"Here you go," the driver of the jeep said, turning to Senior Airman Samuel Carter, "The 35th Tactical Fighter Wing is based over there," he added, waving his hand to a collection of hangers and low, cinderblock buildings, "Good luck, Buddy."
"Yeah… thanks…" Carter muttered back, grabbing his bags out of the back of the jeep, and stared at the fenced airfield in the shadow of the SDF-1, "I'm gonna need it." He barely noticed as the jeep sped off towards the massive battle fortress, beginning to make his own, slightly slower, approach to the airbase. Great Sam though to himself, watching two of the new fighters he'd been told about through the chain link fence as the guard checked his ID for what had to be the third time Why me? Command gets word about some hot new planes down here and it's "Hey, Sam! How'd you like to go to the RDF?" New squadron, new planes, all over again. I've barely been in my old squadron 3 months, weren't deployments supposed to last 3 years?
"All right, go on through," the MP's voice broke into his thoughts and the gate rattled open. Carter stepped through and turned to the collection of buildings the jeep man had indicated and readjusted his bag's strap on his shoulder. Oh well, here we go again he told himself, setting off for the hangers.
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"Hey, KJ, isn't your other new pilot supposed to show up today?" Lance Corporal Michael Westerman's voice echoed through the hanger.
"Yesterday, actually," Lieutenant Karen Matthews answered, slowly backing out of the access hatch on the side of her VF-1A. She leaned against the side and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand, instead of cleaning the grease smudges off her action left a fresh streak across her pale, cream colored, skin.
"So what happened?" Westerman asked, pausing from his own work for a moment, "Just like the zoomies to leave us one hand short."
"Hey, I heard that you jarhead," Senior Airman Trent Vickers shouted, "Better watch those comments or I'm gonna!"
"Gonna what?" Westerman shouted back, cutting the former Air Force mechanic off with a smile, "At least I got to shoot a rifle during my basic training!"
"Hey, knock it off," Karen interrupted, shining her flashlight back into the hatch and readjusting the mechanic's cap on her head, "We're all RDF now. Anyway, something about Seattle being socked in…" she trailed off crawling back into the innards of the Valkyrie.
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"Hey, this is the 35th TFW, right?" Samuel Carter asked one of the pilots standing outside the hanger.
"You're new here too, huh?" the man replied, shaking his head slightly, "Yeah, you found it. I got in last night and haven't had the guts to go out and get lost yet."
Carter laughed and smiled, extending his hand as far as he dared with all the bags, "Senior Airman Sam Carter, I'm supposed to be in a 2nd Lieutenant Matthews' flight, know him by chance?"
"Oh, the Lieutenant is in there, working on one of the planes," the man said with a slight grin, taking Carter's hand in his own, "I guess we finally meet, I'm Chief Petty Officer Carl Roh, pleasure. I guess we're flying togeather"
Sam nodded and dropped his hand, throwing the man a quick salute before walking into the hanger. Roh shook his head and grinned, "Kid's in for a surprise," he muttered to himself.
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"Huh, oh KJ's over there," Karen heard the half muffled voice drift up into the VF-1A's innards. She had already buried herself into the fighter up to her waist, unable to turn around to see what was going on. Without being able to see out of the plane, Karen turned back to the computer panel she had been reaching for in an attempt to finish her repairs before she was interrupted. She clenched the flashlight in her teeth and pressed in a few buttons on the panel, waiting to see the aircraft's response.
"Ah, damn it all," She muttered around the flashlight as the LED indicators on the panel all flipped off at once, "Now that wasn't supposed to happen…" Karen trailed off, reaching blindly back by her stomach for the aircraft manual as the LED indicators flipped back on, "What in the?" she muttered softly, staring at the readout indicated by the lights, "Well… I guess if it likes then I won't play with it…"
"Lieutenant Matthews, I was told to report immediately, Sir, so… uh… here I am…" another voice echoed up into the fighter. It never ends does it? Karen asked herself with a smile Oh well, at least he showed up before the launching, we have to get the test flight out of the way.
Karen backed out of the hatch and turned to glance at the new pilot, his face quickly flushed red at his first view of his new commanding officer. She shook her head as he began to nervously push back a few stray strands of sandy brown hair in an attempt to not have to make eye contact with her. "Nice of you to show up before the launching," Karen smiled, pulling the uniform jacket on over the tank top she wore underneath, "Come on, we've got a lot to do and not much time. Westerman, take his luggage, you know where it's supposed to go. Vickers, I want the D model ready to go, full combat load"
Carter watched the Lieutenant in surprise as the man she had called to first collected his bags and left the hanger. "Full combat, Lieutenant?" the mechanic asked, "Isn't that a little odd?"
"I just wanna see what our Senior Airman is capable of, besides I don't wanna get stuck with any rookies once we're in space, it'd be impossible for us to get any replacements if he can't hack it," the girl shouted back, "Look, I'm gonna go get cleaned up and show him where to suit up, you've got 15 minutes max."
Sam barely heard the mechanic's reply as he followed the girl from the hanger, his face flushed red at her comments concerning his piloting abilities. "Space, Ma'am?" he asked with a bit of a puzzled look, "I mean I know the ARMD class is deployed but I thought they had all their pilots."
"We aren't going on an ARMD," Karen replied with a sigh, "We're going on the SDF-1" she added, waving a hand to the towering ship.
"You mean that thing can…" Carter trailed off staring at the battle fortress in awe, almost as if seeing it for the first time, blushing again as the Lieutenant's laughter broke into his thoughts. Great, Sam, great… you've been here less than 20 minutes and you're already making a total idiot of yourself.
"Relax," Karen said with a smile, waving her hand as if to dismiss the whole event, "Everyone reacts like that the first time they see it. Well anyway, we need to go get ready," she added, turning towards one of the buildings close to the hangers.
"Um… ready for what, Lieutenant?" Sam asked, hurrying along behind the girl, "No one told me anything beyond, 'They want you to report in right away.'"
Karen shook her head and kept walking, "You gotta do a test flight to be put in as a Veritech pilot, good thing you showed up or we would have had to do it in space. Look, we need to go get suited up for this thing and I need to get cleaned up. Contrary to what you may think I don't like being covered in grease."
"Yes, Ma'am," Carter answered, smiling slightly for the first time since he'd arrived at the small airfield on Macross Island.
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"So your file said you were what? United States Air Force before you were RDF?" Karen's voice echoed over the open top of the wall erected to separate the men's and women's side of the locker room. Out of habit Sam turned to look, instead of seeing his new commanding officer he found himself looking across an empty room to the metal panels hastily bolted to the wall about halfway across the room.
"Yes, Ma'am." Carter answered, reaching for the white flight suit with it's red and gray trim, "Senior Airman Samuel Carter, I was US Air Force strike before this."
"Samuel?" her voice echoed back, over the sounds or running water splashing into one of the sinks, "You don't hear that one much anymore…" Karen's voice trailed off and the water stopped, only to be replaced by the sounds of the girl beginning to change into her own flight suit.
"Well, my friends all call me Sam, Ma'am." He replied quickly, trying to break the awkward silence. Crap, now I'm rhyming… I sound like such an idiot he cursed himself, starting to slip into the flight suit And what in the hell is this? I'm not scuba diving here, this has to be a little tighter than any G Suit I've worn yet… Sam continued to pull on the flight suit, trying desperately to think of anything to say, "Ma'am, do you mind if I ask a sorta personal question?"
"Sure, why not?" was the only reply to float back over the wall, quickly followed by the sound of Karen's flight suit's zipper closing and her locker slamming shut.
"Well, the guy in the hanger called you KJ, but your name… well initials really… it's Karen Matthews isn't it? It doesn't make sense," Sam asked quickly, zipping up his own flight suit and staring around to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything.
"Your helmet should be on the rack by the door," Her voice echoed in the empty room, "And my name, it's Karen Julie Matthews. Someone found it when they were entering data and called me KJ as a joke, I guess it just stuck. Now come on before they just leave us behind."
"Yes, Ma'am," Sam yelled back, quickly shoving the door open and turned to meet the Lieutenant, stopping short as she exited the women's half. Carter suddenly found himself having a sort of new respect for the flight suit, blushing as he found himself staring at the way it hugged the girl's body.
Karen sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, breaking the younger pilot out of his staring revere. "You're gonna dry your eyes out that way," she sighed, motioning down the hall, "Can we get this done some time today?"
"Sorry, Ma'am," Carter answered, feeling like since he'd arrived on the island he'd regressed a few developmental years.
"Don't be sorry, be walking towards the airplane," the girl answered, sending Sam down the hall at a bit of a faster clip than normal.
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"Ok, don't touch anything until I tell you," Karen said, readjusting the helmet microphone before strapping herself into the rear seat of the VF-1D, "I'll be taking care of communications this time up, so you just worry about flying."
"Yes, Ma'am," Sam's voice crackled back over the radio, "I do have the preflight list up here, should I go ahead and start?"
"Go ahead, let's get this done as fast as possible, the ship won't wait for two pilots," Karen answered, flipping the switches to power up the plane's electrical systems to activate the radio. "SDF-1 Control, this is VT 613 from the 35th TFW. We're leaving on our scheduled training flight."
"You're late Lieutenant Matthews," the voice of the SDF-1's aircraft controller answered after a moment, "You'd better get out of the area fast, the demonstration team is inbound and you don't want to be in the way."
"Sorry, Lieutenant Hayes," Karen answered, scanning the airfield tarmac for any other planes on the move, "We'll be on the way as soon as preflight is complete," Karen flipped her helmet's mounted headset back to the internal intercom, "Anytime you're ready, Airman. Try to make it soon."
Why in the hell are there so many systems to check Sam asked himself, scanning the panel again for yet another set of switches to verify I've never seen anything like it. He reached for the final panel and flipped the indicated switches to the proper positions and watched as the gauges climbed into the designated safe zones. "I think we're ready to go, Lieutenant," he said with a final sweep of the gauges.
Karen swept the panel herself, her one year of experience flying the new Veritechs confirming Carter's comment. "Ok then, if no one's coming get us rolling. Just be warned if we crash and die I'm gonna be royally ticked," she replied with a smile, preparing the radio for the necessary communications. As the aircraft rolled down the tarmac towards the runway Karen performed the required tasks for an instructor, checking every movement the pilot made to make sure he wouldn't kill them both. After Carter hit the brakes to leave the VF-1D paused at the end of the runway and began his final control surfaces check Karen hit the radio again, this time switching to the open channels, "Attention all aircraft in the vicinity of Macross Island, this is VT 613. We're preparing to leave from the military airfield on the east side of Macross Island, please clear the area if you're in our flight path." She paused for just a moment as the replies came in over the radio before switching back to the intercom, "Go ahead and get us out of here, just keep your eyes open. It's a real traffic jam and I don't expect everyone's where they belong."
"Yes, Ma'am," Sam replied, slamming the throttles forward sending the Veritech screaming down the runway, the aircraft leapt off the paved strip of earth with a speed and ease that surprised Carter.
"Easy!" Karen shouted, "This thing is more responsive than anything you've even heard of before," she grasped the throttle mounted in the instructor's console and gently moved it forward and back, allowing Carter to get the feel of her more experienced movements through the trainer's dual controls. "The mission navpoints are in the same place as every other fighter, check your HUD and the MFDs, just get us there in one piece," Karen muttered, going back to scanning the sky for stray civilian aircraft.
Sam sighed softly and moved the throttle back to the cruising position, lining up his aircraft with the navpoint somewhere west of the island. "All right, here's the story," Matthews' voice crackled back over the ICS, "You need to get a feel for the Veritechs, and there's a few things we can't show you over a population center. We're headed to an uninhabited atoll about 25 kilometers from Macross Island, well past visual range. Once we get there I'll tell you what to do, most of this is classified so we won't even discuss it till we're at the ops area."
"Yes, Ma'am," Carter answered, staring out the window again, scanning the sky almost as a reflex, "How long till we're there, Ma'am?" Silence was the only answer to Sam's question and he shook his head and glanced around the cockpit again, trying to figure out what the closest aircraft the Valkyrie he sat in now was.
"What did you fly before this?" Karen asked, her voice snapping Carter back to the present.
"F-15s, Ma'am," He answered, "That would have been a little after the global war."
"Take us down to Angels 10," Karen's voice answered, " After the war huh? How long have you been in?"
Sam tipped the nose of the fighter towards the ground, watching the altimeter tick off the lost feet, "Just for the year or two, Ma'am," he answered, trying to pull out of the dive slowly and level off at the indicated altitude.
"The last year?" Karen asked in surprise, "That wasn't any sort of training for a combat pilot, that was a year of burning free gas," she tapped her fingers on the throttle and stared out at the water between the islands, "Let's have some fun, punch it, Airman."
"What? Are you serious?" Carter asked in surprise, "You just told me."
"I told you not to be so rough with the controls, not to be slow, hit the throttles," Karen cut him off, her own sentence ending just as Sam pushed the throttles to the stops and the Veritech leapt forward. "That's more like it!" she shouted, the thrill of speed beginning to get adrenaline pumping.
Sam smiled and , glanced at the indicated speed on the HUD, "Holy shit!" he cursed, staring at the number, "It's up to Mach 2 at this altitude? A… and climbing?"
"Yeah," Karen responded, the tone of her voice showing that the statistic didn't impress her any longer, "It'll get up to 2.7 at this altitude." She went back to staring out the canopy as the first sandy specks began appearing on the blue sheet of the ocean, "We're here, throttle back, we're gonna start by giving you 5 minutes to just play with it, get a feel for what she can do."
"All right!" Sam shouted, the chance to play with a new airplane finally becoming too much for him. His jerk on the control stick pressed both the occupants into their seats with the G-Forces. "Maybe this won't be too bad," he muttered to himself, "I think I'm in love with this plane."
Karen's laugh answered his comment, "Well, now it's time to see if you're worthy of flying it, 2 drones, 4 o'clock, moving to 6, take 'em both."
"Yes, Ma'am," Carter replied with a grin, standing the plane on its tails and flipping it back to take the drones head on.
"Weapons work just like any normal fighter," Karen's voice echoed in his headset, "just line them up and knock them down," her sentence was cut off as soon as Sam lined the first drone fighter up and opened up with the gun pod, shredding the drone apart and leaving it a flaming mass of mechanical parts careening towards the island below. "Good shooting," she said, jerking around to look at the plane's rear, "But the other's plastered to our 6, time to show you what this thing can do, left panel, pull down the switch marked G."
What the hell is that gonna do?
Carter asked himself, reaching for the indicated control and shoved it down, looking around in surprise as the airframe let out a series of clicks and the speed dropped dramatically as the airframe rearranged itself around them causing the drone to pass over the fighter. "What in the?" he started."Shut up, shoot it now!" Karen shouted, the opportunity taking every ounce of her self control to grab the stick and drop the drone herself. Her control paid off a few seconds later as Carter squeezed the trigger, sending a stream of tracers through the drone, sending the second one on the same course as the first. "And now if you'll pull the one marked B we'll go for a walk," she said with a smile, watching as Carter twisted in his seat, staring at the new airframe that surrounded him.
"I think I'm starting to like this plane more and more," Carter muttered to himself, staring at the Guardian configuration his Veritech had rearranged itself into, "If it can cook I'm going to marry it…"
Karen's laughter echoed in the cockpit and the girl sighed softly, "You're sitting in the Guardian configuration, I assume you can see that it's slower? Well you'll also notice the gunpod is now in the hand of the fighter and allows for a wider range of fire and the missiles are still usable. Anyway it still handles just like the fighter so if you'll take us down to Angels 5 we'll proceed."
Sam nodded, even though Karen couldn't see his gesture through the seat . He scanned the sky again and began to pull back the throttles and ease the fighter into a descent. He looked around in shock as the VF-1D shook violently and the space behind it lit up brighter than he thought possible. "What the hell was that?" Karen's voice echoed in his ears, the control stick already moving as she fought the plane back under control. There was a soft crackle in the headphones as the girl switched the radio back open, "SDF-1 Control we've just had an unexplained… hell I don't even know what to call it…" Karen's voice trailed off and a few more pilot's joined her own report.
The only response from the battle-fortress was a few confused radio calls to hold positions and report in. In the back round noise on the bride the captain's voice could be heard talking about a booby trap. "Well screw that," Karen muttered softly, opening the radio channel again, "This is VT 613, we're on a return to base in case you need more pilots. Our mission is successful and you can put Airman Carter in the pilot's log." She flipped the radio off again and sighed, "Take us back to base, kid, oh and congratulations, you're a certified combat pilot."
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Ok, this might be a little short and real light on the combat but I want to see if I can even write for Robotech/ Macross. Most of my other work is with Gundam and this is a real test chapter so any comments are greatly appreciated, mostly if my technical aspects and such are on with official info. I did check the MAHQ and Robotech infopedia but if anyone has better data please let me know. Let's see… now it's time for my usual explanation of the military terms I used. A TFW is a Tactical Fighter Wing for those of you who didn't catch that bit of info earlier on. MP is Military Police, in the way I used it it's the soldier not the whole organization. I chose to combine several services and ranks after a discussion I got into on the robotech.com message boards where we decided with the RDF being a UN organization they probably just used the ranks from the soldier's prior services. Surfaces check is the final thing most pilots do before leaving the ground, it involves moving your rudders, ailerons and elevators to their full extent to make sure they work. HUD is a Heads Up Display and it's the plexiglass (at least I think that's what it is) sheet in front of the pilot that displays altitude, heading, speed, targeting info and other such things right across the field of view. MFDs are Multi Function Displays and they show info about the aircraft's status and GPS readings and the like. Angels is a reference to altitude, for my understating it's a reference to thousands of feet, for example Angels 35 is 35,000 feet. If anyone wants to correct me on that then feel free. I'd appreciate any comments at all and I plan on waiting for a few before continuing with the story in any way so let me hear what you think.