RP: NSS Sledge Mama [NSS Sledge Mama] Ep. 3 - Into Steel

Richard rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck as he listened to Ylfa give them word to arm up and retake the facility. He did look over at Terrance though when he spoke up in complaint. "These aren't marines. This is a fight these cat's picked, and they're soldiers not civilians. Even if we're allies. I ain't the kind to discriminate based on race, but if you have a friend that's picking fights all the time and then running to you to back him up, you ain't gonna be helping him long. We could die out here, getting involved for free just means you got a death wish."

He then walked back into the armory, looking over everything inside. He wasn't too familiar with yamatai power armor weapons but he could at least get himself fitted with some half decent stuff. First he got his PEWs replaced with plasma projectors. Then he was fitted with Offensive augmentation pods on both legs. He decided to forgo the shoulder canon however, it wasn't his style and moving with it would take some getting used to. Afterwards he grabbed a LASR, the weapon looked rather flimsy but he knee it could at least spit rounds out at a decent speed as opposed to slow rate of fire energy weapons.

Rachel thinks Ylfa misunderstood her want, she didn't want to do this in favor of helping the kittens, but rather instead to put them under their service to make sure that later they have a trump card that they can call in. The Neko's Honor wouldn't allow them to forgo one major favor for saving them, at least she thought. She sticks with her basic load out however, since she is most used to bare basics anyway, and sticks close to Richard as he changes into his stuff. "So... Do you think we can blow these Freespacers to hell n' back?" She eyes towards Richard.

Briggs Nodded to the CO and ignored the history lessons on the other soldiers. He really didn't think it was all the necessary to tell him their fetishes first thing meeting them but to each their own right?

Briggs found the Armory nearby and walked through it to the Mindy Armaments. He looked through them for not more then a second and grabbed two 50mm Gauss cannons and slid them into place on the Mindy shoulder hard points with ease. He found a Ke-M2-W2905-BPX Gauss Cannon Backpack Extension and strapped it on. Hooking both ends of the backpack to the Gauss cannons to give them extra ammo. They were going to need as much heavy artillery as they could get if they were going to take this place back. He looked through the handheld riffles until he found the one he wanted smiling with a smirk. He grabbed the Accelerated Plasma Rifle with a 50mm Under barrel launcher. He hooked the Mindy into the rifle and started charging up the Plasma rifle. This Mindy was no Aggressor but by god Briggs would give it the heavy weapons of one. After the rifle was charged he found crates of grenades for his under barrel and decided it was best to go with smoke grenades to give his new squad some cover. He was effectively becoming the fire support for his new squad. He check to make sure the Forearm Blade was still working and the Pistol was still attached to the Mindy's hip.

After getting everything he needed, the now re armed Briggs joined the squad and awaited further orders from his new CO.

Mark sighed at the order. He hadn't the foggiest idea what half of the weapon systems were and even less of an idea of how to use them. "You, not the most useless cat I've ever seen, what's the standard loadout that you people are given and can out outfit me with it," he asked. He wasn't one for kindness and definitely didn't care now. "Oh and Top, unlike you I don't have to do drugs to look this good," he responded with a grin casually tossing his helmet into the air before catching it.

Quentin Miller]], Was a brown skinned hulk of a man, and had almost casually following brigg's trail of destruction. As he arrived behind him not a minute later he shook his head and glanced around the armory.

"Hmmm." He let out a sigh of annoyance as he stared at the daisy/mindy armors. He stood well over two feet taller than the puny things. He turned and grabbed a MK1 LASR and attached a SLAG to it after some amount of experimentation to discover how to remove the front rail portion and wrap the three round launcher onto it, grabbing three spare magazines for each, loading the grenade magazines with High explosive Incendiary rounds, and the LASR with armor piercing rounds, he stuffed the extra ammo in a bag, and began searching the armory for explosives, and bags to carry them in while observing the others.

"I believe we should accelerate any plans for a counter attack before their allies show up looking for them." Quentin said nodding to the wrecks. "They would most likely have reported the armory to be here." Almost as an after thought, he turned to the group and said "Ah, Private Queintin Miller reporting for duty." he said with a salute before turning back to find the much sought after explosives.

Terrance believed in doing the right thing, and he said as much. However, the moment the young man tried to help Kelly, an arm lashed out at him before he got a furious stare. The single light shining from under the robot-girl's black plastic faceplate seemed to glow brighter to the point of painting him a shade of red. "D0 YoU 7HINK i'M s7UpId?" she angrily asked him, her synthesized voice crackling. The glow fading a bit, Kelly added, "Even if they had nothing to do with what happened, they're still working for a total c***, and are in a country that won't even punish the ones who ordered it," her voice regaining some level of normalcy as she forced herself to remain calm. As the Freespacer decided to suit up in a Mindy and got ready, the Daisy clad Nekovalkyrja spoke up.

"My name is Saburo Chiaki," she timidly offered to Max. As Chiaki attached the extended ammo pack to his armor with a satisfying clack, she looked over to Kelly. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry it happened. I wasn't even born yet when it did," she apologized, the first 50mm cannon rounds moving up the feed into the Nepleslian Marine's guns. Now clad in her Mindy, sans-helmet, they could all see Kelly's red eye light flick over in Chiaki's direction before wordlessly going back to her own business. Hearing what Richard said, she couldn't help feeling guilty about taking their help either. "I guess...you're both right. In your own ways. It's just that, having all this happen to me when I didn't do anything to anyone...I just can't help feeling that it's...so...so unfair."

"Neither can I," Kelly bitterly replied. Bringing the helmet over her head, the seals hissed shut as the squad leader changed the topic.

"Private, you really should consider it - it'd spare the rest of us from your low standards. Though, even if you did pop some pills, you just wouldn't be Nepleslian Sized where it counts," Ylfa joked with Mark, thrusting her chest plated bust out for emphasis. The Nekovalkyrja's gaze lingered for a little longer than normal before moving to help Mark, grumbling a little bit at his remark about her kind being useless.

"We usually go out with the LASR, a forearm shield, your choice of missiles on each leg and one gauss cannon," she told him. "Against everything but Nepleslians like yourself, it's perfect since it's light and still hits hard," Chiaki explained from behind her helmet. "If you go with two cannons and the backpack though, you won't feel the weight, but you'll notice it takes a little bit more effort to get moving with that added mass," she added. It was a trade-off between speed and firepower. "C-chotto Matte! What are you doing over there?" the Neko suddenly shouted at Briggs. "That's a Mindy you're in - you want the Aether Cannons like she's getting!" the young woman explained to him, pointing over to Kelly. "The suit has the power plant to run them, and you're not going to be stealthy in it anyways," she fussed over him, bringing the Nepleslian a pair of the weapons from a nearby rack. "And why is there a pistol with it? The suit comes with two forearm weapons!"

As Quentin picked over weapons, he soon found himself with an armored blond bearing down on him next.

"Hey, Miller! There's power armors that can fit you," she called out to him, pointing her thumb over her shoulder. "The MCAS over there to the side is modular, so you'll have to either take one of the pre-made setups that can fit you, or cobble together one yourself. Think you'll need help with any of it?" the Master Sergeant asked.

Richard glanced over to Rachel as he was getting his equipment ready, making sure it was all in order. "I don't know much about Freespacers honestly, or about military tech, but judging by how things went just now as long as we're not out numbered or they have stronger guys we haven't see we should have the advantage in fire power and defense." Just as he was finishing up, the second new arrival caught his attention. "Having one more in the squad will help keep things in our favor."

Richard looked around as everyone was getting ready, making a mental note after Terrance's experience not to help Kelly when she's angry. He tried to ignore what the Neko, Chiaki apparently, was saying about things being unfair though, he did not want to get sentimental doing this otherwise he'd be helping everyone that asked and probably getting killed for it. "So, what's going to be our plan of attack? More elevator shafts?"

Terrence jumped back with his hands aligned with his head in a gesture of surrender. "No." He replied as he lowered his extremities and checked on the rear of Kelly's armor, from a distance of course, to make sure any attachments she chose were functioning normally. (Or what he thought was normal of a YSA power armor.) "You're right, but that doesn't mean we should punish the child for the parent's crimes." He said in a rare moment of wisdom. He nodded in satisfaction. "Well, I'm glad you can at least see the younger generation's innocence in that shit-fest." He stepped towards Kelly when she finished suiting up, patting her on the back in a comradely manner. "Come on, you know you want to do this, if only to scrap some dirty bastards." He stated teasingly, like a brother bagging on his sibling.

Quentin, after gathering about nearly thiry pounds of the type 31 explosive, and a collection of detonators to go with his laser and its under barrel launcher, heared the sergent's address to him. He nodded and said "I see, well I may need some assistance, I've never used Yamatain suits." Taking his stupid amount of gear with him over to the piles of modular armor, he crafts a mostly space loadout thing save for the hardpoints other than the barrier sheild.

He quickly discovers=ed what he wanted after some observation, even if he wasn't totally sure on how to produce the results. One shoulder mounted Aether cannon on the right, a weapon mount on the left for the LASR, NSB lanuhcers on the legs, and a butt pack to stuff all the explosives and ammo he could into them.

Rachel turned and looked at Ylfa as well, she had no interest in making friends with the Neko, only putting them in their debt so that later they can call in a favor. She decided to relax for a moment while awaiting orders.

Briggs looked at the cat and shook his head inside his cockpit which shook his Mindy's head as well. "I don't know about you but I don't plan on being jettisoned out the airlock in this suit for those weapons to be more useful then these." He held a metal fist up not accepting the weapons she was trying to hand him.

Briggs did though decide it was best to ditch the pistol as well. "Don't ask me, you guys stored the armor. All the weapons were stripped off this thing. Who knows what your mechanics did to this thing." He grabbed the pistol and tossed it back into the armory without hesitation. After he did he looked at the other people in his new squad. They definitely were not a regulation bunch they were too loose with each other to be. Pulling up his squad in his Mindy's computer he put all of their vital signs on a separate screen out of the main view screen. It would be easier to keep track of his squad and Squads condition.

Max felt the click of the rounds as he armed his guass cannon. Attaching the plasma rifle to the suit he could feel the weapon begin to power up. "MMMM The Power" Max hummed to himself. "So Top, I'm ready to fight. How about we make our first stop to Freia. Tell her boys that the armory is secure and that they should get back in this fight. Don't wana do all the work for you lazy cats who lost the place in the beginning" stated Max sarcastically looking at Saburo.

"Yeah, well, you and me both," Ylfa replied to Quentin. "Well, outside of VR games and shit like that anyways," she added. Putting together a suit for him was relatively easy, and was not unlike playing with an extra-large action figure. It just so happened that this one was something Nepleslian figures were not; feminine. To add insult to injury though, it was also rather...squishy inside. The bio-organic layers of the suit was separated from anyone climbing inside by a layer of cloth, and that was it. "There. The back's open, so climb up, slide in and slip your arms into its sleeves. Just make sure to disable the auto-catheter. We shouldn't be that long in these anyways." Stepping back, she readied the rest of his gear as he got into the Yamataian power armor.

Fully suited, Kelly finished up checking over her own equipment - a Mindy fitted with older gear. Standing there, he got to watch as the periwinkle colored armor thrust both arms into the air and stretch as it came off the maintenance rack. Turning its head to look at the young man, the Mindy put its fists at its hips and stood as though she were annoyed. "They still work for a total bitch you know," the Freespacer reminded him. Taking a few steps closer, she quickly bopped him in the chest, pushing him a bit. "And, you must be too busy scanning me from head to toe to remember those are my dumb little brothers you're talking about," she chastised him, a small but hard edge in her voice. Grumpily walking away from the idealistic Nepleslian, she shot one last remark at him over her shoulder. "I'll terminate them, but I don't have to like it one bit."

Meanwhile, the "Nani?!?!" that Chiaki let out at Briggs could have landed her a job as an anime voice actress. "Baka-gaijin, aether works anywhere. It's not like it's antimatter or something!" she wagged a finger at him. Seeing the marine already starting to lock weapons into place, the Daisy clad Neko let out an irritated "Hmph!" before returning the weapons to the armory, a slight limp in one leg. As everyone finished up getting ready however, Ylfa looked over them all as she nodded to the others waiting on a game plan.

"The plan's pretty simple, but depending on what we got to go off of, pulling it off can go differently," the Sergeant started to explain. "Since it basically looks like they did something to the AI of the station, its MEGAMI, we need to recapture her core area and reboot her if we can. Failing that, contact the Sledge Mama and anyone else nearby for backup if we haven't managed to already." Shooting Max a grin, she nodded along with his idea. "Damn straight they're going to earn it back. Though, we might not be the ones to give coax Freia out of her hidey hole." She looked right at Chiaki. "If taking that elevator shaft isn't the fastest way to get to your MEGAMI, you'll have to go play fetch yourselves," the woman explained.

"Hai, hai," she nodded in understanding. Holding out a hand palm up, an image of the station itself came to life in front of them all. "We're in one of the outer modules, not the central command one, so in order to get there as quickly as possible, you'll have to take the main transit system rather than the maintenance elevators you've been using," the Neko began to explain, pointing at the spindly connections between the outer saucers and the main body. "That's not a good idea in this case, since it seems most of the station is locked down, and they may have sentries waiting along that area - you're better off doing a short space walk. Meanwhile, as soon as you depart, I'll be making my way to these other survivors you've mentioned. Anyone capable of fighting, I'll send your way," she curtly told them all.

"That sounds like what I was thinking in a nut-shell, minus the action," Ylfa shrugged. "At the most, we'll see some sort of off-the-shelf power armors and such besides just the Militants," she added. Grabbing a spare forearm shield and latching it onto her armor with a solid clank, the woman asked one last time, "Any questions Marines?"

"No? Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

****

As Chiaki made her way up the elevator shaft, the Nepleslian Marines filed into the airlock she directed them to. The moment they were all in, Kelly waved her hand at the console, and the lock behind them sealed. Unlike Nepleslian systems, air was carefully drained from the room and saved for later as the frugal Yamataian systems cycled them out, the heavy doorway in front of them opening with little fanfare. With the star speckled darkness stretching out in front of them, their suits vanished from sight, only outlined in green by their heads up displays. Moving out of the safety of the station, they could see just how large it was. Standing on top of one of the side saucer modules, the station stretched beyond a kilometer and a half in width. And then, if they looked up, it was up into eternity.

More importantly, the Sledge Mama itself was just 250 meters away from the lip of the giant saucer they were standing on, moored to the station below them. An end to their fight was just a short trip away, but they already agreed they'd do the right thing. "Flón!" Ylfa swore. "I just hooked up to our combat net - the other marines can't deploy because local command isn't responding, and the nearest Star Army forces don't want them to! We're on our own." Though the rest of the Nepleslians couldn't help, they were still able, and in the right place to do so.

It wasn't long before they entered the station again, weapons drawn. However, this time, there was no hiss of rushing air, the hiss of seals. Or even a single noise. The station was devoid of air. Moving forward, the room in front of them past the airlock was simply a ready room full of space suits and gear. But beyond that however, was the rest of engineering, its second level dominated by several catwalks. At the center of the large but crowded room was the aether reactor for the command module itself, and by the elevator lift out, was the hyperspace lift. More importantly however, were the numerous maintenance conduits leading throughout the entire station. They had no idea what hostiles were beyond the doorway, but for now, they were unnoticed.

"Clear - move forward and keep it quiet," Ylfa ordered the squad.

They'd have to choose which path to take. In the end, they were at level seven, at the base of the command module, and had to make their way up to level four by any means necessary.

As they stepped out into the void, Quentin took a moment to comment on it with a simple "Nice view..." but otherwise stayed silent until Yifa's order for it, at which point he obviously chose to speak up.

"Well, it would be hard to be any quieter than we are with this vaccum ma'am. We could blow or way past a floor or two with a generous amount of explosives before they even knew we were here... that is if one of them doesn't have an ear glued to a floor or wall." After a few seconds of that train of thought, he started hovering, avoiding contact with said walls and floor. One of those machines could actually be doing exactly what he just said. "If that's the case though, they may be able to hear us if we breath too loud while touching a wall, not to mention they most likely are able to see the aether coming from a mile away." He kept the LASR at the ready, and awaited a direction.

Rachel followed the group, she felt one with the suit she was in, and the weapons due to her engineering and technology expertise. She floated on over to the other side and paused a moment before smiling. "They say in space nobody can hear you scream...so I don't think talking's going to be much of an issue, ma'am." She then looked at Richard. "Thinking about it, all those space movies they come out with... those battles are probably a lot more quiet than the movies portray." She however then goes quiet and gets back in position and mind frame for combat.

Rachel wasn't really sure what to think to be honest, she was hoping that HQ would deploy some reinforcements or something, but Ylfa's news made that unfortunately unlikely. "Why the fuck would the Star Army want to just surrender this thing to the freespacers, like serious... what the fuck are they thinking." She sighed before shaking her head.

Stepping out of the airlock, Richard was at ease, even though he had not signed on with the notion of constant space walks the first time he did a real one was a lot more dangerous than this. The view wasn't exactly 'pretty' but it was a sight to behold and he could only take it in thanks to the lack of fighting at the moment. "I think I see why there are people who want to fight in these suits in space." Hearing Rachel he shrugged his shoulders lightly. "I don't really know, I mean I wasn't paying much attention when we were crossing to the NMX ship last time."

The news about the Marines being unable to assist wasn't at all surprising after all it was the prideful Yamatai they were talking about. "It looks like the cats don't want to owe us one either."

When he got inside he did notice the lack of compression which wasn't a good sign. "There's no air here..did they already shut down all of life support?" He already knew such a plan was strategically sound, even if your group was organic they just had to already be in space suits when you shut down life support and everyone caught unaware is out, but despite how logical it was, it was still pretty cold hearted to actually do it.

Terrence crouched when he entered the Life Support room, keeping his aim on the entrances until everyone was inside. He recovered and approached a nearby terminal. "We should get LS back on. Let me... Just..." Sadly, he had failed to account for the fact that Yamatai-go looks completely fucking different from Nepsleslian. "Oh, uh... Maybe someone who can read this should be touching this stuff." He stated as he slowly back-pedaled away, bringing his LASR to bear as he set up against a terminal to stabilize his aim if assholes showed up. He looked from the corner of his eyes at the multiple maintenance shafts for a moment before returning his gaze to the doors. "Any one of those shafts are fine with me. If we can bypass most of the hostiles, then that makes our job easier."

"Ball Boy, fighting in space isn't something we normally do. I've been doing this shit for years and besides brief walks I've never actually had to do any fighting let alone anyone that would want to do it," Mark replied "It takes a little more finesse than it does with gravity."

Upon entering Mark scanned the right hand side of the room with his LASR. Everything seemed calm for the moment but that didn't always mean something good. There were several calm moments on the NMX ship right before everything went to hell in a hand basket. "Top it we use Terrence's suggestion there might be a problem. I don't think I could fit in one of those passages and I'm not sure that I really want to try," he said whilst suspiciously eyeying the conduits.

"Well that was fun" Max thought as he made his way through the open void. He never liked the Zero-G portion of his training, the feeling of floating away forever didn't excite him. He was glad to be back inside. Of course, now they had to pick which way to go and he had no idea. But he did remember that they had brought drones. Perhaps they could offer some direction. "Hey top, why don't we deploy these little drones, they can find a way around the hostiles, or at least the path with the least resistance."