RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Part 2: The Fight For The Lost

@Bridge:

"Hrrk," the unintellegible sound coming from Kotori's throat sounded strangely like exasperation as she forced herself up. She took support from her console and seat for a second and began to slowly, awkwardly walk toward the bridge's starboard exit.

@Defense Line:

The first explosive projectiles fell into the throng of zombies, thralls and slaves, bowling them over, scattering them, shredding through them and setting them aflame. A cacophony of wails and cries rose from the masses of people... but they did not stop.

They still moved onward, shambling over the corpses. Some of the thralls used their weapons from that range, but the shots weren't accurate and the defenders had suitable cover against it. Even if one of those shots was lucky enough to hit, they were rare enough so that the struck barrier would fizzle in protest and a few seconds back into cover would set it right.

To Masako, it was clear that the Mishhuvurthyar fodder had no chance to reach the fortifications unless the defenders themselves allowed it to happen. But it brought other problems. One was attrition, as ammunition and power reserves were finite; what they used up now, they wouldn't have on hand on the next wave of likely better prepared Mishhu. The other was weariness; despite the endurance of the NH-29 most of the crew had been fighting all day long and some like Masako were fighting despite severe wounds suffered.

@black Knights:

Nimura shrinked away from Asher's shoulderslapping. "My sister Ichigo died to protect you. She can no longer do so, so I will take up the task in her stead. We will see what comes after," Nimura said, struggling to maintain her calm. She had her armor purge its damaged sensor module and then made it into the elevator to take position next to Yukari.

"Eh..." Asher looked up at the roof the elevator, looking as he were thinking on something. The Malifarian was never one for tact, especially in situations like this. Still, the words came into his head, so he decided to speak them into the air. "Y'know, last I check'd, she died savin' you. Or... Maybe it wass' 'cause y'blew a hole in 'er chest. I ain't sure."

Ayumu tried to protest but Kotori was already up before she could administer any of her treatments. "Taisa, you should not be moving right now." the nurse cautioned while standing up, unable to do anything until Kotori stopped or sat down again.

Yukari had lowered the armor over her helm, but Asher could see her eyes in on his HUD when her picture came up with her radio transmission.

"That is enough, Westwood." She was not facing him. "She is one of us. Prepare for further battle, and be quiet about it, please."

"In your condition, I have to agree with Ayumu," Miyoko chimed in with the nurse. Still, she didn't move to block the stumbling neko, but quickly moved in front of her to check the exit before stepping out into the hall, facing Kotori. "Ayumu, support her please. Taisa, is there anything you need?"

@Hoshi:

Kotori snarled. She obviously did not like being coddled. "If the point is cooling me, dunking me under a shower stall with ice cold water would do the trick just fine without having to stick needles in me."

She was also short on patience. "I'm the monster Eve made to deal with the other monster here. Power armor or not, you really don't want to get in my way," she assured the both of them. It wasn't rational of her, but no one under the kind of pain she was in had the right to be, really.

With the bypass complete on the inside of the elevator, Rin stepped back from the panel to let Tom begin his interface with it so that they could get going. As she did this, the sprite heard Asher's comments to Nimura. It didn't matter who Nimura was before or after Melisson's control was released, she was still Rin's sister.

Due to the large amount of emotional charge that Rin had, her anger quickly flared up. The grip on her LASR tightened, and it was half-raised in Asher's direction before being lowered. Her eyes glared daggers, hoping they'd stab through the soul of the Malifarian, that is if it was even possible for such a beast to possess one.

"I do not believe she is going to listen to reason." Ayumu telepathically messaged to Miyoko before moving to follow Kotori. "Taisa, we are trying to prevent your body from going into shock. Given your current temperature and the duration it has been running for, if we were to simply throw you into ice water, the thermal difference would overwhelm your body. We need to do it gradually or you may hurt yourself even more." the nurse advised.

Yuzuki finally stepped back into the elevator, turning away from the incomprehensible violence in front of her in favor of the more familiar visade of the Black Knights. The Heisho took her place beside Tom and Rin, taking no real notice of Rin's anger.

Or perhaps she did notice, and simply voiced no opinion on the matter.

After her own display, what right did she have to say anything? How could she blame her younger sister? Yuzuki had known Asher only as long as she had been in powered armor, and already he was earning himself a place on her list of people to never look at, again.

"Ready when you are, Juni," she sent her Chief Engineer, joining her armor with his electronically. The integration already mostly complete, the extra processing power would likely prove redundant, but it wouldn't hurt to speed things along.

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room had suddenly become very cramped. He recognized this, one of those moments where he tried talking and it turned out fairly negative to everyone else. The Malifarian tightened the grip on his weapon and hunched himself slightly. Then Yukari and those eyes, despite how warm they looked normally, they sure knew how to tear a person down.

"Hai, Suzuka-Shosa." he answered her sharply, before sighing, gently mumbling, "What did I say...?" Though, it was no further than that. With the hair-trigger sensitivity of some of the group, it'd probably do Asher better just not to speak much more than he needed. Still, he couldn't hardly understand why just talking to her had seemed to cause such a reaction. Was what he had said really that bad?

Fred said:

@Hoshi:

Kotori snarled. She obviously did not like being coddled. "If the point is cooling me, dunking me under a shower stall with ice cold water would do the trick just fine without having to stick needles in me."

She was also short on patience. "I'm the monster Eve made to deal with the other monster here. Power armor or not, you really don't want to get in my way," she assured the both of them. It wasn't rational of her, but no one under the kind of pain she was in had the right to be, really.

Click to expand...

Miyoko hurriedly took a step to the side to make it clear that she wasn't trying to blockade Kotori... while Kotori would probably be hard-pressed to win a fistfight with a toddler in her current condition, pissing her off still didn't seem like a wise idea. "Your temperature isn't the only problem," she insisted. "If your condition keeps deteriorating, it could kill you shortly."

"Acknowledged."

Tom, who had already hooked into the elevator controls while the others were boarding, input the commands to match Hinoto's guidelines. 430 meters up to the junction point, then the portside shaft for 310 meters. Something as simple as an elevator, even a foreign one, was a piece of cake for a team of engineers accustomed to modifying the complex mechanics of a starship on the fly.

Asher's incessant talking didn't help any, though, and Tom was going to berate the soldier if not for Yukari's quick interjection.

He quickly cooled down, though. Personal opinions held no weight when life and death stakes were in play.

@black Knights:

The elevator's door grinded to a close and the platform they stood on rumbled slightly as it went into motion.

The information they were getting through the software emulation indicated they were in transit, cutting through a lot of the meandering corridors they would've had to negociate to get in the vicinity of their destination.

There was no elevator music, but the going was not quiet. The ghost of encrypted mishhuvurthyar telepathic voices, laid bare by Kotori to them, was a confused jumble at the back of their minds.

@Hoshi:

Kotori huffed and just forged on, eventually entering the changing room of the starboard armor bay.

Once Kotori got into the shower stall - ragged yukata, weapons and all - she turned the shower on at lukewarm temperature...
some of what Miyoko and Ayumu had been saying must have reached her. She slowly sank to her knees, the dribble of the water soaking her hair and clothing with lanky weight. The Taisa's hand remained on the temperature handle and slowly twisted right, gradually turning the water colder.

This swarm tactic was going to succeed after all, much to Masako's chagrin. Her comrades would probably run out of ammunition long before a vessel of that size ran out of both thralls and soldiers. And once they ran out of ammunition, they would all be killed...or worse. But what could the defenders do? They only had so many people to stop the wave. It wasn't as if they could have a fire line haul down the necessary ammunition they needed.

Grimacing once more, the Warrant Officer launched two more thermite rounds (one at each tunnel) as her mind tried to ponder on what they could do. They still had the weapon pods for artillery, but she honestly wanted to hold off on using those until the actual soldiers attacked them.

"Mara-shoi? Do we have anything that could seal off at least one of those tunnels?" she asked, trying to ponder any method to slow down the horde.

Seeing Kotori walk toward the defensive line didn't help calm Miyoko's nerves, but she didn't dare to try stopping her. When Kotori stepped into the shower, she calmed down a little... it wouldn't help if she really was suffering from hemorrhaging or an aneurysm, but it was a start. She half-expected to see a cloud of steam burst out when the water hit Kotori's feverish body.

Miyoko stood in the doorway, keeping a wary eye pointed down the hall as Kotori sat under the cold shower. After a few moments had passed, letting her calm down a little (and, she hoped, letting Kotori do the same,) she spoke, trying to keep her voice level to avoid setting Kotori on edge again. "Ketsurui-Taisa, it is my professional opinion that you should let us continue treating you. You may have more than just a fever to worry about." She paused for a moment, taking a breath before adding, "But whatever you order, I will obey to the best of my ability."

Nyton messaged the overeager combatant.

Nyton continued working on adapting his armaments almost on auto-pilot. The two ASP were now attached to both sides of his hips while ammunition was tucked away behind some sheet of body armor he reshaped. His mind had become curious of the Mishhu voices swirling about. Carefully, with much effort, he strained to try and filter it out. Much like when someone picks out a voice in a crowded public center, the din makes it almost impossible to tell one voice apart from another without focus. He wanted to know what these Mishhu were thinking, what they had in store for them, and if possible, whether or not there were any waiting for them just ahead. Another thought crossed into his mind as he listened: If Kotori can decrypt their telepathy I wonder if she could block them from messaging at all? This many minds though I imagine would be nearly impossible but it would be an interesting notion to cut off one of their means of communication.

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

Ayumu had followed suit like Miyoko and sighed at Kotori's decision to get and move just so she could soak herself. It would work but there were other things to contend with. "Very well, Taisa, but you have a myriad of wounds to treat as well. If I cannot insert a hemosynth IV would you allow me to perhaps use some hemosynth wraps? They won't work as quickly since the fluid will have to be absorbed through the skin though." the nurse suggested while pondering how she would attempt any such treatment with Kotori currently keeping herself beneath running water.

@Defense Line:

Mara fired one last plasma rifle shot before ducking under cover and giving Masako's question some thought. "I don't think so. Those tunnels don't have definite gravity and they go inward in the flagship; no way to make the location collapse, implode or blow it open to space. I'm not sure we'd have that kind of firepower for that either."

"Unless..." Mara's voice trailed off and she then ordered: "Nao, Suzume: leave the line and make your way in the starboard wingpod. Examine the condition of the hardware inside and tell me what we might be able to use."

"Hai!" both Daisy-armored sprites left cover and headed off, forcing their way through the tangle of wreckage that would lead them starboard-side of what had been the main hull.

@Hoshi:

"Can't you just find me some glob of hemosynthetic nutrients for me to consume to sustain my body?" Kotori returned sourly, her wet ears hanging low. "I haven't eaten in-"

The Taisa interrupted herself, her head turning straight toward Miyoko and her lips peeled away to reveal broken teeth as Kotori bared them in a open-mouthed snarl.

Miyoko was flung aside by a powerful telekinetic push; though before she could conclude that it was a psionic attack from the mentally-harried Kotori and readjust her opinion of how well the Taisa could combat toddlers, she noticed ghostly tentacles sweep through where she had been the moment before.

The Ghost Mishhuvurthyar, its dark presence seeming like it filled the room even while it yet remained insubstancial, eased its shelled body through the nearby wall, its pair of double-eyes shining like malelovent eldritch lanterns.

"Deal with it, first!" Kotori ordered, her ears aggressively flattening back, her posture gone from sitting to a ready crouch.

@black Knights:

The elevator eased itself into the intersection where it was due to begin its lateral movement.

It was also nearing the condition when Ichigo's Daisy would destroy itself. However, Yukari noted interference. The fallen M6's AIES' proximity detectors noticed something fall atop it from the chamber's ceiling. Then the connection had quickly cut off.

The last sensor feeds Yukari got from that didn't elucidate matters much more. Her impression was that the thing had been a silvery goop of metallic slime that had fallen off the ceiling and in one gesture, terminated the Daisy.

The resemblance to Nyton's freaky nodal armor was too flagrant to discount. Her best guess was that it could be a NH-18. One that had lurked over the fight all along, concealed and undetected. Perhaps even what Melisson had meant to bring into play if they did not go along with her scenarios.

Yukari resisted the urge to hurt herself somehow. Now the enemy likely had one of their armors, with their radio frequencies and encryption modules, nevermind a potential door into their AIES units.

Everything was going wrong. She almost welcomed the brain-gelling telepathy of the Mishhu.

She severed the lone Daisy armor from the group's series of recognized friendlies. At least the AIES of each armor would not be confused if they were confronted with it.

"Continue scanning," she said to the Knights, trying to ignore the telepathy by tightly gripping her rifle.

A telepathic message was translated to text and fired off to Nyton:

Nyton replied, still trying to single out a single strand from the mass of jumbled voices he was hearing. This time he focused on trying to determine just what, if any, data the enemy could have gleaned from the Daisy that Yukari was worried about. There was no point to getting worked up over it now and it was not like anyone else suggested to destroy it sooner.

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

Ayumu's eyes went wide as she saw Miyoko getting tossed by the ghost Mishhu. The safety of her patient was a priority but this monster was more than she thought she could handle. "Hoshi! We have an enemy infiltrator at our location! Send help!" was her panicked message before she managed to pull the NSP she had holstered to her waist. Pointing it at the Mishhu she tried to fire off several hasty rounds in fear.

Say, iffin' you're tryin' t'distract me, why don'tcha try usin' one voice or somethin'? Asher asked his brain, as he looked up at the elevator's ceiling again. He tilted his head and tapped the chin of his helmet with the stock of his Flamethrower. It was an odd question to ask, and he wasn't sure to get a response, but it was better than just thinking of nothing. It sounds like there's a T.V. in tha' back of m'head.

"So, Kyou." the Malifarian sent to his blue-haired compatriot. "You doin' anythin' afta' tha' debriefin'?"