RP: YSS Kaiyō Pre-Mission Three: Briefing

[Dumont]

"T'chyeah? I admire Yamatai's ingenuity an' patience fer runnin' all 'em innerstellar networks widdout faster'n light networkin' t'en." The one calling themselves Galo said easily. It sounded like one casual conversation, already all the formality was draining from their voice. "Or is this you bein' a fool an' talkin' 'bout ot'er ships ye got in o'r space? Fer sure we go' months t'wait if i' means all sortsa ships we don' want in o'r parts bein' gone!"

They gave a little laugh, clearly not taking this as seriously as they otherwise should.

"We jus' wanned yer t' beck off yer ships in this p'ticular space, sisters. If ye really cannae communicate a' range we'll send a shuttle or sommin'."

 

[Navian]

Nitô Hei Navian had to admit this had gone far beyond her level of comprehension, and not in a way that a translator could help. She asked her CIES the incredulous question, "Does that treaty they mentioned really apply this far out, Miniboss-chui?" and received the disappointing response, "So long as the world was pre-inhabited at the time the treaty was signed, the treaty applies, regardless of location."

She reported her progress to the bridge. "It sounds like they want us to leave, though they seem willing to meet with us, under no certain terms, so long as we stay out of range."

 

[Arbitrated]

"Hmmm so, they seem cautious enough to not just shoot at us." The smol has been monitoring the conversation pieces that have made it to the bridge, trying her best to fill in the gaps. "I'm not sure if we should trust them, but if they're not trying to draw us in, then they probably do want to avoid trouble. At least for now."

 

[META_mahn]

Well. Space boonies. Can't say she expected that. Can't say she didn't expect it, either...
"That sounds about right, Shan. If it was a pirate outpost they probably would try to draw us in and then hit us with everything we have. I'll rule out the trap possibilities with a shuttle bomb and whatnot, but saying 'stay away' is very un-piratelike."
She knew near nothing about the treaty, however. And being in the world they were...even if it was pirates, if the pirates were right...
Oh what the hell was she thinking. If they were pirates, but they were right about the treaty, the Kaiyo would just blow them to space dust and take off by the seat of its white-hot FTL drive. Maybe change its flight path to accommodate for the treaty.

 

[Ametheliana]

Bridge

Catherine Ross, the sixth squadron leader, spoke to the bridge, saying, "Make the call, Taii."

Taii Teien Eden was wary, that was for sure, but wanted the away team to proceed into the outpost and, so, spoke over comms to them.

"Investigate in person this outpost, away team. We will report our findings back to Yamatai. Leave weapons systems offline, but be prepared for anything."

To Santo Hei Ito she directed her to pilot the ship one light year away from the outpost, finalizing it by saying, "We'll play by their rules."

"Shan, have long range weapons offline but have yourself prepared to bring them back online at a moment's notice!"

 

[Arbitrated]

"Noted, Taii" As she goes about powering down and unloading the main weaponry, leaving only a few of the point defenses online in the event of a surprise drone or missile, she takes a few deep breaths. It's just them being cautious, just like us. They're not going to kill us, they're making sure we don't kill them in a peaceful way, it's fine, it's fine, they aren't going to attack us... yet. She loops thoughts through her head, before deciding to unload the final cannon, not counting the PDs mentioned earlier, which she keeps locked in a position that appears to be idle. She tries to relax herself by counting up the munitions still inside the armory, to moderate effect.

 

[Alex Hart]

"Roger that Taii."

Mat turned off his SMG and wrist weapons for the moment to signify non-hostile intent, but made sure that they could be reactivated at a moment's notice. He then began to approach the station at a cautious pace while contacting it.

"Attention waystation Silent Palace, this is Santo Hei Matsuvo Shinomori. We have been given orders to investigate in person. I am now approaching with my weapons systems offline."

 

[Navian]

Near the Outpost

"'We're coming in for a visit, we don't want any trouble,'" Navian translates, more or less. "Let's move in, away team. Stick together, and try not to make any sudden movements." She cruised in toward the outpost, looking for an empty docking area, or other landing zone.

 

[forumlurker]

Space

Upon hearing the order, Carter swiftly stored his LASR back on its attatchment point on his shoulder, pulled his Gauss cannon back into its dormant position against his back, and clipped his grenade launcher to a tether on his back beneath his other weapons. With a quick request to his suit AIES, he disabled his wrist aether projectors, and set them up to re-arm themselves automatically at the first sign of hostile action. With his offense taken care of, Carter shifts his focus to his defenses, routing a bit of extra power to bolster his shields. He quickly sets up another trigger on his photonics array, setting it to project a defensive barrier upon an attack, to cover him while he re-arms and draws his weapons. Satisfied with his preparations, the technician almost speaks up, but, as an afterthought, sets his suit to charge up a teleport, and simply hold onto it as a possible tactical advantage. And THEN he speaks. "I have safeties engaged and defenses prepped. Following your lead, Navian."

 

[Speeder01]

"Okay I guess we're doing this! By yor orders Taii..." She quickly followed, and with carter as an example, she quickly disarmed herself midflight, her LASR's magazine ejected, projectors disabled, and sheilds.... down. Yoshida marveled on how this would be the perfect time for an wnemy attack to absolutely shred the whole team. "Remember carter, unprotected squishies dont enjoy close contact with a CFS!"

 

[Pancakei]

Spaaaaaaaaace

Anastasia had quickly shut down her weapons upon hearing the order to land cold, folding her shoulder-mounted SMG into a "I'm not aiming at you" position behind her left shoulder. She fell into position behind Carter and Yoshida, keeping her eyes peeled for anything fishy, or feathery.

 

[forumlurker]

"I know." Carter replied to Yoshida. "I'm keeping them up until we board, then switching to photonic armor."

 

[META_mahn]

"Orders acknowledged."
Meissa already had most of her weapons powered down anyways, so all she really did was put her Aether Beam in resting position.

 

[Reynolds]

"Thank you, Galo One-four. We're running your credentials as we speak, you might say. We should not need to linger long enough to require any more polls be conducted."

Mitsuko didn't have anything else to say to the outpost at the moment, sighing to herself inside that dented Mindy helmet. She pulled up the map of the outpost she'd been building, highlighting two sections of it. "These are the sections most likely to be used for loading and unloading personnel, vehicles and other cargo. An educated guess." She shared this information with the others in the team, before privately messaging the Bridge again.

"Teien-Taii, can you confirm their identity, based on the information provided so far? If they are who they say they are, we have no reason to be here. I can assure you that we do not require resupplying."

 

[Ametheliana]

Bridge

Eden said over secure comms, "Jôtô Heisho Mitsuko, it is necessary that we investigate and verify what they're saying, at least, to make sure they're not a part of the Kuvexian war effort or working against Yamataian interests. Continue ahead as dictated by my previous orders."

To those on the bridge, she said, "Sakamoto and Iemochi, please be ready to depart to assist the away team. They may need the invaluable touch that the both of you possess."

To the squadron leader, Catherine Ross, she began to confer privately, looking up here and there to speak to Misaki telepathically.

 

[Dumont]

An audible hissing was bitten down upon over the comms, like words were chomped down and swallowed. The background voices spoke up but before he second syllable of any word could be discerned the volume on them was dulled down. As much as Mitsuko could promise the lack of necessity for a new consensus to be forced, the simple three-tone repetition returned in lieu of constructive conversation.

Something inside was being debated.

And this time it didn't seem to want to stop for a good long while, at least until the away team came upon the area predicted where they would be able to board. Sure enough, there was an airlock where predicted. One painted with heavy neon-orange block letters in a language not common to most Yamataian military folk. As the away team approached, the three-tone cut back out and some indistinct words were spoken as the airlock slid open for the team to enter... The ejection of gas causing a mound of refuse and slime to fly out, ejected into space from what was apparently an airlock re-purposed to some sort of garbage chute. Apparently educated guesses didn't mean so much to Freespacers, to whom structural consistency was a suggestion at best.

The away team was greeted with the inside of a filthy unlit airlock, its interior covered in a black pollution which begged the question as to whether it was biological or industrial. Indeed both alternatives seemed equally disgusting. The inside wall was another heavy, reinforced bulkhead with a single hexagonal window at about head height for something on average about a foot taller than a Nekovalkyrja or Yamataian.

From the window a face peered through. Human enough, with a shock of faded pink hair crammed under some sort of hat. As a hand came up to palm the face, the comms came back with Galo's voice again. The armored team could see from the movement of lips that the one peering out at them was the speaker.

"So I ask ye t' remove all milit'ry assets from o'r space. An' I find a team o' armor'd cottons out by m' sump eject point?" Galo said, sounding clearly angered. "Tchye know what? If I dun' letchye in ye'll probably shoot ye feckin' way inside so t'check wid' it-arl. Come in, wipe yer feet, have some feckin' ice cream, then feck off."

 

[META_mahn]

Meissa looked the weird human up and down. She did one take, two takes, three takes. She was very aware that she looked very scary, armed to the teeth, and could probably single handedly blow this station to Yamatai and back. Despite most of her weapons being offline.
"What flavor." She asked.

 

[Pancakei]

Garbage Lock

Anastasia followed towards the back of the group. She was somewhat repulsed by the spew of trash flying out of the airlock, before taking a deep breath and following in. She raised a foot off the floor of the airlock, some of the old sludge clinging to the metal boot. Meissa's sudden comment on "what flavour" didn't help, and Anastasia felt like she was going to be sick.

"Eeeughh..."
Anastasia pulled herself together, straightening up and facing the interior door of the airlock. She's gotten a lot of motor oil on her hands before, but she decided to block out whatever she was standing on from her mind.

 

[Alex Hart]

Mat shook his head a little at Meissa. "I think they may have been being sarcastic."

He then turned to the window. "I'm sorry we have to intrude like this, but we have orders." Hopefully that would calm the spacer down a little.

 

[Dumont]

Sump Outlet (gross):

At first, for the most part the only portion of Galo that was visible was about half their face; faded pink hair cut to jaw length, thin lipped, but with pleasant enough features for a woman, albeit rather scruffy for Yamataian standards. The interior bulkhead was still shut tight, seemingly waiting for those in the armor team coming in to enter. Once they had made their decisions on that matter, the interior door did slide open to reveal a dank and for the most part unlit hallway.

The walls and decks covered in uneven layers of indecipherable graffiti. About a half dozen souls clad in voidwalker suits were peering around corners and out of hatches to look at the newcomers. A couple of them small enough to be children. Galo herself seemed to be the only one standing without one, which was rather remarkable considering the amount of radiation the station seemed to be leaking to its internals.

She was quite tall, sporting a reactor tan and a few chemical stains to her skin. Heavy cargo pants with some sort of work belt, slung low on her waist and sporting various tools. Some garment like a one-piece swimsuit worn underneath them, cut high enough to reveal a little hip. A walking cane was propped against one leg for her one functioning arm was busy extracting some sort of syringe from her belt. For some reason her right arm was in a sling.

"I don't feckin' know." She said, jabbing the syringe into her leg and injecting something "We cannae eat ice cream, 't gives us t'e gutflush. We c'n still fire up t' fabricators fer it should i' mean ye won't get t' blood rage."

She took a few limping steps, first throwing the emptied syringe to smash on the floor of the garbage sump; freeing up her good arm for the cane so she could take those steps.

"We're a supply depot. Markets're on deck five, 's also clear'a radiation. Look out fer th' flowers on t' walls, means 's safe fer ye." She said, sounding cold, limping through the muck to hold her face within half an inch of Mat's faceplate "An' don't give me t'e shite 'bout bein' sorry fer ye doin' y' orders. Yer a loyal son o' t' empire. Ye'd willin'ly kill ev'ry man, woman an' child 'ere if it were told 'tis yer duty. Prob'ly sleep like a bairn too... Yer a trained killer workin' fer monsters. Don'tchye dare preten' ot'erwise in my presence."

The limping 'spacer took a step back, raising the cane to indicate a camera in the corner of the airlock.

"Footage a' ev'rytin' yer doin' is bein' broadcast out t' eyes in DION's senate. Yer in diplomatic incident territ'ry now. Slip up now an' yer givin' Nepleslia cause tae side wi' Kuvex..."

Galo turned back to the station, limping out and standing a few paces ahead of the boarding team. Oddly enough not bothering to wipe her own boots.

"So by all means," She said over her shoulder, dropping the accent to talk slowly once more, "Enjoy our markets on deck five. We got souvenirs, snacks, scrap, clothes, an' electronic goods fer sale. Y' c'n even buy y' ice cream. Treat yerself ta our recreational VR resorts. After all, yer guests in our home, an' surely not armed strangers here 'gainst our will in t' halls where our children play."