RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 21.2] Return to Ether - Spaceside Thread

Medbay

Sienna narrowed one eye and gave Ayumi an increasingly sideways, curiously uncertain look as the medic explained her thoughts on the matter of engineered beings having emotions. It was clear to her that the doctor had a very specific point she wished to convey, but her words weren't bringing Sienna along for the ride. Was she trying to say that emotions were a benefit or a hindrance to a Neko's programming in the end? Or was it neither? Regardless of her intent, Sienna was mildly suprirsed that the stoic doctor had anything further to say on the topic at all, given her outward demeanor. Perhaps she'd slightly misjudged her, or perhaps it was just indicative of her short lifespan. She didn't know how long ago Ayumi had been created, but given the revelation that Natsumi was only two years old, she guessed that Ayumi could potentially be of a similar age, and of a similar state of blissful ignorance.

True to her earlier thoughts, rather than question her further or try to clarify her strange explanation, she elected to let the matter drop. Extended philosophical discussions weren't really worth the trouble to her anyhow; by their very nature, they were impossible to resolve and rarely ever changed anyone's mind. Swaying in her seat slightly, her elbows still resting on her knees as they dangled off the edge of the exam table, she smirked again and nodded in response to Ayumi's next comment, then looked nonchalantly up at the ceiling with a thoughtfully knitted brow. "Well," she interjected on her silent affirmation, "they never actually called me that, specifically. But that's what it was, slavery. Or indentured servitude, whatever," she continued, waving her hand dismissively, offering no further explanation how or why she had lived that way as she looked back down at Ayumi, her greenish brown eyes cold and distant.

She chuckled out loud as Ayumi complimented her again, shaking her head. "I guess that depends on who you ask," she responded. "Some might think bailing out on your master pretty disrespectful."

Bridge

A soft tone sounded from Natsumi’s display as the computer indicated all combat systems were fully spun up; CFS, main cannon, and secondary batteries alike.

“I have a shuttle prepped, ma’am,” continued the captain of the Pack Horse. If less panicky, he still appeared as if he very much wanted someone else to give him some orders - making tactical decisions was clearly not his forte. “I can send my injured crew members over right away if you can accommodate-”

The transmission was interrupted by a much louder, strident chime from the consoles. The FTL scanners had kept sweeping the volume as ordered and now the active return plots exploded with data. The passives similarly spiked as faster than lightspeed emissions arrived concurrently. It took a moment for the data to resolve, but when it did, the CIC programs quickly labelled it a high-velocity, medium-mass, combat fold-exit footprint. Whoever had just exited hyperspace was either very lucky or very, very good: they had folded in approximately 3500 kilometers from the Pack Horse’s exit point. That was tremendously unlikely if an accident, given the stupdendous volume of the system, or an extremely deft bit of navigation, which didn’t exactly bode well.

The CIC subroutines agreed, as they labeled the track resolving out of the fold-exit Bogey-2, noting high-acceleration consistent with a warship, though also noting that the mass returns from the subspace detector were only about half of what was expected.

Active scans crashed over the Eucharis a moment later and Bogey-2 abruptly changed course to intercept, though it was still some distance back. Still, with its high initial velocity and combat acceleration it would close the gap soon enough. The Eucharis’s active sensors responded in kind, attempting to suss out any notable details that could help identify the ship while awaiting the slower lightspeed scans to provide detailed hull and emission data. For the purposes of identifying the ship’s intent, that all proved unnecessary: the active scans lashing the ship changed to targeting and fire control frequencies. The warning chime sounded again as the CIC software matched the scan emissions to a known emitter type.

It had only been three seconds since the fold-exit had been detected, but that was enough. The computer displayed a 100% certainty that a light warship using NMX fire control systems was attempting to secure a weapons lock on the Eucharis and the Pack Horse.

Bridge

"Hostile vessel just jumped in!" Natsumi reported as all the pleasant tones from the CFS and battle systems reporting ready were replaced by the more ominous tones and warnings of impending danger. She forced herself to remain calm and compiled everything she was getting from the computer. The data feeding in from the SPINE link meant she had it about as soon as the ships sensors did. "Detecting incoming light warship operating with NMX type fire control system, which is now attempting to acquire target lock on us and the Pack Horse"

Natsumi was already lashing out with the Eucharis' sensors, interrogating the new incoming warship for model, identification markings and detectable weapons types. At the same moment she was also calculating in her own firing solutions on the target, preparing the anti armor guns to counter any incoming fire that might be employed against them and also proper targeting data for the main offensive weapon batteries. She selected the main aether shock cannon, plugging in coordinates, speed, vector and all other relevant information needed to calculate a shot on the hostile.

'Ready to fire" She reported to Hanako. All she needed now was the Shosho's order.

Bridge

The NMX was a familiar enemy to the Eucharis; when NMX ships appeared, there were no attempts to contact them, no attempts to disabled and board them; regular NMX ships were simply destroy-on-sight. Without hesitation, Hanako gave the orders. "Fire at will; Engage and destroy the enemy ship; attempt to shield the pack horse. Set condition 1, all hands to battle stations." Before anyone requested it, Hanako had already unlocked the safety measures for the main weapon array, allowing it to charge and be fired by the crew.

Medbay

Before Ayumi had the chance to respond further, the lights dimmed to red and a stern alert tone sounded throughout the halls. Sienna's wry expression turned quickly to one of heightened alert. "What the hell--?" she muttered, looking around as if she'd find some sort of explanation just lying in front of her.

Bridge

Natsumi grinned as the order came. "Aye aye!" she replied to the Shosho. The Aether cannon was already charging to full power now that the command security lock out was released and she was tightening down the firing solution as the enemy vessel closed in. The snowy haired neko took a moment to nudge the Eucharis' location, interposing the Yamataian warship properly between the transport and the incoming NMX ship. Now the enemy would have to get past several thousand tons of Yamataian warship to get to the Pack Horse.

She licked her lips absentmindedly as she finished checking the firing solutions with the battle computer. Natsumi matched bearings with the target. The weapon was at full charge, solution at 100% lock on the target. "Firing!" she announced and triggered the main battery.

Many things happened in a very short period of time then. Energy particles crackled along the surface of the dagger like forward hull that contained the vital components of the warships aether shock cannon as a power surge was shunted through the systems from the main power generator and charging capacitors. Then, like a bolt of lightning thrust from the black clouds of a storm. Brilliant blinding light leaped from the Eucharis' sharp prow, tracing a blinding path of destruction across space as it connected the gap between the Yamataian and NMX warships in the infinitesimal amount of time it took light to cross such a short galactic distance.

Bridge

Incredibly short though the distance and time might have been on a galactic scale, it still took the scalar pulse 12 seconds to travel down range. Thanks to FTL sensors that could predict major quantum events like a main cannon discharge, this presented the oncoming warship with plenty of time to crank its ECM emitters to maximum and evade the threat radius of the pulse. That radius was sufficiently large, though, as to force the warship to build a radically off-axis vector, giving up some of its closing acceleration advantage relative to the slow crawl of the Pack Horse.

With the enemy’s electronic warfare suite working overtime, it took the Eucharis’s sensors a moment to re-establish a solid track. Indeed, the CIC subroutines were torn for a moment, appearing to indicate the warship was simultaneously evading in two opposite directions. But then the data seemed to resolve and the new track indicated that the warship was angling out slightly; giving up even more of its closing potential, but offering itself some room to make further evasive maneuvers.

As the main cannon pulse reached its target range and rent space-time apart, and expressing all of the colossal energy therein, the light warship streaked onwards. A moment later another warning tone sounded from the consoles. This time it was the Eucharis’s predictive sensors raising the alarm, as the WARMS element of the M-IES sensor suite indicated an incoming main cannon pulse. The delay suggested the enemy ship hadn’t expected combat to begin already and the weapon had considerably less power than the Ke-S3-W3020, but it seemed like the enemy captain had decided that if shots were going to be fired at extreme range then at least it wouldn’t be a totally one sided affair.

At the same time the WARMS was warning of incoming fire a smaller, lower priority report popped up. The enemy’s evasive maneuver had given the Eucharis’s lightspeed sensors a better look at its complete hull and the CIC programs had just confirmed that it was an NMX Escort/Destroyer-class ship - the sort usually found screening capital ship formations or commerce raiding in hunter-killer divisions - not just a pirate using scavenged NMX fire control systems.

Medbay

Ayumi looked up, slightly startled by the sudden change in the ship's security level. She silently enquired to Charisma about the change in security level, and the answer which returned to her caused a brief look of concern to flicker on the medic's face. "A NMX ship has been spotted and the Eucharis is engaging." Ayumi replied, "I'm not certain if this is part of the training exercise, but I will assume it is real for all intents and purposes." She looked up at Sienna for a moment, considering her next words carefully.

She didn't want to alienate Sienna or make her feel like she was not worthy to fight along side the crew, but it would be unprofessional of her to send a civilian into any battle situation. "I must ask that you either stay here or return to your cabin for safety." Ayumi explained softly, her hands folded in front of her and her shoulders back, "I do not suppose the corridors will be overwhelmed with crewmembers trying to get to their posts, as most of us are not on board." She added, noting that it would probably be safer for Sienna to move through the halls at this time than if the rest of the crew were on board. In any other situation she would have insisted Sienna stay, but it seemed the better idea to give her the choice this time around.

Ayumi had also resolved to make sure their conversation continued later, because she had found some interest in the Nepleslian.

Bridge

Natsumi frowned as the enemy evaded her shot and its ECM scrambled her target lock and sensors for a few moments. She was mildly dissapointed the NMX ship had not stayed put and blown up on her first shot. Then the warning tone sounded, indicating incoming return fire, which did help solidify where the hostile had moved too.

The operations neko conducted the needed evasive moves, countering the enemy vessels own target lock with Eucharis' significant electronic warfare suit.

Satisfied she had evaded the incoming blast, Natsumi recalculated her targeting solution and set the main cannon to rapid pulse mode.

"Firing" she announced cooly, engaging the weapon, which now delivered a pulse of deadly aether energy every two seconds. As she fired, Natsumi made minute adjustments to the firing trajectory, blanketing a wide area around the hostile vessel with shots to ensure better chance of a strike if it managed to evade her initial shot again. She also payed close attention to the closing range, once it clicked down enough she would add the positron cannons to the salvo. Unless the enemy decided to oblige and eat hot aether first.

Bridge

Shosho Hanako reflexively gripped her chair's armrests as she waited for the combat to play out. "Fire all weapons," she directed. "No need to spare anything. We can take this ship alone if we do not hold back, but every second the enemy is still loving means more damage to our ship." Meanwhile, Hanako got on the communications systems to summon reinforcements as a precautionary measure. "Second Squadron ships, this is Eucharis actual. I have engaged simulated NMX forces and am under attack; kindly lend your assistance. Enemy consists of one escort destroyer." Finally, Hanako called down to the medical lab on the intercom: "Medical lab, this, is the bridge. After the enemy is defeated, I intend to take the cargo ship's personnel aboard. Stand by for triage."

Bridge

Natsumi’s continuing maneuvers evaded the destroyer’s fire as easily as it had avoided the Eucharis’s opening salvo, and so far this dance had continued. Even with the main cannon firing frequently now, there was still sufficient time given the range - closing through 5 light seconds - for the destroyer’s erratic vector changes to steer it clear of the incoming cannon pulses. Just as the range ticked under the 5 light second mark, the destroyer loosed another canon pulse of its own, likely just making a final statement before the range closed to 3 light seconds and the battle began in earnest, or at least became truly deadly.

The enemy ship had continued to build its slightly skewed vector, still angling away from the Pack Horse’s thrust axis, though as it fired it suddenly course corrected. Now at maximum acceleration again, the relative closing velocities were increasing such that the 3 light second mark would only take another 15 seconds to reach. With another warning ping, the CIC subroutines pointed out an interesting feature of this new track: just before crossing that range threshold, the destroyer would have a slight angular window past the Eucharis to take a shot at the fleeing freighter. Even at that range, a warship could only count on hitting an opponent 25% of the time - at most - but the Pack Horse wasn’t a proper combatant. It was a damaged freighter, lacking the sophisticated systems a warship would necessarily have to detect, predict, and react in the miniscule time scales required to survive battle. If the destroyer got the shot off, the crew of the Pack Horse would be in serious trouble.

On the communications panels, the M-IES indicated the FTL comms packet had been sent and that it was open for real time communications. A subsidiary panel showed the SIGINT collected during the battle; so far, the Eucharis had managed to intercept a fragment of a swept tight beam laser transmission to small for analysis and more promisingly a complete packet of FTL chatter. The message encryption was still holding, but the panel promised a full auxiliary processor core had been tasked to break it.

Back on the main comms panel, a ping came back indicating the hail had been received and the YSS Nadeshiko was opening real time signaling. The forward display was currently busy projecting a volumetric tactical display, so Taii Wada Mitsuyo appeared on Hanako’s personal display instead.

”Admiral, we’re breaking off maneuvers and will initiate hyper fold momentarily. If you can keep a telemetry sideband open as long as possible, we’ll try to exit right on top of you. Aurora’s right with me, but Vesper is trailing a light minute back; she’ll probably be a few seconds behind us in fold, but we’ll keep the formation as tight as possible.”

Engineering

Junko’s preparations meant she hadn’t needed to do much when the ship went to Condition 1, her helmet already sealed and systems already set to full military power. She hadn’t quite brought everything up to maximum power yet. So far, she was trying to baby the power systems, keeping the load spread so that when the battle was truly joined in deadly earnest there was an ample reserve. At present, the peak expenditures from the main cannon weren’t overly taxing the capacitors, or the generators' ability to recharge them on the fly. Once the other weapon systems were loosed and the shielding started taking hits that would change.

Her main focus was still on her engineering displays, but she kept an eye on a miniature tactical repeater. When the plot closed, she’d be ready to bring up maximum power even before the Bridge called for it.

Medbay

Ayumi tilted her head slightly, as if trying to hear better, as the Shosho spoke over the intercom. She nodded to herself momentarily before replying with a clear, "Hai, Shosho. Standing by for triage." To confirm she had heard and understood what was expected of her. She began rifling through the cupboards to pick out the instruments she would need. She quickly came to the conclusion that it would indeed be safer if Sienna went back to her room at this point, realising that if the medbay would be full of enemy crew members (real or not) Sienna should not be there.

"I apologise for my directness, but I will have to ask you to return to your cabin, after all." Ayumi stated, looking over her shoulder at Sienna as she emptied her arms on to the table beside the unused bed. Bandages and the like, just in case. This would be fun, though challenging, there being only one of her, but she was excited to learn.

Medbay

Everything happened so fast that Sienna never had the chance to get a word in. Each time she opened her mouth to question, respond, or protest, the intercom, the medic, or the ship's klaxon interrupted her. Frowning in a mixture of concern and frustration, she snorted at Ayumi's command to return to her bunk. With a quick hop, she slid off the exam table and pulled the thin blanket tighter around her torso, clasping the corners of the blanket in one hand and her damp shirt in the other.

"I'm keeping this blanket for the time being, then," she stated, as if she had the authority to say so in the first place, or as if doing so might somehow offset her feeling just a little snubbed at being treated like a helpless passenger. Which, deep down, she knew she was. She had been a leech on the Eucharis for months, or had it even been close to a year now? And all the while there always seemed to be something for her to do, to distract her from the realization that she was totally at the mercy of the Yamataian military. It wasn't as if she hadn't known all along that she was a third wheel amongst the crew, but this was the first time she'd truly felt like it through and through. It was like being hit in the face with a wrecking ball you watched all the way down from the top of its swing; you knew all along it was coming, and yet for some reason you just stood there, transfixed, staring at it until you were knocked flat on your back, left to wonder just why you hadn't bothered to get out of the way long ago.

She had been in many a dire strait before, but every time until now she always felt like she had some semblance of control over the situation, or failing that, a reliable way out. In this case, however, whatever was going on outside the hull was obviously serious, and if the gunship's crew were unable to handle it, she was as good as dead. There was nothing for her to do to improve her odds; her life was completely at someone else's mercy, and it filled her with dread. She could feel no less than angry with herself at how long it had taken her to truly realize how out of place and helpless she was on this ship.

Slipping out of the medbay, she turned to go down the corridor back to her cabin, her mind already racing among the deathly serious lighting and sounds of the ship's high alert status. She hadn't made it more than two strides, however, when she saw the corridor was blocked by a seamless and impenetrable wall of metal adorned with flashing red and white lights and warning insignias. Behind her, the same. The hallway was completely sealed off.

Uttering a grumbled curse under her breath, she clutched the blanket tighter around her chest and turned back to stand in the doorway to the medical facility. Giving Ayumi a "what now" gesture with her palm facing the ceiling, she shook her head slightly. "The ship's bound up tighter'n a monk's pants," she stated. "Looks like you're stuck with me here." If she was going to die thanks to someone else's blunder, there was little point in going anywhere anyway.

(EDIT - forgot about the blast shutters during combat)

Bridge

Another incoming shot to dodge. Natsumi bit her lip in a sign of frustration as the enemy vessel kept evading her own shots. The range was closing down now though, 3 light seconds, or 899 377.374 kilometers and closing. She switched tactics. She changed the Ke-S3-W3020 firing mode from pulse to cone, which would blanket wide swaths of space with the deadly energy. With an effective range of 20 million kilometers, the hostile was close enough that he would be very lucky to evade the cone of death and with the Eucharis having been in pulse mode, attempting to get a bulls-eye, there was no reason for them to anticipate the change and the cone would be wide enough to catch them no matter how fast they moved.

As soon as the mode switch was complete, which added maybe 10 seconds between the last pulse shot and the cone shot, she fired, sending the wide cone of blinding death reaching out across the now less than 3 light second gap between them. As well, thanks to her SPINE connection to the warship's computer systems, she had seen the change in the NMX ships angle of approach and slewed the Eucharis to the side, keeping her in a direct line of imposition between the enemy and the Pack Horse.

Along with the ongoing blasts from the main Aether cannon, Natsumi opened up with the quartet of long range Ke-S3-W2901 Positron Accelerator Cannons, their 2000kg compressed positron shells to the Eucharis' blazing firepower.

Bridge

Several things happened very quickly and concurrently.

Natsumi’s change in tactics was successful, as the NMX escort destroyer had continued its evasive maneuvers until its FTL quantum event sensors detected the new, different sort of scalar wavefront being loosed from the Eucharis. The warship stopped the maneuvers and appeared to dash directly on its present vector for the first second, but its computer could do simple trigonometry as easily as any pocket calculator. At its range from the Eucharis, the cone affected by the scalar pulse would have a radius of approximately 215,000 kilometers. The destroyer’s maximum velocity would have seen it clearing that radius in two seconds, but it wasn’t at maximum velocity, not relative to the Eucharis’s firing angle. All of its wasted acceleration, building on one course and then another rather than piling velocity on one vector that might have steered it clear of danger, would have been bitter in the mouth of the enemy captain, had there been time for that sort of thing. But there wasn’t.

In the remaining two seconds, the destroyer’s acceleration dropped to near zero even as its aether generators went to maximum power, popping over the WARMS detection threshold. It didn’t bother firing either, its potential shot at the Pack Horse thoroughly spoiled. All of that power went to its shields, which climbed to full strength as the scalar wave reached it. The effect was the same furious, catastrophic release of energy the previous main cannon pulses but writ large, on a truly mind boggling scale. Thanks to Natsumi’s cleverness and timing and the MEGAMI-FCS’s exacting targeting, the enemy destroyer was roundly bracketed.

Truly, it was a marvel of contemporary warship construction that the enemy ship didn’t simply evaporate in the midst of such a cataclysm. It’s shields actually held for about a millisecond, blunting the first wave of destruction until overwhelmed and forced to shut down. Then the armored hull took its licks, material ablating, scoured away by the energy of the pulse. What precise, internal damage was inflicted couldn’t be known aboard the Eucharis but the lightspeed sensor returns - showing several turrets completely gone, its launch bay fused closed, and widespread atmosphere leaks - and FTL sensors showing its power generation dropping severely certainly suggested some serious problems aboard the destroyer. It likely still had some fight in it, should it choose to continue the engagement, and for the moment was safe from further harm. The main cannon would take 45 seconds to recharge and having cut all acceleration, the range was holding just outside positron cannons’ maximum effective range.

Still, it was an excellent, well chosen shot and, having in most circumstances inflicted enough damage to convince an opponent to break off or at least to make the rest of the fight rather one sided, conventionally worthy of celebration.

Except that at almost in the same instant the Eucharis’s cannon fired, the strident warning tone had sounded, once again from WARMS. The CIC subroutines - had they been allowed enough processing latitude for sapience - might have been confused for a whole clock cycle as the quantum event appeared in empty space, on the opposite side of the Pack Horse thrust axis from the NMX destroyer, though farther astern of the freighter. Then shields came up, targeting scans lashed out, and drive emissions appeared as the stealth field of a second destroyer dropped - the killer to Bogey-2’s hunter, the other half of the mass estimated from the hyper fold exit, the sensor ghost splitting away from Bogey-2 upon the Eucharis’s first shot, the receiving party of the laser tight beam that had been intercepted.

The second destroyer - now helpfully labelled by the CIC programs on the tactical displays as Bogey-3 - had crept in right behind its sister, stealth fields at maximum and no power expended aside from on its engines and trickle charging its main cannon capacitors. Its captain had been patient, closing in more slowly so as not to burn through the stealth fields, but now was the decisive moment, the moment where the Eucharis was most distracted, sensors focused on the visible threat, and pulled out of position, no longer covering the Pack Horse. The new contact’s power generators flared and main cannon prepared to fire - the events so easily detected by the WARMS.

The escort destroyer couldn’t hope to produce the same destructive energy as the Eucharis and the range - nearly 6 light seconds - was still long, but the Pack Horse couldn’t mount the same sort of defense as the other destroyer and with its damage couldn’t detect or evade an attack in time.

Natsumi's planned celebration and bashing the enemy target to pieces was denied as the second target winked into existence on the sensor plot. Natsumi muttered a string of expletives she had learned from Bors' sleep-cursing as she designated priority on the new hostile, which was on the far side of the Pack Horse. Kicking engine power up to the stops, the snowy-haired Neko spun the Eucharis on her axis and rocketed her on an intercept path for Bogey-3. She selected a course that would swing the much more heavily protected gunship between the freighter and thee new enemy destroyer in a short time and allow her to take the fire rather than the civilian.

While she maneuvered the warship, Natsumi directed the MEGAMI to keep tabs on Bogey-2 for her and inform her the instant it decided to move or showed any little change in aspect.

She got the battle computer working on solutions on Bogey-3 for the aether cannon and positron cannons, urging the main weapon to recharge quicker. She switched it to burst mode and opened fire, the burst mode's much smaller power demands than the cone blase allowed firing with less than a full recharge, sending shots at the hostile in an attempt to drive the hostile off while she moved to impose the Eucharis in between.

Bridge

Whoever was skippering the second destroyer seemed to have nerves of steal: despite Natsumi’s instant reaction, the warship stayed on target for the last few seconds needed to charge the main cannon. Only when the beam was loosed did Bogey-3 begin evasive maneuvers. Still, the range was long enough that the first of the rapid fire pulses from the Eucharis missed, if only by a handful of kilometers - nearly a bullseye given the light seconds of separation.

Natsumi’s quickly plotted course was dead on the money, intercepting the beam’s path just in time; the pulse impacting on the Eucharis’s port quarter just as one of the W3020 beams found its target. The second destroyer fared better than its sister, still drifting at the moment. Faced with the lower intensity of a rapid pulse rather than the ludicrous scale of the destruction wrought by the spread shot, Bogey-3’s shields stayed up far longer - in a relative sense - until its peak power spiked over its limiting threshold and the beam passed through to the hull. With a more pinpointed beam to deal with, Bogey-3 again had an easier time of it, but my no means escaped unscathed. The pulse impacted on the upper decks of the small warship. The dorsal superstructure took the most obvious damage, lacking the advantage of armor to protect it. Two anti-starship cannons, five anti-armor turrets, and an FTL comms antenna were scoured away entirely. The main hull of the ship also took damage, with breaches leaking atmosphere and debris. Again, the exact details of its internal damage were unknown, but its acceleration dropped markedly.

That the Eucharis came away with less damage still was largely thanks to its thicker armor and stronger shields, as the enemy’s fire had nearly the same energy as the rapid main cannon pulse. The event followed much the same pattern, with the Eucharis’s shields holding for slightly longer until peaking over their thresholds. The enemy’s beam fell squarely on the port pylon once it pierced the shields and while the Zesium framing and armor were left unmolested, here and there the weaker - if still incredibly strong - patches of Yamatium armor gave way along joints and allowed the energy to penetrate into the pylon’s interior.

Still, the maneuver had worked. The Pack Horse had escaped further injury and was making all speed in-system, while Bogey-3 broke away for the moment to deal with its immediate battle damage. Bogey-2 was still closing with the Pack Horse but this was merely an artefact of the velocity it had reached before being hit - its engines still hadn’t being relit.

Engineering

Junko had been watching the progress of the exercise with genuine alarm, regretting that she had made the event live-fire. The inputs coming in from the Bridge made tactical sense but the abuse to the ship’s systems, particularly the main cannon, were going to make for a maintenance nightmare. Any system on a warship was designed to be robust, but the enormous power flowing through a system like the main cannon would always cause some eventual faults. Rapidly switching between firing modes, pushing the cannon to its very limits would only exacerbate that. She winced as she calculated the hundreds of hours sliced off the service life of various components.

Then the enemy fire hit and Junko’s face stilled into deadly seriousness, no hint of playacting to be found. An exercise this might be, but she had found herself in this same position against numerically superior NMX forces before and knew just how lethal that could be. Honing the skills to survive such an encounter was no casual matter, whatever the circumstances.

Her displays flickered briefly as a power surge washed through the ship’s systems. Fortunately, the circuit breakers and flow regulators throughout the system did their jobs and the majority of the ship felt no lasting ill effects. Unfortunately, most of the port pylon did not share in that good luck. The backup antimatter reactor in the pylon went into emergency shutdown, thankfully SCRAMing before needing to vent its antimatter payload entirely. The port CFS generator brought the shields back up only slowly and at lower power than the other sectors surrounding the ship - again reminding her of an actual combat incident. Likewise the port positron cannon was offline, though in its case physical damage to its barrel was at fault, not a power surge, the sort of damage couldn’t be repaired easily. The Turbo Aether Plasma drive remained fortuitously insulated from damage, but the surge had forced the port main STL engine pair to shut down.

Junko did what she could remotely. A power scheme work around let her get one of the STL engines back online, but the damage was too severe to risk restarting the other without actual repairs. She looked at her displays to consider the general situation. The Eucharis had taken a blow, no doubt, but the main systems were still in fighting trim and they should still be able to make good acceleration, if not their normal maximum. Aside from a few minor, relatively unimportant auxiliary systems blown out by the power surge the rest of the ship was fine.

“Bridge, Engineering. Recommend you flip the ship. I wouldn’t trust the port CFS to take much more damage and it will need an eyes-on look before I can give you a maximum power estimate. Likewise, I can’t give you any more engine power until the physical damage is addressed. I either need to be relieved in Engineering or have someone else lead damage control in the pylon.”

"Acknowledged," Hanako responded to Junko's call from engineering. "Roll the ship 180 degrees, finish Bogey-2, and pursue Bogey-3," Hanako ordered. She was about to turn to her first officer when she remembered that the ever-reliable Sune was no longer aboard and her new first officer Takeyu was down on the planet Ether. In fact, most of the technical staff was gone. Not having a lot of options, Hanako called down to the medical lab. "Medical lab, this is the bridge. I need you to start damage control in the port pylon. See Junko in engineering for directions. I have unlocked the blast shutters," she said over the intercom as she went to the systems station and disabled the locking mechanisms, allowing the crew to move throughout the ship by temporarily opening the shutters.

Bridge

Hanako's orders were well timed. Bogey-3 was still running at present, clearly wanting to stay far away from the Eucharis now that it had the gunships undivided attention. But Bogey-2 had finally managed to complete whatever emergency repairs she had been conducting and her thrusters ignited back into life. Her acceleration was still low, but after a moment of wavering, her course settled back on an intercepting vector with the Pack Horse. The only saving grace was that no warning came from the WARMS; whatever damage the spread shot had done had clearly knocked out the escort destroyer's main cannon.

On the secondary SIGINT panel a brief message popped up, indicating the interception of another piece of FTL comms chatter from Bogey-2. With another packet to use for comparison, the time-to-decrypt figure dropped markedly. In a few more seconds they would know why Bogey-2 was feeling so talkative.

Medbay

Ayumi's cheeks turned pink for a moment when Sienna returned. Yes that was obvious. She should have thought of it herself. The fact that the thought hadn't occurred to her shamed her slightly, for all she thought she knew enough of the ship to get by on her own she could make really silly mistakes sometimes.

"I do not believe that I am "stuck with you-" Her protest was cut off as Hanako called in. She frowned, unsure what it was that she was expected to do. She certainly didn't know enough to do anything without very specific instructions. She hoped Junko could provide them.

"Hai, right away Shosho!" Ayumi replied, though she was not entirely convinced the endeavour would be fruitful. She turned to Sienna. "You should be able to leave now, and return to your cabin safely. I would not want to see you caught in any crossfire." She said kindly, then her expression went vague as she contacted Junko wirelessly.

"Takeda-Heisho this is Satonaka from Medbay reporting in. How can I help you? I do not know how to get to the port pylon." She explained, watching the ground as she spoke so it wouldn't unnerve Sienna too much that she'd suddenly gone very quiet.

Medbay

The jarring weapon impact nearly caused Sienna to lose her footing, and she steadied herself with a white-knuckled grip on the medical lab's entry doorframe. She could hear the reverberating echos and feel the lingering vibrations from whatever had happened, and the next several seconds felt like slow-motion. She barely even noticed Ayumi's rebuttal before the ship's commander ordered the medical lab to get to work on damage control.

The medical lab.

Sienna's eyes widened even further in confusion and alarm. Where the hell was everyone else? If she wasn't so occupied with trying to process the way everything around her was devolving into chaos, she would have been quite thankful that the medication Ayumi had given her was admirably suppressing her headache. She turned her eyes on Ayumi, fixing them on her like her gaze would anchor her in place. "Doc," she said through closed teeth, her voice unsettlingly calm yet laced with an unmistakable demand for answers. "Why is Hanako asking you to perform damage control?"