Chapter I: Emergence
The great form of humanity's single greatest undertaking, the SDF-1, rose into the air as the smoldering ruins of Macross City churned beneath them.
Originally, the plan called for the use of the extraterrestrial-made Antigravity drive to allow the great vessel to ascend to orbit in order to fold, but they simply tore away from the simple reinforced housings the Terrans had built in lieu of the original Zortium alloy-based ones being destroyed upon impact with Macross island some ten years ago.
The contingency plan was simple, they used the earth-made fusion thrusters to drive them into the sky.
As the fight on the ground had went on, the human Robotech defenders had caught the 50 foot tall giants to a standstill using the amazing variable-technology fighters, shortened to Veritechs for those who weren't the OCD lab coated-types, in all 3 modes to outmaneuvers and outperform them in the air, on the ground and anywhere else the battle pods or fighter pods presented themselves.
After attempting to rejoin with the UEDC's sole task force of Oberth and Armor-class cruiser/carriers, the salvaged alien ship descended to a mere 2000-feet AGL, spitting distance, and ill advised as per the Zentradei knowledge of Space Fold drive procedure.
The enveloping distortion of space-time swallowed the vessel whole, along with a decent portion of the surrounding environment, including that of Macross Island and the semi-submersible aircraft carrier Prometheus and the semi-sub transport Daedelus into the stark, lethal vacuum of the edge of nowhere.
* * *
"…alright everyone, just calm down. I'm sure that when our power plant comes back on-line we can simply execute a re-fold maneuver and fold back." Captain Gloval assured, even though the ice-and frozen atmosphere-encrusted Macross Island stood below several decks and then, beyond that, the soles of his shoes.
Vanessa Leads had informed them there were no stellar objects of sufficient mass within several thousand kilometers of the ship, save for one dead island.
"But Captain! What about the island, we can't just leave them there!" Sammy Porter replied out of shock, her long red hair almost standing on end from emotional shock.
Kim Young's face felt quite numb, but she managed to speak the words "The civilians, how are we going to retrieve them? That shelter…" she lead off.
Claudia Grant, seeing their dismay, had to play big sister once again. "It's NBC-proof and is sure to be vacuum-tight too. Captain, permission to send out a…" she was cut off while waving a dark hand in the panicked bridge officer's direction, who stared out of the perma-glass viewport with his hands clasped behind his back.
"Recovery team from Engineering? Permission granted, I want them deployed in ten minutes!" Capitan Gloval ordered in rapid-fire succession, biting down on his pipe once more.
Afterwards, leaving the command crew to their recovery op duties to discuss their situation with Doctor Emil Lang, he contemplated lighting up on his way down.
It was probably better that he wait until Lang delivered his part of this horror story, the intensity of this madness would definitely call for some precious time to collect his thoughts, that is, with the pleasant taste of sweet tobacco.
On his way down, he saw through several perma-glass viewports husks of battle pods, the primary attack vehicle used by this extra-terrestrial aggressor. The reverse-articulated legs supported an ovoid main hull, in this case, riddled by depleted Uranium penetrators from either one of the ships Phalanx point-defense turrets or a VT's auto cannon.
Ten minutes later, inside the fold-drive compartment of the SDF-1...
"It just simply vanished Captain. I'm not sure what to declare this, let alone how to describe it!" the Germanic accent of Lang's held strong in stressful situations, especially when the ship's main star drive vanishes and leaves gleaming photonic eddies of the damned drive system itself! Lang's black marble eyes were squinted in dismay and confusion.
Captain Gloval had always considered himself a serious officer, so it was little wonder that he kept the humor of labeling it a "Complete-and-Total Operational Loss" to himself. Dark Humor went well with dark situations.
"I… understand. Keep me appraised of the situation, Doctor, we still need to figure out where we are." the soot-black mustache on Gloval's face twitched.
"I will sir, we'll have a constant stream of data for some time."
The Doctor nodded respectfully before turning to one of his technicians.
Before the hatch cycled shut, Gloval had to come about as he heard the words "Extra-solar" by a rather loud-mouthed and inexperienced techie.
* * *
"High-Master! Unknown ship has either de-cloaked or emerged from a hidden warp point several superior-senthis from our position!" Nuloth Midshipman Lujothoy reported from his viewer station.
"Unknown? It is clearly not Phong I extrapolate?" the High-Master asked, his damaged heavy destroyer coasting slowly through Yvelon's asteroid belt. Without it's pulse maser or it's plasma-antimatter rockets repaired, they were defenseless against virtually anything, but the absence of Phong boded well. He would have to see how things developed.
* * *
"Three…two…one!" the hiss of a sealed blast door opening filled the ad-hoc environmental structure with recycled air that was being continually inhaled by free-fall sick civilians and RDF personnel who were (un)lucky enough to be caught in the shelters when the SDF-1 folded.
Although the Recovery team had been trained for null-gravity work, they still didn't appreciate when the evidence that civilians' digestive tracts weren't adjusted to their new environment.
Regardless, they worked hours on in to safely extract every man, woman and child to the SDF-1's main cargo hold, an area that would seem to swallow a man standing in the middle with no context of size, just as it was found ten years ago. However, Macross City's mayor, Tommy Luan, in a discussion with Captain Gloval, RDF Army Colonel Maistroff , Marine Colonial Robert Cyprus, as well as Doctor Emil Lang, began working on a plan to reconstruct a multi-teared version of the city inside the vessel.
Most of the buildings though, had to be scrapped before they could extract the materials from the city. The structures seemed to crumble like potato chips when ever any real amount of force was exerted on them, and it kicked up a hellacious debris cloud, but the ceaseless effort of the crew, as well as volunteers from the city, slowly and surely reconstructed their homes and businesses.
The only difference in the city was that instead of spanning for miles, they were raised on terraces who's position could better organize the emergency shelter evacuations and civil defense duties than in the original city.
All seemed well for the ship, but the mission was pretty well scrubbed, since Luna, let alone earth's lowly task force, was light years away.
Inside the SDF-1's situation room…
"The problem lies in our consumable ammunition and supplies. I admit that the fabrication plants work better than we anticipated, but we can only do so much before we run out of basic materials, even if we are 100% self contained." Lang informed. Gloval, with his pipe lit, taking in the flavor along with those words, leaned back in his chair.
"I see, even after we extracted all of the material from Macross island, we still come up short?" he stated, his inspecting look announcing his worry. Even though he was a seasoned commander from his days in the Global Civil War, the fold drive's disappearance, coupled with the now inoperable main gun indicated that this was indeed the most trying time in his life so far. Sure CAG Lt. Commander Fokker's men and women, the Marine's Air Wing, as well as the Army and Marines' ground units were ready and willing to defend the ship, but against the overwhelming technology of this new alien threat, would they be of any use?
"Exactly, however, I am fairly certain that if we could move within range of the relatively close asteroid belt, we could extract enough metal, oxygen and water to sustain ourselves for quite some time." the black marble-eyed scientist spoke again, penetrating Gloval's worry momentarily.
"I agree with your plan, we would need the extra resources, however, this is a totally alien star system Lang. What am I supposed to tell the civilians exactly? Your plan, however useful, is risking the entire ship and it's inhabitants to the dangers of an unknown space." the Captain spoke with a slightly elevated tone.
"That's why it's up to you Captain." the Germanic accent of earth's Robotech mastermind responded.
This left Gloval in deep thought for the rest of the "day", if that's what you could call a 24 hour shipboard clock.
* * *
Breetai's worst fear was his eventual report to Lord Dolza. Not only was it a problem that the ship had vanished from sight, they also vanished from the entire recon fleet's scanners! An exhausting search was underway, with several Tou Redir-class scout vessels searching nearby star systems. It boggled his mind how these micronians could even salvage Zor's ship, let alone operate it!
It was several cycles before news returned by way of a Tou Redir who's hull was still in the process of self-repair. The commander of that particular vessel claimed that some sort of defensive satellites had opened fire with what the computer identified as non-reflex weaponry.
Exedore had poured over the recon ship's gathered data and came to the conclusion was that pulsed energy weapons of some fashion had engaged the ship as soon as it entered the system. Hardly any of it's Gnerl fighter pods had returned.
That left Exedore to ponder the question of why they wouldn't have encountered the same weapon systems in orbit above that Tirol-like planet if it were micronian in origin.
The only possibility was that it wasn't micronian at all. Whoever it was, they would simply have to wait for elimination or conquest when the Masters had their precious
Protoculture Matrix returned, if any of the Zentraedi would allow such to fall back into their greedy and ancient hands.