YSS Kaiyō
Captain's Suite
5日 2月 YE 39
0630 Hours
Taii Eden put her hand to her eyes and rubbed them, pushing out the tiredness from them. It was time to begin her day. She looked over to her bedmate. It was time to start their day. She kissed Saki on the cheek and wrapped an arm around her XO's waist, kissing her on her neck. She pulled back the collar of her pajama shirt and kissed Saki's collarbone and then moved her head back to appraise whether she had woken the other Neko up or not.
The Chui stirred a bit before fluttering her eyes open slightly, she gave a slight whine and looked back towards Eden before Saki layed her head closer to Eden affectionately, though tiredly.
"My sweet girl," Eden murmured. "It is time to wake up." She put a finger against a lock of Saki's hair and brushed it away from her face and then kissed the now-exposed part of her forehead it had been covering.
"Mmmm." Saki batted her eyes again before moving her hands to rub at her eyes a little. "What's on the board for today?" She didn't want to be on watch, and hoped that she had either slept through it or didn't have it. She more hoped more the latter than the former.
"We're going to work on a few things, Saki." Eden said with a small smile. "Let's get dressed, first."
Eden then stood and began the process of taking off her pajamas and putting back on her duty uniform. She pulled her cadet blue tights on over her panties and pulled her skirt on atop it. She looked up to watch Saki while she got her jacket on.
Misaki rolled out of bed and onto her feet. She had pulled her tights to cover her legs almost the same time Eden did but didn't put the skirt on yet, yawning instead. After she rubbed her eyes with her right arm she continued, putting on the skirt before beginning to put on her jacket. As she bent down to begin folding her pajamas she looked to Eden, matching eyes. She blushed a little and smiled before going back to finishing folding.
Eden smiled at Saki's beautiful, almost angelic face and watched as she blushed a little. Eden had big plans for how to spend their morning, though, and didn't want to spend too much time simply enjoying Saki's looks.
There were things to be done. Things that could help Saki. Or hurt her, if Eden didn't do what needed to be done properly.
"You ready?" Eden asked as she finished dressing by pulling on her white gloves and shoes.
Misaki brushed her skirt down and nodded, "Mmm Hmm." She walked over to her and raised herself up to kiss at Eden's cheek one last time before she had to be completely professional.
"Well, then," Eden said. "Let us go."
She led the way and soon, she was waving her arm towards the VCE chairs she had gotten installed in the recreation room before setting off.
"Let's have a seat," Eden said briskly before she herself sat down in one.
Saki took a seat in the opposite chair, wondering what was going to be worked on. She layed back against the chair and closed her eyes, letting the HALO interface do it's magic.
"Let's have fun with this, okay?" Eden chirped while the virtual reality around them began to materialize and soon, they were on the bridge.
One of the operators on the bridge turned to them and yelled, "We're at condition one!"
Another operator said, "L'Kor battle fleet engaging us now!"
"What should we do, Saki?" Eden asked her XO calmly.
Misaki looked at the second operator, "Fleet complement?" She felt her hands collect together at the front of her skirt, the right one over the other, as she began to think and remember.
The reply came quickly, "They're composed of four heavy cruisers, ten fighters and more coming out at the current moment, as well as three carriers and a battleship!"
Eden stood back, hands behind her as she watched Saki's immediate reaction, willing to step in to help but also there to observe at first and make corrections only if necessary.
"What about our side, any others besides us?" She asked the same operator before turning to the first, "Arm weapons, scramble the Power Armor teams to combat the fighters, lock up on the first carrier."
"We have the squadron, Chui. That's it," said the first operator, Deio Asuka.
Arbitrated Shan, or at least the VR version of her, replied to Saki, "I can do the weapons systems, but that's all."
"You'll have to make sure the PA team is assembled," Eden said into her ear.
Saki nodded and somewhat calmly said, "Acknowledged." She leaned back in the Captain's chair and thought to herself before pressing a button on the nearby console, "Attention Power Armor teams, please report to the Armory and prepare to scramble. I repeat, prepare to scramble."
Eden nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're doing great. Now, what will you do next?"
Misaki seemed to stop for a moment, thinking maybe a bit too much, before speaking, "Get a diamond attack pattern in motion, first target are the carriers. Then we destroy the battleships and work our way down." She twitched her hands closed a little and seemed glued to the screen, bringing up volumetric screens to show the other ships in the squadron.
"Better than anything I could think of," Eden said with pride and a bit of humility. She looked to the officers that were taking Misaki's orders into account. They worked their controls as the volumetric screens showed 3D visualizations of the ships in the squadron forming up. They created the same diamond attack pattern Misaki had asked for and on another volumetric display, they could see that the carriers seemed to fan out as the squadron's position was formed.
"Combine firepower on the first carrier, Aether precision strikes on the power plants!" She seemed to quiver ever so slightly but maintained her authorative tone as she looked to her own weapons operator, "Fire when ready!"
The VR version of the weapons operator of the Kaiyō looked from Misaki to her controls and began pressing on them feverishly. The main aether weapons began pushing out of the Kaiyō, bleeding out of the ship with high muzzle velocity, shooting out intense scalar interference pulses towards the carrier.
"Fantastic," Eden murmured as she watched the darkness of space light up and she muttered the ship's motto, "Light in Darkness."
"Power Armor teams, destroy anything that reaches weapon range." She looked back to the weapon's operator, "If anything breaks through, smash it with our close in systems." She looked back at her screens and continued to monitor the carrier for the hit that pierced the armor and hit right where she wanted, either taking the ship out of power or creating a bloom of light as the carrier would go from cold to hot and then slowly to cold again as the core breached inside of it.
"It may take more than that to break down their shields," Eden said in a low voice. "I wouldn't put it past them to be using Kuvexian technology."
"Switch to beam, increase output and melt away." She tapped the comm line, "Send two power armor teams with Anti-Starship loadouts to harrass the carrier!"
The reply to Misaki's orders came quickly, "Power armor teams are on their way out of the Kaiyō!"
"Good going, Saki," Eden said to her XO. "Show them the power of the Empire!"
Misaki didn't respond, wired between keeping her wits around her and not becoming a shivering mess. If the beams didn't work, she was not willing to send more Power Armor teams. She'd have to set a beacon and call for more ships. They may have defeated one before but the Gunships could only do so much against these seemingly ironclad shields.
"You can do this, my sweet. You can. You just have to remember that one blow isn't always enough to knock an opponent out of the fight," Eden said. While she spoke the away team made its way to the carrier and began scorching aether saber blasts into the hull to get inside of it. Once inside, they were met with heavy resistance that showed up on the volumetric displays.
Eden went on, "The away team will not be able to do this alone, we have to be here for them."
"Set up a message to Fleet Command, give our location and ask for assitance." She tensed up and swallowed before speaking again, "Divert fire from the Anti-Starship turrets into the hole they made, and tell them to come back out. If we pierce the skin, then we can blow it out from under them."
The communications officer on board the Kaiyō began messaging the Fleet Command. He replied with their answer.
"It would take weeks to get to our position, Chui!"
She closed her eyes and weighed her options, "Focus fire on the opening in the hull, starship power armor teams are to create a bigger hole if this one doesn't work!"
"Aye aye, Captai—" the operator stopped short and gave a quick glance to Taii Teien Eden, who smiled while her eyes sparkled. "You're doing excellently, Misaki. Even the VR thinks so."
The weapons operator punched the controls and the hull's shields were downed in a matter of time and soon the hole created by the weapons of the Kaiyō was apparent.
"What now?" one of the operators asked Misaki.
"All ship's fire now!" She pointed outward towards it a little too overtly, "Pierce it, Rip it's insides! I want that carrier gone!"
"Will do, Chui!" the VR version of the weapons operator said gleefully. The carrier splintered and was soon falling apart around the away team, whose shrieks at seeing the carrier they were inside of being destroyed.
"What do we do, Kaiyō actual?" said the squad leader over comms.
"Next carrier, rinse and repeat. We are taking advantage of their ships today, try to get them where we have direct line of fire to the power core." She ordered, and despite looking stoic, she was melting on the inside.
Eden looked with pride to Misaki and then back to the volumetric display as the battleship moved itself into a position to fire on the YSS Storm, a sister ship in their squadron. She pointed a finger to the display as they opened their dual plasma array's fire on the ship, which dodged out of the way and shot back its aether array, narrowly missing.
"What do you want to do about that?" Eden asked.
"Switch to the battleship! First round is regular Aether beams, then if that doesn't work go to the main plan!" She was beginning to sweat a little, one of her hands gravitating to her mouth and rubbing at her lower lip.
Eden watched as the weapons made contact with the battleship, which wasn't expecting the Kaiyō to switch its opponents so quickly. After a minute of firing onto it, the battleship had moved itself to cause desturction to the Kaiyo. Unlucky for them, the Storm had also begun doling out damage once it was in a position to do so and the ship was about to break, its shields were downed and the weapons operator was excitedly saying to Saki they were almost there.
"What weapon do you want to deal the death blow?" The VR version of Arbitrated asked Misaki.
"Everything, waste no time! We are out in the open with our skirts down when we attack!" She seemed to visually falter a little, as if in worry but carried her message across.
Eden put a hand on the small of Saki's back, half to steady her and half to provide emotional support.
"Will do, Chui!" Arbitrated Shan's VR version said. She dealt the final blow and the battleship was blasted, causing an explosion of parts and pieces of itself in a blue-silver mess of mass firing out from one central point.
"Where to, now, Chui?" Shan asked.
On the display, the two remaining carriers began shimmering and it was readily apparent they were about to enter FTL travel. Just as this was happening, the away team were being engaged, now outside of the carrier, by enemy power armors. They were being swarmed. It looked like the carriers were willing to leave their brethren out in space to attack the squadron on their own.
"Hit the carriers! Their defenses are down enough to at least take one down!" She seemed broken between pushing the knife in more or turning and going to run off.
"Can do!" Shan called and blasted one carrier with as much force as the Kaiyō could muster. A few moments later, the second was out of sight and at that same moment, the first carrier blew apart, sending shrapnel out and hitting several Kaiyō away team members. Their visuals were knocked out on the viewscreens and Eden sighed, knowing they had lost most of the team.
"The enemy power armor are teleporting! They're close to the Kaiyō, Taii!" an operator yelled up to Eden, who looked to the Chui.
"Swing us around, set the Array to cone and we'll melt them when they atomize!" She rubbed her lip a little bit more and moved her legs into the chair as well, "Secondary batteries continue current fire plan."
The enemy power armors nearly all made it to the Kaiyo before many were incinerated by the array. Despite that, a good ten or so had made it past the defenses of the Kaiyō and were making their way into the power armor bay, which had stayed open since the Kaiyō away team had exited it.
"We have a breach!" called a bridge officer. "They're making it through the zero G passageway!"
The VR of Arbitrated Shan looked concerned and shocked, as did the communications officer and the science advisor that had been on the bridge during this.
"What do we do?" one of them asked.
Misaki seemed to panic a little, "Pri-" Her voice cracked a little as she grew a little more visually concerned before swallowing it for a little longer. "If they want this ship, they can damn well have her. Engines ahead maximum, prime everything single shell, torpedo, and the array. Set course for the largest vessel still standing on their side. Eject the soul survivor pod and order the other ships to use this move as a diversion, and attack them while they recoil." She actively began to tremble a little, knowing that with the majority of her Power Armor teams outside, very little could hold the bridge, let alone get to it before it was compromised.
The bridge crew set to work and soon, the soul survivor pod was ejected, the other ships of the squadron were aware of the developing situation and were reacting in kind, and Eden was standing with her feet planted and hands behind her back.
A minute after the enemy power armors had entered, the bridge crew heard the cracking of aether sabers against the doors to the bridge. Eden turned her head slightly, then looked to Saki with an unconcerned face.
"I will not let them have you," Eden told her XO. "I will not let them."
Misaki brushed away forming tears from her eyes and simply looked at the screens, watching as the counters counted down until impact. She whined a little and curled up a little before simply saying, "Don't miss, please."
Eden nodded to Saki and looked from her to the door as a section of it popped open and the metal fell to the floor of the bridge. The bridge crew grabbed their NSP's and began shooting, knocking the armored enemies so that they were pushed back, but not derailed. Eden was amongst those that had their NSP in hand and held her free hand behind her, grasping to protect Saki.
The enemy power armor were then fully in the bridge and had killed the majority of the bridge crew, then the enemy closest to Eden pointed their aether rifle at her and took the shot. The Neko crumpled to the floor, still groping to hold Saki back. It was then that the enemy stopped shooting, with only Saki left to defend the Kaiyō.
They pointed to the ground, asking her to kneel.
Misaki drifted from the world of reality and her mind took back over. She screamed and took a hold of Eden as she fell. Tears streaming down her face, she grabbed the NSP from Eden's lifeless hand and charged the closest enemy. She fired towards the helmet and used her other arm as it let go of Eden to grab at the weapon. Her voice echoed in the room as death surrounded her and the Kaiyo sped towards her payload, "No one hurts my Eden! My love, my heart, my wi-" She seemed to stop as the sound of the NSP covered her voice, now firing again and her hand moved to take the Aether rifle from him and use him as a shield as she used what little weight she had and pushed against him, then using her gavitational manipulation to use him as a projectile.
The enemy flew forward, shooting back against their comrades at the same moment that the Kaiyō crashed into the enemy carrier, sparkling in space as its grey and green hull was no longer one with its body, splashing off of the carrier's own broken, baseless body. The two ships had made an epic moment in time, though nobody was around to see it. Eden had taken off her VR HALO headset moments ago and expected Saki to have done so, too.
She did, though real tears were in her eyes as she looked to Eden, leaping from her chair and attaching herself to her. She hugged Eden tightly and collapsed into sobs and cries.
"Oh, my sweet girl," Eden said into her ear. "I love you, I'll never let that happen, my love. I'll never live without you and I never want you to have to live without me, either. Is that what you want, too? To never live without me, my Saki?"
Incapable of vocally responding, she nodded as she heaved a little before going back to crying.
Eden kissed her cheeks and looked at Saki between doing so, eyes pained as she saw her love in pain.
"I don't want you to ever hurt or be sad, Saki. You will never need to. We're at war, that is true. But that doesn't mean you need to ever be hurt by it. We'll let them be on our doorstep and push them back, into oblivion. Never will we let them into our home. And if they do come onto the Kaiyō, we will kill them, together, before they can do so to us. I'm so sorry you had to go through that." Eden spoke as she stroked Saki's face with her fingers and then brushed her hair off of Saki's tear-stained cheeks.
She collected herself enough to lean up to kiss her, ignoring the uniforms and regulations. She couldn't help it, though she knew now it wasn't real the weight left by it hung low on her heart. She sent over a response, telepathically as she cried again, "Don't die, I love you too much."
"I never will," Eden said to Saki and pressed her lips into Saki's again. She opened Saki's mouth with her tongue and began to kiss her more fully, feeling the inner parts of Saki's mouth with the tip of her tongue and moving her hand to hold Saki's cheek.
Captain's Suite
5日 2月 YE 39
0630 Hours
Taii Eden put her hand to her eyes and rubbed them, pushing out the tiredness from them. It was time to begin her day. She looked over to her bedmate. It was time to start their day. She kissed Saki on the cheek and wrapped an arm around her XO's waist, kissing her on her neck. She pulled back the collar of her pajama shirt and kissed Saki's collarbone and then moved her head back to appraise whether she had woken the other Neko up or not.
The Chui stirred a bit before fluttering her eyes open slightly, she gave a slight whine and looked back towards Eden before Saki layed her head closer to Eden affectionately, though tiredly.
"My sweet girl," Eden murmured. "It is time to wake up." She put a finger against a lock of Saki's hair and brushed it away from her face and then kissed the now-exposed part of her forehead it had been covering.
"Mmmm." Saki batted her eyes again before moving her hands to rub at her eyes a little. "What's on the board for today?" She didn't want to be on watch, and hoped that she had either slept through it or didn't have it. She more hoped more the latter than the former.
"We're going to work on a few things, Saki." Eden said with a small smile. "Let's get dressed, first."
Eden then stood and began the process of taking off her pajamas and putting back on her duty uniform. She pulled her cadet blue tights on over her panties and pulled her skirt on atop it. She looked up to watch Saki while she got her jacket on.
Misaki rolled out of bed and onto her feet. She had pulled her tights to cover her legs almost the same time Eden did but didn't put the skirt on yet, yawning instead. After she rubbed her eyes with her right arm she continued, putting on the skirt before beginning to put on her jacket. As she bent down to begin folding her pajamas she looked to Eden, matching eyes. She blushed a little and smiled before going back to finishing folding.
Eden smiled at Saki's beautiful, almost angelic face and watched as she blushed a little. Eden had big plans for how to spend their morning, though, and didn't want to spend too much time simply enjoying Saki's looks.
There were things to be done. Things that could help Saki. Or hurt her, if Eden didn't do what needed to be done properly.
"You ready?" Eden asked as she finished dressing by pulling on her white gloves and shoes.
Misaki brushed her skirt down and nodded, "Mmm Hmm." She walked over to her and raised herself up to kiss at Eden's cheek one last time before she had to be completely professional.
"Well, then," Eden said. "Let us go."
She led the way and soon, she was waving her arm towards the VCE chairs she had gotten installed in the recreation room before setting off.
"Let's have a seat," Eden said briskly before she herself sat down in one.
Saki took a seat in the opposite chair, wondering what was going to be worked on. She layed back against the chair and closed her eyes, letting the HALO interface do it's magic.
"Let's have fun with this, okay?" Eden chirped while the virtual reality around them began to materialize and soon, they were on the bridge.
One of the operators on the bridge turned to them and yelled, "We're at condition one!"
Another operator said, "L'Kor battle fleet engaging us now!"
"What should we do, Saki?" Eden asked her XO calmly.
Misaki looked at the second operator, "Fleet complement?" She felt her hands collect together at the front of her skirt, the right one over the other, as she began to think and remember.
The reply came quickly, "They're composed of four heavy cruisers, ten fighters and more coming out at the current moment, as well as three carriers and a battleship!"
Eden stood back, hands behind her as she watched Saki's immediate reaction, willing to step in to help but also there to observe at first and make corrections only if necessary.
"What about our side, any others besides us?" She asked the same operator before turning to the first, "Arm weapons, scramble the Power Armor teams to combat the fighters, lock up on the first carrier."
"We have the squadron, Chui. That's it," said the first operator, Deio Asuka.
Arbitrated Shan, or at least the VR version of her, replied to Saki, "I can do the weapons systems, but that's all."
"You'll have to make sure the PA team is assembled," Eden said into her ear.
Saki nodded and somewhat calmly said, "Acknowledged." She leaned back in the Captain's chair and thought to herself before pressing a button on the nearby console, "Attention Power Armor teams, please report to the Armory and prepare to scramble. I repeat, prepare to scramble."
Eden nodded and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're doing great. Now, what will you do next?"
Misaki seemed to stop for a moment, thinking maybe a bit too much, before speaking, "Get a diamond attack pattern in motion, first target are the carriers. Then we destroy the battleships and work our way down." She twitched her hands closed a little and seemed glued to the screen, bringing up volumetric screens to show the other ships in the squadron.
"Better than anything I could think of," Eden said with pride and a bit of humility. She looked to the officers that were taking Misaki's orders into account. They worked their controls as the volumetric screens showed 3D visualizations of the ships in the squadron forming up. They created the same diamond attack pattern Misaki had asked for and on another volumetric display, they could see that the carriers seemed to fan out as the squadron's position was formed.
"Combine firepower on the first carrier, Aether precision strikes on the power plants!" She seemed to quiver ever so slightly but maintained her authorative tone as she looked to her own weapons operator, "Fire when ready!"
The VR version of the weapons operator of the Kaiyō looked from Misaki to her controls and began pressing on them feverishly. The main aether weapons began pushing out of the Kaiyō, bleeding out of the ship with high muzzle velocity, shooting out intense scalar interference pulses towards the carrier.
"Fantastic," Eden murmured as she watched the darkness of space light up and she muttered the ship's motto, "Light in Darkness."
"Power Armor teams, destroy anything that reaches weapon range." She looked back to the weapon's operator, "If anything breaks through, smash it with our close in systems." She looked back at her screens and continued to monitor the carrier for the hit that pierced the armor and hit right where she wanted, either taking the ship out of power or creating a bloom of light as the carrier would go from cold to hot and then slowly to cold again as the core breached inside of it.
"It may take more than that to break down their shields," Eden said in a low voice. "I wouldn't put it past them to be using Kuvexian technology."
"Switch to beam, increase output and melt away." She tapped the comm line, "Send two power armor teams with Anti-Starship loadouts to harrass the carrier!"
The reply to Misaki's orders came quickly, "Power armor teams are on their way out of the Kaiyō!"
"Good going, Saki," Eden said to her XO. "Show them the power of the Empire!"
Misaki didn't respond, wired between keeping her wits around her and not becoming a shivering mess. If the beams didn't work, she was not willing to send more Power Armor teams. She'd have to set a beacon and call for more ships. They may have defeated one before but the Gunships could only do so much against these seemingly ironclad shields.
"You can do this, my sweet. You can. You just have to remember that one blow isn't always enough to knock an opponent out of the fight," Eden said. While she spoke the away team made its way to the carrier and began scorching aether saber blasts into the hull to get inside of it. Once inside, they were met with heavy resistance that showed up on the volumetric displays.
Eden went on, "The away team will not be able to do this alone, we have to be here for them."
"Set up a message to Fleet Command, give our location and ask for assitance." She tensed up and swallowed before speaking again, "Divert fire from the Anti-Starship turrets into the hole they made, and tell them to come back out. If we pierce the skin, then we can blow it out from under them."
The communications officer on board the Kaiyō began messaging the Fleet Command. He replied with their answer.
"It would take weeks to get to our position, Chui!"
She closed her eyes and weighed her options, "Focus fire on the opening in the hull, starship power armor teams are to create a bigger hole if this one doesn't work!"
"Aye aye, Captai—" the operator stopped short and gave a quick glance to Taii Teien Eden, who smiled while her eyes sparkled. "You're doing excellently, Misaki. Even the VR thinks so."
The weapons operator punched the controls and the hull's shields were downed in a matter of time and soon the hole created by the weapons of the Kaiyō was apparent.
"What now?" one of the operators asked Misaki.
"All ship's fire now!" She pointed outward towards it a little too overtly, "Pierce it, Rip it's insides! I want that carrier gone!"
"Will do, Chui!" the VR version of the weapons operator said gleefully. The carrier splintered and was soon falling apart around the away team, whose shrieks at seeing the carrier they were inside of being destroyed.
"What do we do, Kaiyō actual?" said the squad leader over comms.
"Next carrier, rinse and repeat. We are taking advantage of their ships today, try to get them where we have direct line of fire to the power core." She ordered, and despite looking stoic, she was melting on the inside.
Eden looked with pride to Misaki and then back to the volumetric display as the battleship moved itself into a position to fire on the YSS Storm, a sister ship in their squadron. She pointed a finger to the display as they opened their dual plasma array's fire on the ship, which dodged out of the way and shot back its aether array, narrowly missing.
"What do you want to do about that?" Eden asked.
"Switch to the battleship! First round is regular Aether beams, then if that doesn't work go to the main plan!" She was beginning to sweat a little, one of her hands gravitating to her mouth and rubbing at her lower lip.
Eden watched as the weapons made contact with the battleship, which wasn't expecting the Kaiyō to switch its opponents so quickly. After a minute of firing onto it, the battleship had moved itself to cause desturction to the Kaiyo. Unlucky for them, the Storm had also begun doling out damage once it was in a position to do so and the ship was about to break, its shields were downed and the weapons operator was excitedly saying to Saki they were almost there.
"What weapon do you want to deal the death blow?" The VR version of Arbitrated asked Misaki.
"Everything, waste no time! We are out in the open with our skirts down when we attack!" She seemed to visually falter a little, as if in worry but carried her message across.
Eden put a hand on the small of Saki's back, half to steady her and half to provide emotional support.
"Will do, Chui!" Arbitrated Shan's VR version said. She dealt the final blow and the battleship was blasted, causing an explosion of parts and pieces of itself in a blue-silver mess of mass firing out from one central point.
"Where to, now, Chui?" Shan asked.
On the display, the two remaining carriers began shimmering and it was readily apparent they were about to enter FTL travel. Just as this was happening, the away team were being engaged, now outside of the carrier, by enemy power armors. They were being swarmed. It looked like the carriers were willing to leave their brethren out in space to attack the squadron on their own.
"Hit the carriers! Their defenses are down enough to at least take one down!" She seemed broken between pushing the knife in more or turning and going to run off.
"Can do!" Shan called and blasted one carrier with as much force as the Kaiyō could muster. A few moments later, the second was out of sight and at that same moment, the first carrier blew apart, sending shrapnel out and hitting several Kaiyō away team members. Their visuals were knocked out on the viewscreens and Eden sighed, knowing they had lost most of the team.
"The enemy power armor are teleporting! They're close to the Kaiyō, Taii!" an operator yelled up to Eden, who looked to the Chui.
"Swing us around, set the Array to cone and we'll melt them when they atomize!" She rubbed her lip a little bit more and moved her legs into the chair as well, "Secondary batteries continue current fire plan."
The enemy power armors nearly all made it to the Kaiyo before many were incinerated by the array. Despite that, a good ten or so had made it past the defenses of the Kaiyō and were making their way into the power armor bay, which had stayed open since the Kaiyō away team had exited it.
"We have a breach!" called a bridge officer. "They're making it through the zero G passageway!"
The VR of Arbitrated Shan looked concerned and shocked, as did the communications officer and the science advisor that had been on the bridge during this.
"What do we do?" one of them asked.
Misaki seemed to panic a little, "Pri-" Her voice cracked a little as she grew a little more visually concerned before swallowing it for a little longer. "If they want this ship, they can damn well have her. Engines ahead maximum, prime everything single shell, torpedo, and the array. Set course for the largest vessel still standing on their side. Eject the soul survivor pod and order the other ships to use this move as a diversion, and attack them while they recoil." She actively began to tremble a little, knowing that with the majority of her Power Armor teams outside, very little could hold the bridge, let alone get to it before it was compromised.
The bridge crew set to work and soon, the soul survivor pod was ejected, the other ships of the squadron were aware of the developing situation and were reacting in kind, and Eden was standing with her feet planted and hands behind her back.
A minute after the enemy power armors had entered, the bridge crew heard the cracking of aether sabers against the doors to the bridge. Eden turned her head slightly, then looked to Saki with an unconcerned face.
"I will not let them have you," Eden told her XO. "I will not let them."
Misaki brushed away forming tears from her eyes and simply looked at the screens, watching as the counters counted down until impact. She whined a little and curled up a little before simply saying, "Don't miss, please."
Eden nodded to Saki and looked from her to the door as a section of it popped open and the metal fell to the floor of the bridge. The bridge crew grabbed their NSP's and began shooting, knocking the armored enemies so that they were pushed back, but not derailed. Eden was amongst those that had their NSP in hand and held her free hand behind her, grasping to protect Saki.
The enemy power armor were then fully in the bridge and had killed the majority of the bridge crew, then the enemy closest to Eden pointed their aether rifle at her and took the shot. The Neko crumpled to the floor, still groping to hold Saki back. It was then that the enemy stopped shooting, with only Saki left to defend the Kaiyō.
They pointed to the ground, asking her to kneel.
Misaki drifted from the world of reality and her mind took back over. She screamed and took a hold of Eden as she fell. Tears streaming down her face, she grabbed the NSP from Eden's lifeless hand and charged the closest enemy. She fired towards the helmet and used her other arm as it let go of Eden to grab at the weapon. Her voice echoed in the room as death surrounded her and the Kaiyo sped towards her payload, "No one hurts my Eden! My love, my heart, my wi-" She seemed to stop as the sound of the NSP covered her voice, now firing again and her hand moved to take the Aether rifle from him and use him as a shield as she used what little weight she had and pushed against him, then using her gavitational manipulation to use him as a projectile.
The enemy flew forward, shooting back against their comrades at the same moment that the Kaiyō crashed into the enemy carrier, sparkling in space as its grey and green hull was no longer one with its body, splashing off of the carrier's own broken, baseless body. The two ships had made an epic moment in time, though nobody was around to see it. Eden had taken off her VR HALO headset moments ago and expected Saki to have done so, too.
She did, though real tears were in her eyes as she looked to Eden, leaping from her chair and attaching herself to her. She hugged Eden tightly and collapsed into sobs and cries.
"Oh, my sweet girl," Eden said into her ear. "I love you, I'll never let that happen, my love. I'll never live without you and I never want you to have to live without me, either. Is that what you want, too? To never live without me, my Saki?"
Incapable of vocally responding, she nodded as she heaved a little before going back to crying.
Eden kissed her cheeks and looked at Saki between doing so, eyes pained as she saw her love in pain.
"I don't want you to ever hurt or be sad, Saki. You will never need to. We're at war, that is true. But that doesn't mean you need to ever be hurt by it. We'll let them be on our doorstep and push them back, into oblivion. Never will we let them into our home. And if they do come onto the Kaiyō, we will kill them, together, before they can do so to us. I'm so sorry you had to go through that." Eden spoke as she stroked Saki's face with her fingers and then brushed her hair off of Saki's tear-stained cheeks.
She collected herself enough to lean up to kiss her, ignoring the uniforms and regulations. She couldn't help it, though she knew now it wasn't real the weight left by it hung low on her heart. She sent over a response, telepathically as she cried again, "Don't die, I love you too much."
"I never will," Eden said to Saki and pressed her lips into Saki's again. She opened Saki's mouth with her tongue and began to kiss her more fully, feeling the inner parts of Saki's mouth with the tip of her tongue and moving her hand to hold Saki's cheek.
