RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Aftermath (8th day)

[Fred]

Nimura gave Kai a flat look. "Those whom do not want to go? Is there a reason anyone here in this crew would not want to go out to fight the NMX and save Yamatai?"

"Ah," Suzume edged a look at Nimura, not feeling it was a really good idea for her to give a Heisho a scathing comment, but she inwardly agreed they were missing an important piece of the puzzle. She asked Kai: "Do you know what we are volunteering ourselves for, Heisho? Is this sortie something special?"

 

[Kai]

Kai thought for a moment at what Suzume said.

"Ah- I do not. I was simply ordered to gather up the Black knights for a mission, not what the mission entailed. The Taii didn't tell me, and I felt time was more important than knowledge at the moment so I... Umm.. Didn't ask..." The Yamataian Kind of stumbled around it a bit, a hand reaching up to rub the back of his Helmet in embarrassment.

"Taii, What is the mission that we are suiting up for?" He requested of Nyton, trying to make up for his slip.

 

[Gallant]

Yuzuki appeared at Kai's elbow, her helmet cradled, a decidedly sour expression still lingering, as if she couldn't decide whether to be professional, or angry, or professionally angry.

"There's not a single one," she stated, icily, "who wouldn't want to go no matter the odds. We maintenanced as many armors as we could in the time we had and they're all at least servicable, but they aren't all... perfect."

She let that hang in the air.

"Work with what you got, suit up how you can. When we're out we're out. Unless you want them someway else?"

The Heisho glanced to the other Heisho. The two of them were of a height, but they were like night and day. The one in zesu-black, and the other in dura-green. The one calm, almost hesitant, the other alive with unspent adrenaline. But they stood together, neither one forward or behind the other, as if that were their natural state despite the oddities in their appearance.

 

[Kokuten]

It was that moment that Rolf lit up again.

"Volunteer? Fuck yeah I volunteer!" roared the Malifarian with glee! "Fuckin' spacin' a g'damn NMX fleet commanda' on 'is own ship? Yeeeeeaaaaah boi!" He came off the loader with a jump and a jig, showing his excitement through interpretive dance(which was really normal dancing.) "That Spunkamizzlefazzleharmasha ain't eva' gunna' see tha' Miharu boyz comin'! Two big bad assassinations in one month?" Left, right, left, right, he hopped on one foot to the other, shaking his shoulders. "Is like iss' my ~biiiiiiiirthday~!"

He turned around on one heel and stood fast, holding up both hands

"Who d'you guys think's gunna' get tha' last hit on'm?" asked Rolf as he activated both of his aether blades on his forearms, "I ain't sayin' I'm goin' for it..." He made a flurry of precise, yet fairly violent slashes into the air before dissipating the blades. "... but I think m'chances iss' pretty good!"

 

[Doshii Jun]

"...of course."

The tepid reply, delivered in at a volume that Yukari would have been unable to decipher had she not been Nekovalkyrja, made it hard to tell who the Raltean was talking to.

Yukari looked into his eyes until he turned. So that was how it was. Locked in a mood for who knows what reason, but locked in it nonetheless. She had time to try to soothe him, but she knew she could not. He was there, in that place, and he would stay there until he found reason to leave it.

"For Miharu is still my battlecry," she stated to no one in particular - the three officers behind her - as if she was thinking aloud. "We're still fighting for the legacy she left us. I am not stopping until I see it done."

Then she walked on, and left the ship.

And Kotori was in her own wonderful emotional state as well, perhaps. Why? She vowed to decipher it later; things had to be done now.

"Good luck, Taii-san. ... Come back to me, Tom." She smiled at them both, then left for the Mokuren, catching up to Kotori on foot.

"Orders for me, Taisa?" she asked after getting along side her.

* * *

"I'll stay," Tori said, already taking off her helmet. "That frees up an armor for someone else."

 

[Nyton]

"I would appreciate your help Freeman. I am going to need your technical support to subdue the ship." Nyton then replied to the Raltean.

"The mission will have a blitz strike to the bridge with very little support. The team will be cut off after departure and will have to find a way out on our own." came Nyton's telepathic reply to Kai.

Nyton knew this would not be easy. They were not only performing a surgical strike but also somehow subduing or escaping an entire ship. He then looked at Melisson.

"What kind of crew can we expect aboard the Tiamat? An educated guess or whatever you know Melisson." he quickly asked.

 

[Fred]

@Nyton:

Melisson promptly fired off one concise answer after another, cooperating with him in a fashion which felt like disarming honesty.

"You'll commonly see what they term the Advanced Mishhuvurthyar - which are like my descendents but have less streamlined shells that are also more skinny, and they have a more expansive digestive system that droops down with their mouth, tentacles and all."

"He has the Brutes - they look more like your crabs and lobsters - with tough interlocking exoskeleton, powerful pincers and diminutive manipulative arms."

"Maybe you'll see their new breed of parasites. Not much to say about them, but they have a tough triple-beaked mouth and can fly, so they can launch themselves at you like high-speed projectiles - that can be a threat to a power armor."

"Sprufnikkamazzar himself should stand out from them because he's the type of Mishhuvurthyar that you've seen fighting you on my ship and amongst the rest of the SMX. Some spikes serrate over his shell, but that's just because he's much older than the Mishhuvurthyar you usually encounter."

Melisson paused, apparently done. Nyton, though, marked that more as hesitation before she added another bit of information for him to digest.

"Maybe you should know," she started. "Lately, there's been this project Sprufnikkamazzar championed to have the nekovalkyrja the NMX could now produce changed and adapted like how it was done to the Neo Mishhuvurthyar. They were named like my ship - 'Nightmares' in Nepleslian - and seemed to be a kind of 'Neo Nekovalkyrja' that took some pointers from my Interpreter body and the NH-25 hybrids."

"I don't know a whole lot about them, they're still quite rare. I only learned of them through one of my imprints, and never actually saw them. I've heard they could serve as bodyguards to important figures. Sprufnikkamazzar certainly qualifies. He might have replaced the nekovalkyrja on his bridge with them."

"A Chiharu-class has a pretty large bridge," Melisson then cautioned. When you'll teleport in, you're likely to be assailed from all sides. Sprufnikkamazzar may choose to bury you under numbers and make himself scarce - there is, after all, a three decks' worth of bridge for you to deal with: that's potentially more than 150 opponents."

@Kotori:

The battle promoted Acting Taisho strode into the Mokuren's bridge, waving away reverent bows to snap: "Status?"

"The fleet will be ready to fold in moments," Kasami Erika-Chujo answered.

Doors hissed open, and close again, heralding Yukari's arrival. The Shosa heard Kotori order: "Make a communication uplink with Hoshi and put it on volumetric screen."

"Hai," one of Erika's staff acknowledged, and a window winked open by Kotori as she got seated.

"Hoshi, I want you to be ready to open a communication interface for Melisson, along with a volumetric projection which will make it look like she's on the Mokuren's bridge. On my signal, what is recorded from Melisson will be transmitted out from the Mokuren's main comm array - she'll do the talking for us."

"Are you sure?" Hoshi's AI asked.

"Yui's made her gamble. I'm making mine," Kotori retorted. "You have my orders."

The small ship's AI acknowledged and went silent for the moment.

When Kotori raised her head again, she asked: "Give me confirmation: despite Yui's visit and our contact with PANTHEON, has our IFF signatures changed?"

"Yes, Taisho," Kasami replied. "We should show as Y.S.S. ships to-"

Kotori cut her off from saying the rest. "Change it back and make ready to depart. Yui had her fleet defolding at the edge of the system - we're arriving closer, like the NMX did, right outside the homeworld's Hill sphere." Even though Yui's fleet would precede them, Kotori seemed determined to arrive first.

 

[Tom]

Tom listened in on the conversation, absorbing the information Melisson had given Nyton.

"If we teleport in, then we need to make sure we teleport in the area we best think Sprufnikkamazzar would be and try to take him out in one go. It's likely that we'd have only a few moments of surprise to take out the target before we're swarmed. I'm not sure if he's the type to lead from the front or from the comfort of some other part of the ship, though. Either way, would you have information on the interior of the enemy ship you could provide us?"

 

[Fred]

Melisson gave Tom a half-lidded look.

"It's a Chiharu-class flagship. Which is a vessel built by your Empire. You're an engineer; shouldn't you live from knowing this stuff or at least be able to look it up from your computer?" Melisson returned, as if she was lecturing a child whom had done something foolish.

Fortunately, Hoshi stepped in when Melisson was more exasperated and less forthcoming: "A Chiharu-class flagship bridge is a three-deck complex. From bottom to top: you have the Pit level (Navigation and Auxiliary Control), the Command level (Tactical, Communication and Science), and the Fleet Command level (Fleet Comm, Mission Ops, Starship Ops)," the ship's AI informed Tom. "Your target is very likely to supervise the battle from the top-level."

 

[Doshii Jun]

Yukari heard enough of Kotori's plan to know just how risky it was. She came to Kotori's side, just off her right shoulder.

"We do not have Shlarvasseroth," Yukari said. "Will that not raise suspicions?"

In her mind, she made sure the fleet organization was going as proposed. She changed a few things in order to make it more convincing that Melisson was leading the fleet — Mokuren at the center of the fleet's wide footprint, having heavy gunships and battleships up front to pile on maximum damage; using the corvettes and torpedo-firing vessels ready to fire from the outer ring of the fleet's cluster.

 

[Fred]

"From what I understand, Melisson didn't have to be close to her progenitor to be able to operate. I believe that's how she confronted Hanako's Plumeria previously, as well as when she showed up at the Conference. She's was considered expendable to the Umbral, and her coming here would have spared the Infection Queen from risking being swept away in something so large should something unforeseen happen."

Kotori turned away from Yukari to scowl at a volumetric display portraying PANTHEON's relayed information on the condition of Yamatai via hyperspace comm feeds.

"We'll announce ourselves and join their formation to 'help' defend them against Yui's incoming fleets. Once battle begins to be joined, we'll have our smaller Yuis rush forward through the enemy formation, firing and spiking through the NMX warships until they cannot anylonger. The Yuumis will follow Mokuren as we make her collide into the Tiamat and will cover us when we pull away. Ayames will concentrate on providing fire support against Mishhuvurthyar battlepods while the Irim gunships will combat the enemy in a more conventional fashion."

It was a ruthless attack plan which started with them backstabbing their NMX 'allies', though Kotori's offensive plan also required that all the Yui destroyers commit to an attack run which would ultimately prove suicidal.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Yukari recognized the tactic for what it was.

"Wait," she said. "Sending the Yuis in that way will decimate their ranks. We could attack from farther away, lay heat on backsides, and launch a torpedo volley after we have softened their aft shields. We can slice through their protection with our knowledge of how they set up their CFS bubbles."

Her heart was in it, but her words didn't sound convincing, even to her own ears. The suicide tactic would send the NMX fleet into a furious scramble and remove their unit cohesion, allowing the Yuumis and Ayames to bring superior firepower to bear and give the Irims a chance to plunder their more valuable vessels. Yui's fleet, attacking with superior ships and weapons, would further eliminate the NMX's prowess of overwhelming an opponent.

She did not want to see so many die after just being freed. Not like that.

 

[Fred]

Kotori stood up as she payed attention to Yukari speaking, arguing her plans. The amber-eyed nekovalkyrrja closed the distance between them both. Once she was within reach, once Yukari's last sentence ended, she brought her hands up to cup Yukari's cheeks in them.

"Remember Lor," Kotori told her first officer, her friend, with near-startling gentleness considering how brusque she had been since Yui gave her the battle promotion.

"Remember how easy it was for the Mishhuvurthyar to hurt Lor and Taiie. Faced with the firepower a fleet can bring to bear, planets are fragile. Even the transposed moon was a kindness by contrast of what Melisson would've been capable of inflicting had she wanted. Taiie made that amply obvious."

"Our forces are ready to go into hyperspace, Your Highness," Kasami supplied, providing the information while trying to be as unobstrusive as possible.

"Fold," Kotori simply ordered in return, not breaking eye contact with Yukari. The fleet at her command shortly made the leap; colors and accents blurring as ships bent reality before they settled, with them all traveling toward their homeworld.

"Our forces will be more numerous, but they are right next to Yamatai," Kotori asserted. "A notorious opponent like the one we'll face does not go down quietly. If he is going to fight as a cornered beast, he will cause as much damage as possible. We cannot come second in ferocity; we have too much to lose if we allow that to happen."

"They have to be defeated." Amber eyes were not letting Yukari's green ones go. "They have to be beaten so quickly, their numbers culled with such swift brutality that they cannot muster a reprisal. This must be entirely one-sided... or else even stray torpedoes or an errant cloud of battlepods that survives to reach the planet can rob us of what we hold dear, what we would die to protect."

 

[Nyton]

"They may have altered the bridge for all we know." Nyton said to try and alleviate the assault on Tom's pride. "Thank you for the insight on Sprufnikkamazer. Hopefully later I can ask you another more personal question."

With a glance towards Tom the Nepleslian motioned for him to follow. "Let's go. We need to suit up and brief the rest of the team on the mission specifics." he said as he waited for Tom to move.

 

[Tom]

Tom offered a polite nod to Melisson before he turned and followed Nyton.

"If we plan to escape alive, I'll need to download those schematics and bring some tools, too, in case I need to juryrig something. I'd like Nimura and Yuzuki to come as well, so we have adequate technical expertise to cover our potential losses."

The Raltean sighed, unable to hide his feelings any longer.

"We jump from one fire into another," he said flatly, "Except this time we lit the flames. What a crock."

A pause.

"This plan of Yui's better work out," he added with a bit of venom in his voice.

 

[Kai]

Kai listened to Nyton's telepathic reply, before thinking to himself. Ah, a Suicide mission. Our specialty. "Looks like we'll be assaulting the bridge, I'm assuming of the enemy flagship." Kai informed the gathering squad of Black Knights that were readying for the attack.

"This should be a cakewalk, we've done missions like this so many times, it's practically routine."

 

[Nyton]

"Even if it does not work Kotori's plan will." Nyton replied with assured confidence. His stride was determined and he mentally calculated what armaments his suit would wield. "Do not overburden yourself with too many tools. If need be share the load with the other team members."

 

[Gallant]

As Rolf capered about, and Kai spoke, Yuzuki refitted her helmet and took a deep breath of the Mindy's air. The sound of her own breathing became priority; the rest of it faded to white noise. She concentrated and tried to make her anger into a controlled thing, a directed thing, and found that she could. She could feel every limb screaming for movement. Her blood rushed. Her mind rushed along with it.

Automatically, she began her checks.

The suit was 'fine'. Yuzuki defined 'fine' as; a thing which operates with complete mechanical precision.

Yes. The suit could perform. The maintenance had been done. There was nothing left for the armor except to be shattered, and broken, and burned - and it would take it, at least for a while. The zesuaium was flawless. To an engineer's mind this was important. A suit was not something a person could just wear without thinkng of these things. As for herself, she had run the simulations. Over and over again. She had spent days at it, enough that the way the insert hugged her form was comfortable (preferable, even) and the weight, present though normally negligable, was routine. She had pursued it with purpose.

Now...

Now she focused on the world around her. The sprites in various states of armor. Kai in his off-balanced state, apparently uncomfortable with his responsibility, but gaining confidence that reflected in his voice. Tori removing her armor, making way for others more eager. Asher - or Rolf, or whoever he was now - bragging, bouncing around unrestrained. Nimura in silence; hers was a sword that would remain sheathed until ready for use, no matter how ready. And what was Yuzuki?

Idly, she looked down to her weapon - the aether rifle, with the two-foot bayonette. She turned it, slightly, utilizing her suit's omniscent optics to examine it in detail. It had seen use but had since been charged. Now it pulled power from her Mindy, and so it was negligable as a concern. This, also, had become a familiar part of her recent daily routine.

Her blood kept moving around, sloshing around, adrenaline building and burning its way. Yuzuki could not keep from shivering, remembering the Shlarvasseroth. The great beast loomed before her, again, and Yuzuki could not control the tremors. It had killed Ichigo. It had changed Kai. It had destroyed Yuzuki's home and ruined everything.

For all Yuzuki knew, there was another one of them, another one of those things, on the bridge of the starship that they were about to board.

She was afraid. She was excited. She was overwhelmingly fucking angry.

Her jaw set beneath the helmet, Yuzuki gripped the rifle like it was her last tenuous lease on life and waited, every minute suddenly becoming an hour beneath her rhythmic, controlled breath, and every hour unbearable.

 

[Fred]

Nimura, whom had been quiescent, waiting, suddenly went into motion once more - again walking out to the bay's exit. "Those whom plan to volunteer should perhaps take the precaution of getting a mental backup."

 

[Kokuten]

"Fuck yeah, who knows what will happen, yeah?" agreed Rolf with gusto to Nimura's bit of advice. The happy Malifarian soared along after the sprite his gravimetric engines hovering him along. In one hand, was his helmet, held in tight, as he knew it would see a great deal of punishment for this battle. His other hand? Flat, outstretched, and revved to swing. As he zoomed by the ever serious and direct Nimura, he slapped her on her armored bottom, before zooming off even faster towards the Medical Laboratory.