Re: [restart point] Mission 2
Kotori shook her head, raising one hand apologetically. "I am sorry, I am not taking any questions yet - I will come back to it in a few."
The amber-eyed nekovalkyrja moistened her lips and continued: "On Miharu's maiden voyage, we've fought against both the Mishhuvurthyar and parts of their attached Black Spiral assets - we participated to the giant fiasco Battle of Taiie and helped defend a flotilla of refugee vessels against the pursuing forces of the SMX ships affiliated to the SMX commander known as Melisson. We managed to find out about something Melisson and the Black Spiral mysteriously referred to as Amaya's Gate and captured the SS Meng Po, a Black Spiral Nozomi-class scoutship and learned from their captured databanks of the nodal probe network both were able to take advantage of to communicate freely to each other secretly while being able to tap freely in our PANTHEON networks."
"I had originally planned to investigate the matter of Amaya's Gate around the center of the most recorded Black Spiral activity - the Great Southern Nebula - but the situation of this conflict had changed."
"Black Spiral is no longer our enemy. Thanks to Taisa Hanako and her crew, negotiations were apparently made to convince them of returning to the fold and some of them defected back to the Star Army of Yamatai, bringing in much useful intelligence. Though this ruins whatever advantage we've enjoyed with their private nodal network since their defection obviously no longer makes this network useful to our enemies... we've also learned that most of them have no idea what this Amaya's Gate is about, though they confirmed that one of the rare non-nekovalkyrja serving Eve was a blonde geshrin woman named Amaya." Kotori's eyes met Nyton's for a brief moment at that point.
"We still have an opponent left after this, though, and their organization is referred by SAINT as being 'The Daughters of Eve'. We still are dealing with a mix of psionically-inclined nekovalkyrja, some neko-mishhu hybrids and a number of Mishhuvurthyar. Black Spiral reported that Amaya was apparently often in Eve's confidence and that two dusky-skinned twin nekovalkyrja named Meni and Mani often shadowed Eve."
"We also no longer need to fear Eve being able to tap into the PANTHEON network for the time being," Kotori added. "The one whom was coerced to grant them administrative access, a revived Empress Yuumi, was rescued by the Sakura's crew in the Second Battle of Urghlaflu. Any future attempt to tamper with the PANTHEON network should be much briefer and less widespread even if Eve manages to try again - she caught us with our pants down before, but she won't do so again."
"A mission made by the Plumeria's crew," she nodded toward Sora and Ichi, "resulted in the elimination of much of the upper echelon leadership of the SMX. This stalled them for a time, requiring for them to reorganise and promoted some infighting for determining whom would remain dominant and command the Mishhuvurthyar battle fleets. This distraction served us well, until a large part of the SMX commanders decided to send an entire flagship-supported fleet to attack Tatiana and Nataria. The Star Army of Yamatai barely fended off their assault and while we did destroy the Shlarvasseroth-class flagship the mishhu had commited to this battle, in exchange we lost most of the Zero Fleet Depot."
"The only Mishhuvurthyar fleet commander whom did not participate was one named Melisson, whom is sitting tight in the Bard star cluster, entrenching her assets there, fortifying her position and such. Plumeria's raid on Hukka has apparently done Melisson a good turn, as Black Spiral reported that with her superior dead, she gained control of all the 1100 SMX warships assigned to the south-east sector instead of the former 200 or so she had left after her conquest of Taiie and Ushobrakflug." Kotori shook her head, "Melisson has grown even more dangerous and has sadly not spent her time being idle. The time the other Mishhuvurthyar fleets spent rushing our core defense network, she spent building shipyards and harvesting resources from her new holdings as well as sending a token force the way of the Yugumo cluster to dispel any notion Motoyoshi-taisho might have of regaining her former holdings. The SMX battlefleet in the Bard star cluster also shows signs of now including a new warship-type whom we currently have classified as a torpedo ship."
Kotori's golden eyes looked over the people assembled. "I've covered the situation report part of this briefing. I will now address your questions before going on to our current mission objectives." The Taisa looked over to Sora again. "To answer yours, I really have no idea. I might be that the Dark Ones have psionic powers far beyond what our PSC technology was designed to handle, or that the Dark Ones have a tool or a counter-measure to cripple our psionic defenses."
