RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 5] The Secret Battlefront

As Hotaru started to open the pod, she realized that the rain-drop-covered spider-web she'd just stepped over was actually a tripwire leading to a leaf-covered bundle strapped to a nearby tree.

Just then, the pod opened with a hiss, revealing a ransacked interior bathed in the pod's red emergency lights. The pod's homing device had energy weapon burns penetrating it, and some of the supplies were missing like the medical and survival kits.

As Misaki stopped to start writing in the mud with a stick, Kim stood guard. Weapons primed and ready, targeting systems calibrating the effects of windage and rainfall to give her the best shot possible. And while the idea of writing in mud was a clever idea, the rain would merely wash it away shortly. Kim moved her DAISY closer, and gently tapped the Chusa's armour's shoulder softly.

"Rain will wash it away. Try stones? Mud is too loose right now." The soldier commented, her voice barely louder than a whisper. She did not dare speak out loud, in fear of being overheard. Electronic messaging and telepathy was out of the question, as the enemy could triangulate their position. Jungles were horrible to fight in. In clear weather, the visibility was lousy, and harsh rain reduced that even further. Ambushes were far too damn likely, and even easier to set up in situations like this. And that was without countering in mines and booby-traps.

Yaichiro, not getting a reply from Blackberry, did what he could to boost the remaining secondary sensor system. The Main Dish, without parts, was a complete loss.

The bridge crew would gradually see improvements in detail and resolution as the secondary system was refined and enhanced with what was left of the Main Dish's supplemental systems.

Breathing to herself in relief for not triggering the booby trap, she proceeded to disarm it, in case either herself or her team accidently set it off. Cursing the weather and jamming making things substantially more difficult especially for her scanners and sensors, she approached the pod making sure there were no more potential traps.

Upon reaching the opening, Hotaru took note of the condition of the interior and cautiously searched for any clue of what happened to the occupants. Seeing that various kits were missing left Hotaru with some hope that there may be crew who have survived and not been captured yet.

After making sure there was nothing more she could salvage, and unable to see any possible tracks, she signalled to her team and briefly informed them about the findings. Once she was satisfied, she ordered the others to continue towards their rendezvous point as they all trudged onward knowing that they weren’t too far away.

Ooonoo! A trap! Was everyone ok? Yes? Good. Alright. She breathed a sigh of relief. Some kits were missing! Maybe the people had evacuated with them....Yes! That meant they might still be OK. She offered up her hope, raising her hands, as if to say, "Whatever be, be." They would be fine. The people would be fine. Everything, fine. She would trudge onward. Hope would stay, and, well, she'd go with whatever happened...She was sick of worrying.

There was one problem.

Hotaru didn't know anything about demolitions, so she did not have the skill to disarm something of that nature. After a few moments from it being tampered with (and just enough time for the young woman to be in the middle of investigating the pod), trap made a high pitched whine for the smallest fraction of a second, detonated in a bright flash and a deafening crack that echoed and could be heard for miles.

The mine annihilated the tree it was on and tore everything around it to shreds with sharp, irregular bits of red-hot shrapnel. If the detonation her inexperience had caused wasn't enough, those singing bits of metal were. Surprised birds shrieked all around, barely audible over the ringing in the armor team's ears.

Back at the rendezvous point, Misaki raised her head and shook it. She pointed at her progress, which thankfully was deep enough to hold for a while. She wanted the marks to erase, along with their footprints. The passive sensor in her MINDY picked up the explosion, and she picked her weapon back up. It didn't read out like a strike from the atmosphere, so what was it?

Hotaru didn't hear the brief whine before the mine detonated, the force throwing her sideways, her flight being halted by a big tree. She felt woozy, light headed before slowly coming to her senses. Her armour having taken the brunt of the explosion, didn't leave her without any injury. Her right side felt as if it had been through a grater and her left shoulder felt numb. Calling up the status of her armour it didn't look too good either with several breaches, mainly along the upper right side of her armour.

Hotaru felt the armour's hemosynthetics get to work on armour repair as she attempted to stand, once again wishing she had been more careful. Wincing as she used her right hand to help herself up, she looked to where the pod had been. Despite the weather obscuring some of the view, she could see the swathe of destruction caused by the explosion. Looking around for her team, she only saw one still standing.

OK, now the powers that be were just TRYING to piss Konoka off. She had been standing far enough away, however, some bit of debris had hit her shoulder. Now that was a nasty cut. She coughed. Peachy. Though most of the smoke had dissipated, she'd gotten some of it. Well, this was where a medical specialist became useful. She pulled out her kit. She should treat Hotaru first, she was the highest ranked and most injured. She hissed, she was in pain. "Where do you feel pain?" she asked. She needed a diagnosis, quick. She raised ahand to her shoulder, motioning to say, 'I'm fine.' She believed she might need a Healing Blood Injector, there could be internal injuries. Fish.

She had just been thinking, Thank the stars, we're alright. I need to stop worrying. Well, this had thrown her right back into Worry City, Yamatai Star Empire. She held her hands up, as if in prayer, frowning. Injury made her so sad. Then came the "zen" face. Still, she needed a diagnosis. Fast. She'd fix that cut later. After handling Karei-Hei. Yep, Konoka was selfless. She'd fix this. Her optimism told her so. La la la, it'll all be fine. "Yeaah, it'll all be fine."she half-sung, half-said. She had to say that. Because it had to. It just HAD to. Or....NO. IT....WOULD...BE....FINE.....

It wasn't long before the enemy's starfighters could be heard overhead; they now knew there was something in this area of the jungle, and were now trying to target Alpha Team by their thermal signatures, since radar and most other sensors were made ineffective by the jamming. The team would have to keep under cover. As the fighters passed overhead, they strafed the flattened area near the escape pod and trees around it, hitting close to Konoka and peppering the pod itself with holes. The pod's emergency lights flickered out with a sad sizzle just louder than the torrential rains, and muddy water began seeping into the pod, causing it to begin sinking.

"Oh my...." Konoka nabbed her kit and dragged Hotaru-san into better cover. That thing had been WAY tooo close. Mothers sometimes found new strength to lift trucks off children. Konoka had somehow gotten Hotaru under cover, in some kind of leaping motion, so fast, like a reflex, trying to help someone. She realized her caring went even deeper than she thought. "Shh, shh, shh." She whispered. "We'll be fine." She told herself that, she told Hotaru that, she told the universe that. She refused to be pessimistic.

She was now 100%, over-the-edge, screaming-inside, eating-her-up worried. She needed a safe place. Check, for now. Next, she needed a diagnosis. Thirdly, what had happened to Karei-Hei? Well, right now she needed to focus on Hotaru-san. She repeated, "Where do you feel pain?" Then, "You need my help." She realized she enjoyed being needed. And once again, she thought about how much she hated seeing people hurt. Fish.

Still a little groggy from the explosion, Hotaru could feel someone dragging her into cover. Hearing Konoka quietly asking if she was alright, "I'm mostly okay Konoka-san, some minor injuries and damage on my right-hand side is all. The Hemosynthesis is taking care of most of it. If I feel like I'm getting worse I will let you know. Any sign of Kanashii-Hei?" Hotaru asked.

Hotaru could hear the enemy starfighters overhead. Hoping that they wouldn't be picked up, she checked their current location and rendezvous point. Noticing it wasn't very far to go Hotaru decided they would search the immediate area for Karei while attempting to keep under the jungle canopy. With the interest generated by the explosion, they had to keep even more of a lookout than before.

"Oh thank the stars." muttered Konoka. Then her focus switched to Karei-Hei. "Ooooh fish." she muttered. She'd been so worried about Hotaru-san, she'd put the intel and science Santo Hei in the back of her mind.

Now 20/20 hindsight and turbo-charged worry were kicking in. Where was he? Was he OK? Had he been injured? In the explosion, he might have faired worse than Hotaru-san, or herself. She would look around for him. Carefully.

"Alright, let's find the little himmy-hei...."

Misaki swore under her breath with the comms off.

Booby traps. Great.

She erased everything on the ground, then pointed an arrow deeper into the muck and signaled to Kim. They'd move away from the clearing at least until the strafing of the forest was done. She didn't have high hopes for whichever team members caught the blast. If it was animals, she really hoped that meant it would end sooner.

No, no transmission. It wouldn't be loud enough through the cascading sound of death ripping through the verdant green. Kim would have to know to follow her to cover. So that's where the Chusa and her lover went, with the box of rations. The more life they were under the harder it would be to find them if someone up there was looking hard, she thought. That led the pair of armours running over things less likely to carry their signals through the canopy, she hated the world so much and they had barely spent half a day on it.

Finally, with what looked like larger indigenous animals above trying to flee in flocks and through branches the officer stopped against a ridge of trees and rocks, a straight line from where she had pointed. The worst part was it meant doubling back once the coast was clear, to collect body and continue on alone as a duo and dispose of evidence, or rally them.

Misaki prayed it was the latter.

At first, Konoka was unable to find Karei, but after a few minutes, the fighters returned to base and Konoka was able to move more freely. It was then that Konoka found the intel/science officer who had so much potential...lifelessly floating in a muddy pool of water. She could tell from the damage to Karei's helmet that the Santô Hei had been killed instantly by shrapnel from the mine.

This was the third team member dead, meaning the team was almost half its former strength--and on top of that, they had not stayed together. Hopefully, the Kim and Chusa had made it to the rendezvous point...

- - -

Back on the ship, Hanako was awoken by a call from the Taisho Yui. Yui, it seemed, had promoted the classic Eikan Minato to Admiral and placed her in command of the newly-rebuilt Sixth Fleet. Now, Yui was offering to have the Sixth send ships to help. Hanako accepted, asking to have them ready nearby in case the SMX sent large reinforcements to this world. She also checked up on the other ships of her squadron, which had been damaged in the combat. After finishing the call, Hanako sent a brief text message to her crew:

Reinforcements available tomorrow. Hopefully Alpha Team will take down the shield with haste. Yaichiro, please get together with your technicians and build me some sort of small camouflaged sensor drone that I can use as a periscope to watch the beach. If you recieve any signal from Alpha Team please let me know.

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Why did the neko with the most love of life and caring for others have to find the most dead beyond help? She stood there for a full minute. Again, she remembered Cherry-Heisho. Then, she thought of how she'd nearly cried when a soulless shell passed on. She hated death. Really.

Making sure there were no enemies to hear her, she sat down and cried. After a few minutes, she wiped her eyes, collected herself, and cursed Death. She couldn't help him. And she couldn't stand that. She punched a tree. Why did people have to die? How could she be so USELESS? She couldn't help. She hated it. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you.' she whispered. Then she went to find Hotaru. She had to move on.

As they moved into the underbrush, Kim bit her lip inside her DAISY armor as she crouched down, her weapon ready, the safety having been off for ages, and her finger resting near the trigger, ready to pull on it in an instant should hostiles detect them.

But for now, there was little she could do besides merely remain crouched, hidden, and pray a bomb wouldn't fall on their heads, or a hostile patrol blunder into them. Now there was little to do but count the hours as they passed, trying to avoid going insane from the constant patter of rain against the armor, a hollow sound which made her feel as hollow as the DAISY.

Shortly after the fighters returned to base and some fruitless searching later, Hotaru came to the conclusion that Karei must not have survived as they had found no trace of him yet. Continuing to search a little more freely now, she saw Konoka appear and began heading towards her.

Wincing slightly, she met Konoka who took her to Karei's position. Hotaru checked Karei to see if she could retrieve anything of use. Checking their weapons after marking his position, Hotaru and Konoka continued their slog toward the rendezvous.

Konoka continued with Hotaru to the rendevous point, in a fragile mood. Someone might now realize she was a moody person. She was a bit sulky, and a bit sad, but she continued on. Had someone said something to her, she'd bite their head off. However, she was silent. It was a neccessity. This was a bad mood for Konoka.

Let's see...she'd found two dead people on one mission, felt repeatively useless, had her hopes diminished after an explosion, gotten very worried over Hotaru, plus the people she was rescuing, and it was raining. Yeah, that was enough to turn on Konoka's 'Bad Mood' switch. She felt bad for punching a tree earlier, because a tree was a living thing, and she couldn't argue with Hotaru, because she had to be silent, and because she wanted Hotaru to be her friend very badly, so she argued with herself wordlessly. She sulked, silent, continuing on. However, she was still optimistic: They had to be close to SOMETHING good...because 'close' could be defined however you wanted, and they were looking for multiple things...Now she was making excuses. Ugh. Still, she moved on, because...that was how she could be helpful right now.

After fumbling and crawling through the seemingly endless, waterlogged, pitch-black terrain for another hour, Hotaru and Konoka managed stay together and make it to the meeting point. It was nearing midnight when they burst through a final clump of vines, to a small patch of mud on top of the extensive root system of a large tree that provided concealment from above, as well as blocking some of the rain. It felt good to be able to stop-their muscles burned from all the hard work of getting through the jungle's natural obstacles.

Hopefully, they would find the Chusa soon.

Yaichiro received the message from Hanako, and acknowledged to the affirmative. While he doubted he'd get a communication before Blackberry, he replied as such.

He then sent a communication to Nana and Kumiko, while getting a standard Weapons Pod to modify.

Nana, Endoh-Hei, please report to Engineering. You are needed for a project the Taisa has ordered for us.

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