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

Kyou listened to everything Masako told them, Not showing any special reaction to much of anything until Masako was talking about the kitchens. A Juni, cooking? I wonder if he volunteered, or whether they simply didn't want to use a caretaker sprite. More importantly though, I wonder if he'll mind me being in there... She made a mental note to inquire that of Freeman-Juni later. Then she followed Masako along their tour.

"Afraid so. While Suzuka-Shosa is busy gathering our new crewmembers I will have to oversee this matter and I wanted to get this done before any of them arrived. I also want to make this as painless as possible." Nyton replied, shaking his head a bit.

"Takuma Kimura, you have been demoted to Joto Hei. This was not because of one event but rather a noted history of shortcomings. Upon future reviews of your performance you will be re-evaluated as to whether you may be promoted to your former rank." the man stated.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Nnh. Certainly." Miyoko nodded to Masako's request, then went back to eating her cake. She felt somewhat obligated to guard the box of sweets until Tom could decide what to do with it, lest somebody eat half of them or questions arise about why exactly a box of dessert was sitting in the observation deck.

"Yeah, I have a question," Takuma confirmed.

"When you're stressed out, would you prefer to drink bitter coffee to give you that extra bit of push to finish your goal, or would you rather drink a sweet drink to calm your mind and think things through calmly?" After a moment, Takuma laughed a little to himself.

"Sorry, that was a rather silly question. I guess I should ask something more suitable. Will the demotion change anything job related of mine, like who I report to, etc.?"

Kyoki said:

Before long, she was poking her head into the Multifunction Bay. Rin had stopped momentarily to make sure she was presentable to the Second in Command on the ship. She then stepped forward.

"Good afternoon, Shosa," Rin said, before bowing deeply.

Click to expand...

Yukari replied with a quick nod. "Hei-san. What is the status of the Miharu?" Her eyes were locked on the young Neko, but they seemed to pulse with impatience.

"Your mission tasking has not changed much, you are still an OS technician. You will be reporting to one of the other Heishos instead of an officer for reviews and supervision just as when you were a Joto Hei former. You will likely fall under Saito-Heisho although I do not believe the Shosa has specified your immediate supervisor yet. We are still restructuring ourselves for the new influx." Nyton replied in answer to the question.

"You will be expected to perform at the Joto Hei level now however you are also going to be watched for signs of performance above and beyond to mark you eligible for progress. Your promotion is literally in your hands." he then added before extending an open hand to Takuma.

"Your Heisho pin, please." Nyton then asked, implying that it was time to finalize this process.

Takuma carefully unhooked his pin from his uniform, tossing it in his hand once to feel its weight before handing it over.

"Don't go throwing it into storage just yet. I see regaining my rank as a challenge and now that I have a clear goal in mind, I'll put my all into striving to reach that goal. I won't disappoint." Determination filled Takuma's eyes.

Instead of bowing immediately to his superior, Takuma offered a handshake, like he was accepting a challenge to a rival.

Kaida followed the Juni around as she gave a tour of the ship that they should be getting a map of on their datapads anyhow. She was notably quiet, much more so than before.

Rin cringed back at the sight of an impatient Shosa. "E- etto... Miharu is in... workable... condition. It is far from optimal. We require a dock to do much more," she answered, delivering the fairly bad news. She felt as if she was in a bit of danger, since she was telling the Shosa this and Yukari didn't seem to be in the best of moods.

"G- gomenasai, Shosa," the sprite squeaked out quietly and nervously.

Kai made his way into the Armor bay after breakfast, quickly and easily finding the dismantled DAISY armor, partially in its rack where he had left it. Looking over the jumbled mess of parts, he realized he didn't know how to fix it, really, but at the moment he was to tired to remember that the ship could probably tell him. Still, it might take a more personal involvement to make the modifications he wished to the armor suit. He grabbed some tools and looked over the Armor, thinking of what it was exactly he wanted to do. He really disliked getting Naked to mount the armor, and so obviously he needed a synthetic insert, but one that was comfortable, meaning it would have to be able to control his temperature. He also wanted a little bit more kinetic protection, and more heat insulation, as those would have been extremely helpful in the last mission. Designing the thing in his head, the Yamataian went back to the armor and continued to disassemble the thing, inspecting every piece that came out and trying to remember where it came from. This would take a while.

*****

After a few minutes, the door opened.
Yuzuki stopped for a few moments in the thresh-hold, surveying the scattered parts and the nearly-gutted Daisy armor with a tired, blank expression that gradually turned into more of a pained one.
The door slid closed behind her and, finding standing near the door to be awkward, Yuzuki put her roll of tools down on the deck near where Kai was working. Then she sat cross-legged beside the bundle and cradled her head in her hands, watching Kai with a kind of vague, fascinated impatience. She had wanted to start repairing the damaged armors. Even with so many new sprites, sometimes Yuzuki felt a bit short-handed. It wasn't a glorious job, but the armors had to be operational before the next mission - it was a sticking point. Everyone else was working on making the ship systems work reliably again, but someone had to pay attention to the armors. It was also easy work, and Yuzuki needed a break.
Eventually, shifting her gaze from the work to the person, she observed, "You have no idea what you are doing, do you?"

"I'll be sure to keep this pin in good condition then." Nyton replied, taking Takuma's hand with his to shake it firmly.

"Now then, if you will excuse me, I have more matters to attend to. Do you have your own Joto Hei pins to wear or do you need me to issue you some new ones?"

Leading the cadre of new recruits through the main passageway, the Warrant Officer brought her charges to a room with five entryways. Two of them were along the flanking bulkheads while three were directly in front of the group.

"Now this is important," Masako began as she pointed towards the flanking hatchways. "These two doors are entryways to the Escape Pod Compartments holding two escape pods each. An alternate way to reach them would be a trapdoor positioned just before the officer quarters on each residential area," the raven-haired Neko explained. "I don't need to stress just how important it is the remember them in case of emergencies. The central door in front of us," she pointed to center door ", is the Monitor Room, which also acts as our auxiliary bridge. The two doors around it lead to the Sensor Dome."

Pausing for a moment to glance over the enlisted women, Masako noted that they didn't seem to be talking at all. I guess I'm not very engaging, she thought as she continued. "While the Sensor Dome is mainly our science labs, it is also one of two places we will have pre-mission briefings. The other place would be the Wardroom," the Warrant Officer stated before pausing, as if to invite questions.

"Yes, I still have my old rank pins," Takuma confirmed. He bowed respectively as Nyton left and wandered out of the room himself shortly after. He made his way to his quarters to pull his old pin out of storage.

It was only then, with the pin in hand, that Takuma remembered that his previous posting with in the 5th Expeditionary Fleet: the Jôtô Hei pin had the 5th XF's markings rather than the 1st XF's.

* * *

A volumetric window popped up besides Nyton, with Mara appearing on the display. The sprite seemed to be nursing her left cheek. "Taii, we have something of a problem down in the starboard bay. Kurohoshi-Juni's busy right now, so I was wondering-" Mara winced as there was a sharp 'crack' coming from offscreen, "...if you could come before things get out of hand."

Nyton's face remained rather calm as he heard the loud noise come from behing Mara. He did not however waste any time. "I am on my way." he said quickly before breaking into a run towards the starboard bay.

What the hell is going on? he thought to himself.

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Meanwhile, closer to Miyoko's location, two voices could be heard approaching.

"Are you sure this is where Kurohoshi-Juni went?"

"Didn't you hear her this morning? She was going to greet some new people today,"

Two nekos soon arrived in the Observation Deck and noticed that instead of Masako there was another individual waiting there with a large box of pastries. One was short and had short brown hair while wearing a plain undecorated orange uniform while the other was slightly taller with reddish blonde hair, wearing the same outfit as the former.

They both looked over at Miyoko and gave an 'oh' of surprise, obviously not expecting who they saw.

"I think we went the wrong way." said the brown haired one.

"Excuse us-" began the other neko who observed Miyoko's rank before giving a bow, "Heisho-san, but we were looking for Kurohoshi-Juni." she said before eying the box closely. "Anou, do you require any assistance with that?" she then offered.

The stars were beautiful, shimmering spots of light cast against the darkness of space.

It was a breathtaking view, a front-row, panoramic seat into infinity, even through the mask of an environmental suit.

"Son of a bitch."

Tom's palm rested over his visor as he lowered his head to stare at the floor of the portside bay.

That was a really big hole.

With the engineer's help, Miharu was carefully repairing the hole speared through her hull by a torpedo. But Yamataium repaired itself slowly, and only one of the two holes in the ship had been repaired over night.

Tom closed his eyes and imagined Miharu's design.

Then his mind wandered and Miharu changed into a slender young lady with a big hole in her jeans.

"Repair of outer hull is on schedule." The ship reported. Tom could hear the blush in her voice.

Tom opened his eyes. He couldn't help but smile.

"Acknowledged."

Kai started, turning around to see the familiar sprite sitting somewhat near him. "Ah... You're probably right. I'm just taking it apart for now, but I will need help soon" the pilot admitted. "it's fairly easy taking it apart so long as I have the tools, but I'm not sure how it goes back together, especially since I want to modify it." He looked over at the sprite somewhat sheepishly, pausing a moment before asking "You wouldn't mind helping me, would you?"

The Yamataian felt kinda bad about asking her to help, as she looked a little tired, but, judging by her tool kit, she had come in here to fix the armors anyway. Without waiting too long, he went back to trying to remove the thigh plating so he could get at the insert.

*****

Yuzuki examined Kai’s sheepish look, noting the way his lip twitched a little, how his posture changed. It caught her interest. She smiled a little at him, and said, “You’re taking it apart wrong.”

Immediately she scooted forward and produced a small, circular object. It had a hole cut in the center, like a doughnut, but it was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. She nudged Kai aside a little, so that she could hold the small item over the edges of the armor plating. There were no rivets on the armor – no visible sign of welding…

…but…

The plate gave a vague popping noise, and she moved on to where she knew the next fastener would be.

“They’re magnetic,” she explained, digging a finger under the loosened armor plate, “This field generator is designed to turn the clips that hold them in place. Brute force works, but not quite as well.” The sprite handed Kai the object, and sat back on her heels. She examined the armor as a whole, looking up at it in intense concentration. Afterward she dropped her gaze back to the man beside her, and asked, “What are you trying to do, anyway?”

Nyton went down the vertical Zero-G passageway to the main deck, and then accessed the door that lead to the catwalk overlooking the starboard bay. Most of the space he overlooked was occupied by the Ryusei fighter, but he also saw a small group of sprites at the bottom as well.

It was a fight.

Three nekos were crumpled to the ground half-sitting, looking bloodied and battered. Ichigo stood at the outskirts of the fight, looking both unscathed and anxious. A bit further away, Nyton saw Hinoto and Nimura engaged in a brutal fistfight.

Mara, one cheek purpling, climbed up the stairs to the top of the catwalk and told Nyton: "They're sparring. Hinoto and I gave permission, but..."

Amidst a flurry of attacks, skillful forearm blocks and dodges, Nimura narrowly avoided a open-handed blow to the face, slinked by Hinoto's flank and grabbed hold of the white-haired sprite's long hair before she flailed her about and bodily clubbed her against the Ryuusei's nose and then back down hard at the floor. Hinoto yelped as part of her hair tore from its roots, letting her slip from Nimura's grasp before the latter could do it another time.

Hoshi's avatar rolled away as Nimura mercilessly pressed on with a series of piston-like kicks aimed for her head and then jumped back up into an unsteady crouch. The glare she sent Nimura's way was vicious, but she was also quite battered, her open snarl showing broken teeth and she had a collection of emerging welts and bloody lessions.

"...but things went more along the way of Nimura showing us that we bruised easily," Mara finished sheepishly. "Can we, I dunno, have her use Sigurd as a punching bag instead?"

Miyoko looked at the two newcomers uncertainly for a moment, trying to figure out if they were new arrivals, sprites, or just plain trespassers. Finally, she gave a mental shrug--if they were onboard, that meant Miharu wanted to let them on, and that was good enough for her. "Kurohoshi-juni is showing a new member around the ship at the moment. I'm not sure where she is, but I'm sure that MEGAMI could tell you. As for this..." She glanced down to the box. "I should probably move it to the kitchen until Freeman-juni can decide what to do with it. If you're not busy, I would appreciate the hand."

Kyou nodded, before looking down and thinking for a second. When she looked back up, her mouth was open to speak. "Kurohoshi-Juni? Are there any escape pods directly linked to the lower decks? If so, where are they connected?" She figured she might as well ask, since it might speed this up.