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

Shuttle
As he progressed through the game the assorted bricks began to fall faster and faster until finally…
"Dammit," he muttered then joined the conversation, "that medical unit will be useless if the station's computer entered total lockdown and in the event of a failed defense, which obviously happened there, the AIES will isolate itself from the systems it controls to resist attempts at hacking or data mining. I have codes that will override that but I'll have to be at the command terminal on floor three to unlock it, medical and science share floor 5. If we're attacked… well, I'm the only one kitted for heavy combat and there's no way I could be stealthy with an entourage."
As he mentioned the floors his projectors displayed a holographic layout of the Lighthouse space station.
"Honestly, I'd prefer it if everyone stayed in the shuttle a klick away from that station. In fact, I'm not even comfortable with the idea of landing to drop me off. That station could be rigged with explosives and our EOD specialist is out. Heisho, we can use this shuttle to launch myself and possibly Stark at the station while keeping you and the injured at a safe distance until we can confirm the stations safety...... Oh, and there's a med kit on the wall by the cockpit door."

Bridge

"Thank you" Natsumi said, letting out a long, deep breath now that the ship was down safe. For a moment she had thought the nose gear was going to collapse when they touched down. The system had not told her that the nose gear had failed to deploy fully and when it had tipped down she had feared for the worst. But it had held, sort of, and things were alright, though she did not trust the strut to hold out. She filed a quick note with the computer to request repair teams take a look at it when they had the time. She knew right now it was low on the priority list, but the last thing they needed was for that gear to collapse fully and drop the Eucharis' nose into the muddy ground.

Natsumi detached herself from the SPINE interface and got out of her seat once her systems were secured.

Fabrication Bay

Umeshu said a few hurried greetings to the other nekos, following Jax's lead by grabbing the extinguisher offered and helping to finish the last of the small stray fires in the room. Looking over the charred, foamy and barely lit room that was once the fabrication area was a bit disheartening... without this place in working order, they could not make the components to effectuate efficient repairs that the Eucharis was in desperate need of. Just as the thought of being stranded on Higaflan occured to her, the ship seemed to have made impact on the planet itself and the whole place tilted at an odd angle sending Umeshu careening into a table.

"It seems we have touched down... is everyone OK?" began Umeshu as she tried to turn up the lamps on her AMES headgear to get a better idea if everyone assembled was okay, and then she saw Jackson being grabbed by Lime and a slight blush moved across her purple skin inside the suit. At least they were both uninjured, but the rest of the place was not so rosy.

She coughed for a moment, and then relayed a message to Hanako: "Hashimoto-shoi to bridge, fire in fabrication bay is out. However, the damage is extensive down here. I don't think we will be capable of major repairs anytime soon..."

Bridge

"Acknowledged," Hanako answered Umeshu. "Lime, and Mango: Help Cherry with the fire in the power systems room. Blackberry, take the Golden Apple and set course for...UX-1. There is a Frontier Starport there and it's the closest Star Army outpost. Have them send repair supplies and contact our Ikoi starbase and send it over here too, with infantry ready to deploy to the planet. I do not like being a sitting duck. Umeshu, can you scout around the area and see what is around us?"

Fabrication Bay

"We're okay," Lime replied to Umeshu. She rushed out the door that Jax and Umeshu had entered, on her way to engineering.

Fabrication Bay
"Er, see ya later!" Jax muttered to himself, the fire being put out faster than expected. He groaned. The one place where they could put the ship back together was in ruins.

"Shosho, anything I can do? I can't make many replacement parts with the fab-bay out of commission." he announced through the communicator. "I guess I could just start crawling through the maintenance tunnels with a soldering gun and some tape, and then start patching up any small damage I find? I dunno, it might facilitate later repair."

To be honest, he envied Umeshu right now. Having to scout out the area might mean she'd get to take an akira out for a spin- that is, if this ship had any, which it probably didn't. He'd ridden plenty of Nepleslian-made bikes, but never the akira.

But, that aside, Jax waited patiently for whatever orders he was to receive.

Shuttle Bay

Taharial was worried and gulped but got on communications with the shuttle "Okay, there should be some med kits on the shuttle, that will help with the incapacitated crewmembers, please be careful out there." As she spoke the worry she felt was in her speech but she just let it go and spoke on her communicator to everyone on the Eucharis "Chasen-Hei here, if anyone needs medical assisstance please contact me now, I will make rounds across the ship but I want to get to people who need my help ASAP."

Med Lab

Sam limped back and forth. This sucked! The only purpose of coming here was to be with his angel. But, she ditched him and he was alone.

Sam sighed as he looked down at his injured leg. Damn, his leg really hurt. What kinda nurse would lock a patient in a cell with no bed? He wondered what morons were teaching over at the med school cause making an injured person stand on a hurt leg for hours just didn't seem right.

Engineering

Cherry winced as foam fell down from the hatchway into the power systems room. She continued spraying up into it with a firehose. "Chasen-Hei, this is Cherry in engineering. I have severe face burns and could use some medical assistance, or at least some burn cream."

Shuttle Bay to Engineering

"I will get there as soon as I can Cherry," Taharial said as she ran towards Engineering, at this point she had forgotten about Sam as she only wanted to help the people in trouble, he had a bed and toilet so he would be fine for a couple of days without anything else.

Taharial made her way through the hallways quickly and smiled as she held the burn cream, she had rummaged through her bags has she walked knowing she had some somewhere. As she got closer to engineering she wondered if this was where Sam was then entered and looked for Cherry "Cherry I am here for you, I have cream for your burns." She saw Cherry and ran over. "Sorry I came earlier but my mind wasn't working properly then I got a transmission, I am deeply sorry." She opened the cream "This may sting but it will help, now hold still." Taharial looked at Cherry's helmet "First lets get this thing off shall we?" She took the helm of gently then applied the cream to Cherry's face. "Were you alone when the explosion happened, Cherry?"

Fabrication Bay

"Hai, Shosho," responded the Shoi to the bridge. "We should have a third shuttle ready to go in the bay, assuming there was no damage there from the attack. I will do an aerial sweep of our landing site right away."

Umeshu turned to the gung-ho technician, who was seeming a little crestfallen and confused again after the recent events. "Saiga-chusa is busy compiling a list of the damages, so once that is done he will relay that to you... until then, your idea seems good. Cherry-heisho is ok and has her hands full right now, so if nothing else you can always head there to see what you can fix with the power systems issues, too."

The green-eyed Neko then placed her suited hand on his shoulder and gave him a warm smile. "Keep your chin up and do your best. Call me anytime if you need assistance... Jax-san." She used a less formal honorific this time that was his nickname that he had used a few moments ago but also sounded almost exactly like his full name -- interesting how it rolled off the tongue, that. Even if he didn't get the little linguistic joke, he definitely would get the message that they were parting as friends.

"I'm sorry I can't remain with you longer, but duty calls me elsewhere... Soredewa." She gave him a quick bow of her head, before disappearing into the cargo lift once more to head to the topmost deck.

Shuttle Bay

Umeshu made a note of the chaos that was the power armor bay on the way to her next goal. The immaculate, neat racks she observed upon first doing inspection here were now a twisted mess and damaged in many places due to the multiple micro missile barrages that entered the place through the open door. Mindys, Daisys, ammunition and weapons were strewn about like abstract art. Fortunately, the team was safely aboard the other shuttle and no longer in any danger.

She opened another channel to the bridge to report in: "Hashimoto-shoi to bridge, power armor bay is without gravity and in disarray from the missiles that penetrated the area. Most racks are destroyed, though there appears to be a handful of suits that are salvageable."

The operations officer hoped the shuttle launch area was luckier in that respect, as she crossed over into the bay. There should be a compliment of 3 aboard the gunship, with one already deployed by Mitsuko and another prepped for Blackberry, leaving one more in reserve for her to utilize for scouting duty. Umeshu quickly made her way over to it and inspected for any damages from the fighting, before prepping for immediate launch.

Shuttle

Mitsuko moved towards the cockpit, removing the labelled panel to remove a pair of Type 31C Medical Kits. She deposited them near Stark and the two armors, kneeling down to begin rummaging inside of one. If there was one thing she understood, it was proper packing and storage, so it only took her a few moments to find what she was looking for. "Here. A Portable Medical Scanner. Once you get their helmets off, you should be able to diagnose them properly with this. There's painkillers, hemosynth fluid, sedatives...or stimulants, if it's safe to wake them up." After she'd laid out some of the important contents, she headed back to the cockipt.

"Suites-Hei, can you assist her? I'm going to move the shuttle above the top floor of the Lighthouse and see what the sensors tell me. Maybe the occupants have been hiding out? Or maybe...whoever that was already finished looting the place and were about to leave?" She shook her head, not sure she could think up any reasonably realistic possibilities that weren't bad for them.

Fabrication Bay

So... That other tech had made it after all? That certainly took a lot off Jax's mind, allowing him more room to focus on the impending, ever so daunting task of putting this boat back together. But even with- what was her name? Cherry?- even with Cherry still going strong, two technicians did not seem like enough people. And did he mention that the fabrication bay was destroyed?! Or that they were stranded in the middle of nowhere, practically waiting for that ship to come back with friends?!

Jax took a deep breath, and then relaxed. He'd just have to roll with it and make do. That was his job, after all.

"You can just call me Jax- no, wait. I got it." he replied, not catching himself in time with the little play on words. He blushed a little in embarrassment. But he straightened up, gave a quick bow, and waved as Umeshu left.

"Later, Umeshu-sho... san!" he called after her. "Hit me up when you want to have that drink!"

She left, and then Jax began Operation: Somehow Fix this Giant God Damn Ship with Almost No Resources. Unbeknownst to him, there was a cavalry on the way, but he would figure that out later. Right now, he headed for the engineering room, which he assumed was a little safer to enter now that time had passed.

Engineering

"Geez! You leave the place for an hour..." Jax chuckled as he stepped into the engineering space. For the most part, everything looked fine, save for the burn marks, human blood, and screwed up fusion reactor. Oh, and the hole in the wall. Jax looked at the patch kit and tape, then to the hull breach, gauging its size and wondering if it was possible to just slap some tape over it.

"Well, on the bright side, it looks like everyone lived." said his FAR, who had been following him around the entire time. He'd forgotten all about her. At that bit of news, Jax smiled.

"Every little thing counts." he replied with a shrug. Figuring that the air around was safe, he popped off his helmet. The feeling of his ears resuming their perked-up position after being crammed inside the suit was heavenly. He slipped off the rest, and felt his tail creak and stretch. He vowed to one day make a suit that would accommodate his body. he stowed the suit back into the damage control station he'd originally taken it from, leaving him in his working uniform.

"Now, for the hole..." Jax muttered, walking up to the thing. He knew almost instantly that there were no patches big enough in a kit to cover it. He should get someone on the line about that. The largest patches were only 18 inches! This hole was about 30! He looked down at the kit he was currently carrying and thought of a solution.

'Screw it. They're all going to be restocked anyways.' he thought to himself. He pulled out several patches from the kit. All of the squares and rectangles, at least. He began sticking them together to form a super patch, which covered almost the entire hole. Any part it couldn't cover, he smothered with a healthy dose of tape.

When he was done, Jax stepped back and admired his work. He smiled a little at the similarities between his job and Taharial's. She repaired people, while he and Cherry repaired ships. He patted the wall of his massive, metal "patient" and looked back at the busted fusion reactor.

"Bridge, this is Howard. Anyone got a list of damage so that I can make a checklist?" Jax asked into his communicator.

Shuttle Bay

Gathering her equipment, Akane readied herself for the excursion. The armor strapped to and sealed around her body. She loaded and carried all her armaments.

Everything else became a haze. The events that passed from the initial attack until now weren't even an afterthought. Paint and canvas did not enter her thoughts.

One image did come to mind. A simple act of putting on lipstick. Except the color was black, unlike the crimson wings that had wrapped around her so securely. Would she be able to return safe and intact? Would she pull close to Taharial again?

Akane told herself to force the idea out of her mind, but she couldn't.

Someone had opened fire on the Eucharis, someone who'd tried to kill her comrades and superiors. Someone tried to kill Taharial, an act Akane meant to take action against.

Looking back at her hands, she found they were empty. No weapon, no ammo. The armor she wore carried burn marks and a few negligible cracks. The side of her head throbbed.

A small prudent voice in her mind questioned if she was capable of going into battle. The core of the young Neko drowned the prudence out. Akane needed to hurt someone, that's all she needed to go into battle.

Shuttle

Aikiko wiggled and squirmed suddenly as the her natural healing ability was kicking in. The mixed healing itch and pain was unbearable. She gave a soft moan of displeasure tinged with pain. The moan was followed by some very choice unladylike swearing that would make a senior Non-Com proud or a Nepleslian.

"Get me the fuck out of this pile of YSS crap!" Aikiko growled menacing in her usual manner with a bit of authority.

She arched her back within the confines of the battered Mindy Armor to disconnect the SPINE interface and the source of the most pain.

Shuttle
As Candon looked back to his injured peers he saw that Akane was no longer unconscious on the floor was now standing. Anxiety bit at him as he could only imagine her stepping on Aikiko who still laid next to her on the floor.

Candon briskly walked to Akane and caught her shoulder, gently pulling her away from where Aikiko lay. After being in such a bad explosion he couldn't know whether her equilibrium would still be working right and could only assume the armor's gyro was the only thing keeping her up.
"You were in an explosion, are you all right-"
"Get me the fuck out of this pile of YSS crap!"

The loud interruption definitely caught Suites attention. Kneeling next to her charred armor he opened a link to Aikiko's Mindy. Without his helmet on he wouldn't be able to use his hood, however this was an issue he'd run into before and he had come up with a basic solution for it. The projection system on his Mindy began displaying a photographic readout of her vitals, though he was specifically focus on her head and any injuries that may be there. Trusting in the information he was seeing, he proceeded to input an override code into her armor's computer to unlock its helmet.

He removed the helmet as gently as he could with his armored hands, being careful not to accidentally hurt her with the augmented strength of his shiny new Mindy that had yet to even be scratched…
"How you doing?" he asked coyly as her face appeared. As he begin opening the torso section of her armor he continued bantering, "I have a philosophical question, does this count as disrobing you?" as if on cue the armor hissed and split open.

Even with the armor unlocked and open it would be hard to get out given that it was laying on its back with nothing to graph above it for leverage. Unless in the face during this time he would place his arm under her back to support her back and help her slide out of the armor's legs.

Bridge

With orders having been given out to everyone else but her, Natsumi was left to her own devices, it seemed. She went to work with the sensors, sweeping the area, looking for anything that might be a threat to them while they were down on this planet.

"Shosho, I am scanning the area around us for threats as far as the sensors will reach" she reported to Hanako.

Bridge

Natsumi's scans revealed that there were signs of industrialization in the atmosphere, and several aether power sources in operation on the planet. Also there seemed to be a large number of shuttles and vehicles fairly nearby, including some heading for the Eucharis.

Meanwhile, First Officer Saiga sent out the damage list to everyone:

• Fire in fabrication bay - extinguished by team.
• Hull breach in wardroom - patched by Jackson/Umeshu.
• electrical hazard in starboard wing area - de-energized by Blackberry
• electrical fire in the power distribution room - extinguished by Cherry
• Fusion reactor damaged in engineering
  
• Hull breach in engineering - Patched by Jackson
  
• Starboard field projector destroyed
  
• Starboard dorsal AA gun exploded
• Starboard STL engine nozzles lost
• Starboard anti-matter systems damaged
• Starboard main engine radiation leak
• Starboard pylon back half of wing lost
• artificial gravity failure in the power armor bay
• armor racks destroyed in power armor bay
• Small explosion in life support systems
• Ship main life support offline

Med Lab
Sam's hurt leg finally gave out and he fell, hitting his head on the floor and blacking out. Today just wasn't his lucky day. At least he had a good excuse not to go to the Power Armor Bay like Mitsuko requested.

Skies over Higaflan

Umeshu was relieved the Fox T4 shuttle dubbed the Medea II was in full working order despite its considerable age and wasted no time strapping herself into the pilot's seat in the center of the angular cockpit. Her AMES suit was still on, creating a bit of an uncomfortable barrier between her and the chair''s cushion, though in the interests of safety leaving it on was a prudent decision just in case she had to exit the shuttle in any sort of hostile environment. The wrap around displays indicated the all clear as she revved up the aether engines and pulled it out of the rear of the Eucharis carefully with a by-the-book departure technique, considering this was her first time behind the controls of an older generation combat aeroshuttle.

Once clear of the ship, she made the appropriate propulsion adjustments for atmospheric flight in the oxygen-rich air that hung over the planet and programmed a wide arcing flight path moving in succeedingly larger concentric circles from her starting point. She saw why this place was known for its corn, as miles of it stretched far and wide... one could almost assume that was all there was to see, other than the ruins of numerous NMX facilities that once existed here but now were being taken over by the native fern forests and algae. But the basic sensors were active with other signs of industrial activity and vehicles moving through the air, though she made sure the science sensors were running as well to confirm various types of other energy emissions that may be out of the ordinary for civilian activity one would expect in the bustling agricultural hub.

As she made her patrols for anything unusual, the operations officer also made a note of where the other important shuttle that was deployed was, rising rapidly toward the lighthouse in orbit. She opened a communications link with them, as she recalled something very important she needed to share before they attempted any kind of boarding action.

"This is Hashimoto-shoi of Medea II, to Telemachus V. Murakami-heisho, I am currently conducting low-altitude aerial patrols near the landing site. Please let me know if you and the infantry team you have aboard require any support, as I understand some may be injured." Umeshu paused a moment, then continued. "I also wanted to mention that before the enemy cruiser began its attack and subsequent jamming, I was briefly able to make contact with the AIES system of the Bisen Lighthouse and obtain a video feed. I discovered that there was a tarry black substance physically obscuring the interior camera lenses there, likely to conceal something going on inside from being recorded. Suites-hei in particular may find this useful in understanding better what we face or planning the efforts to enter the facility, which on the surface scan appeared otherwise undamaged."

Bridge

Natsumi frowned as she examined the sensor readings. "Shosho, sensors are picking up multiple aether power sources and small craft, possibly shuttles. Several are heading in our direction" she reported and focused the sensors on the incoming shuttles.