Into The Lion's Den

[Neri Kaioh]

Neri twitched her nose as the commander didn't say anything more. It had her on edge. Did she make everything too simple? Does he think they would fail? What if she missed something critical in the planning? She closed her eyes as her mind turned things over again to see if she had truly missed something.

She opened her eyes as the pink haired princess sat next to her. She nodded with the comment. "It has me on edge. Do you think we missed something? I thought we covered all the bases with the teams fairly split with roles and such. Gods that man drives me crazier than Michiru did towards the end there."

Her thoughts didn't have time to go into the dark place, she winked back at Natsumi. The night they spent together was heavenly. She may not mind repeating it again later. She nodded her agreement with both statements.

"The unknown has a bit of a thrill to it. Which is why Michiru tried to keep me locked up. It never really went her way in the end. We will see if this gal is going to be like family. If anything, she will be an ally to what we need. Allies will help in the end."

[Tomoe Natsumi]

Natsumi smiled and held up her small blue bag that always seemed far too small to hold enough, yet always seemed to hold whatever was needed at the time.

"I'm loaded up and ready to go. And don't worry..." She gave a wink. "When it comes to helping out someone...I'm always far more serious than I seem. Which may be a good thing...or a bad thing. The jury is on that one...." She then closed her eyes and mouth silently. "And no one dies today..not on my watch..."

After a moment, she opened her eyes again and looked at Neri, as if she had sensed her thinking about her. "Bon Voyage....What an adventure..."

Then her nose scrunched up. "Does anyone else smell fish fingers? I swear a smell fish fingers...."

[Sakuya]

Sakuya bounced around in her chair, anxious to get going while humming a tune. She just wanted to be where the action was. She wanted to shoot things and take her aggression out on her enemies. She wanted to see blood and fire. She wanted chaos in the midst of her secret misery. She needed to feel something, anything to combat her feeling of loneliness. She listened to the other banter back and forth as the ship finally took off. She smiled toward Chi’s direction as they began their journey to save one of their own.

[Alexandra Kino]

After some doing and fighting against the suit's gloves, Alex had finally loaded the spare belts into their boxes so that she would not walk around rattling like she had maracas taped to her armor. There was still the issue of the grenade launcher rounds hanging off of the bandolier she had slapped on, but there was nothing she could do about it but pray. If an energy round hit any of the grenades before they could be expended, what was left of the brunette would look like someone had smashed a salsa bottle on the ground. Oh well. At least as she fired grenades and took them out of the belt her odds of an explosive exit from the world would go down.

She felt the vessel rumble to life and she was on her way to save the day along with the other royal rebels. It was a good thing that her weapons were loaded and her spare LMG ammo was put away so that it did not rattle during the flight. Now the time was right to ask the question she had been meaning to ask.

"So, what's the mission about?" Alex asked her colleagues with a bit of garbled static near the end. She really needed to get Ada to fix the helmet's voice system when they returned to the station.

[Chisana Usagi]

A frown formed on Chi's lip as she heard the comment from the captain. She felt as if she let one of her few friends down with the minor drop. She ran her hand across the instrument panel. She would have to do a few repairs when they got back to base. As long as it didn't effect her over all flying, things should go as planned with getting home.

"Rodger that. Diagnostic when we head back to base. Hopefully, it is something is rather minor such as a missed crack in the gauge. I could see that happening."

She pushed the call button as she talked with the other two. Her mind was focused on the flight so she didn't have time to register the smile from Sakuya. "Entering into gravity fields. See everyone on the other side. Remember, far side from the ship in a three point attack. Best confuse the enemy. I would hate to alert them to where we live."

With expert timing, she navigated the gravity wells of the black hole with ease. A quick dip to avoid a large chunk of rock was all that was needed. Granted, she could rush through instead of her easy pace. She also knew that things changed with a black hole.

"Ready for slipstream in Three, Two, One."

[Jacob Marconi]

Jacob nodded to Chi as she prepped everyone for the slipspace jump, which he tended to dislike the feeling of it but that was life in space. He looked at Chi and confirmed her coordinates. She was always spot on. He couldn’t believe how quickly she had taken to flying and navigating in three dimensions instead of two. He took hold of his strap, really the only thing he normally did during slipspace jumps and waited as the stars elongated and then they were traveling faster than light. Once they had settled in he knew they had a few hours for the trip. He looked over at Chi again placing a hand in her shoulder.

“Good job. Don’t worry about the readings. They leveled out once we jumped. It was a minor fluctuation in the intermix.”

He looked at her as he decided she better give them their time frames. She was their ride after all.

“Chi give them their time on mission and extraction times. You are their pilot and fuel isn’t exactly going to last forever and when we get back we can pull the engine and rebuild it if you like. You know just because we will have the time. Jallia has been on me for that. Although you maintain the engine with such a fervor it’s actually funny she’s all about proper maintenance cycles. It’s a good thing though.”

He smiled as he relaxed back into his seat. He was being a bit more relaxed than he normally was due to them taking the initiative and planning a mission. He was along as an observer. He sent a coded message off to an old friend and didn’t expect a reply. They were most likely busy. Who knew if Annabelle was even monitoring the band. He smiled as he turned and looked over everyone in the back. Those were his kids and they were ready for this. He felt that pride and then turned back to check instrumentation. Everything normal.

[Tomoe Natsumi]

Natsumi relaxed. "Well..here we go again...same old universe. Let's go save someone... That's what makes it worth getting up in the morning...." She smiles at the others. "Don't worry, I'm not as crazy as I seem to be....though..." She adjusted her belts. "I do maintain...I am a mad woman in a box.."

[Freya Aino]

Freya didn't have time for Jacob being grumpy but he seemed to take the briefing without to many of his feathers being ruffled and when it was over she looked at Neri and nodded her agreement with the plan.

"It is a a solid plan Neri and Mizuki. I mean in and out while causing as much as damage as we can to both their ship and their fragile egos. I like it either way because I can blow some shit up and make them regret coming close to us. It's going to be a good time either way."

When she heard the announcement for the slipstream jump she clenched her stomach because well the transition to faster than light travel was nice and all when you knew about it. She waited for it to settle then looked Alex.

"You know we get to rescue the fair maiden and if we're lucky she might reward us with her favor or in Neri's case a wild night alone letting herself get questioned by Neri."

She blew a kiss to Neri and smiled. She would be fun but she wasn't going to spoil things with Felix for a night of fun with the woman. Alas so many good things and right now the relationship she had wouldn't be collateral damage as it wasn't a good thing it was a great thing.

"Felix what is you loadout today? HE or shrapnel?"

[Mizuki Tsukino]

Mizuki knew that the armor may have impaired Alex's hearing so she was glad that Freya gave sort of a version of what they were doing. It was nice to see that Freya was locked on enough to want to blow stuff up and she hoped it wouldn't end up spacing them today. That would have been rather inconvenient for everyone. Well except Chi as she would be on board the ship and be able to retrieve their bodies. That was a lovely thought she mused to herself.

"No, no fish smell Nats, just the smell of us as we sit here in the wonderful and cramped confines of this ship."

She looked at Neri and her worries, while valid, didn't have to be voiced. The plan was simple and it was sound. Nothing to worry about but there was always that simple saying Jacob liked to drill them with whenever he was given the chance. Plans rarely survive first contact. She let it slide this time.

"Simple, we cut our way in near their brig section. We kill everything not us, save the senshi, and then beat feet back home. Anything tries to stop us we kill it. Anything gets curious, we kill it. Anyone tries to kill us, we kill them back. You know standard kill everything but our target and get out of there. After all," Mizuki checked her watch and switched it to the mission timer, "we're on the clock now so let's get ready for some fun. Look at Sakuya. She's ready for the fun we are about to receive."

She liked Sakuya and her ways of covering her nerves. Mizuki didn't feel the nerves of missions, only the rush of the moment. She liked how it felt to just utterly make people pay for taking something from her. When it was done she pulled out her tattoo gun and had her sister scrawl her kill count on her back right shoulder. Chi also did most the other tattoos she had on her body.

[Ryuusei Fuushino]

"Yeah, time to earn my keep..." Then he looked around the cabin at everyone, and money felt like less of a priority...especially when his green eyes turned to his pink-haired squadmate.

There wasn't a single one he disliked; not even Neri, who he spent a nice chunk of the party fighting with to get Mizuki's attention. Aside from that, she was pretty cool and actually put them on the same team along with Natsumi.

He'd do his damndest to make sure they all came back alright.

[Neri Kaioh]

Neri tightened her grip on her straps as she felt them go to slipstream. Chi was good however she still did not like it. It scared her to think that a piece of metal was the only thing between them and freezing in a vacuum. It didn't help that there was a ton of explosives on the ship as well. She just hoped that none of it went off before they were at their destination.

Her focused turned back on to the conversation at hand. She rolled her eyes as she grinned at Nats. "Well, I would say that I have first hand experience with you being a woman in a box. Or was that outside the box? Hard to say as it was as it was an enjoyable time." She gave her a wink.

Her attention turned briefly to Freya, "Well I will have help from Natsumi. What do you say, good cop and bad cop play for the new senshi? I think it will be lots of fun, regardless."

It was nice when they got to banter with each other. She gave a toothy grin to Ryuusei. "How about we feed the new guy to the wolves? I think it would be a great as we all fly away. Who seconds the motion?"

[Chisana Usagi]

Chi kept on an eye on the instruments as the captain talked to her. She smiled at the praise. For her, this was how life was supposed to be. It was freedom for her as every doubt and worry faded from her mind. She glanced at the captain with a smile on her face.

"Well I look forward to taking the engine apart. I don't like when the readings are off. I am happy that things leveled out. I want to know why in the first place. Maybe it needs a good scrub down or a wire was loose."

She sighed as she was suppose to give the mission times. She honestly doubted that the others would take her seriously. She was the joke of the group. She kept her place in the pilot's seat as it was where she belonged. She would bury the other feelings. No one had to know.

She hit the button which allowed her to speak to everyone. She took in a deep breath as she closed her eyes. "So I hope everyone has a solid understanding of the details. We will be there in a few hours which will be plenty of time to get all the details ironed out. We have a small room for error though I would rather not dip into the reserves. On the way back, I will need someone on the guns as we escape. Will and Hayate, you both will keep the gun ships off of us."

It might not be what the captain wanted. It worked thought lacked the usual pep. She just wanted to get it done and over with.

[Alexandra Kino]

Alex looked at Freya through the opaque faceplate of her helmet and was glad that the blonde could not see Alex's reaction to the statement of a night with Freya. The brunette shrugged her shoulders and let the issue drop. Was there anyone the Venusian would not spend the night with?

"OK. Good enough for me." Alex said to Freya shortly before they entered the slipstream. Alex braced herself against the seat, gripped her Light Machine Gun, and silently clenched her teeth while Chisana did her piloting thing and got them through the slipstream without incident. Alex visibly relaxed... not that anyone could see her expression through her faceplate or her body language due to the bulky Cataphract Armor she was wearing.

Alex loosened her grip on her Light Machine Gun and sat back for the rest of the ride. She would let the others do the talking and focus on doling out suppressive fire to the enemy and trying not to let her grenades get hit before she could launch them.

[Ada Mizuno]

Ada sat and listened to the others talk about their mission, their ideas of fun, and other things that she had very little clue about. The current Mizuno lived much like her mother had... in a lab and either working on some technological project or working to keep Dark Echoes' numerous systems functional. Ada had to tend to electrical systems, computer systems, medical systems, and more to keep the station spinning more or less as it should. There was seldom a day off for the de facto maintenance person of Dark Echoes.

She had just checked the state of her medical supplies when the ship entered slipstream. She always hated when the ship entered slipstream. There were so many things that could go wrong and there was no way out if there was a malfunction of a key system or two, only a slow, painful death in the cold, vast reaches of space. Luck was with them because the ship exited slipstream without anyone dying, going missing, or having body parts where body parts should not be.

"I have all of my medical supplies." Ada commented dryly as she held up her black satchel with a white circle in the middle. Inside the white circle was the time-honored symbol of the medical profession... a red cross. While Death Phantom did not respect what the symbol stood for, other cultures still did, so it was important to be clearly marked as a medic. She would have to work out the questionable ethics of a medic being armed for ground combat later.

"I should be able to take care of any medical emergencies that arise." Ada stated again. Between herself and Natsumi the royal children were in good hands. Natsumi could easily treat whatever maladies Ada could not.

[Tomoe Natsumi]

Natsumi looked over towards the direction she thought Ada would be in. "We'll work together...just like old times... or new times...I'm not sure....I tend to get confused...."

She then closed her eyes and tried to relax and let any visions...any visions at all that might help her..come to her. They never did come when she expected, but she was hoping that this time, maybe, something might come to her.

She didn't like the idea of running in and killing everything, that was something that the original senshi had always pledged to resist, but then...they were all dead, and they were left. But Natsumi couldn't help but feeling..the more they got used to killing, the further away from humanity they became. However, she could never say such thoughts to her sisters and brothers, she knew that it would not help anything - and especially not on this mission. And to be honest, she knew that the people who held their friend, likely were going to try to kill them.

She sighed. "Can't I find just one villain group who would rather settle things through a nice cup of tea and a game of cricket?"