kittyluna45
AlteredTundra
Lucia grimaced as R.R. responded to them. The girl's speech was always so vulgar. But, she was technically ranked above them, so Lucia kept her tongue in her mouth on the matter. And, regardless of her opinion of the girl, R.R. had a proven record in combat; the mission at hand would really only be smoother with her tagging along.
"Very well," she said as she strode over and picked up the backpack containing the new batteries where she'd dropped it before the fight broke out (Writer's Note: *cough*), "Let's continue then. After you, R.R. Kuni, if you could continue scouting... and make sure we're going the right way? Let us be off."
It didn't take long for the first of the two sensor arrays to come into view. The trip there contained no further troubles, any scattered Invaders being scarce if they could be found at all, and nothing at all close to a size or number large enough to be a threat. While they were walking, however, a call came in on the global channel and Lucia called a brief halt to listen to it.
"This is Tian-Gui Jian of Team Afterglow. Our Gunner, Cellica Karris, has gone missing. If you find her, check to see if her comms are working, and reply to us immediately. We will be heading to Point D-4 right now. Thank you, and have a nice day!" That gave her pause. Cellica was missing? Had something happened? Was it possible she was hurt? What if-
Lucia mentally slapped herself. Fretting about this would do her no good, and neither would bolting out into God knows where trying to find Cellica. Her roommate couldn't have gone far, and regardless of that she was still in the middle of a mission. The first step, she reasoned, would be to finish her own tasks. Then, if Cellica still hadn't been found, they could switch to a search and rescue. But nothing good would come from abandoning the current task. So she quickly relayed the information to the rest of Novae, resolved to look deeper at the surrounding areas for a missing Linker, and kept moving. Soon they were at the foot of the array.
"Alright," Lucia said as she laid the batteries down again and took one of them out, "I'll only be a moment. Akari, R.R., if you'd keep watch? Merci." With an almost playful tapping of her heels together she boosted herself up to to the top in a single bound, and quickly made her way to the power hatch. It was really no different from changing the batteries in a smoke alarm or a digital clock, just all the pieces were a bit larger and heavier. She was done in less than five minutes, and soon was leaping off the edge to land on the ground with a heavy thud.
"And that's that," she stated as she put the old battery beneath the second new one in the backpack, "Where to for the other one?"