RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 25 - Part 2] The Chopshop (YE 38)

YSS Eucharis

As the swarm of enemy fighters continued to keep the Eucharis occupied, the Kuvexian ship suddenly broke combat and blinked into hyperspace, abandoning its fighter wing to sink Eucharis or die trying.

Hanako scrunched up her cute little face in confusion as this happened. She then stroked her chin for a moment. "Well then...Mmm. Mop up the fighters and turn us around. We are going to pick up Candon and Tsuguka," she directed the bridge crew. "Perhaps they did not like the odds," she speculated, which was a little ironic considering Hanako had nearly made the decision to call for the rest of the gunships in the Eucharis' squadron. She felt relieved that it was no longer necessary. She finally felt confident they were now going to make it out of this.

The ship rocked as the torpedoes exploded, and the ship took more damage. There was now a radiation leak in the starboard pylon coming from the area of the anti-matter engines, an electrical malfunction and several bullet holes in the port aether plasma engine, an environmental systems failure in the armory (apparently instead of keeping the armory cool, the area was being heated by a small electrical fire in the air systems), a hull breach in the corridor outside the bridge (between the bridge and the main zero-G passage), and a lot of panels missing the starboard CFS projector. Additionally, the main hyperspace fold system in main engineering had some sort of major electrical issue and was possibly going send the ship somewhere unplanned as soon as they left the system's Hill sphere.

On the bridge, Hanako transmitted to Tsuguka and Candon. "We are coming back for you as soon as we swat some terrible mosquitoes up here. We will send a shuttle."

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

"Yiss!" The nekojin found himself hissing under his breath as he watched the generator hum to life. What lights hadn't been damaged flickered on in the room around him. Didn't mean it was safe to get out of the space suit- it was quite the opposite.

Despite their victory, they still were being shot at. New damage reports popped up faster than he could process them. But he did process them, and went into action.

Marcus,

There's a hull breach in the mini corridor between the zero-g passage and the bridge. It doesn't look like they're wearing space suits in there so I need you to get it patched ASAP!

Don't worry about decompression- the zero-g passage has already been vented. Work fast!

-Jax

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"Bridge crew, be advised! There's a hull breach right outside your door. I just sent Marcus the fix it. In the mean time, don't touch your door- it's the only thing keeping you alive."

He felt a momentary chill as he envisioned Umeshu or someone else making the same mistake he had when he'd come down here, only without an AMES as a safety net.

He began typing commands on the console. He slowly leaked the armory's atmosphere until the warning alarms for the fire shut off. Then, he reintroduced atmosphere until it was at breathable levels. Finally, he shut off power to the space entirely. They didn't need the ordinance going off right now and it would be stupid to run into a room full of bombs while there was a fire.

"Sorry, Hashimoto Taii. You're gonna have to use what CFS and engines we've got for the moment. I'll try and fix what I can, but it looks like we're limping home... again." Jax muttered as he shut off the damaged plasma engine. He did the same for the anti-matter engine on the starboard side- that radiation couldn't be allowed to reach the ship's main interior. He vented what atmosphere was there after shutting the blastdoor within the maintenance conduit.

Sadly, there wasn't much he could do about the CFS projector. They simply didn't have the resources for that. At least some panels survived.

The last thing the engineer did was shut off the main hyperspace fold and activate its backup.

He sighed deeply. He hoped the armor team and the woman behind the controls could knock out what baddies were left before they made his job harder.

He wouldn't say it aloud, but it was nearing the point of no return in which they would sustain too much damage to be able to head home on their own. They might have to call for assistance. But now, at least, they could lie about having the ship stolen.

Yeah, that was it! Hanako had simply bitten off more than she could chew. They came here to proactively strike, and gotten overwhelmed. A plausible story that would get them out of bigger trouble.

Eucharis, Outside Fabrication

It was at that moment, when he received the message from Jax, that the data-clone of the original Marcus Rodia decided he belonged in this world. His predecessor would have longed for this emergency to be taking place within Ayenee, where he could call for help from someone more capable of doing away with the enemy, and preserving the lives of the crew, probably by utilizing magic. Not this version. He wanted to be able to use this world's technology to do the job. Site-to-site transportation would be a tremendous benefit right now. Unfortunately, he didn't have the ability to use it. So, he ran.

Pumping all of the power out of his genetically enhanced legs that he could manage, he made his way to the Zero-G passageway, where he moved as quickly as possible to the site of the corridor. He entered the corridor and moved, directly, to the site of the breach. It wasn't, exactly, difficult to spot. Streak marks along the wall showed where the random objects that had been inside the corridor had skidded along their surface as they were blown out of the hole into the reaches of space. Plus, there was the big hole, as well.

Marcus moved as quickly as he was able while still remaining confident that the job was being done correctly. The moment the hull was completely patched in the passageway, he sent a message to the bridge. How did he know how to do that? ... It didn't matter. The message was sent.

Marcus did exactly that. He moved on to seek out injured, deal with fires and hull breaches, or anything else that seemed to be a situation where he could offer assistance.

Bridge

Natsumi quietly muttered a feof the curses she had learned from her first roommate, Bors, as the ship took another torpedo hit, taking more damage. Her status boards showed her the engine troubles, the hull breaches and everything else. She knew the engineering staff, what was left of them, would hold the ship together. What amazed the snowy haired neko was how hard the enemy was hitting then again.

She was starting to wonder how one of their bigger ships, like a battleship, would manage against these kuvexians.

She was surprised though that their starship had bugged out. They'd had the upper hand.

She redoubled her efforts with the anti armor guns, she would not let any more torpedos through and while there were no torpedos coming, she tasked the defense guns with tracking and taking down the remaining enemy fighters.

Graxlat Scrapyard, NMX Carrier, Reactor control room

Beams of aether sliced through the door to the control room as Candon cut his way in. The control room was much smaller than the small room he had teleported into. It was only the size of a small walk-in closet. At the far end of the room was a cluster of manual controls in the location the NMX had originally put their electronic based control station and a large shuttered window that looked out into a large space in the hull that was lined with the cooling devices for the Aether reactor in the center. A sphere the with the width of a locomotive engine pulsed worth flashes of intense white light as it quietly hummed. Connecting it to the floor and the ceiling were two pylons through which energy was converted and magnetic containment was created.

Candon stepped slowly in, checking each corner. Clear.
That concerned him. Scanning the room revealed no trace of explosives or traps of any kind. Nothing.
It was an odd feeling, it was almost too easy to begin preparations for the meltdown. He cautiously stepped toward the control station by the window as if it was a bomb until he stood right next to the station. He gently extended a hand for a knob titled 'POWDER LAVIL'.

Primitive Polygon said:

“…Candon, can you confirm your condition?...” A transmission, voice stern and unflowing.

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Candon's heart skipped a beat as he pulled his hand from the knob.

Primitive Polygon said:

“…At… At the crash site… It’s…. a no go…”

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At this point Candon realized that he couldn't speak, his mouth formed the words but his lungs just wouldn't move.
His written message was the best he could manage. He turned the powder lavil knob top it's highest setting. The pulsing light began to pulse faster and brighter until finally the shutters snapped closed, leaving the room in an ominous red light. The soft humming became a dull roar and the needles in the control panels began reading a massive increase in amperage. The roaring became like the sound of a jet in Candon's eardrums. He couldn't hear anything over the roar of bad bearings and horsepower.

It was finally ready, and quickly too. The reactor was redlining, the bomb was ready. The marked containment switch was covered by a simple padlock with the words DO NOT TOUCH emblazoned on it. A single shot from his recovered SMG made it disappear. A calculating eye watched the temperature level. If the explosion was too big both himself and Tsuguka would die. The needle climbed higher and higher into the red until finally it was time. His computer teleported him the moment the switch was flipped.

Graxlat Scrapyard

Took a little longer for Tsuguka to figure out the mechanical release switch than she would have liked. The sword wasn't melted to the ground, as she had first suspected, it was only the sheath that was wedged. Only the ray skin was burned off, the blade itself was perfect... Perhaps the sentiment would have hit her a bit less subtly than a kick in the stomach, if it didn't remind her so much of the weapon's former owner.

The renewed chatter of bugmen. Felt like the hunk of metal was urging her to go on a killing spree. Once it was out of the scabbard, you needed to draw blood, that's how it worked, right?...

But Tsuguka wasn't that person. With Candon's renewed orders reverberating in her head, her dark form dissipated into an atmospheric burst, just one more spec of flame in a city wide inferno. Arriving at the rendezvous site was instantaneous. Now she just hoped that Candon could actually manage the other chain reaction as well as he thought he could.

Unnamed Star System - NMX Designation 87D
Aftermath

The Eucharis' unexpected mission was finally over. Even from their position in space, the flash of light on the surface was visible to Tsuguka and Candon. Victory came by in a shuttle and picked them up, flying them past the mangled wrecks of fighters and pieces of the Eucharis' hull armor and back into the ship they had learned to call home. Although battered, the efforts of the technicians and crew had kept the ship running and defended, and it was now time to limp home.

Bridge

Hanako removed her suit helmet and visibly relaxed. She grabbed the intercom. "This is the captain. Excellent work everyone. Today we single-handedly halted the Rixxikor invasion. It is time to go home and relax. Set readiness condition 3," she told the crew. "Umeshu, set course for the Bisen Lighthouse in orbit of UX-3 III. We have crew members to pick up."

In the hours that follow, the surviving crew would be reunited.

MISSION END