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Rita Ma      On the other side of the artificial Warpgate, through a small infrastructure-dense room, is a beautiful garden. Lush grasses crowd the footpaths, rows of vegetables grow to either side, a stand of white-blooming apple trees lies up ahead; a dozen laborers in rough workclothes pause in their tending to wave and gawk at your arrival, and a handful of visitors soak in the peaceful atmosphere.

     All of that could seem comfortably terrestrial. But the soft roaring noise you hear is torrential rain beating on the glass dome above, and the ground rolls beneath your feet, though less than any ship should.

     The vast shapes of the Union Busan's superstructure loom past the rain-slicked glass in every direction but forward. The century-old city-ship, rusting and kludged but still afloat, is home to ten thousand souls. The lights of its makeshift skyscrapers, to port and starboard, sparkle through the storm as evidence of that.

     Here and there, both within the garden dome and across the rest of the ship, branching pale-blue tentacles penetrate and reinforce the structure like the roots of some vast tree. Nobody pays much mind to them.

     Up by the apple trees, three people are talking. Their conversation winds down when you appear, and they start to approach. Two of them might be familiar: the messy-haired tall young man wearing a clear raincoat over his button-up shirt, and the short but scary-looking woman with the eyepatch, unbothered by being soaked from outside. The third, an aged yet still muscular man with calluses but no scars, nobody has met. You'd remember if you had.

     It's the young man who gets into speaking distance first. He waves cheerfully without breaking his stride. "Oh, hey! Wow, that's a lot of new faces, too. I'm so grateful you've all showed up. I know it's been a while since we've called on you, but this might be the last quiet stretch of our journey. We're not far from Floating City New York, and all the other big ships are already there, so it'll be hectic from here on out."

     "Oh, I'm Bota Ma, a Harpoonist. And this is-" "Kana, lead Harpoonist of the Union Busan." "And Boss-" "Huorong, your liason with the council. As if I weren't busy enough already." Bota crosses his arms and rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

     'Boss' Huorong continues, in his gruffly skeptical voice: "I've heard some of you had plans for hardening the ship against sea monsters. Well, there's a lot of room for that. Show me what you want done and I'll show you how you can hook it up. I just hope you brought your own materials, because otherwise you'll be scrounging in the junkyards."

     "Otherwise, we can discuss the situation with Kraken. It's been hounding us for weeks now." Even when Kana's voice is even and neutral, it has an unnerving edge. Losing her left eye seems like it only concentrated her gaze's intensity; when she sweeps it across the party, it's hard not to feel one's skin prickle a bit. "Lilian. Your apartment? And have you brought the new people up to speed on the end of the world."

     It's completely arbitrary for Kana to pick out Lilian as the one who should be doing the briefing. Scary women solidarity, maybe.
Redshift Operators     The gruff man in the armored hardsuit leading the group of four that arrives is peering around. "Reminds me of station interiors. Except *that*." He taps one of the pale blue tentacles with a boot.

    The cyborg samurai who's walking with him instantly gravitates towards the scary eyepatch lady, and seems almost disappointed that it's the generic looking boy who's taking the social lead. She introduces the gang. "Four operators of sorts. We can discuss our capabilities later. I want to know the dark nature of this threat. Teach me its sinister dangers, and I will find a way to aid in slaying it." She crosses her arms in an overdramatic pose, looking to Lilian.

    The astronaut walking in here isn't speaking. The giant next to them sort of keeps them from wandering too far, but after being asked for ways to reinforce the boat against threats, they're busy muttering fragments of sentences to themself, looking over the structure and comparing it to high-defense space stations, trying to apply some frontier space program principles to the topic in their mind.
Sleek Shimmer     Sleek Shimmer might be a bit crazy, given that the call specifically said THE WORLD IS ENDING. Smart people go THE OTHER WAY when they hear those things.

    And sleek Shimmer? Well... she saunters through the warp gate dressed for battle, putting one confident, smooth, measured step in front of the other and showing a fearless warrior's smile. As soo as she clears the warp gate and her approach is met by the young man, she allows her four tails to fan out behind her on display.

    "It's only proper to answer a call for help." Her tails shift and twitch as the ship itself moves beneath her. She keeps her balance easily but does glance about this way and that. "Hold on. This warp gate is on a sea-ship? Open waters? That's new." She marvels at the idea, glancing around what seems to be an indoor arboreum. "And it must be HUGE if this is just a room..."

    She's no sailor. But she's seen a few ships. And a few spaceships enough to know big.

    "Please call me Shimmer. Ascendant warrior, traveling the land. sometimes the sky recently... And waters, now. Should I hope your problem is the sort a warrior can solve?"

    She peers hard at the crew. After all, warrior business is dangerous.
Ishirou Through the portal, Ishirou and POD step out.  Both are wearing appropriately matching yellow rain hats, and Ishirou has a yellow pancho on to help keep himself dry.  He wears a smile on his face, though perhaps a bit more tired around the eyes.  Given what's happened lately, it's not hard to imagine why.  

"Bota!  Good to see you!  You too Kana..." a pause, "She's doing good by the way.  She came over for a cookout thing I did.  It was actually nice to turn around and cook for her for a change, ya know?"  He looks at 'Boss' Huorong when he gives them old man grouch and tilts his head to one side.  

"Oh, so you're gonna let me scan everywhere now?  I can get right on that..." he pauses looking back towards Lilian as if to confirm with her what the plan was here.  "I can do that now, and I can go fast or slower depending on what's available to us..?"
Candy      Candy steps through wearing a navy knit cap, denim overalls and a tight-fitting navy-and-white striped sailor's shirt. He waves back at the laborers, smiling brightly. Bota and Kana in particular get a very enthusiastic greeting, a spirited wave and run-up. "Hi, Bota! Hi, Kana," he beams. "You two are looking good today.~ Nice to meet you, Huorong," he says, offering a surprisingly firm handshake for his frame and diminutive stature. His hands are callused from long years of work.

     His eyes light up, and suddenly there is a rolled blueprint in his hand, several sheets worth of semi-transparent paper designed to give a detailed overview of something he'd come up with.

     "Not so much hardening the ship," he explains, "But something you can use against those sons of bitches--oh! Silly," he says, lightly bumping his palm against his forehead. "I'm Candelario Maria Estevez de la Fuente. But you can call me Candy for short! So, the weapon. I heard you guys call bombs the 'forbidden treasures,' ah? Well, I got one that's heavy on the treasure, hold the forbidden."

     "My friends, they say water is a very bad conductor, ah? That's why you don't wanna be in the water, when there's electrical current. Bzzt! So I think, why have something that can blow up, and punch a hole in the ship, when you can fry the bastards and be just fine even if it misfires? Take a look."

     Candy hurriedly unravels the blueprints, and gives a basic overview. Instead of explosive force, the bombs, make a 'bigass electrical current' (Candy's exact words) in the water, by way of a conductive ring that telescopes out when active. A non-conductive safety ring around the bombs prevents them from making contact with the metal of the ship, so that even if they go off and get loose from their housings, the conductive ring doesn't make contact with the ship itself.

     Candy is confident that he not only has the materials to make them for the Busan, but the means to supply them to the larger allied fleet.

     Candy reaches over and pinches Ishirou's cheek halfway through the explanation. No reason given.
Kale Hearthward "Bota! Kana! Good to see you again!"

Kale arrives via the warpgate, mostly just because that seems to be what's expected of him, but the East Wind is on an inbound course at the same time (and radios ahead to whatever passes for air traffic control on the ship, so that its arrival isn't a surprise). "Warpgate seems to work like a charm, ha. At least I don't think I've lost any feathers."

"Far as improvements, I can source you some new high powered spotlights for search and rescue ops, and do a review and updates for your lifeboats," he says. "You guys take in refugees and survivors and such, right? I might even be able to get the Commonwealth to pay *you* to get the new stuff installed here."

He side eyes the redshifts. They'd done some dealing in the past, but that wasn't any indication whether they'd play ball or not in the future, especially here on Rita's home turf.

And then he does a double take when Candy pinches Ishirou. Did he imagine that? Yeah, he must have.
Stanley Padgett     STANLEY PADGETT, a freshly minted Young Adult, is here as well. He's feeling a little out of his league, frankly, with all these other people around, but this place was where Rita was from, and if Rita's world needs help, Stanley was going to be here. She's been so nice and accepting of him, and it would be... unfriendly to not return the favor.

    That said, he's wearing a poncho to keep the water off, because this place seems like the sort of place he's going to run into Sudden Soakings. Back home he might have been taking charge and leading the pack, but here, Stan is the new kid, literally, and he's listening and taking things in, as he looks around at the entry point.
    But... oddly enough, Rita herself is not here, and none of these people have mentioned her yet. He bites his lip, and watches the antics between all these elites. He's got a lot of ground to cover here.
Hibiki Tachibana     It's indeed been quite a hot minute, but Hibiki can be counted outside the circle of 'new faces' visiting the Union Busan. The peaceful atmosphere even now of all times is something she's glad is still there even in these circumstances, and being able to get a close-up look at just how impressive the way they handle agriculture here is...is also pretty nice. Kind of like one of those things that's really obvious in retrospect, given how long the ship has been afloat and taking care of itself, but still no less amazing to see in person.

    Though this isn't a day to focus on that. One hand in her jacket pocket, she offers up a return wave matching a certain young man's on their approach. "Hey, Bota. Kana. Glad you guys are doing good. Don't worry about it. You know we're more than happy to help after everything." At Ishirou's wink wink nudge nudge on the unsaid subject of Rita, her smile grows a little wider - Huorong, though not familiar, gets a second one of those as a way of greeting.

    "I can't say I'm gonna be much help for reinforcing the ship, so...I'm gonna leave that to the experts." A gesture with a roll of her shoulder towards Candy as he fires of into his explanation, before prying her hand out of her pocket to ball it up and punch it into her palm. "But I think the second thing fits the bill perfectly." She knows what she's good at.

    As Lilian is picked out to handle the briefing (which she feels is a good idea), Hibiki moves to ostensibly stand a little closer towards Stanley. She can't read his mind, but having been in the situation of not knowing how to dance around the subject of Rita in the past, she just gives him a silent nod of understanding.
Petra Soroka     Petra strolls through the warpgate with extremely little to offer anyone in terms of help, as usual. She's dressed in her typical outfit, without an umbrella or any other water-resistant accommodations, evidently not aware of the rain situation.

    Passing her eyes over the garden with mild interest, Petra then spots the structures outside the window and hurries over to look out excitedly. Both the endless water and the cobbled-together nature of the Union Busan appeal to her greatly, and as she rushes over, she stumbles over a tentacle, glances down at it, then pointedly averts her gaze.

    "Wow... it really is all water, isn't it? No wonder Rita finds all kinds of normal stuff so interesting."

    Turning back around, Petra catches Bota's introduction and beams at him, getting closer to give him a wave. "Oh! You're Rita's brother! Hi, I'm Petra, I'm one of her friends." Petra looks around to try to spot her, uncomfortably glossing over the tentacles. "Where is she, by the way?"
Cantio "Mister Bota! Miss Kana! It's good to see you both again. And Mister Huorong, it's nice to meet you, too." Cantio greets the three at the apple trees with a somewhat familiar wave for the first two and a more reserved bow of her head at the latter. She's dressed in black and purple today with a light pink poncho on over everything to keep herself dry, and she had spent a bit of time greeting those living on the ship prior to coming up here.

"I've put in some orders for extra building materials, so they'll be coming in soon once I give word for the deliveries to start... Er. Coming in." She replies to Huorong, already slipping a tablet out of her pockets and swiping through screens to review what she's put in orders for. "Extra layers of protection might be good, but I'm thinking... Would it be worth setting up decoy bays and docks? Places we could lure or corral the monsters into with-"

She brings out one of her drones, taps the screen on its face, and it starts playing ambient people sounds. "-this, then detach or detonate the whole thing remotely before they realize what's happening."

She conveniently avoids mentioning she paid for this plan with her Dorado Black card, of course. Spotting Candy and Ishirou's curious interaction, though, has her giggling quietly under her breath before turning her attention back to the matter at hand. "Maybe we could even use Mister Candelario's electric bombs, if collateral damage is a concern.
Tamamo     Tamamo has arrived prepared, today. In a sense. Rather than her usual black-and-blue robes (with their white and gold trim) she's wearing a full-body wetsuit in the same colors, clearly personally fitted. She's still walking around in very tall geta rather than boots, but she wasn't clear on the intended footwear for a wetsuit that wasn't flippers, so it can't be helped. There are no pockets as such, but several points at which she's carrying narrow metal canisters, roughly thermos-sized.

    Being that she's not currently in cool waters, the excellent thermal insulation of the wetsuit is instead causing the area around her exposed face and hands to just-perceptibly heat up, though that doesn't bother her. She's comfortable enough in the heat. That she's put up her hair, fringe and sidelocks excepted, into a large bun is for other practical reasons.

    "Oh, hello, hello! I am Tamamo-no-mae," and because it was relevant last time, and she hasn't yet met the council liaison, she goes on to give the full introduction, "bunrei of Amaterasu-omikami, She of the Pale-Gold Face, Goddess of the Sun. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am, as well, a chevalier of the Paladins, and I have some thoughts as could help protect you. I have brought my own materials, of course. Just a trifle, really, yet I cannot well use these on my own, as I lack the detailed knowledge of war and battle -- and ships, beside, for which you would better seek the younger brother -- but of these, your own knowledge will be fully up to the task at hand, yes?"

    Tamamo pats one of her several probably-not-thermoses. "One need merely find all those places one would least like to suffer an attack, and place a ward at each. I fear I can only offer a dozen-dozen or so. To control and funnel the attention of an attacker is easier done than to shake it off in entirety."
Redshift Operators     Petra gets the giant leaning over her. "She won't be joining us. As a matter of *everyone's safety*, you know." He says, in his gravel-voice. "You like safety, don't you? Especially at a time like this." He doesn't remember very much, but he remembers, distantly, that Rita can't be here for some reason related to making sure everyone's safe! He's doing his best.

    Candy, Kale, Cantio, Tamamo, there's lots of people bringing in big one-off countermeasures. But something displeases the man in the helmet with the four optics. The expression in his posture and the way the electrical optics shift around seem to be expecting something to go alongside the offers.

    "Anyone here bringing in the social goods? The drills and the plans and all? Or is that already done? If they're going to live through a big attack, they're gonna need the social side of survival and getting their shit back together. Thought that would'a been one of you, covering that end."

    Looks like he's looking for some disaster preparedness plans or something. He also glances at the liason as well, making a flat-palmed curious sound. It's an open request for anyone with any history surviving massive monster attacks or natural disasters to come forward with social systems for recovery!
Lilian Rook     "Oh, good. It's still working properly. I wasn't entirely certain, but I suppose if a reactor can keep running for this long, it'll handle a personal Warpgate load or two."

    Lilian's conversational nonchalance about the entire thing is both chosen and sincere. It's chosen, because she wants to seem like she has it all figured out to manage tension and command expectations, and it's sincere because she's pretty sure she does.

    Showing up in 'casual clothes', constituted by a layered white blouse with a black ribbon and with a red wine checkered skirt over blackout tights and polished cross strap heels, she's still dressed like she lives on this deck and was just about to retire for dinner, placing her cleanly in the lush surroundings, especially with her iconic pin. However, the heavy black alchemical handgun --Goldstein's commission-- holstered at her hip, and Night Mist openly sheathed at her back for the first time in quite a white, tell a very different story when paired with her subtle facial scar and her usually effortlessly precise gait and bearing. She looks exactly in her lane when she smiles at Kana's address, rather than as if she should be staring down her nose at Huorong.

    "Think nothing of it, Bota. We understand perfectly well. Your people know the Union Busan, and these waters, best." She spares a second look around the orchard. "I sort of like having a briefing here. It sends a message, doesn't it? Not just about what it's really for, and who owns it, but . . ." She jabs her heel twice against the dirt. "What we're fighting for." Her eyes finally settle on Kana. "But I wouldn't mind moving it to a cozier location. I've put a few things in place there for certain reasons regardless."

    Looking over her shoulder at the group, she follows with "I've of course informed the Paladins as a whole, and those who've been in attendance previously, but for those only sticking their noises in now, I'll abbreviate." The way she folds her hands behind her back and subtly raises her voice has that precise 'menacing-perfect student council president' vibe.

    "What you see around you was once dry land. Continental Earth; I believe the Americas, if we're nearly there. This situation arose from an ice comet's collision with the moon, itself a significant fraction of Luna's mass. The ice that gradually fell from orbit, of course, melted, and flooded the world over a period of decades. You can imagine what the Union Busan is, and why it's here. What's more relevant is the mass mutation of sea life ever since, into man-eating monsters with little ostensible greater desire than to slaughter as many humans as possible."

    "We've recently come into verifiable information that suggests this coincides with a hypothetical panspermic process, which is about to repeat here on Earth. A 'seed' carrying microbial mutagens, carried in the comet, which since sank into the ocean. The ultimate purpose of mutating Earth's wildlife, is eventually giving rise to entirely new species, and the birth of a 'queen', overseeing a matching hive; a process which has already occurred. Soon, the queen will utilize the Earth's tectonic activity to cause a super-eruption from the ocean floor, launching hundreds of thousands more seeds into orbit, where they will accrete frozen water and repeat the process."
Lilian Rook     Lilian pauses for effect. "That is to say, now this means 'in orbit around the Superplanet'. Many of these seeds will fall back here, and multiply the number of monster strains catastrophically. The remainder will inevitably fall upon hundreds of other worlds, and cause apocalyptic damage that might strain even the resources of the Commonwealth and Concord thin. Our task is to intercept this process, destroy the hive, eliminate the Queen, and ensure the extermination of all viable seeds. To this end, Union Busan will be meeting with other ship-cities, requesting a military alliance, and organizing a large scale raid and bombing of the Queen's hive."

    Opening her messenger bag, Lilian swipes her smart device, and humbleflexes the Stark tech upgrades she'd had done to holographically project figures and diagrams on the move. "I have, over the past weeks, shifted as much as I can into a purely liquid slush fund for just such an endeavour. Given the general lack of deep sea combat expertise present in this Sector, compared to the Harpoonists of the ship-cities, I have concluded it is utterly vital that the alliance go ahead, and that we join the joint strike operation, organized into a vanguard force and a specialist support and troubleshooting force. The risks of taking on this operation even with dozens of the greater factions higher class Elite forces ar still lower than a joint venture."

    "And yet the risk posed to the joint force's standing Harpoonists and volunteer militias is equally extreme. Given this world's situation, they are understandably not equipped to the level that an operation of this risk would demand, given the salvage available to them. I think it prudent to retrofit and upgrade both ships, crew, and weaponry, to prepare them as much as possible in the time we have remaining." A glowing figure, across the other side of her facial scar, says ยค6,120,600,240

    "Discuss."
Ishirou Ishirou looks up, seeing a lot of people he knows.  

He turns to Petra, immediately knowing this is going to be awkward.  "Don't tell her about what's going on or what you see going on right now.  It's literally for everyone's benefit.  It's really /really/ important.  Especially for Rita."

He really hates not telling Rita anything, especially about what they know about 'the queen' but...well he trusts Lilian's judgment on this.  He smiles over at Tamamo before his cheek is pinched and he's dragged so slowly towards Candy.  "Ow ow stoooooop!" he complains lamely.  Though he's more than willing to give Candy a hug.  

Still attached to Candy, POD releases a holo screen of the Busan.  "Well...with some effort I can ID some places we can support and places for optimal placement of the suggested weaponry.  As far as weaponry goes, we're going to need something that they're used to /and/ can work underwater.  Most firearms are right out.  Spears and the harpoon weapons they use now are the best fit, I think."

"We could...try automating some of the more dangerous and automatable tasks so to help alleviate pressure on the crew.."
Tamamo     'The drills and the plans and all?'

    Tamamo thinks back through her experience in preparing -- no, in teaching people to survive disasters.

    Putting aside that she is, herself, recorded as one of the greatest disasters of history, she can't recall any. It's a good thing Kale responded before she could finish the thought.
Sleek Shimmer     Many arrive and Sleek Shimmer glances this way and that at the arrivals. Some she recognizes. Many, she does not. After Stanley ends up walking past, not saying anything and dressed in a way that makes it hard to see his face... she ambles over his way, walking up behind him and... and...

    Starts sniffing while leaning in over his shoulder. Several good, hard whiffs. Though she withdraws after a good three. When he does eventually introduce himself over the radio though, she finally smiles and relaxes, and focuses her attention on Lilian and the briefing.

    Sleek Shimmer's no scientist. She's not even that familiar with the concept of astronomy despite traveling a few times in space. But she listens attentively. If her gaze was a laser, it might be burning fierce holes in lLilian. Thankfully, her look is no such thing. "A star fell and shattered the moon, flooded the world with endless rain and now everyone lives on ships... monsters breed in the sea and use the planet as a nest. Soon the hatchlings will become new stars to flood other worlds..."

    She works out the best summary of the situation rather quickly.

    "So this Sea Monster Queen lives in the sea right? Down deep. The ocean is big. We know where she is, or are we going hunting? Has anyone seen her and know what she can do in a fight, any weaknesses worth knowing about?" She asks quickly, and with little hesitation.
Petra Soroka     The looming giant reignites months-old terror in Petra, shrinking back in fear. She scuttles away, positioning herself behind Hibiki, and once in this safe location, her body language relaxes and she addresses Red Giant and Ishirou.

    "...Yeah, if you say so, Ishirou." Petra fiddles with her hair anxiously. She side-eyes a patch of tentacles, then looks down at the ground, opening her mouth to say something then stopping. "...Yeah."
Stanley Padgett     Stanley perks up at Hibiki's presence, and smiles at the shorter brawler, as he settles in to be educated on the situation, but also the insistance that no one tell Rita about what's going on. The young fencer has a few thoughts at to why that is, but keeps his tongue once again, as he agrees with Hibiki. "We're here to help with the... the fighting, probably, yeah." He rakes a hand through his freshly dyed hair. "I'm happy to h-"
    He shifts to look to Sleek, and blinks a few times, before continuing. "-hhheeeear that there's stuff we can do to prevent... that." He waves a hand at Lilian's FANCY ASS HOLOGRAPHS and murmurs. "But this reminds me of like... having to get weeds out of a yard. You have to prevent them from getting far, or else it gets..." He looks down at the tentacles. "Unwieldy to pull them out."

    Sleek, Stanley smells of pizza and dust and destiny and fate... there's something toxic in the depths there, old and ancient and lyrical...
Hibiki Tachibana     When Petra scrambles behind her, Hibiki goes from attentively listening to Lilian's briefing to blinking and looking back over at the other girl over her shoulder, then to Ishirou and Red Giant in turn. "Ah--"

    "...Yeah. It's your first time here, so you didn't know. It's fine. It's kinda, uh...complicated." Her voice lowers for that last part, back to Petra. She doesn't mind being the wall between her and him, insomuch as someone her height can be one. After a moment of scratching at her cheek with a finger...

    ...and watching Shimmer sniff all over Stanley next to her, which cuts off whatever she was going to say for an additional two seconds, she lets out a vague sound of affirmation with Stanley. "It'd be a real worst case scenario if it actually happened. I can't even imagine trying to run damage control on who knows how many worlds, superplanet or otherwise, getting hit with that...so it's that much more important we make sure we get this done. The queen..." She lingers on a thought left unsaid.
Kale Hearthward > Anyone here bringing in the social goods? The drills and the plans and all?

"I'd have assumed that the locals would already have that handled, but if that need to be refreshed along with everything else, sure," Kale says, steadily, eyeing the gruff man. "Actually, assuming that they *just* got the warpgate up and running, they'd need to rework their plans anyway to take advantage of that..."

"As far as worst case scenarios, I can think of three non-landlocked Commonwealth nations that would accept ten thousand seagoing souls on an immediate temporary basis. From there we can work through proper resettlement efforts over approximately four weeks - ideally back on the ship, with lives as intact as possible, and Commonwealth production subsidies secured to get economies up and running again. They may have to catch a lot of fish or pound a bunch of rivets, but there'll be buyers for both."

He points a thumb over his shoulder, back towards the warpgate room. "Primary evacuation point. Start essentially a convoy through that, sending a local armed force first to make sure the first jump point is clear, and you aren't just sending your people through to another disaster on the other side. Simultaneously someone should be radioing emergency response from the three factions, aside from showing up here to help deal with whatever disaster is occuring, some of the multiversal response can help get the convoy going on the right path and deal with threats and organization there. They'll also make sure no threats get *through* the warpgate along with the people."

"This side, keep sending people through the warpgate for as long as you can. If it becomes inaccessible for whatever reason, air and sea evacuation options in that order. Assuming the reason for the evacuation is 'sea monsters' then sea evacuation isn't ideal but it might be better than staying on the boat. That's a call that'd have to be made at the time."

"As far as the specifics of an evacuation plan..." Kale pulls a pen out and clicks it. "I'd need to get a map of the ship, as detailed as possible with sector population estimates. Once we get that, and once we can draw up evacuation lines, the next step is getting emergency directional signage installed - we can't depend on people to remember a plan or stop to read a map, but they can follow lit-up arrows a lot easier."

"That sound about right for 'social goods'?"
Rita Ma      "No," Kana says to Shimmer. "It isn't a problem that a warrior can solve. Tactfully implicit is the statement: 'Or I would have solved it already.' "It is, I hope, a problem that can be solved by every warrior in the world. That's why we're en route to New York."

     Calling Bota the 'lead', just because he's the most talkative, would be a mistake. Even if he weren't implicitly introduced as Kana's subordinate, one could infer it from the way he glances to her before elaborating on Kraken. She gives him a little nod, so he forges ahead:

     "Kraken is one of the Seven Devils of the Sea. Or, well, one of the four left. Normally it just grabs ships and breaks them apart, but the Union Busan might be the only ship too big for that. Instead, it's playing hit-and-run with our support fleet, like it knows what we're doing. We've fought it a few times now, but it keeps getting away. And if we don't take care of it soon..." He makes an uneasy expression. Kana picks up seamlessly: "We can't afford to lead it to New York. That's a target-rich environment."

     "Hey, Ishirou! Good to see you too.You're looking kind of... I don't know, tired. Is everything alright?" Bota rubs the back of his neck with nonspecific fretfulness, but brightens when the topic of Rita comes up. "Oh, really? Haha, that's a surprise. If she's finally letting other people do nice things for her... she really is thriving out there. Thank you." He puts on a bittersweet smile.

     His smile fades when Petra asks the question that Stanley was only thinking. "Oh. It's great to meet her friends. I'm sorry she's not here. Rita's..." Again, he trades glances with Kana. This time she takes the chance to tag in. "Rita can't come home. Because she's a threat to the hive, the monsters here will hunt her down. She left to protect us. Maybe once all this is over..."

     Kana looks off through the darkened glass at the ocean. Her expression wobbles towards wistfulness, for just a moment. Then it slides back to practiced, professional neutrality.
Rita Ma      Boss Huorong leans in and peers over Candy's shoulder- easy, at his height- to inspect the blueprints. The noises he makes are of concern, at first, as he strokes his chin. Then they incrementally shift towards sounding impressed. "And you're sure you can make those all by yourself, Candelario? We'll want some means to deploy them better than just dropping them overboard, but- hm, maybe if we repurposed the launch catapults for it... We'll take however many you can get us."

     Inspecting Cantio's plans next, Huorong nods: "They're dumb enough to fall for the robots. I don't know if they're smart enough to require the decoy bays. How many of those things can you make?" Bota adds: "Think you could give them fake blood, too?"

     Huorong gives Ishirou a breezy wave of assent. "As long as your 'scanning' doesn't turn anything radioactive, sure. Actually..." Looking to Tamamo, now, he takes one of the 'thermoses' and raises both his eyebrows. "A hundred and forty-four of these, you said? We'll want some for the reactor room, and the flamethrowers, and the rear port, but after that... You, Ishirou! Figure out the best places to put these wards. The center ship only; we're detaching the side ships to minimize civilian risk."

     Kale's words give Bota pause for thought. He looks down, tapping his foot. "Getting the Commonwealth to pay us... I guess we *do* do humanitarian work," he murmurs. "And since we have a Warpgate now, credits actually mean something. How would we set that up, exactly?"

     Kana tacitly endorses Lilian's explanation of the impending apocalypse with a nod. Her posture towards the proposal is casual acceptance, right up until she sees a ten-digit credits figure, and nearly freezes up with her eye open wide- Boss Huorong is equally stunned, and Bota's eyes just sort of glaze over. "That's... are you sure? There are probably less than a thousand Harpoonists in the world. I don't know how we'd spend it all. I suppose once it gets into retrofitting the ships, I don't know the costs, but...

     That's more than enough to shake off the Union Busan's rust, for sure, and a few other big ships besides. Huorong calculates as much in his head. "Once we're at Floating City New York, we'll be able to call in outside contractors with that money, I think. There are no dry docks anymore, but we'll see what we can do for the old ship."

     Kana recomposes herself by clearing her throat, and addresses Shimmer again. "We know where she is: the Crater of Vagabundus, in the Atlantic Ocean. We don't know what she's capable of. The main threat will be the number of 'lesser' sea monsters at her command. We've already noted a mass migration towards the Atlantic."

     Bota adds, looking among the whole group: "Although, I'd been meaning to ask. I know how strong Rita is by our standards. If you've worked with her, how strong is she by yours? It's important."

     Kana finds a bench to sit down on, leaning back with her arms stretched out, and looks up at the rain-speckled glass dome above. "We still don't have a solution for how to deal with Kraken, either. We can only operate near the surface. It can always just dive deeper to get away before we wear it down. Do you have any ideas?" She sounds, in that quiet way of hers, doubtful.
Candy      "Totally sure," he says, beaming with pride.

     Red Dwarf asks a pertinent question about preparedness. "Good point, Red. Yeah, I can cover that, too," says Candy to Red Dwarf, nodding. "Like food that keeps good, and some ways to keep it, maybe." He takes a look around, at the little pocket of greenery everyone's surrounded by. Unusual, for a ship.

     "Tell me about this, Boss," he says, pointing downwards. One arm is wrapped around Ishirou's waist as he continues: "This, ah, farmland. How long's it been here, and how's it doing, supporting the ship right now? I see you got people working it, but, ah, what's the..." He gestures vaguely with the rolled blueprints. "How much does it count for, when you're looking at food on the table? If Kale can handle places for people to stay, I can get you guys stuff that grows fast, and keeps good," he says.

     "And maybe a cannery or something, if there's room. That way it's easy to carry a lot of it, if you gotta."
Kale Hearthward > "How would we set that up, exactly?"

"Via the darkest, vilest force known to man or beast," says Kale, with a straight beak. "Bureaucracy."

He clears his throat. "Whatever your official position is on adopting in refugees and survivors, and if you don't have an official position on that get someone to write it up and stick to it. Get logs of every rescue or immigration you've done, as far back as you can. Take stock of what your current rescue equipment is and write an essay on what you could do if you had better equipment. Get that all together, and then be ready to write it all down *again* in whatever forms are provided, twice over, and then be prepared to argue it all over again front of a committee."

"... Ishirou will help you with it," he adds.
Cantio "Right, she doesn't know about this...." Cantio murmurs to herself as Ishirou clarifies Rita's lack of involvement for Petra, using that as a non-subtle way of being reminded of that disconnect herself. She lets out a troubled noise at that, then shrugs and keeps tapping away at her tablet following Lilian's explanation about just how much worse this situation could become in the worst case scenario.

"If they can spread that far with this eruption, then... No choice, then. Cadenza will throw its full support into this, too. I'll bring in the backups and the prototypes, too, and my copies will be able to aid with getting the defenses and decoys here set up. We can worry about the costs after things have settled down."

This time, she's actually dipping into her personal reserves instead of just maxing out her card. Those locals near the warp gatemight notice that Cantio sure is showing up a lot along with more of those freaky-faced drones, sometimes in different outfits, often times right next to each other, and all of them carrying all manner of crates and tools with them.

"If Mister Candelario needs an extra hand or six, I can help with that, too. Otherwise, my copies and my drones can handle any physical work preparing things that might be too dangerous or risky for civilians to work on." She offers confidently, then starts running the numbers for her own plan in...

On her tablet. Mental math is hard, and calculators are easy. "Depends on how much time we have. The first few might take an hour to work out the kinks, but I should be able to start churning out a few dozen an hour until the materials run dry." Bota's comment about blood, meanwhile, has Cantio nodding a little too effortlessly. "Oh, definitely."

Wait. He said fake blood.  "... Would it be better if it's real?"

The question about Rita's strength, though, has Cantio stroking her chin in thought. "She's definitely strong. We've only fought seriously once, and she definitely had the upper hand at that time." She nods idly as she recalls that rather emotionally-charged fight, then freezes for a moment upon realizing how bad that might sound. "Er... I-I mean, it wasn't a one-on-one fight, so it might not have been the most accurate...?"

Wait. That sounds even worse. "Uh. I mean... Her and our friends were teaming up against me! Since..." Cantio clears her throat, then just shuts up entirely at that point.
Ishirou Ishirou rubs his nose in response to the tired remark.  "Don't worry about it, just...other world stuff," he says a bit tired.  "I'm alright, really."  Though he does smile, a lot brighter, when he mentions letting people do things for her.  "It wasn't easy, ha ha...she's very resistant to letting people be nice to her.  She'd rather be the person giving and giving..."

Ishirou continues to let the hologram complete and he motions toward the old man.  "It's not radioactive.  My sensory organs are...uh, quite a bit more developed than most, and I have the ability to look at things differently than most."

He continues to look for weak points and structural flaws.  That was until Bota asks a very important question.  He pauses, thinking about it.  "She's very strong.  I would say definitely in the upper level of elites I've faced.  I'd definitely say she could handle everyone in the room except for one or two of us."

"So the Queen is going to be... incredibly deadly."  Someone says Bureaucracy.  "Bureaucracy?  Where?  Do you need files?  Forms filled out?" he looks around excitedly.  Ishirou was the /best/ at navigating Bureaucracy!
Rita Ma      Huorong listens to Kale with uncharacteristically rapt attention; for a moment, his gruffness is gone. "That'll be useful even if there's not an emergency. As I said-" He pulls out a map of the ship, and points at the connectors tethering the three component vessels together.

     "We'll be cutting these links to break the ship into three, so we're not dragging any ordinary citizens into battle. That'll leave about nine thousand people on these two ships. Those people can make it on their own, but whether we make it back or not... whatever you can do for them, we'd appreciate."
Redshift Operators     The operators' leader narrows those optics and tilts his head at Kale. "Bet they have some of their own, sure. But looks like things got bad recently. Lots dusted up. Lines re-painted. Re-drawn in sand." He tilts his head, leaning back to listen to Lilian, and recalls his time with the monsters below. "Macrofauna, that's closer to a hurricane or a meteor strike than a military invasion. More coarse, treats people and infrastructure both like targets."

    He listens to the explanation. "Decent at a coarse level. We need something that functions on the ground floor too. Assigned cells and backup cells, with most survival stuff covered in the skills they've got. It's how my crew always made it through everything. You can do a lot from the top down, but only so much. Gotta put people together from the ground too, if you're gonna get anything done."

    The giant stares at Petra, the remaining optics in his helmet flickering ominously. If the lights in the dome haven't been fully repaired yet, one might flicker above him, for a moment. But that's all he says.

    "The kraken is the greatest threat here. Undramatic, yet sinister, a logistical peril for the support fleet." The medic cyborg of the group says, brushing aside some of her hair in a totally overdramatic way and just slightly catches her hair in the joints. Swearing softly into her respirator, she mutters a little, detangling. "However... some way of surprising it, keeping it from retreating by 'grappling' with it, would be the appropriate moonjutsu technique."

    She finally gets the hair free from the cybernetic joints. "But... with the percentages of my power I am willing to dedicate to this, ah, perhaps I would not accomplish such a feat. Does anyone else have any schemes by which a great creature might be *grappled* by surprise? From there, an attack force stands a better chance annihilating it."
Lilian Rook     "Yes, the sea monster lives in the sea." says Lilian. If only dry deadpan could soak up the ocean. "Of course we know where it is. We wouldn't be engaging in a joint operation like this if we didn't. Gathering a large fleet to go searching the entire ocean together would be a disastrous waste of time and fuel."

    "And while it's true many of us will be fighting, I indicated a separation of labour for a reason." Lilian says to Stanley. "Most of those gathered here would be little better than sitting ducks in the water. In the first place, the plan is to bomb the hive, the Queen's nest, from the surface. Securing a bombing lane and seeing the charges to terminal depth will have to be the job of a small, expert team, given that I have no doubts the nest will be heavily defended. What requires more of what we don't have is the process of safely transporting the weaponry there."

    "The Queen is likely to attack en masse the instant it learns what we're doing. The bulk of the labour needs to be complete before then, but even still, we'll need maintenance, engineering, motive, gunnery, damage control, repair, and supply crews along the whole journey." Lilian says, ostensibly to Kale next. "Evacuating civilians to safe harbour is ideal, but the reality of this ship is that most people aboard it perform useful labour. Overtaxing the reactor running the Warpgate over and over and over again in the very last spurt is a risk as well."

    Back to the first point. "A lot of the Elite support will be needed in seeing the ship there. Incidental encounters, safe and fast travel, scouting a maximal radius ahead, predictive navigation, rapid emergency repairs to the ships where necessary, vital safeguarding of the charges, medical support of Harpoonists and volunteers, and of course, martial defense of the ship itself."

    She stares in a Particular Direction."I'm sorry to say, but not everyone here is exactly the sort of person who can turn the tide of a thousand monster onslaught just by being there. Those on defense will be better advised to fall into support and tactical roles, and assisting key defensive points, not punching every slavering fish monster that comes near."

    Lilian wants to smile at Kana's reaction, but she just ends up shrugging lamely. "What else is it for? I can't buy back Rita's friends and family after they're already dead, and I can't buy back her home after it's already sunk. If even one person survives because I spent the money, then it was worth it."

    "This is as much as I can free up on this much notice, but I want the credits to go to replacing armour, fortifying vital components with reactive superstructure, overhauling the power grid to rule out any risk of failure, installing point defense weaponry at overlapping points around the decks, upgrading the infirmaries and safe rooms, replacing the computers, radar, and sonar systems, and clearing the engines. We need to move as fast as possible, see threats as early as we can, sustain minimal damage, and thin out the enemy numbers as much as possible before they can cause casualties. The remainder will go towards equipping and supplying Harpoonists and militia, as well as spare components and new medical equipment."

    "I've had vague thoughts about replacing a good part of the upper deck residential lane --some of those empty areas-- with proper deck guns for anti-Leviathan reprisal, but . . ." Lilian finally cuts herself off, and looks to Huorong. "I'll be leaving this all in the care of you and yours. I have tactical training, but I'm not actually a mechanic. I'll be able to secure you, ideally New York, and your choice of critical vanguard and support vessels, cutting edge, general use naval materiel, but it'll be up to you --and New York's own equivalent-- to install and service it."
Sleek Shimmer     Such strange scents. Stanley gets a brief stare when their gazes meet. "Good. Not sure what to make of what my nose is telling me, but you... you'll be alright here." All she can try to do is reassure him that she means well, it seems!

    Upon hearing that this quest is going to require many, many warriors, the foxlady grins and raises a hand. A bit of water, a few candles' worth of flame, a swirl of air, and a pinch of earth gather and orbit a spark of light hovering over her palm as a little show.

    "Glad I came then. Sounds like it'll make for an excellent challenge." The open hand slams shut around the little elemental display into a tight fist, squashing it with a poof.

    Of all the talking going on here... despite her sharp ears flicking this way and that, picking up wisps of conversation, she begins to grimace from overload. "This... is a huge mission. So many little details and things to keep track of. I... only know how to fight..." And that one thing, normally her pride, is starting to feel very underwhelming as she tries to make sense of the scope and scale of all these details.

    It's rare that she has ended up in such... unfamiliar waters.
Lilian Rook     Lilian thinks about Bota's question only a little. "I'd say she's very strong. More importantly, she's smart, and experienced. You could say she's a natural, even; she has that inborn killer instinct without having an inborn love of, or desensitization to, violence. She'd have been an excellent Harpoonist even under ordinary circumstances. With the 'talents' she has now, I'd say she's one of the few Elites I can trust to operate at my level of combat efficiency." Lilian absentmindedly runs a fingernail under her eye. "Honestly, I'd love to have her here. I'd feel even more confident. But, well . . ."

    First, to Red Dwarf. "If I might ask, I'd like to see you submit at least three divisionary layouts and action plans you think would work here. For--" She glances at White Dwarf "--reasons you might anticipate." Then to Tamamo. "As much as it bothers me to ask, we both know these horrid things hate the light of the sun. They apparently adore attacking at night. I'd like to ask for a little more than just the wards, Tamamo."

    Finally, on the subject of Kraken. "We'll have to prevent it from getting away, I suppose. A killbox. Large masses of high buoyancy materiel, enough that it can't drag it underwater, and combat-steady platforms. Thoroughly prepared with snares, tethers, and wards to restrict its range. Runes, traps, concealed explosives, to engage a massive alpha strike once it attempts to back off."

    "We'll likely be relying on magical and biological warfare to slow it down, halt its movements, and confuse attempted retreat. Hearthward may be helpful in setting the scene. Ishirou will ideally be on-station to scan it for weaknesses and tamper with its biology. Tamamo can lay ensnaring wards. Then, a final contingency; a pursuit team that can chase it for significant distance underwater. Our high speed, high offense, surgical strike specialists, outfitted with proper diving equipment We may as well get the experience now."

    "That's how I see it happening. Ideally, we can lure it out at night, and then weaken it with magical sunlight."
Hibiki Tachibana     "...Kraken...talk about a name that fits." Hibiki can already very well imagine some massive sea beast ripping apart an entire vessel with a ton of tentacles. Or maybe it's just a namesake and it actually has something else. Like jaws. Or hands. Or...appendages. The point is that it's huge, and apparently...

    "...And smarter than you'd think, if that's what it's doing. It has to be taken care of, and fast," she agrees with White Dwarf. The first part, anyway. The second part, about 'grappling' with it, gets a couple blinks out of her before she puts a hand to her chin.

    Rub. Rub. "Well, I'm pretty strong, but I'm not sure I could wrestle with something that big. At least not underwater, it's pretty hard to get leverage and I don't have Midway's really cool gauntlets that helped before. I actually liked those a lot. Although if I really...uh..wait."

    She trails off, realizing that the 'grappling' didn't necessarily mean literally. After closing her eyes and clearing her throat, Lilian offers up a whole lot of good ideas. Her contribution is an adjustment of her collar and a murmuring of, "...I guess if we...somehow had a big enough harpoon to spear it, it wouldn't be going anywhere. But also all of that. Yeah. Especially the sunlgith part."
Tamamo     Tamamo takes a moment to watch Candy and Ishirou interact, and then another moment. Hm...? Hmm...

    'A hundred and forty-four of these, you said?'

    Tamamo lifts a second, presses and twists until the near-invisible seams pop into view as it opens, and removes something roughly disc-shaped, an inch thick, that had been stacked inside. "Of these, to be most specific. They might be best placed outside the ship, for which I have sought to protect them from the sea, though they will have a similar effect if placed within a room or passageway, as well."

    It looks like a piece of a tree's corewood, sectioned to show its rings, complete with uneven growth on each side. The laminate makes the varying light and dark wood shine. A small section has been removed, going halfway to the core from one edge, revealing a metallic, golden curve, as if a full ring were buried inside it. That would be a convenient place to loop a chain, though they're a bit large for necklaces. Maybe as necklaces for considerably large people. Or bolted to a wall.

    'I think it prudent to retrofit and upgrade both ships, crew, and weaponry, to prepare them as much as possible in the time we have remaining.'

    "Given the great need, I suppose there is another method that I might use, and one that would be of lasting benefit to the people. This would involve a great deal of investment, of course. It would be necessary, further, that I meet with each harpoonist I would aid." Something about this gives Tamamo more than usual pause, some reluctance to follow this particular path, though it's evident that 'great need' is pulling her over to it, despite that. Talk of the widespread devestation likely to result from failing here may do that.

    Finally, she asks Kana, "I must ask several things of you. First, how amenable might you be to wearing a shrine maiden's garb? Second, how might your warriors be to the same?"

    Tamamo allows a moment before changing tacks. "Oh, but truly, the question upon which this most depends is this. Would you enter into an agreement with myself, as the representative soul of the Sun, for the sake of destroying our mutual enemies, even should there be some cost to you in so doing? You would have, then, and all those who joined with you, likewise, the granted power to bring that light against your foes, no matter the hour or the depths. Would that I could give this freely, but such is not its nature. The strongest ties are rarely without debt or obligation."

    Regretfully, "Though it would be to our benefit to better know one another, there is little time to decide."
Stanley Padgett     Sleek gets ablink or two from Stanley, but he gives the fox a thumbs up. "Hey, thanks, I suppose. People keep telling me that and maybe one day I'll believe them, hah!"

    But as the plans are laid out, Stanley looks to Lilian and Redshift, and taps his chest. "If you don't need someon to poke... whatever it is with a rapier, I'm more than capable of delivering supplies. Really really quickly." A grin. "So if there's something or somewhere you need supplies, I gues that'll be my job, once we're doing things."

    A blink. "Actually, this all rather reminds me of what we were learning of the old whaling operations back home... Though, I guess this is for a much better cause..."
Lilian Rook     "We have hundreds of experts in hitting fish with swords, and all of them are constrained by the realities of scrap metal and spare fuel in moving supplies." Lilian says offhandedly to Stanley. "Scores of small, high-tensile tethers, would be ideal. The point is to distribute the tension around the entire floating stage, so that Kraken has to fight against the combined buouyancy of everything we put out there to dive. Protectig any fastening points will be necessary, as will crippling its senses and speed first." she says to Hibiki next. "We can't tie anything to the Busan for obvious reasons, and a single point of contact will only snap, tear a chunk out of Kraken, or tear whatever it's attached to."
Candy      "You can give me all the hands you want, Cantio.~" Having made this comment with his arm still wrapped around Ishirou, and riding on only the thinnest amount of plausible deniability, he hands her the blueprints so she can take a look herself. "I got materials covered, and we can start whenever you're ready."

     He answers Bota's question, nodding in agreement with Ishirou.

     "It's hard to tell exactly what Rita's doing, sometimes, and she's real good at using that as a weapon. Plus, seems like she's always picking up new tricks, too. She does great, out there."
Petra Soroka     After settling down from her brush with death (Red Giant talking to her), Petra watches Lilian with rapt attention. She's genuinely, purely awestruck, by the efficiency and authority Lilian commands when delegating, the overwhelming aura of competence that she displays. She is so enthralled by it, in fact, that she briefly forgets to be weird and mad, nodding and thoughtfully volunteering help.

    "I'd be happy to help with scouting and repairs and stuff. I'm, not going to be much help with building additions and stuff unless directed how, but I have experience patching up." She's nodding along, always happy to be told what to do.

    How strong is Rita...? Petra considers the question for a moment, but as the others' glowing assessments of her power filter into her ears, she shakes her head and effortfully ignores them. She shouldn't be thinking about this. Just being here feels dangerous, like it's a betrayal of trust, but how could she not want to help?

    "A harpoon...?" Petra latches on to Hibiki's suggestion with some excitement, "We'd need to attach it to something, right? Something that Kraken couldn't just drag around, or break. So why not fire it from the Kana? That way it wouldn't be able to go anywhere."
Ishirou "Kana can't hold down a whole sea monster by herself!" Ishirou says, still being huggy with Candy. "I mean, she looks really strong...and dangerous, but not /that/ strong and dangerous.."
Petra Soroka     Petra blinks at Ishirou in confusion, then her eyes slide down from his face to Candy's arm wrapped around his waist. "Um. Ah. Mmm?" Her face flushes just a little pink.

    She tears her eyes away and looks at Kana (woman), uncomprehending for another moment longer. "Oh. Right! My mech's nickname is the Kana. It's short for Ekanamsha. S1. I guess I should call it that instead, here."
Ishirou Ishirou completely missing the blush and look at the mutual arm wrap, "Why not just call it the S1?"
Rita Ma      Candy's question gets Huorong frowning. "How much does the garden count for? Not a whole lot. This used to be for the upper class only. Now it feeds everybody, but right now that only goes so far. Nine-tenths of your food still comes from the ocean, but you get potatoes and carrots for the nutrients now and then."

     "Think of it as an, uh..." He uncrosses his arms to gesture vaguely. "Dietary supplement. And a boost to morale. Why? You think you can do better than that?"

     "Bureaucracy," Kana repeats after Kale. She looks to Bota. "I'm delegating that to you." "No, wait! Hey! Can't you find someone else to-" "It'll build perseverance." Bota looks absolutely stricken, then visibly relieved when Ishirou volunteers to help. "You're a lifesaver."

     The artificial Warpgate shudders and sparks a little with the volume of Cantios and Cantio-bots passing through, but holds. "How long do we have? A couple of weeks before we reach New York, and then you'll have more urgent things to be doing. Anything you can do in reinforcing the hull or setting up those decoys, we'll appreciate it."

     "Real blood would be better, I guess. I think they mostly go off smell. But where are you getting that?"

     Ishirou's scanning can find multiple stress points on the hull, several places where the power grid is uncomfortably centralized and vulnerable to attack, and a few inadvisably-unsecured fuel tanks, all of which could constitute 'weak points'. Some of them could be fixed via Lilian-funded overhaul, but others are integral to the ship's design; he can ping those ones for warding.
Kale Hearthward > "Decent at a coarse level. We need something that functions on the ground floor too. Assigned cells and backup cells, with most survival stuff covered in the skills they've got. It's how my crew always made it through everything. You can do a lot from the top down, but only so much. Gotta put people together from the ground too, if you're gonna get anything done."

"Yeah, and the top down has worked out just fine for me so far. That's all we've ever needed." Kale puffs up a bit. "And you're gonna tell me how to do my-"

He pauses.

He looks around at the ship around him.

He, very visibly, swallows his pride. This is not about him, right now. This is not the time to be Old Kale.

"... Well, I wasn't trained on that approach," he says. "I know the top down, and I know how it works, so unless you want to run me through the ground-up, that's what I got."
Rita Ma      Huorong's big eyebrows lift when Tamamo shows off the disks. Unfolding the 'thermos' he's holding in the same way, he holds one of them up to the light, scrutinizing it with squinted eyes. "And that's all? It doesn't take power or anything?" The burly mechanic slaps Stanley on the shoulder, handing him the container of wards, and points to Ishirou. "Here. You said you're fast? Go put these where he tells you to."

     "A shrine maiden's outfit..." Kana repeats idly. "I don't know what that is, but it needs to be waterproof. And provide full freedom of movement without significant drag. That's non-negotiable. If you can do that, I don't see why not." "There is a mens' version, right?"

     "But explain the 'cost' to me first. Not that we have much room to bargain."

     Boss Huorong pulls out a pencil and a notepad from his belt and starts jotting down Lilian's suggestions. "Deck guns are hard," he says. "Corrosion means the old type of ammunition all went bad. The needle-guns we use now work fine, but they're hard to scale up. It's not practical to make them bigger than man-portable. All our big guns now are flamethrowers. You got any other ideas for weapon types?"

     Kana gets up from her bench, finally, to take a couple of steps in Shimmer's direction. She seems suddenly quite serious. "It's not," she says, "a challenge. You're younger than me, aren't you?" Kana looks to be mid-to-late thirties, herself.

     "Maybe you know this. Maybe you misspoke. But the people who see it as a 'challenge', as a chance to prove or sharpen themselves, are always the ones who die first. No fight is a chance to do anything but survive."

     She's abruptly distracted from that conversation by Petra piping up. "I'm sorry. From the what?" "Well, if it's a big harpoon you need, I think we've got something that'll work down in the scrapyard. Take a look later."

     Bota doesn't seem at all comforted by the general consensus that Rita is 'pretty strong'. Kana knows why without asking; they share a tense glance. "That's... bad, then. I was kind of hoping you'd say she doesn't amount to much out there. Because we can't expect the Queen to be anything less than 'Rita, but bigger'."

     Absolutely terrifyingly, when Ishirou says that Kana can't hold down a giant sea monster, Kana casually purses her lips and visibly thinks about it. After a moment, she concedes: "Not in the water, no." Jesus.
Sleek Shimmer     A... thumbs-up? Shimmer is actually shocked. Someone is actually happy to talk with her for once. Her expression brightens and the smooth, formal composure briefly cracks, she opens her mouth to speak - then promptly clamps it shut again, inhaling steadily.

    "What... you came here, you've heard everything we're up against... I'd HOPE you'd believe me..." She ends up staring at him, not entirely certain how to untangle the specifics of those implications. In the end, her face screws up thinking about it too much.
Cantio "A few weeks? That'll be plenty of time to get a lot of things put together, then. Maybe even extra, if we can replenish and add more to this." Cantio nods slowly, seemingly satisfied with the timeframe given. "We should be able to get plenty of those decoys set up to weather the first few waves of whatever comes out to greet us. Any more than that might still be tight at this scale, though." She exhales lightly while looking around the Union Busan's (apple tree grove), then back at Bota when he asks about the blood.

"I've... Got a lot sitting around from other projects. Volunteers, of course, and I don't really have much else to do with it." Only some of that is a lie!

Candy's plausibly deniable statement gets a long stare from Cantio as she opens her mouth to say something, stops to cover her mouth with her hand, opens her mouth again, stops AGAIN when she notices Ishirou not even trying to pry himself off, then just takes the blueprints and starts looking them over. "If you're offering... Ahem. Yeah, the sooner we get started putting all these things together, the more we'll be able to get done before-"

As the planning continues and work is getting closer to beginning in earnest, though, Cantio stops talking abruptly. Her eyes go wide, looking as though she's just had a revelation. "... Wait a minute. All these plans. These... Things we're going to be doing. Candy's bombs, Hibiki's giant harpoon, maybe even Tamamo's wards?" She starts pacing around, looking almost like she's in a trance as her gaze keeps flitting about at different sections of the Union Busan. "Maybe not the wards, if it's something specific to her abilities, but... Putting those things together. Building them."

Clapping her hands together, Cantio's clones start assembling around her, and she starts rambling at them. It's nigh-incoherent with how quickly she's saying all manner of non-words at them in barely even half-sentences, but they all seem to understand. She turns back to the group afterwards, notably at Huorong. "If time, scale, resources, physical labor, all of that wasn't a current problem for the things we need... How big would we want to go with these plans?"

She doesn't explain anything yet, but Cantio's expression and tone are absolutely oozing with confidence. "I will make it happen."
Redshift Operators     The gruff fellow steps to Kale when Kale starts getting into That Mood. He crosses his arms and narrows his helmet's optics, puffing up his own chest a bit...

    But, Kale offers a mature concession. So the man grumbles and mutters a little, before his friend, the astronaut, speaks properly. They're, very abruptly, standing behind Kale and speaking before he turns around, seeming to also not care if Kale isn't initially even listening.

    "Back in the Department of Antagonism, holdings could get wiped out any moment. We had 'survival cells', and at least one backup. If everything explodes and command can't tell you what to do, you find your survival cell. You make sure it has someone who can do basic medical work, someone who can do basic mechanical work, someone who can do basic food and water, and someone who can make calls. Best if it's two of each. That's the ground-up approach. If your objective is safe survival for maximum number of people, that's the solution, I think."

    "The Company forbids them now. Too much of a chance of people with grudges coming back to kick your ass if you make a bad decision from the top." The leader of the operators says, arms still crossed, but in a much less heated posture. "So, good to be doing now that we know only good calls are coming from the top, huh?"
Ishirou Ishirou stares at Kana, and nods once.  "Yeah, if we could make land then between you and Lilian this wouldn't be a challenge.  Just a day at the beach, right?  Haha.." he says, and actually believes that.  Stories from Rita and what he's seen himself prove it to him.  "But..." he says with a pause, thinking more and more.  Maybe...maybe he thinks...

Later thoughts.  Thoughts for later.  He's actually glad for the comfort from Candy right now.  

He has to break the comfort for a moment, though.  "Let's see..." he says pointing out locations.  "These would all be considered weak points on the ship.  Some are weaknesses in the superstructure, some are where power lines are too grouped up, and some are where dangerous things are stored.  Now..."

"These are the places that I estimate can't be changed," The number drops, but there are still a few blips around.  "These can't be changed without massively impacting either functionality or efficiency of the ship that we couldn't make back up.  So Stanley, you run there and I'll guide you."

He swaps back to the other's blips, "These are numerous, but not insurmountable.  We'd need time, but it'd greatly make the Busan much MUCH more dangerous versus the sea monsters."

Finally, he nods once to Botan and Kana about the news about Rita.  "Yeah, I know why you asked, or guessed.  This queen would be every bit as dangerous as Rita.  But if we could have Rita here it'd make things much better but...bringing her here would..."

Ishirou shakes his head.  "No, we have to do this so that she can come back here, right?  If we bring her into this then..." he's still not sure.  He feels she has the right to know, but if she knows...then the danger of that might be too much.  

"Well, with the ideas for barbed wire buoyancy traps...and Candy's own ideas for weapons.  It's a major update."
Hibiki Tachibana     "Ah...yeah. It probably wouldn't work on its own," Hibiki admits back to Lilian, rubbing at the back of her head. "I wasn't thinking about what we'd attach it /to/, just that maybe combined with all the other things we'll be doing to restrain it..." She thinks about it for a moment, until Petra chips in.

    And she gets a pretty good chuckle out of the confusion that comes after. Having her be enthusiastic about it helps a lot. "Oh yeah, I didn't even consider your mech! I dunno exactly /how/ big this Kraken is, but we know its huge - if the Kan--...uh, S1 is able to handle something like that, then we can definitely make it happen! Not like it'd hurt."

    Plus, Huorong gives them a starting point, and Cantio is pitching in with her idea for construction too. For the second time, she punches a hand into her palm with some energy, nodding quickly. Truthfully, getting this invested in a very straightforward contribution to dealing with the Kraken helps take her mind away from the thought of dealing with 'Rita but bigger'.

    ...Like Red Dwarf said, it's better to focus on the problem right in front of them first. So she will.
Lilian Rook     If Lilian is surprised by Petra shutting the fuck up and being normal for once, she doesn't show it. From every angle of her body, she exudes the sense that being listened to, agreed with, obeyed, and offered cooperation, is the expected, nigh inevitable default; anything else would be strange.

    "Flight resources are the primary thing we don't have in abundance. Even amongst the Elites we have on-site, it's just myself, Hearthward, Ishirou, and Cantio, that I know of, and we don't have much storage space with us. If you can be a good girl for a little while, we'd welcome Ekanashma air support."

    Lilian immediately raises her voice. "Cantio isn't sourcing real blood." She still remembers . . . well, a lot of things Cantio did.

    Back to Huorong. "It doesn't need to last longer than the Queen operation. You can turn the place back over to farmland or something after." She lightly bites her thumbnail. "I don't know what the recoil tolerances on this ship are. I'd need to ask Ishirou once he's done scanning and have it properly assessed. What I'm concerned with is the possibility where a Devil-class Leviathan surfaces at close range and engages the ship. Turret tracking might be an unacceptable liability if we use something long. It might be to install a vertical launch battery instead."

    "The top deck has open air access to deflect exhaust, and since we're replacing the computers and sensors anyways, we might as well take advantage of it. We can scout targets and long range and have the Union Busan engage a long ranged first strike. Small munitions, solid fuel, aerospace materials, hydrodynamic design to get to combat depth, electric detonation. It'd be expensive, and we wouldn't be able to take that much ammunition with us, but if we run up against a massed wave, it'd be ideal to saturation bomb them first, and if the other Devils show up, hitting them with high-powered anti-fortification munitions would reduce casualties and damage on our side enormously."

    "The issue is that I can fund it, but I can't just buy those legally. I may need Candelario's help here. Ishirou may want to apply his expertise with the rescue suit forward too. Perhaps we might even be able to trust Cantio. I'm not a rocket scientist, or an aerospace engineer; I'm just trained in synergistic maneuvers with heavy artillery. If we can manufacture enough ammunition to get us through this, then the launchers would have a minimal footprint, and could be torn out for scrap and repurposed into whatever the community needs after we're done."

    "Well, that's a capstone goal. Most of our targets will be eminently killable with machine guns and recoilless rifles. Overlapping emplacements come first, so we don't have volunteers with small arms leaning over the rails. There's only so much perimeter even the Busan has to approach from."

    Lilian breaks from the semi-enjoyable task of theorycrafting expensive naval retrofits with a resigned sigh at Bota. "I knew the minute you asked. I won't change my assessment. My hope is that the Queen lacks the combat experience and lateral intelligence that Rita has by now. If it relies on raw power over tactical cleverness, we'll have a much better shot at it." She thinks for a second, then says, "I'm confident in my ability to deal with a bigger, stronger, dumber Rita."

    Lilian's eyes shift sideways at Kana qualifying 'in the water'. She focuses on Kana, and something about her expression shifts, as if she's carefully listening to music, or scanning a page for a specific detail. A few seconds later, she makes a soft noise under her breath, bites down on her thumbnail, and breathes something like 'Jesus Christ'.

    "Let's see the maps. I'd like to pick somewhere along the route to Union New York to intercept Kraken. It'll weigh favourably on our side in negotiations if we can show that we've already taken out one of the Seven Devils."
Tamamo     'And that's all? It doesn't take power or anything?'

    "Oh, I suppose... after a hundred years, some would begin to fail, perhaps? I could teach you the means of maintaining them, should it come to that." Tamamo says this as if she hadn't thought of it until this moment.

    There's something written one one side of each disk, but it's burned into the wood, faintly, beneath the laminate. Difficult to make out in detail and not possible to feel, but it's definitely neither Latin nor Hangul.

    The burly mechanic slaps Stanley on the shoulder, handing him the container of wards, and points to Ishirou.

    Tamamo obligingly hands several such containers over, keeping one. If any empty containers are returned to her, she'll refill them from the one she kept.

    'A shrine maiden's outfit... I don't know what that is, but...'

    "Oh, Lilian might show you hers. As for your own, some adjustments may be necessary, but the the only materials that cannot be easily substituted can be made as fine, linked wire." That shouldn't be any problem.

    'There is a mens' version, right?'

    Tamamo has to think about this for slightly too long to not fan flames of worry. "Some adjustments may be necessary," she repeats.
Stanley Padgett     Stanley helpfully shuffles around on his phone while others are doing the big planning, but does look over to Lilian again with a smile. A small compliment, but he'll take it anyways. The young man is radiating helpfulness as best he can.

    But what Stanley is pulling up is... Modern Shinto priests robes. Tasteful cuts. Something from a costume supply chain, so not... precisesly authentic, but good enough for government work. He shows the phone to Tamamo. "...These... might work, if it's not a 'maiden' thing." He blinks. "I'm still working on the magic, but I'm sure you can find... uhhhh, pure souls on the fleet to man your defenses."
Stanley Padgett     But Stanley's been handed a crate of seals, and he plucks up his phone again. "Right! Just keep up with me, Ishirou! I'm sure you can!" He tucks the device back in his poncho for Ishirou to track, snags some of the wards to put in his messenger's bag, and then...

    He tucks into a runner's prep stance, plants his feet... and is GONE. Granted, those with proper senses can probably track his movements, but he's booking it along the Busan now, getting a chance to see the place... at high speeds, teleporting around.
Candy >If time, scale, resources, physical labor, all of that wasn't a current problem for the things we need... How big would we want to go with these plans?

     Candy smiles knowingly. "They won't be near as much a problem as they usually would. Not with everybody we got here. Between me, you and Lilian, we got money and everything it buys. Little handsome here is good with the numbers," he says, taking his hand from Ishirou's waist to ruffle his hair. "And knowing where to put what. The spacefolks know how to get people working together, and Kale can deal with the polished table people... if we absolutely gotta get them involved." It's mostly joking.

>Lilian: Anti-fortification munitions

     "Sure, sure, Irish," he says, grinning, giving a thumbs-up. "I'll help with that. Do it smiling big, too. I love things that go boom."
Candy      On the topic of food, Candy rubs his chin. "Well, Boss... no. Not really. Not if it's mostly for morale--not if you guys are getting most of your food from the water. But, I tell you what I *can* do."

     He blinks, then giggles. "Haha, 'can.'" Into his waiting hand there appears one can of corn. "I can just *give* you guys the canned food, ah? Won't be as, ah... what's the word. Sustainable, as growing it yourself, but these keep for a while, and it's easy to store lots of 'em, and if you guys run into a dry patch out there, they'll hold you over."
Tamamo     'But explain the 'cost' to me first.'

    "Allow me to explain, then, in such words that I can, and forgive that I must seek out manners in which to describe that which cannot be easily seen." Tamamo says, continuing, "In offering you this, I bind our fates together, yet the weights upon those threads are unbalanced. There are several methods to redress this imbalance, of which I shall explain the one most useful to our present circumstance, emphasizing lasting stability. Do not mind that it be unequal, for I speak of exchanges, but not of transactions."

    One would presume that the sort of tone she's using and the subject matter would require being dressed in something other than a finely fitted wetsuit. Something like, say, a golden headdress with trailing bells, a golden collar of three broadening bands, and flowing robes. One would be wrong, as Tamamo carries the ability to project the appropriate atmosphere as a natural part of her being, to be purposefully hidden, rather than requiring purposeful use. Perhaps it's those shining, golden eyes that mean she doesn't need anything else. The way they draw attention is magnetic, and almost dreamlike. She pops into focus on viewing, and burns in one's peripheral vision.

    "First, there must be the construction of a shrine, for a shrine maiden must have such a thing. I shall write you a series of steps that must be taken, and an item that must be kept there, held in secret. If a step is not written, you may decide as best your wisdom allows. This place will allow for the binding of contracts, a power I shall thereafter delegate to those of your choosing. I shall present you a list of promises, and the keeping of these will satisfy the obligations placed upon you. To keep a promise is to remain faithful, and by this a balance is maintained, in providing service according to my wishes, as contained within our agreement. Should a promise be broken, a string will snap, the line striking they who broke it, returning a curse in exchange for the blessing forsaken."

    Tamamo's smile expresses quiet confidence. "This I give to you frankly, that you should know the conditions necessary to bring the power of the Sun to be one that appears wheresoever you should call it. I expect you to act forthrightly and in good character, for that is the sort of woman you have, within my sight, shown yourself to be. Likewise, I shall ask that you trust me to request nothing of you that is intolerable."

    Stanley brings up some pictures of priest robes, drawing Tamamo down to more concrete concerns. "Oh, my, how modern, though the simplicity is, still, as I expected it would be. There is a bit more more I would do, and I would prefer finer tailoring... yet, I suppose it is time that is in limited supply."

    Thinking about the logistics, she says, "Lilian, might you set aside some funds for clothing? I shall supply the important parts and instructions for such modifications as are necessary. We may distribute the work of measurement and the assembly to those who shall be wearing the clothing. In gathering all of the answers and relaying them between man and tailor, as this seems a matter of handling stacked papers, perhaps Ishirou will need set aside only a small amount of his attention to seeing it done."
Petra Soroka <J-IC-Scene> Petra Soroka says, "THE GOOD GIRL FROM LILIAN LETS GO"

    That's not canon. Petra does, maybe, twitch a little bit, though.

    She's eager enough to provide valuable help that she even ignores the low-level radiation of being talked down to! "I'll definitely bring the Kana--er, the S1-- next time, then. Are we planning on going out to take care of Kraken sometime in the next few weeks? Before reaching the, um, floating New York."

    Calling it the S1 feels a *little* wrong, for reasons Petra struggles to articulate. The "Kana" is starting to feel like something that's hers, bit by bit. She can grow into it, have her edges cut down and crushed to fit. The "S1" is pure militant efficiency, a designation for battle, a role to perform. But, really, that's what the Ekanamsha is purpose-built to be. A weapon, not a girl's heart.

    Petra brushes her hair back behind her ear, shifting in place uncomfortably. There's nowhere good to direct her thoughts, surrounded by talk of battle, Lilian in a shrine maiden's outfit, and Rita's relationship to the Queen.
Rita Ma      "What do you mean, if all of that wasn't a problem?" Huorong rubs the back of his head, visibly perplexed by Cantio. "That's sure some kind of wishful thinking. But if I were asking for a miracle, I'd say... Hey, Jiho. C'mere. How would you rig this up?" He beckons over one of the garden's visitors, a fresh-faced mechanic. Then the mechanic calls in one of his friends, and then she calls in another friend, until it's a big huddle. They all spend a few minutes hammering it out.

     After doing a bunch of quibbling and scribbling on the map, Huorong finally presents a finished-ish blueprint to Cantio. "There. That's absolutely everything we could do without a dry dock, and there's no dry-docking anymore. That's Lilian's missiles and emplacements, Candelario's mines, your decoys, Ishirou's fixes, Tamamo's 'wards' and space for a shrine, the total refit, all of it. Now, how come? What do you need that for all of a sudden?"

     "'Some adjustments'- I'm *really* not sure I ought to wear this," Bota groans despairingly. "If it helps you stay alive, you will." "Kana!!" "Oh? It's starting to sound like you need a refresher on humility." "Ghhh... oh, actually, that doesn't look half-bad, Stanley. Kind of cumbersome, but dignified, you know?" "Hmmm."

     Kana is, quite obviously, not well-versed in spiritual matters. But as Tamamo explains, she looks intently receptive and only slightly strained, in the manner of one trying very hard to understand and nine-tenths succeeding. "It requires certain rituals and devotions to maintain it, or it decays. I think I get it. It's dangerous to be asked to promise things that I don't yet understand. But you've all had chances to extract things from our need, and been generous anyway. I can trust in that generosity, Tamamo no Mae. Thank you."

     Stanley, on his delivery boy journey, discovers that the Union Busan is quite difficult to traverse. All the moreso when reaching not-meant-to-be-reachable locations on its exterior as fast as possible; more than that when all the surfaces are rain-slicked, and even more when it's dark out. His parkour can probably manage it, but it's still a harrowing tetanus-riddled obstacle course.

     When Candy conjures up the can, Huorong's eyebrows try to climb his forehead. "I'll be damned. You really are miracle-workers," he murmurs, touching the can just to make sure it's solid. "And how many of these can you give us? I'm sure we've got the space."

     In Hibiki's direction, Kana says casually: "It's much bigger than Kentrassi or Genod were, and they were at least fifty meters. So call it a hundred." To Lilian, she adds: "It's more than our reputation. We'll be lucky if the Queen doesn't use all of the Devils against us at the end. If we can kill it now, we won't have to fight it later."

     Only at the end of Lilian staring and chewing her thumbnail does Kana seem to notice. With total, scary innocence: "Is something wrong, Lilian?"
Cantio Lilian claims Cantio's blood stock isn't real, and Cantio doesn't correct her. Instead, she just nods slowly while quietly mouthing 'it is'. That might not be as reassuring as she'd hope.

"Aerial combat's something I can definitely do, too, once we've moved on from production active combat. Focused damage at range, too, since..." There's a moment where Cantio holds her hand up, but puts it down shortly afterwards as she quickly realizes that a demonstration of light magic might not be the best thing to do in here. Instead, she pivots back towards flight itself!

"In fact... While we're talking about that. If we need more combat-capable fliers, I have something that can help with that, too." Opening up her attache case of shrunken stuff, she takes out something that looks like a shitty plastic hula hoop. "These hover-devices are designed for civilian use at low max speeds, but I could ramp up production of modified combat-ready models that don't have the same limiters on them. There'll be a training phase, of course, but we should have plenty of time between then and now. Working out the less pressing details after we've resolved this situation."

Candy catches on to what Cantio's been alluding to, and she cracks the slightest of grins. "Exactly. If materials aren't an issue and physical skill isn't an issue, we'll have as much of everything put together as we need well before it's time to start." That, along with Huorong's sudden confusion and calling of the great mechanic huddle winds up being Cantio's cue to finally reveal her plan.

"I'm glad you asked!" She replies while holding her hand out to her left. There's a light gleam in the air, and then one of the bombs in Candy's blueprints drops into her waiting hand. She has a little bit of trouble catching it thanks to the thing's buoy-like shape, but holding onto the rubber safety ring means nobody has to worry about her accidentally detonating right then and there. "As long as we have the plans laid out and an idea of where the materials can be sourced for building everything we need, we'll be set long before it's time to move. It'll just be easier to do this closer to where everything needs to be."

One of the clones takes a picture of where Cantio's standing with the bomb. "We just need to keep an accurate enough count of how many of these we make so we can send back enough once everything's finished. I don't know what'll happen if we don't, and I don't want to find out. Either way, we should have plenty of time for training, conditioning, and non-stuff preparation once this gets sorted out."
Ishirou Ishirou places a hand on the shoulder of Bota.  "So the sea monsters really seem to be weak to Ms. Tamamo's powers of the sun, so if it gives you guys an advantage...well, I'm sure it's worth wearing a nice-looking outfit for, right?  Don't worry about it," Ishirou says, because /he's/ not the one having to wear it.

Ishirou looks over what Tamamo wants and nods.  "Yeah, I can work that in.  I'm going to be up for days working on paperwork.." and yet unlike anyone else, he's smiling!  He wraps an arm back around Candy's waist and uses one hand to start typing things, while also guiding Stanley.  

"Mm.  You didn't just get in on this to have an excuse to spend time with me, eh?" he asks Candy, and gives him a kiss.  "Well, I'm happy to at least spend time."