RP: New Dusk Conclave [Ravenaca's Watch] Rhythm

Patrol Lance

Arye found herself feeling impatient at the potential threat in front of them. She wanted to say something to her Wingleader, tell her to fuck command, and let’s go fight, but she knew V wouldn’t be up to that. She knew what her friend was like, so she waited as patiently as possible until she heard V’s command. She let out a sound that sounded like ‘finally’, which wouldn’t be heard by anyone of her lance. Her optics jiggled as she suddenly accelerated, moving at a much faster rate than most.

“Copy that, Wingleader!’ She said through the comms as she made her way over. Though she attempted to keep her enthusiasm from her voice to give off the impression she was focused, not excited like a little kid being sent out to play, but there might be something in her voice. She kept her focus, so she made her approach ready to fire if she was able to get a good shot that didn’t fail the parameters she was given.

Patrol Lance

Mikael did not say anything. Focused on assessing the defensive abilities of the entity, he and his Ryoko initiated an alpha strike. Mini-missiles trained on only the entity started to spill out of the launchers located on the hips and right shoulder. Meanwhile his Plasma Beam Rifle unleashed controlled shots towards it in between the the Armor Piecing rounds leaving the barrel of his 155mm Linear Howitzer.

He kept monitoring the position of the shuttle.

Interior

"Turn on your helmet cameras. Command wants intel." Sara sent as a text to every member of the away team as they made their way back to the landing point. When they rounded the corner, she immediately motioned for them to stop and seek cover.

"Shit!" Mizumitsu said to herself as the construct came to view. She then looked to Maren. "Is there any other way to the shuttle bay?" she somewhat whispered, assuming the construct did not immediately see them.

She was hesitant to give the pirates their weapons back. But if they were going to have a running battle back to the landing point, having people unable to defend themselves was going to complicate things immensely.

Interior

As instructed Taro let her helmet-camera record their surroundings, making sure to sweep it past anything interesting looking to capture as much information as possible due to how unlikely it was they'd come back to this place without ripping it to shreds first.

Then something very interesting crossed the squad's collective view, and Taro elegantly side-stepped into the cover of a nearby alcove, pressing her back into the metal surface to minimize her profile as the construct passed by.

"Well this is quite the upset," she quietly mused, looking across to Sara and then back at their little gaggle of unarmed pirates. As co-operative as they'd been so far she didn't want to give back the recently claimed bag of weapons if she didn't need to.

With one hand gripping at the dufflebag's straps the violet-eyed android slowly slid down the wall into a squat that'd look almost suggestive in any other situation, the nylon strap creaking against her gloved hand as Taro's sculped brow furrowed ever so slightly. Her gaze lowly returned to Sara, conveying a similar thought that they might need to go through that thing before peeking back out to where the construct had gone, hoping there was some alternate route the pirates knew of.

Away Team, detached party: Orlan
Orlan’s shot at the construct that was close behind him was rewarded with the prismic construct beginning to lose cohesion and slow its pursuit. The mercenary could tell that his electrical weapons, while unconventional, were having a much greater effect than the kinetic weapons of the normal soldiers.

As he passed the two soldiers and gave them his instructions, the two soldiers gave a nod, and though their faces were obscured by their helmets, he could guess that they likely were wide-eyed but determined.

“We’ll follow you, your weapon seems to be doing a hell of a lot more than our peashooters.” One said as the small group moved through the halls, making its way back towards the away team’s point of egress.

Away Team: Sara, Taro
As the away team took cover, the prismic construct lingered for a moment before seeming to slide away, down the direction that the group would have gone normally. After a few breathless moments, soldiers began to move away from their hiding spaces.

Maren cleared her throat before speaking up, peeking her head out ever so slightly to look at the route that the construct had taken. “If it’s heading the way I think it is, you should be able to take an alternate route through the cargo hold. It’s the next left after we go left here, and then right and straight down the hold all the way back to the landing pad.”

As Sara and the pirate matriarch spoke, the soldiers and the pirates shuffled around a bit and regarded each other warily. Clearly neither group trusted each other too much, despite Maren’s cooperation thus far.

Alpha Lance: V115, Arye, Mikael
While V115 and Ayre held their fire and closed in, they could see the large construct begin to turn and face toward them. It seemed that they’d succeeded in drawing its attention away from the shuttle, which sent them a quick “Thank you” message over radio. While neither chose to fire, their patience was being rewarded with more accurate targeting solutions as they grew closer.

Meanwhile, Mikael chose to open fire on the target from a further distance. A flurry of missiles, a few plasma beams, and couple of 155mm kinetic rounds streaked towards the metallic construct. The missiles seemed to waver off course as they approached, and either detonated early or missed their target. The plasma beams however struck home, leaving patches of heated material on their target.

The kinetic rounds, however, finally did lasting damage. One hit where a plasma beam had left a softer target, they gouged into one of the construct’s segments, causing it to tumble away from the whole and become unresponsive. Mikael had learned a few valuable things; that the target somehow interfered with the tracking computers of guided weaponry, that it was unshielded, but that it was difficult to hurt despite this.

Away Team

Orlan could not help but grin when he saw that his electric weaponry had achieved greater results than the soldiers' firearms. They were still in danger however, and Orlan called to the soldiers, "I'll keep these things back! You two just keep moving!"

They closed in on the rendezvous point, and Orlan decided that for good measure, to fire another bolt of electricity at the construct in pursuit. He would continue to backpedal toward the team's designated meeting point, observing the activity at his six to see if this next shot would either finish off the construct or make it even more sluggish. Another reason that he watched their back was to make sure that no additional constructs were joining the tense chase. He sent a quick transmission to the other members of the away team stating, "Away team members be advised, these machines seem to be susceptible to electric-based weaponry!"

As Orlan drew nearer to the objective, he hoped that neither him nor his teammates would be ambushed by any more constructs. Right now, their safety was his top priority

Alpha Lance - V115

With the hostile now changing course away from the shuttle and creating a clear line of fire V115 finished her calculations as she maneuvered into an effective range for her main weapons. When the desired distance was reached she was about to mentally pull the trigger on her weapons when the unknown took damage from Harris-chui's salvo of attacks. Her systems tracked the chunk that was broken off as it went inert and veered off from the main body. Hopefully it was actually nonfunctional. Still the new information on what it was vulnerable to left them in a tight spot possibly with what their weapon outfits were. Still it was time to find out if her own primary weapons were effective against the unknown's construction. Taking a moment to hone her aim, she lined up a shot with the unknown and mentally the pulled the trigger on her twin diadem cannons. Assuming the plating that made up the exterior wasn't too thick her own weapons would cleanly penetrate, well unless there was a shield surrounding it too...

Alpha Lance – Arye
Arye’s sensors observed the attacks that her comrades made and she saw that Harris-chui’s attack did the moment they made contact. She silently searched for the ship’s scanners hoping to find anything that could let her see not only their opponent but what it was made of. She also saw that their opponent didnt have a shield so she knew V's attack will hit.

Away Team - Sara

Sara nods at the woman.

"Alright, move out towards the cargo hold and double time to the rendezvous point. If you have for some reason electric based weaponry, switch to that.

Move out!" Sara said silently with her body's communication systems to her infantrymen's headsets. Since their weapons were not that effective, life had decided for her that she would not need to trust the pirates would shot them in the back. She would note to Internal Security the cooperation of their leader and some of the pirates involved.

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Alpha Lance - Mikael

"No shielding, but I would strongly advise against using any missile that you cannot direct control. I am going to fire my non-offensive mini-missiles at it and try to gather more information on what is causing the disruption of their guidance systems." Mikael said rather coldly over the lance's frequency.

He was not familiar with the communication protocols of the NDC well enough, but he was aware that they made use of laser communications. So while he transmitted the message, he sent an easily decodable data packet to V115's craft.

"I am an outsider to NDC military traditions, but years of wars taught me this: do and ask forgiveness later. Inaction is death." Mikael was legit interested V's future as an officer.

Mikael switched to his loaded mini-missiles and selected 3 Space and Orbital Sensor Misdirection, 2 Nodal Sensor mini-missiles and one of the 10 stealth mini-missiles for the next 2 volley of mini-missiles to ripple fire at the construct.

Flying a bit harder to get closer to his faster lancemates, he fired once again with the same pattern of fire in a regular cadence.

Away Team, detached party: Orlan

Orlan met relatively little resistance as he moved towards the landing pad where he and the rest of the away team had made their insertion. For a time, no one talked as the bulky blue power armor clanked through the halls with the two infantrymen in tow, their footfalls much quieter in comparison though by no means silent. The clank of metal on metal and the dull thud of the combat boots of the non-power-armored infantry was all that Orlan could hear aside from his own breathing.

As he approached the rally marker, he was able to see the relative location of the main team from his Thunderwave’s HUD. They were definitely approaching but not from the direction that he might have assumed; instead the main group was moving towards him from off to the side.

Orlan wouldn’t have much time to ponder this development though, as the construct that he had encountered previously could be heard making its way down the corridor that he’d come from, and a power signature similar to that of the construct could be seen approaching from the route that the group had first taken upon entering the station. The mercenary had only a few moments before the constructs would be upon him, but fortunately there were numerous boxes and objects that might serve as cover in the area. Hearing the oncoming threats, the two infantrymen looked to Orlan for instruction.

Away Team: Sara, Taro

As the group of soldiers and prisoners made their way towards the cargo bay they had several other close calls with constructs. With nothing to go on, it wasn’t clear whether or not they were running into the same one multiple times or if there were many different constructs roaming the station by this point. The tactic that the group had used earlier seemed to work well enough, simple cover seeming to deter the interest of the enigmatic machines. Either they were unable to detect the group or they simply had no interest in them for some reason.

As they finally made it to the entrance to the cargo bay they were met with a door that didn’t open automatically for them, seemingly locked. Maren, the pirate matriarch, gave an annoyed growl as she tapped her food while an NDC soldier struggled with the door before finally snapping “Oh just let me. I would have figured you conclave types to have a way to bust that down,” as she shouldered her way to the door despite her restrained hands, placing an eye up to a device which scanned her quickly before unlocking the door.

As the group filtered into the cargo bay, they found it surprisingly empty… and free of gravity. The pirates seemed unfazed by this, suggesting that it was left that way on purpose, but it took a moment of fumbling for some of the green infantrymen to activate their magboots and latch onto a surface. At Sara’s suggestion to use electrical weaponry one of the members of the away team, a heavy weapons specialist by the name of Rourke, spoke up. “It’s not exactly electric, but do you figure my Avenger might do the trick?” he asked, hefting the plasma rifle to present it to Sara, just as another construct rounded the corner to of the corridor at the other end of the cargo bay.

Alpha Lance: V115, Arye, Mikael

As Mikael fired off his sensor disrupting missiles they were sent spiraling away from the target the same as the offensive missiles, however, that didn’t stop them from accomplishing their mission. As the cyan-tipped missiles were sent off-target, they released their payload of volumetric decoys, false-mindies and sensor signatures to match them flooded the space around the construct, causing it to pause and change course to investigate them. His sensor missiles didn’t reveal much about the construct itself, other than recording that there was some kind of signal that emanated from their target and that it was disrupting their guidance computers. Perhaps with time and the work of experts a counter to this could have been found, but Mikael didn’t have that now.

Ayre’s efforts in information gathering were somewhat less successful, her Starbreaker poorly equipped to conduct a material analysis of the unknown craft as it whirled in place, seeming to be confused by the false targets projected by the misdirection missiles for a moment before settling in to face her. Perhaps her decision not to fire had caused the internal logic of the enemy machine to decide that she was more vulnerable than her comrades. Nevertheless, as the enemy construct approached her the starbreaker’s onboard sensors collected targeting data which was fed to the rest of the lance.

As Ayre evaded, V115’s and Mikael’s shots began to land. While Mikael’s plasma cannon and railgun fire chewed away at the main body of the craft, it seemed to turn again, switching to face him as Ayre escaped safely from the construct’s attack. And just as it seemed like the machine would make a move on Mikael, one that he might not have survived, V115’s attack hit it from behind. The electric blue beam of an inverse fold wave pierced through the enigmatic machine for a moment, slicing slightly as the relative positions of target and attacker shifted, before fading out and leaving a sparking gash that one could have seen cleanly through if one were so inclined.

The main body seemed to tumble away from the various sub-structures, and all three pilots could hear cheering coming over their comms channel from the bridge.

Away Team-Orlan

So far so good, Orlan and his team managed to reach the rally marker. It seemed that they would soon be joined by the rest of the away team according to his HUD, which brought an even greater relief. Unfortunately, the danger did not seem content on letting either him or his comrades go just yet, as constructs were coming in their direction. He noted the crates and other things that could provide a strategic defensive advantage, and he intended to make use of them. He pointed to the objects and ordered the two men, "Take up defensive positions behind those boxes! We'll hold out until the rest of our team shows up! Hopefully then we'll get our butts off this station!"

Hoping that the infantrymen would follow his orders, Orlan stood behind a large piece of machinery and took aim at the first construct that showed itself. He fired off a bolt of electricity with more confidence in the knowledge that these defensive beings were weaker against voltage than conventional ballistic weaponry. Orlan snapped to the next construct that made its presence known and sought to use another lightning attack to try to put that one out of commission as well.

Alpha Lance - V115

V115's brain decoded the message from her lance-mate rather quickly. It was an opinion she had a difficult time getting behind even if she wanted to. There was a reason for the rules and regulations, and in her mind that was often reason enough to follow them. Still a part of her had a nagging sensation of dread that she'd lost someone under her command due to these regulations and inaction. Only time would tell if that was true.

As for the current hostile well, she made sure to record everything she could about it. All of her frame's sensor data and the actual combat footage. Hopefully the others were doing the same. She watched as the missiles proved ineffective and the hostiles ire seemed to at first turn to Arye but then be diverted towards Harris-Chui. With a clean shot towards its apparent rear she opened fire with both cannons and ripped into the unknown hostile. V watched as more segments tumbled away from the main body. The cheering that erupted from the bridge was a bit distracting and while she wanted to believe the hostile was scratched she wasn't so sure. Keeping her weapons trained on the main mass of it, she was prepared to fire again but held her fire for the time being.

Away Team: Mizumitsu

There was a slight embarrassment on Sara's face as the infantrymen struggled to deal with the door. But it quickly faded when they entered the cargo bay the pirates had perfectly set up. She calmly activated her own grav boots and pondered how they were so able to move with no problem. Were they Minkans/Yamataians?

Sara knew enough about science that plasma is energized matter stripped of atomic particles to accomplish that. But it was not a strong subject taught in her upbringing. "That appears to be the best weapon choice we have considering all that we know." as she said it the next construct appeared between them and the rendezvous point.

"But I guess we will find out soon. Skirmisher formation and move slowly to the right side of the cargo bay. There is no cover, but perhaps if we don't look threatening it will pass down the middle. If not, greater field of fire." she said as she didn't want them clustering up. Then she switched to the squad's encrypted frequency and used her digital mind to speak covertly.

"If the less cooperative pirates are going to pull something, it is likely going to be here. Watch them."

Flight Lance: future Harris-Taii

As the construct started its advance towards Mikael, the promotable Chui continued the pattern of softening up its surface with his particle beam rifle. When it was getting too close for comfort, he ignited his left wrist's Multipurpose Forearm Weapon in blade mode and attach his rifle to its shoulder mount holster. But the action was moving too slow so he instead activated his rear graviton protector in a very low power and swung his rifle to be towed (activating the conclave shield of the right Multipurpose Forearm Weapon).

But then the main body started tumbling away from him. Seeing the sparking gash in the construct, he trained one of his Multipurpose Forearm Weapons in plasma rapid fire at it as he reached to retrieve his rifle. He orbited the mass from a distance, keeping the gash trained on.

"For our sakes, I hope it doesn't know how to play dead. That is a nasty gash, but doesn't look fatal." Mikael said. It was possible someone was so confident the exterior could not be breached that they never hardened the internals. But that was a foolhardy assumption to make at the moment.

Arye made a mental note to maybe see if updates could be made to the Starbreaker systems. This was to improve its scanning capability since the ship and the other AI pilots would need it to see what kind of threat in their opponent would be. Arye could be heard laughing in amusement as the unknown chased her, allowing her lance-mates to fire and destroy the vessel.

Like V, she became distracted by the cheering, but it only made her amusement grow. “Awesome job Wing leader!” She replied before she turned her focus back to the task at hand. Though Harris was right, and she hoped the same.

Away Team, detached party: Orlan

As the constructs rounded the corners of the corridors, the two soldiers following Orlan’s orders slipped into cover with practiced movements, leveling their rifles at the strange machines as the blue-armored mercenary opened fire with his electric weaponry. As the current connected with the strange machines, it seemed to disrupt their movements, slowing their advance.

The current arced from the machines to the floor, seeming to heat whatever surfaces it interacted with, and the infantrymen saw their chance. Opening fire, their focused their efforts on the points where it seemed like Orlan’s electricity was starting to soften the hide of the enemy in addition to slowing it down.

Together the detached party’s efforts were rewarded as the two enemy constructs fell to their combined fire. “We did it sir!” one of them said to Orlan, offering out a hand to shake the mercenary’s larger power-armored hands.

Away Team: Sara, Taro

At Sara’s instructions, the section moved along the right side of the cargo bay, some maneuvering in zero-gravity through the use of their suit’s magnetic grappling lines while others simply walked along the catwalks, walls, or even ceilings. The pirates seemed to maneuver through the space by using their legs to propel themselves off of other objects and orient themselves. However, no matter how they chose to move, it was clear that everyone was keeping their eyes on the strange machine as it seemed to slide through space, passing down the center of the bay as Sara had predicted.

The whole room seemed to hold its breath as the machine floated slowly through the cargo bay, one or two of the soldiers tracking it with their weapons at a low ready, but it proved Sara right by simply exiting out the other side of the bay without so much as a look back.

As the group made its way out the other side and emerged within earshot of Orlan and his team, everyone seemed to let out a breath. Maren cocked her head for a moment before turning to look at Sara with an appreciative eye and a crooked grin. “Y’know girlie, that was pretty slick. You’ve got some stones on you.”

Alpha Lance: V115, Arye, Mikael

As the cheering subsided over the lance’s comms channel, they could hear EVE6 clear her artificial throat on the bridge. The captain could be heard saying “Settle down, we can celebrate once we’ve got everyone home safe.” Though it was clear that she was talking to the bridge crew and not to the surviving members of the patrol lance.

“You’ve done well today” EVE6 said to the lance, doing her best to maintain a level tone that inspired confidence in her abilities. “Let’s get you home, pilots. There’s a lot to discuss and I’m sure you’re looking to unwind.”

A short moment later, presumably preceded by the captain giving a few orders, Fletcher came on the line to V115, his gruff voice easy to distinguish. “Lance leader, I’m forwarding you a vector to return to the ship, let’s get everyone home in one piece. I know you synths have crazy reaction times and all, but don’t try anything fancy, just bring your ships in nice and easy.”

A moment passed on the line in silence.

“And… good job out there, you’ve done us proud.”

Away Team-Orlan

The teamwork between Orlan and his fellow comrades resulted in their two metallic adversaries collapsing to the floor. Orlan could not help but grin at the soldier's excitement as he offered him a handshake and accepted it, being as gentle as he could and said, "We did, well done you two. Do not celebrate too early though, as we are still on this station, and more of those machines could be converging on our position right now."

He picked up the nearby chatter and assumed that the rest of the team had arrived. Orlan said to the two men, "Looks like our teammates have returned."

Although Orlan was grateful for the reunion and hopefully the eventual extraction from the base, he still remained alert for anymore approaching constructs. Last thing he wanted was for either him or anyone else to die right at the finish line. A brief order was given to his two allies, "Stay frosty, like I said, more of those things could be approaching us."

Alpha Lance

V115 Mentally sighed with relief as the unidentified object remained still and didn't come back to life. She calculated a few things as she mentally processed the last extended engagement. Her calculations were then used to create a projection of the object's drift path so that a recovery team could come and grab the main chunk of it. At the same time she took to heart the sounds of the bridge crew celebrating even if she didn't feel like celebrating just yet personally.

As for EVE6 and Fletcher's words a simple, "Orders understood, returning to the Watch." was given back to them before she transmitted her projection of the debris path back to the Watch. Switching to her internal lance frequency she sent the appropriate approach vectors to her two functioning lance members with a quick, "Good work, we've been given the task of returning to the Watch. Still let's maintain a formation and be cautious. We don't know if there's more of those things."

She then took up a position in front of the other two as she began to follow the approach vector back to the Watch.

Alpha Lance
Arye was pleased that she was able to provide distraction, and she found herself even more pleased that the unknown threat seemed to be disabled. Things were calm and silent and the Firewalker alowed herself to drift as she observed things before V’s voice came through her comms. “Copy that, Ma’am” she said and immediately her Starbreaker did a 360 turn that most fighters could not do and joined the formation with the others of lancer group. As she flew, she couldn’t help but once more feel gleeful that she could use the Starbreaker and experience from the inside how amazing it is. She thought Lady Nyx Pine was a genius for making it.

Away Team - Sara
Sara breathed a silent sigh of relief when the construct continued it's silent patrol without harassing or attacking them. But she had an image as an officer to continue to maintain. When they had emerged and met up with Orlan's team, she looked over at the fallen constructs. "We are almost out of here, but this is not over yet. Stay focused." she said, motioning towards their end destination.

When Maren made her comment, she merely humbly motioned with her hands that a Yamataian would understand as "You flatter me, but it was just part of my job". But then she realized she likely would not have understood it. "Just observation of the situation."

Alpha Lance - Mikael

Perhaps it was the cheering over the defeat of a single foe that really irked him. Not wanting to show any indication of his displeasure, he simply disconnected ability to listen to the audio feed (leaving his AI the only to monitor the squad frequency). He could understand why the they would be jubilant, but what they accomplished truly was not particularly noteworthy. Especially when he pondered over his experience as a SAINT Infantry Operative and his battles in the 2nd Mishu and Kuvexian Wars.

Breathing a virtual sigh and getting his emotions under control, he gazed over the remains of the construct. His SAINT training started to kick in as he started to analyze what available information he was able to gather before the previous sensor missile missed its mark. Looking at the gash, he debated trying to land another nodal sensor onto the construct. But he doubted his ability to close in and do the sleight of hand needed to plant it on without the Lance noticing. Mikael's Ryoko instead quickly spun towards the vector provided and boosted away with his lancemates.

"Beat, activate overwatch mode. Prep the Tachyon Communication System, I have a request and report to make."

"Overwatch activated Chui."

Away Team: Sara, Taro, Orlan

At Sara’s orders, the mixed group of soldiers, prisoners, and mercenaries made its way towards the airlock, where the NDC soldiers could see the signal of the shuttle sent to retrieve them indicating that it was waiting for them. As they began to approach, both the prisoners and the Conclave soldiers could hear the CLUNK of metal on metal as the shuttle locked itself onto the station’s airlock using an adaptive docking collar attached to its side doors.

The shuttle’s pilot came over the radio, audible only to the Conclave soldiers, with instructions for the group. “The flyboys have cleared the skies for us for now, but my copilot an’ I’d rather you folks hurry it up in there. No tellin’ whether or not there’s more things lurkin’ around here.” The twang identified the pilot as an original Osman immigrant, likely from the outskirts near Tolmasch.

Some of the pirates seemed to hesitate a bit as the airlock door opened, but a stern look from Maren got them moving again. It seemed, in the end, that they prefer to spend some time in jail than throw their lives away against the strange machines loose in the station.

Alpha Lance: V115, Arye, Mikael

Fortunately for the pilots of Alpha Flight, the short flight back to the Ravenaca’s Watch was uneventful. Either whatever had sent that construct after them had thought better of trying again, or the ancient structure simply had nothing else to throw at the lance, its last remaining resource exhausted thanks to their efforts and skill.

When they managed to land in the ship’s hangar the pilots of Alpha Lance could see a crowd, gathered in the hangar to await their return, through their crafts’ cameras. Those who were piloting with their bodies physically located within their craft would likely be greeted with cheers and congratulations when they emerged. Equally likely was the possibility that those who were inside Anima pods would have people gathered around them too.

Away Team: Sara

Sara motioned for the group shuttle once the airlock was opened. She counted heads mentally as she watched NDC forces and pirate alike make their way onto the shuttle. Occasioally, she would look in the direction of the corridor. One part was to make sure none of the constructs had changed their behavior and were trying to move up on them.

But also a part of her was sad she would not get the chance to explore the mysteries of the asteroid station. Once the threat was neutralized and the station didn't self-destruct/relocate someplace else with ancient tech, it would be another team of actual scientists that get to poke the place.

Once the last person was accounted for, she entered the shuttle as the last person.

"That is everyone, let's get out of here."

Alpha Lance: Beat and Mikael

Mikael was busy drafting his report and message to the commander of the Yamatai Exchange Officer Program to notice the trip back to the N. Watch. But his AI was enjoying as much as his programming allowed him to feel. Being allowed to have full control of the Ryoko was a rare opportunity since the Chui liked to learn and control everything. As much as he was also glad the Chui was assigned to him as a partner when he was but a small Keiko, he really wished Mikael would take it easy and remember he has a partner in crime.

As Beat entered the warship and eased the Ryoko into its berth, the yellow monoeye moved around as he registered the crowd of excited NDC crewmembers. It then moved over towards the three members of the Ryoko Tech Crew guiding him and then standing at parade rest, waiting for Mikael to exit so they can begin assessing any damage from use and properly shut down the Frame.

"Chui, we have returned. Restoring control to you, sir." Beat said once the Ryoko landed with a thud. "We are stronger together." he continued before his vision faded to black and he found himself returning to the virtual bar he spent his time in standby at. Tugging at his sleek business suit, he made his way to the stage to sing as if nothing occurred beforehand.

Mikael sensed the AI disconnect. "Thank you Beats." Mikael said to no one particular, knowing that it would be sent to the AI's message box. When Mikael returned to his body, it was like coming up from a long scuba diving session. He did his best to control his breathing as he used his spine interface to send the command to open the frame's cockpit access hatch and then the piloting pod slide open.

He still heard the cheering from before, only it seemed to be much louder this time. Messaging his body after undoing his harness, he emerged from the depth of the Ryoko to look at any of the NDC crewmembers that might have made their way to the Yamataians. He simply raised his hand in a humble gesture before looking over towards his crew chief.

"We are going to need to make her faster. And I mean way faster. I want a starting suggestion on how this can be accomplished by this time tomorrow." Mikael said after establishing an encrypted wireless link with him.