A new work, or rather an old one. I begun this one in 2012 and for some time it lingered in my hard drive in dire need of a review. Well, the time is now, the review is mostly complete and am now posting these here.

Enjoy

System KTX-1748
May 4th 2048

KTX-1748 was a mostly unremarkable system. It had six planets with potential for industrial exploitation, but nothing outside the norm. Even its star, a red dwarf, was rather uninteresting and disappointingly normal. The only exception to this was the fourth planet, recently named Anatole, a barren rock rich in various ores.

It wasn't, however, the planet itself what was interesting, but what orbited it.

The real prize was the wreckage floating about the system. Perhaps 70 years prior to what was now called Space War I, the Galactic Civil war, a war that had been raging for over 500.000 years, had come to KTX-1748. A Zentradi fleet had clashed with a Supervision Army force in and around the fourth planet leaving countless hulls in the Lagrange points, particularly the L4 and in orbit of the planet. The planet's craters and scorch marks bore witness to a massive orbital bombardment, one on the scale of that suffered by Earth during the latter stages of Space War I.

Battlefields had been found before, but few could match the number of hulks left behind.

To put it plainly, it was a real find.

Admiral Reuben Thomes couldn't help but grin at the report. The UN Space Navy, Spacy for short, was always hungry for hulls, even if they were second hand. Why they had gotten good at refurbishing old hulks into serviceable ships.

Thomes command, the 53rd Autonomous Exploration Fleet, was amongst the smallest standalone forces the Spacy fielded and of those ships the large majority were Northampton Frigates

For him this was not only an opportunity to scrounge intel data on the local Supervision Army and Zentradi forces, part of the reason why he was out here, it was also a chance add to the 53rd's order of battle.

"Currently we have all our survey teams combing the main field at the L4 spot," stated Commodore Vifol Duperiale in her trademark monotone. "They are concentrating mostly on the hulls that match our needs, but I also have a team on the one Nupitiet," she said referring to the only command battleship identified so far. "The hull is a total loss, I fear, but we might be able to salvage its datacore." Vifol was of Zentradi descent, she was a tall woman with viridian hair and an athletic build. Some said she was built like a Zentradi commander and had the disposition to match; though never in her presence.

"Good," Reuben asked "and what about the Supervision Army hulks?"

"I was hoping we could... delay that survey until the convoy gets here." Vifol responded with a hint of concern. Once the fleet had made the find, they had contacted the UN command to notify them about the find; and to request permission to set shop, as it were. Reply had been swift, or at least as swift as possible given their current FTL lag. A large scale convoy was gathering at Proxima and they expected it to arrive within three months. "However, if you wish for me to, I can order the 16th to abandon their current survey, a Quiltra Queleual LST and..."

"It won't be necessary," he interrupted waving one arm. "We better leave that to the Convoy."
Truth be told, Thomes was as apprehensive of messing with Supervision Army derelicts as the next man. It was a dangerous task better left to the professionals. After all, the last time mankind had messed with one without proper care, they had ended up with the near extinction of the species.

System KTX-1748
Hull designated 227, Quiltra Queleual LST
May 5th 2048

It was dark and quiet as a pair of Helot Mk 3 destroids made their way through the abandoned corridors. The Helot was a modification of the Spartan II Main Battle Robot, one of the first generation destroids originally introduced by the UN in 2008. The Helots had been designed for a rear echelon role, and even for the civilian market as hostile environment labor units. Unlike the Spartan II, it carried only a small weapons load, with most of the remaining payload stripped out and replaced with tools and sensors.

'Most' didn't mean all however. They still retained the Anti-air lasers and a low powered laser from the torso gun cluster, though the latter was considered a cutting tool compared to the weapons on the market these days. The pair of Helots was one of the many teams that had been scouring the ship for the last two days. Salvage was a dangerous job, they not only had to navigate through wreckage, but also mark unexploded ordnance for the demo teams and valuable salvage for the retrieval teams that would follow through.

The ship's atmosphere was long gone, and so was gravity control. That meant they had to use their magnetic grapples to move around, slowing their task significantly with the need to navigate around floating debris and other hazards. Surprisingly, there was still some power to the ship but the residual lighting was too dim to be of any use. There was just enough of it to make things look creepier.

In the cockpit of Helot 107 "Devil Dog" Victor Enis was frowning. He had been a surveyor for the last fifteen years, since he got out of the UN Marines, and yet this was the first time he was working on a derelict. It felt a bit too much like grave robbing to him. The ship hadn't looked bad in the outside, but the inside? It was a whole different thing. The hulk full of detritus... 'Detritus, yeah, call it by the proper name old chap,' he thought, corpses, junk, shrapnel, unexploded ordnance and what not. 'A nice clean name for an ugly thing.'

The Queleuals had been designed by the long gone Protoculture to support ground action but they also served as support and supply vessels. Their three kilometer long hulls could dedicate large areas to hangars and cargo holds. Weapon wise it was a bit under-armed, at least for front line combat duty, however for the role it filled a large arsenal of weapons wasn't important. It had just enough to support invasion, provide pinpoint bombardment, and to defend itself. Hull 227 had probably been a supply variant given the large amount of salvage the teams had found so far.

Victor might have had second thoughts about the job, but it was his, and he was going to do it, even if he'd rather be at The Variation enjoying a nice cold beer.

"Well boss, what do you think? Is she worth it?" the radio crackled to life. The voice belonged to Astor Phink, his wingman.

"It better be Astor," he half muttered, "Stores should be worth something at least, there are quite a few reaction warheads back in the last hold"

"Yeah, still, damn what luck," Astor complained, much like Victor, he wasn't too fond of abandoned warships

"Sigh, hey kid, its ok, we will be out of here in a while and be able to hit the Variation for happy hour."

"Heh, sounds good"

"Wait a sec, seems the hatchway to the next stores area is closed," Victor said as he stopped his machine. Zentradi vessels of the same class were all identical no matter where had they been built and the salvage crews had the plans to them all by now. That was one of the lucky breaks for the salvage teams, it meant that they not only knew were their location but where they were going. Of course, battle damage could and did alter the scenario somewhat, but that wasn't the case, at least not this time.

"Huh, yeah. See it. So we call it up?"

"Nah," Victor drawled as he flipped the master arm switch, "we got lasers kid. We'll burn a hole in and then I'll dismount and take a peak." Saying that, Devil Dog, began moving again, this time with a purpose, as the laser pod opened up exposing its weapon to the emptiness.
It wasn't the arsenal carried by its military cousin, but the Astra laser was all that was needed to make swift work, for a certain value of swift, of the closed hatchway.
"Ok, go ahead Victor," muttered Astor.

For his part Enis couldn't help but smile, it had been some time since he had used the Astra Laser, but some things were easy to remember.

"Like riding a bicycle," he whispered, and with that he pressed the trigger.

The Hypercarbon alloy of the bulkhead first begun to scorch and then to melt as the laser unloaded with surgical precision. Slowly, perhaps too slowly, the mark begun to grow and instead of a dot became a line and, eventually, a full circle.

It took twenty minutes to finish cutting a larger than man sized hole in the bulkhead. Victor moved his machine forward and, using his machine's "hands", he retrieved the cut segment and set it to a side where it floated silently while cooling.

"Ok, that took a bit longer than I thought," stated Victor though the radio, "I am going to check my seals and prepare for EVA"

"Roger."

With ease from experience, the Surveyor went over the checklist and then accessed the mecha's survival locker. Most of it was non-applicable for the situation, but the heavy duty flashlight, on the other hand, was a different matter. Especially given how dark it was outside.

With an almost inaudible hiss the main hatch opened, exposing Victor Enis' cockpit to the vacuum. It only took a swift action to undo the harness fastening him to the Helot and then he was in freefall.

"Checking radio, you read me, Kid?" he rasped into his headset

"Loud and Clear, you sure you want to go through with this one, old timer?" came the prompt reply.

"Hehehe, of course," he said with a laugh. Even though he was still apprehensive about the grave robing, he liked EVAs. Plus there was the curiosity of the surveyor in him; this had been the first hatchway he had seen closed, so far, which was strange. One would have expected most of them closed for combat ops. Probably a failure of a subsystem or some such, Victor thought, while Zentradi ships were built to last, sooner or later lack of maintenance would do the trick.

Victor had no manned maneuvering unit, or MMU, but as a seasoned spacehand, Zero G ops wasn't a problem. With a light movement he was free of his couch and of the cockpit and moving, floating, towards the gap he had created. The hole was far larger than what he needed, but it was for the best, really. The edges were still glowing hot and would do so for quite the while. He knew better than to try for a snug fit.

"Ok, I am inside."

While the outside had been in twilight, the inside was pitch dark. No light fixtures seemed to have survived or, more likely, the last Quartermaster had turned the lightning off before leaving the room for the last time.

"So, see anything?" asked the junior member of the team.

"I am working on it," he said as he fumbled with his flashlight. "Oh, there it goes, now let me have a look..."

"Ah, old timer, you ok?" Astor's voice was somewhat hesitant. "Victor?" he said some time later, using his senior's first name, somewhat nervous.

"Ah, sorry bout that kid, ah, we have a situation," came the reply, an eternity, perhaps thirty seconds, latter.

"A situation?"

"Oh yeah, better contact the higher ups," he said, as he watched the gigantic head of a Meltrandi, a female Zentradi, floating peacefully in a, as far as he could tell, very active stasis chamber.

Admiral Reuben Thomes looked at the report with a degree of disbelief and the hint of a coming headache.

"A full regiment of Meltrandi on ice?" he half murmured. Reuben had expected complications when he ordered the salvage operation. Complications were part of the deal, but he anticipated unexploded ordnance, or having to decide which hull would be salvaged first. Moral issues weren't included or expected.

"We need to defrost them," Commodore Duperiale said matter-of-factly.

"That we do, but I am more concerned about the how we go about it. This fleet has no miclone chamber and we don't really have the amenities to accommodate full sized Zentradi," he said with a sigh. "Still it does solve the issue on which ship we will be salvaging first"

"Silver lining?"

"I'd say. And once we have restored atmosphere to that hold we can see about defrosting them," he scratched his chin, "In the mean time we will be moving the fleet to the L4. Dispatch the Fortune Eight," he said referring to the Fleet's lone Tristar industrial vessel, "to dock with the Queleual. Have the Yardships and Whales stand by, I'd rather have them work on Quelamitz monitors. Contact the Whales and see if they can fab us a miclone chamber as well. They should have the schematics."

"Understood."

"So... any other news?"

"That is about it, Sir."

"Then I shan't take more of your time," he said, dismissing the Commodore.

With an exchange of salutes Vifol Duperiale left the room and Reuben begun rereading the report. It was going to be a logistical nightmare, not to mention they were going to be dealing with programmed clones. He was going to have to talk to Dr. Fraga, maybe she could do something about the Protoculture's mental programming.

Their programming could be broken, that they were alive now was proof of it, but he didn't have much maneuvering room unlike, say, a colony fleet. More to the point, the breakdown of the programming, their ace in the hole during the war, had led to aberrant behavior, renegades, rogues and pirates, from both Zentran and Meltran, which were still a blight within some of the UN territories.

Doctor Elizabeth Fraga was the Fleet's senior scientist. She was short and well past middle age, her hair, once platinum blonde, was now mostly white but she was still vigorous and more than a little peculiar. She also had a shark like grin, but that was mostly situational. It wasn't everyday her boss asked her to try something new. The Spacy had dabbled with clones before, with the parentless generation following SWI, but not with the imprinting, at least not in the way the Admiral was asking.

During the decanting of the parentless generation, the clones had been imprinted with some knowledge, but there had been no time to waste raising children. There was too much to do during those hectic years and the clones themselves had been adults, or of adult development. This was different, this was changing, or rather fine tuning, an existing template into something more malleable. It was skirting morally questionable ground, maybe more than that, but a regiment of Meltran warriors required a very careful approach.

"Oh, I can do it, no doubt about it, the question is, Sir, what are we going to overwrite it with?" Dr. Fraga asked.

"Nothing too drastic," said Thomes as he scratched his chin, "We need them to understand freedom and emotions, Elisabeth. Maybe even social nuances, but nothing of enforced loyalties." he said with a certain finality, "We are going to walk a fine line as it is."

"It won't be easy, Admiral."

"No, it won't but we aren't paid for easy, Doctor. Besides, we have time to spare, or at least until the convoy gets here."

System KTX-1748
UNS Freeman J. Dyson
May 14th 2048

The Advanced Macross class Freeman J. Dyson (SDF-37) was the heart of the 53rd. She, like most of her class, had been built following a derivative of the SDF-2 specifications, before command had decided to turn the unfinished hull into Megaroad 01.

Larger and more massive than the original Macross it was based on, it lacked New Macross levels of redundancy and modularity, but it made it up with a lower construction and operations costs

Sometimes called Macross Plus variant, the ship was more than capable of leading a fleet and carried inside a small civilian enclave and an industrial sector capable of producing most forms of Variable Fighter and Destroids, or the needed parts to keep its own compliment up and running.

She was also in a very bad situation.

"Status!" barked Admiral Thomes as he entered the combat information center

"Unknown, Sir. Defold activity started at 0400," the watch officer stated, "and hasn't stopped since. We count at least five thousand hulls so far, that is five, zero, zero, zero hulls, all of Zentradi design and IFF."

Reuben Thomes could see the holoscreen dominating the room, in it the representation of the system was marked with angry red spots somewhere near the L2 of the second planet, Kest, where the Zentradi force was still appearing.

"Have they detected us?"

"No, not yet," came the reply.

"Good, let's keep it that way; we will remain in the debris field so far. Assign Azure and Viridian as pickets and have them keep an eye out for us." He paused a second to analyze the data before him "They appear to be forming onto a fleet, but there's nothing on Kest for that."

"We haven't surveyed these planets at any real depth, sir," Duperial added in her own monotone.

"True," he admitted as he continued to watch the ships appear, "we prioritized the debris field, perhaps a bit too much..."

All told, it took a half hour for all the vessels, some 15.000 all told, to materialize in and around the L2 spot for Kest. after that they began moving in a tight formation towards said planet.

"Very Strange." stated Vifol Duperiale

"Agreed. They seem to be expecting battle and soon." he turned towards the watch officer. "What do you think, Commander Abramson?"

"I agree sir," the watch commander responded, "the formation seems to be Claw Blue, not only they are expecting trouble, they are expecting an overwhelming problem." Zentradi tended to go into battle with superiority of numbers on their side, most of their tactics centered around that fact, but they did had a few for when things weren't so, Claw Blue was one of these, perhaps one of the most pessimist of them as well. The fact that the Zentradi commander had chosen that formation furthered the mystery. "They are also moving at a very conservative speed."

"So he expects all hell to break loose?" said Reuben while scratching his chin

"That would be my analysis, sir," came the prompt reply from Abramson.

Five hours later, the Zentradi fleet had taken orbit around Kest. Upon reaching the planet's geosynchronous orbit, the alien fleet opened up its formation a bit and then, their monitors opened fire at the planet below.

"They opened fire, just like that!" Commodore Duperiale stated with a tinge of disbelief in her voice that broke her usual monotones, denoting how bizarre things were getting. In a normal situation, the alien fleet would have taken orbit around the planet before unleashing their broadsides, but here they just opened fire as they came into range.

"This is getting surreal. Vifol, you think the Zentradi Commander might be malfunctioning in some way?" asked Reuben.

"I...," she seemed to struggle for the words, "that might be the case but," whatever she as going to say got swallowed by an alert klaxon.

"Fold wave distortions detected," stated the senior sensor officer "Intensity six, no eight. No," Her voice seemed to dry up for a second. "It's off the charts and is also reverberating throughout the system!"

Unnatural was the word unsaid. It was. But that wasn't the real issue.

"We won't be able to fold." Admiral Thomes muttered. Inside he was seething, this was getting ridiculous. "A Supervision Army trap?" he asked his Commodore

"Not a very good trap if it is all there is to it," she said. That was something they had to consider. Even if the fold fluctuations would stop them from jumping out, there was nothing stopping them from slow-boating out of the area of effect. Sure it might take a few months, depending how far the effect reached, but... but it was too easy an answer for the effort it would have been needed to prepare the trap. The energy cost needed to create the number of distortions alone would be simply astonishing.

"No, I reckon you are right," he removed his hat and passed a hand though his hair "Still, contact Fraga, have her detail as much as her personnel onto this. Priority one."

"Understood."

Four hours later, the other shoe dropped. Fraga's people came with the missing piece of the puzzle. It wasn't good news.

"The Sun is going nova?" again it was Commodore Duperiale's voice, and again it was sporting emotion, which was whole new record for her on duty persona.

"At an alarming rate, Commodore," said Dr. Fraga.

"How long?" asked Admiral Thomes, this time it was him using monotone.

"A few days at best," came Fraga's reply.

"Is there anything we can do about this?" Thomes asked.

"Well, there might be something, Sir." There was a hint of a smile on Elizabeth Fraga's face.

"Doctor?" asked the Admiral, somewhat concerned.

"Well, I'll admit that the intensity of the fold waves is considerably higher than anything on record," The Dyson's chief engineer, Tadeus Mitchelson, gave a snort of disbelief.

"That is a real understatement, Doctor," he interrupted.

"Not nearly as bad as you might think Chief Mitchelson," Elisabeth paused, "One of my colleagues, Dr Andreesean, had suggested it might be possible to trigger a fold reverberation such as this one to work as a fold interdictor, as it were"

"That I am aware, doctor, I know who Andreesan is and..." started the engineer before he was cut off by Dr. Fraga

"Then you must be aware he came up with an idea on how to pierce such an interdiction field, from within. A fold within a modulated fold, quite an interesting concept," she said with a certain fascination, "I never thought I'd be in a position to test it."

"How big a hole?" came the Admiral's question.

"Big enough for all of us, I think. I'd have to run some numbers, but given that we are in a Lagrange point ourselves, we should have room to spare. Though," she paused, "it might be a tad more difficult to hit the target location successfully."

"As long as we manage to escape this trap, it should do, Doctor. Chief what do you think?" Reuben said turning towards his subordinate.

Mitchelson remained silent for a minute, before we answered, "It might work, but we might also end up with our insides out. Dr Andreesan's theories are intriguing, though a bit on the theoretical side, at least till now," he rubbed his chin, "then again it's not like we have any other options. At least not within the current timeframe." He turned towards Doctor Fraga, "Doctor, I am going to need Harmonics for the fold drive"

"I will have to work on them, but it should have them within the day," she responded.

"Then we are in agreement," Admiral Thomes stated, "I am clearing all our available resources to work on this one, good luck to us all."

It took two days to prepare the fleet, including moving some of the valuable derelicts inside the fleet perimeter and moving others outside of it. The ships tractored in were too heavily engaged by the salvage ops to fully disengage within the time frame, too important to be left behind, or were the ships already docked with the yardships or the Tristar.

In the end, Dr. Fraga and Engineer Mitchelson had agreed on the Highland class industrial ships as the ones to pull the twin folds. The Highlands, sometimes called Whales, were originally Zentradi LST, but heavily converted once captured. They had much smaller capability than the purpose built Tristars and their built in dock was considerably smaller than their purpose built cousins.

Still, they were also more common and much cheaper than their purpose built cousins. Additionally, the ships' fold drives were powerful, rugged and identical. Left unsaid was in a worst case scenario, the fleet could afford to lose them both. Only skeleton, all volunteer, crews were left within their hulls. The morale in the fleet had taken a plunge, but only so far, most people were busy working for their survival.

Too busy to fret, at least for the moment, thought the Admiral

The Dyson CIC still showed the images of the Zentradi fleet, surprisingly they had kept bombarding the same spot of Kest but had made no other moves.

"Hard to think they've kept the bombardment for the past two days," said Admiral Thomes. He turned towards a holoscreen. "Well Doctor, seems we might yet live though today."

"Posh, don't be such a pessimist, Admiral. All is ready on my end," was the prompt reply. The doctor had chosen to weather the jump from the UNS Detroit Blue, the Highland that was going to pull the second jump. Her clothing was stained and dirty, and so was her hair. It was a rather shocking image compared to the always prim and proper Doctor Fraga he knew, it somehow drove the point of how dire things were.

"If you say so, Doctor. All is ready on your end?"

"Yes, and I have word from Mitchelson, all is ready on his end over the Sao Pablo Gold" Much like her, Tadeus Mitchelson had opted to oversee the final fine tuning aboard the other Highland. It was a bit reckless on their part, but it was also within their duties and it was a morale lift, something the fleet could use. And if it didn't work... Reuben squashed that idea before it could fully form.

"Very Well, then the order is given," he said to the CIC at large, "Commence fold operation."

The holoscreen disappeared as the CIC burst into action. Countdowns begun to flash, and the checklist began to be completed. Reuben Thomes, sat down in his chair and fastened the harness. He had done his part, now he was going to wait the consequences.

"Five minutes to fold. All personnel to their jump stations, I repeat" the PA declared aloud. "Five minutes to fold. All personnel to their jump stations."

And then, an eternity latter, the familiar fold distortions started to fill the room.

In the end, they beat the shock wave by a full six hours.