RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 21] Return to Ether (YE 36)

[Wes]

Fort Hanako

Even though she saw it nearly every day, Hanako still appreciated the majesty of the Eucharis. The ship's appeal for Hanako came from it being its own little self-contained world and because it could take the crew anywhere in the universe. Furthermore, it was home. But something in her reminded her it couldn't last forever, that she had been in the same place for a while, possibly to her detriment. At the end of the last mission, she saw Sune moving on with his life, and it made her wonder if she should be doing the same. This was a beautiful, warm, sunny, wet, and fertile jewel of the a planet and yet she would probably not see it more than two or three times this year. Perhaps she should grab some dirt to take with her or wear bikinis more on the ship, she mused, causing her to smile for a moment before her lips erupted with a loud command of "FALL IN!"

In front of her was the assembled crew of the Eucharis, plus her new samurai companion. Hanako stood near the cargo door. "At ease! Welcome back from leave, and happy new year," she greeted the crew. "I hope everyone had a fantastic time. We are going to start the year with some training exercises to keep sharp. NCOs, please report to me after formation. Everyone else, please get all your things on the ship. We will be departing shortly. Crew, attention! Fall out!"

As the crew grabbed their duffels and flowed into the ship, the last of the ship's cargo also was being loaded via trucks moving back and forth between the ship and a warehouse. A humming noise coming from the ship indicated it was already running and warming up for takeoff.

 

[BionicSamurai]

Fort Hanako

It had been a decent bit of leave: drinking, hiking, and sunbathing - though not at the same time. But the day had come, and the hour nigh, when Hanako called the crew to form up. Chieko appreciated her time off, though quite glad to be heading back out into space again.

The science specialist took to the drill smartly as the digitally stored movements connected with refined muscle memory, executing every move to perfection. But the prospect of training nearly caught her off guard enough to slip, though with the call to attention again, she managed to snap back to. Falling out was then however, a relief that allowed the questions to start popping into her head as she picked up her bag and re-embarked.

I wonder what kind of training we will be brushing upon, the academic thought to herself, Though, I suppose half the fun will be in the surprise.

 

[Yoshi]

The leave was over. It went by so quickly. Once they were all dismissed Misato Suzume grabbed her few bags and started trudging up into the ship, it wasn't until she was tossing her bags into her cabin when she realize the NCOs were to meet with the Shosho right after formation. And that she was one of them now.

Cursing herself she raced back to find the captain. Misato decided she may have to get NCO tatooed to her forehead to help remind herself as she came to a skittering halt before Hanako. "Reporting as ordered Ma'am." she bowed deeply hoping the CO would understand her slip up, or at least forgive it.

 

[Sean_ODuibher]

Junko was, quite frankly, elated. Leave was all well and good - it was actually a great deal more enjoyable than she had expected - but the Eucharis was her first love and she was eager to be back aboard, not just stopping in but once again responsible for her keep her running and happy. She wondered what precisely the Shosho wanted, having no clue as to what their new mission would be. She was just glad to see her looking better, at least better than the night of the Chusa's dinner party. Junko revered Hanako and so the more she had thought about that night during leave the more it bothered her to have seen her Admiral, her Captain distraught like that.

Suzume, predictably, was very helpful in dispelling such gloomy thoughts. Junko's eyebrows crept up as the younger neko came sprinting up to the Shosho. Shaking her head, Junko walked sedately over to Hanako and, setting her kit on the deck, bowed respectfully.

"Ma'am."

 

[Wes]

Outside Eucharis Cargo Bay Door

"There you are, Misato," Hanako said. "It is time to practice your leadership skills. I want you to put together an training mission for the away team." She turned to Junko. "Meanwhile, Junko will create a training mission for the rest of the crew, who normally stays on the ship. The point is to keep our enlisted crew sharp for situations we may encounter during war time by challenging them. I will move the ship accordingly and can obtain training aids to assist you with your scenarios."

 

[Sean_ODuibher]

Outside Eucharis Cargo Bay Door

Junko nodded. A training exercise would be just the ticket to shake out the cobwebs before getting into any real action. She knew plenty of her shipmates had partied their hardest so now it was time to work equally as hard.

"Aye aye, ma'am," she replied. "I'll get a scenario worked up right away. Will you want to begin the exercises immediately upon lifting ship or are we waiting a bit?"

 

[Wes]

Outside Eucharis Cargo Bay Door

"I can wait a little bit," Hanako told Junko. "We should get settled in on the ship and get back into space. After that, we can take things from there. Oh, and if you need to make any last-minute supply requests, now is the time to ask Mitsuko-Hei. If there is nothing else, I am going to go aboard. You will be able to find me on the bridge."

 

[Izokia78]

Outside the Eucharis

Izokia was incredibly happy to be getting back to the order and normalcy of ship life. She wasn't exactly a fan of civilian areas especially tourists. Although she did enjoy her time spent with Ayumi in a less orderly setting.

She marched aboard the ship ready for her next adventure.

 

[Gunsight1]

Natsumi was sad vacation was over. It always went by too fast, ended too soon, just when one was starting to have real fun. Once the crew was dismissed, Natsumi returned to her cabin and put her things away before heading off to go about her official duties.

She arrived on the bridge and settled into the pilots seat. She accessed the system and started bringing the flight control systems up and priming everything under her control for take off. It would be good to go back to space, even though her vacation was over there was that excitement about going into space, every time.

 

[Reynolds]

Cabin 4

Mitsuko had paused for a moment outside of the crew cabins, staring wistfully at what had been Sune's. Who would be using it now? She shook her head, heading into her own room to unpack her bags and stow everything. It would be odd, returning to sharing a room with Misato after everything that had happened. She made sure to leave room for the other Neko's things, since her roommate was busy and hadn't arrived yet. She was done quickly enough, heading back to the Cargo Bay once she'd gotten her things settled. She wanted to check the status of the cargo loading, and oversee what little was left.

 

[Yoshi]

"Aye Ma'am!" Misato replied as she started working out her plan of the operation in her head. Once she had decided on where she would like to hold it, the rest fell into place quite quickly.

Nodding to the other Heisho, Misato started back towards her cabin. Lost in thought she walked right into her roommate.

"Oy! Sorry!" She grabbed Mitsuko preventing her from being knocked to the floor. "Well just who I was planning on finding... Once you have a moment I need to put in a last minute equipment request. If that isn't a problem Mimi-chan?"

 

[Wes]

Bridge

Hanako arrived on the bridge, dressed in her usual duty uniform. "Hello, Natsumi. Check with Mitsuko to make sure she is satisfied with the cargo compliment before we take off. Also, I think we are waiting on the arrival of some ground vehicles before we leave. We are otherwise ready to take off and go into orbit. I still have not determined our destinations; I am waiting on the NCOs to submit their training plans. I hope you and everyone else had a wonderful year-end holiday. For me, it was bittersweet. I enjoyed our time here but I was upset over Jalen-Taii leaving. I will miss him. Do you suppose Takeyu will apply to become our first officer?" she asked Natsumi.

 

[Gunsight1]

Bridge

Natsumi took note of all the Shosho asked her to do before lift off and began filing them infinite sneak check list.

"I had a great time," she replied with a smile, thinking of the party and all the trouble she and Sienna had got into after. "I will miss Sune-san too," she replied. "He was a good XO," she smiled back at Hanako brightly "And who knows, we may run into him again some day soon," she shrugged.

"Takeyu-san is the senior ranking officer aboard he Eucharis now after you; it would make sense," she said, "Heck, I would applying myself to try it out as well if I were of the appropriate pay grade," she added,, showing a bit of ambition to move beyond just being a simple starship operator.

"Maybe in a few years," she responded to herself with a shrug and turned her attention back to her panel and the ships pre flight checks.

 

[BionicSamurai]

Cabin 6

Arriving in her cabin again, after all those weeks away, Chieko took a moment to look around and breathe the air in again. The adventure was about to begin anew, and she felt more than ready for it now that she was in her true home. The scientist took her bags and stuffed them into her locker, not bothering to unpack, before closing the container up and making her way up onto the bridge.


Bridge

Upon arrival, the academic took a pace onto the bridge, then stepped to the side before giving Hanako a low bow.

"Koizumi-Hei reporting, Shosho," the young Minkan offered, "Ready to hit the spaceways again."

 

[Reynolds]

Corridor near Cargo Bay

Mitsuko let out a familiar squeak as she bumped into her roommate, neither of them paying attention to the world around them. Her mind had been focused on what she'd find in the Cargo Bay ahead, mentally running through the manifest she'd already pulled up. "Suzume-chan! Are you okay? S-sorry." She blushed as she wound up clinging to the other Neko for support, nodding as she spoke. "Oh...okay. It will have to be fast, if you want to try to have the request filled before we take off. Otherwise the supplies will have to meet us...wherever we're heading." Pushing her current electronic paperwork aside, she pulled up the standard forms for requesting supplies, waiting for Misato to continue. She had been in a hurry to reach the Cargo Bay just a moment ago, but she didn't seem to mind this delay. Probably because she was enjoying any excuse to hold onto her roommate.

 

[Floodwaters]

Tarmac - Outside the Eucharis Cargo Ramp

Sienna, shielding her eyes from the sunlight even though her eyes was entirely shielded by a pair of large aviator-style sunglasses, shuffled up the cargo ramp of the ship, an exhausted grimace on her face. The fresh air helped ease her nausea a bit, but the oppressively bright outdoor light was making her head pound like a jackhammer. Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and every heavy step sent a shockwave of dull pain through her head, neck, and shoulders, like someone thumping her repeatedly with a rock wrapped up in a padded sheet. Her backpack felt like it was loaded with concrete bricks, hanging like an anchor from her opposite hand as she practically dragged it along behind her.

She could only remember having a hangover one time before, and it wasn't nearly as bad as this one. She had no idea what time she had finally gone to sleep, or even how she had gotten back to her hotel room the night before. Come to think of it, most of what she had done the previous night was little more than one alcoholic blur. There wasn't any good reason to party so hard; maybe it was because she knew it was her last night in a paid vacation on a garden world, or maybe she was just trying to distract herself from something, whatever it was. But now she was certainly paying for it. She wondered if she'd ever be able to bring herself to drink again.

Climbing the cargo ramp felt like climbing a mountain, each laborious step feeling like it could potentially be the last before her knees buckled from beneath her and sent her sliding back down to the tarmac. When she finally did reach the entrance to the warship's cargo bay, she took her hand from her face and steadied herself against the giant door frame, trying to blink away the blurry haze and readjust her sight to the oh-so-relieving shade. It didn't bring her much pleasure when the first person she saw was Mitsuko.

 

[Yoshi]

Corridor near Cargo Bay

Misato smiled "Well I need a rush order on a Mindy 1H PA. It will allow me to handle my new position as the top infantry lead." she hoped the request would go through this time. Last time it was shot down by the Shosho, but this time he had the rank to back up the reasoning for the PA.

"I got to run I need to get back to the cabin, unpack and then grab desk time planning an operation for an away-team..." She Giving Mitsuko a squeeze before letting go. "Give me a heads up if anything comes of the request Mimi-chan, and I'll see you in a bit." With that she continued off towards her cabin to pick up the mess she tossed in and then get to work.

 

[Kyle]

Outside the Eucharis

Takeyu walked casually around the ship, inspecting its landing gear along with a few of the ships external maintenance panels. He was looking for anything out of the ordinary, such as people who might attempt to strike at the Princess, or anyone who might try to harm other members of his crew. "Good..." he muttered as he knelt down near one of the landing near and inspected the mechanisms and nodded in approval. He performed this check on the rest of the landing gears before walking over to the cargo bay's loading ramp and walking up it and into the ship.

As he walked, he pondered about Sune and wondered how the officer was presently doing, stopping just short of actually entering the ship and glancing out toward the distant buildings with a smile. He lowered his head, eyes closed and a smile remaining on his face, and walked the remaining steps into the ship. In the cargohold, he inspected the cargo that was there, it was becoming a kind of obsession that he felt and probably not an overly good one at that; but it was something that kept his mind from wandering to far into regions it shouldn't.

While he worked he comprised a message to be sent to Hanako:

Shosho Hanako? If possible can I speak to you about a request?

 

[Sean_ODuibher]

Outside Eucharis Cargo Bay Door

Junko hefted her duffel and started forward, a slight grin on her face at the sight of Sienna passing by her. The Nepleslian looked, well, not great. It certainly did not serve as a very effective advertisement for drinking heavily. Her shipmates had tried valiantly to extol its virtues over leave, but she still couldn’t see it being worth whatever hell Sienna was going through at the moment.

Bypassing the various stalled crewmembers, she made her way up to the crew lounge and deposited her duffel in her cabin. There would be time later to unpack; for now, she merely changed with her typical efficiency into a working uniform before heading back out again. She made her way to Engineering on autopilot, thinking on what would make for an appropriately fiendish training scenario as she did. Her train of thought was broken for a moment as she stepped into the Mainspace - the sights, sounds, and smells all familiar and comforting. The main console was just ahead and she crossed over to it, pulling up the primary systems display.

“And how are we today?” she murmured to herself, half checking to make sure all status indicators were green and half searching for inspiration - what should fail and how catastrophically.

 

[Reynolds]

Corridor outside the Cargo Bay

Mitsuko blinked at the request. "Oh...yes ma'am. If you feel it is necessary, I'll make the proper requests." She had the simple logistics form filled out within moments, sending it off through the proper channels, making sure to forward it to the captain as well. She'd always have final say on what came on board her ship, after all, even if Mitsuko handled the supply requests.

She continued to blush until the final squeeze, nodding as her roommate ran off. "Yes ma'am, I will...Suzume-chan." It was hard, bouncing between official duties and their relationship, but she was doing her best. "Let me know if you need any help!" She called out to Misato as she scampered off. Maybe this operation was related to the training mission Hanako had ordered Misato to work on, so long ago. Finally continuing into the Cargo Bay, Mitsuko just nodded at Sienna, giving her a polite but uninterested smile. Takeyu inspecting her cargo drew her full attention.

"Nayacesen-Taii, is there a problem?" Her records of the cargo movement were pulled back up, now that the request had been sent out.