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RP [YSS Azalea II] Kari Sunde's Day Off

hyralt

Well-Known Member
RP Date
44.9
RP Location
YSS Azalea II
"You will find that the authorizations and appropriate forms are all here," Kari handed over a datapad that she'd prepared weeks in advance. "I have been in the reserves for some time and need to re-acquaint myself with my Mindy in advance of any sortie. Otherwise, my lack of recent experience will be a liability for the rest of the crew. Pulse cannons and teleportation will be disabled. No armaments will be fixed to the hardpoints. The flight plan has been logged with the Captain, but in summary I will proceed to a safe distance but stay well within the Azalea's sensor range before running a virtual obstacle course and a simple melee combat exercise before returning."

Hearing no objections, Kari lifted her spear and walked past them into the Azalea's power armour bay. She quickly found her Mindy, remarkable only in that it was a standard Neko Tall unit, rather than a custom fabricated unit. Though she had crystal-clear memories of using her Mindy on her first posting, she made a mental note that this unit showed no signs of wear. Walking around it, she traced her fingers along its surface as she performed a visual inspection.

Seeing no issues, she set her spear gently against its side and stepped in. As her SPINE made contact with the onboard AIES, she gasped. The action initiated a handshake protocol between her digital mind and her Mindy; a handshake protocol that proceeded as fast as messages could be passed across the SPINE interface. To her, the Mindy responded before she even consciously realized the thought. It was such a change from the painfully slow conversations she had through speech that it took her a couple cycles before she was responding as quickly as her Mindy was. As the conversation ramped up to full speed, her perception of time slowed and the moment of her interface stretched out and became without end.

Good morning, Mindy, Kari sent.

Good morning, Kari Sunde-hei, the computer sent back to her before she'd even realized she'd sent her own message.

How are you today? Kari asked.

Diagnostics began at the moment of our interface, Kari Sunde-hei. They will be complete within ten cycles.

Very good. It has been some time since we interfaced, has it not?

This is our first interface, Kari Sunde-hei.

I see, Kari replied with a frown. She had distinct memories of her life before the reserves, her first assignment to the YSS Wakaba. But there were gaps in her memory. It was as if she were on the Wakaba one moment, then she was back in Kyoto being reassigned to the reserves and trying to figure out what to do with her life. Data about the Wakaba was scarce, and she didn't have clearance for much of it. But the rumors were that it was still MIA.

Diagnostic complete. All systems nominal. Dropping to background process. I will be here if you need me.

Thank you, Mindy.

With the handshake complete, the AIES quietened down and she assumed direct control of the armour. The feeling was unlike anything else. The armour simply became an extension of herself. Even before the suit closed up around her, she lost the sensation of her body within a shell. The proprioception she felt at the tips of her extremities simply extended out to the tips of her armor, including her tail in its armored attachment module. Finally, she took her spear in her now-armoured hand while simultaneously slipping the helmet over her head, which sealed shut around her neck with a click.

"Azalea, this is Kari Sunde-hei commencing registered training flight plan 8ac7d, requesting clearance to depart."

"Kari, Azalea flight control, you are cleared for departure. Keep it to CFS and under 200 kph until you're 10 clicks out, then you can open it up. Have a good one."

"Azalea Flight Control, Kari, thank you."

Kari walked at a leisurely pace to the force field at the edge of the power armour bay, through which she could see open space. She stopped to appreciate the view for a moment. When she did eventually step through the force field, Kari was suddenly aware of how loud it was on the Azalea, only when she experienced the stark contrast of the airless silence of space. Crouching down, she kicked off from the Azalea hard enough to push her from the bay's artificial gravity. For a few cycles, she just floated, watching the Azalea grow more distant until she nudged the CFS system enough to start propelling her away at 200 km/h, a tiny fraction of the drive's power.

With a thought, she brought up a little indicator at the corner of her vision that showed her distance from the Azalea. As it counted steadily closer to 10 km, she idly began twirling the spear she hand. It felt different in microgravity, no longer tugging towards the floor, it only tugged with intertia now, which she felt whenever she tried to accelerate it, like when she kicked on her engines or when she pushed it with her hand. But if she kept a constant velocity, she could let it go and it would carry on alongside her until she acted upon it again.

When the indicator read 10km, she dismissed it and brought up the simple refresher course she'd thrown together. A loading bar flashed across the screen, but the AIES was almost so fast that it needn't have bothered. Suddenly, a translucent wall appeared in front of her and she gently pulled herself to a stop in front of it.

Just then, the following words appeared in front of her: Obstacle course commencing in 3...2...1.
 
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When the counter reached the silent 0, the wall disappeared, only to be replaced by a series of rings and walls that formed a twisting and turning path through empty space, doubling back on itself several times. In addition, a timer began counting up at the corner of her vision where the distance indicator had been.

Kari was disappointed in herself that the millisecond count in the timer ticked up several times before she reacted by switching on her turbo aether plasma engines. Though the space was silent around her, the vibrations from the wings on her back became a roar inside her helmet that she quickly tuned out as she focused on following the rings in front of her.

Since she was so out of practice, she simultaneously brought up heart rate and blood oxygen monitors as she dialed up the speed, which read 50 bpm and 98% blood oxygen saturation respectively. A little high and a little low, Kari scoffed at herself from being so out of shape. Responding by taking a series of quick breaths to oversaturate the oxygen in her blood, she saw her heart rate tick up slightly, but so too did her oxygen saturation.

"I am a leaf on the wind," she whispered to herself as she saw the first turn approaching fast. "Watch how I soar." As she repeated the mantra, her heart rate ticked ever downwards until it was barely above her 40 bpm baseline, just as she reached the curve.

It was a hairpin turn upwards and to the right, and she knew from prior calculations that the optimal line required hard reverse thrust. She'd managed to dial it up to 5G, and with her heart rate down and oxygen up she felt like she could push herself so she momentarily cut power to the engines and pulled a half flip forward, using her tail to orient herself so her forward vector aligned with the path through the rings after the hairpin. Then she kicked on the drive again, this time dialing it up to 6G.

Without the slow ramp up in acceleration, she felt the acceleration hit her like a truck to the chest. Her muscles instinctively tightened, along with the musculature within the suit, cutting off circulation to her arms and legs to keep the blood flowing between her heart and brain at all costs. It helped that the acceleration was front to back. It would be causing her frontal lobe to start being relatively starved of blood, but she could temporarily sacrifice some of her abstract reasoning for the sake of a better time.

Just when she was starting to feel comfortable, a series of walls appeared in front of her with a section cut out of them indicating the orientation of her Mindy. Dialing back the acceleration to give herself some breathing room, she redirected the thrust from her engines to rotate herself to match the indicated orientations. As she did so, she also whipped her tail around, acting as a counterweight like a cat falling. Though it didn't seem to give her any advantage over Mindies without a tail, it felt right.

The orientation section finished with a much gentler curve down and to her left. Though the acceleration was starting to wear on her, she remembered clearly that she could take this turn almost flat-out with the right line. She manoeuvred to the opposite side of the turn and strained her neck, watching the oncoming curve until she could see to the straight section beyond, at which point she turned herself to accelerate towards the centre of curvature. She dialed it back up to 6G again, but she was ready this time and hardly noticed it this time.

Once she passed the apex of the curve, she turned to point more or less straight down the next section and dialed up the acceleration to 8G. This time, she felt it more in her chest than anything as she struggled to draw in a breath with 3600 kilograms of force weighing against her.

Suddenly a wall appeared in front of her. She dialed down the acceleration and looked about frantically until she saw a small opening at one side of the ring, which she barely reached before hitting the wall. A moment later, the program hit her with another wall, picking another random location for an opening to let her through. This time, she put herself into a better position for the last-second manoeuvre by moving back to the centre of the ring after each obstacle, putting her equidistant from any possible opening in the following wall.

By the final curve, she was able to dial it up, albeit briefly, to the armour's software-limited 10G. A strange feeling of curious delight almost overwhelmed her as the blood leaving her eyeballs caused the illusion of a burst of light followed by a rapidly closing tunnel of darkness. It was particularly strange because the Mindy's visual sensors allowed her to bypass the loss of her biological vision, so even as she blacked out she was able to keep herself pointed in the right direction.

With the finish line ahead of her, she would've shouted for joy if it weren't for the tremendous pressure on her chest. But the program had one last thing to throw at her, and if she'd had more clarity of mind she might've remembered it.

Suddenly a wall appeared in front of her along with an opening, but this opening was smaller than the standing profile of her Mindy. After a moment of confusion, she realized she could fit if she dove in head-first. Looking through it, she saw the finish line and her course time counting up and she was tempted to accelerate through it, but she knew that would be reckless. She knew humanoid bodies were much better at withstanding forces of acceleration from front to back rather than top down.

Deciding to play it safe, she adjusted her vector to point through the opening and cut her acceleration before stretching out to fly through face-first. Kari sighed as she was suddenly released from the near-constant force she'd been feeling for the last few minutes.

As her vital signs returned back to baseline, the brain fog she'd started to feel lifted and she remembered this final trap she'd laid for herself just before it happened. As she passed through the small opening, the opening itself elongated into a narrow tube that twisted and turned, forcing herself to accelerate in a series of awkward directions simply to avoid hitting the walls.

Her Mindy's musculature kicked in again, cutting blood flow to her arms, legs and tail. But by far the worst was the feeling of strangulation in her neck as the muscles contracted to slow the blood leaving her head. Sounding surprisingly distant, she heard a choked whimper escape her mouth.

Just as she was about ready to give up, the tunnel ended and she shot across the finish line. She instantly cut all acceleration and just drifted for a minute as she caught her breath.

Before she had nearly enough time to rest, the following words appeared in front of her: Melee combat and medical examination will commence in 3...2...1...
 
"Ack!" Kari yelped as 4 virtual Kuvexian Navy Power Armour units appeared around her in a pyramid formation, suddenly closing in, tightening the triangles they formed on every side of her until they were within range to slash at her with their sabres.

Suddenly remembering the spear she'd carried with her through the entire obstacle course, she span it around, using its length to knock aside half of the incoming attacks while she carefully dodged the other two.

The attacks were relentless, as soon as she dodged, they simply redirected their movement to strike again. For several moments, it was all she could do to keep up by either parrying or dodging their strikes. Then she saw an opening and took it, fluidly moving from parry into a counterattack, thrusting with the triple-pronged head of her spear straight through the Kuvexian's neck, causing the image to disappear. Her elation was short-lived, though, since another virtual attacker quickly popped up to take its place.

Once she had established a rhythm, the program popped up a floating diagram just beyond the area where she was being attacked. A voice in her head began speaking:

This diagram illustrates the feedback loops forming a regulatory network affecting apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, and DNA repair. According to this figure, CKD2 activity would be most reasonably increased due to what?

"Uh, I'm a little busy!" Kari shouted as she tried to split her focus between fending off attacks, reading the diagram, and absorbing the question.

That is incorrect. You will be allowed 2 more incorrect answers before you fail. Try again.

"Erm," Kari grunted, taking every opportunity to glance at the diagram. "A degredation of p21, high cyclin G concentrations, and...ugh...a mutation in the gene that produces PTEN!"

That is correct. Next question...

The melee combat and medical examination continued for some time until she reached the final question.

"It would be..." Kari said, pausing just in time to just barely twist her head to one side to avoid a sabre strike before parrying it away. "Higher concentrations induced significant cytotoxicity."

Correct. You have passed. Congratulations. Your total time was 63 minutes, 42 seconds, and 105 milliseconds.

Every virtual enemy and the most recent diagram suddenly vanished. For a moment, she kept her spear at the ready, even though she knew the exercise was complete. It was as if her muscles had frozen in a fighting stance, as she forced them to unwind and let her finally relax.

It was only then that she realized how sore she was. Every muscle in her body was throbbing, as was her head. Her stomach felt like it was twisted up into a knot. Her mouth was dry, and her breathing was ragged.

"Just gotta make it back, then I can rest," she whispered to herself as she turned herself towards the Azalea and started accelerating at 0.8 G using her CFS drive. When she arrived back at the power armour bay, the simulated 1G of gravity was enough that she felt she could hardly hold herself upright as she marched back to her Mindy's position.

Using the last of her strength, she pulled off the helmet and climbed out. The very thought of making it back to her nest seemed impossible to her, so she laid down and curled up naked at the feet of her Mindy.

"Good night, Mindy," she whispered as she fell asleep. "We'll try again on my next day off."
 
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