Second Chances

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement, sadly all Robotech characters remain the property of Harmony Gold, I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. Thus, please continue to keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Author Notes: Hi everyone guess you all thought that this story had been abandoned since it hadn't been updated in over a year but good news it hasn't been it just got itself stuck, once again, in the linguistic quagmire of writers block as I had somewhat backed myself into a corner story wise though in my last reread – which I tend to do from time to time especially if I leave a story alone for a while – I figured away out of it and this chapter was born. So, without further ado let's crack on with the story chapter events take place approximately two weeks after the previous chapter.

Chapter Nineteen

Senior Officers Quarters

Hidden Robotech Factory Satellite

Arcturus System

The insistent electronic bleeping of an alarm clock echoed through the spacious quarters on the factory station that Lisa Hayes had claimed as her own, at least on a temporary basis while the stations systems had finally completed their nearly month long repair/refit/upgrade of the SDF-1 nobody had yet been cleared to go back aboard the battlefortress they were still learning the upgraded and newly installed systems – some of which were even new to the time travellers – as well as learning the new layout as the refit had almost doubled the size of the ship. Groaning slightly Lisa opened her eyes slowly and glared at the offending device on the bedside table, especially the flashing red characters that indicated that it was indeed oh six hundred hours.

Reluctantly she reached out and silenced the alarm before waving a hand over a sensor causing the rooms lights to slowly start coming on. Then she turned and glanced next to her to see the very welcome sight of Rick lying there as he had done for the last few days, ever since completing basic training and being assigned to a squadron, though in a surprising difference to the old timeline he was assigned to Wolf Squadron instead of Skull. It felt good to both of them to be sleeping with the other half of their soul once again – even if they technically were not married right now, though if they got their way that would change soon enough.

Wishing she didn't have to wake him but knowing that she had to as they both had duty this morning, though they both wouldn't have to go on duty for nearly three hours yet, she gently reached over and shook his shoulder. "Rick," she said drawing a soft groan out of him. "Rick its oh six hundred time for us to get up."

Rick's blue eyes flickered open. "Already," he replied sleepily before doing that adorable – at least to her – joint yawn-stretch thing that he did every morning.

"Unfortunately," Lisa agreed wishing she could stay in this bed all day as well - one of the really good things that you could say about the Tirolians was that they made the best beds in the entire galaxy. But then they were generally a species who really liked their creature comforts, something that had only gotten more entrenched in the Tirolian psyche with the rise of the Robotech Masters. The beds were always especially comfortable and came with all sorts of high-tech extras from smart fabrics in the sheets and duvets that ensured you were never too hot or too cold to a low-level synaptic energy field that you could turn on if you had trouble sleeping which would then gently ease you into a deep, relaxing sleep.

Though of course the thing that really enabled her to get a good night's sleep again was Rick being with her. After having lived with him for more than twenty years she had really gotten used to being able to have a good snuggle up with him at night, especially as Rick had a naturally high body temperature that made him better than any hot water bottle. Sleeping without him, without his heat or the somewhat mesmeric sound of his breathing, had thus been more than a little difficult.

"Agreed," Rick answered as he threw the bedclothes off himself and got out of bed, shivering slightly as his bare feet hit the deck which despite the carpet never seemed to get warm. Lisa did the same on her side of the bed. "Who wants the shower first," Rick asked.

"Mind if I do," Lisa questioned as Rick slipped on his slippers and reached over for his dressing gown.

"So long as you don't use up all the hot water no," Rick replied as he put his dressing gown on. Lisa blushed slightly knowing that she did have something of a bad habit of using up all the hot water whenever she had a shower leaving Rick with cold to lukewarm water for his own shower – even the highly efficient Tirolian water heaters had their limits after all. "I'll go get started on the coffee."

"Don't worry I won't," she assured him gaining a raised eyebrow in return, "promise and the coffee idea sounds wonderful."

"I'll hold you too that," Rick replied giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before walking towards the kitchen area to put the kettle on. Lisa watched him go her eyes dreamily tracing up and down his lean, fit frame though Rick was still quite a bit slimmer than she was used to as up-time years of resistance training – to avoid experiencing the deleterious effects that the significantly weaker gravity of Tirol had on Terran bodies – had meant that up-time Rick had been considerably more muscular than his younger self was. She decided she didn't mind the difference.

Mentally she shook herself and was just about to head to the bathroom for her shower when the bedside comm unit chirped for attention. Now what, she thought squashing down the momentary surge of irritation triggered by the interruption of her morning routine caused before she pressed the button to answer the hail. It wouldn't do after all to bite the head off of whoever was on the other end.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Lisa its Gloval," came the voice of Captain Gloval from the comm unit's small speaker. "I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

"Not at all sir what can I do for you," Lisa replied noting Rick poking his head out of the small kitchen area with a curious look on his face, his sharp hearing having clearly picked up the sound of the captain's voice even though at that distance he wouldn't be able to make out exactly what Gloval was saying. Especially not through the man's thick Russian accent.

"Two things. First can you tell me is Rick there?" Gloval asked prompting Lisa to beckon Rick over to her.

"Yes, sir he is."

"Good that brings me to the second thing I was calling you for I need to see the two of you in conference room two in half an hour if that's possible."

"Not a problem sir we'll be there," Lisa replied with Rick nodding in agreement. For them, being the veteran military spacers that they were, half an hour was more than enough time to get themselves presentable and get to the obviously urgent meeting that Gloval wanted to have with them.

"Excellent I will see you there. Gloval out." The comm channel closed with a faint bleep.

"I wonder what that's about," Rick commented.

"No idea he probably wants to pick our brains about something," Lisa answered her soon to once again be husband. "It probably has something to do with the fact that the Quadrono's are getting closer to finding the station or it could be about the containment tactics that Breetai has adopted. Maybe even a combination of the two."

Rick nodded in agreement knowing from both daily squadron briefings, as well as quiet reports forwarded to his tablet computer by Lisa or Gloval, that in the week since they'd arrived the Quadrono battalion had been making remarkable progress in the surveying of the channels of calmer air that snaked labyrinthine through this gas giant. The Quadrono's Queadluun Rau power suits having absolutely no difficulty manoeuvring in the atmosphere of the gas giant but then as the last piece of battle mecha ever developed for Zentraedi use by the Robotech Masters – only being created after Commander Azonia successfully petitioned said Masters to create the Quadrono's in the first place – the Queadluun Rau was the ultimate evolution of Zentraedi battle mecha. One that would not be matched uptime for speed, manoeuvrability or firepower until the Beta veritech heavy fighter came along.

Thus, it wasn't that surprising that the power suits were performing so well inside the atmosphere. They were certainly performing well enough that it was only a matter of when, not if, the Quadrono's came across where the station was hiding at one of the nexus points of the calmer atmosphere corridors.

What was also not surprising to either of them, especially given their decades long friendship with him up-time, was the well thought out containment strategy that Breetai had adopted to prevent them just slipping past him as they had done in Sol. The great Zentraedi commander, one of the best his bioengineered race had ever produced, had begun deploying his ships around the planet in a very specific pattern. Whenever the Quadrono's cleared a sector of the planet's atmosphere Breetai would carefully park a warship and a few Cyclops recon pods over the region to keep it under constant surveillance.

The noose around their collective necks was definitely tightening.

"Very likely," Rick agreed with a nod before informing her, "I've put the coffee on, it should be ready by the time we're dressed. Then we can go and see what this is actually all about, until then all we can really do is speculate."

Lisa nodded in agreement and without further ado the two of them began to go about their morning domestic duties with just a little bit more urgency than normal.

Half an hour later Rick and Lisa, clad in their respective uniforms, were making their way into conference room two and were not surprised to find Captain Gloval waiting for them. What was a surprise however was the fact that Max, Roy, Claudia and Doctor Lang were all present as well clearly the veteran Russian officer wanted to speak to all of them who had either time travelled or who knew all about it. Which when they thought about it wasn't a huge surprise given it would let Gloval tap into their knowledge of robotechnology, the Zentraedi and space combat tactics without having to explain to someone else just how they knew what they knew.

"Ah good you're here," Gloval said seeing them arrive. "And right on time too."

"Well you know us sir we aim to please," Lisa replied with a smile even as she and Rick made their way over to the seats set aside for them and sat down.

"Indeed. I am sure that you are wondering just why I've called you all here," Gloval answered gaining nods from all around the room. "Then I will get straight to the point. We're in trouble here people, repairs and upgrades to the SDF-1 have been completed and the Artemis is fully crewed and ready for launch. Both of which are all well and good the problem is…"'

"Breetai and Azonia are breathing down our necks," Lisa finished for him.

"Very much so. It is now only a matter of time before the Zentraedi find us and I do not know if they have any weapons capable of penetrating the stations shields."

"Unfortunately the Zentraedi do have the capability to eventually penetrate the stations defence barrier," Doctor Lang replied, "while the stations defensive shields are considerably more powerful than even those of a Tirolian Azashar-class mothership they are still essentially the same shield technology that the Masters have though they are at least two generations ahead of current Robotech Master technology."

"That's no surprise," Lisa commented, "we know from the second-generation protoculture matrix that Zor kept some technological secrets and advances back from the Masters."

"There's another protoculture matrix?" Gloval asked. "Isn't the one on the SDF-1 the only one left in existence hence why the Zentraedi have been ordered to take the ship intact. At least that's what you told me when you revealed everything to me and showed me the matrix."

"The matrix on the SDF-1 is the only one in existence that both the Robotech Masters and the Zentraedi know about. It is also the only one that is currently active and generating protoculture," Rick clarified. "What they do not know is that there is a prototype for a second-generation matrix hidden in a secret lab of Zor's in the ancient catacombs beneath the Tirolian capital city of Tiresia. It is just as well that they do not know it's there as the Masters' at full strength are not someone anyone would want to face." And isn't that an understatement as when they were at full strength even the Haydonites didn't dare try anything against the Masters, he thought, hell if they hadn't misled us and installed their little trojan horses in the shadow tech systems they helped us build up-time we wouldn't need to be here as they wouldn't have dared to betray and openly attack us.

"Is there any chance they'll find it?" Gloval asked worriedly.

"No, the lab is heavily shielded we only found it ourselves because part of the ceiling caved in when the Regents Invid attacked Tirol after the Robotech Masters abandoned the system," Rick hastened to assure him. "The Masters also don't venture down to the surface of their homeworld anymore, they prefer to remain in orbit aboard their motherships with their 'perfect' society of triumvirate clones. Even when they lived on the surface the Masters, being all from the old nobility class, never ventured into the catacombs beneath the capital."

"No surprise given those catacombs are damp, cold and somewhat creepy," Max commented remembering the handful of times that he and Miriya had had to chase after Maia as their youngest daughter had had one hell of an adventurous streak as a child and frequently ventured into the Tiresia catacombs despite being told, repeatedly by both of them, that they were off-limits.

"Such places always are," Gloval commented. "But we have wandered off the topic that I wished to discuss with you. It is now obvious that we cannot remain here for much longer, though I am also somewhat reluctant to leave the station."

"This station is far too much of an asset for us to simply abandon," Rick pointed out, "the fact that it was created by Zor himself makes it too much of prise to simply surrender it to the Zentraedi. Dolza is bad enough as he is, I shudder to think about what he'd be capable of if he got his hands on the technological secrets of this place." A shark-like grin appeared on his face before he continued speaking. "Thankfully we will not have to abandon it."

"Of course," Lisa exclaimed realizing instantly what Rick was getting at, Max and Emil also had instant looks of understanding on their faces though Gloval, Roy and Claudia looked confused. Before they could ask what her soon to be again husband meant by that she decided to explain. "Like all robotech factory stations this station has its own space fold system. We would have to power it up before we take it out of the atmosphere but with it, we could jump to another location and buy ourselves some more time. Ideally, we should fold multiple times in succession, with each fold being of a different length, as that will make it that much harder for the Zentraedi to find us again."

Gloval blinked and looked more than a little surprised at the revelation that this space station had its own hyperspace fold system. Despite having become somewhat accustomed to the seemingly endless stream of impossible things that robotechnology could throw at you over the last decade the fact that something as massive as this station could space fold was something of a shock. From the way that both Rick and Lisa had said or hinted about its existence – and the fact that neither Lieutenant Stirling or Doctor Lang had so much as blinked in surprise at the revelation – it was such a common feature of these stations that the time travellers probably had forgotten that he wouldn't know about it lacking their decades of experience with all the incredible sciences covered by the blanket term of robotechnology.

He made a mental note to speak with Lisa more later to see if there was anything else that they hadn't thought to mention. In fact, maybe he would get Claudia to talk to Lisa and Roy to Rick about anything they might have forgotten to mention. Which would leave him free to pick the brains of Doctor Lang and 3rd Lieutenant Stirling. But that would be something to sort out later, right now the information that Lisa had just provided offered an out from their current stuck between a rock and a hard place position.

"How far would the station's fold system be able to jump," he asked.

"The same distance as any starship. Ten kiloparsecs or thirty-two thousand, six hundred and twenty light years," Rick answered immediately. "It's the maximum amount of distance that all known fold systems can go before you have to return to normal space, get your bearings and let the drive system go through a full cool down and repower cycle. Though I would not advise taking the station that far as it could put us far too close to disputed territory for comfort."

"We would be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire eh little brother?" Roy asked.

"More than you realize Roy. At the best we'd jump right into the middle of what will be Sentinel Confederation space but right now much of that is part of the Tirolian Empire – which would certainly see us being eventually hauled before the Masters – and at worst we'd jump into Invid or Haydonite space. Either one of the latter would be a death sentence and the former well it wouldn't be pleasant and would certainly lead to Earth being annexed by the Masters." Especially as it wouldn't take the Masters mind probes long to find out about the fact that the Flowers of Life will grow perfectly on Earth, he thought.

"And that would be a bad thing."

"Oh, hell yes," Rick confirmed knowing full well how ruthless and controlling the Masters could be, especially when there was something vital to their whole highly artificial way of life at stake. Earth being one of the few planets in the whole known universe where the Flowers of Life would grow properly – though nobody had ever been quite able to figure out why as Earth and Optera were as different as chalk and cheese – would mark it as a prized possession that the Robotech Masters would hold onto at all costs.

"Hmm so how far would you suggest we fold?" Gloval questioned the former – and almost certainly future as well – fleet admiral.

"No more than two thousand light years and as Lisa said we should fold multiple times in succession and to varying distances to complicate the Zentraedi tracking. While we wouldn't be able to evade them forever, they have far too many ships for us to successfully do that, the longer we go without getting into an armed confrontation with them the better."

"Agreed. Doctor Lang how long would it take you to bring the stations hyperspace fold system online?" Gloval asked.

"Providing all the diagnostics check out normally I would say about an hour, two at the most. However, captain I feel I must warn you that powering up the fold drive will cause an energy spike on the Zentraedi scanners even with the sensor interference from the gas giants magnetosphere, maybe one strong enough for them to locate us."

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't," Gloval mused. "How far above the atmosphere would we need to be in order to safely engage the fold system?"

"Not that far," Lisa admitted, "just inside the orbit of the innermost of the gas giants' rings should take us far enough out of the planets gravity well to safely execute a space fold."

"Very well this is what we will do. Lisa, I want you to go to the operations centre and access the stations navigational database. Find us the best places to jump to with the final destination being one where we will hopefully be able to hide from the Zentraedi for quite some time. Claudia I want you to tell Anton to get his chosen crew aboard the Artemis, as soon as we complete our first fold jump we'll launch the frigate and send them back to Earth with a copy of all our logs and everything that we know about the Zentraedi and there masters. They will also be sent to request reinforcements and provided with both our final planned destination coordinates as well as two sets of back up coordinates."

"Aye sir," Lisa and Claudia acknowledged.

"Doctor Lang head to engineering control and do your diagnostics. If everything is fine, then proceed with bringing the fold system online. Once the system is online, we'll ascend out of the atmosphere to make the jump."

"Understood captain," Emil replied with a nod.

"Commander Fokker I want you to bring all our veritech squadrons to stand by just in case something goes wrong and we have to fight our way out of here."

"Aye sir we'll be ready," Roy confirmed.

"Then you all have your assignments. Let's get this done people, dismissed."

Accepting the dismissal everyone stood and filed out of the small conference room leaving Gloval alone for a few minutes. The old Russian sea dog sighed and pulled out his pipe, lit it and sat back gently puffing away for a few moments pleased beyond words that he had finally gotten the stations computer to stop trying to squirt firefighting chemicals at him whenever he tried to have a nice, relaxing smoke. He thought about the situation that they were in and were soon going to be in. He just hoped that he was doing the right thing by taking the station away from here.

After a few more moments of quietly puffing away he sighed once again. He supposed only time would tell if the decided plan of action would work or wouldn't. He hoped it would, prayed it would as the only true alternative would be to surrender to the Zentraedi and through them the Robotech Masters and let them take the protoculture matrix and the stations technological secrets.

An outcome that would be simply unacceptable.

Zentraedi Command Ship

Eighty Minutes Later

Commander Breetai gazed at Azonia in calm silence as the female Zentraedi officer relayed the latest news on the search for the micronian base that they were both convinced was hidden inside the atmosphere of the gas giant their combined fleet was orbiting. While the Quadrono's power suits were performing even better than expected in the atmosphere there had still been no concrete sign of the micronian base that they knew had to be there somewhere. The Quadrono's had picked up faint electromagnetic spikes that could be radio communications, but they'd been so scrambled by the ambient background of the gas giant's tempestuous atmosphere that locking onto them and following them back to their source had so far proven to be impossible.

"And your pilots?" Breetai asked Azonia as she finished relaying their latest findings.

"I will not lie Breetai the strain of flying their suits inside the atmosphere is beginning to make itself felt," Azonia admitted. "Even Miriya is starting to look more than slightly strained as while the clearer air corridors are navigable, they are not exactly calm. The gas giant is also prone to blocking and disrupting the corridors with sudden violent upwellings and electrical discharges. If we do not find the micronian base soon I will have to stand my pilots down for a day or two to rest and recover."

"Understood. Begin standing your pilots down for rest periods in groups Azonia," Breetai instructed calmly acting to deal with the exhaustion and strain that Azonia's pilots had to be under for even Miriya Parino to start looking strained tough as they were even Zentraedi needed to rest from time to time, "they are to rest for a minimum of twelve standard hours before being permitted to enter their mecha again outside of a combat alert. Make sure they know that the orders for this came from me."

Azonia nodded and looked relieved as she was well aware that while some Quadrono pilots might argue with her that they were fine – though strangely recently not Miriya – even if they were clearly only just avoiding collapsing from exhaustion none of them would dare to argue with an order from Breetai. "Thank you Breetai. I will begin standing some of them down for rest periods as soon as the last flight sent out returns," she replied.

"Commander Breetai," one of the officers at the sensor consoles on the control deck beneath the command blister.

"Excuse me a moment Azonia," Breetai said before turning to speak into one of the comm scopes. "Yes, what is it?"

"Commander our sensors have just picked up a large energy surge deep within the atmosphere of the gas giant," the junior Zentraedi warrior replied. "While we cannot be certain due to magnetospheric interference computer analysis indicates that the energy surge is in all likelihood a fold drive going through a power up cycle." The console in front of the officer came alive again. "We are now picking up movement inside the gas giant's atmosphere, something is rising from deeper within the planet."

"The micronians they must be preparing to evacuate their base from the planet," Exedore commented getting concurring nods from both Breetai and Azonia who was listening to the conversation with great interest. "We must have come too close to the base for them to be comfortable remaining here."

"Very likely Exedore," Breetai agreed. "Show me the disturbance in the atmosphere and relay to Azonia's battlecruiser."

"Yes commander."

Another projector field activated and a second holographic screen pixeled into existence showing the rippling surface of the upper atmosphere of the gas giant. A roughly circular section of the atmosphere began to boil and ripple with more and more ferocity and began to bulge upwards from the rest of the cloud bank. The prominence grew taller and higher until it could take no more as the apex burst apart revealing the top of a large metallic structure.

"That's not just a base," Breetai exclaimed in shock as more and more of the structure was revealed, rivers of gas trailing away from it as it ascended towards the stars. While the design was completely different to anything that he'd ever seen before, a surprise in itself given all that he'd seen over the course of his centuries of servitude to the Robotech Masters, there was no doubt in his mind that that the micronian base was in fact a factory satellite. "Sensors scan the station I want to know everything about it."

"Yes commander."

"How could mere micronians possibly have a factory station," Azonia questioned her tone echoing her own shock as on the screen the micronian station reached the very edge of space, rising upon a column of distorted gravity. Small – relatively speaking – ion fusion thrusters around the base of the station came to life expelling steams of superheated ions increasing the stations rate of ascent to escape velocity. The streams of hyper-ionized particles also disrupted the tenuous balance of the upper atmosphere resulting in an instant storm being formed.

"I do not know," Breetai replied. "Though it is very concerning that they apparently have one."

"Scan complete commander," sensors reported. "Sensors confirm that the space station is indeed a factory station. Commander the stations hull is composed of the same alloys as what the Masters used in the construction of their warships."

"What! Confirm that." Breetai demanded even more shocked by that report than the fact that the micronians had a factory station in the first place. The alloys used by the Robotech Masters in the construction of their own warships from the small, but undeniably extremely lethal, Taul Detrel-class destroyers to the immense, near invincible, Azashar-class motherships were the strongest and most durable of robotechnology materials. The fact that the micronian space station was made out of them was very concerning as it suggested that there was a connection between the micronians who had Zor's battlefortress and the creators of the Zentraedi.

While he waited for their second more in depth sensor scan of the station to be completed Breetai considered just what that connection could possibly be. After a couple of moments of thinking about it he could only conclude that the only connection that made sense was that these particular micronians had to in some way be connected to Zor. He couldn't help but wonder if it was not a coincidence that the lost great genius's personal battlefortress had landed on their planet, had Zor specifically sent it to them for some reason known only to himself. If that was the case, then had he also built this station for them knowing that they had the knowledge and means to hide it inside the atmosphere of the gas giant planet?

He made a mental note to discuss it with Exedore later.

"Scans completed commander. It's been confirmed that the station is constructed of Master level robotechnology alloys. Commander the stations fold drive is at full power, they will be able to fold out in less than two minutes."

"We cannot allow them to get away. Instruct our nearest ship to open fire, targets are to be limited to the fold and defensive systems."

"Yes commander."

From their respective command centres Breetai and Azonia both watched as the nearest Zentraedi vessel to the station – a small Tou Redir-class destroyer – opened fire upon the space station unleashing a blistering hail of beams. The storm of particle and laser fire sliced across the distance separating ship and station in mere nanoseconds only for the beams to shatter and dissipate several meters from the stations hull revealing the existence of a defensive energy barrier around that station, a defensive barrier that glowed with the same field of translucent blue hexagonal tiles that the Masters motherships did when their shields were hit. The destroyer fired again and again only for its weapons fire to sleet ineffectively off the stations shields in asteroid sized cauliflowers of radiation and energy.

Then the station fired back as a single turret on one of its outer rings rotated slightly and locked onto the destroyer. A bubble of silver-white energy appeared at the muzzle of the cannon a microsecond before a massive bolt of energy itself nearly as big as a shuttle shot out from the station and slammed into the offending destroyer. The result was as immediate as it was spectacular as the destroyer exploded being effortlessly consumed by the weapons destructive energy. What in Haydon's name was that, Breetai thought in shock as to the best of his knowledge the only weapon that could destroy a Zentraedi warship, and just about anything else, with a single shot was a reflex cannon and that weapon definitely wasn't a reflex weapon. So, what was it?

He was so stunned by the event that he almost didn't see the blue gyroscopic ripple of energy that momentarily flared around the space station before transforming into the familiar sight of a fold sphere. For a second more nothing seemed to happen then the fold sphere contracted down to a tiny point of light – taking the station with it – that shot away and vanished into hyperspace with the faintest of ripples.

Once again, the micronians had given them the slip.

"Exedore begin tracking them," Breetai ordered as the one holoscreen blinked out of existence.

"Yes commander," Exedore acknowledged before leaving the command blister to head to the specific compartment that housed the finder beam equipment.

As his advisor left the command blister Breetai turned to Azonia. "Opinions Azonia," he asked.

"This is a deeply concerning development Breetai," Azonia admitted, "the fact that the micronians have a factory station is bad enough but the fact that it was almost certainly created by Zor himself and includes at least one weapons technology we've never seen before…?"

"Makes them a potentially serious threat I am aware," Breetai replied.

"Should we inform Supreme Commander Dolza?"

Breetai considered that for a few moments. By all rites he should inform Dolza of this development but at the same time he was reluctant to do so as Dolza's solution would certainly involve eliminating the threat by burning the micronians planet to glass. The supreme commander of all their armadas and would be emperor of the Zentraedi people never passed up an opportunity to smite some micronians. In this case however Dolza's approach could backfire on them and cost them the best potential opportunity they'd ever yet had to finally break their ancient chains of servitude to the Robotech Masters. It would take quite a bit of careful planning and pinning the micronians crewing Zor's battlefortress down for more than thirty seconds, but it was doable.

"No, we will not report this to Dolza at this time," he replied at last. "He would solve this matter by simply glassing the micronian planet and that would not help at this time. No to resolve this situation to the best advantage to our people we will need to be a bit more subtle than that."

"I understand and agree with you Breetai," Azonia answered with a nod. "I will not inform high command at this time instead I will recall my Quadrono's and wait for Exedore to figure out just where the micronians have gone this time."

"I will contact you as soon as we know something Azonia. Breetai out."

The holographic screen blinked out of existence with all the fuss of a bursting soap bubble as the communication link between their two ships closed down. Once more alone in his command blister Breetai sat down in his command chair and pressed a control, causing that strangely haunting but relaxing micronian music to begin playing quietly, before leaning back and beginning to think about just how he could turn this latest setback into an eventual new beginning for the Zentraedi.

Author Notes: Well another chapter bites the dust, hopefully the next one will not be quite as long coming. Since Christmas is now merely a day away this update is going to be my last fanfic update of 2019 so let me take this opportunity to wish all of my readers Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.