RP: YSS Kaiyō [SOFT] Mission Nine: Fuwa Fuwa

[META_mahn]

Heart of the Beast

“Targets, ten!” Meissa yelled over comms. “Deploy drones to minimize damage!”

Saying that, she guided three drones into the ten-man squad, and commanded them to fire first at anything shooting them.

“Sora, do your thing.” Meissa stated once Ume put up her volumetric barrier, scanning for where the weak points were in the reactor.

 

[Ethereal]

Breaching!

Mochi stood further back from the rest of the breachers, his rifle's signature "pft pft" of compressed air alien to the buzz of lasers. Their position was advantageous, the small window allowing them better attack angles into the room than their opponents. The rounds that spat from his bumblebee-coloured weapon smacked into a couple of the farthest L'Kor. It was a gruesome sight, the large-calibre acid rounds blowing good portions of them across the room while they screamed, dissolving from its potent coating.

Mochi's eyes widened even as the shots hit. Empress, he'd used the rounds outside of practice and simulations. The howls of the dying birds was hallowing. "Clear from here, do not push in - we have better lines of sight and can see all targets behind the cover of the door."

 

[Arbitrated]

"Hai, Iemochi.-Juni." The tall birb had primed her barrier module earlier, and stood directly in the middle of the area on the SOFT's side of the entrance, making her the largest and most obvious target. Firing any weapons near an aether reactor was already a bad idea, but a weapon that was capable of eradicating vehicles from the outside was even worse. The gatling rifle was slung across Arinori's back as she instead took advantage of her LASR, suppressing and killing the brave probably-technicians.

 

[Pancakei]

Breach

Caught off guard, Anastasia's instincts were to fire back on the two advancing L'Kor, but her better mind stopped her. Firing an Aether Rifle at this range would be suicide. Instead, she pulled herself back behind the cover of the door frame, being clipped from a few of the shots. One of the shots clipped the right "ear" of the suit as she deactivated the Aether blade, keeping her back pressed against the solid sections of the door.

The technician yelled back to Ume and Iemochi, her voice slightly clipping from the damaged helmet. "Once we've cleared out a path, I'll set the reactor!" The technician holstered the unsafe rifle to her belt, instead taking out her NSP. It was the only thing she could draw without risking damage to the reactor. From time to time, she would duck out of cover and take shots while Seinosuke was reloading.

 

[Ametheliana]

Engineering Bay

The unarmored L'Kor dropped like shot birds on a telephone wire from their differing heights and positions in the bay. Only when Anastasia was clipped did it look like the majority of the L'Kor had been strewn about the bay in an assorted mess. There was little blood, but their broken, shattered bones and fluffy feathers were splayed everywhere. A trio had run in separate directions deeper into the bay, but otherwise, it was a clear location.

The aether reactors were two tiered stacked boxes with a larger rectangular base at the bottom of each of them. All three boxy parts of both aether reactors were merged with meter long smaller connection cables and boxy beams to prop it up. The top aether reactors on each boxy construct was glowing orange while the bottom was glowing forest green.

It would be just like defusing a bomb... but this time would they fail or go ahead with success?

 

[Pancakei]

Server Far- Engineering

Anastasia looked back to Iemochi as the room cleared of targets, nodding. Now was the opportune time to move. The engineer pushed into the L'Kor bay, using the surrounding catwalks as cover as they moved. Their weapon drawn, they waited for the others to move in before continuing towards the main control panel for the dual reactors.

Upon arriving, Anastasia brought up the panels and examined the power flow of the unorthodox reactor setup. She started noticing patterns, where the energy came from and which channels it exited through. She got to work on creating what would be a rather large bomb, using the intelligence gained from the previous encounters with the L'Kor. She kept her eyes peeled as she worked, and made sure to not lose sight of the nearest team member. "We should be out of here soon... Redirecting the power flow as best I can."

 

[Ametheliana]

Station
Engineering

With the press of a wire to another, a spark lit up the panel of the generator above Anastasia. The whole power conduit above her and to the right exploded with tremendous force, knocking into the engineer and forcing her to the ground of the engineering bay. She groped for purchase and found nothing but the panel she was working on to grab, so engaged thrusters and flapped her great wings once to move her body back to where she had been.

The whole panel was going through electrical surges, though, and the Elysian had to back away slightly to avoid the far-reaching static charges. It was then that she put her hands back on the panel and a great surge of more than just electricity coursed through her Mindy and shorted some of her suit's systems.

A great call could be heard throughout the engineering bay and a L'Kor moved his body directly down from the top of engineering bay, having resided somewhere near the top while the team infiltrated. He brought himsekf down while wearing a hulking black vest and no armor.

A second after the initial shout, all of the SOFT members would be able to hear Eden yell out, "Get out of the-" but she was cut off as the explosion from the L'Kor's bomb vest went of some twenty feet from the grouping of Kaiyo's personnel. The team commander had set in coordinates for everyone to get out, but that had a three second delay

 

[Ethereal]

Engineering

Seinosuke's sensors fizzled and crackled, his HUD going fuzzy with the electrical fields spiking out of the reactor, trying to keep his eyes trained on where the remaining L'Kor were hiding. As he paced forwards to flush them out, out of the corner of his jade eye the Elysian glimpsed a flicker of movement - the bomber.

His eyes widened and he brought the barrel of his gun around instinctively, just as the enemy detonated, the concussion force sweeping the phoenix off his feet, grunting as he slid and smashed into a nearby support beam.

Iemochi shook his head to clear it, flames engulfing the reactor bay. Shit. He couldn't see the others through the menacing fire as it licked higher, the remainder of the infastructute around them groaning at the damage.

"Fall back! Teleport now!" he coughed, shouting into comms the scientist pushed himself up from the floor, head whipping around to find the others.

 

[META_mahn]

Engineering

When the bomb vest fell, Meissa knew they made a mistake.

“They aren’t above seppuku,” Meissa replied to Mochi. “They’re trying to take us down with them.”

“Get out of the-” Meissa got out, then the bomb exploded, Meissa instinctively reaching for the capacitor in an attempt to keep her shields standing. She gritted her teeth as she wasted a perfectly good charge on shields. But she needed to tell the group.

“Get out of the station! Tell everyone to evacuate!” Meissa shouted. “They’re gonna try to take us with them using the station!”

 

[Pancakei]

Engineering

Anastasia fell backwards as the bomb vest detonated, showering her with debris. Her hearing went quiet, as if submerged in water; the helmet damage wasn't doing her any favors. The technician tried to get a grip on the ground she laid on, red warnings and errors popping up to either side of her HUD.

The shaken technician coughed as she pulled herself off the ground, avoiding the damaging energy flowing out of the console. Looking up, her stomach twisted like a knot, her nightly terrors had come real. The dual reactor towers were overloading, engulfing their surroundings in light and energy. Her heart sank with dread, she fucked up. Anastasia started almost hyperventilating, muffled voices shouting where she could not hear.

The technician raised to their feet, taking a few steps back in shock and terror. They yelled out, overflowing with adrenaline and ignoring the warnings of her damaged suit. "Go! Get out!", she almost screeched, dumping energy into her teleporter.

 

[Syaoran]

Engineering

When the room was cleared, Ume made the mistake of relaxing and lowering her guard. During that brief moment where she thought everything had been settled, one more L'Kor showed up. She took a step back and raised her weapon, but her sensors told her just what exactly the vest was, she couldn't shoot, it would blow the whole place up. Her second mistake though was not realizing that that was what the L'Kor was trying to do anyway, and before she could make a decision about what to do, there was a loud explosion. She brought her shield back up reflexively and projected her volumetric shield in layers in front of her.

It was enough to survive the blast, but she was thrown out of engineering from the force and had to slowly pull herself up. She only heard shouting over the comms to get out and clear the area, there were coordinates to jump to. She didn't have the frame of mind to pay attention to what was going on around her, she had to get out and regroup, more explosions could follow, and her shields were drained. She made the decision to focus on teleporting out as quickly as possible, and not to try and search the area.

 

[Arbitrated]

Station of Doom

Hanna, who had been remaining impassive and strangely quiet for herself was the immediate target of the ensuing explosion and her Mindy was able to take the brunt of the heat and force and shock, but not all of it or even close. She turned her back and yelled out to the team, "My...My...!!!" She sent a little explanation to her team, showing that her suit's functions were sporadically being killed off and the shielding had withered to barely anything by the time she was done.

Sora looked over at the cyan-and-chocolate neko, lowering her arms from her face as they had instinctively gone to shield her. Her own shielding had flared violently in the suicidal blast, the only thing keeping it together being the glowing module on her back. As the data of Hanna’s suit came in, she shouted out, "SHIT! Hannah, your teleporter's malfunctioning!" The tall Elysian looked around the chaotic engineering room in desperation, finding the way out to be open, but possibly not much for longer.

As she did a leering bulkhead began to rupture after the initial blast began to fill more of the room. It plummeted down to crush Hanna's leg and broke it into two. The other end of her leg went sliding across the floor and Hanna was effectively crushed and now one leg short.

Sora helped as the large metal slab suddenly slammed downwards, crashing in a way which seemed to isolate her and Hannah from the rest of the group perfectly. Using her MINDY's radio, the patrician called through the rubble to her teammates, "GO! I'll get out with Hanna!"

Not even pausing to think, Sora wrapped her arms around the injured neko and hefted her up, setting Hanna into a fireman's carry across Sora's large shoulder and wing. She steadily, quickly began to run for the one known exit of the room, trying to make her way back to the station's exterior through the path they had came in through.
Before she could, Eden's teleportation coordinates were set in and a chibi of Sora making a jump showed itself on her HUD as Sora heard Eden yell over comms.

"Hanna—!" Eden cried out as Sora actively refused the linked teleport request, sprinting through the station with the injured neko on her shoulder. She responded to the XO, "I'll bring her back, Shosa!"

"No time—!" Eden yelled again but it was too late.

 

[Ametheliana]

The flames engulfed the cyan haired infantry Neko's broken leg as Sora dragged the rest of her body and the two of them were triggered to teleport just like everyone else. There was nothing she could do about it, Eden overrode Sora's own commands and the crew were thrust around space. Before most of the Kaiyo SOFT crew could fully see the heat explosion react with the aether generators, they were out of engineering.

Anastasia, though, ended up somewhere completely different than most of them. Her body was no longer in engineering nor on the Kaiyo, but on the station that was now crumbling to crisps. Her teleportation unit had been reduced to malfunctioning and had moved her somewhere else on the mushroom-like structure completely.

When some of the SOFT returned to the power armor bay as per Eden's teleportation sync, they would all be covered in blood, flesh, and Zesu as they power armor and Hanna herself were spaghettified and splayed against the walls, equipment, and SOFT personnel. Sora was there with empty hands and blood and guts covering her Mindy from head to toe. Meissa had survived along with Iemochi and Ume was still alive and more than healthy.

 

[Pancakei]

???

The usual feeling of instant nausea overcame Anastasia as the teleport activated, who forced her eyes to clench as she was shifted across space in the blink of an eye. She fell to the floor at her destination as her armor continued to send warning messages in an assault an her damaged ears.

Anastasia found the strength to raise her head and open her eyes, a decision immediately regret. She found herself not in the comfort of the armor bay she had hoped to be in, but rather a whole new section of the alien station. The technician her way to her feet, leaning against the wall for support. She didn't even have time to register the surroundings of the new location, or the warnings reaching out on either side of her HUD, trying to tell her to run. The vast wall of light approaching from the end of the hallway told her everything she needed to know: it was too late to run. It was like they always say; your life really does flash before your eyes. It stretched back far, all the way back to memories long buried by emotion and age. It started with memories of a woman in white.

The shock-wave hit first, almost folding Anastasia in half as what was left of her hearing was drowned out by mass reverberation from her helmet. The Elysian was flung backwards away from the blast, only to be slammed against the back wall at the end of the hallway in mere seconds. She let out a scream, but it was almost shoved back into her throat by the force of the calamity.

"Yeah- That stuff is important Ana! Wouldn't want to neglect it and get hurt because of it really... I wouldn't want to see that you know..."
Yoshida.

The surge of blinding light enveloped her as her grip on consciousness started to slip. The mass explosion from the reactor buckled the station, splitting it in two in a blanket of light as the aether distorted the interior of the station, erasing whatever fell too close to the storm.

"There is always a life for you in the Star Army. I wouldn't want you to grow complacent anywhere and Yamatai will always keep you on your toes, as exemplified by our current predicament. You're a smart person, an intelligent one that can do a lot of good in this universe."
Eden.

A hurricane of debris formed around the explosion as it reached its peak, the very structure of the station unraveling as large chunks broke away. Clouds of flame ignited as gas lines burst and as fast as they came, dissipated as the oxygen within the station was burned up and blasted out into the surrounding.

"Yeah... at least were finally back. Also... were you waiting for me?"

"Maybe just a little."

Orion.


A twisted beam of metal bounced down the sides of the hallway, tossed away by the explosion as if it was nothing more but a paperweight. The beam crashed against the wall of the walkway, slowing down with friction as it slammed into Anastasia's torso. It was the last thing she heard before the world melted away, drowned out in black and red as her helmet shorted.

There were no further transmissions back to the Kaiyo.

 

[META_mahn]

Indiana Jones Style Escape Time

Meissa watched as Hanna and Anastasia’s shield and armor integrity icons hit zero on her HUD. Shit. Two down due to the strategic error.

Did Ana ever have an ST?

The question echoed in her mind. Meissa didn’t remember Ana ever showing up to get one.

Stop thinking about that, you need to get out of your armor.

 

[Ethereal]

Station/Kaiyo

Mochi saw his team's vitals and shields plummet as the inferno raged around him, totally unable to tell what has happening behind the heat that was slowly penetrating through his failing shields. A pipeline suddenly ruptured above the scientist and burning fuel cascaded down around him like a shower of magma. He could feel his shields finally blink out under the wave, the normally cool metal of his Mindy growing red-white with the heat. Seino grit his teeth as his skin slowly began to boil, the suit cooking him inadvertently as he scrambled to be free of the flames.

Suddenly, he was out of the searing hell and his vision was one of a familiar room - the PA bay. The Juni barely registered the viscera that coated the walls, nor the wail of his leader module as his two comrades' vitals flatlined. The Elysian ejected himself from his glowing armor, crying out from the pain as he scrambled backwards and slid across the blood-slick floor, skin raw and red. His hands scrabbled at the ground as the cool air hit him, lessening his pain slightly yet in the process making him almost wallow in the remains of Hanna-hei.

 

[Syaoran]

Kaiyo

Ume had made it back to the ship, her armor had been depleted of its shields and the pain had been burned off. He hand-held shield that it carried was no more, having warped under the heat and pressure before being ripped away from her hand. She could only be thankful that the spare ammunition she carried did not detonate during the explosion, she might not have made it back.

The scene before her was not as positive, however, her suit was able to identify the splatter as all sorts of innards, and seeing as they did not all make it back, it did not take much to realize that the sight was at least one of them.

Even with the technology of Yamatai, death was painful, but no matter how many times she saw it, the words to comfort someone eluded the neko. She could only step out of her own armor and bow her head in respect to her fallen comrades.