Disclaimer: All Robotech characters and vehicles are property of Harmony Gold USA.

The battle against Dolza continues…

Chapter 11 – Absolutely nothing … say it again!

Ben seethed with anger. He had just seen his commander and friend, Rick Hunter, blown out of the sky by Zentraedi missiles. Even worse, he had lost contact with Max and Miriya. For all he knew, he was the ranking officer left for Skull squadron. 'I have a gut feeling Max and Miriya are still alive,' Ben thought grimly, 'but that does not mean their Veritechs are still operational.' He allowed himself a small chuckle, 'Pigs will fly before the Sterlings get shot down.' The reality was that, in this immediate vicinity anyway, he was the ranking officer.

"Repeat…All Veritechs. This is Skull 3. Skull Leader is down. Form up on me in Sector 78. We're not through yet. The SDF-1 needs a little more room to make it to the flagship." Ben calmly announces over the plane-to-plane channel; someone has to step up, why not him. 'This is for you Skipper,' Ben says to himself. "LET'S GO GET 'EM!" he thunders over the TACNET. "FOR COMMANDER HUNTER!" Raw emotion coursing through him, Ben hits the afterburners and takes down two battle pods with missiles as he fights to clear precious room for the SDF-1 to reach its target.

For the fighters, the battle is now truly a free-for-all. In all directions, as far as the eye can see, there are the glittering twinkles of explosions, the streaks of laser bolts and tracer rounds from auto-cannon fire, and flashing gouts of flame as pilots hit the afterburners. On the big capital ships, you could occasionally see large clouds of flame erupt from a huge gash in its side, a gash caused by the massive guns on the SDF-1 and Breetai's command ship. Some of the smaller cruisers just completely exploded out of existence, like a sun going nova. If it was not hell, it was certainly the waiting room to it.

Time began to slow down for Ben, as if he could read the movements of the enemy before they even executed those movements. A battle pod swiveled in flight in order to aim at Ben's plane, but Ben easily realized that he could dodge the shot if he switched to Battloid mode while performing a snap roll, which would then leave him in the perfect position to blast the pod with his auto-cannon. To Ben's mind it all happened in slow motion, but in real time it had only taken seven seconds.

'Why couldn't I fly like this when I was playing against Max in the arcade?' mused Ben, knowing that was strictly rhetorical.

"Nice move there big brother!" came crackling over the TACNET. Max was alive!

"It was truly inspired Benjamin." Miriya was still alive too. Ben shouldn't be surprised about either friend; the newlyweds were the best pilots in any of the fleets.

"Glad to see you two. I thought I was going to have to do all the heavy lifting here." Ben said with a relieved laugh.

"So, is Cmdr Hunter truly gone?" asked the young Zentraedi woman. Her voice had a touch of sympathy Ben was surprised to hear.

"He's certainly down, Miriya. I saw his Veritech get hit pretty bad while he was in Battloid mode. It looked like it was still intact, but it was just drifting."

"So he could just be unconscious!" chimed Max.

"I hope Rick is only knocked out little brother, but I didn't think we could afford to wait to find out if he was going to wake up; he could be unconscious because he got severely injured. Someone had to take charge and I lost contact with the two of you."

"This was definitely one of times Rick said would be OK to break radio silence," Max reassured him.

"I know. So…you wanna take the reins here little bro?"

"No Ben, you remain in charge. Miriya and I will cover your flanks."

"Then let's go get 'em Skulls!"

With that the three pilots broke into a triple helix of maneuvering, seeming to weave in and out of each other's paths, blasting enemy upon enemy, still edging closer to the objective, trying to avenge their commander.

The members of Skull squadron would have been overjoyed to find that Rick was indeed alive but unconscious. Unfortunately for Rick, his Veritech was drifting closer to the planet. If the heat alarms hadn't started going off, he might not have woken in time to realize his craft was entering the upper atmosphere. After checking to make sure Skull 1 was still flyable, Rick jettisons the extra armor and missile pods, switches to fighter mode, descends down to an altitude of 5000 kilometers and, without intentionally seeking it, heads in the direction of the now ruined Alaska Base to scout the devastation.

His friends in Skull would have been relieved to know Rick was still alive but there would have no time for celebration. They were in the thickest part of the melee; it seemed there were twenty times as many enemy pods as there had been just a few minutes ago. Missile salvos flash back and forth as the line of battle shifts between the opposing forces. With so many more ships there was less room for error in maneuvering and the increasing amount of debris tripled the difficulty. How many times did RDF pilots dodge a battle pod successfully only to plow through a cloud of shrapnel from the destruction of a different pod? The jagged bits of dozens of blasted fighters was becoming as much of, if not more than, a danger to the surviving ships than the enemy pods firing at them. A couple of times the shrapnel was so dense Ben could hear the fragments bounce off his Veritech with the sound of a snare drum roll. He was extremely lucky that only one or two pieces actually penetrated the fighter; Miriya had been able to tell him it only caused a couple of small holes in one of his tail fins. There were no issues with the handling of the plane, so Ben soldiered on to complete the mission.

Ben had no choice at one point. It was either fly through the shrapnel or fly into any of half a dozen pods that were trying to cut his path off. The necessity of the maneuver didn't lessen the shock of seeing the side of a small battle cruiser loom in front of him when he exited the shrapnel cloud. Ben was too close to turn so he had to think fast, especially since a pair of pods was closing on him. He changed quickly to Guardian mode and began aiming the thrusters to start slowing himself down. When he had cut his speed in half, he continued the transformation into Battloid mode orienting feet first toward the cruiser's side and continued applying thrust to slow his ship down. From Battloid mode, Ben could target his pursuers and soon there were two fewer pods to deal with. And as soon as the feet registered contact Ben pushed off with his Battloid like a swimmer leaving the wall after a turn. Once safely away from the side of the cruiser, Ben changed back to Fighter mode and sped toward his next targets.

Back on Earth, Rick was continuing along on his flight, a grim set to his mouth as he soaked in the scenes of destruction. 'There's no way anybody is alive down there.' Rick thought glumly. He was about to change direction when he heard something come over the TACNET.

"…please respond. Repeat. This is Cmdr Hayes of Alaska Base. Anyone who can hear my voice please respond."

"It's me Lisa!" Rick blurts out in response.

That sounds like Rick Hunter. Lisa yells out "Is that you Rick?"

"Lisa, are you alright?"

"Yes but I think I'm the only one. I can't reach anyone else."

"You're all alone? Give me your coordinates. Hurry, I'm coming in right now to get you out."

In the thick of the battle, it would normally be difficult to keep track of communications, but the order for radio silence, in order to broadcast Minmei, left the TACNET almost eerily quiet. Only the sporadic chatter for assistance came over the plane-to-plane channel. The main channels were only Minmei. That is why Ben startled briefly when he heard what seemed like Cmdr Hunter communicating, but it was difficult to tell as the transmission had lots of static.

"…pond…ayes…ska base…hear me…."

"…me..!"

"…you Rick"

"…are…alright…"

"…think I'm alone…can't reach…"

"…coordinates…coming in now…"

"Hey Max!" Ben said excitedly, "Can't be sure, but I think I just heard the Skipper on the TACNET. Sounds like he's going to rescue someone at Alaska Base."

"Are you sure about that Ben? That area looked like it took a real pounding. I don't know how anyone could have survived."

"Maybe I'm hearing things; it might just be wishful thinking."

Miriya growls, "As cruel as it may sound, whether Cmdr Hunter is still alive is not our concern! We have our foes in front of us here! If we focus on the task at hand then they will not withstand our fury!"

"She's right Ben, "Max said with a hint of pride for his wife, "Until the SDF-1 can attack Dolza's flagship directly our job isn't finished. To be honest, I believe you really did hear the Skipper, but if he made it down to Earth, then there's nothing we can do to help him except win this damn battle."

"Then it sounds like we need to get busy." Ben avows and punches the afterburner to search for more of the enemy.

More Veritechs are beginning to get shot up. The battle has raged for such a long time, as far as fighter engagements go, that fatigue is starting to affect the pilots of the RDF, causing normally steady flyers to make mistakes. Even those pilots whose wits and reflexes are still about them are running into issues; the Veritechs were beginning to run out of ammunition. That meant every shot absolutely had to count; every missile had to hit home. And there were still swarms of enemy ships. Could the fighters hold on just a little bit longer? Why hadn't the SDF-1 started its final attack?

It didn't seem possible, but the battle increased in intensity. Enemy battle cruisers were exploding all around the remnants of Skull squadron and Ben was hard pressed to dodge the gouts of plasma jetting out of several ruptured hulls. No Veritech did that damage; it was the big guns of Breetai's ships. That must mean the SDF-1 was very close to the final gambit.

An All-call came over the TACNET, "All guard fighters break off attack immediately."

"That's the signal you guys! Let's high tail it out of here. We do not want to be around when the SDF-1 fires all its Reflex missiles." Ben ordered over the plane-to-plane channel. They all knew the plan, but Ben was the one who truly understood it. The battle fortress was going to ram its way into the inner sanctum of Dolza, fire every last Reflex warhead and intentionally force the barrier shield system to overload. That was the only way to guarantee the destruction of Dolza's forces, the only way to generate enough destructive force. And there was no way in hell Ben wanted to be within a lunar orbit's distance when that thing went off. He had narrowly survived the first time the barrier overloaded and had no doubts that this time it would be a much, much bigger cloud of destructive plasma. Without a second glance, Ben did a high loop and flipped around to escape the blast zone.

As he and the rest of the Veritechs beat a quick retreat out of the danger zone, Ben switched his left monitor screen to a rear facing camera, partly to gauge pursuit and partly to witness the success or failure of the most critical part of the RDF's mission today. No enemies were currently in front of him, but there were still vast debris fields to navigate, so Ben had to keep most of his attention focused on flying. As they all gradually moved out of the area of heaviest fighting Ben could pay a bit more attention to the rear view. He saw the SDF-1 plunge into the side of the massive flagship, pinpoint barriers glittering in front of the arms of the main gun as well as the Daedalus and the Prometheus. It was a "Daedalus Attack" using the entire bulk of the battle fortress, which is how much Dolza's ship dwarfed the SDF-1.

Their forces were not totally clear, because some enemy battle pods were still giving chase. Damn, thought Ben, We need a few more minutes to get free.

He had to make a quick decision. Ben barked over the plane-to-plane channel "OK you guys, anyone that still has any ammo, we need to hang back and discourage those jokers tailing us. If you're out of ammo, just keep going, we'll cover you!" They were only sending a small force after them, so Ben reasoned that even though any one plane was critically low on ammunition, collectively they still had enough to send these bozos packing. He swung his fighter around and into Battloid mode and lined up the first enemy vehicle for a burst from his auto-cannon. Ben saw several dozen Veritechs shoot past him, but was heartened when almost half turned as he had done. He put two rounds in the pod he had targeted and as he went to line up another shot he saw many other pods in the trailing force also explode. Ben breathed a huge sigh of relief as the last attacker vaporized.

"Great job everyone," Ben broadcast, "but stay sharp. I don't know how big the blast radius will be when the big firecracker pops. We need to keep moving away from the attack zone." And keep our fingers crossed. Ben thought grimly. For the first time since they began retreating, he had time to think of Kim. His poor dear Kim who was sitting on the bridge of that battle fortress, bravely doing her duty. Ben could still hear Minmei's singing, so he knew she was still alive, but she had no way of knowing he had made it through. He stared numbly at Dolza's gigantic ship and prayed. It hung there like a huge destructive fist. Even the bubbling of its skin made it look ominous. Wait a minute, something dawned on Ben, there weren't any bubbles on that thing when we had been captured. A big sloppy grin began to appear on his face. "All RDF fighters! The gambit worked! That big pickle over there is gonna blow! Activate your anti-glare shields and let's get the hell out of here!"

It was unimaginable how huge the fireball from the barrier overload was. It not only engulfed Dolza's flagship but almost all of the rest of his fleet! Ben could see Breetai's ships mopping up the stragglers who hadn't been caught in the blast. But what was the cost? Was everyone on the battle fortress vaporized along with Dolza? It had been a terrible cost for the pilots; of the hundreds that took off earlier only a handful were still alive. Max and Miriya had made it and Ben thought he recognized the ships of Turner and Broche from Blue squadron but there were a lot more ships he didn't recognize. Ben couldn't help but wonder how many of those pilots who died today had been in their first action?

As the melancholy feeling washed over him, Ben began to hum along to a Minmei song. It was a heck of a thing to get stuck in your head at a time like this, but not surprising, since she was essentially the soundtrack for the whole battle. Wait a minute, Ben realized, that wasn't playing in my head. I was singing along with the radio!

"Ben! Do you hear that?" Max was just as astonished as Ben.

"Sure do little brother! They MADE IT!" Ben grinned ear to ear; he would give Kim the biggest hug and kiss she had ever gotten from him.

Soon Claudia Grant's voice came over the TACNET, "Attention all Veritechs. The SDF-1 has sustained significant damage to its propulsion systems. We are forced to descend to the planet and we will not be able to recover fighters while we are going through the atmosphere so land on the nearest friendly ship. Repeat, the SDF-1 is not able to perform fighter recovery operations. Land on the nearest friendly ship. Good luck and see you all soon dirt side."

"You heard the lady," Ben reiterated over the plane-to-plane channel, "Let's get in out of the cold."

By coincidence, the closest ship to Ben, Max and Miriya was Breetai's flagship. After they landed, Breetai had the three of them escorted to his bridge, where he warmly greeted Miriya (to her surprise) and gravely apologized to Ben for his captivity. Ben didn't know how, but he knew Breetai really was sorry and he accepted the large alien's apology with the sincerity it was intended. Miriya then introduced Max to Breetai. Max couldn't help comment on how much bigger this ship was compared to how he remembered it. That puzzled Breetai immensely, because he was absolutely sure this blue-haired Micronian was not one of the ones that had been interrogated.

Ben pointed sheepishly at the giant view screen behind Breetai, which was still not repaired, and admitted he had flown his Veritech through that particular screen when "us Micronians" were trying to escape. To the surprise of everyone in the room, especially the Zentraedi bridge staff, Breetai let out a loud and long belly laugh. He had never seen the pilot of that damnable blue mecha that had come crashing through everything in a mad dash to evade pursuing Zentraedi soldiers and now he had finally met him. He told Miriya that this Micronian was a mate worthy of the Quadrano leader. In an offhanded manner Breetai told her that he respected any warrior that could toss him bodily out of his own ship. Miriya did a double take at that comment and began to pester Max for details. The great Breetai was the one Zentraedi warrior Miriya would ever admit to being better than her. And to hear that her own husband had ejected Breetai bodily out of this very cruiser was an absolute shock to her. She could not believe that Max had never mentioned anything about this and she had to know every single detail about that mano-a-mano battle. Max finally had to agree to tell her everything later, after they were settled down in their quarters for the night. Both Ben and Breetai couldn't help letting out warm laughs at the sight of the young couple interacting. (1)

After a day recovering from the exhaustion of the epic battle, the Veritech pilots took their leave of Breetai and began the long flight to Earth to rejoin the SDF-1 and the rest of their friends. Ben was amazed as they maneuvered to enter the atmosphere, the plasma ball from the barrier overload caused complete annihilation of Dolza's Main fleet. There was not even a stray atom remaining of over 4 millions space cruisers. The little band of heroes was not cheered as they gradually descended to the surface. Where they had seen welcoming green in the past, the surface of the planet was now nothing more than blasted and twisted brown. Ben was on the verge of tears when they flew over what had been the Great Plains of North America. Instead of acres and acres of farms there was now only desolation. Down there in the midst of the shattered cropland was his family's farm certainly now nothing more than a smoking ruin. The grief of that loss threatened to overcome Ben; there weren't even enough landmarks left to attempt to locate the farm. (2) Even Miriya gasped at the total destruction.

Skull flight grimly followed the navigation beacon sent out by the SDF-1; it appeared that by chance or design they had managed to land the battle fortress in a crater near where Alaska Base had been. They neared to see the now derelict hulk sitting waist deep in the giant hole, the Daedalus and Prometheus arms held even with the rim of the crater. The deck of Prometheus was not completely level, but it was OK enough to land back on the ship. It might look like one of the first things they would need to build was an airfield. Ben wondered if the field at Alaska Base could be repaired.

There was one pleasant surprise waiting after they had landed and taxied to a stop. Rick Hunter was there on the hangar deck waiting to greet them; he gave all of them a big hug as they climbed down from each cockpit. He had some great news too: He had been able to rescue Cmdr Hayes from Alaska Base during the battle. Ben wasn't sure if the Sterlings had caught it, but he had noticed how much happier Rick sounded and how much more of a sparkle his eyes had whenever he was talking about Lisa Hayes. Does that mean the Skipper is finally getting a clue?

Ben got changed out of his flight suit and into a regular uniform and went to grab a bite to eat in the officers' mess. He wanted a full stomach before tackling the after-action report he had to file. The battle may be over, but the paperwork never ends. He chuckled as he sat down to eat. There was a hectic level of activity all over the ship. The battle fortress looked like it took a few good hits during the battle, so Ben was sure repair and damage control parties were very busy. Sickbay and the civilian hospitals were probably swamped as well; Ben was hoping the confusion would subside quickly so he could try and locate his parents. He felt a little guilty that he wasn't worrying about Kim, but the bridge area appeared like it didn't get a scratch, so he knew Kim was going to be among the survivors.

These morose thoughts weren't helping Ben's appetite, so he was still sitting and picking at his food when someone came up from behind and grabbed him in a chokehold of a hug. The surprise flashed by quickly and he twisted around to see who was clinging so tightly to his neck. He should have figured it out from the first squeeze, but the violet eyes he met told him everything he needed to know. He bolted up from his chair, swept Kim into a wild embrace and whirled her around before planting a very deep kiss on her. He was not going to let her go ever again. They both knew at their cores that as long as they can be together, they could face the trials of the new life ahead of themselves and all the survivors on the SDF-1.

Author's Notes: I've actually been finding the battle scenes in these last two chapters the toughest to write. I struggled a little on how much to describe without getting pages upon pages of dull minutia. Yet if I didn't describe enough of the action, there would be no excitement or tension. It was a fine line and I hope, dear readers, you find I walked it well.

(1) This is a scene idea I lifted from the story Aces of Hearts by Hung Nguyen. It was extremely difficult to recreate the scene here without doing a "cut and paste" from there. I am not trying to plagiarize and give full credit where it is due.

(2) Read my single chapter ficlet Bloom of Hope to find out more about Dixon Farm. (I know…shameless plug.) ;-)

The Chapter title is lyrics from War by Edwin Starr. (It is the song lyric that follows the one I used for the Chapter 10 title.)