RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 9.0] Flight into Darkness

With more people showing up, Errowyn began to think of changing out her payload to a more agressive one, forgoing the countermeasure pod. The Kawarime already carried the basic load-out already as standard gear, she had yet to use.
She looked thoughtful as she motioned over her crew chief.

Once the crew chief arrived, Errowyn spoke softly, not to miss anything or disturb the others when they spoke. "Change out full agressive load out. See if you can snag another Aether Torpedo."

Crew chief looked at her with shock, "Could ya make up our minds on your munitions? We have to call down the weapons specialist to make the missiles safe again before we can replace them, Hellcat." While recovering and glaring at her. "Besides once mated to the ship, we can't use them, except on your Kawarime, Joto-Hei."

Errowyn scowled, thinking on how to use the countermeasure pod as an offensive weapon as she spoke, "At least get an Aether Torpedo on stand-by for a rescue attempt if it happens?" Looking hopeful at her crew chief. "I'll buy you that outfit you and your crew have an eye on."

Crew chief sighed, "I'll do my best. You owe us big time. Dept will be canceled if you bring back your Kawarime undamaged. Deal?"

Errowyn sighed, "I'll do my best, Chief. But the NMX don't like to cooperate with us." It would be easier for her to buy the ground crew what they like to keep them happy.

"I'll see what I can do." Chief walked off, motioning over one of the munitions handler.

Almost as soon as Akemi finished speaking Silics arms were crossed over his torso, hands in front of his shoulders. A clear, distinct, unmistakable "No. Hell no. Absolutely not!"

Just in case that wasn't enough, Silic even shook his head. He also ignored the new person, his own personal crisis taking priority above making the FNG feel rightfully miserable as the laws of the universe demanded.

Then it occurred to him that the alternative was flying alone in a Kawarime, which was about as good an idea as it sounded with him at the wheel. His eyes turned to Anne in silent begging.

"Please don't make me do this." his eyes said.

"You dont like flying, at least this way you dont get to do too much of it." Anne simply said and patted Silic on the shoulder. She smiled at the mechanic, her eyes said. "Don't worry, it will be fine!"

Hangar deck

Akemi listened to the exchange between Anne and Silic. "I already said that rescue team is purely volunteer basis only. So if you are not volunteering to go, you get to fly with the attack group. Just our mission will be trickier since now we have to buy time for the rescue group to fly up, dock, get in and then back out. Since we do not know what kind of force is going to be in there. I appreciate you volunteering to help with that part." she said with a wry smile.

Hanger

"I'll fly the shuttle, and if its ok ma'am, I can lead the rescue operation. I already have a list of codes that can be used to fool those NMX, especially with the way their communications are most likely scrambled they won't know that we are Yamatai; that and a quick touch up on a shuttle will make it look like we came from a battle," said Elisto as he folded his arms over his chest and glanced toward the hangers far side. It was a tricky operation, going onboard and rescuing a bunch of civilians whom they don't even know if they are alive.. but they had to at least try, in war, it was very dangerous to make assumptions.

"I can help Elisto-san with that," Anne said with a nod. "I will of course be going as well. If the prisoners are really there, they will need medical attention, not to mention what other innocents we might find there. I just hope we will be able to help them." Anne heard stories of what NMX does to people, especially women. Hopefully, there will be no actual Misshu there, or he would not have time to do all that bad stuff.

Hanger

Errowyn stood there, itching to get going, planning her tactics and hopes that her wingman is up to speed. Not only they were going to stir up the hornet's nest, but to mix it up with them is going to take some thought on how to spend her heavy munitions.

She glanced at her assigned Kawarime, still festooned with same load-out. Those defensive measures were going to come in handy for this run.

Hangar

Akemi looked at her group, "Give a moment" she then climbed into her cockpit and sent the proposal up to the CO. After a few tense moments she floated up and out of the cockpit.

"Okay, Scrapyard, the CO has approved your rescue plan. She's sending four infantry to join up with you and Spinner at the T7. Good Luck." she turned to the others.

"Diamonds the rest of you get into your fighters, and move up into launch position. We're going to launch and move up towards the gravity tube. Once there we will wait for the T7." she said.

Hanger

Errowyn paused for a second, then trotted to her Kawarime, "Lets get this baby ready!" She purrred to her crew chief and re-entered her Kawarime. This time it was for real. Crew Chief helped her get strapped in as they ran through the checks once again.

"Launching?" Crew Chief asked while pushing off the Kawarime to stand on the stairs leading to her cockpit.

"Yup, we got clearance," Errowyn spoke as she brought the Kawarime to full operation quickly from stand-bye.

Crew chief scrambled down the stairs and pulled the away the stairs and rest of the crew pulled away the wheel chocks, freeing her Kawarime.

Getting the thumps up from her chief, Errowyn returned the thumbs up as she rolled the Kawarime to the launch positions to wait her turn. She closed the canopy as she put on her helmet and fastened it in place. She checked the SPINE interface. Listening on both Heiten and 21rst freqs and watching the crew busily do the final positioning of her Kawarime for launch.

"Solitaire, Blade... Hellcat ready to launch!" Errowyn purred over the frequencies, letting everyone know she was ready to go.

Hanger

Elisto smiled as he gave a curt nod of the head and began to make his way toward the shuttle, along the way he told one of the grounds crew to load up a bomb onboard but to not worry about configuring it as he would do that upon arrival. He'd also requested that the NMX uniforms he had in storage be brought out and placed onto the shuttle, something that he knew he wasn't looking forward to wearing but that was the nature of this particular mission and if it meant that they could get deeper into the base without the NMX being tipped off then all the better.

As he approached the four infantrymen who would be joining them, he stopped and said. "We are having some disguises brought with us, you probably won't like wearing them but they'll let us slip in undetected for awhile."

"You sure those will be of any use Elisto-san?" Anne fitted in. "I thought we would rather be aggressive in this matter, use power-armored infantry and higher firepower. Also you and me are no nekoes, I doubt we could mask as one anyway. We would be going in pretty under-equipped with big chance of getting outted. I don't evne have telepathic ability. I suggest we get rifle each and support the infantry as they clear path for us. We should have element of surprise after all. Or maybe we could borrow armour, like we did in past when we hit those traitors."

Silic's shoulders fell as Anne comforted him, finally his arms fell along with his. Without looking up he finally spoke up. Damning himself foolishly.

"I volunteer."

He couldn't help but wince after saying it.

Hanger

Elisto stopped to think about what Anne had just said, it'd actually gotten that which made him realize for a moment that he was still inexperienced as an operative. "You do have a point," he said to Anne with a smile, the clothing would only hide them for so long but being able to bring in armour would make the enemy shat themselves the moment they opened fire and cause quite a bit of confusion, as it would probably cause them to think that 'others' are also on the station somewhere. "Very well, we'll go with power armor. And you are right, we'd have problems blending in even with the disguises, it wouldn't surprise me either if they boosted their security in the event 'of' an infiltration..." his mind wandered for a brief moment before he took the disguises and handed them off to another soldier. "Go ahead and put those away... or burn em...." he said and then looked back at the soldiers. "Grab power armor, make sure you bring a heavy weapon in case we run into Rippers or any other surprises they might have."

Hanger Bay :: Kawarime 5

Errowyn sat in her Kawarime waiting patiently for the rest to get ready and into position. It seamed that this was going to be a very tough assignment. She fidgeted and squirmed, causing minor SPINE connection shorts with her ship. She squinted as it made her sight a bit fuzzy.

Hangar bay

Akemi climbed up her Kawarime and slid into the cockpit. Her eyes followed the volunteers crossing the hangar, and she hoped she had not sent them to their deaths. Once they were out of sight, she initialized her fighter. The systems came up and all indicators were green. "Okay Diamonds, let's move into the launch bay." she called out over the comm.

Hanger bay- launch bay 5

Errowyn gave the thumbs up to Blade before others took their place between them. Then she moved her Kawarime into the launch bay assigned to her. The pre-mission butterflies began to act up as she did last minute checks on her Kawarime as she planned her strategy for the up coming raid.

Hanger Bay

Elisto had been quick to change into a Mindy, although he actually did not like the Mindy at all - it wasn't its appearance or weapons or anything that turned him off but rather he just preferred to be out of a large power suit. This didn't show on his face or in his emotions as he slid into the shuttles pilot seat and began a preflight checklist while waiting for Anne and the rest of the soldiers to get onboard. He knew this would be a pretty dangerous mission, a risky one at that with the high probability of their deaths but that was the point of being a soldier, doing the things others cannot... will not... do. Of course, his biggest concern wasn't so much the flight.. but rather that they would have a big explosive item onboard and any wrong moves would turn them into one giant fireball.

Unlike Elisto, Anne chose to hopped into Daisy, which was much better suited for medical personell like her. She opted for LASR rifle with SLAG and that all she needed. Of course or she had for SLAG were smoke grenades and flashbangs, she would never fire something like thermite at living being. If she could help it, she would like to not fire at all. It reminded her, how in past, back when she was still slave, if her mistress would order her, she would go and kill anyone in any way. Not that her mistress would ever order her something like that, but Anne knew that her slave mind would do it. It was interesting, because she was sure now that even if her superior officer would order her now to kill someone, Anne would not just do it without question. In fact, there would be a lot of questions.

With this in mind Anne grabbed large medical backpack, equipped with everything she might need. The helashio followed Elisto inside the shuttle ready for the mission.

Shuttle group should now post in this thread. [Mission 9.1] Special Delivery
All others continue here.

Launch Bay

Errowyn did herfinal checks and looked at the Launch control room, giving them a thumps up and braced herself for the launch to catapult her out into space. Just as she felt the fist shove, she ignited her aether thrust at full burn, hurling her Kawarine into the blackness of space. She flew in a straight line from the Heiten to a safe distance, eye on the threat indicator.

Space

She maneuvered around to visiualy spot the others being launched. Seeing the others, joined up with them, getting a good look at her home in space. YSS Heiten. It may not look as sleek as the gunship or the big battle ship. It was home. And beautiful to her.

Errowyn was quiet as she flew her fighter, as she kept alert for any stray NMX ships. She looked at the mission flight path, the rendezvious point with the shuttle. She had her back-up done during the medicals she went through as the rest of the team had R&R. Life was like that at times.

She hoped that Anna, Silac, Elisto and those that were on the shuttle be okay and that lady luck would keep them safe and successful. As for the rest of the 21rt? That was the question. Full of newcomers, it scared her silly if she dwelled on it to long. She wished Solataire was leading this mission. Or Hunter. But they had moved on to better assignments or did they?

She thought of buzzing the bridge to at least hear Solataire voice giving her a chewing out or Hunter worrying about her. She felt accepted when she heard Hunter coming back with the squad to help protect her after she used the NMX ship as a practice landing/take off maneuver.

Even this new Kawarime she had got, seamed to be testing her or was it nerves? She wished it was the old 0053 with it's heavily patched hull, sabertooth tiger head half scorched from enemy hits. She could make that move. But then She cut her teeth on it from the Yamato as it was her first ship she got blooded in.

It felt good to have her ground crew chief yelling at her about the condition of her fighter. It became a ritual each time she went out. Which brought her back to reality of chosing her tactics for this run. This was different, not like the usual hit & runs with swarms of fighters duking it out and part of a fleet of bigger ships involved in the fightings. This was way different. Small Aerospace crafts taking on a shipyard with unknown numbers of all sizes of ships. Not to mention the base itself which had even more weapons to join in the fray.

Errowyn mind was a billion light years away, yet her kawarime flew with precision of an expert within her flight squadron as if she was performing for the Empress herself there watching her perform.

Eyes and mind through the SPINE Interface kept an eye on the Kawarime. No glitches, everything was in the green and good. Munition armed and hot, waiting to be released to do their job. Shields were ready and on standby. She came very focused as she was assigned no wingman nor was she assigned to someone elses wingman. Did the new Squad Leader Blade forget? Should she remind her?

Errowyn looked at the tactical display at the squadron of her fellow fighters. Were they just as scared as she was? Or eager to prove themselves to the veterans of the 21st. Was she a veteran? They didn't know of her style of combat as she didn't know their's. Dang Daisy training and the stupid medical she had to go through. At least she would have had time to get a feel of them and her.

But even when she was with the squadron during offtimes, she kept quiet and observed them. Would she be the same after this foray into battle? Who would come back and who wouldn't?

The age old questions ripped through her mind as it did the billion that came before her. Will she be the one who let everyone down? Will she be vaporized the moment of truth? Or take as many out as possible as she took the long walk into the unknown? Or run like coward in the face of overwhelming odds?

Errowyn killed all coms of her Kawarime, except the IFF Beacon that marked her Kawarime zipping towards destiny. She screamed loudly and hard to drive the demons from her system, causing her Kawarime to shoot ahead of the rest of the Squadron while she screamed in fustration at the unanswered questions, her shortcomings and doupts that flooded her psychie. She was a warmachine and they dont have doupts! She was an ace pilot! Yet she still screamed herself hoarse and then some. Was the pendleum swinging the other way for her into realizing there was more than just being the fearless Hellcat who used NMX Battleships to practice landings and takeoffs along their sides? Was her radiation poisoning finally catching up to her that she was defective, but still allowed her for this one final mission?

~~sister it is your time to return to us~~ Ghost of her dead sisters who didn't have a chance like she did, whispered their insidious messages to her. It was a good thing there was no flight medic in this group or they would be flipping out over her, even though her biometrics were being transmitted back to Heiten. ~~you're going to die hidiously and get the rest of your squadron killed also all because of your greed in rescuing what is already dead!~~

Her Kawarime wobbled a bit as it streaked towards the rendezvious point with the shuttle. She screamed one last time but it came out as a croak, something unpleasant, as she regained control of her Kawarime. Was she a nutcase? Who knew? But she still had a job to do...