RP: YSS Aeon [Mission 5.1] Into the depths

Trowa fired a final round into the last Neko before being forced to jump out of the way of one of the crabs. He looked at it and felt his gut twist in discuss. “Man you are one ugly piece of Feth.” Said the Nepleslian as he raised his plasma rifle and fired a heavy burst at the creatures face. As soon as he fired Trowa dove head long to the right to put as much distance between himself and the creature as possible. He hoped that the crab had been temporarily blinded by his attack and would allow him time to get to a new position.
Trowa took a quick look around and saw that Saki had downed her target and was engaging the diggers. The Aeon’s pilot aimed his plasma rifle but two of the prisoners got in the way. “Hey! Get out of my line of fire!” Trowa yelled angrily.

Kim fired at one of the creatures chasing the prisoners. Caught in her beam it exploded. The burning body flew across the chamber hit the stone wall and burned.

The two prisoners seeing that the Aeon crew were attacking the scouers quickly dove into the bin and safety. They and the others ducked down out of sight.

"Suppression Team to the pit. Quell the prisoner uprising." came from the speakers.

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Saki's cannon barrage took out two of the creatures. Each exploded in a satisfying fireball.

Saki took several seconds to look around the battlefield and re-orientate herself. She was especially looking for another entrances, that enemy could use to send reinforcements. Saki and others will have to escort these prisoners outside too. And those poor souls did not even have proper winter gear, they will never survive outside for long.

Saki aimed her LASR on the Crab and fired a burst of bullets from her overwatch position. "Sir, we need to hurry and contact Aeon. These people needs to be saved!" She lasered to Trowa.

The crab took the brunt of the attack, hits armored shell pierced in a number of places. It sought cover from the airborne soldier, and made for the bin that the workers were hiding it.

Her HUD showed a group of five heat sources were approaching from deeper in the cavern. The only obvious entrance was a pair of elevator doors.

True to his Nepleslian heritage, Trowa went into a fit of curses before realizing that, once again, his comm was open for all to hear. Though he was cursing like a Nepleslian fighter pilot Trowa took in the situation quickly and sprang into action. He agreed with Saki that they needed to call the Aeon, but at the moment the presents of additional bad guys took priority. “Saki! Blast those elevator doors! Maybe we can keep them out for a moment! Kim!” Trowa was aware that he wasn’t using proper name and rank but to Feth with it. “Take a look at those controls! See if you can’t shut off the alarm and tell the upstairs that the prisoner uprising is contained!” He raised his plasma rifle and moved to finish off the last crab who was heading towards the bin where the prisoners were hiding. “Hey! Feth-wipe! Over here!” Trowa yelled at the crab as he opened fire.

Saki fired another burst of deadly ammunition against the crab as Trowa told her her orders. She also caught five heat sources heading towards them from the inside of the tunnel. Young neko tried to not think too hard, about the fact that Trowa calls her by her first name.

"Roger that sir!" Saki responded. "Also I have five heat sources coming from within the tunnel!" She added and flied towards the nearest elevator, activating the energy blade on her forearm. She used the heat of the blade to weld the doors of the elevator together and and stabbed the sides of the doors to destroy the hydraulics moving them. She then quickly moved to the next elevator and did the same.

The crab rushed Trowa perhaps hoping to cripple the soldier. However caught in the cross fire of his and Saki's weapons. The crab soon expired, just two meters away from Trowa.

Saki's sword work reduced the elevator system to so much inert metal. It was pretty safe that no one would come down the shaft in the normal fashion.

Kim flew up to the console and looked at them. Having scene NMX controls on other missions, she found it relatively simple to send the all clear message. She was dubious if the folks above would believe it. But it was worth a shot.

Saki took a deep breath hoping that what she done with elevators would be enough. Though she was sure that should something like Ripper show up, it would just burst through the elevator doors like if they were made from paper.

Saki slowly made her way toward the bin where worker hid when the battle started. She knocked at it first before coming into the prisoners view. "Konichiwa," she said looking at nearest prisoner. Her LASR was in one hand, pointed to the ground. "We are Star Army soldier and we come to help you." She called to them.

Trowa lowered his weapon and stared at the dead crab then walked over and placed one foot on it in a hunters pose. “Ok, ok who’s got the camera?” He asked jokingly before turning away and taking a good look around. Saki had sealed the elevator doors, so the only way in was the tunnel they had come through. Hopefully they’d have enough time to figure out what the Feth was going on on this miserable Feth-wipe of a planet. “Alright Miss Science,” Trowa spoke to Kim, “Time for you to work your scientific magic. Look over the controls and examine this big thing.” He kicked the strange machine in the middle of the room with his toe. See if you can figure out what it is.”

“Arai-Hei?” Trowa said as he came up behind her and nodded approvingly. “Nice shooting.” He then turned to look at the prisoners. They looked pretty ragged. It would take time to get them out of here but he couldn’t just leave them here to die. Not if he could help it. “Look over the prisoners. I’m going to send some of our drones back up the tunnel and try to relay a message to Tsubei-Heisho and see what’s going on topside. Figure out how many of them are fit to travel on their own and if there is any equipment like breathing masks. Come of that, see if they know anything about what’s going on around here.” The pilot moved back towards the tunnel and sent out several drones to act as relay down the tunnel. He then tried the comm. He was addressing Kyoka but left the channel open so any of the other away team members could answer if Kyoka was busy. “Tsubei-Heisho, this is Yamamoto-Heisho. Can you here me?”

The thermal sources continued to converge. They were moving at an accelerating pace. Once they were within visual range, it became clear that they were the digging animals. However, they made no attempt to attack Trowa or Saki. In fact they streaked across the chamber and were making for the passage that lead to the surface.

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Kim walked started examining the equipment, which she would have done without Trowa's suggestion. She chuckled to herself watching him strut. The equipment was relatively simple and in a few minutes she deduced its purpose. "The main machine is an ore processing system, it grinds and sorts the ore. It seems that the NMX were focusing on this ore." She said holding up a luminescent rock. "Also that console above before it was shot was what controlled the digging creatures."


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As Trowa's drone streaked down the passage past the creatures, they pinged on the presence of a shuttle in close proximity.

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Several of the prisoners poked their heads up over the edge. One spoke up. "And how do you plan on getting us out of here. You folks sealed the elevators, and well going past the atmospheric shield in the passage is certain death." he said to Saki.

Saki was little surprised. Those prisoners did not seem very happy about being rescued. Weren't they just slaves? They should be happy to see Yamataian soldier who came to help them. Why would they be so... unpleasant towards her. This fact made Saki little sad.

"I- uh... We..." She could not find words at first. "Well... we have a ship and I can unseal the elevator doors again, just cut them apart. I am also quite sure we could disable this atmospheric shield you talk off."

"If you do that you kill us all. The atmosphere beyond the shield is toxic. The NMX made that point clear when they walked people out and placed bets on who would die first.

They died in less than two minutes." one of the slaves said climbing out of the bin.

Saki narrowed her eyes and her ears went flat in the helmet. She was being scolded by someone who she just saved. "Well I am not stupid, of course we will get you some suits first, or find a vehicle! NMX must have suits for their nekoes here somewhere!" Saki replied and her voice sounded fairly annoyed. She also started looking about for anything useful.

"Sir we are in bit of a pickle here." Saki said quietly over the radio to Trowa, so the prisoners would not hear from inside her helmet. "We are going to need suits or pressurised vehicle to get these people out. I am afraid we will have to make either a daring escape or take the whole station."

Kim rejoined the group. "I have already dispatched a brief situation report to the Aeon. I am sure the Taisa will see about sending some sort of transport to help with transporting. A T7 shuttle would be more than sufficient. We should search this area and see if there are any emergency breathers or the like available. After all, should the shield fail, one would expect they would want to keep their work force alive."

After searching for a bit, Saki found a couple of non-descript boxes against the far wall. They almost blended in with all the dust and debris on them. Each has a simple padlock securing it.

Trowa kicked a lose piece of debris in frustration then to keep himself for going into a cursing rant replied. “I like the sound of a daring escape. That has some merit. Course taking the whole place would also make for a good bar-room story.” Trowa sighed and took a look around. Kim had a good point about emergency equipment. “Alright, alright, calm down.” Trowa said through his speakers to the prisoners as he moved to inspect the lockers Kim had found. “We’re going to get you all out of here alive and in once piece.” He tugged absent mindedly at the locks a moment as if trying to decide the best way to get them off, then simply raised his plasma rifle and gave a hard jab with the butt-end. “Instead of sitting on your arsis complaining; why don’t you give us a hand and tell us something useful. Like how big is this place? What do they do here? How many are there? Are there other prisoners here?” Trowa was fishing for some more information. He was unsure as to how much they actually knew but it was worth a shot. He was also trying to focus their attention away from the outside atmosphere.

Saki raised an eyebrow as she noticed the boxes. What could be inside? Something interesting? Maybe it will be hat survival gear. Time to explore! Saki ran to the nearest box and first examined with her eyes. There was nothing interesting on it, it was a box. Inside could be anything.

Saki put her LASR on her backs and prepared her forearm weapon. Better safe then sorry. As far as young neko knew, the box could contain another crab or something. Saki cut of the padlock with her forearm blade and then opened the box, ready to stab whatever nasty and evil could be inside.

When Saki opened the box a fine cloud of dust rose up. Once it cleared she could see a collection of jumpsuits and masks. They were not the highest quality but prbably would suffice.

"Up above there are a lot of soldiers and techs. There are a total of forty slaves, split across three shifts. They smelt the ore and refine it. Don't know what for we don't get to see that part.

Saki smiled upon her findings. Jackpot! It was just what they needed! Young neko turned to the group and called out Kim. "Ma'am I found breathers and jumpsuits. They are here in the boxes!" She said and proceeded to cautiously check the other boxes.

Freyja Oinari passed the atmosphere barrier slowly creeping her way on, she knew she needed to hurry but she didn't want to run in to any thing else. She crept around the last bit of the tunnel into a large cavern, she slowly dropped in to a crouch and watched the beings in here with her.

She wanted to make sure it was the folks from the Aeon and not some NMX. after a few seconds she noticed the markings on the PAs, they were certainly form the Aeon. She stood and spoke up, "Umm... Hello, The Taisa sent me to retrieve you, and any folks with you." She waved with her left hand, all the while keeping her rifle ready if these weren't the one see what looking for.

Saki could hear a small clatter from the entrance and then a female voice. Before she was really listening to what was said she turned around, her LASR appearing in her hands and both gauss cannons lowered only to see Yamataian soldier.

"Daaaamn," Saki said and frowned. "You startled me! I hope you took a big shuttle with you, NMX have prisoners here!" Saki said and meanwhile linked her AIES with other woman's suit to add he IFF signal.