RP: YSS Aeon [Mission 7.4] Aeon Landing Site

The AIES chimed quietly and Eun-Kyung refocused her vision briefly on the HUD data displayed in the lower left quadrant of her vision. As team leader, she was fed data from her team's armors and in this case her AIES had felt the brief spike in Sunflower's vitals to be worth calling her attention to. By the time she looked back again the neko was already on her feet and moving again. She briefly considered asking what had happened, but figured that the ex-sprite was probably just sucking it up in the same way she was.

Checking that the deck ahead was clear for the next few paces, Eun-Kyung spun around and jogged backwards for a moment, calling out on the team net, "Just a few more minutes and then we're home free. Well, one way or another."

As her broad grin at the gallows humor couldn't be seen, she flashed an a-okay sign and twisted around again, leaping toward the drop ahead.

Sunflower followed after Eun-Kyung, 'Just one more drop and we will be on their level. Then its a straight dash to the reactor room.' she thought. She decided that she would use the method that the Chui had use. Just drop down. Trying to do acrobatic maneuvers when she had probably one or more broken ribs did not seem wise. She would endeavor to use the strength of her armors legs to absorb the worst of the impact. She approached the descending shaft, at the bottom there was a lot of flickering light.

As her jump carried her into the final drop, Eun-Kyung's one concession to her injury was to angle her descent to impact on her good leg and giving the AIES full authority to manage her posture. To absorb the full kinetic energy of the impact, the armor brought her almost to her knees in an awkward leaning crouch, but it kept control and kicked her out straight ahead again. Thankfully the deck had been clear, so the maneuver had paid off without a second broken leg. Back in control of the armor and her movement, she straightened out and sprinted ahead again. The wildly flickering lights coming from the engineering space ahead were concerning, to say the least, but she was so close now. There was zero chance that she would slow down now, so close to their goal, and so she went full tilt down the final stretch.

Sunflower surrendered her descent to the armor and braced for the landing. She saw flashes of white light when she hit that had nothing to do with the lights at the end of the passage. But they faded as the pain in her side lessened. She moved after Eun-Kyung they were almost to their objective. Then it was a race upwards to a point safe to teleport.

Trowa meanwhile used the same method to descend that he had before reaching bottom a moment after Sunflower dashed down the hallway. He was no engineer, but he was pretty sure that the blinding flashes of light from the Engineering section were not a good sign.

Eun-Kyung ran forward into the engineering space, trying to catch a glimpse of any of the Thaurgon technicians. The image she saw inside her helmet was less violent than reality, as her armor systems compensated for and dampened the intensity of the flashes of light, still she couldn't pick out any of the aliens right away.

"We've come to assist you and bring you to Atlonzee-san!" she called out, both over her armor speakers and a broad band of radio frequencies. "Sakura-hei," she said, switching to the team net. "Broadcast your recordings."

The Thaurgons were distracted by the appearance of aliens clad in some strange suit. So much so that one of the was struck by one of the electrical discharges and was knocked several meters away.

Sunflower saw the one get thrown but noticed that none of these Thaurgon's had one of the translation rods that Atlonzee had employed. Before rushing to the injured Thaurgon she queued up the series of recordings she made from Atlonzee. She set the gain on her speakers to be loud enough to be heard over the discord present. The message was in fact a personal one to Atlonzee's mate Telzo

As the message played and repeated she crossed over to the Thaurgon who was struck. She pulled out her medical scanner and injected the injured with the nanoscanner bots. The vital signs were promising one of the limbs had suffered a second degree burn but it was not life threatening.

One of the other Thaurgons meanwhile approached Eun-Kyung. She said something that the AIES matched with the words Sunflower had acquired from Atlonzee. Across Eun-Kyung's helmet speakers came. "I am Tezlo... You take to Atlonzee."

Eun-Kyung was shocked by the Thaurgon being hit by the discharge and started to move toward it but stopped short when Sunflower reacted first; the medic was more qualified anyways. Instead she turned toward the alien approaching her. "Of course, Tezlo-san. Atlonzee-san is aboard our ship. We are trying to help you but must hurry before your reactor fails. Please instruct your comrades to cooperate with us."

As Sunflower tended to the burns as best she could her suit started pinging. Her science scanner that she attached to the armor was showing data that was changing. She saw one of the Thaurgon's frantically working on a panel that looked like it had exploded recently.

'oh fish' she swore mentally. "Eun-Kyung.... sensors are showing rising levels of high-energy particles in the room. From these readings we're out of time ma'am. The containment is failing. There is only one option left...." she called out.

Tezlo called to her technician who was trying to restore power to the core control panel. The last ground quake and wrenched it from the wall and the wiring was sheared. He scrambled over to her. "We have done all we can... the field is dying, we have less than 1 minute until its over." he told her.

A spike of fear lanced through Eun-Kyung's mind only to dissipate as somehow her adrenaline levels reached new heights. This was the perfect time to indulge in the flight instinct.

"Let's go!" she called on the team net, leaping forward to grab and bodily lift Tezlo. "Release your AIES for remote synchronization. My armor will send the command in ten seconds."

Sunflower's dire predictions of the results of teleporting out in proximity to the reactor still held, even if necessity had driven them to it. That being the case, she didn't want to risk a separation of even a fraction of a second between their jumps, lest the last to leave - even if by so small a margin - get caught by the initial detonation. She also took a second to double check the settings for her teleportation bubble topography. The mass ratio was going to be tight, right up to the maximum, and she wanted it configured so that it someone had to lose an arm, a leg, or anything worse it would be her and not the alien in her arms.

Sunflower sent the necessary command to her AIES, "Ma'am, I will take the injured Thaurgon. That leaves Trowa-San to take the other and you to take Atlonzee's mate." Sunflower transmitted. She then looked at the Thaurgon to determine the best way carry the injured one. To minimize the risk of amputation she lifted the Thaurgon horizontally and had it wrap around her torso. She interlocked her arms with those limbs of the Thaurgon. She transmitted the data to the others of her team. She looked around and did her best to maintain a state of calm, but she realized what they were attempting was dangerous in the extreme.

Trowa quickly crossed over to the other alien. He gestured towards Sunflower and the Thaurgon she was assisting. The one he was near grasped the concept and quickly secured itself around his body.

"Do it," Eun-Kyung replied, terse but not curt. She was merely focused and took a few seconds to rearrange the Thaurgon in her arms as best she could. Then, looking up, she saw the timer on her HUD tick down another second. "T-minus five."

She fell silent. Trowa and Sunflower could bring up their own countdowns if they wanted, or not. It didn't matter now. The AIES had its orders and was released to act independently. Thus was the culmination of all of their efforts and there was nothing for her to do now, nothing save hope that none of her orders over the past ten minutes had condemned her team to die.

As the timer ticked to one, she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

Sunflower did not even bother to ask her suit for the countdown. At this point it was all a matter of trust. Trust in the Officer who brought them here, the equipment she was wearing. There was nothing for her to do except hold the Thaurgon and try to reassure it. The display showed the teleportation module activating.

There was a surge of energy around each of the soldiers as the teleportation fields expanded to their maximum radius. A fraction of a second later the teleportation initiated. Sunflower felt the familiar tingle across her skin. As the Thaurgon engineering section was fading out a blinding flash of light caused her armor to darken the display to full.

On Eun-Kyung's display she watched the teleportation sequence activate. Showing all three units functioning properly even with the increased load. As feared the energy discharge from the teleport caused the unstable reactor to fail. Matter and Antimatter collided in an uncontrolled fashion. Her suit flashed a number of warnings from radiation exposure to, to extreme temp, but the most troubling was teleportation field integrity compromised. A moment later her body registered the effects of the compromised bubble. Eun-Kyung arrived in the vicinity of the Aeon which was hovering. Searing pain ran up from her left knee. The suit diagnostics showing that everything from the knee down was missing on the armor for her left leg. Meaning her leg had been amputated. The leader module showed that Sunflower had sustained similar injuries except it was her right left that was missing from the knee down.

Sunflower bit back a scream as her lower leg suddenly ceased to exist. Her Tennyo physiology kicked in restricting the blood vessels to keep her from bleeding out. She looked around and spotted the Aeon, the most beautiful sight in the galaxy at the moment. She started heading towards the open cargo doors.

Eun-Kyung opened her eyes, finding herself standing outside at the Aeon's coordinates. Then the pain hit and she toppled over as she lost her balance. Somehow she managed to roll midair and land on her back so as to avoid crushing the alien. She let the Thaurgon go as she stared up at the Aeon for a moment, catching her breath and swallowing a curse of pain as her physiology - outdated compared to Sunflowers - did its own part to lessen the bleeding and the pain. She gestured for the alien to follow Sunflower into the ship as she pushed herself up slightly, using her body's inertial control abilities rather than the armor's CFS. It would have been the grandest of ironies to make it out of all of that only to fry their rescuees with scalar energy. Hobbling toward the Cargo Bay doors, she opened up her comms suite, panting as she spoke. "Aeon, Kim. We're on the ground. Thaurgons intact. Sakura and I have partial teleportation induced amputation. Yamamoto is-"

She cut off mid sentence and whirled around - nearly losing her balance, trying to catch sight of the Nepleslian. "Wait one," she called over comms as an icy wave of fear washed down her spine. She quickly queried the leader module for an update while hoping he was just in her blind spot.

The leader module reported no signal from Trowa's armor. After a moment of searching Trowa emerged from behind a small rise. He appeared to be walking fine under his own power. With LOS the leader module pinged and updated with Trowa's armor. His primary communications system was damaged only able to receive. In fact the system had to download its status to Eun-Kyung by laser comm. Seeing the officer, Trowa gave a thumbs up signal. He then looked up at the Aeon floating some fifty meters above.

Meanwhile from behind Eun-Kyung and Trowa the horizon was a dazzling ball of expanding energy.

Across the power armor communications came the voice of Eternity. "Warning shock wave from anti-matter detonation approaching. ETA three minutes."

Post should be made in Mission 7.5 thread.