RP: YSS Aeon [Mission 2.1] Squids Come Calling

"Keep your long range weapons hot. As soon as you can identify it, take appropriate action." Katae said. She got out of her chair and walked over over to the systems status board. She appeared to look at the display, but in truth she just wanted an excuse to get up and walk. I hate waiting and this is taking too long. she thought.

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Usage meanwhile had returned to Engineering. She took her station at the power management console. All systems were operating within design parameters. Sure there were some minor issues elsewhere on the ship but none of them were critical and could wait until they returned home.

She pulled up a terminal screen and starting making a list of to-dos, that she planned to present to the Taii after the mission:

Upgrade blast shutters - after what she heard had happened aboard the Eucharis she wanted emergency doors that would work even if power was out.
Install extra security sensors on critical sections.

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Satisfied they had done an adequate job containing the structure Kame nodded to Tomas, Kame took the remaining power cords from him and packed up the blue-laser wielder she was using back in PPRK case. Expecting the cook to take back one of the two Aether Generators and wielder to their respective origin points. She then replied "Look forward to dinner Anderson-Hei and thanks for the assistance." After waving goodbye, Kame lugged the Premium Portable Repair Kit (PPRK) back to engineering along with the power cords and other Aether Generator.

Back in Engineering, she immediately put away the stuff and then with a proper bow to Itto Usaga Hisa reported, "The unknown mishhu object has been properly sealed and contained in the Fabrication Bay, Itto-Hei. I overheard you successful repair and was glad the damage to the conduits was minor." Seeing the list the Itto was typing up Kame quickly added, "If I make speaking freely.... about the blast doors.. I was looking at them as I came down and maybe something more practical like a gas springs or some other pneumatic system that is triggered by power failure could work. It would be much simpler and more practical then other methods such as independently powered gravity generators or using any giant Yam-Dura springs... you know the ones that are so stiff they require a 50 ton TNT explosion just to compress a 1 cm.

Hisa acknowledge Kame's bow with a slighter one, "Hello, O'Kutsuu-Hei. Actually I was thinking about using a more dependable system, such as the Forcefield-Nested Isolation Doors. They are tougher than our current ones, and they have an integrated power system. I was thinking about deploying them with Ise-Taii's approval at all critical locations, Bridge, Armory, MEGAMI chamber, etc. Using an existing system makes it easier to install. However, your proposal sounds interesting for other areas, such as the maintenance conduits. Locations that could benefit from a more robust protection, and with a simplified system. Write it up and I will review it for you. We can then add it to this proposal to the Taii. For now why don't you man the propulsion monitoring station. Hopefully we will leave this system soon. But until we do, we need to stay sharp."

When the blip on his screen was identified, Trowa's real eye grew large. "HOLY SHI... Ma'am! I have two Ke-Z1 Series Anti-Starship Torpedoes heading for us! Hang on!" Trowa gunned the engines and sent the Aeon into a tight dive. "Eternity," Trowa said through gritted teeth as his hands flew over the controls. "You’re faster than me. Calculated our trajectory and the missals trajectory. If our automated guns don't destroy them first, I want you to fire the mauvering thrusters right before the missiles hit. If you time it right, the missiles won't be able to turn on us quick enough and will sail right pass. Our guns won't miss at that range."

Trowa fired the weapon batteries, hoping that they'd hit and he wouldn't have to try the deadly maneuver. The Aeon had already taken damage and a maneuver like this could damage the engines, again. "Come on girl." Trowa whispered, "Stay together for me."

"Yamamoto-Hei, the Ke-Z1 torpedoes approaching are anti-matter warheads. They do not need to hit us to inflict damage, dodging them at the last moment is not an effective defense. I have calculated a firing solution for the Heavy Dual Anti-Starship Gun Turrets. Transferring it to your station. Fire at will." Eternity replied.

Katae suppressed the urge to chuckle as Eternity chided Trowa, she picked up the handset and dialed the engineering. "Engineering, reinforce forward shields incoming torpedoes." She then entered the command to sound Collision Alert.

Hisa turned to Kame, "O'Kutsuu-Hei, take care of the shielding. I am going to route additional power to the inertial dampeners." she said as she pulled up the subsystems and started making the necessary changes.

Trowa was both relived and irritated. Relived that he didn't have to attempt to pull a dangerous stunt to avoid the missiles, but anointed at the AI for correcting him. Pushing aside his irritation checked the firing solutions and then announced, "Firing." Laces of fire flew out to meet the incoming torpedoes.

Kame quickly nodded to Usaga as she knew the Head Engineer would finish this conversation about the maintenance conduits later when the battle was finished. Now it was time not for future discussion but for action. Knowing full well the damaged the mines could do the hull, Kame quickly dashed over to the CFS Control Panel in Engineering and began quickly reinforcing to act as a shield instead of a propulsion unit. She took the step found to the basic Engineering Tatics by making sure the CFS remained connected to the AI and that shields did not overload the sensors system so the system could accurately predict the position of the incoming torpedoes. As she did this she talked openly to ship itself, "Ok Eternity as you can see the CFS is fully operational as a shield--no blade for combat and in your command". I took manual control over the sensors order working to make sure that the sensors remain operational so you don't--well go blind. I am ready an awaiting any further instructions you have or want to suggest."

In the meantime, as Kame waited for an answer, Eternity had taken the activated CFS system and helped any excess debris from the torpedoes move safely around the ship.

When Trowa fired the turrets at the incoming torpedoes, both torpedoes were destroyed when the first was hit by the weapons, and its companion was consumed in the explosion. The main screen on the bridge flared bright white momentarily, and the system then filtered the light of the detonation.

The reinforced shields absorbed the shockwave from the detonation without difficulty. The Aeon being outside of the effective blast radius was only hit by a fraction of the destructive force.

"Yamamoto-Hei, Find out where those torpedoes came from. Try backtracking on their trajectory, or their ion trail to their point of origin. I want to know who is out there." Katae ordered.

Picking up the intercom handset, she dialed Engineering, "Good work Engineering, keep the CFS configured for max shields, bring the STL Engines online and prepare for possible combat." She said.

Hearing the Taii's request, Kame immediately stopped and pulled up the screen on the STL Turbo Aether Drive engine. It showed the engines working but not producing any plasma as they where in standby mode. She thought silently, Well I hope they like the nicknames I gave our engines. I mean I always wanted to give Turbo Aether Plasma Engine Drives little kitty nicknames since they sound like a thousand tiny purring cats. Quickly switching the engines back online from standby, the Engineer replied:
"Eternity, I have initiated output of left wing engine pylon's Red 1, Furball, and Sparky. Second I have initiated output of right wing engine pylon's Red 2, Pringles, and Puke Rat the Unclean. After that latest incident in the cargo bay, please double check that these engine pylons are outputting a moderate STL thrust and are still connected to the console on the bridge."

After sending a list of the nicknames and which they applied to Eternity, Kame then switched back to the regular CFS screen to prepare for the worst.

"Aye aye, Ma'am." said Trowa. His hands flew across his controls. He tight smile playing across his face. This was only his second combat mission and already he knew his job and station like he had been working here for years. Trowa frowned when he backtracked the missal's source. A Mindy Power suit!? Where did that come from?! "Contact Ma'am. It's a Mindy 1H power armor." Trowa paused, checking his interments. "It's not one of ours. But the colors mach that of the Eucharis." Trowa thought a moment then asked, "Ma'am, do you want me to capture it or destroy it?"

The Mindy 1H after appearing in space near the Aeon rotated briefly to get its bearings. Spotting the gunship the armor started accelerating with its CFS.

Katae looked at the image on the view screen. "We do not have the means without dispatching other power armors to try and capture it. It obviously has one of the teleportation units on it. Destroy it immediately, before it can recharge and escape."

"Aye aye." Trowa quickly moved the Aeon into firing position and then activated a target lock. Within seconds, the power armor was in range and locked on. "Steal our power armor suits will you." Trowa muttered under his breath. "Like hell." He hit the firing control and smiled as a lace of deadly energy flew at the stolen power armor.

The Mindy 1H even with its defenses was no match for the heavy guns of the Aeon. The Mindy 1H caught squared in the beam became incandescent and then vaporized.

"Aeon, this is Im'inao-hei. We're moving to secure the teleporters now, but have encountered an enemy Mindy, which escaped, most likely through the use of one of the units. We'll keep you updated if there are any developments."

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Katae picked up the Handset and switched over to the Away Team frequency. "Not to worry Away Team, the Mindy 1H appeared in space near our position. We have taken it out. Get those modules and get the heck out of there." she sent.

She dialed up Engineering, "Bridge to Engineering, start charging the Hyperspace engine. We'll be leaving this system shortly."

Hanging up the handset she turned to Trowa, "Resume your scan for whatever shot those torpedoes, at least until we are ready to fold."

Even after hearing the explosion the Mindy H1, Kame was still of oddly surprised that the Mindy appeared where it did. Still she had no time to get lost in her own thoughts, as she heard the order from the Taii. The Santô-Hei looked across at Usaga-hei who silently nodded at her to start the hyperspace unit for Hyperspace travel. Right next to the Doorway of the main passageway the hyperspace unit's regulators began to rapidly spin and the primary aether generator roared with renewed life. With the hyperspace unit charging, Kame when back to the CFS panel and watched at waited just expecting the enemy ship to come out at a moments notice.

Trowa continued to scan the space around the ship then back tracked the missals trial to its point of origin. Trowa frowned at his screen. There was nothing there. Must be a mistake. He repeated the scan and followed the ion trail again. Again, nothing. Two more attempts brought the same results, nothing.

"Ma'am, I'm not finding anything." Trowa was still staring at his scanner readings, his eye brows furrowed in thought. "It's like they just appeared out of thin air." Wait a minute, do NMX ships have a... "Ma'am! I think there may be a NMX ship hiding out there. It probably has a CFS running because I can't find anything out there that could have fired those missals."

As the minimized hyper-drive monitor pinged, Kame pulled it up so that she could monitor both the hyper-drive and CFS shields simultaneously. She then quickly informed the bridge of there new status.

Engineering said:

Bridge,
We have initiated the hyperspace unit and are continuing into final phases before fold. Based on the data output and calculations, I estimate roughly 8 minutes till the fold system is fully charged.

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Wait a cloaking throughKame thought wondering if she had head the possibly being cloaked, Kame sent a message to Eternity saying, "Eternity, I think whoever said on the bridge is onto something. In fact if I had to guess, I would say we where fighting another NMX Plumeria given the fact that it only fired two torpedoes instead of 12 like other NMX ships. Since the CFS stealth mode on a Plumeria primarily uses deflective shielding of the CFS and thermal minimization for its stealth, I widened the search area of the forward-facing deflection sensor array.

Katae listened to Kame's suggestion, and pondered it. "Continue your search, but I suspect we are looking at something older. Probably an Irim-class Heavy Gunship, one of the ships from Uesu's fleet that the NMX captured." she replied.

She pulled up the squadron channel, "All ships commence coordinated scans in this area of space. We are looking for a cloaked ship, possible NMX or KFY in design."

With the stationary squadron focusing all their sensor attention on the same region of space it did not take long for Eternity to find faint pattern of slightly anomalous readings. If the ships had been moving the data would never have been found, but it was enough to make a deduction.

"Ise-Taii, possible sensor contact bearing 005 degrees, 27 degree elevation."

"Ise-Taii to all ships, fire all primary weapons at these coordinates, maximum spread pattern."

Trowa upon hearing Katae's command, trained the main array, and the positron cannons at the indicated region of space. "Firing all primary weapons ma'am." he replied.

Eun-Kyung came to quite abruptly, dazed and more than a little confused. She panicked for a moment, her body enclosed in what seemed a tight fitting shroud and surrounded by a narrow chamber. Am I buried alive? she thought, nearly hyperventilating. Coherent thought returned quickly, however, as the shroud became her AMES and the chamber a maintenance conduit. Those comforting revelations were also joined, unfortunately, by a sharp pain in the back of her head. Reaching back to try to knead the spot through the AMES helmet, Eun-Kyung tried to recall what exactly she had been doing. The last thing she could remember was the Taii telling her to perform damage control. Where exactly, she couldn't remember but her presence in the conduit suggested thereabouts. For the moment though, there was little she could do since she had no clue what she was supposed to be doing.

After a moment of orienting herself – the conduit was one of the two main longitudinal shafts running between decks 3 and 4, just aft of the power armor bay – she contorted herself to twist around inside the narrow shaft and began crawling forward. She popped the nearest access hatch and clambered out into the armor bay. From there it was a short jaunt to sickbay where the autonomous systems did a quick scan, allaying her fears that she might have a lingering concussion. After receiving a small application of anesthetic to the contusion on her head she snatched up her helmet and took off for the main corridor. A moment later she was standing outside of the bridge hatch.

She hesitated for a minute, trying to think how to phrase her embarrassing situation, but nothing came to her. With no other choice, she hit the admittance key and stepped inside. “My apologies for being absent, Taii,” she said in a rush. “I think I must have hit my head and, ahem, passed out in a maintenance conduit.” Her face turned scarlet with the indignity of the situation. “Worse still, I'm afraid I cannot remember what I was supposed to be doing. But I stopped by sickbay and had myself checked; I'm fit for duty, ma'am,” she ended in a rush, wishing she could just disappear.

The Power Armour bay was the first thing Hoshi saw as he rematerialized within the Aeon. He sighed in relief, and promptly fell down. The adrenaline and the fear all left his system in a rush, and the wound in his side burned with incredible pain.

Hoshi rolled to be on his back, and began the achingly slow process of extracting himself from the Mindy. Once finished, he grabbed one of his medical kits and used the deactivated Armor as a prop to keep him sitting upright.

He took the forceps out of the kit, and took a deep breath. Then with practiced, quick movements, he reached inside his wound and clamped the tool down on the shrapnel inside him. With another tug out, he removed the metal.

His vision shook, and darkened with the rush of pain that enveloped him, but he continued on. First, the hypospray injector with the disinfectant around the wound. Then, he injected hemosynthetic blood into the wound, and before it could escape, he sprayed a liquid bandage across the wound to seal it.

Confident that he would live, he gave himself a local anesthetic.

"If the fight is over, can someone help me to the medical bay?" He sent off to his squadmates and the ship's MEGAMI.