RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21)

Outskirts of the HX-21 System

The shuttles systems droned on with a dull rumble. The trip from HX-24 had taken about 45 minutes and they were almost to HX-21.

Victory looked back into the passenger compartment at Misato and Takeyu. "We should be able to land soon. So what made you want to come out here? Not that I don't enjoy piloting a shuttle, but I worry that some ship from HX-24 will follow us. They looked like pirates to me, and they definitely were able to see the shuttle launch since we didn't leave until the Eucharis was in orbit."

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

"Misato-hei never did explain the reason for why she wanted to come here," thought Takeyu, who was sitting in the co-pilots seat and rubbing his chin curiously. "Keep an eye on sensors, just in case anyone decided to follow us," he said and got up and walked into the rear-cabin.

"Misato-hei, why did you want to come here anyway?" he asked her.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

Shuttle

"Well I guess this is a good time as any to tell you. I'm really a S.A.I.N.T. operative and we are heading down to assassinate the chief system governor here." She tried as she might not to laugh but the giggles took over around the Assassinate bit.

"No Really I was curious about getting some time in the PA to practice with what it can do. Plus I want to try out this new load out. I figure that and some help here from Takeyu on how to run small team operations, a refresher from boot." She looked at the others hoping they weren't going to be pissed about the reasoning.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

"To bad we lack a pirate outpost or camp to train against," said Takeyu with a slight smile. "We can get some training in, although next time you may want to reveal to the Shosho your reasoning before requesting a trip," winked the Taii.

Thinking and tapping his chin, he turned toward the cockpit. "Victory-hei, do a scan for any activity near or around the planet, then give me an overlay please."

He turned back toward Misato. "Anything in particular you want to learn?"

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

Shuttle

"Scanning..." Victory said. "I'm picking up a repeating transmission from a subspace transceiver. It's faint. I'll take us in for a closer look."

After several minutes, the shuttle was in visual range, high above the alien ship. It looks like it's coming from a starship on the surface. "It's a Nepleslian signal but the ship looks Lorath. It isn't powered up. There are a large number of cargo containers in the clearing around the ship landing site."

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

HX-21
(Joint post with Tanka and Kyle)

She thought about what Takeyu asked for a few seconds before speaking up, "Beyond not getting my team killed, I thing the best place to start is how to lead." As Victory spoke Misato started thinking things over, 'What the heck is there people doing there? Are there people?' After thing for a few seconds she turned to Victory, "Is there... is there any life forms about it?"

"Maybe," Victory answered. "Surface gravity 1.12 G. Atmosphere is breathable...good visibility. Temperature is fine. I can't see if there's anyone in the ship or not. Do you want to land in the clearing or further away and approach on foot?"

"Land further away, we'll approach on foot. Don't want to risk alerting any of them to our presence," said Takeyu.

"Okay," Victory said, making a sharp turn to the left as the shuttle rapidly descended to just above the treeline, zipping over the forests as she looked for a spot. After a few minutes, she landed the small shuttle on a rocky clearing. When the shuttle touched down it was slanted to the side at an uncomfortable angle due to the uneven rocks.

Misato made sure that the air was breathable before she popped the rear hatch open. She swung her Type 33 Auto Grenade launcher up and swept it around making sure the rear was clear. Once she was satisfied it was clear she stepped out of the shuttle and took up an overwatch stance and waited for the rest.

"Do you want me to stay with the shuttle?" Victory asked.

"Yes please," said Takeyu. "Misato and I will see what that ship is doing," he turned toward the soldier. "Let us know in case you get company."

"Alright. I am going to take off again and circle around if that is alright," Victory said. "I'll see if I can spot anyone or other supply caches. This could easily be pirate loot. It's possible there are booby traps."

The idea of disarming booby traps thrilled Misato, it reminded her of the time she disarmed the torpedo at the NMX Station. "Thanks for the heads up Victory, I'll keep an eye out, you want me to bring you one if I find some. A souvenir of our fun trip to HX-21?" Misato scanned around and set the PA's HUD up to display an overlay for navigation with a marker where the unknown ship was, and one where the shuttle dropped them off at.

"No," Victory replied seriously.

The air was filled with the sound of wind passing through the tree leaves. The sky was cloudy in the distance. So far there were no signs of the NMX. The clearing with the stuff and the Lorath ship was about 5 kilometers away.

"Stay close," Takeyu said and stepped out of the shuttle with rifle in hand, his Gauss mounted shoulder cannon was surveying the area carefully. He deployed one drone and sent it ahead of them to recon the area. "Send out a single drone, and have it monitor the path behind us just in case."

"Aye" she responded as she set up a drone to guard their six, "Sir, Maybe two more to fly forward along our flanks to send back intel before we arrive?" She slowly panned her launcher back and forth scanning for any hostiles.

With both soldiers on the ground, Victory slowly brought the shuttle to a hover and back over the treetops to skulk around the area. While she was looking around she also called back to the Eucharis. "Eucharis, this is Golden Apple, we have discovered an unpowered Lorath starship and a cache of supplies and are investigating, over."

Hanako's voice came on the shuttle's radio. "This is Eucharis actual. I copy your transmission. Proceed with investigation. Out."

"Do it," Takeyu said, pointing toward the forest and raising his rifle. "Stay close," he scanned the area ahead of them, his finger staying off to the side of the rifle to avoid any accidental firing.

Misato sent the two flanker drones out on their way, she marked the rear guard R1, and the flankers F1 and F2. Once they were labeled she set their markers up on her HUD. She kept close but with a bit of distance so they wouldn't be a simple kill. "Sir, what do you think this is up there?"

So far there wasn't much except trees and vegetation. There were a lot of vines and little purple flowers.

After a long walk, they began to get near the edge of the clearing with the Lorath ship in the center.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

"It could be a pirate ship, could be a Lorath vessel that encountered mechanical problems and had to make an emergency landing. It could even be a slaver vessel, god forbid...." muttered Takeyu, the last bit of he said he did so with a bit of venom in his tone, he didn't want ot encounter a slaver ship at all.

"Slow and easy, keep your gun up and ready, then keep an eye out for hostiles. Monitor your drones, also, monitor the drones of your fellow team members becuase sometimes a team member might be preoccupied with something and not notice what their drones might be seeing but if you are also keeping an eye on them then you might notice what they miss," Takeyu stopped near a tree and looked around, he monitored his drones as they flew ahead but stopped after getting some feet away just so that they don't get out of range.

After a moments rest, he got back up and began to slowly move again.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

Misato activated Takeyu's drones onto her HUDs, with markers T(X)) at first the use of the drones feed made her a bit queezy but after a few minutes it felt like she always has this POV. "Aye" she responded, the comment from him made her wonder what he had see over the years.

As she crept along she slowly panned her launcher to keep in line with her eyes, so that if a hostile appeared she wouldn't have waste time to swing her weapon up.

"Sir the flanker drones are starting to get imagery of the ship ahead, what do you want to do?"

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

Suddenly, the calm of the forest was shattered by a loud crack of an explosive detonation. One of Takeyu's drones had been destroyed as it went from the woods onto the clearing.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

Figures.... grumbled Takeyu. "Down," he said to Misato and crouched down near a rock. "Pull your drones back a bit," as he was saying this he did the same thing and began to carefully search the area to see if there was any movement of enemies or vehicles, something had taken out the drone.

"Victory, see anything from up there? We just had a drone taken out but no idea 'what' took it out," he said, sending the message via encrypted telepathy.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

"What the Frack," Misato jumped a little when the drone exploded and the image fizzed out, luckily her helmet contained her voice to just her ears alone.She ordered her drones to slow, pull back, and move wider to try to widen the field of vision. As she hit the grown she had the footage of the drone's last seconds play back. Studying it she hoped to see what happened, she played it back at different speeds.

"Sir, do you think their might be some one up there? We could split up and come at it from different directions."

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

"Hold your position," scowled Takeyu as he searched the area. "We don't know what took out that drone, could be a sniper out there waiting for us to poke our heads out. We approuch this carefully, engage your active camo and follow close behind me, do not fire if you see anything, just let me know."

With that said, Takeyu engaged his Mindy's active camo, causing the suit to disappear from sight.

Re: [Mission 18.3A] One Man's Trash... (HX-21 Away Team)

"Aye," Misato responded as she kicked up her own active camo system. She flipped her drone views over to infra-red, she hoped that if there was a sniper maybe they would light up under the different view. The footage from the destroyed drone still ran on, there was something that was bother her but she couldn't put her finger on it.

Another drone's feed was lost as a plasma blast streaked across part of the forest. Before it died, it was able to spot the heat silhouette of a giant (10 foot tall) very muscular man crawling around in the underbrush.

"Frak!!" Misato watched as another drone was destroyed. She launched a few more drones, with the orders to swing out wide and try to track the the shooter, "Sir, I sighted the shooter, I sent two more drones out wide to try to flank him and get him to show himself a little more." The thought of plastering the area where she sighted the shooter with frag grenades, she relayed her idea to Takeyu.

"Proceed slowly, weapon's raised," Takeyu pointed in the direction that the man was in, and began to make his way slowly in that direction, although he did go off to the side a bit so that he wasn't heading 'directly' toward the man. "Keep an eye out for explosives as well."

After a long period of crawling around Takeyu got a glimpse of a lone, paranoid-looking ID-SOL dude with overgrown hair and a scraggly beard, wearing a tattered set of Nepleslian combat fatigues.

Just then, Victory called in. "I'm detecting hundreds of metallic objects around the perimeter of the clearing. Possibly mines."

A bloody minefield,. "See if you can get us exact locations of those objects please," asked Takeyu of Victory.

Takeyu stared at the ID-SOL and looked over at Misato and motion with his hand for her to get behind the man. Then, the Taii crept very slowly and carefully toward the side

"Who's there?" the man shouted in Takeyu's general direction.

Misato watched Takeyu as he advanced, when he waved her to flank around the sniper she obeyed. She moved slowly and with purpose, she wasn't going to lave Takeyu hanging out to dry. She watched where she was placing her feet. she knew that Victory would give her a heads up if she strayed to close to the mines, but it was her own head, or her own legs.

As she flanked around she made sure her launcher was ready to rock, checking to make sure the safety was off, repetitively. She also made the location of the sniper for the PA's AI to target with the Gauss rifle. Once she arrived ruffly opposite to Takeyu she clicked her comms three times to alert him that she was in position and ready to go.