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Mission 0 - Mustering the troops


Sailor OOC

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IT was another sunny day. right smack-dab on the equator. The captain had cleared everyone's duty schedules to enjoy some fun in the sun on deck and in the waters around the ship. But Joint Task Force 0 was mustered up under a tent set up on deck. A meal fit for a Norse banquet was laid out, with the proportions that could satiate Fenrir himself. The Captain, a rugged man of the age of 42 sat in a lounger under the awning, reading a technical article on the engine of the ship, while JTF-0's commanding officer, a woman in her early 30s was smiling, puffing on a long, thin pipe, waiting for the group to show up.

"What was that commotion last night?" The woman asked.

"Sailor was out on a flight, instigating some anomaly in the water. She flew by it using her Harrier, scanned it with all the sensor packages we got, but when she came back her systems were under some sort of undetectible ECM. Her controls functioned, but her navigation was tossed off. She thought she could make it back here with fuel to spare but once she was clear of the effect she was well past Bingo, and out of reach of the carrier, so she flew it dry to get as close as she could, bailed out, and well, she was in a bad mood."

"She's alright isn't she?"

"Was just soaked to the bone and turning the cool night air breaking for morning poor girl was a shivering wreck. Like stepping out of a warm bath."

The woman chuckled. "She's got a bouyant personality, Captain, I think she could handle herself. What's she been doing?"

"I'm right here, Ma'am." Sakura said, walking into earshot. Wearing a sailor-collared blouse and a pair of long-white cargoes. "Sorry about this morning, Captain, I thought my nav-error was due to faulty maintenance so I... sorta chucked one of your men overboard."

"That's okay, Sailor... it was all straightened out. You've got deck cleaning duty for the next week as that was his assignment before you sprained his knee, but I think he'll forgive it... eventually."

The woman looked over Sakura. "Don't worry captain, I got a better punishment for her." She holds up a blue pleated mini-skirt. "Put this on instead of the pants. You're serving the meal." she pulls out a cheesy sailor-motif beret as well. "Until this is over you will refer to everyone as sir, or ma'am."

Sakura sighed. "Y... yes ma'am." She said in a resigned tone, walking into the set-up tent where she could change.

The Captain grinned. "So, when will the others on your team show, Commander Petrona? And what else you have planned for the Lieutenant?"

"In a few... gotta let them have their fun, Captain Whitmore. And I think the embarassment of being my waitress for the evening will be plenty punishment. She screws up it's 5 days in the brig."

Captain Whitmore winced. "Harsh."

"She needs to learn to control her temper."

Sakura stepped out, standing at attention. "Okay, Seaman Hino. Set up the tables and chairs, our guests will be arriving soon."

"Yes, ma'am!"

Okay, this is the official meeting. When people arrive enough tables for the JTF-0 team and the support for the team will be deployed, as well as chairs for everyone. Sakura's on waitress duty until everyone's served, ready to put whatever people want on their plate before heading to their seats. Captain Whitmore and Commander Petrona are at the head of the table. Everyone else may take a seat wherever. It's under a rather breezy outdoor tent, designed for large gatherings.

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Cat was early she guessed when she arrived on the deck and approached the covered setup. She saw the carriers captain who was talking with to the Task Force commander, Petrona, and no one else except for an orderlie. Cat took a  second look at the Orderlie and was a bit shocked to recognize the It was Lt. Hino. She was dressed in a rediculous skirt and was setting up tables and chairs.  Cat couldn't help but wonder what the hell was going on.

She caught Hino's eye and gave her a questioning look. Then stood at ease untill the others arrived and and the officers call the meeting to order.

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Ryusei arrived not too much later than Caitlyn, and gave her a silent not of acknowledgement.    The Commander and Captain were conversing, and in one of the odder events of the last few weeks, Lt. Hino was setting things up dressed in a rediculous outfit.  He moved up beside Caitlyn.  "Remind me to not bail out of Harrrier.  I'd hate to think of what they'd make me wear."  In his mind he was exasperated, this was completely silly, and he silently vowed he'd simply leave if they tried the same stunt with him.

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Clara arrived last, peering around the room before she moved up next to the other two scions she knew. Well, she assumed they were scions. Eyeing the Lieutenant's outfit with a combination of curiosity, and confusion. "And this is why I'm glad I'm not the only one flying helicopters. I'd probably break some ribs if they tried to make me wear that" Her thoughts slowly went back to what she was doing, she'd rather be cleaning her rifle and training Jager. Command meetings were just a nuisance. She then tried to gauge the reactions of the others, hoping she wasn't the only one. 

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The Captain had enough of the Commander's game.

"Commander... I think you've gone a bit too far. Not only have you lessened the Lieutenant in the eyes of her team, but you've also destroyed their trust."

"Captain... you do realize that I am the one in charge of the team, not you."

"But you are on my ship. And they are as much as my crew as the others on this ship. Lieutenant, this game is over. Get properly dressed. Commander, I'm confining you to your quarters until you can control yourself."

"What?"

"Don't make me call security."

The Commander brushes herself off. "Yet a minute ago you approved of this."

"Not when I saw the responses of her teammates. Now GO."

He eyeballs her as Sakura sits in her seat. Looking at the table. "I... I should go." Sakura starts to walk off.

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"So is this all you called us here to do?  Play childish games?  I was under the impression that we'd be working together on projects of great import.   My Aunt and Father certainly thought as much, as well as my superiors.  I was given to believe there was some real reason you called us here.  Forgive me Captain, if I seem insubordinate and abit cross, but transparency was promised when the JSDF agreed to this.   Do you have a mission for us, or not?"

"I thought we were going to doing more than the normal hurry up, wait, train, wait, wait, hurry up, wait" routine."

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"You are." The captain said, his brow furrowing. "Hence my reason I'm going to file a very terse report to command about your CO's behavior."

He quickly turns to Sakura. "Get back here... that's an order... this involves you too."

Sakura sighed and walked back to the group.

"Miss Hino, even in losing a plane, did discover an anomaly out in the ocean. Something not natural. It was about 500 miles away from the ship. Gave her plane all the droppable fuel tanks and what-not we could attach on."

He adjusts his uniform. "At 0230 we lost contact with the Lieutenant's aircraft, and didn't pick up on it again until her aircraft was well off course, 100 miles from the site. We found out what her sensors could record once we found the sensor pod floating in the pacific when we picked up Lt. Hino. Luckily her presence of mind allowed her to drop the pod before ejecting and we designed the pod to store data."

He went to a bag next to him, pulling out a tablet. "Here is the anomaly..."

It showed a patch roughly 25 miles in radius.

"We're not going to get closer as whatever that anomaly is, it's projecting a field that messes with technological navigation. There has also been seismic activity in the area."

"We're going to have you guys tomorrow head out to the area in our hovercraft. It's designed for extended travel and use, and is practically a floating secondary headquarters. Today I wanted to have a celebratory meal, and get your callsigns assigned. But your CO decided to be a jerk."

He turned to Sakura. "Miss Hino... you don't mind going with the group, do you?"

Sakura sighed. "I don't. To be honest I don't know why I was assigned to the JTF, I'd be a better fit here."

The Captain smiled. "I don't question the logic of the pantheons... after all you all have one, I don't."

He slides the tablet down the table so everyone could have a look.

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Cat looks at the tablet with the others noting the extreme lack of data. She doesn't like the idea of going in some place blind and even less doing ig in an unfamiliar craft out in the middle of the open  ocean.

"Whats out there, normally in that part of the ocean? And have we made any drone or sat recon?"

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"Well, I was our first look-see. As our only drone is Vigilance, we're not really willing to lose a sentient machine to an unknown anomaly. Sadly visuals were crap as it was pitch black night out there, and there wasn't any moon. In fact it was pretty darn well black except for the stars... and the fog." Sakura said, sitting down in the CO's old seat. "I knew I should have took the night vision goggles with me, but that's a bit of a bulk to wear on a flight helmet, and I didn't have any night-vision sensors on the pod to work with either. Not that either could have helped with the fog."

"Although I was picking up some terrain warnings in the cockpit. As protocol I gained altitude to avoid things... although there's no island out there."

She shows off the latest sattelite intel of the spot. "See? Nothin'."

"What's weird is that whatever that anomaly is..." She overlays the data from her sensor pod "...it's big."

Sakura starts getting some spaghetti. "Sorry I wasn't of any more help. At least if we head there by Hovercraft we'll be ok. We'll be using a specially refitted LCAC, It's an extended hull model by thirty feet, it'll have a harrier on it in back for some aerial recon and air defense if needed, otherwise in front of it we'll have a portable base with supplies for seven days on it for our team. With what Operation Omnitheon was able to put into it, while we're gonna be geared for seven days, it could loiter in the water for weeks if it wanted. But... I wager we would hate hanging around there for longer. I was sort of making notes on how to investigate the area in more detail. It seems the nature of the location disrupts technological navigation, even GPS, and if it wasn't for the fog I could have navigated by stars."

Sakura looks over to the rest of the group. "Any input of course would be welcome."

The Captain smiles, liking Sakura's taking charge. He takes some food himself and sits down. "I'm impressed you worked that out in your head, Lieutenant."

"Well I wager there'd need some input from the team before we can talk to the Quartermaster for supplies."

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"So knowing it disrupts electronic navigation systems, we're going to take a hovercraft into it?"  He sounded incredulous.  "This thing's already cost one harrier, and you're planning to send another into it?    I'd say ditch the plane and carry more supplies.  If something were to happen the plane can only carry two people.  As for air defense, bring a few Stingers or LAW's.  They'll do what the harrier can without taking up so much space.  Not to mention we won't have to bring along the fuel or other supplies to keep a plane operational."

The other aspect was a simple one, Hokuto was considerably large, and could carry five of them with very little trouble, a great distance.  He'd flown on her back at least this far several times, and knew it'd not be an issue.

 

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"It only messed with Navigation. Simple old-school navigation will settle the rest." Sakura said.

"We'll have to stick to dummy-fired weapons, then if we're gonna be packing heat. We can keep Hokuto as a emergency measure in case we have to leave the LCAC in a hurry."

"For that matter if we're preparing to rely on ourselves as much as what we're taking on the big girl, might want to consider personal supplies. With navigation like it is and something really, really weird happening out there it might be dangerous to send the 99 in close. Might be a good idea to take with you in your kits stuff in case things go belly-up for us."

"Just remembered... we're gonna need a driver."

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Sigi crossed her arms and leaned back, scratching at her metal arm."So, we're taking a hovercraft. And a harrier into something that took down another one of those Birds? And we're stuck to dumb firing. So SMAWs and AT4s... I feel like the dragon would be the go to in this case, as I'm sure she doesn't run out of fuel. I'll leave Jager on the ship as she'll be no use. 

"Also, I'm not really surprised we don't have a driver. So, I'll offer to drive" 

 

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"We already nixed the Harrier, Sigi. We could take more supplies with the space normally used for the modular landing pad." Sakura said.

"That and like I said prior, all other electronics were fine when I was flying over it, and the Hovercraft won't have any fuel issues while we're out."

She sat back a bit. "The Dragon is a fine idea to move around getting a closer look at the site. We can use the Hovercraft as a base once we're in position to start looking at things."

Sakura pulls up the hovercrafts specs, and points out a black box built into the machine. "Don't ask me the specifics, but Hephaestus made fuel not be an issue for this."

"And thanks for volunteering to captaining the LCAC while we do things."

She starts looking over at the starting to cool food. "So... I wager we'd want a good meal before we start off with getting on this. From intel this anomaly's going nowhere and not changing anything for now. Best to go in at our best preparation."

The Captain nodded. "And there is the matter of your callsigns we're going to assign."

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Ryusei looked at them.  "No need for that since it's just going to be us there.  This isn't some comic book covert action team you know.  We all have military ranks, We can simply use those, if nothing else..  Hell I'm not adverse to being called by my name either, since You're going to be hard pressed to find someone with something similar amongst us.   We can eat, then draw gear from the armory.   Basic supplies  loaded onto the hovercraft shouldn't take all that long, and then we can be on our way. "  His look said it all, he found this essentially boring.  "I don't really mind the whole "we have zero information.  I'm used to nobody knowing what the hell's going on."

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"We could be. A comic book team I mean, after all to a normal person a lot of the things we do would look like super powers." She looks at the map with nothing on it. "This needs a proper recon. You don't commit your entire force blindly and that's exactly what we would be doing if we just head off and take the LCAC straight in there." She looks at both the Captain and  Sakura. "Does the LCAC have a small boat for clandestine insertions? If it does I would suggest since we don't want to risk the carrier and air recon isn't available that. we go to  a point close enough to send in reconnaissance by boat. Just a small group."

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Sakura nodded. "It's got a couple zodiacs stored and ready to be deployed, Caitlyn. One set up to have a small outboard, the other is rowible. Might want the rowable, at least with that it won't make noise. It can take eight but if this is our crew, there'll be some room to carry gear."

She looked over to Ryusei. She noted how rustled he was. "Well... we could start getting ready in a few... no need to go through the formal stuff that was supposed to happen today... which the CO ruined."

She stood up, stretching out. "Then again I heard rumors that there's a couple late-comers. So whatever happens we're stuck here a few hours."

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"I'm all about a Zodiac infiltation" Sigi sighed as her good eye gave a glance "LCAC's... Are really loud" At the mention of formal stuff she grimaced, not really wanting to be a part of it. Instead preferring to go, work out, or clean her weapons. Or do something useful. 

"I'd suggest a RHIB, or half of the stuff the navy uses for infiltrating small secluded areas. Mostly because I don't care how strong I am. I'm not outrowing whatever's out there." 

 

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