RP: YSS Resurgence Resurgence of Yamatai - Mission 5: Expanding Horizons

Team 2: Bridge (Sanda, Cassie, Zanven)

Cassie took off her Mindy's helmet. "My armor's computer seems to be wiped, I got no operating system and nothing is working. I can't even really see because the displays are offline," she scowled. "I've lost all aether power. We're dealing with something really hazardous here. I lost communications first, can anyone still talk to the Resurgence?" she asked as she started reaching in her butt pack, retrieving a standard Nekovalkyrja Service Pistol to further arm herself. "I agree, Sanda, we should head to the bridge, gather intel, check for survivors, download logs and bounce."

No one else could get through to the Resurgence.

Sanda shook her head. "I've been trying to send a signal using a trick I learned in Ranger school but no luck so far." Sanda was rather concerned to hear that Cassie's suit had stopped functioning. Whatever those things were that attacked them were a lot more dangerous than she had first believed.

Zanven heard Cassie talk about her systems and was deeply worried as he checked his own system and saw that it was still functional he remembered that he had only been damaged indirectly and not grabbed by whatever the creatures were. "Cassie, since I'm going to be having to work on the systems in the bridge you can use my rifle, and I can see about once we get power restored if we can find a way to restore your armor or get something to replace in the meantime?" He spoke as he continued to scan the area for any further hostile activity...waiting on further instruction.


Team 1: Enginering (Frank, Yayoi, Thad, Del)

Frank began moving in the direction of the engine room leading ahead. his missile pod ready to fire at the first thing he sees that's not them, "Good luck team lets try to make it home okay?"

Yayoi silently followed Frank to the Engine room after finding she couldn't get through to the ship. She thought they would need to use the SS Spark's tech to do it, and hoped they could find survivors.

Frank called over his coms, "Cassie do you happen to have a map layout of where the engineering is?" Frank asked, but there wasn't a response.

Yayoi blinked as she listened to Frank"no inter-squad comms that would make things harder for us, be careful Frank."

Frank shook his head realizing they're going in blind, this wasn't good. <Think Frank think> He thought to himself as he looked around the corridor. "Okay Yayoi, were going to have to find a way to the lower deck and make our way to the back of the ship If things start getting too hairy I want you to run back to Bridge as fast as you can I'll buy you time."

Yayoi walked ahead of Frank as she led the way to the Engineering. "no you run back, I'm a Neko and I am currently backed up as of a hour ago, have you gotten backed up? Don't worry about me Frank." She said as kept her eyes peeled for danger.

Franked nodded before responding "Yes I'm backed up however I'm also a selfless oaf so assume i might do something stupid to save your skin if that happens." Frank added with a chuckle.

Yayoi smirked under her helmet "noted" she said thinking she might have to keep an eye on him. She wasn't sure she liked having to watch him and Thad.

Spotting a staircase downwards. He pointed it out to Yayoi. "Ladder ahead, lets try to speed this up this place gives me the creeps." Frank stated.

Yayoi took note of the ladder "copy that, I'd assume Engineering is down, so lets see if we can get down there" She said though she assumed chances were that they might have to detour or something.

As the two of them started getting close to the ladder frank gestured to it with his free hand. "lady's first." he stated.

Yayoi smirked"what a gentleman" she replied as she placed her gauntleted hand on it and began using it.

The engineering deck was covered in gore. Some of the corpses had their hands stuck to the wall, or the ship's console and so were frozen as they sat in whatever position they died in. Some still had the bodies of their fallen comrade. Most of them had been stabbed and slashed to death. Again, several were missing their heads. There was a strong stench of blood in the air.

As Yayoi entered the engineering section, she made no comment, seemingly unphased as if she'd seen this before.

"These poor bastards." Frank stated as he made his way towards one of the consoles. "lets see if I still remember how to slice into things." he stated thinking back to his days in psychopomp.

Yayoi nodded "slice into the tech, the rest of us will watch your back" she commented as she began moving into protective stance a part of her military training.

Frank would pull a panel off as he began tinkering with the system. "well with all my days as a psychopomp saboteur I might be able to do something here but in all honesty I have no idea the extent of the damage this is a bit too grisly even for Psychopomp and they made some horrifying things like myself." he stated.

Yayoi spoke up as she kept her eyes in the environment around them. "Rixxikor are like this" She replied "might be those robots though"

Thad let out a small sigh as he walked about the room. While he was use to seeing this level of gore, it does not make it anymore easy. "Poor souls, doubt they even seen it coming." He paused for a moment before he continued. "Welp, let us get some power going. Maybe some of the auto fire turrets still work on the ship."

Yayoi glanced to Thad"if they are effective against the creatures then i can agree to that"

Thad started to look around for a console that looked to have some level of life to it. He found one that looked to be somewhat together. He banged on it a few times to see if anything would happen.

The console did not respond to banging but it did have an interface in trade for running the ship's systems. Unfortunately it seemed to be having issues talking to the ship's central computer system, which had already been subsumed by the computer virus or whatever was plaguing the SS Spark's systems.

Yayoi glanced over as Thad banged the console her eyebrows raised as she watched for a second before turning back to keep an eye on things. "Got anything?" She asked him.

"Nope, dead as an enemy facing Star Army. Thinking we will need to find a backup console. Whatever took this ship over is not willing to let it go."

Yayoi cursed lowly to herself as she listened to his reply. "agreed, or find some way to make whatever it is to fuck off will also be good." she said.

"Shouldn't there be a purge option or something around here? I feel like given the many different enemies of Yam, this would have come up before." He said as he looked around for another console.

Yayoi"maybe" She replied simply and took note of Thad's looking for another console.

Thad continued to check around. He knew the ship AI had an access panel somewhere around here. Maybe it managed to stash away from the virus. "Hey Yayoi, I am looking for an access panel to get into the AI. Let me know if you find anything." He told to her over comms.

Yayoi turned and then began looking for the panel to get into the AI as Thad needed, though making sure she was aware of any danger along side. She couldn't help but think of having a special AI in the armor to keep attention on the scanners.

Thad by use of the Mindy's scanners was able to find an access hatch. "Cover me, I feel bad news might be on the other side." He waited a moment before he opened the hatch.

Yayoi nodded as she continued to look around and cover for Thad.

Team 2:

Cassie was unable to respond due to her systems being offline. She kept her eyes searching the vents for signs of the hostile entities. "Bridge should be foremost at the end of the main hall based on the ship's exterior appearance. I'm slow moving with the armor systems fried, who wants to take point?"

Sanda was already leading the way. She stopped to check around a corner before continuing. She really didn't like what was happening. She was regretting splitting up. They should have stayed as a group and just scrubbed the mission. Whatever these things were, they were dangerous.

Sanda led the way to the Bridge. They saw more damaged corridors and several dead bodies much like those they had seen before. They hadn't run into any more of those things yet but they were ready for them none the less. She continued trying to reach the Resurgence using that trick she'd learned in Ranger school. Thunder to Resurgence. Unknown Hostiles Engaged. Zero Casualties. Attempting to take bridge. Enemy appears to disabled Cassie's Mindy. Standby.

YSS Resurgence, Bridge

"See if you can compensate for all that interference. I want to know where it's coming from as well," Aoba told Kalena.

He called Iemochi back, "I think if we send out a second team then we just end up with two teams in trouble instead of one," he replied. "I agree on quarantine if you think there's some risk but currently we don't have the full picture."

Mochi sent back a quick, "Roger. From what little we saw before the feeds cut out, these are lifeforms wildly different to what we're familiar with. I'd advise we air on the side of caution, especially given how odd the planet they may be somehow related to is."

"The jamming signal appears to originate from the planet below," Kalena reported to Iemochi and Aoba. "I am also showing a handful of habitable areas down here."

"Habitable?" Mochi echoed, "That might explain where these things came from. Let me see if I can back-trace the coordinates of the signal with the sensor dome. Maybe we can launch a torpedo and solve that issue the old fashioned way." The Elysian diverted some of the arrays away from the boarded ship and down to the planet to help.

Mochi was successful in finding the jamming signal's origin. It was coming from one of the habitable areas of the planet.

"Is it possible the jamming signal is here to protect the Resurgence?" Aoba suddenly asked. "From the virus, I mean?"

Aoba had raised an interesting point. Mochi pondered on it for a moment or two, as he sent down a splash of the signal's location to the Bridge. "Protect us? Maybe- It would certainly be interesting if their SIGINT tech was better than the Resurgence's." A short pause followed.

"We know these things are somewhat metallic- Let me run a life-scan for anything organic and see what that reveals." The science officer pulled up the habitability map and pulsed a broad-band scan for organic heat signatures, from cities or groupings of lifeforms. If there was nothing, chances are the signal was hostile, unless there was some splinter faction of these virus-things.

Scans showed an escape pod on the surface in one of the habitable zones and one probable human life sign in its vicinity.

"Captain, looks like we have an ally. Reads as human, they may have escaped the Nepleslian ship before it was occupied. I don't like their chances alone down there. Attempting to ping their pod's communications." Mochi relayed, enjoying how easy it was to make adjustments on the fly with SPINE.

There was no response from the pod, probably due to the jamming.

SS Spark, Bridge (Team 2)

When they arrived at the bridge, they found that the last of the crew had made some sort of last-ditch effort to barricade the doors, welding the door shut so it wouldn't open.

Sanda stood looking at the welded door. That was not what she had been expecting.

"I don't have any engineering equipment but maybe an aether saber can do the trick," Cassie suggested. "Mine's on battery so if anyone else wants to use theirs so I can save it, go for it."

Sanda held up her Aether bayonet on the front of her sub. "I give it a try. Although if it's welded shut, there might be someone still alive in there." Sanda rapped her knuckles on the door a few times in code. Ally ally all come free.

Someone knocked back from the other side of the door with the "Shave and a haircut, two bits" pattern.

Sanda smiled under her helmet. She tapped again, more deliberately. This is YSS Resurgence, We are here to help. Stand back.

The unknown person merely repeated the previous knock.

Sanda let up her Aether Bayonett and began to cut through were the weld had been made. Sparks flew as she steadily cut through the door.

Once they were able to open the door they found a heavily-armed Nepleslian woman on the other side who was so overjoyed she immediately broke down in tears and started hugging Sanda while babbling incoherently and thanking her profusely.

Sanda gently but firmly pushed the woman off of her. She didn't want anything to tangle up her weapons. "Itto-Hei Hoshi, YSS Resurgence. We're here to help you. Who are you? What are those things that attacked your ship?"

Zanven watched the scene and aimed his rifle at first, but retreated a step as the woman moved to hug Sanda. He quickly scanned the bridge and then whistled to Cassie as he was going to pass his rifle to her. He would let them ask the questions as he needed to see if there was ANYTHING in the bridge that was working. "Brax moving forward ma'am." He said as he pulled out his sidearm and moved to the controls for the bridge.

Cassie turned back towards the main corridor, watching it from the doorway in case they had more company from the vents.

Zanven found the bridge's controls were mostly offline due to a computer failure. The ship appeared to be under automated control from an unknown entity, that wasn't letting the ship's personnel do anything.

"Grab logs, recorders, hard drives," Cassie ordered. "Any documentation."

"Aye, aye." Zanven got to work as he looked for physical ports to uplink into.

"My name is Cathy Eraz, I'm the ship's navigator," the woman told Sanda. "How did you even find us? This was supposed to be a secret mission and we're out in the middle of nowhere. I think I'm the last one alive on the Spark."

Sanda shrugged, "Not important right now. What are those things?"

"We sent down shuttles to the machine planet and they came back on them. They transformed. The chief called them computronium demons. I think they...uh..." she sniffled. "I think they are parasites of the machine world...? Look I'm not an expert, I just flew the ship where they told me."

Zanven hit his head on one of the console pieces as he heard the dialogue between the survivor and Sanda. "Excuse me...the what?!" He said as he was just about to jack into the port.

"Yeah," Cassie offered her opinion, "I think there's some things in the universe that are a little too big to chew on and sometimes these planet-sized AIs might fall into that category, I think your charter client just F'd around and found out."

Sanda did not like the sound of this. She liked clean cut things like you shoot or stab the enemy and it dies. Parasitic computer virus was something she left to officers.

"So the real question," Cassie said, looking over her shoulder at Sanda, "Is how are we going to extract with this woman and with my suit fried?"

Zanven finally got jacked into the port as the low power was able to access the main drives.

Just then Zanven's suit failed completely, as the virus took it over. As that happened, Cassie's Mindy started slowly turning around and raising its rifle at him. "WHOA WHOA WHOA," Cassie shouted, trying to fight against her Mindy armor. "That's not me! Sanda take my weapon NOW!"

Sanda wanted to say, why are you asking me? You're the Heisho when things went from bad to MUY MALO. Sanda moved like her tattoos, lighting, and grabbed Cassie's weapon out of her hands. She also grabbed her side arm, then for good measure, kicked Cassie in the stomach to send her to the ground.

"well...fuck." He spoke candidly. "Ma'am...I'm bugged." He said as looked up and say Cassie's Mindy turned towards him. Hearing Cassie yell Zanven removed the port as he forcefully started to move...very slowly as he was not ready. He threw off his helmet as he took a look around again at the bridge.

Cassie yelled, "Just get me out of the suit, I'll switch to my AMES," she said, as the armor attempted to train its wrist guns on Cathy the survivor in a robotic fashion.

Sanda stepped in front of Cathy to try and shield her with her body as she activated her bayonet on the end of her sub. She thanked the stars she had gone to Giretsu school and leaned so much about the Mindy. With the precision of a surgeon, Sanda slashed at the Mindy's joints and clasps so that they would open without hurting Cassie in the process.

Cassie scrambled out of her prized Mindy as fast as she could and snatched her spacesuit out of its bag and then went out into the hall with Cathy so they could dispose of the infected suit with aether. "Did you get those logs?" she also asked, while leaning up against the corridor wall as she slipped the AMES suit on her body.

Zanven was able to stand and remove his suit as well and grab his sidearm. He was nine kinds of pissed off at the virus fucking up his outing with the team...more importantly he nearly got shot...Zanven checked himself once more, but he felt naked now on an enemy ship, and without armor, all he had left was his training...damn good that he took it too. When asked about the logs he looked down at his suit.

As soon as Cassie was out of her suit, Sanda sliced it to pieces. Then cut Zanven's suit for good measure. It felt good to be able to put something down and it not get back up.

"Anyone got a spare suit for the navigator?" Cassie asked Sanda.

Cathy looked out the front window of the ship's bridge. "We're turning," she told the rescue team as the Resurgence came into view.

"There should be a ready room by the hanger where we can find a suit for her." Sanda said. She looked to where Cathy was pointing and her eyes grew big.

"well I accessed the drives...but then everything went to hell..." He said as he pointed at the cut up suit. That's when he felt the ship moving, or rather, when he noticed it. He then noticed the power start to flicker. The resurgence was in full view and the pilot lunged for the controls as he tried to input commands to power down the thrusters and stop this ride, but they just wouldn't respond.

"I think that's our queue to GTFO," Cassie said. "We need to warn the other team."

"Go! Get to the hanger. I'll find the other team. Double time it to the hanger!" Sanda said. She tossed Cassie's weapons back to her then took off down the corrider to find the other team and warn them.

Team 1:

Suddenly the engine room had came to life and the ship began to move as the ship began to turn towards the Resurgence and throttle up its speed to maximum. Thad and Yayoi could hear the energy building up around them.

Bridge

"Evasive maneuvers! Get the shuttle back to the Spark," Aoba orded, we need everyone off that ship. It's a threat."

- - -
OOC: JP by Wes, Demibear, Ajax, Charaa, Cowboy, Spaceeye, Shadowwalker

Frank would begin covering Thad before chuckling. "famous last word there buddy." Frank said Unfortunatly for Frank Irony was about to nip him in the butt as he saw something out of the corner of his hud. "what the?" he said before he was whisket off his feet and dragged upwords into a vent all the while fireing his gun. "Run!" was all he could say before he was dragged outta sight.

Delmira will move over to the vent to cover it. "Fall back! Sanda they got Frank in the vents we are pulling back." Her shoulder mounted shotgun moved to track, she could in theory cover and almost 360 degree arc around her. Delmira will hold her aether blade rifle with her tail and will charge her forearm pulse lasers her leg mounted micro missiles will pop up and arm. She pulled up her suits rearview up on her display and watched it on the corner of her eye and took of running towards to the door she stopped and ushered her teammates toward it ready to close it when they reached the other side.

Zanven saw the lights of the ship finally flicker on and as they were ordered to move back to the hangar Zanven began to move, having his sidearm at the ready. He left the helmet behind as he knew that what mattered now was to get off of the ship, while also securing the asset they now had. As he moved through the corridor he could hear movement in the vents. "Shit! Cassie, the vents!" He called out as they were moving double time to the hangar. He asked Cathy a question as they rounded a corner and one of the creatures was blocking their path. "We need to get 2 suits, one for me and one for you, or at least a damn helmet for me that way we can get off this damn thing, but we are gonna have to think of a way past the big bastard ahead. Cassie I have two grenades left, take one and give me some cover fire, I think if I can put this in an opening, we can blow the bastard away!" He said as he looked determined to make it out of here.

Aboard Nepleslian ship SS Spark

Sanda ran down the hallway as fast as she could, hurdling over bodies and wreckage as she tried to find the Engineering team. They needed to get off this ship and get off of it fast. With the Spark heading on a collision course with the Resurgence, Sanda just hoped that the Captain wouldn't blow the ship up before they got off. What made things worse was it seemed that whatever these things touched could take over electronics, meaning that just a touch and their Power armor would be out of commission. It had already happened to both Cassie and Zanven. There only chance was to get the shuttle back to the Spark and board. She prayed none of the other team had been touched.

As she rounded the next corner, Sanda almost ran straight into one of the creatures. As the creature's arm came up to swipe at her Sanda deflected it with her Aether bayonet and slipped past. Before the creature could swing again the tattooed Nepleslian blasted it with a heavy barrage from her Aether sub. Sanda kept up the fire, blasting away at it when her motion tracker pinged and she saw a second creature coming up behind her. While still firing at the first, she reached down and drew her side arm with her left hand and blasted the second. The heavy rounds in her plasma revolver were enough to slow the thing down long enough for Sanda to push off the wall and dive away before the creature could reach her. She rolled along the deck then came back up on one knee and blasted the thing with both weapons at once. The firepower was too much for the creature and it retreated into the nearest maintenance hatch.

Sanda stood in the hallway a moment, poised for another attack. After a few breaths and no further attacks she holstered her side arm and got moving again. She just hoped that Cassie and Zan would be ok. Without armor, they were at greater risk if they ran into one of those things but it couldn't be helped now. The other team had to be warned.

Aboard Nepleslian ship SS Spark: Engineering Room

Sanda finally located Engineering. The sound of weapons firing told her she was in the right spot and that the other team was in trouble. "Blade!? Del!?" Sanda called down the stairwell. She heard Del call back that Frank had been taken and that they were falling back. "Miércoles! Blade! Del! Those things are some kind of living virus! Do not let them touch you or your Mindy will be infected! Cassie and Zan have both lost their PAs. The Spark has also been infected and is now on a collision path with the Res! We are falling back to the Hanger for extraction!"

Sanda was very conflicted. She wanted to try and rescue her teammate but she had two other team members without armor escorting a VP. They needed cover as well. Team 1 had been warned of the danger, now it was up to Yayoi, Del and Maximus, who were all on site, to make the call if they had the ability to rescue Frank safely and get to the extraction zone. Swearing in her heart language Sanda ran back the way she had come to try and provide Cassie and Zan some cover. She just hoped that she found them before something else did.

Being dragged threw the vents he could feel his suit straining against his movements like it started having a mind of his own. "Damn thats the last thing we need." he thinks of a possible way out of this situation even though hes backed up he still hates the thought of dying. <Is there nothing I can do.> Frank thought to himself somberly resinging himself to his fate. Before giving a small smirk.
"Fine then Ill take you with me."
Frank stated to himself as he struggled with the arm responsible for the missle pod trigger system. In such a enclosed area like this hes likley to kill himself while doing decent damage to the ship. Frank closed his eyes waiting for the backup to work its magic before Fireing off all 19 remaining mini misses in the tight enclosed vent.

"Copy that." Delmira said to Sanda before turning to Yayoi and Thad. "All right here is what we are going to do i want you two to lay down supressive fire." The sound of a explosion made Delmira turn around. "Or maybe not, Frank cooked himself it sounds like. Regardless im going to check for a body. Do we have atmosphere in here?" She asked her two teammates. "Im going to ditch my mindy you two bring it back to the others in case i dont make it back, im smaller and pretty fast without it so i will sneak in and see if i cant get Frank out. Worst case scenario i set the reactor to the ship to over load and head to you guys."

Thaddeaus watched as his friend was sucked up into the void of the vents. His eye twitched for a moment knowing there is a good chance he wasn't coming back. A few more moments he could hear the sounds of struggles coming from the vents. He could not help but smile knowing Frank would give this virus something to think about. Thad understood the orders from Sanda and what Del was planning to do. "If this wasn't a life and death situation, crawling through the ducts naked might be a fun game of cat and mouse. Sadly our cat is a crazy virus with an attitude problem." While Thad spoke his mind he was scanning his own mind to understand how correct her plan was to overload the reactor. He knew a couple things about the reactor and the safety protocols in place in the event of bad things happening. Mainly, a fail safe that would eject the core to keep the ship intact. "Do not forget to jam the safety lock. Don't want the virus getting smart and ejecting itself out into the void of space."

He helped Del to get out of her Mindy armor. "Will see you back on the shuttle or on the other side of glass. Either way, will be seeing you again." He reached over and gave her a pat on the head before he chucked the Mindy armor over his shoulder.

Team 1 Engineering
“Crap” was the only thing she uttered as Yayoi observed the lights activating. She didn’t like that sign, especially since she didn’t like what she’d heard Sanda had reported. She was about to move with the others when Frank got grabbed and got sucked out. “Frank! Fuck!” She cursed and heard the sounds. note to self, make sure to tell him how brave he was

She had her guns primed and ready, but she also had another thing set up. The moment the virus attempted to infect her suit. It was supposed to self-destruct, as a means of preventing the virus from using the tech to attack. “Be careful Del! And hurry” she said, thinking that she should leave it to del. She was not sure she’d fit. “So you all know, I have my power armor set to explode if that virus tries to infect it,” she said to her teammates so that they were aware and it wasn’t unexpected. Once Del was out of her suit, it followed as a result of Yayoi’s command systems. She joined with the others in firing on the virus when she saw it.

[sorry for my laziness!]

"Hey put my armor down for a second." the short neko reached for her rifle curled up in its tail as well as the butt pack she would pull out a emergency environmental suit and put it on. It would be quite the show as the little neko wriggled into the thing. she checked her rifle and powered it down before slinging it on her back she kept her environmental suit powered off as well but made sure it was sealed. "All right i will keep that in mind." She said hearing Thad's advice on the reactor. Delmira would float up off the ground and climb into the vent, she had the adjust the rifle as it was now as big as she was at this point. If her hunch was correct she would be undeletable by the monsters since she shut all her equipment off. If she was wrong she had a few seconds at most to power her rifle up and defend herself. She considered briefly sending a telepathic message to Kinnie but thought better of it.

Aboard Nepleslian ship SS Spark

Sanda reloaded her plasma revolver as she ran down the corridor. Her shoulder mounted shotgun was blasting behind her but it's ammo counter was almost spent. She had one reload left for it. Her breathing was faster, but still controlled. She had been in this situation many times before. Sanda had often spent many an hour in the VR Room running through similar scenarios until she clasped from exhaustion. She liked to push herself beyond her limit. This would have to one for the simulator. What made it so hard to fight these things is she couldn't let them touch her for fear of infection. And that was Sanda's preferred fighting style, up close.

She had been unable to rejoin Cassie and Zan. There were just too many of these creatures for her to take on by herself and she also didn't want to lead them to the others. Instead, Sanda had headed back to the hanger. Since they couldn't be sure if the Res had received any of their signals, she would need to exit the ship and do a line of sight communication. That presented its own set of dangers but without that shuttle there was little chance of getting Cassie, Zan and Cathy off the ship alive.

Sanda finally reached the air lock leading to the hanger bay. Luck seemed to be with her because there were no enemies around. She quickly turned the manual lever to open the air lock and stepped inside. Closing the door behind her, Sanda did a quick scan of the hanger before sprinting to the opening and launching herself into space.

In space just outside the Spark's Hanger

Sanda had to use her suits thrusters to keep pace with the Spark. She didn't want to get too far away in case her team needed back up. As soon as she was in space Sanda activated her suits emergency beacon. She also radioed the Resurgence and Beryl in the shuttle. And since she had no idea if they were picking up her signal now that she was outside the ship, she used her suit's exterior lights to flash in code her message as well. "Thunder to Resurgence. Need immediate extraction. Picked up a survivor. Possible casualties. LZ is Hot." She prayed they were paying attention.

YSS Resurgence

Mochi picked up Sanda's signal on a couple of the many sensors he was training across the crippled ship and planet below. Old style communications, no doubt a Ranger trick. You can't electronically track or intercept light, after all. Pulling down the visual data, Mochi received Sanda's transmission, albeit slightly delayed by the distance between them.

Keying his communications down to Aoba, the science officer relayed the essence of what 'Thunder' had sent. "Captain, we have a message from the Away Team. They're requesting urgent extraction and have found a survivor. Some of their number are MIA, possible KIA. However, their location is potentially under attack, so I'm not sure I can advise our extracting them until the threat is confirmed as dealt with."

SS Spark

Beryl's shuttle slid back into the SS Spark's shuttle bay with a loud thunk that reverberated throughout the ship. "All aboard," she broadcasted on all Star Army frequencies, hoping something would get through the interference. "Get out while you can!"

Sanda was so relived when she saw Beryl's shuttle swing around and head into the Spark's hanger. They had heard her message. There was little time to celebrate however. Sanda headed back into the hanger so she could provide cover while her team extracted.

Yayoi glanced around as she heard Beryl's voice, she turned to the others "OK people, time to get out," she replied to her comrades then glanced to were Del went.

Thad looked at Yayoi, then back at Del. "Should we give her a moment to see about getting Frank back?" He asked of those around him.

Yayoi nods"i hope she can find him." She replied to Thad.

Cassie escorted Cathy to the shuttle bay and, after making sure Cathy's spacesuit was airtight, got her into the back of the T7 shuttle craft. "Keep those things off the shuttle or the Resurgence is in trouble," she reminded the others.

After a moment Thad spoke up. "Welp, lets go get the tanks warmed up for two. Isn't much more we can do on this virus filled ship."

Yayoi nodded her head silent as she mentally prepared herself to risk her life so that her comrades survive this.

Demira crawled through the vents looking for Frank. The short neko looked drag marks and the blast mark from his grenades.

Just then the creatures began to emerge from the vents, coming after the Resurgence crew members with renewed ferocity.

"Shit! Where is everyone else?" Beryl shouted at Cassie, itching to leave.

Sanda was blasting away with everything she had. Her sub was in one hand and her plasma revolver in the other. There were no shortage of targets. Her shoulder mounted shotgun blasted and blasted. She glanced at her HUD's ammo counter. Just 5 shells left for the shotgun. Rápido Rápido.

"Crap" Yayoi said as she saw the creatures emerge from the vents and lifted her rifle immediately stepping back as she began firing at the creatures. "i swear if those were created by the Rix or Kuvies..." She muttered to herself as she fired.

"Oh for the love of all things nude. Will you bugs just crawl back into whatever hole you came from and die. Here let me help you." Thad said as he armed the grenade and tossed it towards the vent.

Sanda did a quick head count. Cassie, Zanven and Cathy were all aboard. Yayoi and Thad were fighting in the hanger. Where was Frank and Del? "Blade! Where the Hell is Frank and Del?!"

Delmira's hunch was proving correct with all her gear powered down she was more or less free to crawl around. Delmira found what she was looking for and followed it to Franks body now here was the hard part she would have to punch in the emergency code to open his armor drag him out and stuff him in a emergency suit.

Yayoi shouted behind her "Frank... might be KIA, he set off explosions I think to delay these guys, Del went to find him since she's shorter and quicker." She said while inwardly cursing herself not liking that she just let her go do what she wanted.

"Resurgence is firing, we have to go now," Beryl said. Cassie grimly nodded and closed and sealed the hatch on the shuttle, and Beryl accelerated hard out of shuttle bay just before the creatures reached the shuttle. As soon as they left the SS Spark, a massive beam of aether slammed into the Nepleslian research ship and completely shredded it into molten pieces.

Yayoi heard the shuttle doors close and she knew what that meant. She felt a sense of calm as she knew what was going to happen next. "Die Motherfucker," she said as she saw the light brighten behind her. She felt gleeful that these creatures got a chance for a proper Hanako Resistance goodbye. She hoped as the energy came that they could feel pain.

Sanda heard Beryl's warning and saw the shuttle door close. She waited until the last possible second to see if Del made it to the hanger bay, then used her suits teleport to jump away from the ship.

Thad was slightly upset they left some of the crew behind. Granted he also could not blame them fully given the turn of events. Though Thad wasn't one to just roll over and die without at least trying to pull a miricle out of thin air. He reached over and grabbed onto Yayoi and pulled her with him behind a bulkhead. It wouldn't stop the blast but given the armor rating of the Mindy it might just be enough to save them. Better to be blown out into space than turned into dust.

"Do you," Cassie asked the others for an informal vote, "want to go back to the Resurgence or do you want to go down to the machine planet's surfact to look for the escape pods?"

As Thad grabbed her, she grabbed hold of him. "Time to book it, Thad!" She replied as she activated her teleport device and as the ship was fired on, she and Thad would be pulled out of the ship.

Sanda teleported outside the blast range of the Spark and just floated in space silently. Watching the ship explode and burn itself out. She was mad. Mad at how poorly things went. Two dead!? That was unacceptable to her! She screamed inside her helmet into the void of space.

Yayoi thought they might never make it out before the ship explodes, but one second the hanger was being lit up like a bizarre Christmas tree than nothing. She was out of the ship, her sensors picked up Sanda beside her. This caused her to release what ever she was holding. Her eyes closed as her thoughts went into her mind.

It took a moment for Thad to understand just what had happened. Duh, he thought to himself that in this army, they can portal around like its magic. He rested a moment as he let his blood pressure settle. One moment he was looking forward to meeting death, now he was in the coldness of space. He looked around and seen Yayoi and Sanda was near. He lift one arm and gave a wave.

Sanda saw that Yayoi and Thad had teleported with her. That was good at least. Sanda did know how she'd feel if they had lost more crew.

"Delmira to Resurgence thanks for that i felt like getting cooked today." Delmira sounded out of breath as she sent a message over the team comms. "My environmental suit is cooked i think its got some damage."

"Let's just regroup on the ship," Cassie eventually sent to everyone. The shuttle headed back to the Resurgence and came to rest in the shuttle bay, a little banged up looking but still in decent shape.

Yayoi was silent and unmoving for a few minutes before she turned.

"Welp, lets put our tails between our legs and get back to the ship" Thad said to the one closest to him. "We live to fight another day. Let us hope the others made it off the ship safely."

Yayoi nodded"remind me, when Frank comes out of the tank, I'm telling him he died bravely and like a badass." She said as she made her way back to the ship. She went in silent mode, not wanting to talk anymore.

Sanda didn't say anything as she returned to the ship. She entered the ship's hanger bay and just stood there. The old Sanda would have taken off her helmet and thrown it across the room but the Sanda that came back from Giretsu school kept her emotions in check. She did finally take her helmet off and set it gently on the deck so that she could untie her hair and fix it up into a new pony tail.

Cassie stood up and left the shuttle with their rescued Nepleslian navigator in tow. "Welcome to the YSS Resurgence," she told their guest. "It looks like we got out of there just in time. I'm sure the captain will have some questions for you but for now can I get you a coffee or something to eat? You've been through a lot."

As the crew started to arrive back on the ship, the new caretaker, Julia Meadows, stopped in the shuttle back to provide assistance.

Yayoi was silent as she walked in, completely ignoring the caretaker as she began removing her helmet.

Another one of the crew appeared. This time it was Miriam Norita, the armorer. "Cassie! You lost a whole Mindy?!" she asked.

"It couldn't be helped," Cassie scowled. "It tried to kill someone. I'll need a new one in my size as soon as possible. Preferably immediately."

"Three." Sanda said as she turned in her Aether Sub. "We lost three Mindys." She wasn't in a very good mood about the whole damn mission.

"By the spirits," Norita frowned. "I'll get to work," she nodded, heading for the power armor bay.

As the helmet came off Yayoi's head. She had a stern but stoic expression on her face which turned sterner as she glanced to the armoror"not the time" She said feeling her mood change

Sanda heard Yayoi's tone and looked around at her. Her fellow Ranger looked about how Sanda felt. She shook her head but didn't say anthing. Slowly she took out her hip flask and took a drink.

Cassie suddenly froze in place and looked around. "Wait, where's Frank?" she asked, looking worried. With all the jamming and chaos she hadn't been able to keep track of the team that had been in engineering. "...and Delmira?"

Thad removed his helmet slowly. He was back and in one piece. He then looked towards Cassie who was looking for Frank. "He went to greet the virus head on. Sadly I am not sure what came of him after this." He slowly looked away from Cassie knowing if he didn't make it back would weigh heavy on them.

"What happened in Engineering?" Sanda asked. "How did you lose two people?"

Thad looked back up towards Sanda with a mad expression. "It is not like it was planned for Frank to get dragged into the vents and Del to follow. I am just as shocked as you how this played out." He let out a sigh as he ran his hand over his face.

Sanda bristled slightly but kept her cool. "I am not trying to assign any blame. I'm just asking a question." She took another drink of her flask then offered it to Thad as a peace offering. "I'm glad we didn't lose more than we did."

Cassie listened to Thad and felt her stomach drop. She put one hand over her mouth and lowered her head, as her mind filled with a mixed bag of rage, and other emotions. "I'm going to see Poppy and see what magic she can work. Maybe she can respawn them," she quietly growled, taking off for the medical lab.

Thad grabbed the flask from Sanda and took a drink. "I know, I am sorry. Just on edge since it never gets easy to lose a friend. Even if they can be respawned back."

OOC: JP by Wes, Demibear, Ajax, Charaa, Cowboy, Soresu and Soban, Spaceeye, Shadowwalker, Ethereal

[trigger warning for anger and drama R rating]

Yayoi finished getting out of her armor and moodily she left the power armor bay and silently went to the ship’s training room where a poor defenseless punching bag which was shaped like a Rixlor stood waiting for her. It taunted her with its presence and the poor defenseless punching Rixlor bag found its head tilt back as a result of a hard Neko punch to its left side of the face. Her right fist came up like a missile as she punched the custom punching bag with two savage punches, then these punches were repeated and their speed accelerated before Yayoi performed a Yayoi-style mega upside roundhouse kick.

Her right foot came up where the custom punching bag’s legs connected, sending the thing flying, then the Neko jumped and, with a spin, she kicked with all her strength, sending it flying across the room. Fucking useless! Her anger grew as she stalked the punching bag to its landing point. She glared down at it before she kicked it up and grabbed it but its bug face. Her memory went back to the resistance, to the incident with the Rixlor that the punching bag actually looked like. He had been her greatest enemy, the one Rixlor she didn’t want to kill quickly, but slowly and painfully. The monster had a habit of attacking the innocent and vulnerable, especially little kids whose legs had been damaged, leaving them unable to walk.

Yayoi and a team of Resistance she’d joined had caught him, but a lot of people died.

THUNK!

She slammed her fist hard into its chest as she thought of her first failure, and now her second.

BONK!

Yayoi groaned in pain as her fist contacted the wall as her eyes closed to stomp her angry tears. This caused her to glare at the punching bag. It was its fault after all. She took a few deep breaths to allow the pain to subside from her fist, and to allow herself a moment to calm her anger. But at how useless her weapons had been in the last mission, that was difficult. She tried not to dwell on it, but again, that was useless, too. Note to self, the first sign of a threat that might be better than Power Armor, return to the ship and have the ship blast it into oblivion, that should be in the damn handbook! She sighed and looks at the punching bag. Tell me, how is Rixlor afterlife treating you? Are you in your version of hell, remembering what I did to you? hope so” She punched the punching bag a few more times once more. It was strangely therapeutic to be punching the punching bag.

Delmira floated in space and forced her breathing to slow. One thing they talk about but don't teach you is extend your oxygen supply however you can. She breathed in and held her breath breathing out. The minimal movement helped her brunt body with her suit melted to her back. She was lucky she knew the signs of a ship being shot at and barely had enough time to cut a hole with her aether gunblade and the vacuum sucking her out along with the blast sent her into space. She wasn't sure if she had her legs still, since she couldn't feel them and wasn't about to twist about trying to see after she stopped spinning. Her suit had suddenly got tighter and there was a sharp pain when she moved, she knew the feeling of melted plastic to know her suit had melted to her. It made sense she pretty much escaped the power of a sun, one feat to tack on her resume and gloat about if she survived this.

She was unsure if her oxygen tank was still in one piece but then again nothing was beeping at her then again her radio was out so maybe she had no power after all. She closed her eyes and resolved to learn some meditation practices in case this happened again. She had one more trick to try.

{{Kinie I'm alive and need a pick up. I'm floating out here and have no power to my suit. Also my suit is melted to me.}}

Power Armor Bay

Sanda removed her power armor and set it up in it's rack. She ran a diagnostic on it to make sure it hadn't been infected as well. She could find nothing wrong with it but wanted someone more experienced to check first. She buzzed Norita and told her to a scan of her armor. Better yet, check all the armors that had been on that accursed ship. Sanda had watched Yayoi leave the PA Bay. The lighting tattooed woman had never seen her fellow Ranger in such a mood before. She was a little bit concerned. After making sure her Mindy was going to get inspected, Sanda went to track down her friend.

Dojo

It wasn't long before Sanda had tracked her friend down. She was in the Dojo, whaling the bunching bag dummy like she intended to destroy it. Sanda leaned against the wall and silently watched. Her tattooed arms were folded in front of her. She hadn't changed since getting out of her Mindy and was still in her tank top and workout shorts. As always her belt with side arm and Straight Silver was fastened around her waist. She was wearing her boots and sticking out of the top of her left one was her back up Silver blade.

Sanda was concerned for Yayoi. This wasn't the first time Sanda had seen evidence of some trauma sustained from Yayoi's time on Hanako's World. Most of the time Yayoi hid it well and functioned so well one couldn't tell. But Sanda had worked with her long enough now to see that Yayoi hid things very well. They were very similar in that regard. Neither liked to fully open up.

Sanda wasn't really sure what to say. Should she try to lighten the mood? Just stay silent and watch? Try to comfort Yayoi? Join in in the beating of the punching bag? In the end, Sanda decided that she would just hang around and if Yayoi wanted to open up she'd be there to listen to her friend. She took off her belt and boots but kept the one Silver blade strapped to her left calf. Silently she moved onto the dojo floor and began to stretch. After a quick stretch she drew her blade and step by step went through attack drills. Very slowly and deliberately at first, but slowly picking up speed until she was moving like lighting.

Dojo



Her ears picked up on someone entering the Dojo. She knew it was free for everyone, so she couldn’t tell them to leave nor would it be proper. But she did find herself curious as a cat did at who had entered her curiosity grew so she glanced behind her to see Sanda, looking at her. She couldn’t help but wonder what her friend thought of her now, that she’d returned and had allowed potentially two deaths. Of course, One was compromised, but she didn’t particularly care about semantics at the moment.

Unfortunately, Sanda didn’t get a smiling in greeting, just a nod of her head and she began going back to beating on the punching bag dummy, though she became distracted again as Sanda began to train solo. This caused her to turn back and watched her train. Sanda was fast, and she found herself impressed with her moves. Yayoi began moving from the dummy representing her anger and moved to a spot where she was better able to watch Sanda. Until finally,” Hey, Care to spar with me?” The two fought before, but this time Yayoi thought it might be better for her to fight something that could fight back and not just take her hits.

Power Armor Bay

Thaddeaus was the last one to make it into the armor bay. Partly due to dragging his feet but also keeping an eye out for virus. He had a bone to pick with them and would jump at the chance. As he was about to remove his armor, he got a ping from one of the bridge bunnies. They had detected a signature but did not have any other information. It might have been an echo of their own teleport signatures but if it gave him a chance to blast some floating virus he was not one to say no. Plus he could pick up some scrap to be used to make something for the little one. He'd be growing up fast and needing some toys to play with.

Out in the Void

Thad took a light weapon load out since if things got real bad, the big guns of the YSS Resurgence would turn it into paste. Plus this would give him more space to store random ship parts while he hunted around. He had been given a general idea of the location of the signal but within the debris field it might as well be random. "Should have known when they sent the bottom rank on a mission that it would be a wild goose chase." He said to himself. He moved some molten debris and found something of interest, which he put into his pack. He kept moving around, which after awhile had forgot the main reason he was even out there. The vast nothingness of space could cause the mind to wonder. Without warning, his Mindy started to indicate something was near by. He has tuned the sensors to search for a heat void of specific Neko size.

He approached slowly, moving trash out of his way as he neared the item. It took awhile since he had false positives to deal with as well but he did not give up. He moved a fairly large sheet of debris and uncovered a body. "Oh, this better not be dead crew and or virus infected." He said to himself as he neared. A small part of him just wanted to blast it into dust just to be sure there was no virus. As he neared, his Mindy further picked up vitals, this one was alive. He floated near and picked up a fairly melted suit. Whatever was alive in this, was well done and then some. "If your alive in there, time to get you home." This was broad casted both over comms and voice. He never once considered this might be one of their crew. His way of not getting his hopes up.

Monitoring Room

Mochi disconnected from SPINE and began making his way down towards the Bridge, figuring that Eukoshi would be able to keep an eye out for any further transmissions from Sanda by the telescopic cameras accessible through the Bridge's science console. However, by the time the Elysian entered the hub of the ship's command, there were notifications that a shuttle had docked in the shuttle bay.

The science officer frowned, glancing around before stepping up to the vacant XO's station and taking a look at the screen to confirm. Sure enough, the Away Team seemed to be back aboard the ship, without any kind of special scanning, decontamination or quarrantine having been done. It wasn't the Away Team's fault for such, given it's not likely that people other than higher ranking officers would have to consider such measures, however it was definitely dangerous.

Raising a concerned eyebrow at the readings, Mochi silently looked across the room to the back of Aoba's head, sending a telepathic message. "Captain, I advised that we make sure the extraction wasn't hot and to vet the Away Team for any contamination before they came aboard. I respect you didn't do so for your own reasons, but I must protest - there may be nanites or other non-visible hazards that may have piggybacked to the Resurgence and are endangering the ship."

The Elysian's colourful wings rustled lightly as he added, "It's likely too late now for any corrective measure, but in case anything happens I'd like to make it clear that I advised preventative measures." Scratching his cheek gently, Mochi finished, "As we're low on officers, I'll ensure everyone is seen to before the debriefing."

Hangar on the Resurgence

Zanven watched as the others stepped out of the shuttle and into bay, he was completely dissatisfied with how things went down at the ship, but the escort of the VP made it all...hopefully worth it. He waited till the team was completely disembarked before hearing over the shuttle's comms, the voice of Delmira saying that she was still floating out in void. He made sure that the flight controls would not die once he was in the pilot's seat. Beryl had stepped off the ship as well as the crew moved towards their own destination. Zanven was confused considering what happened on the ship...they needed to quarantine, or at least decontaminated before going back amongst the rest of the ship. That was when he remembered the faces around the shuttle before they landed...the crew that came back, was missing two faces that were alive last he checked...Cursing under his breath he would wait until it was clear before radioing the bridge, and at the same time opening the channels to Thad and Del. "Zanven Brax here, shuttle controls are still in operation after pickup and drop off...I will go back out to pick up Del and Thad...please advise that the personnel that came from the Spark should make sure they are decontaminated or isolated so that way the ship is not in danger." He would say knowing it was redundant...but he was uncomfortable with how everyone left once they returned. He waited till he could leave and once he pulled the ship out of the bay he would fly towards the pickup point indicated on the navigation screen.

Out in the Void

Pulling up near Del he would make sure his flight suit was still intact and the helmet he had from the Spark was still secure and that the ship was maintaining its position before moving towards the door so that way he could pick up the stranded crew members. He opened the door and reached a hand out into the void to grab Delmira first since she was the closest. "Nito Hei Delmira, Thad...let's get you two in here so we can get back home." He would say before hopefully helping them back into the shuttle. Once they were on board and the door was shut, Zanven would turn around to move back to the shuttle bay of the Resurgence.

On approach

Zanven kept in contact with the bridge as there were notably no malfunctions in the shuttle computer systems on the flight. He was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief once they were able to land in the bay. "Time to do reports I guess...since nothing has gone wrong...yet." He said as if tempting the gods to smite his dumb ass with some sort of stellar lightning.

Delmira's eyes snapped open when something grabbed her and she thrashed about punching at instinctively. She stopped when she saw the mindy armor and squirmed when she felt hands on her back she twisted she was laying sideways and thankfully she had her legs attached. The melted part of her suit had cooled now but her skin was still raw and hurt.

On the shuttle

With some work her helmet was able to come off, the seal had partially melted and the sling to her aether blade rifle fused to her neck seal but after that she was begging to laid on her stomach. The back of her environment suit as well parts of the back of her legs and arms had melted onto the Nekos skin from the looks of things there was also probably some nerve damage as well. The neko was lucky that was for sure and was sure to be in excruciating pain as well. Delmira wasnt throwing up wither but that couldnt rule out radiation damage or even sickness yet.

"So you two what broke orders to come and get me? I don't mean to seem ungrateful by why the fuck didn't you two think to bring Poppy along? Or atleast a stretcher. Or some painkiller that would be very nice right now." She complained looking at Thad the best she can for being regulated to laying on her stomach. The neko did have tears in her eyes as she bitched and complained however.