YE 46.1.5
YSS Dragon Sword - Boss Room
Hundreds of armed zombies tried to get into the room, coming at the Resurgence's away team in a steady flow.
Cassie looked up at Poppy and said, "Help me make some sort of defensive position," so the medic stopped treating her for a minute and, as they both were shooting Poppy stacked a bunch of armored corpses into a makeshift fighting position for Cassie to take cover behind, allowing the injured anthro cat to cover one of the entrances while the enemy's attacks mostly hit the Mindy armor of the dead people in front of her. "This is kind of metal," Cassie commented, spitting out some blood before putting her Mindy helmet back on her head for safety. It still reeked of vomit but it was better than dying here on the stack of bodies.
Chiheisen remained on the ground behind the newly set up cover. The Immobilized Elysian ached all over, but remained focused on the Mishhuvurthyar for the time being, waiting for the damned thing to stop phasing to detonate the now plastic-explosive covered NSBs. They kept cycling back to recharge from her CFS whenever needed...
Cheilith was moving quickly and dynamically, using her sword to carve through the zombies and defend Cassie and Poppy who were setting up the defensive position. She had a crown of Nodal Support Bits that fed off of her armor's combined field system that were helping to provide fire on the swarm of zombies.
With the the flood of zombie reinforcements flowing into the room like water from a hose Sanda became cut off from the rest of her team. That didn't seem to faze her however. She was too far gone at this point. The 'red mist' had descended on her and she was lost to the battle. Her only thought was to kill and destroy. She had at some point recovered her revolver and had it safely tucked into her hoster while fighting with her NSP in one hand and her Straight Silver bayonet in the other. The NSP had a much faster rate of fire which was needed for the number of enemies the Ranger had to kill.
The operative lay prone on the ground, the SMG mounts on either shoulder extended and firing into the opening, swiveling slightly upon gimballed mounts to fire accurately upon the infected horde while the carbine in her had gave an occasional rapport as she lined up a critical shot. Now that she wasn't completely exposed the Barrier Field did a better job of deflecting the occasional on target response. Fortunate, as Erika couldn't move much while she acted as the recharge point for the explosive clad NSBs.
"Don't get hit again, okay?!" Mineko told Erika. For her part in the fight, Mineko had taken up a position in front of Erika but out of the operative's weapon's fire. For now, her Mindy could stand to take some of the fire the zombies were directing to Erika.
"You know, when I took officer training," Poppy mentioned, "They told us to avoid getting caught in kill-zones. I feel like this is one of those kill-zones the enemy prepared for us! Maybe we should consider a change of venue?" Just then she saw Judah get knocked unconscious by enemy fire. "Shit!" said, risking herself to run and drag him to safety behind the makeshift cover. "New kid's out cold," she informed the team.
Yayoi nodded her head to Cassie. "agreed." she said all the while not liking this at all.
Cassie just kept shooting zombie after zombie, keeping an eye on the heat monitors of her weapons. "Remind me what the plan is..." Her body hurt so badly it was hard to think, but she had to set that aside for later.
"We have to get to the computer room," Mineko said, looking to Poppy. "We needed to ascend that maintenance hatch we just came up to get to it. Either this room has been repurposed by the mishhu to be both a computer room and the enhanced's play room or we need to keep going up!"
"Euikoshi, send Mineko the map again," Poppy transmitted. Mineko got a copy of the deck plans from the Resurgence's MEGAMI that showed the fastest route as a glowing blue line of chevrons on her HUD. It looked like she was right. There was one problem, though, which was the phasing Mishhu could follow them up through the decks.
Yoshiro fired at the zombies, trying to help his friends and fellow shipmates. "You Mishhu are gonna get hurt for this!" He said to himself. "I will crush you all by myself and I will send your entrails to hell to feed the demons!"
"Okay, we should be able to go up another deck if we can find an access tunnel," Mineko said, omitting the terrifying possibility of the Enhanced meeting them where they went.
"What do we do about the..gh- Phasing mess of sand over there?" Chiheisen grunted from her spot on the floor.
"The quicker we get the ship MEGAMI up and running, the sooner it can help us fight it," Mineko replied assuredly. "Can your Mindy fly? We have to keep moving!"
"I think so..." Chiheisen fiddled with her controls for a bit, before floating a little off the ground. She was a little slow and clumsy in her movement, granted how she couldnt move her body. The Elysian just looked like a frozen mannequin trying to hover in place... She kept the NSBs close by for now, given how they might need to start moving.
Shraflarlkru laughed, "HU HU HU! Look at you! Another one falls! Perhaps you should beg for your lives! I am sure I could find some use for you," it said with amusement. "Well, some of you."
"Find a use for this!" Cheilith shouted back, shooting her shoulder mounted gauss cannon at Shraflarlkru.
"No one in our team is going to beg for mercy, you huffy little windbag! We beat you before in battle and we'll beat you again, you slimy little fuck!" Yoshiro shouted. Shooting at Shraflarlku with Aether SMGs. "Try me ya little bastard and see what I can do to you. Your zombies can fuck off and die also!" Yoshiro stabbed some zombies that got too close with his katana.
Shraflarlkru visibly shrugged at Yoshiro, using its tentacles, as the weapons fire slammed into the wall behind it. It remained phased and let its zombies do the dirty work.
Sanda slashed with her knife at a throat then punched the leg of the next one she came to with such force it shattered its femur. Raising her NSP she fired point blank range at the closest zombies, literally blowing their heads off. The Ranger didn't pause to admire her work, another one had leaped onto her back. She grabbed the arm that was around her throat and heaved. The zombie when flying over her shoulder and crashed into two other zombies charging her.
Yayoi aimed her Aetheric Pulse Cannon at Shraflarlkru and attempted to fire one at them
Mineko strafed away from the weapons fire of one of the armored zombies, not engaging in combat but not about to get downed by it either. She was looking for the access panel to the next room above them or a junction. Anything to get them away from this hoard of zombies and into the computer room.
Given how she was a useless floating Mannequin, Chiheisen did her best so scan visually for an access point to the next room as well. She wasn't going to be doing any fighting any time soon, given her injuries and the fact that her LATR was a molten piece of scrap on the ground.
An aether blade began to emerge from the overhead bulkhead, beginning to slowly cut a circular hole in the ceiling above the "boss room." A second one joined it from the other side of the circle.
"FRIENDLY?!!" Mineko called out over speakers towards the aether blades cutting holes in the ceiling.
Yoshiro looked up and aimed his SMGs up in to the holes but recognized the friendlies. He turned his attention back to the "Boss". "Hey Mishhu bastard, why don't you show yourself so we can play with you and destroy you!" Yoshiro shouted.
"It's Wando," Colby said. "We got the ST backups from the medical lab! And we brought you medical kits from there. We're trying to make an exit for y'all. I don't know how to get in the MEGAMI room so don't die."
"TEAM!" Mineko yelled to those fighting the zombies below."Get up here! Colby, that's spectacular news. Probably just about the only good thing we have going for us right now. We'll patch the new Elysian up, if possible, and re-administer aid to Sanda."
"Really think it might be a better idea to get the wounded out, those still fighting stay, and you go for the MEGAMI." Erika said between gritted teeth as her body shuddered from the recoil of 3 weapons systems.
"You're right. We need teleporter units to our position if we're going to get the wounded out!" Mineko said to the first few statements. She wanted to keep directing the flow of battle to move the wounded, but the team commanders should make those calls.
Cheilith disengaged from the Zombies, flying upwards to retreat from the trap the team had found themselves in.
As the sparks rained down from the cutting in the ceiling, Shraflarlkru looked up and said, "what is this shit," and began to float up through the ceiling to look at the B team.
"Oh shit!" Colby shouted suddenly.
Cheilith stuck her sword in the phased Mishhu. "Don't worry, if he unphases so he can actually do something, he'll get a sword in the gut."
Erika floated up, staying close enough for the NSBs to complete an orbit and recharge. She positioned herself to use the opaque mass of the Mishhuvuthar as concealment while she used networked targeting to continue firing on the zombies, concentrating on cutting down the few in front of Sanda. "Dephase already you coward." the Operative said silently to her self.
Chiheisen's eyes widened a little as she saw the Mishhu float up. She grunted, holding her own 6 NSBs around her. "Crap..."
The Mishhuvurthyar disappeared, leaving the team with the zombie horde, which was beginning to slow down finally. A bunch of screaming came over the radio as the B team got attacked.
"Team commander, we have to retake the ship and get our wounded out," Mineko said succinctly. "Who's fit to fight enough to go up to the computer room?"
"I'll go with you, Mineko. " Yoshiro said
"Okay." she replied. "You need to call in request for teleporters, Yoshiro!"
"I'm up for it." Cheilith responded, disappointed Shraflarlkru hadn't turned himself into a shishkabob.
"We have to withdraw to save the ST data," Colby told Mineko, "I'm sorry." He finished cutting the hole open and then him and the survivors of B team made a run for it, leaivng the medical supplies behind for A team. "Kill that thing for me, okay?" he said, hating the fact that he had to leave. But thousands of lives were at stake.
"Joto heisho Yoshiro Tanaka to Resurgence. Requesting teleporters for away team." Yoshiro said over comms. He was also covering the door, making sure no more zombies came through, shooting anything that came through.
The only noise coming from Sanda were snarls and grunts as she continued killing without thought. There was litteraly a mound of bodies around her that other Zombies had to climb over to get to her. She had had to change the charge in her NSP twice.
Yayoi moved towards Sanda, though proud and admiring of Sanda's abilities, she knew it was time to go. "Sanda, time to go, now!" she shouted to her, as she attempted grab around her waist. Sanda could keep shooting if she wanted to but Yayoi wanted to get her out of there.
Sanda wasn't thinking clearly. She was too hyped up on adrenaline that she lashed out at anything that got close, even her ailies. As Yayoi went to grab her hermana, Sanda lashed out with her knife, snarling as she did so.
"Oh, maldita loca Valquiria" Yayoi snarled in Sanda's heart language hoping that it gets to her as she was slashed with the knife.
Mineko handed off the medical supplies Colby Wando had given them to Poppy.
Shraflarlkru floated back down, "Looks like your friends chickened out," it laughed, unphasing and grabbing its two huge weapons from the mountains of dead bodies now filling the "boss room." Its tentacles plunged into the floor like before and they began to sprout up from below again, pushing floor panels aside and grabbing people's legs. Naturally it grabbed Poppy first because you always go after the enemy team's healer.
"Finally." Cheilith said, jumping back down into the boss room to drive her sword into Shraflarlkru's back.
"ERIKA, NOW" Chiheisen yelled out to the operative as she watched the Mishhuvurthyar unphase. She let out a shriek as one of her legs was tugged down by a tentacle, before sending the remaining other NSBs closer to the Mishhuvurthyar, ready to follow up on Erika's next move.
The operative gave a mental command to the 2 NSBs hovering, now trapped within the Mishhuvuthyars mass. The detonations came one after the other, their bangs dulled to low thuds as all their energy was absorbed by the squid. She held off on detonating the others, hoping for a cavity to form in which to send them.
"No one is chickening out, slimy little dumbass." Yoshiro said to the Ripper as he slashed at the tentacles. "Sanda, time to go right now!" He said as he grabbed Sanda and took her away.
Medical kits tumbling out of both of their hands, Mineko moved forward to grab ahold of Poppy. It wasn't much to simply grab her hand, but it was instinctual and all Mineko did in the moment that she saw the tendril lift from the ground and wrap around the medic.
Despite Yoshiro's good intentions, Sanda was too hyped up to be grabbed by anyone. Zombies had just been all over her and she was very jumpy. As Yoshiro placed his hand on her Sanda spun around and knocked Yoshiro's hand away fired at him with her NSP.
"Sanda, stand down! It's me, Yoshiro! Calm down and listen!" He shouted
A huge chunk of the Mishhu blew off the side of it and the creature's orange-red blood was sprayed all over the room. Suddenly there was a deathly silence as the shooting stopped and the last of the zombies fell. Shraflarlkru's body began to phase again and it sunk into the deck below, disappearing from sight, looking in severely wounded condition.
"WHO'S THE COWARD NOW YOU OVERGROWN SQUID?" Erika said, breaking her normally professional composure. "COME BACK HERE, I'M HAVING CALIMARI TONIGHT!"
"Coward." Cheilith told Shraflarlkru as he disappeared again.
"Sanda, calm down or you are going to hurt someone!" Yoshiro said to get her attention.
Chiheisen's remaining NSB's returned to hover around her, the Elysian cracking a grin under her helmet as she watched the Enhanced Type retreat. She also yelled alongside Erika, for just a moment. "GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE YOU DAMNED SQUID"
Poppy shuddered as the tentacle fell away from her. After a second, she grabbed the hemosynth containers and medical kits the B team had provided and began to treat everyone's injuries with fresh supplies.
As silence descended onto the room Sanda stood in a fighting stance as her eyes jerked one way then the other. She was gasping for breath and if anyone was standing close enough to her they might have thought that she was crying. In fact she was. Behind her cracked helmet tears were running down her face, carving little canyons in the blood that was smeared all over her face.
Yayoi blinked as she felt discomfort as she listened to Sanda, and moved over to her, a little more cautiously. "sanda?' she asked
At the sound of her name, Sanda jerked her NSP around and aimed it at Yayoi. It shook a little but then remained steady. Her finger twiched but the battery was dead. It took her a moment to realize that it was empty. Her body instantly went through the practiced motions of removing the dead battery and putting in a fresh charge. But this time she didn't raise it. She just let her arms hang at her sides.
"Hermana, tú me conoces, escucha mi voz" Yayoi told her, and waited to see what she does next.
"Yo... yo... creo que quizás me excedí." Sanda shuttered a little bit.
Yayoi nodded her head "Si, Hermana, but i'm glad your back with us."
Erika panted, her NSBs pointing in all directions, ready to dive back into the creature if it showed its face again, then detonate if it decided to unphase. "Mineko, the MEGAMI." she said.
Mineko was already gone, up through the hole in the ceiling without looking back. "I'm finishing this," she had transmitted curtly.
"Yoshiro this is Resurgence, we can send Norita with some teleporters but then Aoba's going to have to explain his disobedience to Taisho Irim, are you sure you need them?" Kalena asked, sounding uneasy.
"Yes we need them here. My people need them to get out." Yoshiro said
"Sir," Erika said, opening a private channel to Yoshiro overhearing the comms. "Have them send over units with the 4003. They teleport in, take us out in groups of 3 and it minimizes their exposure to any psionic field. The chance of the enemy capturing a teleporter is negligible."
"Is it.. gh- wise? Assuming we can get the MEGAMI up and running, perhaps we wouldnt need them..." Chiheisen opined, gritting her teeth as the pain caught up to her once more, wincing.
"We need to get the 4003 so we can get out in groups of three. We can minimise our exposure to the Mishhu and we can get our wounded out safely." Yoshiro said to Kalena.
"Norita says we only have the standard Ke-M2-P3802 in stock," Kalena said.
"Tch!" Erika made a noise over the comms like she was audibly pouting.
"Roger that. Send it over and send Norita with them. Remind me to ask for some from supply when this mission is over." Yoshiro said.
"Yoshiro, the 3802 doesn't have the additional lift capacity of the extended backbacks. So they won't help." Cheilith noted.
"We can get out on foot sir." Erika added after a deep sigh. "With the MEGAMI on line we should be able to anticipate additional threats and redirect."
" Roger that, Chelilith. We get out on foot. Make sure that you keep your head on a swivel." Yoshiro said to the team. "
Erika looked to the broken bird hovering in the distance. "Chichi, you need a hand? Anyone else wounded needing assistance?" She asked even as one of her own legs was reduce to nothing more than a useless fleshy stump.
"I can sill float," Cassie said, floated from out of behind the 2 meter high stack of dead bodies, completely covered in blood. "Hey, anyone seen the litterbox around here? I gotta go."
"Sanda, you okay?" Yoshiro asked concerned. "You seemed pretty angry there. I am sorry about what I did but we didn't need anyone hurt by friendly fire."
"I believe i can manage..." Chiheisen sighed as she floated along carefully, trying not to bonk into anything. The thought of being put into a hemosynth tank finally was starting to sound really appealing to the pained birb...
Erika nodded, "I'll split the NSBs between us. I'll take 3, you take 4. You see that bastard come back have one float in its brain pan."
"I'll haul Judah," Poppy offered. "Hopefully he'll come to his senses soon. He just took a big hit to the dome."
Sanda muttered something in her mother tonge to Yoshiro that didn't make any sense, even to her. She was completely spent and for once in her live didn't care that she was showing weakness in front of her team. She carefully replaced her weapons in their holsters then placed her arm around Yayoi for support. Daisys don't float.
"You guys get going back to the ship. I promised Mineko I would help her out, unless you guys want to help." Yoshiro ordered "Otherwise get the wounded fixed up and back to the ship"
Yayoi held Sanda, then activated her thrusters lifting the two of them up to where they needed to go.
YSS Dragon Sword - Computer Room
They had traveled about halfway up the twenty deck ship on their way to the computer core, but Mineko still had a ways to go. With her wingpack alight behind her, she jettisoned up the internals faster than she had before when behind the rest of her team. Her eyes scanned her suit's AIES sensors as she looked for the feed that would indicate just a blip of power spike ahead of her.
"No wonder the transponder wasn't transmitting," Mineko said when she had finally gotten to the Super-Eikan class' computer rooms.
She tapped at terminals, but nothing was online. It looked like some technician had come into the MEGAMI room and severed all the power cables from the system's power supplies, then tried to torch the circuitry. Probably someone with a parasite. Wasn't the Nekovalkyrja and Minkan body supposed to prevent parasite infections these days? Clearly the Mishhuvurthyar threat had evolved.
Taking shaky breaths, Mineko tried to push the thoughts about what this next generation of Mishhu were doing to their older generation Yamataian bodies and focused on the ship and what she could do for it. Pushing a mass of severed cables aside, she found a hemosynthetic conduit access point for the charred circuit board just above it. Normally the ship would pump into the access panel through those cables to repair them, but the parasite-ridden crewmen had made sure that wasn't possible.
Cheilith wasn't sure if the Mishhu had left or not. So she followed Mineko with her sword drawn and her head on a swivel.
"Agh, got a plan," Mineko said grimly as she saw her team filtering in.
"Resurgence to away team, one of the Dragon Sword's shuttles just launched, is that you guys?" Kalena asked over comms.
"Negative, Res, full send on that target." Erika said quickly.
"It just went into hyperspace," Kalena said. "We're tracking it but we're going to stay here until your team is back aboard."
Chichi had ony just about managed to make it up to the rest of the away team, floating a little precariously in her frozen position. Her NSBs kept following along, the Elysian gritting her teeth as she heard the news from regarding that shuttle. "I'm assuming that was that enhanced type perhaps..?" She said, half interrupted by a cough.
"Poppy, can you bring the hemo over here?" Mineko asked. "The console can't self-repair.
"Okay," Poppy nodded, gently placing Judah down outside the MEGAMI room door and going back to get some of the hemosynth supplies. "I'll have to configure it back from medical mode but there's controls around for it."
Mineko cut through the zipties that kept all of the severed cables together and held just the tube labeled HSCS-1 above her head, waiting patiently.
"It was probably the Mishhu leaving," Mineko said bleakly as she waited.
"That sounds like you won," Kalena said, trying to cheer Mineko up. "Resurgence 1, Mishhu 0."
"I'd say we broke even." Erika said with an exhale as she drifted over to Mineko. The NSBs continued to hover around her within her CFS. The operative hadn't let her guard down just yet.
"The first fleet lost a scout. Maybe the Resurgence won but the Star Army didn't." Mineko said.
"Coward." Cheilith said with a laugh.
"Elegante" Sanda muttered as Yayoi helped her into the room. Although it was hard to concentrate on anything, she felt like the Mishhu had made the right call. It had been wounded but would return with new knowledge of how to fight them. In fact, it seemed like the fact that it had decided to run instead of keep fighting like you would have expected a Mishhu to do showed that it more cunning and therefore more dangerous than an average mishhu. That should scare them more than anything. But Sanda was hardly able to put her thoughts into words at the moment so she remained silent.
Yoshiro arrived to help Mineko. "Hey Mineko do you need my help with anything?" He said.
After a few moments, Poppy gave the modified HS fluid containers to Mineko. "You sure this will work?" she said. "I've done surgery on people, but never a ship's computer."
"The ship is always doing surgery on itself through these things during combat," Mineko said as she dropped the fluid in and jimmied the cable so that it could flow towards the conduit system at the base of the terminal.
"Hey," Kalena told the team, "That shuttle went to where Cassie's old communicator was last seen. A possible Mishhu base?"
"Are we ready for that?" Mineko said as she looked from Sanda propped up on Yayoi to Erika's missing leg, then back to Cassie's vomit-stained fur. She looked back to the console and tapped it once.
"Its only a flesh wound." Erika said with a grin under her helmet. "It will grow back."
The computer system began to make gentle whirring and humming noises as it came back online, running once again.
"Inputting admin access codes now," Mineko said, hope edging into the dismal tone she had taken as her helmet and HUD was illuminated with data. "Let's get the MEGAMI restored ASAP. Who knows if we're going to have reinforcements from that Mishhu base."
Assuming that Mineko didn't need his help since he didn't or assumed he didn't get a response he watched what the others were doing and made sure they were okay while they were doing their things.
The MEGAMI took stock of the situation in a flash and immediately began cloning up Nekovalkyrja soldiers in the medical labs and selectively locking zombies in compartments to keep them from moving around the ship. Some of them ended up getting airlocked if they were near one. "SYSTEM ONLINE" the main control panel said. "Defenses active," it said in a calm voice.
"Yoshiro, let the captain know we've regained control of the ship!" Mineko said to the team commander as she put an arm around Erika's armored shoulders and swayed into the operative excitedly.
"Joto Heisho Tanaka to Resurgence, we have taken the YSS Dragon Sword, repeat we have taken the YSS Dragon."Yoshiro said.
Sanda slumped a little bit with relief as she heard that they had gotten the MEGAMI back online. She reached up to removed her cracked helmet but it slipped from her hands and clattered to the deck. Her face and hair were covered with blood. There were streaks in the blood where her tears had washed it away.
"Excellent work," Aoba's voice said. "Beryl is waiting for you in the shuttle bay, come home and enjoy some time in the onsen. You deserve it."
"Wilco." Yoshiro said over comms. "Mineko, get us to the Resurgence and rendezvous with the ship. We'll take a shuttle over."
"You got it," Mineko said, already heading out of the computer room.
"It's gonna be nice just taking the lift there instead of more of those damned ladders," Cassie said, looking at her teammates. She took her helmet off, too, and took a deep breath.
Chiheisen sighed as she watched the MEGAMI come back to life. She really wanted to take off her own helmet but she couldn't due to obvious reasons. For now, she was simply hoping this was the end of the action for the day.
YSS Resurgence - Shuttle Bay
After a few minutes, the bloodied and battered away team was back on the familiar decks of their home starship, the YSS Resurgence. Sakuko met them there along with a few of the B team members and helped them unload off Beryl's shuttle. They had survived! Now it was time to recover and process the nightmarish experience they had endured together. And they knew somewhere, somehow, they'd meet that Mishhuvurthyar again...
= = =
OOC: JP by Wes, Ame, Cowboy, Charaa, Sunny D, Yoshiro, Liza, Soban, Zanven