RP: YSS Anoiktos Verse 1.0: A Dove Amongst Ravens

Cargo Hold

Mihral continued to type for a moment, looking a bit eager, it did not take long before she finished the first configuration for the shields. "First configuration finished, let's start low and slowly push it up so we don't injure her." Her voice had a hint of excitement in it, like a mother speaking about her child's sporting event. She turned herself towards Raphael now that she was not busy.

"I am Mihral Lekos, I suppose you could call me an astrophysicist." The title was always something at amused her, it was not something she acquired out of want, but rather she felt the skills that went along with the title necessary to help those she loved. "You don't have to look so nervous though, we wont injure anyone, otherwise this would have no point."

However before much else could happen someone else had stepped into the Cargo Hold. The first thing that Mihral noticed was not his rank however, but his race, in which she offered to him a bow. "That would be an electromagnetic field emitter, sir." She said rather plainly but in a polite tone. "We're conducting a few experiments." She wanted to say more but decided to let Shamshiel elaborate on the situation.

Cargo Hold

Oh, kill me now, Raphael thought as Mihral bowed to the new Patrician that had walked into the cargo hold. Do I slight the new guy and make another enemy or do I give him the deference that I neglected to give the XO, with her standing right there?! He sighed and focused on the experiment itself that was ongoing. Hopefully he’s one of those Patricians who don’t notice his lowers until he needs them…like my luck has been any good today.

Bridge

"Yes Prefectii," Frasna said as he turned in his seat and inputted the new algoryhims into the system; this included some randmization in the patterns of the storm and the surrounding weather. "New paremiters set, initiating simulation now," as he said this his eyes focused on a minor glitch in the simulation to which he quickly corrected.

Cargo Bay

Shamshiel nodded affirmative to Mihral, as things on her end seemed to be responding well within expected tolerances, at least with the jury-rigged device she had on hand at the moment. She had one final adjustment to make to the coil, as her drone created a secondary wrap that was a conical in shape which would enable some degree of directional control of the EM radiation's main target, being presently pointed in the area where the XO's MCAS stood. The cabling, while thick gauge, would likely begin to buckle and melt after extended use, so it was wise to keep stepping up things as quickly as was convenient. "Alright then, Duplicarii. I assure you everything is well under control... I'm going to begin ramping into the higher voltages now," began the scientist, looking a little too eager to zap the somewhat nervous Ambrosia.

She was about to dial up the power, when the Patrician suddenly walked in and broke her concentration. The red-headed Caesolian 'egghead' gave a hasty bow of deference to the superior being mostly out of habit more than anything else, though still seemed quite annoyed at the dismissive attitude he displayed with a fierceness in her emerald eyes directed at Machariel. "Excuse me... this is a sensitive operation in progress, my lord, and I think it'd be in your best interest to keep a safe distance if you are unarmored due to hazardous EM radiation. Feel free to observe, of course." Her politeness wearing a bit thin, the engineer turned back towards the display and then began to slide the generator's output upwards with the smirk returning to her face. "As the Nepleslians would say... 'let's give it some more juice'..."

YSS Anoiktos, Cargo Hold

Machariel's expression darkened noticeably, for he (in his current, less-then-pleased state of mind) had intrepreted the civilian's politely-phrased request as "stop interfering with my work." Such impudence! I will be damned if I let an inferior civilian give me - a soldier - orders! The Archangel opened his mouth in preparation of (verbally) tearing a long and very bloody strip off of Shamshiel - when the strangest thing happened.




Specifically, his hair began to stand on end. What in the name of the Lord......oh, damnation!




Machariel visibly paled as he realized just what the egghead had been referring to when she mentioned a "sensitive operation," snapping his jaw shut with an audible click! as he bid a hasty retreat to the Cargo Bay's hatchway - for he had no intention whatsoever of being anywhere near electrical fields that powerful. Having reached the (relative) safety of said hatch, the Archangel pondered leaving the science types to their experiment, only to turn around as his curiosity got the better of him - following, ironically enough, the very orders that had been given to him by the Caelisolan in the first place. Yet another example of Caelisolan inferiority: A fellow Patrician would've briefly summarized the experiment, or at least used standard terminology in his or her explanation - as opposed to this ignoramus, who merely brushes me off as if I'm nothing!

Bridge

The simulation took into account the shifting storms and the potential danger, this time however instead of mostly positive, they get mostly negative results. According to the sensors the atmospheric portions of the storm were almost twenty-five times stronger, and more dangerous, then the storm closer to the ground. The simulations mostly showed that the ship would get caught in the electromagnetic storms causing the ship’s shield to overload, and once the ships shield was down the storm just had its way with the Anoiktos ripping it to shreads.

Ambriel paused a moment, and frowned ever so slightly, she was expecting trouble, but she didn’t expect it to be so impossible to approach if the storm shifted. She shifted to lean forward placing one of her elbows on her knee and her palm against her chin lightly rubbing in completive thought. After a moment of silence she leaned back again before looking at Frasna. “I suppose a small easily piloted shuttle is the only way to get to ground level, which means we’d have minimum contact with the group, and almost no way to emergency evac them if required… That makes this mission much more difficult.”


Cargo Bay

Charalampos noticed the other Patrician entering the cargo bay, and immediately noticed that he was going to be an issue amongst the crew if not fixed ASAP. However, her attention was quickly drawn back to the two scientists in front of her whom were doing this experiment. She was more than unnerved at how willing Sham was to zap her, but she didn’t really show it for the most part and instead kept that calm approach she had been known for, for a while. “All systems still green for the moment, Topazios.” She sounded confident for the moment, at the least, that her shields would be able to survive quite a deal more. “Feel free to amp it up by quite a bit, I’m pretty sure my MCAS can take it.”

Cargo Hold

Raphael blinked as the new Patrician beat a hasty retreat away from the group. Whew. Glad he’s gone… who knew he was afraid of a little electricity? As the generator kicked into gear and the air was gradually filled with a powerful electrical charge, the Caelisolan started rummaging through the medical bag he had around his shoulder. Hmm…let’s put my burn cream on top of everything, just in case. Electrical burns are nasty.

Cargo Bay

Mihral tapped away at her pad, checking all the reports that the suit was giving for what was happening. Her work was more important that handling a an impending squabble, she was in scientist mode now. "I am getting good but worrying results. It seems like the barrier generators don't have as great an output as expected." She taps away some more. "The rest of the barrier weakens proportionally to how much electrical charge it's receiving at the point of impact. It seems to draw from the area furthest from impact first. So you might not want to take hits on opposite sides."

With a few more strokes of her fingers she then turned to Shamshiel and gave her a thumbs up. "I've increased the out put allowance, The EM diversion can now use all the emitter's power if needed. Let's see how far it can go before the normal barrier shuts down and it's just channeling the electricity."

Cargo Bay

Shamshiel seemed to take some secret satisfaction of her handling of the situation with the curious Patrician and keeping him both out of harm's way and out of her scientific hair. This was something she had only gotten better at since her body upgrade from lowly Plebeian: defer to the masters on the surface, make it seem like you are doing it for their safety and care like a good servant should. Her mother had been the same way, if less vocal.

The winged engineer didn't let such thoughts distract her from the important work, however, as the power streamed into the local environment around the XO's MCAS. She knew very well the first volley would be well-tolerated, and didn't intend to harm Charalampros. Mihral's words caused her to pause briefly before stepping up the power another notch, a hand coming to her chin. "Mmm, not entirely unexpected. It was probably some inferior Yamataian engineer's misguided idea to install a limiter in the device's AIES software for efficiency's sake. But a little proven Elysian ingenuity shall naturally overcome this minor wrinkle."

Seeing as the other scientist immediately proved her right, Shamshiel returned to her workstation and fed more power through the winding cables, raising the fields up by a factor of ten. The Caesolian hummed a church hymn to herself as reflections of the sparking EM emitter danced across her eyes, like playing with such dangerous forces of nature was just another day cooking dinner on the stove.

Frasna nibbled on his tongue, a nervous reaction he often had to things that he wasn't entirely sure of - and thankfully - a reaction that was well hidden. "Since we know that this storm will be unpredictable, piloting it shouldn't be too difficult so long as myself, or whomever it is that pilots it, are aware of any sudden changes," he ran another test - this time showing the shuttle itself going through the storm and plotting dozens of different courses that it could take depending on the changes that the storm would make. This lead to a simulation that had close to eighty different paths for the shuttle, based off eighty different storm changes. "Sadly, there is no way to know for certain how the storm will react...." he leaned back into his chair and continued to think about the possibilities.

Cargo Hold

Raphael folded his arms and tapped his fingers nervously.I’m only getting every other word they’re saying… if that. And what words I am getting is MORE POWER!!MORE DANGER!! But what am I supposed to say, “Hey, I’m getting uncomfortable with all the cackling you mad scientist types are doing. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” The Caelisolan shook his head in annoyance. All I can do is wait and be ready if the crap hits the fan.

Bridge

Ambriel nodded to the other patrician as he ran another simulation that revealed the large number of flight paths for the shuttle. She shifted in her seat a bit thinking quietly before she sat up. “Alright, Frasna, you will be the one to pilot the shuttle down to the surface. Head to the cargo bay and see how our scientists are doing on our electrical shield.”

Cargo Bay

Charalampros knew that the scientists would do nothing to harm her intentionally, but the slight fear was there anyway. She watched as they increased the amp of the electricity, raising it to new heights as her shield begins reading the damage. “I can take a bit more, the shields are only at 50% capacity.” She wondered what would happen if the MCAS shield suddenly gave out, she was protected by the suit, but there was no telling if the electricity could go through her suit and hit her, or otherwise. The last thing she wanted was for her body to get ransacked by the electricity.

YSS Anoiktos, Cargo Hold

Machariel stepped back even further (at this point slightly within the corridor itself) as his hair still continued to stand on end, growing increasingly nervous at the (strangely beautiful) maelstrom of lightning impacting the Paladin's shielding. Oh heavenly Father, may thy grace grant myself - and the occupant of that suit - protection against this electrical storm...

Cargo Bay

The Elysian engineer could plainly see that their modifications to the software were proving effective as the MCAS continued to take the increasingly brutal EM punishment that was directing her way. As the Duplicarii signaled that she had only dropped to 50% after all that, Shamshiel prepared to give it all that she had and started pushing into the red zone of outputs in hundreds of times greater. Being in a only partially controlled testing environment, it was unavoidable that the ramp up in power caused significant static filling the air even outside the directed cone of force, as Shamshiel's ruddy hair now began lifting up much like Machariel's and her orange-tipped feathers even prickled from being so close to the fusion generator and the artificial lightning storm it was generating. Watching the arcs of light emerge was indeed beautiful, leaving streaks of purple and blue as they closed the gap between the scientist's device and the Paladin Core's shield system, as it continued to compensate with a gradually withering struggle.

However, Shamshiel narrowed her eyes suspiciously as there began to emerge a raggedness to the jury-rigged emitter's pattern. Just as she had feared, dialing the discharge up into this level without a cool-down was causing the hastily wrapped coils to rapidly heat to white-hot levels... already several points of eventual failure were apparent as the high-gauge cables' shielding began to melt and slag away. "Oh dear. It's going to over--" It was just mere seconds before the first bare metal was exposed to the air, causing an immediate, explosive discharge on the surface of the portable fusion reactor that knocked the scientist backwards on her shapely rump before her wings could cushion it.

"--load," Shamshiel exhaled a bit defeatedly, as she blew a bit of frizzed lockes out of her face. Thankfully, the safeties had kicked in and shut down the device to prevent more damage, but it still was out of action for awhile sitting smoking on the cargo bay floor like a fried and mangled Mishhu.

Cargo Hold

Mihral had her attention on her display, carefully monitoring the levels of the shielding systems, making sure that if the system was even remotely stressed, she informed Charalampros. However in the middle of the test when the intensity increased, her display started malfunctioning slightly. She ignored this at first but it only got worse and worse till she eventually couldn't tolerate it and turned to say something to Shamshiel. However as she turned the system overloaded and the explosion caught her off guard, pushing her off her feet as well and landing on her rump.

"Ow..." She groaned and stood, rubbing her backside as she did. "Why didn't you shut it down if you knew it was going to blow?"

Raphael started to worry a little more when more and more sparks started to fly from the casing of the reactor. Is that supposed to happen? I don’t think that’s supposed to happen… The Caelisolansighed and was relieved to see Shamshiel take notice of the sparking herself. Maybe she’ll stop it? Unfortunately, she didn’t move fast enough and Raphael only had time to say, “Oh, fu…” before the reactor exploded.

The explosion hit him, though it had weakened considerably by the time it reached him, so that he was able to catch himself in the air, flap his wings a couple of times, and land on his feet. He looked at the wreckage that was the reactor, the scientists, and the XO. Ok, triage time, the medic thought, running to his fellow crew members. The scientists seem okay and are talking. How is the XO?

YSS Anokitos, Cargo Hold

Machariel paled in shock as the already-charged atmosphere of the room (literally!) exploded into chaos and confusion. Goddamn those infernally stupid Plebeians! With the partially-supernatural speed granted to his kind, the Patrician sprinted towards the amber-haired figure lying prone on the floor; fortunately, the former was too deeply affected by adrenaline to realize that the latter was the Caelisolan egghead from earlier.

Kneeling down (and having missed the actions of the room's other occupants in his panic-fueled rush), the Semeai gingerly grabbed Shamshiel's hand and felt for a pulse, the intimacy of such an action (that of hand-holding, to be precise) not even registering on his consciousness. "Is thee unharmed?"

Cargo Hold

The explosion was actually a rather big surprise to Charalampos, she got blown back by the force of the electricity and explosion within a confined area, hitting the ground with a thud and a loud scraping noise as the armor slides back from the impact. She just lays there for a moment remembering to breath as she takes a deep breath. Within a few moments she slowly sits up, and pushes herself back up onto her feet. She removed the helmet of the MCAS she was wearing, revealing the long red hair that the XO had. She wandered over and helped Mihral up onto her feet before sighing a bit, looking at the machine before looking at the two scientists. She looked a little disgruntled; perhaps a little annoyed. "Well, I'm okay the MCAS absorbed a majority of the shock..." She stated in a quiet, almost scary tone.

Bridge

The shock of the explosion was felt throughout the small ship, shaking it heavily before things calmed down. This caused Ambriel to tense up immediately, assuming that perhaps they had drawn attention and wound up getting attacked. However, as she was about to start the alarms the ship calmed itself and she realized that it wasn't an attack but something temporary that had shook the ship. Within moments of thinking she was on her feet and turned heading out of the bridge and down towards the Cargohold where her XO and the team of scientists were working. She opened the door, stepping in and within seconds knew what had happened. She crossed her arms, and looked at the reactor, the scratchmarks on her ships flooring from the MCAS hitting the ground, the electricity residue that marked the walls and the area around the Reactor, and everyone thrown about like they had just been hit by a grenade.. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose for a moment, before she spoke up; "Report." Was the only thing she stated, she figured she would stay calm for the moment.

Cargo Hold

Shamshiel went to arise from her position, but a dull ache throbbed in her wings and backside and reminded her of what had transpired a moment before. As she winced, the Elysian noticed the scornful Patrician from before that she had waved off from interfering with her experiment now offering his hand to her rather chivalrously. The scientist extended hers to take it as he felt a pulse alright, and it was getting stronger as her green eyes met his through her electrically-teased reddish hair. For all her seeming self-centeredness, Dr. Topazios was still a Plebian by birth and to have such a handsome young scion of a Patrician family grant such unusual attentions to a lower ranking person such as herself was highly significant. "Oh... er, yes, I'm well enough," came her somewhat bashful reply, the scientist hauling herself to her feet by pulling on the much taller and sturdy Machariel. "This sort of thing happening is exactly why I told you to stay back, my lord," the civilian added, suddenly a little regretful of the tone she used earlier.

Shamshiel took in the mess that she had made of the cargo hold, with Mihral bruised and even the XO knocked backwards in her power armor. Her FARS drone Beryl was even up against the wall, the mini-Neko hologram having simulated stars dancing around its head. The Caesolian looked a bit defeated when the sight of the captain herself appeared to join the XO, causing her to hold one arm across to the other behind her back, as a jeweled bracelet dangled from her wrists. "...but we were so close to breeching the MCAS's modified shield system to know for sure what its final tolerances were. If this were a more controlled environment and I had a more proper testing platform then I..." Shamshiel then sighed and bit the bullet of apology, for there was no kleos in running away from mistakes, only seeking forgiveness for them. "My apologies, I indeed should have shut it down sooner. Thankfully, the Lord ensured noone was hurt." Except perhaps my pride, thought the scientist to herself.

Bride

"Aye aye," responded Frasna as he rose from his seat, arched his back a moment - which was greeted by a small 'pop' - before he exited the bridge and started making his way toward the cargohold. The Patrician wondered how this mission might go, the flight to boot would be hectic at best. The explosion that came moments later caused Frasna to look up toward the ceiling as he braced himself - but nothing further had come. Not an attack.... he thought before he heard something behind him and saw the Ambriel and followed her toward the Cargohold - a place he was heading to as well.

The smell of burnt ozone made him mentally wince, the smell reminded him of a memory, one he'd rather forget. His feathers were itching a bit right now as well, due to the discharges in the air. He was about to speak up when Ambriel beat him to it.