Robotech: The Enforcers' War

by GVincent

Sequel to- "Robotech: The Ashes of Empire" & "Robotech: The Smoldering Earth" The renegade Te'Dak Tohl Zentraedi forces of Supreme General Krymina launch their campaign to seize Zor's Battle Fortress and The Invid Flower of Life on an Earth in internal turmoil in their revolt against The Robotech Masters. Earth forces struggle to unite and to repel this new Zentraedi threat.

15. Endurance

Chapter Fourteen

Endurance

"We have survived the first days. We did not end with a flash or slowly under darkening skies."

"Now begins the hard times. Now we trudge uphill to meet the immediate promise of nothing but strife, frustration, and unrelenting misery. These are the dues we pay in advance for the possibility that one day we might look back from better times and comfort and marvel at how we ever reached that place."

"Now are the times when our victories amount to little more than chipping away at the mountain, and our slightest defeats may cost us all. Now we endure, struggle, and sacrifice and perform those unimaginable feats that future generations will learn of and marvel over with the disbelief of those who did not have to live it. –Or there will be no future generations at all."

"Now we begin."

-General of the Army Breetai,

Military Chief of Staff,

Robotech Defense Forces,

United Earth

SDF-3

The "attention" tone sounded clearly through the ship's speakers followed immediately by a female voice that all recognized but whose owner only a relatively small number of the crew knew by name.

"Attention all hands, attention all hands. Pressurization testing has been completed, Deck Five, Frames two-zero-seven through two-two-one, port. Power, life support, and infrastructure in Module Five-Charlie remain red status- no unauthorized personnel permitted. Engineering Teams Six and Fourteen, assemble for detail briefing in Crew's Mess Six-Bravo. That is all."

A second sounding of the attention tone on the 1MC indicated completion of the public announcement to all areas of the ship.

Quiet returned to the admiral's bridge, high atop the ship's sail-like conning tower that afforded a view of the top deck of most of SDF-3's mile-long hull. Vice-Admiral Hayes-Hunter did not see the expansive field of terilium alloy clad in maroon-colored protective laminates, or the new addition of multiple scorch marks centered by gouges and furrows where Zentraedi energy weapons penetrated the ship's DS-2 defensive barrier to make contact with the hull. She looked out farther and beyond, slightly off to port of the centerline of the bow where Sol hung behind the nearly unperceivable veil of millions of kilometers of the Oort Cloud. Far less pronounced than the Moon appeared in Earth's night sky, Sol was scarcely more distinct than any other star in the great tapestry of the cosmos before her.

There had not been even the slightest indication of enemy vessels within SDF-3's passive detection sphere for the sixteen hours she had been at this position, so Hayes-Hunter had granted Captain Hollenkamp's request to stand the ship down to Condition Two, backing the crew down from battle stations some five hours before and allowing the normal cycle of watches, duties, and the shipboard rhythm of life to resume with an undertone of heightened alert.

At last, the crew had been allowed to exhale with the phantom of possible counterattack shrinking but still at the back of their minds, but allowed to exhale nonetheless. The deeper breath would be taken and released shortly when Task Force Doolittle departed the system on its multi-jump return to Walhalla and to whatever celebration of their exaggerated victory awaited them.

Hayes-Hunter had taken just under three hours of the time since the stand-down to return to her quarters for a shower and a quick nap before she had come to the admiral's bridge to begin filling in the details of her after action report whose broad strokes had been captured real-time by a yeoman in the ship's log. With AARs of the other commanders of Doolittle One and Two supplementing, Hayes-Hunter was confident she would be able to complete a detailed account of all that had happened for presentation well before returning to port.

Sadly, it was the loss of two Bristol Class Attack Corvette Carriers, including Doolittle Two's commander, Commodore Tran, five Garfish corvettes confirmed, a frigate, and the severe damaging of the destroyer, Rampage that cast a long shadow over the accomplishments of the operation.

Given the audacity of the Doolittle plan, and the damage inflicted upon the enemy though-.

Hayes-Hunter did not feel inclined at that moment to indulge in the complex equation perfected by unknown numbers of commanders before her by which the spilling of one's own blood was made acceptable by the spilling of a quantity of the enemy's.

-And also, she now had company.

"-You know", Hayes-Hunter said in her renown, flat, impassive tone, "-Rick says that my brooding look is one of my better ones. –But as my husband, he's the only one who gets to lurk in doorways and enjoy it. Did you have something for me, Julian, or were you just coming up here to escape CDC?"

"Sorry about that, Admiral.", Captain Hollenkamp apologized, clearly considering the possibility that his failure to announce himself upon entering the compartment could have easily been mistaken for something other than the courtesy of not derailing a superior's train of thought.

"I was only stalking professionally."

"Well, let's have it then.", Hayes-Hunter ordered with relaxed authority as she continued to scroll through notes she'd jotted down on her tablet for organization and incorporation into her report.

"-It's good news for a change…", Hollenkamp prefaced, risking a glint of humor.

"Well, you certainly have a measurable amount of my attention then.", Hayes-Hunter replied, the fact of her never looking up from the multi-functional electronic device in her hands making it unclear whether she was responding in kind.

"The satellites deployed by Doolittle Two units have achieved their constellation positions and are showing green in all of their systems and networking diagnostics. We should have hot comms with whatever remains of the planet-side command structure within the half hour. More importantly for them though, they'll have InfolLink back and will be able to communicate more effectively between commands."

"Excellent.", Hayes-Hunter said with no more jubilation than she showed normally at being told the coffee in the urn in the officer's mess was minutes-fresh.

"I just thought you might want to know that you can check off another major objective on your operational plan, Admiral."

Hayes-Hunter paused at the remark, set her tablet down on a piece of darkened equipment, and turned her chair slightly to look at the captain.

"Rick also says that sometimes I'm still an old sour-puss. I guess that's accurate."

Hollenkamp, relieved that it was a moment of reflection that had caused Hayes-Hunter to break the rhythm of her work and not a pause to rebuke him felt emboldened enough to observe, "Admiral, I'm just saying ma'am that we've accomplished some important things. It really is okay to enjoy even the small victories. After all, you don't know when you'll get your next chance, ma'am."

Hayes-Hunter nodded in mute agreement and stretched her back from the seated position, eliciting pops from her spine that sounded unusually loud in the relative quiet of the compartment. It was a good reminder that she too easily and obliviously hoarded her stress.

"You know, all those years I served under Gloval- first in the Global War, then aboard SDF-1, and then under his flag right up to the day-. Right up to that day-. Do you know how many times I actually say him smile?"

Hollenkamp, more relaxed now that this was turning into an informal moment leaned almost leisurely against a frame in the bulkhead that was closest by.

"Not many, I'm guessing."

Hayes-Hunter raised her right hand with all of the fingers splayed, "This many- maybe."

Hollenkamp shrugged his resignation, "-Can't say I knew him. I was in a room with him half a dozen times, and had occasion to speak with him about half that many. –I do remember what he asked me that first time we spoke at some senior officers' requirements steering group or another-."

Hayes-Hunter seemed mildly intrigued, "What was that?"

"It was after some heated, hour-long debate on something that I don't even remember anymore when we'd gone into our mid-day break, and he grabbed me by the arm- and do you know what he asked me, Admiral?.."

"Haven't a clue.", Hayes-Hunter said, the faintest hints of a mile at the corner of her mouth with the recollection of familiar personality traits.

"-He grabbed me by the arm, looked me right in the face, and he asked me-. Hey, Commander, vot do you tink they're putting out for lunch?"

Hayes-Hunter's bland expression cracked and several short, snorty laughs escaped her before she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle them- nodding all the time as though she'd been standing beside Hollenkamp at the recalled moment and was now also reliving the experience.

"He was like that. –He could change gears on you quick as a flash, and you never knew where his mind would go next. I can't say I ever saw him eat much though, but he smoked that pipe of his incessantly. –You know, before SDF-1 had returned to Earth during the War, he'd chewed through six pipe stems? We always joked on the bridge that that's why we never saw him with food, because he ate pipes. Claudia Grant used to say to us all that we had to get home before we ran out of a supply of pipes for the Old Man, otherwise we'd suffer all Hell."

Hayes-Hunter's expression turned more thoughtful and distant for a moment before she spoke again, returning to her original line of conversation regarding the legendary figure, Henry J. Gloval, "-I understand now why he seldom smiled though. I understood before he'd been dead an hour. Your mind never stops working- looking ahead, looking ahead, looking ahead. What's next? How do we do the impossible with what we have?"

"I see how that could make you miserable if you let it.", Hollenkamp conceded.

Reflective still, Hayes-Hunter replied, "But that was just it. I saw him run-down, often. –Exhausted, frequently. But never miserable. I guess he always knew that there was the potential of winning out there, it was just the navigating of the here to there that was the trick."

"Maybe a lesson to be learned there.", Hollenkamp suggested.

Hayes-Hunter nodded, "Yes, there is. I've always known there is. There's just so much navigation to be done though…. –One day at a time, right?"

"Aye, Admiral-. I guess that's how we do it. One day at a time."

Hayes-Hunter slid off her chair and took up her tablet from where she had laid it to rest, powering it down as she tucked it under her arm.

"Well, Captain, let's go down to CDC and be there when that constellation goes live. I think we've earned it."

ASC Base Guadalajara, Mexico

Major Tomas "Maverick" Cruz felt his body grow increasingly leaden as beneath him his Valkyrie rolled to a stop on its undamaged, tri-cycle undercarriage. The focus of landing safely now stripped from him, Cruz marveled through the warm, drowsy, faintness overtaking him at the unlikely fact that the landing gear was undamaged- as everything else about his aircraft seemed to be fucked, including its pilot.

Leaving smudges on the touch-screen MFD from his blood-slick glove, Cruz tapped the single icon required for the fighter to begin its automatic power-down mode to full engine and systems shut-off. With what seemed as much effort as had he tried it in the midst of a 4-G turn, he was also able to reach up to toggle the switch that raised his canopy before slumping into the harnesses of his seat.

Cruz was aware of others gathering around his cockpit, some familiar, some not- and he hoped that he'd done enough to prevent the hole-riddled Valkyrie from blowing up spectacularly beneath them all. –But at this point, hope was all he could do.

The day had spent him.

"…Let's have a look at you then-.", Winters said from his tenuous footing on the top-most, left rung of the fighter's internally mounted crew ladder that Dalton had dropped from its housing with a pull of the release latch the moment the Veritech had stopped rolling.

Somehow perched on the right-side counterpart to the post Winters stood on, in essence doubling the capacity of the ladder's space, Dalton worked to get the helmet off of Cruz while ignoring the profusion of blood adorning the cockpit's tight space. Chucking the protective and functional headgear over his shoulder without care for what its landing might do to the numerous imbedded electronic systems it contained, Dalton was surprised at distinctly hearing it caught by some anonymous receiver as he worked cooperatively with Winters to unfasten the 5-point restraining system that was now keeping Cruz upright.

"-Bad news, Freddy-.", Winters said as he detached the pressurized air line and electronic fiber cables from their attachment points on Cruz's flight suit. He was speaking to Dalton, but without doubt to the squadron's executive officer, Winters was speaking for the benefit of the wounded Cruz.

"-His pretty face is intact along with his cock and ballocks!- This damn prick might still contribute to global repopulation-."

Seeing that the verbal jab had elicited a grunt and twitch from Cruz, probably a vastly diminished version of something sharp he would normally have come back with at Winters, Dalton added, "Yep, damn shame that. Another generation of him to deal with."

Winters had paused from the nearly completed task of separating pilot from craft only to rise up perilously on unsure footing and shout, "WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE THE GODDAMN MEDICS?!..."

High- nauseatingly high it seemed- over the tarmac in his clumsy scaling of Cruz's Valkyrie which fumed dwindling trails of smoke from multiple, penetrating impact points along all aspects of its sleek airframe Winters found the craft an island in a small sea of personnel eager to help. Most of the surviving pilots of Knight Hawk Squadron- those who had not been on the hop that had seen Cruz wounded, ground crews both ASC-AF and RDF-AF, as well as a general mix of Gemini Coalition forces who'd seen the Veritech limp in now crowded in to assist.

Absent it seemed were the only specialists in the entire catalog of the military professions who were capable of helping.

Winters could not confirm an actual call for medics had been made, he having first known of a problem with one of his pilots when Dalton had roused him with a kick from a semi-conscious state on a discarded tarp in the shade of a maintenance building and the simple, but effectively communicative statement that Maverick was coming in "in a bad way". Pinball had been paired with him as his wingman in a hastily cobbled together, four ship element with Preacher voluntarily in charge- off to support something that Winters could no longer remember.

Everything was blurring now into a continuous, slogging chain of engagements whose objectives and significance were becoming diminishingly well-defined. It was just a roving brawl now, and to the important issue of the moment- Winters could not say for certain whether medics had been summoned.

There was ample reason to think that medics should be en route to the tarmac, if not already present in strength on the airfield- there was sufficient need.

From his vantage point and with his focus no longer on solely the condition of his squadron or the next sortie in which they wore to participate, Winter saw more broadly this pocket of the War immediately around him and found it to be riding the cusp of chaos.

Utility helicopters of all the varieties in RDF and ASC inventory formed a sluggishly flowing glut of traffic, arriving over the grassy, western region of the airfield to land without any evident direction on whatever patch of ground that would receive them. Following touchdown, uniform-clad figures, male and female, RDF and ASC would spill out- their number too great to have safely adhered to the capacity regulations of the craft from which they had just disembarked.

They would linger a moment, visibly relieved to have slipped the immediate peril of contact with the enemy as the helicopter that had ferried them powered-up to leap skyward again. Their perceivable mood would then rapidly shift to modest confusion as the training-imbedded mandate to report their presence to a superior collided brutally with the on-site reality that there were no clear superiors to whom they should be reporting, or any indication of where the next link in the chain of command could even be found.

The evacuees were granted the small luxury of not being permitted time to dwell on their quandary as the thrashing of rotor blades on the approach was quick to inform them that the ground that they stood upon that had been a landing site for them was to also be a landing site for others, and immediately. They could be seen to flee the expansive field between and around landed helicopters, avoiding wisely the voids into which arriving ships descended without clear order or direction.

There was slightly more order to the traffic flow of fixed-wing aircraft, mostly fighter and attack models. Three parallel, 2,000m hardened strips received aircraft on their slanted run from northeast to southwest and dumped the received via taxiways and runway aprons into the hub of tarmacs, hangars, and maintenance facilities that were the center of the base. A similarly slanted pair of runways dispatched their aircraft from a starting point south of the hub, and a mathematically determined "safe distance" from the terminus of the receiving runways.

While the arrival and departure of fighters and attack aircraft was more orderly than that of their rotary wing counterparts, less adherence to ground safety regulations was being displayed. Aircraft too damaged to be quickly repaired were pushed off of hard surfaces into any open space that would accommodate them. Some mindful ground crews had applied demolition charges to the most classified components of aircraft to render them useless for analysis to the enemy –should the enemy choose to attempt analysis. Many if not most other aircraft were simply left abandoned.

The clutter of crippled aircraft had at some point tipped the balance of appearance of ASC Base Guadalajara from that of a functioning military post to that of an aircraft graveyard.

Arrivals and departures continued at the pace of desperate military action though. Aircraft, some damaged but fortunately most not arrived from numerous points of contact with the enemy a shrinking distance to all points north. Uniformly they arrived bare of armament and where applicable by the aircraft type, low on fuel. Mixed ground crews serviced those aircraft suitable for return to action and ushered them back into the queue for sortie.

Of the armed and combat-ready aircraft leaving ASC Base Guadalajara however, fewer and fewer were being directed north to join in the action there. Most vanished south to destinations unknown.

Winters was familiar enough with the dying process of a fixed combat position from previous, purely terrestrial wars as well as this one to recognize that this base was in it now, somewhere in the middle and accelerating toward the end. To his recollection, the pilot could not recall Guadalajara ever having been put up as a candidate for any kind of "stand" to be made- last or otherwise. Even though the broken, hilly terrain of the region lent itself to a chosen few being able to offset a force of many, no indication of planning such an action had filtered down to Winters' level.

ASC Base Guadalajara had simply been identified as a waypoint to who-knew-where.

While whatever command structure ruled the languishing Gemini Coalition had not ordered any kind of rear guard or spoiling action to slow the Zentraedi advance from the north, there was a diversion in play that seemed to Winters to be drawing and fixing the enemy's attention.

Beyond high hills that did not quite meet the criteria of mountains to the northeast, a great, dark cloud of thickening smoke rose from the city of Guadalajara and drifted southeast ond the light, prevailing wind. The movement of helicopters and jet aircraft, along with the cacophony of sounds inherit to an overcrowded tarmac prevented any acoustic component to be added to the visible report of what horrors were happening less than twenty kilometers away- but Winters hand able resources of experience to fill in the blanks.

Guadalajara was becoming the latest reprisal to some sort of thrashing the REF had given the Zentraedi Fleet by loosely confirmed rumor of magnitudes that varied by who was sharing it. –But whatever the wound inflicted by the REF and the objective it served, the windfall on the deck was increasingly evident. Zentraedi units were no longer content to butt heads with ASC or RDF-Army units, but actively seeking out and destroying civilian, "soft" targets.

Thinning dedicated ASC and RDF air assets still managed to keep the skies over the city of Guadalajara and more importantly the ASC base clear of Zentraedi Gnerl Fighter Pods and the less common but more fearsome flaying, power armor variants whose introduction had caused an unfair share of carnage. This condition would probably not last long Winters surmised.

Guadalajara's defensive SAM and AA batteries had done minimal work in the time Winters had had his feet on the ground, and in the two instances he was aware of –against small-volley missile attack only. Though they had not engaged however, the acquisition and tracking systems of the defensive batteries had been constantly busy with the greater volume of Zentraedi general purpose missiles that were targeting the nearby city in the pursuit of violence for the sake of violence.

Horrifying as it was, the objectively assessed effect was that the punishment being absorbed by the civilian population was diverting that destructive energy away from the crumbling Gemini Coalition.

Most appalling to Winters was how readily Command accepted this Faustian proposition, and how little personal conviction he had to object.

The horror was not some vague, amorphous, mental construct compartmentalized from reality by the physical barrier of the hills that stood between the base and the city that shared the name Guadalajara- it was very real and very near. Horror was massing at the base perimeter fencing that was distant enough to prevent the seeing of fine detail, but not so distant as to allow it to be ignored.

Civilians who a week before had been preparing for the Christmas and New Year holiday season and who had not the slimmest frame of a plan for mass evacuation of their homes and city found themselves smack-dab in the middle of the latter, and more to the point at the fence of the nearest promise of sanctuary that they could imagine. –And the "sanctuary" of ASC Base Guadalajara was imaginary to the civilian population.

Base security troops reinforced by what probably was anyone who could hold a weapon and pull a trigger and who was not immediately needed elsewhere ran quick, vehicle mounted pickets of the fence line while the areas with the highest concentration of civilians on the exterior of the perimeter held a fixed position of uniformed security on the interior. The message was clear, and the small dots that were the correct size to be human bodies that Winters' keen eyes were just barely able to make out laying in groups at several points inside of the perimeter fencing showed the message to be sincere.

A personally uncomfortable familiarity with the nature and general details of this confrontation gripped coldly that knot that Winters now kept in his gut as a near constant companion and squeezed mercilessly. It was a more acute form of the sharp pang he felt each time he sensed the difference in weight between the silver oak leaves he wore on his epaulettes now versus the sliver eagles that had once occupied the same places. Appropriately for the season Winters suddenly mentally flashed Scrooge's ghostly business partner, Jacob Marley, and the apparition of his King/father encountered by Hamlet on the watch platform. He felt a warning cry rise into his throat, but not strictly for the unarmed civilians whose desperate, single-minded attempts at self-preservation had them on a path whose end point was not safety. –Simultaneously it was a warning plea for the security troops about sins committed in Duty's name, and the lingering stain those acts carried that they could not anticipate in this moment.

It was a cry for the sake of both that reached the choking point in his throat and could go no further.

"-Jack!..", Dalton's strained voice snapped at him, jerking Winters back into the moment, "Give me a hand with him, goddamnit!.."

In his momentary lapse of focus, his brief loss of situational awareness Winters now realized that the medics had arrived incognito – driving a civilian-model pick-up truck clad in flat, ASC military grey rather than a purpose-designed and appointed ambulance. The white patches on the uniformed arms of the two men bearing a blood-smudged stretcher was enough for the lieutenant colonel to recognize an answered prayer though. He even considered sharing the moment later with the squadron's own zealot, Preacher.

-Maybe.

The pressing mass of eager volunteers wanting to help the situation mixed with an equal number who vulture-like wanted only a good view of the mortality play in progress suddenly became the greatest obstacle to rendering critical aid to the unconscious and exsanguinating Major Tomas Cruz. –This was until like two titans wading effortlessly against the force of the sea, Lyle's indoctrinated Zentraedi subordinates Aptur and Kakim made a path for themselves to the cockpit side of the wounded pilot's Valkyrie.

Even in their micronized state, their massive shoulders were almost flush with the cockpit's rim that Winters and Dalton had had to climb five ladder rungs to reach. With ease and a gentleness that seemed incompatible with beings of their size and brute strength, the two senior officers passed their wounded man into hands that Winters had seen heft a Reflex missile into mounting position on his own fighter without benefit of an ordinance handling lift.

The third of the sometimes maligned, often mistreated Zentraedi enlisted, Ghurdyt was opening the way for the paramedics who had arrived to render critical medical assistance. As tenderly as a mother laying a sleeping infant into its crib, so did Kakim and Aptur rest Cruz's limp but still clearly respiring form onto the stretcher before standing back with the anticipation of those expecting to see a miracle manifest itself.

Winters and Dalton had found their way down clumsily to the tarmac once again by this time, choosing without thinking in their overexhausted state to descend the Valkyrie's slender crew ladder in parallel and nearly ending up in a heap beneath it as a result. Fortunately for pride, all attention was on the paramedics ferrying away Cruz and not on the awkward aircraft dismount of the two officers. Winters and Dalton barely noticed themselves.

Dalton led the charge after the paramedics bearing Cruz, his school-age aspirations of stardom in American football that had been let down by at best a modest physical build showed as he shouldered through the crowd closing in the departing medics' wake.

Winters, no more physically imposing than his executive officer- but far less reserved, edged past Dalton and cleared the paths with a succession of aggressive shoves to clear the way. Met with snarls and curses in reaction that coming from lesser ranks and enlisted were by definition "insubordinate", neither Winters nor Dalton seemed to notice. They were closing on the medics and their wounded, and success in that outweighed all other considerations at the moment.

"You're gonna be able to save him, right?..", Dalton asked bluntly as the medics loaded the stretcher as gracefully into the bed of the pick-up truck as they could manage. Blood from repeated business that day that had not been thoroughly washed away was still evident in the grooves of the truck bed- drying from the intense heat.

"-Yes, we fix him good-.", replied what Dalton took to be the senior medic of the pair as he prepared a bag of plasma for transfer into the patient with a clear plastic tube and an IV needle that looked like a bayonet being drawn from its sheath rather than a life-saving implement as it was removed from its sealed, sterile wrapper.

The voice was not accented as Dalton expected and hinted at an Eastern European origin rather than somewhere local in Mexico or one of the South American regions. Dalton was thrown by this momentarily as the man's dark complexion and dark, curly hair could have marked him as a relative of Cruz's and not just the medic who had answered the call to transport him to hospital.

"His blood type is written into the inside of his left boot-.", Winters added, remembering the detail that many pilots who served front-line had picked up from infantry.

Inserting the needle smoothly into a vein that his partner had found for him in Cruz's arm- an action that caused Cruz to shift in his semi-conscious state- the medic replied noncommittally, "-Today we have lots wounded-. We do our best, okay?"

Winters' blood, already at a simmer went full-boil.

"-Well this one's a bloody Valkyrie pilot, and if you weren't up on current events- we're in need of those!.."

Dalton could sense that Winters was working up toward that fine line that separated a spirited display from the threat of actual violence, and that the line was coming up quickly. He intervened as the restraint that the CO sometimes- frequently- lacked.

"-They've got it, Jack- ease down. –They can't help Maverick if you pull their heads off."

Winters took a step away before reversing with the same intent as teen brawler pulled away from a fight that he was not quite done with yet.

"-Just do your goddamn job!..", Winters raged over Dalton's shoulder as the XO physically put himself between Winters and the medics, "-Or the next fucking ambulance will be coming for you!.."

Plasma now flowing into Cruz's seeping body and cursory checks showing he was stable for transport, the lead medic slapped his hand on top of the truck's cab from where he knelt in the bed, signaling the driver their readiness.

Locking eyes with Winters as the truck began to move, tauntingly, daring- the medic said as he was on the verge of being too distant to be heard.

"You listen to your man now-. He save your life."

Dalton felt Winters' strength being applied against him double as the medic's parting shot found some small, untapped source of energy in the squadron leader. As the truck opened the distance and built speed though, taking with it the possibility of catching the medic to wring his neck- Winters relented to a state where his lieutenant was nearly supporting him.

"C'mon, Jack- save it for the other people we're supposed to kill today…"

Too tired for anything else at the moment, Winters allowed Dalton to lead him meanderingly through the crowd that was now more inclined to open a path to a clustering of general purpose cargo cases that stood at just the right height to double as seating. Once planted atop a crate each, Dalton fished out a pack of cigarettes from a breast pocket in his flight suit in anticipation of the certainty that Winters' attention was only seconds from satiating the nicotine demon.

"So, tell me honestly, Jack-.", Dalton inquired, pausing only long enough to put a smoke into the corner of his own mouth and offer Winters the pack, "Have you ever gotten along with anyone?"

Winters allowed the metallic grating of Dalton thumbing the striking wheel on his Zippo to preface his response only because it allowed the resulting and requisite flame to reach his fag that much quicker.

"Well, we're getting on okay today-."

"Day's young.", Dalton said wearily through a stream of smoke, "-Jury's still out on that one."

Winters was quiet and thoughtful for a moment before saying, "-Well, there was that chap once, but you didn't know me then."

"Sounds about right.", Dalton agreed.

Winters noticed at once a faint, crimson smudge on the paper of his cigarette as he rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Its discovery led instantaneously to the further realization that his hands were in a far worse state, stained and growing tacky with Cruz's blood of which he was only now becoming aware.

A surge of visceral revulsion bumped the knot in his guts that might have started to soften had he not made the discovery of his hands' unclean state- but it subsided quickly. He was too tired, or too filled with the abundant ugliness of the world today for the sick feeling to keep its hold and persist.

"Look at us, Freddy- we're a bloody mess."

Winters offered his hands as corroborating evidence, prompting Dalton to check his own and find them to be as badly stained.

"-Yeah, I guess we are."

"Let's make a point of washing up before we eat anything-."

In heat far too high to move or think comfortably, Captain Roland "Pinball" Ott who had taken to the air just under an hour earlier as Cruz's wingman came running at near full speed in Winters' and Dalton's direction, nearly colliding with the other pilots of the squadron who were coincidentally arriving at the same time –but at a more governed pace. Rechtberg and Cohen whose spacing had provided the largest gap for the galloping pilot to pass instead caught him at the elbows, arresting his charge and nearly going to ground with him for the effort. –Whether the two pilots who had not participated in the sortie that had seen Cruz wounded thought Ott to be on the attack, or merely recognized that he was thumbing his nose at physics in his approach, it was unclear. Today had already had too many twists to the baseline brutality, and another addition had been thankfully avoided.

Ott drew breath deep enough to cause his lungs to hurt in their expansion, and blurted out on the rushed exhale, "-Maverick?..."

Dalton offered the dwindling pack of cigarettes that had added an additional, proverbial nail into both Winters' and his coffins to Ott, saying, "Medics just took him off. He's got a good shot at winning this year's most likely to pass for Swiss cheese award, but he'll pull through."

Winters, uncertain where Dalton's prediction of Cruz's recovery came from, but let it pass. Ott, normally cool-headed and iron-nerved, was showing the wear and fraying that all were feeling and giving him a small measure of comfort was a small measure of decency that still could be afforded. –It wouldn't affect Cruz one way or another at least.

Things were just going to be what they were going to be.

With no more unoccupied crates open to him to sit on, Ott dropped heavily into not quite cross-legged seated position on the concrete- waving off the offered cigarettes as he went down. He was not a habitual smoker the way Winters and Dalton were, and the demon sometimes did not have as firm a grip.

"You've had a day of it.", Winters observed with the detachment of hangman.

Ott nodded his resigned concurrence to the CO's assessment of events, replying after a moment's thought, "Yeah. –It's gonna happen again, too. They were all over us once we were outside of SAM coverage and they just kept piling on. Too damn many."

Dalton tried to force a laugh but failed, it coming out so flatly as to be hidden under his words, "-It's a running theme these days."

Reliving something harrowing in his mind, he amended his last statement with, "Too damn many minus seven, for sure."

Winters put the heel of his boot on Ott's shoulder to give it one good shake the way one might normally with a hand- when the effort didn't seem so burdensome.

"There's a chap."

"Christ-… I told that ASC leftenant I was lookin' for the sorriest heap of impacted assholes he'd ever seen, but I wasn't thinking you'd look half this bad…"

Winters didn't have to look up to recognize his counterpart from the 1404th Werewolves by voice. Glancing up at him from his improvised seat though, Winters was gratified that Lt Col Duggan looked every bit as battered as he felt.

The subject of The King from "down under" hadn't three square centimeters together anywhere on his flight suit that were not soiled with dirt, soot, dried blood, or combination of all three making Winters inclined to ask if he was aware that his Veritech had been provided to him so that he didn't have to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.

Winters let it pass though as he was both too tired to articulate the question in a suitably humorous fashion, and to enjoy whatever pointed retort with which Dugan might reply. He wasn't even certain if it was he or Dugan who reeked of sun-fermented sweat and stale cigarettes. Probably both of them.

"-Dingo…", was what he managed in salutation as Duggan stepped over Pinball to wedge himself between him and Dalton.

Sheltered by the same shade that had attracted Knight Hawk Squadron to their present location, Dugan removed his slouch hat which had aged years in only the span of the War's duration thus far. The comfortably used but clean and well-formed cover with Dugan's silver oak leaves pinned to the crown that could have nearly passed as a sanctioned element of uniform was now crushed, shapeless, and every bit as dirty as the rest of its owner. Duggan itched at his scalp through sweat-matted hair that seemed to Winters to have greyed noticeably in the same time as his hat's deterioration.

"Heard one of yours took a pranging.", Duggan said bluntly, taking the cigarette from Winters' hand for a drag.

"Maverick.", Winters admitted as though he bore some culpability in the episode.

"-And he's?...", Duggan asked of Cruz's condition without explicitly asking about the worst case scenario.

"Hospital.", Winters said, not really sure.

"Well", Duggan observed, "You're a bloody mess too-."

"Already used that one.", Winters replied with validity, "Come up with your own jokes, Dingo."

As he was handing the cigarette back to Winters, Duggan noticed the blood smudges on the diminishing paper shaft, "-Did someone already make a crack about you girls smoking your own tampons already?.."

"No, that's a new one. Good on you. –How are things?"

"Buggered.", Duggan replied much to benignly for the reality of what was being conveyed, "I'm down to about two-thirds strength- same as you. That's if you don't factor in damaged aircraft. Then, well…"

Winters drew on his cigarette, leaving enough for a single good drag and handed it off to Duggan again, saying, "I always knew it was in you to sink to my level. Does this mean we can take the weekend?"

Duggan shook his head, "Not likely, mate-. Mumuni is talking about rolling your squadron into min, or mine into yours- definitely one of the two. –Who's that put in charge anyway?.."

"Me.", Winters replied, wishing as Duggan exhaled the last of his cigarette that he'd stayed with his default inclination of selfishness and not shared it.

"How do you figure?", Duggan asked- a genuine and legitimate question.

Winters had no credible answer, but managed as he held up his aged, leather wheel cap as evidence, "Because my hat's in better condition."

"Fairly argued."

As Pinball had settled into a seated position on the ground, so the other remaining pilots of Knight Hawk Squadron did as well- preferring the aggressively rough concrete to standing in their worn state.

"-I don't suppose that the Colonel brought up the topic of where we're going next, did she?", Winters' wingman Vincenz asked Duggan. –A fair, if not ambitious question given the squadron's collective state.

"Didn't mention.", Duggan said

Vought, still tender from his ejection over the Sea of Cortez some days before but refusing to resign from the fight asked from a seated position almost opposite to his squadron-mate, "Eager to leave so soon, Vice? Hell- we've got a lot more trashing to do to this place before it hits our average."

A deep rumble from the direction of Guadalajara rolled over the hills between and found the cluster of seated pilots, washing over them like an ocean swell of sound. No one bothered to look in the direction of the sound's origin- they had seen all they would be able to see before and it was not a situation that any could help so it was silently and individually agreed to be best left alone.

"If it makes anyone feel any better", Preacher, from the same and only intact section left in 623rd Squadron, said, "-I've heard word that home hasn't seen a shot fired since we pulled out to head south."

"Everything the dittos came for is down this way.", Dalton mused darkly, "Invid flowers don't grow in the desert. –Funny thing is that when we got transferred to Edwards, she hated the idea of the desert. She grew up with a lot more green around her."

Winters grunted, "-And I thought she just hated me..."

Dalton shook his head, "Nope, she grew into that."

"Good to know."

Pinball lifted his head off of his bent and raised knee that he'd been using to rest it, and asked of the diminished group, "Do you think they've been told yet? -About Dodger, and Cisco, and Skinny- and Maverick?.."

The prevailing silence spoke of uncertainty. In other circumstances the other pilots around Ott, superstitious to one degree or another by nature of their profession might have responded to the question more caustically as a "jinx" on the living to mention the dead. –But Pinball had been closely involved in Dodger's loss and now Maverick's wounding- so some consideration was given.

It remained unknown whether the mechanisms established for notifying dependents of a loved one's demise in the performance of his or her duty was still in place.

It was disquieting though that wives and girlfriends of the lost might still be battling the nerves that came with thinking husbands and boyfriends were braving peril when their place was actually to be mourning and in the first stages of moving on past the ones for whom they feared.

"I'm sure they'll know soon if they don't already, Pinball.", Dalton said, "-At least they're not having to decipher Jack's long-hand to get the word."

Dingo looked first to Winters and then Dalton, "When'd Jack learn to write?.."

The air stilled momentarily over the tarmac, losing all movement before the powerful, public address speakers began to wail their wordless cry of warning.

There was a ripple of conditioned response through all moving around the airfield but it ran particularly strong through the pilots whose nerves were only settling by virtue of exhaustion. The general "scramble" alarm tapped instantly into their last reserves of energy and seemed to hoist them invisibly to their feet in a single motion.

"That's us-.", Winters said as he received more than one glance that asked if the squadron's involvement was actually required.

As Dalton set individual pilots into motion in the direction of their aircraft that had been in various states of minor repair and re-arming almost an hour before when he'd last seen them, he quipped bitterly, "-Well, thank God… I thought I was going to have to sit around bored all afternoon…"

Lyle tucked his beloved Osaka Pistons into a cargo pocket of his utility coveralls and zipped it firmly closed lest the invisible vortexes of suction from powering Valkyrie engines take the dogged, non-regulation head cover into an intake and add to the insult of committing a rookie ground crew mistake the double-injury of both losing the totem and potentially damaging one of his mecha children. The consideration was more than one of sparing himself personal guilt and needless additional work, it was a matter of every Valkyrie- every aircraft in fact- being a critical and irreplaceable asset to whatever the present, disintegrating operation was being regarded.

The artificial circulation of air would have been welcome to the plane captain had it not included the movement of air caused by the thrust of idling fusion/plasma engines that quickly had elevated the median temperature on the tarmac from stifling to infernal. –But it also brought with it the deafening whine of the same engines that collectively with the idle-song of others overwhelmed the wail of the scramble alarm, and the more nerve-fraying hiss of defensive SAM batteries firing in response to detected and increasingly numerous threats whose prime targets could be none other than the very fighters in and around which Lyle was moving.

There was a churn of competing personnel on the tarmac as the maintenance and ordinance crews withdrew hurriedly from the staggered ranks of fighters and the pilots called to action by the scramble rushed in with even greater haste. The tarmac serving two Valkyrie squadrons in addition to the 623rd, as well as fragments from at least two ASC-AF units traded hands as neatly as could be expected with mild confusion being the norm as pilots searched frantically for their aircraft in the places that their worn minds recalled them being. Lingering support team members helped significantly in reuniting pilots with their machines, but the process was uniformly hindered by the pause of pilots spot-inspecting their aircraft and their reactions inspired by what they found.

Winters had no energy to mask his displeasure and made no attempt to try as he inspected the results of his fighter's arming. The outer mounting station on each wing was bare of even missile mounting rails and the inner two bore three Fury and three Basilisk missiles apiece. Where on the first night of the war, a perceived eternity before, Winters had had some concern with getting off the ground under the weight borne by his fighter's drooping wings, now he wondered how he was meant to fight beyond his first three minutes in the air.

"What the actual hell, Lyle?!.. Should I keep my sidearm handy in case?"

Helplessly but beyond fearing insubordination, the plain captain fired back, "Whell add it to the list'a shitty luck fer tha week! We been bleedin' off what ordinance we had all mornin', `n this is what's left. Ah can't knit missiles!"

Winters hauled himself up the crew ladder to the port side of the cockpit, wanting at some primal level to continue with the shouting match with his subordinate but governed by the understanding that DeVeo was as powerless and faultless in the situation as he. As Lyle had indignantly pointed out, it was another item on the list of shitty luck for the week.

There were clearly no bruised feelings with the plane captain, or at least he was in supreme control of concealing them as he was helping Winters with strapping in and connecting his suit to the Valkyrie's air and electronics systems before the pilot had fully settled into his seat.

"-We ain't gonna be here when ya geyt back, y'know….", Lyle said bluntly as he put his weight into tightening the shoulder restraints to Winters' 5-point harness.

The pilot, as he situated his helmet on his head and tested the flow of air through his mask, was not certain whether Lyle was predicting the inevitable next movement of retreating forces and assets, or something more dire.

Answering in kind, Winters said, "Don't get your knickers in a twist over it, old boy-. We're probably not coming back either."

Lyle gave a paternal slap to the pilot's shoulder as he pulled the safety pin from the ejection seat's overhead handle and dropped down the ladder and out of sight- escaping barely the swift fall of the fighter's canopy into place.

"Tower, this is Knight Hawk One- let's get on with it."

"Copy Knight Hawk One- reconfigure to GERWALK and ambulate to Runway Apron Three, Left. Permission granted for vertical take-off upon request. Good hunting."

Ahead of him, Winters watched as Mumuni's Vigilantes transformed into the multi-functional GERWALK mode of the Valkyrie one at a time and ambled with stable yet awkward looking, chicken-like gait of that form out onto the runway apron to lift off vertically into flight. Like Winters' fighter, their lighter than ideal ordinance load allowed for a safer combat take-off that also prioritized runway use for the non-transformable aircraft that did not have the option.

The sky was blotchy to most points north with punctuations of oily smoke that were the result of effective SAM fire against enemy fighters unfortunate enough to be in the leading, expendable elements at the head of their charge.

Winters knew that the rate of SAM fire could not match the demand for the service for long, but it would hold long enough for him to be free of the ground.

Defense of the base, or simply another episode mutually pursued destruction would follow. No doubt each RDF-AF and ASC-AF pilot was going aloft with the same wish of "good hunting" from the tower, and for some pilots it would be.

It did appear after all that they would be going into a target rich environment.

Brasilia

Point Lieutenant Jarrot had recognized sometime before that there was a peculiar personal aloofness that could coexist with Duty.

Whether it was the norghil conducting operations against The Invid, or other species whom The Robotech Masters had determined to be undesirable for continued existence, or his caste the Te'Dak Tohl removing from Service the norghil who failed in Duty –that the requisite taking of life did not require a personal investment. Jarrot personally did not harbor any seething hatred of The Invid, nor had he ever felt any relief of vindication at the slaughter of norghil. It was simply something that had to be done.

-This world though…

In scarcely a day, Point Lieutenant Jarrot had found reason to invest himself in the eradication of this micronian species.

His reason had nothing to do with Supreme General Krymina's assertion that this species, gifted by a delusional, sedicious Zor with a single-stroke elevation from barbarism into Robotechnology were the obstacle standing between the Te'Dak Tohl and self-determination. It had everything to do with the devious and galling surprise attack of an unknown number of their warriors on the staging area the night before that Jarrot himself had pronounced secure before his superior, Sub-Commander K'Rhel. It no less had to do with the fact that in the same humiliating episode, they had also forced Jarrot from the comfortable role of action officer into the significantly more demanding role of commanding officer with the slaying of Sub-Commander K'Rhel.

-And finally, these very moments were to Jarrot the micronians' own plea for slaughter.

It was just a matter of doing it.

Point Lieutenant Jarrot had not sought K'Rhel's position nor had he relished having to fill it, but that did not mean that he was incapable of doing so. The micronian warriors who had drawn first blood against him were not living out in a field beyond the population center that the non-combatant elements of their culture had wisely abandoned. What they had done had required planning, and planning had required observation, and observation had required proximity.

Jarrot had known even before the sun had risen and the fires of the battle in and around his brutalized compound had gone out that the micronian warriors had to be sheltering somewhere nearby in the population center like Invid establishing an improvised hive.

That certainty had caused him to improvise a probe and search effort whose oversight and command he had assumed personally. It had led to many hours of steady marching and systematic sweeping, he in his Glaug, subordinates in their Regults or on foot with many moments of contemplating the possibility that effort might be futile.

-But then the moment of contact had happened, which brought him to the present.

The street ahead of Point-Lieutenant Jarrot's Glaug came to an abrupt end intersecting with another avenue; a junction that the primitive, micronian, tandem-wheeled vehicle with its single, exposed operator was able to negotiate with a tight, banking left turn but that the Glaug with its vastly greater mass could not at nearly a full charge. At the last moment possible, Jarrot executed the only option left to him, ordering the Glaug with its amply-powered legs to vault the low-rise building before him.

Within the mecha's cockpit Jarrot realized in the fraction of a second it took for the Glaug to leave the ground that it was not going to clear the obstacle. He had no time to fear the consequences, only to react as much as the mecha's systems required him to as metallic feet met civilian construction at great velocity. Concrete pre-form, wood, and steel framing disintegrated with the impact of dense, mechanical limbs. The flooring of the building's upper level, designed to accept the weight of human occupants and their belongings buckled and broke easily beneath the war machine's substantial weight as articulated, grappling toes and stabilizing pads flexed automatically to provide the Glaug stability. Wrecking-ball-like, the officer's mecha smashed and clawed its way through the low-rise apartment building's collapse somehow managing to stay atop it and riding it through to the far side like a surfer mastering the crest of a crashing wave.

Behind Jarrot by less than four strides and moving at no less speed, a squad of Regults had done their own damage to the buildings lining the sides of the street that ended at the apartments Jarrot was demolishing efficiently. Cosmetic facing, dislodged signs, and a steady rain of glass fell from business and residential fronts where the sides of charging Regults had bumped them with their proportionately giant weight and kinetic energy.

The damage to their surroundings was hardly noticed by the Regult pilots, their mounts having been unaffected. Their focus was on keeping pace with their commanding officer and avoiding the periodic blast craters from where the Glaug's heavy impact cannons had fired at and missed the enemy that the trailing mecha had only caught glimpses of in the chase.

The frenzy of the hunt was high now and still building.

Jarrot felt the firmness of actual ground beneath his Glaug's feet again as he scanned where the micronian should have been. At the intersection of two streets to his left he caught the final, visible moment of motion as three of the odd-looking machines disappeared into the cut of another street, behind another building and traveling in a loose pack.

Judging that less time would be lost by pursuing the trio along the same path than would be needed to bludgeon an intercepting path through more structures, Jarrot threw his Glaug up the street to his left and closed the distance to the intersection in two strides before making the impossibly tight turn right.

Even in the failing natural light, the Glaug's integrated optical systems provided its pilot with a clear, enhanced, panoramic view of the world before it to include the tail-end view of the fleeing micronians on their machines. Had they been tightly clustered, or lined up in even a semblance of a column, Jarrot would have already been saturating an easy target with ion blasts from the heavy and light impact cannons mounted in his mecha's weapon arms.

They bobbed and wove though in their swift flight from direct and warrior-like confrontation though, impressively using abandoned vehicles and pre-existing piles of building rubble to leap lengths of pavement and add a third dimension to their evasiveness that initially caused Jarrot to hesitate. There being no limit to the ion rounds he could fire though, Jarrot committed and managed four bursts at the trailing two micronians that were ineffective at anything but destroying paved road before the targets themselves banked hard right onto another street.

"-Flank right and try to get around them!..", Jarrot raged as he continued his pursuit along the course the escaping micronians had set. He himself was not even certain to whom in his command he was giving the order, but was growing desperate enough to assume that the warriors to whom it made sense would obey.

He had to keep up with the enemy even if he could not neutralize them, maintaining at least periodic visual contact or they might slip the sweeping action that had taken all day to produce.

Naib Subedar Singh heard himself bluntly ordering Riflemen Baker and Singh (no relation) to continue their baiting flight, and that he would be resuming it himself momentarily. Uncharacteristically, the word "ass" had almost found its way into the imperative, but Singh had caught it before it had crossed his lips.

He felt better protected, now suited fully in his Cyclone's Battloid form- slightly better protected, at least. –And facing the enemy alone he would have likely questioned the wisdom of what he was about to do had the Glaug he had intended to antagonize not come skidding around the building corner some three blocks away focusing Singh into action.

Crouched behind the collapsed front half of a building whose standing remains slumped like a derelict against the office structure to its right, the Gurkha officer clutched his Battloid's EB-37 particle beam rifle with the reverence of one depending on it to reduce the likelihood of certain death to merely possible death.

Singh knew that for a few more moments unless the Zentraedi officer's eye was unnaturally keen that he had the advantage of cover and concealment. For a moment after that, he would have the advantage of surprise. Beyond that surprise, it was anyone's guess and Singh did not have the inclination to remain around to find out whose.

He wanted only to keep the officer's aggression peaked, lest he might begin to realize he was being led on a chase.

As a breath escaped Singh's lungs, he rose with the blunt energy weapon readied, aimed expertly, and fired with practiced and targeting system assisted precision.

It was a chain of events separated by nanoseconds between the Glaug's sensors detecting the threat of the Cyclone Battloid's metallic mass, displaying the threat box to the pilot on his holographic viewscreen, his recognizing of the significance of the box and his response to it, and the flash of an energy weapon's fire.

Point Lieutenant Jarrot reacted naturally as any sentient creature would at a threat, though with the surprise his reaction was understandably exaggerated.

Jarrot was thrown violently side to side as his Glaug obediently complied with his direction via control stirrups to lunge right in reaction to micronian's particle beam fire that had struck his mecha in the same moment as its muzzle flash. A micronian building had fortunately been there to arrest the mecha's panicked movement, and a cascade of boutique store appointments and products tumbled over the Glaug as it steadied itself.

Growling something as close to profane as the Zentraedi dialect of Tirolian allowed, Jarrot tore his Glaug easily free of the compromised storefronts and directed his weapons at the source of the attack a moment before.

Dense streams of ion rounds poured at a high rate of fire into rubble, pavement, and nothing else of significance as Singh slipped away again in the cycle form of his mecha onto yet another intersecting street.

People tended to say that the sound of approaching battle was like thunder, but Whilite had long since formed an opinion contrary to the popular one. This common conception was not the fault of the conceivers he knew, they had a collective inexperience with battle and also with the natural force that Whilite most likened it to- volcanic or seismic activity.

While not rich, Whilite's family had been financially well-off enough to travel before the onset of The Global War. He did not remember all of the fine details of family vacations, but he remembered the broad strokes of a particular trip that brought him into proximity with a rousing volcano. While the ongoing eruption was deemed "safe" by virtue of its steady output of lava and the established course of the molten rock's flow- it still had the ominous feel across many senses of something powerful and dangerous. The ongoing eruption generated a continuous rumble that was both heard and felt.

Approaching battle brought Whilite back to that memory, only with a slightly different spin on the fear it instilled. He was feeling that fear now, it having started with the first, distant reports of weapons fire – he crack and boom of energy rounds burning the air and obliterating things that had never been intended to withstand their abuse. The fear that had coincided with the first sounds as small, icy needlepoints throughout his body grew and spread as the cacophony developed and intensified, shaking the very air the way that the persistent, irregular tremors of rampaging destruction shook the underground garage and three levels of condominium building beneath Whilite's feet.

It was coming.

"Gunga galoonga, motherfuckers!", Sergeant Harris called out over the operational frequency from the OP that he and Corporal Fuller had established at the nearby Buddhist temple.

"Everyone get your game faces on!"

Staff Sergeant Byerly kicked PFC Cochran sharply in the right thigh as he snored intermittently, in a balled, sitting position against the nearest wall. The carbon-fiber composite cuisse of his body armor absorbed the force that would have otherwise resulted in bruising, but allowed the Ranger to know he'd been kicked.

Cochran went rigid-awake with a start, snatching his rifle up from where it had been held snugly across his lap between his crooked legs and abdomen.

PFC Diaz who had awaken only a few minutes before on his own laughed impishly with a surge of nervous energy at the needless panic his squad-mate wallowed in in those transitional moments between sound slumber and heightened wakefulness.

"Wha-?...", was all Cochran managed, semi-intelligibly as he got his bearings.

Byerly, satisfied in the latitude her sergeant's role afforded her to impose chosen moments of mild suffering on subordinates snapped harshly, "Off your ass and on your feet, Cochran! -The Dalai Lama called and we're on!.."

Whilite wasn't certain whether Cochran was now fully awake or just going automatically through the same preparatory motions demonstrated by his fellow PFC and staff sergeant, but he was grateful that as he was about to be part of some kind of fool-hearted brawl that at least Byerly too had caught and recognized correctly Harris's reference to Caddyshack.

It helped to be surrounded by good people.

The thought of a last stand had not really crossed Whilite's mind in the entire time he'd spent readying himself and overseeing the preparations of his platoon for this Op, but it was taking center stage in his mind now. The heavy, mechanized step of mecha to the north interlaced and punctuated with weapons fire brought an already clear picture of what was to happen here into even sharper focus. –Echo Company had picked a fight with giants.

Granite slabs that had functioned as trendy countertops when this building had been a living, low-rise condominium and which Cochran and Diaz had taken brutish glee in tearing from the custom kitchens of three units to serve as an improvised, lean-to defilade rattled and ground against one another as wanton destruction neared. An accumulation of glass that Whilite and Byerly had themselves knocked out of the frames that had formed most of the fourth floor unit's north facing wall danced and jingled with the tremors of enemy movement, glittering faintly in the soft light of a partial moon.

"All positions, Echo Actual-.", Captain Nguyen said with only the slightest edge to his voice, a testimony to self-mastery, "-Hold fire until my command. I want as many dittos in the kill box as possible before this thing turns Wild West."

From the top floor of the building operationally named "Harpo", Whilite could see across the complex plaza some 120 or 130 meters and above and beyond another building of the four living structure complex that outwardly appeared to be identical to the one in which most of his platoon was positioned. In the modest light of stars and moon, Whilite could see with his naked eyes indications of movement- the movement of giants and their machines.

"-You need help with that, El-Tee?..", Byerly whispered as the click of her rifle's firing selector could be heard going from the "safe" to the first firing position.

Whilite realized with the good-natured prod from his senior NCO that he was fumbling to insert the stabilizing shaft of an M-77 anti-mecha rocket into the bore of his rifle's grenade launcher. The sudden attention centered him though, and a third (..or fourth?) attempt found the rocket loaded easily as designed into the grenade launcher.

"-Sorry", Whilite apologized as much to himself as to Byerly and the two PFCs in his company as he actioned the grenade launcher's pump grip forward engaging the rocket's propellant charge in the firing chamber, "-Was having problems finding my inner John Wayne there for a second."

Byerly shook her head with a grin- a silent acknowledgment that she was getting the jitters too.

PFC Diaz was more verbal with his forgiveness of his lieutenant's nerves at the expense of his counterpart, "Don't sweat it, El-Tee- we had to put some hair around the hole for Cochran to figure out how to get it in. –Ain't that right, Cochran?.."

"-Yeah, fuck you Diaz.", Cochran grumbled as he shifted his crouching weight from one foot to another, crunching glass and the detritus of the abandoned condo unit in the darkness, "-Brought me right back to all those times with your sister."

Byerly interceded the sophomoric discourse expertly with, "Shut up both of you-. The only holes with hair either'a y've ever known you wipe with toilet paper twice a day. –Now can we focus on killing the bad guys? Pretty please?.."

The screech of multiple tires locked in the epic struggle between Newtonian physics and static friction entered the condominium unit through the opened north wall as the Gurkhas on their Cyclones wove their way around buildings and into the kill box. Adolescent smack-talk evaporated instantly with the certainty that the enemy could not be far behind.

-And the enemy was not.

One of Whilite's other childhood memories was of going to the movies and particularly his successful persuasion of his parents to take him to see Jurassic Park –and the week of subsequent nightmares that had followed. How many times had he awoken, expecting to find that iconic T-Rex lumbering around the corner of the house, peering in through bedroom windows and looking for a tasty, child-morsel? -Or worse, nudging it's blunt snout and toothy, grinning maw out into his bedroom through a closet door left partially ajar to take little Eddie and his bed in two bites like a pepperoni round on a Ritz cracker-.

Now, that beast was lumbering into the courtyard through the corner gap in the plaza between Groucho at the left of the kill box and the unnamed building spanning the north end. CGI flesh was now corporal in mass-produced, Terilium form, and savage teeth and horrid, predator's breath had been traded up in favor of blunt, ugly, arm appendages whose dual over/under impact cannons began spitting rapid-fire ion bolts as soon as the officer pilot of the Glaug had line of sight on the three Cyclones he had pursued to this place.

Earth, pavement, and reinforced concrete form exploded in churning plumes as energy blasts ate into them in the wake of the Cyclones that raced in tactical retreat into the descending ramp entrance of the complex's parking structure.

The Glaug Officer's Pod lunged after its escaping, wheeled prey in consistent appearance to the mental analogy in Whilite's mind between it and the cinematic dinosaur of youth. Dust and debris billowed out of the broad descent into the garage's lower levels as the Glaug fired in futility at targets that had already turned a lower corner and were doubtlessly headed toward the street-side access points of the garage beyond reach of their pursuer.

-Whether the Zentraedi knew or thought to look for the other entrance from which the Gurkhas might emerge was unclear.

"-Say Bull Feathers, say Bull Feathers… Say Bull Feathers, goddamnit..", Corporal Fuller's cyclical prayer went, meshed into his regulated breathing tucked in behind the scope of the M-163R anti-material sniper's rifle.

Within the highest point of the Buddhist Pagoda, it had also been an unending earful for the senior member of Echo Company's sniper team, Sergeant Harris who was similarly poised behind his spotter's scope with its integrated range finder. Southwest of the "Marx Brothers kill box", as he and Fuller had come to call it unofficially and at a range of less than 250 meters, Harris needed the spotter's scope as little as Fuller needed his riflescope to do the work for which they were responsible.

–Moreover, for experienced snipers who knew well the retribution their trade brought down upon its practitioners, being this close was beginning to feel indistinguishable from too close.

Still, Fuller's incessant chant was beginning to grate nerves.

"CO'll call it when he calls it.", Harris said, applying just enough firmness to his tone to quiet his junior rifleman.

The motivation for Fuller's prayer to that higher power, Captain Nguyen, to get the action started was at the same time not lost on Harris. Despite being uncomfortably close to the tangos, they were beginning to mount in number and were showing initial signs of questioning the wisdom of going where the Gurkhas had bravely led.

The Glaug Officer's Pod that had been point on the chase of Naib Subedar Singh and that was still stubbornly at the task of finding a means to reach the depths of the community parking structure with its energy weapons had been followed and joined almost immediately by a standard Regult Combat Pod and three armor-clad Zentraedi infantrymen.

Beyond the points of access to the kill box however, mecha and warriors were beginning to loiter while attempting to not look to their superiors as though they were loitering.

If not now, the moment had to be soon- or the Rangers with the valued supplemental force of ASC Mountain Recon commandos would find that positions had turned from the borders of a kill box to defensive cover surrounded by a Zentraedi hoard.

Prayers like Fuller's were sometimes answered.

"Bull Feathers."

The calm, almost routinely delivered phrase from Captain Nguyen was all the permission that Corporal Fuller needed.

With as much kinetic energy as the magnetic rail, M-163R could propel a tungsten-core, .50 caliber anti-material round downrange it was still insufficient to penetrate the armor of the Regult from some aspects, and the Glaug from all. As the order had come, the Glaug was facing "Zeppo" on the right of the kill box, exposing its rear, right quarter only to the sniper.

-No chance at the sensor eye, the only point of vulnerability.

A no go, and momentary pass on the Glaug.

The Regult however-.

"Goin' for the battle bubble.", Fuller announced as he adjusted his position just enough to bring the center dot of his scope's aiming reticule into the center of the Regult's glowing, red sensor eye.

"Shoot!..", SGT Harris concur/ordered as Fuller's trigger finger was already in the process of closing.

Whilite's heart began to beat again- very rapidly.

A fourth Zentraedi infantryman wearing armor adorned with the insignia identifying the wearer as a senior sub-lieutenant had joined the three already in the kill box, only he appeared to have a very particular purpose in mind. He had not been on the inside of complex's footprint three seconds when the universal signs of a sergeant giving orders manifested. Hand gestures and bellowed commands elicited an immediate response from the three infantrymen who had followed the Glaug and sole Regult into the pen of residential structures- and those reactions were that the infantrymen began investigating their surroundings.

While there had still been light, Whilite had tried to make a point of mentally marking the balconies of condominium units in "Groucho" to his ten o'clock position and "Zeppo" to his two in which Rangers or Mountain Recon commandoes were concealing themselves. Primarily, he wanted to offset as best he could any "friendly fire" incidents, but also just to know where the coincidental damage done by any battle might necessitate a search for the wounded and incapacitated who could otherwise be easily missed in a high-tempo engagement.

What Whilite had not been prepared for was the enemy actively searching for a hidden threat that they astutely suspected of being there coupled with him not being able to precisely pick out the occupied units at that particular moment. The formula for a prematurely sprung ambush seemed to be mixing.

-And then the thunderclap of Fuller's portable cannon filled the complex at the instant that the sole Regult's sensor eye shattered in a dazzling shower of sparks and pulverized electronic components.

Unharmed, but understandably startled, the Regult's pilot reacted in such a way that the giant machine stumbled backwards, its dual particle beam cannons firing a wide arc into the heavens as it went heavily down into the interior plaza face of the unnamed building forming the Kill box's north edge.

Then all Hell broke loose.

The night rippled powerfully with the arrhythmic sequence of numerous, hollow, pops as a tri-directional fusillade of rockets swarmed the Zentraedi infantrymen and Glaug within the plaza.

Whilite lost the finer details of sound as Byerly initiated the local barrage from their position followed by Cochran, Diaz, and then himself in an order that was purely random. The pressure change of each discharge that sent a rocket downrange shocked the lieutenant's eardrums within the confines of the condominium, leaving his hearing dulled and with a distant ringing.

Explosions followed in kind with muted sound, blossoming over the chests and backs of the four infantryman whose armor did an admirable job absorbing most of the punishment dealt to it- but not all. The warriors leapt and staggered, jerked and flailed their arms reflexively in a grotesque, freestyle dance of brutality as shaped-charge warheads pierced their armor at multiple points to penetrate the flesh, muscle, bone and organs guarded within.

Struck no less than five times in the chest and upper back by Whilite's crude count, the Zentraedi sub-lieutenant had somehow managed to stay on his feet with his rifle still firmly gripped in his right hand. The weapon went unfired as the sub-lieutenant used his clearly waning strength to grasp his nearest warrior to him who was in as much or more distress than he, and hurl him to retreat on the path on which they had entered the now revealed kill box.

–Sergeants, it seemed, had universal qualities about them.

-All the same, Echo Company, 3rd Platoon's Staff Sergeant Byerly afforded no sentimentality to her alien counterpart as she locked a second rocket into her grenade launcher and raised the rifle to firing position at her shoulder.

Whilite felt the steel-pointed stabs of pressure into his eardrums as Byerly's grenade launcher fired its second rocket of the skirmish. A moment behind her in the process of reloading and firing, Whilite saw or imagined he saw the rocket streak straight to its aiming point in the sub-lieutenant's lower back.

Whether this had been the chosen placement of the shaped-charged warhead or the result of a shot taken hastily, the end result was the same- the flash of detonation had not subsided as the alien's legs failed him with a suddenness indicative of a severed spine.

The infantryman who the sub-lieutenant had been all but carrying became in that instant the bearer of a weight greater than this own and bore it a few additional steps before three rifle rockets hit him from opposing directions. One to the upper left chest and one to the lower right back spun the warrior, breaking his grip on his sub-lieutenant as he whirled. The sub-lieutenant was not fully to ground when the stricken infantryman received the third rocket to the gouget that joined his helmet to his armor with an airtight seal that afforded the head full range of motion and the neck moderate protection from coincidental damage in battle.

-The M-77 rocket delivered to the unfortunate warrior though was more than coincidental damage.

It was something of a macabre farce of the violence of combat as the severed head in its helmet sprang skyward in a chin-over-brow tumble through the air as the body that had recently been attached to it collapsing upon the warrior's wounded sub-lieutenant in spasmodic heap of twitches and jerks.

"…HOLY-FUCKIN'-SHIT, DID'YA SEE THAT SHIT, SARGE?!..", howled PFC Cochran as he rammed a second rocket's stabilizing shaft down the muzzle of his M-36 rifle's grenade launcher. Apparently something in the massive surge of adrenaline had awaken fully his ability to perform the loading procedure without difficulty- a feat that on which PFC Diaz had questioned his competency less than 45 seconds before.

SSGT Byerly had no doubt seen that shit but was preoccupied with reloading for more of the same to revel in a spectacular decapitation.

Whilite had seen that shit as well, but was now seeing something more immediately and personally disturbing. From atop "Groucho", there were dual flashes from an interval of twenty meters or so of roof that signified the firing of two, M-7C IMPMS "Super Bazookas" whose armor piercing missiles struck the Glaug Officer's Pod in its right flank just aft of the armored canopy and weapon-arm shoulder join respectively as the mecha wheeled toward "Harpo" in search of a target.

The Glaug was still recovering from the one-two blows it had taken to its right side when a third missile from "Zeppo" struck it on the left.

Whilite was keenly aware that while the Officer's Pod was taking punishment from either side, its attention was focused on "Harpo", and more specifically seemed to be staring him right back in the eyes. The Glaug's right weapon arm swung grudgingly with some mechanical resistance from damage done to it, and the left arm was raised with impact cannon muzzles pointed high –but the bore of the top-mounted auto-cannon was gaping at him in menace.

"..DISPLACE!...", Whilite screamed in equal parts warning and panic as the auto cannon strobed with the muted, static flash of hyper-accelerated rounds leaving the magnetic rail grooves of its barrel.

Point Lieutenant Jarrot watched as a swath of the upper level of the building directly before him dropped into the one directly below under a shower of debris and swirl of smoke and dust, all resulting from the single, short burst from his auto-cannon which he continued to fire.

Battle had initiated and developed into a full rage in a matter of seconds, enemy fire seeming to come from every direction and at the same time no place at all. At each indication of an enemy firing position, Jarrot would return a quick burst from either his auto-cannon or his still-functional left weapon arm's impact cannon cluster. Less clear than its terminating effect on the micronians within, the effect on the buildings were easily gauged with the rounds gouging through the entirety of the structures at which Jarrot fired.

In spite though, invariably a response would come from the enemy elsewhere- striking wounding blows to his mecha whose cumulative effect was becoming increasingly debilitating. Alarms sounded around him as warnings flashed their reports and a thin smell and haze of smoke in the cockpit grew thicker.

"Envelop this compound and attack toward the center!", Jarrot ordered feeling the sharp jab of another micronian weapon to his Glaug and the sharper jab of realization that the order was how he should have initiated the fight rather than following the micronians like Invid into their lair.

It had been a stupid, impulsive error in judgment to fall victim to what should have so clearly been indications of a trap- but he had made it.

As Jarrot activated the shield system afforded his Glaug, shrouding the mecha in a protective energy blister in time to intercept additional micronian ordinance that had been intended to kill him, he decided that it would be the last mistake he made this night.

-And that the mistake would quickly turn to be that of the micronians….

No plan survived first contact with the enemy.

Captain Nguyen recognized this aged axiom to be something of a universal truth and reminded himself that the solution to a battle plan unravelling was to be quicker in improvisation than the enemy as well as more flexible -And Rangers excelled at both.

Nguyen also had to fight the imperative ingrained in all Rangers -to win. This was not the fight whose outcome determined anything of significance.

The distinction between concealment and cover was becoming evident as Zentraedi Warriors towering nearly as tall as the low-rise buildings themselves began to demolish them. Standard Zentraedi infantry weaponry that had been designed to engage beings or light mecha of equal size to the clones wielding them made quick work of residences built to specifications that did not include surviving direct attack.

The pop of rifle rockets being fired, the crack and flash of their warheads detonating on target were still frequent and numerous, and the aliens in their body armor continued to show signs of wounding, with some falling stricken and dying as was the nature of combat. –But the reply was decidedly asymmetric.

Every round fired from a Zentraedi rifle showed the overkill in what was applied in response, penetrating and reducing with each the disintegrating condominiums. Where the individual inclination of some Zentraedi Warriors won out, the giants opted to sling their rifles and begin to demolish the buildings by hand and successive kicks in hopes of personally dealing with the troublesome humans within.

The Zentraedi mecha remaining had drawn off wisely, aware of their vulnerability at the hands of Rangers with mini-missile firing "Super Bazookas"- but they had not exited the fight. From a distance outside of the condominium complex of fifty meters roughly, where they were a less prominent target they were turning their heavier energy weapons against the rooftops and upper levels of "Groucho" where missile teams had been initially positioned. In the face of this, it did not take much time for the return missile fire to drop off to nothing.

Nguyen watched rapidly-morphing skirmish from the "God's-eye" view of the field-deployable UAV that his sniper team had locked into orbit above the ambush site before defaulting to their primary occupation. The situation had not collapsed yet, but all the benefit that the Rangers could hope to wring from this fight had been wrung.

"Mac", Nguyen said to his sergeant major, "-We've made the impression we intended. Time to pull the plug. Order the fallback to rallying positions for egress."

MacDonald marveled at the CO's calm demeanor given the distress he was feeling more with each passing second and the evolving Zentraedi counter to their ambush. Per usual though, he found Nguyen's judgment to be sound and did not question at any level the wisdom of the order he had just given.

"-All units, all positions displace and fall back to Rally Point Alpha for egress! Seven-zero, Golf Romeo- Singh, maintain security of the rally point and egress route and stand by for friendlies approaching your position!.. Over…."

"-El-Tee…"

Whilite's senses were coming back to him slowly. How a freight train had gotten into the building and up onto the fourth floor to sneak up on and hit him from the blind side was completely beyond him -but he was sure that that was what had happened.

The voice, faint and distant but familiar was something new as his brain began to reassemble its perception of the world around him. Between the labored wheezes of his own lungs he heard it again and got the sense that it had been calling on him repeatedly.

Damn that freight train though-.

"-El-Tee, goddmnit!- You alive over there?!.."

It clicked. It was Byerly and Whilite did not need full use of all of his faculties to know something was wrong.

"Barely.", Whilite managed finding that the wheeze to his breathing was subsiding and that his arms and upper body were free to move under a layering of obliterated sheetrock, twisted aluminum framing, and concrete chunks of varying size.

Movement turned out to be a necessary but decidedly unpleasant choice as the straightening of his right leg while pulling himself free resulted in a razor-edged lightning bolt of pain that shot through his outer, right thigh like God's own revenge for some unknown transgression.

Whilite found a wail, shrill and more girl-like than he wanted to admit to having given was half-escaped from him before he bit it back. The course of the lighting through his nerves was mapped now and followed by a throb that began pronounced and increased its assertion of self with each pulse, taking on shadows of the original pain.

Whilite found himself using his rifle that he had no clue as to how he still possessed it to get unsteadily to his feet. His right thigh burned from within and he could feel the gradual spreading of blood downward beneath the Kevlar/carbon-fiber armor component that was supposed to have protected him, but the leg held weight.

"-I'm pinned, El-Tee, I can't move!...", Byerly groaned in the darkness, audible evidence of a renewed effort to do so as she spoke.

A clatter of M-36 fire somewhere out beyond Whilite's immediate surroundings, a blast of an exploding rocket, and the creak and perceivable shift of the damaged building that was his immediate surroundings lent to the lieutenant's returned focus.

"-Coming-coming-coming…", Whilite said as he strained in the inkiness to see.

Realizing as his brain continued to come back on-line that his helmet visor had somehow been returned to the swung-up position, Whilite snapped it down in place and was rewarded and relieved by the still-functional night vision of his helmet's optics systems. Hazy in hues of pale green, Whilite had visual reference of his surroundings again in what had been someone's living room at some point.

Face-down in the same domestic debris heap as he'd been, PFC Cochran's head, arms, and upper torso protruded. He was a wise-ass a lot of the time, but he had some muscle mass to him and Whilite was vaguely making the connection that this was something he might need to free Byerly whose struggles he could still hear behind him.

Taking Cochran by the wrists, Whilite gave a calculated pull against the expected resistance of the PFC's weight and the hold of the debris.

-He nearly toppled backwards as Cochran came free missing everything below his ribcage.

Surprise, revulsion, and horror sobered Whilite from his dazed state as a lifeless head suspended by lifeless arms rolled forward heavily to bump against Whilite's belt buckle. Warmth settled over the tops of Whilite's boots as the dead Ranger's body cavity emptied its contents onto the laces.

Whilite recoiled in disgust as smells uncommon to human nostrils filled his. He dropped the macabre thing that had been Cochran and snatched up his rifle again as he staggered awkwardly backwards.

"-Coming-coming-coming!..", continued the lieutenant's cadence in response to Byerly's words that were no longer registering with him.

By the time he'd turned and found his staff sergeant, Whilite had reclaimed his composure- outwardly at least. He welcomed the bayonet jabs of pain in his right thigh that cleared his mind more with each thrust and allowed him to turn his attention to Byerly.

Much like the Cochran-thing had been, Byerly was face down and protruding at just below her shoulder blades from a heap of everything that a building was made of.

More importantly to Whilite she was speaking.

"-Gonna get you out of there, Michelle.", Whilite said as he set his rifle aside and began to clear the heap- aware only after he'd said it that he'd addressed the staff sergeant by her Christian name and not either of the more professionally acceptable norms.

"Well, take your time- it's not like there's a war going on or something-.", Byerly griped back, clearly embarrassed at needing the assistance.

The pile of debris on top of Byerly was in its individual pieces neither weighty nor unmanageable, and Whilite was making good progress into transferring Byerly's heap to one of his creation on the floor beside. As he reached the point of clearing half of the mass, Whilite could feel the shift of the rest as Byerly regained movement

She was tough, tougher than him probably, and could run the distances and ruck the required weight with the best of her Rangers, but human physiology of the female gender had simply imposed the cruelty of less upper body strength upon Byerly as would have been normal to a male of equal size.

"Where's Diaz?", Whilite asked as splintered wood flooring and fractured granite countertop sloughed off of Byerly's independently rising form. He wanted accounting of all his people, and he wanted to be Oscar-Tango-Mike now.

"-Not sure.", Byerly admitted. It was a fair statement, her sergeant's responsibilities understandably interrupted by recent events.

"Up here!"

Lieutenant and staff sergeant looked up in the direction of the voice, through a great void in the ceiling that extended to the mostly-missing outer wall of the condo, and into the equally devastated unit they had occupied with Diaz moments before.

"Sorry I didn't follow you down, but-.", Diaz began, building toward something he figured would be witty no doubt, but his attention shifted, "-Holy fuck- is that Cochran?.."

Whilite felt his stomach give a small lurch as the smell of unconfined viscera reached his nostrils again. He kept his lips pressed tightly together lest his response to a subordinate be vomiting on the staff sergeant he just freed.

"Oh, Christ…", Byerly mumbled. Whilite wasn't sure whether she had now just seen what was left of Cochran, or had just smelled him smeared down his lower legs and on his boots.

"Diaz, get your ass down here now!" -The staff sergeant was back, and like Whilite was hearing the uncounted repetition of SGM MacDonald's order to fall back.

As Diaz withdrew from sight, presumably for the stairwell that had originally brought the team of four to the top floor of the building, Whilite opened his mic and replied, "Echo Three Alpha, roger that. –I'm down one-."

"Copy that, Three Alpha. See you at Rally Alpha. Out."

PFC Diaz reached the middle landing between the fourth and third floors of the stairwell with his rifle clutched by the grip in his right hand and the safety railing bolted into the fractured and cracked concrete of the wall in the other. A slight grin had made an appearance briefly on his face as he heard a voice in the back of his head tell him how proud his mommy would be that he was using the safety railing. The grin was gone quickly though as the mocking voice had been that of Cochran- and he was beyond the ability to make mocking comments now.

As steps passed beneath Diaz's feet the connection between ghoulish spectacle of what had become of Cochran and the gruesome finality of it began to form. Diaz tried to push it down, bury it somewhere to be dealt with later, but it would not go completely and remained just outside of his focus of attention the way one was aware of activity on the periphery of one's vision.

How the fuck had he laughed?

Survival was the task now and the sensation of railing passing beneath his gloved palm was Diaz's measuring stick of progress to that end. The feel of the railing was reassuring also in a structure that now was completely devoid of right angles.

The autocannon shells that had gutted the upper floors –and Cochran –had with their time-delayed detonation wrought significant structural damage on construction that had never been intended to survive autocannon shells. Stairs no longer protruded at a rigid 90̊ from the concrete walls of the stairwell and were no longer flat and even, but rather sagged in a warped, Dali-esque impression of their former selves.

Diaz had abandoned after only a few steps the natural yet wholly illogical notion of treading "lightly" on the steps- his weight in full battle rattle was what it was, and the stairs would support it or he would make it to ground level much quicker than he had intended. –But the feeling of the safety railing passing through the grip of his left hand was enough to keep him moving toward the relief that was reaching the third floor, SSGT Byerly, and El-Tee.

Diaz's concerns of the hallway being blocked in the short span between the stairwell door and the unit into which his superiors had been dropped turned out to be unfounded. –Whether it had been several cannon shells that had penetrated the building deeper before detonating, or some other manifestation of Zentraedi hostility- there was no south side to the third floor hallway.

A void gaped with twisted steel beams and aluminum frames where condominium units with their interior walls and customized appointments and fixtures should have been providing a panoramic view of the "green space" reserved by civil planning south of the building. –Oddly though, and in stark defiance of what seemed possible, a refrigerator and stove stood intact and apparently unaffected with a length of kitchen countertop and cabinetry in between as evidence that a dwelling had actually been there once.

The north wall of the hallway was there though and remarkably devoid of any visible evidence that its southern counterpart had been violently extricated.

Diaz found the door behind which Byerly and Whilite were to be found by its relative distance from the stairwell, and by the sound of physical effort being applied to the opening of it from within. Appearing unaffected by the brief battle that called attention to itself again with a rise in nearby rocket detonations and bursts of automatic weapons' fire, the shift of the building's structure that had made for an uneven descent through the stairwell had also apparently twisted the unit's doorframe enough to jam the substantial steel door that must have at one time been a "security selling-point" for the home.

"-And PULL!..."

Diaz recognized Byerly's voice on the other side of the door, even as it changed on the second word with the strain of muscular exertion and the groan of metal that would not budge.

"Sarge, is that you?!-", Diaz asked, realizing as he spoke the words just how stupid of a question it actually was.

There was a pause.

"Who the fuck else would it be, dipshit?!", Byerly snapped with panting breath, "-Throw your weight into the door from that side and really put some ass into it, because El-Tee and I aren't doing shit from this side…."

Whilite's voice carried through the door also, "On three, and we'll pull from this side too-. Ready?.. One, two, THREE!-.."

Diaz heard the strain on the doorknob from within the unit again and from a pace back threw his shoulder into the door above it. The blow was more painful than Diaz had expected, and ineffective as well. More ass was going to need to be applied.

The PFC backed away to three paces and managed a sprinting start before shoulder and door collided. This time, the door gave slightly though.

Three steps back again, Diaz felt the strain in the joints and tendons of his legs as he launched himself at the door once more-.

The thud of Diaz's impact was followed instantly by the creak of metal and the movement of the door inward, toward Whilite and Byerly. Officer and NCO took advantage of the gap now present between the door and the doorframe, and with adrenaline augmented strength began to pull furiously.

As the gap widened, Diaz's face pressed into the opening with a demonic grin.

"…HERE'S JOHNNY!..."

Byerly gave the PFC's face a shove at the forehead, not nearly as amused as Whilite hoped he was concealing himself to be.

"-Real funny, smartass- Now, PUSH!.."

Diaz's fingers curled around the edge of the door and there was an understood moment of execution where his effort externally and hers and Whilite's within merged, and the door gave.

It did not "swing" open, but grudgingly moved enough that an adult, even in body armor and battle gear might squeeze through the opening with only a modicum of humiliation at their "thickness". It also allowed Whilite and Byerly their first glimpse of the open space that had once been the southern side of the building.

-And the distinct, massive shape of a giant's shoulders and head beyond as he reached easily in for PFC Diaz whose back was turned to the Zentraedi Warrior….

"-DIAZ!.."

There was instant comprehension and understanding by Diaz in Byerly's warning, a blink of the eye before Zentraedi-size fingers clutched him into a massive fist. As he was grabbed up like a child's action figure, Diaz's extended arm was caught by Whilite at the wrist and locked into the lieutenant's grasp as the PFC formed a similar hold on him.

Never had Whilite felt anything so physically powerful as the force exerted by the Zentraedi quite easily that pulled the junior officer through the partially opened doorway in a single, violent movement that nearly dislocated his right arm. Whilite kicked at the broken floor passing beneath his dangling feet as he struggled to find the means to resist extraction by the alien.

Wide-eyed, Diaz gave a sudden yelp that terminated wetly in a horrid gurgling heard through the compression and breaking of bone as the Zentraedi's grip tightened maliciously to crush the comparatively frail human with ease.

Instinctively and without conscious command from his brain, Whilite's hand released Diaz's twitching arm from its grasp and he fell free. His parting glimpse of Diaz before he went flat on his back where a wall had been minutes before was of the PFC's not quite dead eyes tearing the same blood that foamed and flowed from his mouth and nostrils.

Whilite retreated frantically, scrambling backwards in a ridiculous, kicking, crab-walk before he realized exactly what he was retreating from. –Zentraedi had two hands, and the second of the warrior who had just killed Diaz was now reaching for him like the T-Rex in the closet of his boyhood nightmares.

Whilite ran out of floor space, butting his helmeted head violently into northern wall of the hallway, causing a sharp pain in his neck. The force was also sufficient to topple PFC Diaz's rifle that he'd apparently propped against the wall while assisting with the door into the lieutenant's lap.

Groping fingers as thick as a wooden utility pole grazed the soles of Whilite's kicking boots as his right hand found the grip of Diaz's rifle.

In basic training and again in Ranger school, familiarity with the M-36 had been forced on Whilite in almost every conceivable situation. He had been forced to assemble it from a box of mixed components, not all of them from the weapon itself, blindfolded. He had been forced to field strip and clean it while under simulated attack. He had been forced to break the weapon down and reassemble it again while treading water in full combat gear in a pool with 100 other Ranger candidates.

-And at this moment, he sure as shit had no difficulty in locating the rifle's fire selector and flipping it to fully automatic mode.

The muzzle of the M-36 blazed with a roar of SCAP rounds discharging at the cyclic rate afforded by the pulse-firing system. The explosive rounds designed for the penetration of body armor and thin-skinned vehicles savaged viciously the flesh and bone of the Zentraedi hand that was poised to grab Whilite.

Before the magazine of Diaz's rifle had fed out all fifty rounds of its capacity, an all too human scream of surprise and agony shook the building around Whilite as the second probing hand was jerked back leaving an enormous finger severed at the second knuckle behind.

The hand's retreat was not a conclusion to the episode though as the report of short bursts of automatic fire and their accompanying strobe ripped from SSGT Byerly's rifle. In the span of seconds that it had taken for what had happened to happen, she had cleared the confinement of the condominium unit that had trapped her and her lieutenant, and moved into a position to engage the Zentraedi from without putting Whilite in her line of fire.

Between measured bursts of fire whose effect was now questionable beyond its "payback" value, Byerly fired the chambered M-77 rocket from her grenade launcher, striking the Zentraedi Warrior who continued to wail and was displaying signs of shock somewhere in the upper chest.

The rocket hit was likely not fatal, but was enough to send the giant alien off balance and down heavily onto his back somewhere below the field of view afforded by the open southern wall of the condominium.

Whilite was already up on a single knee and the soothing click of the rifle's breech accepting a new, full magazine could not have come quick enough. It was something of a surprise to the lieutenant as he got back to his feet that enemy counter-reciprocity had not already been visited back upon him and Byerly. –But he wasn't intent on seeing how long that luck would hold out either.

Byerly gave him a firm, almost violent tug at the elbow, in the process slipping what Whilite could feel as the strap to his own rifle that Byerly must have picked up along the way onto his crooked arm.

"-We better go, El-Tee-…", Byerly whispered, or sounded though she'd whispered with the dulling Whilite's ears had received and through the persistent, shrill note that was the sole sound he was hearing clearly.

"-Yeah.", Whilite agreed, slinging his rifle by its strap, muzzle down, across his back.

Somehow it felt important to the lieutenant to be using Diaz's rifle for now. It seemed only right that any hurt (in addition to the finger and roast-size chunks of flesh a Zentraedi Warrior had already left behind) brought on the enemy should come from the PFC's weapon. He deserved that much.

"Let's go.", Byerly urged as strongly as she could without crossing the line of insubordination with her superior.

As though prompted through some telepathy shared strictly between the non-commissioned officer ranks, Sergeant Major MacDonald's voice came through clearly and calmly, but firmly over the comms addressing 3rd Platoon's officer directly.

"Echo Three Alpha- what's your status? We've got fallback confirmations and SitRep from all Echo Three positions `cept you. Over."

Whilite keyed his mic, "Echo Bravo, Echo Three Alpha-. I'm down two-. Cochran and Diaz, KIA. Position marked for recovery. Byerly and I are Oscar Tango Mike –headed your way. Over."

"Roger that, Echo Three Alpah. Move it on the double-time. The situation is deteriorating. Over."

The sprint to the stairwell, the fastest Whilite could ever remember running, that was a distance of perhaps ten meters felt more like a marathon with a retreating finish line. The first particle beam bolt of many, the unspoken but inevitable vengeance that had dilated the lieutenant's perception of time burned through the breadth of the building with little more resistance than it experienced passing through air- lighting the hallway brilliantly in neon blue and raising the confined air mass to the temperature of a professional baker's oven.

Whilite did not see the first of the fusillade of bolts that quickly brought the condominium's fourth floor down into its third, but he saw his distorted shadow on a field of lovely blue against the stairwell wall from the light that penetrated the gap in the self-closing fire door, and he felt that odd stinging heat common to proximity with a particle beam shot –a crisping burn, not unlike the sensation of sun on the skin ten minutes past the point where sunburn was assured.

The passing of another bolt through the stairwell just below the third floor as Whilite and Byerly were passing the second was more like opening a furnace. Already fractured and damaged, the concrete of the stairwell disintegrated further cracking off pieces that cascaded down through the confined space like an artificial rockslide.

Whilite felt something unseen and heavy, and traveling with great force strike the stairs behind him and then rebound into the back of his legs, toppling him like a bowling pin hit a glancing blow by the ball.

Maybe not words, but some kind of call of warning escaped his lips as he was propelled squarely into Byerly's back sending them in a tangled tumble down a portion of the stairs to the ground level.

There were calculations that were taught in OCS that were supposed to quantify success in a battle and to provide a metric for measurable benefit –but measuring an outcome of battle for assessment was not the same as seeing it.

Captain Ho Duc Nguyen was seeing the windfall of the battle for which he was the driving force, and it was requiring effort to not question the wisdom of his decision.

Fire teams distributed in and around the three buildings- Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo were reaching the rally point in the underground parking garage for tally and the movement another hundred meters or so to the egress point of the 174 Sul subway station.

As things always were in combat, planning was relatively straightforward and simple.

Execution was proving to have challenges.

One in four of Echo Company's Rangers were bearing wounds of varying severity that had the two medics, Craig and Lancing busily at work with the ready assistance of others who were trained and able in first aid. Most of the wounded were ambulatory and would make the hump back to base at the 511 Sul Station independently –the rest would be determined to attempt the movement but would have to be forced to accept assistance.

The dead would have to be conveyed by the living.

A row of seven with representation from each platoon were arranged neatly and reverently nearby. These accounted for the dead that the living had borne to the initial rallying point.

Others, five by SGM MacDonald's count now who had been rendered immediately unrecoverable would have their fellow Rangers return for them as quickly as the situation allowed.

No one was left behind.

Sounds of battle still echoed loudly down the throat of the entry and exit ramps and into the belly of the garage, though it was at this point mostly the Zentraedi having their revenge on abandoned ambush positions in vacated buildings and Naib Subedar Singh's 70th Gurkha Rifles' attempts to provoke the remaining enemy into a second chase that would clear the escape route for Echo and ASC Mountain Recon.

One way or another, the movement to 174 Sul would have to happen soon. The Zentraedi were in a frenzy now, but that fever would break before long and they would be on the hunt again for an enemy upon whom to avenge themselves.

"Mac, I want a full and complete count of our people before we budge.", Nguyen ordered, seeing a pair from 2nd Platoon assisting a third toward the line for medical care from Lancing and Craig.

"Yes, sir- roger that. Almost there now-."

Nguyen forced the expansion of his attention to Staff Sergeant Alvarez's 24th Mountain Recon who were similarly rallying, but remaining distinct in their separation from Echo Company. It was not a spiteful or defiant act, the RDF-Army captain was sure, but simply the natural and lingering effect of so many months of mutual distrust between RDF and ASC. Allegiances formed quickly in the face of a common enemy but grudges died hard as well, Nguyen had found, and the Rangers and Mountain Recon commandos were not "brothers in arms" just yet.

"Staff Sergeant, we have two medics and you have none.", Nguyen pointed out with a bluntness that the situation afforded without the slight of comparison that might otherwise have accompanied the statement, "-Use them."

Alvarez rose from one knee where he'd been field dressing a gash in one of his men's arms.

"-We're good, Captain.", Alvarez said, his voice not quite communicating the same message as the words, "We'll lick our own wounds for now."

As the edge to Alvarez's voice raised the tension of the exchange between the two leaders, it suddenly occurred to Nguyen why-.

When the day before, Alvarez and his 24th Mountain Recon had joined on with Echo Company, it had been the staff sergeant, his second in command by default, SGT Carol, and nineteen enlisted grade commandos.

There were noticeably fewer Recon commandos gathered with Alvarez and Carol who was bandaged about the left side of his face and neck then there had been at the mission pre-brief some hours before.

Nguyen understood instantly that Alvarez's volunteering of his unit to participate in the Rangers' plan had been disproportionately costly to them. He simply nodded his acceptance of Alvarez's decision and let it go. It was the best choice in that moment.

Uncommon for this stage of an ambush, and even stranger since he and CPL Fuller were supposed to be in movement to a secondary overwatch position, SGT Harris's voice came across the radio with great urgency.

"Echo Actual, OP- we've got a problem, sir…."

"-Looks like four in all..", CPL Fuller said peering southwest through field glasses that he was using for their light enhancement feature rather than their magnification.

The sniper team had been in the final seconds of collapsing and slinging their gear for the movement to the second and hopefully final overwatch position of the operation when a particular sound in the general cacophony of battle had gotten both their attentions. The airspace over Brasilia had belonged to the Zentraedi for a week now, and the sound of aircraft- particularly the distinctive sound of Gnerl pulse engines was an easy indicator of danger.

Fuller was confident in his count of four, the tri-engine configuration of each Fighter Pod glowing radiantly in jade through the night optics held by the shooter. It was the number of Gnerls that was the concern. Had there been some need for a fighter scramble to defend against an attack, the sky would have been filled by now. Four Gnerls spoke of a limited offensive action, and only one possibility came to mind.

"Actual, we've got a probable air strike package inbound. Call it two minutes on the outside.", Harris warned through the radio as he motioned Fuller, lugging the M-163R rifle, toward the pagoda's open stairs.

"-Figure four birds with a full load of plasma-nape each-. We're looking at about four or five blocks of glass here in the near future…"

"Copy, OP. Proceed directly to the egress point. Do not establish your secondary overwatch position. –We'll see you underground. Over."

"Roger that, Actual."

Lieutenant Mike Fenton of 4th Platoon hovered over the activities going on atop the hood of a blue BMW sedan that was one of a surprising number of vehicles whose owners had abandoned them in their exodus from Brasilia at some point in the past three months. The activity distracting Fenton from German automotive luxury was the examination of one of his Rangers, PFC Gallman from 2nd Squad. He held Gallman's left hand and kept his head pressed to his hip as SGT Conti held his right hand and applied what force was required to keep him face-down on the hood of the car. As 3rd Platoon's medic, CPL Lancing made her examination, two "assistants" from her own unit, CPL Barry and PFC Bridges held Gallman's legs with one hand each and kept the area of Lancing's examination bathed in light with flashlights held in the other.

Gallman grunt/yelped through clenched teeth as Lancing opened carefully the wound at the back of the PFC's left knee and was rewarded with a squirt of blood that missed her save the drop that hit her right cheek and began to run down like a crimson tear.

Sensing the reaction to those holding him, Gallman managed in clenched, gasping words the question that all wounded inevitably asked and dreaded at the same time, "-Is it bad, Doc?!..."

Lancing was of course obligated to apply medic's wit to her response, "Bad as opposed to good?.."

"Y'know what the fuck I mean!..", Gallman sputtered, his voice sounding slightly muffled as his lieutenant applied the strength necessary to keep him from worming away from Lancing's examination.

Lancing, used to wounds still had the capacity for sympathy. Moments like these were not what 18-year old young men had in mind when they imagined a life in the military.

"-You're gonna live.", Lancing assured him firmly without coddling, "-But it would'a been a little better if you hadn't pulled that splinter out. It looks like you've got a small nick, barely a scratch, to the artery. We're gonna pack the wound, bind it up for the trip back to camp, and then we'll get you fixed up there. Congrats, Gallman you get to ride home on the back of a Cyclone."

Panting with relief and interlaced jabs of pain, Gallman found his machismo again, "Just bind it up-. I can walk."

"Yeah-.", Lancing said as she removed a gauze pad treated with anti-septic and clotting agent from its sterile packaging, folded it to appropriate dimensions, and pressed it with gloved finger into the wound, eliciting a growling cry from the patient, "You could walk back, and you could cause that nick in your femoral artery to tear, and then you would bleed out in about ten minutes. –Or you could just ride back and save us all the grief. What'd'ya say, Gallman?.. Be a pal?.."

"You're hitching a ride back.", Fenton said, making it clear that Lancing's decision was not open to discussion.

"Yeah", SGT Conti added, "-Because I ain't carrying your heavy ass out."

Lancing could feel the mute relief in Second Lieutenant Fenton as she exposed enough of Gallman's leg to cover the wound with more gauze bandaging and to wrap it with tape. 4th Platoon had lost an entire squad the night before, and no amount of military conditioning could prepare an officer so soon after that kind of a mental blow to take the loss of more subordinates in stride. It was a good thing for humanity's sake that people had those kinds of struggles.

-But, as Lancing had told Gallman, he would likely live from this wound –assuming of course that the artery did not tear in transit, which there was a small chance it would, or that infection did not set in after the challenge of field surgery that would have to be performed in less than "hospital sanitary" conditions. A regiment of phenomenal anti-biotics and of course Gallman's own youth and strength would go a long way to making sure he was fit to fight another day with time, but things could also go sideways.

Right now though, Lancing focused on field dressing the wound, which was step #1.

-And then she would be on to the next patient.

Lancing was giving the nod to LT Fenton to get Gallman ready for the move back to base camp when from the direction of the skirmish that had provided her with so much business this night, the medic saw her own platoon lieutenant half-carrying SSGT Byerly through the parking garage. If their combined, limp/hop means of movement had not been indicative of injury the two moving together like a drunken parody of a poorly height matched three-legged race could have been entertaining. Lancing had seen very little that was entertaining this evening, and more wounded was not going to start that list.

"El-Tee!-.", Lancing called with a whistle sharp enough to etch marble, "Over here!"

Whilite's longer legs and longer strides easily turned Byerly and him toward the medic and a few additional paces had them within easy talking distance.

"-She's got a dislocated knee, maybe broken.", Whilite pronounced without ceremony but nodding toward Byerly as though there might be some confusion about the "she" in the small company of mostly men.

Byerly looked irritated, "It's not broken, damnit…"

Lancing looked her two superiors up and down, "Can you put weight on it, Sarge?"

Whilite lessened his support of Byerly's left side as her leg took on more weight, wobbled, but held with a deep groan from the staff sergeant.

"It's not broken or dislocated.", Lancing proclaimed, "-Probably badly sprained though by the way you're carrying it, Sarge. How'd you manage that?"

Byerly shifted her weight to her good right foot and found a good hold on Whilite's battle rig to compensate for the left, "El-Tee here decided to give me a roll –down some stairs."

"Men.", Lancing said in a statement that between two women was all-saying and self-explanatory, "-And you, Lieutenant? I'm going to want a look at that leg."

Whilite had not forgotten about his own wounded right thigh, it had stung sharply like getting struck with a long-thorned switch with each step and was throbbing now worse than ever, but with all that had happened the pain had been manageable. Looking now though, he could see the diagonal hole, like the slit left by a single stab with a knife, to the cuisse component of his armor. It oozed blood, as did the permeable Kevlar weave of the poleyn that flexibly joined the thigh armor to the greave about the calf and shin. Beneath the carbon composite form, the lieutenant was aware that his entire lower leg was wet and growing sticky with his own blood, and that yes, indeed, Lancing should have a look at it.

The powerful snapping of fingers echoed off the concrete surroundings of the garage, drawing attention to SGM MacDonald before he spoke bluntly and clearly as only senior NCOs could, "People, we've got an inbound ditto airstrike! We are a rumor in thirty seconds! Those of you tapped to assist with the wounded, pick a buddy to help because we're now on the double-quick! Trail blazers, up and on the point! Let's move, people!"

All around, loose gear and medic's supplies that had been out for the rally and impromptu first aid was packed with lightning speed amidst a singular, merging groan of the wounded as they were forced to their feet for the necessary movement. In earlier times not so distant in the past, an enemy air strike on the tactical scale could have probably been sat out deep in an underground parking structure as Echo Company was- and likely more safely than risking a movement across open ground. With the advent of plasma napalm, which a strike by Zentraedi Gnerls would almost certainly be using- the garage would become something of a kiln with the same effect on anyone inside.

Displacing and withdrawing from this position- tricky as it was with the wounded and dead was still the right call coming from Captain Nguyen through SGM MacDonald.

"-C'mon, that's you too.", Whilite said to Byerly offering his ambulatory assistance again by assuming the stooped posture and position that had worked to get the staff sergeant this far.

"Thanks, El-Tee, but hell-to-the-no.", Byerly refused, hobbling a half step back, "I'll find someone who isn't height-qualified to play for the Lakers…"

Lancing gave a quick, snorting laugh and then interceded, "I'll get you set-up, Sarge."

Lost in his staff sergeant's decline to his offer, Whilite muttered, "..I'm not that damn tall…"

Lancing heard the under-the-breath comment as she caught the attention of a nearby PFC who'd offered assistance earlier and replied, "You're a sequoia next to Byerly, El-Tee. -Points for offering though. –And you're first in the chute when we get back to camp for that leg."

"-Yes ma'am…", Whilite replied, the "ma'am" of course not being at all mandatory for any reason other than smarting off.

His attention had drifted though to the gathering of ASC Mountain Recon nearby, and particularly their immediately noticeable smaller number.

"Where's the rest of Alvarez's unit?"

Lancing did not look up as she stowed the last of her gear and closed the flap of her pack in the same movement used to hoist it onto her back, "-That is the rest of Alvarez's unit, El-Tee. They took it pretty bad in Zeppo, I think. No time for it now though, we gotta hoof it."

Whilite was preparing something that seemed important to say to Byerly in regard to Alvarez whose stoicism at a distance was clearly what was holding him together from whatever was boiling inside- but the lieutenant lost it. It went as quickly as puff of dust in the breeze as Whilite caught Byerly's expression for the brief moment that she had no mastery of it. For that second, she wasn't the steely staff sergeant who kept him conscious of always being on his game as an officer. For that moment she was just a young woman with empathy and heartfelt concern for another in her same position of responsibility –and perhaps more.

At the moment though, Echo Company, 3rd Platoon, and Whilite in particular needed his steely staff sergeant back.

"-You heard the Doc-. Let's hoof it."

"Roger that, El-Tee-."

And the softness was gone.

Through an interior, rear access stairway Sergeant Harris had gotten to the roof the postal building northeast of the 174 Sul subway station entrance via its HVAC and mechanical space. He and his shooter, CPL Fuller had been ordered by Captain Nguyen to get themselves into the subway for withdrawal and not assume an overwatch position –but the Old Man was just going to have to bring them up on charges for disobeying orders.

The postal office was significantly shorter than the sniper team's previous position in the uppermost level of the Buddhist temple, which they could still see from their new location, but it was sufficient for what they needed it for. Fuller had not even gone through the motions of readying the rail gun rifle system whose primary components were still slung across his back as he and Harris were now purely in the observation business.

-And what they were observing was of critical importance.

Naib Subedar Singh's Gurkhas had during the height of the brief but ferocious skirmish slipped the cover of the condominium's underground parking complex by way of the street access to the southeast of the kill box into which they had drawn the Zentraedi. Captain Nguyen having seen the fight starting to go in favor of the aliens once the shock of the ambush had worn off had ordered Singh to attempt to draw the enemy off so Echo Company and the ASC commandos could disengage and break contact.

The Cyclone-mounted riflemen had had some success provoking a small number of Zentraedi warriors into pursuit when they'd swung clockwise around the battle and struck the aliens from the north in an effort to draw them off that way, but it was at that time that the Zentraedi on their own had elected to withdraw to the east. –A significant, "safe" distance to the east one realized when the scramble of the four Gnerls was entered into the equation and the full picture was seen.

Fuller was seeing more evidence of what he had first predicted to Nguyen now, as he could see distantly the surviving company of Zentraedi warriors and Regults, battered, bloodied, but still very much alive gathered around the equally abused Glaug Officer's Pod of their leader. They too stood in observation of the condominium complex where they expected their enemy to still be.

Between the line-of-sight obstructions of buildings and the abundance of trees, Harris was confident if not certain that the enemy was unaware of the awkward, hobble in small masses of Echo Company from the same street entrance of the garage that Singh and his men had used to slip the battle to the underground shelter of the 174 Sul Station. –Shelter that would do none of them any good if they were not well below street level when the strike package arrived, and the distant but nearing sound of Gnerl pulse engines said that that was to be soon.

Figures too small and distant to be distinguishable as anything but human by naked eye and in the dark had reached the motionless escalators leading down into the station and were vanishing hastily in that direction when Fuller, using his field glasses again, called his warning.

"I got eyes on Gnerls!"

Harris peered through his own glasses in the same direction as his shooter and quickly found the four fighters approaching in pairs and at a speed and angle that the sergeant imagined was perfect for the stand-off saturation of the ambush site with plasma napalm missiles.

"Cap'!", Harris called out over the radio, abandoning all semblance of comms security and protocol, "-You got about fifteen seconds before shit blows up! Get your heads DOWN!"

Through his field glasses, Harris saw the repeated flash from the flanks of the Gnerls in the leading fighter element that was the launch a half dozen or more missiles whose engines glowed brilliant green in the Ranger's night optics.

Fuller called it though- "INCOMING!.."

Harris's order to his shooter to cover was lost as the leading Gnerls turned their noses skyward and with an immense burst of power that shook the vacated city for many blocks, rocketed away. Fuller knowing the danger all too well though was not in need of the warning and was flat against the roof of the postal building beside his superior, shielded for what it was worth by the concrete form that rimmed the rooftop.

Point Lieutenant Jarrot's Glaug insulated him from all but a dull thud that was to unprotected ears a deafening, pressure wave of displaced air that defoliated and snapped trees that were not near enough to the source to immediately sublimate or burst into flame. A second, broad fireball boiling in vivid colors rolled up into the first still on its ascent as the second wave of missiles further incinerated all that had been the grounds of battle minutes before.

-And yet, this was not victory. Jarrot felt it in himself and felt it radiate from the warriors surrounding him as surely as the plasma firestorm radiated heat.

They had killed micronians in the fight- definitely. They had killed more with the missile strike just executed- probably. But that at best had been a parting shot that Jarrot had been obligated to take.

There were micronians who had survived this though, of that much Jarrot was certain, and they were the same micronians who had drawn first blood the night before.

Now though, Jarrot and his warriors had a taste of their blood as well, and it was fair to say that it would not be long before one side or the other went looking for more.

Captain Nguyen stood back a good ten meters from the subway station entranceway at the food of the escalators and used a raised hand to shield himself from the waning wave of heat that had penetrated his company's avenue of egress from this night's action. Sergeant Major, as always, was with him and heard as clearly the metallic groans as the composition of the escalators expanded and warped with the sudden burst of heat to which they had been exposed.

Nguyen had no need to ask MacDonald about whether all of his Rangers and the ASC Mountain Recon were accounted for- he had been with the first group to make the dash from the garage to the 174 Sul Station, and MacDonald had been the man taking the rear with the last. Following his sergeant major down the escalator turned stairs, Nguyen had no doubts –except for his scout/sniper team who had thankfully elected to disregard his orders and who had sounded the "all clear" for the surge of people whose mass movement had probably saved lives.

The captain was hopeful, but the sharp sting at the back of his neck that was a burn that would probably raise blisters by the time they all reached the CP at 511 Sul station tempered his optimism.

"Overwatch, Actual- are you reading?", Nguyen asked into the comms and on the frequency that Harris had used to make all of his observations for the company's benefit.

The radio hissed in reply, a natural side-effect of the interference to be expected in receiving in a deeply enclosed position and through air alive with energy.

MacDonald listened as well, standing by his company commander and wearing an expression that only Nguyen could distinguish as grim from his baseline, marble expression.

"Overwatch, Actual", Nguyen repeated, his heart growing heavy, "-Are you reading?"

A crackle.

"Actual, Overwatch-.", came Harris's reply, strained probably from the same sort of incidental burns Nguyen would need to have treated, but there and aware, "We're roasting and reading you. Over."

Nguyen shook his head, the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly in a grin, "You failed to make the rally point, Overwatch. –You were making Sergeant Major MacDonald worry… Shame on you."

"Roger that, Actual. Bad us."

"Get your asses down here before you test my forgiving nature.", Nguyen ordered, "We have wounded to get home."

A pause.

"Actual, roger that- but we're going to have to scoot east a few blocks and get down into the subway from another station. The road over you is boiling."

"Copy that, Overwatch.", Nguyen replied understanding that the approach to 174 Sul was and would be for some time too hot to cross, "I'll be sure point units know to make challenge on any potential contact before they start shooting."

"Much obliged, sir."

Oaxaca, Mexico

The western sky's color strata had already surrendered its vivid orange and pinks for progressively deepening reds that gave way in turn to darker and darker purples. Soon, quite soon, last light would be gone and only the stars would define the division of sky and earth.

The spectacular, last minutes of transition from day into night were lost on Winters though in a way that they might not have been scarcely a week before. His mind was preoccupied with martial matters in a conflict between the terrestrial and extraterrestrial, and more specifically how they applied to him, his squadron, and a mixed bag of 29 plodding cargo aircraft of nearly as many designs.

When they had been bounced hours earlier from some point of southern Mexico whose name had not stuck in the growing list of places in which Winters had touched ground there had been 35. Mostly loaded with "critical equipment and personnel", which at this point Winters had decided meant whatever could be crammed into an airframe for the next frenzied skedaddle from point to point, a mass of Gnerls not quite at a wing's strength had hit them when well into the a Mexican state of Puebla. The diminished fighter wing of RDF Edwards AFB, Vigilante and Knight Hawk squadrons with the Werewolves augmenting had been along for the ride and to provide mostly symbolic cover- missiles and ammunition for their gun pods having become a scarce commodity by this time.

Somewhere over southeastern Morelos the first Gnerl elements, not even whole squadrons, had begun to rally and assemble in a parallel flight path northwest of the RDF refugee formation. More like packs of orcas pacing a pod of whales they considered prey than sharks investigating the alluring smell of blood in the water, they built their numbers as they kept a predatory-observant distance.

When their numbers had reached sufficient mass, or when possibly they feared a squadron of approaching ASC-AF Phantoms might even the numerical odds a little too closely, or whatever the trigger may have been- they struck. With a rapid gain of altitude that transitioned into a blitz attack when they reached the altitude required to maximize their speed advantage they had devoured the two hundred or so kilometers between the two flights and forced the Valkyries into counterattack. –The supposed threat of the Phantoms never materialized as the squadron that was well within range to have tied on in defense of their Gemini Coalition partner opted instead to ignore COL Mumuni's repeated requests for support and simply fly on to their undetermined destination.

Galling as ASC Air Force's failure to respond had been, it had turned out to be of little consequence. The defending Valkyries' active countermeasure systems had fried with their own radars the sensor systems of the Gnerls before they had been able to fire more than a few missiles apiece, and had similarly blinded those missiles fired. Feeling ballsy or just with inflated confidence in what their numerical superiority afforded them, the Gnerls had refused to break the engagement but pressed it instead.

Without their radars it was unlikely that the Gnerls had even been aware of the conservative reply salvo of Basilisk missiles until they were right on top of them with a head-to-head approach, and destroyed half the Fighter Pods' numbers as they descended to try their luck at dogfighting –mostly.

That dogfight had gone the only way it could have gone with disparate performance characteristics between Gnerl and Valkyrie- the aliens having their best chance at scoring a victory in their descent to merge with their adversaries. It was a merge that the Valkyries easily sidestepped to turn by broad loop into the flanks of an enemy committed by physics to their dive. Some missiles claimed kills, but the broad, side aspects of the Gnerls made an ideal and irresistible target for the Valkyries' flexibly aimed laser cannons and their limitless supply of energy bolts.

Of what remained of the Gnerls that had survived the Valkyries' missiles to enter the dive, only half reached the point of deceleration where they could pull out without their pilots blacking out in the process. –But down in the denser air where a Gnerl's thin wings with their small surface area produced at best modest maneuverability even when pressed just short of the point of snapping off, the Zentraedi pilots found themselves on the receiving end of the rout they had intended for their human counterparts.

The Valkyries could have committed to this engagement on their terms, but not all of the Gnerls had joined in the attempt to knife fight with the Veritechs. A token force of four Valkyries had been detached to linger with the flight of cargo aircraft and subsequently had been faced with four times their number of Gnerls to deal with -And whether the alien pilots were already experienced with Valkyries or if they were simply quick learners from the errors of those fighting the combined Vigilante, Knight Hawk, and Werewolves force- they had learned to keep their radars dark until the optimal moment- rotating the monitoring of their enemy from ship to ship in short increments.

None of the Gnerls that had pressed the attack on the cargo flight had survived the defenders or the Valkyries returning late for that melee who caught stragglers on their attempt to escape- but there were also six fewer cargo planes taking far more souls with each loss than the single-seat Gnerls.

-Not that Zentraedi had souls, Winters reckoned.

Zentraedi did however have the ability to learn, especially as it applied to martial things, and they could recognize the elements of a success that could be built upon.

-And right now, they were showing every indication of demonstrating those attributes.

As Winters watched the Gnerls gather slowly on his cockpit's main MFD screen, he was as sure that they had been cued in on how to press an attack as he was certain that Manchester would consistently botch it against Madrid in the finals for The Gold Cup.

"I need five volunteers.", Winters announced without warning.

A singular and wearied groan came from what sounded to be every pilot in Knight Hawk Squadron, dulling the edge of the plan Winters was still formulating outright.

"What the hell was that?", Winters persisted, "I need five volunteers. –I didn't ask for your mother's sodding kidneys…"

Vice, ever the conscientious wingman replied, "- Anytime you ask for volunteers, Jack, it means you're planning on doing something reckless and stupid."

"-Does not."

"Desperado's Rim.", offered Scooter, the vague reference to a geographical point within The Outlands that would have been meaningless to a squadron outsider rang a strong tone of resonance with those who had been there as heard in mumbles of agreement.

"-Says the man whose predictive mechanism is a bowel movement.", Winters retorted with an air of triumph, "No, that doesn't count."

"The infamous Juarez beer run.", Blitz Rechtberg evoked with the resentment of any transgression marring any form of beer.

Winters groaned, allowing the argument for another moment as the flight of Gnerls was remaining stable in size and relative position, "-Barely an issue. We simply took the beer at the price originally negotiated. No one knew all fourteen of that bugger's cousins were just around the corner –and the MPs were quite accommodating given the damage done. The whole scrap only cost us a single case and two cartons of fags. Fair market value for a walk, I say."

"-Oh, I got one-.", Reaper said, winding up for the pitch, "Let's start our own grudge war with The Southern Cross."

A deep groan for a blow well landed came from all the pilots of Knight Hawk Squadron, and a good number from the Vigilantes as well.

"Now that was low.", Winters replied, "-And I don't remember objections from any of the lot of you at the time-."

"Fine, I'm in.", Dalton volunteered.

"You can't volunteer, Freddy.", Winters said immediately rejecting the XO, "I need you back here with the squadron."

"Why?"

"-Because I'm about to do something reckless and stupid."

"-Then I'm in.", Colonel "Switchblade" Mumuni said in a tone that did not suggest volunteering, "You, me, two of yours and two of mine. –And you don't have approving authority over me, Jack."

Genuinely surprised but grateful, Winters replied, "I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one?"

Mumuni was blunt in her response, "File a complaint. –Given the source, we'll see how far that goes. –And I still don't know what I've volunteered for."

"Freddy's going to take the cargo flight down into the terrain and mask their movements as they slip away with the fighters we leave behind still covering.", Winters explained, "We're going to fly headlong into the ditto bastards who've been shadowing us and take them down to the deck. I figure we can kill most of them between what missiles we have left, our guns, and the combination of terrain and altitude."

"That's it?", Mumuni asked, "That's your brilliant plan there, Nelson- just fly at `em?"

"Well, I'm sure there'll be some deviation and improvisation, but yes, that's pretty much it. A good plan now is better than a great plan in fifteen minutes."

"Yes, a good plan.", scoffed Mumuni while at the same time showing no indication of backing away or nixing the idea.

"Throw two more into the scrum.", Lt Col Duggan from the Werewolves who had been uncharacteristically quiet for too long said, "Eight on our line'll do better than six. –Besides, the story of how I was there to see Union Jack Winters get his ass shot off will get my drinks bought for me for years."

"You'll need corroboration.", Vice said, implying his hat was now in the ring as well, "-And free drinks for years does sound pretty damn good."

"You too, Isn't.", Winters said, volunteering Cohen whose gunnery skills were agreed grudgingly to be the best in Knight Hawk Squadron, "-We could use some of that legacy Israeli Air Force magic."

"-Sure, why not offer the dittos their first kosher meal?"

Impatient with the time it was taking for the detachment to work up the nerve for action, Mumuni cut in sharply, "-Are we doing this, or are we going to talk about it all day? Dusty, you have operational command over the entire flight until I return. Your first and only priority is seeing that we lose no more cargo ships, savvy?"

Understanding that his leadership in the endeavor had just been usurped, Winters apologized to his own XO, "Sorry, Freddy- looks like Dusty has the tiller."

"Fair enough.", Dalton replied, "I can plan the next fiasco with Dingo as I'm buying him a drink and hearing how you got your ass shot off."

"That's a chap."

"Enough talk.", Mumuni said –she had found her aggression as quickly as ever and was poised to use it, "-Detachment on me, come left three-zero-zero and climb to angels twenty. –Break!"

Off of Winter's nose to port, Mumuni's Valkyrie pithed up, banked left into the turn she had ordered on the climb to 20,000 meters, and was out of sight before the two volunteers of her squadron had initiated their pursuit. The knot in Winters' gut had formed and was growing as he led Vice and Isn't into the same climbing turn.

It had seemed like so much of a better idea when it had just been a spontaneous plan.

The western sky was nearly indistinguishable from the horizon as the flight formed up again in a loose line pressing northwest and continuing to climb, and Mumuni was not wasting time getting started with a more tactically refined version of Winters' plan.

"Let's turn on the pressure. All focused energy countermeasures to scan suppression- if they're dumb enough to try to light us up, we'll cook their radars. –Three elements in our attack. Dingo, Jack, and Bippy with me. We're going head-on with them like Jack said. We'll lock them up as we're just outside of gun range. They won't know we've got nothing behind the locks, and with any luck they'll break out by element. –Vice and Isn't, I want you to hook from the right when they scatter. Kill what you can, but either sweep or pull what's left west. Drag them down to the deck, and don't auger in yourselves in the process. Blighter and Pokey, you're the lid on the pot and make sure everything stays under you."

There was no solicitation for questions from the senior pilot, nor did there need to be as the flight of Valkyries leveled out at the designated altitude and opened at long range the game of "chicken".

The knot in Winters' belly tightened, and not without cause. Mumuni was probably right that as soon the Gnerls detected themselves being acquired in radar lock that they would most likely scatter in an attempt to retain their numerical superiority. –But if they did not, if the bluff was called by some steely-nerved, ditto squadron commander –it could get messy.

Gnerls enjoyed the same attribute of a flexible, helmet-sight directed, standard energy weapon armament as the Valkyries. The difference was that the Valkyries sported dual, high-intensity laser cannons and the Gnerls a rapid-fire, tri-particle beam cluster with a far more lethal punch. Head-to-head passes with a Gnerl at gun range was strongly advised against to nuggets and rookies, and for the same reasons avoided when possible by seasoned pilots. –Yet here they were, Winters mused darkly, and hadn't it originally been his plan anyway?...

The two Fury missiles, the sole occupants of a rail under either of Marilyn's wings would not even afford much reach over the Zentraedi pilots were they to decide to open fire as the range dwindled to nose-to-nose.

It was going to be ugly.

"-I think the bastards know this game…", Dingo muttered.

Winters quickly found out what had led to the speculation from Duggan, as the range to the leading Gnerls dropped to under 75Km, their speed and the rate of closure increased just enough to be noticeable. They were not putting all of their chips into the pot just yet, but sending a distinct, "back at you" to the Valkyries facing them down.

They did know this game, Winters cringed with the though and wondered by what name Zentraedi called it.

50Km.

"Jack, I swear if you don't knock off that cursed whistling-.", Mumuni snarled, the venom clearly being a convenient outlet for being committed to a plan that was proving to have been too heavily hinged on enemy with softer nerves.

Winters realized that without conscious thought or recognition he had been whistling, and by the notes on his lips at the point at which Mumuni called him on it, it was his go-to, steadying tune of Gary Owen.

He bit it back, pulling his lower lip between his teeth once or twice to preclude any possibility of continuing with his whistling again, oblivious as before. It wasn't so much the obeying of an order from a superior –he'd disobeyed his share and the shares of three others in his time. It was not a courtesy either. Winters literally bit his lip to avoid a blow-up from the tension that could be felt in the tomb's silence being carried over comms now.

No one needed that distraction.

30Km.

"Light `em up and let's see who flinches!", Mumuni ordered, overriding the logical-assist functions of her Valkyrie's tactical computer systems and forcing a scan of her fighter's forward hemisphere with attack radar despite the lack of any missiles in its inventory that could benefit from that sensory input at present range to target.

Winters went through the same steps of overriding the logic of his tactical computer systems quicker than it took to have the thoughts surrounding it. Marilyn's powerful attack radar quickly locked on to each individual Gnerl, bathing them each with a steady, frequency-unique stream of energy that would have allowed a Basilisk or Falcon missile to acquire specific targets- had Winters had any. "Attention"-warning indicators showed the pilot that the targets he was locked on to were a veritable party-line of focused energy, they each being held in target acquisition by multiple Valkyries.

-And yet they did not flinch.

Winters prepared himself to the warm and slick to tacky sensation of bloody hands that came with a knife fight. The Zentraedi were sure, and rightly so, of their advantage and this was how it would play out.

To starboard, Winters caught out of the corner of his eye and with the small fraction of attention he had left to spare on anything that was not Zentraedi and bearing down on him head-to-head saw the rapid strobe of a GU-11 gun pod discharging with the immediate following of a tight cluster of tracers zipping downrange to target. In the portion of a second that it took Winters to register what he was seeing, it seemed comical almost because the tracers blazed their path high- very high. –Too high it seemed to be threatening to anything but the starry sky.

-But as their path clearly established itself to be intersecting that of the Gnerls, and as two additional fusillades took flight, the first began to drop, and directly into the path of one of the leading Gnerls.

It clicked with Winters as the first Gnerl was shredded into a ghastly, churning fireball of debris- the who and how of the impossible gun shot. Even at somewhere around 16Km out, where the opening shot must have been taken, the 55mm shells were being loosed into the air at an altitude of 20,000m where the air density was a quarter (if that) of the air at sea level. With minimal resistance increasing effective range, it was only a matter of figuring the elevation and deflection of the shot, for which the Valkyrie's calculating gunsight would do most of the heavy lifting, and summoning the balls to attempt the shot.

The testicular fortitude was Cohen's who Lyle had in his vernacularly accurate way had claimed could shoot the mite off of the tick on a hound dog's ass at a thousand yards. Israeli Air Force combat-doctrine trained into the pilot at the height of a time when such needs and skills were essential now showed they had not dulled measurably, and Lyle on one of the cargo planes that was making a dash for safety under the cover of the intercepting Valkyries was almost certainly ecstatic that Cohen was at the controls of one of them.

For a man who would not eat pork, Cohen was as lethal and savage as they came in Winters' estimation.

A second Gnerl burst in an explosion that took down a third with fragments of itself before the Zentraedi pilots had the chance to react to the loss of their first comrade.

Before the third fusillade struck though, the terror of the impossible had gotten its teeth into them and was biting hard.

The Gnerl element scattered clumsily like a collapsing house of cards as the third targeted fighter had its starboard engine and wing gnawed off by 55mm shells and became the fourth lost in under three seconds.

The sky flashed in irregular pulses like an electrical storm without clouds as energy weapons from both sides joined the merging and pass of Gnerls and Valkyries. Winters was uncertain of the outcome of a spray of laser fire he'd directed at a Gnerl as it had passed too closely to have possibly been prudent. He was now only aware that the enemy was behind him and certainly as eager to get their weapons trained on him again as he was to get his on them.

Unsweeping Marilyn's wings and applying 40% airbrake as he chopped the throttles, Winters felt Newton's attempt to disarticulate his skeleton at the joints while still within the flesh that bound it. The shoulder harnesses that had held him snugly for hours now strained as G-forces threw him forward with many times the weight as he was standing still. Blood rushed to make his face feel full and his eyes to bulge as the speed bled off of the fighter and its pilot.

"Reverse course on a port Split-S on me, now.", Winters warned Duggan and assuming the role of lead before rolling his Valkyrie rapidly to port, onto its back, and pulling the nose back into a dive. Blood that had rushed into his head now raced in the other direction as the positive Gs piled on rapidly and nearly topped-out the pilot's tolerance as he completed the course-reversing maneuver and pulling out of the dive.

Duggan was with him still, as able as Winters to complete the rookie air combat maneuver with less conscious effort than most people applied to opening a can of soup. This was fortunate because the full attention of both pilots was needed to assess the disorderly scattering of enemy fighters before them as they began to rise and close on them for a second merging.

Cohen with Vincenz holding his wing and keeping watch of his tail had followed Mumuni's direction at the initial, head-to-head merge. The two fighters had gone high and wide right on the scattering Gnerls and were beginning the push of the enemy toward ground from high and port of Winters' centerline. Dual streams of rapid-cycle laser bolts from the noses of the two attacking Valkyries lit the expanding battlespace as Gnerls targeted for their momentary tactical significance or just randomly were stitched.

Whether the reaction of the alien pilots was panic, or the attack of the two Knight Hawks was simply slowing their recovery from chaos, the desired effect was being achieved. Natural instinct had the Fighter Pods diving away from the asymmetric threat on mass, toward the deck and into the thicker air of the lower atmosphere where the Valkyrie pilots wanted them.

"Element of three level at one, going low to starboard-.", Winters announced as his eyes and practiced mind picked out a loose clustering of Gnerls that provided the best opportunity for attack.

"Got `em, Jack", Duggan acknowledged, "-Guns or missiles?"

Winters replied as he made a quick but thorough scan of the emptying sky above lest a "surprise" ruin his developing attack, "One missile apiece from you and me, and then we'll decide on the straggler."

As though they had heard the discussion of their fate between Winters and Duggan, the three Gnerl fighters suddenly showed awareness that they were being hunted and immediately increased the angle of their dive and rate of their turn in the attempt to cause an overshoot by the Valkyries. –An admirable yet quickly conceived attempt, it may have succeeded against another Gnerl, but the Valkyries under the skilled control of their pilots were able to keep the proverbial, "pointy end of the spear" on target.

Switched into dogfighting mode, Winters' Fury missiles were already growling their affirmation of target acquisition and their eagerness to be loosed. Closing the firing safety, Winters depressed the firing trigger as the Gnerls continued to drop low and drift right in his forward hemisphere.

"Fox Two-."

The Fury separated from Marilyn as the Valkyrie closed to within optimal firing range of the weapon on target. It was well into homing on the ample IR signature of the trailing Gnerl's triple pulse-jet engine cluster when the call of a missile release was echoed by Duggan.

"Fox Two."

Winters' missile struck home, shattering the port and high engines of the trailing Gnerl, depriving it at the same time of its port wing and rudder and sending it into an immediate and inescapably fatal plunge toward the dark, Mexican landscape below. Duggan's missile struck the element lead before Winters' kill had fallen completely from sight, and with more spectacular effect. The Gnerl's engines went with a meteor-like trail of fire that flared and then quickly dwindled –but rather than the craft nosing down to earth for loss of power, an unseen and more severe element of damage inflicted caused an eruption of the whole fighter into luminous vapor and debris.

"Oh, that was one for the trophy wall, Dingo-.", Winters said, sincerely impressed.

The slain element leader's wingman was pulling hard now to port as the pursuit dropped below 8,000m –the alien pilot wagering that he had a better chance of surviving extreme strain on his control surfaces than a missile identical to those that had just robbed him of two friends.

Winters was weighing the options of going to one of his two gun options or using the last of his missiles when the hallowed practice of keeping one's eyes outside of the cockpit paid off.

"-High right, Dingo! Four o'clock!", Winters warned as a stray from the scattering of the Gnerl squadron identified an opportunity to go offensive.

"I see him!", Dingo replied as he led the hard turn into the diving Gnerl, quickly throwing off its approach run, "-How do bastards that big get to be so sneaky?.."

Before committing to pursuit of the chance Fighter Pod, Winters checked the sky again in the area that his tail would be exposed to. No enemies seen for the moment, he led Dingo on his wing into a high, banking turn to port that succeeded in providing a position of superior altitude on the tail of their would-be attacker.

Not foolish, the Gnerl pilot having overshot his target in the two Valkyries had not maintained a straight line of flight but was instead climbing into a starboard turn and adding altitude at an impressive rate. Winters, as he completed the pursuing maneuver he had initiated found his line of attack was weak and diminishing.

"No joy here, Dingo. –Do you have a shot?"

"Damn right I do."

"Be a chap and take it, our friend from earlier is coming back on our eight…"

Winters took brief breaks from looking back over his left wing where he had spotted the surviving Gnerl of the original three that he and Dingo had engaged to check the other points of the sky for any new aggressors. The benefit of the chaos the Gnerl squadron had been thrown into was that they had scattered into manageable, little pieces and elements of two or three. The drawback was that they had gone all over like a handful of marbles dropped on a tabletop –and as their sense of purpose was coming back to them, they could be expected to attack from any angle.

The Gnerl at 8 o'clock though was showing indications of still being shaken by the sudden loss of his element around him. He was positioned, not ideally but adequately, to attack but was not showing the fire to commit. It seemed to Winters as Dingo defeated his target with a final, short burst from his GU-11 gun pod that there was something flawed in the imbedded programming of that one.

"-Scratch one.", Dingo said as the mortally wounded Gnerl entered its death throes and a nose-dive, "What d'ya think on that other bugger, Jack?"

Duggan's transition from one act of violence to preparing for the next was smooth and flawless as Winters had come to expect from experience.

"Weave on `im?"

"-As good a plan as any.", Winters agreed, snap-rolling into the turn at the indecisive Gnerl.

Duggan followed suit, turning to port not quite as tightly and by doing so opening the distance between him and Winters as they came around for another head-to-head confrontation. The Valkyries increased their advantage beyond merely being two to the Gnerl's one by scissoring back and forth across one another's path in a classic "Thatch Weave". The Gnerl would be forced to select one Valkyrie over the other as its desired target, opening itself at the same time to attack by the other, and the advantage to Winters and Duggan only grew the closer they got. The Gnerl's best alternative would have been to disengage and run –assuming he had someone to cover his tail in retreat. It was a luxury he had not established in planning though, and as a result was not in a position to enjoy.

Then the attack came.

Sudden and jarring as it was to Winters, it took a few thundering heartbeats for him to realize and confirm that the attack was on the Gnerl and not him and Duggan. As it had happened already to more enemies than he had counted and to friends as well, the end came to the Gnerl at the end of a saturating stream of laser bolts that in turn came from two Valkyries that had closed fast and from high to Gnerl's starboard side.

"-Oh, sorry Jack..", Cohen said smugly with another victory hash to paint on his fuselage, "That wasn't yours, was it?"

Winters scanned the sky around him, Dingo, and his imposing subordinates to assure that mocking banter would not carry with it a heavy cost- but the night was strangely clear.

"I was planning on eating that.", Winters replied flatly at having the Gnerl plucked from just outside of his grasp, "-So I hope you choke."

"They're bugging out.", Vincenz pointed out as he and Cohen adjusted their flight path and speed to have Winters and Duggan easily join up into a crude "finger four" formation.

"They can bug out and bugger off as far as I'm concerned.", Winters muttered, the warm hum of his nerves fueled by the hyper-awareness of combat starting to cool already into the chill of the sweat saturating him beneath the pressure layer of his flight suit. The shakes would come soon and coupled with the base exhaustion he'd felt before taking to the air, Winters could tell they would be bad ones this time.

"I'm counting five plus me, so we're all still here-."

Mumuni asserted herself as she and Bippy from her squadron rose from a lower level of flight and Winters watched the retreat of Gnerls to the northwest on his central MFD's tactical mode. He didn't count to see how many there were to their number now, but they were fewer than a few minutes before and most importantly they were opening the range from the cargo plane flight and their escorts.

Maybe the dittos had had enough for the day too.

-And besides, tomorrow held the promise of more of the same as today.

Bippy, of Mumuni's squadron and whose actual name was significantly less flattering than his callsign came over the comms with a voice that one might have expected from one who had just looked upon the face of The Almighty.

"-Holy shit… Is everyone else seeing this?"

Though Bippy's voice sounded of stark amazement and not alarm, Winters first impression was to do a visual scan of the world outside of his cockpit. –But only the retreating Gnerls who were barely visible specks clustered within the overlapping borders of target indicator boxes projected onto the interior of the pilot's helmet visor could be seen.

Instead, it was the suggestion of movement within the cockpit that drew Winters attention down to the center, multi-functional display. The screen was alive with the addition of symbology to the display with each refresh cycle. The layering of "friendly" icons and tracks was heaped upon "hostiles", that in turn was set over intelligence features atop civilian infrastructure layering. The sudden glut of data that quickly rendered the display useless was the result of InfoLink data feeds flowing without the restrictive application of filters that allowed the information integration system to be a vital tool and not a jumbled mess.

What Bippy's utterance of astonishment had hinted at though was that InfoLink was now back, and by the deluge of information it was more than the limited networking and data aggregation provided regionally by the reduced scale of InfoLink that an AWACS or JSTARS could support.

This appeared to be the global network going through its initial flutters of coming back on-line.

"-This has to be part of what we saw the other night.", Mumuni said without need for elaboration. No one on Earth's darkened hemisphere several nights before could have missed at least some of the indications of battle at orbit level and higher above.

"I guess this means the REF earned their pay for the week.", Vincenz mused as he like the other pilots went through the process of deselecting InfoLink content layers to remove the happily extraneous quantity of information that was being presented to him. InfoLink's return offered great promise, but until the currency and validity of the data normalized it was little more than distracting clutter that could be almost as dangerous as the enemy itself.

"Now we just hope that there are enough of us left to benefit from the effort.", Duggan muttered with an undetermined ratio of optimism to realism. It was not difficult for any of the pilots hearing Duggan to understand precisely what he meant. Some stunning feats of martial ability had been achieved by the combined efforts of the RDF and ASC, but at the strategic level the Zentraedi were proving themselves to be what The Robotech Masters had conceptualized them to function as –they were a military juggernaut that was plowing through The Gemini Coalition with all of the subtlety of the proverbial bull in the china shop. Proud units that had trained and exercised themselves to exhaustion in anticipation of conflict had within a week's time been battered down to near combat ineffectiveness.

In this light, it was easy to see how InfoLink might have the new and unforeseen function of allowing humanity to watch itself exterminated.

"Probably won't last long.", Captain Israel "Isn't" Cohen said with the fatalism of a 7-year old watching his popsicle melt in the summer heat with greater speed than he could enjoy it, "-Dittos'll figure out pretty quick what's going on and just knock it down again."

"-But we've got it for now.", Mumuni asserted, her voice having shed a little of the heaviness of mood it had been carrying for days now. It was not what one could have called hope, but certainly something akin to it.

Though he was certain that Cohen was ultimately correct, Winters felt an obligation to back Mumuni's position. She was carrying a lot, and even a few minutes without the demons jabbing at her mind with dark thoughts was a comfort she had earned.

"-Like that's our problem to solve. Let The Fleet get off their asses and do their jobs for a turn."

SDF-3

Vice Admiral Hayes-Hunter sat at her desk/workstation that was the centerpiece of her day cabin that functioned as not only her office but also as a reception area for V.I.P.s and formal functions – or so it would once SDF-3 had the opportunity to play host to such individuals and occasions. For now though it functioned well as an excessively large office for the flag officer and her staff of yeomen whose necessary participation in the admiral's administrative activities was concealed somewhat by the placement of their own workstations within a partially enclosed space that they only worked from when the flag was working in her day cabin.

Hayes-Hunter required no administrative support at the moment though, and as such had allowed her staff to attend to alternate duties and tasks. For such things as putting the final details into her operational after action report, she preferred to work alone as she had done many times as a junior officer when her role was the supporting one.

The intercom interface panel that was built into the faux wood of the desktop and the telephone cradle, keypad and functional control display screen were the only fixtures that punctuated the otherwise featureless and highly polished surface of the desk. This marring perpetrated by legacy conveniences in their latest generational incarnation mildly irritated Hayes-Hunter "where her OCD lived", as Rick was fond of saying –yet, like all other things aboard a ship, the form of a thing was subservient to its function. The indignity of space thrown out of balance by the asymmetric installation of utilities was also blunted some in the officer's mind by her reminding herself that the desk she had been provided to work on was considerably larger than the bunks afforded to bulk of the crew in the enlisted spaces, and the only true "private space" they enjoyed.

The intercom, in addition to helping to throw off the balance of the desktop, often brought to the surface another personal peeve of Hayes-Hunter –the application of technology to an aspect of life that truly did not require it. Knocking on a door had served sufficiently as a courtesy and a means of announcing one's presence for as long as human beings had been hanging doors.

As the intercom buzzed, Hayes-Hunter was reminded of just how uncomplicated communication between the occupant of a room and a visitor used to be.

Pressing the pad activating the microphone, Hayes-Hunter said benignly, "Come."

The benefit of being a vice admiral was that with few exceptions Hayes-Hunter was able to dictate her schedule of received briefings and professional meetings like the one she was about to have. Aboard her flagship, her self-determination as it applied to scheduling was uncontested.

The drawback of being a vice admiral was that when she set a time for a meeting, the other party was invariably punctual whereas Hayes-Hunter found she still had a tendency to get lost in her work and lose track of time.

This interruption was good for her though as the tight muscles in her shoulders and across her back told her. She needed the break, if only for a few minutes.

The door to the day cabin with the marine standing his post outside opened and admitted the entry of her next appointment, the CO of a frigate attached to Doolittle Two that had performed with remarkable distinction in all phases of the operation.

Hayes-Hunter had met all of the commanding officers of the units that had been preselected for the ability to volunteer for Operation Doolittle prior to departure from Walhalla –but she had adhered to her experience-driven practice of not getting to know the officers she would be sending into peril on a personal level before the operation was concluded. They were subordinates attached to the operation in order to perform a function, not friends.

The hard work now done and the true escape from danger into hyperspace just under two hours away, Hayes-Hunter now had the luxury of facing one of her personal challenges- that of being a little more sociable and personalble. Commander Lauren Devereaux would be the next and almost last in the series of opportunities that the admiral had plotted to intercept for this afternoon.

The officer four grades her junior, though by her appearance probably only a few years younger than Hayes-Hunter would be a socially comfortable step closer to the conclusion of the human aspects of command that she often had to brace herself up to perform. The commander was slightly shorter than she, fit but stocky, and slightly mannish in her features and the way she presented and carried herself without being devoid of all femininity. Female command of a military vessel did not have a lengthy history, and command of a military starship an even briefer one. For whatever reason, coincidence or some degree of conscious effort, the first female occupied billets in what had traditionally been a "boy's game" had gone to women who on the majority had looked the part.

Hayes-Hunter identified in Devereaux at a glance the kindred spirit of a tomboy with a uniform and rank, which would make conversation a little easier. As petty as it sounded, even to Hayes-Hunter in her own internal voice, the fact that she was noticeably higher on the traditional beauty scale than Devereaux would be a comfort also. Society too had only recently begun to swing away from being a boy's game as well, and for what little tangible benefit model-like beauty had in the world, it was an element of worth that even the pragmatic Hayes-Hunter had difficulty shrugging off completely. –Or perhaps it had more to do with having lived adoring Rick for far too long in the shadow of the "magazine cover perfect" Lynn Minmei.

Right or wrong, Hayes-Hunter knew the conversation would be more comfortable in a conversation with Devereaux looking as she did- like a Mid-West high school phys-ed coach than something taller, leggier, and with an hourglass form.

Society's imposed vanities sucked.

"Commander, I'm happy to be seeing you again on the back side of a very dangerous undertaking.", Hayes-Hunter said rising as the junior officer approached, and with a motion to either of the well-padded chairs before her desk, added, "Please, have a seat and speak with me for a few minutes."

"Thank you, Admiral.", Deveraux said politely without feigning awe as some did from time to time to be in the presence of one of the few SDF-1 survivors – or some such nonsense.

Deveraux seated herself quickly, heavily, and with the delicacy of a dropped sack of potatoes into a chair. Taking a glance around the day cabin she offered the unsolicited observation, "This is quite a place, if you don't mind me saying so, Admiral. –You could probably dry-dock the Samuels in here if you didn't mind rearranging the furniture a little."

"They told me it came with the stars.", Hayes-Hunter said unapologetically, "-I did voice a concern that maybe the space could be used for something more functional, but the naval designers and the plan approval board overruled me and said that the use of space had negligible impact on overall ship's performance and efficiency. –And something about having to establish an air of prestige for diplomatic functions and the like. I let it go. You have to choose your battles in this life if you want to live through all of them."

"Agreed, Admiral.", Deveraux said plainly and on the edge of informally, "-But I see why the intercom was needed. Personally, I'm happier to just knock."

"Commander, your stock just went up in my reckoning.", Hayes-Hunter said, relishing that Devereaux would have no idea for what reason she was being praised.

While respectful, Devereaux's face became much more businesslike suddenly, "-Admiral, you're a busy woman trying to keep a lot of balls in the air, so may I cut directly to a request I had made several hours ago and have not gotten a reply to yet?"

Hayes-Hunter was both relieved and taken off guard, knowing specifically the request Devereaux had made and having struggled to figure out how to work her response into the conversation.

Devereaux it seemed had saved her the mild discomfort.

"You mean your request to have Gordon P. Samuels linger in the area for a time longer to perform hit-and-run operations against the enemy, Commander?"

"I do, ma'am.", Devereaux affirmed, "I figure we can make the dittos sting a little more before we break off completely. –It was an option that you briefed as part of the overall Doolittle plan, Admiral."

"It was.", Hayes-Hunter agreed, folding her hands neatly in her lap as she engaged in the compulsive act of swiveling her chair a few degrees to port, then an equal distance starboard, before going to port again.

"-And it was an option executable at the operational commander's discretion, that would be me. May I take us on a brief tangent, Commander Devereaux and ask the status of your ship?"

Devereaux answered bluntly and without hesitation, "Some minor to moderate structural and systemic damage. My sensor and ECM repairs will be complete within eight hours, Admiral, and the structural damage that cannot be repaired in open space is of little consequence running the ops I intend."

Hayes-Hunter was equally forward as she pursued with the additional question, "And your crew is up to these guerilla tactics without support following the operations we have just concluded?"

"Admiral", Devereaux replied seriously, "I have trained and exercised my crew hard for just this reason, and Gordon P. Samuels is no stranger to operating alone. If I ask it, they will perform superbly for as long as I need them to. –And I'll run the risk of overstepping when I say that I believe the Admiral knows it's the job of a CO to sometimes ask her crew to perform their duty in less than ideal circumstances."

Hayes-Hunter changed tack for a moment, "-You are aware that I have put your ship up for a unit citation for valor and bravery, are you not? Lieutenant Commander Kenner was very expressive in the account he provided me."

"I am, Admiral, and on behalf of my crew I thank you for that generous recognition.", Devereaux said gratefully, "-But there is more work to be done here."

Hayes-Hunter pushed her chair back from her desk enough to throw her right leg over her left knee.

"As task force commander I have lost two corvette carriers with their entire crews, sustained serious damage to a destroyer, significant damage to my flagship, and have also lost numerous attack corvettes and their crews with more still unaccounted for and likely lost. Looking at your request from my perspective, Commander, what do you expect my response to your request to be?"

Devereaux having clearly thought her request through from Hayes-Hunter's perspective, she was quick and honest in her reply, "I believe that your initial inclination will be to say no, Admiral. –But I would ask you to consider that we've struck a significant psychological blow, and with properly executed tactics we can work the enemy up into a real tizzy for the risk of very little."

"You consider your ship and your crew very little, Commander?"

"Not what I meant, Admiral –I consider them to be everything. –But we're in this business for a purpose."

"True.", agreed Hayes-Hunter, "-But my answer is still no."

Devereaux's face was expressive in her disappointment despite her efforts to mask it, though she did retain her sense of subordination enough not to voice a protest.

Seeing this, Hayes-Hunter continued, "I'm going to bend a personal rule of mine for you, Commander and explain myself in a decision. I have no doubt that you and your ship would stir up quite a bit of mayhem if I turned you loose on the Te'Dak Tohl for a while longer. At the same time I would be exposing you and your crew of eleven hundred to extreme peril for little more benefit than giving one or two more pokes in the eye to Supreme General Krymina. –And to be honest, the day is coming in the not too distant future where I will need to leverage your skills and bravery and your crew's against as much peril, but for the chance of real benefit. Don't concern yourself, Commander Devereaux- you've gotten my attention and earned my professional respect. You'll be tapped to go into harm's way again, I promise."

The edge of Devereaux's displeasure at being reined in as she felt herself reaching her stride was blunted some by the unnecessary justification Hayes-Hunter had given her for denying her request. What remained was governed by duty and her place in the chain of command. The vice admiral was exercising her right as a senior officer, and that was that.

"Very good, Admiral. Gordon P. Samuels looks forward to the opportunity and stands ready."

"I have no doubt, Commander Devereaux.", Hayes-Hunter said without reservation, "-And while we are on the topic of requests, you had another. Particularly, I had offered commanders in the task force the option of transferring their dead to SDF-3 for the return trip to Walhalla to be received with honors for later burial on Earth. You are the only commander who declined, requesting instead to bury your dead in space before we departed. Is there a reason for this?"

Devereaux said without hubris and yet still exercising her rights as a commanding officer, "No offense was intended, Admiral –but Gordon P. Samuels will bury her own dead. I feel… My crew to the individual feels that the space they fought for is the best monument to our dead."

Hayes-Hunter nodded her understanding, "I can see that, Commander. Bury your dead as you wish."

"Thank you, Admiral.", Devereaux said, feeling that the conversation was reaching its end, the potential of fluffy chatter having evaporated some time ago.

Hayes-Hunter rose from her chair, prompting Devereaux to do the same.

Offering the commander an extended hand for a congratulatory shake, the vice admiral said by way of concluding their business, "Then fair seas and safe travels to Gordon P. Samuels, Commander Devereaux."

"Thank you, Vice Admiral."

Hayes-Hunter paused, and then added as their hands parted, "-And if I may make a suggestion?.."

"By all means, ma'am."

"You and your crew have performed with distinction, Commander. Take a moment for your victory lap and enjoy it. I don't think this War is going to allow for too many of such opportunities."

"Aye, ma'am."

Yellowstone City

Captain Anne Weitzel worked as best she could from a seated position and with the freshly re-bandaged stump of her right leg elevated at the task of wiring servers in a salvaged rack according to a diagram provided to her by a network engineer who was working significantly below the level of her skill set in the effort in progress.

The Pioneer Room, an ample space nestled into the subterranean sprawl of The Marriot Hotel and Convention Center Yellowstone had clearly been designed with the intent of comfortably hosting wedding receptions, formal occasions, and convention events for several hundred guests. Though probably never envisioned as serving as a military facility for the collection, handling, and dissemination of classified information in real-time it was the function that all around Weitzel were working to achieve.

Major Pultz and his Marine logisticians had adapted to their new reality quickly as those in their Service were renown for doing and had delivered what Weitzel had asked. They had gone into the residential areas of a shattered and stunned Yellowstone City to locate and secure the support of the needed government civilian and contractor employees who had kept the Government and military IT infrastructure of the United Earth's capital city running prior to the surprise attack of the Zentraedi and the onset of this war. Those whom they found knew others, who knew others, who knew yet others who could – until it became necessary to apply rigorous selection to a massive body of professional volunteers who had in an instant found themselves devoid of immediate purpose and employment.

Electrical tradesmen worked hand-in-glove with IT professionals to put meat on the bones of a skeletal server farm and communications hub being assembled by system and network administrators whose hands and physical labor were presently in greater demand than the scope of their professional knowledge, and by civilian and military communications technicians and intelligence professionals who assisted in the physical standing up of the first step on the path of the return to some shadow of normalcy.

In truth, Weitzel was not even certain how it had all come together so quickly other than thinking that Pultz had had the fortune of tapping into a vein of common interest and need. People whose lives a week before had been meetings, project taskings, and routine office functions punctuated by breaks with co-workers at chain coffee shops and rushed lunches now needed desperately to do something –and this was their psychological salvation.

Similarly Major Pultz had insisted that the right and honor having been earned, it was time for Weitzel to pin on the silver eagles that indicated her rank of captain in the Navy, and with the Robotech Expeditionary Force. He had quickly precluded any argument from Weitzel with the respectful assertion that it was her obligation to lead from the position of authority that The Service had entrusted to her.

A quick ceremony with Pultz reading the oath of office in the absence of someone of higher rank, some cheers, and a quick, celebratory lunch consisting of MREs whose entre' packs had been heated in a pot of boiling water – and that was that.

Pultz had promised that they would do something "fancier" when Weitzel made admiral.

So, having asked for something useful to do within her limited mobility, the Marines had found a use for a willingly helpful hand, which found Weitzel wiring servers according to a diagram.

"Cap', you're not gonna believe this-."

Weitzel started slightly at the words from Major Pultz who had snuck up on her in her concentration. Even though she had been accepting only the lowest dose of pain management that the doctor would allow to be able to maintain her focus, Weitzel found that it made her twitchy –especially as it was starting to wear off, which it now was. She also found that it made her more irritable which she was feeling too in realizing that the surprise distraction from Pultz had made her forget her place in the method she had improvised to wiring the piece of hardware in her diminished state with the lowest probability of error. Weitzel understood now the carefully moderated "grumpiness" her grandmother would sometimes show her as a girl of six or seven when she startled Nana somewhere deep in the binary code of knitting.

" –Damnit!", escaped Weitzel's lips before she could catch it, and a little more harshly than she felt good about given the absolutely essential role Pultz had played in getting her hodge-podge unit of IT-resurrecting intelligence analysts to this point.

Making the effort to soften her tone to one of professional neutrality, Weitzel continued, "You know, Major, each of these 4450s gets about fifteen cables each plugged into a specific port of about a hundred and forty –and it's in the hands of girl who was never able to put a Leggo kit together by the instructions as a child…. So what is it that I'm not going to believe?"

"Apologies, Captain.", Pultz said earnestly though with a hint that the minor infraction was justified, "-Harrison got this while performing the comms check, ma'am."

Weitzel did not need further elaboration from Pultz as he passed her the handset from a standard military field/satellite radio. Communications being one of the foundations of all military operation, and an essential one of civilian existence as well, Weitzel and Pultz had quickly agreed early on that on a frequency of three hours, a thorough check of the radio band used by civilians and military would be performed.

One of Pultz's Marines, Harrison had apparently struck proverbial gold.

Twenty meters below street level, the signal that Weitzel heard as she pressed the earpiece to her head was weak and tattered with pops, hisses, and gaps- but it was a voice. To be exact, Weitzel almost immediately recognized it to be President Valterven's voice speaking strongly and calmly as a leader communicating in a time of crisis was expected to do.

"-Until that time, I urge all the people of Earth to survive and set self-preservation as their highest priority, then to resist the Te'Dak Tohl occupation as they can, and if circumstances allow no other course to fight if you must. May God, in whatever form He holds for you, or Fate guard, guide, and comfort you in the trying times ahead with the promise that we will survive to rise again as one people."

There was no doubt in Weitzel's mind that what she had just heard was recorded and not a live transmission, but it spoke to evidence of important facts.

It was a fact that the intent of The Exodus Contingency had borne fruit. Though as a member of Tier III personnel slotted for evacuation, Weitzel had been denied escape and relocation by the direct attack on Yellowstone City. –But Tier I personnel, including The President and likely the members of the Council had survived along with the ministers and appointed functionaries necessary for the Government to function.

It was a fact that more than evacuate, the Government and military had relocated, probably to Walhalla, and were already conducting their duties under the meticulously crafted and groomed provisions of Exodus.

Most importantly for any semblance of a future not involving subjugation or extermination by the Zentraedi, it was a fact that some portion of the Fleet was still intact and had somehow re-established at least part of the communications satellite constellation that would be required to carry a transmission from President Valterven to any ears that might be listening.

-And if civilian comms were becoming available….

"InfoLink?", Weitzel asked Pultz.

The Major nodded, "It's back, but we're having some difficulty finding a channel receiving and willing to communicate in the clear. Everything is encrypted, and no one thought to grab a copy of the keys when all the shit was starting to go down."

Weitzel allowed herself a small grin, knowing Pultz's statement to not be entirely accurate, "-Get me my bag over there and a TS-classified laptop I can log in to…"

Pultz nodded, knowing the bag of which she spoke instantly –it had not been out of Weitzel's sight since she'd had the wits to ask for it after surgery days before.

Weitzel was ready to call after Pultz to urge him to move faster when the recorded message from Valterven reached the beginning of its repetitive loop.

"People of Earth, I am speaking to you from the Government relocation complex aboard the GS-95 Robotech Factory in an undisclosed and secure area of space."

"At far too short an interval, the Earth has been subjected to attack for a second time by hostile Zentraedi forces. We know now that this unprovoked aggression was perpetrated by a functional, overlord caste of the Zentraedi known to that culture up to this time only as myth, and by the name Te'Dak Tohl. Serving as a mechanism to ensure loyalty and obedience of the greater Zentraedi Empire to the will of The Robotech Masters, a faction of this enforcer caste under the command of Supreme General Krymina has elected or been directed to open a new offensive against the combined human and assimilated Zentraedi population of Earth."

"While confirmable information about the full intent of the Te'Dak Tohl, their current affiliation with the Robotech Masters and furtherance of their doctrine is limited, it appears that their interests fall along the lines of conquest and occupation, and not extermination. Confidence at all levels of our intelligence services and Government is also high that this attack was in no way known of in advance or supported by the socially indoctrinated or marooned malcontent Zentraedi population of Earth. I urge all of our citizens to avoid rash speculation and action within our planetary community at this time of heightened external crisis."

"In this time of sudden and unanticipated darkness, I am able to offer some words of comfort and hope. All branches of your Government have survived and are functional, serving you with the single goal of restoring sovereignty, peace, and stability to the unified people of Earth. A robust and significant portion of our Robotech Defense Forces has been preserved as well, along with military leadership and the command hierarchy. Efforts to plan and coordinate operations with the RDF and Army of the Southern Cross forces remaining on Earth are already in progress –the transmission that you are listening to being a product already of our first retaliatory operation."

"I speak now not only for myself, but for all members of the Government and military separated from you in distance but not spirit. We declare this vow to you, all the people remaining on Earth. We will not be deterred, we will not tire in our duty, and we will not forget that safety from tyranny, cruelty, and fear is no sanctuary if it is not sanctuary for all. We urge you to keep faith, and we will return for an ultimate victory."

"I part with these final words, until that time, I urge all the people of Earth to survive and set self-preservation as their highest priority, then to resist the Te'Dak Tohl occupation as they can, and if circumstances allow no other course to fight if you must. May God, in whatever form He holds for you, or Fate guard, guide, and comfort you in the trying times ahead with the promise that we will survive to rise again as one People."

As Weitzel took the handset away from her ear she found Pultz already waiting with her bag whose classified contents had been pulled hastily together in her office when evacuation had appeared to be the path before her. So many aspects of how she had handled the highly sensitive information since, and even the fact it was outside of a secure facility would have in any other time meant her immediate removal from service and likely her prosecution. Now though, it was a vital resource that might be a valued resource when again in the right hands and in the right circumstances.

They could fire her later if they so chose.

"I need a place to communicate from with a clearer signal, Marine. Can you help a girl out?"

"Hoo-rah, ma'am."

Marines never did anything half-way.

Weitzel sometimes forgot this, but fortunately for her she had Pultz now as her default XO to remind her. –And as she surveyed the ashen grey sky and cityscape of Yellowstone City's morning from behind the fractured panes of protective glass of the helipad arriving/departing lounge atop the Marriot, she made it a personal goal to be more mindful of that common Marine attribute in the future.

She had fared well enough with crutch and working leg up from the finished sublevel of the convention center up to the stairwell mid-level between the fourth and fifth floors before her energy was spent and she accepted a "lift" from three marvelously built enlisted Marines the rest of the way to the rooftop lounge that normally only VIP guests coming and going would see.

It hadn't been the best ride she'd ever had at the hotel as she remembered again fondly, but not a bad or boring one either –and totally necessary to establish comms with the outside world as quickly as possible.

The classified laptop she had been provided by an RDF-AF computer tech sat open and displaying the desktop screen for the user account just created for Weitzel. Standard tools and applications were available in stand-alone mode, but it was the ability to de-encrypt the thumb drive that Weitzel had just connected to the USB port that interested her.

Keying in the passcode she herself had set the eternity of a week before, Weitzel was rewarded by rows of file folders now accessible to choose from.

She was quick to find the particular one that was now relevant.

Pultz, also at the reception counter where Weitzel sat was doing his best to busy himself with the simple and already twice re-verified process of making sure that the field radio had a strong satellite link established with the unseen miracles in orbit above.

"We're hot and waiting, Captain."

Weitzel searched the table of channels and encryption keys established for this day before the need to establish ad-hoc, secure communications had become a reality.

"Dial up command channel 98, Major, and let me know when you're ready for the key-."

"Set, and ready-."

Weitzel verified she was reading from the correct cell of the table before she read the contents aloud, "Bravo, X-ray, Victor, Two, Delta, Nine, Seven, Uniform. –Give me a read-back."

Pultz consulted the characters on the radio's display, reading back: "Bravo, X-ray, Victor, Two, Delta, Nine, Seven, Uniform. Check. "

"That's a check.", Weitzel confirmed, "Let's see who's home."

Pultz handed Weitzel the handset as he had before, and stood back –noticeably not breathing. Marines were just as susceptible as everyone else to the anxiety of moments of truth –normally they just hid it better than most. Weitzel, whose heart was racing now felt she could forgive the major's jitters.

"Comms-check, Channel 98. Anyone, this is Yellowstone City transmitting. Are you receiving? Please respond. Over."

The uplink with the satellite was indeed strong so there was no static in the dead air that followed Weitzel's transmission, only perfect silence.

-Then…

"Yellowstone City? -Is this Antelope again? Who is this? Over."

Pultz breathed again at hearing faintly the reply coming through the earpiece at the side of Weitzel's head. The captain noticed and felt for a moment as though her heart might explode with the surge of relief the non-standard response carried.

"This is Com-… Captain Anne Weitzel, UEN, REF Intelligence assigned to the annex at HQ formerly. Who is this? Over."

There was a pause.

"First, we're still establishing the integrity of secure comms, so no names please. For the time being, you're Buffalo and we're Margaritaville- savvy? Over."

Weitzel rolled her eyes and wished for the abilities of Darth Vader to Force-strangle the irritating individual on the other end of the channel. –But he (probably a private or seaman) was right –encryption keys could fall into the wrong hands if handled outside of regulations as Weitzel had. A few additional steps to establish a level of comfort between parties was a small price to pay for security.

"So what now then, Jimmy? Should we talk basketball stats- I'm a Celtics fan, by the way. –How about classic Corvettes?"

Silence.

The male voice came back "Tiger, tiger burning bright-."

Grateful to be familiar with Blake, Weitzel picked up the stanza and completed it with, "-In the forest of the night."

Silence.

"Okay, Buffalo, ma'am –looks like you're not a ditto. –But a Celtics fan? Over."

"So it wasn't a great season this year-.", Weitzel said defensively, "Can I at least ask where you're located, Margaritaville? Over."

"Tampa, ma'am. Over."

Weitzel was encouraged that Tampa with its multiple RDF installations and command functions was at least transmitting. There was hope for meaningful discourse.

"Well then, Margaritaville, let's see to getting one hundred percent secure because I have stories to tell, and a hell of a long list of questions to ask. Over."

Brasilia

Staff Sergeant Byerly sat on a bound and tarped stack of pipe against the wall of the entryway to the 511Sul subway station at the foot of the unfinished escalator bed. Like so much of the station as they had found it, it was an element frozen in a snapshot of time not long ago when all of the cogs and gears in the mechanism of civilization were clicking along as people expected them to without the effort of applying thought to expectation. The pipes had probably been set there, aside, for the sake of someone's convenience with the full intent that they would be fitted into their place and put to their purpose in the station soon.

So much for plans.

Byerly didn't give much thought to where she had planted herself other than recognizing it as an ideal place to sit and enjoy the downdraft of South American, early winter air carrying through vacated city streets that no longer smelled of vehicle exhaust and the associated olfactory accents of the population. The base of the steeply sloping escalator shaft was also the only place in the improvised base camp of 511 Sul where one could bathe in the soft, indirect light of mid-morning that filtered down.

Byerly had come to this place with these elements in mind and the hope of a moment's peace, and perhaps to even nod off for a short while. Her Zippo lighter that was refusing stubbornly to light, making the cigarette clenched with increasing tightness between her lips useless to her fatigued, nicotine-craving body.

In all fairness to the inanimate, fire-making device, she could not remember the last time she had actually filled the lighter –a small oversight in the grand scheme of things that was costing her tremendously now.

The zing of light metal scraping light metal, not of her doing, caused Byerly's fried reflexes to revivify suddenly and for her right hand to go for the holstered Glock .45 on her hip, and the only weapon she was carrying other than the secondary use of a folding utility knife in her pocket.

Working slightly slower than her reflexes, Byerly's brain identified correctly the subsequent grinding sound of steel on flint and its origin, another Zippo lighter, before she knew who was carrying it.

"-Jesus, El-Tee!..", Byerly panted in the way she would only normally do in a sprint in full gear that turned into more than a sprint.

Somehow the staff sergeant had kept the cigarette in the corner of her mouth, and Whilite lit it for her with Byerly's participation as he sat beside her.

"You're getting jumpy.", the lieutenant prodded her, "This job may be getting to you."

Byerly drew deep on her cigarette and leaned heavily against the cool smoothness of the concrete wall behind her, at ease without ever having stood to attention for the officer.

"Can't imagine why-."

Whilite produced and lit a cigarette for himself before snapping the lighter shut and returning it to his shirt pocket.

The two smoked for a moment in silence before Whilite pointed out, "We smoke too much –do you know that? And word has it from smarter people than me that these things'll kill you."

Byerly gave a nearly girl-like giggle that evolved into a snorting laugh at some dark thought rattling around inside her skull, "Yeah, the stupidity of that with the promise of such a long and prosperous life ahead of us."

Whilite changed gears.

"How's the knee?"

Byerly looked down at the bulge beneath her BDU pants leg at her right knee where Doc Lancing had expertly applied a flexible, athletic style brace to the injury she'd sustained the previous night.

"-Stiff as a dead cat and it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch."

"so it's fine then?"

"Isn't that what I just said?", Byerly smarted back, "And you?"

Whilite had not forgotten the throbbing ache in his right thigh from the wound he'd received there mere minutes before he'd helped Byerly receive her injury.

"`Bout the same. Doc wanted to shoot me up with morphine and keep me laid up in sick bay for a day or so, but I got her to meet me half way and apply something topical along with a strong course of anti-biotics. –God only knows what kinda cooties ditto shrapnel is carrying. Anyway, I told her I'd kick back and catch up on some bunk time when I got back."

Whilite's last comment caught Byerly's attention and interest as his ranking sergeant and also out of plain, human concern.

"Where are we going?"

Whilite deflected, "Did you hear that InfoLink is back up and running? Probably had something to do with the orbital shit we saw going down yesterday morning. –Cap'n is busier than a puppy with three peckers trying to make contact with someone to report to."

Byerly elbowed her superior hard enough for the sensation in Whilite's floating rib to be pronounced, but not painful.

"Where are we goin', El-Tee? Don't make me beat it out of you, because you know I can."

Whilite sighed out a stream of smoke heavily, saying with hint of authority, "I'm going back with Singh and his boys and a few volunteers on recovery detail. We still have some dead out there to bring back."

Byerly scooted herself to the edge of the pipe stack, wincing as her injured right leg joined the left swinging down to the floor, "-Great, you've got another volunteer."

Whilite shook his head, "Naw, you're off this one. –Don't make me make it an order, or make me break your other knee. –Besides, Harris and Fuller have swept the area all morning with a UAV –the dittos lost interest and cleared out hours ago."

"-And what am I supposed to do?", Byerly asked, the thought of crashing for a solid 30 having lost some of its appeal for want of work to be done.

Whilite got to his feet gingerly, guarding the minor wound he was not eager to re-open lest he bring on the wrath of Doc Lancing.

"Got me-. Go do some of that sergeant stuff- yell at some corporals and PFCs."

"Well, to hell with you then.", Byerly said after Whilite as he began to walk away with a hint of a limp.

"To hell with you too.", Whilite replied, pacing the consumption of his cigarette to be done with it by the time he reached the mezzanine of the station.

Whilite was little more than a shape in the shadows to Byerly's light-adjusted eyes when he paused noticeably and turned to speak back at her.

"Y'know, your boy, Alvarez is having a pretty shitty day."

"-Not my boy…", Byerly shot back into the dark, mildly annoyed and not hiding it well.

"Nope, not your boy –but he's having a time of it, I hear. His platoon lost as many as Echo did last night, and wounded to boot. He's taking it pretty rough."

"It comes with the job.", Byerly observed shortly.

"Sure.", Whilite agreed, "-But you're a staff sergeant, he's a staff sergeant-. Sometimes there's shit you can say to commiserate that officers can't. –Just thinkin' aloud here, of course."

"Well, if I think of something uplifting-.", Byerly began, but let the thought drop.

"Fair enough.", Whilite said, "Cap' let him take an OP topside –northeast corner of the top floor of the building over us –alone."

Byerly's ears perked for a reason that took her a moment to recognize, "And so?"

"-Just thinkin' aloud.", Whilite replied, his place in the dim passage marked for a moment by the glow of his cigarette, "He probably wanted a place to sort things out for himself, and dead as it is up top, he probably hasn't gotten any visitors."

There was a spark of embers on the unfinished concrete floor as Whilite's cigarette butt bounced on it once before being crushed under a boot toe.

"-Should be that way for a while, I guess. –Just thought it might be relevant if you wanted some time to commiserate, that's all."

Nothing else was said between the two as Whilite departed.

Naib Subedar Singh yawned loudly as he sat upon his idling Cyclone, sounding much and looking somewhat like a bear with his great, thick beard showing prominently through the open visor of his helmet despite the binding restraints of several rubber bands he kept for just that purpose. Around him, his Gurkha Rifles and the volunteer Ranger and ASC commando passengers mounted with them laughed, amused by the human display of the senior officer and joined with him in the same, wearied state.

A single, solemn duty stood between them and rest, but the promise of rest was nearing on the horizon.

"Sorry, Singh", Whilite said, hobble-skipping with his wounded leg up the track bed and into the tunnel where the detail had assembled as quickly as his feet would carry him safely.

"-I didn't realize I was cutting into nap time."

Singh leaned the Cyclone toward the Ranger lieutenant as he slung his safetied rifle across his back and carefully threw his leg over the portion of the seat he'd be occupying on the ride back to the previous night's ambush site.

"I was considering it, since you didn't appear to be in any hurry.", Singh replied in kind, righting the bike and allowing Whilite to situate himself upon it.

Whilite felt the soft, purring vibration of the Cyclone's dual-wheel hub electric motors as it carried the bike, its giant of a driver, and him forward with a surprising burst of acceleration.

Any light from the construction lamps resurrected by the mixed unit at the improvised base camp quickly fell behind, and Whilite was left in darkness with only the feeling of the movement-generated wind to give him a sense of progress. Of course Singh had the benefit of the Cyclone's forward-looking, terrain scanning radar and the various other optical systems meant to allow him to navigate in just these conditions and at higher speeds.

Whilite trusted, too tired for deep concern.

"You know, I was serious, Sri-.", Whilite yelled into the audio pick-up in Singh's helmet, "-You gotta teach me to work one of these things-."

"I was serious too, my friend.", Singh replied through comms, "-In due time, I promise. –I'm starting to feel like your own personal taxi driver!"

"An Indian taxi driver?..", Whilite feigned amazement, "Heaven forbid."

"-You can still walk, you know-."

"Fox."

The challenge word was accompanied by a solid series of three knocks on the hallway wall to the side of the open doorway outside of the corner office where SSGT Alvarez sat in intermittent surveillance of vacant city streets.

Even though the knock followed the voice of SSGT Byerly, one of the ten or so vices he had come to recognize instantly in his time with Echo Company, the percussive rap of knuckles on drywall made him flinch. It was too much coffee, too little sleep, and far too much going on inside of his head primed the spring coil of the mousetrap for the common sound of a knock to trip.

"Henhouse.", Alvarez replied, drawing his hand back from the grip of the sub-machinegun it had gone to without conscious thought at the start from the noise.

Byerly stepped awkwardly through door with care given to the use of her injured knee causing Alvarez to feel immediately ashamed. He had intended to step in to wherever she had been recovering to just check on her and give her a nod –but he had lost the thread of that gesture after the weight of dealing with his own wounded gave way immediately to the beating that came with finally having his losses hit home.

He would not have been good company he had assured himself as he had gotten the nod from the Rangers' CO to stand a post for a turn and had ascended the stairwell of the battered office building to quiet and solitude.

"-I meant to look in on you and-.", said Alvarez, continuing into an apology that followed on the string of thoughts that Byerly was not privy to, "-And how did you get up here anyway with a busted leg?"

"-Same as you.", Byerly replied, pushing aside a now useless desktop copier/printer that had been propping the office door open only to close the door as best as the warped frame would allow and then using it again to maintain the uneven closure.

"-The stairs."

Alvarez grinned with genuine admiration, the facial expression lightening his mood some with the simple act of making it.

"You are a tough one, I'll give you full credit for that."

Byerly hobbled directly toward the other NCO whose form looked more and more like that of a marble sculpture of a Greek god as she neared him, managing to unbutton and shed her BDU shirt by the time she met him toe-to-toe.

"Look, we both need this, we want this, and we haven't got a lot of time-."

Alvarez found his heart pounding as hard as it ever had, but not in panicked or distressed way.

"-I'm on the wrong side of twenty-four hours and combat without a shower, and probably stinkin' pretty bad about now."

"Good", Byerly replied with a handful of the other staff sergeant's shirt near the neckline, "-Me too."

Their mouths met, engaging frenziedly in something not quite as aggressive as an attack but with every bit as much energy. Alvarez's hands grasped at Byerly's hips and roamed- happily finding superb attributes of womanhood beneath the fabric of unisex BDUs.

Las Pozas, Guatemala

La Iglesia Del Nazareno Las Pozas hulked colossal and dark in the pre-dawn hour of morning. Not quite within the short reach of the low pressure sodium vapor lights that the engineers had set up at intervals sufficient only for keeping the half-kilometer section of deserted road dimly lit, it took careful examination to make out the boundaries of the cathedral-scale church and to see that the run of its lines was not what it should be and had been only days before.

Like older monuments of worship to dead and marginalized gods, this house too stood broken and open like scavenger-devoured egg –its vacancy reflective of the questions the devout were certainly pondering on the whereabouts of their God in a time of crisis.

Winters had no questions, God was evident and present in his very being.

Leaning against a sturdy and aged tombstone in the parish cemetery with Dalton slumped to and bracing the other side as the remaining Valkyries of Knight Hawk Squadron received spot checks and maintenance by a team other than Lyle's who were now hundreds of kilometers on in the relocation movement, Winters was not having a religious revelation but a reflection on recent events with cynical inference. He was here, and he had survived scraps that had seemed to be orchestrated for the very purpose of demonstrating the binary nature of mortality and that made the knot in his belly clench with the mere act of thinking back on them.

Wasn't this proof? Hadn't Saint Thomas Aquinas carved out a place in theological philosophy for reasoning just as flimsy? -Actually, the C of E hadn't given Winters the proper foundational information to compare in any great detail, but more or less his comparison felt sound to him.

–God had found some reason to preserve him, and by virtue of that decision and the protection it had afforded, He was real.

-Or, the line to Hell was out the door and God had decided to let Winters serve some of his time in corporal form while the waiting room cleared out some.

Either proved God -though it was probably the latter and Winters had no doubt.

The dark all around was filled suddenly by a resumption in the predictable, loud and throaty snoring of Blitz who had settled down at a marker several meters away and had fallen asleep quickly and as soundly as the occupant of the grave below him.

Grumbles from other pilots, both within Winters' squadron and without floated through the inkiness, the loudest being from Rebound somewhere between Winters and Rechtberg.

"-Goddamnit, roll on your fuckin' side!.."

Less abrasive to tender ears, Preacher Wayne could be heard to give the much larger German pilot a single shove at the shoulder that had the desired effect and ended the snoring –for now.

In the recovered silence, Winters repositioned a small, pocket LED light turned onto its lowest setting on his outstretched left thigh as he turned his attention to the top, blank page of paper of the pad he had balanced on his raised right knee.

He had letters to write –the kind that no commanding officer ever wanted to pen, but he did. He had not been able to sleep despite a great need for it, so it was just as well to stare blankly at a virgin page as he had for the past hour and continue to put off the uncomfortable.

There was a new distraction that Winters became aware of gradually with a traveling breath of wind. The sweet smell of early morning dewiness was joined slowly and then overpowered by cigar smoke whose thickness grew with the approach of footsteps on earth, the distinctive sound of liquid sloshing inside of a glass bottle, and the swinging, red-gel beam of a dimmed flashlight.

At the headstone that Winters and Dalton co-occupied, the crimson glow was doused and a third body settled heavily to the ground, leaning against the side of the same stone.

"-I heard that the RDF was bringing its trash on the retreat, but I thought they meant something else."

Winters felt a cloud of smoke envelop him as it drifted by, filling his nostrils and waking his craving for a cigarette. He had none though and was too tired to bother Dalton for charity.

"Happy to smell you too, Mathias."

Another cloud of smoke rolled by invisibly in the darkness, only this time Winters found the soft, red glow of the lit end of the cigar hovering in an offer near his face. Carefully he took it from the ASC-AF pilot's thick fingers and found it was far less "juicy" on the drawing end than he had dreaded. –Not that it would have mattered at the moment.

As Winters puffed, each inhale raising the glow of the cigar's lit end, he heard the scrape of a metal screw cap coming off of the glass bottle and the swish of liquid as it was consumed directly.

"So, how was your day there, Kemosabe?"

The slower assimilation of nicotine from the cigar was finally beginning, smoothing the jagged edges of Winters nerves some.

"Top notch. –Yours?"

"`Bout the same."

More considerate than to be greedy with the nicotine of others, Winters handed the cigar back in the darkness and heard the evidence it being returned to Mathias's mouth as he continued to speak.

"Whatchya up to?"

"Writing – letters."

Winters felt Mathias shift uncomfortably in the dark, indicating that no elaboration was needed.

"Shit, don't I feel like a fucking asshole-."

Dalton stirred now and having apparently given up on intermittent dozing joined in with, "Well, you gotta be you, don't you?"

Mathias gave a grunt of amusement, "Hey, Tanto –thought that was you."

Dalton didn't reply as Winters felt a nudge again from Mathias as this time the round, solid form of a bottle tapped his shoulder. He took it by the neck and before the mouth was even close to his he could detect the fuming of tequila whose quality by the smell of it was probably just above that of paint thinner. –Still, the instant burn down the throat and in the belly from a single swig helped some.

"How many?", Mathias asked, his meaning clear.

"Too many.", Winters replied, handing back the bottle that he badly wanted to keep, but forced its surrender, "You?"

"`Bout the same."

Somewhere to the northwest there was a rising rumble of jet engines, whether they were friend or foe Winters could just not tell. The sound caused a great stir in the darkness as pilots and other personnel all around roused at the disturbance and waited.

No calls to action came as the distant, deep rumble lingered a few moments longer and then subsided allowing for a measure of relaxation to return but without the benefit of sleep for many.

Winters knew that sleep would not come to him, so maybe he would really put pen to paper now and put behind him some of the damned letters his billet obligated him to write.

-Or maybe something else would come up.

Artoc

Anticipation of action had a common and unavoidable effect on all ships, from the greatest to the smallest, and upon the company of officers and crew that made them combat units. The energy of focusing and tensing the mind to strike built within the Warrior's Core of each member of the crew, welling up to the surface, and eventually spilling over and out to become a shared aura that could permeate and charge the bulkheads and deck plates of a vessel as surely as a poorly grounded electrical circuit.

So Artoc was tensed, so poised to strike as were the hundred or more warships of all configuration in the flag battle group that held station about her.

So were they all poised to strike –a great distance from any action upon which the campaign was depending.

Sub-General Caldettas had been at Supreme General Krymina's side as was his place as she had made the rare descent from her command bubble to the maze of operational duty stations on Artoc's command deck to apply tactical reasoning to special positioning.

In truth, reasoning was a term that Caldettas could only justify insofar as it applied to the methodology used by the supreme general to choose her battle group's position – not to justify the positioning itself.

Artoc and its armada of supporting craft that weighed heavily with cruisers and destroyers paced like predator in a cage of its own making for a release to the accumulation of energy from their crews. The cage itself was in the nowhere comparable distances from the areas of the alien star system where something might occur.

Caldettas had watched Krymina at the central navigational station mentally trying to wear the skin of another commander and attempting to derive his next move for the sake of pre-planning a counter –or, Caldettas suspected, to pre-empt his move. The session of several hours had passed mostly in silence, the queries of the supreme general being posed directly to the navigation specialists. Only once, at the conclusion of her exercise did Krymina solicit the agreement of her executive officer –and Caldettas had known this to simply be a formality of little significance or potential influence.

Here Artoc was, and here were Supreme General Krymina and the critical core of her senior officers and staff far from the stabilizing onslaught on the micronian homeworld.

Sub-General Jekketh, pulled with his command ship from the regional space of the alien planet to attend and brief at this meeting continued in his fashion to report. Broad and comprehensive in scope, and detailed to the appropriate level in the most critical details of progress or where those details might cast the best light upon his command abilities, Jekketh's summation of events since the last senior meeting was still somehow changed to Caldettas's ears.

The executive officer of the 7th Grand Army of the Te'Dak Tohl had initially taken this shift to a trick of his own perception –a windfall of being unable to focus himself. Only halfway through Jekketh's arate was Caldettas able to zero in on the cause of change in his tone.

Jekketh, like Caldettas realized that all things going on outside of Krymina's head were only noise to her at the moment. Without her approval as reward, Jekketh's delivery had become as mundane as Krymina's reception was unconcerned.

Caldettas was curious whether Jekketh too suspected the same topic as he to be Supreme General Krymina's distraction? -Or did Jekketh's interest fail in realizing it was not a distraction he could remedy?

Caldettas wondered.

"-While I cannot report that all organized resistance by the micronian military forces has collapsed, I can report that those elements of any significance have been quashed."

As Jekketh waited for any of a hundred lines of plausible questioning from Supreme General Krymina, she instead stared in deep thought through the bulkhead beyond the end of the table at the center of her senior briefing room.

Moments of this drew out in silence and became torturous, prompting Caldettas to speak.

"Fragments of broken units can coalesce and rise again as other units, Jekketh. –What provisions are being made to deal with this contingency?"

Noting that Krymina was not actively engaged, Jekketh responded to her more than Caldettas anyway, saying, "As outlined in the general phase concept of our campaign plan, we will fight the micronians as we can, where we can until the strategic regional, geographical objectives are seized. Once firmly under our control, our field commanders will be given instruction and latitude to seek out and eliminate whatever remints of the micronian military that they are able to fix upon."

Caldettas was satisfied with the answer as it was consistent with the plans that he had worked in conjunction with Jekketh to draft. In the broader sense it was a formulaic operational plan, no different than dealing with a large force of norghil or Invid –the difference was in the fine details and particulars of the enemy at hand. This troubled Caldettas more because of the impression he had from Jekketh's rote answer that he was not concerned more.

The micronians had folded under the weight of full attack at roughly the same rate as could have been expected from norghil or Invid; the difference being that the micronian military still in the process of collapsing was smaller and far more capable in that minute size than forces of Invid or norghil vanquished in the same amount of time.

-Had they the opportunity to reconstitute, or less likely the fortune to be substantially reinforced….

These were disquieting possibilities that Caldettas felt Jekketh to be negligently apathetic to in his response.

"What of the communications satellite constellation reconstructed by the micronian raid?", Caldettas asked, that aspect of the brazen yet brilliantly conceived attack having only become evident in the past several hours.

"What is being done to neutralize it?"

"We are attempting to locate the individual satellites deployed by the raiders", Jekketh said, looking uncomfortable suddenly, "-However, their construction makes their detection by our sensors difficult, and they appear to have some amount of imbedded, defensive, intelligent programming that discontinues a particular unit's signals output in proximity to a threat such as our ships or fighters searching for them. It is admittedly perplexing, and we have made some progress, but it is slow and resource intensive."

"-And absolutely critical.", Caldettas asserted, "Any system with such self-preservation designed into it must be of great benefit to the micronians. See it is rendered useless as quickly as possible."

"As quickly as possible, of course.", Jekketh concurred, "Yet soon there will be few effective units of their military to use the communications system –regardless of how beneficial it is."

Caldettas countered with, "-And once that is validated fact, Jekketh, I will gladly concede that you are correct. We are not the only ones with plans and timetables in this campaign however. There are ones of whose details we are unaware, but they are either in development or already in play. We can be certain of that much."

"-And in that light, you continue to focus your attention on a world crumbling under our boots, and not Breetai?"

The words, the first spoken by Supreme General Krymina since she had consented to the initiation of the senior command briefing quieted Caldettas, Jekketh, and the several hushed, related conversations taking place at the table between functionaries and staff.

"Have you anything to report on the search for Breetai, Caldettas?"

Caldettas had dreaded this inevitable point in the campaign progress briefing, and now doubly so. Krymina's sudden reanimation confirmed what he had surmised –that Krymina's assembly of a powerful battle group with Artoc as its centerpiece and the movement of that battle group to its present location was not response planning. She had too predatory mindset for that –Krymina was still seeking prey.

"Liege, our deployed scouting forces are ahead of schedule in their search plan, but there has been neither contact with Breetai and the micronian fleet forces, nor any indication of their presence or possible location. We are scouring the most likely possibilities as quickly as units can reach them, but the odds work in Breetai's favor, not ours."

"Then what portion of our forces do we need to dedicate to the search to improve our odds?", Krymina asked icily, impatience building to a boil just beneath her outward appearance of composure, "How many, Caldettas, or do I need to make that determination and issue the orders myself?"

Caldettas's blood chilled further as he began to feel distinctly that he had participated in this conversation once before. In fact, he knew that he had –the difference being this time that the Tirolian, Darius was not here and participating and in doing so plucking Krymina's taut nerves.

Fiery as Darius had made the last debate, his points had all been valid and had swayed the supreme general at the end of the day to not succumb to her instinctive urges that would certainly lead to catastrophe. –But here they were again, days, calculable hours later at the same point.

Most disquieting though, in the final analysis, Supreme General Krymina was not obligated to provide justification or ask permission to issue orders.

"How much of our decided advantage do we squander on a futile exercise?"

Caldetttas stopped short of cringing at his own words of challenge, Krymina apparently not being the only one impassioned by the rousing debate. The faces of Te'Dak Tohl officers, battle seasoned and tested all were aghast mirroring in their expressions the dangers of perilous insubordination that the 7th Grand Army's executive officer felt instantaneously.

The thought had become words that were now out and could no more be taken back than dust could be reclaimed from the wind. Caldettas made the conscious decision in that moment that if his life was about to end on the lethal side of Supreme General Krymina's blaster, it would be for his fully formed argument and not just a vague challenge of his superior's wishes.

"Space is infinite.", Caldettas said, resuming his train of thought after only a moment that felt like many lifetimes, "By comparison, Breetai's force is microbial. Even if we were to assign every ship in our Fleet to each search a hundred of the positions best suited to conceal the enemy force, the measurable percentage of possibilities we would have investigated at the end of the exercise would be insignificant. –And this is not taking into account that Breetai is not a fool. He could be in a state of constant motion, he could have initially taken refuge in a location that we have not searched yet and may never search, and have relocated to one we already have and marked as investigated. To continue on this course of action is to draw our forces tenuously thin for the possibility of fixing on and then possibly engaging Breetai before he is ready by a decimal of a percent."

"On the inverse side of the strategic situation though, we have established a position of power and are even now continuing to build on it. We do not need to know where Breetai is because we know that ultimately he has to return. If he maintains his allegiance with the micronians his only conceivable objective is the breaking of our hold on the micronian homeworld, the recovery of its resources, and the liberation of its population. Understanding that, the fundamental question is that when he does return, and I am certain he will –will he find our forces prepared and fortified, or will he find a shell of what we have built because the bulk is scattered across the galaxy searching for him?"

"I recognize that Breetai is a liability to our campaign, a significant random element, but his defeat is not our primary objective. The Tirolian, Darius, has reported that subjugation of the micronian labor force familiar with the growth and harvest of The Flower of Life on the planet has reached a point where production will soon be viable. This ensures the long term interests of the Te'Dak Tohl, we have all planned and worked to an end based on that agreement."

"Our best mitigation of the Breetai threat is preparedness. Once our control of the micronian world is solidified and the supply chain of Protoculture has been established, then we will have the resources to look increasingly outwards."

Caldettas achieved what had in his own head been improbable –he had completed his argument and was still breathing. While his argument that had bordered on tirade had left most of the table, including Jekketh surprisingly, in shocked agreement it had left Supreme General Krymina impenetrable to his reading.

Her precise thoughts had been beyond his grasp before, but she had never been completely opaque to him –and this was as disturbing if not more than to find a weapon pointed at him.

"You serve your function well, Caldettas.", Krymina said evenly, her words implying no more than the literal, "Your prudence tempers my ambitions. Nothing in excess is a virtue though, not even caution."

"Determine an appropriate, short-term surge in the recon essence forces searching for Breetai including the timetable on which the force in its entirety should return. Certainly, we have some time to work with before Breetai is prepared to counterattack in force. I should like to be abundantly prepared when he does."

Without additional comment or word, Krymina rose from the table and departed the briefing room as though leaving it vacant.

Caldettas sat silently a moment longer, building to thoughts that could quickly consume his full attention. Before they did, lest his face be more revealing of his thoughts than Krymina's, he made a sweeping gesture to the table.

"Return to your ships and duty stations and stand by for further orders –except you, Jekketh. –Remain a moment with me."

The room cleared quickly as though the senior officers and staff were eager to escape some contagion in the air of the compartment. Not even the low mutter of follow-on conversation and the issuing of orders to subordinates that normally followed a briefing was present. Shock still hung heavily on them all.

Alone, Jekketh broke the silence and more boldly than Caldettas had ever heard him speak.

"What was that? -We advanced over that ground last time."

"That was reason for concern and watchfulness.", Caldettas replied, trusting Jekketh more than he was comfortable with words that could easily be taken as insubordinate.

"You defused that well, Caldettas –better than the Tirolian anyway... I thought your billet might be opening to successors for a few moments there though."

"Would you want the responsibilities, Jekketh?"

Jekketh thought long, "I am not certain. –But that's of no matter, you got Krymina back on course."

"For now. –Just as Darius and I did last time.", Caldettas agreed, "But it will not take much to change that, I fear. Soon my best efforts may be insufficient."

"And what are we to do about it?", Jekketh asked, the basic threshold of conspiracy having already been crossed.

"For now, we do everything we can to show that the established operational plan is the correct path to follow. Much depends on you and me. Do you understand?"

"And if we're unsuccessful or fail to meet Krymina's expectations?"

Caldettas said grimly, "Then there may be two billets opening to successors, Jekketh –and worse."

Yucca Mountain, Nevada

The displaced dust from thruster wash had not settled around the YC-13 VTOL-capable transport nor had the rear ramp fully lowered to allow the handful of passengers to disembark before a receiving detachment of RDF-Army troops began at the task of draping the aircraft in desert camouflage, RAM tarps.

As the four RDF-Army commandos, armed heavily in Cyclone Battloid power armor quickly surveyed and verified the security of the LZ and its outlying area, the expectant receiving party rushed over from their military rover to meet the ranking visitors.

"General Leonard, General Lowell, I'm Colonel Parks.", the tall and slender in combat dress said with a salute exchange as the roar of the transport's Valkyrie squadron escort waned as the fighters withdrew to the northeast.

"-We're honored of course by your unexpected visit, but I have to insist that we get inside quickly. I'm sure it comes across as paranoid, but concealment and anonymity are our best friends around here and we're extreme in avoiding drawing attention to ourselves."

"It's your installation, Colonel.", Lowell replied, dressed similarly to Parks and his unnamed major companion in RDF-Army BDUs.

Together with General Leonard in ASC field uniform, the small group moved quickly to the rover where the driver was prepared to depart as soon as the four men had mounted.

The chill of the night air intensified with its movement through the rover's open windows as the driver navigated the dirt road at high speed, seeing all before and around him clearly through night vision goggles. First light was just beginning to soften the darkness to the east and provided enough contrast for the shape of the mountain to emerge. Besides the driver, none of the other occupants of the rover could see their destination but knew that it could not be far.

"As you probably know already, sirs, the mountain was originally excavated by The United States with the intent of it being a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste. It's re-envisioned use, post-UE, under Project Vulcan saw the waste removed and expansion of the storage facility initiated before the onset of The Robotech War. –We currently have expanded to-."

Leonard, silent but attentive to this point was brutally short as he cut the colonel's informal, historical briefing off.

"Colonel Parks, I'm not really interested in the fun facts for tourists or in visiting the gift shop for hats and travel mugs. We're here for an eyes-on inspection of the site, inventory, and assess operational status."

"-We'll visit the gift shop on our way out.", General Lowell assured Parks whose expression despite a valiant effort was crestfallen.

The massive blast doors that were set back almost a hundred meters into the facility's entrance that was no more than a roughly bored-out tunnel into a steep, sloping rock face had closed before the interior passage's illumination rose to full intensity. Beyond the reinforced doorway the towering interior could have as easily been mistaken for that of the GS-95 Robotech Factory with its dull grey metal forms, conduits, and piping.

"We call this main tunnel Broadway for obvious reasons.", Parks said, resuming elements of what could have passed for a tour after the rover had traveled the tunnel's broad interior at the regulation, maximum speed for several minutes, "It goes back just over four kilometers into the mountain to access the main facility. There are seven other concealed access points to the facility, all just as big, but this is the only one that is used regularly."

"Will this provide us access to the storage cysts, Colonel?", Leonard asked, "-We have a lot of ground that we will want to cover and a tight schedule to keep."

"Yes sir.", Parks affirmed, "Broadway provides access to the elevators and ramps through which we can access the storage complex levels. It also terminates off of the administrative, control, and living complexes for the garrison and civilian staff. After we've taken you down to the tombs –another local name, sorry –we can move on to the manufacturing areas and even as far as the geothermal power plant if you're so inclined."

"We'll see what time allows.", Leonard replied with a non-committal tone.

As indications of an even larger open space appeared at the terminus of the tunnel/corridor ahead, Lowell decided to take some of the conversational "heavy lifting" off of the colonel's shoulders. He had developed as much as a rapport with Leonard as was rumored possible –and he held common rank to boot, decreasing the likelihood of verbal impoliteness from the ASC guest.

"Yucca is the oldest of the Vulcan facilities, General –but there are those in Missouri, West Virginia, Montana, Arizona, and Winnipeg in the North American Sector alone. Storage is maxed out here, but there is sufficient space and resources between the others to initiate manufacturing and storage of Southern Cross material. Bayonets to Battloids –once your staff and ours work out the procedures for translating your manufacturing specs into consumable file format, we can build any of it."

"-And the manufacturing technology is copied from The Robotech Factory?", Leonard asked.

"Approximated is the term we prefer, changes being necessary for available space. Also, we only have the ability to manufacture hardware –weapons, mecha, vehicles, their components, and to a lesser extent munitions. We don't have the organic synthesis capabilities of The Factory, for instance. We can make the bullets and the bandages, but not the beans."

"-Or beings.", Leonard noted with mild derision.

Lowell understood Leonard's meaning immediately and responded directly, "Yes, even after the capture of the GS-95 Factory and the addition of manufacturing capabilities to the Vulcan facilities, there were imposed limitations as to what we were allowed to do. People are very skittish about the manufacturing of sentient beings for the express purpose of military use. On some moral points we have to differentiate ourselves from The Robotech Masters. Slave warriors fighting for the lives and freedom of others was the line. In any case, our indoctrination, re-education, and recruitment efforts with the marooned Zentraedi population has been quite successful. Many of them embrace military service through our program because its familiar, but you might be surprised to know that more actually recognize the opportunity for investment in a future here on Earth."

Leonard was visibly unimpressed, "Yes, well social philosophers with their lofty ideals seem to be a rare demographic in our fighting ranks, Lowell. You and I know that wars are not won by altruism –they're won by brutality, mathematics, and manufacturing. We can be every bit as brutal as the Zentraedi, even more at times because we've been warring with ourselves since the first caveman clubbed another over the head. What we can't beat them in is the math or manufacturing. They have more soldiers, they have more ships, they have more mecha and in quantity that makes comparative quality with ours a moot point. They can also replenish any of those personnel or material assets faster than we can. Try asking a social philosopher about that."

"Agreed.", Lowell said, "-But decisions were made above my pay grade, General. You know that the military answers to the Government."

"Hopefully that won't be humanity's epitaph.", Leonard mused darkly.

It had taken another five minutes to enter the area of the facility that Parks had referred to as "The Hub", and to descend down reinforced ramps 40 meters wide and bored out of the mountain's limestone to reach the uppermost level of the storage complex.

Lowell and Leonard had dismounted the rover behind Parks and his subordinate whose name they had learned to be Beale and had followed them toward a sliding, corrugated metal door whose only distinguishing feature was the identifier, "S1-E-O25", stenciled in type a meter tall on its exterior. This level looked more like how Leonard had envisioned the entirety of the subterranean facility to appear. The tunnels that were narrower by half than Broadway were reinforced, but revealed bare rock including the floors that had received slightly more attention in the form of being ground to an even surface. The tunnel itself gave the impression of stretching back a great distance into the darkness –an impression that itself could not be confirmed because only a single, overhead flood lamp had been turned on to illuminate this initial length of the passage.

Colonel Park and Major Beale quickly unlocked the door that stood 30 meters high by way of a simple latch not that different from ones found on a domestic screen door with the exception of its size, and together pushed the door aside on its tracks with what appeared to be only modest effort.

As light cascaded through the partially opened door, the form of a Generation 2 Spartan Destroid stood inert before them at the head of a column that went back at least another two units deep, and beside the Spartan heading up the next row.

"What are they covered in?", Leonard asked, taking a moment to assure himself that the grey film that appeared to cover all of the metal surfaces and muted the distinct edges and separations of joints and articulation points on the mecha's legs was not just a trick of the light on aging eyes.

Parks laughed, "That's a protective laminate, General. –We call it Ziplocking them, for freshness you know…"

"We get it, Colonel.", Lowell said.

"Yes sir.", Parks continued, "It's necessary even though there are systems to control the dust and humidity in the climate on these levels, the laminate provides an extra layer of protection against particulate contamination and corrosion. The coating can be removed by two guys with pocket knives in about five minutes. You just pop in a viable power cell, run the standard diagnostics on the mecha, and you've got a fighting machine. –Minus ordinance, of course. Energy weapons are fully functional at start-up though."

"Impressive.", Leonard said without excessive praise, "-And the munitions are stored?.."

"Within an isolated and highly controlled storage area not connected to this one or to the habituated areas of the complex, sir. Safety regulations."

"Of course-.", Leonard agreed.

"Well, General –our club house is a myth no more.", Lowell asked his counterpart, "What do you think?"

"At the right time, and with a modicum of luck and much planning, this is a resource that the Zentraedi will regret to have not known of and missed. With the right support from the REF, once the Fleet returns –we're going to give them one hell of a dick-punch. –Assuming, that is, we can preserve qualified personnel to operate what you've squirreled away until that time comes."

"A distinct and legitimate concern, General.", Lowell agreed, "But that's step eight-forty-five in winning the War. Right now we're on twenty-eight."

"Then", conceded Leonard, "Let's get to taking about getting along to steps twenty-nine and thirty."

"I agree.", Lowell said, "And there is one additional thing, General Leonard that goes back to the math and manufacturing you were talking about a few minutes ago."

"What thing is that, General Lowell?"

Lowell was hesitant at first with Parks and Beale nearby, and then cautious in his choice of words, "There are certain efforts that have been initiated that I have been authorized to brief you on for your full knowledge and use. –But because of its sensitivity, this is not the place."

The Trendok 145 Robotech Factory, Deep Space

Queado-Magdomilla Class Command Ship, Gohr'Dhet despite its extraordinary mass was handled with equal parts speed, care, and delicacy by automated dockyard tugs that moved it with coordinated efficiency into a vacant dry-dock slip for the extensive repairs it required. That work being done and without ceremony or pause for receipt of gratitude, the tugs departed to join the hundreds of clones of themselves that were still in the process of deploying from the storage slips they themselves occupied when not in use. The repair yard bay of The Robotech Factory was certainly not the largest of the docking facilities but was becoming with a single, mass-arrival the busiest in the station after only a brief respite of inactivity.

Through the main channel and in single file savaged vessel after savaged vessel of mostly the destroyer and transport classes entered the capacious bay capable of handling hundreds of their kind –and still, once the precise and swift work of the automated tugs was done there would still be vessels left waiting in order outside of the Factory for their turn at repair.

Gohr'Dhet, mauled as it was, was not the worst damaged of the crippled armada that he had been given charge of directly by Supreme General Krymina, but Action General Gulhota had taken personal interest in assuring that all aspects of the supreme general's orders were attended to. Before the armada had left the planetary space of the micronian home world it had meant committing the number and type of vessels to memory and while in transit determining the best order in which they would be serviced.

Having Gohr'Dhet lead the precession of the maimed into port was not the final detail that Gulhota would see to in fulfilling his obligations, but it was close and also served a dual function mandated by Krymina.

Action General Gulhota was aware that the arrival of the battle damaged units was being observed by the garrison of Te'Dak Tohl and improved norghil that The 7th Grand Army had left stationed behind, because Gulhota had made a point of notifying the Trendok 145 well in advance of their impending arrival time.

From his place in the command bubble over the ship's operations deck, he of course could not see the gathering of observing warriors deprived of anything of substance to do other than lament not being involved in the fight –but Gulhota was certain that they were there. From observation ports and jetties through the atmosphere-retaining fields of open airlocks, they would drink in the evidence of action that they were missing and punishment these ships had sustained.

-Later, as crews mingled with garrison, "warrior's talk" would deliver the critical piece of the message that Supreme General Krymina had wanted conveyed. The slaughter of Gohr'Dhet's previous master, commander of its battle group, and his executive officer had been the price paid for the ineptitude, negligence, or simple misfortune that had brought on such a sad display of normally proud warships.

Gulhota could not remember either of the officers' names himself in truth, though he had been close enough to their execution to smell the burning of their flesh and blood from the rounds of Krymina's ion blaster. He did not remember, and in the time he had spent with his new crew no mention of their names had been made around him either. The officers and crew subordinate to Gulhota understood that their latte leaders' sacrifice ensured their opportunity to redeem themselves, and speaking of the slain with new senior officers whose inclinations and intent were uncertain was not a paving stone on that path.

"Lord, automatic mooring procedures have been completed. Log and data base uploads to the Factory are in progress, and remote systems diagnostics have been initiated. The Factory's maintenance and repair droids await our permission to board and begin assessment of structural and infrastructure elements. Your orders?"

"Allow the crew to complete securing of all stations, and then grant them permission to disembark by unit as determined appropriate by their division officers.", Gulhota said to the commander he had selected from Gohr'Dhet's crew to serve as its new master under his overall command. It was a courtesy Gulhota gave the crew and would likely help them focus on their duties ahead rather than the harsh discipline behind.

Gulhota was confident the measure would be effective without blunting Krymina's warning by way of summary execution.

"Very good, Lord. –It will be done.", the commander said with practiced formality, "Would you like me to report our arrival to Artoc, Lord?"

Gulhota shook his head simply, replying, "No, I will make the report myself once the first lot of vessels have been docked for repair."

"As you wish, Lord."

Action General Gulhota pondered for a moment whether he should communicate with his report his intent to return to the micronian system when all the units under his charge had been restored with additional cargo transports? It was a proactive measure to replenish supplies for the campaign that were being consumed voraciously. It would also garner some favor he hoped, and certainly do nothing he could think of to diminish his position in Supreme General Krymina's eyes.

He had time before he had to make his report and therefore had time to come to a decision.

Already through computer systems' interfaces, the Trendok-145 was developing a plan of repair for Gohr'Dhet.

-And without any of the officers, crew, or even the Factory's central, Hypercomp computer being aware, it was already transferring elements of the malicious code given the name "Iago" by its human designers….

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