RP: 188604 [Star Wasp] 9: Operation Bright Venom

The Eternal Pilgrim

The few mishu that Spacecase had on his ship were starting to wake up and Spacecase was worried that they might try to take the ship. "Hey could I get a security detail. My 'guests' are starting to come too and I don't want to be the only person on this ship when they try to take it."

Space, Inside the Tengu

The Tengu's cockpit was still dark, flickering back to life as the engines restored power to the machine after its run-in with the stealth ship. Its pilot was safely secured, head down after being shook unconscious from the force of its cheater of an opponent.
The crack of the comm had stirred Ronin, the pilot's eyes opening foggily from within the Tengu. It had been in a spin for a few seconds, the sensor suite completely wiped off the M1. All he could remember before blacking out briefly was the destruction of so many craft, the next he was waking up with nearly every warning inside the cockpit going off. The damage readings showed just how swiss-cheesed the Tengu was, much of its protection gone and the shield barely flickering as it tried to restore power. The only grace had been the machine getting thrown from the blast point with the sheer power of it.

"Tengu... play audio feedback... last minute..."

Comm lines flooded, Ronin's aching body fighting as the pilot reached out to once more take the control. His breathing was slow, like it had been back when he had been scarred beneath his eye. Last time it was watching someone else die that triggered this deep sense of time and clarity. Almost like dancing with a soul mate after years apart, it was a sensation that brought back memories as the pilot looked through a bloodied eye. The recoil of his machine getting thrown had been intense enough that the helmet must have pinched and drawn blood, a trickle running down the left side. The suit's personal warnings ensured it wasn't breached, but the more or less blind machine had other concerns.

"Construct three dimensional map... incoming and outgoing communication bands... place over registered locations..."

The crackle of his radio sounded, the black sensory readouts swapping to a crude three dimensional presentation of the system. Planets were filled in, then blurry blobs that roughly guessed where the communication signals were being sent from to and fro around the battlefield. It didn't have to know what was in the messages, only where their sources were from. A mental addition to keep updating it was all it took for Ronin's machine to construct a makeshift map. It was all he'd need to limp his way back to one of the friendly ships.

"Tengu is... falling back. Cover me."

On the outside of the machine, the Tengu slowly moved despite its sheer damage to bring its weapons back into their storage spots. Their damage wasn't too incomparable to the machine, but he couldn't utilize the firearms if he wanted to. The machine turned and began its limp of a thrust away from the battlefield to the largest source in relation to the fleet's original starting position.

"Not sure who I'm flying back to... going to come in hard, though. Going... to bailout once Tengu's hanger crash trajectory is set. My suit will get me the rest of the way in... what sort of shit did these squids pull out of their slave's asses this time...?"

Operation Bright Venom: T+ 40 seconds

I'ee Homeworld

The NMX torpedoes seemed to effortlessly dodge around the relatively slow moving I'ee projectiles. Then they slipped around a ship that came to smash into them.

However, the last few light-seconds were absolutely filled with I'ee ships and cannon fire. Even the best laid maneuvers still had the torpedoes passing through the remains of scattered ships, or blast patterns from the I'ee's guns.

In the end, one 'lucky' I'ee ship would end up catching both torpedoes, the projectiles burring themselves into the ships hull without exploding. Their exterior cases filled with holes.



Carried Away
Corgan would feel the carrier rumbling, even through his powered armor, as he threw what he could out into space. A combination of the carrier spinning, no gravity, and power armor, meant he could lift even the heavy cargo containers inside of the carrier, sending them tumbling out into space.

He would manage to find a rather heavy, rather well armored cargo container. There were lights on the side, and it was clearly doing something. However he did not have time to really examine what he was looking at.

The I'ee particle cannon would strike the carrier once again, the energy flying deep into the ship before shining outward.

From Corgan's perspective, there was just a loud

**POOFMB**

And suddenly he was floating in space, being hurled along with the last container he had found as the carrier was turned into an expanding cloud of hot-gas.



Pillager Pillaging
As soon as the spacer ships got up close to the broken gunships, two of the surviving NMX advanced types would quickly float over, doing their best to grab onto the salvage corvettes, while using various rifles, saws, and plasma cutters in their tentacles to start cutting into the hulls of their target ship... each doing its best to either keep the ship between itself and the spacer gunships.


Sword Fights in Space!

"Worry about prisoners after we've defeated them!" Uso shouted to Akemi... though it came across a bit later than he might have liked.

Fhion had quickly determined the most immediate threat to her safety was the patchwork armor charging towards her with a sword. In a fraction of a second she drew her pistol. As she was aiming, she could already see that Akemi was going to get in the way of her target. With a quick adjustment she took aim at his head and fired, sending a bright beam of energy glancing off Akemi's shields.

The case floating next to Fhion oriented itself to face towards Akemi at the same time. Right after Fhion's blast bounced off Akemi's shields. The floating case fired its own set of blasts, overwhelming Akemi's shields and slicing through his midsection, sending his upper half tumbling into space and his lower half backward towards the patchwork armor.

Fhion then aimed her second shot right at the patchwork armor's head. The distance between the two of them closed rapidly, with Fhion lifting her left arm to defend herself, while pulling her right arm up and back. Despite her pistol being lifted up next to her own face, she was able to place a very precise shot right on her target's head... the blast bouncing off the armor grade shields.

The case next to her would float up between the two of them, turning sideways to block the sword strike. The device's shields flashing and sputtering. It was compelled to fire again, but this time its beam traveled off to the side, hitting nothing.


The Pilgrim
"I suggest you use your junker drones to keep your prisoners detained." Vier suggested.

Inside of Spacecase's ships there were NMX nekos, who were mostly docile, and a handful of advanced types that seemed absolutely determined to rip apart his ship, using anything they could get their hands on to tear, cut, or shoot their way out.

The Pilgrim's weapons fire would easily hit the carrier. The last NMX ship seemed to no longer be maneuvering, like there was no one at the helm... which left it entirely unable to dodge incoming fire. After his round of shots, the carrier's engines were scorched, only a few thrusters remaining to try and keep the carrier from spinning out of control as it was hit.



Ghost Ship
Up close, Alex could get a very good view of the 'ghost ship' He could see the heavy armor panels on the exterior... and the greenish goo inside... even the glowing yellow engines could be seen through the semi-transparent ship.

The ship's shields would block the first few missiles before going down again... the rest harmlessly passing through the ship.

Alex's mecha then tried latching onto the ship, only for its legs to just pass through the hull... followed by the mecha itself. The ship seemingly entirely unconcerned with the nearby mecha.

Off in the distance, Alex could see Jason's approach. The combination of engines from junker drones and limiter releases making him look like a bright star. The Ghost ship would turn its main gun towards them... pause, and then turn right towards Fhion and the remaining NMX carrier, zipping away at high speed!

In the next few moments Jason would make his final adjustments and release his payload... letting it get out in front of the Ghost-ship, and then firing on it as the ghost-ship passed.

At first there was a bright flash, the intense light piercing through the gunship, creating rough patches and marks throughout like an intense sunburn. From up close Alex could see the insides of the ship shift in shape and color, some turning a deeper green, others turning a char'd black color.

Then pieces of the exploding gunship would harmlessly pass through the ghost ship. As the blast wave continued through, Alex's shields would take the next hit, quickly being overloaded and sending him flying backwards.

Soft, nearly transparent, vapors seemed to be coming from the ghost ship now. The body of the ship occasionally flickering between transparent and opaque.



Ragna-Squad

"Ragna-Team, looks like we got some more use for you. Ronin and what is left of Akemi need saving... plus it looks like Ace needs a hand on Spacecase's ship!"


Ronin

Ronin would start receiving additional data from VIer, providing guidance to bring the Tengu close enough to the Necromancer for Junker-Drones to recover the machine.

"Ronin, the NMX ship is not one that I am familiar with. We would like to examine the damage to your Tengu prior to repairs to determine what kind of weapon system it employed.

Based on the wide angle of projection I had assumed it to be an Aether Shock Cannon, however it did not respond to jamming. This may be a new weapon type."

As the Tengu approached, a pair of junker drones would spread a large, wirey, net between them, and then start matching the Tengu's speed, looking to catch it as best they could without accidentally ripping it apart... unfortunately the Tengu could only see these junkers through the virtual image put together by Vier.

Given that Akemi was suddenly being cut in half he immediately nixed his pain reception and decided to let his Positron Beam Launcher and Ordinance Projector fire at whatever the hell the floating case was. If he wasn't killed by the ensuing explosion he'd fire his DART and ARROW missiles at Fhion along with his laser arrays.

The Pumpkin Eater

Aashi picked up what 46 was putting down and aimed and fired at the big stuff, pushing out the package of drone missiles and hoping they hit the last NMX ship.

She said to 46, expecting wreckage and destruction, "There, done. Now to sit back and enjoy the show."

Hive Formation Point Defense!

The corvette crews were soon in a panic, having only a brief chance to concentrate fire on one of the incoming NMX with their autocannons before the boarders were upon them. It was a desperate situation, as while a few of the crew could repel boarders, they were not built for combat, and armed only with monoblades and stun weaponry. However, their escorts were quick to even the odds.

Each corvette was covered by two gunships with a high-bandwidth datalink both to the corvettes' synthintelligences and Nirvana One-One. The strategy was simple, each gunship covered one full side of the corvette's hull, while the corvettes rotated erratically to expose their boarders to a hail of Warding autocannon fire from any or all of the four turrets on each nearby gunship. It was like riding a bucking bronco, not at a rodeo, but at an execution by firing squad... though, in this case, the bronco massed over two hundred tons, and was highly bullet-resistant.

Nirvana hovered closer, its crew watching closely. One-One provided some reassurance. "If they do board successfully, we will rescue you. Do not hasten." In its role as support vessel, Nirvana was prepared to recover the crew of a battle-damaged corvette. Though less prepared to fight boarders, they were still equipped with micrograv drones that could follow a foe through a hull breach and keep them pinned down for the crew, if the situation got out of hand.

Akemi pulls victory from bisection:

As Akemi found his bottom half moving in completely different directions from his top, he had an odd effect on the possibility of the enemy commander being killed before they might be able to call some sort of surrender: The big threat to their safety, the mercenary neko Kiri turned to watch whatever happened to Akemi even as Fhion fired at her face after the first exchange of blows. It all lead to an odd moment as the little swordsneko staggered a few feet forward before doubling over in... Pain?

No wait, the way her shoulders moved was more in line with laughter. Something hard to hear in the vacuum of space. She even made the baffling move of pointing at Akemi with her sword then slapping Fhion rather roughly on the back, like the battle was all in good humor. Kiri was having such a good time with all this that she didn't seem to even notice she was standing next to someone legitimately trying to kill her. Wide open to a shot from whatever weapon was in that case of Fhion's...

Heck, with any hope the people sent to retrieve Akemi might be able to take Fhion alive.

Waking prisoners:

As Spacecase found problems with waking Misshu prisoners, his ship would receive a request for docking. One of the two mercenary carriers that had hung back had advanced on the ship's position.

"We'll subdue the prisoners, and take them to a secure brig." Came a voice over radio.

T+Victory Kegger:

As victory seemed assured, and nothing else was coming for them. Arccos breathed a metaphorical sight of relief. And inhaled a very real breath which she didn't actually need to hold. The nozzle was fastened securely between her teeth, as a purple-haired type-III Freespacer woman pushed Arccos to a kneeling position. Raising the bottle, and beginning to pour... Arccos started drinking deeply from the victory funnel.

The traditional Deoradh prayer of thanks to Sith rang through the halls of the White Lament: "CHUG CHUG CHUG"

Alex's shields overloaded from the blast, and his sensors were blinded by the bright light. He went flying backward, straight into a piece of wreckage. The impact jarred him, and he tasted blood.

After a few seconds both he and the sensors recovered. Realigning himself to the battlefield he observed the ghostly ship's flickering. The missiles he had fired and debris from the shredders had passed right through. The energy and the blast of light from the explosion must have been what did damage.

Knowing that, Alex began to fly slow circles around the ship, walking his point defense laser up and down along the hull, periodically firing his EMP gun to see if it had any effect on it.

The Eternal Pilgrim

Spacecase would respond to the mercenaries. "You're free to come aboard and take the troublesome ones, but the ones that are wounded and the docile ones stay on my ship for treatment." He would then start the docking procedures from his end. "When you come aboard follow the Junker it will lead down through the corridors that you won't need a suit for to the med bay."

Boarding Party:

As a team of soldiers in power armor boarded the Eternal Pilgrim, one paused to stare at the junker a moment before advancing. They didn't bother taking off their suits. They were fighting Nekovalkyrja and Misshuvurthyar after all, why would they not wear a suit. It was also a Freespacer vessel, at least nominally. Chances were it was irradiated to a dangerous degree.

Soon enough the ship was full of horrible shrieking noises as mercenaries used a combination of rubber bullets and stun batons to wrangle a bunch of tentacle monsters off the vessel, leaving only a few recovering Nekovalkyrja on the Pilgrim. Once they were done, the leading mercenary took off their helmet, showing a tanned face with a serious expression distorted by a half-complete glasgow smile.

"Alright. We're going... Your present captor specified he wanted to keep the most docile of you, which don't 'xactly sit right with me if it means what I think it means." The mercenary named Ash said to the NMX captives, sounding acid. "We'll stay in telepathy range if anything untoward happens from here."

At that, Ash resealed their helmet and left the ship.

Soon after a message would be sent to Uso:

Your medical ship is refusing to hand over prisoners.

Remember we're paying you good money for these bio-samples. Every one lost to some Freespacer revenge trip is money out of your pocket.

-Van Banning

Click to expand...

Can't Cut the Gut

"The Misshuvarthyar will die," came Gut-Stripe's dispassionate response to Jason. "Do not get in my way." That said, the I'ee corvette no longer had a target to shoot at in any case now that the NMX carrier was turned to space-dust. With nothing more to shoot at, Gut-Stripe began moving back into formation with the Necromancer.

Meanwhile, in orbit around Ee'ee, the lucky craft that had managed to catch both NMX torpedoes began speeding away from the planet, launching escape craft as it went. Soon, the vessel was an empty hulk, its crew flying back to the safety of the I'ee fleet, leaving it on a blind, lonely course out into the depths of space.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory


It wasn't even a minutes after the USO forces had made first contact with the enemy and Jason could see victory against the Mishhuvurthyar forces occupying the system seemed all but assured. Their fleet had either been reduced to harmless scrap, captured by their allies in the Security Fleet, or in the case of the carrier he had been inside only a few seconds ago, transmuted to a roiling ball of superheated gas via the application of copious amounts of firepower. They had saved the entire I'ee civilization from slavery and genocide without losing a single major vessel, or even allowing one to take significant damage, albeit with a lot of help from the private forces of woman running the hexagon. By all means, he should probably be celebrating, a task that he was fairly sure certain other segments of their forces had already gotten a headstart on.

The problem was that from his perspective, he was well and truly fucked, regardless of how this showdown with a "ghost" ship went down.

Uso had given him the responsibility of overseeing the looting of the carrier, and it was clear that mistakes had been made, some they were lucky enough not to pay for and others that had definitely cost them. Which meant his head was probably on the chopping block when the battle was over. Ronin had just earned some costly repairs, who knows how many of Vier's Junker Drones they had lost thanks to the mystery machines main gun, and he might have just lost one of Ragnarok's highest ranking officers as well as one of the few friends he had made in his new country in what is now a cloud of vapor giving off waves of radiation. Clouds of vapor that probably had a fair chunk of whatever used to be what Uso had sent them to extract, all though the significant number of boxes floating around the battlefield from the time they had at least meant that their efforts weren't completely in vain. On top of all that, his last remaining teammate had chosen to misinterpret his latest order as one to start trying to push the enemy ship.

One that they had just seen phase through a barrage of missiles.When the predictable happened and Alex's mecha phased through the ship itself, it was too late, the shockwave passing through the phased hull to launch the M3 out the other side. On the other hand, given the condition their opponent was in their was some good news. Even using it's special abilities, it seemed like it was still possible for some effects to damage it.

"Alex, Corgan, do you read me?" The worry that had replaced the annoyed urgency in his voice from earlier was hard to miss. Unfortunately for the voice responding to his earlier hail, he didn't have time to argue with the bug woman over an already destroyed carrier in the middle of a firefight.

At the very least it seemed that Alex was alive and still capable of carrying on the fight, all the machine he piloted definitely looked worse for wear. He also seemed to have the same idea as his counterpart, immediately testing the enemies defenses with what few non-physical weapons it had. If the thing had only been hurt due the Aether engines explosion and the weird transdimensional nature of it's, physics they were screwed, but if not...they might be able to bring it down with the weapons on hand if his latest stunt had proved effective enough. Using it's new-found to try speed to stay clear of the damaged ships firing arcs, the ultraviolet pulse lasers of his eight Kirin feathers concentrating their fire where the smoke was emanating from. The M5 itself switched reloaded it's gauss cannon with Directed High Energy Plasma rounds and immediately emptying the drum...waiting for the shells to pass into the ship before Elohim detonated them within the intrenals.

Operation Bright Venom: T+ 50 seconds

Leading from Behind
"Don't slack off now, finish them off!" Uso shouted on the all hands channel before opening a private one to the Van Bannings of the world.

"Don't get greedy, you're getting a lot of good product." Uso typed, pausing half way to look up from her datapad so she could yell at Vier to send this over point to point communication. "The stuff you don't get is going to a good cause: Keeping people from asking where your stuff went. Remember, the original owners are going to want their stuff returned."

Leading from ontop of a Carrier
Fhion had brought her case up infront of her to block Kiri's sword slash, only to end up having the case pressed between them as she utilized a maneuver that Fhion could only understand as a close range tactical hug. The maneuver was certainly unorthodox... but it seemed to ward off the barrage of missiles being launched by the recently bisected Neko. It seemed to not want to hurt either of them... certainly a tactical mis-step here.

Fhion's arm was already lifted up and back, in a perfect position to fire down at Kiri's face. Each time she fired her pistol, the case that was sandwiched between the two of them would also fire, aimlessly shooting off to the side as it was unable to move to aim while also trying to keep Fhion from getting stabbed.

Fhion would fire again... then again... rapidly unloading her pistol into Kiri's face. The small side arm barely scratching the other woman's power armor.

The Hive
At this range, there was no missing your target. The First NMX advanced time getting turned into a cloud of mist by the ship's weapons. The second, quickly reached its target and tried to carve into the hull. It would have to stop for a moment as the ship spun, being surrounded by other ships... the NMX doing his best to hide under one of the corvette's weapons or sensors... anything he could use to put the ship he was on in the line of fire.

Mecha Team
Alex's lasers seemed to be having some results on the enemy ship... though they were small, each time he fired them he could see the hull heat up a bit. The laser traveling through the exterior plating and turning the green mess underneath a dark black.

The phase ship would be within range of the mercenary fleet. by the time Jason caught up, firing another wide, bright, blast near the remaining carrier. There were no secondary explosions... just anything that was caught in the area of effect seemed to have the upper layers of its armor disappear. Small craft like junker drones were just gone entirely...

As Jason's attacks passed through the same spot on the target, he'd see the black spots start to turn a deep red, then blue, then a hot-white. The ship's hull seemingly popping in half and sending a large blast of white-hot gas out into space... the blast wave harmlessly passing through Alex and Jason's mecha.

Seeing as Akemi had nothing better to do than drift aimlessly through space while watching Kiri and Fhion fight and the battle was at a relative standstill he decided to try to get a little revenge by firing his two Pulse Laser Arrays right into the very center of the NMX Neko's waist to break the stalemate. He did not intend to cut her in half, only to punch a neat hole in her center if the opportunity presented itself. Simply preoccupying the box so Kiri could get attacks through would be a decent result in his mind. "Could you pretty please just capture her if possible since I gave you a show?" he mentally asked Kiri. If the big bad box of doom could at any point be hit without hitting the two Neko hotties and his consciousness had not yet ceased and he had the necessary coordination he would shoot it with his lasers as well.

SHS Jessitha

"It can't escape. Stay on either side of it and gun it down," was the gist of Nirvana One-One's instructions to the Jessitha's gunship escorts. At least one of them complied, though it was an unfortunate reality that none of the Hive's Warding Rune autocannons were, or ever could be loaded with hollow-point rounds for use against foes like these.

Hundreds of 20 milometer, armour-piercing shells converged on the NMX soldier as it scrambled around the corvette, punching through the ship's wing and tearing apart the remains of a missile pod, though the damage to the Mishhuvurthyar was superficial, as he target jinked and feinted his movements with many limbs. Finding cover at last, he dove into the open cargo bay doors before the robotic arm could fully retract, and took shelter underneath it. "Jessitha, lower shields. Sraveena, take the shot," were Nirvana One-One's instructions.

For half a second, the fire ceased, unable to penetrate the corvette's shields, as they remained raised. Then, Oremonger Seven-Six stepped out into the bay from the doors to the main corridor, wearing her solid orange Voidwalker suit. She unsheathed a small, knife-like weapon, cocked her hips, and made a beckoning gesture, and soon had his attention.

The NMX lunged and swung around the room to attack and bash through to the ship's interior with frightening speed. It was at that moment that Jessitha Six-Seven dispersed her ship's shields, and a hundred more rounds from the Shraveena's bottom-left autocannon passed through the cargo bay doors, the NMX, and the deck around Seven-Six in an arc like the blade of a scimitar, all sparing the ship's robot arm, to the Oremonger's great relief.

The shots did not so much track their target as saturate the space where he had to be to close into attack range, and yet they'd done better than aimed shots had done previously. Almost a quarter of the Mishhuvurthyar's body had been tunnelled through as the rest succumbed to the shock and was easily punted through the roof of the cargo bay with a magnetic boot, as the gravity panels were disabled by damage and failsafes. There wasn't enough left for Seven-Six to use her blade on, and that only heightened her mood even more. "Job's done, everyone! Let's get a flamethrower in here!"

Nirvana One-One wasn't sure what to think of this. Shraveena had not only defied its orders again, it had instructed Jessitha's crew to defy its orders as well... and saved the Hive dozens of hours of labour in the process. The matter was reserved for later analysis.

"The boarders have been repelled. Resume your approach and remain cautious."

Floating Aimlessly

Corgan was floating through space, clinging to the large crate he had discovered. He had not expected the ship to explode. Apparently, someone had not followed the plan properly. He noticed that the battle seemed to be over. "Yeah, I'm good. Probably would be dead if I still had a basic Impulse. No inertial dampeners on that thing. Whoever blew up the ship is definitely on my shit list, though." He responded to Jason. "On the plus side, I may have found something valuable. Managed to ride it. I should be able to push it back to the ship."

First thing would be to stop my spin. He fired his thrusters and successfully stopped the crate from spinning. Forward motion should be easier. As long as nothing tries to kill me that is, he thought. It took him a few seconds to realize he was already moving forward. Drifting towards a debris field from one of the destroyed ships. "Hey Jason, I'm floating towards a crapton of wreckage. Please tell me these bastards can't survive vacuum."

How to end a hug:

As the amusing moment settled on top of the carrier, the last resistance came in the form of ineffective shots to the face with a sidearm. Kiri's helmet looked to Fhion as she received one last pat on the shoulder. Kiri sheathed her sword before shifting her grip to rest on the high-tech scabbard. All at once she twisted Fhion around by the shoulder spinning her sideways to free the mysterious case weapon, then pulled a trigger on the scabbard, firing the sword from its internal mass driver. The pommel of the blade struck the case with the force of... Well, something fired from a mass driver. The case disrupted from its ability to effectively aim for a moment gave Kiri the moment needed to snatch the sword and slash it across the chest of her enemy.

Not enough to be fatal, exactly. But it was followed up by a rough power-armored tackle driven with the force of Kiri's suit's engines down to the hull of the ruined carrier. Raising the sword up again, Kiri drove it down into the neck of Fhion. The blade was cold, and didn't actually have a proper tip to it, its flattened tip was more like a monomolecular-edged chisel. Kiri pushed it down with a slow downward twisting motion, mangling Fhion's spinal column and grinding her windpipe to prevent any sort of quick regeneration.

Done her duty, Kiri stood on the hull and looked to the disembodied torso of Akemi. Doing that little swordsman flick to clear neko blood from her sword before raising a middle finger and turning to get a running leap and join the rest of the mercenary boarding party on the outer hull of the passing Merciless.

Meanwhile in the Frat Mothership:

Arccos' mind focused as a cybernetic link to her motor functions was activated. She could see the firing arc perfectly. This was an important shot, and she would not miss... Delicately pulling her hand back, she followed up with a rough thrust forward. The little white ball sailing through the air, colliding with the top of the work bench with a little 'tak' noise before arcing down with the artificial gravity and landing in the little red cup.

Her opponent had to drink. They should have known to never go all in against a cyborg when a game of sith pong was on the line.