Snippet #1666930

“Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no!” Rio looked on in fear as the winged Sycophant roared with energy, the sound of the furious humming intimidating even from behind the monitors. Clenching her eyes shut, she expected the ship to collapse like all the other systems around. She couldn’t save him…

Dropping her head in her hand, she sighed. At least… At least she tried. Opening her eyes, she blinked once. Then again. Wait… It was okay? Eyes scanning the monitor, she hurriedly sat back into position. The shields weren’t down? Actually… They were perfect! They were even holding up against that Sycophant’s weapons, and even the parasites!

“It… It’s holding stable! That’s amazing!” Stunned for only a moment more, Rio quickly began inputting the coordinates that the Arch Angel team seemed to be holding up at. She wasn’t quite sure how this carrier was immune to that thing… But the fact it was standing up to the parasites was not something she’d be complaining about!

“Now, let’s see here…” Having set the carrier to autopilot to the destination, she began typing away at the keyboard, attempting to work out the camera controls. Finding a way to hack into the security cameras around the ship wasn’t the easiest, but her genius as a Xial, and the fact she was working off the emergency system privileges got her through. Finally able to get a visual on the 5-7, Rio gasped as she was able to assess the extent of the damage – the fact that the cockpit was open, but the pilot had not made a move to exit was more than a little disconcerting.

The next few moments were… Complicated at best. Finding a way to communicate to the Arch Angel team was going to be next to impossible without radio. On top of that, the more and more Rio delved into the carrier’s control systems and security functions, the greater and more complex the structures became. Though the base system was evidently identical to most all human programming, beyond that, the new sub-routines and processes were like nothing she’d ever heard of before – and she’d read up on them all. Human, Xial and even Balthor, an understanding of the design specifications and programming language of each was something she had thought would be important to her career. The fact that this was beyond the scope of her knowledge… Just what was this carrier? Though bits and pieces were familiar to her and recognizable to a degree, whoever managed to combine each of the systems… Well, they were a genius – Even by Xial standards.

Having spent far too long gawking at the complexity of the carrier, Rio finally came to realise that the rest of the Arch Angel team had boarded the hangar. It was a relief to see them all okay, or at that rate, anyone alive. Her mind turning to Jones for a second, she shook it off. There’d be time to check for survivors later – With the company of the Arch Angel team.

“I need to find a way to talk to them…” Rio muttered, watching them explore and look around the hangar. She’d likely end up doing the same when she managed to get on board… The whole thing seemed incredibly sophisticated, and her exploration of the systems proved that. Having had trouble finding a way to communicate with them, Rio took the most logical step, turning the carrier back towards the academy. Hopefully those Sycophants were gone, and she wouldn’t be bringing the MFU’s to their doom…

“Let’s see here… Ah, here we go. I think this is the communications platform… I should be able to broadcast a message over the speakers… Now I just need to set up a way for them to talk back…” Stretching her fingers once before setting back to work, it didn’t take nearly as long to hack one of the bridge terminals so she could view the inputs on her monitor. With that taken care of, it was time to make contact.

“H-hello? Testing? Is this working?” Rio tapped her mic a couple of times, looking back to the security cameras. Well, they were looking around for the source; that seemed to be a good sign. “Um, I’ll take that as a yes… Uh… Let’s see here… This is M3.6 3rd communications officer Rio Rillia speaking.” Despite being the academy, Rio was already well versed in her rank and position, M designating the Mecha Fighters, 3 Operations and 6 Communications.

“Unfortunately this is only one-way communication so I uh, I can’t hear any of you – but I’ve set up a terminal on the bridge which I should be able to read and access if commander um… Hold on a sec…” Rio brought up the details of the Arch Angel’s pilot, seeing as it was the designated team leader. Was that… That ace flyer who was the daughter of the principal? “There we are! Commander Sprucey! Could you head up to the bridge, please? The situation at Academy HQ is… Well… it isn’t pretty…”

Rio trailed off at that point. She wasn’t sure how to break the news that everything was… Well, gone. Looking over the monitor, she noticed the young female pilot look up at her name and speaking with the others. It seemed that was Miss Sprucey, and she had the pilot of the 5-7… No doubt he was injured. Rio was medically trained, but it might be a while before she got there.

“I… I’m so glad to see all of you okay… Though I haven’t been able to assess the damage at all from my position, it… It looks like it was a massacre… Headquarters was…” Rio stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say it, and even talking about it seemed to be helping the realisation settle for herself. “Well, you can see for yourself from the bridge…”

Her body beginning to unwind from the tenseness, she began to relax, sighing as she sat back in her seat, muttering to herself once more, forgetting that they could still hear her. “This is insane…” Watching the monitors for their movements, she felt mentally drained from all the work she’d been doing, and took the time to recoup her thoughts as she waited for the Arch Angel team to reach the bridge and respond to her.