RP: YSS Ryūjō Mission 2.1 - Breadcrumbs

Engine room 2

Having been routed to the least damaged of the broken engines by MEGAMI, Aya has been desperately troubleshooting the problem, owing to the style of attack chances are the actual engine itself is in working order, or so she hoped, fuses and safety circuits are an awful lot easier to replace or bypass than the heavier engine parts.

Swearing under her breath she unscrewed an access panel to the main part of the engine and dove in, leaving her butt and angrily waving tail sticking out as she found what she hoped was the problem, a burnt out heat monitor to make sure the engine doesn't get too hot. Of course standard procedure would dictate she rewire the entire thing or replace it but this is anything but a standard situation, after digging through the small bag of supplies she keeps on her she pulled out a length of wire and a small soldering iron. A few seconds and a bit of wire soldering later and the heat monitor was bypassed, hopefully tricking the engine's computer into thinking it's operational and not reporting anything out of the ordinary.

"Alright, come on work, please!" Aya shouted as she pulled herself free of the engine and reattatched the access panel, her white hair turned a mucky grey by oil and soot from inside the engine. She crossed her fingers as she pressed start engine on the diagnostic panel next to the engine, hoping that this was the only important broken system stopping the engine running or she'd have more digging to do to get it running.

Space

Maintaining situational and spatial awareness around the the Ryūjō was of paramount importance to Aurélie, especially with the odds so stacked against her and her wing mate. Although Aurélie was reluctant to have Nocnimura take the brunt of enemy fire, the big Nodachi that she flew was better suited for the task. Aurélie planned to take on an offensive role by intercepting and annihilating the hostile craft that sought to force her wingmate into ACM. The Nodachi was a heavy fighter with a surplus of firepower, but it would be outmaneuvered in a dogfight.

Continuing her pursuit of the hostile craft that had remained in formation in spite of the damage it had taken, Aurélie maintained fire on the craft, leading her final shots on it before quickly breaking away and setting a pursuit curve on the errant enemy fighter. Her only objective was to establish a torpedo lock, ast the lone craft would be susceptible to a torpedo without countermeasure support from the other enemy fighters.

After establishing a lock, Aurélie fired her torpedo and broke from the pursuit. Without delay, she quickly maneuvered her craft to establish a firing arc on the hostile fighters going after Nocnimura's Nodachi before unleashing a barrage of aetheric fire, prioritizing bandits that were unshielded or made for easy targets.

Systems and Safety Monitoring Station

Noa wasn't too crestfallen when the Chusa declined her schemes, though not entirely... it was still on the drawing board as a plan B by the looks of it, a back pocket ace if the Ryujo lost its fighters in the continuing dogfight occurring all around the cruiser. Even though she was down one ghostly decoy Kawarime, the little hacker was getting the job done with what she had, continuing to pull risky maneuvers with the projections in order to keep their opponents guessing and screen the real pilots out there from taking unnecessary hits. Even if the enemy's shots were landing, the hull's integrity was holding, but their anti-fighter gun batteries were going offline at a steady rate.

The red-paneled mini-neko instructed MEGAMI to open up the shielded panels and deploy the 10 retractable anti-armor turrets at the ship's rear to fill the gaps, despite the fact that they were listed as largely ineffective against starfighters of this size class. That didn't mean she couldn't get a little creative again with them though to keep the bogeys guessing... the trick was in the patterns Noa keyed into the targeting systems, having them start rapid firing aether pulses to fill the air with energetic flak that would hopefully force their opponent craft to slow down or fly through the area and receive light damage to their shields. She tried this trick once playing Duty Calls to frag the guy who was in pursuit of her avatar, so it was worth a shot IRL right?

Meanwhile, Amatsukaze-hei was monitoring the situation as Hangar Bay #1 depressurized when its force field collapsed and sent its contents into space, as well as some unlucky personnel. She tried to see if there was enough energy to bring a graviton beam projector online for a brief moment and, with luck, it could create a drag bubble that would catch anything nearby that had escaped (including Argenta)...

Team Five

Fyodor paused when he felt the pressure change, but nodded and kept up the patrol as Shrii explained what happened. Where are the fire extinguishers at anyway? he thought as he saw all the potential trouble spots that were evident in the hastily repaired systems. Looks like some of this will fall apart when someone looks at it funny. And the best I can do to fix it is probably standing in between the engineers and another piece of explosive machinery so it kills me and not them.

The Kodian shrugged as he kept his LASR up and put his mind back to watching for invisible intruders. At least that's something I can deal with in some sense.

Systems and Safety Monitoring System/Space

The projectors Noa got online wouldn't be delicate enough to reel in lost personnel, but setting up a field to keep the debris on the starboard side from falling behind in the ship's wake was easy enough. With that in place, those crew with gravity organs wouldn't become lost too easily... though they had to bear the ship's acceleration without the compensation provided inside. Argenta had now gone from drifting to freefall, to a feeling more like that of being in an elevator that had just stopped on its emergency brakes.

Starboard Engine Room

All indicators lit up and the power hummed through, bringing the engine to ignition just for an instant--and then there was a sort of 'pyoom' sound, a shockwave that rippled through the ship as something twenty meters behind Aya. Outside the compartment, energy from a vent blasted out into space, apparently in protest of the confining channels it had been meant to run through. There was nothing left to reroute or bypass, at least not from the console. Fixing this would take a trip through a crawlspace, or EVA work.

Space, Starboard Side

With the drag bubble slinging them both along aside the ship, Argenta and the ammunition crate she'd attached herself to had formed something like an orbital system, spinning around each other, as starship grade bolts of energy flashed by within dozens of meters of them. They were bound by the thread she'd attached, and the gun she was holding, but the speed of her orbit increased as she drew closer to it.

Team Five

The patrol proceeded in relative silence, though Fyodor's other squadmates--Shrii not included--took their investigations very seriously, stopping to search every cubic meter of space, in their own ways. Shrii seemed willing to tarry for there sake, if not to wait for them entirely, nor did she seem too concerned about letting a gap of as much as ten meters grow between her position leading the squad's 'center', and whoever was furthest behind. As hardened as she might have been, she didn't seem that much of a stickler for discipline now that the team was on the job, even with the ship at condition one.

Space, Port Side

Aurélie hit the fighter hard, and was sure she'd defeated it... but it seemed she'd misjudged, as it came to life and launched something from its underbelly just as she'd turned her tail to it. There didn't seem to be any weapons incoming, though, and Nocnimura had finished off the wounded craft within seconds. Her torpedo attack went off without a hitch, only--she didn't register a hit. The torpedo was still flying, yet the fighter just wasn't there. Working together with Nocnimura, two of the remaining three fighters were weakened and starting to slow, but the third flew on past the Nodachi, almost taunting her as it did, and the others were proving too much for even all the Nodachi's guns.

"These things are built to last," Nocnimura commented, sounding faintly impressed, before she fired up her engines and launched four mini-missiles at each of the remaining fighters, right when they passed by her wings. Rocked by the explosions, one started drifting to collide with the Ryujo, never to complete its course as the cruiser pulled gently ahead. The other began to break up, before being consumed in a secondary explosion even more powerful than all eight missiles combined.

Space

Aurélie did a double take on her sensors when the fighter she had shot the torpedo at disappeared out of sight. After scanning her surroundings, the pilot quickly arced her Kawarime back toward remaining six fighters that were trailing Nocnimura's Nodachi. It was a risky and nigh-suicidal maneuver given the volume of active enemy forces. However, she was aware and cognizant of the status of the decoy fighters, which she anticipated would grant her a small measure of protection and buy her time.

The pilot flew her Kawarime head on towards an enemy fighter that was locked in a dogfight with one of the decoys. The Kawarime unleashed a barrage of aetheric fire at the fighter before Aurélie broke her craft left and initiated a pursuit with another bandit. After judging the craft's flight arc, Aurélie discharged another salvo of precise aether, aligning the nose of her Kawarime just ahead of her target's real time position.

"Oh come on!" Aya shouted as she weakly kicked the engine in frustration, a dull thud sounding as her foot connected with the thick metal. She spent a bit more time looking through the console but from the looks of it, the engine should have started up fine. Of course, it didn't start so something else must have stopped it working.

Electrical attacks don't cause damage to the larger heavier parts of the engine at least, but it's also a lot easier to see the hole caused by a missile and fix it while electricity can run through a whole engine and cause harder to find damage.

Aya headed over to an access panel along the back wall of the engine room that leads to a crawlspace vent that runs alongside various pipes, wires and conduits that supply the engine with plasma, coolant and various other things it needs to run. Her best guess was a ruptured plasma conduit but she wouldn't know until she could inspect the full length of the pipes herself. "Alright, let's get a good look down here then..."

Aya unscrewed the panel and peered into the darkness of the vent before she pulled her radio out, hoping someone with enough clearance to help her would be on the other end. "Hello is anyone there? This is Aya Surcouf, engineering. I'm trying to get the port-side engine 2 online and I think I've got the problem nailed down as a leaky plasma conduit, can you shut the plasma supply off so I can go looking through the vents for damage without getting blasted by a plasma leak?" After sending the transmission Aya leaned her back against the wall, tail flicking from side to side rapidly as the impatient Shukaren Daur waited on a reply.

Systems and Safety Monitoring Station

The mini-neko breathed a sigh of relief as it seemed the drag bubble trick worked, and no vital personnel were left completely out in the black as the Ryujo continued to match speed with its alien carrier adversary. Noa was medically trained, after all, so she couldn't just sit by let that happen... although a part of her wondered what it must've felt like to be on such a wild ride outside!

Amatsukaze-hei's orange-tinted visor kept streaming calculations into her digital brain as a lot of her immediate attention was taken up trying to control all of the illusionary fighters at once. There was a ping or two as the destruction of another drone registered, causing Noa to grumble. Their enemies were very tenacious -- one even seemingly disappearing off sensors completely -- but they were still mortal, as soon two of the opposition went up in fiery explosions. Finally some progress!

In the midst of the dogfight, the tiny red-paneled soldier saw the communication request come in from Aya Surcouf, MEGAMI's pings putting the fellow technician in the access crawlspace of the portside engines. Noa certainly remembered the dossier of the Shukaren Daur crewmate, one of the only members of that race to leave Neshaten and a real interesting gal.

"Bridge here. Roger that, Foxy-hei! I'll save the BBQ for our bogies," came the quick reply to Aya over wireless (with a slight mischievous giggle attached to it), "OK. Rerouting plasma away from the engine #2 subspace tunneling array feeders in 3...2...1... *click*"

Team Five

Wonder how its going for the rest of the crew, Fyodor thought as he kept an eye on the squad's patrol area while making sure Shrii didn't get too far ahead. Kind of bored here, but that's better than getting shot at or being near way too delicate plasma conduits. There are perks to being Infantry in a space battle. Though I guess that depends on whether you're okay with not really being able to effect the outcome until the enemy is boarding your ship.

The Kodian shrugged as he kept scanning the corridors as they passed through them. Like mom always said, always have the serenity to deal with things you can't control and all that. Or just deal with all the hurrying and waiting like a big boy and hope you don't get blown out into space by a lucky shot. Especially without power armor on.

Aya listened for the gentle hum of the plasma conduit to slowly die down before it stopped completely. "Aya to bridge, seems it's shut off from down here. Thanks, I owe you one!" She then put her radio back into it's pouch before she clambered into the small vent and headed down the dark crawlspace, using her torch to illuminate the vent in front of her as she looked for any damage to the pipes running alongside her through the crawlspace.

Space~

Argenta tensed up as she felt the gravity around her shift rapidly. She muttered quietly to herself, "Ah. Orbital mechanics. I just need to accelerate retrograde to land, and.... hm. No? Yes." Her helmeted face tracked the Ryujo for a few seconds, before pulling herself closer with the polymer thread. "Let's see..." Her body started to complain as the forces of her spinning around pushed vital blood away from where it was needed. This speed boost was needed... Now!

Cutting the thread which bound her to the crate, Argenta was hurtled towards the Ryujo, the assisting movement of Amatsukaze's CFS bubble keeping her on-course to land in what remained of the hangar. By the time she landed, Serket was breathing heavily, the void that surrounded her pushing against her AMES, searching for any breach, the tiniest hole with which it could have ended her life as she spun free within it. She sighed, body doubled over with her hands on her knees, taking but a moment to recover before asking MEGAMI where she would be needed.

After she found the rather large crack in the pipe about 10 meters down the access vent, thankfully it wasn't spewing plasma everywhere, she got to work welding it shut. Once Aya was happy with her handiwork she backed out of the small tunnel and radioed Amatsukaze again. "Alright I've welded the break in the conduit shut, as far as I can tell there aren't any more cracks so can you turn the engine's plasma supply back on and hopefully it'll start this time." Her tail swished side to side nervously behind her as she waited for a reply and to see if her work had paid off.

Systems and Safety Monitoring Station

The mini neko drummed her tanned little hands at the console, pondering how the dogfight was progressing. It was becoming obvious that their enemies were getting wise to her tricks and simply ignoring the phantom Kawarimes now, though that fortunately meant they ignored Aurelie as well. As the sneaky little information warfare expert pondered her next move, the comms from Aya opened up again with word the plasma leaks had been patched and were ready for testing.

"Hai, I guess its true what they say about the quick white fox patching the leaky pipe..." chimed in Noa back to the junior engineer, as she instructed the MEGAMI to begin sending the plasma down its original route again and bring the engine back to full operational power. As they did so Amatsukaze-hei attempted to make a little small talk and show off some of her impressive SAINT knowledge. "Seriously though, good work ... though any reason in particular you decided to crawl through the maintenance tunnels of a Urufu instead of a Ki'stra? Or is it seen one plasma conduit, seen 'em all, amiright?"

While she let that probing question to the foxy technician hang, the red-panel was hard at work sending new commands to the lightshow she was still conducting outside the ship. Half of the drone Kawarime fighters that were screening Aurelie broke off and seemed to disappear back into the Ryujo's docking bays. The tiny nodal bits went dark for a bit to try to fool the enemy's sensors that they had retreated from the dogfight, but all the while were actually re-positioning themselves some ways off towards the persuing carrier. When the projections finally came back online, now they were actually duplicates of the enemy starfighters, that looked to be reinforcing their colleagues! With the communications still being jammed, it was likely difficult to verify what they were doing at first, and the momentary loss in coordination and cohesion hopefully would give Nightmare Nocnimura and her fellow Helashio pilot a critical second of their foe's indecision to exploit...

All the while Noa gleefully rubbed her hands and hoped this would get some more pretty explosions going. That aught to cheer Snake-sama up.

(OOC: We are experiencing continuity problems. Expect turbulence.)

Space Battle

Aurelié flew past Nocnimura and into the fray. None of her foes were engaging with the decoy fighters, and to her great benefit, neither did they engage with her, perhaps unable to sense her Kawarime was not also a decoy. Even the pilot she targeted did not break formation after her barrage, nor did the second... their barrier fields were weakening, and they had not yet caught up to Nocnimura.

To her surprise, however, a slight twitch of the controls later, and the two fighters she'd hit had peeled away from the formation, as if by unspoken agreement. This was surprising for Noa, especially, who knew they could neither use comms nor their active sensors.

A moment later, the other four fighters also began turning, in unison, to flank Aurelié's fighter. Nocnimura, surprised, couldn't come to the rescue soon enough. Defeat would be inevitable... if only they'd sensed the Ryujo's last fighter, flown by its most experienced pilot, and flanked by its own tumbling decoys, was also a threat.

Too damaged to fly properly, tossed by the wind from the hangar, the commander's Kawarime was tumbling out of control, and had no means to aim its aether cannons on any target. This suited its pilot just fine, as she launched all eight of her missiles in random directions. Her fighter's AI was more than capable of sending four at each fighter Aurelié had weakened. Both craft were badly wounded as the explosions ripped past them, collapsing their barriers.

Aurelié had moments to act before the other four fighters were upon her.

Argenta was an uncomfortably close witness to the scene, so nearby she could see the specks of the two decoys the commander's Kawarime had deployed, and tell them apart from her fighter. There was little she could do to help, though, especially since the hangar bay's blast shutters had closed in the time it took her to fling herself back toward it. She glanced off of the hull, just as the Ryujo's damaged engines began sparking.

Shielding her eyes to look closer, it was easy enough to guess what had happened--the ruptured conduit had been repaired, but the breach had not been. Every time the initialization sequence began, the ship's CFS would take the wind out of it. Either the bridge would have to leave a gap in the ship's defenses, or the hull damage would have to be repaired.

Aya received no reply from the bridge, though she could hear well enough they attempted to start the engines, and failed. Not catastrophically, at least... it seemed to be letting them down gently, for now.

***

Having lost the element of surprise, Noa was happy to regain it again by sending decoys away from the fighter battle--that was someone else's problem! How could she use them to diminish the sense of threat from Nocnimura's Nodachi, though?

Fyodor's patrol stopped abruptly as Shrii raised a hand for a halt... and a moment later, flew off down the hall, back the way she came. "Orders are to cover the armour bay launch! Team Six is there, and we're the reinforcements."

Not Quite the YSS Ryujo
Space~

Argenta grunted as she bumped into the armored hangar door. Spinning slowly, the minkan took a deep breath as she oriented herself. There was a flash of light to her right - she decided to forego the polymer for now, opting to conserve and use her gravity-based, natural propulsion. Floating out a few meters from the Starship, the technician took a glide lengthwise and aftward, requesting the MEGAMI,

"Hey MEGAMI? What's going on with the engines?"

The MEGAMI's clipped response came after a slight delay. "The enemy attempted to disable all engines during the initial ambush. Half were disabled, the other half are now temporarily boosted to double performance to compensate."

Team Five

"Oh, great," Fyodor said, taking a moment to turn his giant bulk around and join in the rush to back up their comrades. Some reinforcements we are, he thought, patting his makeshift flour bombs in a nervous gesture before focusing on not falling down in his mad rush to keep up with his Neko squad leader, LASR swinging on its sling. Guess it could be worse. Could always have been woken up and sent to reinforce someone immediately. Having a few minutes to wake up helps some.

Space

The white haired Helashio pilot released a full payload of her aether plasma flares as she maneuvered her fighter defensively. The pilot flew her Kawarime dangerously close to the hull of the Ryūjō itself, seeking to utilize the dips, turrets, and rises on the hull as cover for her fighter and to lead the hostile fighters into friendly turret fire, if anything.

However, once she exhausted the length of the ship, Aurélie broke her Kawarime down and released more aether plasma flares, making an extremely sharp dive before flying along the bottom on the ship. With luck, the bandits would pursue her or break off, giving her time to course an offensive trajectory against them.

As Aya worked her way back out of the tunnel her hand reached for her radio to reply to the neko's question. "Oh that's one of the Neshaten ships right? Well I've lived in Yamatai since I was little, it's all I've ever really known. To be honest that's more of a question for my dad than me." She actually managed to crack a smile while crawling through the vent while having her friendly chat. Even if the situation was pretty bad, she'd fixed the engine right? So she should be able to relax at least a little bit. The sound of the engine trying and failing to start yet again prompted the fox girl to let off a string of colourful swear words as she clambered back out of the vent, thoroughly covered in grime.

Aya opened the radio channel back up as soon as she'd had a final check to make sure there was nothing else she could do inside. "Amatsukaze, there's nothing else I can do in here. Do we have any exterior cameras left to see if the problem's outside the ship?" Aya waited patiently for a response while she listened to the sounds of the space battle outside , it was dulled by the thick armour between her and the action but it's still a bit close for comfort. She was itching to get this engine back online so she could run off and fix up a few of the less damaged AA guns, to help in the fighter battle that she could hear going on outside.