RP: YSS Miharu Mission 4: The Fame and the Fury

Yukari spun around in the corridor so her head was hidden above the lip of the ceiling, but close enough that she could lower her SMG down to fire at the Nekomachina.

"Gunshin, Yamada, drop down! Charge Barriers to full!" Yukari drew courses for both, suggesting Tsuya streak starboard while using her flamethrower, while Kyou streaked port while using her LASR.

The Shosa connected her visuals to the SMG's sensor package, and popped the weapon just below the end of the corridor. She targeted the first Nekomachina her weapon confirmed a lock on and squeezed the trigger, spraying fire.

Takuma, we are being stopped by a door. Can you use the computer you are in now to open the door and bypass the computer's registry so that the rest of the facility remains unaware of our access?

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"Yeah, I'll give it a shot and fail horrifically... I mean... Yeah, count on me!" Not that Takuma needed to respond to the logged voice, but it felt like watching a movie for a second time and knowing what the outcome was. Actually this time around it's kind of a successful attempt since I'm not trying to be not detected...Hrm.

First thing was the blueprints, but those probably would not give much on the computer systems as much as the layout. Next though, he found the system log he snagged. A useful part since normally some form of system specifications or operating system versions are printed near the beginning.

Then came the commands to open the door and the variables in memory. Fused together outputted a fairly cryptic-looking password that succeeded in prying open the door. It didn't appear much more would come out of the logs, but system specifications and a possible password were not a bad outcome. He forwarded the data to his laptop and to Miyako. Just for kicks, Takuma sent the command to open the door and waited for chaos. Sadly since all the enemies were taken out, the door opened quietly. Darn. Disappointed that nothing happened, Takuma left the simulator and walked back to the computer room.

"Hai, Shosa!" Tsuya zoomed down the corridor's starboard side, hovering and charging her shield. When she passed Yukari, she pulled the trigger on her flamethrower, beginning to spray the superheated plasma that had defeated so many enemies already.

A volumetric window suddenly sprang to life next to Tom, with Kotori's golden eyes glaring at him. She clearly was annoyed. "Freeman-Juni, could you kindly tell the sprites doing EVA work outside the ship that in the future they are not to try to come and wave me hello, or knock on my window, or otherwise just peer in it?"

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The sudden arrival of the window made Tom step back with a half-"Gah!" until the engineer realized it was the Taisa speaking. After Kotori finished her request, the flush-faced engineer winced and let out a dismayed groan.

"My apologies, Taisa. I'll, ah, make that very clear to them. Unfortunately, I still have not had the opportunity to brief the newcomers on expected etiquette, so-"

Miharu discreetly made clear to the engineer that Ichigo was one of those sprites.

His face reddened a bit more in embarrassment.

"-...I'll get on that as soon as possible."

That much seemed to mollify Kotori. She rewarded Tom with a curt "Thank you," and the window blinked to a close.

Rin cringed and nearly started to cower at the sound of an annoyed Kotori behind her. It took a moment for her to realize that it wasn't this sprite that the officer was mad at, at the very least. Still, having an annoyed captain was not a good idea at any time. Luckily, it seemed that Tom had soothed the savage beast.

The lavender-haired sprite turned away from the armor and to Tom, wondering what he was going to do.

Miyoko was already reviewing the information when Takuma arrived. She nodded a greeting to him. "Thank you for the log... it should be a good start. I think that the Shosa is occupied at the moment, so it's only going to be us for now. Of course, we don't have anything to do at the moment but wait for the core to get opened, anyway."

It wasn't too long afterwards that the sprites came back and erected what looked like a miniature power armor rack, with cobbled up electronics packages - eight scalar generators set up to be the points of a cube that would have the main circuitboard of the Bowhordia datacore inbetween them - hooked up around the armature.

It looked pretty crude to Takuma. It reminded him of electricity-related science projects from his high school years.

Adjustments were made by the sprites and they finally pronounced their readiness. "Ready to begin on your command," Junko turned to tell Miyoko.

Miyoko spent the time that the Sprites took to hook up their contraption reviewing Kimura's logs and the notes provided by the ship's AI. Of the two, the engineer's logs were the more useful... she was going to have to brush up a little on her encryption before she tackled the datacore for real. "Miharu, in light of Takuma-Hei's findings, are you able to tell us anything more about the encryption?"

To the sprites, she added, "Thank you again for your help. I think we're ready to start... once things are in motion, I think we'll be good to go, if you have other duties to attend to. We'll let you know if there are any hardware problems that the two of us can't handle."

Miharu ran an analysis and informed Miyoko that until she could cross-reference with the information stored in the hard drives within the datacore, it would be hard to tell. After all, Takuma had perhaps been hacking in an auxiliary computer system when he had done his hacking attempt, and not the base's main computer.

The sprites listened to Miyoko and then got to work, activating their contraption. After a moment, they turned it off and Suzume announced: "It's done. The main circuitboard's been done in."

It had been pretty anti-climatic. No sizzling. No smoke. No explosion.

The sprites then pried open one of the datacore's cover - breaking the vaccuum seal they had previous warned about - and then played with the connecting cables inside. The main circuitboard was disconnected and thrown away in a clatter, as if it was so much garbage. Finally, most of the hard drives inside had been plugged to have Takuma's and Miyoko's console be able to access them.

The job done, the sprites gave the pair respectful bows and filed out, leaving Miyoko and Takuma alone inside the main computer room.

Masako winced as she noted four of her "pawns" being taken out by the "enemy" and sighed lightly. She partially wished she had kept her ability to play god over the simulation, but that would have been cheating. She was to play the enemy commander during the simulation, so she had decided to limit herself like the enemy commander.

Listening to the comm. chatter, the Warrant Officer decided to move her Reserve Forces back towards the shuttles and split them up to cover both of them. Of course, she was part of that reserve force and was placed outside of the battle for now.

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One of the Nekomachina had just enough time to detached a grenade from its belt and throw it towards Gunshin. Instead of a time delay, this seemed to detonate when it was near the Santo Hei. Surprisingly, a high explosive blast didn't erupt from the small object. On the other hand, a simulated psychic attack did and stunned the young Neko for a moment.

The five of the Nekomachina tried to attack both Yukari and Tsuya, but failed to strike their targets as the Executive Officer's fire disrupted their aim. Three of those Nekomachina and two of the ones attacking the Engineering Defenders succumbed to Tsuya's flamethrower, which luckily didn't ignite any of the grenades upon their belts.

At that moment, the simulated Defenders began to increase their attacks as the Miharu simulated an increase in morale. Three more Nekomachina were mowed down by the Defenders, leaving only two Nekomachina and the Black Mindy. The Black Mindy charged at the reckless Tsuya and ignited its aether blade in a bid to slash at the Santo Hei.

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"Maybe I'm going too easy on them," Masako muttered to herself as she decided to execute the next step of her plan a bit early. "Teams Bravo and Charlie, execute plan "Cutthroat."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, two teams began to pile out of the shuttles and enter the Miharu's corridors. A group of fifteen began to head towards the Bridge, while a team of ten went the opposite direction towards the ship's MEGAMI.

Yukari ducked up behind the corridor's lip once Tsuya and Kyou were somewhat safe. The enemy was nearly beaten, and the single power armor was not going to be enough to push them back. The advantage was theirs. She looked at the opposite side of the corridor and let out a breath slowly against her helmet's inside.

As the last bit of air left her body, a warning crossed over her vision. New shapes started to pour out of two shuttles in the Multifunction Bays and formed into two groups — a set of 15 Nekomachina, and a team of five power armor and five of the machines. The 15 machina started to go toward the bridge; the 10 were going in the opposite direction.

Yukari needed time!

"Miharu. Raise all graviton barriers on the Main Deck. Activate your reinforced door, then turn over all ship functions to Hoshi's CIES and shut down."

Encrypted telepathy through her Leader Support Pack was next. "Bridge personnel: An enemy force is coming toward you. Ship graviton barriers are raised. Be ready to defend yourself."

Yukari took another breath and hoped the new Mindy was going to be enough to withstand the punishment she was about to give it. Turning to point her feet at the floor, she thrust herself to the ground and fired a missile from her leg pod at one of the machines, and took an aimed torso shot at the other one with her plasma submachine gun.

Tsuya clumsily stepped backward as the Mindy slashed at her - she hadn't been expecting a melee attack, even though the armor was covered in blades, and was now regretting it. Reflexively, she fired the flamethrower, shot off a gauss round, and loosed a pair of missiles from her leg pod.

After the rush of silence filled the room as the sprites left, Takuma took a seat in his chair and looked at the computer.

"Well, now that we have openly contact the data without risk of destroying everything, let's try and see if we can figure out the algorithm used.

"Since we know their operating system version, we should be able to figure out when that build was released. Since the encryption algorithm should be about as old as the operating system, we should be able to tell what encryptions were common in that time period.

"Miharu, could you list the encryption types that are known and are or were commonly used around the last time the system was updated?"

Masako could only snort appreciatively as Yukari ordered the Miharu to seal the corridors of the Main Deck with barriers. The Bridge would be extremely hard to penetrate since her Nekomachina in that team were carrying only SMG and HE Grenades. The MEGAMI assault team would break through easily with their heavier weaponry. In fact, they would fly over Yukari's team fairly soon.

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Yukari made quick work of the remaining Nekomachina as the missiles struck near one and disabled it completely. The other one was riddled with holes to the point of destruction and fell into a heap.

Tsuya's battle was also ended fairly quickly with her combination attack. The gauss round penetrated the Mindy's armor and allowed the plasma to enter. The pilot screamed in agony moments before the missiles connected, ripping the armor and pilot apart. The splash damage reached for the young Santo Hei, but only singed her armor lightly.

The battle in Engineering was done, but the war was far from over as an explosion could be heard from over head. Moments later, the group of five Nekomachina and five Powered Armor entered the Main Passageway. Four Black Mindy's lead by another Mindy II went through first as the five Nekomachina propelled themselves down the passageway towards Yukari and her subordinates.

The combat drones in question, however, were armed differently than their brethren. Instead of SMGs and grenades, each carried a Nepleslian-made Heavy Penetrating Assault Rifle dubbed "The Money Shot". While they were relatively unheard of outside of Nepleslia, there was no doubt why Masako had chosen to arm these Nekomachina with them. As they charged down the passageway, every combat drone began to unleash the super-heated metal streams of semi-solid metal at Yukari, Tsuya, and Kyou.

The first shot from one of the Nepleslian guns made her look up. She hadn't been paying enough attention, and luckily the shot missed. She brought her solid, Zesuaium-coated shield up above her as she hurled herself out the Main Passageway. Her shield took a hit toward the bottom, cracking across its surface like glass and rendering the shield worthless.

"Hoshi, graviton barriers in Engineering!" The barriers came up, protecting the unarmored defenders along with Tsuya, the dazed Kyou and Yukari.

That only gave her a few more seconds, however. And her next order was going to make the difference, she hoped. She threw the useless shield away as she spoke.

"Hoshi, break off of Miharu. Return control of her to me and escape without establishing atmospheric barriers!" Yukari hoped the Nekomachina, and perhaps even the power armor, would be flushed out into space. The armors would not be harmed, but the frail combat drones she counted on being unable to survive space.

The second direct control of Miharu came into her hands, she knew Hoshi had done its part. She dropped all graviton barriers except the ones protecting engineering.

Tsuya's damaged armor was just barely grazed by the Nepleslian guns' fire - her eyes went wide and she made a small sound of surprise, never having seen such weapons before. She raised her flamethrower, but the barriers went up before she could get off a shot. The next few moments were spent in stunned silence... Yukari's tactics were certainly unorthodox.

"Shosa... what are you doing?"

As the Graviton Barriers protected the team and their charges, the Miharu and Hoshi began to separate from each other. Tales of explosive decompression sending individuals flying out into space and death was grossly over-exaggerated however, as the five Nekomachina in the Main Passageway were able to stay in the ship with only relative difficulty.

The entire team found in the Connection Tube was another story. With the tube retracting from the Hoshi, the entire group of Nekomachina and Drones would find themselves in open space with no hand holds at all to grasp. This meant and entire portion of Masako's force had been annihilated with little effort.

But the Hoshi's exit from the equation freed Masako to concentrate on two objectives rather than three. Now, only the Armor Team and MEGAMI were left. It also gave Masako a couple of choices. Should she just attack the Armor Team with a massed assault or should she use the five Nekomachina already there to keep the team distracted while the rest of her forces went for the 'goal'.

It wasn't much of a choice really, considering Masako's preferences. She always wanted to end a mission with the least amount of casualties. So far, she had been too interested in being fancy and had gotten her face slapped around because of it. She had to go for it, but first she needed to make a quick change to the simulation.

The previous 'enemy commander' wouldn't make sense for her to play. After all, it would be difficult for her to act like an Eve Clone. Instead, a powered armor would be better. A quick mental transmission to the Miharu allowed Masako to walk into the nearby shuttle to acquire her new 'attire'.

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Meanwhile, the Powered Armor flew up the Main Passageway and to the upper deck of the Miharu. An explosion above would signify their attempt to destroy the Graviton Barrier guarding the exit. But the Armor Team would have other things to worry about as the Nekomachina finally landed outside the Graviton Barrier of Engineering. There, they aimed their rifles and proceeded to fire upon the Barrier in an attempt to destroy it.

Yagen said:

"Well, now that we have openly contact the data without risk of destroying everything, let's try and see if we can figure out the algorithm used.

"Since we know their operating system version, we should be able to figure out when that build was released. Since the encryption algorithm should be about as old as the operating system, we should be able to tell what encryptions were common in that time period.

"Miharu, could you list the encryption types that are known and are or were commonly used around the last time the system was updated?"

Click to expand...

Miyoko nodded along with his thoughts, then turned to Takuma after he finished. "You also might know better than I would... is there anything we know for certain that's in the encrypted segment? Any standard system information or anything? It could be a good place to test our solutions once we have some idea of how the data is encrypted. I expect it would be easier if we knew what to expect."

"Checking..." Miharu's AI replied. After a moment the ship's computer replied. "Wow. This is kinda sloppy. It's a YE 30 build, updated right after Black Spiral was reclaimed by SAINT. I think they used previous encryption coding as puzzle pieces to make a new one. That's probably why you broke in earlier fairly easily Takuma."

Miharu listed encryption algorithms she found common matches with the encryption key used in the hard drives. "The encryption isn't similar for the hard drives and appears more complex, but it likely uses the same references as before."