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RP: YSS Aeon [Mission 7.4] Aeon Landing Site

Trowa tapped his mike once to signal that he understood the Chui and began a transmission to the Aeon.

"Survey team to Aeon-Actual, uncontrolled detonation of unknown power source in 15 minuets. Loading alien survivors now. Punch out in..." Trowa paused to glance back at the boarding process and was about add 'in five' when Sunflower announced her discovery. "Sacred Feth!" He exclaimed, forgetting he still had an open line to the Aeon.

"Actual we've got a wild cat anti-matter reactor. Standby." The one-eyed Nepleslian pilot reached for the throttle, ready, and very much wanting to punch it, but waiting for the green light to appear signifying that the rear door was closed and secure.
 
Eun-Kyung withdrew slightly to stand on the ramp as the aliens piled into the Yusou. She stared forward through the faceplate of her helmet with unfocused eyes as she considered the situation and their options. There only seemed to be one workable possibility, given that they had no clue what the magnitude of the detonation would be. In general, she assumed anti-matter reactions were going to be big - very very big. She nodded as she settled on the concept in her own head and turned toward Sunflower.

"By my estimate, if we go buster straight back to the Aeon, we'll have about ten minutes before the detonation." She spoke over the local team frequency. "My thinking is that we pre-flight and board the Mindys right now and then rig up some P3000s when we're back aboard the ship. We jump in, pull the alien techs, and jump out. It's risky and the timing is going to be insanely tight, but its our best shot to recover all of our new friends and guarantee that we wont be in the blast radius. It'll take all three of us though, so I want to know if you're both game before I take this to the Taisa."
 
Sunflower took a moment to absorb what Eun-Kyung was proposing. Mass would be the factor. As one of the Thaurgons made its way past her she turned and said. "Excuse me. But I need to lift you for a moment." She then carefully grabbed the alien around its middle taking care to not poke its middle set of eyes. She hoisted it carefully and estimated how much it weighed. She then placed it down carefully. "Thank you." she said and turned towards the Chui.

"If their weight is consistent, that one weighs approximately 135 KG. So we can take them bodily. If they are wearing or carrying any equipment. It may have to be left behind. 10 minutes when we get to the Aeon, at two to three minutes to get to the armory, jettison any unnecessary modules, attach the P3000 module and charge it while exiting the Aeon. Teleport, start charging. That gives us about approximately 6-7 minutes to find these Thaurgons and get them out. I say we try. But let's not cut it down to the wire." Sunflower replied. "We will need information from our guests on where to find their comrades. After all we do not dare teleport blind into the wreckage."
 
Trowa turned in his seat to stare at the two women. The words, 'You must be out of your bloody mind' came to his mind. But before he could utter them he remembered hearing those same words directed at him on many occasion. That phrase was like challenge to his ears; often associated with the phrase 'Bet you can't'. Must be that Nepleslian streak. That streak that made crazy, ballsy, insane ideas so desirable.

Seeing as the hatch was finally closed, Trowa smiled that cocky half grin of his and said, "10 minutes? Bet I can get us there in 7." He turned around, flipped two switches and raised the ship into the air. He started slowly, giving the passengers a chance to secure themselves as much as possible, then hit the throttle full force.
 
Eun-Kyung smiled broadly. In some back corner of her mind she was scared, terrified even, of what they were proposing to do. But the situation was developing too quickly and there was no time for that fear to move anywhere near the front of her consciousness. Rather, she was focused on very much liking what she was hearing from her team.

"Sounds like you read my mind, Sakura-Hei. I'll leave it to you to take to it the Taisa. As you said, we don't want it getting any further down to the wire, but as long as we keep to that timeline, I think she'll approve." She turned now toward the Mindys, reaching out to start their power-up sequences. As the Yusou leveled out from the initial acceleration, she released the pallet restraints from her armor and cracked it open. Moving as quickly as possible, she stripped off her AMES and snugged herself into the PA. Obeying her command, it closed up around her and began displaying the results of its start up sequence and system tests.

"Heisho," she said, straightening up. "Set the autopilot and come back here to suit up."

She turned again and edged forward toward the aliens, setting her suit's external speakers to broadcast. "Atlonzee-san, we are heading back to our ship to secure some equipment so that we may attempt a rescue of your colleagues. If you would please provide us with information about your ship, where your comrades would be, and how we might contact them, that would very much help. There isn't a great deal of time."
 
Sunflower floated over their guests and landed back in her seat. "Aeon-Actual this is Landing Site team. We are currently inbound with eleven Thaurgons that we rescued. The wreckage near the volcano has a rector that is going to explode in 14 minutes or less. Enroute to the Aeon. Kim-Chui is requesting permission to take three P3000 Teleportation pods and have the team teleport back to the wreckage and evacuate three remaining Thaurgons."

"Landing team, this is Aeon-Actual. Permission granted to effect rescue of remaining Thaurgons. Will arrange for personnel to be standing by upon your arrival. Aeon out." was the reply Katae sent.

Sunflower turned towards Eun-Kyung, "Taisa says we are a go Chui."

Meanwhile Atlonzee spoke to the Officer. "If you truly believe you can do so, I will be greatly indebted to you. To get to the core room, you must enter through the passage we exited out of. Go straight in until you come to a large lift shaft. The lift is non-functional, so you will have to climb down six levels. The doors to the core room are open."
 
As soon as the shuttle leveled out Trowa flipped a couple of switches and linked himself to the ship. Through his cybernetic eye Trowa could monitor the ship's flight while he suited up, allowing him set their speed to the maximum that the autopilot could safely control. Once he was sure the autopilot was engaged Trowa undid his restraints and made his way to his armor.

Trowa unlocked the power armor and with practiced ease, relative ease considering he was monitoring their flight and that autopilot at this speed didn't allow a lot of maneuvering room for avoiding turbulence. Once his helmet was locked in place, Trowa began the startup sequence. In no time at all his implants linked his mind and suit together and showed a green light. He then made his way back to the pilot's seat and disengaged the autopilot. "Ma'am, ETA to Aeon, 3 minuets."
 
Sunflower left her station and approached her armor. She opened the armor and removed on the items she needed to. Her pistol, hand scanner and boots all went into the Mindy butt pack, which would be left behind on the Aeon when they teleported. Once the armor opened she inserted herself and initiated the power up sequence. As the armor enclosed around her using her SPINE she monitored the sequence. When the Mindy reported complete she executed a few careful movements are part of her standard check. "Good to Go Ma'am"
 
Eun-Kyung extended an armored fist toward her teammates and gave a thumbs-up to them while intently listening to the alien. It was hard without an actual map or display of the ship to fix in her mind exactly what their ingress route would be. Fortunately, she wouldn't actual have to worry about that; she had set her AIES to record the alien's directions and it would be able to guide her on the fly. Confirming the recording, she made sure to push the data to Sunflower and Trowa's armors before speaking to the alien again.

"Well, I do truly believe we've got a good chance, Altonzee-san. The only other thing that we need is some way to contact your comrades. If you could provide Sakura-Hei," she gestured to the ex-sprite, "that information, it would help make sure everything goes smoothly."

While speaking, she had her armor systems pull up a display of their trajectory. She knew that she'd be able to feel the deceleration when the Yusou maneuvered to dock with the Aeon, but she wanted to check their progress anyway.
 
Sunflower went over to Atlonzee, she would need his assistance. Looking at the translation device she could see the controls were not made for her type of hand. So she asked him to activate it so she could say certain phrases they expected to need, and record the translator's response. That way she could play them back when they arrived where the aliens had been left behind. After a few minutes she turned to Eun-Kyung. "Ma'am, I have a series of preloaded messages that we can use when we get there thanks to Atlonzee."
 
Trowa listened quietly to the planning between Sunflower and the Chui. Partly because he was concentrating more on flying but mostly because he agreed with their plan. He often got frustrated when there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians, everyone giving their two cents worth and wasting valuable time. Trowa saw the Aeon just ahead and called through the ship's comm. "All right everyone, we're going in. Secure yourselves as best as possible, this won't be graceful."

"Yusou to Aeon-Actual, We are coming in fast, ETA 45 seconds. Please have the hanger cleared. Yusou Out."
 
"Excellent," Eun-Kyung said to Sunflower. "Push the data to my AIES, and the Heisho's too."

She reached up to the overhead of the Yusou and grabbed the armor straps with both armored hands, bracing her feet beneath her. The Yusou's inertial negation systems were powerful, but could lag just slightly behind high-power emergency maneuvers. The lag allowed only a minuscule fraction of the true acceleration to be experienced in the interior of the APC, but the amount of force was still impressive, to say the least.

Having made her stance as steady as possible, she continued to watch the sensor stream relayed through her armor. The distance to the ship was closing fast and she couldn't help but feel a bit concerned about accidentally impacting with the hull rather than finding the bay opening precisely. On the other hand, she knew Trowa was a master at his craft. And in any event if their luck really was that bad teleporting into proximity of a rapidly destabilizing anti-matter reaction probably wasn't going to work out anyways.
 
Sunflower nodded to Eun-Kyung, "Right away Chui." she said, and sent the mental command to transfer the limited matrix of Thaurgon phrases to her team mates. She also grabbed hold of the restraint straps and braced herself. She turned to Atlonzee, "Your people should grab hold and brace yourselves for landing. We are coming in much faster than normal so it might be a bit bumpy, would not want any of you to get injured." She waited for his device to translate and he gave an indication of understanding. She watched as the Thaurgons intertwined their limbs, and grabbed hold of anything available in the interior.
 
As they approached, Trowa pulled hard on the stick and brought the nose of the craft up. This created more surface area for wind resistance and effectively bled off speed while maintaining their coarse. Trowa then killed the thrusters and activated the anti gravity. This ship kept moving from its forward momentum but it was slowing down rapidly, though still appearing to move quite fast. Trowa checked his air speed and smiled. He tapped the reverse thrusters once, then twice to slow them down even more to the regulation speed for entering a ship's hanger. Well, almost regulation speed. As they entered the hanger Trowa flipped switches and buttons and then brought the ship to a jarring halt on the deck. "Well that was a little harder than I thought." With the speed of a pilot who has logged hundreds of hours flying Trowa flew through his post-flight checklist and lowered the exit ramp. Having completed his check of the ship he removed his restrains and said, "Right, lets go save some aliens."
 
Sunflower did her best to stay in place, between her natural strength and the Mindy she was successful. She wondered how the bottom of the Yusou looked or the deck of the cargo hold. Fortunately it appeared to her that their guests had braced sufficiently and none of them were thrown forward.

"Setting the clock 3 minutes to departure." she said to Eun-Kyung
 
"Roger that," replied Eun-Kyung as her helmet display popped up a repeater of the clock. "That's your responsibility now; keep us on the timeline."

Releasing her armor-enhanced grip on the straps, she took one step down the ramp before turning back and calling out through her armor speakers. "Atlonzee-san, someone else from the ship will come to assist you. Please stay here until they do."

With that she bounded down the ramp and off toward the nearest hatch, moving with maximum practical speed. She noted a new crewmember standing near the ramp controls but couldn't spare the time to greet him. Having miraculously avoided breaking anything along the way, Eun-Kyung burst into the Power Armor Bay and slowed herself down enough - physically and mentally - to take stock of the next step.
 
Hisa was standing to the side of the Armor Bay to avoid being run over by any of her fellow crew mates. She recognized Eun-Kyung's armor. "Ma'am, slots one throug three have been loaded with the M2-P3000 you requested. I rigged the rack to charge them for you since time is essential. Once connected they should be ready after initialization. Step into the rack and I will arrange the swap." She said moving to the control console.
 
Eun-Kyung moved over to the first rack as directed and surrendered herself to the rack's ministrations to her dorsal hardpoint. She did take the moment to reach up, remove her helmet, and breath deeply. Of course time was still of the essence and they needed to move fast, but they were about to need to move significantly more quickly; by comparison this moment was practically calm.

Opening her eyes, she shook out her hair and smiled over at the engineer. "Efficient as ever, Juni. I am even more grateful than usual, given the circumstances."
 
"Always a pleasure to be of service ma'am." Hisa replied watching the status of the transfer taking place.

At that moment Sunflower came striding into the room in her armor. Hisa took one look at her, "Take # 2. It is all setup for you."

Sunflower waved her accent and stepped into the rack. She monitored the progress and noted that the Chui had removed her helmet. She was uncertain why, "Chui, is everything okay?" She inquired through her speakers.
 
Leaning forward and cocking her head, Eun-Kyung smiled at Sunflower. "Yes yes, just getting a breath of fresh air. At least, as fresh as we usually get."

She was fine, really, insofar as anyone about to jump into close proximity of an imminent antimatter detonation was fine. She was backed up, certainly, and had more than proven to herself that she could face danger and death with equanimity when her duty called for it - the memory of triggering the heavy NSP blast those years ago made sure of that. But she still harbored philosophical doubts about the back up system and in general wasn't overeager to die, temporarily or otherwise. Still it wouldn't speak very well to her leadership skills if she aired those doubts here and now so she kept the smile on her face, took one more deep breath, and donned her helmet again.
 
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