RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 23.1] A Distant Threat (YE 37)

Engineering

Jax was a little stunned to say the least. He opened his mouth as if to voice his surprise, but stopped himself. You know what? After all he'd been through today, this was perfectly fine.

He shut his mouth, swallowed a little, and nodded.

"Yeah, uh, good plan!" said Jax, who immediately began helping her.

Shuttle

As soon as Suites had been offloaded for transport to medical, and the prisoner escorted off, Natsumi was back in the shuttle's cockpit. "Shuttle on rout to pick ou up" she replied over the comm channel with Hashimoto.

It looked like everyone else had departed from the shuttle as well, so she was doing this last leg of the mission on her own.

"Shuttle departing" she announced as she sealed the hatch and piloted the small craft out of the Euchsris' hangar bay. Once clear of the heavy gunship she kicked up the engines to full power and burned for the landing party BBQ site. It took little time to get back to the bug villiage and soon she was throttling back, doing an orbit as she coasted down to a casual speed to land just beside the wrapped up operation.

"Ride's here!" she called out as the shuttle settled down and she opened the main hatch. "All aboard!"

Power Armor Bay

Falling in behind Aikiko, Akane set out in her armor, ready to escort the alien to medical. She wondered what sort of creature she would be escorting. Would Taharial be filled with wonder? Glee? Perhaps a need to assert her title?

No matter her thoughts, Akane kept on. Her finger stayed extended close to the trigger without making contact. She didn't know of a specific hostile situation, so there was no need for her to prepare to fire. Touching the trigger alone represented an immediate need to open fire.

At the moment, there was still peace.

Rixxikor Village

Umeshu was indeed glad to see the Telemachus V touching down at the village outskirts and the hatch opening wide, as she was the first Neko to step inside and give the pilot a respectful greeting and relieved smile. "Arigato, Yamashiro-shoi. You're quite the pilot to get here so quickly... it is no wonder Hanako-shosho puts so much faith in you."

With that, the operation went from uneasy humanitarian aid/diplomacy to one of straight forward logistics. The purple-skinned officer flexed her muscles and began to help Lime and Mango to drag the grills and flamethrower fuel bottles back into the cargo area of the shuttle. It was quite shocking when the refrigerated crate they had moved via cargo hook was inspected and all of the food was gone... a testament to both how hard the ship's cooks worked and how numerous and insatiable the hunger of the Rixxikor truly was. Murakami-heisho was likely not going to be pleased at how much their stocks had ben depleted.

Umeshu also made sure that Bjarnson-hei came aboard with his FARS drone not far behind, and gave a parting honorable salute to the Rikugun Neko detachment that had provided security, instructing them to withdraw from the village itself and to keep a lookout for trouble.

With all that done, the purple-skinned Shoi found a seat to strap herself into and closed her eyes in meditative thought, letting the stress of dealing with the bug men ebb away until they arrived back aboard their home ship. Dispensing the expensive Lorath wine to the aliens made a part of her hanker for a nice, sweet, warm drink as well.

YSS Eucharis

Now with everyone back onboard, Hanako grabbed the manual control sticks and began to slowly raise Eucharis away from the surface, using its anti-gravity systems. The battered gunship floated higher into the atmosphere, and the ground below grew more and more distant until it was just a quilt-like patchwork of green squares of farmland, with the wind rushing across the large doorways of the shuttle and armor bays. In spite of the battle, the crew had managed to pull off the investigation mission. Now, it was time to analyze the results, which seemed to raise more questions than providing answers. Who were these Kuvexians, and what was their relation to the Rixxikor? Where did they come from and what did they want?