Freeman Sequels Volume I: Boldly Going?

by Basara549

Set 5 years after the events of "The Freeman Chronicles", this is the story of the first intentional extra-dimensional mission of the Freeman clan. Beginning of a set of events that will culminate in the later fanfics "The Skygate Cycle" and "Tales of Nazgul Squadron", set over ten years later. Has sideways connections to other volumes occurring in same time period.

1. Chapter 1

Author's note: While technically labeled the first sequel, this story and the others I will be posting over the next few months have a lot of overlap. For example, the first parts of "The End of the Innocence" and "The Many Loves of Steven Freeman take place" predate this story, or might even take place during this one (from a different point of view). However, these others are really just collections of intertwined short stories, while this story is more continuous (and, truthfully, the original draft of this predates the writing of the others by 15-25 years, so in terms of writing, it was the first). As I'm still working on the others (and revising this one), I'll be posting this one in sections, 1-2 every few weeks.

Boldly Going...?

The First Voyage of the Dreamweaver

By: Stan Bundy

(Note: Some parts of this story will seem to wander off into odd expositions on Robotech history, that don't seen relevant to the plotline. While they aren't immediately relevant, the events discussed ARE important to the events of the "Tales of Nazgul Squadron" story, as most of these discussions of Robotech history 1999-2022 in here directly impact the events in that universe. Think of it as potential foreshadowing for a universe I hope one day to chronicle...)

2041 (Home universe, departing)

"Activate Fold Engines!" Scott Freeman ordered from the command chair.

"Yes, sir!"

The Dreamweaver crew felt the odd, pulsing, sensation associated with a fold come over them, then stabilize into something similar but obviously different, as the fold broke through the dimensional barrier.

"Noel, what's our status?"

"Between realities. It should last about a minute, before we break into the destination, wherever that might be, unless there's other variables other than going from similar points in different universes."

Several minutes passed.

"Well, I guess our destination isn't close to where we launched from."

"Any idea in which variables?"

"It's hard to tell - time variables tend to also include variables in other directions, due to the expansion of the universe, and the motion of the galaxy, the sun itself, and Earth's orbit. Your trip twenty-five years ago had both."

"Captain, we have preliminary indications that we are about to defold," Aurora reported from her station.

"Sound the defold alarm. Everyone, be prepared for anything - we're arriving into a totally unknown situation."

The ship lurched, and all kinds of unexpected alarms were going off.

"Sco- I mean, Captain!" Dana yelled from over at the sensor and weapons stations. "We're in an atmosphere! Altitude 1500 meters above ground; our station-keeping drives have kicked in, so we'll be in hover by 1000 meters. Air speed is about 2500 kph, dropping quickly from air resistance and braking."

"Drives are at full stop," Aurora reported. "Altitude above ground one thousand three hundred meters and stabilizing. Speed relative to the ground will reach stationary hover in six seconds. I'm glad we have inertial stabilizers."

"Temperature is ten degrees Celsius at ground level," Noel called in from her station. "Winds are strong from the southwest. Atmosphere conditions consistent with Earth in winter or high-latitude locations."

"Scott- Captain - Oh, the hell with rank!" Dana stumbled verbally. " Scott, I'm reading indications of a battle, twenty-five kilometers to the northwest."

"Can you identify the combatants?"

"One second..." Dana took one look at the optical zoom, and dropped her lightpen.

"Diverting emergency capacitors to main guns. Helm, come around to 300 degrees. Angie, target the southern target, and fire two seconds after the northern target fires!"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"What is this - a mutiny?"

"No time to explain -"

"What the hell's going on up there?" Louie called up from the engine room. "Someone just charged the weapons!"

"Dana, the northern ship fired."

"GIVE THEIR TARGET BOTH BARRELS! FIRE!"

Twin beams of destruction lanced out from the ship, converging on their target, which was little more than a dot on the horizon. That dot glowed momentarily, then vanished, stripped down to component atomic nuclei and free electrons, that created a secondary explosion as the nuclei recaptured the electrons as the cloud cooled. A cheer went up from the weapons & security stations, until Scott turned to them and glared.

"Now, Major Sterling, would you explain to me just what or who we just blew into atoms, or are you going to save it for your court martial?"

"Captain," Bowie interrupted; "We've got three bogies approaching us from the northwest, and they're hailing us. How do you wish me to respond."

"Does it have any bearing on what just happened?"

"Uh, I guess you could say so, sir." Bowie tried to stifle a chuckle.

"Very well. Put them on the main screen."

"This is Captain Rick Hunter of the Robotech Defense Force. Identify your ship, please."

"Oh, great. Dana, I guess you had to act quick, didn't you?"

"Excuse me?" Rick asked, having caught the aside.

"Sorry about that, Captain Hunter. One of my crew ordered the destruction of Khyron's ship on her own initiative, once she realized where and when we were, and when you hailed us, I was in the process of reprimanding her for not telling me why she was ordering weapons fire within seconds after our arrival. In fact, she's someone near and dear to your wingmen. Dana, say hi to your parents."

"Dana?" Max asked, startled.

"Hi, Dad, Mom;" Dana replied sheepishly, like she was a little kid caught with her hand in a candy jar. "Well, technically, you're the dimensional analogue of my parents. Come aboard, and we can explain it all to you. You can meet my sisters, and your mothers-in-law."

"Mothers-in-law?"

"Yeah, all three of them. And, wait till you find out who two of them are married to..."

As the three Skull Squadron pilots came aboard, the ship's rescue teams were rushing to their stations, to launch rescue missions and firefighting forces to help in New Macross. One of the first ships would return with the SDF-1 bridge crew, leaving behind power armor teams to board the SDF-2 to rescue survivors. The latter hadn't been fully functional when the first shot from Khyron's ship hit the SDF-1 with a glancing blow, which dealt the SDF-2 an unexpected double blow. Not only did the impact knock the SDF-1 back into its unfinished sister ship, the concussion from the remainder of the weapon impacting the waters of the lake broke the keel of the ship under construction. While Lisa and her command crew managed to escape down one of the few docking trunks to the SDF-1, most of the rest of the crew was trapped in sealed compartments, with the ship flooding from multiple tears in the hull. Luckily, ships made to travel in space had were compartmentalized and had ample survival shelters, and they could protect from flooding as easily as they did from decompression.

While they waited for Gloval, Grant and the others to arrive, Scott and some of the others gave them a brief explanation of just what the Dreamweaver was, and its capabilities. Of course, Dana introduced herself and her younger sister to her parents' analogues, and unleashed the promised bombshell about Miriya's genetic ancestry.

As the three had landed on the closest primary flight crew level to the bridge, they took Rick, Max and Miriya down to the simulator room, and set them up in simulated Valkyries. The first couple of rounds of simulated combat were easy, going up against analogues of the 2020-era REF ground mecha & Zentraedi pods, and the ASC battloids of the Masters' War. Rick was the first to go down in the next wave of simulations, against simulated bioroids. After that point, they shifted out of the VF-1s into Alphas, and after a few minutes of familiarization against the Bioroids (which would have been easy prey for the TASC, had they used Alphas as originally planned), were thrown headlong into an Invid swarm attack. Miriya's prior experience against the Invid helped initially, but soon betrayed her as she ran into the higher Invid types that her counterpart from the Freemans' universe did not encounter until the fight for the Sentinel Worlds. Max then stood alone for the last scenario, which would be against a piloted simulation, instead of one driven by an AI.

"Hey, you're cheating!" He commented, as the fight commenced, and he found himself in close quarters combat against a figment of his geek childhood. "How am I supposed to use this missile hog in a Minovsky environment?"

"Think of this as your version of 'Kobayashi Maru', Lieutenant Commander," Noel replied from her simulator cockpit, which was controlling a white mecha with pink and purple highlights. She was also operating a number of remotely operated and independently-flying cannon in the simulation, that she was controlling with her telemechanical powers, allowing her to approximate the "real" ability of the anime mecha and its pilot. "You'd be worse off using the Valk's slugthrower; at least the Alpha has a plasma rifle and integral inertial compensators."

With that, she slipped several of the funnels around behind him, and caught him in a crossfire that even he couldn't dodge. "Having a pure time, yet?" she kidded, as she popped open the simulator hatch.

" 'Everyone's a noble mind', my ass... Did you just pull that out of television history, or have you ran into that universe?"

"Actually, you're our first stop, and not actually planned as such," Scott replied. "But, we're hoping to find that universe eventually - hopefully early enough along to prevent most of the stupidity from both sides. With, luck, our active stealth systems will allow us to steer some events away from the catastrophes that hit over and over."

"So, how much in control of that simulation were you, miss-?"

"Doctor Noel Tyler; Major Tyler when I'm actually in uniform, but that's in the RDF Reserve Forces. As for your question, a combination of environmental factors, Protoculture exposure, and manipulation by extradimensional entities gave those of us with Zentraedi ancestry powers that can dwarf those of the Tomino Newtypes. I'm one of the most powerful ones, able to do things that would probably stagger your mind, though the vast majority have little more than limited telepathy with each other and the ability to sense imminent danger. And, yes, I probably could control funnels natively with their technology, as easily as I was able to do by mentally interfacing with the simulator."

"Zentraedi ancestry; would Dana-"

"Yes, she has the potential, and in my universe she was targeted for it by a madman who thought he could somehow take it from her, for himself. She didn't even know she had that potential, until he made the attempt. Ironically, in his failure, he made her even stronger. Eventually, the changes started spreading into the non-Zentraedi population, though in doing so it seemed to grow more powerful in those of us with the original potential. Dana's younger sister Aurora, that you met earlier, is almost on my power level; and so is Aurora's husband, who is my nephew, and stayed home from the mission to take care of their daughter."

"It would seem that your family and your counterparts of my family are close, from the way you talk so familiarly about Dana."

"In effect, you're family. My mother and Miriya share some genetic ancestry from the program that created the Zentraedi, and my parents were in Skull Squadron under your counterpart's command, after Rick got promoted to a more administrative position following the recovery from the disaster we just averted. Dana and I were raised together from 2017, up until we both joined the military in Twenty-Eight, and she was my unit commander from Twenty-Nine through the end of the last war in Thirty-Five."

"You don't look that old, or old enough to have a nephew marry Dana's little sister."

"There were extenuating circumstances; I appeared older than I really was when Dana & I grew up together, but my husband jokes that I've not visibly aged in the last ten years. And, since he's a doctor, his comment is based partly on professional opinion. But, at least Dana and I aged reasonably normally. I was actually a clone of another hybrid, whose true nature had to be kept hidden - even from me. She aged from infancy to Dana's age in six months, then to adulthood almost overnight, like some sort of freaky manga character or mythological goddess. My slow aging might be from her genetics, as she didn't age appreciably for almost twenty years, or from my being cloned, since Zentraedi age slowly anyway.

"Most of the early human-Zentraedi crossbreeds died from starvation, war, bigotry, or genetic issues. We were the only ones of our kind born before the Malcontent War of the late Teens, that lived to see the Thirties. Those born in the Twenties and Thirties, on the colonies or the SDF-3 mission, aged more rapidly to adulthood. My nephew and Dana's little sister are college graduates with a daughter, and look in their twenties, but aren't even teenagers yet by the calendar. Trust me, my parents and your dimensional counterparts freaked when they found out their ten-year-olds were having a baby, even if the parents-to-be were physically and emotionally more mature than you and Miriya were when you had Dana."

"Wow..."

"Yeah, the Earth I come from has undergone some radical changes - we'll elaborate on that more when the admiral and Captain Hayes get here; oh, and be prepared - that same 'older sister' that made me as a clone of her, also cloned Dana, and that clone of Dana eventually married the commander of this mission; my uncle.

"As for us in the younger generation, Dana and I got thrust from our graduation ceremony from the Robotech Academy directly into a war, as the creators of the Zentraedi, the Robotech Masters, arrived to blockade Earth from orbit during the ceremony. They wanted the Protoculture Matrix that Zor hid aboard the SDF-1, that the RDF never found.

"That war eventually ended over the buried ruins of New Macross, with both sides destroyed, and Dana one of the few surviving officers. About a year later, the aliens that the Masters stole the secret to Protoculture from arrived, and enslaved the population of Earth for four years, before the forces that left with the SDF-3 returned, and we convinced them they'd become as much the monsters that they believed the Masters to be - though it was a close-run thing, to paraphrase Churchill. The civilian leadership of the SDF-3 mission had grown corrupt, and as self-centered, much as how the pre-Dolza EarthGov that refused to listen to Gloval's reports of the true situation with the Zentraedi. More so, actually, as they were willing to destroy all life on Earth to try to destroy the Invid, since they were safe on the Masters' homeworld."

"That sounds really bad; Were those the Invid we fought before you joined in?"

"Yeah, you've probably heard Miriya occasionally mention them in passing, but most Zentraedi refused to talk about them to people on Earth, prior to the Expeditionary Force encountering them on the SDF-3 mission, as a leftover part of their control programming. The Masters didn't want their soldiers accidentally steering any dissidents towards possibly allying with the Invid against them - which was funny, because the Invid accepted no one that had any association with the Masters as allies, only as slaves. We've sent a message up to Breetai's ship, asking him and Exedore to come to the Dreamweaver, because we really need to talk to all of you about what to avoid in the next few decades."

"If what you have said so far is just a little of the story, I guess it's going to be a really long night."

"That, it will. As it is, I need to get down to sickbay. My doctorate is officially in something other than medicine, but being married to a doctor, I ended up with lots of field medic experience in the Invid War, and ended up getting a secondary degree after the war. It also helps that part of my portfolio of paranormal powers are things that diagnose ailments, close wounds, speed healing, purge diseases and poisons, and even do some forms of surgery with my bare hands. I have the feeling I'm going to appreciate my ability to get a full night's rest in a couple hours, after treating wounded the rest of the evening."

Late that night, Scott, Marie, and Rem were still trying to explain their bizarre history to an entranced Henry Gloval, Lisa Hayes, Rick Hunter, Max & Miriya Sterling, and Exedore. Eventually, Breetai also arrived, a micronian for the first time in his existing memory, followed by Emil Lang and Claudia Grant, both of whom had been caught up in rescue operations until others came in and insisted on relieving them. Once these last three arrived, Scott went back over some of the things already discussed, and they started discussing the really complex matters, like the Masters, the Invid, and the Haydonites.

Noel and Dana had returned during the discussion of the Malcontent wars, but as it turned to the battles between the Masters & the Armies of the Southern Cross, the memories became more and more painful. When Dana's wrist communicator sounded, requesting her return to Ship Security, she quickly used the call to excuse herself. However, when she returned during the discussion of the Invid's arrival on Earth, she seemed to be embarrassed by something more than her reaction to the memories.

"Dana, what's wrong?" Marie asked.

"Sis, do you remember when I did our security scan before we engaged the fold drive? Well, it turns out there was a hole in our scan systems - the stealth systems on our mecha and shuttles can be activated when still in the hangar. That security call was from our stowaways turning themselves in."

"You're joking, right?" Scott asked. "So, who snuck aboard?"

"Let me put it this way; this isn't the first time she's done something this crazy, but this time she brought the husband and daughters along."

"Where are they at this moment?" Scott was certain he knew who it was, from the hint.

"In the hall, waiting. They said they were told to come, and to deliver a message."

"MINMEI! GET IN HERE!" Scott yelled at the open door. "And bring Kyle - I want to know how you roped him into this. He's usually not this rash."

"So, they reconciled in your universe?" Rick asked.

"Yes, but it was a long, strange road," Marie leaned over to Rick and answered, with a sigh. "He literally disappeared from public records for nearly fifteen years, although I met him and indirectly found out who he was in 2017. In his new life, he was an occasional pilot for Doctor Lang's personal craft and even test piloted a couple of prototypes - at least officially. Unofficially, he was Emil's personal bodyguard, and went on the SDF-3 mission - in part to finally break all ties with his former life - not realizing that Minmei would make a rash move to join the mission after launch. Minmei, on the other hand, had a long, slow descent into the dark side of fame, having several bad romances, the last with a traitor that allied with an alien foe of humanity with the intent of using them to kill the REF leadership - namely, you and Lisa. He planned to then turn on the aliens to become the conquering hero and leader by proclamation. When this came close to occurring, Kyle broke his cover, and ALMOST saved her."

"What do you mean, 'almost'?"

"He died trying, right in front of her. But, thanks to Karen and me, he got better, and helped in her eventual rescue. You can talk to them more about it with them after Scott's done - if he doesn't lock them up." By this time, the Lynn family had filed in, and were standing against the far wall.

"Scott, we're sorry for stowing away, but it wasn't exactly our idea," Minmei apologized. "It was actually relayed to us from your favorite niece, through little Karen."

"So, on the word of a two year old, you stowed away on my ship?"

"Well, it was too specific to be the work of a child," Kyle added, in his defense. "She told us all to come, and exactly where to hide to not be detected by the security sensors. We've been hiding there, until we got the word through our daughter to come out and report to you. Seeing who you're talking to, I can see why now was the time."

"Oh, wonderful," Scott moaned, eyes raising to the ceiling in a classic "Why, me?" stare.

"General Freeman," Admiral Gloval interrupted. "I've noticed that so far, you've been purposely vague about this niece that has come up several times in our discussions with you. Perhaps now would be a good time to explain just who and what she is."

"Well, Admiral, she is hard to describe. Noel, here, is a slightly altered clone of Karen, made by Karen to conceal the fact that she'd inexplicably aged from childhood to adulthood during her escape from the labs of a mad scientist that had kidnapped her and Dana for experiments concerning their half-alien nature. My wife Marie, in turn, was a clone of Dana that Karen made to keep herself company in her attempt to establish some semblance of a new identity, and to safeguard their little sisters from further exploitation.

"Noel's paranormal abilities are roughly equivalent to Karen's power level circa Twenty-thirty, but appear to be at their natural maximum, far below what Karen showed in the final liberation of Earth in 'Thirty-five. Dana & Marie's powers are about the level Noel's were when her powers were awakened in 'Thirty. All three of the latter had their powers reach their current level, as the result of some sort of manipulation by Karen as she departed for dimensions unknown.

"To give a good example of Noel's current power level, one experiment that she's done involved flying a mated Alpha-Beta Veritech pair to the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon, then channeling most of her power into creating a fold effect to take her and the twenty-ton tandem mecha to our colony world in the Epsilon Eridani system, faster than a technological fold would take. Granted, in doing so, she severely fatigued herself, and had a fever spike of over a degree Celsius as a result. She had to wait a half-hour to recover, and rehydrate, before using the small fold system built into the Beta to fold back, on autopilot. That's Noel. Karen, on the other hand, was probably at least the power level of the Invid Regis, who was quite literally the mother goddess of that race, and the two actually departed Earth together - taking the entire Invid race with them."

"My God."

"That's about the truth of the matter, though she never claimed to be a goddess. She led us by the nose enough through the war with the Invid, to qualify for the Greco-Roman pantheon. She left a book explaining why she didn't rush the war to a quicker conclusion, in order to let the Invid realize their error, and their own humanity, on their own, but that idea isn't too popular with the people back home, as it means that a lot of people died that she might have been able to save, by attempting to intervene."

"That's not entirely fair," Noel interjected. "The other-dimensional entity that gave her some foresight into the events of the war, had no way of knowing what the ramifications would have been by forcing the issue. Trying to stop the initial invasion, in progress, might have led to genocidal fighting worse than what she inferred would have occurred without intervention. She did reduce casualties, but mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere, since the events she felt she had to let take their course were confined to the Americas. She even helped save half of the Mars attack wave, that would have died otherwise - although in doing so she ended up arranging for us to kill about the same number of Invid that those people would have taken out in their fight to the death. That's not even getting into the Invid departure, which she said would have killed most of the fleet that kept firing on the Invid as they left, instead of just the command ships and planet-killer weapons that were violating the rules of engagement that the Hunters ordered, but weren't around to enforce."

"So, who were these entities playing God with your lives?" Gloval asked.

"The villain, for all intents and purposes, was a being known as Haydon; I'm sure that name probably has some meaning for Breetai & Exedore - and maybe Doctor Lang, depending on how much he was able to get out of the original computer of the SDF-1." Noel took a deep breath, then continued.

"Haydon's plan was to drive the evolution of various races forward, seeking a way to use one of them to manipulate his own evolution into a god-like being. Along the way, he also figured out that under the right conditions, he could manipulate a singularity to create a space-time bubble in the null-space between dimensions - a nascent universe where he would be god-like in reality, not just figuratively. The only problem was that he had no way of crossing over to that infant universe without something forcing a doorway open. Then, he rediscovered the Invid – a race he'd originally help create, but had left behind to its own devices.

"The Invid had the potential, he just had to steer them to the pinnacle of their evolution, then trick them into using the power of their merged race to open the portal. Once on the other side, his knowledge of what was there would allow him to get an upper hand, and wrest control before the Invid could defend themselves. His actions were in many ways a paradox, as the future version of himself that succeeded in his plan sent him back the child pawn to place into the decadent Tyrolean society, to influence into furthering the Invid's evolution, by putting them under extreme duress. That child was his universe's Zor."

"And that led to Protoculture, and then to the SDF-1," Exedore reasoned.

"And from there, the events we interrupted today, which unchecked would have destroyed both ships in New Macross, plus adding the wreckage of Khyron's vessel to the mess, while rendering the city uninhabitable. Construction of a replacement ship would have taken only three years, had not a series of guerrilla wars broken out between those Zentraedi that refused to assimilate, and those manipulating human society to make assimilation more difficult. The ship would launch instead in seven years, arriving after a much longer fold than should have occurred, as certain factors we'll discuss later sabotaged the research for calculating optimum fold conditions. The late arrival placed your older selves in a war of liberation to free the Masters' homeworld and its closest former client worlds from the Invid Regent, while the Masters attacked a weakened Earth, and were destroyed by a clone of Zor even as they rendered Earth totally vulnerable to the Invid.

"One thing to note is that, near as we can tell, my father and his siblings were at best background players, possibly even killed, in the original universe I describe. Most certainly, no counterpart of me or Karen existed, and what my sister related to us makes Dana glad that she wasn't her counterpart from that world. Everything progressed up to the Invid departure, in a much more bloody war than what we experienced.

"The Invid energy being was lured to the singularity, and accidentally dragged the SDF-3, whose fold systems were again malfunctioning, with it. In there, Haydon got his wish, but not before the REF managed to escape his clutches through crude manipulation of the forces in that realm; Haydon used two of the passengers of the SDF-3 to create the infant Zor that he sent back in time. This would seem to be the end of the story, but what happened after that, was that the two captives convinced Haydon to return their son to them, since Haydon was done with him - and after all, the son had done so much in pursuit of emulating Haydon.

"Zor, when reborn with the memories of his life on Tyrol and as a clone on Earth, was a lot less pleased with the situation, especially after meeting his parents. In many ways, he ended up playing a 'Lucifer' role to Haydon's self-styled godhood - or, perhaps more accurately, a 'Prometheus', standing up for the mortal species. He tricked Haydon into a battle for dominance of the dimension, realizing that Haydon's growing boredom would soon lead him to further manipulations.

"The battle would be in three alternate timelines, of which we represent one. Part of our mission plan is to attempt to locate one of the others, that we made contact with in the incident that resulted in Karen's birth. Karen was meant as a wild card. Zor created her to ensure that someone would stand up against Haydon, should he fail - and be much less predictable than he was, given how manipulated he himself had been by Haydon."

"And, Zor and Karen won, otherwise we wouldn't be here," Marie said, taking over at this point, to let her cousin/niece catch her breath. "Our presence will, of course, split this timeline off from its original course, so if steps are taken to thwart Haydon here, his Zor paradox in the past will be broken if it is like in that older universe, but the act of dimensional twinning that comes from the timeline divergence will compensate. What we have been told about other-dimensional intersection by Karen is that you can only get timeline alteration by messing with your own timeline directly, and the metaphysics involved with dimension travel makes that nearly impossible to do so intentionally - accidents and intervention by deific beings, on the other hand, are another matter."

"How long do you intend to stay here, since this wasn't one of your intended targets?" Gloval asked.

"As long as you need us; we're not so cold-hearted as to abandon you in your time of need, to pursue our own desires. Besides, with a little foreknowledge, we can help you avoid some of the dangers of the future. For example, there's a person, currently not in uniform because he's believed dead, that you'll need to make sure he never gets back into uniform in the RDF."

"And that is?"

"Thomas Riley Edwards. He was part of the original SDF-1 wreckage insertion team with you and Roy Fokker, as a representative of the Neasians. He was originally planned to be the air group commander for the SDF-1, having developed political friends among the UEDC command council. In fact, he missed the launch, from being at Alaska Base in conference with some of his buddies when Breetai forced the premature launch, and after the SDF-1 returned, he thought it was suicide to try to assume that role."

"And I was glad to give Fokker his position, at launch, as Roy had been my first choice for CAG, but was overruled, in the spirit of detente with our former adversaries. You say Edwards is still alive?"

"Yes; he was one of two survivors of Alaska Base deep command; yes, Rick, Lisa wasn't the only person to survive down there. Edwards hated Roy with a passion; Roy had bested him several times in dogfights in the Global War, though neither ever got a conclusive shootdown of the other; the closest was Edwards ejecting rather than trying to land a crippled craft. It took Edwards weeks to escape from that smoking hole in the ground. While he already had a nasty facial scar from where Roy blew a cockpit out with a near miss, he had more massive injuries including loss of an eye in the Cannon complex, but not before seeing Rick and Lisa flying out of the Cannon together, and their being too concerned with each other to notice his attempts to get their attention. So, as a result, he hates you two more than he ever hated Roy, and in our timeline made several attempts on your life through intermediaries prior to the SDF-3 mission. Once on the mission, he manipulated the civilian component of the mission to get you removed from command and him placed in charge, all the while colluding with the Invid Regent to try to get your detached force killed."

"But, has he done anything yet to bring on punishment? We can hardly try him for actions of a dimensional counterpart."

"From his not reporting in, you should at least be able to hold him on desertion. He's been an advisor for the Southern Cross regional militia for over a year, so he had ample opportunity. As for pre-Zentraedi charges, you might want to question him about how he helped the anti-UN forces get access to the shuttle that was used to send up the hijackers that commandeered the Oberth-class vessel that killed the Mars Base personnel. The RDF and Southern Cross didn't find out about his connections to that until after his next apparent death, from documents discovered by the Neo-Soviets in the 2020s. By that time, he was on the other side of the universe, and well into his third life in de-facto charge of the REF - and he and his allies on Earth controlled interstellar communications to the point they made sure that 99% of people thought that something was jamming communications between the two. The truth of what was going on in respect to communications only became clear with his desertion in the face of his crimes in 2028, and flight to Invid-controlled space. Communications were only fully restored shortly after emergency missions had been launched back to Earth, since one of our reconditioned Zentraedi vessels had to make an emergency fold to escape being co-opted by the Masters' automated control systems, and found it easier to link up with the REF than try to return to Earth."

This revelation sent a cold chill through those that had first-hand experience with the event that had so shook Earth's early defenses, where one of the first three Oberth class vessels had been hijacked, used to destroy another (which had the crew of Mars Base Sara on it, as the original intent of the hijacking was to destroy the base), and was then destroyed by the Oberth itself, under the command of Gloval. Not only was this one of the worst memories of Gloval's life (as many of the captured ship's engineering crew were still alive, as hostages), it was also how Lisa's fiancé Karl Riber died, aboard the ship destroyed by the terrorists. Hearing that not only had one of their own been responsible, but in the Freeman's universe escaped punishment for it, and eventually attacked their counterparts as well, was a bit much to bear.

"Do you know where the Russians found that information?"

"One of the old Neasian redoubts; I'm sure we can find the exact location in our computers later, if you want to recover the information."

"Do it, please," Gloval asked. "You say the Russians eventually go back to a Soviet-style government, independent of the UEG?"

"Yes; really, the framework is already in place, and the Russians, perhaps more than a little rightly, think that they are getting short shrift from the recovery effort, since the more intact Western Hemisphere is getting higher priority, since it was already the world's breadbasket before Dolza," Noel explained. "The state is already the main driving force, in the semi-permanent disaster your world currently is in. Social structures are in flux, and will be as long as the planet is recovering. Our world, almost 30 years further along than yours, is just now starting to denationalize some aspects of industry, though truthfully we're only 7 years beyond an alien occupation of Earth.

"It took ten years for civilian industry to take off again after the Zentraedi, and most of that was destroyed either by the Masters or Invid by 2031. Odds are some things, like critical care medicine, might remain nationalized, but much like medicine before it went corporate, it's a calling once more, not a job - and a military one at that. Civilian doctors tended to be too-easy targets, and most of the pre-Dolza doctors that didn't enter uniform got themselves killed thinking that their status would protect them as it did in the Global War. Another factor is that the military had the most intact post-bachelors educational structure, and all doctors had to be trained in battlefield medicine, as neither Zentraedi nor most outlaws cared if civilians got hurt; even our pediatricians and OB/GYNs have to be trained to deal with amputations and sucking chest wounds. The final factor is that many of the high-end medical resources, like the cloning and sizing chamber technology we modified to do limb regeneration and gene therapy, are national security threats if in the wrong hands - today's events proved that.

"By the way, if you wish to stop by the medical bay later, Commander Breetai, we can give you back a fully functional eye and undamaged face - and the eye can be a prosthetic that sizing chambers will alter as needed, and have all the functionality of your current one, while appearing like a biologic eye. In fact, the only reason why we have that technology is because your counterpart wanted it instead of a biologic replacement."

"I'll consider your offer for later; for now, let's get back to the discussion of the near-future as it transpired on your world."

"Speaking of that," Rick spoke up; "Lisa and I need to deal with something back in town. Can we get a ride back to New Macross soon?"

"Rick, if you wish, we can take care of that for you," Kyle spoke up, from the back of the room that he and his family and moved to, after the subject shifted away from their unauthorized presence aboard the ship. "Maybe seeing the two of us together will make the pain easier."

"Minmei is at your house, isn't that right?" Claudia asked Rick.

"Yeah. Strangely, when she showed up on Christmas, it was almost like we were back trapped in the engine room again, only instead of being interrupted on kissing by a construction accident, we moved to the couch to sit together, and she passed out before anything could happen. I ended up calling Lena over to change her and put her to bed, and I slept on the couch - like I have for the last week."

"I remember part of that," Minmei commented. "At least, waking up in your bed in the middle of the night, in one of your shirts and my underwear, and not having an idea how I got in that condition. I got up, and found you starting to shiver on the couch, where your blanket had almost fallen into the floor. I tucked you back in and went back to bed. I wasn't really in love with you, but the idea of having you. It took all those years of throwing myself into my music, and making all those bad decisions Scott and the others probably already told you about, to come to that realization.

"After all, Rick was my first love, and you know the power of that, Lisa. After I was rescued from Optera, your counterpart and I had a long heart to heart, and she told me all about Riber, and how she almost got herself killed grieving for him on Mars, before our hero Rick swooped down to save you, much like he did to save me from Zentraedi after the SDF-1 launch. He's a knight in shining armor; that's what he is, by nature- and don't you dare blush, Rick Hunter; you know it to be true. Roy might have been the Lancelot of you pilots, Max is Gawain, and poor, dear, Ben was Dagonet - but you were always our Galahad."

"Are you really sure you want to confront her?" Rick asked.

"I have to keep her from repeating my mistakes; I couldn't really live with myself, given this opportunity, if I didn't make the attempt. Besides, I miss that old Chinese restaurant, and that's really the only place we have to take her."

"Yeah;" Kyle added, "So do I, even if they changed the name to the title of that cheesy movie we made. Maybe now that it's not destroyed, we can get them to change it back. I can't wait to see Mother & Father again - especially since there will two Minmeis coming in, plus three grandkids."

"By the way, Kyle," Rick asked, "Where are you, I mean, well, your counterpart, while all of this is happening? Minmei said you walked out a couple days before she showed up at my door, and for once it didn't appear to be the booze talking, when the two of you finished that argument."

"I used what little money I hadn't wasted on salvaged whiskey to catch a flight to New Tokyo. Once there, I started wandering what was left of that land, living on handouts and odd jobs, drying myself out. One day, this funky old man came up to me and offered me a job. Apparently, he'd seen the movie and recognized me. He had me do all kinds of stupid little jobs, to try my patience and will, while straightening me out. It wasn't until spring that I realized he was a martial arts master; a real one, not just a teacher of mechanics like my old teachers. It was then that he'd told me of what almost happened today - and that it was so long ago, by then, that it wasn't really worth going back. He gave me a choice of staying, and continuing to train, or leaving, and never finding him again. I chose to stay, at least for the next 3 years."

"Never finding him again? I sounds like you're saying he was some sort of ninja-"

"He hated that term. The ninja of fiction were based in part on those using his art, but the real name for it is something that one is never to speak to someone not in the clan. When I progressed enough to operate on my own, he told me to seek out Emil Lang, and become his protector. The cagey old bastard figured that Lang, more than anyone else, held the keys to Earth's recovery, and didn't want anything interfering with that. It was actually a lot more accurate than even he would have thought. I managed to actually get the good doctor to agree to put me on his staff, and train me on things I'd never even thought I'd do, back in those days on board the SDF-1 - things like mecha piloting."

"Whatever became of your master?"

"I met a few more students, before the SDF-3 launched; I actually thought I would finally be able to find my way without Minmei occasionally stumbling into my life, where she could blow my cover. Of course, that ended before it could really begin. When I finally made it back to Earth, there wasn't anyone left in central Honshu. I haven't even been able to find any of the other students, either, even those that were in America. But, aren't we wandering off subject, again?"

"That, we are. Let me take it a little further off subject. Lisa, I've been an idiot these last couple months, ever since I had to go play referee in Monument between Kyle and Minmei, and skipped our date. When Khyron attacked, I realized that I might lose you more permanently than you simply flying off on the SDF-2. Would you please forgive me, and marry me?"

"What?" You could have heard a pin drop, from where it came out of the blue. "Will you take down that Minmei poster in your bedroom if I say yes?"

"Hell, I'd eat it, if it means you will say yes," Rick replied with a twinkle in his eye.

"Then, of course, I'll marry you." Lisa turned to Admiral Gloval. "And, of course, Henry, I would be honored if you would give me away."

"Can I be the best man?" someone called from the doorway. Lisa and Claudia both turned, looked, and fainted.

Scott looked at his wife, who shrugged her shoulders, denying any involvement this time. Standing in the doorway was Roy Fokker, looking no older than he did on the day he died; maybe a little younger.

"Relax, uncle;" Noel confessed. "Remember that Roy's body was put into cryo-storage when he died, and got forgotten in all the chaos from Toronto onward. So, he never got buried after the SDF-1 landed, which is how Marie and Karen brought him back on our world. Alex remembered, and had him transferred and ran through the chamber to repair the organ damage from his blood loss. After restoration, bringing him back was easy." After the others were revived, and Roy took a seat, she continued.

"This is a good example of why our healing tech is considered too powerful to put in civilian hands - or most military ones, for that matter, but that genie's been out of the bottle since the Zentraedi were created. As long as the body is only a few hours old, or put into cryogenics within that time frame, and the brain is intact, anyone can be brought back - and really, all we need is the brain; the body is effectively regrown from scratch in the chamber. Nearly everyone you've talked to in this room are either clones, or the child of a clone; Scott's the only one that hasn't had some sort of modification. Even Minmei has had cosmetic surgery via modified sizing chamber technology, which is really just simplified cloning tech.

"As a result, we're at a bit of a quandary. No one has to have any permanent injuries, or health conditions. Only accidents, violence, and some kinds of strokes can cause permanent death, if we can't get them to help on time. And, the big thing that really hasn't crossed the mind yet of the older generations, is that no one has to grow old; at least not permanently, if we can get the Flower of Life crops growing sufficiently to supply the chambers. It's one of the big worries for my fellow doctors, as well as my fellow persons with paranormal abilities, who are naturally long-lived, that when this does become common knowledge, that the demand for anagathic treatments could outstrip supply, and the dangers of someone emulating the Robotech Masters, and judging who can and can't have access to it - or hoarding it for themselves.

"Call it black humor, but some of us working in the Protoculture field refer to it as the 'One Tin Soldier' scenario. There's other ones we talk about, just as worrisome - such as 'Pandora', which is someone getting the cloning tech and samples of our genetic material, and attempting to create an army of psychic super-soldiers, or attempting to uplift sub-sentient species with genetic mods for their own ends. The latter variation, appropriately, is code-named as 'Haydon Junior'."

"I think I understand a little, about what you said about your nieces, General Freeman," Rick commented.

"And, what are the limits you set for yourselves, in your own travels?" Gloval asked. "One of the things that came up during all the discussion of contact missions, before the SDF-1 launch, was the concept of a 'Prime Directive' of non-interference."

"Many of us that survived Dolza were familiar with the fictional setting that concept came from," Scott answered. "Some of us, on examining it, found that the concept got grossly perverted between the version in the Sixties, and the version of the sequels of the Eighties and Nineties. In fact, those sequels often used it as an excuse for allowing natural-occurring genocide to occur, that could have been prevented easily. Many novels set in that universe, some co-written by the stars of the original series, debated the morality of such blind obedience to an order that bore little resemblance to the original directive, or how it was enforced.

"The original version seemed to be 'make no actions that local primitives could detect, that would change their society's evolution towards being a spacefaring race'. There were even a case or two in the 60s episodes where the ship had specific missions to prevent extinction-level asteroid impacts from hitting primitive worlds, long before Earth science even suspected the K-T impact event's existence, or collisions between inhabited worlds. In the sequels, it became 'make no actions that could be detected by any means, even if those means are high technology that the locals won't have for thousands of years - and won't ever have, because the mandated inaction will kill them all in a week'. One novel character even commented something along the lines of 'for something that was so important that it must not be disobeyed under any circumstances, why does it feel so right when someone disobeys it?'

"As a result, we decided to take the moral high road. Simply, it is the belief that when it comes to 'evolution of culture', there is nothing more unchanging and stagnant than a dead culture. So, by definition, 'doing less harm' MUST involve intervening, if the alternative is watching a culture die through inaction.

"And, there's also a factor in the nature of the multiverse, called the 'World as Myth' hypothesis. Essentially, all worlds are both real and fiction; every reality is fiction in some other reality; as a result, all worlds are linked. In addition, the places one can most easily travel to are the ones that you know as fiction, or alternates of ones' own current time or past. Travel to the future, is a bit more problematic, and not so easily done; you're almost certain to end up in an alternate timeline's future, as if you return home, you change your own time with the knowledge you bring back. There's actually a book, that is fiction here, that Emil has in his personal library, that goes a bit into this as its main plot thread..."

"Heinlein's 'The Number of the Beast'," Lang replied, recognizing the reference.

"That's the one," Scott confirmed. "Of course, that means that theoretically we could run into its cast, which can be a good thing or a bad thing - especially if we run into their adversaries. More likely, we'll run into a few more alternates, and some anime and mainstream television science fiction worlds from the 20th century, as most of the crew grew up watching the shows from the DVD collections of the Macross Island residents that became MBS TV staples until the entertainment industry managed to recreate itself a decade from now, and those collections were heavily weighted in that direction.

"On that note, I think we should adjourn this meeting, and let Roy get caught up on the last three years with you all, while the Lynns go take care of that Minmei problem. Admiral, Doctor; you can have access to one of the ship's auxiliary bridges. The controls have been disabled, and all the displays reconfigured to interface remotely with the SDFs' damage control and communications systems, as well as those of the city. And, as for our Zentraedi colleagues, they can go there as well to help coordinate with their forces, or can go down to the medical center and get a full genetic tune-up. After all, you two are the first and third Zentraedi ever created, and both of you had to get some, well, repairs done before the SDF-3 mission in 2021."