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

The ICP powered on quickly, first displaying the SAINT logo which was then replaced with the following message.
"Message Pending.
Voice Print Authorization and Confirmation Required." Appeared on the screen. After a minute the screen changed.

"State your name. During our initial exploration of the Genei. What did I do at the junction points? Incorrect response will result in lockout."

-----------------------------

Meanwhile Ira received a message from Atsui. "Ramirez-Shoi, please consult the pilot roster and choose a candidate to be your wingman. Numa-Chui."

When Yaeko finally arrived at the Heitan, several hours after the others, she sprinted around trying to find the rest of the crew. Knowing that mental backups was on the plan she head over to the medbay. She hurried over to the others and the bowed, figuring a majority of them were a higher rank. "Sorry for being late, is it too late to get in line for a backup?"

One of the med techs turned to Yaeko. "Not at all, we have an open unit over here. I can get you started right now if you wish." She said moving to the unit.

Ira responded back to Atsui's. ““Yes ma’am. I’ll go over the roster and review the records, and select a candidate.”


Ira was brooding, and making an attempt to not be seen when Lynn by all of her skills and graces managed to interrupt him. Ira was indeed going over the squadron roster as he leaned against his fighter. The data pad he held in his hand went toppling to the ground, and let out a soft hiss. “Damn it..” He said softly bent over and picked up the pad. Ira came back up and found him self nose to nose with a very apologetic Lynn.

Ira responded rather informally. “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” He said with a warm smile. Ira may be the new XO but he was not going to be the type to rip people a new orifice for nothing. “It is Ramirez-Shoi now.” Ira said as he pointed to his new rank pin. “Promotion came with the job…and I don’t believe I have met you yet?” Ira’s eyebrows lifted and his smile vanished as he gave Lynn the opportunity to state her name and rank.

Nobutora actually laughed aloud at the memory, though he stifled it shortly. It had been a bizarre moment for him, a point of complete incongruity with what he was expecting from his first assignment. Still, compared with the stress and tension of the mission they launched into so shortly after, the levity of the situation meant the memory wasn’t one he was going to forget for quite a while. Smiling, he looked back down at the ICP’s display. “Yamamoto Nobutora, Itto-Heisho. Upon entering the junction you paused and, if I remember the phrase correctly, ‘tested the acoustics’ with three sung notes of different pitch.”

The memory backup didn't take too long for Saori; one of the singular pleasures of being alive for as brief a period as she has been meant there was precious little that had to be saved.

After getting suited up, she went to the hangar bay to give her fighter a pre-mission check and walk around.

Yaeko made her way over to the backup unit and lied back. "I hate these things," she said uncomfortably. "The last time I had a backup was before..." Her voice trailed off a bit as her mind started flashing back a bit. "Nevermind, lets just get this done with."

"Yagami Lynn - Ittô Hei! I've been with the squadron since its conception. I was Hayachi-Shoi's EWO until he was given command of the 22nd Squadron recently." Lynn said quickly.

She came up out of her bow, and eyed Ramirez's new rank patches with a weary eye. "Congratulations on your promotion Ramirez-Shoi." Lynn said as a new wave of depression washed over her. She missed her short friend a lot.

"Do you like music?" She blurted out suddenly.

After Nobutora gave his response the ICP screen first displayed a simple "Processing" for a a few seconds, then the screen went blank for a moment.

//Authorization and passcode accepted//
//Decryption commencing//
//White Noise Generation Application Loading//
//Message follows//
A Video recording of Konpeki appeared.
Yamamoto-Ittô Heisho

What I am about to impart to you comes directly from the new Director of SAINT, Tamahagane Mai-Chujo.

Since the outbreak of this war, a disturbing pattern has appeared. A series of SAINT sponsored missions show signs of being compromised. One example of this was a mission given to the Eucharis to evacuate the Veritas Shipyard and gather vital information. According to the after mission reports, the crew was assaulted upon arrival. Despite the Eucharis operating in stealth/camouflage. Meaning that their arrival was expected.

I will not bore you with further details, but the logical conclusion is that at some portion of the command infrastructure has been compromised. The Chujo has dispatched a limited number of Operatives to different assignments. Our orders have been to observe and investigate without informing the hierarchy as to what we are doing in addition to what they believe our duties are. So far I have cleared several key members of the Chain of Command in the 2XF. I will only let you know at this time that Numa-Chui, despite her recent issues is clear.

Under my orders I am authorized to recruit other SAINT personnel that my instincts tell me I can trust. Until your recent arrival, I had not found another operative that I felt comfortable bringing into this.

When I return from this mission, we can discuss this more.

Eika Konpeki-Ittô Heisho
//Erasing Message//
//Terminating White Noise Application//
//End of Line//

Click to expand...

“Lynn-Hei” Ira said softly as he smiled at her. “It’s a pleasure.” He calmly as he placed his data pad under his arm pit. “Ha, thanks I guess, I think I just got lucky being the next available rank.”

“Actually I love music, I am a fan of Jazz my self.” It was then that Ira suddenly snapped his finger. “I got it!” Atsui would soon get a call on her comms “Ma’am, The new guy, Nobutora, I recommend his call sign to be “Sage, also I will be flying wing for him during this sortie.”

Ira would finish checking in, then go back to being subtly flirty with this young EWO. “What kinds of music do you like?”

"Piano. Choral. Almost everything else. I really like Funky City Jazz, but there isn't much out there right now. I write piano music, and I love to sing. Do you listen to pure instrumental pieces? Sometimes I think they're a lot more fun than half of the stuff coming out now. Because of the war, most everything is depressing. Hachirou-Shoi used to say 'Emo Music', do you know what that means? He laughed when I asked him. We always used to talk, on our off hours. Sekai-Heisho, Hachirou-Shoi and I. Talk and talk and talk." Lynn blushed, realizing she was talk, talk, talking.

"Sorry. I don't want to talk your ear off. May I be excused? I'd like to try and locate Tsukino-Hei. She looked sad the last time I saw her." Lynn asked, bowing a bit. She'd rather be sad with Ren than make a 'new' friend right then.

Yaeko uncomfortably went through the backup process. Once it was finished she stood up and stretched, trying to work out the kinks that had developed. "If only I could erase parts of my memory," she muttered as she walked away. She wandered for a while before finding the new Shoi. "Ramirez-Shoi," Yaeko bowed, "Do you know where we're supposed to report after the backups?"

At that moment, blaring Klaxons and alert status lights began flashing throughout the Heitan interrupting Ira and Yaeko's conversation.

A moment later, the Heitan's AI Hiromi's voice came over the public address system, "General Quarters, General Quarters, this is not a drill. General Quarters --- crew members report to your Action Stations immediately. All fighter crews report to your briefing area for briefing."

Atsui looked up from her terminal when the alert was sounded. She was halfway across the room, when the AI instructed the flight personnel to report to their briefing rooms.

Turning around she went back to the terminal. She entered her personal access code, and read the message that appeared. "Damn." was all she said as she finished.

Lynn in her nervousness was chattering off when suddenly she wished to be excused. “Go ahead.” Ira said calmly. Once the girl left he would find him self face to face with Yaeko, the girl who he helped rescue on the last mission. He went to go ahead and speak, but the sound of alarm blared, and instructions to report to action stations and to be briefed were being broadcast on the ship’s PA. Ira looked to Yaeko “Sure do!”

Immediately he dashed off heading to the briefing room that was designated for the 21st squadron.

If Atsui was in the room she would here Ira state a question “Ma’am, any idea what this is about?”

Jumping a little at the klaxons, Tai rushed to the briefing room, making sure to make way for people as she could in the hallways. "Kobayashi-Hei reporting." she said, trying to find an out of the way seat, and standing behind it, at attention.

The new pilot looked plenty ready for a mission, uniform tidy enough to not get in trouble, but she was trying not to show being out of breath.

Nobutora was no longer smiling as he left his compartment and made for the briefing room. General Quarters and Action Stations being set throughout the ship would normally have been enough to make him thoroughly stoic and on-mission, but in this case it was superfluous. He was used to nursing an active sense of suspicion and paranoia; it was an institutional feature of everyone in SAINT. But this… this was something different. This was an official tasking – or at least as official as SAINT taskings got – to watch for leaks within his own unit.

He very much hoped that the mission, and whatever caused them to go to Action Stations, wouldn’t take too long to resolve, because he wanted to talk to Eika, and soon. Threats to the Empire were something Nobutora took personally and betrayal was as personal as it got. Without the operational parameters, procedures, and protocols he hoped his old partner would be able to give him, he was afraid that if he did happen to get his hands on a traitor things could get very bad very quickly.

Slowing up as he reached the hatch to the brief room, he set his face back into its typical semi-scowl. He stepped across the threshold and walked over to an empty seat. Settled in, he glanced about, scanning the faces and gestures of those around him in obsessive, but discreet, detail.

Silic exploded out the door of his quarters as the alarm sounded, still stripped to the waist and trying to hold up the bottom half of his work overalls and screw his thumb back on at the same time, two other digits hanging out of his mouth. “We have to get to the briefing area!” he shouted around the two fingers, then stopped for a second still clutching his waist band “Where is the briefing area?” A line of arrows helpfully pointed to the right.

By the time he reached the briefing room he was out of breath, and had only managed to get one sleeve done, but at least all fingers were now accounted for. “We dying yet?” was all he asked as he stumbled in, boot laces dragging along the floor from a hurriedly done knot.

"Not yet, Silic-Hei." Lynn said from her seat. "You have a finger in your pocket, by the way."

Lynn moved over a seat.

“Thanks dear.” Silic teased as he collapsed into the chair gratefully, slipping his other arm into it's sleeve and adjusting the collar before zipping up. Once done, he leaned back and gently slammed his boot into the seat in front, working at his laces, only to have it fall apart as a major finger was indeed making it's absence felt.

Sighing, he reached for his pocket going into old geezer mode “Being a cyborg is cool and all,” he said quietly, placing the missing finger above it's socket and pushing it in “but I wish bits would stop walking off on their own accord.” before quietly going back to his shoes.

As the members of the 21st scrambled to the briefing room, the internal lighting on the Heitan dimmed slighting, and a brief sense of acceleration was felt signaling that the ship had just jumped into hyperspace.

Atsui looked at the members who had gathered, and deciding that time was short. So she put the screen on hold, and looked up at the squadron.

"Heads up people, I do not need to tell you that something is up. So I am going to get to the heart of the situation. The two SAINT vessels that we were scheduled to rendezvous with broke radio silence. They were jumped on their way out of NMX controlled space. The YSS Kantsuu was destroyed, the YSS Youkai managed to survive the encounter but was heavily damaged and heading to Rabbit Hole ahead of schedule. The last communique from them was that they had arrived in system, and that they were falling into the gravity well of one of the planets. All contact was lost after that."

Atsui paused for a moment to let what she said sink in. "The Heitan and her escort have just jumped into fold heading for the system. Once they arrive, we will launch. Our mission is now one of search and recovery. Time is of the essence as it is very likely that the NMX will follow the Youkai's trail, we just do not know how long it will take for them to arrive. The Heitan is launching three search groups, we have the inner system, which reportedly has one terrestrial planet, the other two groups will search the gas giants."

"Any questions? Be quick about it, otherwise its off to suit up and get into our fighters." she said.