Machine Moon
The shuttle raced over a landscape that was absolutely desolate. The moon, or space station, or entity, whatever it was, was made of dark and blackened metal as far as anyone could see, and it was jagged with holes and dents and craters and missing stolen sections from a thousand years of war and looters. There was an eerie quiet in the shuttle as Beryl moved it to the place where Beryl thought there could be some access to its controls. Finally, the shuttle came to rest in the air hovering above the floor of a barren hangar bay large enough to hold the entire Resurgence. When the shuttle door opened they could see the dead hulks of dozens of ancient combat robots scattered around the bay.
Sanda stood as the shuttle came to a stop. She was the first to exit the shuttle and landed silently on the giant hangerbay. She held her rifle up and scanned for any threats. When nothing could be seen visually she did a few scnns with her mindy's sensors but no immediate threats appeared. "Thunder to Shuttle. No contacts at this time. Stand by." She moved forward to give the imideat area a quick scan before she gave the all clear.
Yayoi glanced out to the barrenness, the hoard of robots was a tech lovers goldmine though she did now know any tech lovers, though she was familiar with one skilled technology specialist. She was ready to jump out of the shuttle, but held her weapon close as she followed the plan.
She heard Sanda's report, but made no comment.
Delmira tacked the shuttle from her postion in orbit. She watched and observed the surrounding area.
Mochi was sat towards the back of the shuttle and could easily glance out at the surface below. The sight of all the warbots scattered and seemingly destroyed outside, sent a twinge of doubt across the Elysian's mind. "Why do I get the feeling that some of those are going to jump up any moment.."
Thad was enjoying the ride down to the world surface. At least the place didn't seem to be crawling with all kinds of bad things. At least not that was visible on sensors.
Cheilith bounded out of the shuttle with her sword held at the ready.
For her part, Chiasa stuck to the plan Sanda had drawn up prior to the landing. She had her aether rifle held at the ready, but waited for the signal to be given before moving to float out of the shuttle. However, since the tiny Nekovalkyrja was medical specialist and one of the least experienced members of the away team, she was one of the very last to disembark. In doing so, Chiasa leveraged her Mindy's CFS to slowy, yet gracefully float down, until her feet touched ground.
"Because you're smart, or at least play a lot of video games," Vec said to the winged science officer. He gave his weapons one last check and waiting for the signal to move out.
"I got you on visuals Sanda, nothing in your area yet." Delmira said observsing the situation ground side. Delmira would have moved in her mech if she could but it took care of her body still the out of body experince she was feeling was still strange no matter how many times she synced with her mech.
"Clearly there is some bad out there. However I am loaded up on some good." Thad said as he continued to load aether shells into his shotgun axe.
Sanda didn't see any threats. "Thunder to shuttle. All clear. Come ahead." She radioed in. She continued to scan her surroundings, rifle up and ready to blast anything that moved.
Poppy hopped out of the shuttle, falling in slow motion to the surface in her Mindy. "I guess this is the front door," she speculated, looking around the huge bay in wonder. "This place is enormous."
Yayoi jumped out after Poppy, and moved to join Sanda.
Nalini was one of the last off the shuttle, she wandered over to one of the nearby fallen robots and started poking it curiously.
Thad walked up beside Nalini. "Mindful of what you poke, some bad might just jump out of the woodwork."
Nalini straighted suddenly, suprised by Thad. "Of course. Of course, it's just so fascinating, and so old."
"Hey, team," Vec said over the comm, "Before we get too far in, grab a battle buddy, and don't lose them." He worried things would be getting chaotic soon. The CMO took a moment to revel in the low gravity as he drifted to the surface. It was something to keep in mind. He signaled to Kōchō and the big VCMAD lept down in walking mode to follow.
Thad racked his weapon making a loud sound. "I got my buddy right here, oh and guess I can team up with Nalini."
Nalini gave him a skeptical look, but after a moment nodded. "Just try not to take off the end of my tail with that." She said before going back to what her readings were telling her.
Sanda compleated her scan hanger area. There were several passages and stairways leading away from the hanger. "Which way do you tech people figure we should go?" Sanda asked the group.
Mochi stepped over to the exitway and gracefully leaned forwards until he fell. Soaring down headfirst with his thrusters off, the Elysian saw the ground racing towards him at speed. Nearly too late, he flipped forwards so his feet were pointing towards the ground and flared off his speed, landing with a little "crunch". Glancing up, he would pull some science equipment from his buttpack and start taking readings, pulling his pistol as he scanned the nearest seemingly dead warbot. "If the squad leaders could ensure a 360 and perimeter that would be lovely." The science officer suggested. "Let's not get too free range until we're sure it's safe."
Cheilith nodded, moving out to her point on the permiter with the science people on the inside.
Euikoshi joined the group and told Sanda, "Well, in the similar machine moon that Taisho Hanako found, the habitable section began with a sort of maze to keep out intruders and the controls were located deep in the maze. In the habitable sections of these machine world's it's not uncommon for their to be life forms present, as well as robots. I'll start trying to doors."
Delmira had a sudden thought and synced her cameras feed to the Res. "Delmira to Tachiko and the Resurgence i figure you guys may also want to watch whiile im getting them on camera."
Thad gave Nalini a nudge. "Promise, no friendly fire." He then started to move out and explore this wasteland. "Wonderful, a maze we have to deal with. Any chance we can just like, fly over it?"
Chiasa initially thought to ask Vec to be her battle buddy, but it didn't take her long to realize that it didn't make sense to have all of the medics together. Instead, she shifted her attention to Iemochi-san, before flashing the Elysian scientist a transmission.
Battle buddies, Iemochi-Taii?
Chiasa took a deep breath and looked up towards the scientist with a questioning glance, albeit hidden by the unreadable mask of her helmet.
Sanda considered Euikoshi's intel. She didn't like the idea of a maze with all sorts of booby traps and such. She looked around to make sure no one had wondered off. Everyone was still present in the hanger.
Vec fell in near Euikoshi, simply claming the science specialist as his battle buddy. He kept his SMG at the ready, scanning the shadows with his suit's sensors.
Nalini sent the data she was gathering about how the robots had been destroyed to Mochi as the group slowly moved.
"I think I see the entrance," Euikoshi said, looking at a door that was blocked off with a layer of armor that had been haphazardly bolted over the doorframe. On the blocked door there was a large sign with warnings in 20 languages including trade, which said "DO NOT ENTER THIS PLACE, THERE IS ONLY DEATH, THERE IS NOTHING HERE OF VALUE, ANY ATTEMPT TO AWAKEN IT COULD BRING GREAT HARM TO ALL LIFE IN THIS GALAXY."
"So, that's where we're going right?" Vec said in an amused tone, "My armor's packing a number of cutting tools if we need to breach it."
Yayoi wasnt sure she liked the idea of a maze but she kept silent as she processed Mochi's words. She did agree that a secure perimitter was a good idea.
Thad had made his way over to the door and grabbed a charge out of his mindy's center. "So, should be make an entrance?" He asked as he tossed the explosive up and down in the air.
Cheilith igniged the huge aether saber, "Can can cut through it if we need to."
Nalini reached out an touched it, "It is welded shut, we will need to if we want to enter this place. Danger still lurks here."
Mochi looked up from his instruments to Chiasa, nodding as he sent back a telepathic message of reassurance. "Absolutely. Glad to have you!" Hearing a ping in his ear, the science officer glanced back to the scanner. Reading it, he relayed verbally to the team, "It looks like these are about.. two decades old. Destroyed, thankfully. It looks like hypersonic railguns. Daily old tech by our standards."
Checking on Euikoshi, he'd fall into a little jog towards her and begin to assist with the doors. "I have a cutting torch if you'd like, Euikoshi?" After he spotted the warning, Mochi whistled. Carefully, he'd check the origins of the languages to see which regions of space whoever had written it had visited.
"Uh, okay..?" Euikoshi shrugged, sounding a little concerned.
Chiasa blinked as she took in the sign.
"Hey y'all, I think-" The tiny Nekovalkyrja began, before falling silent to let the louder voice in the group speak.
"Hold it everyone!" Sanda said before things got out of hand. "Lets slow down a bit." She called the Res. "Resurgence, this is Thunder. We found a door with a warning on it, in about 20 diffrent languigs. Sending you a visual now. Requesting an update."
Yayoi opened her mouth to add to Sanda's authority. "Agreed, we need to slow down before we get outselves killed.
Oh so now we're being logical about things, Vec thought to himself, helmet masking a wry smile.
Mochi rubbed his helmet as he pondered the implications of their finding. "Whoever's here isn't here anymore. Unless they're hiding in here, they might have just trapped a bunch of these warbots inside.." The Elysian would focus his scanner, trying to penetrate through the door and read what may be beyond.
"Away team this is Resurgence Actual," Aoba's voice came over the intercom. "Your presence has drawn some attention. It looks like you have a large group of robots moving towards your position that will be there in about two minutes. We count over one hundred and they are heavily armed. You may want to find a place to hide if possible," the captain told them. "I am pulling out the shuttle to a safer position for safety's sake."
Thad put away the explosive and instead walked over to the sign to look it over more. After a few moments he started to work to remove it. "In case them robots can read, maybe this would stop them. Either way it will make a great shield."
"This is Delmira i have visual on enemy formation premission to launch a bombardment strike on the formation to give the ground team some time?" Delmira asked shifting her weapons to focus on the formation of enemies and working out new fireing soultions.
Cheilith looked at Mochi, "Does that mean we breach now?" She asked.
"We don't necessarily know they're hostile, but they look pretty hostile. Hold fire for now," Aoba said. Rules of engagement and so forth.
"Copy that, holding fire but plotting fireing solutions just in case actual." Demira said useing her cameras to let the bridge get a birds eye view of the robot horde.
100 robots?! Chiasa's Nekovalkyrja intuition flared up in anticipation. While she was a medical specialist, it went without saying that her design predisposed her towards violence. Accordingly, she primed herself and her Mindy for combat and stealth, her CFS flaring as its scalr fields activated to cloak her presence—not from the naked eye, but from prying sensor pulses. All the while, she moved closer to her battle buddy, ready to cover him as needed.
Not wanting to step on any toes, Vec simply slung his SMG in favor of his gattling rifle. He didn't know if things would get hot, but extra firepower on the firing line had never hurt anybody before. At least nobody who wasn't down range.
"I don't know about you yall, but maybe we should duck into this here maze and not get into a fight already." About that time Thad had successfully removed the sign and was forming it into a tower shield using the rare power of the mindy.
"Patience, Thaddeaus." Nalini said to her companion.
Yayoi heard the report from the ship, and glanced around calmly for a place to potentially hide.
Mochi clicked his tongue in annoyance and cursed quietly in Elysian. "We need cover and if we get in here they might miss us. Trouble being that fighting in enclosed spaces might give them the upper hand." He stated at the doors, "100 is a lot.. We might not have a choice but to shelter or hide in here." The Elysian looked to the squad leaders, "Your call on whether we can take them or not."
Sanda moved away from the maze door and to the hanger opening. She scanned around but it wasn't hard to miss the mass of robots hurring towards the hanger. There wasn't many places to hide, at least none that would hide them from any kind of scanners. This was not going at all the way she expected things to go. Still, it wasn't too hopeless just yet.
"Yayoi im going to try something, let me know if you get a visual of what im ooking at." Delmira said and would try to send her visuals to the ranger's power armor. The short neko could feel the strain on her processing power a bit as she was syncing the visuals to multipule people.
Thad started to cut away at the bolts that was holding the armor in place over the door. "If there is 200, we can all agree there is a good chance there is another 2000 out there. I vote the maze." The mindy made quick work breaking the bolts which fixed the armor in place.
Yayoi agreed "hundred is a lot" she started to say before Delmira spoke to her. She soon began recieving visuals from Delmira's mech.
"Receiving your feed, Lulie-Hei! Thank you!" Chiasa piped up as she spun up a dedicated sub-process of her digital mind to monitoring Delmira's feed from the lower atmosphere. In a situation as dangerous as this, she anticipated that any information would be helpful.
Cheilith nodded, and blunged her aether coated zesuanium blade into the door and started cutting away opposite of Thad. "We'll get it open." She said confidently.
Mochi grimaced, "Of course, they might just be heading here to warn against opening. Maybe we can try to hail them with radio.. Before we've opened it..."
"A maze also makes a good choke point," Cassie pointed out, helping Thad by yanking on the armor plates.
"And we don't know what's on the other side of that door, we could be setting ourselves up to get flanked," Vec countered. He also wanted to suggest that they at least try to find fireing positons if they couldn't find true hiding spots, but held his tongue for the moment.
"We should er on the side of caution since they fired on the ship" Yayoi said as she thought of using the maze as a choke point for attack.
"The planet fired on the ship and it hit a mine or something dodging it," Euikoshi said. "We don't know if these robots work for the planet."
"Who's to say they are not working for the planet." Delmira said over team comms "Best to err on the side of caution."
Thad had completed breaking away his side of the door. "You got your side Cheilith free?" Thad called out as he prepared to pull the armor away from the door.
Mochi took the executive decision to send a hail to the approaching mass. The teams could already almost see each other, but maybe they could get an idea of hostility. "Friend or foe?" He would ask the bots.
The robots, which had four legs and huge guns for arms, began firing orange plasma bolts at the away team, immediately blowing off Chiasa's leg and putting a smoking hole in Cassie's Mindy's back.
"Done. I say Foe." Cheilith relied as she cut through the last bolts and her, Nalini, and Thad pulled and pushed the armor away.
"Fall back to the maze opening!" Sanda yelled. "Defensive positions!" She brought her rifle up and began returning fire. She was still by the hanger opening and had a diffrent field of fire from the rest of the team. She hoped to draw their fire long enough for the rest of her team to move into the maze. She could always teleport to them at the last minute if she needed to.
"foe, move your asses people!" Yayoi replied as the robots began firing, and moved to Fire back to also distract.
"You are cleared to fire," Aoba said, frustrated but not surprised.
"Firing on the enemy formation." Delmira said and let loose a combined salvo from her 200mm railgun and her 150 mm howitzer. No atmosphere meant that the neko didnt have to worry about her howitzers shells buring up before they reached the ground.
"Well, that answeres that," Vec said, dropping to a knee and firing off rappid bursts of excellerated aether.
"Inside! Inside!" Mochi agreed, waving people towards the door as the shots flew towards them. Squinting and hoping to be the last one in, Mochi would try to pick out what kind of weapons the bots were using. Quickly, he barked, "Squad leaders, make sure we keep up suppression as we infil. Someone get ready to blow the entrance so they can't follow us in. They look too chunky to fit but I don't want to risk that if we hear them breaking in."
Cassie crawled into the alien facility through the crack in the door cover that Thad had opened up, leaving a trail of black smoke. Poppy grabbed Chiasa and helped her through.
Cheilith charged forward with her aethersaber shining light on the inside, prepared to defend the team from any enemies inside.
"Thaddius, I believe we can replace the door with the armor here to give us a few more moments." Nalini said.
"Understood." He shouted as he pushed and pulled the armor back into place. He then slapped the charge he had from earlier onto the side of the door. "Primed, I'd get back from this."
As the team began to bound back towards the maze, Vec also displaced rushing towards Pink and Ohara's position. "Set her down over here," Vec said pulling the tiny Medic's IFAK free and ripping it open. Using a few quick pulses from his armor's plasma projector, he cut away the armor right above the wound and wrapped a smart tourniquet around the extemity. As soon as he yanked the end, the internal motor becan winching it tight enough to cut off the blood flow. A time indicator popped up on the display immediately. He immediately began slathering the stump in MedicaGel and wrapping it up with gauze. A few more packs of gauze from his primary kit and he'd managed tos top the blood flow.
"Pink," Vec said addressing the other medic, "Keep her leg elevated and get a suit seal over that." He stood moving on to where Cassie had managed drag herself.
A white-hot wave of pain came over Chiasa, but it left as soon as it arrived as her pain receptors in her leg were shut off. However, by the time she came back into alertness, Vec and Poppy were working over her and it was as if a switch flipped in her mind.
"Sir...what's wrong?"
Sanda continued to fire, but the shear numbers of weapons firing was stagering. Then Del's first salvo hit and everyone started stagering. "Miércoles!" Sanda yelled, impressed at the destruction.
"Ground team, im going to bomb the srrounding area with a swarm of aether torpedos get inside." Demira said releasing the safties on her torpedos. She fired another salvo from her howitzer and railgun while she was getting ready.
Yayoi fired at the robots, before she watched as Delmira did her thing. "copy that" she said and hurried to where the others were.
Nalini slid backwards on her tail, using the armor module on her tail armor to provide others with a defensive line as they retreated with the chunk of armor held between them and the enemy.
"NCOs, start getting your team inside. We need to get down there before we take more casualties and nobody's going inside-" Mochi advised, firing his MAW from beside the entrance. "Nobody should be out here if torps are coming down!" With that, having got the scans of the warbots and their weapons, he'd squeeze inside the entrance.
"Is everyone through!?" Sanda yelled into the coms as she was forced to take cover. She couldn't remain where she was anymore. She just hoped the rest of her team had made it to cover. She activated her teleporter and jumped to the maze door.
"everyone inside now!" Yayoi roared into the coms as she joined them.
“Sir?” Koyama called, “If they are like the last encountered, what I had been working on before might be worth a shot. Because of how lethal the last robots proved to be and the world trying to send a signal out to us, I pondered on piggybacking it.” Koyama gesticulated while speaking, punctuating it as a stabbing motion.
“Introduce malicious software into their code to flip their FOF designation systems. Maybe, just maybe, get them to turn on each other. For however long, considering what is controlling them. It would not be without risk.” She warned at the very end.
"I got a big hole back here," Cassie said, panting. "It looks like it goes down for kilometers."
"Lets push into this place so I can blow the entrence. Going to make them have to dig to get to us." Thad grabbed up his weapon he had laid down and moved away from the now armed door.
"Extra holes are no good, soldier," Vec said takign a knee near Cassie, "Let me take a look at that."
Delmira would wait for now on the torpedos and fired her beam cannons spread fire mode at the front of the enemy formation. She watched as her cannons barrel released the built up energy that would surly vaporize anything it hit.
It didn't take much longer for Chiasa to regain her alertness get up onto the one leg that she had left, instead opting to float via her CFS, rather than run or walk. Fortunately, it was just a leg, so Chiasa believed that she was still capable of fighting like everyone else. However, the blood was inconvenient.
Kōchō, the Medical team's VCMAD rolled up to Chisa and gave her a helpful beep.
Mochi, safely inside, would illuminate the interior and scan it for signs of life, moving clear of the entrance. Looking back over his shoulder, he'd still hear gunfire and see an absence of bodies coming after him. "Start issuing direct orders, NCOs!" He'd say hurriedly, now getting quite concerned.
With everyone safely inside, Nalini helped manuver the huge armor door back into place and started to weld it back into place.
The robots outside the door didn't attempt to open it. They were too afraid of what was inside.
"Do you think we could use the armor's volumetric projectors to make Chiasa some sort of temporary hard-light replacement foot?" Euikoshi pondered.
"I'm not a fucking liability." Chiasa grunted, sounding annoyed. "I can float."
"If you'd like, I can attach a blade to your busted leg. Can get some revenge on them with it." Thad said with a chuckle.
"Guys, my oxygen supply is fucked," Cassie blurted out, looking at the damage reports from her Mindy's AIES.
"shit" Yayoi commented as Cassie spoke of her predicament. Her own was fine, but she quickly glanced around to see what she could do to help Cassie, though as a last resort, she'll replace Cassie's with her own.
Vec immediatly began wrapping Molecure tap over the suit holes. "Weve got spare O2 on Kōchō," he said, "We can hook it up to your suit but it won't last forever and pure O2 really isn't that great for you in the long run." He signaled Kōchō and the bot rolled over to let him begin digging through the packs webbed to it's back for an O2 pack.
"I'll give her some of my oxygen." Chiasa piped up. A part of her wondered if the oxygen would be better served with Cassie than with her.
On the radio, Aoba gave permission for Koyama to try to hack the aggressive robots. "You can give it a try, Koyama," he simply said.
Koyama gave a little nod, “Increasing the MEGAMI’s protections, starting ECW suite for counter-intrusion.” she announced, much of the task being performed through her SPINE interface. The code that had consumed her time for the last two weeks transferred from her datapad.
“Sampling incoming and outgoing signals…” Afterward, she became rather quiet while she worked. Taking what she could here or there from what the sensors, communications systems and E-War suite collected. Threading the needle as it were, Koyama slipped her signal into those coming into and out of the killing-machines currently bent on massacring the away team. With one final push of the button with malicious intent Koyama sent the viral package hurtling toward the robotic force.
Sanda remained towards the back, her weapons trained behind her. She wasn't sure if she should be relieved or conserned that the robots hadn't followed them into the maze.
Thad figured the rest of the team had things covered. He reached into his center pack and pulled out a light. This was in addition to the lights on his mindy which turned on so he could better scan the area.
"Damage report. Any more than two hit?" Mochi would glance over his shoulder again. "Medics, triage and give us an idea of operational time. Looks like our rear is safe.. guess the warning was left by the bots. I need an NCO to start probing forwards."
Sanda heard Iemochi's orders. Still concerned about the situation she pushed it aside. "I'm on it Sir." She moved passed where Vec was working on Cassie and Chiasa. She noticed Chaisa seemed to be missing a leg but was still operational. Sanda paused said, "Guess you do have what it takes to share a room with the Rangers after all." Before moving on to take the point.
"What did you expect? I'm a Neko." Chiasa snapped, contempt almost seeming to drip from her tone. However, a part of it came from lingering shock and the fact that she was annoyed at herself for getting shot.
Yayoi glanced to Sanda and Chiasa's conversation, and she could hear it in Chiasa's voice. She turned and glanced around the new area.
Mochi and Thad could see a large shaft the size of a city block that was covered in tubes and wires and machinery and it was so deep the bottom wasn't visible. It was very dark except for pulsing purple lights that appeared here and there and little blinking yellow lights scatted on the unexplainably complex alien systems. After some time, they were able to locate what appeared to be a button for the elevator.
"So who is hoping that there is some hot goddess at the bottom of this hole and not some scary monster of death?" Said Thad.
"Shut up Maxiums. Focus please." Sanda said as she passed him to scan the area.
"According to my calculations, at the entrance to the habitable section there may be an airlock with breathable air inside," Euikoshi said.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, kid," Vec said on a private line to Ohara, "Bad luck is the most high speed operater out there and he's always on the other guys team. "
Mochi stared at the nearest light, then the nearest of a different colour, trying to make sense of what they might mean. Spotting Sanda go towards the shaft, the Elysian would address Yayoi, "Let's start moving towards the oxygen. What formation do you want us in?"
Yayoi sighed in annoyance. "Sanda, scout ahead and report back" she said thinking that separating Thad and Sanda would be a good idea. "I want everyone to remain close to your partner. I also want someone guarding the front and the rear"
Nalini examined the controls for the elevator, taking a few moments and then with a realization she said, "I can summon the elevator when you want." She announced.
"Are you seeing this?" Aoba asked the bridge crew, "Are the robots building a factory?" he said, peering at the view from orbit. Not only had the robots starting building structures outside of the entrance, but these factories were building mecha and orbital-class rockets out of nanomachines.
Delmira tired to zoom in further to give Aoba and better view of the situation planetside.
Chiasa floated after Iemochi and Sanda as they moved towards the shaft, her aether rifle held at the ready. The tiny Nekovalkyrja wanted desperately to prove that she wasn't a liability.
"How was it luck, sir?" Chiasa answered Vec over the private line. "I was out of position or slow or something and got shot for it." She sucked in air, clearly irritated at herself.
"Yeah, and I got stabbed in the kidney by a child once, sometimes shit happens," Vec said keeping his voice light, "If you know where you went wrong, then just don't repeat the mistake. You're still alive, to be mad about it, that's a win."
Sanda moved forward, making sure she never strayed out of sight of the others. Rilfe up with her aether bayonett attached to it. The way seemed clear, but Sanda couldn't shake the feeling that they were heading towards something very bad.
Cheilith was at the head of the main group, keeping track of where Sanda was in case she needed help.
"Ground team whats your status? The robots are building what appears to be anti orbital weapons on the entrence of the maze and i may need to deploy these torpedos sooner than later." Delmira said and checked the time to recharge her beam cannon.
Koyama looked toward Aoba then, “… it wasn’t me.” referring to the code she’d just tried slipping into the robots. She hadn’t told them to build munitions and factories… at least she hoped she hadn’t.
As Aoba and Koyama watched, the robots successfully deployed an armed satellite into orbit around the moon.
Mochi keyed his mic back to the Resurgence, "Copy that. Are we saying this is now a strategic target? Search and destroy? We can't let those rockets fly, for all we know they're full of those things."
Yayoi didnt like the idea of the robots building something that could be a threat to them, or Delmira.
"Captain permission to engage the satellite?" Delmira said. If she was in her body she would be sweating.
"Delmira, you are cleared to engage the target," Aoba said. The away team could hear his order since they were all on the same channel.
Yayoi heard the captain give Delmira the order and nodded, hoping she can handle it. "Medics, move to the middle of the group" She said thinking that they could protect the medics better there.
Still hating the feeling of being babysat, Vec moved towards the middle of the formation and fell back in near Euikoshi. He set his AIES to notifiy him if Cassie or Ohara's conditions deteriorated.
"Don't worry," Cassie patted Chiasa on the back, "It couldn't be helped. We're lucky we didn't lose anyone," the catgirl said with a cough.
Chiasa moved to the middle of the group, still annoyed at herself, but trusting that the Rangers and Infantry would have the situation covered.
Delmira stowed the beam cannon and drew her particle rifle. The short neko retreated her mecha into the debris field. "Hanger crew prep the thruster pack for deploymenti may need the extra speed."
Mochi did a double take at the mention of an elevator, "Hit it. That's probably faster than pushing ahead on foot. How many does it fit?" He also glanced to Euikoshi, "How far is the airlock? On foot versus the elevator?"
"I estimate this shaft is over 10 kilometers down," Euikoshi replied.
Nalini nodded, pushing a sequence of buttons on the interface. "Everyone. I believe that the elevator would be faster compared to desending into the unknown via our suit's ability to fly. The elevator is being summoned."
A flat beam of light extended out into the center of the huge shaft, allowing them to walk to a very large metallic floating island that arrived in the center. A sound like bees swarming filled the air as it reached the top and waiting for the away team to come aboard.
Nalini moved from the interface at their level to the interface on the massive cago elevator and waited for everyone else to get on.
"Oh." Mochi sounded a little astonished as he muttered to himself off comms, "An elevator in the huge shaft. I was expecting the wall to open up or something and reveal a little room.. That makes sense."
"On something of this scale, this is a little room." Nalini noted.
Mochi glanced over, not realising there had been anyone close enough to hear him mutter to himself. "Mhm." He said simply, then louder, "Alright, all aboard."
"Do you want to be my battle buddy, Cassie?" Poppy asked.
"Sure, Pops," Cassie nodded. "Let's just get to the air and hope it's good." They both carefully stepped on the glowing energy bridge and made their way over to the elevator-island. As they stepped onto it they noticed it had some sort of passable forcefield around it, similar to the ones the Resurgence used to keep the air from escaping the shuttle bays.
Yayoi moved onto the bridge after testing it with her weight and moved completely onto it and the floating island thing when she found the weight posed no problem. Her eyes scanned the environment for danger.
Sanda had held back momentarly as the group reached the elevator. She was scanning the elevartor shaft for booby traps or other potential dangers. She remained on guard as the rest of the team boarded.
Sanda's keen eyes spotted something on the elevator. Rixxikor droppings.
"Blade..." Sanda said as she zoomed her sights to confirm what she thought she saw. "You're not going to like this Hermana."
The crew couldnt see it, but Yayoi had a look of pure disgust on her face as she spotted Rixxikor droppings. "Your right, i am indeed not going to like it. Resurgence, we've uh spotted Rixxikor crap.. there may be a hive on the planet too." Silently though she hoped the robots killed them all.
Chiasa quickly followed the others onto the floating platform, but in the her case, she was also floating as well. In her semi-delirious, annoyed state, the tiny Nekovalkyrja restrained a giggle at the irony of it. However, upon seeing the Rixxikor droppings, Chiasa could no longer hold back her laughter, which came out as a series of high-pitched cackling noises that seemed to echo across the expanse of the shaft.
Cheilith made her way onto the huge cargo elevator, wondering what had meant to be moved on the huge platform.
"Confirmed Lulie-hei, launching on your mark," a woman's voice said over the channel.
Delmira checked her howitzer and saw she had 5 rounds left. She would fly through the debris field, keeping to the cover it provided and fire them at the nanomachine satellite. She would also pop out of the field and fire two of her aether torpedos at it freeing up her should hard points.
"If the satelite is within the field, it won't have a clear line of sight on us," Koyama stated as she continued to monitor it. "If so, until we can deal with it, we can continue using the debris as cover."
Rifle at the ready and Kōchō on his heels, Vec stuck near Eiukoshi as they began crossing the bridge. The sound of Ohara's cackle grabbed his attention. She wasn't doing too well. He didn't blame her, but she did need more medical attention than the brief dirty job he'd been forced to do under fire earlier.
Mochi stayed by Chiasa as she floated, feeling kind of bad that his battle buddy had already been hit, endeavouring to watch her more closely. At the mention of Rixxikor, the Elysian sighed. "Not those trash goblins. Alright, send us down. Eyes peeled for contacts." When Chiasa started laughing, Mochi stared at her. "Quiet down! Echoes!" He whispered.
Nalini nodded, "Sending us down." She said and the massive elevator began its descent.
OOC: JP by Wes, Ajax, Charaa, Cowboy, Soresu, Soban, Spaceeye, Shadowwalker, Ethereal, Yuuki, Zanven, Locke, Damaske, Hyralt, Immortal Cyan
