RP: YSS Miharu Mission 3: The sound of machina

Kyoki said:

"Ano..." she searched for the name, "Ketsurui-Shoi." The sprite bowed politely, though a bit hurriedly. "Freeman-Juni requests that crew members of the Sekkou, that are able to, return to their ship. Also, he would like me to note that the medical facilities aboard that ship are available and functioning as well. Etto... I think that was it...." Rin waited, just in case the Shoi had to ask about anything for clarification.

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Sora turned to Rin and nodded, "Of course, we'll send them back as soon as possible. We'll see if we can get some more hands onto the Sekkou to manage any incoming casualties, thank you, Rin-chan," the young Shoi replied with a soft smile. She tried to think if she had any questions for the sprite before looking to Sanjuro again.

"Who can we spare to send over to the Sekkou? Do we have any of their medics?" She asked after a few moments of thoughtful consideration, disliking the idea of spreading her people out across multiple ships but compromising to the idea that they needed to spread out for better coverage.

"Ah... you're welcome, Ketsurui-shoi..? -Hime?" Rin bumbled a bit. "Etto, shitsureishimasu kudasai. If you need me, just ask." She bowed, before she turned to head out. She exited the Hoshi and stopped by the elevator shaft. With her LASR drawn, the sprite nervously took up her position as the look out.

Sumaru stood in the middle of the destruction, the visor of his Mindy II swept the ground below checking the condition of his opponents. Satisfied with the results, the samurai swung his honor blade to his side, flicking off the fluids that ran through the mechanical creatures. Then in a fluid motion, his blade was once again sheathed-- he had drawn his blood. Then, with a simple mental command the remnants of his damaged weaponry fell from the ports and dropped to the pile of scrap on the floor.

The white armored samurai moved across the floor and knelt down beside Takuma. He scanned the damage to the Yamataian's arm before speaking, and was glad to see that the wound had been cauterized at least. The blue glowing visor rose up to meet with Takuma's, Sumaru then went to reassure him, "you were more useful then you think. I have you to thank that we made it through. But we will have to celebrate later, do you wish to return to the ship-- or can you continue?"

Then while he spoke with Takuma, he was already texting the results to the field commander. Nyton would then receive a combination of their status, including Kimura-Heisho's injuries, and a text from Sumaru.

Fr: Hasegawa-Juni said:

All targets eliminated.

Awaiting further orders, be advised I have a teleportation charge remaining and can be anywhere within the moment.

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During this time, Sumaru's subconscious lined up with his armor's AIES as they began tallying up supplies, and recharging all his systems. Systematically the two bioelectronic entities were already preparing for the next skirmish. Being a veteran of many conflicts, the pilot knew not to stop and celebrate every win until the battle was over. At the same time he could feel something deep within, the reason he was here-- inside he felt the yearning to hear Sora's praise. He just wanted her to be happy with him; after all he's done for her.

But now was not the time for this, he cleared his mind and glanced back at the Aoiko and Ichigo. He nodded his head to them, and gestured for them to come over. 'If he can't go on, will one of you escort him back to the ship?' Sumaru asked telepathically to the both of them, keeping the conversation out of Takuma's ears for the moment being.

AIES alerted Nyton to the multiple points of interest at once. The battle on the fourth floor had concluded and with no casualties save Takuma's arm. He would be incapacitated for some time. Now Nimura was chasing after a stray nekomachina further below them.

"Bishop Leader, since when do nekomachina flee?"

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Which was exactly what Nyton saw wrong with the picture. "Nimura, direct order, do NOT pursue! It's leading you into a trap!" he communicated immediately on the open team channel. At the same time he sent a text message to Sumaru.

Grab Takuma's bazooka and home in on Nimura's position! She's being led into an ambush. Get down there now!

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Nyton messaged simultaneously, sending AIES assisted information via Yoroko's drones which were already at Nimura's position.

Another message, this time to Hinoto was sent out as well to try and get a grip on the situation another way.

Hinoto, can you override her suit via AIES in time to prevent her from going any farther? Not shut her down but just lock it up before she gets to the stairway? We need to leash her back without cripple her so that she can still defend herself if she is attacked.

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Wordlessly at first for there was urgency afoot, Nyton motioned for the three members present to follow him before he started to fly down as fast as possible. Using the shared comm link between Assault and Support teams he elaborated the details. "Aoiko, Ichigo, get Takuma up to medical. Nakamura, Mizuno, Mara, full hustle to Nimura's position." he said. While doing so he began to scan further down into the complex ahead of Nimura to see where exactly she was going. With the Canceller's interference no longer an issue he pushed the sensors fully active as far as he could to get immediate battle awareness of the base's layout. The armory level was still being marked with a precaution to prevent anyone else who may have missed the previous warning from getting caught by the last of the defenders there. Undoubtedly there was more enemy presence deeper below them. Perhaps this time it would be the ones who actually controlled the nekomachina.

Down on the seventh level of the underground complex, Nimura immediately skidded to an halt upon Nyton's order, spun around and started running back toward the rest of the Bishop group.

Too late, though, did they realize that Nimura hadn't actually been the one to be baited, but Nyton's group. Just as Nyton coaxed the three others with him to sped down and that above Aoiko and Ichigo emerged with Takuma from the power monitoring room, the nekomachina guarding the armory door burst out from behind their sandbags, their wall-plugged energy cannons apparently having a cable length good enough for them to be able to hold them while in the vertical passageway. The only warning they got was sandbags falling around them along with Hinoto yelling something to Sumaru about the armory and coordinates, but too little too late. They attacked.

A coruscating beam speared between Mara's legs - the attack overwhelming her recharging energy barrier and the blast wide enough to wither both legs away at mid-thigh. The sprite screeched in pain over the commline, her downward flight suddenly zigzagging her to meet the side of the gravity elevator in an unpleasant smack before she dropped down in freefall.

Ichigo heard Mara cry out and had the providence to act quickly enough to smash Takuma and Aoiko out of the way of an attack coming at them. She, however, was partly clipped by it - her own pristine barrier reserves saving her from being flat out destroyed by the attack, though she lost an arm and a leg to it with her torso armor all but ruined. "Flee!" Ichigo cried hoarsely at Aioko and Takuma, both now blood-splattered from the damage done to Ichigo's Daisy.

The last two nekomachina hadn't fired yet, being delayed by shouldering out of their way the sandbags. One aimed up at the reeling Ichigo, intending to finish her off, while the other got her sights on Kai.

Kai hadn't had time to slow down much from his blasting out through the passageway, and decided that speed would continue to serve him well, but this time in a different direction. Having been shooting upwards, placed as if his feet were on a floor, He veered first Backwards then to one side, trying to fly erratically while bringing his LASR to bear, and opening fire on the enemy. His forearm shield swung around to better protect him, and he checked his unfortunately recovering shields, annoyed they weren't full. As if it could help, Kai's right forearm weapon popped up and began blasting at the Nekomachina in front of him, hopefully Augmenting the AIES-assisted LASR shots.

Wazu patiently waited some more while Hinoto spoke with whomever was on the other end of her current communication channel. When he had an opening he spoke up again,

“I am looking for a sprite whom I can understand.” He said, “As a person you sound typical but as a computer avatar you sound odd.”

Rin cringed at the audio from below. "Onee-chan!" She stood completely still, torn as to what to do. Yes, she was ordered to stay and she was frightened to want to know what horrors were going on below. But, on the other hand, her sisters were in trouble and she felt she had to help.

"Please don't die...." She said to herself, not wanting to clog the comms, as she paced back and forth nervously and worriedly.

Yoroko had been about to move when she suddenly all the blips indicating the nekomachina that were converging on Sumaru and Takuma disappeared. Just as she turned to help Mara all hell broke loose. Trying to to waste any time Yoroko did a 180 and jumped into the shaft facing up at the machine attackers launching countermeasures as she did so. Her hope was that the countermeasures would obscure the field of vision of the machines. Using her gravity manipulation Yoroko leveled herself out before launching all 3 of her SLAG rounds at the attackers. If she was lucky it would either destroy them or disable their aetheric weapons by breaking the cable.

Damn it all to hell. was Nyton's thought as his AIES suddenly alerted him to the trap. Kai and Yoroko were already opening fire on the attackers which was good. Their fire should keep them busy long enough but there was also the matter of Mara's freefall and Ichigo's serious condition.

"Keep a steady stream of fire! I've got Mara!" Nyton shouted on the shared comm channel.

At the same time he sent a text message to Sumaru, hoping it would reach him fast enough and circumventing the time it would take for him to shout anything.

Protect Ichigo!

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The message came with live feed and map data so that he wasn't just leaping in there blindly while a nekomachina was firing at her. Hopefully Sumaru's Wish was still in operable condition to move fast enough, maybe even grab onto her and teleport her to safety. Nyton really couldn't think this one straight through since during all this he was already moving to save Mara from crashing at the bottom and suffering further possibly fatal injury. He just hoped Sumaru could figure out what to do and proceed from there successfully.

Along with the orders, Nyton fired five of his missles at the enemy defenders. Thinking like Yoroko, he hoped the explosions would disable the power cables to the weapons. Performing a high speed flip Nyton launched the missles while his legs were bent at the knees and facing up. During this flip he passed his LASR from his VAW hand to his shield hand. AIES would guide the missles and they were set to detonate upon proximity inside the armory floor's entrance where the enemy was shooting at them. Once the missles were fired Nyton dove straight down as though in free fall but allowing his gravity manipulators to push him down at high speed to try and catch up to Mara. Using his VAW once again he fired it out ahead of him to catch Mara, sending all four tendrils out to wrap around her and gently slow her down before retracting her back towards him. If it worked he would roll, bring her into his arms to hold onto her before continuing their descent down and into the seventh level where they would at least be out of the line of fire.

Sumaru was forced to make a quick decision, and against his better judgment of over taking the enemy while the others collected the wounded. He gave up his superior advantage of surprising the dug in nekomachina, instead he spun up his teleportation module and made a sudden dash to save Ichigo.

"Give me cover fire," he ordered over communications. The white knightly armor zipped forward with it's body parallel to the ground, going off the combined gravity manipulation of Sumaru's NH-27 Nekovalkyrja body and the Mindy II's own systems to propel it as fast as possible. Thus his profile was low, just enough for him to scoop up Ichigo in his arms and fly under the fire. The back of his mind, where his AIES resided, he ordered Wish to link up with the Hoshi and find a suitable location for him to teleport to and then lock in those destination coordinates.

Weaving through the cross fire, just as if he would in space Sumaru went to grab Ichigo. Then if successful he would activate his already charging teleport, and exit just outside of the ship. Relying on those coordinates to make him appear in a appropriate area where he wouldn't cause any damage to their personnel or operations.

Kai's speed served him well: the energy cannon aimed for him discharged, but had been a meter off target, instead slagging the metal covering of the gravity elevator. On the other hand, the wild maneuvers and most of the countermeasures Yoroko had launched made most of his shots miss wide - with his LASR's ammo magazine quickly running dry.

Fortunately, Yoroko seemed fine handling that end. Her three SLAG grenades arced over the now-relatively-flimsy sandbag barrier and detonated, the explosives shredding through the nekomachina and sending dust billowing all around. Nyton's missiles added to that seemed like overkill. Anothergood thing was that the armory's zesuaium doors were closed, so the explosions had little chance of triggering any sympathetic reactions from the ordonance stored within.

Unfortunately, that didn't quite get them all. Through the cover of the dust, one nekomachina leapt down and landed with a loud clang upon her power armor, its sudden weight momentariliy dragging her down. The machine's metallic surface was rent, with jagged pieces of shrapnel sticking out here and there, but its remaining red eyes glittered undaunted as it raised a steely fist and pummeled Yoroko on the side of her helmet.

The hit had her head twist to the side in a neck-wrenching manner. The nekomachina capitalized on that and grappled her head while both of them tumbled in midair, concealed if the wafting dust that billowed around from the explosion-ruptured sandbags, and it strained - hydraulics hissing and servos whirring. Alarms sounded in Yoroko's helmet as she saw her damage display show her helmet condition flicker from green to black, apparently undecided, with an additional warning that her helmet seal was on the edge of being compromised.

Either the thing was going to snap her neck where the Daisy's muscles were the weakest, or it was going to wrench the helmet off to strike at her unprotected head. Neither prospect looked good for her and with the both of them wrestling, neither Kai or Nyton would have a very clear shot on the enemy nekomachina.

On the bright side, Nyton had no problem catching up with Mara, whom seemed to be recovering from her momentary black out by the time he had touched down. Power armor footsteps over junk and debris announced Nimura's arrival by their side, and once Nimura raised her shield to ward away from falling debris, Mara clutched her more solidly against Nyton's torso and made a croaking protest: "Is this a trend, blowing my legs up everytime I get into a Daisy?!"

* * *

Sumaru made good speed, easily seizing Ichigo on his pass and then teleporting. Fortunately for them both, Ichigo's Daisy losing an armor and a leg as well as a sizeable portion of its torso armor along with Sumaru discarding most of his weapons made both their armor just barely clear the weight limit of the P2812 teleporter.

With a crackle and a flash, both appeared to Hoshi's port side, facing one of the opened launchbays. Sumaru noticed Aoiko and Takuma make their way up past Rin into the hangar, but a shudder from Ichigo quickly brought his attention to the wounded sprite.

The beam attack that had connected with her had cleanly nipped off her left leg, the left side of her hipbone, chewed through armor and flesh enough so that Sumaru could actually make out the bones of her ribcage in the charred flesh, and finally eaten though her leg shoulder.

She bled enough so that just having held her like that had ruined Wish's nearly-pristine white paint scheme with abstract dashes of crimson upon it. More importantly, though, every gulping breath Ichigo took in seemed to be like agony; if Sumaru had not been holding her, she'd probably had collapsed.

* * *

"Well then, understand that as a sprite, I am an individual, whom can also serve as a figurehead for the ship's computer," Hinoto explained to Wazu. "It does not mean I share all the amazing computing capabilities a quantum computer has on hand."

On that, Hinoto frowned at the unfolding situation and got to work trying to organize something more out of the unfolding chaos. Given her workload, she had no choice to resort to telepathy.

To Nyton and Tom first. "Bishop Leader, I can confirm the destruction of the three other hostiles by the armory. Aside from the one engaging Bishop 3, the only other contact I have is a sizeably large aether power supply running on the eight level - only it can't be the base's main power since it only looks large enough to power a shuttle. I suggest, with recent combat losses, that you consider folding the Rook group into the Bishop group to keep your combat strength up."

Then Sora and Sanjuro. "Medical, you have up to three wounded power armor pilots incoming and all include limb loss. Stand ready to receive."

Shit Kai thought, stuffing his empty LASR into his back holster and boosting towards Yoroko. Deftly he aimed himself at the Nekomachina and his squadmate, and tried to grab the robot, so as to pull it off. Barring that, he still had his forearm weapon drawn and would blow the machine's head off from point blank as soon as he had a chance. "Hang On there, Yoroko!" The Yamataian called, hoping he could arrive fast enough to be useful.

Doshii Jun said:

After the Taisa had left, Yukari frowned at herself. Kotori had been right; she was attempting to compensate for something that did not need compensating. Her eyes went to Miyoko as she straightened in her chair. Organization was necessary. Her style of flying did not lend itself to organization, but she did have some capacity for strategy.

The initial desire was valid, she thought. She needed to quickly tell Miyoko what she was doing in advance. The telepathy was meant to do that. But ... she did have a few different tricks she relied on. And directions were consistent — port, starboard, up, down (or "lift" and "fall"). Degrees could be expressed in numbers.

" ... When I piloted a Star Army freighter in my early life, I would call out my maneuvers before I performed them. I expressed them in short phrases. 'J-turn,' 'stopspin,' 'loop,' are some examples. Would it help for me to teach you these?" Yukari asked Miyoko.

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Miyoko briefly considered this, then nodded. "Well, I don't see that making our communications more efficient could be a bad thing... and you might be able to make decisions more quickly if you're not having to translate them from what you're familiar with." The sensor specialist rose a little from her relaxed position to get a better angle on her console. "Perhaps abbreviated commands for the weapons systems would be useful, too. It's a bit quicker to say one of those than 'Load one aether torpedo and target the bridge.'"

“It seems we have a different definition of avatar then.” Wazu said, satisfied that his information matched up better now. “Which means I should wait until you have some free time before asking further questions.”

Yoroko had nothing to do but hang on (to her head at least). Yoroko's life flashed through her eyes as she struggled with the nekomachina. An unnatural awareness filled Yoroko's mind and body and time slowed to a crawl in front of the former nekovalkyrja.

The broken interior HUD of her DAISY became crisp showing every crack and fracture. On the screen she could make out individual grains of sand from the sandbags that had just exploded into the air. Yoroko's eyes slid to her opponent, it was a beautiful, deadly machine though much of its beauty had been marred by the explosion of her SLAG round.

Is this it? Am I going to die? Yoroko wondered as she gazed into the reflective red eyes of the Nekomachina. Time still crawled forward, and with it light enough for Yoroko to see herself in the eyes of the machine.

"No." Yoroko said with certainty before hugging the nekomachina close to her torso. With a swift motion Yoroko brought her free hand's studded gauntlet to bear on the side of the machine. In case that wasn't enough her wrist cannon popped up and fired heavy bursts into the pinned neko.

Rin, obviously, let the injured and their escorts pass, having just stood to the side. She just stared at them in horror. How could this be happening? Was this going to turn into a repeat of the nightmare that was on the Sekkou? She trembled in her armor. She didn't want to die, nor did she want the others to die. Couldn't they just leave, cut their losses before someone was dead? What happiness did Rin have to look forward to that could make up for these frightful sights? What if that happened to the sprite? How could anything remove or make up for such scarring memories and trauma?

She seemingly just stood there, almost a statue. Her mind was racing, her body still.

AIES kept Nyton aware of events as they occurred around him. He watched as Kai and Yoroko struggled with the last nekomachina while Sumaru arrived to deliver Ichigo to the Hoshi. At the same time Aoiko had arrived with Takuma. During this he opened a window to talk directly to Mara. "I believe you were in a Mindy the last time. Although I see no fault if your memory is not perfect since I would rather you not remember everytime you watch me pee." he stated flatly.

"Bishop Leader, I can confirm the destruction of the three other hostiles by the armory. Aside from the one engaging Bishop 3, the only other contact I have is a sizeably large aether power supply running on the eight level - only it can't be the base's main power since it only looks large enough to power a shuttle. I suggest, with recent combat losses, that you consider folding the Rook group into the Bishop group to keep your combat strength up."

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A slight sigh escaped from Nyton before he thought about the situation. They were running low on personnel now along with two DAISY suits being trashed, possibly a third if Yoroko's attacker managed to do any lasting damage. He wasn't about to trust the suit now since he watched the damage indicator flicker between green and black. Those two should be able to finish off that last one. he thought to himself. But just in case. he then added, looking over at Nimura. "Go help those two out if you can. I'll stay here and keep Mara covered." he said. He then opened a channel between himself, Hinoto, and Tom.

"Queen, this is Bishop Leader. Begin running scans on the armory, see if you can determine whether they set booby traps behind the doors. Once we've secured the shaft I want Yoroko to return to Hoshi with Mara. Have a spare suit ready for her. She may as well get a fresh one while transporting our casualty. While she does that the rest of us will inspect the armory for any weapons we might be able to use. Lets not take any chances against whatever might be down there powering up. Rook Leader, how are the repairs coming along? If the Sekkou is up then are there any further repairs necessary to either ship? If not then we may as well consolidate all our remaining forces for the final push. I don't think we have much farther to go and the enemy must be getting desperate by now. We'll need every bit of firepower we can muster." Nyton communicated.

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Meanwhile, inside the medlab, Sanjuro had been busy checking on one of the neko who had lost a hand during extraction. Her recovery was coming along and she would be able to regenerate a new hand over time. For now all she needed was some pain killers to keep her mind off the pain and some time to let the hemosynth blood she had been administered to do it's work.

"Medical, you have up to three wounded power armor pilots incoming and all include limb loss. Stand ready to receive."

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Sanjuro scarcely reacted, his demeanor having finally calmed after the excitement, no terror, of the Armor action earlier.

The knightly Sumaru took no time to admire the blood on his armor. He had a wounded ally, and a duty to take her to intensive care. "Med team, I am coming your way now with one critical condition pilot. Limbs lost, as well as a considerable amount of her torso. Please prep a hemosynth tube, priority one," he communicated ahead as he skimmed along the surface. He did his best to try and remain stable, floating above the ground steadily as not to disrupt her already terrible condition. "You'll be okay," he said to the sprite, trying to reassure her. Feeling that there was not much else he could do at the time, he would try and heal her with his external hemosynthesis-- but there wasn't enough time for him to try.

At least he had arrived, the samurai made his way through the medical area and brought Ichigo directly to which ever doctor who was already prepping the tank he had requested. With a foot he kicked over a bed, and laid her carefully on it. "I entrust her to your care," he said to whom ever came to get the poor soul.

He wanted nothing more than to stay and see how well she recovers, and spend the time with Sora while he would try and make sure she was okay. But there was a battle going on, and his Princess had already told him her wishes of her sword in this battle fighting for its success. So with a passing glance, he only lingered his gaze on her for a short moment, "be strong," is all he said to her, speaking from his mind to hers. Then the battle worn white Mindy II exited the bay, and started down towards the armory on the Hoshi.

"Megami, prepare a full resupply of all the equipment I've jettisoned. As well as a charge port." He was making sure that this would take as little time as possible, so he could return to the battle and hopefully reduce the damage for his side. The male Neko took a few more twisting turns, and then came up to the bay he wanted. As requested, all his equipment was waiting and ready. He only needed to refit all his stuff. So quickly he plugged his Mindy II into the Hoshi and allowed it to flash charge all its systems including the teleporter, which was the important part to this plan. He worked fast, and as a career pilot he was quite adapt at this part.

To: Claymere-Taii said:

Resupplying, I'll be ready in one minute and fifteen seconds.

Forward me the telemetry of our enemies holding. I'll make it an exit point for a counter assault.

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His teleportation pack was recharged, as well as everything else. Sumaru let the link disengage and the large wire fall to the floor. While he quickly reloaded all of his weapons, he went over the last image of the Nekomachina's position and started to imagine his next flow of movements. His AIES was preparing the jump, and awaited the forwarded data to assure a safe exit.

Things had been going so well. The prisoners were safe, the Sekkou was ready to go, and the Hoshii would be next on the list.

But then the combat had gotten fierce. Takuma had his hand blown off, Yoroko was engaged in a life-or-death struggle, and the screams, the piercing, agonized screams of the sprites, hammered Tom out of his reverie.

The first was Mara's. It was like nothing he had heard before from the bubbly, playful sprite.

And Ichigo... who the engineer had just moments ago been talking to, he heard her muffled cry mixed with the slashing sounds of static and energy.

He wanted to close his eyes, hide from the information his AIES forced into his display, the blackened indicators showing catastrophic damage to the technician's armor and body.

Had he just sent her to die? Was this the duty of an officer?

The strain of this dark revelation weighed heavily on his mind, slowing him as he fumbled with the Sekkou's console.

Suddenly, the report came in. A flicker of hope. Mara, Ichigo... they were both alive...

The text message flew to Sora and Sanjuro before he even new it.
Nyton's message warranted a verbal reply, even though the engineer's voice was strained.

"Sir, Sekkou needs very minor repairs, but is combat-ready. We have not had time to address Hoshii's damage, but considering recent development... I feel it is best for the teams to be consolidated to prevent further loss of team efficiency... we will be en route to your location soon."

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He placed his tools into his leg holder, set the MEGAMI to standby and went about leaving the Sekkou to meet up with Rin. He sent a text message to her.