RP: YSS Ryūjō YSS Ryūjō - Mission 0 - The Meet Up

Nichols suppressed the thanks he had for Takeyu once the limited intel SAINT had was on display. The vague enigmas the fine self proclaimed all-knowing snoops of SAINT had provided weren't something that the pilot found helpful but more along the lines of worrying for a number of reasons. If blurred pictures were their only source of evidence, Nichols figured he or one of the other pilots would be needed to get more reliable hard intel.

The Nepleslian pilot continued to stick to his typical silent nature as a second chance of questions was presented to the crew. The only thing Nichols wanted to worry about as of then was to take Errowyn's advice to heart and head back to his Kawarime for maintenance. Nichols remembered Holiday through the thought of his flight lead's own aero spacecraft and the state of it, after a brief moment of thought on the question of whether or not he'd see him in the hangar or not dawned on him Nichols shook his head. He knew the dentist well enough to know he was more likely to try and indulge himself with the female crew rather than maintain what he'd fly into incoming fire.

Errowyn listened to the brief and others adding to the gathering. She had the only two-seater Kawarine and no EWO to ride in the empty seat. But that meant she could carry a bigger payload. With Yaeko, volunteering to look at the transmission, placing her once again in the lead spot over the other two pilots. Seeing that 'Doc' seamed to be more interested in the ladies. Nespleslian pilot across from being just as silent as she was being.

Ume took Meiko's hand and gave it a light squeeze. "I wont let that happen again, you wont have to see that happen..."Despite not wanting to worry Meiko again she didn't want to have to go through that kind of pain once more, she was going to be a lot more careful than she had been before. She continued to listen to Takeyu's explanation of the mission waiting for the chance to ask a question.

Once that chance came for questions she rose her hand and spoke. "Since we are going to be retaking a planet this is going to be a ground operation right? So what is the planet going to be like?"

Meiko

Meiko smiled at Ume's comfort and gave her hand a squeeze back in gratitude. "I'm glad..." She smiled lovingly towards Ume, she had always cared for Ume but during the time that they had spent together she became even closer, and consistently, to the plum Neko. She couldn't bare to see her harmed, and would probably kill anyone who harmed her. She continued to listen to the captain and his statements and then looked towards Ume when she asked her question, before turning and looking at Takeyu for confirmation.

Megami

Kept her eyes on each person as they spoke, or did actions. She studied each one noting each ones mannerisms and used her deductive mind to come to a logical conclusion on different ways she could use each one. For one, Doc seemed to be very charismatic, even if ladies were turning him down left or right, he could be used in diplomacy perhaps. Then there was that plum Neko, Ume, who seemed to be forward, and eager to help... she could perhaps be used on the front lines should something happen. Errowyn was a pilot...unfortunately she couldn't judge how useful Errowyn would be until she actually saw her in action, but at least she looked ready and willing to follow orders. She couldn't help but smile as her drooped ears twitch a bit, the feeling of usefulness, the feeling of being needed...it was really good.

Noa quirked an eyebrow beneath her visor as the Chusa laid out the details of what they were facing. Aside from some ground pounding and occupation, much of it was very nebulous and mysterious. Try as she might for the next minute, her easy access database of visual identification images downloaded from SAINT servers could not return any matches for the intelligence pictures shown for the briefing. It was frustrating, but also exciting at the same time -- a novel and unknown thing was rare in this day and age.

She glanced at Kakeru and Kioko, keeping her voice down though. Which wasn't hard considering it was tiny to begin with. "Takeyu-chusa is right, I can't seem to find anything even closely resembling those images in my databases... how exciting! Maybe it really is a new threat of some kind taking over those planets. And that means new technology to figure out..." Of course, it was only natural for Noa to immediately devolve into the implications of a tech measuring contest with some uber advanced alien invasion force. With her luck, though, watch it turn out to be noise and artifacts on a faulty deep space probe's readout... there were whole networks devoted to crazy UFO stuff like this, after all.

Kakeru raised a rather skeptical eye at the blurry images that the CO was showing them. Image quality was terrible to say the least.

"Or it could simply be a pair of space whales making out. You can see the head there, those look like fins and you can vaguely see what looks like a tail at the back. As for the transmission, even you would cuss too if someone was taking photos of your "private time", I hope." He replied sotto voce to Noa's enthusiasm. "I still can't help but think that this is the idea of some really bored analyst sitting in a cubicle bored out of his mind looking at photos day after day and hoping for some excitement. The probe wasn't even destroyed was it? Oh well, we'll just go out there, take a look, then come back if there is nothing else, "reclaiming" the planet in passing. Don't even think that we'll need the Ryujo for this one, a squad of fighters for quick recon and some ground scans, drop a claims beacon in orbit and we'll be back on board in a day or two."

"Go ahead," Takeyu said, glancing at Yaeko as he spoke. "You might be able to figure something out that the others haven't," the man then turned to the next question asked.

As he listened to Ume, the Chusa nodded. "Ground mainly, the Ryujo will remain in atmosphere to provide support in the event of a firefight, if things get to hectic fighters will be launched to provide additional support. Of course, this all hinges on what we find when we get there, it may just be that this'll turn into a tri-pronged operation, ground, air, and space. We'll just have to wait and see."

Takeyu was about to continue when he heard Kakeru's quip about the probe and how it would probably only be a day or two, the captain shook his head, then shifted the image to show some debris inside of another sihps cargohold. "You mean this probe?" he said with a serious look on his face. "There was almost nothing left of it when a science ship went to retrieve it, originally it was assumed that the probe just meet an unfortunant end at the hands of some spacial anomaly, but well - the images that you just saw were pulled from its blackbox, or perhaps what I should say, what was left of the blackbox rather." The image shifted again, showing the blackbox and all of the scurring marks on it, including a few puncture marks in its casing.

"Also, if our mission was to take a day, I doubt the admiral would have formed this group and instead have just sent an already existing unit out," Takeyu waited to see what Kakeru, or the others, would say.

Anjin listened to the briefing. As she anticipated; it was broad spectrum. Lots of objectives with no specific details about how to accomplish any of the tasks. The last part about an alien presence of unknown origin caught her attention. First contact was something most Scientists longed for. Though very few rarely got to engage in one. Of course the 'artifact' could be just a piece of space junk ejected from a wormhole or quantum string of an extinct species. So she decided to take a wait and see until more data was available. After all it could be a relic from the Black Claw days, or something from a minor species who died, or for that matter some sort of ancient weapon that failed.

"Note to self: Chu-sa Nayacesen has very sharp ears"

"One very pissed off space whale..." Kakeru added as an aside to Kioko and Noa when the images of the remnants of the probe came up.

Since the Chu-sa spoke to him directly, Kakeru decided to at least clear up some questions that he had.

"Chu-sa, is it wise to take the Ryujo in directly? I mean, whoever destroyed the probe knows we have been looking around, and if a science vessel has been there too, they obviously know we have taken an interest in the area and will be waiting for us. Maybe a preliminary fighter probe might be in order before moving in anything heavier? Losing a scout to an ambush is a lot better than losing the entire Ryujo and a scout fighter has a higher chance of getting in and out undetected than a whole cruiser!"

"Another thing, how long was the probe in-system and how long was the science vessel in the area? If we can estimate how long it took for them to respond to the probe and the amount of time the science vessel was in the area without being attacked, we might be able to get an estimate of their response time and narrow down the range of planets in the system that they could have come from.

Errowyn perked up at the mentioned of fighter activity. Knowing her Kawarime very well. She spoke up. "Five is a two-seater. Add a sensor pod to the weapons mount. Get someone to ride EWO with me to gather data, I'll get them in and out. Both atmosphere and or space fly-by." She spoke in her soft manner. "Got two pilots I need to check out. It would be a good run for them also."

Sebastian listened and watched, taking in all that the others were saying or asking. She was not too sure what her role would be, since she was meant mostly to repair what is used in a fight, but she wanted to do more. Besides, she had a lot of little skills that could be useful. When the lead pilot had offered to take along someone to gather more intel, Sebastian hesitated a moment and then slowly raised her hand. "I'll go." That's all she said. Usually most never volunteered for anything. At least, not where she was from. But Sebastian volunteered to join the Star Army of Yamatai. And now, here she was volunteering for this.

Ume gave a nod to the Chusa's response to her question, if the operation too place on three fronts things would get very interesting but it'd be that much more important to do things right was well with the forces split. Hearing everyone talk though she became rather worried, the notion of sending out fighters concerned her. "If they are aware we are watching...wouldn't sending out a small unaccompanied detachment of fighters be bad? They would be looking for our arrival so there really wouldn't be a point to being stealthy. And if the probe was destroyed to such an extent the weapons they have at their disposal should be strong enough to shoot down fighters too." She was thinking out loud at this point, running over the steps for planning that she had recently learned in her revised tactical training.

"NMX did their best to take me out, but failed badly as you can see I'm still here. Of course, the wing will be armed to defend themselves if it comes to a fight." Errowyn glanced worried at the two pilots. If what Nichols had told her is true, she would be better off running alone.

~~Back to babysitting~~ voice piped up amidst gggles

~~Oh shut up~~ Errowyn just glared at no one particular. "That was an automated probe and under program. Hence easily defeated. But against an experienced pilot and a fully prepped aerospace fighter equipped for such a thing is harder to defeat."

The discussion about how hazardous the conditions would be for the pilots had humoured Nichols enough to put a brief grin on the Nepleslian's face. However, when Errowyn fixed her eyes on Holiday and himself, there was doubt in his mind that she had trust in her green junior pilots. Although there was a point being made that this unknown party likely had the means to take down a fighter if they could knock down a drone, Errowyn had already retorted and thus left Nichols with little to say. With the hope of creating an appearance that he was confident or without worry, Nichols put his hands behind his head. "I want to see them hit a target capable of evasive maneuvers and can bite back."

"The Ryojo isn't your standard Urufu-class light destroyer, its been modified to support stealth based operations; this means that we can slip into a system and hide out. However, because we have two C1 versions of the Teisatsu's onboard, we'll be using those as advance scouts before entering the system, one of which you'll be assigned to Santo Hei," he said toward Kakeru.

"According to the reports, the probe was only in system for a week before it had been destroyed, the science vessel was only in the system long enough to retrieve what remained of it and then leave," Takeyu turned toward the display and changed it to show the planet that they were going to, statistical information appeared beside it with the planet itself rotating slowly in the center, it showed up as being a blue planet that was mostly covered in water although it had several large islands that were also covered in forests.

"This is the planet we are heading to," he tapped the planet which stopped its rotation, causing the planet to balloon inward in one of the islands - showing what appeared to be a fully intact colony. "Bare in mind, these images are old, so we have no idea whether this colony is still intact or not. Colony schematics will be provided and I want everyone to study them, there is no telling what we'll find upon arrival, so expect the unexpected."

The green haired mini-Neko gave a pouty expression as Kakeru began speaking, debunking her little pet theory. "Ahh... you are such a buzzkill! That sounds even crazier than my idea... space whales... psh..." she replied grumpily to the SAINT operative, although now she secretly had to fight the urge to research and see if there was actually some kind of picture on the 'net depicting space whale mating rituals like he was describing.

Of course all that ground to a halt with the shocking revelation of the fate of the probe, and the atmosphere got more serious and businesslike. "Woah, Anything that can puncture a Yamataium reinforced blackbox recorder and damage the quantum internal storage mediums like that is no joke!" began Noa with a round-mouthed expression. "Either that is one pissed off space whale... or we have a serious threat on our hands."

When Kakeru then got singled out by Takeyu to fly a Teisatsu fighter as a surveillance scout, she then jumped from the table a bit with her anti-gravity and cheered him on. "Omedetou, Shinozaki-kun, looks like you really did get on the Chusa's good side... you're his go-to scout pilot now!" This was obviously a bit sarcastic, because inside she knew this dangerous assignment was probably a form of punishment for his dismissive attitude just displayed in the briefing. But Noa enjoyed it all the same seeing him being a center of one controversy or another.

The red-paneled soldier then settled down a bit and spoke more measuredly to the Chusa directly, floating at a larger height now that attention was momentarily focused on her table. "Santo Hei Amaterasu Noa here... Takeyu-chusa, if it's alright with you I'd like to take a stab at augmenting Munkata-shoi's abilities to see what we can pull from the signals intelligence the probe gathered. With luck, I might be able to use my specialized IT data recovery subroutines to restore more of the corrupted and fragmented transmission data for easier analysis."

Sigrid kept being silent throughout the briefing. Of course she raised herself and bowed to Captain when he arrived. That was the thing, one must do. She never took liking to saluting. It was modern. Down in the field no one bowed or saluted anyway, to not show enemy who is the officer. And up here in the calm, she could choose, so Sigrid, ever so old-fashioned chosen to bow.

The briefing, made the night-skinned neko grin a bit. It did sound like a job made for her. A proper scout mission. Get there and find out what happened. It might show the captain and through him to the higher ups, what she could do and how needed special trained soldiers like her are. Scouts, hunters and killers. Stalkers who would make sure the prey or the prize would not get away. Not to mention that knowing was half the battle.

Sigrid looked at the old picture of the colony in her mind, she would study it in detail later of course. See what ways there were to get to it, where every building was set up. She would also have to do a simulation to find out what all those years could do to it without any maintenance.

"Captain," Sigrid, still standing gave a bow again. "I would like to be first boots on the ground and do a proper recon. See what we can expect."

Errowyn expression went blank, when he chose another to fly the mission. She knew of the Teisatsu capabilities. But a pilot needed to focus on flying in a hostile territory and have a second person to do the EWO/Intelligence gathering. As good as she was as a combat pilot, She envied those that had EWO aboard to handle extra stuff that could be distracting to the pilot.

Slumping back in her seat, Errowyn paid attention, even though she looked like she had found her electronic notepad more interesting. Playing with the stylist on the screen.

Totally missing the sarcasm in Noa's voice, Kakeru gave a quick smile at Noa's "praise". Nothing about his role was outside of his predictions, having advance scouts was fairly standard in any armed force and intel operatives were expected to be "first in" forces, both in-system and on planet.

Listening to Sigrid volunteer to lead a pre-recon on the planet, he nodded in agreement with her proposal as well. With him doing the entry into the system, he predicted that it would probably be Kioko that would accompany the infantry-neko in a HALO jump to clear an LZ for the main survey team while he would continue to act as an AWACs to make sure the Ryujo does not get jumped as it parks in high orbit to act as support and reserve.

Seeing the sudden blank look on Errowyn's face, he thought: "She must have wanted to take the advance recon spot herself.'' Thinking that if Kioko was doing the drop with Sigrid, maybe Errowyn could use her Teisatsu instead, Kakeru made a mental note to suggest that later to her. After all, an unhappy team leader tends to translate to an unhappy team.

Sebastian had already lowered her hand and, as it became clear that the pilot with two seats in her Kawarime was not needed, she shrugged a little and sat back to listen, wondering just what she would be needed for. Her expression, even as she had volunteered, never wavered from the neutral expression she always had and her shoulders never slumped. She knew better than to show any of that emotion. Later, if need be, she'd let it out in the privacy of her room, and hopefully without her roommate there to witness.