United Nations Spacy Lieutenant Commander Miriya Parina-Sterling emerges from the elevator. Other men and women in business suits walk along the hallway, situated between a wall and a window. She glances out through the window. From there, the commander can see across the East River into the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York, tall skyscrapers rising from the ground. The battle damage from the war five years before had almost all been repaired. Then again, there had been at least something to repair, in contrast to many other places which were reduced to smoking craters.
Miriya steps inside a ladies' room. Looking at a mirror above a sink, she checks her uniform of the day- in this case, a Class "C" summer uniform, consisting of a white blouse and white skirt, the typical service uniform worn during the summer, which it is in New York City. After making sure the ribbons pinned onto the blouse are all in order, she leaves the room.
She sits on a leather sofa in a hallway just a few feet from a pair of double doors. Two blue-uniformed guards stand by the doors; they are armed with batons and M-9 Beretta semiautomatic pistols. The commander is preparing to debriefing- not at U.N. Spacy headquarters or even United Nations Supreme Command Headquarters, but at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York.
Dana should be with Max and Rick at Times Square by now, she thinks. Well, this is where I hurry up and wait.
And so Miriya waits for about an hour. And then the doors open and a lady in a suit walks out.
"Commander Sterling," says the lady. "They are ready for you."
"On my way," replies Miriya. She walks through the two doors. Inside is a huge room with a huge glass booth. Inside the glass booth is a long-U-shaped table with people sitting around in various types of outfits, some civilian, some military. The commander suspects the booth is used to disrupt electronic communications.
She walks inside the booth, standing at attention. She had been informed that she would be debriefing the United Nations Joint Chiefs of Staff, other military commanders, and members of the United Nations Security Council.
Miriya recognizes some of the people in this booth. One of them, a red-haired, grayish-skinned man wearing a blue cloak over a purple coat, is Minister Exedore of the Zentraedi Nation. Another man, wearing a short sleeve khaki shirt with plenty of ribbons pinned on the left side, is United Nations Space Marine General Victor Maistroff, the commander of the Robotech Expeditionary Forces Command, a unified combatant command that handles deep space exploration and combat. Sitting near the center is man with oliove-complected skin and a thick back moustache, wearing a white collared shirt with shoulderboards on the shoulders and many ribbons pinned to the chest; he is United Nations Ocean Patrol Admiral Bruno J. Calavicci, the Supreme Commander of the United Earth Forces.
And sitting in the center of the conference table is a dark-haired man with a thin moustache. He wears a tan felt vest.
From pictures and news broadcasts that she had seen, Miriya recognizes him as Tokhtamysh Borjigin, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and her commander-in-chief.
"Your Excellency," says Miriya, "Lieutenant Commander Miriya Parina-Sterling, reporting as ordered, sir."
The Secretary General looks at her for a few seconds.
"Welcome, Commander Sterling," he says. "Please note that what you say in this booth stays here. Let us begin by you telling us what happened on that tiger cruise aboard the Tokugawa," he says.
