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

Engineering

Junko backed away from her displays for a moment; the automatic processes had the power situation relatively well in-hand at the moment. Some capacitors had needed to be taken offline to prevent overload, in both Power Systems and the main cannon. There were sufficient auxiliary capacitors in Power Systems to prevent any hiccups in the flow scheme but the main cannon did not itself have any back ups. Thus she had to designate certain of the primary capacitors and patch them into the cannon power feed, reassign other primary capacitors to cover the gaps, shift even more auxiliaries away from lower priority systems to cover those gaps, and so on and so on. The point was she had enough experience with real life combat to be fairly good at this by now and knew when she could step back briefly.

Taking a deep breath, she frowned. Between damage control training in basic and the Plumeria-class orientation materials available upon assignment, she would have thought even a medic would know enough of the basics to at least get around the maintenance conduits. Still, this was a teachable moment and if crewmembers didn’t know how to perform damage control that was partly her fault - as part of the ship’s leadership corps - for not making sure. Making a mental note to talk to the Shosho about conducting a refresher for the non-Engineering crew, she triggered her own telepathic ability to reply.

“The port main STL unit needs repairs and the CFS generator needs an eyes-on review. Just come to Engineering with whoever else is in the DC party. Entering the conduits from here will take a little bit longer but at least I can make sure you’re kitted out properly.”

Bridge

"Roger, dispatching Bogey-2" Natsumi replied. She made the needed adjustments to aim the Eucharis' knife-like bow at the doomed target, rotating the warship around 180 degrees and worked up her targeting solution on the ship, preparing the aether cannon for another cone blast. She did not want or need to miss this time.

"Shosho, intercepting comm traffic from Bogey-2" Natsumi reported, "Computer is already working on decrypting it" she added as the computer told her what it was doing with this new information. Another indicator winked on, telling her the target solution on the ship was solid.

"Solution on Bogey-2 locked in for main cannon" She announced. "Firing" It was an NMX ship and an enemy, no quarter. She fired the main battery, sending an ever expanding cone of aether energy at Bogey-2

Medbay

Ayumi looked up at Sienna as she spoke, also listening to what Junko said to her. She was certainly not going to badmouth her captain on her own ship, especially not to a civilian.

"Acknowldged, I will be there as quickly as I can." Ayumi replied to Junko, before working on her answer to Sienna. "The ship is currently understaffed due to the away team having one half of the crew." She explained calmly, shrugging her shoulders slightly. It was unimportant, despite her status as a medic she should also be able to aid the ship in a situation such as this. "I need to know how to help when I can." She added, hoping it would be an appropriate answer for Sienna.

She was painfully aware that she didn't really know what Junko expected of her, and was starting to regret focusing so intensely on her medical training only when she had been in training. This was a good opportunity though, she knew Hanako wouldn't ask this of her if it was a fruitless exercise.

"I need to go to engineering now, however, I must ask you to forgive my rude and sudden departure." Ayumi said, stepping towards the door, "Please be careful, I wouldn't want you to fall on your way back to your cabin." As she said this Ayumi headed into the hallway, heading towards the 0-G passageway on her way to engineering.

Medbay

If there was anyone aboard the ship that could recognize an evasive answer when they heard one, it was Sienna. While she realized that Ayumi had in fact answered her question, it was blatantly obvious to her that there was something else the doctor wasn't telling her. Even ignoring the incredibly boneheaded oversight of sending the ship's maintenance personnel all on an away mission at the same time, Sienna didn't need to think very hard or ask about the situation further to understand that sending the ship's doctor to the task of damage control meant that the decision-makers were getting desperate.

Ayumi's final comment about falling on her walk back, however, made her brow drop flat and her lips part in disbelief. The doctor left the medbay, as Sienna was left standing there, glaring at the back of her head for a second, far too surprised and insulted to reply immediately. "Oh, no," she muttered coolly, just before Ayumi turned the corner. The instant the medic vanished from view, she turned on her heels and followed close behind with a clomping, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way gait, calling after her. In her hurry, she hardly realized that she'd let go of the blanket that was draped around her shoulders, leaving her once again shirtless and dressed only in a bra from the waist up. "Oh, hell no. No you don't. You ain't gonna just stuff me in a damn princess cell while y'all frak this up further," she said with grim determination. "Turning wrenches ain't like pushing needles, Doc. I'm coming with you."

Hallway

Ayumi had in no way meant to insult Sienna. She was surprised when the woman was suddenly coming up behind her with such purpose. She looked over her shoulder for a moment, wondering if she should come to a halt and deal with Sienna properly before continuing on her way. The urgency of the situation won over however, and she continued as a slightly slower pace.

"I did not mean to upset you," she admitted, tone calm. "You are currently lacking... Attire. Do you really wish to accompany me into engineering? I do not think the Shosho would appreciate me allowing a civilian to accompany me." Even though she said this she didn't attempt to contact the captain to let her know that Sienna was following her-- Yet. She wasn't going to risk getting in trouble because Sienna had a stubborn streak and apparently something to prove.

While there was a low likely hood of any of the crew getting hurt, if Sienna came rushing in she may get injured, and if Ayumi was wandering maintenance shafts she would not be able to help. It did not seem like a good idea to her to bring Sienna along, but perhaps she could convince the woman to wait with Junko once he got to engineering.

As she reached the 0-G passageway she turned to Sienna and stopped. "I am quite capable of holding a wrench." She added. She may have been primarily a medic but she could certainly hold other tools.

Bridge

Bogey-2 was dead. The outcome was guaranteed based on the vector geometries alone. The escort-destroyer simply didn’t have enough acceleration available to exit the cone, not in the time available. And with its power generation already having taken a hit, it was unlikely its shields would do much to mitigate the second round of destruction coming its way.

Still, the range was long enough for a little action. While the Eucharis had dashed off to engage the second destroyer, Bogey-2 had drifted closer and closer to the Pack Horse and now with a last burst of acceleration - jumping marginally as the shields were dropped, all power directed to the engines - closed the gap ever so much more. It was barely enough and in its final seconds the NMX ship went to rapid fire with all three of its remaining anti-ship cannons. These had considerably less power than the main cannon but the Pack Horse, beleaguered though it was, put up a good showing. The remaining technicians must have had a near death wish given how taxing to already damaged capacitors and generators it must have been to keep the shields up as long as they did, but in the end the Pack Horse’s hull only took three hits. Unfortunately, one of those hit one of the remaining functional thrusters. The other went into shut down immediately as the power systems tried to cope, and suddenly the freighter was drifting.

At the same time, Bogey-2 squealed one last packet of FTL data from its comm systems, promptly snatched from space by the MEGAMI-IES. Added to the near complete decryption process, the time-to figure on the SIGINT panel dropped to 1 second.

But before that could happen, the main cannon spread shot arrived. The scalar pulse caught the escort destroyer and surrounded it with the same terrible power as before. Without shields, its already damaged armor ablated right away as the last of the superstructure was scoured off. In several places the energy had direct access to the interior of the ship and whole decks were gutted as the compartments, corridors, and crew were evaporated entirely as the wave of destruction entered, passed through, and dissipated.

The damage was catastrophic and the ship was no more than a hulk, but the remaining shell had weathered the storm and would have continued drifting toward the inner system. Then the anti-matter reactor, affected by whatever internal damage had been sustained, lost containment. For a brief instant the ship seemed to swell in places with nuclear boils before being blown violently apart into tiny glowing pieces.

In the silence that followed, a soft chime came from the SIGINT displays as the now decrypted data was displayed. The first two packets mostly contained astrographic data, the same vector coordinates and patterns the Eucharis had access to along with a few tactical remarks. The last packet was more elucidating; in the haste of those last seconds, the message contained mostly plaintext.

Hallway

Sienna, upon Ayumi's pointing it out, looked down at her bra and otherwise exposed torso, but she reacted as if the medic had merely pointed out something entirely irrelevant, like an interesting color scheme in the next room. No sooner than she looked down at herself, she looked back up, unfazed and unconcerned. She still had her pants, belt, and boots on, and clothing was the least of her concerns while something outside the ship was apparently beating them silly. She didn't have time to regret staying aboard the ship this long, her only objective at this point was not to die sitting down.

"Frak what your Shosho thinks," she insisted unrelentingly. "I ain't no delicate flower, and I ain't about to let you kick me under the rug to wait to get vented by whatever's out there. If you're more worried about getting reprimanded than living through this, then fine, don't bring me. I'll find my way on my own." She took a step forward, moving to push past the medic, her jaw set and eyes showing no sign of being talked down. "But you want me to stay put in my cabin before this blows over, you're gonna have to shoot me again," she added.

Another contingency occurred to her, but she said nothing further, as she didn't know enough about what was going on to consider it a viable option yet.

0-G Passageway

"We will not lose." Ayumi replied simply, continuing into the 0-G passageway. "And I was not the one who shot you, if you remember correctly." She added, glancing up at Sienna before making her way down to engineering. If Sienna was going to be stubborn she would not use force to confine her, it was not her place to make such calls.

"Shosho, Sienna has insisted upon accompanying me to engineering." She told the captain plainly, as she reached the door to engineering and entered.

Engineering

"Satonaka Ayumi, reporting. How can I help you, Takeda-Heisho?" She asked, saluting briefly and then looking around the room to take note of all of the various devices. Her basic knowledge of how engineering worked would hopefully help her in this situation, but she knew she was lacking. She thought for a moment that Junko may take offence to Sienna having joined her, but she did not offer an explanation to the civilian's presence. She decided that was up to Sienna to provide, and waited patiently for the Shosho to reply to her, perhaps telling her what to do with the woman in the process.

Zero-G Passageway

In actuality, Sienna did not remember who had shot her months before. All she had was the fragmented testimonies she'd heard from various witnesses of the entire ordeal, and if there had been mind-altering substances involved, by default not one of them was reliable. She had no real idea who had shot her, but at this moment in time, it wasn't important. Whether it had been Ayumi or not, her point had clearly been made, and the medic had given up trying to talk her into the role of helpless damsel.

She followed on Ayumi's heels to the empty vertical cylinder amidships, the flashing and ambient red and yellow lights of combat readiness all around them, her gait and body language suggesting she either chose not to be aware of the absence of her shirt, or didn't care. Seconds after Ayumi stepped into the void and floated down towards the engineering area, Sienna grasped the handrails where the corridor joined the passageway, taking a scant split second to adjust to the disorienting sensation of free fall. Still grasping the rung, she pulled her knees to her chest and used the wall to aim down at the opening Ayumi was floating towards, then shoved off, floating in a straight, unimpeded line to follow.

Engineering

Sienna barged into the main engineering bay just a few steps behind the medic and took stock of her surroundings, noting Junko's presence as well, giving her a small token of relief that there was at least one person still aboard who would likely know where the damage was and how best to deal with it. Her eyes came to rest purposefully on the ship's engineer, and although she said nothing, the look on her face made it clear what she was there for.

Engineering

Junko spared a brief glance at the new arrivals before turning back to her displays. Only when she was sure the automatics were locked in did she rise and cross to the medic and guest, gesturing briskly toward the damage control stations set along the bulkhead as she did.

“This is a DC evolution," she called out over her suit speakers. "Excess formalities are a waste of time; if you’re called away for damage control you need to move quickly.” Pausing, she examined the two with her hands on her hips. “First thing, you need AMES. You should already have suited up when Condition One was set. It never matters why we’re at Battle Stations. We follow the same procedures every time. So suit up and one of you grab a repair kit. The other grab a cutting kit and CASTER, all in the locker. Move!”

Bridge

Bogey-3 was still out there and running. Natsumi plotted in targeting solutions on the vessel. She wsnted to check on the freighter and rolled the Eucharis around, accellerating towards the Pack Horse, focusing the sensors on the ship.

"Bogey-2 is neutralized" Natsumi reported to
The Shosho. "Bogey-3 will be soon" she added, already planning her attack run for once she had updated data on the Pack Horse

Engineering

While Sienna had no idea what in the world a "DC evolution" was, she was at least a touch refreshed to see Junko's blunt dismissal of unnecessary conversational fluff in favor of getting straight to the matter at hand. She didn't bother to respond or wait for Ayumi to comment. Immediately she made a beeline for the locker that the NCO pointed out, threw it open with a bang, and nabbed one of the AMES suits hanging there. Already familiar with its operation, she began to pull it on, letting the material flex and conform to her legs and hips as she pulled it up over her bare shoulders. In less than two minutes she was suited up in everything but the helmet, as she snatched the cutter and CASTER both in one hand, the helmet in the other.

"Where'd you need me?" she asked, her voice all business and in control, while retaining her obvious awareness of the situation's urgency.

Bridge

"Hurry up and destroy Bogey 3," Hanako ordered. She shifted a little to the side of her chair, leaning on one of the armrests, noting how comfortable the cushions were against her, in contrast with how the situation made her agitated. She resisted the urge to get up and pace around. "The longer we chase them, the further we get from the Pack Horse. They could be running not only to make repairs, but to bait us. We should remove them from the equation. Conduct long-range scans for additional enemy contacts."

Bridge

As Hanako spoke, the sensor returns Natsumi had desired came in and, once processed, spread in a wash of information on her displays. The Pack Horse was still drifting, a swath of debris, vapor, and ablated hull in its wake. Its STL engines were well and truly shut down, there was no sign of any shield generation, and zero emissions indicating any sort of power generation. Still, the hull was largely intact. Indeed, everything forward of the aft engineering frames seemed to be in the same condition as before. There were no communications though, no word from the crew until the freighter’s running lights started blinking in code. The data was slow coming in - given the slow bandwidth speed of such a rudimentary technique - but the communication systems automatically translated and displayed the message.


The Pack Horse’s vector still had it angling in-system, but without power it would be a very long trip to anywhere interesting indeed. Bogey-3, on the other hand, was burning as hard as possible on an opposite vector. Evidently its battle damage wasn’t going to be repaired easily because its acceleration remained low. It was clear, though, that it was going to put as much distance between it and the Eucharis as it could.

Engineering

Junko nodded approvingly as Sienna presented herself. The confidant ease the Nepleslian had displayed in suiting up and kitting herself out suggested to Junko that their guest had some at least some facility with ship repairs. She was curious to see how the pair acquitted themselves.

“Conduit access is up on the Deck Four catwalk,” she said, gesturing up at the grating running around the exterior bulkheads. “You’ll want to use the port access. Once you both get your helmets on I’ll push some waypoints to your HUD systems.”

Bridge

"On it" Natsumi replied. She did not like the data coming in from her scan of the Pack Horse, but she had to put that aside for the moment. She double checked her range to Bogey-3, locked in the solution for the aether shock cannon and gunned the Eucharis' throttles to maximum power.

The range ticked down and Natsumi again selected cone fire mode for the main battery. She did not want to give the enemy a single chance for escape. She opened fire, firing multiple blasts of energy, making sure to bracket the enemy vessel and, she hoped, finish it off.

Engineering

Junko had barely finished talking when Sienna dropped the tools to the deck and secured her helmet with a quick twist, feeling the cool rush of air as the suit's systems pressurized and self-diagnosed with a soft hiss. Snatching up the tools, she jogged over to the rungs secured to the bulkhead and mounted them. With the fingers on her left hand interlaced with the cutter and CASTER, hanging at her side she ascended the ladder like a hobbled spider, hopping her empty right hand up every other rung as she climbed.

She grunted quietly as she reached the top and pulled herself up, sliding atop the catwalk on her stomach as she dragged the tools up behind her. Pushing off of the grating, she leaped to her feet and ran along the suspended catwalk to the port side access door as instructed, awaiting the directions to be projected onto her helmet's HUD.

Bridge

With the advantage of building constant velocity while the Eucharis was busy maneuvering off-axis, Bogey-3 had quite a head start in terms of distance and speed, but its acceleration was still low. The range closed steadily and the final outcome seemed inevitable, yet still the enemy skipper kept running straight out-system. The destroyer didn’t even begin evasive maneuvers until Natsumi fired the first pulse.

Low though its acceleration might have been, the range was still long enough that Bogey-3 had ample time to claw its way out of the threat volume of the blast. The intervening 45 seconds before Natsumi could fire again closed the range even more though. The escort destroyer again managed to fight its way out of the shock volume, but it was a near miss. By the time the final 45 second increment had ticked down, the range was only 2.8 light seconds. The light warship didn’t even bother to try to evade this time, instead using its last 2.8 seconds of existence to continue running.

The effects of the destructive pulse for Bogey-3 were much the same as for Bogey-2. Armor, hull, and superstructure were scoured and ablated away. The interior and crew were gutted and vaporized. This time there were no secondary explosions, nothing to blast the shattered hull fragments apart. Instead the hulked warship drifted on, away from the star to its stern and toward the emptiness of space ahead.

Engineering

Junko tapped her foot against the deck plating as she watched a chronograph display on her HUD. She had caught sight from her current position the status changes on the main displays showing the main cannon in spread mode at its maximum rate of fire. Shuddering at the thought, she a visceral need to get back to her displays but she wanted to the see the damage control party off first. She glanced over toward the damage control locker, hoping the medic would be done soon, and then shifted her gaze up toward the catwalk. Her look was more approving; for all that Sienna was a civilian, she seemed to know her way around an engineering compartment.

Not wanting to hold up the repairs, such as they were, any longer, Junko brought up an internal navigation display on her HUD and selected the damaged area inside the port pylon. Dismissing the display, she triggered her helmet’s guidance mode and was pleased to see a caret appear in her vision, bouncing up and down in front of the port conduit access hatch. Satisfied, she pushed the data across comms to Sienna and Ayumi.

“Just follow the caret,” she said, broadcasting to Sienna. “It will lead you in. I’ll have Satonaka-hei follow on behind you.”

Bridge

"Return to the Pack Horse and conduct evacuation of the ship and attach a tow line," Hanako ordered. "Maintain long-range scanning for additional contacts and incoming FTL signatures." Hanako leaned over her control panel looking over the visual display of the space map. She noticed that she was sweating a little. At first she thought it was the tension but she checked against her body's senses and found that the temperature on the bridge had risen for some reason, perhaps a minor technical issue that may or may not have been related to the exercise.

At this point, Hanako took a moment to check on the away team, transmitting a voice message to them. "Away Team, this is Eucharis actual. We request a status update and sitrep, over."

Bridge

Natsumi nodded and finished adjusting the course she had plotted in to take them back to the Pack Horse. She let her gaze linger on the now dead Bogey-3 and took satisfaction in her handiwork. "Roger, taking us back to the Pack Horse" she replied and manipulated the ships maneuvering systems.

The Eucharis picked up speed once again as Natsumi sent power to the main drives and accelerated the sleek warship as fast as possible.

Bridge

As the Pack Horse grew closer ahead, the comms displays showed the light-code message from before repeating. Either the message was quite urgent or someone had forgotten to turn it off. When the range had shrunk to only a couple of light seconds, the displays pinged again as a contact separated from the freighter. The CIC subroutines only took a fraction of a second to flag the tiny contact - now resolving out from the Pack Horse’s bulk - as a friendly, despite it not broadcasting an IFF code or transponder beacon of any sort.

The contact, now identified as a T-4, Fox rotated on its gyros as it cleared the Odori’s bay and then began thrusting toward the Eucharis. Its running lights were blinking in a mayday code as well but the radio message it sent to the Eucharis’s was only white noise, garbage data hopelessly scrambling the message. Its coxswain evidently deciding they had gone far enough, the little shuttle executed a skew flip, thrusted again, and came to a halt relative to the Pack Horse approximately 1000 kilometers clear of the larger ship.

Engineering

Listening to a message inside her helmet for a moment, Junko looked up and waved Sienna on.

“Never mind, Shelton-san,” she called out across comms. “The Hei has other duties, so you’re handling this on your own. Call when you get into the pylon or if you get lost.”

With that she turned and settled herself back into her seat, eyes racing across her displays. She grimaced at what she saw. Rapid fire was never easy on weapon systems, especially one as complex as the main cannon. It was going to need some serious babying if its more delicate subcomponents were going to make it through the next phase of the exercise.