RP: YSS Eucharis [Mission 9.2] Salvaging Parts and Hearts

An abnormally silent Konoka had slinked, hitherto unnoticed, into the gathering of crew, al.ong with the influx of others the taisa had called upon. Konoka had been reflective,as of late: Too long a stretch without helping someone was something Konoka had never enjoyed, especially now. After the last mission, she recognized a need in herself more than ever to feel she was making a difference in this depressive state of war. The news about Neplesia had been a....concern, to say the least.


Hearing about the "volunteer" mission, Konoka's interest was immediately piqued, enticing her to pipe up, "Taisa, perhaps it would be prudent for me to volunteer my assistance, as well?" Konoka felt she now had an opportunity to really help somebody. That, at least, would ensure some of the status quo of Konoka's usual, altruisticly hopeful normality. Still, a part of Konoka wasn't exactly cheered by the prospect of another SAINT mission. Still, as of yet, the hopeful need to assist overrode this within Konoka's personality, and the goal was set. Unless the taisa objected, of course.


Still, Konoka found herself focusing her gaze on her former colleague, now, she guessed, a Juni, and even an acting XO?? Sune, she worried, seemed....off. She saw something suspiciously intensified, beyond the scientist's usual calm demeanor she'd come to recognize in her friend.


Waiting for the Taisa's approval and further orders, she 'pathed Sune: Perhaps I'm being worrywart me again, but you seem like something's caused you undue upset. Is there some way I can assist, Sune-Juni?


It was more than that, though: once again, Konoka the concerned crew-fixer had risen. And a lot seemed to definitely be "up".

"We will wait for the ship to be repaired sufficiently," Hanako told Toshiro.

She looked to Sune. "Of course. SAINT has furnished all the details to us. However that is not a lot."

"The general plan," Hanako continued, "will be for us to find, ambush, and disable a small NMX ship squadron and then use our camouflage systems to steal that squadron's identity. We will then enter the system and try to pick up survivors, if we can find any."

Takeyu tapped his shoulder a few times and nodded. "I'll volunteer, I wouldn't be able to stand staying behind while everyone else is fighting," he said.

Sune started at Konoka's telepathic message. He looked at her and shook his head from side to side as the sent telepathically, "Thank you for your concern, there is nothing you can do to help. I will be okay. I received some disturbing news just prior to this briefing. Once we are released to our own devices, I plan on going down to one of the workout areas to deal with it."

He turned his attention back to Hanako. "As you said Taisa, its not unexpected that the amount of information will be scant. So we need to locate a NMX squadron without being detected, then engage them while ensuring they can not get a distress message out, and then pretend to be them to gain access to HX-13. Sounds to me like we will need something to lure a squadron to where we can jump them. Something that they can not resist investigating. Then after we take them out, we might want to board one of them to see if we can extract any access codes from their computer to help get through their defenses." he suggested.

Kuroki shoved her hands in her pockets, leaning back as she stood with Takeyu, suddenly becomming rather interested in the ceiling as the word 'Volunteer' floated around the room. She had volunteered for hazardous duty before, and it had landed her in a great deal of trouble. At the moment, she was back planetside, in civilian clothing, kicking it and not worrying about the future like she used to. Volunteering would put her in combat again.

Still, this was the Eucharis. What could honestly go wrong?

She took her hand out of her jacket and gave a mild wave, "I'll go."

Yaichiro nodded, regarding the Taisa's answer.

"Had the Eucharis been staying here, I would have considered staying to aid in her repairs and left it to you to decide where I was more useful. I'll go though, if we're waiting for the Eucharis to be fully repaired first."

Yaichiro had noted that SAINT was the one giving out the mission...had they given out the last top secret mission as well? If so, that added one more possibility -- perhaps SAINT had been infiltrated. This added one more entity which could have been infiltrated aside from the 1st XF, and made him a bit nervous...He'd have to see what happened in the battle though. He knew he'd be making an ST Backup before this though -- he made one just before going out to the Fredrick, but he didn't want to forget the information he'd collected thus far.

"Alright. Does anyone else wish to volunteer?" Hanako asked. "Also, if anyone has a better suggestion on how to get in and/or how to look for these survivors, I would really like to hear it."

She turned to Sune: "What sort of 'bait; would you suggest...other than the obvious."

Sune took a moment to gather his thoughts, and to try to relax his posture. "I was not suggesting we use our ships as bait, Taisa. Because that would be counter productive. Whatever group of NMX ships would probably notify that they were preparing to attack a group of Plumeria Gunships. What I was suggesting was that we see about locating some damaged Lanethron-class Cargo Ships from the battle. Bring them here to the starbase and work on getting one or more of them operational enough to fly and configured so they can be flown remotely from our ships. That they are battle damaged works for us, as we take them to where we want to set our trap, and have them send a distress call. Saying they are transporting evacuees from the battle and their drives have failed."

Takeyu tapped his lower chin thoughtfully; going back to his memories of mining and how pirates used to lure ships into traps for destruction, salvage, or slavery.

He pondered a few things to himself; and glanced off at the far left wall, I wonder.... if I remember correctly; a Lanethron Class Cargo Ship is eight hundred and ten metres long, with a width a four hundred and fifty metres and a height of roughly two hundred and five.

The Eucharis is roughly two hundred and fifty four meters long with a width of a hundred and twenty eight.. he crunched the numbers, but he didn't know much about the cargo ship other than it's specifications, he would need more information.

He pulled the details into his digital brain and looked over them all. Let's se, varying types of cargo containers, none of them would be able to fit the Eucharis naturally. It’d be hard to modify a twenty by twenty to fit a ship that’s two fifty four by one twenty eight…. he sighed and went back to trying to figure out how could be made possible, if at all.

It wasn’t the height that was the issue, though it might play limitedly into his idea, it was the size of the containers.

Kumiko came in, and quietly joined up with the group, staying back. After a bit, she decided there was no point in staying behind; she'd survived crazier missions then this, and there was no way to know if her help would make a difference. "Taisa? I'll go as well."

Nika whined as Hanako's telepath reached her. Nevertheless the neko forced herself up from the bed and awkwardly made her way to the shower, which definitely did its job in waking her up still in her uniform as the cold water soaked it. With that done, she switched to a new uniform with her new attached rank pins and proceeded to the meeting location, only to note that she was one of the last few that entered. At least she caught bits and pieces of the mission specs.

"Taisa, I'm in for the mission..."

Junko looked up as Himeya entered the restaurant. The arrival of her shipmate had roused her from her reverie, initially inspired by the Captain's comment about waiting for repairs to complete. She had been going through a mental checklist, thinking of every inch of the ship and where they could speed up and where they could ignore repairs for the time being. The problem had been absorbing enough that she had quite forgotten her surroundings, but now she looked up and around at the others. "I'll certainly volunteer for the mission as well, ma'am," she said. "But is there any chance of repairing or recovering the downed ship?"

"I am not sure what condition the ship is in, "Hanako answered Junko.

The Taisa pulled up a volumetric model of the cargo ship and the Eucharis. "I think we can fit," she said.

"Does anyone want to have a party or something before we go?" Hanako added. "I feel a need for...excitement," she grinned.

Sune pondered the image that Hanako had pulled up. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but it could work. We would just need to make sure the Eucharis could get out quickly when we spring the trap. " he replied.

A party, excitement... what is she thinking.... he then looked around at the crew members. With all this crew had been through recently, and what the Taisa is asking them to volunteer for. A little excitement would be good for the spirit. he thought.

"A party would probably be good for morale, let people blow off some steam, and relax." He said as he rose to his feet. "I have few personal matters to attend to before I can particpate in any festivities. With your leave Taisa, I will go attend to them."

Hanako tugged at Sune's arm and gently pulled him around a corner. "Talk to me," she said, looking into his eyes with an expression of concern on her face.

"After seeing our visitors off... I checked on an inquiry that I had submitted before we left..... I was checking on the Bouken, and the two ships that I gave to Raia and her family to help them." He paused to get control of his emotions.

"Raia and the others were the people who found me, taught me, my family.... if you will. Their ships were attacked, looted and left adrift." Mental images of the closest thing to a family Sune had ever known came forth.

"They recovered the bodies of Komatsu Raia, and Komatsu Jason. The people who found the ships reported that there was lots of blood on the other ships.... but... no bodies. We.. we both know what that most likely means. Eighteen adults, and sixteen children.... all dead. Truly dead... were not Yamataian... they did not believe in soul transfers."

Anger and rage boiled up within Sune, between the horror on the shipyard, and now this he was straining to keep control. As he started to feel himself lose some of his control, he punched the wall with his full strength. Using the physical pain to help push back the grief.

"Ma'am... I need to workout, to get my emotions under some semblence of control. This kind of personal loss.... I have never had to deal with something like this." He looked back into Hanako's eyes, his pain clearly visible in his own.

Takeyu watched Sune leave; his eyes analyzing the mans expression, he wondered what was troubling the Juni, but knew it wasn't his place. Instead, he shifted his attention back to what he had talked to the Heisho and Shosa about earlier.

He had put aside his initial idea, hearing what the Taisa had said before. The Megami onboard the Ikoi had put together more faces with images and voices, some of the images came back were those of his crew.

One of the crew had clearly survived, but had disappeared into society shortly after arriving on Essex, he had no way to contact that crewmen.

Takeyu had to wonder if any of the faces would actually match any high profile criminal, or those who might've escaped from a Yamatai prison. Standing there, thinking, sorting through the images and voices. A recording of his two sisters voices played in his mind, and it gave him some unnerving feeling that he couldn't quite place.

Hmmm, seem's most of the images and voices I sent don't match any norm criminal..... he tapped his chin thoughtfully. Perhaps these guy's really were outside of society and were never caught by the police or our military, he continued to think.

Taisa...

Click to expand...

Yaichiro said, sending a telepathic message to Hanako of low priority she could access whenever.

If it is necessary for a wreck or junker of the class to be obtained, I may be able to help purchase one if one can be found, or we can in some way use my SS Thunderbolt that was used in the emergency extraction since its attachment to us was never uncovered. I'd prefer it not destroyed, as there is a potential anti-slavery effort for which it may be used in the future, but I can always buy another craft if it becomes necessary to sacrifice her. If a customized one isn't as preferred, we could work something else out.

In regards to a party, it sounds interesting...though I'd like to state that I have a personal choice on file which declines the consumption of alcohol.

Click to expand...

"I know this is not the best occasion for a party but some companionship and some wine may help make the pain more bearable," Hanako told Sune.

She gave Sune a warm pat on the shoulder before returning to the group. "Any civilian freighter would probably be suspect to the NMX since they do not use them regularly."

When Hanako had patted his shoulder Sune said, "I will rejoin the group in a little while. I need to deal with the deal with my anger Taisa. I would not want to say or do anything that would hurt anyone on the crew."

He then quietly left the area, and headed towards the Gym. He stopped briefly at the Ship's Store to pick up a few items. Once in the Gym he changed out of his duty uniform. He hit the mats and began going through his normal work out routine, to stretch and warm up his muscles. Typically his work out was sufficient to help him clear his mind, but as Sune had already anticipated, this was not to be the case.

He completed the routine, and made his way over to the heavy bag. Settling into a fighting stance he began hitting the bag with punches and kicks. At first hitting bag with light hits, but as he continued alternating between punches and kicks, he focused his anger into his hits, and began hitting it for all he was worth.

Some time later during his session with the bag, tears began to flow.