RP: YSS Miharu [restart point] Mission 2, Day 1

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Masako bit back a curse as she had been suckered into an ambush so soon. "Rook One, Knight Three, suppressive fire." she mentally ordered them as she switched her aether rifle to automatic and began to release a spray of aether at the incoming missiles. It may have been overkill, but it was easier to switch settings than wait to release drones. But during her spray, she began to release a quarter of her drone capacity and assigned them to Team Point Defense. It was a method that spread their effectiveness a bit, but it would help with her own spray.

Nyton said:

ATTENTION: Fire Team 1, fall back to this position near the medlab on the Miharu Main Deck (point 3). While the enemy pursues, Auxiliary Team will move in to attack them from behind. We will then assault them together from two directions. Hoshi, run holographic feint on the opposite side if the Mindys split off in two directions. That should give us a few seconds while we combine our attacks.

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Masako glanced at the map and gritted her teeth. So they were pincer them...effective for now. "Fire on the move," she sent to her Team along with the map. Knight Three followed by Rook One, I'll take rear guard," she ordered as she started setting a pattern for herself.

As they moved, Masako unleashed more drone to concentrate on any missiles while she would switch her setting to beam. Instead of executing supressive fire, she carefully aimed towards one of the Black Mindies' heads and unleashed a beam. Her hope was to take out one of the enemies that were probably going to follow them.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Tom made a gut decision, realizing that Masako appeared to have somewhere upwards of 20 missiles cruising down the hall towards her, despite the best efforts of her tactical drones. Calling upon his own missiles and routing a command through his IES to detonate them upon getting within range (and hopefully not frying Masako too much), Tom launched 4 of his own missiles, hoping that the explosive radius would blow up or at least misdirect the missiles launched from the opposing armors, as well as cause enough of a disturbance to buy them some time.

At that same moment, he skitted backwards, deploying his own tactical drones and firing angry bolts of plasma in a spread formation down the hall, providing as much cover as possible for the retreat.

"Let's MOVE!"

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

The sight of the Black Mindys was something that normally would really cause someone to just stop and gawk. They looked... Absolutely incredible really.

And if it wasn't for the fact this was a combat situation, Yuril probably would've stopped to just stare at the them in awe for a while. But her instincts as a Neko knew now was definantely not the time to stare. Although the neko was a bit... Surprised at Asher-Hei's odd naming system, she didn't have any real complaints.

Whatever works for him...

With orders given, the silver haired neko quickly moved to find a suitable location of cover, then focused her attention on eliminating the Black Mindy labeled 'Sprite'.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Serizawa's pulse began to race when he received the orders to move. It had been one thing to wait for the invaders to show up in a place that had been prepared to engage them out but actively seeking the enemy out was a vastly different and riskier proposition. The scientist began to question just how effective his armor would be in combating a Mindy, especially one that had mostly likely one that Black Spiral had modified for maximum effectiveness.

Before he could fall into despair, Serizawa reminded himself that it was only a simulation and there was no real danger to his life or anyone else's for that matter. Not only that, he remembered that, though he was a scientist, he was a soldier and that it was expected of him to perform and the effectiveness of his actions would ultimately decide whether he lived or died. Recalling all of this, Serizawa was able to clear his mind.

Engaging his Daisy's active camoflage and prepared follow Claymere, plasma rifle at the ready. Serizawa's next thought was about his drones and he asked Nyton, "Do we recall our drones or maintain their position?"

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

The world exploded around Yoroko and Masako.

But not before AIES finally did its own coordinated labeling: The lead Black Mindy was Alpha 01, one clinging to the ceiling was Alpha 02, and the two on the walls were Alpha 03 and 04.

Faster than even the Black Mindy armors could respond, fire and energy filled the corridor. As the explosions of Tom's missiles washed in front of Masako's armor, her aetheric blasts slanted through the air of the corridor. The machinegun shots put a couple of slits into the chest of Alpha 01, but didn't penetrate, and she only shot down a couple missiles. But Tom's trick worked, tossing her back and throwing the rest of the missiles off.

Yoroko had let go an entire arsenal, but she scored better -- Alpha 01 lost its head from a luckily placed cannon shot, synthetic blood pouring over the black of the armor before it was lost in the smoke and white darts of energy zinging around her and Masako. One shot caught her on her right arm, incapacitating it for just a brief moment, but the rest were stopped dead by her forearm shields. Yoroko was rewarded with dull pain in her arm, but she lived.

The tactical drones weren't horribly helpful, no matter who launched them. Their bolts were easily absorbed by the Zesuaium armor. But there was enough time to make a tactical, hopefully fire-filled retreat to anywhere but the tight corridor.



* * *

Asher's team wasn't as well off.

Kai's forearm shield took an aether bolt that was headed for his chest. It nearly slagged a hole straight through and his return shots went almost nowhere except nearly into Asher's back.

Yuril was the bright one of the bunch, dipping off the side of the stairs and behind a few cargo boxes. The boxes wouldn't protect her in the least, but at least she was not an immediate target. She had one if she wanted it though -- Sprite, was not paying as much attention as it should and began to turn toward her.

Asher, on the other hand, was a big target for D & D. Even as his forearm shields narrowed and thickened to cover him while letting his gauss guns fire, his legs weren't very well covered. Dongus took advantage, sliding through the air and onto the top of the bay, firing its aether rifle the entire time. Asher was quickly granted a fair amount of pain in his foot, indicating it'd been taken off. He did, however, put a couple shots into Dingus, who managed to shrug them off despite the destruction of its optic camouflage.

Shut was getting up from the Uriko and swinging its aether rifle toward the semi-unprotected flank of Kai. Dongus loosed four missiles Asher's way, while Dingus rained fire toward Kai. Knight Four's barrier shield took some of the blasts, but it was failing fast.

The five simulated units came online, but were 100 percent ignored by the enemy — there was no time to determine why, but Asher's team was on its own.

* * *

Nyton and his team found their way unobstructed -- but Hoshi minced no words. The holographic feints were not working; something was wrong, and they would have to face the enemy's back, which was not attended to at that moment.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

The information was flying even faster now as real time combat was truly engaged. Nyton knew he could not maintain the level of multiple focus outside of his conflict once they engaged the enemy. He quickly shuffled info screens after noting the difficulty Fire Team 2 was having. Hopefully they would be able to swiftly destroy the enemy and go assist Fire Team 2.

Nyton immediately sent a message to his team as they began to move out.

ATTENTION: Recall drones and assume attack formation. As soon as we have made contact fire at will.

Click to expand...

Nyton showed an image that placed each member in a four point formation at each corner of the hallway; Nyton on the upper port side corner, Naoko on the lower port side corner, Takuma on the upper starboard side corner, and Ichi on the lower starboard side corner. After his drones were recalled Nyton used one to watch behind him and the other to look over his shoulder from a third person perspective.

Upon entering the hallway and finding the enemy at the planned ambush point Nyton would rain fire from his plasma rifle while firing off two missles at the three enemy Mindies that pursued Fire Team 1.


***

Huge explosions could be heard coming from the starboard armor bay and reports came in from MEGAMI alerting Yukari to the presence of the last four predicted Mindy group.

"Enemy detected in the starboard Armor bay. All facilities inside have been damaged."

An image also accompanied the warning that showed two Mindies firing at any remaining equipment and hardware inside to destroy it while two others approached the door leading out into the hallway. The image quickly cut off from interference.

More damage reports came in as the enemy's NIWS destroyed another particle cannon turret. It appeared to be systematically targeting the turrets to prevent them from being used.

"We still need a few more seconds to charge weapons and return fire." came another report from Hoshi.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Yoroko grit her teeth as she felt the dull pain in her shoulder. "Understood Yoroko responded to the orders to fall back to the medlab.
Yoroko used one of the drones for a rear view and used the Mindy's ability to fly backwards so that she could use her forearm shields to block incoming fire. As she flew backwards she gave parting gifts to Alpha 02 and Alpha 03 from her gauss cannons. "AIES, set drones to point defense and missile defense." she ordered her suit as she fell back.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Kai was extremely glad he had that sheild. it has saved his 'Life' in the other simulations, too. Noting his sheilds were going fast, he knew he'd have to hide or 'die'. Obviously, he had no chance of out-gunning his enemies, so he'd have to out-smart them.

Finishing his dive with a roll, he suddenly boosted to the other side of the nonfunctional Uriko since it would provide great cover. As he boosted away, he loosed half his remaining Missiles and a hail of rifle fire at the two enemies bothering him.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Miyoko took up position on the wall as ordered, praying that her camouflage would give her the necessary time to get the first shot if the enemies did breach the room. That she was stationary enough to bring up the the forearm shield to cover most of her body made her feel a little better, at least. The wait was maddening--with no indication of if and when the black Mindies would reach the bridge, all she could do was keep her entire body on edge.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Pain surged up Asher's leg as it was taken away by enemy fire. The Hei hunched for a moment as he dealt with the pain. He growled as more fire came toward Kai. Then his eyes widened as Dongus fired off four missiles aimed at him.

"Aw FUCK YOU!" Asher roared loudly and angerly over the loudspeaker as he balanced himself with the gravitec drive and then raised both arms. His saber-rifle was in one hand and his other arm set to charged mode. He began to thrust and slide to a nearby a large cargo container, as he let loose a hail of automatic fire from the Rifle focused on the missles, while the charged beam came focused on Dongus.

When the Hei found himself behind the safety of the container, he spotted Sprite moving on Yuril's position. The Hei was plenty lost in his anger, his searing pain causing an ache. He masked his pain with the throbbing anger in his head and he focused both the charged energy fire and the rapid fire of the saber-rifle on Sprite.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Sora's grip tightened on the grips of her rifle as she waited behind the counter in the med bay. Her breathing was even as she stared at the HUD that listed the dots of her fellow crew mates as they came under fire. Waiting was hell, even though this was just a training simulation. She stared down her rifle's sight at the door as she waited for anything to happen, be it good or bad.

she glanced sideways for a moment at Sanjuro's own position behind cover before returning her attention back towards the door. She wish she could give him some strong words of encouragement towards the outcome of this scenario but she really had nothing- she had yet to experience a battle that didn't leave her filled with some regret.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Takuma quickly took position where Nyton showed and glanced around. Nothing yet. He could hear some firing in the distance which made the silence even more eerie. He ran a quick check on his weapons and they all read green. It was more of a nervous habit, but it couldn't hurt. He gave a thumbs up to Nyton to indicate he was ready.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Masako bit back a yelp as she was pushed back by the explosion of missiles, using her gravity manipulation to steady herself as she continued pulling back under the cover the the explosion. Fall back a few more paces and then lay down supressive fire. We'll catch them in between Auxillary Team and us, she sent the other two on her Team as she switched her vision through the spectrums until she could get a clear view through the smoke.

Taking her time this time, she aimed her aether rifle at the cieling crawling Alpha 02. Using her AIES to assist her aiming, she concentrated on the head before firing her aether rifle in beam mode.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Yukari did not move, nor did her aim waver. She wanted them to find her, not the other way around. They were the inferior force until they defeated at least one of the enemy armors, perhaps two.

* * *

Alpha 02 was a brash one. It also knew its armor well -- it took Yoroko's railgun shot in its well-armored shoulder, damaging it but not destroying it. Two lances of white energy cut through the smoke and into the forearm shields Knight Three was using.

However, it could not ignore Masako's shot, which it noticed too late to really "dodge." Instead, the pilot of the black armor screamed a muted scream before falling to the ground with a clatter, the right side of her body seared apart from her shoulder down to her hip. The armor was well enough, other than losing some use of the right arm.

The chance to capitalize on the damage was erased as Alpha 03 and 04 began firing wildly to cover their fallen comrade. They kept pressing forward, however, almost sending Masako and her team down the main corridor.

* * *

The missiles from Kai were ineffective -- the Mindy blasted them from the sky. Only one of his positron shots caught anything, and it was just shoulder spikes that were obliterated. So while Kai had good cover, he was in a poor spot to do much of anything.

Asher's brazen attack style was quickly depleting aether rifle ammunition, and it wasn't doing much damage. Dongus also understood what the Mindy 1F was capable of, and it put its elbow armor in just the right place to reflect the shot into the Uriko behind it with minimal damage to itself. The charged beam, on the other hand, did the job, and removed a chunk of Dongus' arm and chest armor, exposing the hemosynthetic insert to the air. Dongus quickly teleported away, presumably elsewhere on the vessel or back to the Meng Po.

His attack on Sprite forced the armor to back off, but Dingus loosed missiles at Yuril and Asher's position, slagging the container and exposing the armors to attack. Only Kai was in a position to do something about it.

* * *

The armors were falling into Nyton's trap, or so it appeared. But Masako and her team were moving slowly; they needed to hurry up!

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

The neko's combat instincts quickly summed up the situation:
One enemy had fled, two remained. Ally wounded and other ally damaged. Cover gone and exposed to enemy fire.

While two enemies against three of them sounded like perfectly good odds, in the short skirmish Yuril had already noted that whoever the simulated pilots of the Black Mindy's were, they were highly skilled. In a straight shootout, she pegged her own and her teammate's survival rate as rather low.

But with the crates gone and little available cover in the hallway, the neko decided to do the best she could with the situation. She decided to remain where she was for now, but had her leg muscles all tensed and ready to leap aside at a seconds notice if she was fire at, and took aim to fire with her own rifle.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Kai looked around on the destroyed Uriko, Trying to find something he could use. Then he noticed the gash in the cockpit caused by an Aether saber. the gap seemed like it could be just wide enough to fire through, and still provide good cover. The Yamataian moved over there and aimed his rifle between the shards of metal, Having the AIES steady his aim directly onto 'Sprite' He figured he'd do as much damage as possible on the one instead of spreading out his fire between the two. At the moment, 'Sprite' and 'Dingus' were easy targets for him, but 'Shut was hidden with the Uriko between them, and not being able to see it was bothering Kai, quite a bit, so he released a drone to watch his flank and inform him if anything moved.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Why are we not moving? Come on! Tom's bitter thoughts crossed his mind as he withdrew further, trying to follow Masako's command.

The enemy was pushing them back, and allowing them to get closer would probably result in them getting shredded up. Launching another cluster of missiles into the enemy group, he targeted the area where the injured armor lay.

For in that moment, the Yamataian noticed a moment of weakness in his enemies, in the way they fired wildly to cover their ally. It was very humanitarian of them, something that could possibly be exploited. Tom realized that he, like his enemy, had someone to protect, and he had no mercy to spare when it came to that.

Fear or rage. Either reaction would work for him, but his own action was a risky one, a gamble that may have cost the engineer his life.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Yoroko continued to pull back to the hallway as instructed using her grav manipulation, Focus, you'll die if you can't follow orders in combat. she reminded herself. As Yoroko flew back, Yoroko deactivated her forearm shields and leveled her Aether beam rifle at the mindies, unleashing a hail of aether fire, hoping to suppress them. As she fired her beam rifle, Yoroko had her AIES calculate targeting vectors and fire her gauss cannons in 3 round burst mode, one cannon per target. At best, it kills both of them, at worst it slows them down, still I feel kind vulnerable without that shield. Yoroko thought as she fired.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

As Nyton monitored the movement of the enemy Mindies advance and Fire Team 1's retreat he couldn't help but feel a bite of impatience at the back of his mind.

Come on, come on. Move it you bastards, get into position before we lose our chance. he cursed in his thoughts.

***

The 'bridge' crew of the Miharu sent Yukari a message to alert her to their latest status.

"Shosa, weapons are charged and we have begun to deploy our remaining weapons pods. Beginning counter offensive against the enemy ship."

The Miharu fired several blasts from the particle canons which caused the Meng Po to alter it's course. The shots missed but they also caused the enemy's main canon to miss. The Miharu then arced sharply as it turned to allow the weapon pods to deploy with less interference from the enemy weapon pods.

Miharu then fired the main canon in beam mode in a sweep that managed to catch several weapon pods. This only slightly helped the outnumbered Miharu pods.

Hoshi then sent Nyton a message to update him to his earlier inquiries.

Claymere-Shoi, the tractor beam is ready. I am about to deploy it against the NIWS. It is unknown why the enemy remains hidden. If our sensor array was not disabled I could possibly discern the reason for this. The hologram feint was also ineffective and I have thus discontinued it's use.

Click to expand...

As the NIWS approached another particle canon turret it began to open fire. The twin gatling guns started to pummel the canon right as the tractor beam was suddenly activated. The NIWS began to exert counter effort but was trapped momentarily. Long enough for the tractor beam to begin to move the NIWS toward the main canon but not long enough to actually succeed. Not most of it anyways. The NIWS teleported away but not without leaving behind it's lower half from the waist down and the left forearm. Those pieces were obliterated in the main canon beam arc. The location of the NIWS was now unknown.

***

Kai's rounds made their mark as his shots struck the enemy Mindy designated as 'Sprite.' Because it was preoccupied it took a good bit of damage to it's right arm and leg which lost several chunks of armor. What was completely unexpected however was the sudden appearance of another Mindy armor. This one came out from a teleportation jump right next to Sprite. It was not however an enemy armor but Nimura. The Miharu sprite had used the chance to take the enemy by surprise and promptly split Sprite down the middle with her forearm weapon in blade mode. The two halves that had once been Sprite fell down to the floor in a mess as the hemosynth internal skin splattered along with the neko occupant. All systems on the enemy Mindy were dead before they had even hit the floor.

***

The door to the starboard Armor bay was torn apart and one by one the enemy Mindies filed out into the hallway. They each stood two to each side of the hall and facing out to cover both angles of attack. After a second the team began to move out in the direction towards the med bay.

Re: [restart point] Mission 2

Yukari did not care about the ship. She did not care about the digitized crew now. She cared about the opponents, who were taking their very, very sweet time to come upon them. Next time, I will ask for a positron weapon. That can penetrate walls. Several of them.

* * *

Tom was not rewarded with any kills. Neither was Yoroko. Alpha 02 exited the field of battle, and Alpha 03 and 04 disappeared --

Right behind them.

In front of Nyton, Ichi and the auxiliary team.

The armors had drawn back their blindingly white aether rifles; Masako and Tom were the targets.