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

Rin turned her head to look at Yuzuki and gave a weak smile concealed behind her helmet, though that quickly faded.

In preparation, Rin unloaded her current LASR magazine and replaced it with a full armor-piercing one. This felt difficult given her shaking hands, but letting the AIES take over more of the controlling made it work. This just confirmed what she knew she had to do: that, at least until the exceedingly excessive adrenaline wore out, she'd have to rely heavily on her AIES and her armor to carry out the actions she needed to get done, such as the rather dangerous high-speed run-by they were about to do.

As for Kotori's apparent revival of Miyoko, the engineer sprite didn't know much of anything about either one except that Kotori was... different? Superhero powers wouldn't be out of the question, especially considering what else was possible with the enemies that they were fighting.

Arethusa, barriers to full power. If we're going to fly fast then we may as well fly hard. Nyton commanded and matched the speed of the rest of the team. It was too fast to hope to aim so he instead relied on AIES and the nodal appendages of Arethusa to aim and fire for him while he tried to focus on maneuverability and speed.

How long have we been fighting now? The whole time Kotori has been resisting Melisson. She already looked to be in pain when we left. Forcing Miyoko to return to life had to require more effort on top of that. How much longer do we even have left? Nyton thought as they attempted to reach Melisson. What good would it be to arrive only to have Kotori die right at that moment?

he quickly messaged back to the ship.

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

Ayumu shook her head to finish recomposing herself. She was still brittle but she could at least manage to keep herself together for the moment. She took a deep breath while solemnly watching Kotori emit steam from her over heated body.

"Taisa, I...." the nurse began before she looked over at Miyoko again. She felt helpless before this incredible sight and could not bear to watch as it only magnified how useless she felt. Miyoko was injured and miraculously revived but still easier to look at then the suffering of the Taisa. If only we could cool her off while healing her at the same time. Why couldn't any of the other hemosynth tanks have survived? she thought desperately.

A portable hemosynth tank?

"Saito-Juni, what if we put the Taisa into your suit? Couldn't the suit's insert help regulate her temperature and slow down the degeneration of her body!?" Ayumu desperately asked the science officer.

Miyoko considered Ayumu's question. Her brain still felt a little fuzzy from earlier; practicing medicine wasn't exactly coming naturally to her at this point, so it took her a few seconds to reason through it. She didn't know many of the technical details on a Daisy, but if they could keep the wearer from overheating in extended deployment in a vacuum, it stood to reason that they at least had decent cooling capability. But if they could survive re-entry, they were probably well-insulated, too. Depending on which factor was more powerful, Kotori would either be saved by the armor or broil herself alive.

It was too important to risk to her limited knowledge of power armor design. Miyoko grabbed her discarded helmet and pulled it on, giving a bit of a grunt of pain in the process as she had to move her incredibly sore neck to do so. "AIES," the Yamataian asked the armor, "would you be able to dissipate the body heat from a pilot whose temperature was above a hundred degrees Celsius?"

Kai was, well, shocked, to say the least, about Yuzuki's sudden grim request. He almost stopped, and might have, but the M10 continued along at the speeds requested by the Shosa. "I am sorry, Yuzuki." The Yamataian began, "But I do not believe I can forget you by this point."

He remained silent for a few more seconds. "And I will make sure you do not die." he added, just to make sure that he did not intend to have to simply remember her after all this was over.

For Yukari, it was the first time she felt good in a power armor in some time.

Instead of poorly shooting things or barking orders, she was doing something at which she was capable: Flying.

Pushing the group to high speeds was meant to do more than confuse the enemy. She needed the sense of urgency for herself, the feeling they were accomplishing something. So far they had killed some Mishhu, which was no feat. They could not even take credit for Nimura's defeat.

"Maintain formation," she absently said, noticing Asher was centimeters from his proper space. It was unnecessary, but anything to take away from what was to come next.

She had a feeling the "executive" hallway had no fixtures that would welcome them. There also remained the Daisy-equipped NH-18 ...

@Decon Chamber:

"Negative," the AIES replied to Miyoko. "My composition allows for insulation against extreme heat and cold, but I have no temperature regulation functions that would trump that showerhead."

Kotori, for her part, remained sitting in the corner of her shower stall, leaning against the wall while letting out rapid, shallow breaths. Her panting stopped one moment as she spat out blood which briefly sizzled against the whiter tiles before the water drops both cooled and diluted the spittle.

@Defense Line:

With a crash, Masako's gauss cannon round finished off the weakened battlepod. The machine veered backyard, lost control and plowed into the throng of zombies, slaves and thralls.

It didn't seem to appreciably stem the flow of incoming hostile humanoids. They carpeted the floor from over the two passages out that were lower to the ground. There had to be thousands of them.

With the help of the supporting fire given to her, Mara managed to clear out the humanoid enemies in the immediate vicinity, enough so to have her afford the time to back away behind their badly pitted fortifications.

"Asher's going to be pissed he's missing all the fun!" Mara quipped to Masako. Despite her seeming good humor, Masako could see the armored shoulders of Miharu's power armored avatar heaving from her breathing and bleeding out from several punctures made through the yama-dura alloyed armor plates of Mara's Daisy armor. The sprite leading their defense was probably feeling just as tender as Masako felt herself.

@Nao:

From cursory examination, it looked like the aether generator could still function. It would require from jury-rigged adjustment to the unit's scalar field emitters and Nao wasn't sure if the Xiulurium casing was sound enough to adequately protect the surroundings from harmful scalar radiation if it was activated.

The gravimetric engine looked like it could also still be turned on if provided power, but it was doubtful that its state could amount to much - maybe it'd activate, and warm up like any working engine, but it wouldn't produce strong enough gravimetric field to produce any meaningful thrust considering the section's weakened structural integrity and how the wrecked remains of the main hull were mired fast into the side of the Mishhuvurthyar flagship.

"Nao!" Suzume called. "The fusion reactor's a mess. I don't think it'll work and this room's power grid was ruined beyond repair. What do we do?"

@black Knights:

Twists and turns and corridor ribbing blurring - these were what followed next for the Black Knights as they sped ahead on Yukari's orders, following Hinoto's directions.

Boobytraps were triggered, plasma mines bursting with crackling power, but their power armors only briefly brushed against them as they maneuvered around at breakneck speed, their barriers ably fending off this much abuse.

Hinoto's reply to Nyton was succinct: It was a vague answer, but perhaps she had taken cue after Asher's suggestions: maybe Nyton didn't need to know.

They flew over a formation of nine well-armed and armored Mishhuvurthyar Elites, veered sharply around the next corner and flew straight ahead up to the intersection leading to possibly the bridge and the ramp leading up the observation deck where Melisson hopefully resided. They turned for the ramp and were about to again fly over more defenders before their progress was cut short.

Large triangular-shaped blast shutters closed into place to obstruct the path up the ramp, forcing them to an abrupt stop. The defenders ahead consisted of six Mishhu shocktroopers with... a mandarin dress-garbed nekovalkyrja with honey brown hair worn in twin tails.

As the shocktroopers readied for combat, with energy cannons charging and aiming, their tentacles curling and tensing; with the group of Mishhu Elites the Black Knights had left behind likely hot on their heels things were about to get very tense. Adding to the hecticness of the situation, the nekovalkyrja gave the yamataian power armors a wide-eyed look before she yelled: "Don't shoot me!" and promptly cast herself aside to cower in a corner of the passage.

"Asher's going to be pissed he's missing all the fun!"

Click to expand...

The Malifarian let loose a violent sneeze as he found himself standing between his fellow squad mates and group of heavily armored mishhu. He hunched over and held up his 50mm Gauss cannon, his AIES quickly locking on to all of the targets, including the neko in the corner.

"Ordah's mah'am?" asked Asher after recovering from such a drastic sneeze.

Sanri? ... No.

Yukari was not sure about the Neko hiding in the corner, but whoever she was, she was smart to stay out of the way.

The passage was not too high and there was no cover. They would soon be outnumbered and outgunned.

"Aim for their shield generators or underbellies! Do not attack their fores! If the Elites come for us, use stealth or holograms!"

Yukari tried to follow her own advice. Though the Neko could be caught in the blast, she surely would die if they did not kill the shocktroopers in front of them. She popped open her left thigh compartment, snagged an incendiary grenade, primed it and hurled it just as recommended by her CIES. She was aiming to roll it right beneath them, hopefully below their shield generators activated.

Taking the cue from Yukari, Yuzuki snapped to a hault, her inertial systems jumping the bells; full ahead, to full astern. One thing did continue on forward, though; with a metallic thump, Yuzuki fired off a SLAG round over the heads of the formation of guards, the projected blast radius already calculated by her AIES. Activating her thermoptics, she strafed left towards one of the grimey organic walls, trying to minimize her potential as a target.

That was what she did. That was what her hindbrain told her to do. It was Following Orders and Basic Combat - two very important things. But what she thought was much less sane. They were surrounded. They were probably all going to die, and as she steeled herself for that, she realized that she couldn't do anything but mutely accept that fate. The last few minutes had drained her too far for hope to find much purchase. Was she at her limit?

"You'll see the enemy, you'll know they're coming for you, and poom! You'll fire at them until they die." the memory echoed, taking her back in a flash to Ichigo's flippant, prettier-than-thou attitude as she had talked about Tom and work, and other odd things. That wasn't even a handful of weeks old. Yes, Yuzuki remembered that disagreement very well. She would carry it on, definately, and tell everybody who would listen that...

...that Ichigo was just fucking flat chested!

Yuzuki repainted her active targets, with the full intention of making them inactive very shortly.

Poom.

"Fihrin' sahb-space dehtonatin' missihles!" sniffed Asher as his barrier unit went up to full, and six sub-space detonation missiles flew forth from his missile packs, a single one diving on each shielded Mishhu ahead of them. With that, his armor consumed itself in stealth as it's thermooptics activated the Malifarian strafed into stealth. He picked up his aim on the first Misshu to lose shields to his missiles to fire his 50mm at. Here we go, thiss' iss' mo' like it! No cryin', no team-killin', just straight-up fightin'!

There was little time for thought or order and Nyton was already moving as the enemy had clearly begun to power up to attack. AIES lined up the targets and estimated blast radius of explosives being thrown out while Nyton stealthed and began to move. Arethusa, weapons. Target the enemy canons. he ordered while quickly dashing to the left side of the corridor.

With barriers at full in preparation for the explosions and counterattacks, Arethusa drew the two ASP from their makeshift holsters with nodal arms. Roughly estimating the enemy's response to Asher's strafe and the explosions, Nyton and Arethusa aimed and fired upon the six enemy Mishhu's canons with their LASR and ASP.

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

Akiko looked back at Shizuka and cheered. "Onee-chan, w* did it! Th** got p***ed back!" crackled the younger sister over Shizuka's radio. With Mara safely able to pull away Akiko took the very brief respite to reload her LASR. Meanwhile Shizuka reached the plasma rifle and pulled it in to her grasp.

"Aki-ghk!" Shizuka gasped as her dying body struggled to resist the loss of blood she was suffering. After a little more effort she arrived at the small shelter, pulled in by Akiko who resumed her vigil against the enemy force approaching. Shizuka for her part assumed a prone position to allow her to fire as well.

Kai, after the swift blustering through the hallways, found himself closest to the enemies they had suddenly been forced to face. Swiftly, the Yamataian snap-turned around, sending a SLAG round whistling through the air, aimed just under the nearest of the Mishhu, as he activated his Thermoptic camouflage and then dropped toward the floor, attempting to get the lowest possible angle he could on the enemies. Hopefully Asher's missiles would bring the enemy shields down, but just in case they hadn't, the Yamataian unleashed a couple of his own to help.

Miyoko stared helplessly at Kotori, her still-fuzzy mind racing as she tried to find some way to help the Taisa. And then...

"Hemosynth fluid," she suddenly said, glancing to Ayumu. "There isn't a tank here, but if we could submerge her in it anyway, it could help." She kept speaking to the nurse as she glanced around for one of the access points for the ship's hemosynthetic conduit system. "We can either bring it from the conduits, or use inserts... it won't do anything for her temperature, but it will help stabilize her, at least."

Ayumu nodded and smiled as she looked around. "That is a brilliant idea Saito-Juni. If we could tap into a conduit and pour the contents into a bathtub we would have almost the same affect as a hemosynth tank." she said before looking at the shower heads in the decon room.

"And if we cycle cold water to cool the fluid it would help stabilize her temperature. The dilution of water and hemosynth shouldn't reduce the effectiveness so long as we keep the concentration of hemosynth higher."

The nurse was satisfied with the theory but first they had to find a conduit. "Saito-Juni, if Hoshi has a conduit nearby would you be able to break it open?" she asked while walking around to find something large enough to be used as a tub to fill up and fit Kotori in.

Kyou broke to the side wall closest to her as soon as the orders were given, readying herself to fire as soon as she had a clean shot with her SLAG from anywhere but the front. We need to finish this up fast, just in case. We can't afford to lose anyone, and a pincer would make it much harder to avoid that.

Following Yukari's lead, Rin fired off an incendiary SLAG round at the feet of the Misshu, if they had feet. The shot was aimed to be beneath the opponents, but also slightly forward so as to give them incentive to not continue towards the Yamataian line.

After the shot, she brought her forearm shield up to protect herself as much as she could, beyond her barrier shielding and all. As much as she hated it, Rin knew she was still the best to be soaking up the damage for those more important, like the officers. She wanted to copy the Neko in front of them and it took a considerable amount of willpower to not.

Tom's mind raced in the moments they had before weapons fire was exchanged.

While he could join in the fray against the 6 shocktroopers, the 9 elites behind them presented a clear danger to the entire team. If everyone had their backs turned when that team rounded the corner, the Black Knights would lose the initiative and possibly come under fire, uncontested.

They'd be shredded apart.


As his heart threatened to burst from his chest, Tom turned on his camouflage, rotated his fanny pack (he didn't want to have an explosive target on his ass), turned around and primed his offensive missiles to descend upon the 9 elites as they rounded the corner. His CIES calculated the best missile-to-target ratio to do that.

He needed to strike decisively to buy his team time to pursue the battle in front of them.

"They're not looking too good over here!" Nao yelled back out to Suzume. "Gravmetric's fine, but it's without power and useless since we're plastered against the enemy cruiser." The Daisy scrambled about the Aether Generator and checked it again; "Aether looks fine, but the casing might be cracked; we can probably power it on but - " A distant explosion from the battle aboard the Miharu cut her off briefly. " - the casing might be damaged!"

Nao carefully walked under and through a tangle of wires hanging off a support beam, all reminiscent of vines hanging off a fallen bough. The thought in her head grew; Miharu was a forest where they lived. And it was wrapped in flames, on the brink of being lost forever. And even if they did win, an empty shell would be the only thing left. She bit her lip at the bitterness of it and made up her mind.

"Is the damage to the power grid bad enough we can't pipe what we get from the Aether Generator to other sections? I'm willing to risk activating it at absolute nominal levels and cranking it up to normal if it behaves!"

@black Knights:

In what might have been termed an overkill amount of ammunition, the Black Knights quickly turned bad odds into something that went decidingly in their favor.

All the Shocktroopers had time to do was fire their energy beams, and most missed aside from one that swept over Arethusa, the M8's barrier crackling under the assault but holding at mid-strength.

Then, the Shocktroopers died. The first part of that came from Asher's and Kai's subspace detonator missiles which eliminated their energy fields. The second was the half-a-dozen high explosive incendiary grenades that were bouncing off the floor under them. The fiery eruptions in themselves were not as effective as they might have been due to the Shocktroopers being sheathed in metal armor, but there still were enough firepower involved to shred them to pieces. Nyton and Arethusa did contribute, destroying the energy cannons of one of the shocktrooper... but that accomplishment seemed to pale in contrast to the grenade detonations.

The nekovalkyrja in the corner cried out and balled up - literally - by having her legs explode into a mass of mishhu-like tentacles that wrapped around her upper body protectively. This much revealed her to be a NH-25.

Shortly after the killing fires of the multiple grenades died down, the nine Mishhu elites that they had flown over turned the corner, tentacles holding weapons at the ready. But not quite ready enough as Tom immediately attacked them, loosing his prepared volley of offensive mini-missiles.

Mishhu elites were the stronger, tougher, cannier soldiers amongst their kind. They had potent railguns, many tentacles which they could use lethally in close-combat even against a power armor and they were garbed in bodyarmor over their thick shells... but none of that proved any true competition against fire-and-forget homing anti-mecha missiles.

The missiles connected, exploded, and gore, torn tentacles and large chitinous chunks sprayed around. Of the nine, only two survived, flopping awkwardly on the ground as they mustered the strength to counter-attack Tom... but even that was denied to them as Nimura gunned them down with two well-placed shots from her plasma rifle.

The shroud of tentacles parted and the nekovalkyrja looked out through the gap before she unfurled them and gingerly propped herself up. For a moment the woman's face was a mask of frustration until she took a breath to regain her composure. Then she glared daggers at the nearest Daisy - Kai - and said: "I want to speak to your commanding officer!"

Whoever she was, she didn't look like a Mishhuvurthyar prisoner. She didn't even look like she was trying to pretend to be one.

@Decon chamber:

Hoshi's voice cut in above the din of the running shower. "Instead of contemplating punching walls into me, you could perhaps instead make the short walk to the nearby medlab and place the Taisa is the perfectly empty and available hemosynthetic tank."

Another sound then vied for their attention: the sound of crackling ice. In the shower, Kotori grit her teeth and cried out from effort as the wet floor and walls of the shower became run over with frost. The same seemed to begin happening over Kotori's skin, but the ice almost immediately melted away.

The Taisa coughed - a ragged, wet sound. Vapor came out of her mouth, visible as the temperature dropped even further about her.

@Nao:

"Maybe the power cabling is a mess, but we could just grab another smaller power supply and link it up to the generator to start it up," Suzume replied. There were at least two fallen Daisy armors whom would not need their batteries anymore. "But... what would be the point? It's not like we could do anything with that generator even powered up."

Then again, Nao wasn't exactly sure of what Mara had in mind. The eldest sprite had just told them to check things out and report what they had at their disposal.

Asher looked over in the direction of the NH-25 as the mass of destruction had settled. His blood was still burning from the intense high of absolutely massacring a group belonging to the enemy. Finally! Forward direction through extensively thorough methods. Still, this Neko had tentacles twirling and whirling from below her waist. Despite how adorable it was for her to be peeking through a bush of her own legs, the Malifarian took no risk and put up the bulwark of threat that was his flamethrower after switching from his Gauss Cannon.

"Bitch, you got some serious nuts juss' gettin' up n'demandin' shit from my superiors." Asher stomped forward once, growling audibly, his Plasmathrower aimed directly at her. "You show Naka-boss some fuckin' respect when you talk to him. And you damn-well betta' show some respect t'Yuka boss, or I'll turn you into a over-sized servin' a cali-fuckin'-mari!"