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RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 7.2] Sorting It Out

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When Konoka heard the Taisa inviting people to see the palace, she immediately said something like, "Oo! Oo! Can I go, too, please?!"
Konoka, for one, had a great respect and affection for the history of the monarchy and all things having to do with past empresses and the history of the empire, and she would NOT miss this.


Looking sideways at Mikael, she said, "You should come, too! It would be a great opportunity to meet some of the crew......I'd just love to see you there."
She began then to rapidly skip in place, barely containing her excitement at the Taisa's little 'field trip', and the chance of, of course, spending time making new friends.

Then, a thought came to Konoka's mind, which she'd never bothered to notice before: Was the Taisa almost a princess or something?
Well, she was certainly regal and respected enough.
Then was Konoka's next thought: Ohmigosh, have I known someone who knows an empress this WHOLE TIME??

It was all Konoka could do to keep from fainting ( or falling) with excitement.
 
"Alright," Hanako said. "Those who are coming with me, please come along. I have arranged a shuttle to take us to Kyoto."

To Shizu, she said, "Stay safe and call me if you need anything."

With that, Hanako led her group outside and down the street where they were able to take an elevator platform to the vast flat surface, where hundreds of shuttles and small starships were parked. A red shuttle was waiting for them by the elevator, with a pair of traditionally-dressed Ketsurui Samurai standing at its side. When Hanako appeared, they bowed respectfully.

After some security scans, the crewmembers were able to board the shuttle. The interior was equipped with overstuffed leather seats and a small decorative chandelier-type light fixture, while the walls were covered in blue patterns and wood panels.
 
For one reason or another, Misaki gave a start when bowing to the Samurai after they had greeted Hanako. She knew one of them.

They were stoic as always, but it showed on the face of one as she regarded the Chusa's 'uniform' with a bland look of distaste. Something that implied, "You're going to the palace like that?" But couldn't quite be sold as on purpose by anyone saying it.

They were quiet like that, and difficult to read. The difference was Misaki spent enough time with them to be painfully reminded of another reason she had not been to the palace. As they stepped inside the shuttle, she smiled a little nervously, and exchanged a glance with her. All the XO could hope was nothing would be mentioned during the run. She hadn't relied on a Samurai's stoicism in quite a long time.

Near Hanako, she got a look at the other crew members in the plush conveyance, and found it easier to smile faintly again. They'll be with us..so it will be more memorable at least. I wonder... "Will we need to attend to anything while there?"[/i] She asked, wondering about the samurai a bit. It was true on Yamatai there was to be more circumstance around Hanako at official government buildings, but anything involving her sisters from training made her a little on edge, and prone to engaging the tactical part of her brain.
 
Darnell nodded in agreement about the prematurity, but continued speculating. "Perhaps they have the job of destroying mothballed ships? That would be something worthwhile. The Star Army tries to activate all its mothballed ships and suddenly finds out they aren't there. And the noise wouldn't be so much of a deal with so few people around on the mothballed ships." When he made the comment about the no purpose Darnell shook his head, "No, what I'm saying is they thought the bugs would do something but that they didn't. Like firing a missile and finding out it doesn't track correctly. They couldn't have known too much about Yamataian system configurations so its possible." He simply nodded when Sune said they had been sent to the head of xenobiology.
 
With the announcement of Hanako leaving for the palace, Nika finished her drink and stood up, "Hamada-Taii, Takeda-Heisho, I'll be taking my leave... Do get some rest." Giving a quick bow, she followed the small, yet 'royal' entourage to where the shuttle was located to bring them to their destination.

It was for formality sake, but then the samurais would be formidable allies if anything happened along the way as they bowed to Hanako and gave quick security scans before allowing the rest to board.

Nika already grabbing a seat, her ears twitching in excitment at the thought of going 'home' for a long while, though she didn't have much good memories of it. Eventhen, its still her home...
 
The cab came to stop in the parking area for the SSS Campus. Sune paid the driver and stepped out. He took a moment to admire the site. It was obvious that it was designed to be both functional and aesthetic. A nearby sign indicated the direction to the labs. Turning to Darnell “Carlisle-Hei, I suggest that after we meet with Ishi Kisho; we take a two pronged approach to the specimens. You take a crack at the creature’s genetics, and I will see what else its physiology can reveal.”
 
“I cannot say that I have, ma'am,” replied Junko. She noticed some of the crew filtering out, following the Taisa to the palace. “I would be interested to hear more on the subject later,” - she really wasn't interested but thought it the polite thing to say - “but it appears that if I do not hurry now, I will be left to my own devices alone. If you will excuse me, ma'am?” she said, with a slight bow of her head. “I hope you enjoy your leave, ma'am.” Standing, Junko bustled over to return her plate, food untouched, before speeding out the doors to follow her increasingly distant shipmates. Bowing her way through the security scans, she boarded the shuttle and then bowed a bit more to the Taisa and Chusa before finding a seat in front of Himeya. She silently regarded the opulence of the interior... and considered what a nightmare it had to be to maintain.
 
After a short flight to Kyoto, the red shuttle carrying Hanako, Misaki, Junko, and Nika came to rest on a small patch of marble cobblestones in the Empress' Palace's interior courtyard. Hanako thanked the samurai pilots and waited a moment as the rear door ramp lowered, revealing the lush gardens around them. It was an especially warm and humid day today, so the captain didn't want to spend much time outside. She lead her small group straight to a nearby entrance and then down the cool, blue hallways to the Red Room.

The room that the small group entered was bright red on the walls, with gold everywhere, running up the walls, lining the floors, making up the ceiling (which was one gigantic mural-statue of a battle between Nekos and Geshrin and some sort of alien race, complete with tanks and ruined buildings, all jutting out from the ceiling in gold. The explosions in the panorama were the room's light fixtures. The room had a depression in the center, and carpeted circular steps leading to it. It looked like it was perhaps an auditorium for giving speeches. A map of known space hovered over the depression, showing the location of every Star Army ship and all known enemy activity.

Taisho Yui was waiting for them. "Welcome home," she greeted Hanako.
 
"Welcome aboard!" Nika chimed as Junko managed to hop onto the shuttle before it took off. "I'm certain you will enjoy this excursion to the palace." The shuttle did not take much time to reach its destination; Once it landed, Hanako led the group into the complex which Nika recognised as the Red Room.

Within the room, someone was actually waiting for them... and it was someone whom the neko recognised during her time within these walls.

"That's Taisho Ketsurui Yui..." Nika whispered to Junko as the group came to a stop, the neko quickly gave a bow in respect to the former Empress.
 
Misaki joined with a deep bow, the hair that set her apart from many of her sisters spilled over her shoulders from how she had styled it earlier that morning. She wished she had time to get a proper uniform, but couldn't help but smile at the sudden turn of events.

"That's the Hive War." She mumured to the group, fairly certain though she'd never seen such an artistic depiction of it. What really caught the officer's eye was the strategic deployment of their forces. Anything could be said for the opulence of the room, but now she knew where one of the most powerful individuals in known space liked to review her forces. I...I wonder if she'll let me take a picture with her? No you can't ask her that! A faint flush came to the officer, a minor Ketsurui project herself, as she looked upon Yui's features she'd seen so many times reproduced in person for the first time.

"You honour us." Is all the XO worked out, certain that it would be rude to direct the situation towards something more or less formal. Hanako or Mistress Taisho herself would decide that, and it was what decorum dictated as far as she or their training was concerned. Is my mouth dry? It feels dry.
 
Darnell didn't appreciate the campus as much as Sune did, merely stepping out and walking towards the labs without needing to look towards the sign, but stopped when Sune said they were meeting the head. He simply said, "Yes, Heisho." Genetics was a boring job, mostly mulling through a lot of data. It was what could be found and done with that data that was interesting. He could do dissections but a doctor would probably do it better. The question would be if the Heisho understood what he saw in Darnell's mind. Or if he was too squeamish about making incisions that would kill a patient but were perfectly acceptable in an autopsy.

Darnell stopped himself from criticizing Sune's performance. Not on account that he didn't feel he had the right but on account that it hadn't happened yet. He waited for the Heisho to lead the way, not having met with the Head before.
 
Once they arrived at the Xenobiology department, Sune recognized Ishi Kisho from their earlier communication. With a bow he greeted the professor. "Ishi Kisho-San, a pleasure to meet your in person. Allow me to introduce my colleague from the Eucharis Carlise-Santô Hei. We've come to see what progress you folks have made and see what we can do to help."

Kisho returned Sune's bow, "Greetings Jalen-Ittô Heisho it is good to see you as well. Hello Carlise-Santô Hei a pleasure to meet another member of the illustrious Eucharis crew. Well to summarize the creatures are unlike anything we have seen before. But their behavior is markedly different that what you described in your communiqué."

Sune's curiosity was piqued, "Interesting, well perhaps you would show Carlise-Hei where he can take a look at some of the samples. He has a background in genetics and perhaps may find something of use there."

Kisho smiled, "Certainly, Jalen-Hei the live specimens are over in the isolation chamber. Carlisle-Hei if you would kindly follow me I will show introduce you to Kashi. She has been preparing samples for analysis so your timing is excellent." Kisho then walked across the lab and opened the door. "Kashi-San, we have a visitor who would like to see what you are working on. Carlise-Hei this is Kashi, she is a graduate student working with us on her doctorate." A diminutive Yamataian female with alabaster skin and bright round blue eyes smiled warmly at the soldier. "It is a pleasure to meet you Hei." She said bowing deeply.
 
Junko barely had the composure to make a straight bow towards the Taisho. Their whirl-wind procession into and through the halls of the palace had left her breathless, and their arrival in the Red Room had stunned her. Seeing the opulence of the shuttle's decorations writ large throughout such a large space put her far beyond words; the addition of a likely highly classified volumetric display and the single-most powerful person in the Star Army almost made her sick with panic. If she had been in complete control of her faculties, she might have realized what was coming, given the status of the Taisa, but at the moment all intellectual processes in her brain had ground to a lurching halt. She straightened up from her bow and stared, wide-eyed, at the Taisho casually welcoming the Taisa. Sucking in a breath, Junko beat down her rising nausea; the last thing she needed to do was to throw up all over the Taisho's shoes.
 
Darnell followed Sune and when he bowed he looked at Sune for a moment and then was reminded of that he was supposed to be bowing as well and followed, only slightly more deeply. He dipped slightly lower and then returned to his original position as his name was mentioned but did not speak.

When she greeted him his reply was, "Greetings, ma'am." He listened to what she said and thought that that meant they had some kind of awareness of their environment. That they recognized this was not a ship and acted differently. Or it could be something completely different, he wasn't willing to narrow the conditions just yet.

When Sune said he could find something from genetics he wondered what Sune expected him to find. Genetic analysis wasn't a bad idea, Darnell just doubted he would have the results Sune specifically wanted. He kept silent. Besides, it was certainly possible.

Darnell nodded to Kisho as she said that someone had been preparing samples. It would save him some trouble. He nearly jumped when she just opened the door, genetic samples got ruined that way, but then he saw they weren't actually in the room. Maybe the raw data from the genetics had already been taken and he just had to plow through it now? What was on the screens behind Kashi-san seemed to support this.

Darnell bowed to Kisho after introducing them and entered the room. Then he bowed to Kashi in return, though not quite as deeply. He wondered if she knew more than he did, it wouldn't surprise him but it would embarrass him. He said, "Likewise." to her greeting. He walked up to the display and said, "Well, it's artificial, if that was in any doubt. I would say something like this doesn't occur naturally. Some of these genes are too perfect and a couple of alleles are exact copies of each other so the creature will always develop exactly the same. And there's no variation."

He paused a moment, "So, I say we start with the imperfect parts, the natural ones, and see if we can trace it back to a root creature. If we find one, we can find out exactly what they changed and what they changed it to. Does that sound fine to you?"
 
Sune watched Darnell head off to the Genetics lab with the professor. When the professor returned to Sune; “So what is going on with the specimens?” he inquired. “From your reports we expected it be quite easy to get them to reproduce. But they are not reproducing anymore. We have tried providing extra energy, material for them to consume. They refuse to reproduce. They seem to be content to just crawl around and sit.” Sune thought about this change in behavior. Perhaps they are defective as Carlisle-Hei suggested. he thought. “Ishi-San, do you have the sensor logs available that I sent with the specimens. I want to look at them and see if there is something I missed.”

“Certainly Hei, you can access them from the terminal over here.” The professor said pointing to a terminal. Sune crossed over and started replaying the data logs looking for any abnormality. After several times he finally found what he wanted. It came not from the ship logs but from the logs from the Medbay. The samples Konoka had under observation all had a vital sign spike at exactly the same moment. The medical scanner showed a similar but smaller spike when the Eucharis discharged the energy through the conduits to try to stop the infestation. Cross referencing the time stamp on the sensor logs, he found only one thing that corresponded with the larger spike. The destruction of the mothballed fleet at Nataria occurred at that same moment.

Sune then asked to see one of the specimens and for a dissection kit. His initial dissection had been cut short by the arrival of the decontamination team. But this would not take long he had a specific part of the creature that he wanted to examine. A short while later he found what he was looking for. “Ishi-San, I am by no means an entomologist, but I do remember basic structures from my training. Does this specimen’s brain seem typical for an insect of this type?” Sune sat back and let the professor make his own determination. “Truly a remarkable species, and you are quite correct Jalen-Hei, this creature’s brain is all wrong. The neuron clusters are closer to the ones you and I possess than an insect.” Sune nodded, “The disposition of the creatures is up to you, but I would suggest putting a portion of them into storage for later study Ishi-San.” Sune then walked over to the Genetics lab and looked in to see if Darnell was in the middle of something or not.

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

Kashi nodded to Darnell, “You’re proposed methodology is sound. It would be a more efficient use of our time if we each take a different part of the DNA and perform our analysis and then compare our findings. I have already instructed Yoken the Campus AI to do a cross reference of the initial ribonucleic acid strains I identified earlier already against any known creatures. Thus far there have been no matches. The peptides and amino acids are unlike anything I have seen. Shall we begin then Carlise-Hei.” She said with a smile.
 
Darnell nodded, and said, "If nothing else, we could hope to determine which abiogenesis this is from. Of course, if we haven't discovered the planet they originate from or any creature from it that wouldn't be possible, but it'd be something at least and easier to find." After the computer results were back and Darnell had gone through the data he had found nothing that it compared to and an extremely complex DNA structure. It hadn't got anything resembling a match. Darnell sighed, "Well, it's from a planet we don't know about. Big surprise. Alien invaders in every sense of the term. If we knew more about how the Mish used genetic modification or if we knew anything about this creatures homeworld it would be different, but..."

He paused a moment, and said, "Computer, as a basic premise assume that these genes can be expressed in any known environment conducive to the creation of life and that these genes can be expressed in any reasonable combination where reasonable is defined as both possible and creating a viable life form where viable is defined as alive. Run simulations based on the known data in order to find the resulting creatures." DNA was basically a road map for making creatures, and the environment could determine the expression of DNA. Asking the computer to account for all this was a lot, but it was certainly possible. After all, he was basically asking the computer to simulate how a creature would turn out after giving the computer what the creature was made out of and how it was formed.

He said to Kashi, "I'm thinking, maybe that extra DNA is in there because it's actually one base genetic code which they artificially express in multiple ways in order to create more than one type of creature. It would explain the complexity and why there's so much DNA. It might even show their original birth environment, whether it was a womb or artificial and other things about it because certain environments might give the most results and we can infer from there. Something for the computer to do, anyway, since it didn't find any matches. Besides, it shouldn't take as long, since the computer just ran a match on every species the Star Army knows of." Darnell was always impressed by the Star Army's technology, not in that he thought it was superior to Nepleslian but in that he had never seen the Nepleslian equivalent.

Sune came in and Darnell said, "Done already Heisho? What'd you find?"
 
Yui nodded to the members of Hanako's crew, and then spoke to the Taisa. "I need to speak with you." Ushering her into one of her private chambers simply.

"Please have a look around, don't go into private chambers. This may take a while." The Eucharis' CO instructed.

Misaki bowed again, and waited until they had gone. Turning to the two enlisted crewmembers, she smiled. "It seems we'll get to see something very few of our sisters are able. I'm sure you know you can't share the strategic readout here with anyone." Just to be safe, she reminded them, though she had seen and it worried her. Carrying something so suddenly-...well putting her mind off it would be easier thanks to the surroundings.

"This is the Hive War, I'm pretty sure. This was back when we still used restricted devices...a very bloody war with insect creatures if I remember my history. I wasn't alive until the first Mishhu war. Anyway if you didn't know, the Imperial crown has resided here after it was built for the fourth to occupy that title, whom you just met. Since then I'm sure you know the other Empresses and Emperor." She smiled at the crew members, then led them out of the Red Room.

Inside the plush halls, the XO asked the question most on her mind, "I don't suppose either of you expected to be here for leave? This is a surprising turn of events. It is an honour for a-...an officer like me to be here, even I never imagined." She worked out, and walked past a door that slid open. Assuming it was public, she stepped inside and waved the other two as her long hair swept down over the bikini bottom she wore.

There was a gasp.

A rounded room of white and green marbles shined in front of their eyes. They had come to the main bathroom, which indeed was more like a hall for a pool than an actual lavatory. A soldier in many wars, nothing really had prepared the girl for the gleaming opulance molded into every service. Though as a large pool of water dominated the center of the hall, she couldn't help but notice the provocative statute of a Nekovalkryja..relieving herself into the water. "I-...this is the bathroom, it looks like."

The statue sure seemed to be enjoying herself. Misaki then smiled in private amusement at whomever the statue must have been designed after, let alone the chamber itself...was it one of Yui's personal touches, or something more to reflect a classical opulence? She wasn't fit for such places, but her laughter rang softly out all the same.
 
The SSS AI transferred the parameters to a sub-computer in the biology section designed for running these kinds of simulations. The display started showing the status.

Based on feedback from Gallant.
 
Sune looked at Darnell, “Well we have confirmed that the creatures are definitely artificial. Professor Ishi and I performed additional autopsies, and found that the brain of these creatures is completely wrong for an insect. In fact it appears that the creatures are linked on a mental level. A detailed analysis of the sensor logs from the Eucharis Medbay showed that the creatures responded when the fleet was destroyed in Nataria, and when the infestation was attacked by the electrical discharge on the Eucharis. I would at this point hazard a to say that they may be some sort of hive consciousness, or perhaps a form of life that exists as separate small entities. But the creatures in captivity will not reproduce no matter what we try.” Sune paused for a moment. “Have you found anything interesting in your DNA analysis?”
 
Darnell listened to Sune and thought that the artificial thing was expected, he wondered if the creatures were telepathic or eusocial or what. And the brains were another mystery. "The DNA is complex, which isn't necessarily something that indicates anything unusual since complex and simple DNA do not necessarily correspond to the complexity of the creature. But... this is to an absurd degree. There's either something there or the Mish aren't very good genetic engineers. Actually, it might be hard to mess up this badly, so I assume it has a purpose that I'm trying to find." He paused a moment and then put his hand on his chin while thinking and said, "Do they have reproductive systems? We know they can reproduce right? If they can, maybe we should try threatening them and see how they react. Everything has a survival instinct, even ant-like creatures, they just transfer the instinct from a personal level to that of a hive. So if we threaten the right thing they should respond. Fight back."

He paused a moment and seemed to come out of his thoughts and said, "Well, it's an idea at least." He looked at the computer to see if it was doing as he asked.
 
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