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RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 26] Flaming Arrows (YE 38)

Bridge


Natsumi was plotting in the new jump as soon as the words left Hanako's lips. She was ready to get their people and get the hell out of this place. She was also glad the fleet was coming in to bring the migh of Yamatai's military power to bear on the hostile aliens.

"Plotting jump back in" she responded, "Spooling FTL back up, ready to engage on your command" she said as she busied herself with the task.
 
YSS Eucharis - Bridge

"Initiate space-fold," Hanako ordered, and waited for the ship to arrive. Once it did, she ordered, "Put shields at the maximum reasonable power for their condition. Ready all anti-fighter weapon turrets and take us in to go physically pick up our team. When we get there, we will drop the shields long enough for them to come aboard and we can likely count on being pestered by enemy fighters at that point. Anyone free should suit up in armor and get ready to provide covering fire."
 
<<Space>>

"Read you, Tsuguka-Hei. Little popping, but still good." Junko responded. She rotated easily, using the suits CFS to orient herself with the station beneath her. First thing she did was visually check everyone had made the trip. Yes, one stood out more than the rest, but she had to see everyone had made it.

Second, she floated toward the now removed mainframe core. Hopefully, the abrupt removal would have halted the sabotage in progress. If not, well, throw one of the techs at the problem. Even with her hyper advanced brain, it didn't help if she didn't know what she was doing.

"Think me and two more could guide this home?" She'd volunteer next. Three of them at the base ought to do it, spaced evenly and matching TAP speeds.
 
YSS Eucharis - Bridge

"Engaging fold drive!" Natsumi responded as she immediately throttled up the FTL system, which relocated the heavy gunship with a brilliant flash of energy.

As soon as the ship had reverted to normal space, Natsumi threw every spare ounce of energy into the shields, besides what was needed to recycle the fold drive. "Hoping in on the away team's signal" she said as she rolled the Eucharis out and put power to the sub light engines, driving the ship hard towards where the team was drifting in space.
 
Open Space

Tsuguka halted for a pace, ignoring the flickering wall of laser fire encroaching slowly towards them. The little triangular forms of the jousting space fighters were starting to become distressingly detailed, but Junko's plan didn't make much sense if they didn't know where home was. Teleporting again didn't make long-term sense unless they had somewhere to go, either.

A blinding, otherworldly flash. Her head darted towards it briskly, and much to her relief, detected the mass and configuration of the YSS Eucharis now moving towards them. Still further away than the crossfire zone was.

"Okay, Shiho-Hei, looks like Junko-Hei had the best plan. Let's get on it." The red soldier hustled to the cluster of junk and began pushing it forwards immediately as she began talking. Eagle eyed nekos might realize she based this choice on those with weapons least suited for use in open space. "Yuuki-Hei, Masumi-Hei, some defensive fire, if you please..."

~"Eucharis actual, this is away team. We are going to push the objective towards your location, and meet you in the middle. Please note our projected course."~
 
YSS Eucharis - 0-G

Mehitabel changed tacks as the suited-up Elysian headed into the 0-G passage and pushed herself down towards engineering. "Cherry-heisho, Calidius-hei, is there anywhere you need an extra pair of hands?" she asked, feeling faintly worried by the silence from the ship's engineering staff. Every repair issue they had discussed earlier went far above the amateur level of starship repairs the winged, nervous santo-hei could have accomplished alone... If the worst had indeed happened.
 
Space

Freyja was amazed they were still alive at this point. Junko's armor was dinged up and her own leg's joint was locked up. That seemed like a small price to pay for what they had pulled off. Especially compared to the losses in her last mission. The dull ache in her chest came back as she realized the fleet supporting them was most likely suffering losses. She was determined to finish this mission successfully. Those soldiers wouldn't die in vain. "I will hold them off the best I can Tsuguka-hei. Masumi-hei, I hope you can shoot as well as you can hack."

The blue Neko glanced at Junko as she accelerated past the group pulling the mainframe. Her heart leaped in her chest as she saw the damage to her Mindy. She shook it off and pushed on, keeping a short distance ahead. Her Pulse Cannon moved back into place as her AIES scanned for targets. They were still pretty far out, but getting closer by the second. Her main concern was giving away their position. It seemed like the enemy didn't know exactly where they were or they would have been toast by now.
 
<<Space!>>

"Linking my TAPs, slave to my controls." Junko called out to the others on thruster duty. She craned her head up, feeling the back of the helmet clack against the collar. Poured on the acceleration, easing toward a safe top speed. Let a minute puff from the others as the course began to stabilize.

Her stomach fluttered as she saw Freyja accelerate past. Then she sucked in a breath, tried to draw some strength from the feeling. They had to make it back in one piece, now. She wanted to remember what Freyja had promised. More, she wanted Freyja to remember. No sudden gaps in memory, no second guessing your own sapience.

As the Eucharis jumped in, she felt a thrill of accomplishment. She could see the finish line, clear as day. Just had to make it those last few steps. "Confirm visual, Eucharis-Actual."

She did the math, and set the three of them to be ready to turn. The last bit, they'd have to cancel their own inertia or they'd splatter on the interior. She'd push the thrusters as far as she dared.

They were coming home.
 
Open Space

Masumi was on full alert, poised and at the ready as she steadily made her way away from the mainframe. Furtively, she glanced down at the Kuvexian space station and back to Candon Suites, deliberating on the question of whether or not his plan was one he made only because she had failed to competently extract the information from the computer system. She knew the answer and didn't try to refute it in her mind.

When Freyja commended her efforts at hacking the systems, she hugged her LASR close, not knowing if she had done that great of a job at doing so. She knew she was just as strong of a scientist as she was a fighter, which raised the question whether she was good enough at either to fully contribute to the mission objective. She thought about the Mindy drone with the knocked-out Kuvexian and wondered if the fleet would be able to pick it up or if her only tangible contribution to the mission would be nullified.
 
Space:

Popping out into open air with the rest of the crew and a big chunk of the computer, Shiho just gave a little throaty 'huh' in response to working out how that plan would work. She didn't actually know that the teleporters were capable of doing that to begin with, but it made some sense. And then she got called upon to help Tsuguka with some heavy lifting. Or pushing as it were. Twisting in space and firing her suit's engines, Shiho moved up and started the push.

Whistling a jaunty tune within her own helmet. Another day still alive, apparently... Hooray. Enemies in the distance, but ship support incoming. Shiho started to whistle harder. Jauntier. Sitting duck on a festival ground shooting gallery didn't suit her preferences one bit. Just a little sinking feeling pulled at her stomach as she realized that she was now performing part of the opening act in an interstellar war.

One she was on the front lines of. With only gyoza and a pretty low paycheck as her reward...

And she had to share the gyoza!
 
YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Even though the ship's inertia was mostly canceled out by the advanced gravity control systems, Hanako could still feel herself thrown back in her seat when Natsumi opened the throttle on the ship's turbo aether plasma engines.

"The armor team will need to be able to synchronize their movements with ours to get back on board. Open a secure subspace data channel to them where we can send them our vector information so they can match it," Hanako ordered the bridge crew. "Also make sure our anti-fighter turrets are online and ready."

~"Eucharis actual, this is away team. We are going to push the objective towards your location, and meet you in the middle. Please note our projected course."~
Click to expand...
The subspace radio chirped as Hanako keyed her communications system. "Away team," Hanako replied to Tsuguka. "Be advised I am detecting the enemy station is currently firing on your position. I suppose you cannot see it?" Chirp!

She looked over at Natsumi. "One would think they would just flee into hyperspace instead of facing our fleet," she commented as the station was mortally and methodically pummeled by the weapons of the First Expeditionary Fleet. Hanako's eyes narrowed as she realized what that meant. "I think they know what we are up to. The armor team is in danger!"

Open Space

A swarm of enemy fighters began swooping in on the Eucharis' away team. Suddenly a full itano circus of mini-missiles came homing in on the chunk of mainframe and the fighters making strafing the away team.

YSS Eucharis - Engineering

Mehitabel changed tacks as the suited-up Elysian headed into the 0-G passage and pushed herself down towards engineering. "Cherry-heisho, Calidius-hei, is there anywhere you need an extra pair of hands?"
Click to expand...
"Sure, can you come to main engineering?" Cherry replied.
 
Open Space

With her LASR, Masumi pointed and fired at some of the mini-missiles making their way to the mainframe, bouncing up and down in open space as she maneuvered to avoid those coming at her while she shot.
 
<<Space, the final frontier>>

"Confirm visual!" Junko called out. This was not good in the broadest definition of the term. Power armor versus starships in open space tended to get a little lopsided. At least with Orochi, they'd had a good fighter wing making sure they got across. If she weren't in a fight-or-flight situation, this might give her cause to ask questions.

Junko swiveled her body around, the missile pods on her calves popping open. Earlier, she hadn't had a chance to swap out for an offensive missile setup. Now, keeping her defensive missiles was just what she needed. The countermeasures fired, seeking out the mini-missiles.

"Counters away!"
 
Kuvexian Station, Space

The man needed a breather after the rapid exfiltration. He had damaged the brain in his old body to the point where such overuse no longer hurt, it would take a while but he would condition his new brain the same way in due time. Life as a Minkan was a little harder for the former Neko but if his princess wanted that core he was determined to make it potato...
That's not right.

Candon was truly wishing he had his NSBs as swarms of mini missiles closed in but that last salvo didn't include recovering his bits.

"Team, pop drones and target the largest clusters! Grenades if you can!" He ordered as he opened fire with his wrist mounted pulse cannons, letting the computer shoot for him as he accessed Masumi's support pack to synchronize whatever was left of each armor's CF shielding into a uniform field of protection for the core. He could only hope it would be enough. He armed his countermeasures, only to release them when the swarms drew closer.
 
YSS Eucharis - 0-G and Engineering

"Right outside," she replied, swinging from the corridor to landing in the corridor with flexed knees and outspread wings that swiftly closed against her back. Pressing forward with a bound, she asked, "Is there anything I should have grabbed before I got down here?"
 
Space

Wes said:
A swarm of enemy fighters began swooping in on the Eucharis' away team. Suddenly a full itano circus of mini-missiles came homing in on the chunk of mainframe and the fighters making strafing the away team.
Click to expand...

Freyja heard the familiar warning that missiles had been locked on and fired. The countermeasure pods on her legs slid open, shooting out all the missile avoidance warheads at her disposal. She teleported out of the blast radius using a charge from her shoulder capacitor. Her pulse cannon switched to anti-missile mode and started pumping out aether pulses at the incoming missiles. Her AIES took care of targeting with the pulse cannon while she aimed her ABSR and fired rapid pulses at the starships as they shot past. She had used up all her NSBs in the chaos inside the station.

She received the data from the Eucharis and altered her vector. While dodging missiles and shooting others down she tried to match the vector of the ship. It looked almost like she was dancing. Her mind was perfectly calm. Space was where she was meant to be.
 
Open Space

A dense burst of countermeasure charges rattled out of Tsuguka's leg armor. The shell wasn't really absorbing the recoil well in it's battered state, and the sparking flares felt like confetti in the face of such an enemy regardless. It was a weird feeling, after the hype of the Mindy 4.

Having Junko seize the initiative was not exactly part of the plan, grasping control of her and Shiho's CFS... In truth it was the petite soldier who had the more precise offensive weapons, and thus would have been better in support of Freyja if they could help it. Not that Shiho seemed particularly pleased with her secondary function of absorbing hits, but that kind of situation was unfortunately necessary at the moment. The idea of either one of them making a last stand here didn't seem awfully far fetched. Tsuguka personally just hoped it was all worth it.

Frejya was moving like a bolt of lightning, now. Protecting all of them despite the formidable cluster of missiles. Given that the red soldier could still aim her gun whilst pushing via a hand+knee combo, it seemed only natural to make an effort protecting their protector.

Frag rounds. In space, such a hail of fire unleashed a stream of funky orange globs. Might not be good enough to hit a fighter, but sufficient enough for dusting the space at their allies' tail clean of encroaching projectiles.

~"I can give you another two bursts at best, Yuuki-Hei."~ Her eyes tracked the small, erratic form darting about in the distance. ~"Please make it count."~

~"Eucharis."~ Snapping communication back to the Shosho. ~"No artillery sited, but we are being engaged by enemy fighters... Please advise possibility of support, over?..."~
 
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YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Natsumi frowned as Hanako made her comment about the enemy not disengaging into hyperspace and was about to make a comment of her own when the Shosho announced her realization. This was confirmed with the incoming sensor data that flowed across her screen and through her SPINE link with the computer.

"Shosho, I suggest we take the Eucharis in to retrieve our away team, we can close the gap and provide additional defensive fire with our anti armor guns and main cannons and screen them as we recover them, rather than awaiting them here" she spoke quickly, inputting commands into her controls, ready to engage and power the heavy gunship in to the armor team the instant Hanako gave the order, assuming the Shosho agreed with her recommendation.

Her red eyes were glued to her sensor display, watching the enemies rush in on the vulnerable power armor clad away team, attempting to kill her shipmates.
 
Space

The Kuvexian Space Station tried to engage its fold systems, glowing and shimmering in space, but the large station's silhouetted structure began to blossom with fiery explosions as the Star Army intensified its fire and began to break apart into pieces, several of which exploded. The simmers soon faded, leaving only darkened chunks of burned, twisted metal garbage with glowing red embers of molten slag.

The remaining ships of the Kuvexian Navy began to disappear as well, abandoning their fighters just like the last time the Eucharis had fought them.

The Eucharis continued to close on the away team at a fast pace, essentially wading into the crowd of the aforementioned fighters, while anti-fighter turrets twitchily swung around like overcaffeinated owl heads spewing bright streaks of teal and gold death out in every direction.

"Support is here," Hanako transmitted over the radio.

Just as the shadow of the Eucharis past the armor team, the impact of a large anti-starship weapon glimmered on its shields. It had physically blocked shots at the team coming from the dying station. But now the Eucharis had overshot them and had to slow down or the armor team would need to catch up.

Masumi managed to hit just one or two of the mini-missiles as they came in fast and in zigzags, spread out into waves and patterns to hit the mainframe piece from every direction, pushing on the makeshift shields until they collapsed, leaving the armor team exposed.

Pieces of it flew past her from behind as explosions erupted, and one of the fighters took advantage of her aiming for the missiles instead of them to make a pass and hit her dead on in the chest with aether weapons fire, leaving her torso area, left arm, and left side covered in blackened holes and searing pain. She could see blood globs freezing in space around her and her AIES warned her that she needed to repair the breaches.

Candon and Freya's countermeasures were everywhere spreading flares and chaff and as successive waves of more and more missiles came in from various fighters, they were probably what reduced the cloud of explosions to a low enough density to not kill everyone instantly.

Engineering

"The ship has taken hits near the armor bay," Cherry told Mephitabel. At least one of the big armored doors need to be opened so the away team can come home. I need you to restore power to the door and its air containment forcefield system and then open it. Once they are in, provide assistance to them or fire support. Go!"
 
Engineering to PA Bay

"Armor bay? Affirmative," she replied without a second thought, although it would have looked comical perhaps as the suited up clerk practically spun on her heels back toward the 0-gee passage. Fingers tapped on her AMES control panel, bringing the Eucharis schematics up as a transparent overlay on the helmet visor to assist her augmented mind. Taking it in as she hopped down the corridor, Belle charted a course up the passageway, through the quarters corridor, the cargo lift, and finally the armory before getting to the PA Bay. As daunting a task as the repairs were it was taking up arms that concerned her the most. It was a full fledged space battle out there! Nothing a squishy little Elysian could wield could affect the battle.... But Cherry-heisho was a veteran and she was not.

"Going," she says, clipped and business like, as Mehitabel shoved off into weightlessness. Angling, she landed by the lounge door. Her feet pounded across the red-painted deckplates between the cabins towards the cargo lift. It dinged cheerfully ahead of her, allowing the Elysian to keep jogging through to the armory. Taking a GP-12B off the rack, she popped open the butt trap and attached the single-point sling before sliding it around to her back. After stuffing a pair of spare magazines into an unoccupied belt pouch she pressed on towards the PA bay.

Finding ingress through the main door, Belle regarded the racked spare armor and the all-to-empty racks carefully. Dismissed was the deck plan, replaced by whatever power grid schematic CHARISMA has for general access. She hunted for a likely junction box near the door to start tracing the fault.... Blood pounded in her temples. This was it. This was what had made her leave the safety of an eternity filing inventory reports. Her fingers twitched, and she moved closer the shutters.
 
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