RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission 29: Usagi no Suana

[Ametheliana]

8日 4月 YE 46
YSS Kaiyō II
Berere System
Gemstone-class Star Fortress, Sapphire
Uesureyan Space

"Keeping the mission briefing short. Mostly because it's too important to sit down and talk about too long." Hoshi said to get everyone's attention.

Everyone was suiting up in the Kaiyō II's armor bay while the ship hung lackadaisically outside of the Uesureyan Star Fortress. It was the closest base to their objective at a modest 23 LY away and defended by the Star Army of Uesureya. Though the base was constantly attacked by Mishhuvurthyar, the Uesureyans had held their enemies at bay in the days leading up to the Kaiyō's next mission.

Usually the starboard side door to space would be open in the armor bay, but it remained closed as the crew got into their under-suits and various power armors. Even as she spoke, Hoshi tugged her grey and cornflower-colored shibui suit up and over her hips.

Thank th'lord, Molli thought as she shimmied into her tight-fitting Type-22 bodysuit. After Nebel and their excursion on Tami, getting undressed around the crew felt a little less daunting. That being said, Molli did her changing hunched behind the newly repaired Mindy that hung from its rack and waited for its wearer.

Once she'd fastened her bodysuit up the neck, Molli's crimson eyes glowed from the diagnostics menus running across their mechanical irises. She examined her new arm -- a limb of dark red Yamataian make -- to check if it was functioning yet again. Yet again, the tests came back green across the board, but Molli's lingering apprehension wasn't dispelled.

She didn't want to lose this one, too.

William yawned as he stretched, his shoulders both producing a loud pop. His Cyclops had also recently been fixed after his jump pack was damaged on the last mission. His newest load out had already been selected. This time, there were two large thermal longswords attached to hard points on each hip as well as two backup thermal tomahawks.

"So what's the op?" William asked as he started powering up his suit.

Hoshi got into the details after the Nepleslian asked, "Though the wormhole networks that the Mishhuvurthyar have started utilizing have mostly led to faraway sectors, the NMX have recently found one that is a back-door to the Kikyo Sector. Called Grakkaflarl Kla Venushhurl, It connects Uesureya to Yamataian territory, which leaves Yamatai vulnerable to their attacks."

"There's not a lot of information on the installation itself, but we'll need to armor up and drop in with the Kirie's mass teleporter Aiko utilizes, which is specially useful now with Irim-Taisho's fleet order to abandon our Mindy's teleporters." Hoshi said, looking to the Ketsurui princess. "It's a Mishhuvurthyar space station of some importance that was moved here to protect and harness the wormhole. We'll find our way to central command and if that's not possible, engineering. You know the deal by now."

She looked to the very select few in the armor bay with her now. It was a mixed bag team; while some of them had been with the ship for eight years, some were very new members of the crew with only one mission under their belt.

Underscoring as much, the captain continued, "You all proved valuable assets when taking down engineering aboard the Mishhuvurthyar escort on our last mission. This is no different, really. Well, save for the minor details. We aren't helping out perfect strangers but are protecting the whole of the Kikyo Sector. It' the difference between helping an old lady cross the street and stopping your baby from falling down a well, so not that big of a difference."

Already dressed in her tightly tailored Shibui Powered Suit, Aiko stood behind her Kirie with a golden Star Army communicator in hand. The little device was connected to the princess' mech and so she could perform some final checks—in particular a few last minute calibrations to the very heavy lift teleporter she'd use to get them behind enemy lines—while Hoshi briefed the rest of the team on their mission.

"Will our allies from Uesureya be on hand to assist this time?" Aiko asked, not looking up from her secondary task.

Of course, she knew their teal-clad cousins had not promised any help at all and that the Star Army was undertaking this mission as something of a favor to Emperor Uesu. Still, operational parameters could change more quickly than even an XO was privy to and she always hoped to fight alongside the fierce Neko who called her "Kitsurugui," so posed the question anyway.

"It's only because of Uesureyan intelligence we know of this Mishhu backdoor." Hoshi answered, "The NMX don't know we know about this wormhole installation, so our mission is to infiltrate as a small group. That means no backup, just us."

"Ryokai, Hoshi-Taisa," Aiko acknowledged, looking up from the data feeds in the palm of her hand to reach out and dial in an adjustment to her Kirie's backpack module with delicately deliberate movements of her long fingers.

Hoshi said, "No doubt they'll aggressively strike into the Kikyo Sector with this wormhole if we fail our mission. The whole First Fleet is waiting on the other side of the wormhole to go head to head with the some four thousand ships that make up the fleet composition that protects this installation."

"But I said I'd keep it short, so enough of that," the captain had added some levity with her final statements. "We just have to get in there, sabotage the operation, and let the first fleet flood in. Understood?"

Morgana absorbed the briefing details while suiting up in armor, its design not straying far from her previous ensemble. The inclusion of Assault Drones had proven to be a significant asset in her last mission, offering unmatched flexibility. She acknowledged the trade-off: the added bulk of the wings compromised her agility in the cramped quarters of ships and space stations. However, she found solace in the fact that even with wings her Mindy armor was substantially more agile than the cumbersome machinery the ID Sol deployed in. Her helmet, detached, was magnetically secured to her thigh. In one hand, she held a science pad, her gaze shifting intermittently to Hoshi and Aiko as she uploaded mission specific macros. She also had packed a pouch brimming with vials and sample collection instruments. Though in a case beside her she had a dart gun and several darts she was loading into a separate pouch.

"Taisa," the science officer began, eyes lifting from the pad with a hint of anticipation, "I've developed prototypes for some of the exploit mechanisms I mentioned a few months ago—currently, they're just simple darts. Given the high probability of encountering an Enhanced Type, I'd like to request permission to conduct field tests with them."

"Permission granted, but I don't want those to be your primary fire." Hoshi said with a quick nod. She had let her suit hang around her waist as she spoke, but now started unrolling it further so that her pink torso was finally covered up and she stretched her arms into the sleeves.

Morgana lowered her pad and reached behind herself, tugging on a strap over her chest before bringing an Aether SMG around to display to the captain. "Already the plan." She said before restowing it. The pad slid behind the sample gear in her pouch. Morgana then took the helmet and spun it around in her hands before sliding it on her head. She then set about attaching the dart gun and pouch to the thigh rack where she'd normally store a NSP

The princess could tinker with her Kirie indefinitely and make countless calibrations to bring its performance closer to perfection, but stopped when Hoshi wrapped up her speech. What was done by then would have to do, so Aiko silently confirmed her readiness by stepping out and around from in back of her Kirie before immediately hopping into its waiting pilot pod through the split in its knelt-down torso.

"No pressure..." Molli muttered, and the Nepleslian looked decidedly unhappy at the prospect of no back-up whatsoever. She recalled her very first mission, the encounter with the Enhanced, and how it took the Kaiyō firing down on it to finally kill the slimy bastard. Considering how important their objective was, there was no doubt they'd run into another.

Who knows? Maybe they'd find a spare starship gun lying around to kill that one, too.

"Unnerstood," Molli said, stepping into the familiar confines of her Mindy. As it enclosed her, its right arm enclosed the new cybernetic more easily than she remembered; no doubt a result of better compatibility. There were still a few things she hadn't got to test with it, but Molli wasn't about to take any risks on this operation -- not unless the benefits were proportional, anyway.

"Roger." William replied as he got into his suit. He was slightly annoyed, not by the mission itself. He was annoyed he wouldn't be able to claim another notch on his dropbadge. "Sabotage the station, don't destroy it, no back up, impossible odds, wait for fleet support after. Just another day on the Kaiyō." He remarked with a wry smile.

"You've got a way with words," Hoshi remarked with a smile that was only obscured as the visor of her Mindy locked into place. "Couldn't have said it better myself! Huddle up around Aiko-sama's armor and she'll be teleporting us in to some coords. Like I said, not a lot of information so we'll be lucky if we're not dropped in a food pit or the like."

"Yeah try not to drop us in the middle of an arena or something. One of those was enough for a life time." William added as he moved next to Aiko.

Those jokes seemed to make Molli's apprehension rise even more, much as she tried to hide it, the shaking in her hands from an equipment check gave the lie away. "Th'teleporter ent that inaccurate, right?" she asked, worriedly.

"Could be," Hoshi said with a light chuckle as she slipped into her Mindy and slid the strap of her LATR over her chest. "One way to find out."

By then, the Ketsurui Chusa's Kirie in its silvery-white and crimson streaked livery had activated, its electric blue eyes flashing to life a moment before it stood and walked across the deck. In spite of the big power armor's seven-and-a-half foot height, each of its steps was taken with the same graceful dignity as its statuesque pilot did through the Immersion System's ability to affording Aiko the use of her Kirie's body as if it were her own.

Aiko's trip was a short one, though, and she stood her mini mecha only a few meters away from the bay's armor racks and staging zone. Once everyone had assembled, she made one last check of the Kirie's systems and released final teleportation safeties.

"Clear launch!" Aiko announced over her armor's external speakers. The shout was little more than a formality because all of the ship's armorers, engineers, and non-combat personnel had vacated the armor bay long ago. But it was a necessary formality nonetheless.

 

[Sunny D]

Grakkaflarl Kla Venushhurl
Mishhuvurthyar Space Station
Cargo Hold

With the coordinates already punched into her Kirie's CIES, the princess wasted no more time than that and engaged her Ke-M12-P4600 Heavy Lift Teleportation Unit. In the next moment, the Kaiyō's armor team would be transported off of their ship and surrounded by Mishhuvurthyar once again.

They had all been in a Mishhuvurthyar structure's internals before so the damp that they landed in and the fleshy walls they were next to were nothing new to the away team, yet still nothing they wanted to get too familiar with. The room they were in had high ceilings and was sparsely furnished with just a few mustard-colored cargo containers on a far wall. Behind them was a hinged wall and near the containers was a pustulant pinprick, likely a sickly Mishhuvurthyar rendition of a door.

"No enemy contacts," Hoshi said tersely after flipping from visual to infrared within her AIES' optical array. Then to her team, asked, "Any scans?"

Morgana responded, lowering her Aether SMG and reaching for the pad in her pouch. "Nothing out of the ordinary for a Mishhu space station." She said, rotating around so the sensors got different angles. She followed a signal, pointing into the floor. "Main energy source is down and over there." She pointed in the direction before turning to Hoshi.

"Going down there is a backup plan," Hoshi said. "We need to find central command and this isn't it."

"My passive TQP scans are showing mass fluctuations in that direction," Aiko reported, sharing a bearing vector from her CIES to the AIES of Hoshi and the others. "Those could be life signs and indicate the location of this station's CIC based. Energy routes from their reactor correlate with this information."

"Then let's move out." The captain continued, "William, Molli, breach the door. Rest of us, in line."

Even with one mission and a promotion under her belt, being surrounded by repulsive Mishhu "decorations" didn't feel any less intimidating, but with a capable crew -- and captain -- beside her, Molli managed to push her swelling fear down as the first order came. Drawing that familiar, hefty aether shotgun, Molli hurried to the door -- which looked more like an overgrown sphincter in her opinion -- and planted a shoulder beside it. Two Kalamari arms unfurled from the back of the Nepleslian's Mindy, lithely reaching for her pistol and sword. She'd grown attached to the idea of using multiple weapons at once after Nebel.

"Ready when you are, Willy," Molli said quietly, looking to the older, larger veteran for guidance.

"Aye, aye," William replied to Hoshi as he moved up to the door. He turned to Molli and nodded. "I'll pry the door open, you clear right, I clear left, the rest down the center, " he instructed.

He placed a hand on either side of the door, giving it a faint knock and watching as the entrance spasmed. "I hate these stupid ships." With that he drew both thermal longswords and ignited them before stabbing into the doorway and carving an opening. Piercing slowly at first, William's longswords quickly melted into the interior door and peeled away the flesh in curling, burnt ribbons.

"Hate 'em more," the smaller woman replied impetuously, wincing at the squelching sounds of hot blades slicing through flesh, before swiveling through an opening to the right and raising her shotgun. Molli's finger rested on the trigger guard, ready to shift to the trigger itself if anything needed perforating. At her back, the Kalamari arm grasping the aether blade curled so that the sword was leveled horizontally over Molli's shoulder, and a single split-second thought would make it stab forward with enough force to rend flesh and splinter bone.

Meanwhile Morgana switched her scanner to life-signs mode and scanned the room beyond, showing two identified NMX Neko just several paces from the doorway.

"Hold up." Morgana said "Two times Nekos, ten feet." she said, pointing in the signal's direction.

"Take them," Hoshi said from behind the group. Hoshi was not apt to dawdle with the information at hand.

Molli was eyeing up the NMX on the left, "I'll take-" she began, only for something massive to shoot past her, causing the small woman to stumble into the wall.

As soon as the door was damaged enough for William to break through, he did so. With jump pack enabled he leapt forwards with both longswords in a brutal arcing slice. With a quiet thump followed by a second, the NMX Nekovalkyrja fell to the ground. Hoshi quickly followed and pulled their bodies with either hand towards where the group had entered from.

"-th'...right..." Molli's eyes widened at how quickly the moment had passed, and she was more incredulous at William's terrifying efficiency than annoyed at her inability to contribute. She still felt a tad unnecessary.

"Point that thing upwards," Hoshi said to Morgana over her shoulder as she dragged the bodies out of the way. "Rest of you, move out."

"A-Aye," the Nepleslian said, trailing close behind William.

"Aye sir." Morgana said, a little more assuredly, pointing her device upwards while trailing behind. "At least their ships bleed." She said in response to Molli and William's previous banter. "Its kind of cathartic. And because its alive I can get returns I can map."

"Cathartic is right." William replied. Turning to Molli, he added. "Sorry, you can blame the princess. She tried to call me out at the IRC."

Molli blinked, not certain if she could believe what she was hearing.

"Wait until the day you savor the rush of destroying an entire station by your hand alone," Aiko added in her commanding deadpan tone, though clearly saying it with a bit of implicit levity to match the others. From the little power armor column's back Aiko had taken up rearguard again and used her Kirie's all-aspect vision to cover her comrades from any Mishhu surprises. "Eyes forward, Captain Sanders. I would not want to have my warriors best you for a second consecutive sortie simply because you took the time to jest with me. In the interest of keeping everything fair between us."

"Well don't let me get th'way o'yer contest," she said, shaking her head at Aiko and William's witty repertoire, "Ah ken count kills if yeh want." Molli felt she was brushing against a lot of history, but she tried to remain focused on the mission as she advanced down the hallway.

William glared at the princess. Telepathically he replied, "You're lucky we are in public."

"A Ketsurui is nearly always in public, Wil," Aiko sent back privately, her telepathic voice less serious than the one she used with everyone else. "I suppose that makes me blessed to be safe from your designs."

"No destroying this place for the sake of a contestable kill count," Hoshi said with a laugh. "If we manage to retake this station, travel time to Uesureya will be near instantaneous and we'll be able to help him clean up the Mishhu down here a lot more."

"Sorry to interrupt," Morgana interjected, silently thinking she could have had a few personal ship kills under her belt last mission if only the princess had let her off the leash. "High number of contacts directly above. Suggest we keep quiet and go around. Or go straight too it, as a high desity of squids probably indicates where their CIC is."

Two more Kalamari arms extended up as Molli raised her left, as though she were giving herself three votes, "Ah'm in "favor of avoidin' th'small army," she said, waving all three limbs.

"And traipse around in cargo holds all day?" Hoshi asked, but didn't give much room for a response. "Hone in on Ketsurui-chusa's bearing vector. We'll do a deliberate clear of any room we can't avoid or maneuver through under stealth. We need to get up there for more information. William, Molli, you're our pointman. Aiko, cover the Cyclops with your photonics array while necessary."

"Maybe keep an eye out for something we can use to draw them away." Morgana suggested "Its also just as possible to be a commissary or something to that effect." Though even as she said it she couldn't imagine the squids eating communally.

"Eyes peeled, then," Hoshi said even as she entered the zero gravity passage behind the others. Despite her and their stealthed armors, it didn't stop some putrid liquid from dripping from the ceiling far up on onto her helmet. She wiped it away, unable to use the full extent of her suit's skin-based optical tracking if it was covered by the station's leakages.

William flicked his blades and nodded to Molli. "Let's move then. You're left, I'm right. Princess, behind me so I can be stealthy."

Molli nodded, and the extraneous arms drained of hemosynth and shrank back into the Mindy's module. "Roger dodger," she said, sidling behind Will and floating into the zero gravity passage. The Nepleslian groaned quietly as foul, effluvial liquid dripped down around her, and she tried not to focus on what they looked like. It was as foul as the idea of engaging NMX in vastly superior numbers.

But she kept quiet about that.

Because William's mammoth NSMC "breakthrough" assault armor lacked any form of optical camouflage, Aiko already had her Kirie's volumetric fields extended right out to their limit of almost ten meters by the time he asked. It added some measure of redundancy to each Mindy 4's own active stealth systems, too, allowing all of the Mishhuvurthyar slop to drip down onto Hoshi and the others without much interruption of their capabilities as the pink captain feared.

"Once we see our foes, take them out one-by-one in a deliberate elimination pattern," Aiko said, readying the two cannons mounted to her Thought Armor's shoulder hardpoints so that they pointed forward toward whatever awaited them. "Those Mishhuvurthyar will look up at us with fading eyes by the time they realize their doom."

Having come up the zero gravity passageway, the team were able to set their sights on what lay above their entry point in this station. There seemed to be a few interconnected rooms and hallways right off of the passage, some of them with windows that showed the starry space beyond the station. The first room was much smaller than the cargo bay they had been in and laid out like a large office with several desks rooted in the wet of the floor. The first visuals they could make out were of a line of Neko in a far row all working on consoles while a couple other NMX were positioned closer at terminals, almost all diligently working. One raised from her seat and and got up to go pop her head into a far room, then sat back down.

Closer to them, they noticed another pushing around a hover caddy whose once-beige fabric was stained brown. Hanging limply, a hand was flopped over the edge of the basket and the crew could see the caddy was halfway filled with other Nekovalkyrja's bodies.

Molli patted William on the back to silently warn him of her advance, then she slipped past the larger man and approached the NMX pushing the caddy. Molli's footsteps traced a careful path across the short span of fleshy overgrowth, measuring each footfall to ensure no sound was made. When she was close enough, the Kalamari arm gripping Molli's sword reared back like a scorpion's tail, then shot out in a blindingly fast forward motion, piercing through the back of the NMX's head and exiting through her mouth.

She tried to keep a stony face as she stepped forward and caught her fallen foe, dragging them back from the caddy and outside of the room. A pragmatist would have dumped their body with the others, but Molli didn't want to further dishonor those fallen Nekovalkyrja by laying the enemy beside them.

"Acquire next target," Hoshi said. The captain wanted the rest of the team to follow Molli's lead and had assumed the enlisted Nepleslian hadn't disposed of the body to prioritize efficiency for her next kill. Acting as the clean up crew, Hoshi did heft the Neko into the caddy filled with what were most likely to be future Mishhuvurthyar meals.

William slowly stalked forward with a silence that belied his size. Sheathing both his swords, he settled for the thermal tomahawks as Molli dispatched the first NMX Neko. Moving quickly he grabbed one of the NMX by the throat and quickly silenced them before they could make a noise.

Laying the body on the ground for Hoshi, he moved on to the next target. "Three..." He counted mentally. It wasn't that he revealed in it. He needed the distraction.

Morgana followed the pair close behind. Her weapons slung for the most part, she continued to call out targets in the next rooms, pointing them out through the doors so the process of room clearing was more expedient and ensuring anyone haphazardly walking in was quickly dealt with.

Breaking off from the group, Molli crept further down the hall to an adjoining room, where she waited for an opportunity. After a few tense seconds, she moved inside, and the muffled sounds of a blade piercing flesh could be heard. Molli left the blade embedded in her victims so as to avoid leaving a bloodtrail as she dragged them to their growing pile of bodies. The Nepleslian tried to avoid looking at their faces -- they looked a lot like regular Nekovalkyrja.

Quickly and seamlessly, they had cleared the office. Molli and William downing enemies while Hoshi pulled the bodies into the piling stack of them in the cart. Even Hoshi seemed happy to leave the caddy where they had found it and be free of the horrifying sight of dead Nekovalkyrja.

"Room clear," Hoshi said, finally. "Let's press on. CIC through that way." They made their way to the next doorway where an NMX Neko had popped her head in minutes earlier. They were honing in on Aiko's bearing vector, but they had a bit more ground to cover. Hoshi held a position behind and to the side of William at the doorway and looked to Morgana to know what signs of life they should expect.

"Hold up." Morgana said, waving her device in front of the bulkhead. "Advanced Types beyond the threshold." The science officer then turned to Hoshi. "Suggest we find a way around." As far as she was aware, there was no way to take a squid out reliably which was both quick and quiet, yet.

"We should have room to maneuver around, Molli scout to the left of here and Morgana, check to the right," Hoshi said with a nod of her Mindy helmet. To Aiko in the meantime, the captain said, "Imagine we come here and only kill Nekovalkyrja after saving that million of them on Nebel. Wouldn't feel right."

"Those on Nebel were asleep and untrained," Aiko replied. Her Kirie crept along with the rest of the squad, providing them with that extra layer of volumetric cover until the moment its heavy weaponry would be needed. "They may as well have been Star Army prisoners of war then. Unless the soldiers we face today throw down their arms in surrender, you should find no issue in terminating them, Captain. All Nekovalkyrja are fierce fighters, even those corrupted by the Mishhuvurthyar. We should respect their dedication to battle without hesitation."

The comment gave Molli pause, "Ent they like...?" she began, before cutting herself off and nodding to Hoshi. She was about to move, but laid eyes on Morgana.

"One moment. Want to try something that might help." The science officer said, placing a hand on one of the fleshy walls. She then began to tune the life signs sensor to the flesh all around them in an attempt to get a better map of the area. The chance she could make sense of the noise was a long shot, first returns were a jumbled mess, however even if it didn't work she could process the data later to make it more reliable.

About to reply to both Molli and Aiko in one go, Hoshi caught her tongue to watch what Morgana was doing with her science scanner on the walls. The science officer was able to filter out the organoid structure of the station comparative to the standard Mishhuvurthyar and NMX Nekovalkyrja life signs. Not the intended use of the life sign scanner, the range was much lower than the normal efficacy, though. Despite as much, she was able to get a general map of their path from where they were to the place where Aiko had ascertained the control room would be.

"What have you got, Shoi?" Hoshi asked of Morgana.

"Possible alternate route." Morgana replied. She saved the settings on the device as a macro before switching back to the default to ensure there weren't just more Advanced Type Mishhuvuthar in the direction indicated. Throughout this level were several other rooms like the one they had just been in, mostly inhabited with working NMX Nekovalkyrja while the adjoining rooms to them had one or two Advanced Mishhuvurthyar that milled about between working at consoles of their own to joining other Advanced.

"That direction should be clear and take us around the threat." Morgana lifted her arm in the direction of another pulsating apperture far to the left of them in the room. Beyond was a clear hallway rather than the occupied rooms and the heavily frequented thoroughfares adjoining them.

"Proceed," Hoshi said, pushing her LATR to her back. Having gotten the clear from Morgana, she trusted it to be clear and let the opening unfurl in front of her while her crew was at her back. They were able to push through, but checking in to Morgana's scans through her Leader Support Pack, Hoshi could see there would be certain rooms they couldn't avoid going through in the lead up to the control center.

William began to trudge forward through the long hallway. "I hate NMX. Their ships, their advanced." He grumbled

"Not a lot to love when they hang up their dead," Hoshi said, passing a cadaver that swung as she passed. Behind her, Molli's breath hitched as she passed it.

"Why d'they do that?" she asked, with restrained fear.

"Do we need the entire station? Can we just napalm the rest?" William asked, knowing the answer was no, but still voicing the idea anyway. To Molli he asked, "What's the count up to kid?"

"Thre- Two."

"I think their bugs feed on the bodies and their bugs work on the internals of ships," Hoshi said, answering Molli's question, then William's. "I suppose there are multiple ways to fail our mission. We could do it that way and make it interesting."

William sighed as his query to get Molli's mind off of the hanging corpses was overshadowed by the Taisa's revalation. Telepathically, William sent a message to Hoshi: "Not every question needs an answer."

"Hold up." Morgana said, consulting her pad again, furrowing her brow beneath her Mindy's helmet. She then moved it around to other directions to confirm her readings before releasing a sigh. "The next room is small with two Advanced Type signatures, the hallway beyond has NMX Nekos, and what we think is the command center is beyond that room and hallway. " She then took one more scan around, looking for alternatives. "I don't see a path around this time."

"We'll have to take out the advanced in the next room quicker than they can send off a digital message and quietly." Hoshi said, hoping for ideas from those around her. Even so, she unslung her LATR, thinking of what she would do if she were alone.

Morgana pulled out one of the darts she'd been working on and held it in front of Hoshi.

"Those are meant for Enhanced," Hoshi said speculatively.

"No no, this one is a prototype of the surprise I mentioned." Morgana explained. "Inside is a helium payload cooled to the point it becomes a superfluid. I got the idea after your story about you and William killing the advanced type in the snow."

"That won't be our primary plan," Hoshi said. "Just like it shouldn't be your primary fire. But I want you to try and get a shot out and see the results. We need ideas from everyone else."

"Agreed," Morgana replied with a nod 'But it should make any alpha strike faster and more effective." She pulled the dart gun out and loaded the round, looping a lanyard on the grip around her wrist. In her off hand she held the barrel of her Aether SMG, ready for follow up shots.

"What if we distract 'em?" Molli suggested, partially out of a desire to avoid fighting any Advanced or Enhanced, "Give 'em the runaround...wiv like, a false report or summat?"

"We cannot allow them to report the distraction to others and receive backup to this location," Hoshi said with a furrowed brow.

"Ah meant a...subtle kinna. Posin' as one o' their own, reportin' a problem wiv...systems or summat somewhere else. Some cove sleepin' onna job, that kinna thing," Molli explained, waving her hands to articulate her point better.

"There exist few expedient ways to silently kill an Advanced Type," Aiko stated. The aether gatling and 50mm railgun mounted to her Thought Armor's shoulders twitched on their servos to point at their unseen enemy beyond the next meathole of a door while she spoke. "Combat endurance was designed into their very being. I am unsure if this can be done 'quietly,' as you've requested, Hoshi. We could coordinate a target lock and spear its brain with a pinpointed strike. Our current position affords the opportunity to do this free from danger. But stealthiness of the shot cannot be guaranteed."

"Perhaps you are on to something, Byrne-hei." Hoshi said, thinking on what Molli and Aiko had both proposed. "Ketsurui-chusa, you could use your volumetric projectors to appear as one of their own to get close enough to utilize your Kirie's psionic filter device and nullify any signal they could send out. It would buy us some time. That way you can get your field test in, Morgana. Target the Mishhu Aiko is closest to and she'll deal the killing blow if need be. I'll line up a shot on the second one. William, I want you on top of the princess, ready if anything goes wrong."

The ID-SOL moved up next to Aiko, switching back to his swords. "Well let's get this over with then." William said, looking to Aiko. "Get me close enough and I'll stab it through the face."

"The beast is likely to notice the effect of my Psionic Signal Controller as soon as I step beside it," the princess affirmed. Aiko had already ordered the volumetric camouflage from her Kirie to replicate an Advanced Type there where she stood, so in her place a false Mishhuvurthyar apparition now floated among the Star Army soldiers. "So the rest of you must be accurate and swift in carrying out the plan. If it does not work then I will not hesitate to destroy our foe with haste, regardless of the commotion it may cause."

"You heard her," Hoshi said with a stern voice as she set her body to hold her rifle with a rigidity, pointedly looking to the doorway that Aiko would soon be activating and stepping through.

"Not if I get them first." William replied to Aiko as he began moving with her into the room.

 

[Gles]

Alongside the others under cloak of volumetric camouflage, Aiko's Mishhuvurthyar disguise wafted through the opened threshold and toward the twin Advanced Types within. Upon seeing them, the grotesque patterns projected from her Thought Armor shifted to replicate their patterning before they spied the princess in her impostor's outfit.

"Make ready," she said to the others, approaching their targets with what she believed to be the most appropriate pace.

A couple of seconds later Aiko stood between her "fellow" Mishhuvurthyar. She came close enough that her PSC would jam any attempts to use their psionic ability—and within arm's reach of her Kirie's fists. Beneath the disguise, her armor was poised to grab at the nearest one and bring it to the floor. If their attempt to achieve a silent kill failed, a viciously immediate takedown would be the next best thing to keep the NMX Neko guarding the hallway beyond from noticing something was amiss.

Morgana held cover in the shadow of the organic bulkhead door, her dart gun trained on the second advanced type. Her own volumetric projectors were set to blend her into the scenery. The rear of the dart in the chamber began to glow as the energy taken from the payload needed to go somewhere. "On your move, Taisa."

William was next to Aiko, poised to take the other one. His swords were readied to stab out directly to the Advanced, which Hoshi's LATR round had sniped into from her vantage point just feet away. It penetrated somewhere in the brain, straight through one of its eyes, but she shot another round through the eye next to it.

The Mishhuvurthyar wobbled precariously as its ability to keep itself aloft with gravity manipulation gave out. As the Advanced began to fall, William's swords shot out like vipers. Both thermal swords stabbing through the Advanced's face. For good measure, he withdrew his blades and planted an armored foot on the monster's skull before slamming it down into the floor.

Morgana pulled the trigger on the small gun, loosing the comparatively large dart. The micro heat exchanger glowed red, making it look as though the slow projectile had a tracer. It hit its mark, striking one of the Mishhuvuthar in its fleshy side before injecting its payload. Near Absolute Zero, the liquid helium quickly sapped all thermal energy around it, chilling the flesh and chitin around the impact site before rapidly changing state to a highly pressurized gas. It expanded rapidly, the force causing the side of its body to rupture in a hail of flash frozen flesh.

When Morgana's experimental ammunition struck into the Mishhu's flesh, so did Aiko. She sprung forward in her Kirie to grip the second Mishhuvurthyar under its spiny jaw while punching at the monster's hideous face with her left fist. The Mishhuvurthyar disguise she'd been projecting dropped entirely, revealing both her mech and William's Cyclops for the moment.

As soon as the fingers of each gauntlet made contact, the princess activated both of the blades on her big power armor's forearm weapons and lanced into its logic centers with aetheric fire that would burn out its brain with the same effectiveness as Hoshi's shot had felled its fellow nearby. Then, the deed done, Aiko quickly re-activated her Kirie's volumetrics to cover William and offer an extra layer of obscurement to the entire team again.

With both fallen Mishhuvurthyar on the wet floor, those shooting and waiting from the hall stepped over the masses of their dead enemy. Having been able to pick up on the NMX Neko guarding the hallway, Hoshi directed Molli to go ahead of them and through the sphincter-like opening.

"Take point and take her out," Hoshi said, still holding her LATR at the ready. "Rest of you, back to stealthing and good, quick work."

Molli stepped into the room, somewhat shaken by the swiftness -- and the viciousness -- in which the team had taken out that Mishhu. She snapped to attention at Hoshi's order and nodded to affirm her understanding. Blade clasped tightly in hand, Molli sidled across the wall, before bursting forward with a sharp stab to the side of the NMX's neck. The Nepleslian cradled her kill to the ground, before withdrawing her sword and wiping it off on the Neko's uniform. "Hope it di'n't hurt too much," she whispered to herself as she closed the woman's eyes.

"Got 'er," Molli said to Hoshi, hurriedly standing at attention.

Hoshi looked from Molli, giving a thumbs-up, then to her team. "I'll take point to ascertain what the dead zone is beyond this hallway is. I don't want to send anyone in to something I'm not sure about myself."

William turned to Molli. "What's the count, kid?" He asked again.

"T-Three," she replied, nodding at Will.

Morgana took up the rear as the rest moved forward, the dart gun dangling from her wrist as she gripped her Aether SMG and pointed it down the hallway they had come through until the sphincter door began to close.

If Aiko could give a concerned look Hoshi's way from within the pilot pod where she slept controlling her Thought Armor, she would have sent one in the captain's direction. But despite that small amount of worry, she wouldn't voice it. After all, Ketsurui Aiko charged headlong into battle and so expected the same of her fellow soldiers. Though they were usually subordinates rather than a starship captain that the princess sought to inspire toward glory.

"Byrne-hei, you're with the Taisa," Aiko ordered. If Hoshi insisted on taking point, Aiko would not stop her. Still, she made sure the captain had a battle buddy to shadow her. "Keep close."

"Roger dodger," Molli made for Hoshi's side, "Ah'll take a few bullets fer ya," she told her Captain, grinning beneath her helmet.

"That's not the plan," Hoshi said. "But I appreciate it all the same. Let's move."

 

[Gunhand4171]

Grakkaflarl Kla Venushhurl
Mishhuvurthyar Space Station
Meeting Hall

Though the orifice opened, there was no light shed from the room beyond. Hoshi realized that was because there were room dividers set up like the shoji in her ryokan. She slipped past them, then took a good look at what was beyond the screen.The room was dingy and damp like the rest of the station, but more elegantly put together. A far wall had a row of windows that showed not only the stars outside, but the wormhole as well. It served as a reminder of what the Kaiyo team was attempting here.

There were blood-colored draperies that hung from the high ceilings and the furnishings were of better quality than the metal tables in the offices before. The long central table in the room was brimming with Mishhuvurthyar. Dappled stormy-colored Mishhuvurthyar known as the Grey Mishhu sat amongst the table along with the terra colorings of the newer Enhanced, of which there were two or three. Visually no different save for their jet black coloring and red patterns, umbrals dominated the table.

"We'll have to get you coordinates to teleport into the CIC directly," Hoshi relayed to Aiko on the most secure channel she could.

More uncomfortable than she had ever been in her time as a Star Army soldier, Hoshi slowly stepped towards the far end of the room, signaling Molli to follow.

If Hoshi was uncomfortable, then Molli was downright terrified. The sight of so many Enhanced in one confined space threatened to make the Nepleslian's heart beat out of her chest. The familiarity of Hoshi's voice was all that steeled her nerves and kept her moving in step behind the Captain. A dozen scenarios played out in her mind, most of them pertaining to what would happen should the Mishhu notice them.

"Plan?" Molli asked, relaying the question over text to avoid any shakiness in her voice.

"Get past them to CIC and relay coordinates to Aiko-sama." Hoshi relayed back, knowing that bringing the whole team into this room brimming with Mishhu was unwise. She was even chastising herself for allowing her newest and most promising ensign in such a dangerous room. She had to swallow her fears and persevere.

Hoshi kept a distance from the drapes as to not ruffle them and give herself away, but that also meant being closer to Mishhu than she had ever been before without tying to kill them. She was fighting back instincts to swivel her LATR on one of the arguing Mishhuvurthyar and start shooting everything else she had, but the pulsing teals of the wormhole that she could see out the windows to space reminded her of the first fleet waiting on the other side of it and Yamatai beyond that.

The Kaiyo captain had to do the most difficult thing and just listen to the Mishhuvurthyar argue back and forth rather than what the warrior-born part of her being thought best.

“Yamatai has attacked us, retaliating makes sense to them and to many of the other warlords.”

“We can move our efforts to further systems,” said a red and black colored Mishhu; an umbral. “Further than where Mefpralphra withdrew us to.”

“THE NMX ARE ROOTED IN,” said another more hysterical voice. “THEY WILL NOT BUDGE.”

They were so close, Molli seriously wondered if she'd give herself away by breathing too loudly. She constantly looked to Hoshi for guidance, but was periodically drawn to the conversation the Mishhu were having. It was uncanny, hearing something resembling a normal voice coming from such inhuman monsters, and at the same time eerily human to hear an understandable topic. From the way they spoke, they believed they were the victims in this war, which would've made Molli snort derisively if she didn't know to stay quiet.

“You Grey Mishhu all think the same,” said another. “Saying whatever Mefpralphra would have said. Favored children of The Infection Queen but still too scared to fight Yamatai—afraid to fight Yui and her bloodthirsty kin!”

“Not afraid to fight, but afraid of what fighting will lead us to do; what it has made the Mishhuvurthyar become. We can be better!” The umbral voiced, leaning into the snapping parts of its psionic language.

"The Queen, our progenitor, wanted us to punish Yamatai for their abusive ways. We did, we waged war, but the end goal was always for the war to end. Because the Mishhuvurthyar are ultimately part of humanity. Our lives are meant to be more than war.

“Our Queen is now gone, but now another of her peers fancying himself as a warlord wants us to flock to his banner, to empower us into becoming better warmachines and work to annihilate humanity. Not only was this not the plan, the vision that was hoped for us... but this is a regression. We fled and rebelled against masters that wanted us to be weapons... and now we're supposed to be changed to become even better weapons for someone else?

“Say no. Don't join the NMX. There's no future for us there."

Their voices rang out in her mind like snarling beasts and putrid vermin’s sniveling vociferations and with each step she considered killing the next that spoke. But, soon, the pair was through the room. The CIC was just beyond and Hoshi took a step back, letting Molli pass behind the partition before she did.

"They don't all want to fight?" Molli couldn't believe what she was hearing, but when she thought back to how the Enhanced pleaded for mercy back on Nebel, it started to seem less far-fetched. "Why are they saying they're part of humanity?" she texted Hoshi rapidly, her curiosity was inflamed, as was her terror.

Hoshi didn't have a chance to respond. Even if she did, she didn't know how to. The captain's head was swimming even as she heard a change in the tone of the Mishhu behind her and felt the swift grip of one, then a dozen tentacles around her leg, then the rest of her
limbs.

"Coordinates to Aiko from CIC, do not turn back!" Hoshi sent her order out to Molli with a severe finality to the words as the captain was scooped up into the hold of a half dozen Mishhuvurthyar.

The sight of Hoshi being pulled away into the pitch darkness of the hold was liable to haunt Molli's thoughts for the rest of her life -- as short as it was looking now that the were discovered. Much as she wanted to help her captain, the Nepleslian knew it'd be a waste of Hoshi's sacrifice to charge to her own death too. So she sprinted through the doorway into the CIC and began to upload the coordinates of her current position through the Mindy interface.

"Hoshi's found out!" she relayed over comms in a hushed whisper, on the off-chance that she hadn't been detected yet.

 

[raz]

Grakkaflarl Kla Venushhurl
Mishhuvurthyar Space Station
CIC

"Teleporting now!" Aiko barked when she received the fresh coordinate data from Molli and keyed the destination into her mass teleporter. She gave no further warning than that, not fully knowing what had occurred to the recon team but still acting with urgency. A heartbeat later, her Kirie along with William and Morgana had flashed into the Mishhuvurthyar station's command center alongside the atmospheric shockwave that accompanied teleport jumps.

"Faelan-shoi: begin work on figuring out this place's systems," Aiko said straightaway. Hoshi's life signs still showed green on the CIES monitor feeding data to the Ketsurui warrior but, not seeing the captain there in the CIC, she could only assume the worst. "Where is Hoshi, Byrne-hei?"

"Th-Th'hold! They pulled her into th'hold! Ah ken go after her!"

"Belay that, Molli. I know you want to go after her but you need to focus, or all of this will have been in vain," William said. "Stay here with the XO," he said, plugging a data link into one of the nearby computers. "Aiko, I'm diving. Morgana, I'll help guide the search."

"On it." Morgana said with only slight hesitation. As much as she'd like to go after the captain, the faster they'd completed the mission, the faster they could extract. She removed one hand from her Aether SMG and mantled one of the fleshy railings into the central control pit. The Minkan began typing away at the control panel, taking the path of least resistance first. It was a space station, its systems were well known and shouldn't deviate too much from the norm unless it was a system associated with a special purpose, in this case wormhole manipulation.

"Find out if we can get a message through the wormhole and to the Kikyo Sector," Aiko told Morgana and William. "We will need to adjust its interstellar traversal trajectory so the First Fleet can send ships to us. More reinforcements than our Task Force here in Uesureyan space can provide are required," she continued, then turned back to Molli.

"To help Hoshi-taisa, we will need to know more about what you saw and what took her," the princess said as calmly as possible. Something had certainly spooked the young Nepleslian soldier, but she knew more and Aiko had to ascertain what it was. "How many of what are in that chamber you came through? If you can remember, tell me as much as you saw so that we can get her back together."

"Buncha- Buncha tentacles. Enhanced. Four of 'em!" Molli replied, eyes glued on the passageway she'd fled down. "They were talkin' about...not wantin' t'join the NMX, but another did..."

Aiko checked Hoshi's vitals again, which still showed all green. At least the Mishhu hadn't begun interrogating her or melting the captain down like they did with Muyomi on Nebel. Aiko would have sighed right then was her voice not a digital simulation projected out through her pilot pod's communications systems.

"The more quickly you two can open the floodgates the better," Aiko said to Morgana and William in a resigned way, marching her Kirie back toward the door that led to where Hoshi had been captured. The big power armor's right eye looked back toward her squadmates over its shoulder as she stood there for a moment, ready and waiting to jet off. "I will need to buy Hoshi some time. My Kirie is suited for it. But I can only wait for a few moments longer."

As William connected with the station's systems, his body slumped forward. In his mindware, code wrote itself across his vision. He began searching the station's systems for security systems, life support, and the elusive wormhole manipulation tech.

Morgana and William's efforts were difficult as traversing Mishhuvurthyar ship systems was never easy, even in cyberspace. They weren't without benefit, though, as the pair independently found useful information. While Morgana had narrowed her search to what she could find that was out of place and about wormholes, William was looking much more broadly, possibly to find anything that could help him find his captain.

There were many subsystems with CIC-only access that had to do with many things, but specifically routing systems to do with the negative energy of every particle stood out to Morgana. There were influx and outflux subroutines that were currently relinquishing only half of the expected output of antimatter. The negative energy yields aside, she was also able to find that there were large pistons on the bottom of the station directly affecting the nearby wormhole.

Though William was on the tertiary boundary of the information Morgana was processing, but the security systems had struck some level of interest to the Nepleslian as his mindware dove into the complex processes of the Mishhuvurthyar's installation. Not only could he tell that a prisoner holding cell had been activated in the last minute or so, but a security detail was being sent to the level they were on to clear the area in which Hoshi had been picked up.

"Incoming hostiles..." William spoke stiltedly. "Security subsystems show power spike to the prison block. Most likely culprit would be Hoshi... ETA to security patrol in the CIC one minute."

"Wil, look for a system called 'Antimuon Ray' or something to that effect." Morgana said looking up from her console. "Probably four emitters. They emit antiparticles which generate negative energy at a point in space where they collide, which would in turn cause any wormhole event horizon to expand should it be located at said collision. Find the ones set to Zero and crank them to 100. Don't touch the focal point; anything using degrees as units, they should already be set." She then pulled away from the console and took another dart in the dart gun. She didn't arm it just yet, as that would activated the heat exchanger, a problem with her own prototype she already had plans to fix.

"Understood..." William said as he began his search for the transmitters. He moved through the station systems until he found the Antimuon array. "I've got it, setting power output."

"Then I am going," Aiko said, stepping her Kirie toward the enemies beyond. "I will stop those on their way and find Hoshi. Remain here to open that wormhole. Defend them, Byrne-hei."

"Aye!" Molli shouted, before following the princess out into the hallway.

With not long until the security detail arrived, the team believed they had at least that short amount of time, but that was not the case. From the doorway that Molli had only recently come in through after losing Hoshi, the form of one of the dozen Mishhuvurthyar that had been in meeting came through. They were followed by another whose loping tentacles poured forth from the doorway, trying to push past its kin.

Finding the enemy sooner than she'd expected, if only by moments, brought some joy to the princess. Already in their face, she activated her right forearm aether blade while spraying pulse fire from her left in an attempt to push the two Mishhu coming through back out with the bulk of her nimble Kirie mini-mecha and the pair seemed to acquiesce. The aether gatling on her left shoulder began howling, too, as beams of pink aether sizzled through the air.

Now in the meeting hall, Aiko pounced atop her closest beastly foe and drove her aether blade through its face like she had with the other the armor team had ambushed minutes before. Another Mishhu grasped at her left arm with a crawling tentacle and as the princess' Kirie stood atop the downed Advanced Type, trying to wrest her away from her first mark.

A Thought Armor was no Mindy, however, and Aiko used the machine's strength to pull the monster toward her by curling her Kirie's left forearm toward the Yamataium plates of its bicep. Still focusing on the Mishhu beneath her feet, the 50mm gauss cannon mounted to her armor's left shoulder jerked over to target the new attacker and sent one round through its carapace.

Through the smoking void left behind, the next Mishhuvurthyar behind that one could see the angry eye of Aiko's Kirie glowing back at it when she looked up to survey the dim chamber and choose what to kill next.

With the cramped confines and the plethora of targets to choose from, Molli had activated her Mindy's anti-gravity field and floated to the ceiling so as not to end up as collateral in the princess's whirling bladework. The support bits at her leg folded out and floated around Molli like a wreath, and she directed them to fire at whatever Mishhu the princess had missed—which turned out to be an extraordinarily difficult task, as she didn't appear to be missing many.

The Mishhuvurthyar had allowed Aiko to push their position back into this room not because of their own ineptitude, but because they knew what lay in wait here. Though there had been two Enhanced in the room earlier, one was gone. But the one that remained sent its tendrils down through the floor and had them reappear next to the Kirie, drilling into the barrel of one of the mini mecha's long guns that protruded from her shoulder.

From her vantage point, Molli threw her sword down for a kalamari arm to catch, and it extended to the floor and swiped at the tentacles grasping at Aiko's Kirie. "Watch out!" Molli shouted.

Meanwhile in the CIC, the emitter's power output was refusing to budge above a certain threshold around ten. Even if William could access it easily, security lockouts prevented him maneuvering it further.

William cursed as the system blocked him from adjusting the power. He was going to have to screw with the multiple systems. He began shutting off all nonessential systems, lights began flickering before shutting off. Emergency lighting began to illuminate the space.

Morgana saw the problem, glancing down at the terminal, locked but still displaying status behind a dim screen. "Go for the weapon systems and shields. Large systems." Morgana said to William "We'll need a lot of 5 watt lights if you plan to use them to power this thing."

"That was my next stop." He replied as the weapon systems and shield network went off line. "We will need all the power we can get. Deactivating prisoner cells."

"Two birds with one stone." Morgana said with a smile. She jumped back on her console, with William's infiltration she could at least get a command line shell up. She found another jack and plugged in her tablet which had some cracking macros already uploaded. While he was occupied diverting power from the obvious go too's, she went for life support. Completely unnecessary from their standpoint, and should they have cracked Hoshi out of her Mindy, it would still take some time before the air became cold and saturated with carbon dioxide.

"All nonessential systems disabled." William replied.

"Reporting." Just then, their comms crackled with the staticy sound of their captain's voice. "Cell block is down, coming back to your position—could use a lift!"

William's physical body smirked. "You owe me Hoshi." He said over there comms.

"Pfft!" Hoshi responded, but she sounded exhausted and couldn't add any more.

Once William had shut off everything that he could, he overrode the security protocols and raised the power of the emitters to 100%.

In the melee happening outside of the CIC, Aiko jettisoned the railgun she'd just fired after it was bored into by the Enhanced's tentacle attack. Molli's warning had given her the sliver of advantage to get rid of it before the monster could catch hold of anything more essential and drive its appendage into the Kirie's mass.

But instead of using the opportunity to get clear, Aiko thrust herself back toward her Enhanced pursuer. She'd heard Hoshi's voice safe and sound over the team's comms channel so was in no hurry to try and save the captain anymore. Nonetheless, these Mishhu still had to be cleared out. Whether it was only one Enhanced or fifty, they'd proven to be more than and individual soldier could handle.

"Regroup with the others in the command room, Byrne-hei," the princess said, voluntarily wrapping one of the Enhanced Mishhu's tentacles around her Kirie's arm for leverage. She tugged the enemy toward her, firing her remaining aether gatling and free forearm weapon into its mammoth body as she pulled. "Make sure the wormhole gets opened. I will return then."

With that said, Aiko activated her teleporter again and disappeared from the meeting chamber. She'd selected the mass of the Enhanced tangled up with her plus all the other Mishhuvurthyar life signs present within the teleporter's acquisition range and put them right at the wormhole's event horizon to be sucked through and flung out in the Kikyo Sector where the First Fleet sat waiting on the other side.

For now, the path for the Kaiyō's armor team to reconnect with Hoshi was cleared.

Molli thought of disobeying Aiko's order; she knew what an Enhanced could do, and couldn't fathom how one person could handle multiple. Hearing Hoshi's voice on the radio reassured the young soldier, however, who surmised that if anyone could survive those overwhelming odds, it'd be their Captain and Princess. Still, she had to voice her concerns, "Don't do anythin' stupid!" Molli said over comms, before turning back to the CIC.

"Everythin' alright?" she asked, head on a swivel as she scanned the CIC for any potential sign of an Enhanced phasing inside. She'd heard a loud noise that sounded like progress outside.

Having been working on raising the power emitters for the past several minutes, William and Morgana had found success in doing so. The anti neutrinos colliding in the wormhole's fixed point through the emitters at max power had forced opened the other end of the emitters.

At the same time, Princess Ketusuri Aiko and a small handful of Mishhuvurthyar were transported into space. Unbeknownst to her, one of the particularly wounded amongst them had been fighting Taiyou Hoshi only seconds before the Ketsurui's heavy lift teleporter had taken them out of the battlefield and directly into the event horizon of the wormhole.

Pulled into the place where mass had no hope of exit, the Mishhuvurthyar warlords flailed and reached back toward the image of the star fortress they'd built to defend their invasion route. Unprotected by a CFS bubble in the way Aiko was within her Kirie, they witnessed that sight for untold aeons experienced from their perspective trapped in the time-warping event horizon zone. A darker fate perhaps than the reality of their bodies spaghettifying in real time, torn atom-from-atom in the blink of an eye.

Glittering hulls of the First Fleet pierced through the cloudy teal of the wormhole. They were a beacon to so many Yamataians and as Hoshi looked out of the meeting hall's window to see them arrive, they were a beacon to her, too. But not just of hope, but of pride and accomplishment. The YSS Battle of Yamatai was flanked by hundreds of its smaller comrades and even the Havoc Battlegroup along with the rest of Task Force 282. The Carnivore-class Cruiser, NSS Fang, with its green Nepleslian livery stood out as an addition to the already swollen numbers that made up the First Fleet in its entirety.

William exited the system and ripped his data jack out of the station's computer. "We have company, and it's the good kind," he replied to Molli as he saw Hoshi walk into the CIC. Her armor was in a bad shape, but she had made it back alive.

"Where's Aiko?" the captain asked, doing a head count. "Wait—" She doubled back to the Mishhuvurthyar meeting room,

"Captain Sanders," came Aiko's voice over the armor team's communications channel, still obviously concerned. "It appears your team has accomplished our mission. What of Captain Hoshi?"

"She's here. Get back to the CIC on the double." He replied to the XO.

Shouting between rooms, Hoshi called William to her. "No, she's here."

"Sorry, Wil," Aiko replied from the place she'd found to sit her Kirie on the tip of the YSS Battle of Yamatai's starboard hull section. "With the Taisa safely in command again there is no need for me to rush. I like the view here better anyway."