcasm as she stated that obvious fact aloud.

Maintenance Tunnel

"Alright, if you find it to be a problem, get a towel and start wiping." Helen spoke, with a mildly scolding tone in response to Reika. "If that does not sound favorable, then find us an option along the way, an option that won't get us found out." she elaborated, before she returned her attention down the maintenance tunnel.

Waste Facility

Being assigned to the back, Akemi made room and waited for Mitsuko and her escort to pass by. When she did, she gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll do my best to watch your back," she said in a confident and friendly manner through a private transmission. Once the other teams had advanced further, she followed behind them with her own, leaving Suzume to catch up with her when she was done.

"On your 12 boss," came the response from Ramiro has he tucked his weapon into a low-and-ready position and moved in front of Helen. Once he and his team were in front he looked back and pointed at either side of the ladder. "Half of you over there, the other half is on this side. Maintain stealth and silence." Ramiro then proceeded to move as silently as possible to the base of the ladder, with half his squad on one side and half on the other.

"For the duration, my left half is Alpha Team, the right half is Bravo Team. Whomever is in front is team leader." Ramiro quietly instructed to his team. "Squad, eyes on the hatch." He commanded. He then slung the weapon over his shoulder and climbed the ladder. Once he was at the hatch Ramiro looked down to make sure that the squad had their weapons pointed at the hatch above him. He proceeded to open the hatch, immediately jumping as far back from the ladder as possible in case anything decided to drop down on him.

Maintenance Tunnel

"What do you see?" Helen asked, as she sent the transmission by laser to Ramiro down the tunnel so a loud voice would not result in their detection. As she asked her question, she had her machine pistol at the ready, in case anything came along which would require a good peppering.

Above the hatch was a tile floor. There were chains, hooks, tables, knife racks, and de-boning machines, and paper sacks of spices. It was dark and silent inside.

Meanwhile, down in the maintenance corridor, Takeyu's keen engineer's eyes picked up some large power cables leading along the wall back to the sewage area.

Shuttle 2

Mitsuko's eyes widened as the waste poured into the ship. At least the noise drowned out her high-pitched yelp of surprise. And disgust. She reflexively tried to hold her weapon above it, and even began to lift up a few inches off the ground. There wasn't really enough room for this to work, however, and she wound up back on the floor as Officers began ordering everyone off the shuttle.

She was doing her best to stay calm in the odd situation, but even the thickly armored, sealed suit didn't feel like enough of a barrier between her and the unspeakable mess. Mitsuko swallowed hard, trying to breathe evenly as she lagged behind the rest of the group. She thought she noticed some sort of light outside the shuttle, but it was forgotten as Klein's sharp words sent her through the exit in a hurry. The gravity change and sudden climb was disorienting, leaving Murakami to attempt to ignore it by floating, boots squashing into the mess to push her inside.

Waste Facility

Mitsuko let herself settle firmly back to the same ground everyone else was treading, momentarily lost in the new area. She didn't like not knowing where to go. Usually she would study any available maps or schematics before venturing somewhere new, but that hadn't really been possible this time. That gave her an idea on something to occupy her worrying mind with, at least. Soon she was drawing up a rough map of the area, eyes scanning around the room while ignoring the disgusting mess they were tromping through.

She was content to let her body move on virtual autopilot. Murakami had been created and trained for this, after all. She was paying attention to the situation, though...letting out a pleased sigh as she was ordered into the middle of the group. It was easier to let the people on either side of her handle where they were headed, and to look to them for direction. At least Mitsuko's mental map would remind her of where they'd been.

The infantry assigned to her weren't going to get many instructions from her at this rate, but at least she didn't seem to be getting in their way yet. Mitsuko tensed up slightly as Akemi touched her shoulder, relaxing with another sigh at the reassuring message. She didn't think anyone could see her blushing through her helmet, at least.

"Th-thanks..." She couldn't come up with much more of a reply, swept up with the others as they headed into the maintenance tunnel.

Seeing as no hostiles were coming out of the hatch or looking down from the hatch, Ramiro made the assumption that it was safe for him to do a quick recon of the room. Climbing back up the ladder, he poked his head out of the hatch and did a quick 360 sweep of the room with both his eyes and passive sensors before dropping back down a couple ladder rungs and having his AIES send a Laser message to Helen.

Looks like the butcher shop my family used back in Mezerit. Although, since they are squiddies, that's probably exactly what this is. Dark, tile floor, proceeding with my squad.

Click to expand...

Ramiro motioned for his squad to follow him up that ladder, at which point he emerged fully from the hatch and knelt next to opening in the floor. He shouldered his weapon and did another visual sweep of the room through his sights. When his two team leaders had emerged he looked over to them and made a circle with his finger, who then proceeded to set up security at all the exits of the room.

When his entire squad was through the hatch and were posted at the exits, Ramiro popped his head down the hatch and sent another Laser message to Helen indicating that the room was secure.

The butcher room had worker exits on the floor level, one where a meat-carrying rail entered the room, and another for processed sausage to be taken away. Then there was another large exit for a Mishhuvurthyar overseer on a balcony above. The room was fairly quiet except for the pattering of the kind-of-cumbersome mass of friendly neko infantry moving around the area, smearing their nasty boots all over the previously-pristine floor. There did not seem to be any control panels visible on the main level.

maintenance tunnel

Bors watched as Team 2 ascended the ladder into the room above, and wondered how long until the NMX figured out that they were on the ship. Distracting himself from the thought he glanced around taking in the 'view' that the maintenance tunnel offered, following random pipes with his eyes and the occasional rusted grate and red maintenance light adding a bit of color to the rest of the blandness.

"Heh, almost reminds me of home.." Bors said to himself before snapping back to reality, shaking off the feeling of nostalgia.

letting his eyes wonder again, he noticed Takeyu staring at something in the darkness of the tunnel.

[/code]
Bors sent via laser message.

Squad Two

Maybe.. Takeyu pondered to himself as he walked up to the power cable and looked down one end, then another and pondered where the other end ran and began to follow it slowly.

he sent via laser to Bors, being ever cautious about ensuring that no one picked up on their communications, they were after all in enemy territory.

Maintenance Tunnel

The tunnel ran on for at least a kilometer, passing by various chambers. After the sewage one, there was a gray water one and then a large trash holding area. It led closer towards the center of the station where the main reactor was located. The station seemed to be pretty old and not as well maintained as the Star Fortresses of Yamatai. Suddenly, the main lights in the tunnel flickered on and the dim red tunnel was lit up by flickering yellow sodium lamps and the sound of an elevator came from down the tunnelway from past the trash bin.

Maintenance Tunnel / Meat Packing Facilities

"Let's move." Helen spoke, as she made a hand gesture for the group to follow. Eventually, it led to her climbing up the ladder and entering the meat processing room. Part of her was disgusted, part of her marveled, the two chains of thoughts were suddenly cut off by discipline as she conveyed a message down the line. "All clear to move up."

With that, she stood upright and began to survey the equipment, before she came to the large tub of water used during the meat processing operation. Without even skipping a beat, Helen quietly hopped into the tub, wallowed for a moment, then climbed back out, much cleaner than when she entered. "If this facility survives, hope they eat shit and die." With that, she surveyed her surroundings.

Meat entry way is out of the question, they'd position sensors to monitor for run away heads... Overseer balcony is also out of the question, it would likely lead directly to sensitive compartments which would be monitored... that leaves the worker routes, so many that would be coming and going, sensors would be impractical to maintain. Helen thought quickly, before another thought came to mind, as she eyed the end of the production chain. If this product is meant for use by crews aboard ships... then it would have to go through distribution, and then to the ships themselves. Bingo.

With that thought, Helen waited for Reika to come up, before she'd speak; "Reika, with me, we're going to check for sensors on the output end of the line. Everyone else, eyes sharp, and look for any intelligence which may be of use." With that, Helen walked to the end of the processing dis-assembly line, and began a visual and passive-sensor inspection for sensors which would pose a risk to the group.

Butcher Room

Helen didn't find any sensors with hers. The sausage-way she was inspecting had a conveyor belt in it that was lit by the same red standby lights as the maintenance tunnel.

Maintenance Tunnel

With the lights on in the passageway below, the infantry nekos were scrambling to get out of sight, with many of them actually taking cover in the trash bin while others when up into the butcher room and more escaped back into the waste tank. Somehow the main group all managed to clear the passageway, leaving on the Eucharis crew members and their personal escorts of four.

Down the passageway, the elevator came to a halt.

Ramiro was still posting security outside the hatch when he noticed light coming through it. He stuck his head down just enough to see all of the infantry scrambling to take cover. Quickly and quietly, he shut the hatch to avoid any hostiles in the tunnel discovering the group in the butchery. Once the hatch was sealed he shot a Laser Comm to Helen explaining the situation.