[YSS Shiroyama] Mission One: And that's how it all started...

Vandal 2 - Derelict

The first step was the loudest. It was the heaviest as her foot dug into the worn surface plating of the hallway as Suzume adjusted from the Buccaneer's gravity to the low ambiance that the drifting hulk offered as she used her military bodies own functions to keep at a relative norm and keep a combat pace as the training kicked in. Her sight adjusted to give her a light enhancing night vision as what little ambient light offered by the ancient (by the rapid evolution of the star armies standards) ship to avoid throwing unnecessary light from any weapon or suit mounted optics.

She could feel through the subtle shift in her own little gravitic changes the next man behind her, Likely still Kensei-san and made adjustments in her speed to ensure she neither pulled too far ahead in her own zeal or short stopped to have the rather heavy looking machine-man knock her over. So far was she into the sensory overload of trying to keep absolute check of her surroundings that more than once the young neko had to slow herself down and simply focus on what lay ahead of her.

But eventually, she was able to range for the team without incident; keeping a careful eye on her suits readings and those that it had identified. The SOFT team where specialists in their own right, but none of them could hope to compare to the stealth and speed the rangers could offer.

Stopping before the intersection, Suzume took a knee and aimed her carbine at one corner while she waited for someone else to cover the other pathway. Without the full team being neko' she couldn't simply send a telepathic link, and any radio band system so close to potential hostiles was risque at best so as the front most neko she signaled her intent first to the second pointman, Kensei with the simple handsigns of "Door" and "Breach" To signal her intent to force open the hatch. Before looking back to her seniors and superiors to repeat the command, Asking for permission followed up with the simple signal requesting for "Cover Me/Us?" as she slung her rifle and await confirmation to simple brute force the door open with her teammate while the others covered her and had rifles trained into the opening they would create.

In the dark of the hallways and the soundless void they could hypothetically tear the bulkhead open with little more than a little vibration in the floor plates to give them away so long as nobody was strictly watching the hatch.

Hypothetically...

"Yay! Mission time." Shasse exclaimed with a gleeful smile, bouncing along behind Juno as though she was on a field trip. "Want me to go in first and check it out Juno? I'm pretty small so I can squeeze through all the tight spots really fast!" The little blue neko bounced up and down beside the minkan woman.

Miles took stock of their position while their leader gave the order to hold and wait for the trio to try get the power back on. Ordinarily if his team had a chance to rest it would be Mile's job to take stock of the wounded and figure out who needed treating first, since they hadn't yet entered combat he settled for going back through his stock and making sure he still had everything he needed. "Do we have a backup plan if they can't get the doors open?" He asked almost as an afterthought while packing away his medical supplies and gazing back along the path behind them.

Vandal 1

Midori was silent as she stayed near her charge and let her eyes keep her aware of her surroundings. At her shoulder the butt of her rifle rested while the barrel pointed down toward her feet. She was ready to move and fire at a moment's notice, though she had followed all the normal gun safety rules with her finger off the trigger and rested on the guard instead. She was silent as she waited and moved alongside Miles, step for step the entire way along.

Vandal 2

Hinata watched the others close enough though for now, she kept her eyes on the move. Up and down the halls, she took in the details of the slightly ruined derelict but put that info to the back of her mind as she remained silent. She just wanted to make sure she was ready to act at a moment's notice and was oddly enough professional compared to before.

Vandal 2

Sachiko remained silent as she tried to remain calm, she knew she’d been in situations like this, after all the ship she was born on wasn’t always calmly going through space. She followed Hinata, as she took in the environment around them. “Don’t worry girl,” she muttered under her breath ”once the situation’s dealt with, Sachiko’s got ya,” she said as she indeed thought about what she could do with the ship. The possibilities were endless, but she knew she will treat the poor derelict right. That’s if she was allowed to.

She soon realized she was talking to the ship and not her teammate, so she blushed hoping Hinata and anyone else didn’t hear her talking to the ship as if it was a sentient being.

Vandal 2
Lucas didn't like this, it brought out the colder side of him at the memories the interior brought. Darkness, rust, and abandoned decay of long ager technology, just like the back streets of Vice. The Iroma was regretful of those times, back when he was a far different man.

He saw the signals from Suzy, and gave the hall ahead an optical scan with his violet eyes. Nothing seemed off, but the slightly ajar doors nagged at him. He knew pirates, and how they operated. Better safe then sorry in his opinion.

Slinging his rifle, he made a series of hand gestures. One by one, check all the side doors as the point men move to the door. Then stack and breach. They communicated to everyone, before re-shouldering his weapon.

Vandal 2

Aleksandra nodded at the order from Lucas and followed the team inside, peering down the barrel of her rifle as she followed along into the interior of the derelict. The dank hallway reminded her of the choked swampy areas on Tami during the Occupation. She stifled an involuntary shiver, focusing harder so as not to make the shadows along the corridor turn into questing tentacles...

Aleksandra moved up alongside Lucas, giving a small thumbs-up as her "Go" signal to his command to check the side doors. She looked around and headed to the nearest one on her right, exercising maximum caution in checking the rooms, rifle at the ready.

Terra Multa orbit - YSS Buccaneer - Airlock - Vandal 2

Kensei did as instructed, without any form of hesitation, the android stepped in front. Several loud clunks starting as a second metal plate slammed shut around around the droid's head, slamming down lamelled plates not unlike that of a traditional Kabuto. Having experienced the countless lives of ancient masters, veteran samurai that had lived through wars and conflict, having seen battle and conflict before, Kensei was experienced. And with that experience came determination. Not only to complete the mission, but to make sure these organics lived through, he was at most expendable, having made a back-up recently. The lack of face turned to meet Suzume's, nodding. He too was ready. With one hand weighed down by the chain-sickle he held.

Terra Multa orbit - Derelict - Airlock - Vandal 2

The door hissed open. Revealing the decaying corridors of a ship he judged long abandoned. He needn't turn his head to check up on his comrades. The influx of energy coursed through his sensor array as his core started to expend more resources. A quick headcount assuring him with a point of reference for later on. The droid stepped down on the ship's metallic floor, held steady by the magnetic coils on his feet. Offering muffled thuds due to the thick leather soles underneath. Detecting Suzume's gestures, the droid's hand moved up and gave the OK as he formed up next to her swiftly. Readjusting the grip of his Kusarigama down to half a meter down. Able to swiftly give it a swing and fling it to whatever enemy was at optimal range. Two fingers of his free hand tapped against his chest twice, before gesturing forward. The simple message - "I go in first." - communicated to his fellow pointwoman. Another ping of his sensors caused the android to see Lucas' gestures. Yet another wider burst pinged through his mind, both to interpret his CO's signalling and check a bit of wider surroundings. Stacking up next to the door and waiting for Lucas' go-ahead.

Vandal 2 - Derelict

Suzume's head bobbed in anticipation and acknowledgement to kensei as she casually unlocked her boots and pushed off to float towards the bulkhead. She calmly aimed down any side corridors in accordance with her superiors orders but left the actual clearing to the other team members so she could reach her objective.

she adjusted her own personal gravity to its max so she could use her bodies weight and leverage and slowly and methodically drew her knife in the near darkness. The simple unsheathing took easily half a minute as her every movement became deliberate and precise to keep her natural concealment and silence.

She slowly pressed the knife into the seal enough to leverage the door a fraction of a millimeter. When the time came she would slide the knife in deeper until the first seal gave and released the trapped pneumatic pressure sealing the door and causing it to hiss with released air, Then all stealth would be pointless as the hiss gave away she would slam the knife home and wrench the door open as fast as she could allowing her comrade to slip in and take the lead.

She looked at the droid and asserted her readiness, Dimming her hemosynth nightvision to its absolute bare minimum. The rooms natural lightly or the flash-blindness of gunfire could get her or others killed if she allowed it to blind her.


Her heart was beating so loud she was suprised the others couldnt hear it...

Vandal 2

Sora didn't like cramped spaces. Being a living tower with the wingspan of a starfighter made almost any enclosed space into a cramped one. She ALSO didn't like sneaking - or whatever this was equal to. Again, size of a small vehicle, and she likes big guns. She can't lie about that, either. She did her best to cover, but eventually had migrated slightly back in the group, her height being advantageous when not blocking someone else's frontward view...

Vandal 1

Mikodimus loved to be in confined spaces. More so when it allowed him to snuggle up against his Sora. Though now was not the time for snuggles. Unless you count the enemy giving snuggles to the rounds in his weapon. His dreaming about snuggles with Sora was disrupted when word came across for him to team up with Shasse. He was super happy having met up with her so eager to partner up and make this a success.

"Shasse is welcome to take lead, I will cover your six." He said with a big smile. "Just don't trip any traps please. That excited nature tends to get you in trouble Shasse." He reached over and poked her side to get her attention.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 1 (SOFT) - Maintenance Conduit

"Nah I got it, you guys cover my ass for me~" the slightly overconfident Juno offered up to Shasse and Miko as she swapped out her assault rifle for her shotgun, shouldering it and moving deeper into the space - the blocky blue thing's barrel swept through the small area and much to Juno's delight everything was looking boring, so with a nod she moved over to an open maintenance panel and brushed some grime off of it.

"Input located, going to try and cycle power, gimme a bit~" she spoke again, resting the shotgun against the wall and carefully removing part of its outer casing and unplugging a sturdy power cable from her weapon's subspace acceleration array to splice it into the panel instead using a small adapter from one of the pouches on her vest before beginning to calibrate some settings - it was the latest tech being shunted into older tech afterall, the derelict ship's systems weren't built to handle this kind of thing.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 2 (Rangers) - Hydroponics

Suzume's muscled arms pulled back the doors, forcing hidden gears to turn in the mechanism above it and pull the other half open along with it, though silent due to the lack of atmosphere she could feel the neglected metal wheels attempting to skip teeth or fall off their own tracks yet they managed to hold true as it was wrenched open to allow access to what was marked as a hydroponics room - those who crossed the threshold would encounter... an anticlimactic lot of nothing, there were rows of pipe-lined metal troughs that one might hazard a guess once worked as an irrigation system for soil and plants that had since been cleared out, occasional stray clumps of dirt and frozen plant particulates floating through the stripped space.

It was a rather boxy room, rows and rows of these metal troughs lining the walls with a half-open door on the far left, tables and banks of ancient machines forming low walls that directed the flow of traffic through the area, a small grid of paths overlooked by a large transparent-durandium window on the far wall that was cracked and slightly warped yet still holding as their maps were flooded with interference.

Terra Multa's Orbit - YSS Buccaneer - Bridge

"What in the~" was the small chirp of Valerie Shanks' voice over both teams' communications channels, her golden eyes observing spikes in the readings she had been using to track movements of the unknown elements that had boarded the ship, spikes shortly followed by blinding white noise on every spectrum the Buccaneer had been using to scan.

"Attention, they just did... something that blinded our scans, I'll try to re-calibrate but maps are down so it is up to you guys now~" Val informed them, not wanting to clutter the comm channels with techno-jargon only two or three of the team-members would understand, finishing off with a few final words of advice, "If you see anything that looks like a jammer, do what you have to do."

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 2 (Rangers)

Barely had the lavender-skinned infowar specialist finished what she was saying when two black shapes slowly stalked into frame on the other side of the transparent-durandium window, their EVA suits looking lightly armoured and giving off no external light as the figures swung their blocky and compact, similarly black, weapons over towards the window that separated the Rangers from the strangers.

It took only the briefest of instances for the suited strangers to identify the teams SAOY suits and dive for cover, moving with the kind of motions that came from years of military training though their suits didn't look like anything from the Kikyo-sector.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 1 (SOFT) - Maintenance Conduit

"The hell is that~?" came the voice of Juno again, perplexed by a small red light that became visible as she began powering up the door's circuit though rather than on the panel she was connected to, it was winking at her through a bent interior plate, she pondered this for a moment longer and waited to see how it reacted to a little more juice when suddenly it was too late - energy being fed back through her weapon's power cable and into the compact aether tap within, overloading it and resulting in an explosion of volatile aetheric energy that blasted her back into a wall, cracking Juno's visor and scorching her suit with a cry of pain, showering her with small bits of shrapnel and even piercing Shasse's shoulder with one chunk of what used to be a protective housing for the weapon as the energy quickly dissipated into nothingness.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 1 (SOFT) - Door Stack

As a gout of caustic cyan flame licked out the maintenance conduit and slightly melted Mikodimus' AMES suit two wedges were forced under the door that the rest of the SOFT members had been stacked up near, the door beginning to visibly strain as something on the other side attempted to wrench it up and open, the old mechanisms would only hold for so long~

Nothing. As dissapointing to some, Kensei at one was relieved. No one in the room meant there was roughly one hundreth percent of risk. All that could happen was one stubbing their toe. With the Kama still ready in his hand, the wardroid took upon him what he had promised earlier, which was going first. With slow, methodical footfalls, he entered the hydroponics section. Another burst of his sensor array going wide, though it came up negative. No alien forms in the room. Everything had a reason for being there. And in a purely digitized mind, this was assuring at the least.

It was at that point, however, his sensors chimed once more. Unexplained movement with the direction from behind a window. "Hostiles front - we're spotted," was what seeped into the comms before jets ignited. Followed by the shattering of glass as the droid had positively flung himself through the window.

Ranger Team

"CONTACT!" Hinata shouted out as she watched Kensei sprint forward and through the glass with his body. Her rifle was up and finger hovered over the trigger as she readied herself to fire. She moved forward a little to help body block some of her comrades for the moment, though she made sure to keep out of firing lines if her compatriots followed. She began to advance methodically towards the window where Kensei had charged, ready to fire if she saw anyone besides her squad member pop up and move about.

SOFT Team

Midori's rifle lifted up and focused ahead of herself and the group to the strange wedges that forced themselves into the seams of the door. She sucked in a breath and stepped closer to Miles as her eyes narrowed and she readied herself. "Incoming." They weren't shouted, nor needed she was sure, but Midori's words rang out in the comms channel as she waited to see just what lay beyond. She prayed her increased inherent survivability with her Eihei body would give her a little added protection and fight time should this situation go south quickly.

SOFT

Miles nodded at Midori's words right before the flames shot out and scorched his brother's suit, while he wasn't worried about immediate danger to Miko the minkan was however concerned with the two who'd gone into the conduits and were now presumably stuck in there and very likely injured. "Hey! Shasse, Juno what's your situation in there? Can you make it out?" He asked over comms with a reasonably calm voice, it was clear he was at least a little worried for his little blue friend however as his tone strained once or twice. Turning back to Miko the medic inspected the damage to his suit, these things were like paper compared to a mindy and Miles doubted a field repair wouldn't even be worth it given they wouldn't stop a bullet by any means. "

Inside the room where Juno and Shasse had ventured was a mess, bits of exploded gun everywhere including Shasse's shoulder, the blue neko had barely had time to form a "What's that?" Before she was also knocked over only with a lot more pain in her shoulder. However, she didn't scream, partially from pain tolerance and partially because she didn't want to deafen herself inside that helmet. Sitting against the wall with her suit melted around her she reached up and grabbed the chunk, planning to rip it straight out before deciding that would probably just depressurise her whole suit and lead to even worse results. Shasse calmed her rapid breathing and looked at the situation, Juno's gun was out of commission and she couldn't take part of it our of her shoulder without risking a nasty experience, their medic was back in the hall and probably couldn't do much either. "Wh-what happened?" She asked Juno with a waver in her voice, betraying her pain as the neko stood up and tried not to move her injured arm too much.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 2 (Rangers)
Sachiko remained silent as she followed a small frown on her lips as she saw the state of the poor seemingly abandoned, derelict. She could see this would be a big job if indeed he could claim it, but she was up to the task, her confidence in her abilities was high after all. She will fix it up, make it presentable, and maybe sell it, maybe not which remained to be seen. She soon saw her aunt pry the doors and she found herself amazed at her strength that she had in her hands, her weapon was lifted ready to go at a moment’s notice, but nothing so far until their Android comrade went on the offensive and she joined Hinata in the fight.

Vandal 2

Somehow, someway, Suzume had lost focus. The breach was successful and rather well executed, but the overall alert and ready status she had been in had quickly dropped into lethargy and absentmindedness as she had casually stood in the center of the room to study its interior and surrounds with a critical lack of situational or tactical awareness.

She hadn't even seen the figures through the glass until it was too late... She could have been killed right then and there in a derelict ship chasing ghosts because she lost her focus when it mattered most. It wasn't until Kensei's sudden charge and her senior; hinata, having to shield a now eternally embarrassed suzume for having put them in that position with her blunder.

It wouldn't happen again. With her targets in sight, Suzume sidestepped her seinor and threw herself beside the window to aim down one corner while she waited for a second to support her. Kensei was an intriguing robot...thing... But clearly lacked the training driven to near instinct that the other rangers had. No matter the situation, Suzume knew she couldn't; Even in the face of certain victory, ever chase after an enemy into unknown and possibly hostile territory.

Even a cornered mouse could kill a tom-cat if its back was to the wall and the only option was fight.

VANDAL 2

"Two hostiles identified and engaging." Lucas relayed as he entered with his rifled raised, after seeing the bot charge in with a grimace. Couldn't be helped now of course, but at least the rest of the team was moving and reacting, even if one was delayed in that. The Iroma man moved around the side low, staying close to the wall. It may have been dangerous, but he wasn't going to let one of his go it alone. He couldn't risk the others, so he elected himself. Quickly he gave the others the signals to stay low, find cover, and keep him covered as he moved up. Rifle raised, gripped and ready, he drew up on the opening steadily.

Not-Hard

Sora was able to recognize the signs of someone breaching a door. It was a mixture of flames, wedges, and the general fact that this was happening to a door that gave it away... And maybe a movie or two. Miko found himself more or less pulled out of the way as his suit started melting, Sora not taking the time to be nice as she put herself in an aggressive position - the first to get seen, the first to shoot back, and the one with the least amount of fucks to give about getting shot of the group. The situation had turned south a little bit too quickly, and she wanted to be the first to push it back.

Terra Multa - 40 Miles East of Besukyanpu
Two blue blurs darted between branches and brambles, one's back streaked with red while the other's was streaked with green, their beautiful caws and coos filtering through the treeline of this misty morning on Terra Multa - they were two Swansongs in flight, a young male and a young female courting each other with a dangerous flight through the dense woods on the edge of the farmland.

Suddenly their small frail bodies thumped against seemingly nothing with a few cracks and crunches as their hollow bones shattered and the two brightly coloured corpses slumped to the detritus with no indication of what had killed them other than the bloody smear against an invisible surface.

"Fucking... again~ dumb birds~" came a disgruntled murmur from one of the occupants of the armoured buggy that lay dormant, wrapped in a layer of sensory and optical camouflage as the grey humanoid looked over towards their helmeted partner, buggy black eyes glancing down at the screen displaying an IR feed of a distant farm house with an older hover-lorry parked outside and a beefy woman at the small table inside before focusing on their partner's face.

"Signal still good?"

"Da, is strong connection, just waiting for the handshake to be complete," a heavily accented and clearly feminine Kuznyetski voice spoke, words filtering through the matte-black helmet's local speakers as the helmeted figure continued to tap away at the keyboard before them, various windows displaying information about the connection casting a menacing green glow against the expressionless thing.

"Good, fuck~ all this waiting is making me jittery~ why the hell is boss making us do it this way again?"

"Should have paid more attention to the briefing, pidoras"

"Fuck you too~" the grey humanoid chuckled before ejecting the magazine from his rifle, ensuring the two connection points on the top of the reservoir were clean and in good nick before slotting it back in with a click and an electronic hum, ensuring the two barrels were pointed down into the ground of their vehicle.

"Guess we just wait for the others~"

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 1 (SOFT)
The immediate response Juno could muster was the Sapper coughing up a wad of bloodied phlegm against the cracked visor of her helmet, some of the shrapnel clearly having struck deep as some of her blood mixed with the escaping oxygen of her suit and bubbled up, a stifled yet still clearly pained grunt filtering through her microphone as she tried to hold back some of the tears, "Fucking~ terminal was trapped~" the red panel managed to huff as her lightly tanned complexion grew paler by the moment, vividly green eyes steadily losing their luster as she leaked precious crimson liquid into the zero-gravity environment.

Kimber's so-far stoic expression broke slightly when everything went so wrong so fast, the blast had at least sealed up the suits of Mikodimus and Shasse by the looks of it but she still felt responsible for letting the engineer of their team with a record of being a bit too over-zealous take the lead and suffer for her own incompetence~ it was a new team, hiccups were to be expected but not like this, "I have sent word for the Buccaneer's medical team to meet us at the airlock, we should cover Miles-Hei as he~" her helmeted head snapped back to the door that she had been warned was opening, the katana-wielding leader of the Yama-Dura Demons readying her rifle as she was cut off by the heavy blast door finally being ripped open and forced into the empty space above the door frame - her eyes taking a moment to register the three black figures at the end of the hallway taking cover behind an overturned metal bench, wielding what looked like long and rather blocky bullpup rifles with large magazines that began spooling up with a yellow glow.

"End of hallway! get down!" Kimber barely had time to call out before the weapons began spitting blindingly bright yellow beams, each weapon throwing out two that twisted into a helix as they left the barrel, these strange helix beams flying past the hydraulic machination that had forced the blast doors open - one of the rapid-fire bolts ripping into the vest covering Kimber's shoulder and knocking her back before the Operative scrambled for cover off to the sides.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 2 (Rangers)
Diving through the transparent-Durandium window scratched the hell out of Kensei's paintjob, adding character to the armoured plating as the shards of dangerously sharp see-through metal now floated about the area and threatened to rip into the thin suits worn by the rest of the team at any moment as the droid was struck by one of the yellow bolts of helixed energy fired off in a three-burst shot by one of the black-suited invaders - the black figure firing up his suit's small thrusters to retreat further back into the ship, the battle-bot finding their left arm barely functional with a 3cm diameter hole through it's bicep as the invader's partner ducked into the small connector between the hydroponics section and the hallway his partner had retreated down.

While most the team focused their efforts on the window where the action was going down, a black barrel poked through the crack in the side door out of hydroponics and let off a few bursts into the side of the ranger team, each shot fired causing static to burst through their comms systems as some kind of replacement for the unheard retort.

Terra Multa's Orbit - Derelict - Vandal 1 (SOFT)
Shit Just Got Real

Miko had little time to react to the ongoing events. One moment a team mate was getting turned into a pinyata. Miko decided to get a little crispy like his famous fired chicken. Which for a split second reminded him of his lover but now was not the time for this. Then death lasers started to fill the room. He did his best to slide into cover, the plastic burning into his flesh. He was part thankful as it sealed the suit and part razor blades across his skin. His body contacted the wall hard and in a fluid motion swung his gun around the corner of the wall and started to lay down cover fire. It was time for team shock and awe was all about.

His Star Army Rifle, Type 41 was just a distraction as he had another trick in mind. The sight of the safety release was a beautiful sight as he tossed a grenade down the hallway. He could not help but smile as it floated towards the enemy.