Project: "Matsuda's Bloom" - A discovery to change everything.

[~Sisters of Light~]

BAFFIN SYSTEM, THE FIRST FOUR HOURS AFTER THE JUMP

Protective layers of Raitoningu's powercore, bulkheads, Blossom's shields and hull plating deflected or scattered most high energy particles that coupled with matter strongly enough, and what didn't interact with matter enough couldn't harm Savannah much either. Her fighter was facing directly away from the carrier at the time, adding structure of her ship, engines and equipment between herself and deadly raduation the blasted powercore emitted during the last moments of its life. She still had her helmeted flight suit and armor-adornment on. It's distance from the carrier Savannah lacked. If she had had a few more seconds, the number of particles which hit her body would have decreased by an order of magnitude. Damage was done. She had survived through worse but invisible enemy was the worst one. Every fighter had an emergency med-kit. Even as Savannah set course to the nearest Zoner installation, she found the needed ampule and injected herself a syringe to suppress chemically active radicals which were starting to form in cells of her body.

While in flight, Savannah prepared a report for the Sisterhood. Which she sent as soon as she reached a comm station on the station. Time was of essense. Contrary to FTL signals which suffer only minor delays as they travel through the network of relays, jumpgates, jumpholes and especially jumpdrives cause significant time lag, a natural phenomenon arising from the difference between proper time and time measured by an outside observer in highly non-linear configurations. Factors influencing the exact value of time lag are many and generally hard to account for. Whereas jumpgates and jumpholes are predictable due to stationary character of their connections, jumpdrives with their stochastic behaviour are often subject to statistical analysis. Without any data available, sheer distance from Baffin to Chugoku was a good guess that Savannah's report should reach the Sisterhood before the Satsuma emerged at its destination.

AINU DEPOT, SIX HOURS AFTER THE JUMP

When Aimi Amaia received the report from Savannah, the Council of Elders was immediately convened. The news were shocking. A sister with unique skills and experience died, the most valuable vessel in possession of the Sisterhood was lost together with rare and expensive equipment. The Satsuma was found indeed, but unsurprisingly the vessel had seen better times. At the time of the jump its powercore was giving out less than one-fifth of its nominal power at best and required extensive repairs or likely a complete replacement. Engines were intact but with the powercore in such a miserable shape they weren't expected to perform well if started, and that would likely result in further degradation of the powercore. Weapon systems were partly operational, shields were gone, though structural damage to the hull was reasonable.

The decision to jump to Chugoku had been natural and sound. However, the recent turn of events was unfortunate, something neither Savannah nor Mi could know about or expect. With a hard heart the Council deemed Blood Dragons unreliable in the situation. And that required immediate action. A patrol wing was diverted to Chugoku and headed to the jump coordinates, additional wing dispatched from Ainu, while Aimi was given a special task.