RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 2.0] Rescue with a side order of Calamari

Ira left and boarded the shuttle, sitting down he said little and merely listened to the new additions banter. When Tai said "”As much as I should hope that we don't have to see any action during the mission, I almost want to. The chance to properly push our fighter's to the absolute maximum is just too exciting to ignore." Ira immediately perked up. “ I’m going to remind you of saying that when your wing mate his begging for you to save his or her life and all you can do is sit and watch helplessly as his or her fighter burns in space.” His tone was neither condescending nor meant to insult, he did how ever have a small smug smile on his face. He had merely stated what he had experienced. His first encounter with the Mishuu had nearly killed him. His second encounter, all he could do was sit and watch as Silic and Yaeko fell from the sky.

Ira then leaned back, and was uninterested in the rebuttal that would probably follow. This was a war, and people were dying, he just hoped that Tai knew that and was trying to mask fear with optimism.

“Secret missions…”

Silic had his feet on the seat next to him, slouching back with his sleeves rolled up behind the other two. "So much drama." he commented dryly. All it would have taken was a cigarette in his hand and he'd have been straight out of Funky City.

The pilot looked over, nodding. "I will....I know what war is. I've lost family to it." she said, quite soberly. "My excitement for flying the newest fighter is tempered by the fact that I actually don't want to see action. I'd rather this just go routinely, there not be any enemy contacts, and everyone gets out fine. But we all KNOW it won't go that way. It NEVER goes that way. I don't think I have personally heard of a mission that went perfectly right." she said, sitting down calmly.

Nobutora followed behind the other members of his squadron. Falling easily into his routine of observation, and evaluation. Perhaps it was not the best way to become better integrated, but he would work on that later.

Following the others into the shuttle he took a seat and listened to the banter. When he heard Ira mutter about Secret missions, he decided to speak up.

"Technically speaking our mission is not a secret mission beyond the standard nature of a military missions in a time of war. This mision is more of a need to know situation Ramirez-Shoi Kohosei." he said with a nod of his head to Ira.

He then noticed Atsui look at her communicator, an then start talking to Hachiro. From her expression it was plain to see she was not pleased by the message.

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Atsui had been relaxing in her seat waiting for the shuttle to finish loading and launch when her communicator signaled an incoming message. Now? They have to do this right before we are going on a mission? she thought. She leaned over to Hachiro and said, "We need to step outside for a moment." then she got up and walked out the back of the shuttle.

As she stepped down the ramp she turned to Kayo, "We'll only be a few minutes."

Atsui turned walked a short distance away from the shuttle and Hachiro joined her there. "Something wrong Numa-Chui." he asked when he approached.

"Seems that someone has a peculiar idea of good timing. Effective immediatly you and Hoshi are being transferred to the 22nd Squadron. So it looks like you will sit this mission out." Atsui replied. "Good luck with your new assignment." she said offering her hand. When Hachiro took it she gave it a good firm handshake, and then let go. "Well I still have a mission to lead." and she turned to go back to the shuttle.

Silic perked up when he noticed Hachirou hadn't come back inside the shuttle, he straightened up attentively, picking up some of Numa's body language. “Hey Chief, where's Boss-Man?” he asked, his dialect cutting back into a less refined style. His eyes going between Numa, the door and back again.

"Hayachi Hachirou-Shoi will not be flying this mission with us. He's been placed in charge of our system squadron the 22nd. Yagami-Hei his EWO will be transferring with him as well." Atsui replied.

Turning to Ira, "Ramirez-Shoi Kohosei, you are acting XO, and promoted to Shoi. Both effective immediately." Atsui added.

Ira turned his head and looked at Nobutora as the man addressed him. He smiled smugly once more. “When men are in doubt they always back out on a technicality.” Ira finished his statement with a playful wink, and then turned back to his own thoughts. HE did not spend much time in Ira Land however, Atsui stated where the XO was, and to his surprise, which was evident by the fact he had perked his right eyebrow up as she laid the news of his promotion, and new job on him.

Ira hesitated as he naturally had a few misgivings, but decided it was best not to question his commander when she needed every head she could use. “Aye Ma’am, I’ll do my best.”

Ira felt he may not be ready for such a responsibility, due to the fact that as XO he was now responsible for the mission, and the people participating in it.

Silic leaned back silently in his chair, rubbing his chin, elbow on arm rest. Lost in his own thoughts, “Well, at least I get my own room now.” he muttered gloomily.

Saori was quiet the whole time; through the ceremony, the briefing, and now on the shuttle. The dark-haired neko just had nothing to really add, apparently - nothing beyond acknowledging that she had heard her orders and would comply with them.

Nobutora sat, silent and puzzled. He wasn’t sure whether he should be confused by the newly promoted Shoi’s response, not making a great deal of sense in context, or to become angered by it as an aspersion cast on his own honor. Puzzled further by the odd combination of a smug smile and a wink, he settled on being a little confused and a little angry. Still, Nobutora was nothing if not expert at brooding silently so he continued to sit, watching the others. His eyes caught on Saori; it seemed as if she, like him, preferred to be an observer rather than a participant, but he hadn’t quite nailed her down yet. “Kuwashima-Hei,” he said in greeting. “Thoughts?”

With the majority of the Squadron on the shuttle, Atsui instructed the pilot to launch, any of the Diamonds who missed this shuttle would be able to catch one of the others heading to the Heitan.

The rear hatch of the shuttle closed with a soft whir and the audible clunk as the hatch locked. A moment later the shuttle lifted off and headed out of the bay in the Star Fortress. The T7 shuttle glided silenty through the space between the Fortress and the carrier. The Heitan was currenting in a polar orbit so the shuttle intercepted it as the ship was coming over the north pole.

Atsui kept herself occupied by working on changing the configuration to account for the loss of her XO. When the shuttle touched down she started making her way to the back of the shuttle before the door even started opening. As the door started cycling she turned to those present. "I'll see you all in the hanger in 3:30 minutes. Oh, and Vas-Hei, you just earned your callsign. Effective immediately, your callsign is Tin Man." she said with smile and a wink and walked out.

"None, Yamamoto-Heisho," The neko replied to the question in a somewhat deadpan voice.

She was quiet for long moment, brushing a loose spray of hair away from her eyes before elaborating further. "I try not to have any before a mission. They're...distracting."

Saori looked a little dreamy when she was speaking. Not distracted, or daydreaming but certainly likely only seven-eighths there. Still, once Atsui started talking to tell the squadron when to meet up, Saori did promptly clam up going back to thinking about nothing.

Yaeko sprinted to the shuttle and was only a hundred or so yards away from the landing bay when it took of. She swore under her breath before checking up with a launch schedule. "Two hours!? What am I going to do for two hours!?" Frustrated, she walked to the nearby bar and had herself several non-alcoholic beverages. She chatted it up with a cute guy at the bar and, glancing at a clock, realized that she had burned all of her time. She got up and skipped away, glancing back with a quick wink. Yaeko then made her way back to the landing bay and got on the shuttle. "Heitan, correct? Good!"

Silic yelped as another memory was plucked out of his mind by the ST machine, his leg twitched in shock. “Well, I'm going to wake up one grumpy bugger if they use this back up.” Silic declared, another shudder shaking him as a particularly painful memory whizzed by, and was just as quickly suppressed again by the minds natural defence. Being one of the oldest in the squadron had it's downsides, one of which was it took far longer for an ST backup to be done.

He was laying on his back, with the device covering him up to his shoulders, feet occasionally kicking slightly as small spasm caused him to shift. That wasn't stopping his mouth from working. “Who said we have to sit thoug-ah-ah-ah!” Silic cut off in another yelp like he'd just burned his finger “..through this torture again? Oh right! Solitaire. She sure knows-ow!...how make a guy suffer. Not even my wife was this bad sometimes-oof! Yup, that was a keeper...”

Grumpy seemed to be the mood that most described Silic since joining the 21st, things hadn't exactly worked out for him, and now he was taking the opportunity to vent while out of the CO's sight. The fact that he wasn't on the pain reducing drugs made the whole exercise especially strenuous.

Atsui had taken care of the paperwork she needed to attend to, and walked into the medical bay to update her mental backup. She walked past the MTBU that Silic was in, Seems Tin Man insists on doing everything the hard way. she thought.

She walked over to the station she was assigned, and laid down. She turned to the technician and requested an incremental backup since she had one on record, and only need to append the recent couple of weeks to it. Ten minutes later she was done, and walked out, heading down to the Squadron Briefing room.

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When Nobutora boarded the Heitain his communicator chime that he had a message.

To: Yamamoto-Heisho
From: Eika-Heisho
Subject: Concerns
Yamamoto-San,
Sorry I was not able to attend the ceremony to watch your new unit received its commendations. I coded this message to be delivered when you returned. There is a disturbing situation, that I wanted to discuss with you, but I am leaving on the YSS Youkai on this intel gathering mission.

I have left my ICP in your quarters. There is an encrypted message that I want you to read, and when I return hope we can discuss it further.

When you go to access it, do not connect it to any network. To unlock the message you will need to answer a question, that only you know the correct answer.

Sincerely,
Eika Konpeki

Click to expand...

Ira was right behind the CO when he noticed Silic and his griping. He had just been promoted so now was probably the best time to act like it. “Vas-Hei you did not cry this much when we checked you into that hospital.” Ira’s tone was jovial and playful, but the truth was Ira really did want him to shut up.

Ira went to his station in order to get a back up. He had initially done it when he first signed on with the 21st, but it was better to be safe then sorry. Fifteen minuets later he was done and walking through the corridors to his Locker. He would put on his BDU, and new rank pin, and then head off to the hanger to start inspecting his fighter.

As soon as the ship docked, Tai was on her way to the medical area, gracefully sitting down and taking a deep breath as the back up process began in one of the several booths. "Always a part of the job." she said, wincing slightly as memories and details were pulled from her mind and copied.

Once the process was over (much shorter then it was for poor old Silic, due to age) she walked out and down the hall, stretching her back and arms. "Mmm...Maybe I should see if I can grab something to drink from the mess before we go into full mission mode." she murmured to herself, lazily walking that way.

Nobutora sat as still and silent as he could manage through the whole process of waiting for and then actually making his memory back-up. He prided himself on his self-discipline but the message he had received awoke every base instinct inside him to rush off at once to find out what Eika's concerns were. But discipline had won out and it was only now, the sensations of the back-up lingering, that he entered his quarters and sealed the hatch. He took a moment to survey the interior, looking for signs of intrusions or searches in his absence. Then, fishing his communicator out, he did a brief sweep for open networks, on the off chance that someone had set up a ghost network to tap into the ICP.

He grinned at the thought, and at Eika's reminder not to connect: the... “perils” of networks and independent computers would not soon be forgotten, not on his part at least. Shaking off the flash of memory, he settled down on his rack, lifting up his colleagues device. He toggled the power switch on and let the device boot up, waiting for the message run-time to start.

After a while the machine buzzed and lifted off Silics head, the man propped himself up and hung his feet over the side of the bed. Taking a few minutes to steady himself, he clasped his forehead in his hand, waiting for the world to stop shaking a bit. Finally he sighed and dropped onto the floor, “Who needs a shrink when you've got one of these.” he muttered, patting the machine.

He'd just relived every moment he could recall, and some that he couldn't, he wouldn't say it was therapeutic, but if you ever needed to rethink your life, going straight through a full soul backup was the way to go about it. Fortunately, he'd arrived at the same conclusion as before, life sucked. Still clutching his forehead he wandered back to his quarters to wind down, closing the door behind him and taking off his overalls down to the waist, his undershirt sweaty from pain.

He sat on the edge of his bunk and pulled one of the little diagrams off the wall, examining it lightly he reached underneath the bunk and pulled out his duffel bag, extracting a pencil and a canvas toolkit. He marked out something on the paper before sticking it back on the wall and unfurling the kit, the well used tools and stained cloth showing long use. He pulled apart his prosthetic hand with practised ease, “Hey Akechi-san, can you ho-” Silic stopped himself “Right.” he muttered, going back to his work in silence, this would keep him busy until it was time to go.

Lynn sat in the hangar, alone. The Technicians were taking a break it seemed, and she was left to her own devices.

Lynn thought for a few moments on whether or not she should mess with any of the fighters: it was common knowledge that Technicians never stopped working, because there was always something to be done. But she didn't feel like trying to tune up any of the fighter systems. She didn't feel like standing up. Her friend was gone, and likely never to be seen again. She would miss Hachirou-Shoi.

The orders had come in for them to both depart, but a last minute correction had left her in the 21st Squadron -- not that she was complaining about staying. In fact, she likely wouldn't complain at all. Just be a bit quieter than usual... work a little less.

She knew Numa-Chui would take her as an EWO. Yoshi-San had transferred as well, leaving Lynn as the most experienced support pilot in the squadron. It was natural. Smooth -- almost like strokes on a piano.

Suddenly, she felt the urge to go an speak to someone. She didn't have any paper, or anything to write on, nor did she have a book or datapad with any literature or music files on it. She needed something to relieve her depression: so she stood. She walked toward the entrance to the hangar bay and...

Promptly bumped into her new XO. Ramirez-Shoi.

"Gomen nasai!" Lynn said, scrambling to her feet and bowing. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bump into you, Ramirez-Shoi Kohosei!"