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

Bridge

"Take us up and out into open space as soon as the starport will let us," Hanako told Natsumi. She then switched on the intercom again so that everyone could hear what she was about to say.

"36 hours ago, the Scientific Studies Service lost contact with their teams of scientists manning the Lighthouse in the Higaflan star system. No one has been able to reestablish contact. As there is a chance that this could be an attack, the SSS has requested that the Star Army of Yamatai secure the area and conduct an investigation. Our objectives are to find out what happened and restore communications, and, in the event of an attack, to neutralize the threat. Splorfin is 85 light-years away, which will take us a few hours of travel time at best speed. Set readiness condition to 3. That is all."

After her announcement, Hanako directed Natsumi, "Once we are in space, set course for Higaflan via hyperspace folds."

The Shosho then swiveled around to face her new first officer. "What are you recommendations?" she inquired.

Cabin 6
After a short time spent unpacking his duffle bag he was ready to head to the head to the PA bay where his brand new Mindy waited. His last physical have been passed with flying colors, he was sure that the new physical could wait until the medical bay had cleared up, but after the announcement of the mission a fresh physical had gun even lower on his to-do list

Since he purchased his shades his datapad had become more or less unneeded, although he could still think of at least one use for it. Switching it to a notetaker application, he left a note for his new roommate:
[Note]gone to PA bay
-Suites [/note]
Short and to the point, that's the way he liked it. A brief glance about the room would say a lot about him. He left his SACOS on the desk next to his datapad which was still on. Before leaving he switched on his flying assistant robot in case he needed any help with accessing data, though he was perfectly capable of accessing PANTHEON mentally. Should Miyako care to look she'd find his clothing was stored in neat stacks, folded with precision. His duffle bag remained on his bed unzipped and partially open. Within were the various boxes of large caliber bullets for his hand cannon sitting on top of black boxer briefs, socks and his spacesuit.


PA Bay
As he made his way to the PA Bay his assistant had already called up the ship's computer to have his power armor moved from the rack to a station. It was fresh off the rack as he entered the bay where Aikiko was already present. "No fluffy slippers this time?" he teased, though his voice did not show much humor. As he was almost at his station his shirt came off as he was preparing to enter his slightly taller-than-average Mindy, immediately folding it before reaching the locker where it would be set neatly within its confines. This process continued for each article of clothing until he was in his birthday suit without a trace of shame or discomfort beyond the cooler temperature starships naturally operate at. While undressing he subconsciously accessed a program he kept stored in his brain, a personalization that he likes having on his armor.

He entered his armor, carefully stepping backwards into the unit. Once in he placed his arms in the sleeves as the unit close to around him and donned his helmet. A holographic image appeared over its 'face' as the program loaded while the interior conformed to his body while he performed the necessary calibrations.
All the while he was still listening to any reply Aikiko made.

P.A. Bay

Aikiko eye lit up with humor as she kept her expression neutral. "I'd like to keep my toes where they are at." She glanced over at the male star army guy as he prepped his Mindy. "You might want to snag a ship board issue Daisy also for yourself and do a pre-mission load out of accessories and weapons for both sets of your chosen armors."

She worked the manipulator arms remotely that were connected to her Mindy. It stood out from the rest of the Star Army Issued Mindy's as the color scheme was in digital pattern of blacks, greys and dull dirty white with all of the proper Star Army markings and the little dark blue flower painted on the back of the left elbow.

"You have a name?" Aikiko glanced once more at the newcomer into the power armor bay.

PA Bay
" Candon suites, my callsign is Candyman," he answered as he stepped away from the station and made three quick punches into the air, " congrats on your last minute promotion, I was thinking for a while I was going to have to lead this team. I got a few formations pointed out that I was going to use, I'll send them to you."
He telepathically sent the information to her, not too concerned with asking permission. Among the tactical plans was two flight formations that were updated slightly to meet the current situation. In the first for space flight it resembled a generic square shaped diamond that could realistically put any of the four soldiers at either points. In the formation for planetary air combat it called for a Mindy up front with any three other units following close to stay in the leader's slipstream. The formation resembled that of a three faced pyramid with 2 following units parallel to each other on the side highest from the ground to give all four units a line of fire for ground attack

As he stepped back to his station and hung the armor on the rack he thought back to the files regarding Santô Hei Dirjon Ulvson and the custom Daisy he'd planned to build. If completed it would be a fine artillery unit. He would have to ask if he could reopen such a project as it would doubtlessly be a fine addition to the overall firepower of the infantry team. As the war machine powered down he removed the helmet and let the armor split open. Still sitting with his legs in and the chassis split open he began making some adjustments to the helmet, trying it on occasionally to manually align the HUD to his eyes. "So what should I call you?" He asked her between adjustments.

Engineering...
Jax, who was starring off in a state of deeper thinking, jolted a little when Hanako spoke through the intercom.

A small vibration could be felt as the Eucharis came to life around him in the engineering room. It was as if a massive beast, like a dragon, or a leviathan (he was sticking with leviathan, because those were cooler than dragons) was waking up from a deep slumber. Soon enough the noise was enough to make him flatten his ears a little.

He couldn't decide whether to be excited or terrified. His adventure was beginning, but at the same time, he understood what was going on. He was marching off to war.

Well, possibly, he thought to himself. Maybe they'd forgotten to charge their communicators, or left them on "airplane mode". He snickered a bit at the thought of storming into the place, guns drawn and ready for action, only to find the geeks sitting around a table, playing cards or something. No one had said that it was confirmed that there was a threat, just a possibility. Maybe they'd extend their leave if that was the case? Go somewhere where the girls were hot, the beer was cold, and not a care in the world was to be had.

Jax snapped himself out of his daydream. He sighed and scratched the back of his head. He'd essentially had no time off for the past few months. Granted, he hadn't been on a mission like some of these guys, but still...

"Time to get to work, darling," he said to his FAR. He stood up and walked towards the door. "Keep an eye on the console. Gimme heads up of any irregular drops in power and shield output, coolant flow, and anything else out of the ordinary."

"As you wish..." it replied. Jackson reached the door and stopped, and then turned to the damage control station. He slid the door open, made sure that there was an environmental suit he could use in the event of an emergency, then walked back and sat down in his chair and kicked his feet up. After a moment, he reached onto his belt and pulled off his communicator. Who said this had to be a dull work environment? A little music never hurt anyone, right? Besides, he worked better with music in the background, so this could be considered "preventing an economical hazard". He flipped through his library of stored music. Nothing too heavy, too fast, nothing to get his blood going. He wanted something that would be good for just kicking back and doing nothing.

A moment later, smooth reggae was being emitted from the speakers of the device, which was set on the console beside him. Jax sighed and relaxed, but remained vigilant just in case any problems arose, or, you know, music was unauthorized onboard and he needed to quickly shut off the device and look busy before any of his superiors came in.

"Don't worry... about a thing... 'Cause every little thing... is gonna be alright...!" sang the man from the device.

'I really hope you're right...' Jackson grumbled internally.

Deck 3, Med Lab

Although she could have easily pulled rank and went to the head of the line, she had not done so, instead seemed to be studying the woman from afar. When the medic got to her, Umeshu gave a quick bow of her head. "Hajimemashite, Taharial-hei. It is interesting to see an Elysian doctor aboard... but you certainly seem to be very popular as well. You don't have to worry about my fitness exam, though, as I've already finished one from the War College a few days ago. I'm simply here to make a quick backup before heading to the bridge." In truth, it was also an excuse to check out various areas of the ship and familiarize herself with the crew members.

Bridge

Hashimoto took up the vacant Ketsurui Red cushioned seat to the left of Natsumi-shoi, settling into the science and sensors console. She took a moment to study its options intently, and anyone nearby could hear her murmuring something about quantum mirrors and unusual Lorath modules. She finally voiced aloud a small request, "I see the Eucharis has some additional, non-standard sensor arrays installed... please give me a moment while I familiarize myself with their operation." Her fingers hit the display hotspots in succession like plucking a virtual koto zither, bringing up guide manuals and references into her view which she tried to digest in the short time they had before takeoff. This was just in case she had to run such tasks as hyper and subspace monitoring or telepathic activity scans which were not exactly taught in basic operations class...

Cargo Bay

Mitsuko looked up in response to the message, pausing in the middle of her Cargo Bay as she considered their new mission. At least they knew a bit more about this system and the base they were investigating than Splorfin. Hopefully the communications had simply been damaged. She began to go over possible scenarios in her head as she worked, checking the items Victory had taken on board. Ranking things from most likely to least, from most dangerous to mostly harmless. Almost all of the Hei-ranked crew members would sent out, she assumed, as their specialties covered most of the scenarios she could envision.

Charisma could confirm that two of them were already preparing their armors. Another of the infantry was in Medical, along with the medic herself. She sighed at the thought of the last member of their infantry unit. "Charisma, please direct Darkfire-Hei toward the PA Bay if he does not arrive there soon." She also sent a brief message to Akane and Taharial suggesting, but not ordering, they might want to inspect their own armors in case the captain sent them on the away team. She composed one to Jackson as well, pleased to find he was in Engineering already. She also suggested he visit the PA Bay once he had the opportunity, of course not wanting him to leave his post until one of the officers allowed it.

Bridge

"Yes, ma'am" Natsumi bowed, set her new peaked cap upon her head, then went to her station. She slid into her seat at the helm and went to work, her pale fingers tapping away at the smooth glassy surface of her console. Within moments she had Fort Hanako spaceport control on the line and was requesting departure clearance for the Eucharis. Clearance came quickly, no one would hold up the launch of the warship commanded by Shosho Hanako unless they had very good reason, no one did today.

"Departure clearance granted" Natsumi reported as she input more commands, selecting the heavy gunship's counter gravity system, already in standby, fed power to it enough to smoothly lift the warship off of her landing gear. "Gear up" she reported next as she retracted them, then increased their altitude rapidly, using the thrusters to adjust their pitch and heading, sliding the Eucharis into her designated departure path.

Clear of the ground and Fort Hanako, Natsumi kicked in the main engines, jetting the warship quickly up into the sky, which darkened around them as the atmosphere thinned and faded away to the cold blackness of space. As they ascended, she started the computer navigating the quickest course to Higaflan, plotting in the series of jumps that would be needed to get them there.

Hanako's World fell away below them, dwindling to a small blue marble as she finished plotting their course and maneuvered the Eucharis out of orbit, clear of the shipping lanes and local orbital space traffic. "We are clear of the planet, course to Higaflan plotted into the navigational computer" Natsumi reported. "Ready to spool up fold drive and engage first jump"

Bridge

Saiga had not but entered the ship’s command center when Hanako’s asked his advice. His uniform was less flashy now, having switched his jacket over to plain command white without medals and pins, but no less immaculate. He nodded to greet the bridge crew he hadn’t formally met yet and seemed to be favorably surprised by the Nepleslian exchange officer.

“If the SSS thinks there’s a possibility that their research teams were attacked then they must be doing some important work,” the Chusa said from his place standing near Hanako’s chair. “But there’s no reason to assume the worst. An early priority should be to ascertain if there is a sizeable spaceborne with long range scanners. While such a scenario is unlikely, we should have our armor team on standby nonetheless. If possible, we should attempt to establish radio or laser communications with friendlies. Once free space around the station is cleared, our armor team or engineering crew can move in to secure the station depending on the situation there.”

The scenario’s outlook seemed simple to him. During the Second Mishhuvurthyar, station raiding was an operation frequently undertaken by the SAINT strike battalions he worked with.

“Because there are so many unknowns, a more structured or surgical plan would likely fall apart,” Saiga added with a gruff grin across his face. “I think you’ll agree it will be most important is that we protect Yamataian nationals, equipment, and information in the event that something has gone wrong at Higaflan.”

“What are your thoughts, Taisa?”

Medical Lab

After the announcement, Akane knew she needed to start getting ready. It was time to get ready to fight, even if she hadn't made all the arrangements with Taharial that she'd hoped to. Turning to her friend as others came in, the Neko said, "Duty calls. I'll have to catch up with you later. I wanted to ask you some stuff."

Then Akane was off. She could already feel her mind shifting away from her artistic nature so she could more easily fight.

Bridge

Hanako pondered this. "I agree but I am also concerned about the element of surprise. A lighthouse is typically unmanned and it is full of a small ship's worth of survival supplies and gear, making it an easy, and useful target for pirates and independents. There is also the possibility of NMX remnants. Even though the war ended, it's possible that some of their forces did not follow the order to withdraw. In either case, if the culprit is still there, is it likely they are going to make a run for it as soon as we arrive. If we are at a distance poking around with our sensor's that could give them time to escape the system's gravity well and use their FTL. Tracking them could be more difficult after that, depending on the technology used."

P.A. Bay

"I'm Aikiko Akiashiro. Thanks." She gave quick smile of thanks as she finishing up her Mindy checks. "My former crew called me "Icki". Because of the mess I make when dealing with explosive. I'm EOD along with my standard Infantry job." She gave a dreamy smile, remembering of actually using explosive to open a derelict up to retrieve a fallen teammate. It caused her to pause in her checks momentarily.


Suddenly a flood of formation clouded her mental vision, causing her to stop working again. She mentally reviewed what he sent via telepathically to her. At first it confused her as she was used to the more mundane way of transferring information via data pads. "Why you sending me this information, Candon?" She was curious as she gave another look. This one lasting a bit longer than the usual glances at the other gender.

Samanthia said:

P.A. Bay

"Why you sending me this information, Candon?" She was curious as she gave another look. This one lasting a bit longer than the usual glances at the other gender.

Click to expand...

PA Bay

He took a moment to think about how he would respond to that question. Sharing tactics in assembling them into a playbook has not been a new practice by any means, he figured she must have been referring more to his uninvited use of telepathy to share it with her. " when I was assigned here it appeared that I was going to be the high ranking soldier on the team, thus the one who needed to have tactics on hand to share with the troops. Fortunately you outrank me now. Most teams have a playbook for formations they like, I don't like having sensitive information like that lying around on computers. Computers get hacked, it's much harder to hack the Neko OS. Laser transmission puts a direct telepathic link between you and I, nobody will be able to intercept such a transmission unless we see them. Then if we take it a step further and encrypt the data we will never have to worry about unauthorized access of our sensitive combat information."

He set the helmet over his head again, "dam." he realized he had set the HUD too far left and corrected it. Once done he would start the armor backup in begin sighting in his weapons systems facing the large exterior door while fine tuning his targeting computer using holographic targets emitted from his Mindy. He would sight in each weapon by pointing them at the targets, but he wouldn't fire for the sake of not being sucked out into space...

Med Lab

Taharial watched Akane and nodded "yes lets talk later Akane, I would like that" she had backed up all the new people and checked on the the crews back up making sure they were up to date. "All seems good, no one seems out of date, oh wait there seems to be some people" she sighs and checks the crew list again just to make sure "okay two new people haven't reported in" she sent out a message to Saiga and Candon as she knew they were new and needed to.


She sighed again "don't people listen to orders" she walked up to the tube the Nightmare Type "at least I can do some work on her while I wait." she stopped and went to the storage container she put the leg in from the crystal creature a while ago and checked on it pulling the leg out "there is this to, maybe check out what it is made of and if we can use it for anything" she tried to move the leg, there should've been a joint it was twitching on the planet but nope no more movement. She wrote down the findings of the leg as she continued to check out what was interesting of the crystal as she waited for the crew that she requested.

Bridge

Hashimoto-shoi took a break from reading the manuals and diverted more of her attention to the normal prep work one would expect during a takeoff as the Eucharis began its ascent into the black. She ran quick test and calibration scans in multiple wavelengths and bandwidths... omnidirectional, unidirectional... all while making sure that the readings returned were within the expected sensitivity ranges while in space. "Sensor diagnostics and calibration completed. All readings are within the normal parameters." The purple-skinned Neko hit a few more spots on the console and seemed more satisfied that she had got the hang of things now. "Quantum & hyperspace monitors indicating we are all clear of disturbances for use of fold drive."

Once her checklist was completed, Umeshu swiveled her chair partway to glance at Hanako and Saiga. "Sumimasen, Shosho... but if stealth is warranted, perhaps we can utilize only passive types or the forward sensor cluster once in system so as not to give away our position too readily? They could be utilized from a moderate (not long) range to get a good assumption of the type of enemy we are facing and potentially still be close enough to have time to counter their inevitable escape attempt." The fresh Shoi gave a long pause after saying this, hoping she was not out of place for interjecting in the CO and XO's discussion.

Cabin 5
Once his things were all neatly put away beneath his bed, Sam went for a walk.

Halls
Sam was heading in the general direction of the Power Armor Bay, but he wasn't in too much of a hurry. They were like a zillion kabillion lightyears away, so he had lots of time.

Speaking of having time to waste, Sam noticed a pretty face (Akane) on his way to the Power Armor Bay, so he stopped to say hello with a grin. "Hey, Good Lookin. What brings you out and about on this mighty fine day?"

Bridge

"Coming out of hyperspace is not stealthy in general," Hanako pointed out. If we wanted to be really stealthy, we would have to slip in using the combined field system. However, hyperspace is much faster, and we do not know if there is some time-sensitive emergency currently happening to the scientists. However, I think the sooner we arrive, the better it chance we have to deal with whatever their situation may be."

Bridge

As everyone else discussed the finer details of approach, Tony sat at her station. She was bringing up different screens and windows up for herself along with adapting the input controls and keyboards to her needs.

The screens were placed creating a area 180 degrees from ear to ear for her, showing all of space compressed to that arch. The far rear of the ship were at the edges of the screens, causing those who weren't used to the compressed view a bit of vertigo as the ship moved. Space was moving away sideways.

She then started booting up combat simulations so that she could get her hand back in before they needed her to shoot things down.

Bridge

While Hanako and Umeshu shared their thoughts, the Chusa subtly checked his communicator to read Taharial’s message. He made a mental note to get that done at some point while the Eucharis was en route to its target.

“Perhaps we should simply drop out of hyperspace at a tactical distance, launch our armor team, and assess the situation as it develops, Hanako-taisa,” Saiga said. “If we encounter hostiles then the surprise will work to our advantage.”

Bridge

"Make it so," Hanako said.

- - -

Outskirts of the Higaflan System
About 3 hours later

Eucharis appeared in the outskirts of the Higaflan system, covered in a shimmering teal glow that quickly faded to reveal the ship's normal colors, with dark shadows behind and brightly illuminated gray and red on the sunward side. The ship rotated to face its sensor dish towards the planet of interest, Higaflan, which was the second of three.

"Passive sensors only," Hanako ordered.