RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 28.2] Kuvexian Invasion - Breakwall (YE 40)

[Wes]

Near Hanako's World
Mid-YE 40

What was once one of the most secure sectors in space, even during the Second Mishhuvurthyar War, and now suddenly teeming with thousands and thousands of Kuvexian starships of all kinds, shapes, and sizes, after traveling tremendous distances in a "gold rush" to plunder Yamatai's people, resources, and consumer base. As the invasion arrived in the outskirts, the Star Army's First Expeditionary Fleet went to meet them. There was no communication between the two military forces; each side knew exactly what the situation was and opened fire immediately. The Star Army had secretly found out about the time of the invasion through espionage, but sheer size of the Kuvexian fleet was still a shock. It would be a difficult and bloody fight.

Having almost no cover in space, the fleet formed up in a highly dispersed line of battle and just put as many cannons and shock arrays on the enemy fleet as possible, dealing enormous, space-ripping damage in mass quantity, only to be assailed by voluminous aether weapons in return. On the small gunship Eucharis, the main gun was joined by dozens of others from its sister ships, on a wide-beam setting to try to offset the Kuvexians' numerical advantage. As the fleet duked it out in long-range combat, slowly approaching each other for an eventual "knife fight" with all their strongest weapons, waves of torpedo-laden fighters moved ahead of them, looking for easy kills and moments of glory.

"Keep us moving irregularly, Sagara," Hanako ordered. The screen in front of her was filled with burning starships and beams of deadly energy. The ship rocked violently as a glancing blow struck the ship's shield system. "We do not want to be an easy target."

"Enemy fighters entering our area," Charisma announced.

"Deploy the armor team," Hanako ordered. "Intercept the enemy craft and their torpedoes."

 

[Jack Pine]

Bridge
"Hai. Won't be standing still today," Kai said as he shifted the ship's position, never keeping it in the same spot for more than a second. He made sure to keep the movements random, less the enemy be given a pattern to predict targeting solutions. That glancing shot angered him, They will not be so lucky again, he thought.

Armor Bay
Setsuya stood ready with her comrades, ready to deploy, this being her first ever major battle. She outwardly remained neutral, but inwardly fear had a root deep down. we will win, I will not die, we will win, I will not die. Godess, Mother, pray for me.

 

[Arbitrated]

YSS Eucharis
Bridge

Bright aetheric flashes of energy streaked out from the Eucharis in ribbony streams, crossing the formations of incoming enemy fightercraft over the rapidly-closing gap. Arria Smith's snowy hair shimmered as her head pivoted and swung about her station, monitoring temperature levels and ammunition stores, reloading the cannons, forcing a dud shell to eject, and generally being extremely busy. As the Eucharis's defensive anti-mecha cannons spat their glowing hellfire in droves, her larger Positron Accelerators lobbed slower and more powerful bursts into the Kuvexian Vanguard, each direct hit producing a terrible, blinding flash. The smaller, anti-starship turrets held silent for a moment - waiting for the perfect time to strike at any unfortunate smaller starships that ventured out from the safety of their capital sibling's bulk.

"There's a lot of them here. They're confident. Hanako-Shosho, our torpedoes are on stand-by until their battleships are vulnerable." The smol's informative voice cut through the bridge cleanly.

Space immediately around the Eucharis

Those who exited the Power Armor bay would be safe from any friendly fire by the Eucharis's rapid-fire cannons, the barrels appearing a single large solid tube as they spun. The starship's erratic movement forced individual turrets in and out of usable firing arcs, making them rapidly retarget to sometimes extreme angles like a strange damaged machine - but the Eucharis was very much functional.

 

[Wes]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Hanako turned to Majime and smirked. "I have an idea."

"What's the idea, Shôshô?" Majime asked.

"Consider our circumstances," Hanako said. "We are a small ship and our fleet's forces are significantly outnumbered. What would help us even the odds in this situation?"

Majime said in an assured voice, "Changing the photonics array of all armors to show the pilot's nude form?"

"This is a serious situation, so I need a serious answer. If we fail to use our wisdom here, there is a strong chance we will all die in the next twenty minutes," Hanako chastised her first officer.

Majime steadied her thought process and replied, "We can even the odds by using them against them in many ways. We could use their own tactics against them, albeit in an inventive way, and slave their ships to our own through your hacking abilities and AI understanding. I am not sure of that plan, but I am sure you likely have a better one..."

"That is actually almost exactly what I was thinking," Hanako said. "At first I was thinking where could we find reinforcements, such as the HX-12 scrapyard, or calling other fleets, or allied nations. However, they are probably occupied and would take too long to get here. But the answer is right in front of us. Literally right in front of us. If we need to find ships, there is a massive enemy fleet in front of us and we have teleporters standard on the new Mindy armor. If we can take down their shields we can send strike teams to their bridges and direct the ships to fire on the invasion fleet instead of us. If we took a command ship we could even send out a false order that one of their corporate sub-fleets has turned on them and needs to be eliminated. In a previous battle we used Charisma to track communications between ships to find out which was the leader of a Mishhuvurthyar fleet. Perhaps I can do something similar here."

Majime's eyes were downcast as she listened intently until the plan was fully realized. The XO spoke, "I don't think the current communication channels they're using are registering enough spikes to one specific ship for us to note the main vessel of their fleet." She wasted no time coming to a conclusion that could utilize Charisma's basic capabilities. "We could jam their comms with the Type 31 EWS momentarily and locate the source of the fleet's command through the signature spikes that follow, once their communications are no longer interrupted by us. What do you think?"

"Do it!" Hanako ordered.


(OOC: Mini-JP between me and @Ametheliana )

 

[Speeder01]

Power Armor Bay

Yoshida stood, cluitching her Aether gattling rifle like it was a stuffed toy, with her shoulders shaking slightly. "Eheheh..." I've fought many things, but have I fought a fighter? This thought alone set her on a giggle fit that made her look like a crazy person, or maybe a predator waiting to strike, seeing as how she was slightly hunched with her tail swishing behind her, clad in armor. Brain why must you pick now of all times to malfunction?

Even as she stood there giggling, awaiting the moment they would be called in, she considered how they should array themselves- or how command would deploy them. Obviously, protecting the Eucharis should be their priority rather than worrying about neighboring ships- they had their own teams afterall. How far they should head out, and how many layers they should arrange themselves in just incase somone failed to catch a ship was another matter in and of itself. One that she and Tsug probably should have worked out before hand. Perhaps next time.

Though Yoshida had always wanted to lead a team of her own, actually being able to do it led to questioning her own capability to command. Perhaps she should just go back to hitting the enemy harder than they hit back. Then the call for them to attack came in- it was time to ruin some hotshot's dreams of being hailed as a hero. "...hehee..." She took a look back, to Tsug first, noting she was far less intimidating in her armor, and then to the infantry waiting behind her. "C'mon let's not stand around people! Time to write history!" She supposed she would at least start them off. The Oni probably had the experience to properly lead a team, but taking the initative was probably the way to go here.

Yoshida had considered laying out elaborate plans for success right from the get go, but in all honesty there would be no hope for any such plans beyond 'react to new enemy formations as apropriate'. Instead, she simply said "We're going to pick out targets heading our way and intercept as needed! Keeping it simple and sweet, no pilots should want to be within a sector of us by the time we're done!"

As soon as she was out, zipping about like an erratic fly on caffine, she began the check for fighters heading in their direction in particular, and positions of fellow armor teams. Any battlefield was a fluid thing by nature, even in the vastness of space it could all change in an instant if you didn't know how to read it properly. What she saw did not bode well, those numbers were rather staggering. While Yoshida was confident in her own ability to take on multipes of opponents, she knew not everyone else was- and a shaken resolve is enough to end most fights before they start. "Looks like a target rich environment." Yoshida said over comms as she spooled up her gattling rifle.

 

[Alex Hart]

Power Armor Bay

Matsuvo was the next one out of the bay, his loadout set up to make him the scariest, hardest to kill, and most importantly, the most distracting combatant in wing B. Yoshida's heavy weaponry was certainly more suited to taking on heavy targets, but he made up for that with the ability to engage multiple targets at once with the multitude of weapons he had mounted.

As he emerged from the ship, his flight pattern wasn't as erratic as Yoshida's. He flew instead in a smoother pattern, with broad curves perfectly measured to bring him side to side with Yoshida.

"Yoshida, stay behind me a bit. I don't think we want our wing leader in any more danger than we can help."

He began to warm up his weapons, each locking onto a different target. Not counting the missiles, which he was holding in reserve, he had lock and was aiming at 8 targets at the same time.

"Besides, you'd better let me handle the light work. That monster of yours is better suited to going after harder targets, but I've got just what we need to take on a swarm."

 

[Zack]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Wazu had been following the conversations, chosing to stand by the door out of the way rather than take up a workstation. If the Kuvexians were any good they'd be using a decent amount of white noise, multi-band spectrum hopping, and signal shaping to hide their communications... but all too often people didn't follow best practices.

"I may be able to help with that, I'll forward you my findings."

He'd scroll down on his datapad, looking for his 'Find Leader' script and running it, with the output set to forward to Majime and Hanako.

The first bit of automation would look at signal frequency, tallying how often a ship would communicate. The math was simple, ships had to co-ordinate a large volume of activities. Even if they weren't being told what to do by a CO, their weapons fire, movement paths, signals, and de-conflicting operations would all need to generate constant encrypted radio traffic. Even if it was spread out over various bands to hide the source, each ship would still be generating some amount of noise over time. Assuming they weren't faking this noise with lots of fluff like the spacer's did then it would make sense that their lead ship would also be the one generating the most traffic. The 'noisiest ship' would then be highlighted and passed along as a possible target.

The second would look at ship positioning and time-delay. Even at this relatively short ranges there would still be a fraction of a second delay between when an order was issued and it was received then implemented. The lead ship would likely be making maneuvers or shooting at targets first even if by only a hundreds of thousandths of a second as it did not have any light-speed delay for its orders. Assuming a ship met this profile it would be tagged and passed along.

The third would look for lack of communication. The Kuvexians might be employing less than perfect communication security. If they were hiding the communications from their command ship then there would be a noticeable lack of communications coming from a specific source. Any ship that wasn't transmitting outward would also be flagged as a possible command ship.

The Script would also look at positioning of the enemy formation. Consideration was paid to the enemy group as a whole, as well as the possibility of the whole enemy group being composed of smaller groups. Attempts would be made to plot a 'center' of various groups and then compare movement patterns to see if the ships or groups of ships were attempting to remain in formation around a single central ship. If so, that ship would be flagged as a possible command ship.

Any ship meeting more than one of these criteria would be put to the top of the list as a possible leadership candidate.


"I would also like to send my armor along with the armor team. Your plan will have the highest chance of success if I can have access to their communications systems in person." Wazu added, even as he scrolled down further in his list of scripts to start his MASINT code. The signals data passed to his pad would end up forwarded to his cluster in his cabin for further storage and processing.

 

[Rizzo]

Candon stood in the cargo bay as he suited up for the mission honored to have been invited yet anxious to know whether he'd survive. He finally found happiness in Masumi and was now preparing to take flight in powered armor that had never needed to sustain combat over 5 minutes.

The multi-million KS suit was without doubt far more capable of wanton destruction then the more refined M2-4 but like all of his past loadouts it was designed to inflict massive damage over a short period of time rather than sustain reliable performance for the Long Haul. Everything about it was far too powerful for its inherent instability. Perhaps one day he could submit the design to SARA for refinement, but at this point it would assuredly cost the lives of test pilots and be shelved and another failure.

The dated design was at least capable of keeping up with the Mindy team now with the twin M2-2d teleporters welded to the wings, feeding directly from the nuclear HONEY PUNCH reactors within and needed to move the suit that at least doubled the Mindy in mass. And yet the updated, advanced cooling system was still alarmingly undersized for the triple generator design. He would have to seriously pace himself.

It was far from glamorous but it matched the rest of the suit, pitted and scuffed with chips around armored plates, it's organic liner dying from age and overuse. It was not unlike the personality of its operator who would wear his FMS powered suit to protect himself from the burns the reactors would undoubtedly inflict by the end of this.
It was time.

Lifting a cup from the workbench he drank a mixture of sake and calm, set it down, and proceeded to rip off a taped paper template. 神風. He would see this through.

Candon stepped into the suit he called Spectre and swallowed his anxiety, his nerves becoming steel again as the suit closed around him.

"Once more into the breach, Spectre. Are you ready?"

The rising hum of his hyperspace tap was drowned out by the whine of the twin nuclear reactors spooling up. The plates covering the forearms and shoulders shifted to reveal and recover there weapons, namely graviton projection devices and antimatter missile launchers respectively. The wings moved and rotated to their fullest reach, unfolding and flexing as they explored their mechanical articulation.

With all systems, including the pair of magazine carriers mounted to the wing hardpoints, checking good Candon claimed his weapon of choice from the workbench, his ever trustworthy OI Gauss Sniper Rifle except it looked very different from the last time it was on Eucharis. The terrible weapon was now 1.5 m in length and weighed 90 kg unloaded.

The addition of an afterburner magnetic rail system extended off the original barrel with a bottle of coolant now mounted beneath said barrel. The receiver too was increased in size to accommodate the much wider magazine he was now inspecting.

Each of the diamond encased, perfect steel-cored armor penetrating rounds tipped with a subspace charge were intended specifically for one thing. The death of a fighter pilot. No longer a semi-automatic rifle he inserted the magazine and racked the bolt on the right side of the veritable cannon, an action he'd be doing often.

Finally, his Kokū Ken, Flying Sword, docked on in the Saya on his dorsal mount and the heavy warfighter stepped towards the cargo bay doors, which opened just enough for him to pass. Volumetric SAoY branding appeared over the suit as it began to hover and flew into space to join the armor team.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Outside The Eucharis, Yamatai Defensive Line

"Right! We are hunting for dive bombers! We won't be able to catch up with the unladen fighters, so the best we can do is counter when they try to intercept us! Protection of the Eucharis is your top priority!" Tsuguka advised the whole team in a bellowing tone, with no uncertain words. "Don't bunch up, but be prepared to open fire the minute one of those bastards has eyes on a friendly!... They are most likely going to use smaller missiles on us personally, so if it comes to that, hard turn and use your damn chaff! Use volumetrics to project yourself going in the opposite direction, too! Or they'll strafe their cannons right up your ass!"

The red neko was standing tall and already fully equipped, but was making sure that her new and untested team got out the door without any mistakes. Last thing they needed was an accident inside the ship before the real fight had even begun. Besides, Yoshida and Matsuvo, the two most experienced soldiers, had already taken the initiative...

Not exactly complicated in terms of load-out. Her favoured A/S SMG with bayonet for torpedoes, twin shoulder missile pods for fighters, and a general equipment pack for keeping them in the fight. Countermeasure pods in the legs. Didn't look like much, but they knew it was going to require agility like a damn thunderbolt to stay alive.

"Setsuya-Hei! You are with me!" Time's up. They had to get out there. Slapped their taller crimson sister on the shoulder, and then bolted through the glowing containment field.

Turbo Aether Plasma Drives and CFS instantly turned the Mindy into a blue comet as they cleared the hull, smashing Tsuguka's shoulders with that familiar wakeup call of pure inertia. Her heart thundered and her mind's eye came alive, correlating data with the Eucharis' scanners and attempting to seek out the first wave of enemies amongst the already dense spacecraft debris.

It looked like the entire damn sea of stars was on fire. Streaks of aether cut across the heavens both above and below, impossible to judge in distance or magnitude with so little point of reference.

"Wing B! You see those energy contrails?" A virtual pointer popped up on their shared map, clearly a formation of enemy fighters approaching. "You go in first! Max out your speed and lance them! Wing A will keep them from turning to chase you!"

 

[Arbitrated]

YSS Eucharis
Bridge

In her seat, the cooled birb's hands got into a sort of relaxed rhythm, orchestrating a terrible, wonderful, powerful orchestra of lights and aether, the Eucharis her conductor's baton. The bass-like shock array hummed in from below the bridge each time it fired outwards, the wide setting making an artificial horizon appear for those brave armored souls leaving the bay. Between these reality-altering notes came the symphony of anti-mecha cannons, driving their own melody forward and onward, widening their spread to avoid the voidborne soldiers. Forming a percussive pact together, the backbone of it all, the anti-starship turrets fired out their physical rounds, lobbing kinetic death forward with no hesitation whatsoever - a perfect ripple fire technique.

Aside from all that, which was mostly Arria's doing, it wasn't going to be obvious to those on the bridge that, well... That she was actually doing very much. As far as her limited experience had taught her, she knew by now that capital ships were... less than maneuverable. And for the moment, their escorting gunships and other subcapitals were playing cautious for the moment - a few good hits usually does that to a ship's commander, who without a doubt is waiting for the perfect moment to return from their shelter and get back at the Yamataiyan line...

 

[Wes]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

"That seems useful," Hanako said as she viewed the results from Wazu's analysis program. She forwarded the list of the almost-top-of-the-list ships to the rest of the First Expeditionary Fleet for prioritized targeting by the battleships. Unfortunately the Star Army's fleet was also looking in increasingly bad shape and some of the more heavily-damaged battleships were attempting to rotate rearward as others covered their retreat. The stars in front of the Eucharis were filled with explosions and burning hulks of Star Army ships. As for the top-priority Kuvexian ships, Hanako singled them out for hacking and boarding by the armor teams once the gunships could bring down their shields. The hard part would be getting past their escorts, which were working hard to keep their rich masters protected in the battle.

"Hanako to gunship squadrons, please focus fire on the following ships..." Hanako said, tapping them with her finger on her console and relaying the selections to her fellow captains."

Explosions outside the ship continued to rock the bridge crew in their seats.

YSS Eucharis - Exterior

Fighters continued to press their attack on the Eucharis, sending anti-shield torpedoes after the gunship, although the anti-mecha turrets were able to claim several kills.

OOC: Everyone outside of the ship feel free to describe what the enemy fighters trying to make you have a bad day are doing.

 

[Speeder01]

Yoshida sighed, and decided to not argue with mat.She was positive she was the better ofthe two when it came down to not getting hit, which would be a great boon in a battle here, but sure. You can go first buddy. Rather than waste time on talking, shw slowed down for a moment- just a tad to allow mat to pull up ahead, and her fellows from wing B to catch up before quickly putting up the intercept location on the HUD with clearly visible marker, showing off a skull and crossbones with kitty ears. "Intercept point marked!" Quickly calculating where the enemy would be at any given time and the best points to actually intercept them was something a digital brain fromaneko could do quite well.

"Loose formation! Don't worry about the fighters- Wing A has our backs! Don't go the exact same direction for more than a few seconds at a time,otherwise you're just a holo-pidgeon!" With those words, she took off,leading the team- almost from the front. She knew the instinct thatmany would have on hearing max speed would of course to head directly to the target- but in a battlefield where even an average soldier has advanced targeting computers aiding it, calculating the speed of the target and even taking into account the reaction time of the pilot, one could very easily get tagged across the way. There is a reason even the largest of ships continue to move in unpredictable patterns to the best of their ability in long range firefights.

For yoshida's part, she was FAR less erratic than usual, putting speed as her primary priority to ensure she would arrive at her own projected intercept point in time. No cork screws through the void, or suddenly entirely reversing directions for this short journey. As she began closing in, she raised her still spinning gattling rifle, and quickly unleashed several short bursts aimed at the anti shield torpedos. With essentially zero kick, and machine precicion accuracy that came with being in a mindy power armor, she was sure she wouldpop at least a few of those. The bombers on the other hand, were not going in easily predictable straight lines. Even if she was likely the best suited for taking them down, as Tsug put it she would essentially need to lance them- as yoshida drew ever closet shestopped firing short bursts for precision, and unleached the torrent of aether. She was sure mat would have a far easier time trying to intercept those missiles anyway, gien his way too many guns strategy.

Unfortunately for her she had poked the nest, so to speak. The dogfighters had surely taken notice of their little group- it would be up to team A to keep them off their backs so that their main guns wouldn't pose nearly so much of a threat. One of the more experienced enemy pilots, rather than alter his velocity signifgantly in order to come around, took advantage of the lack of atmospheric resistance and used manuvering thrusters to nearly instantly adjust the direction of his ship to threaten yoshida-who barely managed to dodge, and continue dodging a continious beam cannon. A troublesome weapon to be sure. She was forcedto signifigantly drop her speed in order to resume her typical, fly-like flight pattern. "Ahh haha I think Imade one mad!"

Yoshida did her best to continue pestering the slower bombers even as the first fighter did what it did best, and the others took slower routes around. If nothing else it could be said she trusted team A would do their jobs, so her team could do theirs.

 

[BloodyScarlet]

Outside The Eucharis, Yamatai Defensive Line

Taharial listened to her old flame as she made sure her armour and weapons were in working order. She still remembered when she ordered the custom-made armour to fit her body and wings perfectly as she was more serious than normal as she listened to the brief and smiled "One thing to add from me as the medic if you do get hit, send me a message please and try to get back here if you can. If not I will try and reach you to pull you back here for emergency treatment or transport to the Med Labs for treatment."

She bowed as she let everyone know that she was done talking to them about the medical part of the job and checked her weaponry again before she joined the others and stayed behind the group. She looked at the carnage that was unfolding quickly before she shook her head and smiled a little, flying was something she always loved as she dodged shots and returned fire of some of the crafts that were attacking the Eucharis and the crew.

She growled as she barely dodged a shot and swore loudly, she was a medic first and knew that in her mind she was acting more like a flame to attract moths to herself. She wanted to help the others, she shot and attacked the enemy crafts and just wanted to try and help, she heard the two different wings, but with her training, she would help both wings stay safe. She stayed in the range of wing A as she chuckled and mumbled to herself something she had once said "Remember, you need to be more interested in making holes and not healing them in this environment."

 

[Jack Pine]

BRIDGE
Kai was doing his best to keep the ship moving, especially as enemies closed in. To stand still was death his father always said, it was better to hit the field running. To move with all one's speed and might, for that was how one knew they were alive. In the heat of the moment with conflict rushing forth. He gripped the controls with a determination, his knuckles white. He would not fail.

OUTSIDE
"Hai! Joining formation now," Setsuya confirmed the command. She formed up on Tsuguka while trying her best to avoid incoming fighter fire. She spun and darted in either direction while continuing to move forward. Her 20mm gauss, and her two launchers of missiles were primed and ready to unload on targets. She doubted her LATR, or NSBs would do much against the enemy craft. She opening fire on incoming targets that got close.

 

[Wes]

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

A flurry of beams enveloped the Eucharis as more ships began to target the red-winged gunship, and the ship was buffeted once more by deadly energies slamming into the gunship's shields, knocking the shield effectiveness down several notches to around fifty percent.

Arria's repeated hits with the aether shock array were able to momentarily disable a small group of ships, including an important Kuvexian battleship, which Wazu's program had identified as a potential "leader" and several escorts, which were faring much worse than the mighty alien capital ship. One of them exploded violently in view of the main screen.

Hanako had her eyes closed in concentration and was leaning back in her chair. She spoke without opening her eyes."I am trying to try to hack into them but there is no access like physical access. Majime, do we have any armor teams available to board them and is do you see a safe location for them to teleport into? We might have to teleport next to a hatch or something. Additionally I need someone to try to get some fighters over here to take out the enemy fighters after us so we can free up the armor team. See if you can open a transmission channel to the YSS Illustrious."

YSS Eucharis - Exterior

A heavy energy weapon from one of the fighters clipped Yoshida's power armor and she felt and incredible burning from her legs and was sent into an intense spinning motion. Looking down she would be able to see that the beam had entirely cut off her feet and she was leaking some blood into space.

Setsuya's AIES chirped, warning her that a fighter was locked onto her. A flurry of enemy mini-missiles appeared as flashing red boxes swirling toward her in an Itano Circus.

 

[Rizzo]

As Candon entered The Fray he drew the heavy bolt of his rifle and let it snap shut, the mighty thump of the spring shoving the custom munition into the breach where it awaited a purpose. Small lights illuminated the interior of the barrel with a deadly red glow as each of the electromagnets of the rails checked ready.
"Candyman to Eucharis, ready to receive priority targets," he checked in, voice monotonous and professional. This exchange of blood would be nothing personal yet extremely satisfying.


"Okay Kuvies, the word of the day is 'Apex Predator.'"
The wings of Spectre extended straight for optimal stability as he engaged his CDD for stealth and raised the artillery piece to his chest and zoomed, laying the lead pit over what he had learned to be the enemies cockpit from the data collected from his heist.


A bright flash shined from the barrel as the rod was accelerated from the barrel with unfathomable velocity and the rifle kicked back hard into Candon's chest. The round flew straight and true on the course he'd predicted. In the blink of an eye sparks crackled off the fighter's shield and the ship stopped evading, juking, twisting and in a few seconds was picked off by the point defense guns of multiple ships.


"Oh yeah," he mumbled aloud, very pleased with the effect. Sure it didn't blast the target into a million pieces but this gun was about to make him a war criminal which gave him no end to the satisfaction of drawing the bolt again… and again, and again until the magazine ran empty.


"Shi-" he exclaimed as a swarm of mini missiles reached the "No Escape" distance from the sniper. A ball of explosions formed around him harmlessly as he remained there with a hand extended as if to shield himself, the wrist-mounted graviton projection device saving his life within a field of bent gravity. The wing generators whined through the armor as their output increased to recharge the shields.


The attacking fighter didn't give up. Candon accelerated hard to avoid the collision the pilot was attempting, letting the small ship rip past him. With a quick thought Candon launched a single antimatter missile from his shoulder launcher. The talented Kuvexian pilot rolled hard to evade Eucharis' point defense and performed a gut wrenching Split-S to reengage the silvery suit of armor with full power to his forward shields.


Candon made no attempt to evade the attacker, he simply began to gradually ascend, relative to Eucharis. The pilot focused hard as he lined up a killshot... focusing so hard he missed the proximity alarm. The antimatter missile slammed cleanly into the tail of the fighter and with a brilliant flash it was gone.


With a few quick motions he reloaded the sniper rifle and primed the next round. Taking aim on another fighter- he now found himself blinded by a massive flash from the attack on Eucharis. Recovering from the blast Candon did his best to regain his bearings.


"Candyman to Tsuguka, are you there? Did the armor team survive?"

 

[Speeder01]

Yoshida's pupil's shrunk to pinpricks as she realized what happened. Though she had refused to look down- she could tell by the reading on the suit that there was truly severe damage. Yoshida did her best to block out the feeling of pain entirely- though the feeling of nothing being where something should have been was almost worse. There wasn't time to think about it. Not one instant! The sacrifice of some of the hardest working feet in the star army would not go in vain, as she had found herself within teleportation range of the offending fighter.

Secure the area first, patch wounds second! Was what went through her mind as she considered using the molecular tape to staunch the bleeding. "AHg- where you're going, you won't need legs either!" The pain in yoshida's voice was evident, but her resolve would not waiver even for an instant. Though she may bleed herself dry, she was a soldier of the star army through and through!

Yoshida was used to incredible g-forces and disorienting movements, but pointlessly disorienting manuvers like an out of control spin did little to avoid oncoming fire- thus Yoshida adjusted her course the best she could with the AIES assisting her, and pulled out her plasma blade, activating it at the same time she teleported. Suddenly appearing just before the pilot, its panick was evident as it tried to shake her off with little sucess as yoshida first used the plasma blade to cut through the shield and attatch herself to the ship, doing her best to drive the blade straight into the cockpit while at the same time, sticking as close to it as possible, practically giving it a hug to protect herself from its point defence cannons should it have any- not that yoshida had seen them- and its fellow squadmates. Though a fighter had the advantage in raw power, power armors were most certainly superior in close quarters- unlikely as it was that one would get there.

Always ready for a quick exit, Yoshida used her capacitor to quickly recharge her teleporter and gave a quick ping to Tsugaka and her own team, informing them of her newfound position. To Tsugaka alone however, was also an attatchment showing Yoshida's current status of being two feet shorter. To any who dared lay eyes on the spectacle, Yoshida could be seen doing her best to dig the blade into and around the pilot's seat for a moment before her second teleport took her much, much closer to the medic of the team. Yoshida wanted to keep going- she really, really did. But she was pretty sure she was in shock, and that was a very bad thing to just let happen. "I, think I'm just a little messed up..." Yoshida could simply not keep the sound of pain out of her voice as she voiced her concerns while groping at her butt pack for her molecular tape.

 

[Alex Hart]

Outside the Eucharis

Matsuvo followed Yoshida's lead, accelerating towards the incoming bombers, though making sure to Jink and dodge fairly frequently to evade incoming fire. Despite his attempts to remain unhit, he took several blows, though these were thankfully deflected by his Barrier Shield system, which had been installed before the battle. After the close call, he began to fly in a more erratic manner, never traveling in a straight line and never in the same direction for more than a second.

As he flew towards the bombers and fighters, he approached their torpedoes. Before he reached them, he activated the manipulators on his back, bringing the Aether Beam Saber Rifles and Aether Beam Carbines to bear and firing them in a sweeping arc across the torpedoes and blowing them into a nice useful smokescreen.

As he came through it, he pulled to a brief stop, every weapon on his back sliding either over his shoulders, under his arms or to either side of his waist. Enemy fighters took a few potshots at him as he reacquired targets, but his Barrier shield again saved his life by buying time for him to fire. His weapons spat death, and each enemy he targeted had its shields stripped and then was pierced by aether beams.

The stricken targets hung in the void for a moment, as if impaled on spears of light and held in the air on display. Then they exploded, and the fight was back on.

Matsuvo dodged, weaved and eventually found himself over where Yoshida was and attempted to cover her while she performed what could only be described as emergency repairs and field medicine all in one. Mat could stop and try to defend her, but to him, that seemed like a surefire way to attract more attention to that area.

Instead, he spoke over the radio to the Eucharis; "Eucharis come in; Yoshida's been hit and she's lost her legs. I'm going to try to draw the enemy away from her, but you'll probably have to send someone out here to bring her back for medical attention." As he said this, Matsuvo began to break away from Yoshida, and towards a group of fighters. As he did so, he maintained his evasive maneuvers, but was unable to avoid being surrounded by the pack of fighters.

Because his barrier shield had not had time to recharge, the enemy fighters' attacks began to eat into his normal shielding despite his efforts to avoid being hit. But instead of try and fly away from them, Matsuvo flew directly into their midst, and each of the weapons mounted on the manipulators on his arms switched into their aether saber mode, slashing and slicing at the fighters as he flew through their formation and out the other side.

 

[Primitive Polygon]

Outside the Eucharis

~"Candyman?... So you made it..."~ A laboured voice returned Candon's call. ~"We are alive. Badly outnumbered. Fighters everywhere. Watch out for chasers, they have aether beams."~

Tsuguka was fighting with her eyes closed, but they were still connecting hits across dozens of kilometres. Tunnel vision from the punishing acceleration was a small price to pay in a world of fatal enemy vectors and sudden sensor echos. A tiny spark bolting through the unending black, with such wicked velocity it strained her spine and forced the air out of her chest. Giving everything to prevent this from breaking her, the oni's war-hardened body was coiled up like a shell around her precise, murderous Aether SMG.

Dense visualisations like a mess of three-dimensional waves filled their internal vision, a shifting sea of potential approach vectors. Her own wave blitzed through a pair of enemy fighters, laying missiles with a delayed thrust. When they turned and boosted they ran right into them, not causing too much damage to their shields, but succeeding in her goal of pulling their attention off of Setsuya. ~"Dodge, Santo Hei!"~ Her comrade would still have to deal with the mini-missiles, but this plan at least stopped them from being hounded during that. ~"Come on! Wing B is taking a beating and we need to pick up the slack!"~

A gut-wrenching corkscrew, firing backwards with their SMG. Two potential waves met each other, and a torpedo was evaporated. Another calculation, and an enemy wing was clipped with another salvo. A third thought enacted, and her bayonet caught the thrust nozzles of a torpedo as it bolted past her, causing it to spiral madly out of control.

Still several left, probably more than she could detect. Tsuguka was perfectly aware they were building up an entourage of chasing enemies behind her, too. Her goal was to harass and distract, so at least that was going to plan.

But the rest was muddy. The fog of war ate anything and everything. No choice but to live in the moment.

~"Yoshida... Get to Taharial, but keep your gun up. You have to protect her while she works."~ A coarse, logical voice. They knew exactly what they were asking from the wounded soldier. ~"Remember, you are a Nekovalkyrja. Form a pair. Keep the pressure up. We can't let them get through."~

No room for sympathy. Pretty soon there might be nowhere left to run.

Feeling her own bones rattle and jolt as they committed to another break-neck turn, Tsuguka cursed her pursuers and pelted the dense smattering of fighters with every missile she had all at once. Flying through the hail of impact debris at full speed chipped at her armour and slammed something so heavily into her knee that it now felt dislocated...

But the money-loving scum would never catch her. The red lynx would push this inadequate fleshy body to destruction before she ever let that happen.

 

[Arbitrated]

YSS Eucharis
Bridge

Arria Smith huffed as one of the armor readouts flashed on her screen. Damn infantry, taking risks like that. Whatever probably-neko this Kokoro person was clearly didn't get the memo at letting medics do their job, as they suddenly teleported on top of a fighter despite being wounded, yelled something about legs, and generally was getting in the way.

"Be careful so far from the ship! You're really exposed out there." The exceptionally fluffy birb's voice cut through the general comms chatter of the away team - mostly directed at Yoshida, but also as a general reminder to the whole team. Being far enough out from the Eucharis's hull made a Mindy-4 easy to spot and target, while a ship's bulk provided sensor AND weaponry protection. On top of that, the storm of energy unleashed by the Eucharis herself was more likely to hit a target not-almost-immediately-attached to her; she was designed sensibly to not be able to attack herself.

Arria thought for a moment after Hanako herself mentioned boarding tactics. She offered a suggestion, "Hanako-Shosho, I may be able to blow a hole in the hull of a larger starship with a degree of concentrated fire. That would create an excellent point of entry for Yamataiyan boarding crews."