2022-06-24: Quaestor Quest

• Log: 2022-06-24
• Cast: Caruleum Vaull, Mitsuba Greyvalley, Edge Sainklaus, Setsuko Ohara, Az Sainklaus, Em Gelfand, Lune Zoldak
• Where: The Pacific Ocean
• OOC - IC Date:6/24/2022 - 6/24/0096
• Summary: In which the Quaestors finally test the crew of the Dreisstrager.

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<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.

On a number of occasions, the leader of the Quaestors, so-called King of Earth Caruleum Vaull, has made mention of a portion of testing that he has not managed to get done yet due to unspecified circumstances. Today, as it happens, is the day that this testing will begin in force. Just as they had during the Dreisstrager's meeting with the King, a number of anomalies ripple through the ship abruptly just as the sun begins to sink towards the horizon. It will be light for some time yet, but the pleasant and gradual darkening of the skies and the brilliant changing of colors at the edge of the world-as-it's-perceived have begun.

This time the anomalies introduce a... series of greeting cards deposited within plain sight of SOMEBODY in every instance. As before the distortions don't seem to be able to penetrate the computer core, although they're a little more precise in having located the boundaries of where they CAN distort space. It's just a bit down the hall-- perhaps uncomfortably close, perhaps not. Depends on how confident the eventual reader is.

The greeting card, of which there must be a good hundred since they've been distributed to essential stations of the ship and it is absolutely ludicrously enormous, appears to have been seamlessly duplicated many times because it is hand-written. You cannot wholly rule out the possibility that Caruleum Vaull actually just wrote this picture-perfect a hundred times, but it seems unlikely. They are however specifically addressed where they appear in front of notable aces and personnel.

Mitsuba is addressed by her full rank, everyone else by whatever trait is most notable about them or their machine(s). Edge and Az are addressed as friends in particular. Lune is addressed as The Owner Of That Lovely Gravity Weapon. Mayvy is addressed as Haro Lobotomizer.

The greeting card reads:

I hope that my message finds you well. Pursuant to the advice given to me by Az Sainklaus some small while ago, I have determined that the least inflammatory means to carry out my instructions is to give you some notice as to what is about to happen.

As you are aware, I am executing Quaestor experiments on Earth. The first half of these experiments is ethical in nature, as you have no doubt deduced by now. The second half is an assessment of your technological prowess, including military hardware. One hour after you receive this message, I will deploy basic drones to engage your forces.

Please arrange your forces as you see fit in that time.

Kindest Personal Regards, Representative of the Quaestors King of the Earth Caruleum Vaull

This fucking guy. What's kind of remarkable is that at very least the specific forms of address were definitely individually attended to, one-at-a-time.

<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.

Mitsuba's always done her best to engage the King of Earth seriously -- sometimes too much so; when he ran into them alongside the Nadesico and the Ra Mari, after all, she'd snapped at him very firmly and told him to engage them fairly or they'd never have a productive dialogue again.

Now, with his full title at issue, things are... a little bit different. Preparation for this assault has started at "I want as many mobile weapons as possible prepared and ready in ways that don't require bridge or engineering crew to leave their posts," followed shortly with "Any technical personnel will be needed at the AOS core immediately," and ended at a shipwide announcement:

"Our enemy is the Quaestors! Retreat is unacceptable!"

The mood on the bridge is less uneven than the last time. Mitsuba is seated firmly in the Captain's chair; Lian remains at her (... isn't this vestigial with the AOS?) CIC post, and Reynold stands to Mitsuba's right. He looks at her, alarmed.

She waits, increasingly impatiently, for these 'basic drones.' Her grip on the arms of her seat is white-knuckled.

<Pose Tracker> Edge Sainklaus has posed.

"I'm not your friend, guy.." Edge grumbles, toothlessly. It's hard to hate such a sincere letter of address, especially since it seemed like they were receiving them more or less because he took Az's admonishment to heart. For .. some reason. That pissed him off, though. It's like he's trying to get on my nerves. I can't tell if he's just this blockheaded or a total jackass. Whatever.

Edge folds his letter sloppily and hides it away in his coat before heading off to find his sister, Lune, and the other pilots so they could go connect with the bridge and figure out what was what.

It was more productive than Edge had expected. Mitsuba kept her cool, even if she seemed to be taking personal issue to a degree that worried him, just a tad, but by keeping a cool head on her shoulders, he was re-assured. She was still the same cute and cool captain as ever.

..getting in the Huckebein again is giving me the heebie jeebies. I can't help it, after what happened at that island .. nah, I shouldn't think about that right now. Just put it at the back of my brain.

In formation, the Huckebeins are deployed to the left and right struts of the ship, tasked with watching each vertices of the bow. This is largely because their units cannot fly or perform well when submerged, so they would be forced to act as a layer of point defense for the Dreisstrager and its immediate airspace, where they could hover safely and be within reach of solid ground.

   In more practical terms, Edge and Az would be taking up rear support.

"No guts, no glory, right? Let's send 'em all packing, everyone. And..erm..you're doing a good job, Captain. So..don't sweat it too hard, yeah? We trust you, so..trust in us. We'll protect this ship, no matter what."

<Pose Tracker> Setsuko Ohara has posed.

EARLIER

"...?"

Setsuko has been assigned to the Dreisstrager for a month or so now, but this is the first time she has received a card on the ship. Honestly, it's one of the first times she's received a card at all that wasn't sent out of some sort of obligation.

Or maybe it was, given she's not the only one who got one. Still, it was a novelty to see something addressed to her by name, even if she's not sure about also being called Glorious Star. There's two of them!

It's also her first time experiencing the Quaestors.

NOW

Well, now is the first time experiencing the Quaestors.

Setsuko has taken out Virgola, because it required a minimum amount of work by anyone who isn't her. Sure, it involved an experimental system built as part of the attempt to make Virgola a mobile suit for all occasions, and she's got a weapon she hasn't ever used in live combat hooked up to the Gunnery Carver, but that's just ordinary life for her.

Which is why...

Well, there's no real good term for it. Virgola is riding a personal watercraft - like a sub-flight system, except it's skimming along the surface of the sea rather than taking to the air. (There was only one, which is why Toby is not with her.) The Huckebeins might be standing on the ship, but Setsuko can scoot around on the surface to provide assistance from another angle. Her Gunnery Carver is in Virgola's hands rather than in its locked grip on the back.

"Star-3 here! Virgola is in position," Setsuko says, and then goes mute before she embarrasses herself somehow. She's not sure how but she can always find a way.

The invitation is in her piloting suit's pocket.

<Pose Tracker> Az Sainklaus has posed.

Since the shaking events on the mysterious chain of islands dubbed X, Az has...very obviously been trying to keep forward-focused. To be honest, she wanted to pull away from, shut off, and not even try to begin thinking back on the emotions that ran through her during that brief moment. But even still, there's no way she could avoid her mind drifting back to it, just enough for those feelings to sort themselves out into one thing her heart could put something of an understanding towards. ...It had a longing for its other half.

The only reason that's all coming back to her thoughts right this second though, is because of a line in this neatly handwritten card in her hands reminding her of those events. "...to the advice given to me by Az Sainklaus some..." Blink. "...He actually listened. I have to give him credit for at least one thing."

This does not of course excuse the fact that he's still doing whatever the hell he wants for the sake of his experiments and 'assessing' them like rats in a cage, calling himself King of the Earth when literally nobody appointed him, acting like he's doing everyone a favor and--...seriously, how much of this did he do by hand?

...

As the hour has nearly passed, Az sits within the 30L opposite the formation from her brother uneasily. Partially from the same discomfort he has, and partially from...well, Mitsuba. She doesn't have to be on the bridge herself to feel the tension, nor be concerned about the Captain pushing herself and bringing out all of the stops for, at least what Caruleum says, should be nothing more than a few basic drones.

"...In position. We might be up here, but if you need any support, Setsuko, we'll do whatever we can. There's no telling what he has in store for us. And...Edge is right, Captain. We'll do our duty."

<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.

"'King of the Earth'? Did no one tell him there's a line?" Em mumbles, peering down at one of the cards.

From down the hall.

Through a drone cam.

Listen, they could also be poisonous. Or bombs. Or poisoned bombs.

Shortly thereafter, Em drew straws with Mayvy to see which of them was going to sit in the core for this one (Em cheated; it was always going to be Mayvy), and then went off towards the hangars. They don't appear especially hurried, or even determined. There's sort of an air of distraction around them. Flickers of lit-up text pass across their glasses periodically, eye movement drawn to it, but otherwise lost in thought. It might be about the form of address. It might be about the unknowns. Who can say?

       SHORTLY THEREAFTER

"Gelfand," comes their voice over the comms. "Qibing 0 Factor. Prepared for intercept."

The Wanzer looks particularly... foot-heavy today. A number of high-powered thrusters have been added to the lower half of its body, marked in test colors and arranged in peculiar patterns, while the carousel wrapped around the shoulders bears an unreasonable number of weapons and what looks an awful lot like a couple of shields. It's ready to get shot out into the sea, to cover anything that tries to go for belly shots while the upper decks are festooned with Huckebeins. Not the usual spot for a Wanzer, but...

Well, theoretically, the thrusters are prototypes designed to make next-gen Armored Cores capable of amphibious assault without worrying about flooding the engine or sinking to the bottom of even shallow bodies of water. They ought to provide more than enough power in any situation like this. Practically, they're what Em had on hand at the time, much like the bright orange and white pilot suit that makes them look a little too much like a Creamsicle wrapped inside its mecha-scale packaging.

"I wonder what his idea of 'basic' is," Em muses aloud, mic hot.

<Pose Tracker> Lune Zoldak has posed.

Lune Zoldak keeps to a schedule. Every day has a calculated path through it - time spent in the hangar, time spent doing physical training, time spent in the simulators, time spent eating, time spent sleeping. Narrow slices of hours and slip-minutes were precious. Delays cost her ship-life schedule dearly.

She had just ended a long burnout session on the ship's gym - featuring the latest in enhanced gravity training - and, covered in sweat, exited the Hyper-Brolic Cardio Chamber with a towel over her shoulders. Glowing in the warm red-hues of physical exertion, Lune went to retrieve her water--

And by the bag there was a handwritten letter. Stopping to look around, the desperately-desirious-of-a-shower blond leaned down to lift the letter and frown.

She turned it over. "No. . ." Came her brief gasp as her fingers butterflied the paper.

Over the general alert of the ship to ready all hands to stations, Lune Zoldak lifted her chin, to find God within the sky. She really wanted to make direct eye contact with a higher power. To let them know.

The she was coming for THEIR ass next.

Thankfully, an hour was time enough to shower.

NOW

Standing on the catapult behind Setsuko and Gefland, as the pair launch in sequence after the Huckebein Twins, the Valsione's eyes rest closed, head down, arms crossed. Some might believe, from this posture, that Lune is in some sort of warrior's trance, or envisioning the battle before her.

The inside of the cockpit tells a different story, as Lune's sore biceps are massaged by her opposite arm's fingers. "I'm going to kill him. I'm gonna take his dumb goat horns and I'm going to ram them into a black hole. He'll like that, but that means he'll let me do it. No, this is a good plan."

'Qibing 0 Factor. Prepared for intercept.' Lune's eyes come up and open - Valsione's clear and bright, unlike hers. "Right. Actually have to launch." She switches the line. "This is Lune - I'm heading out."

Stepping onto the slingshot catapult, the winged Valsione is hurled out over the water, bidding up high. As the g-forces hit Lune, she rattles her teeth and groans. "Looks like Setsuko's in charge, right? We never did that live practice - so Star-3, you're shotcalling tonight. Sound good?"

If she can pass this off as training, the she can at least take it a -little- easy.

<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.

The basic drones don't make themselves evident, however. This should come as no real surprise, because Caruleum periodically shows up in a machine with some kind of stealth technology as well-- though perhaps the fact that it is common technology instead of something being used by a very important official is probably not good news, if it happens to be true.

Which it does.

The hour mark comes, and tension hangs in the air for exactly one minute before anything happens. It probably comes as no real surprise that Caruleum Vaull has a thing for dramatics, because the shooting starts VERY abruptly on that precise second. A cluster of reverse-jointed units hovering over the surface of the water materialize as they aim a volley of massed fire at the underside of the Dreisstrager.

This Quaestor unit, the Orcusula, is relatively well-known as these things go. Mayvy has witnessed it, as has the Dreisstrager in general. It has only fired its weapons precisely once in their presence however, combining its fire with that of the twin Huckebeins in order to dispose of a Zombie Huckebein-- and there have certainly never been so many of them.

Individually those under-chasis mounted guns seem to be respectable if not particularly fancy. Massed like this however, particularly if they manage a fairly coordinated blow to a discrete area, they could be real trouble.

Two flanking groups flicker into sight simultaneous with the main firing group, splitting their fire between the units escorting the Dreisstrager from above and below. Given the lack of dimensional distortions simultaneous with these appearances-- either the Quaestors had plotted their path and planted stealth units in advance, OR... they had used the storm of distortions directed to the ship itself to conceal the insertions.

<< These are our basic units, if you were curious. I suppose I should say scout units, >> Caruleum's voice chimes in. It isn't centralized to a particular unit, so wherever he's broadcasting from is probably extremely distant. << We do have older versions of the same, but this is the current standard. Earth has some fascinating machines of their own, I've enjoyed getting a look at them. And of course there are your ships. I think that the Dreisstrager may be without peer in this civilization. >>

<Pose Tracker> Setsuko Ohara has posed.

Oh no, Setsuko thinks, she remembers.

"Well - I don't have any experience with these units," Setsuko says, "so maybe I shouldn't? I'll definitely be asking for all your support!" Honestly, this is less out of fear and more because of pure practicality: Setsuko has never fought this kind of drone before so there's going to be a lot of guessing as to their capabilities.

For instance, she didn't know they could appear out of thin air just like that! One of the flanking units takes a shot at Setsuko, and she brings up her shield, braking the watercraft hard with a spray of seafoam. "Is this him...?"

And indeed Setsuko only takes a glancing blow from the blast. What does *not* take a glancing blow is that watercraft, which gets neatly pierced by the first shot, emitting a cloud of smoke almost immediately and sending shrapnel into the sides of Virgola's legs. It's still moving, but Setsuko can already feel the watercraft's lack of responsiveness. And there's enough leg damage that she wouldn't want to walk (though fortunately she doesn't have to while she's riding).

"Star-3 here! Um - with such a large group, we'll have to split fire between the ones high and the ones low. Free fire! I can take care of some of the low ones," Setsuko says, bringing up the Gunnery Carver and, in her cockpit, tweaking a few controls. "Charging!"

The Gunnery Carver splits open, the blocky weapon splitting as the side grip pops out. Hidden between the two segments of the Carver is another barrel, a half-concealed cannon already beginning to glow a purple-white as it gathers energy -

"Target locked! Firing, fast pulse!"

True to her word, Setsuko fires a trio of beams - almost too bright to look at directly - one after another, sending them into clusters of Orcusulas. The beam is powerful enough to plow through lesser mobile suits, literally smashing into or drilling through with crackling violet energy, and she doesn't think these will be able to stand up any better.

She has aimed it at an angle - it goes alongside the underside of the Dreisstrager, not into it. Setsuko is very careful with this weapon - she might not be using the anti-ship blast, but why take the risk? The cannon steams afterwards, misting the water vapor from the wake of her watercraft.

<Pose Tracker> Edge Sainklaus has posed.

Raising its arms to guard its chest, Edge's Huckebein shudders under a hail of sudden beamfire, thick wads of megaparticles smashing against the taped over blue armor, scorching the material with the overbearing heat. The R stands strong and steadfast, however, showing off just how tonka-tough it really was. "It'll take more than those peashooters to get past us, you prick!"

I say that, but these 'scouts' can pretty much gun you down like a dog if you get surrounded..I'm gonna need to watch my tail.

Squaring its legs, the 30R kips, firing off its backpack thrusters to skate over top of the Dreisstrager's hull so that it could circle around and lead the drones into the firing line of the ship's anti-air defenses, as well as link up with Az. "O-K. Once they start collapsing on us, we can start routing them..let's shake a leg!"

Usually, playing chicken wasn't his preferred strategy, but being the loudest moving target in the vicinity generally came as natural to Edge Sainklaus as breathing.

<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.

If this is Mitsuba's response to 'basic drones,' it's an interesting question what Caruleum bringing his A game might prompt from her.

When Caruleum transmits that these are their basic units, she says, firmly, "The Dreisstrager exists to protect the future of Earth. Its potential is limitless." She sounds... a little cold. Not direly -- but there's a sort of firm, dispassionate checked-outness to the way she speaks. This might, admittedly, just be her commander stance.

As the focal target, Mitsuba ends up taking shots from both above and below; her expression sours. "Focus on lower targets! Leave the upper targets to the mobile weapon team!" she announces; the Dreisstrager has the best shot against the targets *underneath*, whereas the machines standing on the Dreisstrager or flying directly above it can handle the ones above.

Reynold nods. "Right. Lower beam cannons!" he announces, in turn -- and Lian gets to work finding a firing solution for exactly that.

The lower swivels orient on several of the Orcusulas; while some of them are no doubt going to retreat under the water and get away unscathed, others receive a barrage of oddly-dark beams ringed in yellow light.

<Pose Tracker> Az Sainklaus has posed.

The hour comes. It comes, and...

If there's one thing Az can be reasonably confident in right now, it's that if this man set a time for something to happen, he's going to be annoyingly punctual.

And he is. No gravitic distortions, however - it's that very same stealth system they saw before. Given his proclivities, maybe she shouldn't be surprised at all that he might have simply had his forces lying in wait and watching them this entire time. There's no time to think about it; her Huckebein 30 moves and darts between the storm of laserfire, weaving and rolling out of direct lines of fire where it can. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of them and the suddenness of it all means clipping isn't avoidable.

One catches her machine in the side and scorches the purple armor at the impact point black before she rights it and gets in range of its sibling, Photon Rifle in its grip. "Mngh...better us than the ship. If we don't thin them out, they'll be trouble for the Dreisstrager...!" Even if they're just the Quaestor's mass-produced units, she can't underestimate them...

"And we'll need to deal with these ones first!" The 30L slows up, skimming the hull, only to bring up the weapon and take aim into one of the groups flanking them, pulling the trigger on repeat. The constant shooting is less for taking out individual units and more returning shots to put their formation on the defensive - though her aim is very much to hit as many of them dead-center as she can in the process. Caruleum doesn't sound like he's in any of them...

"I figured, but thanks for elaborating." That's the sound of some slightly strained, put-on sarcasm towards the King of Earth, over the sounds of combat starting up. "With that kind of technology even on your basic machines, I'm sure 'getting a look' is easy. You decided you didn't want to test our power in person this time?"

<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.

'Looks like Setsuko's in charge, right?' "Ah -" Em briefly considers protesting, given the nature of the situation, and then disregards the sensible instinct basically immediately. "- yes. Drone forces are an ideal challenge when a simulator is out of the question." Like, say, during an enemy attack.

The Qibing launches, and the reverse-legged machine starts taking fire the instant it begins its parabolic descent towards the sea. The volley of fire shreds black and orange armor plating, scattering bits of molten metal as it falls. The sudden nature of the sneak attack catches Em almost entirely off-guard, and the Wanzer gets unceremoniously dumped into the ocean with a huge splash and thin streamers of steam. Em, meanwhile, gets thrown around inside the cockpit, jostled roughly against the array of restraints, monitor banks and barely-covered electronics -- and immediately feels grateful for the test-grade suit they're wearing, reducing the rough impact to merely an aching one.

"Don't hold the first impressions against us," Em mumbles. They flex their fingers inside gauntlet-like assemblies, quickly engaging the test components through gesture control and muttered Slavic curses. The rapidly-sinking Qibing's legs shift in the seawater, and a gout of bubbles erupts from the many-nozzled thrusters, followed by a thundering blue-limned ignition that reverberates through the water. Em gets pressed backwards into crash padding, and the Wanzer goes up, up, up, rushing towards the surface --

-- and bursting into the air with a rush of heat and a rising geyser. On top of it, the Zero Factor comes up swinging, ascending into one of the drone formations with one arm coming up, a long-hafted weapon swung perfectly into its open hand. It wastes little potential energy, turning the motion into a vicious uppercut of a swing with the enormous hammer it's abruptly wielding, the war machine shedding water and rattling around its pilot as it ascends into battle.

<Pose Tracker> Lune Zoldak has posed.

"We don't have any data on what he's going to be bringing but what the twins brought back, so make your best guesses, and let us do the fighting. Em, you're Setsuko's wing. Az, Edge-"

Lune doesn't even get done bidding out the line-of-battle arrangement when the Orcusula units appear in their 'the map begins playing the anxiety track and gets to the second arc before the unit deploy sound ends' glory.

Grunting with a hard 'khhhh!', the Valsione's winglets spread wide and she bids for altitude. The barrage is not even remotely reasonable, instant and numerous. A 'break up and shake any direct fire attempt' plot from Lune instantly turns into a lethal ballet of beam fire that the pink haired unit fails to weave between.

A sharp cry and a shower of sparks from the Valsione becomes an actually angry roar. "'These are only my basic units', huh? Bastard?! Scouts? Oh, for your -consideration- at using the new ones, I'll show you just one of my miracle techniques-"

The barrage fire begins to bend around Valsione in the air, first away, then towards. Several beams spiral into contact with claw-tipped hands, forming a sparkling-glimmering ball of energy.

"I'll even introduce you to a fun Earth hobby." Her voice drops, almost cold, almost sweet. With a canting-up slamming of extended forearms into the ball of light, the captured energy rises up, and then falls-with-weight back down, to get spike-kicked by a twirling mecha-foot into the upper crowd of Quaestor machines.

"Sure-Strike Shot! "Miracle Mirage Ball!"

Bending energy like the footie players of yore, her ball of captured Light spikes into the 'goal': large explosions.

<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.

You wouldn't expect these things to be quick at all. They're significantly larger than a standard Earth unit, and the way their legs are configured doesn't really look wieldy-- though hover units are in place at the moment. When Virgola opens fire on the cluster of Orcusula she chose to target, they toggle their stealth fields back on and scatter-- and it doesn't look like there's any evidence that any contact was made.

A single unit reappears fairly close to Virgola however, and the Dreisstrager will observe that it is scanning Setsuko's unit extremely thoroughly. This thing de-cloaked and just started sitting stationary to check that unit out.

Several moments later its yellow visor-optic turns red. It makes some sort of noise -- a kind of machine language, which the Dreisstrager can easily decode as some kind of extremely intense warning -- before it takes aim and fires back at Virgola. Several other units decloak in disparate positions, focusing fire in on it from multiple angles simultaneously.

In a remote control room, Caruleum Vaull observes Edge's attempt to provoke the drones. He taps his chin thoughtfully, and then gestures through the air. This apparently triggers the drones to react relatively predictably, because a cluster of them break off to attempt to hem the 30R in with suppressing fire followed CLOSELY by massing their fire in the center of the net to try to nail him good, probably handily demonstrating the hazards of getting surrounded whether it actually makes contact or not.

<< Are you talking about the Dreisstrager, or yourself? >> Caruleum replies to Mitsuba. As catty as the question is on its face, it's delivered in his usual friendly affect that is hard to really pin down the sincerity of.

The lower turrets of Dreisstrager target the drones below. There are a fair few opportune targets since some of them are trying to shoot down Edge fairly actively, and another cluster of them are trying to do the same to Setsuko. Several units do, however, decloak and rotate in to a forward position that carries them deliberately through the path of the beam-- the one in the rear falls back, and another repeats the cycle, effectively ablating damage across several units. One explodes, a second is a shambling mess that can scarcely be called functional and sinks into the ocean, a third is decently damaged, but the column they moved to protect get off relatively unscathed.

Az speaks directly to Caruleum, as the Orcusula part around her suppressing fire and begin to fire back in kind. Simultaneously, the battered formation being fired on by the Dreisstrager lays on counter-fire. A couple of them seem to try but have their guns malfunction-- one blows off altogether. Probably would've been a meaner assault if not for that.

When the King of Earth responds to Az, he actually sounds disappointed, << It would defeat the purpose of the early stage of experiments. >>

Caruleum perks up audibly, << But I am glad that you would like to fight me, Az. I can sense a great deal of buried potential in you. I am sure I could bring a little of that out. >> He absolutely has no idea that this is a particularly hideous threat rather than the rough equivalent of shootin' some b-ball outside of the school.

In response to Em, he wonders, << Do you think you could make a worst first impression than the one you gave me? >>

An Orcusula hurtles into the Qibing, interceding on behalf of a cluster of its fellows. It catches the blow on its shoulder and then angles its under-chasis guns upward to fire into the machine at point-blank. It doesn't have a lot of other options.

Nearby, the Valsione takes control of the attacks directed at it and bends them into an attack that plows through two Orcusula and sends the one behind it into the crowd firing on the Dreisstrager, causing a messy pile-up and some amount of weapons fire to go wide.

Caruleum makes the units following Edge stop being stupid, and they immediately about-face and fire on the Valsione. << Hmm... didn't I address you properly? I thought I made it clear I was impressed already. This planet certainly does like to play with gravity weapons. YOURS are good, but... >> He trails off.

<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.

The Qibing's hammer attack does not go nearly as well as Em was hoping. The size difference is a big problem; the drones are individually several times the Wanzer's mass, and that's not a great thing to contend with when you're engaging in close-quarters combat. Nonetheless, this hammer was made for exactly that situation, so...!

So Em gets cocky, basically.

As the Qibing is trying to reposition in mid-swing, the under-belly guns swing up and blast it. One of the shields attached to the curious weapon carousel immediately swings in line and gets reduced to twisted metal, the energy weapon stripping metal from the smaller machine's body all along the right-hand side where the diffused shots get deflected. On the bright side, it keeps it from having an enormous hole in it. On the downside, it's now full of many smaller ones, and something is definitely smoldering in there. Falling in the sea again is not an ideal state.

Inside the cockpit, Em feels the tension building. Their world narrows for a second, and another... and then they let go, briefly feeling like they're hovering on the outside of their own body looking in. A not unpleasant tickling sensation plays across one ear. Phantom breaths. Whispers...

Their heart pounds. Em blinks once, then hauls on the controls, grappling the Orcusula with its free hand and letting go of the hammer. One of the spidery sub-arms on the carousel snatches it, swinging it back onto a rack behind it without destabilizing the Qibing one bit. It dangles, and instead of attacking, Em flicks a toggle and activates a more specialized piece of equipment. The carousel shifts, rotating again, artificial muscle tensing and untensing as it brings lenses into alignment and fires LASERS at all of EM'S ALLIES!

Communications lasers, anyway.

<< drone tactical intelligence is augmented by active operator. verbally engage the enemy = occupied attention = lesser combat ability! -M >>

"That depends on what you were expecting," Em says, while simultaneously transmitting the helpful tactical data with one hand and swinging like a monkey on a branch with the other. Operating kinesthetic controls is tricky to do while you're also trying to use sub-systems not intended for them. "Would you have preferred I lied to you? Do you value the pure data gleaned from an honest answer, or the broader assumptions of personal virtue or lack thereof you can ascribe to an individual when they try to placate you instead?"

They finally finish with the rapid comms and the control switching. Em takes a quick breath, twists their left hand, summons up a carousel armature, and empties an unexpectedly high-caliber anti-mech shotgun into the thing at point-blank range.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuko Ohara has posed.

Setsuko drags the trail of fire from the Gunnery Carver through where she thinks the drones are, but this firing pattern isn't meant to be used this way (the sustained beam is, but she was saving energy) and she's not entirely sure it connected with anything.

Once most of the steam has boiled off the side of the barrel, Setsuko closes the Gunnery Carver back into its box-like formation, crouches down slightly and guns the engine on the little seacraft. The smoke appears to have died down and it's moving, if with a weird grinding sound from deep in the machine that suggests that she really ought to prepare to bail off it sooner or later.

"Star-3 here... what's your condition?" Setsuko can't see what's going on on top of the Dreisstrager very well from down here, but she can tell that the Huckebeins are taking as much fire as she and Em are.

She swears one of them is staring at her. The back of her neck prickles, and Setsuko rather suddenly swerves hard right, kicking up an immense spray as she does so with little care for how choppy the shift is.

The sudden movement saves her. Beams lance where she was, and where she was going, kicking up more water and steam. A wave threatens to overturn Setsuko -

But she manages to point her seacraft along with it and use it to accelerate, rocketing toward Em. "Leave them alone!" she yells, not really expecting Caruleum to hear or pay attention to it - she doesn't realize how *chatty* he is, perhaps.

Scooting along the water, Setsuko fires something from the expansion port on the side of the Gunnery Carver. It's not a bullet. It's not a laser.

It appears to be a giant chakram with teeth like a buzzsaw, the teeth glowing red-hot as it spins on the end of its mechanical cable. Setsuko swings it with one hand as she grips the controls of the seacraft with the other, carving through a surprisingly large line of space.

<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.

The question actually throws Mitsuba for a moment; she doesn't have an immediate response for what is seemingly just a catty barb, in a way that she finds a little upsetting. It's a disorienting kind of upsetting, though, the kind that leaves her legitimately unsure how to respond in a *practical* sense as well as a conversational one.

The Dreisstrager rocks from yet more fire from the Orcusula squadron. Lian takes over main movements from here, instead; Reynold watches Mitsuba very closely as she starts to get her head back in the game.

"Hull integrity at 48% percent of combat viability!" Lian announces. "Enemy formation... mostly holding. Beam weapons ineffective at standard output; suggesting precision attacks. Calculating firing solution for missiles!"

Mitsuba takes the Dreisstrager into a pull somewhat back from the front line of combat -- a maneuver that protects it, but leaves its protectors a little vulnerable. "Ignore her! We're firing the main cannon!" Mitsuba commands -- and that's actually enough to startle *Lian*, who looks to Mitsuba with a momentary dazed confusion.

"Ma'am, firing the main cannon this early --" Reynold starts --

"Overruled. We have to obliterate entire columns with brute force! MMFA, final sequence!" Mitsuba announces, skipping to *Reynold's* step of the cannon preparation sequence for herself. She is, at this point, utterly ignoring essentially all counter-input from the rest of the crew.

Lian returns her attention to her post as if nothing had ever happened. "New firing solution found," she affirms.

"Fire!"

The main cannon of the Dreisstrager erupts to life; the bow-mounted gun whirrs, gathering power from, seemingly, nothing at all. Lian reports, crisply, "Full power in 3..."

A whirl of energy coalesces in the Dreisstrager's tip. The bridge closes off; no need for visual assessment of this type of obliterating light. Sensors will do. The AOS will provide all necessary information.

"2..."

Reynold looks at Mitsuba. This is exactly the tactical decision he'd have expected from her at the academy, too; that Mitsuba would have pointed out that splitting the missiles across too many targets risked not downing anything at all. This Mitsuba...

... is different, but Reynold doesn't have the tools to articulate why. He's seeing the same result; putting together why it's upsetting is a little beyond him.

"1..."

Mitsuba essentially leaves Em on read. Their tactical analysis, while certainly relevant, doesn't move her in the least. There's no reason to negotiate with the Quaestors unless Caruleum Vaull specifically wants Mitsuba Greyvalley's opinion on a hypothetical situation.

"Main cannon -- fire!!"

A rainbow of dark-tinged particles swirls out from the Dreisstrager's bow, lanced through with veins of crackling electricity. It threatens to engulf almost every drone, save the ones that have gotten too close to the Dreisstrager.

<Pose Tracker> Edge Sainklaus has posed.

The precise dangers of gettig hemmed in and receiving copious amounts of focus fire become apparent, as the warning klaxon repeatedly kneads Edge's earlobes with painful screeches and the various support monitors that gave readouts on the overall structural integrity and status of his Huckebein began to be subsumed by a red wave that even a peabrained monkey could look at and go, 'Oh, that's bad, huh?'

   In short, getting lit up hurt.

Damn, dude! Even as tough as the R's hide happens to be, I'm pretty sure I'm getting taken apart like a scrub.

"Gotta' act instead of react, huh? There went my master plan, I guess.."

It still served the purpose of bunching them up and letting Lune slip a sucker shot past their formations; and with the firing squad that had surrounded him breaking apart to pursue her Valsione, it gave Edge a much needed opportunity to breathe and assess his own prospects. "Okay..I'm still a-ok. Whew. Trying to maneuver all those little punks under gravity really sucks."

<< drone tactical intelligence is augmented by active operator. verbally engage the enemy = occupied attention = lesser combat ability! -M >>

"Huh..alright, I think I pick up what you're putting down," Edge nods, solemnly.

   "HEY, ASSHOLE!!"
   "FALL OFF YOUR ROBOT!!!"
   "Tell him to fall off his robot, Az!"

In the meantime, the Huckebein 30R steadies itself over top of the aft deck hull, and draws both of its Graviton Rifles. With the majority of the drones sticking to eachother, relative to what he was about to do anyway, positioning himself to get in a money shot while he could was the first thing on his mind.

Both rifles click together, interlocking mechanisms to begin charging immense mass within their barrels, before releasing a stream of force that dyes the air red and aims to crush anything caught in its wake to less than dust; in this case, anything being the Quaestor drones, of course.

Edge's handheld gravity-based bombardment is cut short when his Huckebeins arms fall off, having eaten the most damage from blocking earlier in the battle. "Uh..."

<Pose Tracker> Az Sainklaus has posed.

Caruleum perks up, and Az perks down, frowning and probably pressing her teeth together beneath it. Aware of it or not, that particular brand of threat is the exact kind of thing tailor-made to prod at one of her sorest spots, and it's her turn to briefly white-knuckle the cockpit's levers. "...!"

Though that's also in part from the fact she's currently subject to being targeted by a whole lot of Orcusula's at once, and the convergence of fire would be difficult to deal with even in a totally clear state of mind. Too many angles at once, and even if she can avoid some of them, all of them is--

The Huckebein rolls to the side, only to get hammered in the side by a series of lasers that melt into armor and cause a prompt, somewhat unreasonable explosion that sends the patchwork-looking machine tumbling from the smoke out of control.

Judging from the muffled sounds of getting jostled around in her cockpit, she sounds very much not fine to Setsuko. Em's advice also comes in through comm laser while she's still careening through open air, wincing and braced in her seat. Fortunately for everyone involved, except possibly Az herself, she was going to do that anyway. "Ngh...! We'll see about that! First, I'll just have to scrap all of these toys of yours--!" The 30L finally gets a grip on itself, verniers firing to send it into a forward flip back into uprightness.

And when it comes up, it's swinging its free left arm forward with a Graviton Rifle in hand. The heavyset weapon is immediately leveled forward, and Az's idea of 'telling him to fall off his robot' is apparently the high-pitched screech that accompanies a wide, dark-red-and-black beam shooting ahead into the formation of Quaestor scouts--followed by another, and another. The Huckebein bucks back with the recoil of each shot, only to push forward and do another. Its movements have changed, even if very subtle. Tighter. More efficient. In the danger comes a certain lucidity.

Which shows most when she hits the acceleration to get into closer quarters, alternating fire between its two rifles while blitzing around return shots to try and dismantle the squadron right at the center.

<Pose Tracker> Lune Zoldak has posed.

The best part about flying in a motion trace control cockpit is that, generally, the system handles a lot of the lifting. This is true of Valsion - without actual wings to trace, the machine flies on Lune's flight-impulse instead. There is no need for flapping, or even the buckling of atmosphere around flight planes - just changes in gravity and velocity. The power of a Tesla reactor splits even the sky, and whips the air about Valsione, and so--

Lune drifts in the air as the suppressive fire ceases in the wake of her Sportsball Shooting, already breathing hard. She was sore in a deep-muscle way, and this encounter was not helping her mood. Much to her general dismay, in fact - there was just too many of the units, and each had several times the mass of a normal Mobile Suit or comparable enemy.

Fighting giant monsters wasn't something she minded, but this encounter with the King of Earth felt like being talked down to in the simulators. The kind of behavior that made Lune's blood boil.

Boiling blood, unfortunately, came with aches. Muscular that held her back, and: The aches of her heart, as her fellow pilots suffered. Inteception fire picks up at her, and the Valsione bids for the deck, twirling in zigs and zags down through the air before levelling out at the water's surface. "We might need recovery to get ready!" Lune suggests back at Mitsuba, trying to track all the things happening to Edge, Az, Setsuko, and Em all at once.

The direct targeting is her downfall. Unexpecting any particular focus, Valsione's lazy water's-surface evasion becomes predictable, and a gathering of beams converge on the metal angel and cause a secondary explosion that plunges the unit into the drink with a pained shout and a comm-fizzle.

In the cockpit, Lune is yanked hard as her momentum bleeds off into water and yaws her about in her brace, drifting through the water and sinking.

It's hard to see the specific shape of Valsione in the water, but it grows in brightness and color - red and blue. There should be a shout, but her transmission is lost in the waves and the lack of laser communication. What emerges from the waves is not a beam of light, but of spinning red and blue.

<Pose Tracker> Caruleum Vaull has posed.

<< I had not considered that, >> Caruleum admits, the Orcusula engaged with the Qibling boosting backwards and juking to one side in order to move out of the way of the shotgun blast. << Although now I am wondering why you would do that. Why be truthful about your inclinations? Your crew expects me to be the hypothetical, on the whole. If your intention is to insinuate, collaborate until you have the means to betray, and then betray, surely it is more in your best interests not to let on. Or do you believe that the typical invader as-described will be confident enough to overlook it, hoping to exploit you and dispose of you first? >>

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

On top of having been involved in conversation with Em, an alert of some kind distracts him. It doesn't sound like the normal combat alerts coming off of his audio. It's rather more urgent, in fact.

<< Hmm... ?! Residual WHAT? >>

The red-eyed Orcusula surrounding Setsuko collapse in rapidly. One is sheared through immediately by the burning chakram, and a second suffers collateral both as the weapon rakes the top of it and as the machine next to it explodes into a thousand pieces. And yet, they are still intent on attacking-- until something causes the red visors to return to standard yellow. They begin to fall back.

ALL of them begin to fall back, re-establishing formations. Some flicker and vanish, in one group's case quite literally scattering around the Graviton Rifle's bombardment. It is a total coincidence; they were not reacting to Edge's attack.

Edge screams at Caruleum.

<< Be quiet, >> Caruleum answers, dead-serious about... something.

The Orcusula are no longer firing.

Az is telling him off.

<< Toys? >> He wonders, distractedly.

Multiple high-yield weapons are coming together at once, targeting pretty much every Quaestor machine left on the field. They're not paying attention. Not one of them. Up on the Dreisstrager, even as its main cannon flares precipitating untold destruction, the sensors tell the crew one thing:

Almost every Orcusula is starting to re-target Virgola in specific. This makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever, if they were going for a simultaneous hail-mary strike it would've made more sense to zero in on the Dreisstrager.

This re-organization stops abruptly however. Caruleum makes an agitated noise. The machines re-target according to their own inscrutable priorities, which ends up being lock-ons on everyone and no one in particular. There is an instant, as the main cannon of the Dreisstrager, the volley of Graviton Rifle fire by the 30L, and Valsione's Cross Smasher converge on the new formation and rip it apart in unison. Movement can be seen in this convergent hail of annihilation, as the drones try in futility to execute the coordinating maneuvers to ablate damage for one another. There's quite a few of them, in fact-- so it is rather impressive.

But it doesn't work. Most vanish into vapor, some explode, and others are stripped down to skeletal frames the disappear into the depths only for what's left of them to obviously self-destruct.

<< You actually won, >> Caruleum remarks, dumbstruck. For a moment he seems to be gone. Then: << I look forward to our future experiments, Captain Mitsuba Greyvalley. You are more marvelous than I imagined you were. Az-- I knew that you had it in you. And you as well, Edge. The one with the fire wheel... you have exceedingly interesting times ahead of you. And you, would-be traitor-- answer my questions! I will hear them, but I will be unable to answer for some while. >>

<< Rescue the other gravity machine quickly. I do not presently wish to see it ruined, and I suspect it would be little enough without its pilot, >> says the King of the Earth, who is probably thinking of straight up stealing parts of Valsione, and appears to have just fallen into the pattern of giving orders.

Az might have been very on the nose about 'toys'...

<Pose Tracker> Mitsuba Greyvalley has posed.

The drone squad falls apart. Mitsuba notices a few of them falling toward the Dreisstrager itself, hitting the hull in the moments before they vaporize or self-destruct -- though most of *that* happens on the ocean instead.

The tension goes out of Mitsuba for a moment; it's a physical, obvious thing -- her shoulders drop a bit, and she addresses Caruleum a *touch* more calmly. "I'm choosing my own path -- but I can appreciate the compliment," she offers Caruleum, now that the 'combat' part of the situation has been addressed.

"Ma'am..." Lian starts, gently --

-- and Mitsuba nods, expression a little gentler. "... Scramble our maintenance crews in any unsortied machines to perform recovery operations," she says. "I don't like the idea of doing what that man tells us, but... we need to rally our strength." If that was what they could do with their basic drone force, then...

<Pose Tracker> Edge Sainklaus has posed.

Without his Huckebein's arms, there was precious little for Edge to do in regards towards fighting back or helping in recovery efforts, making him fairly luck as far as that was concerned. If the rest of his allies hadn't had his back with overwhelming power, he'd have been sat like a duck ready for getting blasted to bits.

The 30R is sent directly back to the hangar it came from for maintenance, its arms being collected by engineers in petit mobile workers.

All of the complaints being sent his way kind of filter in one ear and out the other -about how reckless it was to use the Graviton Rifles when the integrity of the Huckebein's joints, actuators, and hull was so compromised, about how he could have damaged the ship if they broke apart earlier and sent the still-firing barrel into the Dreisstrager's hull, about how reckless he was in letting his unit get so beat up as a show of manpride - Edge only yielded the boilerplate responses of, "Uh huh.." and "Well, when you're right, you're right. Sorry. I'll do better."

Being so checked out of the conversations, he couldn't help but think of how much he'd embarassed himself today. Hooting and hollering like an ape was nothing new and he didn't particularly care about that, but rather, he basically got his ass kicked after telling Mitsuba to trust him and the others to protect her and the ship - her home, and the tool through which she could enact her ambitions, her dreams.

Everyone else had done a satisfactory job, but he couldn't help but feel a distinct lack of results on his part. Moreover...

   ..being praised by that guy.

Not only who it was coming from, but the form that praise took made him sick to his stomach. Edge retires to the local non-descript vending machine corner to stew, eventually unpocketing the crumple up letter of address that Caruleum had sent to him, his very own version of it, distinct from all the others.

One that calls him a 'friend'. His sourness grows, and Edge winds up ripping it into quarters before dropping it in the trash, drawing up blank on both content and will-power for his smart-mouth.

<Pose Tracker> Setsuko Ohara has posed.

Setsuko was sort of hoping to draw the drones' attention away from Em, as Virgola is still in good shape (that seacraft is increasingly struggling, though) and she didn't feel able to handle anything on the top part of the Dreisstrager, for the simple reason that she couldn't get there.

Made it hard to give directions as Lune wanted her to, too.

But she didn't expect to get the attention of *every* drone. Setsuko gasps, bringing up her Gunnery Carver as if she was about to protect her face with it, the chakram finally wheeling itself back along the cable and snapping back into place. The small shield on the Virgola's arm seems pretty inadequate in the face of all of that.

But the drones vaporize. (Not her fault, or at least not mostly.) And the so-called 'King of Earth'... praises them?

Who *is* he? Setsuko thinks to herself. The amount of guts you must have to call yourself that... even the Ruler of All Known Space doesn't do that (though, she has to admit, that sounds like a more grandoise title anyway). And what does that mean? He's interested in them? He wants to see what they do?

...she has interesting times ahead of her?

Setsuko swallows. "Is everyone - " She doesn't lower the Gunnery Carver until the seacraft lets out a muffled *bang* and she suddenly has to have Virgola grip it with both hands to keep it from capsizing, which also interrupts whatever else she was going to ask to a check-in.

She does manage to hold onto the clearly-sinking seacraft until maintenance comes, at least. Setsuko could probably boost to the ship under her own power, but then she'd have to leave it there, and it was entrusted to her. She can't do that.

<Pose Tracker> Az Sainklaus has posed.
       In a hail of fire, the Quaestor forces are dismantled. That should be something satisfying, but as the chaos of battle dies down and the remaining machines self-destruct, she finds herself more 'winding down' from the adrenaline of combat more than anything else. There's a heavy sigh when she finally lowers her Huckebein's weapons. "It's over..." She sounds just as surprised as Caruleum does, for a moment.

       For once, she can't seem to muster up a snappy response back to his genuine-sounding praise. Maybe because she doesn't have something to heap back at him, or maybe it's the fact that a lot just happened that she's still sorting out. And that there's still a lot to do on their end, they who cannot simply scuttle a fleet of unmanned and apparently disposable units, despite how advanced they are.

       Toys, indeed. "Future experiments...I don't understand the way he thinks." She ruminates to nobody but herself while her PT - damaged itself, but none of it structurally bad enough to prevent it from acting - moves to aid in the recovery of the others in need of it. Specifically, Lune if she's truly waterlogged down there, and of course, Setsuko before she goes down under herself. That one is probably more immediately important.

       "...We're fine. Everyone's fine. I think." Az, while answering the unfinished question, glances to a blip on radar, of the other Huckebein returning to the ship. She has the distinct feeling she just lied. She'll need to find him when she gets back in...

       One thing at a time though, unfortunately. And she's also worried about... "All those machines...and Caruleum too. I don't know why they were so interested in you...but I'm sure it can't be anything good."

<Pose Tracker> Em Gelfand has posed.

Em isn't exactly sure that's what they meant to have happen ('fall off his robot??'), but isn't going to question it right this second. Not everyone can be eloquent under combat conditions. It takes a certain kind of person, especially to do it with a goal in mind.

Anyway, Em's goal is to Not Die. This becomes increasingly difficult as the drones swarm Setsuko, who is running to Em's rescue. Appreciated, yes; crossfire-enabling, also yes. The Qibing falls, and Em maneuvers between drones and gunfire with bursts from its ragged thrusters, descending back to the choppy ocean surface to duck low and out of harm's immediate way. Being a small target helps, and it isn't long before the danger just... vanishes, obliterated in a brilliant and bright cascade of criss-crossing weaponsfire.

One deep breath. Em adjusts the functional thrusters carefully.

"I'll be fine. Thank you for the assist," Em finally says, portrait glancing up towards Setsuko a touch belatedly. They look off-frame, signaling for recovery while carefully balancing above a watery grave. "I would appreciate a hand back to the deck, if it isn't too much trouble."

Em removes their hands from the gauntlet-like controls, slumping in the cockpit seat. They frown up at a status monitor, assessing damage while putting thoughts in line. It doesn't cost much to answer Caruleum while waiting for a team to scramble and grabbycopter the water-dancing Wanzer.

"The latter, largely," Em says into empty (cloaked?) space. "In my short life, the number of people who have made it a point to inform me that I was of more use to them alive and productive in that moment is greater than one. Gifted scientists and technicians are valuable enough that expending the resources necessary to keep a close eye on them while they provide data and materiel is often worth the trade, and the risk of eventual defection before disposal. Given the huge variety of primarily human-origin technology and also EOT hybrid equipment present in the Earth Sphere, I'm willing to bank on the hypothetical invader finding someone like me more useful as a resource to take a chance on than too risky to try it."

"But the real answer to your question is actually a lot simpler," Em continues, pillowing their head with their hands. "Asking hypotheticals is only useful as a way to collect data points. Polluting them disrespects the science and the craft. In that case, what's the point of being belligerent and deceitful?"

<Pose Tracker> Lune Zoldak has posed.

Expectations, circumstance, and a trip to the drink conspire together, collectively, to give Lune what she had somehow avoided, even among the strangely unlucky crew of the Dreisstrager.

A No-Good Very Bad Absolutely Awful Day.

Certainly she had questionably good days, but none had reached the level of Spectacularly Crummy that she was currently in: Because the Valsione was, on paper, and in technical designs, --rated for Water operation--. The Tesla effect powering it, in theory, was powerful enough to overcome fluid tension. After parting the seas with a beam from the heart, though...

LUNE ZOLDAK finally became cognizant of her CURRENT PROBLEM. "I'm still sinking?" Heaving tired arms in, battling against water pressure like a particularly stubborn finisher move, Lune unclips her right hand with her left, and then starts assessing on screens that realize themselves about her hand. "What is with this unreal resistance? I'm..."

Staring in disbelief, Lune Zoldak's eyebrows twitch down.

"Old man. . ."

Her display reads WARNING: SALT WATER OPERATION NOT FUNCTIONING

"DID YOU NOT GET AROUND TO FIXING THAT?!?!"

Lune will require recovery, both of her unit, and her pride.