RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear (Battle of Sbuhfaba)

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Kumiko nodded, and headed out, sending back a simple good luck message to Sune. She was almost out of sight when the Rippers appeared. What do I do now? We need to complete an objective, but 4 on 4 would even the odds a lot for them... She struggled it over for a few seconds, then decided. I have to hope they can handle it. If they think there's only 2 of us, it will make completing our objective that much easier... She resolutely turned away, and kept going, sending a message to Nika.

Keep moving. it's hard to bear, but we have to assume they can take care of themselves and get our objective done, rather then risk getting caught ourselves. Once we complete our objectives, then we can check to see if they need help.

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Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Takeyu grunted as he stared at those who just assaulted him; well, in the back of his mind he had hoped this mission would go ok, but at the same time he was also getting a tad bored.

His HUD blared the warning, and he knew he probably couldn't survive another big hit like that. With what little time he did have he checked his area quickly and found at least a small area of cover, nothing much considering that part of his armor was sticking out like a sore thumb - but enough that he was able to quickly check his backpack. Frags he muttered and brought the Mindy shield arm up and activated it, he also brought his weapon up.

Looking back over his shoulder, he quickly typed up a message comprised simply of:


He watched them. Let's see... five uglies... each in their own little power armors.... hmmm.... I have a SLAG, perhaps it'll do the trick, he thought calmly, despite being hit unexpectedly he showed very little fear. He loaded up a round in his SLAG, and looked up at the ceiling, his bomb was a few meters away from him - but then he had a thought. "Wait.... I know the Heisho wants to detonate these things remotely and such, but maybe I can use that satchel to my advantage, I only planted one so far but maybe it'll be enough" he said as a grin appeared on his face. He could probably take out at least two or three with that satchel, provided they don't find it.

With a plan on his mind; and the hopes that the Heisho wouldn't rip him to pieces afterwords, he decided to get the Mishu to get closer to him and where he had hidden the bomb. The grin broadened, and he fired a SLAG round toward his assailants.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Sune whirled around at the sound of weapon fire in time to see Takeyu get back to their feet. Damn it, is it too much to ask for a mission to go according to plan. Nika and Endoh are off, that leaves us, 5 to 2 odds.

He activated his forearm shields and brought up his SLAG following Takeyu's example. I have never seen those types of power armors, so no telling how they stack up to our Mindy's. So error on the side of bad. Switch his armor to normal comm.

"Fire in the hole, Santô Hei." he said as he fired a three round salvo from his SLAG into the midst of the 'rippers'. If nothing else he figured the explosions would disorient the enemy a bit and give them time to coordinate their attacks.

With surprise now gone, Sune altered his message to be sent.


Attached to the message on a sub-band he included a clip of the video of the processing area. And a few images of the new enemy power armors. Once he had the message composed, he instructed the AIES to compress it into a one second pulse.

He then set the AIES to broadcast the message once every 6 seconds,for one minute. That would give the Eucharis 10 chances to hopefully detect the message. Sune really did not have much hope that the Gunship would receive the message, but he had to try to deliver the intel without compromising the ship's safety. He activated the transmission sequence.

First they had to deal with the incoming enemy, if nothing else Takeyu and himself would provide a diversion to let the other two members of the away team to go and set their charges. Dropping to one knee with his forearm shields positioned to protect him ,he waited to see what emerged from the smoke of the grenades with his LAS-Rifle ready to fire.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

The archway Takeyu had taken cover in was immediately mangled as the Rippers unleashed a constant stream of fire on it until the SLAG round slammed into the lead Ripper, filling their end of the corridor with smoke and fire as it directly impacted on the armor's chest area, doing damage but not disabling it. Sune's round hit next, sending them bumping into walls and falling over each other; however, after a few seconds they got up and resumed firing, this time staying put. Takeyu's armor display read a measly overall 30%.

A shower of explosive railgun shots lit up the slimy area for a moment and then they were plunged to darkness; all the lights had been blown out. At that time, all of the other blast shutters along the corridor slammed shut as well, including the one at the airlock they'd entered through. One slammed shut behind Kumiko, separating her from Sune and Takeyu.

Sune found himself face down in the muck, knocked down hard by a railgun shot. His armor was down to 60% and his right shoulder burned furiously. The Zesuaium blast shutter in front of him stood unphased. AIES told him it'd take at least a minute to penetrate one of them.

That's when he noticed Konoka. The medic appeared to have taken the full brunt of the first assault. She lay sprawled out on her back in the middle of the hallway with her helmet heavily caved in by railgun impacts. Brain matter and blood oozed out of it and onto the floor. Her armor's AIES was still operational, and it confirmed his fears: she had been killed instantly.

With their aim somewhat hindered by the smoke and darkness, the Ripper team continued to take sporadic potshots at the intruders.

- - -

Aboard the Eucharis

Hanako puzzled over the Sune's message. Did "friends" mean enemies or friendly forces? It was probably allies. Was it SAINT? Prisoners? Liberty...freedom...freeing prisoners! She read the rest of the message. She could see that they needed a shuttle sent and that they had enemy contact. Side band...data channel... She checked and found the video attachments.

Short on crew, she ended up ordering one of the cooks to the shuttlebay before viewing the video files...

- - -

All around the shipyard, NMX crews ran to their battlestations. Alarms sounded. Inactive ships were brought online. Defense systems went to full alert. The Eucharis was being hunted.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

His head rung and for a moment he thought he was seeing stars, but he quickly came back to his sense's at the sound of weapons fire. "oooh.. who the heck are those things.. basic never said anything about them," he rubbed the back of his helmet before looking at where his cover 'had' been, and now saw that he would have to figure something else out.

He didn't look over his shoulder; turning your back to your enemy was the worst thing you could do, something he had learned out on the outer rim, that saved his life on many occasions. "Heisho, your orders? Only one in place," he said just loud enough for Sune to hear, referring to the satchel charge that he assumed was still hidden. He cycled his SLAG but due to the smoke he didn't want to risk lobbing off a round of two since there was no gurrantee that he would actually 'hit' something, and if he did fire, the round could miss cleanly. In this case, all he did was bring his shield up, and prayed it would last long enough for the Heisho to think up of a new plan, and perhaps a means for them to survive a bit longer.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Nika winced as shots rang behind them as she and Kumiko spiltted with the group. Objective to come first, rescue comes later if they are still pinned down.

The neko just nodded silently as she followed Kumiko quickly, hoping to get this done quickly.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Sune quickly got back to a defensive posture, he glanced at the HUD regarding his armors status. "Even with forearm shields deployed I lost 40% of armor effectiveness. We can not stay in this position." he said to himself. His words to Hanako prior to leaving the ship came back to mind.

Sune said:

And frankly Taisa our technology has not been exactly working well against the NMX."

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Our cloaking capability rendered useless by slime and fog. Now it was apparent that we are up against superior power armors, and badly outnumbered. Sune stopped his recriminations, We can not stay here and we are blocked by enemy and blast doors. With my satchel charge, we can try to blow the door open or weaken it sufficiently that we get through it quicker.

Looking at Takeyu, Sune handed him the satchel charge out of his butt pack. "Nayacesen-Hei I will provide suppression fire. Take this charge and blow the blast shutter to the processing center. If we can get into that passageway we stand a better chance than here. If it does not blow the hatch completely use your aether sabers. If we can get in that passage way the enemy will have close on our position. We can they try using your charge to blow them to hell."

Sune switched to thermal imaging, and activated his Ke-M2-W2905 Shoulder-Fired 50mm Gauss Cannon. He fired a three round burst into the area where the Rippers were most likely located. He was opting to conserve his ammunition to provide maximum duration of capability. He quickly fired of another pulse message to the Eucharis.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

"Aye Sir," said Takeyu as he took the charge and went behind Sune. He shouldered his weapon, so he'd have a better chance of working with the explosive. He looked along the door to see if he could find any sort of weakness, but like any blastdoor it was designed to look impenetrable.

With a slight growl in his tone from being unable to find an actual weakpoint, he set the satchel at the center of where the door came down. He wired it, setting the primer to active and guarding the remote charge in his right hand.

He ran back toward where Sune was; planted his shield to protect Sune's back. Then raised the detonator, he made a mentle not that if it didn't work, he would have to get his sword out quick and get to work. "Fire in the hole!" he shouted, and hit the detonator.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

When the smoke cleared enough to see, Takeyu could make out the shape of the blast shutter. It was totally undamaged and its frame was also fine; however, the entire door assembly seemed to have been knocked inward on the bottom, leaving a gap not quite big enough to see anything through. It also had blown a man-size hole in base of the opposite corridor wall, exposing a dark passage of some sort.

"Priority Alert. Response team reports active intrusion in sector seven organic materials processing facility. Identification Star Army. Quantity Five. Mobilize. Converge. Eliminate."

- - -

Ahead of Kumiko and Nika, a blast shutter opened to reveal a squad of five NMX power armors, which immediately flooded the corridor with aether blasts and railgun shots.

- - -

Two shuttles emerged from the Eucharis. The larger one, Raccoon T7 Transport Shuttle NG-X1-408-7 "Telemachus III," carried an additional armor team composed of Hamada Shizu, Takeda Junko, Yarani Tasuku, Mikael Harris, Oski Kita, Iella Remi, and Mango piloting. The smaller one, the Kuma T8 Multi-role Shuttle NG-X1-408-8, carried just Lime, the daytime cook. They moved towards where the first team had entered and then selected closest shuttle landing bay.

"Sune this is Hamada. Are you ready for extraction?"

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

"Fffff-" Kumiko threw herself sideways, trying to avoid as much of the fire as possible. At the same time, she deployed her NSBs, giving them orders to return fire and begin compiling effective firing solutions for her gauss cannon.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

"Eep!" Nika cried out as she threw herself down as aether blasts and railgun shots rang pass her, some grazing her armour as she fell. The neko too released her NSBs, providing cover fire as well as distraction while she armed and took aim with her Gauss Cannon, firing a few shots hoping to take one or two down quickly.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Takeyu couldn't believe that the explosives didn't work; his mind raced with the possiblity that he had packed it wrong, or that he had set it wrong, any number of reasons that could've caused it not to work.

Though he had noticed the gap on the bottom, he had also noticed the hole in the wall and quickly took cover near it. "Heisho," he motioned with his head toward the hole.

He noted his armors current status, while he waited for the Heisho's next order. He instructed his AIE's to run a diagnostic on his armor's systems, to see if there was any damage that was not being reported. Bringing up his weapon, he had another few rounds loaded into his SLAG as he kept his eyes on the corridor.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

"Takeyu get in that hole where ever that passageway leads has to be better than here get moving down that passageway. I will be right behind you. After I set Konoka's Mindy to Autodestruct." Sune said.

Upon hearing his name being called over the normal comm channel Sune paused for a fraction of a second. Why are they broadcasting standard, the NMX will be able to triangulate on their position. he thought. His current position already having been comprises, he replied.

"Negative Hamada. We are currently cut off from the airlock, and from the prisoners. We are about to try an alternate route. Beta team's location unknown they are attempting to complete original mission." he sent.

Sune looked at Konoka's still form, one of the few times he could recall when she was not bouncing, moving or worrying. He could not leave her to be harvested. Via his AIES he sent instructions to her armor's AIES, "Initiate Self-Destruct - Power Supply Overload, 60 second silent count. Commence countdown now."

As he headed towards the passageway after Takeyu and where ever it lead he thought, Goodbye Konoka.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Takeyu cursed himself; he had been concentrating so much on the mission and on who was attacking him and his team leader, he had failed to even notice that Konoka had gone down. He stared at her armor, and turned away, he knew that he had to do better than this.

He crawled into the hole, unsure where it led, but he kept his weapon forward of him in case he needed it. Tight quarters... I hate tight quarters, he complained but crawled anyway.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

The hole seemed to be some sort of ventilation shaft. A vent below Sune detached under his weight and he tumbled face first into a huge pile of cardboard boxes. Then Takeyu landed on top of him with a thud and the ding of metal armor. The impact made the box below Sune collapse, and they both sideways on an avalanche of small metal cans until they came to rest in an aisle. It seemed relatively quiet on this deck, and the cargo area lacked the fog, bugs, and slime of the deck above. They could would have to turn on their lights to get a better view of the place.

- - -

Nika's shot bounced off the lead Ripper's shoulder, causing some visible damage but not really slowing the Rippers down; however, when the support bits swarmed around the Rippers, they had to stop and fend them off with their forward cannons and the scalar projectors in their palms. It bought Nyki and Kumiko some extra time. Kumiko had an easy shot at them now...and it was also a good chance to escape into a side hall. Maybe they could find a way that wasn't blocked by blast shutters.

- - -

Hamada and the team slammed into the shuttlebay with their shuttle mangled and the pilot, Mango, dead. Just before they had been able to land, a pair of anti-starfighter cannons had locked on and torn into the shuttle viciously. The front windshield was blown out with Mango's upper half sprayed across the cockpit like a paint bucket. Inside, the passenger area was beginning to catch fire...

Lime landed her Kuma T8 as fast as she could, planning on running over and assisting the crash victims.

- - -

The shipyard began to break out into a starship-scale fist fight. Eucharis and its captured NMX shipyard were firing on the NMX warships as they tried to come online, slinging glowing blue positron bolts and bright yellow bursts of AA fire at one another. A flash of white-pink pass over the Eucharis' main cannon and one of the launching escorts took a massive beam right into its rear launch bay, nuking it from the inside.

"Signal the fleet and our squadron that the sooner they get here, the better," the Taisa told Blueberry.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Sune switched on his helmet lights as he stood up. "Nayacesen-Hei, are you okay? We need to find away out of here. Ideally to find where the prisoners are, but also to get out danger. The Mindy power-supply self-destruct has a 20m blast radius" Sune said as he looked around taking in the room.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

After getting off Sune, Takeyu shook his head free of the stars that once again reappeared. "Can we get off the roller-coaster already," he said to himself and switched his helmet lights on. A dull white transperent beam spread out in front of him, illuminating his surroundings.

He look around the room; noting the boxes they had landed on. "A storage bay perhaps?" he asked but his true intent was to find a door, and quick.

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Inside the dark storage room Sune and Takeyu could see a large garage-style door on one end and on the opposite side, in the direction of the butchery, there was a maintenance hatch. They could also see the cans they had landed on were labeled with little stickers: "SPICY SAUSAGE," they read in big letters. Then, below is a smaller font, it said "mixed fresh meats," followed by the date of manufacture, which was yesterday.

- - -

Lime's Kuma shuttle skidded to a halt across the shipyard shuttle bay from the burning Raccoon-class. She exited through the side door and began running towards the burning shuttle before a squad of Ripper armors burst into the room and started shooting at her. She took a bad hit to her left thigh and screamed over her Mindy's radio before barely making it to cover behind a large shipping container full of starship armor.

"Lime to Eucharis," she reported, "LZ is hot. Shuttle 408-7 is down. Occupant status unknown. I am pinned down!"

- - -

The first reinforcements to arrive on the scene were Eucharis' nearby squadron ships: YSS Vesper, YSS Aurora, and YSS Nadeshiko. Together the four gunships were doing their best to keep the NMX docked starships from being launched, but it was a losing battle. The NMX ships outnumbered the Star Army forces heavily at this point, and Eucharis especially was taking a beating. Shields were intermittent, and Hanako ended up having to use the captured shipyard as mobile cover to block shots from some fo the large NMX vessels. She began steering it towards the central compex, intending to ram it.

"Armor teams this is the captain," Hanako said. "Please hurry."

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

After reading one of the cans, Sune suppressed the urge to gag, and dropped the can. After taking stock of the room and their position he decided on checking out the maintenance hatch. As he started moving towards it they received Hanako's message.

Does the Taisa think we are sightseeing and stopping for a cup of coffee? We've been intercepted, engaged and got our butts handed to us, now we are fighting for our lives. And still trying to achieve some measure of the mission. he thought shaking his head.

"Takeyu-Hei, see if you can open that maintenance hatch, perhaps it will lead us to a point where we can be of use."

"Alpha Team to Eucharis, message received, doing our best to be expedient"

Re: [Mission 9.1] Tip Of The Spear

Kumiko ducked over into the new passage that had presented itself, and motioned for Nika to follow her. "Leave them, we need to keep moving.." That said, she took off down the new hallway, looking for an alternate route to their targets. "Bravo team to Eucharis. Ran into more resistance, trying a detour now."