RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 24] Looking for Trouble (YE 38)

Space -> Rixxikor Ship

Aikiko was studying the layout of the designated airlock and running through option to breech it if denied entry. They was going to enter that ship one way or another to complete the mission. She kept pace with the rest of the team as the Rixxikor Colony ship grew bigger and bigger with more details coming into focus.

Adding more violation onto the fast growing list. Even a few violation that were questionable still ended up on the list, whether it was from her personal bias or judgment. She didn't worry about it. That's what the courts were for.

Space

The Rixxikor at first didn't seem to want to open the airlock door, and their ship was starting to try to move away from the Eucharis, although it wasn't really possible to escape for it the nimble Star Army gunship. After a few awkward minutes, the chosen airlock door finally opened and a Rixxikor in a spacesuit stood inside waving a gun around, shouting curses at the team and telling them to go away. "Get lost, fleshbag dumpster scum jackboot pirates! Go screw youselves with broken bottles, Yamatai! Rapidly ingest my turds!!"

Meanwhile, in Engineering...

Jax absentmindedly hummed a tune as he scrolled aimlessly through the consoles, checking for something- anything- that could keep him occupied. That's when he felt it. A sort of... disturbance in the force, as it were. Jax hadn't experienced this feeling much, but he'd heard other, more experienced techies discussing it. It was a sort of sixth sense for engineers.

"Why do I get the feeling someone's about to start putting holes in my ship?" the cat-man whined. He stood and stretched, glad to at least be moving around now. He headed for the door and stopped just short.

"Space suit? Check. Hull patch? Good." he sighed. He needed to speak to Hanako about a third engineer. The last battle had been a disaster with he and Cherry scrambling to fix stuff. Hell, the cooks had to get involved, for crying out loud! And this time, he knew Umeshu wouldn't be available to help him set up hull patches.

"I just know I'm forgetting something..." he muttered, swishing his tail this way and that in thought. "Oh, yeah! The bug spray!"

Jax pulled out his pistol, and made sure it was loaded and ready for action. He gave a mischievous, almost feral grin.

Rixxikor Vessel

Tsuguka politely waited for the little creature to finish his extended spree of insults. Alrough tempting, somehow she didn't think just stunning the little bug right away would be taken too well by the rest of the crew, even if that was pretty much what vast catalog of training would have suggested. Scaring these little pricks in a conventional manner just did not seem to work...

Standing just outside of the airlock hatch, the towering armored figure made a show of just raising one hand, and then seemingly faded out of existence on the spot. The floor panels audibly creaked as Tsuguka's conformal barrier system went full pelt at the same time as the stealth field, probably causing a wave of nausea to impact the short insect like running into a concrete wall. It was quite intentional.

"Remove yourself from our way, inhabitant." A bored tone. The red neko never actually sounded tired, so it must have been put on. "Or we will be forced to deploy our hideous space magics against you."

Space - Rixxicore Ship


Natsumi had expected worse than the vulgar language and gun waving, general lack of cooperation. She had no idea how well they were going to be able to conduct this inspection, if at all. There was very little sense of order or command hierarchy, she wasnt sure how the Rixxicore even managed to work together to operate their ship.

"Your commanding officer has been informed that your vessel will submit to inspection before it continues on" Natsumi spoke in a tone of authority, "Stand aside so we may conduct our inspection, otherwise your ship will be forced to turn around and go back to where you came from"

Rixxikor Vessel

Tsuguka visibly snapped back into existence and desisted her actions the second Natsumi began talking. The unsettled soldier was extremely wary of attempting to communicate with the creatures on even terms again, considering what had happened on her last active mission with the Eucharis.

But it was also her foremost duty to support the decisions her First Officer wished to pursue, that was the scope of their authority.

YSS Eucharis, Bridge

Umeshu remained alert, easily matching the clumsy evasive movements of the unwieldy colony vessel to maintain what was effectively an intimidating staredown with the gunship. It reminded her much of those moments of key positioning and consideration before delivering one's opening strike in karate... though in this case she hoped she would not be forced to go for anything more than a disabling blow (if the ramshackle craft could even withstand that). The operator couldn't help but suppress a slight chuckle also as the data feeds came in from Aikiko, organizing the impressive list of starship code violations for later filing with the authorities present that would indeed make even a Freespacer blush.

Then a thought struck her to use this tense time wisely, as training instincts told her to prepare for a possible battle scenario ahead of time. The purple-skinned Neko opened up a communications link to Engineering from her console, the polite voice of his secret girlfriend probably a welcome little break in the monotony for Jackson.

Jax-san,

If you have a moment, could you please look into hooking our CFS shield through WARMS? I know it was taught as a strategy in officer school when fighting a superior opponent, from the Engineering Tactics Manual. If we get surprised again by the Kuvexians, at least we can use the MEGAMI's previous experience against the cruiser to more accurately adjust our shields. A few more seconds could make all the difference. Perhaps a refresher on some other tricks inside might also be good reading, ne?

Hashimoto-chui

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Rixxikor Vessel

Aikiko spotted several airlock violation and added them to the growing list being sent back to the Eucharis. She snickered at the tactic of Tugs. She would've kept going till the Rixxikor was squished.

Snaking out one manipulator arm past the XO and Tugs, grabbing the Rixxikor's weapon and yanking the Rixxikor's weapon to toss out into the void of space, hoping the Rixxikor would be with it.

Engineering

Jax smiled. Always good to hear from Umeshu, even if it were only for business purposes. He strolled back to the console.

"Aye, Chewy," he replied, not quite sure if he'd pronounced it right. "Handing control of CFS output to Charisma."

"Hey Charisma, shall we play a game?" he asked with a chuckle, now-somewhat awkwardly- speaking to the AI as he banged out the code necessary to predict points of impact. He hit [Enter]. "Let's play Don't Let This Ship Get A Scratch On It!"

He still felt very awkward when speaking to the MEGAMI, on account of it being a bunch of computer code in a box rather than a living creature. He was sure he'd get used to it, but the moment it started singing Daisy Bell he was running for the escape pods.

Space, PA Formation

The closer they got the worse the colony ship looked, yet despite the fact that their ship was made of wreckage Candon was actually impressed. The ship was in abhorrent condition but one fact remained, it was flying and had kept its occupants alive. Having much of the training given to SAOY engineers Candon couldn't help but recognize the amount of work that must have gone into the ghetto rigged bug hotel despite the the way the hull warped under his armored feet.


Colony Ship, Inner Airlock

A single bug waving a cheap rifle around was hardly worth his attention. He visually scanned the room searching for anything out of place… he found plenty, far more than he could keep track of. Regardless of the messy interior he wouldn't end his search until he found what he was looking for, anything Kuvexian. The whole time he stood looking around his new surroundings his head never moved. It remained stationary, staring straight ahead as he used the multitude of sensory devices in place of his eyes. The experience was somewhat nauseating though he'd become used to it after years of operating such advanced war machines.


He should have known it might happen, Aikiko's disarming of the Rixxicor was only logical for the situation, but disarming one bug out of the thousands that may be on the ship struck him as an effort in futility. He could only see it leading to bad relations with the significantly larger force. With the assistance of his armor to hone his hand-eye coordination to laser precision he reached for the flying rifle on it's way out the airlock.

"Wait," he said to Aikiko through his helmet's speakers so all could here, "This isn't the contraband we're searching for. In fact, this weapon is legal for civilian ownership. It can stay."
'We can't risk instigating the natives, they hold the upper hand here,' he told Aikiko telepathically to maintain privacy.
Dropping the magazine and racking the chamber on the cheap rifle he set the two parts neatly on the floor.

Airlock

Looking back from the rifle to the Rixxikor it had apparently whipped out some sort of small rocket-propelled grenade launcher while the away team was briefly focused on the weapon. There was a flash and puff of smoke as the rocket fired, sending the explosive missile straight into Candon's armor, where it harmlessly bounced off, not having flown far enough to actually detonate. There were two more muffled clangs as the RPG bounced off the airlock wall twice more, narrowly missing Tsuguka and then flying off into space. The insectoid scowled and looked at the armor team with narrowed eyes and finally pulled the lever to start cycling the airlock. The outer airlock doors came to a close and a rush of humid air irregularly sputtered into the room. Then the inner door opened to reveal a slimy chamber that had once been a reception hall or something, but had been used as some sort of open sewer. Loaf-shaped chunks of alien shit were everywhere and the floor was covered in a greasy brown slime. A handful of Rixxikor skittered around in panic as the intruders appeared, with many disappearing into tunnels in the walls. The foul room was lit by a flickering set of sickly green-yellow lights that seemed unwilling to stay on more than 60% of the time. All over the ceiling were the messiest bundles of electrical cables. The Rixxikor who had just tried to kill them nervously waved the team inside.

Rixxikor Airlock / Turd Lobby

Tsuguka reflexively moved to protect Natsumi before she even knew what the sound was, but found herself at a loss of what to do after the projectile proved ineffective. Her hand just lowered from the XO's chest area slowly, weapon and head still pointing towards the enemy. She thought carefully about how she would phrase the next sentence.

"...I submit that we should perhaps bring small arms next time, Chui." It was radio, but un-encrypted so that anyone could hear it. "Our current setup is probably enough to rip this vessel in half. Against a single aggressor who doesn't care about his compatriots... Well, retaliation in full force could be considered immoral, ma'am."

Getting on with the mission at hand, the armoured neko kept one ear open for a response, but also took point as originally agreed. She visibly ignored the unspeakable mess on the floor, but to a trained eye, her footsteps were extremely light; She was using her anti-grav organ to avoid becoming bogged down.

Another momentary hesitation. Shield up, bayonet raised alongside, like an ancient primitive spear man.

"Joto-Hei Suites Candon... I apologize if this is an unintelligent question, but... Do we need to worry about this... erm... insectiod food waste... the concentrated air... it's like... fertilizer?..." A third disgruntled pause, whilst the red neko rephrased the question in her head. She was not a scientist. "If I turn on my CFS in here, are the emissions from this... manure going to cause an explosion, sir?.."

Rixxicore Colony Vessel

"Do not provoke them by taking their things away!" Natsumi sent via PM to Aikiko, after finally letting out the breath she had held onto when the dud rpg was fired at them. That action had almost cost the entire landing party.

Natsumi's nose wrinkled in disgust as she entered the ship. The place was a filthy mess. It reminded her immediatly of her first mission, the invasion of the NMX Nest facility. She scanned the area for any sign of hostiles gathering in force and for anything that would speed up their mission. She wanted out of this place as quick as possible

"I'll take that under advisement" she replied to Tsuguka.

"Lets move on" she turned to the alien who had finally allowed them in. "Take us to this ships command center" she said. "We will begin our inspection there"

Space, PA Formation

Clang
Candon looked at the new scuff on his flawless paint. It couldn't even qualify as a scratch but it still irked him nonetheless. He turned his head towards the bug who shot him and gave him a faceless stare. A rocket launcher in close quarters with no protection... what a moron, he's lucky there's a safety.

Further down the corridor Candon found Tsuguka's question humorous. "I think we need a different types of intelligence for that question," he replied with a chuckle has he opened dedication to the bridge of Eucharis, "Mr. Wafu, we're detecting high levels of methane gas in the atmosphere, if the atmosphere is safe for combine field and conformal barriers, check for gunfire too."

Group / Rixxikor Ship

Aikiko sniggered softly without transmitting. She paused long enough to pick up the dud rpg round with one of the manipulator arms, tossed it out of the ship's airlock into the void of space as the door began close. She ran a test on the air of the open sewer-like room for the explosive quantities of methane by-product of the Rixxikor Bugmen. From her knowledge and readings from her Mindy's analytical sensors.

On closed circuit communications with the team. "It is obvious through the many violations of this craft has, methane gas that is produced from their bodily waste is not flammable nor will weapons fire or electrical sparks will cause an explosion. Otherwise this ship would not be here full of bugs the way they leak all the time."

Whether her opinion was asked for or not. She gave it as time was something not to be wasted. Even she wanted to spend less time on or in this cesspool of a ship. She even used her innate ability to levitate and move about with the help of the Mindy's systems.

YSS Eucharis Bridge

Wazu was in the middle of updating his password dictionary, assisting his system with prioritizing the most offensive words, when he received the message from the power armor team. It didn't take him long to review what was presented to him,

"Shit..."

He put his datapad down and rubbed his temples for a moment,

"Yes... I mean... It looks like they have both ventilation going and artificial gravity to help filter contaminates out. It should be safe to use your armor to its fullest...

Methane and poop in a confined space like this, if the ventilation or artificial gravity shuts off it will not be long before that entire area turns into a pipe bomb. Any spark would set it off at that point, gunfire, something hitting your shields, rubbing your feet on the carpet. They have managed to not blow themselves up for this long, so I suspect their safeguards against that kind of thing are robust."

YSS Eucharis Bridge

Sitting there at her station looking quite bored, Tony split her attention between watching the ship's for any hostile moves, and playing a little hand-held game with a little fighter shooting bugs up. She for the most part felt superfluous, but she had to do her job nonetheless, Nats was on that other ship and if it started acting up she would have to make some pretty accurate shots to help rescue her. So even as she fought the war against space bugs on her game, she was passively scanning for the best targets to aim for on the colony ships.

YSS Eucharis Bridge

Hanako noticed Antonia goofing on while on duty. "Stark! You should know better. Go suit up and go to the alien ship," she ordered the Nepleslia. "Take the medic and Jax from engineering. Cherry can cover for him."

Rixxikor Ship - Reception Area

"The ship's whaaat?" the nervous Rixxikor from the airlock asked Natsumi as it rearmed its rocket launcher. "There is no 'command center' on this ship," it shrugged, followed by randomly spraying a mist of sperm vapor all over the away team.

A number of other "defender" Rixxikor began to crawl out of tunnels in the walls and silently take up positions in the reception area. They were wearing body armor and carrying a wide assortment of worn and shoddy-looking rifles and rocket launchers. The longer the team stood around, the more appeared.

Rixxikor Vessel Lobby

"Thank you for your timely input, Joto-Hei Suites, Itto-Hei Akiashiro, Mr.Wazu..." The voice started off with a clinical tone, but peaked with an element of disgust at the end over the roach-man's vile display. "I humbly request that you keep an eye on such contamination levels, for all of our sakes."

Honored Empress, how did these creatures even make it so far into space? How did they manage not to kill each another by now? Tsuguka was fully prepared to fire a stunning spread from her SMG and disable as many of the creatures as possible at once, but she suspected the scalar properties of her weapon would detonate their ammunition and kill them outright no matter how careful she was. The pervasive waste gas was just the icing on a not particularly appetizing cake.

Best Tsuguka could do at this point was to stay extremely close to Natsumi, and block as much of their line of sight as possible with her shield. Getting in the way of her talking to them? Probably. But it was an inconvenience she'd gladly take the blame for considering what things were rapidly shaping up like. If the Chui really cared, she'd have to order the red neko to move.

Bridge

Umeshu giggled a bit at the cute-sounding way the engineer pronounced Chui as "chewy"... banter like this a welcome distraction from the watching and waiting. Though she soon heard the shout from Hanako and tilted her purple-haired head towards the Nepleslian woman, still connected to the chair and the ship via SPINE. She gave a knowing smile and a nod. "Hanako-sama is right. Don't worry, Stark-san... I'll cover for you. Yamashiro-chui needs you more by her side over there, now... there's more of the bugs appearing every minute on the visual feeds, and we need the numbers aboard the vessel to remain intimidating."

The operator also sent a helpful ping through the ship, as per the Shosho's orders:

Jackson-hei and Chasan-hei,

Hanako-shosho has ordered reinforcement of our inspection team. Please report to the Power Armor Bay as soon as possible. Stark-san will meet you there.

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