RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Part 1: Amaya's Gate

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Tom wasn't really aware of the events surrounding the NH-23 Kotori. But when the bridge reported that the Dominion was back online, he assumed the worst.

At least they had the tactical advantage, given the way the Dominion was damaged.

"I suggest we destroy the enemy ship before it can send a distress signal," Tom said. "We need to make sure it doesn't contact its friends."

Tom ran an inquiry to medical as he waited, asking about the status of the injured sprite who nearly died opening the door to the bridge.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"That's the way Azuki, continue doing that. You've almost gotten every shard out of her legs." Ayumu said while she continued to administer hemosynthetic fluid to her patient. The wounded sprite had been brought to the medical center by Suzumu for attention. The personnel there had removed the damaged Armor from her body and gotten to work restoring her.

"You're going to be just fine Misato, we have you stable now and the pain killers should be working. Right now we are just working on removing those pieces of metal from your legs so be patient with us." Ayumu told the sprite reassuringly. When the sprite had first arrived they had to remove the helmet and chest piece before applying the hemosynth to help heal her and pain killers to ease the procedure. During that procedure they got to work removing the lower section that had been more seriously damaged and assessed the situation. Azuki was guided by Ayumu at first before she began working on removing the rest of the shrapnel herself. As a result of their methodical procedure Misato would be able to recover soon.

Upon receiving the request for a status update Ayumu sent a brief message back to Tom.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Doshii Jun said:

"Dominion is returning to operational status. Heisho-san, find its power generators and target them; Taii-san, I will put you in the best position to attack."

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"Understood." Miyoko put the aetheric sensors to work finding the Dominion's generator, then layered magnetic resonance scanners over that in order to find exactly where Nyton could shoot to pierce its armor quickest. Just in case its weapon systems came back up before then, she targeted every sensor array she could find on the ship and locked a graviton beam on them... about like shining a flashlight into somebody's eyes, or at least that was the effect she was hoping for. With the Miharu using gravimetric engines for propulsion, throwing off the corresponding sensors couldn't hurt.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

The constant turbulence from the Miharu's struggle was not doing much to calm Sanjuro's nerves. He'd spent the better part of the fight frantically trying to keep all his things in order throughout all of the shaking, anxiety gripping him at every low rumble. He had no idea how the fight was going outside of his medical bay; whether they were, amazingly, succeeding in their seemingly-impossible goal or on the very verge of gruesome death. Most of the contents of the cabinets, shelves and his personal desk were either on the floor or in shambles. By the time Yukari's frantic order came in, Sanjuro had fallen back to his desk with his head in his hands, having given up trying to keep things in his usual order and instead doing his best to simply maintain a calm breathing rate.

Yukari said:

"Heisho!" she sent, in Yamataian, to poor Sanjuro. "Prepare an NH-29 shell in the likeness of the Taisa! PLEASE HURRY!"

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The message broke Sanjuro's impromptu lamentation as he jerked his head back up. For a moment, the doctor hesitated, his own dismal definition of the situation dictating his inaction. In that sudden flash of urgency in Yukari's voice, however, Sanjuro saw that he did indeed have a job to do. The doctor stood up and took a deep breath, steeling himself for the moment as he traversed his way through the mess to the hemosynth tanks. Fortunately, the heavier machinery in the medical bay was built to survive a little turbulence. In the minutes following the Shosa's order, Sanjuro had finished imputing the commands into the console and watched as the shell continued to form into a vague, familiar likeness.

"The NH-29 shell will be ready within minutes, Suzuka-Shosa," Sanjuro returned a late reply to Yukari, his on dull tone taking on the hint of urgency she herself had displayed earlier.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Thank you, Heisho," Yukari telepathically replied. Though there likely was not much of a point to it all now, it kept the medical officer primed and ready to act.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Ponderously, Dominion slowly maneuvered to come about and face Miharu. The main turrets telescoped slightly out as they were arming and swiveled to face Miharu, as did their smaller counterparts. The enemy cruiser's shields did not activate: the damage to the pylons likely interfered with power feed to the distorsion shield arrays.

Miharu for her part spun around in a dime to face the 8 kilometer distant Dominion with her main gun. While the Himiko-class prototype still had minimal shielding, the weapon capacitors were fully charged and the ship's armament was fully primed for use.

The time Dominion recovered from having powered down to be in maintenance mode provided Miharu with a brief window of opportunity where she could strike hard, without reprisal. The readings Miyoko fed Nyton revealed that the Vale-class vessel's aether generator was deep within the hull sandwiched between the two main turreted cannons; and the additional fusion reactors were very close to the ventral armor, with the close-by material collector apertures and emergency exhaust points being possible weakpoints.

* * *

Kotori set one hand to her seat's armrest and absently turned it around so she could sit heavily on the torn cushions. She raised both hands to hold the sides of her head as she bent low, still gasping for breath.

* * *

@Kurohoshi Team:

Masako's drone slipped into the power reactor's chamber only to see a dozen of body-armored nekomachinas armed with LASR guarding the place, with several horned nekovalkyrjas (NH-17Ts, perhaps?) being in the midst of evacuating the place.

"Go go go!" a blue haired nekovalkyrja with a horned forehead that was a strong Eve lookalike, dressed in a technician's jumpsuit and armed with a Type 27 SMG, yelled to the others, waving them out.

One of the more youthful-looking nekos red-eyed and green haired, stopped by the blue-haired leader. "Suzuran-oneesama, you can't stay here!"

Eve's daughter shoved the begging neko the way of the exit! "Out, quickly! Meni and Mani will protect you until Eve gets here!"

With a forlorn-look, the green-haired neko meekly nodded and ran under a closing blast door.

* * *

@Nakamura Team:

Kai's way of barging into the room, plasma rifle blazing, turned out being a good idea... but for the wrong reasons.

From the stray hits, Kai learned that the matter/anti-matter power reactor - thickly armored in zesuaium - had some very strong energy shielding to protect it in addition. The plasma discharge did squat to it.

Another hit on a plain zesuaium wall showed that even without the shielding, it would take a lot of concentrated firepower to get through any wall or blast door in the place.

Finally, an accidental hit on a power converter showed it to not be hardware and rather some slimy 'something' that had disguised itself as one. The thing distorted away as if it was a mound of liquid metal 'cringing' in pain.

At that realization, a sheet of metal flooring next to Kai rose like a cresting wave that threatened to flow over him. Part of the doorframe behind Kai, where Asher was inching through, also distorted into rows of serrated teeth as it began to close down on the grenadier's Daisy.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Asher's eyes caught a glint of teeth as the door began to close, the sight shook him and he kicked in his thrusters to push him into the room. At first, he thought it was some row of knives the enemy had put into the door to skewer any unlucky passers-by. Though, the strange shape of them caused him to wonder, yet the movement of the floor seemed to disturb him even more.

"This is some ass-backwards shit." The Yamataian grunted as he landed on both feet. He switched to his flamethrower and aimed it at the oozing equipment. He let loose two seconds worth of fuel to test it's effect on whatever it was.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari's ears were sharp enough to hear Kotori's breathing. Her mind was not so distracted to miss it.

"Taii-san, see to the Taisa," Yukari said, briefly shifting weapons control to Miyoko as she shifted Miharu into a position to hit the Dominion's fusion generators, sliding down below the ship and with the bow facing the ventral armor point directly above the generators. "Heisho, fire the main aether cannon when ready."

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Shit" Kai thought; His tactics were sound, but not for this enemy. What kind of enemy was it, anyhow? All he knew was that solid ammunition was probably useless, but he figured something that could probably damage it.

"Minimissiles, Now. Subspace if you have them!" the Heisho ordered, boosting off of the ground and firing off a salvo of five Subspace detonating missiles while firing at the amorphous objects with the plasma rifle. Whatever these were, they seemed to be made of Nano or Femtomachines, which meant that anything that could mess with their electronics would be the most effective.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Nyton was channeling his murderous fury into the Miharu's weapons and focusing them to be as deadly as possible to obliterate the enemy ship. He was as calm and collected externally as he was furious internally. It was all he could currently do to avenge Kotori's death before anymore targets showed themselves. He was getting ready to fire when from his right came Yukari's voice.

"Taii-san, see to the Taisa,"

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Violence was forgotten. Nyton would not have even noticed the control of the weapons had shifted over if not for his Fast Time interface alerting him. He unplugged himself and stood up, quickly turning around as he did so. The angle of the bridge prevented him from seeing it before with his 360 vision until he stood up to his full height. Then he saw Kotori looking as though she were struggling to breath. His reaction was spontaneous and strikingly familiar. "Your highness!"

The shortest path with the fastest amount of effort. Once again Nyton launched himself atop of the console, keeping to the edge so as not to crush anything and then hopping over to land beside Kotori's chair. "Your highness," Nyton moved to crouch in front of her before bringing his hands up to the ailing nekovalkyrja. His standard eye began running scans on different levels going over her thermal readings followed by the substance analyzer to see if there were any anomalies on or maybe within her. "Kotori, what is it? What's wrong? Do I need to take you to medical?" he asked her softly while trying to determine what may be wrong with her. His right hand traced over her head near where she was already touching while the left went down to her abdominal region to check her breathing. At the back of his mind he tried to process what could be happening.

Could she be having some sort of psionic reaction to the other Kotori's death? Was there possibly a physiological connection even? Maybe she is just having a tremendous emotional upheaval. Dammit I don't know these kinds of things! Nyton thought, trying to stay calm while examining Kotori urgently.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari said, briefly shifting weapons control to Miyoko as she shifted Miharu into a position to hit the Dominion's fusion generators, sliding down below the ship and with the bow facing the ventral armor point directly above the generators. "Heisho, fire the main aether cannon when ready."

Click to expand...

"With pleasure." As much trouble as the Dominion had given them, Miyoko had few compunctions about blasting it to pieces. It seemed like a bit of a macabre memorial for the deceased Kotori to vaporize the entire ship she'd died on... about fitting in tone to the rest of her life recently, Miyoko mused darkly.

In the position 'beneath' the Vale, most of the subspace cannons could target it. She wasted no time before she started using them to spray fiery (or, at least, subspace-y) death at the cruiser, trying to focus all their fire on the material collector to pierce through to one of the ship's fusion reactors.

The aether beam, though, would be doing most of the work. She put the weapon into pulse mode and aimed it at the same spot, then treated the Dominion to two quick shots from it, then hesitated to let the capacitor recharge and see the results of her efforts.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Kyou acted as ordered, quickly releasing 5 of her subspace detonating missiles on a trajectory that would, in theory, not be affected by Asher's flamethrower.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Four particle bolts and two aether pulses struck at the underside of Dominion's hull, and the enemy vessel shed hull armor like a molting bird shedding feathers. No sooner had the rents been carved into the hull that one explosion blossomed from a fusion reactor going critical, and then another, and another.

The fiery plumes had the Vale-class cruiser reel to the side in a lazy spiral, leaking copious amounts of plasma around of its rent hull. Another explosion erupted out further above, and a following decompression ruined the structural struts close to the Dominion's port pylon. When the next fusion reactor exploded, the pylon tore off entirely, further exposing the central sections of the vessel...

Which in turn decompressed, and that in turn caused other power systems to fail, which had power failures cause anti-matter containment serving as payload to the turrets to lose magnetic containment, which caused other explosions...

...in short, Miyoko was looking at a chain reaction that was slowly, but steadily, tearing the Dominion to so much space flotsam. The ship was just stubbornly taking her sweet time to turn 'gray' on her sensor readouts.

What was more disconcerting was the energy spike within the doomed vessel... which indicated that the NH-23's killer had likely teleported to a comparatively safer location.

As the show of pyrotechnics went on, Nyton examined Kotori, finding her temperature above the normal with his infravision. The Taisa raised one hand to take the one he had extended to her head and then held it over her shoulders - a show of reassurance? - as she looked up at him.

She was as feverish as he had ever seen a nekovalkyrja look. "Amaya... was right." She moistened her lips. "It was intuitive, easy... realized too late... tried reconstituting her... too complex, not enough time."

Kotori closed her eyes in anguish, her eyes burning with unshed tears. "I killed her. I did not mean to."

* * *

@Nakamura Team:

Asher's flamethrower belched a sheet of plasma at the piece of hardware Kai had initially struck: the thing - which presently looked like a large meter-high grey piece of half-melted wax - recoiled from the onslaught and Asher saw that after the brief attack it had turned blackened and crusty on one side.

In restrospect, maybe five seconds of suppressive fire on the thing would've been good enough to destroy it.

Meanwhile, Kyou and Kai's mini-missile spread across the three targets, but the combined impacts and local SDM events apparently failed to do much else than slightly slow them down.

The 'doorway monster' dropped down into a ball of grey slime before bounding Kyou's way while expanding into a mass of multiple tentacles - not too unlike an octopus - which engulfed her from front to back. Not only did the thing squeeze her Daisy tight as they grappled, but Kyou also felt a rattle against her armor: the underside of the tentacles had spawned serrated blades that had begun grinding against her armor just like a chainsaw would, coaxing showers of sparks.

Asher's target moved toward him, but the damage he had dealt it made it move stiffly, sluggishly, as if it couldn't have much of its mass move well around the carbonized sections.

The enemy that had disguised itself as part of the flooring, undeterred by the SDM mini-missiles, also launched itself at Kai. The Heisho avoided the initial charge but three pseudopods extended out of the gray mass to strike at him: one snaring him on the lower left leg while two others turned into some nightmarish combination inbetween a scythe-blade and multiple toothy maws. Kai blocked one with his zesuaium shield, but the other smacked hard against his helmet.

The latter, with the toothy suction cups giving it leverage on Kai's helmet, seized hold of Kai's headgear tightly and began to strain at it, twisting at his head in the same manner someone would twist at the lid of a jar to open it - with the impending result being either Kai's neck snapping... or his head being torn off, helmet and all.

Amidst the tussle, they could hear Hinoto's voice: "Heavy setting on the forearm weapons will drive away grappling NH-18s! Destroy them with plasma!"

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

NH-18's? There are still some around? the Yamataian thought, knowing this could be a very bad thing, as he watched the helmet twist around his head and start getting to the point where his head was going with it.

He fired his forearm weapons in heavy mode at the arm grappling his head, then brought his Plasma rifle to bear on the main body and sprayed fire over his enemy, as well as suddenly turning on the gravimetric funnels in his legs, hoping the effect would make the NH lose its grip. "Asher, Burn everything that's not attached to someone, Gunshin, Forearm weapons on heavy!" he ordered, hurriedly, a bit preoccupied.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Fuck me, why can't we fight normal shit." Asher growled as he raised his flamethrower towards the approaching mass. With an annoyed grunt he let loose what he could at least measure as another five seconds of plasma fire, a little overkill to let out the frustration.

While he did that he turned his free arm and his attention towards Kyou and Kai, he revved up the power in his forearm plasma weapon, and started firing at the appendages that gripped them. He started first with Kai, then with Kyou. This resulted in a two-way release of violence, with ionized plasma flame on the tumultuous object, and varied plasma fire to support his other squadmates.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari resisted the urge to swear as the Mindy armor escaped.

Dominion was turning grey, and with the final opponent removed from the battlefield, the crew had an opportunity to decompress. Yukari was not about to allow for that. The Takumi-class was still unaccounted for, as was the Eve clones' Sakura-class squadron. At least six more opponents were likely on the way.

The Shosa, however, did lean back in her chair. She breathed, deeply, before she stood up and left her space behind, approaching the Taisa and Nyton.

Yukari's visor still glowed in front of her eyes, so the Taisa could not see them. Her lips were tight, as if holding back. As she knelt down next to her and Nyton, though, she let her visor peel back around to her headset, revealing lightless green orbs surrounded by red cracks. Her face softened. She only looked into Kotori's eyes for a second before speaking to Nyton.

"Taii-san, help the Taisa to the medical lab, and ensure her vitals are examined by Ashitaka-Heisho." Her eyes met Kotori's again for another second, followed by another tight smile before she rose back to her feet and faced the damaged main screen.

"Juni," Yukari sent, the metallic sound of the telepathy fitting of her tone. "We have defeated Dominion. There is now time for some repairs; please use it as expeditiously as possible. We must be ready when Eve shows herself."

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Miyoko kept firing the subspace cannons a few moments after the second aether beam shot tore into the Dominion. Once she realized that the ship was destroying itself, she stopped firing, though she kept a wary eye on it, afraid that it might recover enough to pose a threat at any second. It kept right on exploding, though, and eventually, she had to accept that they'd won for the moment.

She flopped back in her chair and let out a long sigh of relief. For the first time since practically the moment that they had entered the system, she felt like they could win this. But, the sensors still demanded attention. If they got caught with their metaphorical pants down, the victory could get snatched out of their hands at the last second. Reluctantly, Miyoko leaned forward and started actively scanning the surroundings for threats.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Acknowledged."

Tom, through his volumetric window, saw bits of what happened on the bridge. The angle didn't allow him to see everything, but he heard the newly subdued attitude on the bridge. Yukari's deadened voice too... he was all too familiar with the dangerous realms his lover's mind went into at times. She had to decompress, but did they she have that luxury? Did any of them even have the time to come to terms with what was going on?

"Miharu, initiate creation of YARD drones and deploy them to repair structural damage on the hull. Deploy remaining coolant in tanks to overheated hull sections. Restore full energy to shields, initiate diagnostics on ship weapons and check for overheating or losses in operational capacity. Run diagnostics on your OS. We may need to reboot you."

He contacted Ichigo.

"Ichigo, delegate two armors to grab the extra coolant canisters from storage and have them installed. We have a window of opportunity for repairs."

He turned his attention to Yuzuki.

"Yuzuki, oversee the reboot of Hoshi's systems. She can't be in SAFE mode like this forever. You have the subdeck for now."

As he left the subdeck and headed for the bridge, Tom sent an acknowledgment to the nurses. "Thank you."

The bridge needed cleaning, but all the technician sprites were busy with repairs. That left few other options than to dip into the caretaker pool.

"Shimabumi Akiko and Shimabumi Shizuka, please stand ready to assist me on the bridge for cleaning duty if necessary. Do not enter unless I call you in."

"I'm on my way, Yukari."

------------

For Rin, who was waiting patiently by her CFS unit, there was the problem of ruptured pipes which spewed out hot steam whose presence was starting to make itself known as it coursed along the floor. The sprite was safe in her suit for now, but a quick scan would reveal potential for the pipe to rupture in two completely, sending torrents of compressed, heated air directly on top of the poor sprite unless she do something.

That, probably, wouldn't be too good for her health, nor the health of her CFS unit.

------------

Nao's situation was troublesome as well, but for different reasons. The battle had caused several power cables to split and dance across the floor. That wasn't the big problem, however. One of the large feeder cables to the CFS had suffered a cut, causing streaks of conductive energy to make contact with the surrounding metal. Aside from the obvious waste in efficiency this problem posed, if any of that energy were to travel and make contact with nearby consoles, the resulting surges would cause havok.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari kept her head high and slowly breathed. Tom was on his way; she would not collapse on him in front of anyone; not now, when the Taisa was not in the best physical shape to command. She had to be as tough as perfect iron.

"Thank you, Tom," she almost whispered.

"Saito-Heisho, you should retrieve some food from the galley to ensure you are at full strength. I will watch the sensors."

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Miyoko looked to Yukari, a little reluctant to take the order at face value. She was concerned for the woman... frankly, she was concerned for the emotional well-being of the whole damn bridge crew at this point, but Yukari was definitely on the list from what little she knew of the XO's relationship with Kotori. However, now was not the time for voicing those concerns.

Miyoko gave a grateful smile and pushed herself to her feet. "Thank you. I'll be back shortly." She only made it a few steps toward the door before she hesitated and turned her head to look back at Yukari. "We're going to beat her this time, you know. In a few hours, we'll be eating cake and laughing about this." Miyoko's newfound confidence would probably prove to be short-lived in the face of her ever-present pessimism, but for the moment, she sounded like she meant it. With that announcement out of the way, the Yamataian headed to the kitchen.