RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 5] The Secret Battlefront

Konoka quickly, nimbly, and stealthily followed Kim and the Chusa. The rule of silence was grating on her last few nerves. However, she remained quiet. She reminded herself cheerfully it wouldn't last forever. She eyed the people she was following, worried. What if someone got hurt? Well, this was it. She felt a little worried also because she herself was a terminal klutz, and she was worried she'd blow opportunities for stealth.

Thinking on the counted losses as yet, she firmly told herself she would NOT mess this up. She owed it to her team to do this right. There wasn't enough people to have time for a screw-up. Now strongly cautioned, and feeling more courageous, she followed ever stealthily on.

More armed, armored troops in very Mindy-like green armor closed on the truck and formed a line to the truck, where they began to unload the crates of supplies, ammunition, and parts of the plasma artillery that had been firing on Alpha Team the day before. There seemed to be a hurried effort to pack things up - many of the main base's buildings had their complete contents piled outside of their entrances, waiting pickup and transport to (presumably) a nearby spaceport. The items from the truck were being loaded into a shuttle - a refurbished and repainted Ke-T2 that was well hidden by optic camouflage (but easily spotted by its open rear cargo door).

The base was guarded heavily by anti-aerospace artillery stations, both large and small, and by a handful of tanks and a large continental of armored humanoid troops wearing power armor. Mishhu "Ripper" mecha were also sprinkled around the base. There were many buildings nearby, some with discernable functions (like a mess hall, shield generator tower and a power plant) and others that were not so obvious. A lot of the base was buried or partially buried underground.

- - -

Hanako brought her probe to the surface and looked around. The tide had come up now; the beach was narrow and the hulks of destroyed vehicles were mostly underwater. There was no longer any activity there.

The Taisa picked up her phone and dialed the ship intercom. "Prepare for launch. Do not yet activate the aether generator - remember there is a denial field in place anyway."

Safely just inside the generator building, Misaki moved down the hall towards the power signature, signaling behind her. If we can reach the shield generator that will be secondary. If they have no power for shield it may- kill - AA. Tertiary target - AA. Primary - here. She hoped each of the soldiers remembered the signals from training, how to form them on their own anyway. The real worry was the generator ahead. Whatever they did should have been masked by it, and in the flickering halls she paused through points of cover, knowing if she could not find one then one person from her team would be completely exposed the next time the XO moved.

The odds to their favour had to do with the truck that was being unloaded, and soon there was one doorway between them and where she assumed the major housing for the power generator was. A quick glance went to the team, Going to open, no life. Silent kill if hostile.

That was it.

"You ladies heard the Taisa. Get everything ready to go!"

Yaichiro prepared the ship for launch, carefully eying the starboard CFS which had been jury-rigged back together.

"I don't like the CFS status, but it's the best we can do with what we have. Use the Auxiliary Engines whenever possible."

Nodding at the Chusa's hand-signals, Kim clenched and unclenched her fists repeatedly. Silent kills involved getting up close and personal. Another thing the soldier was skilled at. In fact, she rather enjoyed it.

Moving up to the door, Kim crouched down and slowly pulled on the door, wondering if the enemy might really have been stupid enough to leave the door unlocked.

Acknowledging the Chusa’s signals, Hotaru double checked her armour and made her weapon safe in case of accidental discharge.

Still scanning the perimeter Hotaru prepared herself as she hadn’t killed before despite being under enemy fire more than once. She knew she would be able to kill and was confident in her abilities, after all her training was second to none.

Moving up to flank Kurosora, Hotaru got ready to take action if there was anything hostile on the other side of the door.

Acknowledging the Chusa's orders, Konoka double-checked her power armour and triple-checked her weapon to make sure nobody was hurt. There was no time for it, and she would never forgive herself for it. Her worrying had reached a climax. She suddenly became alert , apprehensive. What in the stars was going to happen?

She scanned the area, moving up to flank Kurosora. She came to the realization that she had never actually killed anything before. She was confident, and reminded herself of her thought process that anything that would hurt anyone in the Star Army is allowed to be hurt. Sighing, she went dutifully on.

Kumiko nodded towards Yaichiro. She quickly ran one last diagnostic, just a broad, comprehensive one, and looked over at him. "Sir, the CFS is operating within safe parameters, at least for now. I'm not sure how it will hold up under fire, but it looks like it should last for long enough to make it back. And all systems are back within operational status, so whenever you are ready, we can go ahead."

"We wait for the Taisa's order...and ALWAYS assume this ship will see combat. She seems to have the same penchant for getting into trouble as her predecessor. Do what you can to re-enforce it, I suppose, though I think we've done all we can."

Yaichiro typed some commands in Charisma, intended to expedite the boosting of the port nacelle's output should the starboard nacelle fail or need additional support. However, he didn't plan on using it unless absolutely necessary.

"Be ready to use WARMS for pinpoint shielding instead of full coverage if necessary. We may need maximum power for speed. The disadvantage with the CFS is that you can't max out both at one time."

Hanako sent the team a very short, somehwat stealthy encrypted text message, via low powered subspace waves.
If Misaki kept her transmission short, she could probably take of advantage of being in the base - the signal would likely be assumed by the enemy to be coming from one of their troops, and be ignored...hopefully.

Misaki was busy when the transmission bleeped in. There was in fact a duty crew at the generator, but their readiness did not seem affected by the fact there was possible hostiles wandering around the jungle. The largest feature inside the station room was a large console separating two parts. Three enemies worked inside, two behind, and one closer to the main housing of the generator, opening the large room up the closer to the hum of the power source for the base that meant so much misery to their stolen comrades.

She went for the one farthest from the door, counting on the team to get near the others in time. Kim would be right behind her, she knew. The other wasn't close enough to an alarm. They would have to be silent. A curl-your-toes sound of bones snapping in directions they were not meant to followed when the NH-27 in a flash took away the ability to speak. Of course the ability to live went with it. That was the signal. During the middle of the carnage her brain composed a short reply and sent it back via the same message.

At the stomach-turning noise of bones being quite litterally crushed by the Chusa, Kim dashed forward past Misaki with all the speed her PA could muster without breaking the optical camouflage. With a powerful swing of her fist, the unfortunate enemy's face soon possessed a fist-sized crater.

Not stopping to ensure the enemy was dead, the soldier's hand darted forth to sieze the throat of the second hostile. With a sickening -crunch-, the man's neck and windpipe snapped before he could cry out. Hostiles eliminated. Kim's fingers flashed towards Misaki and the rest of the team.

OK then, thought Konoka to herself. Some enemies just kind of....died. That's good, right? She reminded herself of her policy: Enemies expected to die. They would die. End of story. However, she noted Kurosora-Hei was a bit....violent. She certainly didn't feel sorry for them. She knew this had to be done. Though...this was a bit...much. She felt calm, and not the least bit upset. However, she was feeling a bit....light-headed. That was a lot of them. Ouch. She sighed, shrugged it off, and went on. She knew she would quickly get used to this. However, she realized it was seeing this for the first time...bothered her a bit. Well, now, she'd seen it. This wouldn't happen again.

A grimace changed to a serene face similiar to the one she wore when in the MedLab. It was the face of someone being totally calm, balanced, showing no negative or positive emotion. It was not a face you could easily read. And that was just what Konoka wanted. She would continue to be totally calm from here until this was ended, she decided. Zen. Balanced. Neither positive or negative. So, she stood ready. She told herself certainly: This will all be fine.

The attack did not go unnoticed. Misaki's victim's armor suits reported the sudden loss of vital signs, causing an alert to be issued to troops throughout the area. The building was quickly and quietly surrounded by six tanks and about 70 armored troops. The enemy forces also set up laser and radar-based detectors to find and highlight any invisible forces trying to emerge.

- - -

Eucharis powered up its systems and began to rise from the muddy river mouth, causing the ship to rattle. "All hands: battle stations," Hanako announced over the intercom.

Yaichiro sat at his station in Engineering, carefully monitoring hundreds of systems on a panoramic set of layered volumetric screens. He sent commands to regulate various systems, monitored structural integrity, carefully balanced the ship's power needs, and noted the reactors' output and integrity.

"Endoh-Hei, Nana, please be ready to bolster our CDD and fix hull breaches as soon as we get them. This may be a rough one, since we're still somewhat damaged."

Kumiko just barely acknowledged Yaichiro's orders, already having fallen into a trance-like state of calm and awareness, already accessing full running details about the status of the ship and its systems, as well as the more rudimentary sensor details which pertained to the ship and possible damage. Her mind was almost blank, already running through several hundred mini-simulations in her mind to prepare herself for as many possible situations as possible.

The top of Eucharis' hull partially emerged from the water like a turtle shell, rotated to face the beach, and burst forth into the air and began to move over the treetops towards the cliffs ahead.

"Bravo Team, get ready," Hanako ordered as the ship raced towards the base. She hoped Alpha would be ready for pickup soon.

After marking the three hostiles, the Chusa sprinted threw the doorway towards the furthest hostile as Kurosora went for one of the two closer ones.

She wasn't far behind Kurosora aiming to take care of the other one when she beat Hotaru to it. Impressed with Kurosora, Hotaru began dragging the three bodies away from the door's line of sight in case anyone stumbled upon them before the charges were set.

Once done, Hotaru crouched down and took position to cover Kurosora, as she was to plant the charges, while having a clear field of fire towards the doorway.

Konoka took position to cover Kurosora-Hei and Hotaru-san. She was ready for anything. She thought of possible things that could happen next, worried about them, then began thinking of ways to help. She was worried for her comrades. At any rate, she was alert and ready. She wouldn't screw this up. She had to this right: for her self, but also for the others.

It was the others she was worried about.

Under the cover of the Chusa and her other teammates, Kim began to place her explosive charges on the generator's weak-spots before priming them, and setting the detonator to remote controll, as well as keyeing it to detonate should her vital signs terminate.

Chusa, charges set. Ready to detonate. Kim flashed to Misaki, who nodded before ordering a second set of charges to be set against the wall opposite the entrance. Nodding, Kim saw the sense in the order. If they were going to blow their cover by blowing up their power generator, they might just as well give themselves an escape route the enemy wouldn't expect.

As the team took shelter from the explosions, Kim fired the charges and heard, and felt, the power generator be turned into one very expensive pile of junk, just as the back-wall blew out, flinging large pieces of the wall with it in the direction of the blast. Anyone standing there would have been struck by the blast or the debris. Then the Chusa gave the order to move out.