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RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission 36: Kōsaten no Hoshi

Medical Bay

Their story could have been better, and told more convincingly; Molli realized this as she observed Rancede putting the pieces together before their eyes. With her charred fingers making it difficult to close a fist, Molli knew she'd be at a disadvantage in a fight that was surely inevitable. When the NMX Overseer's face warped with fury, Molli knew she needed to act fast. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the Overseer lunged, no doubt a precise spike of adrenaline that kept a Neko alive in deadly circumstances like this. Molli knew she didn't have enough time to draw and fire her pistol with fingers as charred as hers, so she slammed into Sif in order to shove her away from Rancede's assault. Just as soon as she'd done so, skittering parasites swarmed over her body like a flood of water, and Molli sincerely considered putting Sif and herself out of commission right then and there. Unfortunately, that wouldn't solve the crew's Rancede problem -- a problem that would undoubtedly focus the brunt of her wrath on Molli, now that she was the more viable target, upright as she was.

Molli pivoted on her heel and kicked high with a long, athletic leg, intending to smash a foot into Rancede's temple with the kind of force that could shatter stone. A gun wasn't going to cut it, but her body was still a deadly weapon. Maybe it'd dislodge some of those parasites, too.
 
Medical Lab

Sif couldn't afford to take her eyes off Rancede, especially after making it clear that she didn't buy the execution story, but the Overseer didn't seem all that hostile. Until the sound of the swarm rattled behind her. Whether that was them warning the Overseer that the two Kaiyo insurgents were threats, or they're standing up to the Overseer was a reality she wasn't able to decipher at the moment. This wasn't good.

But one thing was certain, she needed to get rid of Rancede if she wanted to scratch out the parasites as threats. Her very presence was too much of an influence with the parasites. When the Overseer charged, Sif felt herself getting shoved to the side by Molli, momentum that she would quickly correct with the ICA to realign her body to a stable stance a foot or so away from her original position.

Noticing Molli's pivot to a high kick Sif aimed low, twisting her body back to wind up a hook to Rancede's lower ribs. The punch was thrown the moment her back foot had a solid hold on the ground, all the while her other hand was set to catch Rancede's wrist so her weapon could be controlled and keep the Overseer from backing out if she did manage to catch her.

On this confrontation, Sif was using as much power her body could reliably produce for the maneuver. She had been eager to put her new training to the test, and with Rancede, she wasn't feeling any guilt for the beatdown she was going to dish out, especially since they knew where her backup was stored. The presence of the parasites swarming her and Molli was a huge incentive to not hold back too. Both to end the fight as quickly as possible, and to show they had the strength to take this ship by force if they had to.
 
NUCLEON

William's real world lips began to twitch upward into a smirk as he eyes darted from left to right, and back again. Inside NUCLEON, he was dismantling the framework. In the place of the brackish hive structure, his own code started to form a megacity, green towers of code rising into the air. Each tower representing a different ship system; weapons, life support, electronic warfare suite, navigation, engineering, comms. And at the center of it all was the tallest tower, the CIC, where William caged the last of the NUCLEON code behind a mountain of firewalls. Burying it underneath his new megacity.

It would be difficult to run this all from his mindware, so he began to co-opting the cleared NUCLEON servers, inserting new subroutines to maintain each of the new towers. The Air 2's followed NUCLEON down and stood guard around the final core fragment monitoring it for signs of activity. If it tried to reassume control, the Air 2's would shut it down.

William spoke into the empty room, but his voice was projected across the ship in an automated emotionless tone. "Captain Rancede has been relieved of command. All who follow her are traitors and are subject to immediate termination. Comply with all orders from the new command staff. Failure to comply with orders will lead to immediate termination of any and all violators. All crew must cease any ongong hostilities. Any further violent action aboard this vessel against loyal crew will result in immediate termination. This is the one and only warning that shall be given."
 
Hallways

Asuka leaned down to help Charbon back up, eyes widening both at the sprinting crew members and at Charbon's unexpected clumsiness. Catching the wireless she swallowed, and then continued on smoothly as if nothing happened. "C'mon, we don't have time for you to fall over your own feet," she chided aloud.

Silently, she added, "Sounds like the bridge is more spicy right now. Better get there and make sure they don't need more help." She turned to change directions, not pausing her stride even as William's announcement rang through the ship. It sounded as if new management had taken over, and while she rather hoped it was her people in charge, she imagined the NMX were as confused as she was on just how to demonstrate loyalty. She settled for walking purposefully and without panic, and consciously keeping her hands away from her weapons.
 
Bridge

"His death is my priority," Aiko declared, her words just as much a response to the helmsman's query as they were a declaration to Gorga himself. The bright red volumetric warnings brought on by the incoming message painted her alabaster flesh a bloody carmine as she darted toward the defiant devil. "Report!"

The princess closed in on Gorga in a blur, motivated forward by bounding leaps across the deck that were enhanced beyond raw athleticism by her inertial vectoring. Like a true SAINT harrier, Erika's attacks seemed to keep the Mishhuvurthyar menace from his full fury. The operative's most recent volley into their enemy's optics let Aiko slip into range uncontested, and so she dragged her blade through the slithering mass of Gorga's tentacles that hung below his up-armored body. She'd picked one of his larger arms first, and then darted back beneath him to take off a few more. There Aiko halted, stationary under the Advanced-Type for a heartbeat as her scarlet eyes flitted around searching for her target with computerized precision.

When Aiko found the spot she struck again from her place low to the deck. Her ensanguined katana, pointed upward all the while, thrust forth in line with the princess' gaze and directly into the flailing stump of a tentacle she'd previously removed. Pressing her sword in to the hilt — aiming to bypass the Mishhu's tough shell and the armor he'd donned — Aiko held her weapon tightly with both hands and swirled it around hoping to scramble some part of Gorga's innards.

"You are not the first to make such demands to me," Aiko growled through gritted fangs in reply to the Mishhu's psychic shout while she wrenched her sword around. "I will forget your unremarkable conviction when this is done!"
 
Erika ceased fire the moment Aiko entered her field of vision and watched her slice through the tendrils on Gorga’s under side.

She took a step forward and dropped to her knees, using her inertial vectoring to slide along the slimy deck. Her weapon fell to the side, being dragged along by its strap while she reached into her bag. Her hand wrapped around her last grenade, while the other went for the stiletto blade in her boot.

She lent back as she approached the writhing mass of tendrils, limboing under one as Gorga writhed in a blind attempt to defend himself. As she came to one of the stumps Aiko had cut moments before she jammed her knife in, using it as a hand hold to arrest her momentum.

As her feet planted back down she pulled the knife out and punched the grenade into the wound channel she had cut. She caught the arming loop with one of her fingers as the passed. She pushed it through its organs until her forearm was half submerged, then dived forward, wrapping her still clean arm around Aiko, while her bloodied one wrapped around the princess’s hand’s still around her sword.

When they hit the floor, Erika covered the Princess’s body with hers. The camouflage faded as power of her suit transferred to the small shield generator.

“Apologies Commander.” Erika said, as she clung to the princess, waiting for the detonation.
 
XSS Brakkamorggil

William’s voice played over communication terminals and intercomms.
Gunhand4171 said:
"Captain Rancede has been relieved of command. All who follow her are traitors and are subject to immediate termination. Comply with all orders from the new command staff. Failure to comply with orders will lead to immediate termination of any and all violators. All crew must cease any ongong hostilities. Any further violent action aboard this vessel against loyal crew will result in immediate termination. This is the one and only warning that shall be given."
Click to expand...

Medical Lab

Rancede swung at Sif and missed as Molli pushed the other infantry woman out of the way. But she kept her momentum going, lunging and turning to ready for a second assault on Molli. Her forearm popped up at the last second to guard against the blow to her temple and her arm took the full extent of the kick. It dropped, loose and useless.
“Who the fuck are you?” Rancede asked with all the hostility of a chased snake. The Nekovalkyrja that was landing a blow on her ribs caught her attention as the wind was knocked out of her. Spit and blood splattered out of her lips as she was dealt the blow.

By this time, Rancede was on her knees and her wrist was held above her head by Sif as the NMX captain clung to her makeshift weapon. Her other arm stayed close to her naked waist as her hand was loose and unmoving. Her eyes caught on the swarm of parasites. As she watched them change position, the bloody spit clinging to her chin moved as she smiled. One of the small Mishhuvurthyar creatures snapped its jaws and clutched into Sif’s neck with its full might, piercing into her.

Just then, there was a small gasp and Chincha looked out of the hemo tube. Her naturally dark face looked like a cloud had been cast over it as she looked between the fighting trio and breathlessly asked, "What's going on?"

It was then that William’s voice played over the intercomm. Chincha seemed to take a readied stance even while dripping hemo.

“Are you with Warlord Prinflarvirinth?” Rancede asked, following up her question just queried. Her voice was hoarser than before and it took some great effort, but her tone had lost a layer of noncompliance. Though there was still something hostile about her question as she snapped it out at them.

Bridge

William's commandment echoed in the bridge and made the back of the NMX helmsman stiffen.

"Captain," she said, more assured than the last time she spoke and louder, over the sound of gunfire behind her. "We're being hailed and it looks like it's coming from Yamataian sub-systems. Wait, fuck—"

The gunfire attributed to Erika sprayed into the eyes of Mishhu. The attack left it momentarily blinded, whether simply in its armor's lenses or the bodily optics of the beast didn't matter as Aiko swung forth towards it and followed through by attacking its meaty, powerless underbelly. Whereas Enhanced kept a beaky maw there to defend themselves and relish in meals, the Advanced had no such advantage and was gauged into mercilessly. Flayed but not broken, the Mishhuvurthyar snapped its tentacles at Aiko, raking her with knife-ended appendages in a clustered flurry. There was a synergy with which the two combatants worked that was beginning to overwhelm the Neko's mortal enemy.

"Report that the signal is from a Yamataian PoW." The helmsman spoke up loudly over her shoulder, "Now we're being re-routed by the fleet—shit shit! Objective is recovery of a lost asset." She started making changes to the course then stopped, looking to Aiko for confirmation. She had time enough to put her hands up over her face a moment after the grenade went off but it didn't stop a hunk of Mishhu entrails from covering her already blood-stained uniform. Ripped from the inside out, Gorga had not only been killed, his armored shell had been blown onto the platform from which he had commanded as XO. It hung limply amongst the wires, decidedly empty and void of life like a ten point hanging on some suburban dwelling's wall.

Hallways

It looked like the whole ship had bristled to attention. Running, not walking, to the bridge, NMX Neko seemed on a knife's edge between jubilant and terrified.

"Let's match their pace. You are decidedly cool under pressure. That something that your ship has taught you or that you picked up somewhere else?" Charbon asked on their way to the bridge. She had spoken unassumingly as Asuka and she became flanked by an outstanding number of Neko hurrying forth.
 
Bridge

Smoke from Gorga's charred innards and a misting of his Mishhuvurthyar blood that fell upon Aiko, Erika, and everything else around the spot where he died filled the bridge's confines and replaced the sounds of battle with a calm absence. Only the background noise of the ship's systems remained. It was as if the NMX Neko helmsman's report had been a monumental peak of their war-torn symphony and now only the gentle coda remained.

Kitsurugi Aiko sat up on the deck where Erika had tackled her into cover. The princess examined Gorga's shell hanging from his command dais and peered around through the haze until her eyes met the SAINT operative's. Aiko hadn't much to say — that news from the helmsman was a monumental breakthrough in their quest to find Hoshi that overwhelmed her — but gave Erika fanged grin and a particularly genki nod in recognition of a job well done.

Thereafter, Aiko stood up and marched toward the front of the bridge. Sword still in hand, she wiped it off on her sleeve and sheathed it again by the time she had stepped across the room and beside the Neko who had delivered the good news.

"Set a course for the signal, then!" the princess ordered. "We will arrive there first and claim the target so that this crew may find redemption for the failings of its prior commanders."
 
The field Erika's suit emitted flashed blue with the shower of blood, viscera and carapace. The operative held her mouth closed for a moment to prevent inhaling any, paranoid about contracting MHV. After the concussion wave rolled over her she rolled over and allowed Aiko up, while at the same time switching back to camouflage. The NMX Nekos were sufficiently cowed and most weren't too familiar with what a SAINT suit looked like, but she didn't want to give them a chance to linger on it and start a mutiny against their hostile take over.

She reappeared moments later from a shadowed corner of the bridge, walking across the squelching surface towards the helm station she was assigned before. Her suit now projecting her earlier NMX uniform disguise.

"Aye ma'am." She said, sitting down at the console and plugging in a course.

Then, wirelessly she sent a message to the other team members. Bridge is secure. We've received a directive from NMX command to intercept a Yamataian POW. Chusa Ketsurui has directed we comply. Advise if you need assistance.

Should we consider rounding up the NMX Nekos before we make contact? Erika asked Aiko through a personal link to the princess as she tapped away at the console. If we need to call in the Nepleslians to help us the situation in here could deteriorate quickly, and we're still outnumbered.
 
Medical Bay

With the overseer subdued, if not neutralized, Molli could afford a moment to swipe at the parasites crawling over her lower body, cursing at their disgusting movements and appearance. All the while, Molli kept her eyes on Rancede, who was undoubtedly waiting for an opportunity to plunge that weapon in her hand into either her or Sif. And speaking of Sif, Molli faced her right as one of the parasites managed to dig into the Neko's neck. Time seemed to slow as Molli's harsh expression morphed into that of horror at what had just happened to one of the few important people in her life. Her charred fingers twitched and drew the gun from its holster, before turning and pressing the barrel directly against Rancede's forehead. The overseer's wretched smile sealed her fate in Molli's mind, and devoid of the hesitation born of fear she'd have felt years ago, she pulled the trigger.
 
In the Captain's Cabin, William managed to move himself to the floor. Sitting cross legged, his head rested against the desk, cable still attached to the back of his neck.

Within NUCLEON, the ID-SOL continued to cement his control over the system. The green megacity built from code continued to spread. The sensor and navigation towers lit up as new information came in. With the colated data, he confirmed the course. Next he diverted extra power to the engines.

At Erika's status update, he too sent a private message to the other boarders. "NUCLEON has been subdued. I have assumed direct control of the ship's systems." He replied, the color of the bridge consoles changing from their harsh colors to dark green lending credence to his claim. "I can seal off each of the ship's decks if we get the crew all on one floor." He added.
 
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Medical Bay

"Overseer's subdued," Sif would say almost cheerily, though that feeling would be almost immediately be replaced by the horror of realization that a parasite had bit into her. 'Waking up tomorrow is going to be a pain,' she thought to herself, knowing that she was as good as dead now. Enthralled or as worm feed. She had limited time. Already the countermeasures for the parasites were triggered. She felt herself getting unplugged from the data highway, and her strength was sapped.

But she still had agency, at least for the next few brief seconds, and she was going to make the most out of it, a last act of defiance perhaps. Still holding Rancede's wrist, Sif used her other hand to grab the syringe and she looked like she fell onto it, body slightly twisted so when the needle stuck into her, it was about fifteen degrees off center from her throat, but aimed to pierce right through the parasite's mouth and as she imagined, through its head.

"Don't fancy being a thrall," she'd say as she held the injector against her neck. She didn't know what was inside the injector, she just thought that the needle was long enough to reach the parasite, even if it went through her own throat. Now would have been a good time to go out in a blaze of glory, unfortunately she hadn't prepped the impaler to blow. Now that would have been a fine end to her first life, wouldn't it? Maybe the second would be more glamorous.
 
Bridge

As Erika asked if it was a good idea to round up the Neko aboard the ship, then that which appeared at the bridge doors was like an answer to her query. A trio, then a pair, then one by one Neko appeared, popping their wide-eyed faces in to where Aiko, Rio, and Isuke had only minutes before entered the bridge. Whispers started with the words killed and Gorga taking precedent.

“Aye ma’am!” They heard the bridge bunny respond to Aiko. She looked from her controls to Erika as she recalibrated sensors to the area of space Erika was to move them in.

Seeing one of their own respond to whatever unheard orders Aiko had given, the NMX Neko at the door started saying aloud questions of their own:
“Did she take command?”
“Is she our captain now?”

Among them were Charbon and Asuka. Charbon spoke loudly over the din of questions as if directly to the Yamataian princess in NMX disguise, "How should we proceed?"

Medical Lab

Rancede’s final visage was of Sif’s defiant act. Pulling the syringe still in her hand and plunging it in where the NMX captain knew the parasite lay. Her eyes widened in alarm at the rebellion. It did not stay like that long. Scattered around the medical lab, her expression was hard to read after Molli executed her. The captain and Mishhuvurthyar both dead in the medical lab, Sif was about to fight to not become the third for the pile.

Having missed her major jugulars, the needle had scraped her airway. Breathing was labored but not impossible. In the room were open cabinets where needles and scissors meant to cut gauze and flesh alike were splayed out, medical scanners, hemosynth synthesizers, a glitching, blinking defibrillator, and a volumetric console that held green on green text that reminded one of a Nepleslian like William. There was a drawer somewhere with tracheal equipment, but it wasn't open or visible. A stent to support the airway, ventilator, and a catheter-like endotracheal tube that could be used in an emergency to let air pass through the damaged tissue.
 
Bridge

Aiko had already given her orders: set a course for Hoshi's signal and get there before more Mishhuvurthyar forces could swoop in and steal their lost captain away again. She stood at the fore of the bridge in a dignified posture, legs shoulder width apart with her hands clasped at the small of her back. When Asuka, Charbon, and the other NMX Neko crew appeared in the threshold, the princess' head darted to gaze at them over her left shoulder.

"The XSS Mordrakka is now mine under orders of the Warlord Yaggorahurl," Aiko said, again invoking the archenemy's name as the root of her supposed authority. Her eyes met with Charbon's after the NMX turncoat asked her question. "Organize the crew and assure them of our mission," she told Charbon. "Whether you do it from here via communicator or on foot to the departments I will leave to your discretion. And someone clean up the mess those foul lovers made of themselves," Aiko added more broadly to the others assembled in reference to the chunks of Gorga and Raspu scattered around. "Have their cadavers broken down in the medical bay."

With those further directives explained Aiko turned her eyes back to the main viewscreen and volumetric panels that had changed green on William's command.

"Good work, Wil," the princess said in wireless silence to his mindware. "We have taken the bridge, so there is no need to cordon off the Nekovalkyrja crew just yet. They seem convinced at last with their captain and XO out of the way, so change the screens back to their default color. I would not want them suspecting anything untoward. Make them flicker a bit as if damaged by our fight or some-such, and then make your way to join us here."
 
Medical Bay

Molli had turned away moments before pulling the trigger, which spared her face from the explosive shower of blood, brains, and skull fragments that showered the side of her head and tangled into her silky-smooth hair. She knew the next handful of seconds were vital, but so did Sif; the Nekovalkyjra undoubtedly knew what fate awaited her if she didn't act swiftly, and made the only logical choice.

Molli processed Sif's decision, saw her movements, but was too slow to reach out and grab the needle before Sif plunged it into her own neck. "No!" Molli's shrill yell echoed through the room, full of pain, shock, and anger.

If Sif's decisiveness was definitive evidence of her status as a model soldier, then Molli's wide-eyed expression and terrified scream proved she was the opposite. She rushed to Sif's side, hands hovering over the needle her friend clung to, unsure of what to do. "Why did you fucking do that?!" A stupid question, but Molli wasn't thinking clearly -- for as much as she wanted to be a Nekovalkyrja, it was now obvious that she could never think like one. For a mercy, Sif's killing of the parasite didn't appear to hit anything vital, given how the needle wasn't filling with blood. She could hear Sif's breathing stop, however, and knew the clock was ticking on a slow and agonizing death.

"Hold on, just-- Fuck!" The soldier jumped over the blood pooling around Rancede's corpse and searched the room as though it hid a bomb. "Gotta be something, gotta be something...!" Drawers were flung open, medical equipment tossed aside if it wasn't pertinent to the operation Sif needed. Molli was a woman possessed by a single, burning desire to save one of the most important women in her life.

Molli's digital mind processed her surroundings in fractions of a second; this place had everything she needed to save Sif. There was just one problem; Molli was no medic, and the delicate procedure Sif required was beyond Molli's knowledge and ability to provide. "Fuck!" she screamed, kicking one of the drawers hard enough to completely cave it in. An idea came to her, and she marched up to the hemosynth tube that Chincha was floating around in. "Who has medical training on this ship?!" Molli said, her beet-red, watery-eyed face inches from the clear glass that separated her from the NMX that they'd gone through so much trouble to try and save. Molli gripped her pistol tightly, fully prepared to put threaten, and kill, another unarmed enemy combatant. "Fucking answer me!"
 
XSS Mordrakka

Chincha, barely awake, had screamed her reply back at Molli after watching the scene. But her mouth only made huge bubbles like a diver would as they plunged into the depths, only she was ebbing in the hemo that swallowed her words. Another answer came, this time to Molli, as Nekovalkyrja loaded down with the blood and guts of the Advanced Type from the bridge was brought to the medical lab to be broken down. One, a medic, took a quick look at Sif struggling to breath and with the gash and dropped the carapace she held. Then without questions went to get the endotracheal tube mercifully in a drawer that had not been dealt a blow by Molli's zeal.

Many minutes later, Sif too was coming out of the hemo tank. SACN access and Neko strength still gone, the Neko was at least healed of her life-saving self-mutilation. The NMX ship had also tucked into the vicinity of its destination. With William, Aiko, and Erika as mainstays on the bridge, the rest of the crew had integrated into the Mordrakka like it was another Tuesday, carrying out Aiko's orders alongside their new NMX comrades.
 
Erika turned to one of the Neko’s manning the station beside her.

“Hey you.” She said, the meekness she had used earlier to better appeal to Rancede’s hubris was replaced by a cold, authoritative inflection.

“Eeep!” the Neko squeaked, turning to face Erika so fast her short black bangs managed to smack her face.

“Keep an eye on the heading and let me know if anything is amiss.” Erika said, standing up from the console.

“Y-yes!” The neko replied, perhaps a little too loudly.

She cast her gaze at Aiko for a moment. Chusa, I’m going to go check out that signal that came through during the fight, We’ve got some time before we reach the NMX Rally point. She said over the wireless as she walked towards the communications console.

It was a very obvious spike in the log which made the signal very easy to isolate. She flicked her wrist and activated the SAINT issue multi-function bracelet and pointed it’s aperture at the screen, letting it scan the consoles memory and pull the file, then transfer it to her internal AEIS suite. She didn’t envy William for having to interface with the ship directly.

That was about all the first pass luck she had, frowning as she pulled it up as a spectrogram on her internal HUD and folded her arms with thin lips. It looked like noise, but not Gaussian background static. Her first thought was encryption but even that had a pattern, a consistent data rate. She could make out blocks of data, but it was stretched and compressed in an uneven fashion. Trying to even it out would take days of her raw compute power.

There were some nasty forms of encryption that also varied the data rate by an encryption key. She ran it through her extensive onboard memory of encryption keys in the course of a few minutes, nothing.

She then played it as an audio file. It was almost like one long discordant note with a slight buzz, and there was some subtle variation in the pitch; about as pleasant as nails on a chalk board. She played it over and over, her expression quickly turning into a grimace.

Then the main wave faded into the background and she could hear… something, an occasional slight beat. She tapped her elbow in time with her finger, trying to see if she could identify a pattern. Still nothing. She then isolated each beat, each one came in a close pair, the space between them compressed or dilated based on the distance to the next one. She spaced them evenly. Then she heard it.

Thump Thump, Thump Thump, Thump Thump

A steady heartbeat. Not Human, not Neko, Not Mishhuvurthyar. No heart beat she’d heard before, but it was unmistakable. She used the beats and markers, and the data rate began to become clearer. Now the delineation between the different bits became more apparent, and it became trivial to smooth it out into something that looked vaguely comprehensible.

But only vaguely. It looked like bits but still made no sense. She ran it through her encryption key database again and got nothing better. She ran it through a few encoding standards, and managed to get something with the current Nekovalkyrja Visual Encoding Standard, minus a few of the latest patches. The centers of the images were chaotic static, there were some shapes, lines, but nothing coherent. The outsides though deteriorated into fractals, repeating shapes that were easier to segregate.

Using that as the basis for her signal analysis she began to pull them apart. Each a recording, no longer than 2 seconds. The first was an ocean that stretched out into the infinite horizon, the waves that rippled in the center looked appropriate, but as you approached the periphery the shapes of the waves became a repeating pattern. It made Erika think of human vision, the center of the retina was the detail-oriented part, and as you came to its periphery the receptors became thinner and less sensitive. The mind would give a best guess hallucination. The information captured in the NVES was generally consistent providing the Neko capturing it was uninjured, and when she was there was spots in the feed, not this… decay.

The next feed was… something large, a creature. Erika couldn’t make out the whole thing, she only felt a tightness in her chest when it opened a gargantuan eye, and that eye focused on the viewer.

The next one was a tree, so massive it reached into the sky, impossibly high. Erika was reminded of space tethers. The branches seemed to stretch for eternity and decayed into repeating fractal patterns as they approached the edge of the feed.

A pan of an impossible room was next. The walls warped at strange angles, and they were coated in the same carvings. A heart, and a mask with three eyes. Each was exactly the same, and while the other details faded to fractals, those remained the same. The recording ended with a pan over to another infinite horizon from the top of the massive tree.

The final recording was one of fire washing over the camera, a plasma front as a blue orb grew larger and larger.

Erika shut down her HUD for a moment and returned to the reality of the Mishhuvurthyar bridge. A comprehensible horror compared to the fractal dreams she’d just played. She went through the various symbols in each of the recordings. A world of water, an eye watching, a massive tree, carvings of a heart and a mask with three eyes and descending into a blue orb. The last one Erika immediately assumed to be an orbital decent into a water world. Then… large trees as a landmark? The NVES version was a clue though, it was the live patch when Hoshi went missing. The captain was the originator.

She looked around the bridge for a moment to check if the situation had changed at all. She noticed her leg bouncing anxiously and put her hand on it to stop its tremor. With no indication otherwise she delved back into her internal AEIS interface.

Water worlds were her best lead. 23478243 results found. She rolled her eyes and narrowed it down to Kikyo sector 34 results. She sighed and started going through them one by one. Mitsuya III, United Outer Colones, wrong direction. Ayano, towards the Kingdom of Neshaten, same direction as Mitsuya. Miyamae… same direction as Ayano. Erika sighed. Albini, right direction, minimal population, but home to a Zodiac-Class Star Fortress and way to close to home. Unlikely. Xylar III, 20LY away from Yamatai, decent candidate, come back to.

Mizuhou’s Tear, Kenichi’s Star. 15LY from Yamatai. A little close. Erika tilted her head, about to mark it as promising and move to the next one. though as she was about to, she noticed something else on the system listing. Kokoro, heart. She leaned forward in her seat. Named for the rhythmic beating sound the planet emits. Made by the vascular system of the Kokoro tree… Erika took a breath. The only notable life from is the world tree… a tree reaching up to three miles.

Erika immediately got up. Chusa, I think I know where she is. She said, looking over to Aiko as she floated back over to the helm.
 
Bridge

"Then report on what we need to know with regard to the operational area," Aiko said back to Erika aloud. This ship they'd commandeered was already en route to the signal source alongside every other Mishhuvurthyar vessel in the stellar region. "Will we encounter any sensors or environmental interference that may impede our ability to pinpoint the target? Our quarry's general location in-system is known by what data was intercepted, but if there are any particular considerations to make then I want teams prepared in power armor to deploy as to widen our net. I said we must claim the target first," she reiterated, "so when we drop out of fold all hands must be at the ready."
 
"I believe the missing asset is on Kokoro in Kenichi's Star System." Erika said, catching herself on the chair in front of the helm console before letting gravity take hold again. "The star is K Type, a Red Giant. Expect high ionisation in system, most of which I can filter." She continued speaking, unbroken as she tapped upon the console and adjusted the ships vector. "Kokoro is dominated by a planetary organism—a world tree three miles high, roots spanning the entire surface. Oceans hidden beneath the canopy." Erika finally turned to Aiko, pivoting in the seat so her legs hung over the side. "The biological density will scatter our sensors. Trying to get any resolution through the canopy will be difficult from orbit, and descending will limit our range. My recommendation is sending assets into the tree structure, multiplexing their sensors and running their signals through the ship for aggregation and analysis."

She took another breath and lowered her gaze slightly. "The data in the transmission isn't… reliable in every sense of the word. But the last recording looks like a feed from something entering Kokoro's atmosphere. Kokoro was in full light, so the sun was behind the camera. If the recording came from the same moment of transmission, I could also calculate where the feed was taken from given the planet's rotational position and orbit around the sun, and its vector based off the few frames we have, which should give us an area of impact. If it's from a different time, I might be able to narrow it down to a particular band of area on the planet."

Not staking my reputation on it though. Erika said, silently over psi coms. The feed is... She hesitated. Corrupted. Probably artifacts from the interrogation process. I'll send you the files I pulled from the cleaned signal, and you can come to your own conclusions. In the next moment Aiko got a data link request. But if we're going to have to search the whole planet anyway, its not going to hurt if we start looking somewhere particular.
 
As the traces of the anesthesia meant for something with a much higher body mass spread through her system, Sif could feel her mind getting addled and her body feeling numb. In her mind, the needle was not likely to kill her, at least normally, but with the parasite latching on and her countermeasures deployed, she wondered if that combination was making her susceptible to a quicker death from what she could have normally take.

The last thing she'd see before the drugs took hold was the NMX nekos coming in with pieces of Mishu mass. She reached out to Molli to warn her, but all she could utter was a weak wheeze before everything blurred to darkness.

And then she woke up, drenched in hemosynth. The first thing that came to mind was the morbid curiosity of seeing her dead body, but why could she remember that? Did they back her up in their own ST and gave her a new body? When she stepped out she saw the same tinge of skin she had going in, but that's not really surprising. She even gave Molli a cheery smile, still referring to her as her NMX identity in the presence of actual NMX nekos. "That was a nice nap. Feeling a little crick in my neck though, hope I didn't miss any of the fun."

That smile however would slightly falter when she picked her Impaler rifle back up. It was heavier than she was used to. It was then that the reality of the situation was made clear. She had the same body, they just patched her up with hemosynth. That was a problem.

On their way to the bridge to rejoin the rest of the infiltration team, Sif would take Molli aside, making sure no one was within earshot. "Molli, that parasite's got me compromised." As she said this, Sif would squeeze Molli's hand with all her might, severely reduced in strength to drive home the point. Though still firm, the weakening of her grip was telling. "My strength's sapped. Not sure how fast the virus spreads, but I might be a threat to this mission. And if I am, don't hesitate, okay? I'm only going to be a day younger when I come back."
 
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