Welcome to Gaia! ::

When they entered the room Meigan took a seat beside the captian. She hastily took down some notes as the Admiral was speaking, which ended up being a bunch of scribbles with few words that made sense. "Going to Terra IV...Arriving in two hours ahead of main fleet...After command ship's is down then return and get ready for boarding..." Meigan said these to herself and made some mental notes of them for personal reminders. She then stopped taking notes and sat in waiting for engineering's presentation.

(OOC - Technical jargon time mrgreen )

Once she was sure everyone was ready, Kurohime stood up and quickly connected the data pads with the ships specs to the projector.
"Right, this is just a summary of the combat capabilities of the ship and the weapons that will be issued to all members of the boarding party.

To start off with The Battle Hymn is equipped with Meteor type FM Shields, the majority of Drathonian external weapons are unable to penetrate these defenses, according to intelligence, there are only five ships in the Drathonian fleet capable of carrying the weapons that can. Should the main shields fail, there are a series of smaller, weaker deflector shields which take over, both these shield systems can be run together, allowing for partial failures to the main system.

In terms of external weapons, The battle Hymn has twenty DP-873 photon torpedo launchers, with full outfits of ammo. The main external weapon is a Solaris Laser - capable of destroying most ships it come across, however for the laser to be fired, it needs to charge up, which it is currently doing, and the shields need to be dropped for the duration of the shot, meaning it's primary use is in combat with small numbers of ships where we have the element of surprise.

There is also a full outfit of smaller photon torpedo launchers and phasers, however those are primarily for the purpose of dealing with smaller ships, leaving the big stuff to deal with the main threats.
The ship's tractor beam is capable of pulling another ship up to half her size, but that will only be a factor if we need to perform rescues.

Right, personal weapons - Each crew member who will be on the boarding party will be kitted out in full tactical armour minimum. Enforcers will have the upgraded version, which includes bio-mechanical upgrades, allowing for greater speed and strength.

Each boarding party member will have at elast 3 weapons, the EV-47, a light laser pistol, not capable of much damage, but it now comes with an optional sniper-scope, vastly increacing it's accuracy, allowing for the lower damage output to be used most effectivly. Then there is the Dragoon NJ-32 Blaster Rifle, standard issue to all Enforcers anyway, high damage output, reasonable accuracy, but not exactly what you'd call a stealth weapon.
Now most of you will not have seen this before," she picked up one of the other things she had been carrying to the meeting.

"A laser-edged sword, these come in varying sizes and designs, and I know all members of the military know how to use some kind of blade, and the replicators caa easily reproduce all standard designs.
A laser-edged sword is a recent development in melee combat technology, the laser edge cuts through most armour, though it would take a couple of attempts to cut through full tactical armour. These blades are for use in close combat situations and in situations where firing a gun could have serious consequences, the best example is anywhere near an ammo stash, or in Engineering."

As she had been speaking, the data pads had been transmitting the image and technical data for each weapon or defence she had been talking about.

"The team from engineering will also be taking portable shields with them, these are designed to fit over doors and windows to act as a defense if we end up getting trapped in a room and have to break out.
There is a possibility of them being used over entire corridor sections too, but that use has yet to be tested.

And a final note for those on the ship, the replicators are capable of creating all standard weapons on issue to the military and any kind of ammo issued to the military, that includes DP-873 Photon torpedoes, though only the replicators at the launcher maintainance points are large enough to replicate those.
Right, any questions?"

This time, Kai got to answer the question, being in charge of the weapons and armor for his squad, he knew all about them "No, you don't have to have a NJ-32. we have a few of the newer designs which are too complicated for the replicators to reproduce at the moment, the S-Gur aka "sugar" and BR-O "Bro" rifles. Luckily for you, miss Eevane, our squad is one of the lucky ones that gets to play with them. I think you'll want the BR for the boarding though, it's better for those situations" he smiled a bit and looked up to the stage, where Admiral Ceres was once again standing.

***

The Admiral cleared his throat then asked "Any more questions before we release you?" he looked out over the audience, searching for any raised hands or soldiers standing up.

((Hooray for intro post.))

"I do have a question," Tom said, standing up briefly. His expression was unreadable; he'd arrived late, as he'd been busy cleaning his personal Dragoon. He'd missed some of the stuff he didn't need to know, but he had the jist of it; he wasn't an idiot.

"Why aren't we on their ship already?"

"Good," Tom muttered to himself, leaping up to head for the armory to lay claim to a Bro rifle before it was too late.

He got there well within time, joined a short line and was handed the rifle and, at his request, a full eight spare energy packs. He didn't want to run out of ammunition in the middle of a firefight; he couldn't afford that.

Tom would have taken a fighter, but it wasn't his strong point, even though he was competent. He'd just be wasting his life and the resources of the Battle Hymn. Instead, he prepared himself to board the opposing craft they would be encountering within a matter of moments. Adrenaline was already seeping into his bloodstream in tiny bursts, and its familiar energy boost came with it. He checked the rifle for any dirt or damage, loaded his first energy pack, and crouched down next to the rest of his squad, ready to start pounding the Drathonians...

Br-O rifle ammo: 75/600

((How exactly do we board the ship? Are there craft, or does the ship itself dock with the opposing force?))

Meigan rushed as fast as she could without falling to the hanger bay, where she saw her scimitar ship and remembered, I forgot to finish the paint job! Her scimitar was originaly a very flourecent pink colour, but she hated pink on any kind of vehicle so she had started painting it white, but she never finished and had totally forgot about it. Half pink and half white, but in great condition as she had never used it yet. Meigan got into it and started all the neccesary equipment.

In the bridge, the countdown read 0:01:00 remaining till they dropped out of hyperspace. A technician placed locks on all the shuttles and boarding pods, they didn't want those to be destroyed before they were needed. yet another technician was beginning the arming sequences on all the starfighter weapons, and secondary guns and turrets began to charge. The Hymn was humming, all it's generators at maximum to power the initial onslaught. In orbit over Terra IV the Drathonians had just pased their orbital bombardment, they were to recieve supplies soon. Or so they thought.

"Just be careful of it overheating, whilst the damage output is higher than that of a Dragoon, there is a greater chance of overheating." She answered, "But overheating only requires it to cool down, which is why you have more than one weapon issued for this."

She then turned to the rest of the people in the pod, "Our aim is to take over their engineering section, it's only from there we'll have easy access to all their systems, our first priority once there is to shut down their securtiy systems and disrupt internal communications, making it easier for the others to take the rest of the ship.

We'll have to seal ourselves in Engineering until we are certain the ship has been properly taken. When we reach engineering, you are to swap from whatever kind of blaster rifle you are using to either the EV-47 or the laser edged sword, we cannot afford to have a warp-core breach for obvious reasons."
She flipped the data projector eyepiece attached the the armour headset over her eyes.
"Everyone put your data links on, I'm sending the schematics of the ship type we will be boarding, we should be attaching to the ship at this point." she was operating her data pad to show the marines and engineers where they would be getting on the ship. The corridors in this area are narrow enough fro use to set up the portable shields, which happen to be one way, so we can shoot out, but they can't shoot in. While it is close to Engineering, other pods will be boarding at far more sensitive parts of the ship, hopefully allowing us to meet minimal resistance relative to the other boarding parites.
This is the route we are looking to take to Engineering. Depending on security, we might have the luck of running into one of the other boarding parites, which will help out a lot, but we can't plan on that happening.

This pod is equipped with an optical cloaking device. Whilst any sensor that does not rely on visuals can spot us, the aim is to make it harder for them to figure out what part of the ship the pod is attached to once we've boarded."

She suddenly heard the timer:
"10, 9, 8, 7 . . ."
"Good luck everyone, and don't forget, the only good drathonian is a dead drathonian."
"3, 2, 1 . . . Red Alert, Red Alert, all crew to battle stations, battle has commenced!"
Kurohime watched all the fighters take off, and felt the pod move.
This is it! she thought, nerves were starting to get to her, I just have to keep calm, it should be easy, drathonians aren't exactly what I'd call intelligent.