RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 27, Part 3] Expanding Horizons II (YE 39)

back seat

As the missiles flew through the just-opened hatch the turret ontop of the Hierophant would start tracking the closest one. The cannon taking very fast, precise aim at the closest missile... and doing nothing.

Wazu had left the weapon on SAFE to avoid accidental friendly fire.

He was left to wonder if it would have been better to try and shoot down the missiles, rather than let them impact the shuttle. There was also a twinge of regret as he realized he owed Candon 200ks now.

"Alright Bronzi,"

The red one was still in the way, so for the moment Wazu held off on launching their anti-armor missiles. Instead he switched their own weapons to UNSAFE and let the suit's computer take over firing, then loaded the flight path into the mini missiles. They already had a good look inside of the airlock so it would be easy enough to set the missiles to curve around, fly inside of the airlock, and strike their target.

As soon as Tugs was away, they would be able to fire.

Station Surface

Not very far from the Hierophant yet, Freyja halted. She wanted to get in there and save Junko. That conversation they had earlier would break her heart if she had to go through it again. This is not the time. Get your head back in the mission, she told herself.

The Neko turned back, hurrying back to get behind Bronzi. "Understood, Taii." She responded a bit more harshly than she intended.

Raising her ABSR, she leaned out from behind Bronzi. No way she could get a shot right now. The angle wasn't the best and more importantly, Junko and Tsuguka were still in there. She moved back into cover behind the hulking machine. Her thoughts started to return to Junko. She can take care of herself, she was made for this just like I was. Let her show how amazing she is.

Shuttle Bay

"It's fine. Be personal. It's good to be that way." Jax replied. His face fell. "Umeshu... she's... well... gone."

A moment passed.

"Not like, dead, but she left. Without a goodbye or anything. Haven't seen her in about a year-."

Thankfully, that particular sob-story was cut short by the sounds of explosions over the comms, and Victory shouting.

"Aaaaand that's my cue!" Spoke up the engineer, thankful for the diversion, even if it meant that his family was being shot at. He rushed to the Golden Apple and immediately began checking its weapons, which were thankfully still attached. He began frantically waving Taharial towards it. "Knock 'em dead!"

Shuttle Bay

Taharial rushes over to the shuttle and gave Jax a little peck on the cheek "Thanks Jax and I am sorry to hear about Umeshu, I am sure you will find someone new." She climbs into the shuttle and looks back out at Jax and smiles as she waves "See ya on the the return Jax."

She smiled as the shuttle took her to the Station Surface.

Station Surface

The shuttle got close to the other shuttle as Taharial brought up the comms link to the others and called out "Don't worry the cavalry is here." She got onto the weapon systems and felt a little nervous as she could see all of them "Shall I fire into the airlock, and proved cvering fire?"

Shuttle/Docking Corridor

Junko flickered and disappeared, teleporting...

Closer to the attacking robot, circumventing a stream of incoming fire.

Already committed to the action the second those missiles had smashed the bottom of the shuttle interior. Already most of the way before Natsumi's order came in. Changing course meant she'd have to stop, have to hesitate. Hesitation under fire was death.

Her plan of attack hadn't changed before or after the attempted order. Cripple the enemy, bring it down. Tear out its beating heart and rip its head from its shoulders. Kill it quick, before it could harm the rest of the armor team.

Space

Oshiro Masumi had lost her link with Candon for a moment and thought the worst had happened. No words could describe the disbelief and pain Masumi had felt in that period of time in which she thought him gone while, yet, still in her arms.

She knew that she had to choose strategically what she showed to him next. She could either let loose her feelings of pure ecstasy at his sudden reestablished connection to her, or she could update him on the situation unfolding. She made the choice the instant his telepathic link was again with her and didn't think twice about it.

She sent feed of Junko fighting the unknown combat robot while she reiterated their orders to stack up and not engage to Candon, just in case he had been unable to comprehend either. As she did so, she quickly pulled them so that they were well clear of the airlock as per orders and then sent no words to him, just a questioning tone of thought. She wanted his input on their next plan of action and the orders they had received, but had little time to put into words how necessary it was that he choose for the two of them what to do.

After doing so, though, she realized that she already questioned the order. She was already unable to find any value in leaving a comrade to fight an enemy alone. Without hesitation she at once let go of Candon, relayed her destination for teleportation to his support pack, and was away from him.

She teleported to the side of the combat robot that Junko was not on and wielded her aether beam saber rifle against it in a slicing motion of its sword mode with her right hand while her left shot out its forearm pulse cannons directly at the mechanized creature.

Whatever repercussions of ignoring orders came, they would feel better to bear than the feeling of leaving a comrade to fend off an enemy on their own.

Space

Candon floated where Masumi left him, missing her embrace. He needed a break from getting shot at but there was a certain thrill in a brawl. Regardless, it was sniper time. He reached over his right shoulder bringing the GSR forward.
"Natsumi-Taii," he called over shakily, relaying relevant data on the blast radius of the L-mark-two shell, "I've got an antimatter bomb. What do you say we split this can open?"

Shuttle

Shrapnel flew off the bulging, busted shuttle as Victory tried to pull the heavily-damaged craft away from the station, but the power flickered out and the shuttle crashed into the surface of the moon, about a kilometer from the hatch where the away team had entered. A smoky haze rose from the site of the impact.

The robot seemed to be disabled now, its hulking structure looking more or less intact somehow but unmoving and smoking. A thick blast door slammed shut behind the armor team, sealing the airlock closed and separating the surface away team from the team inside. The interior was a technological wonder, an ancient cathedral filled with both large halls and twisting little passages, essentially a metal dungeon.

Construct Surface

Bronzi perked a brow as the door slammed shut. Candon was right. It was a trap. Bronzi wasn't here to nit pick or debate about superior tactics. But common sense was common sense, and now the team had been separated.

But making an issue of it didn't matter. Action mattered.

"Well, they broke the team in half..." he said flicking a switch that shit off a soft dinging that had been going off. The right hand was shot to hell. The armor held, but the fingers of the Heirophant had been shredded. He managed to keep the CO safe but it damaged the heirophant.



Bronzi snorted--- the left hand of the Heirophant held Natsumi. "Errr what are we dealin with? What's the material....what was dat thing Shootin?" Bronzi said to Wazu.

Dungeon

Masumi's shoulders heaved up and down as she took the first few breaths since first attacking the combat robot that was now inanimate and fizzling with smoke. She accessed Candon's visuals and looked at the scene after the blast door had closed behind them.

"Looks like you're nearly all good out there!" she stated through comms and then added, "We're fine in here!"

"Orders?" Oshiro Masumi asked as she whipped her head to look at Tsuguka, her superior and now-commanding officer.

Shuttle

Tan Ann Pan didn't suffer from combat paralysis, but this was something else. One moment she was returning fire while her squad jumped into the breach, and... no, not the next, in the same moment something else was happening. She wasn't a multi-tasker, that was the problem. Aside from her rather pedestrian perception of time, perhaps.

Even though she knew where she was on the moment--the shuttle, which was hurtling, without power, in freefall--she felt she needed to stop a moment to catch up on what happened. Her comm chatter wasn't making much sense. Maybe the plasma blasts had something to do with it.

She'd seen Junko... possibly draw a weapon, though only her helmet display could tell say where she went, and while still disoriented, that wasn't going to help her much. Freyja had slammed into the wall across, but was no longer there. Tan checked over her shoulder, searching in vain for Tsuguka. The Hierophant had clearly departed, and others had gone with them, though she couldn't account for them.

Was anyone else still present? And where was she going?

The shuttle had been in flight once more for about four seconds, by the time she knew. She seemed to have slightly less than that left. There was barely enough time to ask on the radio, "Er, do we brace for impact, or bail out?"

At least the damage to the ship had made it easy to choose one or the other at a moment's notice, without having to worry about too much hull material getting in the way.

Crystal Maze Reboot YE 39

The sequence of events was a dire string of hesitations. Tsuguka refused to teleport at first, as was Natsumi's orders, because she simply wished to be the last one out. But, before she knew it, Junko had used up her teleport charge. And then Masumi teleported in, for support... And then doors were suddenly slamming shut behind them, leaving the red lynx with nothing to defend but the two team members in front of her. After all that, it was only at the last pace that she also realized there were several smoking, orange-metal pits along the left side of her armor, some of it still smoldering away, eating up segments of molecure tape from her shield. Sensors on that side were getting a little fuzzy and defective, too.

"You two! Use the robot as cover!" A barked order. Being polite seemed a little pointless when all three of them were out of line. The next best thing was staying alive until they could all recharge and teleport out together. She immediately moved alongside them, but put her back to the metal frame, searching for any threats in the opposite direction. "Keep your heads down and eyes open! Those rockets didn't come from nowhere!"

Trajectory feeds from the rest of the team gave her a vague idea what was going on outside. The data from the shuttle was not looking good.

"Santo Hei Pan? You are still on the shuttle?" A confused grunt, just as disorientated as the medic likely was. "Go into the cockpit, grab Nito Heisho Victory, and teleport back to the ship with her. Do it quickly, please! She wasn't even in a Mindy!"

Bronzi paused taking appraisal of the situation. Natsumi's direct comms would open, and she'd hear Bronzi's voice "Taii-Sama, yer people need discipline in the field...."

Wazu could hear him. Bronzi at this point was simply worried that with the team divided, they were now at risk to be isolated and picked off.

Construct Surface

Freyja peeked out again to see the blast door slam shut. She could still hear Tsuguka and Masumi, but no Junko yet. Tsuguka-heisho said you two, so she must be alright, she thought. Her armored tail danced rapidly back and forth. The Neko was determined not to let this mission end in failure.

She looked around for any more enemies. Satisfied that there was nothing to shoot at she announced: "I'm going in for a closer look." The newly trained combat engineer was itching to blow something up. She advanced to the door and examined it closely.

"I don't think we're getting in this way, Suites-heisho. Save your antimatter bomb, I'm thinking it's reinforced too well for that. Maybe we could teleport through if we could see the interior." Freyja informed the rest of the team. "Either that or we find another way in."

Outside

Those who'd been locked inside of the airlock were fortunate, Saiga-chusa thought as he remained as close to the station's hull as he could. At least they had cover and capability! Now that the shooting had ceased, he felt more trapped out here under the open void with the wounded and frantic than the cool-headed Tsuguka, Masumi, and Junko were in there. In any case, this respite was tenuous at best, so it seemed liked the right time to try something.

Anything.

"Oshiro-hei," Saiga said when the back-and-forth chatter took a break. "If your present circumstances allow, check for an access terminal or power conduit in there. There's got to be an easy way to interface with the airlock's mechanism and attempt an override."

The pink-haired kuroneko was the team's tech specialist, after all, having trained alongside the SOFT for months to hack computers and work with electronic systems—or really do anything scientific—under fire. She seemed like their best bet right now. Masumi's buddy Candon sounded a little worse for wear during his last transmission, but Saiga remembered that he had some expertise in the same type of work.

"If you're not dying too bad, lend her any help you can from out here, Suites-heisho," Saiga noted before directing his vocal attention to the incoming shuttle. Taharial's message had been easy to miss during the brief firefight's commotion, but the SAINT officer remembered. Admittedly, it was mostly because he paid attention to his armor's sensors readings and saw its signal still coasting toward them.

"Golden Apple: the situation is currently unclear, but we've likely got wounded personnel," he told the incoming Kuma. "Shuttle Telemachus is down. You probably saw what happened better than we did, though. Coordinate triage efforts with Pan-hei and handle it."

Shuttle to Surface

"Hai," was all Tan Ann Pan said in response. She didn't need to explain her conservative opinion about using her Mindy this way, nor did she have time. These armours could stop on a dime with their Combined Field System, but she had to disable this to carry Victory. She flung herself toward the cockpit as she did so, blasted a hole through the far side, almost indiscriminately, and grabbed the wounded pilot in both arms to shoulder on through, leaving her rifle to hang loose on its cord.

The hole she made was ragged and her momentum difficult to stop, causing her to smack her head as passed out from the cockpit, but she kept her passenger safe, and her wits enough about her to remember which way the shuttle was falling and aim her aether plasma thrusters contrary to its descent and fire them at full burn, as soon as she was clear.

Her suit's systems helped with many things, but not so much the whiplash that kept her from doing the math: Her TAP drive was decelerating her and Victory, together, at around 100 meters per second per second, and they'd been hurtling toward the station's hull at a hundred and thirty-seven! If she'd had one more half-second to spare, they would have landed gracefully on their feet, but Tan Ann Pan had been too spendthrift with the passing time, back in the seconds before she'd considered the drawbacks of powering down, to take on a passenger.

Tan's armour struck the hull of the station, shoulder pods first, at well over a hundred kilometers per hour. Though even powered down, a Mindy and its wearer could take such a hit and only be stunned, at worst, the unarmoured Victory could've suffered far more, if she'd collided with Tan's armour in a head-on, dead stop. Fortunately for her, and less so for the medic, they'd come in at a lower angle. Tan skidded from the impact, rebounded, and flipped over, before striking again at a somewhat more modest 99 km/h, with a three point landing at Tan's left hip, elbow, and knee. After that, they finally rolled to a hideous stop.

In the moments following, Tan Ann Pan struggled to check her facts against her display, shaking in her armour, before she could attempt to teleport straight back to the Eucharis with her passenger. To do so, she brushed a extended series of increasingly pressing and bewildering questions about what had gone wrong, and what was now happening. Another part of her brain, and her hands as well, were busy with trying to assess how much harm had come to Victory before she'd been picked up, and in the hard landing. Maybe Tan could multitask a little bit, after all... at least when she wasn't trying.

Surface

The shuttle was gone, spiraling away to crash in the distance, leaving a shower of wreckage in it's wake that scattered across the landscape. Several chunks crashed down around them, one even glancing off the left shoulder of Natsumi's Mindy, causing a jet of pain to lance down her arm.The away team was separated by the blast door that had slammed down and sealed off the airlock, trapping those who were inside apart from everyone else. Natsumi growled some few words not repeatable in a non-18+ plot thread and quickly took inventory of the situation as it had changed. As she tried to scramble back to her feet she could feel her left arm grinding in it's shoulder socket and swore. Something was broken.

"Tsuguka, sitrep, now!" she barked through the pain lancing up her arm and shoulder. "Masumi,. why did you disobey orders to withdraw from the airlock?" she added harshly, then snapped off commands to others, the situation was out of hand and needed to be reigned in. "Tan Ann Pan, get back to the shuttle and get Victory out of the wreck. Freyja, please go assist with recovering Victory. Begin medical aid if she needs it."

She ignored Bronzi's comment, for the moment, but logged it into her digital memory for later review. "Mr. Bronzi, Wazu, keep an eye out for any more of those things, the one in the airlock may not be the only one in the vicinity and I don't want another nasty surprise" she hopped off of the big Gart armor and landed a few meters ahead, closing in on the blast door that had slammed shut over the airlock.

"Candon, are you still alive?" If you are, join me. Saiga, I need you with me as well" she said to the infantry man as she reached the blast door. She turned to Saiga as she scanned the airlock for some sort of control mechanism. "We need to get this door open. If we cannot find a way from out here, or the others from inside, we will have to cut our way though" she suggested. "Maybe the aether blades can get through this materiel? Unless you have another suggestion?"

Planetoid Interior

Junko formed up behind the hulking shell of the defense robot. Did a quick check with her suit for injury, see if she had all her fingers and toes. Adrenaline could do things like that to your sense of self. Extinguished the aetheric bayonet of her rifle for the moment.

Most of her attention was on the robot itself. Most of it was intact, but it was smoking pretty bad. Had she gotten a lucky hit on something important? Had it just gone too long without some form of maintenance?

Once she was sure the three of them were momentarily secure, she'd take a look.

"Tsuguka-Hei, confirm the kill?" Junko asked. "Doesn't feel like it should have gone down that fast."

Dungeon

Masumi responded to Tsuguka and Saiga quickly and efficiently by finding cover near the blast door behind the robot and began looking around for a console of some sort and started scanning for a power conduit somewhere.

Her body paused as she was asked why she didn't listen to orders. Her fingers shook a moment and then she again resumed her search for an interface while she spoke evenly.

"Orders were to leave a comrade behind, Taii. I will not do that."

Space, Airlock Door


"Copy that," Candon responded as he joined Natsumi at the blast door, scanning it with his LSP, "this door is reinforced and judging by the energy field it's either got a shield on hot standby or it's shorted. If it's shielded cutting in would take some time but would be far safer than my forty. That much antimatter will split this hull right open but our comrades will need to get in deeper and dig in."

With the data already relayed to her Natsumi would see that the shell he was referring to was a rip off of the notorious Lorath made L-mark-two antimatter munition. It wouldn't penetrate as deep as the real thing but it would be more than sufficient to make a crater in the metal moon.