RP: YSS Aeon [Mission 2.2] - Shore Leave

Trowa put his feet down and looked over at the dark haired woman. He laid his pipe down on the table then picked up the glass and swirled it around thoughtfully before taking a whiff of it. It smelled like good strong whiskey, the Nepleslian’s favorite. Trowa gave the dark haired beauty his most charming lopsided grin before raising his glass and saying, “To the best ship in the fleet, the Aeon.” Trowa took a sip of the amber colored liquid and smiled as the drink slid down his throat. “Very smooth.” He complemented the buyer.
Knocking out his pipe, Trowa walked over and took a seat at the woman’s table. “Thank you for the drink. I believe it is my turn to buy a round.” Trowa turned around and waved down the waitress. “Another glass and a bottle of your best, please.”

"Got her." Being as gentle as was possible under the circumstances, Asi picked up on his end of her body, trying to avoid friction.

With Asi's assistance, Eun-Kyung was placed onto the gurney. The paramedic then secured her with the available straps. He re-slung his med supplies over his shoulder, then moved to front of the gurney. When he grabbed the grips, he pressed the switch and the gurney rose effortlessly. "Grab the other end so we can get her loaded on the shuttle safely." He then started making his way to the Medivac Shuttle.

Together they navigated the field of damaged vehicles and entered the shuttle. The paramedic then docked the gurney for transport. He put the IV bags on a rod to maintain proper flow. He did one last check of Eun-Kyung's vitals and entered them into the console above her.

"So Hei we are ready to transport her; are you staying here or coming with her?" the paramedic asked.

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"Elizabeth Somerset, glad you like it. We Nepleslians need to watch out for each other. Especially in times like these." She pulled out a datapad, and made a few quick gestures at the screen. and put it away. "Sorry about that. So other than the fact that you are in the Star Army, and..." Pausing to look at his patch, "on the YSS Aeon... what brings you here?"

"...Then why aren't you hitting the deck? EVERYONE GET DOWN!" Arkase said.

With that, he dived down to wait for the explosion.

"I'm coming with, for security purposes." Jerking his head toward Haruhi, Asine smiled at the paramedic. "Orders, you know." "Juni, we're heading out. I'll be riding in the back next to the Shoi. I'm assuming I should stay with her until further notice?"

"Anoo.... " Kame pulled out the map on here communicator and continued, "W-well, I got an very old Id-Sol family friend friend named Kirk Melchior of mine to store them at the KFY Warehouse he works at, which should be warehouse dock # F1-GH-T0-A30N on the West side of Kyoto's KFY shipyards. We are of course our fleet is stationed at military dock # Y0-U4-R3-H3R3, mean we need to go 10 floors above a two blocks to the east of the our current position"
"If we are going to pick up the tablets, we will also need some transportation to... well--crap look at the time--I'll explain on the way." Kame finished as she hobbled herself off the ship with Josea trailing behind here.

"Tha' hell?" Haruhi spat out, her hand pausing for a moment before it snatched the rather second-hand datapad from the junior Neko, while she swung between frustration, anger and exasperation at the enlisted's casual pace and the fuzziness of her report.

"You think? Think harder or I'm sending you back to make sure! What type?! How long?!" She grabbed Tsubei and turned to position herself to either drag her along during a charge for cover, or give the Hei a helpful shove back towards the car.

Her attention rounded on Oshiro. "And if you've got time to scream and fall to the floor, you should be using it to dive away and get behind some cover!"

"Grab a hold of something," the paramedic said when he heard Arkase yell. He hit the door controls, and yelled towards the cockpit. "Pilot, emergency lift now." The T8 Shuttle immediately began lifting and rotating, as its rear doors cycled shut. It was 10 meters in the air when the explosion blew the Classico.

As Kyoka was reporting to Haruhi, there was a whumpf followed by a blast that engulfed the passenger compartment of the wounded Classico. A fraction of a second later the body of the Classico tore under the stresses and was propelled as shrapnel in the chaos strewn area.

EMS personnel who had been in the middle of checking the occupants of several of the vehicles, dove for cover. The explosion was mostly contained by the car, so the flying metal was the biggest issue.

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Josea watched as the gray haired engineer made her way off the ship. He followed behind her until they were outside and space permitted him to walk along. "Transportation will not be a problem. A friend of mine is supposed to pick me up. So we can ride with him." he said to Kame

Shit.

There wasn't time to do more than mentally utter the single expletive as sound of the detonation hit Haruhi's ears; without a further thought she shifted her grip on Tsubei and yanked her closer while she twisted her own body between the Neko and the car, her foot whipped around to hook behind the enlisted's.

With a rushed push Haruhi ramped up her gravitational control to shove the pair over and send them with a crash toward the ground in an effort to avoid the inevitable shrapnel, though hot stabs of pain in her back told her in no uncertain terms that the flying shards of metal were not about to lose out to the mere agility of a Nekovalkryja.

Hearing barely what Josea said Kame acknoweledge him and waited for him to catch up. When Josea had finally caught up with her with all his stuff, the engineer then motioned for him to follow her through a maze various maintenance shortcuts and passageways. Along the way they showed their IDs and nodded to the various full-metal jacket Mindy guards patrolling the KFY docks.


About 5 minutes in Kame looked at inquisitive Josea and started to speak, "So... Josea-hei you probably want to know more about that tablets right? Well those tablet kind of sort of have a history, so you better prepare yourself for a short story."

Taking a depth breath, Kame reached in her backpack and handed the SSS member some photos, "I need those back so we don't lose them. You see originally the tablet is a part of a set of 487 Yami-Duri pieces that I received from my p-parents ... exactly 10 days before the battle of Veritas. Those photos are the original positions they tablets where in when they found them. They sent these to me in order to because the local translation process on new Veritas Shipyards was going to slow and unsuccessful, so they were wondering if I could find some local contacts in the Yamatain military to look into the issue. They avoided official channels for artifacts like these since those channels were being diverted less to civilian matters but to the re-growing threat of the mishu and what we know call the NMX War"

Gosh, I wonder what mom and dad would have done in this situation, Kame thought as she held back tears and continued, "To start our story we have to go back to about two weeks after the Elysians joined Yamatai and the Veristas Shipyards where reconfigured to make both KFY and Elysian ships.
As you might expect, the transfer of power of the Elysian worlds to the Yamatains did not go as smoothly as it was televised, actually it wasn't even close. After all, some Elysian wanted to join Yamatai, and seemed to protest threw vandalism and disruption. In Hindsight, I don't think they we could have blamed them since, to the Elysians, Himiko was still new young Dark Horse Ruler to the throne and the Elysians were accustomed to Empiror Uesu animosity, which was due to originally Elysian involvement in The Prime's death. However, this vandalism lead to the massive downed sections and repair job that my parents and the other transferred KFY ship-builders had to deal with in addition to meeting demands for new ships.

Before I go on Josea-hei, I guess I should ask how much do you know about the recent illegal inter-species trafficking in the Yamatain and Nepleslian Empires, particularly involving the shipyard worlds? Do you have any questions so far?"

"Eh?! . . " Was the one thing Kyoka could get out before Haruhi essentially tackled her. By the time she had realized what had happened, she was already on the ground. "Wait, what?" She half-exclaimed as she attempted to get up after the explosion. From the pained look on her face, it appeared that her superior haas caught by some of the shrapnel. The Neko began to help Haruhi up, asking, "Should I call the ambulance again?"

Once the flying bits of the Classico had settled, the EMS personnel who had been tending to the other injured people in the various vehicles, got up and resumed their ministrations. A red-haired female EMS person looked around and yelled, "Did anyone get injured by the blast? Call out and we'll get to you."

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Josea listened to Kame, "O'Kutsuu-Hei, just to clarify I am not a soldier, but I carry the honorary rank of Santô Juni. So you do not need to refer to me by ranks, you may call me Gustav-San when we are on duty, and Josea-San when we are not." he said with a wink.

"As for the Elysian Empire joining with the Yamatai Empire, I have no data on whether or not there were any problems. I have been on the Aeon for a while, and we haven't exactly had lots of time to catch up on local events." he then sent a brief message to his friend advising him of the new pickup location. "I have not heard anything about human trafficking, but when we get to the campus we can check with the folks there. They have more access to what's going on than I have had aboard ship."

They continued walking through the network of storage buildings, each one purely utilitarian, and all identical. The only exception being the building identifier on the front of the structures.

Arkase practically shook with anger.

"Damn it! MEDIC, OVER HERE. The Juni got hit by some shrapnel!" He called to the EMS.

Idiot! Fool! Lecture me on when and how to duck, and you can't even do it yourself?! Think before you speak! Arkase thought, gritting his teeth together.

But he wouldn't say it to Haruhi -- at least, not yet. Not when she was bleeding, and especially not when they were in public.

"If this is all, I hope I can enjoy what Leave I have left." Arkase mumbled irritably. He looked at some of the law enforcement EMS personnel, and cursed. "I think I see someone I know anyway."

With a groan, Eun-Kyung slowly returned to consciousness. She was thoroughly confused about her circumstances and surroundings for a moment. Then, the characteristic sensations of flight hit her and the threat to her and the datapad came flooding back. She sat up with a yell... and promptly fell back into the gurney, as the noise became a shriek of pain.

Her Yamataian physiology and the pain meds were doing a decent job of blocking the worst of the pain, but the sudden movement sent a wave of sensation that overwhelmed the blockers and hit her pain centers with full force. A fringe benefit was that getting knocked back gave her enough time to figure out the vehicle wasn’t a Classico and the people around her, while still in Star Army uniforms, looked rather different.

“What?” she said, faltering as she struggled to comprehend the situation. “What’s going on? Where am I? What happened?”

"Just sit back, for now. You got hit pretty hard. We're in the air, on the way to a hospital to get you treated. You were the worst injury, aside from those in the vehicle with you, and... well, they won't be helped by treatment at this point, so forget them." Asi shook his head. "You'll be fine, we just didn't have the facilities to do everything on the ship."

The EMS person grabbed her bags and made her way over to Haruhi. Even without her medical equipment, she could see several pieces of metal protruding from her skin.

"Hold still Juni." the paramedic said, taking a quick look at her injuries. "We should probably transport you to the medical center. Some of these are fairly deep, and I wouldn't want to severe any nerves. If you will come with me I'll get you on a shuttle.

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"Kim-Shoi, please remain still. You have been severely injured. I am Hano-Itto Hei a Paramedic. We have you enroute to the medical center for treatment. You are suffering from a close proximity heavy NSP blast with complications of physical trauma from the crash. Do you know why those people in the vehicle shot you?" the EMS person said, checking her vitals.

"S-S-sorry... J-Josea-san," Kame replied with an embarrassed blush.
"Well... The reason I brought up illegal trafficking was as the social situation got worse so did the crime, particularly the growing number of abductions of children and civilians technicians. Eventually a week after my parents arrived, the police uncovered and raided a local slave/prostitution ring, which had been using one of the downed sections of the Veritas Shipyards. According to the local news reports, the police found the 5% of the organizations thugs dead even before they even arrived. A later crime scene investigation revealed evidence that suggested that the police only managed 90% of recover all the slaves.

It turns out that days later, my parent's crew of technicians was the duty staff with the responsibility to clean up the former hideout. After removing most of the blood stains and some of the unrepairable damage, my mother noticed around lunchtime that some of the crumbled walls had been inscribed with bizarre symbols. Meanwhile, my father my father had gone with some men to set up lunch, but they found roughly 4 bento boxes where missing. After searching hopelessly for an hour, they found the lunch boxes and the empty ration packs that where inside them in a humid room about 50 yards from the site. According to my father, he suspected his food thieves were space rats until noticed the bizarre symbols along the walls that, in hindsight where similar, to the ones mom found and those on the tablet. That tablet is from that original set.

Now my parent, like good technicians, initially reported it to the upper administration as a possible first contact with a new alien lifeforms. Since the upper administration was so focus on bring the shipyards up to full speed and building ships for the new war, the higher ups careful explained to them them "The KFY branch does not have the resources to go off on some wild-goose chase for fictitious aliens" and that fixing the shipyards was the up most priority so they should treat it as more damage to shipyard like the rest.

Of course, my mother, ever the novice treasure hunter, had taken a very unique 'fondness' to these walls calling them "tablets", therefore she was abhorred when she initially heard they would have to destroy such "precious indigenous cultural tablets of the native tribal people". Since my father had to sell most of the decor and furniture from their home at Yamatai's shipyards, you can probably just imagine what she had planned to do with the tablets. (OCC: think the Flintstones)

So the next day my parents and their crew went back to the site to continue repairs and started. When it came lunchtime, they once again found 5 rations missing, so my father''s right hand man remembered to bring extra next time. By the third day the pattern continued as my parents finished repairing the damage section and removing the tablets, which my mother used to make their house more "homey". As other crews began to also find missing lunches, rumors spread and the Legend of the 40 Bento Ninja Thieves was born on Veritas.

A full week afterward my parents where back on repair duty again, this time a new section. Of course, they brought bentos with them and traps hoping to catch the thief. However this time instead of just empty lunch boxes and a thief, the traps had been disarmed but inside them where dismantled medium Yami-Duri SSSCs with the same strange writing as they had found before.

By this time, my father and other decided to go to the police who then conducted a search of the damaged sections for possibly missing persons. While the intial search found nothing except occasionally the remains of a lunch and more SSSC tablets. As you might guess the police attempts to translate the tablets for more clues also turned up dry as mine have.
As month passed both the crews and police began to notice three very important patterns. First the thefts all involved bentos by only technician repair crew and never more than 1/10 of the food. Second, with a increasing frequency both the empty lunch boxes and tablets where in previously damaged areas that suddenly got mysteriously repaired as if by magic. This second reason was why it was decided by the locals that the police should probably just give up, since Bento Ninjas where at least giving back to the local shipyard community. Third, the police did began to notice about 10 day before the battle of Elysia a pattern in the SSSC boxes used and the places repair.

Of course, by this time my mom curiosity had gotten the better of. So after she finally save enough money to by regular furniture, she sent the 147 tablets to me ... to see if I could find someone local to translate them....like you. They are on-ne of the last things I h-have of them."

Kame waited a few minutes before speaking again, "Josea-san, I know your a civilian and neither a soldier nor an officer like the Shoi; however, most of what I have told you about the tablets took me weeks to piece together from old news articles and going over last few e-mails my parents sent me. Although I put together most of the pieces, I still have not figured out where, or more importantly, who wrote the tablets. Could it have been people that where captured missed? Could it have been ancient artifacts that the slavers found, stolen by local orphans around the shipyards?

Thus the reason I asked how much you knew about illegal slave trade, is I am bothered by the illegal organization role in the story. I mean back in the last month of YE 31, there was that news report about the local Funky city police crippling an ingenious prostitution ring that was popular with SMoDIN personal and uncovering 200 metric tons of Kassrine. Could their be a connection between the incident on Funky City and the one at Veristas?"

Haruhi hissed like a punctured tire as she disentangled herself from Tsubei and let the other Neko help haul herself upright. "Don' need an ambula..." she started, though her sentence was cut off as Oshiro cried for a medic. "...wh'tever."

"Jus' rip out the bits that aren't me and slap on some pa'ches; got things need done." Haruhi responded stubbornly when the medic come and gave her a looking-over; with the far from wonderful day she'd already had she didn't want to add 'hospital trip' to the list, and her own belief in Nekovalkyrja healing and the present inability to see her own wounds added to her unwillingness to go along.

"Haruhi-Juni, you really should see a full doctor. Some of it looks pretty bad." Kyoka said, peering at her superior's back. The Neko felt responsible for this, considering that it was her own inaction that caused Haruhi's injury..

Damned, pig-headed, stubborn nekos, think they are indestructable.... the paramedic thought. "Haruhi-Juni, if you are going to insist on declining going to the Medical Center, then come with me to the Ambulance so I can better treat you. I really do not want to try to pull out this piece of shrapnel that is near your spine with you trying to stand."

The paramedic turned to Kyoka, "Ittô Hei if you would carry my bag, I will assist the Juni to my ambulance so I can safely remove the shrapnel."

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Josea listened to Kame, "Well there have lots of troubling events in the news, zombies, traitors, NMX raiding towns, so its entirely possible that some of the events you are describing are the results of opportunistic criminals."