RP: YSS Miharu Mission 3: The sound of machina

Rin touched down lightly on Hoshi, and gingerly handed the former prisoner to another sprite for medical treatment. She sighed, that burden taken care of, before she turned to head back to help the other prisoners. The armor took off and went back down into the complex.

Kel said:

Miyoko nodded thoughtfully at Yukari's suggestion as she listened, stealing the occasional glance at the sensor displays as she did so--the Miharu was supposed to audibly inform her if the probe array detected anything, but checking for herself gave her peace of mind. "Well, it sounds like that could certainly cut down our reaction times, which I agree is desireable... but are you intending for me to transfer into an NH-29 body to have a SPINE interface, or would that just be for your own transmission?"

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Yukari nodded. "My own transmission. For you, we would need a device similar to the helmet of a Daisy armor ... "

The Shosa brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Such a thing could be fabricated quickly, if we were not using the rooms to help with parts manufacturing. Shimatta, I did not think of that until now." Her eyes started to stare through the display. "When the next gap in construction time occurs, perhaps we can try it. Would a headset design work best ... perhaps something similar to your headband?"

Kotori glanced beyond her own display to give Yukari a mildly exasperated look. "Shosa, I can relate with what you are trying to do... but telepathic messages can be delivered in an eyeblink, and are a lot faster than speech. You probably don't need to go through the bother of going through SPINE or wearing special helmets on the bridge, so much as simply get organized - which I do think is a good idea. It would've helped back when we were fighting Mishhu in Tsuyosa."

Tom rushed back with Rin as well, picking up the final round of prisoners and returning them to the extraction point.

What awaited them in the Hoshi's medlab was like a MASH unit: people, injured, were milling about helping those who couldn't move. The single doctor, Sora, was rushing, overworked but determinedly multitasking treatments. The arrival of Sanjuro would do much to relieve the pressure from the princess, but Tom felt helpless in the face of such carnage.

Still, he wanted to do anything he could to help them. As the caretaker of the Miharu, it was his responsibility to ensure the comfort of the crew.

He shook his armored head. Even if the supplies were available, bringing cups of water and pillows to the injured would be like trying to douse a wildfire with an ice cube. His services and the services of the engineering crew were best suited to the next task Nyton gave him: restoring the Sekkou to operational status.

Taking a moment to compose himself, he cleared his throat.

"Any of you," he began, able to read the names above the prisoner's heads, but not aware of their previous duties, "with engineering experience... I need information regarding the other ship's particular quirks that will assist me and my engineering team in making it operational."

Yoroko listened to the adjusted plan and readied herself. As she rechecked her LASR ammo capacity the Heisho clicked on her DAISY's active camo. "Ready." Yoroko called out over the team channel. It's different, but it makes sense. Give them a reason to live and they wi- A separate thought ran through Yoroko's mind just as she thought about how it would roll. "Sir, what if they leave some units in the armory?" Yoroko asked.

Kai went over the new plan, somewhat annoyed at having to learn a new one, but glad that it was a better plan. He set the Thermoptic camouflage to on and waited for the call to go, still ready for before. "So, We gonna go soon or just stand here contemplating the plans?" the Yamataian sent Telepathically to Yoroko.

Wazu had brushed aside medical treatment for the time being. There wasn’t much room for him amongst those that were far more heavily injured. When he heard the call for those with engineering experience he raised his hand.

“What is wrong with your ship?”

Of course he still had other questions, he needed to talk to their CO and still needed to establish a picture of what had been going on in the facility on this planet as well as what ships had been in and out of the system. Though it seemed that would have to wait, again.

Upon seeing Tom stay back, Rin flailed about in the air slightly before she went back to the Hoshi sheepishly. She touched back down and waited in the bays for further instructions. Looking about, the sprite took this moment to finally relax. The former prisoners were being cared for, and she wasn't part of the assault team that had to worry about being shot at. So, compared to earlier bits of the mission, this was relatively calm.

Miyoko nodded along with Kotori's statement. "Making use of telepathy would also allow us to pass things like visual diagrams around mentally." She hesitated for a moment before adding, "I'll admit, I usually prefer to have something physical to deal with, but I think our survival takes precedent over my preferences."

It was, for the time being, remarkably calm in the main engineering space aboard the Miharu.

There were a lot of repairs to be done, and there were enough hands to do them, but the whole group was stuck waiting sensibly on the armor restoration drones to complete their work. That included Yuzuki. She stood, instead, in the middle of the engineering main control room, staring at the bulkhead in the silence. Three sprites were already monitoring the ship systems. Now, she monitored them.

Fixing the bays had been a conveniant excuse to be alone at the time, only because it was quite impossible with the current state of affairs. The young engineer would only be able to throw together patches, anyway - all of the power supply systems and piping runs that ran through the bay were compromised beyond the point of any feasible recovery. The ship was already automatically compensating by remotely closing those runs off, shutting valves and using backup feeds.

It could take care of itself, more or less, for now. Yuzuki was staring at the wall, finding it somewhat difficult to pay attention to the large displays completely. That was what the sprites monitoring them were for. Instead, Yuzuki was thinking.

About what? Well, that was a problem. There was really a lot to think about, but her mental processes had thrown up their arms and quit on her.

When the repair team from the portside gravimetric engine rolled in, they looked haggered. There was nothing else that needed a full repair team going on in the ship, so Yuzuki allowed them to rest for the time being. She didn't know that she had the authority to do that, but if not her, who? Everyone else was gone with the Hoshi.

The engineering main control was not a break room, but it served well enough for the sprites, who, knowing no other way of life, were perfectly comfortable cramped. They took out some of the larger damage control equipment and made chairs of it, sitting and talking quietly amongst themselves.

Someone brought her a stool made out of an overturned bucket, so Yuzuki sat instead of stood.

Eventually, one of the sprites from the repair team tapped her on the shoulder. Looking up, Yuzuki could see that the suit belonged to the sprite she had left in charge of the repair team.

"Ozuno-san?"

"Some of us were wondering what happened to Junko-san."

Yuzuki would have put a hand over her own mouth in a silent expression of worry, if she had not been wearing a helmet. Instead, she clasp her hands together and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, pretending for a moment that she was paying attention to the three sprites in front of her monitoring the huge displays.

"Shosa-san took her to medical," she said, steadily.

"Is she going to be all right?"

"I think she's being reconstructed."

"Reconstructed?"

Yuzuki couldn't see the expression on the sprite's face, but she imagined it was puzzlement. There was something she suddenly couldn't bear in the innocent lack of comprehension. There was something profane about it.

"She got killed," Yuzuki snapped, "An exaust pipe ruptured, she got cut open by high-pressure steam, and then she died. They will fix her body or make another one, and then she'll be fine. Do you understand?"

"Oh." The sprite shifted uneasily under the weight of Yuzuki's anger.

Yuzuki looked back to the huge overhead displays in the engineering space, trying not to look at the sprites behind her or the confused Ozuno. She was thankful when Ozuno returned to the small cluster of sprites in the corner and left her alone to glare uselessly at the displays she wasn't exactly paying attention to.

Her mental facilities were still out of commission for the time being, and she forcibly ignored the ideas and reasoning they were putting out at the moment. There wasn't any sense thinking about something like this. All she needed - all she wanted - was some time. Then she could start thinking straight, again. Then, everything would be alright.

Yuzuki wished suddenly to feel the Shosa's hands, again, comforting her - cooling the burns, taking away her pain. She tried for a few moments to go back to that feeling of calm, attempted to recapture what it felt like for another being to be so close to her. It was something she had never felt before, and she found herself wishing to reclaim that feeling of closeness and understanding. A part of her - a surprisingly large part of her - wanted fiercely to be back in the decon room. Much to her own surprise, Yuzuki immediately felt as if the officer were there at her shoulder, again. Half unbelieving, she reached up and carefully took hold of the ghost-hand.

"Yuzuki-san?"

The engineer released the hand she had grabbed immediately and looked up at the AMES-clad Ozuno.

"I had an ask around," the sprite said, cautiously, "With your permission, we want to go visit Junko-san."

In Hoshi's medlab, one of the nekos with 'Shouko' written over her head as Tom spoke, looked dully as Wazu tried to inquire about the said 'ship' and gave a look around before she gave a groan and stood up.

The pale, haggard neko with disheveled brown hair shuffled toward Tom's Daisy and said: "I'm the highest ranking technical sentry left in Sekkou's crew. Our ship is still around?"

'Shouko' didn't have a rank pin on her black ops uniform anymore, so Tom couldn't really tell her rank.

At about this time, a nekovalkyrja rushed by Tom's Daisy power armor in the door's threshold with purposeful strides, a datapad in hand. What was immediately striking about her was her long, almost feathery-looking white hair, pale complexion and silver-grey eyes. If any neko in the room could inspire 'moe' cuteness overload in the room, it was her.

Of more immediate usefulness to onlooker like Wazu, though, was the orange-paneled uniform that declared her as a sprite, and the ship patch which displayed an unfamiliar ship silhouette, but the much more revealing lettering 'YSS Miharu' also with a registry number affiliating it to Yui's First Expeditionary Fleet.

"Ketsurui-Shoi, I've run an analysis on the experimental Black Spiral grenades and-" Hinoto interrupted herself and turned a wide-eyed stare on Wazu, the sort of astounded look people reserved for when they saw either a ghost or a three-headed dog. "Heram Wazu," the sprite declared quietly, as if it was significant.

* * *

Down at basement 4, Nimura activated her Daisy power armor's thermo-optical camouflage, its blue-gray paintjob desaturating until the M6 power armor reached transparency. She then floated out in the vertical passageway and began floating down silently.

"Oh well," Mara gave a little sigh and had her power armor do the same and followed after Nimura, bidding the others in the assault team to "be vewwy, vewwy quiet".

* * *

In Miharu's bridge, Kotori gave her armrest a light tap, as if she had just decided something out of the sudden and stood up, the volumetric window whom had been orbiting her all neatly minimizing out of sight before her SPINE connection was broken. "You two keep at it. We might see combat before long, so getting organized like that is certainly not a waste of time. Shosa, you have the bridge."

The Taisa left the monitor room. Almost immediately when she left the chamber, on the level where the two adjoining escape pod access were, she immediately noticed how the ship's life support system had been minimized: her breath immediately began misting in the dry cold.

Kotori floated to the hatch closing off the main passageway and opened it, an atmospheric retaining forcefield springing to life, hinting that life support was being entirely inactive beyond. She closed her eyes, let out her breath entirely and pushed through.

The cold wasn't nearly as bad as she had expected, so the humidity on her body fortunately did not start rimming her with frost. relying on her facial skin-vision instead of her more vulnerable eyes, she guided herself downward to the main deck and worked to open the bow-side hatch.

Miharu's medical center was just slightly ahead. Kotori came through another atmospheric screen. Once she had air to speak she took in a greedy breath and asked: "Miharu, is life support down everywhere?"

"Not everywhere," the ship computer's disembodied voice returned. "More like minimalized or not maintained in most spaces, which has conditions degrade from the usual. I felt the Shosa lowered the settings for power consumption purposes, rather than to protect further against decompression. The rest are up contextually, like the vicinity of the bridge and sensor dome, and the observation deck."

"Can't have plants dying from the cold?" Kotori quipped, smiling slightly.

"Indeed."

"What about the breached cargo hold?" The Taisa asked as she reached the medical center's door and toggled it open.

"Life sustaining systems are down, with the appropriate forcefields in place," Miharu replied. Kotori nodded, though then went silent as she walked in and headed for the hemosynth tank that now held Junko's inanimate body.

One four-fingered hand came up to touch the transparent durandium casing of the container, with the surface being body temperature warm... something which was mildly surprising to Kotori seeing her trek down and her expectations at coming to see a corpse.

A corpse, but not the only one, she thought grimly, leaning forward to rest her forehead against the tank's transparent surface, beyond which red-tinted fluids roiled as they effected reconstruction on the NH-29 body inside. The Uriko sprite pilot died. I didn't even know her name - we just made her for the occasion and sent her to fight.

Thinking of Hoshi, of the people Nyton was leading into danger for her, especially considering the inner demon one of them - Tom - carried with him, made her chest ache. It was the hardest part she found of being in a commanding position: sending people at risk while she remained someplace safer, supervising their operations, instead of trying to more directly help them succeed.

"I'm sorry," she told Junko, though the words weren't only meant for the deceased sprite.

For the moment Wazu had to assume that Orange was some sort of work suit color rather than a ranking indicator. He was not up to speed on the current color coordination of the SAoY as the last time he had been on one of their ships orange wasn’t even used.

He did see the patch though; figuring the ship he was on was named Miharu… probably. What was more of an interest to him was the big arrow shaped bit on the patch that he didn’t recognize. His first thought was that they were trying to fix a ship that had more than half of its mass blown off. He clearly recognized the bottom ‘end’ of the ship on the patch which resembled the ship he had just entered but he had not seen the top bit anywhere. To him something did not quite add up right with that line of thinking. This person clearly belonged on this ship, this ship was clearly of the class that was on her patch, and this ship was clearly missing a good portion of itself. There was not enough battle damage on the exterior to imply a hit of such magnitude to rip off more than half the ship so it was safer to assume that the ship detached into multiple parts. This in turn meant that there were likely more combat ships in orbit or at least nearby in astronomical terms. But that did not really matter to him for the time being.

There was also the matter of the registry number, but without knowing the current Yamatai numbering system and without a working data pad to reference it all he could do was keep it in memory to look up later.

Then he heard what Hinoto said,

"Heram Wazu,"

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His heart sank for a moment, things had been going so well.

It was likely she knew Wazu’s name and face through his involvement with the second incarnation of the 4th fleet. He left the fleet, earning a dishonorable discharge in the process, shortly after his mother was assassinated. While trying to help the Qel’norans gain their independence of the Yamatai Empire Wazu earned a reputation in Yamatai as perhaps one of its greatest traitors. Even recently he worked to bring the Freespacers closer to Nepleslia, playing a part in keeping the majority of their number out of reach of Yamatai’s attack forces.

Although this person clearly had some sort of tech experience, so she could know his name from that instead. Wazu designed the original SS pod that has saved countless lives and is used still in most KFY starships. Nearly all KFY starships still have something taken or derived from his time at QIS. He was also a major player in the development and creation of Nepleslia’s infrastructure and space forces among other things.

Right now he needed to think of a way to mitigate the information that was likely to follow. He quickly thought of people he knew, what they would do in this situation, how to best control the events that would occur next. Moments after Hinoto said his name he took a step towards her and put a hand on her shoulder, giving his best smile.

“We can worry about that later, what needs to be fixed?”

Either way it was very likely that in the next minute or two he would end up shot through the head or tossed into this ship’s brig. He couldn’t help but think this would be far easier if he was in a female body. . .

The engineers filed into the medical bay as a group.

When the full seven or eight of them were inside, the door closed behind them. They stood carefully attentive when they noticed the white paneled Kotori. Most of them had never seen an officer in their lives, and one of them appearing so unexpectedly was enough to cause the normally talkative group to quiet down of its own accord. Perhaps unconsciously, the group shifted into something that resembled column and file.

Yuzuki, without really meaning to, somehow gravitated to the front. It wasn't that she'd stepped forward, it was that everyone else had strategically positioned themselves behind her. Trying not to give in to the butterflies in her own stomach, she removed her helmet and the others followed, as if the very act of following someone else made some of the dots connect, and the world a better place for it. Yuzuki had only addressed the captain of the Miharu upon one occasion, and it had been out of careless ignorance. She did not want to make the same mistake again, so she remained silent, and motioned to the rest of them to do so as well, even though it didn't seem as if it were necessary.

The little group's AMES all bore the telltale hints of their trade. Most of them had been discolored by a brush with one pipe or another, a few of them had little black dimples all over their arms, from where they had caught the highly dangerous sparks from their high-powered welders. At least one of them had a suspicious dint in their helmet, probably from another near-mishap within the gravimetric array. The only one of them without a visible stain was Yuzuki herself, but her expression showed the damage well enough. Nobody was smiling. Some of them had finally looked past the captain to the body in the tank. And they stared.

Yuzuki herself looked away after a few moments, feeling the icy twinge of terror crawling up her spine again. She tried to fight it back, but the sight of Junko in the tank was making her want to throw up, and her legs suddenly felt too weak to support her own weight.

But she stood, anyway.

'What are we supposed to do?'

Out of the corner of her eye, Yuzuki caught Ozuno looking at her. She had never seen Ozuno without her helmet - or any of the other sprites, for that matter. Yuzuki lingered for a few moments on the vision of the green-haired, blue-eyed sprite, who returned her interest, though with more animate eyes. The girl seemed to be trying to wrest an answer from Yuzuki, just by following her expression.

'Wait,' Yuzuki concluded, finally. 'Ketsurui-Taisa was here, before us.'

Hinoto's silver eyes reflected uncertainty as she beheld Wazu, until she made a step back to slide beyond the reach of his hand. The sprite bent her head forward respectfully a moment before addressing him: "I am Miharu Hinoto, sprite avatar of this vessel. Upon my effective rank of Taii, I grant you - Heram Wazu - diplomatic immunity as a representative of the Democratic Imperium of Nepleslia, and do so until your circumstances might be examined by my Commanding Officer."

"I am in charge of Mission Operations for this mission," Hinoto then relayed to him. "I intend that you come with me. Will you comply?"

* * *

Kotori straightened her head and turned as the rustle of the sprites coming in and removing their helmets. One hand moved to coax some of the inky curtain of hair which had spilled over her shoulder back as she looked at the eight sprites, her amber eyes iridescently catching the light.

With muted thumps of her boots, the Taisa walked halfway to the sprite. Her wandering eyes eventually settled on Yuzuki. "Do you have a report for me?" she asked, offering a way to break the awkward silence.

"Hai, Taisa-sama," Yuzuki answered, meeting the Taisa's eyes and instinctively straightening her posture a little bit. It was hard to tell if she were being brazen, or scared. She couldn't even honestly tell, herself. The Taisa seemed so nonchalant and unmoved, to the young engineer. Her calmness in the face of death was unnerving.

"We have managed to bring the damage to the portside gravimetric engine under control, and have restored the system to normal operating perameters. It is ready for use, but will require further maintenance once we're in drydock."

It would also have to be decontaminated. So far as she knew, nobody had been back there since it had been patched over. The thought made her concentration waver, slightly, but she pressed on, anyway.

"Maya-san, Kinu-san, and Nao-san are monitoring the engineering control station, with Tori-san standing in as the senior engineer. We are waiting for the armor around the multifunction bay to be more completely repaired before we begin reconnecting all the transfers that were severed, but..."

She glanced to the tank, then away, breaking eye contact.

"They..." she stumbled on, "I mean, we wanted to..."

Her swallow might as well have been audible. She bowed low, suddenly. You couldn't go wrong, bowing. Especially in front of a Taisa. Especially in front of a Ketsurui.

"I thought they needed to see, Taisa-sama. If you wish, we can return to our post."

Kotori gave a slight wince at the offer. "No, not immediately. It is fine." She took a few steps closer to the sprites and then quietly asked: "Was it hard?"

A gesture of disrespect, followed by a bow… What was Wazu supposed to think of that? His mind was racing to try and sort out this sprite’s attitude towards him. That is when it hit him ‘sprite…’ she had been created by the ship’s computer. Undoubtedly a Megami or a similar type system. Those particular computers probably weren’t to fond of Wazu. He had never had an issue working with them in the past, though he wondered how much information they passed between themselves. His first injury sustained onboard a SAoY ship was from an avatar after he accidentally raped the GSS Yui’s computer system as he had no idea that the computer would react negatively to him directly accessing sensor data.

‘Back to mitigation…’ he thought to himself. So far had not been shot and it would be best to try and keep it that way.

“Well then,” Wazu replied, putting his hand back by his side while trying his best to keep his smile from turning to a look of regret, “As a representative of the Democratic Imperium of Nepleslia I will be on my best behavior. I’ll comply with your requests.”

"Please follow me," Hinoto replied, apparently giving up on handing the datapad she had to the red-haired nekovalkyrja medical officer (whom was impressively busty). The snow-haired sprite walked out of the medical lab and followed the left-side wall up to a door that she toggled open.

The sliding aperture revealed a command center that was surprisingly spacious for such a small ship, though the number of stations was actually less than on Yui-class destroyers.

"Please be seated," Hinoto instructed him, waving to a black leather-covered bench at the rear of the elevated portion of the bridge as she got herself seated on what was probably the command seat - facing a console that made a half-circle in front of it.

Wazu complied, sitting down where instructed and crossing his hands in his lap as he waited for something else to happen.

Having gone this long without having been shot made death seem like a more remote possibility. It was unlikely that she would have to ask for permission to shoot someone. He closed his eyes for a bit and focused on what he needed to do in order to give himself the best possible outcome. This included small things like trying to memorize the path they had taken to this room, the exits from this room, the location of any equipment he might have seen on the way to this room, the layout of the consoles, what the controls did, the location of any power outlets or data transfer systems, even the styling of the room and possible layouts of the power systems inside of the walls. All of it would need to be committed to memory as much as possible.

Now if he could just shake the feeling that he had been called into the principal’s office for doing something wrong...

Several minimized volumetric windows sprang to life before Hinoto as she sat at the command console. One display Wazu recognized as a detailed sensor overview of the hangar area, where both Hoshi and the Sekkou were represented along with lifesigns and energy signature (most were labeled by codenames inspired from black chess pieces and numerals, from what he saw).

Another display showed a wireframe isometric view of what he guessed was the complex he was imprisoned in. Apparently, he was on a planet, with the said complex being built within the mountain-face and its operations fueled by a geothermal power plant. Though there were energy and lifesign readings pictures, that display seemed to report them in a much more erratic fashion, as if there was a good deal of sensor 'noise' involved. Probably electronic warfare at work.

Yet another display seemed to be a collage of silhouette diagrams and readings on twelve power armors, most the dumbed-down ground infantry armor that was tagged as the "Daisy". There seemed to be one of the new second generation Mindy power armors in operation as well.

Another display pertained the activity of "Y.A.R.D. units" in relation to hull repair, showing the "Hoshi" (he was fairly sure by then it was the designation of the 'chunk of a ship' he was in) displayed with diverse parts of its armor represented in shades of greens, light greens, yellows, oranges and reds. There was a good share of yellow and orange on the dorsal side and rear of the craft, with 5 target points (mobile weapon pod-like discoids he had seen floating around earlier?) apparently slowly improving... if he read that diagram right.

The white-haired sprite seemed to be paying attention to the isometric map of the complex, frowned and lightly tapped the display of one of the Daisy power armors, bringing up a man's face. "Taii, make sure your units have their sensors in passive mode. It'll make you harder to detect if the nekomachina have sensory input more advanced than a nekovalkyrja."

That done, she pushed the window aside and swiveled on her seat to face Wazu. "I need you to provide me with a brief and concise explanation of the reason for why you have been found as a captive here, as well as anything you know on the hostiles we face in this complex."