RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 29] Containment (YE 41)

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Majime spoke quickly after hearing the white-haired hei's last transmission, "Is there any way that we can re-establish our link with the ground team?" She had run some numbers in her own HUD to decipher the cause of the issue and began tapping into a terminal to re-evaluate what she already knew.

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

"I am not detecting any jamming signals. Maybe he got killed. We should send in some more soldiers to assess the situation and to check on his status," said Shosho Hanako. "The presences of zombies may indicate an outbreak of Mishhuvurthyar parasites."

Wisteria Station

The terminals seemed to be offline because they were remote clients for the station's main computer, which was offline for some reason. Additional hostile zombies began to take interest in Matsuvo now and the longer he stood around, the more seemed to accumulate and shoot at him. A few of them were partially dress in power armor and one of those brought up an aether saber rifle and sent a beam of hot white aether at him, which also melted the control panel he was at.

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

Majime nodded, "I concur. I will lead a team in. I hope for the best and be prepared for the worst." Majime bowed respectfully to Hanako and said, "Kesturui-shôshô," before she left the bridge.

"Charisma-sama," Majime said as she flew through the hallways, "If Victory-heisho is not ready to pilot, I will be doing so for the away team. Please corral all those that are fit for duty and have them suit up and meet me in the shuttle bay." She sighed out as she entered the power armor bay. "I do not know what we are facing out there, but I do know it needs to be faced."

She suited up quickly and decisively and was soon in the shuttle bay, doing a quick pre-flight check.

YSS Eucharis - Shuttle Bay

The sound of rapid foot falls would be heard as they faintly echoed in the shuttle bay, a Mindy clad neko hurrying onto the shuttle. The woman stopped after entering, "Apologies Taii, my armor suffered a malfunction, that is why I did not join the away team! Setsuya Itatski, Santo Hei, error repaired and am ready for deployment!" she said with a rapid breath, clearly having busted tail in order to make good time to the bay, and therefore the craft itself.

Wisteria Station

After dodging the stream of fire coming at him and having some of it get deflected or absorbed by his suit's shields, Matsuvo flipped the Aether Beam carbine off of his back and took it in his hands while the Kalamari arms on his back stowed the shotgun. Then he pumped a shot straight into the chest of the zombie with the Aether Beam Saber rifle before following up with an uppercut from his forearm shield. Then he turned to the other zombies, and activated the sword mode on his carbine, carving through the first one that was still "alive".

As the second Zombie approached him from behind Mat brought the blade through the tough Zesu armor of the Zombie with a bit of effort, slicing it in two, and then whirled around, sweeping the legs out from under the last opponent left and stabbing it while it was on the ground. The blade sizzled through the outer shell of the armor and then began to boil the innards of the Zombie and causing its eyes to pop, likely from the brain of the creature boiling as well. As he stood back up his blade left a steaming wound.

He'd have to start by finding his way to find the main computer of the station, as that'd be the best place to try and find out what had happened here. Fortunately, he'd downloaded some of the schematics for this type of station before the mission, so he had a rough idea of where the standardized parts of it like the main computer were. He'd still have to find radio parts somewhere else though. His armor now partially covered in blood, Matsuvo began his trek through the station, keeping an eye out for enemies and using his NSBs to scout.

YSS Eucharis
Bridge

An Elysian woman's nose crinkled up in frustration. It'd be odd for him to die that easily, if what his girlfriend said was anywhere close to the truth. But Shosho Hanako said there were no jamming signals she was aware of, unless... "Shosho, it may be possible that there is a jamming system that is only effecting the station itself, with the effects not radiating outwards for us to detect. If that is so, we may lose contact with the away team moments after they enter, similar to the situation with Shinomori-Hei." She chose her words carefully - this was a hypothesis, after all.

Arria didn't just wait around for orders, however - she pulled up a visual schematic of the station on her display, supplied by the archives and records the Star Army stored their data in. She could focus down to individual rooms, but this was a schematic - anything that had happened to the station since the last update to the archives, such as Matsuvo's entrance, would never be shown here. She was looking for ideal locations for a "nest" - somewhere that the damned squids could hole up and breed their young easily. Usually, that was a barracks or residential center. Sometimes it wasn't.

"I will try to identify ideal places for Mishhuvurthyar nests on the station, and communicate them to the armor team. If we have an outbreak, those would be the best places to start our search." There was more to a next than the room itself - prime locations had lots of access to their relatively local areas, so the end of a hallway or section wasn't chosen too often. The several Mishhuvurthyar wars were something Arria had been studying for a while over her career, more passively than anything else...

She was keeping an eye on the starships still in the system, occasionally checking to see if any were approaching. It seemed too calm out here right now... Especially if there was an infestation. She'd have figured that the various spacecraft would be giving the problem as wide of a berth as reasonably possible.

YSS Eucharis - Shuttle Bay

Majime gave a curt nod to the breathless Nekovalkyrja and said tersely, "Take this, Itatski-hei," while handing Itsaki a Type 36 Communicator. She then turned and picked up her own, demonstrating how easily it stuck to her Mindy via the molecure back. "There is a survival kit in the shuttle, and some basic supplies, but there was not much time for much else. There still is not much time, so let's set off."

The Taii moved in to the shuttle with the Santô Hei and, soon, Victory brought them out of the bay and towards the station, rife with unknowable horrors within its hull.

Wisteria Station

Strangely warped interior spaces were full of hostile creatures large and small, ranging from highly mobile power armors to Mishhuvurthyar parasites the size of a child's forearm that traveled as fast as cars and smashed their beaks into things with the force of bullets. Throughout the station there were strange ritualistic altars set up where the station's occupants were impaled on poles and wrapped in black chains thorns and barbed wire. Symbols and runes were written on the walls with blood. There were dead bodies everywhere, some ripped into several pieces. A fog filled the air, limiting visibility and hiding additional enemies, who began actively stalking Matsuvo. As he neared the main computer he started running into sealed blast shutters that took a great deal of effort to manually open with a crank. Also, the dead bodies had a tendency to reanimate after he passed by them.

Meanwhile, Victory successfully docked with the station and opened the airlock door to let her passengers into the station's airlock.

YSS Eucharis - Bridge

A warning tone went off as the ship's sensors detected the presence of a cargo ship that appeared to share some sensor profile characteristics of Kuvexian ships, but also Mishhuvurthyar ships as well.

"Do you see that?" Hanako said as she analyzed the unidentified starship on the sensor diagram. "Can we get a closer look at this one?"

YSS Eucharis
Bridge

Arria frowned. Mixed signals... "The signals are behaving oddly. It could be a sensor jammer of some kind, or..." The angel paused as she tapped at her console a few more times, scrutinizing the signals that were being fed back to her. "It might be an overrun vessel being converted into... Something else. The process isn't complete, if that's what's happening, but it's still functional enough to move. The visual sensors have something..." Arria attempted to link the feedback from the visual array to the starship's main screen, though the process was put on hold until either Charisma or one of the Eucharis's commanding officers approved the input.

Wisteria Station

As Matsuvo approached the computer core, his perusers began to gain on him. His NSBs and forearm shield made short work of the parasites, frying them with precision or smashing them to a pulp when they got too close.

Instead of trying to fight them off with one hand while cranking with the other, he instead cranked, held the shutters open until the enemies were just beneath them and then let the doors go, crushing the enemies beneath the heavy blast shutters. Each time, he could hear more enemies scrabbling to try and tear the shutters open by force, so he began to use his NSBs weapons to weld the doors shut and stall the monsters.

Finally, he was almost to the computer core. He cranked the next door open, and... was met with several zombies in partial power armor, some of their limbs more blade than arm or leg, the limbs themselves twisted by whatever had infected them. One arm-blade dug into his forearm shield, while one of them fired some sort of rifle. The fire was inaccurate, but if it hit him it could do some major damage. He twisted around, throwing the zombie that was attempting to slice through the shield into the line of fire before kicking it and pushing it away, leaving a gash in the slab of metal attached to his arm.

Three blasts followed, and then his gun fell silent, as he approached the computer core to investigate what had occurred on Wisteria station to leave it in such a state.