RP: YSS Aeon [Mission 3.0] Pickets and Surveys

Diligent Crash Site

In response to Kame's flailing about, the large blue beetle scurried around and disappeared into the open engine compartment that Kame had been working in. Another one was visible at the back of the shuttle at the top of the ramp. It turned and scurried back down the ramp.

“Away team, this is the XO. Those near the Diligent, heads up; I’ll be on you in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…”

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The end of the communication was followed almost immediately by a blast of light and noise and bloom of heat and radiation about seventy-five meters from the Diligent as Eun-Kyung’s M2-3A winked into existence. Knowing that any enemies nearby would easily detect her arrival, she reached out with her suit sensors while moving toward the shuttle, doubling her arrival announcement with IFF probes. By last report, the shuttle was secure, but with the element at the Genus in combat she moved forward with her weapon up, at the ready.

“Shina-Hei, O’Kutsuu-Hei, report,” she transmitted over the local net.

Kim banged her head on the console she was working under when the shockwave hit the shuttle. "Fish, fish...." she swore. Then when she heard a familiar voice replied. "Kim-Shoi, Shina-Hei we are in the shuttle. We are repairing the damaged to the electrical systems. O’Kutsuu-Hei is now having to deal with a bug that got into the propulsion system."

From the Genus a rumble could be heard, as the starship lifted about a meter off the ground. "Star Army Personnel this is Genus, stand by firing EMP burst in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... engaging." The power armor sensors detected an em pulse, but one that was not strong enough to affect the suits hardened systems.

Around the ship, the ground seemed to ripple and churn. Then the Tansaku class ship settled back down onto the ground. Across the ground were thousands of what appeared to be large bugs.

"You have five minutes to get on board before the bugs reactivate."

"Holy crap." Arkase said, stumbling with surprise.

Taking one last glance at the LUT, he bolted toward the Genus.

"New plan, head back into the Genus. Quickly!"

Eun-Kyung stopped near the shuttle, kneeling just next to the ramp. “Any time estimate on getting the shuttle back on-line? And I hope those bugs aren't any serious problem.”

She stopped and perked up as her armor's acoustic sensors picked up some faint noises in the distance, her tactical overlay telling her in the direction of the Genus. “Let's try to expedite. We don't know when we'll need to exfil.”

Keeping any eye on her sensors, she opened a longer range comm link. “Oshiro-Heisho, what's going on?”

Asine spread his arms out as he changed directions, to make sure that Trowa and Kyoka didn't get separated from him. Whatever was out there (and he wasn't quite sure what the bugs were, or how an EMP would be so effective against living things), he didn't especially want to fight it without knowing a lot more about it then that it was susceptible to EMP, seeing as they didn't have any weapons that were particularly suited to fighting small targets, either. "Falling back to the airlock now."

"Kim-Shoi, we have most of the primary systems patched. So we could in theory lift off. But whatever the weapon was that took us down is still out there, so anything but staying near the ground would probably result in our being knocked back out of the sky." Kim said over the comm as she looked back into the rear of the T7.

A moment later a plume of smoke came out of the compartment that Kame had been working. A quick look by Kim at the console showed that the drive was offline again.

"Damn it all, fish.... well Shoi, it looks like O'Kutsuu-Hei's bug just shorted something out. So the Diligent isn't going anywhere soon until we figure out what just got fried. Or do you want us to abandon the shuttle and follow you to the others?"

Eun-Kyung glanced into the interior of the shuttle, more an instinct than a serious attempt to see some problem. She considered the situation for a moment before unlimbering the two extra Ke-M2-P3000 units she had brought.

“I want to hear from Oshiro-Heisho first. From the sounds of it, there’s some activity going on near the Genus. If the situation’s bad we may need to back them up. For the moment, you and O’Kutsuu-Hei come back here and get these teleportation units attached. We’ll use them for extraction to the Aeon if we can’t get the Diligent on-line in time.”

Kim went to Eun-Kyung and took the teleportation module. Found a suitable hardpoint on her power armor and attached it. Her HUD display showed the new module, and its status of charging.

"Okay ma'am. I'll return the cockpit and work on repairing the secondary systems while O’Kutsuu-Hei deals with her bug and the propulsion system." Kim said turning towards the cockpit.

"Genus fired EMP Pulse. Relocating inside. Bugs possibly dangerous somehow." He told Eun-Kyung over the radio.

He then darted into the Genus.

"Everyone get in here!"

The Genus is active? Eun-Kyung thought to herself with surprise before the second part of the message registered.

She whirled around. “O'Kutsuu-Hei!” she yelled over comms. “Belay your actions! The local insectoid population is apparently dangerous. Get back here and rig this P3000 like Shina-Hei. Besides, if the Genus is operational, as Oshiro-Heisho has suggested, we won't need the Diligent.”

Pausing for a moment to reconfigure her sensors to perform a high-powered life-signs scan – hoping the bugs would be detected – she opened the comm link to reply. “Understood, Oshiro-Heisho. Do you require assistance?”

Eun-Kyung's life scan did not detect the 'insects' but it did detect a number of life forms around the general area. Including a group of four Yamataians approaching from south of the shuttle.

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The Tansaku began rotating slowly on gravitics only, it then began moving towards a new position. When it had moved about 300 meters, it settled back down on the prominence top of a large stone surface that protruded several meters above the grass.

"Genus to Star Army Personnel, please secure the hatches and proceed to the medical bay. " came the MEGAMI's voice over the comm.

Eun-Kyung reacted to the scan return immediately, turning toward the south and raising her weapon, the phased pulse rifle now set to stun.

“Shina, O'Kutsuu; out here now! Four contacts, Yamataians, moving in from the south. I want weapons up on the double.”

She shifted back, trying to put some of the shuttle between her and the approaching contacts while keeping her line of fire clear. At the same time she refocused her sensors, this time doing a full-spectrum sweep for any energy signatures or other signs of weapons.

"Negative, Ma'am." Arkase said. He was eager to get it over with.

"ASINE-HEI, TROWA-HEI!" He roared "GET IN HERE BEFORE IT MOVES AGAIN!"

He wouldn't wait for them much longer.

Kame, *mumbled* to herself at she securing the teleporter. She was frustrated at mainly things from missing the first blue bug while she searched her pack to losing sight of the second bug, which she had just managed to fire upon just moment before Eun-Kyung. Needless to say, she was startled slightly and immediately tried to focus on the task at hand.

Of course, the main thing she was that every time, she tried to speak up and mention their options for getting rid of the bugs and salvaging the delegate.

Earlier she had removed very specific panels about two meters from section the bug had gone in. When Kame-san caught the smoke, she quickly had realized, that the engine did not respond to her electronic pads commands; therefore, she immediately ran to pull the fuse to the engines power and nearby hemosynthetic lines. Returning to her original work, she then had taken the fire extinguisher (Foam, Class D) and hooked it up next to the exposed hemosynthetic conduit and coolant lines, using a bifurcated Y-hose to connect to the air duct and along the conduit lines at the same time. By depressing the switch with a wrench and sealing back the exposed panel as best she could, she had created a seal chamber that was rapidly flooding with foam a rushing toward where the bug had come. In theory, the foam would appear like a rushing wall of 35-mph Molasses Disaster of Ancient Nep Legend. In her opinion, the flooding option was one of three solutions they had to deal with and exterminate the bug. However, had she had a chance to mention this? No.

In fact, she had quietly started to say, "I know they were dangerous... becau--;" but quickly realized that the returned Shoi (re-Shoi), was too busy coordinating with the other team. With a frustrated visage and a sigh, she attached her P3000, made sure it was charging. In the mean time she went back to wait for the bug to scurry out with a cocked NSP ready to meet it. In the mean time she pulled out a smoke grenade attached a piece of wire to the string, to prepare to for option 2, fumigation.
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After a few minutes, she glanced at Kim-san, who still seems very irate at the earlier bug botch. Nonetheless, she attempted again to broach the subject that they could probably get rid of the bugs, "Umm.. Kim-san..." Yet she was immediately interrupted again by the Shoi's announcement of aggressive Yamataians.

By this time Kame, had had enough as she replace her pistol with her sniper rifle. "Wait!" she snapped. She immediately removed the panel and retrieved the now ¾-full fire extinguisher. "Kim-san, I am fumigating. Seal the doors on your way out." Then, Kame quickly threw the smoke grenade into open section and dashed outside.


Going prone, "It’s clear from the smoke earlier that these beetles both eat at and take over electrical systems!" Kame line up and fired a warning shot just near an inch from grazing the right knee of who she assumed the leader. "Halt, hands in the air!" She yelled at the four Yamataian as she lined up for their heart.
"However, umm... I think... that the fire extinguishers insulative foam property should disable them... or at least prevent them from interfering with electrical systems."

While it didn't seem to have scared the bug (yet), Kame knew that the foam had dealt with one immediate problem preventing of further damage to the ship. She was waiting for Kim-san to come outside, so she could pull the pin as she sealed the doors. From listening to come traffic she had her suspicions that these insects if they where unprotected, could hack into a neko's electrical nervous system. On regular Yamataians or cyborgs, who knows what it could do.

"Another warning shot? Alternatively, do I have permission to actually attempt to hit them!?“ Kame finished, leaving out the implied fact that she probably though these where the guys responsible for shooting them down, if the Away Team had not taken care of them.

“CHECK FIRE!” screamed Eun-Kyung over local comms. She broke cover, vaulting the prone technician as her armored boot stretched out to kick the sniper rifle away. “What is wrong with you?! I said weapons up, not weapons free!”

She glanced back briefly at the shuttle, hoping Shina would come out and provide some more – and more predictable – support, but couldn't tell if she'd been caught up in whatever O'Kutsuu had been doing in there. Still, there was nothing for it at this point. The contacts were certainly aware of their presence and position now, so, keeping her weapon trained toward the south, she activated her armor's external speakers.

“You there,” she called out, voice amplified several-fold. “Identify yourselves.”

Kame was shocked that Eun-Kyung had kicked her gun, as if she wasn't help at all. She sniffed as she check her poor Atromos making sure it was ok, then stared at Shoi with slightly watery puppy eyes.

I-I cannot believe she didn't listen to a word I said. I mean I was only try to help. Maybe firing a warning shot and tell them to stop wasn't the good idea, but still...

However, realizing they a mission at hand Kame quickly composed her self after a few seconds, then took cover by a nearby rock. She then cocked her sniper rifle an realigned does this time she was aiming for right-most Yamataians head.

She was also waiting for Kim-san to exit the shuttle so she could fumigate.

Kim powered down the main systems and came scrambling out of the T7 and leaped onto the top of the shuttle to give her a better field of fire. She brought her LASR around and switched it to semi-auto, while activating her left forearm shield for extra defense. "Ready-Shoi, where are the hostiles." she asked as she looked around and did not see anyone in immediate sight.

Eun-Kyung backed up toward her cover position behind the shuttle.

“There are no hostiles, yet,” she replied. “My scans show four Yamataians to the south, but they're just contacts for the moment.”

While speaking she reconfigured her systems to push out another life-signs scan, hoping to get a better tactical picture, or tell whether one of the Yamataians had actually been hit.

“For now just take cover and watch the south. We've had no incoming fire and no identifying information. And we're definitely not going to fire blind at non-hostile unknowns,” she said, with a particular lack of subtlety.