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"H-hai! ahem" The lack of formality from her CO caught the smol off-guard for a moment, as she went about readjusting the gunship's weapons, taking cautious aim at the claws of the enemy. Four-thirteenths of a second after the locks confirmed positive, the Kaiyo once again began its onslaught against the battleship's deteriorating existence, as per suggestion colliding with the base of the arrays. Even before the targeted exposed subsystem started to take damage, Arblebarble did a quick check with the data from the various sensory inputs, looking for other areas that seemed to be containing a large amount of energy, or building up a store. She herself assumed the largest of these signatures would be the battleship's reactor. At the same time she wondered how four gunships were able to deal with a fleet like this, in fact even just the one taking on a battleship and seemingly acquiring a crushing victory!
Mochi had decided to deposit his waste noodle cup in the mess bin several minutes prior to getting a notification from MEGAMI. As the Juni slotted the plastic container into the appropriate place, a message was sent to him - "Communications established with enemy fleet. Request Science Officer Iemochi return to Bridge." Sein tilted his head to one side, despite the fact there was nobody around to see. Boss seemed more mechanical than usual today. Probably nothing.
Brushing his hands together to make sure they were clean, the blonde retrieved a gold-plated pocket watch from a pocket and examined it while he made his way back up to the Bridge. "Should take me no time at all.." he muttered to himself, brushing some hair back from his vision. Snapping the cover closed and slipping it back where it had come from, the Doctor came to the Bridge door like he had several times before.
Taking a step inside, he immediately spotted Arb - she looked busy but he still shot a goofy smile in her direction. Eden appeared very much in her element, overseeing everything as he stood before and addressed her. "I hear you needed a translator, Taii?" the Juni queried. He had spent the days after receiving a full report from SAINT regarding the L'Kor's language to become competent in a good portion of it's vocabulary - thanks to his augmented mind and training throughout the years to memorise quickly.
"I think we are looking for a way to shut down the ship without turning on its self destruct. I'm not sure really." Yoshida looked around for a moment along with Anastasia before she spotted her glacning at the bodies, she considered putting additional holes in them to make doubly sure but shook her head and moved on, marching to the hall to check how clear it was with her NSBs.
"I'm not sure i'll be warping in myself meissa! If anything i'll be doing the same thing i did last time, supressive fire." She let off a giggle as she started marching once more. Her tail curled into funny shapes with the power armor shell around it, almost like an armored snake doing stretches and exercises as she walked on her tippy toes, practically skipping, and ready for battle.
"I'm not going to be warping either, probably just sniping from cover.... After all, sniper riflels aren't built for close quarters combat..."
Hey look, the shaky Elysian finally talked in a sentence! Yay! Anyways, even though the armor hid the shivering, that had lowered over time, his voice was noticeably shaky though.
Mitsuko sighed in relief, as everything went according to plan for once. She resecured her LASR to the shoulder mount, moving towards the exit as the weapon rotated back into place. "If our intelligence is correct, the next door should lead to their Engineering section." Finally. She could practically feel the L'Kor surrounding them, as they moved deeper into the ship. The Logistics Neko wanted nothing more than to finish this mission and return to the relative peace and quiet of the Kaiyo. As the group moved down the corridor, she grumbled to herself at Mat's complaints while updating her mental maps and lists.
The Heisho slowed to a stop as Eden piped up with the private message. A plan of attack, something that advanced? She fidgeted nervously, wishing her Mindy II had a skirt or seams or sleeves to adjust. The only thing she'd been planning that far ahead on was how to enact her escape in case the L'Kor closed in or the ship began exploding around them. Mitsuko wasn't the veteran leader the Taii seemed to think she was, she'd just been lucky enough to survive all of those years on the Eucharis. Maybe there was something from an earlier mission she could again repurpose for this situation...
After that moment of hesitation, she stepped forward. "Nashira-Hei, bring your...new friend...over here." She gestured to a spot in front of the latest door, waiting for the somewhat battered L'Kor power armor to be provided. Then Murakami began to...pose it. Feet here, wings open just so, one hand resting on the nearby control panel for support. If there was one thing she thoroughly understood, it was properly balancing dead weight...although usually it was in square containers and not bipedal armor. Soon enough she had the figure arranged as if it was standing at the door, ready to open it. "Here." She touched the back of the armor, between its wings, before pointing at one of the many explosive blocks Meissa was brandishing.
Then, she stepped back...camouflage activating as she flipped around to silently attach to the ceiling, stretching herself out close to the surface. "All units, activate camouflage. Dynamis-Hei, move to the side of the corridor and open the door...the quiet way." She would have to hope the Engineer could discover how to activate the mechanism without using explosives or force. And quickly. "Kokoro-Hei, Jones-Hei...follow my lead." For the others, a timetable went out, explaining their staggered attack: trigger door, observe layout of room, wait for any occupants to investigate, detonate explosives, teleport behind occupants while the remaining three exited stealth to catch the enemy in a crossfire.
It was starting to become noticeable that Mitsuko's plans tended to favor hiding, obfuscating their numbers, surprise attacks and generally not fighting fair. She didn't enjoy fighting, and she wasn't actually especially good at it, and she had no desire for glory (or risk, really). If she kept getting ordered into the thick of things, she'd just keep trying to slip back out again as quickly and efficiently as possible...
Meissa, on the other hand, loved to fight. But this should have been clear by now.
She stuck on a couple of blocks on the back of the armor, as well as a few bits wedged into the joints of the armor so it would keep the body rigid, like a sort of cement...if cement could explode. Meissa gently patted her 'masterpiece' and took her position behind the door, ready to teleport to the back of the room, swarm them with drones, and just in general screw some L'Kor up.
Yoshida gave a nod along with an affirmitive "Roger that!" Yoshida decided to take the 'long way' around as she activated camo, walking up the wall first, then taking her position by Mitsuko, maybe a tad closer than she needed to be as she thought about how Anastasia was going to be teleporting in along with the vanguard force.
Before doing anything else she sent a laser com to her deer friend. "Hey You be careful over there! And uh, don't be afraid to spot targets for me if they are shooting at you, got it?" She sounded so sure she could be of assistance. Though there was always that slight tinge of worry in her voice that came with her closest friends being in direct danger. Maybe guilt too, about being the one in the back while she was the one leaping into the fray.
She let out a sigh and quickly checked over her systems once more, only noting what had so far deviated from the last check she had run. For the most part, things seemed to be fine untill she notedthe scorch mark on her auxilary sheild generator on her shoulder, and frowned at it. "When did that get there?" She shrugged it off and decided to worry about it later, after all she had a job to do, and a gun to level on the enemy. She could only hope th eplan went off without a hitch.
Though she was worried about that even despite her trst in mitsuko, if they had been watching even now on live cameras the whole thing could fall apart, or they could detect the array of power armor in stealth all across the room! So many variables that could end badly, but it was the most reasonable plan they had other than charge into the enemy.
Anastasia obediently activated her suits camouflage, sticking to the back of the group that was going to breach with teleports. She looked at Mitsuko's timetable with a sense of tension. She began charging her teleporter, breathing deeply to calm herself in vain. She could fight, but she was a frontline natural like Yoshida. She admired that courage, or that insanity, hard to tell. She'd much rather be the one to hang back, providing support fire. She'd rather be behind a wheel, or at least working on one.
Yet here she was about to breach straight into the nest and risk her life for enemy Intel Intel technology. She wouldn't argue with her superior though, she did sign up for this. She couldn't back out now. Yoshida's words broke the technician out of her nervous trance. "Thanks, Yosh. I'll keep comms open in there."
She looked over at the camouflaged Yoshida and Orion, smiling in her helmet.
With that, she stood, Saber Rifle at the ready, teleporter charged and ready to breach with the rest of the away team. She made sure she was as far from Meissa as she could get while still in formation.
Mat stood back as Meissa began her "plan". He had a bad feeling about this, and was ready and standing by to help clean up the mess after the plastic explosives went off.
"I'll just stand over here. Once you set the explosion off, I'll teleport in and help clean up the aftermath."
"Open up the channel," Eden instructed an operator. The volumetrics display in the front of the bridge was filled with the face of a L'Kor captain, flanked by its bridge crew. Before Eden had a chance to procure a speech out of thin air, it began speaking in a strange tone that flowed together in a way that was impossibly difficult to follow closely.
You are speaking to the Captain of this L'Kor vessel. We have been instructed to kill on site and there is no need for further fight. Lay down your arms or we will send in teams to execute your soldiers and our shuttle craft will board your ship. There is no escaping this fight. There is no recourse for your actions. There is nothing you can do to save your own lives but to give up and give in to the almighty force that you are presented with.
"Transmit what he's said to me via telapathy to make it faster. I don't have time to waste," Eden said to Iemochi telepathically, but because she wasn't looking at him, it was transmitted to the entire ship. She hoped he would do the same thing so that the rest of the Kaiyō could hear what the L'Kor captain had said.
"Arbitrated Shan," Eden said, being more formal. "Let up the weapons for a moment and show them good will while we negotiate. Charge and redirect power to the appropriate weapons in case of a need to fire upon them again!"
Albatross
Outside of Engineering
Just before Carter Dynamis could go forward to open the door, the L'Kor on the other side did it for him. The away team could then make out the bodies of two technicians and a guard at the door in a full suit. He lifted his hand in the air above his head in greeting to the power armored L'Kor Mitsuko and Meissa had set up. Then, he cocked his head and began to push his face towards the plastic explosive that looked nondescript enough to give him pause.
The away team would be able to see engineering was a multi-level room with a main core reactor in the center that was lined with glowing green lights denoting power cells. There was a walkway around the edge of this level and between that and the core, there was nothingness save for a small one-person metal bridge. There stood one of the technicians, at a control panel, working on it tirelessly and with what seemed like great effort. They wore what looked like a lab coat that their wings had a hole in the back to fit through and they fluttered them in agitation while the second called to them from the other side of the walkway's little bridge in the same dialect the bridge crew was hearing from the L'Kor captain at that moment.
Just as this was happening, a power armor team from the barracks on the other side of the room the away team had just been in began filtering through it, picking up the wrists of dead bodies and letting them drop to see who was still alive. One of them pointed to the hallway the away team had just gone into that led to engineering and the rest nodded. They approached and the door slid open. What they saw was a L'Kor leaning against the other side of the hall nonchalantly and a power armored engineering guard leaning towards him. They waved to one another and then the engineering guard cocked his head. He shoved the shoulder of the power armored L'Kor Mitsuko and Meissa had set up questioningly. It tumbled backwards.
The jig was up. The power armored guard drew his SMG and the others drew their guns, neither ready to shoot at the seemingly empty hall in fear of shooting the L'Kor on the other side. This was the Away Team's opportunity to act.
Mat drew his SMG and bayonet on one hand, using the pistol grip as a handguard, and ignited one of the wrist mounted aether weapons in sword mode. No need to waste ammo if he didn't have to.
He looked momentarily at his teamates, and then began to advance upon the L'kor.
Alas, Mochi Mochi's cute little greeting was missed-the intended recipient was facing away, her eyes darting across a stream of information that at a glance appeared to be relating to the Albatross. The percussive reverberations of the gunship's weaponry at the time meant she was also busy; the last time he did one of these at breakfast she started fidgeting worse than Yoshida does on a sugar high, if Yoshi had a tomato for a head!
At the Taiien's command the Kaiyo went mostly silent-the little Shan did not cease her display entirely, instead she simply stopped demonstrating its power, simultaneously allowing the power to become refreshed for another round. As she waited, Arblebarble did another check on the data for the Albatross, looking for a place to potentially sever connections between the largest power signature and other major results. Under her breath, knowing that Nekos could still probably hear her, especially with the size of the bridge, she commented on them being "very calm despite being crippled in at least fourteen ways", and that they might be "under the influence of some loyalty enhancement" or "have a trick up their sleeve".
As Carter moved forward to open the door to Engineering, he was surprised by it suddenly opening on its own. On reflex, he ducked to the side of the door, out of sight of whoever was opening it, desperately hoping that his suit's active camoflauge would be enough to keep him from being spotted.
Apparently, it was enough, or so he thought until the suspicious technician toppled the decoy, and he saw armored reinforcements arriving at the doorway from the last room. Carter's mind froze momentarily in panic, before taking off at a thousand miles an hour as adrenaline began to flood his system. The world around him almost seemed to freeze as he made a split second decision, a plan of attack simultaneously beginning to take form. He triggered his teleport, appearing directly behind the armored guard in Engineering. He activated both of his wrist mounted Aether blades, and lunged forward, plunging them both into the small of the guard's back, just below the wing joints, angled upward to about where the heart would be in a human or Elysian opponent. Both the Away team and the enemy power armor squad would see the guard's chest suddenly erupt with two white knife-points as the first few inches of the blades punctured completely through the guard's body.
Using his unfortunate victim's armored body as a shield, Carter disengaged the aether projector in his right hand, and whipped around, aiming at the white-coated L'Kor technician standing at the central control panel, and fired his stored scalar pulse in the hopes of disabling what would hopefully soon become a valuable prisoner before they could escape
"Just warp. Warp, warp, warp. Warp to a Safe Point. We'll slug it out there. If you have something that goes bang, throw it! If you have two things that go bang, throw one but save the other!"
Meissa was so tempted to hit the button that made magic happen. But for once, her logic overruled her combat nerves.
Carter was out of place. Very much so, and he would get overwhelmed no matter what.
She, however, had a pretty powerful weapon. As she fired up her Mindy's thrusters, she launched herself towards the dead L'Kor, and plowed it off the ground. She let momentum work its magic as her warhead sailed over into the center of the L'Kor Armor Squad. Her finger was on the button as she evaded shot after shot.
Guess her roommate was right after all. A little more than nuts concerning death.
Anastasia held her breath for a moment, as if a sniper about to pull the trigger. She released the tension and teleported forward, past the L'Kor and into the opposite end of the engineering room. She let herself slip and blinked perhaps too early, taking a slight stumble as the appeared on the metal walkway of the engineering room surrounding the core. She took one small moment to scold herself before adrenaline kicked in, urging her to take the nearest cover until her comrades blinked in. She took a moment to take in her surroundings in her flurry towards cover. She panicked internally, hoping she wasn't the only one to teleport in. She didn't want to be in the room alone, not with all these guards.
As the door opened and the guard greeted the explosive-packed decoy, Yoshida's grin could have brightened a whole room on its own, so sure she was at that moment that their plan was about to succeed- even if this was all a bit disorienting staring at the hallway from the point of view she had, upside down on the ceiling. Yoshida spoke to herself in her sound proofed helmet as she leveled the gun on the engineering door, ready as ever. "Nice nice just need t-" She was promptly cut off mid-speech as her radar picked up as she noticed one of her NSBs had in its sights, a power armor group, that was behind them of all places.
Rather than have a knee jerk reaction of panic she hesitated, frozen for the briefest, most horrible moment as the l'kor on both sides of the hallway spotted eachother. She decided it would be prudent to move to laydown on the ceiling rather than blow their hiding spot for the sake of the ones also on the ceiling with her, even if that would make it incredibly awkward to utilize the aether gattling rifle properly if they did indeed get spotted. She quickly contacted both Mitsuko and Orion via Laser comms. "Either of you have teleports up? If not I don't think we want to be the ones being caught in a cross fire! Might want to lay low and shut down the suit. Hehe... laying low on the ceiling...." Yoshida even had the gall to giggle over the direct comms as she thought about how much trouble they were in. Quickly, she followed her own advice and shut down her aether generator, relying on the internal capacitors for the Mindy to sustain the gravity manipulation and invisibility. She hoped that they wouldn't need to rely on this for long, but if the other two didn't have teleports up, this was the safest option. It even to her, gave them the chance to drop in from behind if they advanced. Her tail twitched as she resisted the urge to swish it around in her excitement, oh how she relished the chance to turn the tables on them.
There was a seemingly silent moment while the L'Kor power armor team's squad leader made hand signals to them and then dropped down to his knees and aimed to shoot while another next to him did the same. The two behind them began to shoot now that their comrades had ducked and were out of the way. The L'Kor did not turn on their heat signature vision as they thought the few of the away team that they were able to see were the only ones present. They shot forward, trying in vain to get Carter, at first. Then, their target changed.
Mat was the first struck as he approached and his shields went down negligibly right away, then more and more. He needed to think fast to avoid his shields behind downed completely.
Anastasia was hiding and was only visible to a technician for a brief moment before the technician buckled under the scalar blast from Carter. The other ran up to them and grabbed at their arm, pulling them up and away from the controls. He began to bring them over the small bridge, trying to get their friend away from the Kaiyo away team as they filtered in and to the exit farthest away from where the Kaiyo team was.
Meissa and Carter had an opportunity in front of them, but what they made of that opportunity was up to them. Mitsuko and those on the ceiling did, as well. Again, what they made of it was up to them, but they didn't have much time to decide. None of them did.
Anastasia saw the opportunity to take out the technician and went with it. She peeked from her cover to fire upon them, using scalar rounds from her shoulder SMG. She didn't want to use the powerful aether saber this close to this reactor-like core. She aimed to down the technician, not kill them outright. Potential for more Intel, should the Taii command it.
A small knot curled in Anastasia's stomach as she fired on the technicians. She didn't feel bad about downing them, they we're aggressive enemies of course. She only felt the stomach churning thought of what could happen if these roles we're reversed, and she was the one they wanted prisoner.
She considered hiding her favorite SMG somewhere in the Kaiyō engineering bay when this was all said and done.
"Help me out here, Carter. We don't have enough firepower to blow through the enemy. Find some things that can blow big. Batteries, alkalis metals, acids, whatever." Meissa told her buddy in Engineering. She then turned around to peek at the PAs.
"Shove this bread roll down your throat, you glorified ducks!" Meissa shouted, as she pulled out the detonator.
Boop.
Mitsuko, already laying low against the ceiling, tried to hunch down even smaller as the group of L'Kor approached from the rear. Just what she'd been afraid of. As the guard from Engineering made his entrance, the rest of the team immediately abandoned the plan and launched their attacks. Also just as she'd feared. The Logistics Neko didn't even bother to rebuke them, although she did spare a moment to respond to Yoshida. "You have the right idea, Kokoro-Hei. Hold position and wait for an opening." Her voice was surprisingly composed, considering the situation. She might have been straining to speak slowly and carefully, to minimize moment. "Although, I do not believe we will be waiting very long."
Right on cue, the rigged armor went flying, before detonating in the crowd of L'Kor that had been advancing on them. "There is our distraction." It might have been repositioned, but she could pretend things were still proceeding as planned. Mitsuko took a deep breath to steady herself before standing up, LASR and gauss cannon firing into the L'Kor, keeping her camouflage up as long as her Mindy could hold it.
"Dynamis-Hei, Barlow-Hei, continue the plan to take their Engineering section. Infantry, hold the door. Fall back to Engineering when possible."
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