RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission 19: Ochiba

[Charaa]

Living Quarters

Kiyo chose to move with the rear guard as well, she didn’t know if the civilian could die easily from a hit, though she thought maybe knocking her out is a good idea. She quietly stealthily scanned the woman to see if knocking out would actually kill someone of her species.

 

[Ametheliana]

Living Quarters

The Mindy AIES sensors did a worse job of scanning the Kuvexian woman than a medical scanner would, so Kiyo had to rely on her own knowledge of Kuvexians. If the members of the enemy species could be killed from being knocked out, a force as mighty as the Star Army of Yamatai with its genetically engineered cat girl super soldiers would have wiped the floor with them already.

 

[SchererSoban]

Living Quarters

Wulf was watching out the door and double checking for any hostiles. Sometimes wishing he had the full access like the Nekovalkyrja and having to manually switch between a few checks. Since he was looking out into the court yard and not inside he toggled between infrared and ultra-violet mode. Looking towards the research compound as well as west and north facing areas as best he could. Hoping that he might be able to see any reinforcements or other movements while he waited on the rest of the team to deal with the civilian and move on.

 

[demibear]

Living Quarters

Mikael silently nodded and followed behind Aiko, actively waiting for her to assume her own position as he passed her. In the quickness of their breach, Mikael raised his left Ke-M2-W2910 Forearm Pulse Cannon at the woman. "Where is the child located!?" a modified version of Mikael's voice ((OOC: think Vader/Space Marine)) came from the speakers of his Mindy as he twisted his arm to bring his palm up and displayed a solid volumetric image of Oleera Boyar. Trade was the language of communication.

The canon was still very much pointed at her though. If she didn't answer quick enough or she makes even the slightest attempt to raise an alarm there, he would drop her with a scalar stun pulse. The only reason he didn't do it immediately was this is a chance to shorten the search time of their raid.

 

[Miko]

Kuvexian Planet
Research Facility

Alastair detected a tap on his shoulder took notice it was Eden. He listened to her message to go and cut them off. This was something he was more than happy to do. He also had the added support of his pair of drones to watch it back. "No problem Eden, worry not. I got this." To make sure he was legit about his confidence he sent over a winking kissing emoji to her HUD.

He wasted no time to run off to cut off the scientist who he figured he had out matched.

 

[SirSkully]

Kuvexian Planet
Research Facility

Wyatt half-stumbled back into an almost-kneeling position once he was released, the weight of his suit being rested on the Minkan's undamaged right leg as he paused and took a deep breath, time seeming to slow barely as the Saint Operative took stock of the current situation behind his cyclopean helmet.

The breath was released steadily to recenter his focus before Wyatt spoke up "On it... forgive me ma'am~ allow me to pick up my own slack," was his short, concise grunt of a response before Wyatt began peeling back the HUD of his Mindy to access a list of systems and functions usually reserved for armourers when they were performing maintenance on the expensive blue beasts.

His shield needed to recharge and the components that powered it needed to cool before that could happen - so an idea Saya would most definitely not like formed, though he deemed it necessary given the current situation...

In actuality it required very little input on his end, a few pressure settings and safety-orientated limiters for the suit's temperature-management system were fudged with along with some power being diverted from his life support to push coolant pumps into speeds they weren't designed for - all this resulted in the heat-carrying coolant exploding through the shoulders of Wyatt's Mindy in a rather unexpected burst of mist, a small bit of red from the hemosynthetic muscle layer that had been breached mixing in with the steam to stain it a faded pink colour before the fetomachine-laden layer sealed up the small bit of damage that had been done.

It had worked, it had also seared some of the skin on his shoulders and back, but coolant had been flushed and was now being replaced with fresh stuff as the fetomachines interlocked to fix the suit's hermatic seals, power levels normalizing and reverting to their default state as the coppery Minkan let out a small grunt of discomfort - shields rapidly recharging until they were functioning at their fullest capacity.

"Shields recharged, I'm going to push up and try to find their power supply," he spoke again, more a warning of his actions than anything else as Wyatt plotted co-ordinates with the intention of teleporting behind the suit not currently dealing with an octopus/cockatoo hybrid - the settling mist of scalding-hot coolant was scattered as the mass of Wyatt's suit was displaced with a small wave of pressure and heat, the lightly-battered suit blinking back into existence behind one Kuvexian behemoth, Xiphos in his hand crackling with Aetheric energy as it was swiftly thrust towards the base of what he interpreted as a shoulder plate.

 

[Whisper]

Kuvexian Planet
Research Facility

"Understood," replied Indira, considering Eden's orders. She looked back into the open space of the facility, with all the drones and weapons fire and fleeing scientists, and tried to come up with some kind of plan. In with the enemy armors. Intel. Firepower. Viable armors.

She nodded. Some distant part of her mind, chemically toned out, was ringing the alarm bells as hard as it could. Fear wasn't an emotion that she was ready to deal with in the current situation. It could wait until later. Fear was also a very useful emotion in situations such as these.

"This may take a few minutes," she said in her cold, deadpan way. She stood and sprinted - as best as a 5'2 unpowered non-neko could - towards one of the fallen scientists. She keyed up her adrenaline a few notches and felt the surge of strength kick in as she dragged the body behind one of the inert armors. Searching the body, she hoped to find some kind of key or activation device. There wasn't one.

'The scientists have a way to activate the armors,' she thought, ignoring a stray plasma bolt that streaked by. 'They wouldn't leave them unsecured.'

She frowned, thumbing the back of the scientist's neck. There was a small data port, like so many races use. 'Maybe it isn't a physical key, but something else? Time to get creative.'

A knife came out of her bag and began to hum with energy when she turned it on. The data port and its associated wetware, gory bits and all, came loose easily enough. Indira slipped a glove off and began to dispense prajna gel directly onto the flesh - she needed it 'alive'. A small chemically-activated electric shock did the rest. 'This won't last for long,' she thought, holding the wet mess in one hand. Still, there was work to be done.

She connected the device into her datapad, then linked through that into her own neural net.

The experience of digging through a dead person's data was not a pleasant one. Too much of the scientist's last moments had been recorded among the data like some kind of black-box. Video was handy for the process - you either got a reasonable image or you didn't, so you could work your decryption on it until it looked right. She kept reliving parts of the scientist's death in a strange, grainy haze as her systems worked to turn the data into a format she could work with.

Things finally clicked. She stored her findings - the decryption results, manuals, file formats, etc - away for later use. With the file system laid bare before her, and all the appropriate biosignatures still ... active, finding the file that acted as the security key was not hard. After all, who would be pulling the data from here posthumously?

Indira stood and attached the bit of spine and metal fall to her belt. The distant bells still rung and an uncomfortable chill had settled along her spine, but they weren't that important. 'Problems for future Indira.'

Getting up to the open power armor was challenging. The Kuvexians all seemed to be much taller than her and the space between steps on the access ladders were clearly not meant for her. Another shot streaked by, close enough for her to smell the ozone from its passing. If she had any advantage in that perilous moment, it was that the Kuvexians wanted scientists to be climbing into the armors and that her allies knew which side she was on.

The interior was unfamiliar, but she had the manual handy. She ran it through its start-up procedures and connected the 'key' she'd been toting along with her into the system. Through her link to it, she saw the armor make an identity request and ran it through the motions. 'This is the scientist you're looking for.'

The armor came to life, weapon systems and electronics humming to life all around her. She smiled triumphantly and painted the suit as an ally in the tracking system she'd been updating for the retrieval team.

'And now for the firepower,' she said, allowing herself a faint grin. She slipped into the armor and found that her arms and legs were too short to fit correctly. They were also too short to extract herself, now that she was stuck inside.

She opened her comms with some regret.

"Chusa," she began, still somehow monotone despite all that had happened, "I've succeeded in capturing one of the armors. I will need some assistance in removing myself from it, due to ... height ... challenges. Someone taller may find it useful."

 

[Ametheliana]

Kuvexian Planet
Living Quarters

The woman made no more eye gestures and looked in shock at Mikael's armor as his haunting voice came out of his speakers. The only place she had to run was behind her, where she had looked to earlier, or to barrel through the armored brigade and go out over the door Aiko had downed. She backed up towards the wall next to the sink instead of either of those options, looking frantically at the armors in front of her with her arms now down, pressed at her sides as if ready to grip the wall when she had backed up to it.

With scans, Wulf would be able to see heat from the walls and the Kuvexian woman his team had encountered, not beyond the walls though. As far as ultra violet, not much was coming up there save for a faint glow from the woman's facial patterns.

Research Facility

Because he hadn't engaged the running scientist, the Belmont's prey ran though the swinging doors to the next room.

Eden was happy to see Wyatt back at it, noting he was nearly cracking through an armor's shields and was likely ready to dissect it through its shoulders soon while it flailed confusedly in his grasp.

The armor that Kikios had been holding with her octo arms was able to break free from the kalimari arms' grasps as it had been thrusting upwards. When it was freed, the armor kept thrusting back and was soon out of sight as it had pushed into the corrugated metal of the wall of the room. Tumbling downwards, the white bricks that Eden had seen when she had landed on the planet next to the back wall of the research facility were now falling from the hole in the ceiling that the enemy armor had made, creating a pile of rubble on the ground and above some research equipment.

Eden became angry at herself that an issue she thought was manageable was suddenly not. She waited a few seconds for the armor to come back in, but this was not a trained combatant. The reason the crew was pummeling the armors to the ground was the same reason that the researcher-occupied armor would not come back to the fight. They were scared and this was not their forte.

"Gravity-heisho!" Eden called out into the pilot's comms. "I absolutely need you to eradicate an armor that slipped our grasp! I don't want our team down here spreading to the skies and making this a fight on two fronts. Take care of them!" She sent the information Indira had gathered to track the armor as it flew in the skies above the research facility before fainting Westward, out of signal range.

Indira was taking appropriate care of the armor she was in, but Eden knew her request couldn't be met.

"You and that armor are the most valuable members of this team right now, Indira-hei! Get yourself to the shuttle or Kaiyō." In getting into the armor, Indira had needed to shed her Mindy. Eden pointed to it, "Take your own armor. We don't want enemies to get their hands on ours when we wanted to get theirs." She looked around. The Chusa wanted to spare a team member to escort Indira, but the chaos of the facility was in a balancing act she wanted to keep on the crew's side. "Call Gravity-heisho or myself for back-up if needed. Good luck and I know you're capable of getting home safely!"

Eden huffed as she looked at the pair that she had hoped would take out the armor pointed at Kikios, then called into their comms.

"My previous order stands!" Eden began pummeling the next armor to activate, hoping the combined efforts of Hildr and Dalida could help Kikios as the cockatoo Elysian had gotten hit with enough plasma to down her shields and knock out some of her manipulator arms' functions on top of her helmet's integrity.

 

[Miko]

Research Facility

Alastair in his advanced Mindy armor caught up with the scientist though not before they had time to slip into another room. Though he thought he could run into more enemies he did not hesitate entering after. He knew one way or another they would come in handy for the task they would be getting involved with at a later time. Eden he thought knew this clearly and was why she tasked him with this most of important orders. His weapon was drawn, two drones over his shoulders as he burst into the room.

If enemy were in this place the drones would waste no timing blasting them down. His load out was for close combat so would run blade first into the closest enemy. Should he be lucky and it only be the scientist he would chase down and pin to a wall. He hope they would surrender without a fight though he was willing to shock them into submission.

 

[Noodlewerfer]

Kuvexian Planet
Research Facility
"I'm trying, but I can't investigate the armors if they're attacking me!" Kikios responded. This was certainly becoming a predicament. Active armors weren't going to let her examine them, and they weren't going to let her get a good look at the inactive armors either. They didn't have a way to deactivate the Kuvexian armors without damaging them yet, but she couldn't do a complete examination of the power armor if it was destroyed. "Is there a computer that would have data on them in here?" she asked, trying to weave her way behind some of the inactive sets of armor for cover. She recognized that if they allowed the scientists to continue boarding the armor, they'd have no examples left. Finding a way to download the schematics of the armor digitally would probably be her best bet, it would be quicker and hopefully less risky.

YSS Kaiyō II
Bridge
Chlorate looked at Nerai, puzzled. She might've said tank operator, but Nerai had specified on the Kaiyō, which the clanky girl took to mean another job that took place exclusively on the ship. "I do not know," she responded, after appearing to be processing something. While she understood them better, the robot still didn't fully grasp the concept of wants.

 

[SageShooter]

Living Quarters

Saya watched as everyone seemed to gather around the woman they had encounter, and Mikael began to threaten her, she quickly jumped up closer to the two. She made a visible motion of touching the base of her helmet and had the volumetrics of her suit make it seem like the helmet had folded in on itself to reveal her face even though her helmet was still on. Her natural voice filtered through the speaker, using trade as her language of choice.

"You're scaring her! Put the gun down and maybe she will help us..." Saya frowned a little and pushed at the gun holding hand of the power armor to her side and made her volumetrics frown a bit before she turned to the Kuvexian woman, a smile across her face and her bright blue eyes locked onto her.

"I apologize for him, he is just in a hurry. We want to take her home to her parents. They are worried about her... Oleera Boyer. Can you tell us where she is? I promise we won't hurt you ok?" Her body language was absolutely the opposite of Mikael's, calm and reassuring, peaceful as opposed to Mikael who seemed aggressive, at least to Saya.

 

[demibear]

Living Quarters

Mikael's posture was indeed aggressive, they needed speed and he had already slowed down things enough as it was. If they actually had the time, he would have taken a completely different approach with the likely slave. But he didn't, so he promptly fired a bolt of scalar energy at her to stun her. If Kuvexian physiology proved resistant to it, another shot or two would fire.

"This is a raid Fujiwara-Hei, we do not have time to establish rapport and get people to open up to a hostile force. I slowed down the tempo enough with my action." Mikael said, without bothering to change the filter of the speakers.

Mikael then lifted his sub-machine back to the high ready and moved forward to the next door. "Breach and clear! Stun civilians and neutralize hostiles permanently. The child will likely be hiding with all the shots being fired, so be mindful of your targets and use your sensors in proximity to locate anyone in hiding." Mikael said of the squad's encrypted frequency.

 

[Blizzard]

Shuttle
Skies above compound
pls don't click this link

"Oh, hi! I remember you!" said Gravity with a very chilling smile. Below her was the smoldering ruin of what had been an eight-man team and their anti-ship gun. Where the gun had been was nothing more than a smoldering crater, and the eight man team were nothing more than little puddles of bluish goo scattered about.

Except for one.

"You were the one who gave the order to open fire on my shuttle! You know, the one with my baby sister aboard?" Gravity sighed, as if reminiscing about the good times with an old acquaintance. Her golden eyes positively gleamed with predatory excitement as she lined up the targeting reticle on the back of a fleeing Kuvexian officer. After having his entire team blown to bits, he'd dropped his gun and began hightailing it through a ravine, with the blue valkyrie hovering leisurely behind him. Gravity almost felt sorry... almost.

Mostly, her thoughts revolved around fish and barrels.

The shuttle's aether cannon barked, and the officer exploded. With a satisfied grin, Gravity was about to head off to cause more wanton destruction when Eden came over the comms. Gravity acknowledged, and shot one last glance at the officer. The kuvexian had been blown clean in half. Somehow, the bastard was still alive, clawing his way over the ground with his arms, leaving a dark trail of blood behind him.

If she were a petty sort, Gravity would have fired another shot.

"Nice chat! But I have things to do so... I'll just leave you to it." she said to the soon-to-be-dead officer in farewell. Gravity slammed the throttle to max and shot off in the direction of the rogue armor. As she flew, the occasional small-arms round would splash harmlessly against her shield. She paid them no mind, eyes fixed on the little black dot on the horizon that was rapidly growing closer. She sighed a little as she began locking on.

"Ugh, sorry bud! If ya wouldn't have run, I wouldn't be forced to put ya down!" she apologized quietly. Despite the past ten minutes, Gravity was not some sort of monster. It didn't sit well with her to waste time blowing an egghead out of the sky when there were plenty of other, more well-trained opponents who actually wanted to fight. The reticle flashed green, and a solid tone resounded through the cockpit.

"But, I guess you chose your side, didn't you?" Gravity mused. Then, she grinned smugly. The least she could do was send him out in proper fashion.

"Ya-YEET!" Gravity cried triumphantly and slapped the fire button. A lone A2A missile raced off after the runner. There was a flash, then they were gone. Gravity shook her head and circled back to the compound.

"Runner's down." the valkyrie informed Eden.

 

[SchererSoban]

OCC" "You say our enemy is evil Wulf-Hei ? You think that because your not them. To them you are the evil upon this galaxy and the anomaly in the void. Put your feet in their shoes, those of your enemy, those of your fellow soldiers. To them they are only doing what is right just like you are doing now. So put those notions of evil and righteous away and instead do your duty without a second thought." Wulf Soban's Commanding officer ye 40 to him during a patrol.

IC
Living Quarters

Wulf looked behind him to see what the commotion was between his squad. He had heard Mikael and the threat. Sneaking a glance he saw the raised forearm pulse cannon raised. He could feel a knot form in his stomach for a moment wondering what would happen next. Looking back into the court yard he wanted to speak up but knew better then to do that in-front of a commanding officer and a Saint operative at that. Hoping that this wouldn't get messy and they all get labeled villians he was glad when Saya spoke up.

Thinking it wouldn't become a mess he still saw the rear was clear from what he could tell from his limited view. It was then he heard the distinct fire from the shuttle that perked his interest outside. Giving a report to Aiko "Chui rear is still presently clear with visuals and thermal from what I can tell, also looks like Heisho Sifsottir is engaging hostiles close".

Hoping they could move on he didn't like the idea of waiting around. Hoping the group would move on just encase more hostiles showed up.

 

[Charaa]

Living quarters
It was clear that the woman was clearly scared and thus likely a civilian, at least she hoped she was and she found herself concerned about how to knock her out without killing her, since she thought it would prove that Yamatai wasn’t an evil empire, but Mikael was giving the impression that it was! Unfortunately, much like Wulf, her love, she didn’t want to speak out fearing that it would be rude or disrespectful.

She gasped within her helmet when she saw the attack and hoped that she was alive. “Sure, make them think Yamatai is evil,” she muttered quietly unheard by anyone. “Hai, I agree with Wulf-honey, I mean Wulf-hei, all clear back here,” she said and blushed.

 

[SensualCoder]

Research Facility

Hildr whirled on the armor attacking Kikios, red filling her vision as she broke from cover and rushed full-speed at the armor. Held in one hand, her SMG was rattling off a staccato of shots without pause, while she drew one of the guntō blades with the other hand as she bore down to cut the enemy armor into tiny bits, a war cry on her lips as she leapt to defend the Elysian.

"Get AWAY from her!" Hildr cried out as she ignited and swung the aether sword in a wild arc at the armor.

 

[SageShooter]

Living Quarters

"SA-... Yes sir." Saya had to physically bite her tongue to stop the words from spilling out. It would have been one of the rare moments that she had actually talked back to a superior officer and that was something they couldn't afford at that moment. The illusion of her face fell away quickly to replace the normally cold exterior face plate of her Mindy, but behind her mask was a deep scowl that she held on the man, sure he could feel the anger of her look bore into his own helmet. She let out a huff and turned back to the knocked out Kuvexian below her and knelt. It was a quick scan to make sure their vitals were stable before she replaced her medical scanner back into her pack and formed up with the other. For once though, the usually bubbly Neko's body language was stiff and tense, more so than her normal about an away mission. She was actually angry.

"Ready to move Harris-Shoi Kohosei." The inflection on the secondary part of his rank was a bit harsher than she would have liked, but it slipped out none the less as she brought her rifle back into both hands and readied herself to move on behind the others.

 

[Whisper]

Research Facility

Indira frowned at the response, unsure of how to proceed. Orders were orders, however, and she understood that the others might not be free to help.

"Acknowledged," she replied. The monotone delivery did much to hide her anxiety.

"Well, what now?" Indira thought to herself. She reviewed her limited options, feebly attempting to get her hands and feet into a position where they could make the armor move. The plan had seemed sound at first - get the armor working, use it to grab the Mindy or pass it off to someone else, and then get out before anyone had a chance to destroy the machine. If only she'd taken the height difference between herself and a Kuvexian into account.

Mentally, she reviewed the controls that she'd managed to get access to. Her savior turned out to be a shake-down routine. It sent the suit through a series of pre-defined motions, including raising the arms up. She copied it, trimmed out what she didn't need, and ran the copy. The suit slowly rotated its arms forward and up. The weight of her body pulled her arms free and she gave a mental cheer.

She hopped back into her Mindy with a renewed respect for correctly-sized equipment. With one hand resting against the Kuvexian armor, she started up the charge cycle on her teleportation unit. It would take about fifteen seconds to generate an adequate charge.

"Chusa," she began, "I'm prepared to teleport myself and the Kuvexian armor for retrieval. Any data we can retrieve will be crucial in understanding how it works in a timely fashion. Requesti-"

Indira was cut off as she was forced to duck behind the enemy armor. A series of blasts shot by her, one brushing her armor and another splashing against the suit's leg. "-Requesting permission to teleport. I can get into orbit or try for somewhere closer." And away from all this gun fire.

 

[raz]

Living Quarters

Aiko remained aloof of the exchange between the Kuvexian house servant and those Star Army soldiers under her command (and the Star Army soldiers among themselves). Mikael's resolution hadn't been the most efficient — the report of Yamataian weapons had been heard within the compound, so whoever may be guarding Oleera Boyar knew they were coming now — but at least the Mindy team was on its way again. Her own intelligence training during the Kaiyo's transuniversal operations stint left her thinking ill of the choice, but tactical analysis could happen after they were all safely back home. So she kept moving with the team as quickly as they would advance, maintaining her place in the stack as the hot-headed SAINT officer prepared to barrel through.

"Good work, Harris-kohosei; Fujiwara-hei," Aiko said in recognition of their respective actions, focused more on the parts of their mission still ahead rather than concerned with unarmed Kuvexian speed bumps. "We shall not concern ourselves with non-combatants any longer," she added as a modification to Mikael's last directive to stun civilians. "They are to be ignored entirely unless one should reveal a weapon and fire upon us, for no Star Army soldier should be reduced to preemptive cowardice at the prospect of having their armor scratched.

"Proceed forward. We must find Ms. Boyar."

 

[Ametheliana]

Kuvexian Planet
Compound
Living Quarters

With the Kuvexian dishwasher slumped on the ground, stunned and perhaps in a better place mentally than she was while conscious, the infiltration team moved through the doorway, the way she had flitted her eyes when they had first approached her. Through that open doorway was a dining room with simple but expensive taste and nothing along the lines of the query. The next room was the corner room of the living quarters and held furnishings closer to a bedroom than the other rooms. The twin-sized bed was near the eastern wall with a nightstand between the two. The western wall held closed sliding doors to a closet and the first wooden door within the living quarter's interior that the team had seen.

The best scanner for seeing through the walls would have been the ultra-wide band radar on the Mindy's AIES, but for seeing the small huddled mass that was wedged between the wall and bed was the infrared. The small bundle of heat skittered beneath the bed at the sound of the Kaiyo team's intrusion.

Research Facility

"Acknowledged," Eden said to her whole team. "Clear for jump, Indira-hei."

"Good work, Gravity-heisho. Be prepared for extraction of your team, but remain out of sight."

A raspy banging sounded from one large room over and Eden guessed it to be a large bulwark of some kind hitting against the corrugated metal door that had folded down upon her team's entrance. The Kuvexians finally were trying to get in. She motioned to Wyatt to guard the door between this room of the research facility and the next with which they had entered in from and eyed Dalida. Unhappy to separate the two that were working well together, she knew the technician would be able to perhaps lock the controls to the door or, at least, provide Wyatt the immediate reactionary backup he might need.

Her own body turned, jamming her her elbows to her sides while her fists gained extensions of triangular solid volumetrics on three of her knuckles.

"Rip and tear, now, Kikios," Eden said to those in her team while she struck the armor with a hard pummeling. She felt the resistance of metal under her hand and the pushback of shielding, but kept at it alongside Hildr's aether guntō blades, wary of getting in the way of hr comrade's calculated slashing.

As the armor fell, Eden's sensors felt the heat of the teleport and she saw Indira's position change. She didn't want to pull her team back prematurely, there were still a distraction to the main event in the living quarters above the facility. Regardless, she was holding her breath to give an order to get themselves out of the facility as soon as tactically possible.

"Hildr-hei, back up the Chui..." Eden said as she saw that Alastair was now facing a large and seemingly empty room that held a solitary completed armor alongside half-built and not quite completed armors and their respective equipment and tables. "I think he'll need it." Eden herself trotted behind Hildr. "Kikios, hold this room with them from would-be-intruders," Eden ordered, indicating Wyatt and Dalida's placement.


YSS Kaiyō II
Bridge

"Don't you like tanks a qhole lot?" Hoshi asked Chlorate as she kept her head down to watch the varying outputs from the mission on volumetric screens beyond those in her mind's eye. "You wouldn't see much action in space combat, but you could have dual occupations and if there's ever a ground assault, you could be trained to be a tank operator. Maybe I am extrapolating a bit much here, though. It's your choice."

Hoshi looked from Chlorate to Aiko, thinking to herself something she thought to relay to Eden. "Don't try to give Aiko any of those compassion worksheets," she laughed, "I think there's a balance in that Nekovalkyrja I haven't seen in a long time."

Eden replied with a laugh, "They're not worksheets! Maybe she'd make a better teacher... Lots of dead scientists here. You getting ours?"

"Hai," Hoshi replied. "We have prepared for extraction on several counts, including her safe return. Get yourselves above water for yours."

"Arigatou," Eden replied, both in acknowledgement and in gratitude.