Re: Mission 1: Readymade
Akira nodded, moving up to a console near Isuzu. He brought up the targeting reticule, setting up the computer to calculate trajectories to the hangers and loading docks. “EIES, please bring up a map of all debris in a 5000 meter range around the target, and tag any debris that will be moving through the path as we bring the target in.”
A horizontal plane appeared in front of Akira, and the first object that appeared was the Moirai. In a half-circle moving out from the Moirai, similar to a radar screen, the debris field appeared. The SS Pod was tagged in blue, and the stationary debris was tagged in green. The moving debris was tagged in red.
“Alright, EIES, calculate the most efficient path for the target to take to the Moirai, and what debris would have to be moved to make it so.”
The red and green dots cleared away revealing a veritable road to the Moirai from the SS Pod. Akira brought his finger over the tagged dots, reading mass and size of the various items in the debris. Akira moved his hand over the red tag, nodded to himself, and grinned.
“EIES, give me a view on this target,” Akira tapped a target around 1000 meters away from the SS Pod while being between the Moirai, “And lock the gravity beam in four focused beams on the corners of it.” Akira tapped the air in front of him, seeing the hull of the ship he wanted to pull in, and tapping the points he wanted to pull in.
The hull of the broken ship he began to pull in started to collect the debris in the way of the SS Pod, and once he judged a majority of it had been collected, Akira tapped the lower left as well as the upper right hand corners of the hull. The hull responded accordingly, and moved away in a diagonal from both the Moirai and the SS Pod.
“Galar-shoi, I would like to request that we pull in the rest of the Debris into our bays to clear the path to the SS Pod, and then dispel the debris after collecting the SS Pod.”
Galar pulled up a display identical to Akira's and studied it. Some of the pieces were smaller than the SS pod and would prove no problem to eject after rescuing the pod, but others were quite large, some measuring up to the size of a powered armor. Galar responded, "Permission granted, but make sure you don't bring in any of the larger pieces or run into them either. We don't want this thing damaged."
"Aye." Akira nodded as he let his fingers work. He quickly set up a protocol to sort the remaining debris in the path by size, IE what fit and what would not. "EIES, could you please warn the crew to be careful in the hanger bay, or, if possible, exit? I don't want to hurt anyone bringing in this debris." With that out of the way, Akira started to tap debris to be brought in on the outskirts.
Isuzu watched as most of her 'interesting' bits of large debris were culled from the sweep. Probably for the best; some of the things she'd marked looked suspiciously like un-exploded munitions, and that chunk of quantum computer would probably break apart with too much jostling. Maybe she'd be able to get permission to look at some of it on the sensors while they examined the pod.
Strelgar in his rushed state found his way to the Moirai's Bridge. Ah, the man from before, the one who greeted him the night he arrived. "Um Captain -" He said pausing as he approached Galar.
Galar looked closely at the progress being made with the debris, focusing on a particularly strangely shaped piece which seemed to not like being moved from its resting place. "Akira-Hei, be careful with that one."
Galar said to the man who had just come in, "Yes, Strelgar-Hei?"
Akira nodded as he looked closely at it. "Why are you resisting, little one," Akira muttered to himself as he tapped the larger debris that wouldn't fit, having the Gravity Beams move them out of the 'road'. "EIES, let's do a full scan on this object. It smells...fishy." Akira tapped the object to be scanned twice, and then worked with the gravity beams to move more debris.
If it's not moving, then it has active inertial/gravitational stabilization; a mine, maybe? *Vanatosk-shoi, I suggest we power the CFS before proceeding,* Isuzu sent over a closed com channel to both Galar and Akira.
"I have an inquiry, I arrived in the hopes of being-" he thought for a moment to find the correct words, "one to least be working with the maintenance and repairs of the Moirai." He snapped his neck, "I am now pointing out that I wasn't supposed to serve as Infantry or a soldier. Whichever you call the term for Warrior." Strelgar pushed aside his sullen mood, as he bowed, with his fist thumping his left shoulder.
As the sensors scanned the troubling object, the readouts blinked and displayed the information and a zoomed in image of the object. It was a backup generator from a Yamataian ship, still active and with nearly all of the protective covering stripped away. It was laid bare and was now on the move. Once it had been resting in space, not hitting other objects, but now, it was if a live grenade had found its way into the Moirai's lap. Galar turned to Isuzu, "I think it would be a very good plan to power the CFS's shielding up. But please, don't shoot it."
Galar turned to Akira. "This situation has now turned very dire. If anything bumps into that generator, we will be awash in a sea of Aether and there will be nothing at all left of the pod."
Akira's mouth opened, and then closed. He tapped the moving generator and had a Gravity Beam devote itself to slowing down and then stopping the problematic generator. The other beams he began to speed up the clearing of the path, having a percentage display of what remained to be done before a safe route for the pod could be found. It was ticking down from 50%.
"Isuzu, could you keep an eye on the moving debris please?"
"Affirmative." As she was already tracking most of it anyhow, Isuzu opened her personal sensor instance to the rest of the crew and took partial control of the active sensors; she'd been going entirely off passive before, else she probably would have noticed the generator earlier. "Powering CFS; you will have a 'missile window' to move the pod through, Hibiki-hei," the tiny neko added, referring to a small 'imperfection' in CFS that a ship could use to launch a torpedo through the shield.
Strelgar relaxed, as he pulled out another one of his apples. Taking a large bite out of it almost smiling, as he went to the nearest wall and relaxed. He had heard the chaotic situation, so he relaxed his fear of dying was gone. "So whatever happens, happens.” As he waited for the Galar's response, not even caring about the more urgent topic.
Galar made sure he did not look worried on the outside, but on the inside, he was on the edge of his seat. There was very little he could do at the moment except wait for things to turn out. "Good, Akira, almost there."
Akira's brow was furrowed as the percentage counter clicked down to 0%. The path was clear, now to pull the Pod away without having it hit anything. "Beginning to pull the pod out." He locked one of the Beams onto the Pod, pulling it slowly out and toward the ship. The other two he combined with the fourth that was slowing down the Back-up Generator. He focused very intently on the Pod, and shut out all other information sources except one, trusting the EIES to hold off the Generator. "Any debris we should be worried about, Isuzu?"
"Affirmative; these clusters may self-detonate when the generator goes." Isuzu painted them on the main screen; most were reasonably far away now, thanks to Galar's suggestion that they clear out the 'large trash' before pulling the pod in, but the EIES still hadn't resolved their exact composition.
"Would you like an apple Captain?" Strelgar asked as he held out another apple in his left hand while he took a crisp bite off his. He approached Galar whilst he was distracted.
Singling out the dangerous areas, Galar watched as the pod was deposited in the hangar area. With the object finally retrieved, Galar ordered, "EIES, get us away from the generator and into a safer area. Keep the shields up until we are about .5 AU from the generator, as we do not want to be caught in the blast."
As the YSS Moirai started to move out, Galar sent a transmission to the Nepleslian escorts. "We have retrieved the SS pod as per orders and are moving from the area, as there are dangerous elements in that debris field. We will now go on to the next pod which is inside the Flarg cloud. We will leave in 20 minutes."
Galar turned to Strelgar. "I see, and no thanks, not at the moment. As to you being a maintenance worker, there are duties other than simply fixing things you must do here. In the event of a fight, you will be expected to battle just as everyone else will. Do you think you can handle that?"
Akira relaxed, closing down the console he had been using. "Vanatosk-shoi, should we hold on to the debris in the hold, or would you like it ejected when we get far enough out?"
Beside him, Isuzu continued to monitor the generator; it had been functioning for months or years without going critical, so it might continue to do so even after they'd departed, representing a continuing danger. Unfortunately, they really didn't have any authority to do anything about it; it was in Nepleslian territory, and they weren't a salvage ship. I wonder what Command plans to do about all of this technology that they have just floating in Nepleslian space...
"You mean struggle between life, death and glory. Yes I can just all depends on the type, style and equipment." Strelgar grinned, as he took the apple away. He took another large bite out of the apple. "Those bulky armors you Yamataian soldiers prefer, I could in theory. After all the only difference is zero G's." Strelgar yawned, as he stretched his muscles ignoring the fact his whole body felt like it was just lashed.
Galar returned, "Good. Then can you start by lashing down the SS pod? I will have a sprite oversee the work and make sure it doesn't blow up on us."
Galar ordered, "EIES, send a sprite down to the hangar to assist Strelgar-Hei. Also, everyone stay alert, we have two more pods to rescue."
About 20 minutes later, the YSS Moirai and its escorts winked out of existence and sped towards the Flarg Cloud, and its attendant SS pod.