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RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission 30: Sugoi Dekai

With the order to knock out the human came a sense of relief, both for her and the human. Presumably... From his point of view, he was still struggling with a Neko that nearly caught him with a metal pipe that could have left him with a permanent reminder. For Sif the relief came from not having to decide how to handle him. She was able to knock the gun out of his hand when she managed to grasp his wrist and slam it down on the floor as part of her attempts to pin him down, after which she adjusted her position to straddle him, her knees on his respective arms and hind on his chest while she had her arms crossed at the wrists and pressing against his throat.

In contrast to the Delsaurian, she was looking straight into his eyes and she could see the fear, worry and desperation as he tried to break free. She could feel him kneeing her in the back to attempt to break free. "Shush, it's alright," she said, trying to hush and calm him down, "You're just falling asleep. You're safe." As his eyes failed to keep open, she felt him go slack as she robbed his consciousness from him. Once more she felt her hands shaking as she checked his pulse. He was still alive and hopefully for his sake, out cold for the rest of the mission. He was kind of handsome now that he wasn't fighting for his life.

Sif grabbed the human by his clothing and hoisted him up to her shoulder as she stood, squatting back down for a second to retrieve her pipe and pick up the gun she fought for. As Hoshi instructed, Sif put him by the other human underneath the stairs, but didn't put him right on top of the other as she didn't want to make either of them to be too uncomfortable when they woke up. She took a quick moment to frisk down the humans for supplies or anything that could have been useful to their mission. An extra gun, or ammunition, maybe a keycard would have been mission critical. The first one especially would be a big help since the Neko could have already sent a message to her masters or other guards in the facility, and they would have needed as many people to have ranged capabilities if that were the case. As far as she knew, she was the only one with a gun at the moment.

As she was looking for supplies on the first human, she was surprised and speechless as the captain dropped a dead Neko into the pile. "I suppose she was too much of a risk..." she reasoned to herself as she did the last checks for valuable supplies, but she couldn't help but glance at the Neko time and again. For a brief moment, she swore she saw herself in that Neko's place. No! Now's not the time to think about such things. If she gets distracted now, she will be. Shortly after the captain's departure, she was joined by Molli at the pile, who moved the body away and made her look more at peace in death. It may not have been the time for it, but she was reminded of a similar scene in one of the novels she read. Was Molli feeling remorse? Guilt? No, she shouldn't be guessing how she felt.

Sif followed Molli up the stairs to rejoin the others. "Anyone need a gun?" she'd ask to the rest of the squad, offering the one she had fought for, as well as the one she had picked up from the other human, if he had one on him. She still had her pipe, and in real combat scenarios, everyone else had more experience using guns against live moving targets. Sif wasn't sure how effective she'd be with them, and ammunition was scarce. She'll just take one of the next guns they'd come across.
 
The sight of a brand new M3 NMX pistol brought a gravity to the mission for Aiko that had not been there before. It meant that Urtullan was less independent than the planet had been in the recent past. Or at least that the Mishhuvurthyar who made themselves Yamatai's enemy, unlike the individual Mishhu who'd once lorded over this place, were operating under the nose of the star system's rulers. Neither prospect was particularly good news, and answered at least one of the mission's primary questions. Aiko knew that the NMX connection would have to be confirmed but nonetheless dreaded that her Star Empire's archenemy was indeed present on its doorstep at all.

"I do not think the NMX revive their soldiers who fail in their duty as we do, Captain," the princess said with a touch of confusion in her voice when Hoshi dragged the dead Neko away.

She hadn't realized Hoshi's statement about resleeving to have been shorthand for 'she needs to be eliminated,' so the princess couldn't help but wonder about it. Still, she quickly pushed those thoughts aside. Their objective to ascertain the nature of the mystery mecha here on Urtullan still lay before them, and was a far more urgent concern in Aiko's mind than how the Mishhuvurthyar treated their Neko. The millions she and the others had saved and brought back to the Empire with Nebel were fortunate. Much more so than the dead girl who was just hauled off by Hoshi—and whichever else may stand in their way from there on out.

As William tore up his ruined jacket and lamented his crushed cap, Molli and Sif came back up the stairs from where they'd been with the pile of eliminated guards below. The princess was standing by now, waiting for a few breaths while the team regrouped following the scuffle.

"Our most junior soldiers continue to impress," Aiko said kindly in her smoky voice with a wide grin to match. She could see Molli looking somewhat pale and shaken, and assumed it was because of her spill down the stairs. "That new arm of yours is a great boon, Molli-san. Continue honing tricks like those you just displayed and I cannot foresee us failing. We could not have taken them by surprise without you," she said to the Nepleslian girl, still smiling. "And thank you for saving me, Ignemar-hei. I should not have turned away from the last guard, but trusted in you all to have my back in the absence of my samurai. He would have turned his pistol on me had you not been there, so you have both the Empire's gratitude and my own today."

Aiko would not wait for a response. These few seconds of respite and cleanup had gone on long enough. They had to continue on, and William right then prompted her attention. She nodded, affirming his plan to take opposite directions through the next door.

"Ryokai, Wil," Aiko said from her place on the open threshold's left side. The bridge of her nose crinkled and she gave him a little smile back when her eyes met his. "No countdown, let's go!"

With that, Aiko slipped through the doorway they'd just fought to access with that preternaturally quick Nekovalkyrja agility she possessed. Her gossamer green kimono and light purple hair flowed behind her in a blur. Soon, however, the princess' trajectory stalled when she was confronted with what came next.

Past that security door was a football-shaped room with a wide window lining the wall opposite where Aiko and William had just entered, which overlooked a greater chamber beyond that they couldn't make out from their vantage. Beneath that window was a control desk covered in volumetric screens and interfaces that ran the length of the wall. It was dimly lit and appeared to be some sort of command or monitoring center like you'd see in a hangar bay on some big carrier or space battleship. The door they'd come through sat at the room's rear left side where the two halves of its curved walls met at a point.

And within stood two more men who looked roughly similar to those they'd knocked out a few moments before. All of them appeared to be normal humans who wore dark blue coverall boiler suits with silver buttons as a uniform of sorts. One of the pair turned away from facing his controls and the window to regard Aiko—whose bikini-clad athletic frame was speeding toward him quite urgently—and William following in on her heels. He seemed a little surprised, but not at all shocked, and didn't move to defend himself.
 
Gazing from a vacant expression, Hoshi's dark blue eyes watched Molli work at moving the Neko's body. William's jaded demeanor after the fact and her own quick resolve only contrasted with the new recruit's sorrowful glances at the dead woman with her eyes now thoughtfully closed eyes. Hoshi wanted to say a few things, but with each one competing for a spot on her tongue and out her mouth, none of them could get past the bottleneck. The desire to tell Aiko that she hoped they would revive this Neko further congested the worlds. With all of the things she could say pushed aside in lieu of speaking, she wondered thoughts she would never say out loud.

The captain bit her cheek as she walked up the stairs behind Aiko and William, ready for them to handle whatever lay beyond as her thoughts strayed. Hoshi heard talking and looked to Morgana, hoping the scientist had some idea about what was going on in the room ahead.

One of those two men had said, "Oh good, you're here. We were just beginning preparation work."

"Is Tanner or Mike with you? They should have escorted you here," the other asked Aiko in an inquisitive tone.
 
In a split second, Aiko went from bounding through the doorway with her right hand held high in a balled fist to immediately halting on her heels (with no small help from her Neko body's ability to control its inertial vector). The princess was at a complete loss for words, but the fact she was being spoken to at all made her stop and transform her warrior's charge into a regular stride and quickly hide her wound-up punching arm clasped behind her back. Aiko wasn't a fully trained SAINT operative, though she had been trained in some clandestine skills by one, but had plenty of experience masking her identity both on Star Army missions and in her personal time.

So she thought fast and decided to save more combat for later. The Kaiyō's crew was here undercover, after all, and every confrontation was something they'd have to clean up like they had that mess on the other side of the door.

"No," Aiko said, pausing a few moments after that one word to search for some more. She held up her left hand gently beside her to signal for William to stop. "Both are waiting at the bottom of the stairs," she added, presuming that she wasn't lying because Tanner and Mike must have been the guards. Telling the truth—at least at first—made playing along and hiding her team's identity easier. "They said there would not be enough space in here with all of my colleagues if they came up, so those two decided to remain behind."
 
William charged behind Aiko, only to come up short at her signal. He was confused, though his face remained neutral. The ID-SOL was prepared to deck the pair of them but now they were going to show the away team their work? He was skeptical, but let Aiko take the lead. In situations like these, letting the enemy draw their own conclusions was better than volunteering information.

With his augmented vison he began scanning the room, transmitting everything he could see back to Hoshi behind him. Particularly, he tried to make out what was on the console across the room. Once they got over there and incapacitated the men, he'd be able to jack in and pull whatever data was being held inside. Maybe even a way to sabotage the whole thing.
 
It made her feel all fluttery inside to receive such praise from the princess, but it was mostly nervous energy. "Thank you, Ketsurui-chusa," she'd utter out with a bow. She very much appreciated Aiko's words, but it also had Sif thinking if they were misplaced. She may have stopped the human from pulling the trigger, but her nearly tripping over herself was embarrassing to think back on.

She still held out the gun by its barrel, which now that she looked at it more closely, was a Zen .45 Compact. It wasn't something she had used before, but having taken it from a human, perhaps William or Molli would have better use for it. And since William was already ahead, Sif turned to Molli, offering the gun to her. "Are you familiar with this weapon? Because it might be better in your hands than mine if you are."

Sif would hand the gun to Molli if she decided to take it, otherwise Sif would put it in her pocket for the lack of a holster.

There was a lack of fighting when Aiko and William charged in, and instead she detected conversation. From what she could overhear, it seemed whoever they were talking to had mistaken Aiko for the dead Neko a floor below. That was a stroke of luck for them, because it meant they could take a closer look at everything without worrying about bullets flying overhead. And of course the enemy won't be rushing to get the weapon operational.

She tentatively peeked around the corner before walking forward to the window to take a look at what they were working on. It all seemed impressive, but Sif couldn't glean what this place was supposed to be, but it looked important with all the screens. She crossed her arms, her jacket still hanging on her shoulders like a cape as she tried to figure out what that room was, but most importantly, if there were anything that could trigger an alarm. Or worse, another NMX Neko overseeing operations.
 
"Well there's a bit more of you then we were prepared for," said one of the men whose coveralls said 'Rob Englebert' on them.

"We would have set up the demonstration in the larger command deck if we had known." Said the other, whose coveralls didn't have any name on them. Red lights flashed behind him, out on the floor of the hangar that the monitoring room was built for observing. He casually looked back towards the controls and video feeds. When he saw everything as it should be, he turned back to listen to Rob talk to the group.

Rob went on, "As it stands, already equipped sub-systems are operating at a 99% efficacy rate after you lot sent out the aether modules; we're not experiencing power fallout now at all. We were ramping down after only five hours of hard use before, but not anymore. Ground combat is this machine's specialty, assuredly, but we've been ramping up the limiters and have to work on the power diverters before non-atmospheric weapons will be online. Estimating two months for that to be implemented and tested on the prototype here. Another two for full integration into all initial deliverables you've requested."

"Hold up, is that Tanner's .45?" one of the men pointed out, abandoning the controls to walk over to Sif and Molli after the more junior crewmen had offered her newly acquired gun with Molli. He hadn't heard the exchange, but had caught a glimpse of the Zen armament and he seemed both inquisitive and hostile from his tone and expression. He had to get through Hoshi to do so and she put her hands up and body between him even more before he could do so.

"Pause, sub-species." Hoshi said, speaking as an NMX would as best she could. "You may ascertain your answer from them without approaching further."

The group back in the control room could see a crack of light appearing out of the wide window that lined the wall above the controls. It looked like a large sectional door opening upwards in the far end of the hangar bay. The brightness of the clear beam and their position within the colony's dome both indicated it was opening out to the desert beyond.

"We've been operating on a bi-weekly basis testing the systems in combat against the Mevar core worms." Rob said. "Ever since being implanted on Urtullan, they've lived closer to the surface than expected. Originally, Hkloujbbaer started work on the mecha program to push them back for the colony's sake. But ever since the NMX's, uh, involvement in it we've been able to upgrade its capabilities quite a bit, I'd say. Would you like to see?"

The huge door had opened completely, now, and shone on dark grey tracks built into the floor of the hangar bay.
 
A surge of panic went through Sif's mind as one of the humans noticed the gun as belonging to one of their own. She was tensing up for a fight to break out right then as he approached her. Thankfully the captain got in between them to halt the advance and gave Sif just a few more seconds to think of something. She reckoned he was only going to get more suspicious if she didn't answer or just refused to. And given how easily this man managed to identify the weapon at a glance, letting him take a closer look at it would definitely give it away. All that's left is to redirect.

She looked towards the others with a feigned nervousness and put a hand to her face to cup half of her mouth, leaning forward slightly towards the suspicious technician and whispered a, "Tanner's the handsome one, right?", referring to the man she had just choked out a mere few minutes before. Even though she had done this to keep up appearances, asking such a thing in this setting was bringing heat to her face, but so long as it helped with their cover, she would have to bear it. But she would need to quickly disengage. The less time she spent conversing, the less chances she'd screw things up.

Sif would then signal to the man with her eyes quickly darting to Hoshi, silently mouthing to him "Let's talk later," before doing a soft shooing motion as if to tell him to get back to work, making a sideways nod to Hoshi again almost pleadingly not to get either of them into trouble with her.
 
William listened intently at the explanation of their work, then one of them caught Sif with the dead man's gun. Hoshi and Sif managed to divert their attention back on topic, but the ID-SOL had to do something to keep their attention from Sif and Molli. Time to play the villain...

"Those are quite the claims." William stated walking forward, his boots making a heavy and distinct 'clunk' as walked. He moved until he was few inches from the man who had saw the gun. He glared down at pair, murderous intent in his gaze. "I detest braggarts. If you are lying I'll feed your remains to those worms." He growled, towering over the technician. Pushing past them he moved up next to Sif. He pulled a cord from his pocket and plugged it into the data jack on his neck. "Now then, let's see if you are going to be worm shit or not." He said, smiling dangerously as he slotted the other end of the cord into the monitor.

William threw up several layers of firewalls to protect his mind before he began sifting through the data. He began to quickly read through everything he could find. Not only blueprints, test results, and performance specs, but also correspondence, the lab's layout, security layouts and the like. He'd love a way to overload the aether reactors on the mech, as well as a way to cripple this lab itself. All he could do was hope that his menacing bluff had given him the time to look for it all.
 
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Earlier, Princess Aiko's praise lifted the haunting pall that had befallen Molli in the wake of the NMX's disturbing death. The Nepleslian, wrapped snugly in her baggy poncho, raised the cybernetic arm out from beneath the cloak to examine it appreciatively. Getting a replacement limb was one thing, but finding out that the Star Army installed expensive anti-gravity technology and linked its functions to her cyberware felt as exciting as it did frightening. It was a silent expectation to perform better than she had before. Molli frequently wondered if advantages like that meant anything compared to the natural, efficient beauty of the Nekovalkyrja.

Thanks to Her Majesty's kind words, Molli felt a wave of relief wash over her, knowing she didn't have to worry about that for a while.

Within the football-sized chamber, Molli tensed at the appearance of more men ahead. She was about to telepathically ask for advice on how to handle them, but Aiko was already speeding off, presumably to deliver the men into unconsciousness like the last two. She hoped, at least, that they wouldn't have to kill anyone who was just doing their job. Maybe it was a stroke of fortune that those men were oblivious to Aiko's intent, which seemed to proverbially disarm the princess -- a first sight for Molli and an amusing one. She had to wonder how smart they could be if seeing a bunch of women in swimwear seemed normal in a work environment.

Unfortunately, Molli reached out to take the gun that Sif offered at the worst time, gathering suspicion from one of the men. When Hoshi got between him, Molli quickly tucked the gun into the back of her shorts. She wanted to say something to allay their suspicions, but a smooth SAINT operative, Molli was not, even if she had earned a fancy medal for a stealth operation. The Nepleslian left the talking to women more articulate, better educated, and dressed in ways that distracted men better than a frumpy poncho could.

However, her hand was still firmly on the grip of that pistol, ready to raise it in defense of her comrades. Which seemed likely to be the case soon, given Will's pivot into intimidation. Her eyes shot towards him, wide and alarmed, and she shook her head. The universal signal for "bad idea, abort."
 
"99 percent?" Morgana interjected, stepping in between William with curiosity rather than let the situation escalate, "That's above the expected rate I was provided." she kept her comment vague, and did her best to sound impressed. "I'd like to inspect the core and power distribution systems. I was fully expecting to need to do a few weeks of simulations for the next phase, but if you're already at 99, it might only take a few days."

The Minkan did her best to make her comment sound as though there was complement in there, playing the good cop and giving the technician a more pleasant line of dialog than William's bad cop, and further distract from the weapon and the rising tension. If they would just open up the aether system to her this mission would be easier than she expected, and if she got a chance to have a closer look at the machine before they destroyed it all the better.

Her hand pressed into her bag however, so she could feel the reassuring imprint of her NSP through its material.
 
So, this is what it felt like to be on the other side of things. While her starting task was something she was quite used to, everything there after... well, she had only really thought about it from the perspective of the security they've been seeing along the way.
In a less tense situation, she'd almost want to praise that man for his sharp eyes, it wasn't unlike how she used to learn to pick out potential troublesome individuals. It was always the little details...

"Tanner the only guy allowed to have a .45, or something?" quipped Isuke, casually making her way towards the worrisome situation that was brewing. "You want me to head back and ask him for his so we can compare?"

Her natural inclinations led her to try and maneuver herself to be closer to Hoshi, who was - in her professional opinion - exposing herself to far too much risk being up that far. Though Hoshi wasn't a senator, it was in her nature to worry about the safety of her superior. She couldn't get too close though, she had the impression the NMX did probably not share deep bonds of comradery between species like that.
 
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