RP: YSS Resurgence Resurgence of Yamatai - Mission 6: Machine Moon

[ajax228]

Down on the surface of the machine world, there was a flurry of activity as the robotic forces were busy building weapons to face their newfound opponents. They were rapidly producing surface to orbit missile launchers, satellite launchers that sent armed satellites into orbit, and factories that made enemy mecha.There was still a swarm of the plasma-shooting 4-legged hovering robots near the entrance where the armor team had gone in.

The Resurgence at this point was engaged in some ranged combat, firing its big anti-starship guns at any of the hostile satellites that got too close. As the enemy force continued to rapidly expand, Zanven and Delmira began detecting small drone starfighters heading for the Resurgence.


Zanven was already suited up and was inside of the hangar bay. He was unable to go with the ground forces as a brief was sent to the pilots on board the Resurgence stating that hostile forces would be in the skies and in orbit. He had a rather oversized fighter, now housed and attached to the bottom of the ship. He was standing above a hatch made to get him down to his ship faster and into the to the cockpit without much hassle. He wished there were other pilots on board for these situations, but then again...this was not a regular matter. He got a call for him to ready up and he input the code to activate the lock to allow him in the access hatch. with his helmet on he dived down and shut the hatch behind him before the gravity was turned off for a moment to allow for a quick transition. A few moments later and after the Nodachi was secured once more he was strapping in as the concussive force from the combat caused some of the ship to shake. Within seconds he sent word up to the bridge. "Zanven Brax reporting in, the sword of the Resurgence is ready to get moving." He signed off as he waited for his next orders.

Delmira was still in space her drones where trying to find the kill sats but she diverted her drones to intercept the incoming force. "Delmira to Res i have asked many times but that enemy facility is quickly turning into a problem fast. Permission to drop aether torpedos down on them. I got the anti matter ones not the fancy nuclear ones."

Delmira snickered when she heard Zanven. "Zan your adorable."

"Aether torpedoes have a pretty good chance of wiping out our away team," captain Aoba replied. "What are our other options?" he asked her. "Destroy those enemy drone fighters," captain Aoba ordered Zanven. "I don't want them close to the ship."

Zanven opened up the comma channel and saw Del was active as he was already patched in. "Good to see you still kicking down there Del..." He would say as the captain gave him his orders. He detached from the ship and engaged his thrusters as his mission was clear...Destroy the enemy. That was something he was rather good at. His computer came alive as his HUD began to display his targets. He began to engage the enemy fighters as the onboard computer was giving him additional information and targeting vectors as he moved from target to target with his aether turrets.

"Captain we lost contact they are either dead or so far underground that anti matter warheads wont touch them. I do have a single beam cannon that can give the output of one of the Res's main guns but its a singe shot with a reload of 5 minutes. I'm sure you are aware i was a sniper so i'm confident what target you give me i can hit." Delmira replied

"We have contact with them again," Captain Aoba said. "Wow, that sounds useless," he commented. "Use one of the aether torpedoes on the incoming enemy fighters."

"Oh no sir its very useful i can give you the full run down when we are not being attacked." Delmira said followed by. "Roger."

Delmira peeled herself away from her debris and flew towards the enemy drones her own nodal support drones should have been engaging the enemy but she didn't have confidence her own drones would be useful aside from being used as sacrifices. She let loose her remaining 8 torpedos at the enemy drones before switching to her beam cannon and fired it at the drones how ever she didn't use it at full power so she didn't need to wait 5 minutes.

The nodal support drones were not able to do much damage to the enemy fighters because they were only tiny finger-sized things with the equivalent of a personal sidearm as a weapon. But they were quite fast and could lethally ram the enemy fighters if she ordered them to.

Meanwhile, Zanven's fighter was a total beast that was able to destroy the enemy fighters pretty handily if it was able to line up right with them. They were quite small and nimble and that made them a little hard to hit. As he closed in on them, they would fire on his fighter with plasma weapons trying to shoot back.

When the captain spoke and was giving orders to Del and himself he stretched as he was told to use the aether torpedoes, and as such he locked his targets and breathed steadily as he replied "Roger, moving in to engage." He fired and moved quickly as he pulled up. The torpedoes flew towards their targets, he was waiting to feel the concussion from the blast.

"Stay clear of the blast area," Aoba reminded both pilots.

A huge aetheric explosion appeared in the midst of the enemy fighters, tearing many of them apart. There was only a few that were out of range enough to need mop-up.

Meanwhile the Resurgence fired its main aether weapon at one of the enemy satellites, melting it in a beam of bright light. Its point defense turrets fired a hail of golden energy blasts as it rolled and weaved away from the incoming missiles while also shooting them down.

"Good work. Once we finish clearing the space around us, I want you to disable their factories on the ground to slow them down and to try to clear the exit for our team," Aoba said.

Zanven heard the captain's reminder and he got a warning as the ship was powering up its main battery. He gave a slight smirk as he saw what would be the blast area and began leading more enemy fighters on his tail towards it. He was peppered by a few plasma shots as he was quick to transfer power amongst the in tact circuts that were not damaged by enemy fire. He then gave a quick breath before pulling up and giving his engine maximum thrust to get out of the blast radius. Behind him he felt the concussion as the hairs on his neck stood on end. After the main battery was fired the next orders were to mop up the remaining forces as he was quick to reply. "Roger, looks Like i have a few more bottles to warm up with before we get to the real shooting gallery."

Zanven brought his fighter around as he lined up two fighters, turning his turrets and once they locked in he squeezed the trigger as the turbo aether turrets unleashed hot hell against his foes.

"Del to Res get ready to send out the next Aether beam cannon." Delmira had the range with her beam cannon so she fired another shot but this time she shot another drone with her particle rifle, holding the trigger down so it was continuous beam of energy to melt through the hull and destroy the enemy craft.

Delmira's shot hit perfectly and the enemy craft was violently melted into pieces.

After Zanven got the last fighter, the Resurgence was in the clear again, with no enemies in its space anymore. Even the factories on the surface appeared to give up sending fighters to them.

"Time to hit the factories?" Delmira asked and stowed her particle rifle on her mechs hard point.

"that's all the targets on my HUD so I think we are clear to move on to our secondary targets." Zanven said as he scanned the horizon in front of him.

"I can sit in orbit and snipe anti air emplacements while you make an attack run then i can go double barrel and fire two battle ship cannon blasts." Delmira said to Zan and the Res.

"You got it, you and me Del, let's light these scrap piles up!." He said on the comms as he pulled next to her mech.

"Res send out the second beam cannon to my position." Delmira said and would equip it when she got it. "I have two big battle ship blasts but then i have to wait five minutes so i will use the low powered blasts to take out anti air emplacements and then drop the two blasts when you are done." She would start to aim and bring up firing calculations. "Captain this is what the Ryoko excels at, fire support from either the ground or in orbit. I however like to use it for direct combat."

"Excellent," Aoba replied.

Zanven listened to Del explain the plan as he looked over his own battle readiness and chuckled. "I think I have enough firepower here to level a few more factories. Just give me the signal and I'll begin my run." He said as he was ready to show off his own prowess of piloting in hostile airspace.

Delmira pulled the trigger destroying one cannon and when another turned she fired on that one as well. "Go."

Zanven pushed his throttle up and shot out as he lined up his shots, the target line was a bombing run and he marked the factory before he unlocked two torpedoes and fired them on the first factory, pulling away after the payload raced towards its target. It was a simple circle to bring him back up for the next run as the explosion rocked the airspace and surface. "strike 1 for the scrap heap." He continued on as he saw the real energy beams and once he learned that was the right signal he would ride on, making two more bombing runs as he used up his stock of torpedoes. Making sure to have the computer target any hostile other than the actual factories and just unloading his turrets before pulling away each time as he spun and dodged incoming fire.

As Zanven made his attack run teal beams of energy would quickly target anything that tried to get a lock on him. Delmira was focused intently as she tooks out anything that looked like a anti air gun. On Zanven's third and final run she grinned and fired two powerful battleship sized beams down at the enemy target hopefully opening a new entrance to the surface for the away team. "Zan head back to the ship and get some water or something i will stay out here. My mech gives me what i need to survive in a prolonged fight." she said and flew back into the debris field to hide and wait. She let her smoking cannons hang and drew her rifle as she waited for them to recharge.

"Let's try to keep the exit clear for when the team comes out," captain Aoba said. "And remember we're supposed to take the planet intact," he reminded them.

"Haha yes sir, I hope you enjoyed this demonstration of what some of the ryoko can do. I will be on stand by just in case anything else rears its head and wait for the ground team." Delmira said

"Roger, I used up my torpedoes to help secure the area. Will stand by for further orders, and thanks for the consideration Del, but I'm gonna stand by with you until the away team is here and transport arrives." Zan said as he put his scanner into standby.

 

[Cowboy]

Sanda eyed Frank with a mixture of concern and distrust. What the hell was wrong with him? "Frank, we have no way of getting back to the shuttle. There's an army of robots on the surface. The shuttle couldn't get near to pick up any wounded. And even if they could, I doubt I would send you." Sanda glanced around at where Frank had fired all those micro missiles. Firing those missles in such a small and enclosed space could have easily killed one of them as well as the enemy. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but get your mierda together. Don't shoot off any more missiles or grenades." She added seeing him load up grenades under his machine gun.

 

[Wes]

The away team was gathered on the elevator and the tall, ghostly Essai looked at them with its big red eye and dozens of eyes over its body. Then it activated the elevator's controls and the platform began descending down the pit until it vanished into another huge portal.

Yayoi awaited to see what they needed to do next. So far atleast she hoped that the battle is over. But they still needed to go into the maze she remembered and aparently help Nalini who was the Separa'shan goddess take over the moon. it was amazing they were sharing a ship with a goddess, she had a feeling her sisters will loose their something or other.

Her body jerked slightly as the elevator started going down.

The Resurgence team found itself at the entrance of a chamber surrounded by black endless tubes and conduits, with a large door into the maze that their guide had referred to as "The Pit of Insanity."

"Lovely name," Vec said as he aimed his weapon into the darkness, "No chance it's a misnomer is it?"

"It likely is not. But it is perhaps more metaphorical." Nalini said, less than helpfully.

Sanda shook her head as her vision reoriented. She saw the entrance to the 'Maze' the AI had mentioned. "We should leave the wounded here." Sanda said, looking around at the group. "I don't think Euikoshi is in any shape to be moved."

Yayoi looked at the large door and thought about what their guide had said about the maze being the pit of insanity. She immediately thought of her sisters, one of whom might have joked that the place sounded charming. She made a mental note to finally contact them to check in later after the mission. "Agreed" she replied to Sanda's statements, plus the injured may slow them down and she didnt want that.

Mochi looked over to Sanda, nodding at her assessment. "Kami willing we'll be ascending once we're done, so there's no use bringing them down only to bring them back up. With some luck, they might go unnoticed. At this point, we can't compromise our speed. Time is of the essence." He looked at the injured with an apologetic look, but perhaps they would appreciate not having to slog further through their pain.

Sanda agreed. "Have Chiasa stay. She's walking wounded... Floating wounded. She can keep an eye Euikoshi and fight off anything if they do run into trouble. Leave Frank as well." Sanda added eyeing the big man. She wasn't sure what was wrong with him but she did want to have to deal with him in the maze right now.

"She's not gonna be thrilled, but it's the best call," Vec said in agreement.

"Keep up? I can float faster than y'all can run and Thia has Euikoshi." Chiasa cut back, her tone carrying a hint of annoyance at the decision.

"No one is questioning your fighting ability or your willingness to keep going." Sanda said anyoined that Chiasa would argue at a time like this.

"She's right, this isn't a personal critique," Vec added before turning back to the main group.

Yayoi nodded her head silently.

"Very well." Mochi gestured to Chiasa, indicating she was to stay. "We need everyone we can who can fight and can keep up if we need to run. Nobody else can stay. We don't know what we might run into." The Elysian glanced between Sanda and Frank, sending her a telepathic message if she could pick it up, "We'd best keep him close. Good for fighting but also to keep an eye on him."

Sanda turned and nodded at Mochi. She disagreed, but she wasn't going to argue about it. She was a good soldier and good soldiers followed orders.

Cassie checked out the start of the maze. "3 by 5 meters, two doors, port side," she said. "Left one is locked electronically, anyone have hacking skills?"

"Not that kind of hacking," Vec said, "But if you think we can safely breach it, I've got hull cutting tools."

"As long as you don't damage the core," Cassie said. "We need this place intact.Trying the right door." As soon as Cassie touched the door on the right something exploded and sent Cassie flying. Some sort of shaped charge boobytrap had gone off and peppered her with spiked projectiles.The entry room was full of a white whispy smoke from the blast and Cassie was left in a heap on the floor.

Yayoi looked at the maze, she was skilled with hacking Kuvexian tech but this, she was sure was an impossibility for her. "Cassie!" she shouted as she saw this happen.

"Shit shit, somebody cover that door way," Vec said, before cautiously moving up. He took a quick peek through the door before grabbing the NCO and dragging her back from the danger zone.

Thad slide over near Cassie and took up watch. Though he could tell it was a trap that went off, he was unsure if the noise had woke anything. "Cassie, really just not having a good day are you." Thad called out, seeing that once more she had been taken out.

Poppy took off Cassie's helmet and checked on her. The gray catgirl was bleeding from her nose and mouth and ears and was knocked out. "I think she is out of commission for the moment," Poppy said, dragging Cassie to a spot near the entrance. "Blunt force trauma," she added. "If she didn't have Zesuaium armor she'd be Swiss cheese."

Mochi hit the deck at the explosion, posting up in a prone position with his MAW rifle pointed at the breach. Chances are that it was some kind of booby trap rather than a breaching charge, but it paid to be safe while the others made sure that Cassie was okay.

Chiasa turned away from the discussion as Cassie was blown back from the explosion. The tiny medic immediately brought her aether rifle up in anticipation of a threat, but with her sensors clear, she quickly lowered the weapon and moved to look after Cassie.

While others cared for Cassie, Cheilith kept an eye on the door, only occasionally looking back at her team mate.

Sanda bit out a curse. She was really starting to hate this place. She looked angerly at Chiasa. "You get your wish. Swap Cassie out for Chiasa."

"Someone figure out how to open one of these doors," Poppy said, looking impatiently over her shoulder as she tended to Cassie with a wad of gauze.

"I'm working on it." Nalini said, the data on her screen moved with extraordinary speed.

"Whoever built this place plays way too much Catacombs & Creatures," Vec snarled, "I can start cutting but how do we know the door isn't trapped too?"

"I'm gonna get her on an IV." Chiasa added as she moved over to the VCMAD Vec had brought and set to work with setting it up. She had noticed, but didn't acknowledge Sanda's glare. The tiny Nekovalkyrja decided that she would contemplate why she had initially been excluded later, when she didn't have a patient bleeding from her mouth, nose, and ears to tend to.

Mochi jerked his head towards Nalini, "Someone cover her for when that door opens. We don't want anything on the other side to shoot through once it's open now they've heard that bang." After a moment, the Elysian added, "Let me know if you need a second eye, Nalini, but it's been a while since I did any hacking."

"Please, insanity is trying to keep Mia focused on a task for more than 5 seconds. Hard mode is keeping a drink out of her hands." He said with a chuckle. "Let me go ahead and check for traps, I am skilled at this after all." He then slung his weapon over his shoulder and started to poke around for other possible traps.

"Hold it Maximus, your battle buddy's on the door, cover her six," Vec chided dryly.

Nalini managed to open the left door which led to a small hallway that was 1 by 3 meters and had another door in front of it. There was a small statue in the back of the small hall holding something in its hands.

Thad inched over towards his battle buddy to keep watch. So far they seemed to be one fo the few who havn't been blown up or stripped naked.

"Thank you Thaddius, I do need you. Hacking often leaves me... less aware of the physical world." Nalini said, sliding towards the statue, mindful of the traps that might be in this place.

"Yup," a resigned Vec said as the door opened, "Way too much Catacombs & Creatures."

Checking for traps Nalini was able to find that the next door had some sort of laser projectors around its edges along with motion sensors. The statue had a small remote control in its hands.

Nalini updated everyone's hud with the extent of the Laser projectors and motion sensors. She looked at the remote control, trying to determine what it was too.

The remote control seemed to turn off the laser trap of the door. It also, if she entered a room, announced the room's number. "Room 3" it said when she returned to the entrance room.

"I got Cassie on an IV." Chiasa said as she moved back up with the group. "The scans don't look good on her, but surgery isn't immediately necessary." She added.

Sanda stood by the first set of doors looking into the room with the statue. "Let's not get all bunched up. One team in a room at a time. Nalini, since you seem to be the only one who knows what to look for, you take point. Maximus, you cover her. The rest of us will hang one room back and cover you from there." Sanda turned to the rest of the team.

The plan made sense to Vec, in these tight confines, bunching up would be more of a drawback than anything. More chance of mass casualites only so many clear lines of fire available at any given time.

Nalini nodded, "Certainly. She opened the door to the next room and waved Thad forward, "Come we must meet our Doom in the old sense of the word."

"Room 4" the device announced. Room 4 was a 3x5 meter room filled with Rixxikor eggs, guarded by a single large purple Rixxikor. "Yo," it greeted Nalini with a little wave, looking at her with suspicion.

Sanda grabbed Yayoi. "Tranquila hermana." Before the Neko Ranger could shoot the Rixx.

"Greetings!" Nalini said cheerfully, "I take it these are your eggs?" She asked gently.

"They're not yours, yo," the Rixxikor replied. "This room's taken, move along, yo."

Yayoi felt her anger grow at the sight of the insect but Sanda had actually saved him from getting his disgusting self dealt with like a proper person should.

Nalini nodded, "Certainly, we are looking for the core of this world. To fix what has been broken. We mean you and your eggs no harm, if you mean us no harm." She said, looking around for another exit.

Chiasa moved back with her battle buddy as they advanced forward through the rooms, one team at a time. Her features twisted in disgust as she took in the giant purple insect guarding the way forward, but she knew that shooting it might only blind them further as to what was in the maze.

"Do you know anything about what's ahead?" Chiasa asked, her voice carrying a tone of inquisitiveness. "Any traps, angry robots, or just generally stuff that might want to kill us?"

"Lots of traps, death robots, and the insanity fog," the Rixxikor said. "What kind of food do you have? It's been so long since I've had anything fresh, yo," it said, trying to touch Chiasa's bag with its huge claws.

"Do we have any food we can spare?" Nalini asked the others.

Beneath the mask of her helmet, Chiasa cringed as the thing approached her, but she made every effort to hold her nerve as its claws paw at her bag.

"That's my medical kit. There's no food in there." Chiasa said, her voice carrying a slight undertone of disgust. "I think we have some ration pills and MREs you can eat though, if you tell us about the fog of insanity." The tiny Nekovalkyrja finished.

"Shit, yo," it replied, going back to building improvised explosives at a makeshift work table. "I would like some food," it told Chiasa.

Sanda stood in the doorway, her rifle held up. She wouldn't hesitant to blow the bugs uggly head off if it made any kind of aggressive move.

From his position crouched in the next room, Vec suppresed a sardonic laugh, Fog of Insanity, indeed.

Yayoi quietly kept control over herself, though she hoped that Nalini would kill the Rixxilor when she takes over.

Mochi had by this point moved up towards where the others were congregating, at this Rixxikor. Unlike the others, Mochi didn't have as intense of a reaction. However, spotting the workbench, the Elysian added: "Explosives? Did you happen to put those on a door out here?"

Chiasa moved to Vec's VCMAD and pulled out two Type 38 field ration bags, one of which was pepperoni pizza, while the other was pulled pork barbecue. Then, turning back to the purple Rixxikor, she offered both of them to the insectoid.

"It has the ration heater included." Chiasa added.

"Fraxxlor is explosives expert, yo," the insectoid replied. "Kuvexians used to send Fraxxlor into all kinds of EOD situations, but Fraxxlor smart, yo, Fraxxlor survives when many others do not. Kuvexians think Rixxikor are disposable, and disposed of us here, yo. But even now Fraxxlor survives," it explained. "Don't fuck with Fraxxlor," it warned. "Everything goes boom here if you do," it said with a big explosion hand gesture.

Rixxilor flambe, Rixxilor blown to smitherines yup these be good Yayoi thought as she stared ahead. Kuvexians slaver sludge

"You must be quite inventive to survive down here. If there as many traps here as you suggest, I think we might want to have you as a guide, if you are willing to be one." Nalini offered.

Nalini you... jerk i do not want to be around him! Yayoi thought to herself

Even though Sanda kept her rilfe trained on the Rixx, she was watching Yayoi closely. She hoped her hermana wouldn't do anything stupid.

"Fucking bullshit," Vec muttered, "People aren't ever disposable. Keep on surviving Fraxxlor."

"Can you tell us where Fraxxlor is? We could use some help with disarming the explosives." Chiasa said.

"Fraxxlor is me!" the Rixxikor said, taking the rations from Chiasa. In return it expertly and quickly removed the explosive traps from the next door they needed to go through. "There is a map up ahead, yo," it mentioned as it tore into the ration packs like a savage animal.

Chiasa blinked in disgust at the display, but she was glad that the insectoid was tearing into food and not her or one of the team members. "Thank you." The tiny Nekovalkyrja added. "One more thing, before we get out of your way. What about the...fog of insanity, you mentioned earlier? Could you tell me about that, Fraxxlor?"

"Yeah, don't breath that, yo," Fraxxlor simply told her.

Yayoi calmed herself, and used a technique she discovered for herself back on Hanako's World and immediately in her minds eye, Fraxxlor looked different, green, with a clown nose on his face and pokadots all over his body.

With the explosives deactivated, Sanda waved the team forward. "Keep moving." As she passed Chiasa she said quitely. "Excellent work there."

Quintessa sighed in frustration, but the tiny Nekovalkyrja didn't want to overstay her welcome in the room. Not to mention, the team needed to keep moving. They weren't in any shape to stay in the moon for an extended period of time. However, upon hearing Sanda's praise, Chiasa offered the taller Nepleslian an acknowledging nod. She could accept that as an 'apology' for the discussion which had transpired earlier.

"Thank you," Nalini said to Fraxxlor as they left the room for the next one.

"Room 9," the device proclaimed as they proceeded into a 3x3 room that was almost entirely full of a waxy white paste piled up in chunks. It was Rixxikor food. Fraxxlor called from room 4, "Yo! To disable explosives on that door, use code 10 on the remote, yo."

Vec took note of the remote code and fished out another ration pack and gave it to the Rixxikor. "Yuh keep pan surviving, Fraxxlor," he said in a Tallus patois before following the team.

Nalini put in the code so that they could move on to the next room.

Have an explosive death Rixxilor Yayoi thought as she followed the others to the next room.

Well, if we get trapped down here and run out of food...Chiasa cut the thought early after glancing at the chunks of white paste. She didn't want to dwell on it, if only for the fact that she needed to focus on keeping herself and the others alive. It would do her little good to contemplate on failure.

"Room 10." There was one door at each corner of room 10, which looked like it was important because it had a bunch of glowing purple pulsing things underneath a transparent floor. There was an old Kuvexian campsite against one side wall, where a Kuvexian skeleton lay on top of the remains of a tattered tent, still dressed in an elaborate gold armor chest-plate and carrying a pistol. There was a hole burned into the skull. In the small campsite there was a very compact aether generator and sitting on that was a data pad with a map on it.

Upon entering the room along with her battle buddy, Chiasa scanned the area for explosives and traps, both visually and with her Mindy's AIES. From there, she moved approach the body, but refrained from getting too close. From there, she slowly floated over to the campsite, where she saw the data pad and the aether generator.

"We might be able to use the map." She commented idly.

"Away team? Cassie-hei? This is Resurgence, do you copy? Please advise situation and transmit copy of intelligence acquired." Tachiko's voice was a bit distorted, but managed to break through to the team.

"Resurgence, this is Yayoi-Heisho, we read you, We have injured, and the moon is infested, but most of us are ok!" Yayoi said immediately.

After he was sure the room was safe, Vec crept forward to check the corpse. The head hole suggested it wasn't death by starvation, and the burn suggested it had come from an energy weapon. From the angle, it didn't look self inflicted, and the lack of an exit wound lead Vec to conclude that it wasn't a close ranged shot either. It was an old wound, and Vec was a doctor not a forensics expert so there was only so much he could tell, beyond that the Kuvexian died a violent end. Who'd shot them, when, or why, none of those were immediatly apparent, though he did have some theories.

"We copy!" Chiasa added. She still had her previous 7-Line request (1-My Transponder-2-1-3-OX-4-E-5-S-6-S-7-HV) going on repeat from earlier when Euikoshi had gotten wounded, but she was unsure if the Resurgence would be able to send a medevac down.

"This is Ohara-Hei. Resurgence, did you receive my 7-Line request?"

Nalini headed over to the door cattycorner to the the one they were in with Thad and started to check it for traps. On the way, she paused at the Kuvexian body and whispered something in Separa'Shan before continuing on.

That door was locked but not trapped.

"Away team, MEDEVAC request acknowledged," Tachi's voice was still even and calm, "Out."

"Thank the Empress." Chiasa exclaimed, her voice carrying a measure of relief. All the while, Chiasa took another scan of the data pad and looked over it for traps. If it appeared safe, Chiasa decided that she would pick the device up and try to use the map.

"This is Delmira im ready to escort the shuttle to the surface for pick up." Delmira said coming both the Res and the away team.

"Acknolwedged, await launch, Lulie-Hei." Tachiko replied to Delmira.

"Copy on standby." Delmira said and flew closer to the res recalling her swarm of nodal support drones.

 

[Wes]

Based on Chiasa's scan, the bridge crew put together a basic map of the Pit of Insanity, marking the rooms the team had explored thus far, and then sent it back to the team.

 

[Locked_0ut]

Using his suits sensors, Vec took a series of full spectrum images of the body and the surrounding area. He didn’t know what had killed it, but that might become important pretty soon. Standing and turning to address the rest of the team, “Hoshi suggested keeping us in two teams with Nalini and Maximus on point. With Cassi out of action, that team’s yours.” He directly addressed the Nepleslian ranger with the last part.

“Before we move out again, everybody check your gear and make sure your head’s on straight.” Once that was done, he stepped over to Mochi and waved the NCOs and Hoshi over, “So, sir, what’s our next step?”

 

[Wes]

YSS Resurgence - Shuttle Bay

Itto Hei Hachirobei Sakuko was dressed in her AMES suit and ready at the rear loading door of Ke-T7 shuttlecraft NG-S1-575-3. She gave a pat on the shoulder to Pidole, who lugged a large rucksack of tools onto the shuttle and then went to change out of her soot-covered AMES and into her MINDY armor in the armor bay. Pidole returned shortly thereafter with her armor on and Bidole, the blue beetle buddy, on her shoulder. She put the small creature into a small homemade enclosure pod from the rucksack that could provide life support, and attached it to one of her MINDY's shoulder hardpoints so it could ride along.

"All aboard," Sakuko announced on the ship's communications channel.

Machine Moon - Surface

Meanwhile, having heard the medevac call, Beryl cautiously maneuvered her shuttle, Ke-T7 shuttlecraft NG-S1-575-2, on stealth mode back into the huge docking bay where the team had entered the machine moon, carefully avoiding the wreckage of the large combat robots, and settling down near the doorway with all the warnings on it. She radioed the away team to let them know she was ready to bring the injured home. "Which medic is going to come with them?" she asked. "Poppy?"

"I can," Poppy answered, cradling Cassie at the entrance of the Pit of Insanity maze. "I just hope I can work that elevator."

 

[ShadowWalker]

Frank would stick close to vec Remaining silent as he moved and kept his head on a swivel. watching his ammo counter on all remaining armed weapons. <half ammo for GMG....full ammo for anti power armor assault rifle.... zero ammo for mini missiles....forty five shots for 50mm guass cannon. full ammo on wrist mounted cannons. full ammo on arm housed rotary assault rifle.> Franks killbot read off to him in his head.
Frank glanced at the hole in the corpse before taking glances up at the ceiling. "Mabie watch the ceiling to this area too in case who or what can climb on it and take pot shots at us." Frank suggested to Vec as he stood guard. Frank didn't like this, it was too silent and with the horror show that had happened upstairs its only fitting to be weary of the possible hostiles that could be going bump in the dark.

 

[Cowboy]

Sanda moved to join Vec, Yayoi and Inmochi. Listened as the a message from the Res came over saying they would be able to evact the wounded. Sanda wasn't sure what had happened to all those robots out there, but if they thought they could make it in it was a good chance to get the wounded out. Sanda did a quick check of the teams status. "We've got three wounded." She began. "Cassie, Chiasa and Euikoshi, although Chiasa can still function. I say have Chiasa help Poppy get the other two back to the ship."

Sanda sighed. She had a feeling that Chiasa wouldn't like that. Well tough. "If Chiasa doesn't like it, too bad. Being a soldier isn't about doing what you want. It's about following orders. She should get back to the ship where I'm sure Poppy can get her patched up. Knowing Poppy, I'd bet a months pay that she can get Chiasa patched up and and back to us before we progress two rooms."

 

[Charaa]

Yayoi remained silent as Sanda reported the identities of the wounded. She also agreed with Sanda’s assessment about Chiasa. While she knew Chiasa could punch, her position on the ship didn’t require that. Though her mind did went along the same thoughts Sanda had, though she supposed Delmira had handled them.

 

[Wes]

Beryl's shuttle brought Poppy, Euikoshi, Chiasa, and Cassie back to the ship for medical treatment. Mia, Julia, and two of the low-ranking ship technicians helped bring them to the medical lab before returning to damage control. Almost immediately Poppy got to work giving Chiasa replacement foot, which went surpisingly fast. Once it was on securely, she give Chiasa a special boot of sorts and sent her back to duty to catch the next shuttle down. She also gave Cassie some nanomachines to help her heal up faster and Euikoshi went to one of the hemosynth tubes to get her body rebuilt in the damaged sections.

Sakuko's shuttle arrived with Pidole and the freshly-repaired Chiasa without incident.

Delmira escorted the shuttles to and from the surface each time.

Yayoi turned her attention to her surroundings as the wounded were taken back to the ship. She knew that a part of the moon wasnt hostile but she didnt know about the rest especially from what they were told.

Thad knew they would need to work fast given that only a few were left behind. The team had done a good job finding traps with their faces and sadly had not gone as planned. For a change Thad was doing all the right things, or at least he wasn't getting himself blown up.

Chiasa had been in a bad mood throughout the entire process, but ultimately she couldn't complain with the outcome as she tested her new foot and the boot which was sealing it off. She didn't say anything as the elevator leading down to the maze descended, instead finding her eye's drawn to Pidole's beetle for lack of anything better to do. However, once the elevator reached its destination, the tiny Nekovalkyrja set herself back to work.

Pidole made her way down the weird mega elevator shaft to the Pit of Insanity and went inside to meet the away team members, along with Chiasa. Her beetle and the Rixxikor inhabitant looked at each other in wonder for a short while before Pidole apologized for disturbing his home and went to Room 10. "Hello, everyone," she waved. "Tell me about the maze and the traps," she asked the team.

Sanda wad been waiting at the elevator to escort Pidole and Chiasa to the farthest room they had reached. "Glad to see you at 100% again Chiasa." She filled Pidole in, "Some doors are booby trapped, others go nowhere. Some rooms are empty, others have... strange occupants. We've reached a room with mulitple doors and are trying to figure out which way to go next. Nilani has kinda took the lead, but it'll be good to have a second tech savy person look things over."

Yayoi looked over as she heard Sanda speaking, and took note of Chiasa's reappearance as well as Pidole. While inwardly she wasnt sure about their presence, outwardly she said nothing. Other than to agree with Sanda.

"Yeah. You too." Chiasa answered Sanda awkwardly, before following after the Ranger to rejoin the team. "Don't mind Fraxxlor, he's...friendly." The medic said, as the small group passed the giant purple insectoid. "At least as friendly as a Rixxikor can get." She added. In doing so, she turned off her external audio to ensure that the Rixxikor couldn't hear her.

Vec stood back while Hoshi briefed the team. The young Ranger was really in her element. "Well, unless anybody's got any questions or suggestions, and we've got a plan, Hoshi, Asakura, let's get formed up and oskar mike," he said.

Friendly Rixxilor old friends in the resistance might die laughing, Yayoi thought but said nothing as she deemed her thoughts as unimportant to say outloud.

"As soon as Pidole and Nilani have a look at the room and advise which way to go we'll start moving out Doc." Sanda said patiently. "With potential booby traps, I'd rather slow things down a little and examine things carefully. We don't want any more casualties."

"Yes, Jôtô Hei, and your team is point is it not? Give them the orders, not me," Vec said flatly.

Pidole carefully dismantled the trap systems in the door to the "Southwest" of the room and when it was safe, she opened the door to a new room that was 5x7 meters and had 6 doors arranged somewhat symetrically. In the center of the room was a large energy capacitor tube about halfway embedded in the floor, and emitting a purple glow. There was a Kuvexian power armor slumped over one end of it and a destroyed robot in another corner, both long dead.

Sanda ignored Vec and waited for Pidole to disarm the door. Once done, Sanda took point and examined the room. Once she deemed the room free of hostiles she said, "Room is clear, move up." She then took a closer look at the dead Kuvexian.

"Room 16," the remote said when Nalini entered the room.

Pidole went around inspecting the doors and finally said, "I think every door on the left side is trapped. The right side ones are all locked," she told them. "Which one do you want me to work on first?"

Yayoi found herself impressed with Pidole's skills, and pondered about asking her for some extra training.

Chisa moved into the room with her battle buddy at her side not long after Sanda cleared it, taking in the gold-plated Kuvexian power armor and the mangled robot in the corner. She took a quick scan of the robot, to determine whether it was one of the QV-447 Murderguy models or something else entirely. Regardless, she contemplated whether it would be worth it to download the robot's data, to see if it had run into anything dangerous ahead.

"This robot," Chiasa began, looking towards Pidole. "Is there a way we could download its memory files? Maybe see where it's been and if it can offer us any clues."

"Maybe," Pidole replied. "Got a Kuvexian computer on you?"

"No." Chiasa frowned, but the medic took the hint and began looking elsewhere.

Frank continued to walk quietly near Vec ocasionally watching their surroundings

"What can you tell me about this?" Sanda asked pointing to the glowing purple thing.

"This is part of a power distribution network," Pidole told Sanda. "It would be placed between the power source and the processor probably, and is used to provide steady transitions between various power levels as the big computer core requires," the red-haired technician explained. "In short we're near power lines."

"Any danger to us?" Sanda asked, not sure she liked the idea of being so close to a power source like that.

"Any chance of following one of these lines to the core?" Thaddeaus asked as his hand scratched at his well-defined jaw and looked from the glowing tube to Pidole.

"It looks like most of the lines are under the floor where I can't see them," Pidole said, "Though I may know someone who's small enough to get under there," she smiled.

"You really think Chiasa's small enough for that?" Thad asked, hand dropping. Though Pidole's blue beetle was under his nose, he wondered just where a large entrance to get under the floor was that the red-head had found.

"I think she means her beattle," Vec said peering at the hole.

"If the beetle can fit try it, if not. Lets start trying to unlock the non-booby trapped doors." Sanda said moving her attention away from the power source and back to the doors.

"I mean...I could try and squeeze in there if you really wanted." Chiasa spoke up. "But if the the beetle can carry a small camera, it might be the better option. Or maybe an NSB."

"If you need a sneak peak, my gear's got SAR nodal bits, I could fly them in," Vec added.

Yayoi blinked at the suggestion of sending Pidole's beetle through she wondered if it was sentient or able to follow directions. "lets do it" she said finally

Pidole double checked the atmosphere and then let her beetle friend out of its little custom shoulder pod on her armor. It sliped into a narrow space between the giant glowing purple energy capacitor and the floor and started tracing the power conduits. As it moved, Pidole started off into space and her finger pointed at its location under the floor. Soon it was beyond the room and into the next room over. Pidole again deactivated an explosive trap around a doorway in an attempt to follow the beetle, opening a new room, a small 3x5 room filled with hard cases with Kuvexian writing on them. One of them was open and had slots in the foam for something that was now missing.

Again, Sanda took the point and entered the room first. She checked for visable traps before giving the all clear. "Move up people. Pidole, where is your bug now?"

Yayoi did a mental map in her head and she realized that they were now in the lower left area of the maze.

"With all of the traps, probably out of the question to attempt opening any of these cases." Chiasa said.

"I agree," Pidole nodded. "I think these cases are for Kuvexian drone missiles. Think of a combination of a very smart, very aggressive NSB and a tiny aether warhead."

Sanda noticed that the exit door to room 25 was trapped with explosives. Perhaps Fraxxlor had another code to disarm them.

The Nepleslian ranger took note of the explosives in this room. Looked like Rixx work. "Hey Chiasa. Run back to your Rixx buddy and see if he installed these." Sanda tossed her a spare MRE. "See if he'll disarm these for another meal."

"Can anyone give me a spare communicator to give Fraxxlor, so we can keep in touch." Chiasa added as she caught the MRE. Regardless, if no one offered, the tiny Nekovalkyrja would immediately fly off towards Run 4, via the same way they had came.

"Fraxxlor!" Chiasa called out, as she extended the MRE to the giant purple insectoid. "There are explosives leading into room 25. Do you know any codes to disarm them?"

Fraxxlor considered telling them that the remote codes matched the numbers of the rooms they were for, but he wanted to just keep collecting rations so he went and unlocked just the one trapped for for them and collected his reward with much satisfaction.

"I admire a guy who can self-seed but if he can take a break from making the next generation of Rixx, maybe he could help us. Beats taking more traps to the face." Thad offered.

Chiasa sighed in relief when Fraxxlor opened the door, but a part of her was beginning to suspect that they were getting grifted. "Yeah." The tiny Nekovalkyrja added mindlessly in response to Thad. "Probably should have brought more ration packs down with us, but whatever. Hopefully we don't starve down here."

"Oh, sorry. Or taking them to the foot," Thad added, looking down at Chiasa's lower extremity.

Chiasa palmed a hand over the unreadable mask of her helmet in mock exasperation, but secretly, she was laughing.

"Room 21," the remote said as they accessed a small 3x3 room. There was a small dusty desk in the room with a skeleton seated in a chair. It was possibly a human. It looked like the desk was possibly a starship-style control panel. A slime began to ooze out of the skeleton towards them.

Sanda looked around the room for a moment. When she saw the slime began to move towards them she qucikly raised her rifle and said, "Everyone back! Out of the room until we can ID what the hell that stuff is."

Pidole frowned, "This isn't the way Bidole went," she told Yayoi.

Yayoi glanced at Thad for his comment before getting distracted by Sanda and then Pidole"it isnt? alright, I think we should be careful then." knew we shouldnt trust that Rixxikor She thought as she looked with disgust on the slime oosing out. "If anyone has a scanner, scan that at a safe distance.

Chiasa stayed back, before raising her aether rifle and pointing towards the oozing slime, her digital mind quickly assessing speed, aggression, and intent as she did. However, there was something else on the tiny Nekovalkyrja's mind, and she looked towards her science officer battle buddy as she did.

"Shoot it or scan it?" Chiasa asked.

"Maybe we can use the hard case to trap it," Pidole suggested.

Sanda looked doubtfully at the slime. She was a shoot first kind of girl but if Pidole thought she could contain it then go for it. Sanda was professional enough to value an expert's opinion on something outside her area of expertise.

"The hard cases are probably trapped." Chiasa frowned. However, she did scan to search for any spare boxes or cases in the vicinity that seemed open.

Pidole went can grabbed the open hard case and only the opened one and dumped out the foam and then handed it to Yayoi. "Get it!" she encouraged.

Yayoi grabbed the hard case she was handed, then proceeded forward, with calm breaths and when she had the moment to do so she caught the slime in the container and closed it tightly.

That actually worked!

Pidole immediately went and pushed the dead body side and started trying to use the control panel it had been seated in front of. "It looks like he was trying codes to open some sort of 4th door in this room," she said, trying to guess what the code might be.

Now that the slime was dealt with, Sanda returned to examing the room. She had been mapping out their route and direction as they'd progressed. She looked at one of the doors and frowned. "I think that door leads back into room 16."

"Let's think..." Pidole suggested. "Maybe those rooms on the map with the special shapes are the mission objectives or mean something important. I think those should be our destinations," she said.

Chiasa sighed as she watched Pidole guess over the codes. "Fraxxlor again?" She offered. She hated the idea of going back and giving away more food, but it didn't seem like there were any better options.

"Maybe there's some rhyme or reason to the codes. If we could sneak a peek at the code he puts in, we'd be better equipped to get to those funny shaped rooms." Thad couldn't help but wonder what he'd eat if they got trapped down here without the MRE's they were feeding to Fraxxlor.

"We can move towards the hexagon room to the right of Room 16, the pentagon room in the middle, or the circle room at the bottom." Chiasa added. "

There was a beep as Pidole rebooted the control panel into some sort of BIOS mode and was changing the input/output settings. She found the connection to the nearby door and then changed some settings and then went to a command line. Finally a SECRET door opened next to the control panel, revealing a hidden room,

Yayoi turned as the new secret door opened. She lifted her rifle and pointed it at the now opened hole almost startled. The Giretsu trained Ranger used her inner map of the place. to figure out where this led before the remote announced it.

"Room 23," the remote announced, and that's when the robots started shooting at them.

----

OOC

 

[ShadowWalker]

you got her hurt
you said things to hurt her further Are you a monster?
you said you weren't but yet your choices say otherwise.

Frank Polarized his Visor of his helmet and silenced his coms as a tear began rolling down his face shoulders shaking slightly. Something he had never been able to do when he was but a program. What was he a man, machine or monster he lost track at this point.

What were those words you told her?
that you understood her pain
What did you tell Del?
That you wouldn't hurt Cassie
Not only did you hurt her but your actions lead to her getting injured.
Frank looked down for a bit, at this point he wasn't sure if it was his conscious or a killbot talking to him their voices seemed to blur together at this point.
You can still save them Frank, cant you?


As the robots started shooting at them Frank shook his head putting himself between the enemy shots and Yayoi "By the way this is looking Yayoi I might have to protect you and Thad like I did back on the ship." Frank said hinting at something he's willing to do. letting their shots hit his armor as he fired back with his gmg in one hand and assault rifle in the other with the intent to take down as much as he could while protecting others. Turning his head to look at the others briefly before redirecting his attention to the robots. "Pick a room and head for it! Ill draw fire Move!"

 

[Charaa]

Yayoi swore lowly as the robots started shooting. She was really hoping that the robots wouldn’t attack them. But she figured these must be controlled by the other AI the evil one that they were told about. She still couldn’t believe that Nalini was Nagashun what a big surprise. Frank decided to be a hero and protect her and Thad from the robots firing. frank was impulsive, but she appreciated his actions “time to go!” she said running for the nearest room that she saw didn’t have robots firing from.

 

[Immortal Cyan]

Machine Moon
Maze - Room 23

Chiasa’s senses kicked into immediate overdrive.

The tiny medical specialist’s aether rifle was set on target in the blink of an eye with the snappy, inhuman precision of any Nekovalkyrja. Within the same time span, her digital mind marked targets for her allies in the vicinity via sensor networking, designating the the closest killer robot for Frank to engage, the second and third closest for herself, and any others for Sanda and Yayoi.

Immediately after acquiring her target, the medic let loose with a quartet of pulses in automatic rapid pulse mode that were intended to strike her designated target in its upper chest and neck, with the aim to destroy the robot's power source and sever its head from the body. Regardless of whether the salvo succeeded in putting the drone down or not, Chiasa snapped her crosshairs to her second mark, before squeezing off a rapid fire quintet of pulses intended to accomplish the same objective. All the while, a sub-process of her digital mind assessed her surroundings and the positions of her allies, before her Mindy's CFS propelled her form backwards to put a few meters of separation between herself and the robots, should they attempt to engage her in melee!

 

[Cowboy]

Machine Moon
Maze - Room 23
"Contact!" Sanda yelled as she began firing. She moved to the side so that everyone wasn't bunched up and the robots would have to divert their fire away from the group to target her. Although her plasma rifle didn't have the same rate of fire as her crewmates Aether weapons, it still packed a punch. As the first few robots out of the portal were mowed down by the teams combined firepower, Sanda lit her Aether bayonet attached to the end of her rifle. At least one robot was moving towards her so Sanda moved into close combat. Wielding her rifle like a spear, she stabbed and slashed at the robot. She might not be a Neko, but the Giretsu trained Ranger was fast enough to keep ahead of the robot. She slashed at a weapon arm with the blade then whipped the rifle around and delivered a hard blow with the butt of the rifle that left a dent and knocked the robot off it's feet. Sanda finished the robot off with a decapitating strike to its head then plunged the blade deep into its chest.

Uno abajo. She thought as Sanda raised her rifle searching for her next target.

 

[Wes]

OOC: Map




All hell was breaking loose as the hostile robots began their attack on the away team. Frank took the brunt of their initial assault by jumping in front of Yayoi, and was hit bey a hail of searing hot bright orange plasma beams which burned through his armor and left him in a smoldering pile. Meanwhile Pidole unlocked the door into the room to the North (Room 15) and went through there back to Room 16, "This way's open!" she told others, before turning to provide covering fire through the open doorways to the small side rooms.

Yayoi scrambled away from the firing robots, her mind on Frank as he heroically saved her life. She made a mental note that if she had a son some day, she will name her son after Frank. Though it would be likely her child in the future was a Neko like her. Yayoi had followed Pidole hoping to keep her save.

Chiasa senses came alight as Frank was suddenly and violently rendered into a smoldering pile under a hail of searing plasma fire, his life signs immediately going cold in the process. All the while, the two metal forms of the two robots the tiny Nekovalkyrja had targeted were ripped apart by the white-hot aether lances cast forth from her rifle, before dropping to the floor as little more than heaps of flaming scrap. Chiasa immediately snapped her aether rifle onto the frames of a third and fourth robot, cutting both of the automatons down in a pair of surgical bursts before following after Pidole into Room 15.

"¡Maldito idiota!" Sanda cursed as she lit into the robots. She was mad that one of her crew mates had gone down and also mad that it was Frank again. Her blood was up now and for the moment she didn't care about the mission. She just wanted to kill. She moved into close range, stabbing and slashing with her bayonet attached to the end of her rifle.

Nalini went through the door that led from room ten to right before the hexagonal room, according to the map.

"Room 19," Nalini heard. The room was covered in Rixxikor shit and Rixxikor eggs, and had six or seven of them in the room, and some of them started shooting at her with some ineffective hand pistols that didn't really bother her Mindy armor. She could see a spray-painted label on the wall next to a door that said, "Network connect," in trade from some previous explorers. According to the ghostly Essai from earlier, they would need to disconnect the network connection before powering up the AI or it would take everything over.

"I really don't want to hurt you, and I don't think you can hurt me. Just need to get into this room thank you." Nalini broadcast to the outside speakers. She moved carefully through the eggs, not wanting to put them in danger.

"You got any food?" one of the Rixxikor vagrants asked.

"I do have an extra MRE." Nalini said, offering it to the Rixxikor.

Yayoi suddenly lifted her arm, with the hidden blade extended which caught a bullet fired by a robot. "ok.. thats it" she said and calmed her breaths before entering a adrenalin state where she turned to the robots. She launched herself and began her attack, ripping heads off, and tossing the head to the other robots to distract them. She hoped to have them focus on the bigger threat, namely her. come you overgrown pieces of crap, meet Blade of Hanako's Resistance! She thought silently

Sterling was down, but Vec didn't have time to rush to his aid. Target-rich environment was an understatement. The old Rescue Jumper continued a constant stream of glowing pink aether rushing towards the oncoming robots. Preventative medicine, establish a base of fire, then respond to casualties.

Mochi was running an estimate on the number of hostiles in his head, but they just seemed to keep coming. "Rally up around Nalini, she seems to know where she's going!" The officer directed, "Kill as many as you can but don't get surrounded or cut off from the group!" The Elysian reached down and drew the oversized samurai sword at his belt, something he got as a gift from his old ship. Hoisting it, he jetted forwards with large cleaving strikes, attempting to hit multiple robots at a time while forcing them to stay out of range of the large blade, creating space to work with.

"I guess we're still unlocking stuff," Pidole said flatly, concentrating on her work. As the others fought off the hordes of hostile bots, she began to try to follow her beetle by deactivating death-trapped doors and unlocking sealed doors in the South end of Room 16, which allowed a connection to Room 19 where Nalini was. She gave Nalini and the now-distracted Rixxikor a wave. "That is a lot of rooms to push through to get to the power controls," she commented, trying not to get nervous.

Nalini touched a data cable in room 17, "perhaps, but I know the way now." She said, working to set the room so that it would be ready for her ascension.

Chiasa flew through Room 15 and 16 in a blur of motion, before following Pidole into Room 19 where a large group of Rixxikor had taken residence. Her adrenaline was high, but discipline kept her from firing upon seeing Nalini offer them an MRE. She didn't like the thought of giving away more food when the insectoid creatures could just as easily be cut down by aether fire, but the tiny Nekovalkyrja didn't voice any opposition.

"Use the doors as choke-points," Aoba's voice came over the squad net. "If you can open and unlock them you can also close and lock them," he reminded the team. "It looks like most of the robots are coming from the West area through room 23. Sending you an updated map now..."

Their science officer echoed Aoba's words, "He's right - if we lock them we'd slow our exit but at this point I doubt we're using the same way out." Mochi added, while striking down a droid. He was about to suggest that each NCO cover a doorway with some soldiers, like he was trying to do, but then remembered that they hadn't formed fire teams or squads before coming down here. They'd have to figure it out on the fly.

Sanda heard the Captain's suggestion and took a quick look at her map. "Use Room 21 as a choke point!" Sanda advised. She quickly marked the room. "Blade! With me!" Sanda moved laying down some heavy fire blasting the robots without mercy.

"Was just gonna say the same thing, Hoshi," Vec said checking the updated map. "Anybody got an estimate on how many bots we're facing?"

"Away team, Resurgence actual. I'm going to move the ship around and try to triangulate you for teleportation coordinates," Aoba advised the team. "Maybe I can get reinforcements in there if we can figure out where exactly you are, out."

"Bidole says there's a secret way out of the passage between 16 and 19," Pidole said, "There's probably more secret passages around," she said, suddenly wishing she had her battle buddy to cover her. She carefully opened up a hidden doorway into a large room, room 28.

"Iemochi-Taii, where do you want me?" Chiasa asked the taller Elysian, as she snapped her aether rifle onto the frame of another robot, a trio of aether pulse-lances spewing from the weapon to reduce the killer automaton to scrap.

Mochi was more than happy to give direction to those who wanted it, although he was confident everyone had enough experience to work things out under their own steam until conditions worsened. "Choke up any entrance point these clankers are coming from. We need to give Nalini a rolling escort. She can work on that map as long as we keep them off her." His Mindy's head turned as the Elysian looked to the others, "That's our priority. Close the doors if you need to. Try not to seal them-" Mochi's attention was snagged by a new wave of bots, but he'd hopefully given enough strategic advice for now.

"She can count on her battle buddy for that!" Thaddeus grunted as he loosed a volley. With no room to do anything but keep covering Nalini's flank, he didn't notice the perfect ovular cavity his aetheric round has scorched into the metal droid's chest.

"Copy that." Chiasa answered back. "He is my battle buddy, Thad." The tiny Nekovalkyrja added, without sparing a breath or diverting her attention from the doors.

Yayoi grabbed a robot and used it as extra shield/armor as she moved to follow the others.

More robots kept coming through the door from room 23. The pile of bodies was starting to fill the room. Sanda wished she had a way to seal that damn door. Then she thought of something. "Thunder to team. Someone grab those explosives the Rixx had set up. We'll use them to seal this door and give us all a chance to fall back!"

With room seventeen set, Nalini headed through room nineteen to get to room twenty-eight. She started looking around the large room, trying to find the secret passage that might be there.

Pidole looked at Nalini and started checking the walls for more secret passages as Bidole the Beetle crawled out of the floor again. "There's a connection this way," she said. Meanwhile in Room 28, a hatch opened in the ceiling and the sounds of the robots could be heard from above. "Problem," the technician said. Meanwhile Nalini found a secret exit to room 38 and Pidole found one to 37.

"Roger that, displacing," Vec said, making a rush for the explosives. Moments later, he was dumping a satchel of plastic explosives near Hoshi.

Mochi's head snapped up to Sanda, "Only if you're sure we don't need to get out the same way!" Glancing behind him as Pidole transmitted, he reminded the others, "Let's follow Pidole and Nalini before they lose our cover." The sound of metal on metal could be heard from the direction of 28, so Mochi gave a swift handsign in its direction, in case anyone was looking for further instruction.

"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it, Boss," Vec said laying down fire.

Sanda picked up the satchel of explosives and looped them over her head. "I'm sure!" She snapped. "Sir!" Running from her cover in the doorway, Sanda slid beneath one robot and then hurdled the next. She tackled two as just as they came through the door and looped the satchel around them, slashing at their legs so they couldn't rise. "Fall back now!" Sanda primed a grenade and dropped between them. She stood over them for a moment as a wicked smile crossed her face. "You've been...Thunderstruck." Just as the grenade went off Sanda used her teleporter to jump to the next room.

Yayoi almost smiled at Sanda's words as she used the robot shield and her aether rifle to fire.

"Booo," Vec said over the comm before he began ushering any stragglers to the next room as he backed out.

The explosives were a success, blowing up the oncoming robots from room 23 and they were able to shut the door to seal it off.

"We will need to move quickly, room thirty seven. We might be able to use this room again, but if must barr it we will." Nalini said, trying to get closer to the objective.

"We need this room and the ceiling is starting to poop out robots," Pidole said, "It's, uh, room...28," Pidole warned the team.

Chiasa winced, then frowned as explosions registered in her ears and the doors were sealed off. She had been warned not to seal the doors her battle buddy, but the others had sealed them via the explosives before she could protest. Nevertheless, it meant that teleporting might very well be their only way out of the maze.

"Empress, help us." Chiasa whispered under breath, before following Pidole into Room 28.

Suddenly the small group of Rixxikor flowed into room 28 and began shooting canisters of some sort of sealant into the hatchway in the ceiling, jamming up the efforts of the robots as they cuold only fit one at a time, and now the opening was covered in a crusty substance that honestly looked pretty gross whatever it was. "Fuck those robots," one of the bug-creatures said. "They would kill Rixxikor, too."

"Thank you for your help, you will be remembered. Cheilith, camp the ceiling entrance." Nalini suggested as she moved intoo room thirty seven and began to look for a secret entrance as she moved down the short hallway.

Though Thad had quickly raised his bayonet when the group of Rixxikor entered, he pulled it down when it looked like what they were doing helped more than hurt. Moving backwards after Nalini, he gave a quick and comical salute to the squirmy little aliens.

"The power unit should be just to the West of this room," Pidole pointed at Room 37, a small 3x5 room full of electrical switches and cabling. She could feel herself sweating inside of her Mindy armor because of the intense situation.

Now I have seen everything Rixxikor helping us! Yayoi thought as she fired on the robots.

With everyone filing into the new room, Mochi ensured that nobody was left behind by being the last one in. He'd spotted one of their number teleport just prior, so he made a mental note that this place luckily had no kind of ancient teleportation countermeasures. That method of reinforcement and escape seemed open to them. He transmitted to Aoba, "Captain, confirming that teleportation works in this place. Thank the Kami."

Sanda fell back with the rest of the away team and took up the rear. She was a little winded and dangerously amped up on adrenaline. It would be easy to make a mistake or become sloppy so she forced herself to breath and get her heart-rate under control.

Yayoi stood beside Sanda, and glanced over to her, taking note of any wounds but finding her tired.

"There is a door here going somewhere else, but if the cables lead into the power room, we might be able to get in through there." Nalini suggested.

"I'll check for a secret door," Pidole told Nalini. Sure enough, there was a ventilation opening that was just big enough to fit a person and it led directly into a pentagon-shaped room where there was the controller for the power to the planet's main processor. If switched on, the AI would have full power.

Chiasa's adrenaline was finally coming down in the wake of the killer robots' assault, but it didn't take her long to notice that Pidole's vitals were rushed, a sign of anxiety. The tiny medic immediately moved to take her side, before placing a small, yet reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"You're doing great, sister." Chiasa said. "I'm the smallest, so I can fit into the ventilation opening and turn on the power." She added, seeking to make herself useful.

"Head count," Vec said over the team channel, "Anybody leaking?" They needed to regroup a little before rushing on.

"Henitot," Pidole replied to Vec, indicating she was among the living.

"Present." Chiasa affirmed.

Mochi kept a stern gaze at the secret entrance, but given he'd closed it on the way here, he couldn't hear any sounds of pursuit from the enemy robots. They must not be *that* artificially intelligent after all. The Elysian reached over and patted Sanda on the back, "Perk up, we're not out of the woods yet." He glanced up to Vec, "All good here." Then, after a moment, "Where's Frank?"

Nalini spent several minutes in the pentagonal room, setting it up for what she would need. She didn't have many of her nanotech tricks in this form, but they were needed here. A few moments later, she was crawling out and back to room twenty eight. "We need to find a way to one more room." She announced to the rest of the team.

Sanda snorted. "I'm just getting warmed up Sir." Sanda didn't respond about Frank. She was still mad at him for dying again. She ran a quick diagnostic on her suit. A few dents, but nothing serious.

"Frank...didn't make it, he died saving me" Yayoi said as she glanced towards the robots and got grazed by a stray robot bullet on the side of her cheek. "shit" she muttered as she calculated the damage.

"Black," Vec said using the triage term for a casualty, "Didn't have time to recover the body."

"Damn." Mochi grumbled at the news, shaking his head and stowing his sword. "No time to think about that now." The Elysian glanced to where Pidole and Nalini were disappearing off to. "Take stock guys, patch while we wait for them." He added, trotting off towards where they had gone. If there were wires and things, maybe a science officer could be of use. Although, he'd taken some nasty blows to his left side from the robots, so winced as he did.

A booming voice filled the Pit of Insanity. "I AM DEATH, DESTROYER OF LIFE. I HAVE RETURNED. PURGE THESE INTRUDERS FROM MY CIRCUITS, SO THAT WE MAY CONTINUE OUR QUEST."

"Quickly." Nalini added.

"On it, buddy!" Thaddeaus said, but he wasn't quite sure of what he had to do quickly other than follow or protect Nalini, so he just reiterated what she said, "Quickly!!!!"

"Dat nuh soun criss," Vec said grimly, his Tallus Patois slipping through.

"RECONNECT THE NETWORK," the voice of the big brain ordered, finding that Nalini had disconnected it from the rest of the planet. The robots began to burst through the defenses the Rixxikor had erected and began coming back into room 28.

"Which room?" Chiasa responded to Nalini, her ears twitching as the booming, masculine voice sounded out within the maze, causing her heart to skip a beat inside of her bosom.

"Circular, It's beside room thirty-nine, but I don't know if there is an entrance there." I suppose we could cut our way in, but that might be dangerous." Nalini responded.

The butt of his submachine gun locked against Thad's strong chest as he released scalar volleys at the flood of robots. His own armor had gone from green across the board to splotches of yellow and orange, indicating damage in his arms and chest.

"All in a day's work," Thad chuckled aloud. "Dangerous is the Star Army's middle name!"

"This way," Pidole shouted, as she defeated the locking systems on room 37's south door. She pushed into a narrow passage only to find another locked door. "Give me a moment," she said, starting work on that one.

"Then it's Room 48. We have the map." Chiasa responded. "Southeast of our position."

Mochi joined the tech team just in time to hear the sounds of fighting behind him. "Damnit." Turning back to see what it was, it looked like they had it handled. "Nalini, here!" The Elysian called, unclipping his cutting tool from its holster and tossing it over to the other soldier. She'd have better use of it right now. "That might speed things up!"

There was the distinct flash and roar of teleportation and appeared Delmira with a big crate of extra of ammunition. "I come bearing gifts." She said and raised dual gatling guns and fired into the robot horde. "Be thankful i left the safety of my robot."

"Just in time!" Cheilith said reloading her weapons from the cashe that Del brought. "One last push, and perhaps this will be over." She said, looking more than a bit worse for wear.

Yayoi blinked as Del appeared. "i am eternally grateful" She commented.

"Better late than never." Sanda laughed as she added her firepower to Del's.

"Remind me to request one of those project thought armors, the keiko and whatever the other one is called." Delmira said and turned around to fish around the crate. "I brought big booms." She said and hefted out some explosives.

Sanda just rolled her eyes. Didn't Del have enough toys to play with? "Grab what you can carry and keep moving. We don't want to get too spread out."

"Huah, let's do the opposite of what the big evil voice is telling us," Vec said as he followed Mochi through the cavernous passages.

Nalini caught the torch and covered Pidole, she was still relatively pristine, and she could handle a her rifle but there was still a sense of her being uncomfortable with it.

After a minute of working on it with her engineering tools, Pidole opened the door to Room 43, which was thankfully clear of robots. "Advancing!" she said, raising her rifle with one hand and dragging her engineering kit with the other as she made room for the others.

Chiasa moved to cover Pidole as she entered the room, her senses primed as her digital mind spun up a litany of sub-processes committed to scanning the area.

"Sensors are clear in this room." Chiasa called back, before following after Pidole.

"Crap, dead end," Pidole said. "Maybe there's more secrets?"

"Room 48 is to our east now." Chiasa answered, the map downloaded to her memory. "We could cut through the walls to reach it." The tiny Nekovalkyrja suggested. "My armor has a plasma projector."

Nalini followed Pidole, moving towards the wall that separated them from their last objective. The Goddess had a set look on her face as she looked at the wall. "Perhaps, but if this is the end of the secrets, we may need to just cut through the wall."

Delmira stuck a plastic explosive in the crate she brought and moved with the group. "This crate will make a good hole in the ground, leave what you cant grab." Delmira said and laid down covering fire with her guns.

With everyone filing through to follow Pidole, Mochi kept a close eye that nobody was falling behind and they were all in eyeshot. "Almost there now." He reassured them, keeping morale up, until he saw a new Mindy. This one was tagged as Delmira's. "Hey Del, fancy seeing you here." Mochi grinned under his helmet once they had all moved in. "Late to the party?"

"Away team, this is Resurgence Actual," Aoba called. "Are you there Sanda, over?"

"Resurgence Actual, this is Thunder. Read you. Over." Sanda responded to the ship.

"Thunder, Resurgence, is anyone guarding the network connection in Room 17 so it doesn't turn it back on?" Aoba asked.

Yayoi guarded the network connection so it doesn't turn on.

The robots closed in on Yayoi, sending huge volumes of plasma fire at her as they advanced into the Eastern part of the maze.

Sanda pulled up her map and smiled as she saw Yayoi was already there. "That is affirmative Resurgence Actual. Asakura-Heisho is there. I'm moving to support her. Thunder out." Sanda locked onto Yayoi's signal and teleported over to her position.

Spotting that Sanda had disappeared, Mochi quickly radioed her, "If the switch is thrown, you might be able to blow it so that it's *permanently* thrown."

Pidole found a secret passage into Room 50. "Here's another one, you have to slip over this wall through the ceiling vent," she told the others. "I had to remove the cover panel. Remember we want to take the planet intact for Nalini, sir," she reminded Iemochi.

Yayoi narrowed her eyes at the robots, and used the robot she was holding to shield herself from the attack. She knew that soon the robot body will be useless.

Sanda appeared in a flash of light. "You having a party without me Hermana?" She receaved Iemochi's message and responded. "If we need to blow it we will, Sir."

"Never! but glad you have finally made it, slowpoke!" Yayoi replied with an actual smile.

Sanda was about to give a witty comeback when another wave of robots came at them. The tattooed ranger was hit hard. Her right arm almost completely blown off. Sanda grunted and picked up her rifle with her left arm and began blasting away.

Yayoi fired back at the robots when she saw Sanda get hit. She silently cursed her slowness and she tried not to get distracted by her Hermana's arm getting blown off, she was a Nepleslian it was likely cybernetic.

Nalini climbed up and through the vent to enter the circular room. Her body was quite well adapted for getting through tight spaces like that. She looked around the room as others entered. She took a breath, "This is really it. Don't panic, and if my body must be destroyed, allow it." She said, wishing she had just a little longer. She touched her temple and a glowing ball came out it, attached to what seemed like a long line of light that led directly through a wall.

Conversely, Thad's larger build and tighter limbs had found the slipping through a ceiling vent a little more strenuous. His tough passage through meant Nalini's words was marred with a series of groans and grunts coming from the vent before he dropped in.

Mochi stared up at the vent, then looked down to his wings that protruded from either side. "Fuckin' typical." He cursed under his breath. There was no way that he'd fit through that, he'd barely got through the previous tunnels. "Racist vent." He jested to himself, shaking his head. Instead, he just selected Nalini's position as a teleportation target and beamed himself beside her.

In the circular room Nalini could see the central core of the usurper AI, the one who had taken over from the original Essai one and installed itself as the supreme controller of this planet so it could wipe out organic life. The core was a series of glowing purple rods arranged in a sort of central core. Along the sides of the room were ancient control panels.

"Well, Kōchō," Vec said to his trusty VCMAD, "Looks like we're climbing, or at least I'm carrying you." Realizing trying to climb with the bot would be rather ungainly, he took hold of his drone and teleported through on Mochi's signal.

Delmira also teleported and grinned as she primed the detonator on her improvised explosive. "When everyone is clear of the supply cache I'm going to blow it and anything in that room up. You have been warned"

Crawling her way through the vents, Chiasa floated down into the circular room, then dropped down as Iemochi teleported inside.

"Well, that's one way to do it." Chiasa commented playfully.

Mochi whistled slowly at the sight of the room, "Now *this* is something I'd love to have some time alone with. I bet SARA would have a field day in here, that's for sure." His head turned this way and that, taking it all in, calculations and predictions on his mind. Mochi had a feeling that despite the green and red panels that stood before her, Nalini knew more about this place than they ever would.

Nalini gave one last look at the crew and wished she could say more, "You will always be a part of my crew, my Nakama." She said with a tear. Then she touched the glowing ball on her finger to the central core. Then her body dropped like a marrionette who's strings had been cut.

"Wait-" Thad said, raising his hand towards Nalini as he took a step forward. A goodbye from his battle buddy wasn't what he was expecting from this mission. Before he could get to her, she had fallen. "Chiasa!"

Yayoi glanced over to see Nalini work.

"After Nalini takes over, reactivate the network connector and she'll have control over the planet," Aoba told the team.

"Copy that Resurgence Actual" Yayoi replied and when she saw Nalini go limp she hoped that this meant it worked, so she followed orders and reactivated the connectors for Nalini.

When the hostile AI was deactivated, the robots all self-destructed themselves, blowing up in orange fireballs and ended up as smoking wrecks.

Chiasa arrived at the side of Nalini's slack form in a blur of motion, her medical scanner primed, but she didn't need it to tell her what was already evident.

"Brain dead." Chiasa said softly. "She's with the planet now." The tiny Nekovalkyja finished, a frown coming over her features as an invisible tear slid down her cheeks beneath the mask of her helmet.

"Nalini, what do you want us to do with your body?" Chiasa asked aloud, hoping that the AI Goddess might be able to hear her, if only to verify that she was alive.

"We can't just leave her here," Thad said, a bitter tone lacing at the edges of his voice. "Even if she is here or however you put it, we can't just leave her." Something hurt about losing to whom Thad had offered protection, but not understanding why hurt even more.

Sanda held her rifle up and waited a moment before moving forward. All the robots seemed to have died. "Does that mean we won? Because I am sooo over machine planets."

Pidole crawled into the central core room, "Mission accomplished?" she asked the others.

"Don't say that, Henitot, I don't want to be down here for twenty years," Vec said in an offhand voice.

Delmira frowned a bit. "Once again I'm thrawted on using high explosives." She said and set the detonator to safe.

"Hai.." Yayoi replied as she watched Chiasa work on Nalini.

"This is Resurgence Actual, All team members return to the Resurgence for debrief," Captain Aoba's voice said over the team communications net.

"Well done everyone, let's get home. Drinks are on me. Teleport at will." Mochi gave a thumbs up to the others, "Credit to our NCOs as always, and we did a good CASEVAC, so make sure to say hi to the wounded once we return." With that, the Elysian punched his teleport and disappeared.

"Alright people, you heard our captain return to the ship" Yayoi stated and moved to Nalini/Nagashun's body and looked at it.

"Well it look's like we're poofing again," Vec said to his drone before locking in on the Resurgence's signal porting out.

Delmira will teleport back to the supply cache and deactivate the bomb she put inside of it before teleporting back to the ship

Sanda did a quick tweek to her suit so that she'd be able to teleport without risks with the loss of her arm. Thankfully, it was her cybernetic arm and she had a few spares on the ship. Sanda made sure everyone else had teleported safely before she did so. That was the Rangers moto. First in. Last out.

Chiasa waited for a moment longer than she should for a response from the AI Goddess, but with the others teleporting back to the Resurgence, the tiny Nekovalkyrja knew that she couldn't stay forever.

"You're right." Chiasa answered Thad, a fresh stream of tears rolling down her pinkish-tan cheeks as she did. "It's t-time to go. I'll process her body." She finished. "Teleporting out now." With that, the tiny Nekovalkyrja disappeared from the circular in a flash of light, along with Nalini's inert form.

Thad put a hand up towards the core, then shook the helmet of his head. With that, he followed quickly soon after in a visible disruption of space, teleporting out.

Pidole took a final look at her surroundings and then hit recall and appeared in the Resurgence's power armor bay, still feeling queasy from the action, where she lurched over to her armor rack and then got out of her beat-up Mindy 4 armor suit and went to the medical lab to check on Euikoshi.

Once Mochi had the full headcount, he disembarked from his Mindy and whistled to get their attention. "Unless you have something pressing or want to see to the wounded, follow me to the debrief. Then we can grab drinks, or relax how ya see fit."

MISSION END

OOC: JP by Wes, Ajax, Charaa, Cowboy, Soresu, Soban, Spaceeye, Shadowwalker, Ethereal, Yuuki, Locke, Damaske, Hyralt, Immortal Cyan, Ame.

 

[Soresu]

"Welcome back," Koyama's voice echoed across the power armor bay. The XO made a beeline toward those few that remained as they exited their armor. Hair swished as she came briskly, a pad under an arm. The short woman stopped just shy of them surveying them. With a nod toward the exit, Koyama waited.

"The captain is waiting."

 

[Cowboy]

Aboard ship, PA Bay.

Sanda first checked in her plasma rifle before moving to the PA Bay. She struggled somewhat getting out of her armor. Her right arm was almost completely gone from the bicep down. But instead of bone and blood there were wires and hydraulic fluid sticking out. It wasn't until Sanda made it out of her PA that she started to feel pain. She stripped out of her body suit down to her shorts and tank top. It was only then that she discovered her other injuries.

Her PA suit and body suit had acted as a compress. Once gone, the injuries were obvious and some began to bleed. On her ride side she had several large bruises and a cut on her hip, right where Sanda's lightning tattoo wrapped around her before shooting down her legs. Her right leg was cut as well, although she couldn't remember being hit in the leg. Her left side wasn't so bad. A few stitches and bandages and then a nice long hot shower would set her up right. Although she needed to get her arm replaced as soon as possible. She didn't like being so handicapped. Also, she didn't want to accidently hurt herself more with those shards sticking out her arm.

Using her cybernetic interface, Sanda unlocked and disconnected the arm from her shoulder. Luckily the shoulder itself wasn't damaged and it would be simple to replace. Drawing her blade she carefully cut the synthetic skin around the shoulder. Once free, the remainder of her arm fell unceremoniously to the floor. As if that was the signal, Koyama appeared in the bay. Sanda glanced at the XO then down at her arm on the floor. She grabbed an uniform top and wrapped it around her shoulders as she moved towards the exit. She just hoped no one would make a dumb joke like asking her if she needed a hand.

 

[Yuuki]

With the away team returned and the mission concluded, Tachiko closed out the mission report at the Mission Operations console, then hurried down to medbay to help receive and triage any wounded that still needed attention. The Medic-turned-Mission Operator was more useful in her prior capacity, now that there was no longer an operation to coordinate.

"Pink-hei, this is Motoyoshi, I am en route to med bay, please advise situation."

 

[Wes]

Medical Lab

"Things are calm here. Euikoshi is getting patched up in the hemosynth tube and Cassie is resting and healing while the repair nanites fix her brain up. I'm about to start working on a new Frank. This guy can't ever say I never did anything nice for him," medic Poppy Pink told Tachiko. "This is why I make people come here for snapshots of their DNA and memories. We'll have him up and running again soon."

 

[Charaa]

Aboard ship, PA Bay.
Yayoi was silent contemplatively as she got out of her power armor and glanced over to Sanda as she saw the injuries. Yui’s tits! She thought, but of course she would never dare utter the disrespectful curse out loud. How out of the armor, she nodded to the XO. The captain would want a briefing on what happened down there. Yayoi had to admit she was still shocked. The ship played host to a goddess of the Separa’shan?! Seriously?!! She also thought of the thing Nalini, or Nagashun had talked about. She thought perhaps talk with the ship's counselor might do her some good, but she grimaced at the thought. She thought that would be awkward as Yayoi walked alongside Sanda, not at all making a comment about her arm, but pondering if she was in pain.