YSS Wakaba
NMX Neko Arta moved cautiously through the ship. Things had taken a very interesting turn. From what she was able to gather, the Wakaba had somehow discovered one of the NMX shipyards. That was unfortunate. Although the shipyard was well defended, a Sharie-Class Battleship could still do a good bit of damage to the station, setting production back by months, if not longer. She would need to act fast. Arta was a truly talented infiltrator. She had a plan that would destroy the morale of the entire ship at once, resulting in its surrender. Her master would be most pleased. Overseer, no Master Overseer Arta. She smiled as she set her plan in motion.
Bridge
Thomas paced around the bridge, stopping at each station to check the status of that station. Naturally he could have just remained in his own command chair and seen the status of each station, but he wanted to check on the operators of each station. A quick word was all that was needed. They were good to go. Thomas returned to his captain’s chair. The time to target was less than 2 minutes. The big Nepleslian tapped his pipe against the arm rest. It was empty, but he didn’t refill it.
Power Armor Bay
Setsunu tied her long green hair into a long braid then maneuvered it around so that she could get her helmet on securely. She had no need to run a diagnostic on her suit, Setsunu was the suit. Her type 33A mind was made to be the power source and the processer of her Power Armor. Although she usually kept her Mindy with the power source intact. That way she could preform micro teleport jumps faster and more often by using both her suits and the ones built into her own body. She did a comms check to her other Angels. “Angel One to Angels of Death. Report it.”
The reports came in quickly yet were all too few. The Angel’s were down 5 of their normal 12 squad size. But Calandri made up for that as the tall alien worked to get into her Mindy suit. Joto Heisho Haruka, Angel 2, was pacing the armor bay, looking like she might lash out at any moment and Setsunu could sympathize. Angel 3, Itto-Heisho Michiru, had not reported in. She was on the shuttle that had been unknowingly sent to investigate the NMX shipyard. Haruka and Michiru were both very close, being batch sisters. They also had served together throughout their entire carriers and were the other founding members of the Angels of Death.
Deck 15
Arta gathered her coconspirators. Over the past month she had carefully infected 4 members of the Wakaba. She would have preferred more, but she had run out of time. She would make do with what she had. “As soon as the ship exits hyperspace, you know what to do.” Her Mishhu parasite infected cohorts nodded. They were heavily armed, but that wasn’t too much out of the ordinary on the Wakaba. Especially as they were about to enter a battle.
Space
The Wakaba exited hyperspace. Immediately she began launching around 100 Mindy suits which moved quickly around the Battleship to act as a fighter screen. The Angels of Death were among them, forming up around the Wakaba’s most vulnerable points. The Wakaba already had suffered badly against borders before, and no one was anxious for a repeat of that. Another 50 suits waited in reserve in the hanger, the weak point of the ship. The rest of the PA suits were spread around the ship, mostly guarding the most critical locations such as the bridge and the engines but also the med bays and food storages. Supplies were low enough without wanting to risk those.
Bridge
On the bridge was organized chaos. Sensors and readings were flooding the screens as contact after contact after contact came back. The operators were hurrying to update the tactical display. Thomas sat with his eyes closed, listening to the reports as they came in. There were a lot. His brows furrowed as he caught pieces of what was being scanned. Within minutes, however, the traffic cleared, and a semi accurate picture of the area appeared on his screen.
Thomas looked at it and felt his pulse quicken. In the middle of the system, orbiting a planet was a space station and a shipyard. The shipyard was round central dome with long tendrils coming off of it. The dome itself had to be at least half a kilometer in circumference. The tendrils varied in length. Some were long and spread into multiple veins with a variety of ships attached to them, from gunships to large frigates. Another arm had at least a dozen cruisers attached to it. Some were obviously still under construction, but the majority looked as if they were close to completion.
But it was the other side of the station that caught Thomas’ attention and made his blood run cold. A shorter arm with 5 disks attached to it. Each ‘disk’ was wider than the Wakaba was long. The thing looked cruel and something out of a nightmare. Very Mishhu indeed. Scanners could find no matches for it in any of Wakaba’s vast data banks. Nothing even remotely close. “So, they’re building some new toys, are they? We’ll just see about that.”
Thomas turned his attention away from the shipyard to the rest of the area. There were several ships patrolling the area. Light cruisers and other smaller fast attacking ships but some heavier, harder hitting cruisers as well. The system was less heavily defended than Thomas would have imagined an NMX shipyard would be. Maybe they kept less ships in the area so it wouldn’t be as detectible? That would certainly explain why they hadn’t picked up anything until they were closer. Of course, the Wakaba’s scanners were not the most reliable at the moment. Thomas would lay money down that they had a heavy reinforcement nearby that would probably already be on their way there.
The Wakaba alone couldn’t handle everything there, even if they were at 100%. But they couldn’t just allow a NMX Shipyard of this size to continue to pump out ships. A quick hit and run. Zoom in guns blazing, do as much damage as they can and then get the hell out of there. And a Sharie could do quite a bit of damage.
“Haruto, plot me the most direct course. We’re going to do a fly by then run like smoke and oakum.“ His cousin Jack would have loved his reference. “Helm, I need you to fly Wakaba as if she were a Plumeria gunship. Fast and nimble. Weapon’s station.” Thomas smiled. “I want those heavy turrets firing as fast as they can. Starboard size, target the patrol ship and any part of the station that come in view. Larboard batteries, primary target is those… ships their building. I want them reduced to molten slag. Then the stations’ tendrils sever them from the hub. Any gunner who misses will be demoted. And arm those Ke-Z3 Series Ransā Torpedoes. Target the space station and the shipyard hub itself.” Thomas called up Engineering. “I want you to redline the engines. We need all the speed we can get.”
