Power Armor Sections
With Akira's orders carrying crisp and concise over comms, the Nekos under her command registered their superior's orders with ease. "Support and screen, roger." A junior NCO responded in a surprisingly timid voice, the two section commanders following the directive best they could.
"Support the remaining sections and screen the fleet. Continue pushing them back their forces further way from the fleet." Akira said as she continued to provide fire for those two idling sections. It was then that, somehow obscured by a jagged block of hull armor, an enemy Lamia wing burst onto the field - perhaps they were reorganising from the reeling blow that had fallen the Fenrir?
Six of them boosted forth towards the sections where they engaged and danced like mayflies around Akira, seeming to be gunning directly for her and the nearby Jaime, likely biding their time until they identified the VIP. "Akira-shoi!" Her gruff SNCO barked over comms, darting to intercept, only to be met with a barrage of fire, blood fountaining and freezing into dark crimson blobs around them as they cried out. The remaining of her sections slowed in their repulsion, unsure how to act - the Lamias they were brawling couldn't be left to their own devices.
Shasse's actions were well planned despite the searing pain coursing up and down her leg. Space and rippling explosions coursed by as she raised the Mindy to its absolute edge, soaring away from the enemy before they could react, one of her shots taking off the arm of a Rixx. Like a valkyrie, she rained a veritable barrage of blasts down upon the nearest group of enemies as they tried to make their way towards Deck 70, bloodying a handful as they scattered in all directions, trying to see where the sudden onslaught was coming from. Four, scattered directly beneath the smol Shasse.
Deck 64
Miko-hei's aether-and-rage-fuelled assault blindsided the two armored tangos even as they made to claw Sora's whirling form. Like a comet, his sole slammed hard, straight into the exposed back of the leftmost enemy, sending them reeling forwards, metal buckling under the force. With a roar that buzzed distorted through their scrapwork synthesiser, the hostile whirled around and managed to roll with the hit, launching back upwards to grab Miko by the shoulders, winding up to headbutt the cook-come-badass.
Hugs, aptly named, struck true and straight, the Rixxikor's enclosed head soaring into the air before being caught in the artificial gravity inside, clunking to the floor at the same time as it fell upon Sora's prone figure. The moans of the medbay's occupants carried as the Santo Hei began to wake them up, to get them away from the breach. Somehow, unlike the other breaches, the air shell was holding, if barely. "Miss! Please help me!" The girl croaked, shaken up and barely able to tear her eyes away as Miko grappled the remaining foe.
Deck 65
Ensign Biesecker's request to the blue-striped Juni was met with a affermative grunt, the Minkan flicking the safety off his pistol. "Let's do this, hotshot." The blast shields slipping open, Shosho Kier and the others breached inwards, fanning out to observe what they couldn't see from the thin viewing windows of the metal doors.
With the Ensign's callout, the Admiral cried out from across the room, "Alive? Do your best, we're counting on you." It seemed the room as a whole was in utter disarray, the pile-of-rubbish ship having broken through near intact by some miracle, smashing into shelves of goods that now lay strewn. With no more hostiles apparent, the group as a whole seemed to relax a notch, turning now to the hole high behind the demolished craft.
The Rixxikor was in a bad way, the entire cockpit a broken spider's web of what seemed as flimsy as plexiglass had shattered inwards, several shards embedded across the bugman's form, seeping a gentle red liquid. The interior was scattered with a plethora of tool and devices, some of which were possibly accessible through the holes in the glass, Yamataian food pills littering the floor in amongst the bloody mess.
The central control panel was crumpled downwards yet blinked dimly, looking as if it was trapping the Rixxikor's foot up to the heel. Through the hole into the void, flashes of light were visible as countless lives perished above them. The broken fighter seemed to shudder, though it strangely felt as if the vibrations were coming from below..?
Deck 70
Midori's shared shields shone forth for a moment, blinking as they met with Moesashi's own protective layer. While the rearmost trio that had sighted her for obliterating their comrades opened fire with a abominable mix of cobbled-together projectile and laser weapons, Midori's suppression made them duck for cover as they did. However, their shots were accurate prior, as Midori leaned out of cover to share her shields, several rounds found their mark, one even slipping through the weakened shield to embed itself painfully into the flesh of her upper left shoulder. It looked like they were about to retreat, sure enough starting to look at each other and the corridor behind them.
The Rixxikor's outdated and ad-hoc equipment couldn't match Moesashi's sheer strength as she tactfully abandoned the weapon, the berserking foe's fingers still curled around the device in pain as they boiled alive inside their white-hot armor. With only a slither of cognitive function remaining as Moesashi expertly slammed them into the floor, her fist cut through the malleable, heated metal like butter, the entire helmet caving in with a sickening crunch, finally silencing the screeching from the gunfire. The fourth Lamia, nearby and ahead of the rear three, raised some sort of strange, blocky device and began to dash forwards with a clicking, buglike battlecry.
Engineering
Noboyuki was right, things seemed dire, a poynant reminder of how much Yamataian ships relied on electronics and how cataclysmic a cascade system failure could be. Not all battles were won with lasers and swords. The Chief's words echoed in that deep psychic entonation that came with telepathy through those with such ability, carrying more weight and clarity than if he had decided to holler over the crashes of metal on metal.
The Lamia was on its last legs, the pilot most of all, a wide trail of dark red fluid streaming to the floor from various puncture wounds across the patchwork-fixed armorwork. The gun was raised, no opposition given as Noboyuki charged closer, the engineers having been reassured to get to work. "WE'RE CLOSE CHIEF-!" His second cried out, her colleages not breaking under their chief's direction, a set of dials hopping up for a moment on a wide panel, a Juni there crying out in joy - "Shoi, if we get power the point def-"
A burst of rapidfire thuds echoed, the LMG weakly clutched in the power armor's hand was wrenched from their grip and clattered to the floor under the recoil, just as Noboyuki's pistol slammed hard directly through the wide fissure of the Rixxikor's helm with surprising accuracy, the enemy having steadied themself for the shot.
As the disgusting, bleeding creature ragdolled to the ground from the engineer's quick thinking, barely concious, that Juni coughed. Across the room, the Nepleslian turned from the panel groggily, raising a hand to their mouth as they croaked, "Well done.. Chie-" Their eyes rolled over, their working uniform's red gradually becoming darker and darker from the ragged holes that leaked bloody crimson. Like a puppet with their strings cut, they crumpled almost in slow motion, the panel behind them matted with a thin sheen of red.
Fighters & Spess
The coordination between the two soaring fighters, seating four aces, was something not often seen. Despite the chaos raging around them, they communicated clearly and focused on the task at hand. With Armin and Arcturus' shields blinking off, turning to correct course, Aoi and Akane swept in with precision and practice.
A oddly pristeen power armor, surprisingly not recognisable as a Lamia, was clawing its way up the belly of the twin's Mamushi with what appeared to be some sort of specialised, extended gauntlets. A blast of light reared from the cannons, darting like a lightning bolt with just enough coordination to smack directly into the armor and practically vaporise it. Scorch marks lit up momentarily around where the PA had been scraping its way higher, the remnants now falling clear in chunks, bouncing once down the side of the Mamushi.
A few scraps of shrapnel from the fallen allies and foes around the warbird clipped its wings once or twice as they rocketed towards the Shinigami, their shields now cycled up again and ready to be disengaged and a handful of additional warnings lit up on the already torn up fighter. The twins were now nearly unarmed and badly damaged, thankfully clear of where the latcher had been, though Aoi and Akane still remained.
In this moment of reduced fighting, the last remaining ship - the final carrier - began to gradually spin on its axis to face the planet, its second having been obliterated by the last wave. Burning its engines hard so they lit up the darkness of space to near a near-blinding level, it began to drag itself clear of combat.
