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.

8. Paths to Reciprocity

Chapter Seven

Paths to Reciprocity

"There has always been a sound associated with the appalling conduct of war."

"In ancient times battle was heralded by the uniform step of thousands of marching feet that shook the very ground with their approach. The blood of combatants and innocents alike was chilled by the clash of blade and shield."

"Later, the measured thud of the march was joined by the industrial rumble of engines and crush of wheel and tread over earth. In this era the battlefield itself shrieked with exchange of artillery that drowned out the cries of the dying."

"The horrors of slaughter later assumed the drone of the propeller and the whistle of the falling bomb, and in time these gave way to the jet and the rocket."

"Now, our technological sophistication allows Death the ability to make his calls with little more sound than the click of a mouse."

"May we be damned to Hell as a species if our humanity ever allows that sound to be any less unnerving and distressing than the sounds of war that came before it."

- President Levin Valterven

Mexico City

"Durango is the place for this."

Central Headquarters of The Army of the Southern Cross like any other major military facility on Earth had fortified bunkers capable of sustaining command and control functions for weeks on end with the best and latest in equipment and even with an element of comfort.

Still, as the hour slipped into late night, General Marcus Merrill Leonard held session around a long table at the center of his headquarters' ceremonial hall.

A light breeze, still noticeably warm from the waning heat of day carried through the open windows across the large chamber with the high, vaulted ceiling, ushering away the haze from the nervous activity of dozens of smokers.

The same light breeze lifted and flapped the corners of an enormous map that Leonard had had brought in and spread over the majority of the banquet table.

General Leonard was not averse to technology in any application, though his staff knew that whenever possible he preferred the paper medium for conveying geographic detail.

It may have been the tactile sensation of the map under his hands, or the ease with which thoughts on force placement and movement could be jotted down- the map having residual evidence of this use at multiple points. There was more to General Leonard's fidelity to the printed map however, something that all who supported him sensed.

The map was a traditional tool woven into the fabric of military command the way that the hammer or plane was a part of woodworking.

Who among Leonard's staff had not heard him remark when a map had been unfurled that if maps had served Alexander, Agrippa, Hannibal, Napoleon, Lee, and Von Polis- why should he feel that they were beneath him?

Detailed planning- whatever detailed planning time would allow- would be done with the finest technology and processes that human achievement could provide, but General Marcus Merrill Leonard would paint his broad strokes on paper.

Leonard's hand moved across the use-familiar map placing onyx pawns from a chess set onto different areas with an emphatic tap as he spoke.

"-Oklahoma… New Mexico…. Arizona…. California… Texas…. Sonora…. Chihuahua… Coahuila de Zaragoza … All areas of the North American Sector that the enemy has made significant planetfall."

"Ideally, these would be the areas to focus an initial counterattack upon- catch them in transition- at a point of weakness as they move boots to the ground. However, neither we nor the RDF have sufficient force density to mount effective counter-landing operations across such a broad area."

"What is working in our favor is that the enemy is not putting down roots where they're setting down-."

One at a time Leonard moved the pawns into an arrowhead cluster in the northern portion of Mexico that like a flock of birds suggested the direction in which it would travel.

"In conjunction with lesser landings in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica, the drive seems to be toward The Control Zone. The movement of enemy forces landed in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina north seems to support this. The possibility of enemy intelligence tipping them to the fact that this area of South America is already a Zentraedi malcontent stronghold, they are clearly looking to seize and hold the equatorial areas of Earth where the growth of The Flower of Life is most abundant."

"We're not in a position to do much about the landings south of their objective in the Americas, but we do have a chance to impact their southward movement."

"Durango is our strongest point from which to mount an effective counterattack given the speed of the enemy's advance. The facilities to move a large number of both ASC and RDF forces into place are still intact and the terrain in the area is perfect for what I propose to do."

"Zentraedi standard battle doctrine dictates the assembly and rapid movement of massed forces. This provides them with the initiative and frontal density to quickly overwhelm enemy obstacles in their path as well as the objective of their offensive-."

"Begging your pardon, General", said RDF-Army Attaché, Brigadier General Lowell, interjecting himself, "-That may be a strategic flaw in itself. The Zentraedi are massing for a major fight- their specialty. If we are fortunate- how many full, combat-ready divisions can we jointly move into position in the time we have? Twenty- perhaps?"

Leonard did not pause for a moment with his reply, as though he had begun to speak with the expectation of having to address just such an observation and appeared only mildly annoyed at having to do so.

"Perfectly correct, General- we will be woefully outnumbered. I wouldn't allow the company of anyone at my table who was foolish enough to consider taking the Zentraedi head-on, or grappling with them. We just haven't the forces, and it would be weeks before we could muster the men and equipment required to even consider it."

"-We can however give them the illusion of what they want- a definitive battle. We will affect diversions, spoiling actions to slow their movement toward The Control Zone and in doing so fix them in the wastelands with the impression that we are prepared to fight them on their terms. We will then do our best to keep them on the cusp of the battle that they want for as long as we can. All the while, they'll be consuming their supplies-."

"The weakness of the Zentraedi war machine is inescapably linked to their greatest strength. They are so geared toward mobility and swift movement to win their campaigns swiftly, that they are ill-suited for static warfare. They haven't the doctrine or the facilities to remain stationary or anchored in a geographical area for extended periods."

"-You see, General Lowell.", Leonard explained tracing his finger on the map around the hash, desolate region of Durango, "We only need to hold them there. The desert will be our weapon and our battle-ready divisions. It will do much of the killing for us."

"That's the gamble, General Leonard-.", Lowell replied, "-If we can keep them fixed and from resupplying."

"Yes, that is the gamble and the challenge.", Leonard admitted, "The Army of the Southern Cross with the supplemental forces being provided by the RDF Army can provide the ground force required to spar with the Zentraedi. We're as agile, and we're able to effectively re-supply units in the field. That is not my concern."

"My concern is preventing the enemy from resupplying. The ASC Air Force has numbers, but our aircraft, our control systems, even our training lends itself toward regional control- not bringing down enemy transports and landing forces."

"The RDF on the other hand-."

"That we can do, General.", Lowell said proudly, almost gleefully- there was a certain gratification that came with recognizing a surviving capability when so many home forces had been rendered moot.

Leonard's expression tightened and twisted into something not so much scornful, but cautionary.

"Don't get overzealous on me, General Lowell. A strangle-hold requires all of the fingers of the hand to work together. Your Air Force might be the thumb, maybe even the thumb and forefinger- but all of the fingers are required. Don't lose sight of that in a grab for the glory."

"We wouldn't dream of it, General.", Lowell assured the senior officer, "We'll do our part."

Leonard surveyed the map in all its details like one at the beginning of a long and grueling task- which he recognized he was. The map was a blank canvas of sorts on which he and whoever his anonymous opponent in the Zentraedi command structure was would paint in conjunction. Leonard would paint his elements, and the enemy commander would paint his- and slowly the work would come together.

Only at the end would it be clear whose contributions would be the most significant, and only at the end would it be known whose signature would emblazon the border largest.

"For this war to go in our favor", Leonard warned with the normal undertone of theatricality that he was known for underscoring his words, "We are going to have to be patient and calculating. This is an enemy who we will have to chip away one piece at a time-."

"Walhalla": The GS-95 Robotech Factory

As President Valterven's mind raced around the implications of the short and direct briefing that had just been presented by Colonel Surt Nath, he became aware that he had grown physically numb. It was this disconnected, anesthetized sensation though that he suspected was preventing him from reacting in step with the rising anger he felt.

In Minister of Defense Forsberg, a mountain of a man with clear Nordic ancestry, and Senior Military Advisor Hewitt who had sampled war on both the military and political sides Valterven saw a corporal reflection of his inner feelings at that moment. The faces of the two men had grown ashen, as though they were about to be overtaken by physical illness.

-And who could have held them at fault?

Colonel Nath had over the course of perhaps two minutes how Iago could be applied as a tool of enemy force reduction in the same manner that it could be used as a means of sabotaging the Zentraedi military industrial complex and supply chain.

Without intoning the word that even Nath in her emotionally detached existence realized would have evoked the visceral response now seen on Forsberg and Hewitt- she had offered a tool of genocide.

Military Chief of Staff Breetai, of those in The Presidential Office of Walhalla's Civilian Operations Wing, was least outwardly effected. His countenance remained the same, stoic and grim- well within "the norm". Behind the eye unobstructed by cosmetically unflattering technology though, Valterven could see hints of a deeper reaction governed by a life of self-imposed discipline.

He better than all of the others in the office understood better what was truly meant by bringing a species to the edge of extinction.

"I am prepared to answer any questions that you might have on the operational capabilities of Iago as I have just briefed them to you, Mr. President."

Colonel Nath's tone and words were not quite smug, but there was a shadow of it there. She had calculated expertly the disarming effect that her briefing would have, and now like a student of programming executing her first attempt at written code successfully, Nath was reveling in her subdued way at the expected outcome. If there was any deeper element to the moment for the colonel, Valterven could not tell.

"No, the briefing was concise.", Valterven said, quelling a tremble of revulsion and anger as it threatened his words, "You may show yourself out Colonel, and await our determination of the scope to which your team's Iago virus will be deployed."

Nath gathered the few briefing materials that she had brought with her and returned them to the unadorned file jacket in which she had carried them.

With a simple motion that was somewhere between an exaggerated nod and slight bow, she acknowledged her audience.

"Mr. President, Minister, Advisor, General, sirs-. Good day."

Without another word or hesitation the slight framed officer departed.

The door to The Presidential Office closed, sealing with a soft click that assured all within that they were now sound-isolated from the reception area and the ears of those just beyond.

A long moment passed with only the sound of the air circulation system and the regular ticking of an antique mantle clock to be heard.

"..My God…", Minister of Defense Forsberg finally said distantly, "To think…"

Breetai was quick to acknowledge the sentiment if not its faith-oriented expression, "Yes, truly disquieting."

Senior Military Advisor Hewitt cocked his head to one side as though he had misheard Breetai, "Disquieting?- Breetai, for Christ's sake she just told you that with a few key strokes she can turn off the life support of who knows how many millions of your kind and kill them in stasis. That's more than disquieting- it's…."

Hewitt struggled for the word that encapsulated all that was swelling within him.

"Horrific.", Valterven suggested, speaking for himself, "Ghastly… -Which is why Iago will never be used in that way, not while my Administration holds this Office."

Breetai, clearly thoughtful in his choice of words, said with a note of both admiration and sympathy to Valterven, "Admirable as that position is, Mr. President, consider that your adversary would almost certainly not show the same ideal if your positions were reversed. –And Mr. Advisor, billions may be more accurate in terms of the number of Zentraedi that we are speaking of."

"Irrelevant.", Minister Forsberg said, disgust at the thought clear in his voice, "We are a species that has committed genocidal acts on ourselves repeatedly throughout our history, and that has had genocidal attempts made against it. Recognizing how close we have come is reason enough to know the line that we will not cross."

Breetai allowed Forsberg to finish before making his counterpoint, "And your species is noble for taking that position, as other species have in the past. Regrettably, I am witness to say that many of those species are now extinct because that moral belief is not universal."

There was a scornful edge to President Valterven's voice as he replied to his senior military officer, "Then you're advocating that we exercise this option, Breetai? I cannot believe that. First, you have proven yourself a moral man, and secondly because this single act would threaten the continuity of your own species."

Breetai nodded his concession, "Yes, Mr. President- morally I a stand your side and that of Minister Forsberg and of Senior Advisor Hewitt-. However, as my sworn responsibility is to advise you on military matters and execute your orders, I am also obligated to assess this option from a position of practicality."

"Colonel Nath's Iago virus, while appalling in this application, does nullify the greatest advantage that General Krymina holds over us- a nearly inexhaustible supply of battle-ready combatants."

"-And therefore killing them in their sleep is an option to consider?", Hewitt challenged.

"Morally and professionally, and in our current position- I say, no.", Breetai replied, "But more than any other individuals, we in this room are aware that victory for and reclamation of Earth is based on an undetermined number of long-odd victories. The other capability elements of Iago that we have already informally agreed are acceptable to deploy will improve the likelihood of those necessary victories, but will by no means assure them."

"What I am reminding us all of is the possibility that the fortunes of war may not favor us. We may find ourselves at some point having to reconsider what we find acceptable in order to preserve our culture."

"-Even at the cost of our souls?", Forsberg pointed out, "And speaking to the practicality that you touched on, Breetai-. Remember that you yourself have said that in offsetting a nearly inevitable confrontation with The Invid, we are sadly dependent upon the ongoing war between the Zentraedi and The Invid to allow us time to adequately prepare."

"All questions we would have to re-examine should the need arise.", Breetai replied, "But that time is not upon us."

"And therefore, that option is off the table- at this time.", President Valterven said with the authority he held in the matter, "However, that is said sadly with the caveat that General Breetai may be correct in that we will need to re-address the option. –Should the fortunes of war not favor us."

"Members of my family died protecting Jews from the Nazis", Forsberg volunteered proudly but unexpectedly, "-so I do not want to be mistaken in what I am about to say with advocating this application of Iago-. However isn't it possible if not likely that at the time that we would be re-examining this option that it would already be too late to have the desired effect on the course of the war? Could we not at that point be destroying another species as we ourselves were on the way out?"

"Mutually assured destruction is not a new concept to humans.", Breetai observed having been a quick study of Terran history.

"As a concept for deterrence.", Hewitt joined in, "Not in practice."

President Valterven steered the discussion off of the tangent and back onto its main and appropriate course.

"Yes, possibly-. Though erring on the side of our values as a people and not preemptively committing such an atrocity is a risk that we are morally obligated to take. We aspire to peace with all peoples, and also in the Zentraedi there is the potential of a friendship that we must eventually have if either of our species is to survive, given The Invid threat."

"That is my position- at this time."

The phone on the corner of the executive desk buzzed in a harsh and penetrating tone signifying by its sound that the incoming call was coming from one of Walhalla's military operations centers versus a civilian circuit.

Senior Military Advisor Hewitt lifted the handset from the phone cradle on the end table near where he sat.

"Yes?-.", Hewitt answered, and paused for a few moments as information was passed to him.

"Yes, understood. Thank you."

Returning the handset to the cradle, Hewitt relayed the information he had received to those around him.

"SDF-3 has just cleared spacedock. Operation Doolittle is underway."

U.E.S.S. Gordon P. Samuels

"Passing inner channel threshold now-.", announced the navigator whose determination of the Samuels' position was based on the three-dimensional holographic display that was the centerpiece of his duty station and the focus of his attention.

"-We're now in the channel holding the center line. Forty seconds to outer channel threshold, present course and speed."

Commander Devereaux turned her attention inside of the bridge as the spacedock fell astern and the enormous interior space bored out of the rock of the asteroid body from which this module of the GS-95 was constructed gave way to the tunnel that led to open space.

Designed to accommodate vessels many times the size of the Samuels, the frigate could have as easily and safely traveled broadside through the channel with ample space fore, aft, above, and below- but in adherence to safe navigation regulations, the Samuels moved by thruster propulsion in traditional orientation only at a generous interval in tandem from the frigate that had sortied in departure order immediately before her.

The crew at their stations around the bridge were deeply engrossed with their various duties which left them mostly oblivious to the activities of the two senior officers. To Devereaux however, Lieutenant Commander Petersen seemed edgy just beneath the well-maintained projection of an executive officer that he maintained.

As he moved to the head of the command center, to gaze out over the ship's long foredeck, Devereaux joined him.

"You look like you're ready to come out of your skin, Pete. …We're only planning to fold into an enemy stronghold, vastly outnumbered, and pick a fight-. What could possibly go wrong?"

Petersen chuckled at the gallows humor offered by the commanding officer, "It's not that-. We've done the long odds before. We've just never turned around significant repairs so fast under this kind of pressure to go out into very long odds. Just the normal jitters about putting stress on the hull after repairs- only multiplied by a factor of combat."

Devereaux let a breath of mild resignation escape just loud enough for Petersen to hear.

"Did we patch ourselves up by the book? –Albeit quickly?"

Petersen nodded, "Yeah, to the letter."

"Do we have reason to think that corners were cut in the patching or with follow-on inspection?"

"Not in the least."

"Anything we could have done better in the time we had?"

"Nothing comes to mind."

"Well", Devereaux sighed, "sounds like we're in as good a state as ever to roll the dice. Besides, we just slapped on a fresh coat of the good paint- that'll hold Sam together. Chalk it up to nerves because history is watching, Pete- everybody's feeling it."

"More like nerves hoping that there will be someone friendly to learn the history."

"Understood and accepted with my sympathies- as long as the crew doesn't see it."

Petersen made the visible effort to stand more rigid, "Stoic and stupid brave as far as they're concerned, Skipper. I'm ready to eat hull rivets with my hard tack."

Devereaux nodded, "The ideal of a naval officer, Pete-."

"Ten seconds to the outer channel threshold.", announced the navigator.

Sure enough, the square aperture was growing large dead ahead with a field of unfamiliar stars glittering brilliantly against the pitch black. The frigate that had led the Gordon P. Samuels was now opening the range between them noticeably under main propulsion and was climbing away to starboard.

A moment later the grey metal confines of the spacedock channel fell away to the enormity of the cosmos at all visible points.

"We're clear of the channel and free to navigate, Captain.", said the navigator as he adjusted his console controls to bring up the appropriate display.

"Put us in with the cool kids, Pete."

"Aye, Captain-. Quartermaster, secure all thrusters to stand-by and bring the mains on-line."

"Aye sir, thrusters to stand-by and main engines indicate ready."

"Ahead one-third, up forty-five and five degrees right. Navigator, plot a heading to put us into assigned screening position."

"Plus forty-five, right standard rudder, aye.", answered the quartermaster as he supervised the activates of the helmsmen before him.

The navigator worked out a quick heading that would bring the Gordon P. Samuels into her assigned, protective position at the operational flagship's side.

As the starfield before the ship continued to smoothly pitch and roll to the frigate's maneuver, Devereaux reached to the intercom box close to her chair at the port bulkhead. Depressing the "1MC" (1-"Main Circuit") option switch, she lifted the phone from its secure cradle and sounded the "attention" tone which echoed throughout the ship's spaces over the public address system.

"All hands", Devereaux said, consciously maintaining the same confident, even tone she used for everything from ordering from the menu selection on the chow line in her periodic appearances in the ship's mess to ordering tactical action in combat, "this is the Captain. As you're all aware, we've spent the last twenty-four hours breaking our backs to get the Samuels back into top, fighting shape. We have just cleared spacedock, and I'm now permitted to tell you why-. We are going into harm's way, probably much sooner than any of you expected. Given what's happened over the past few days, I know that you have all been eager to get into this war and start making a difference- I know that I have. Now's our chance."

"We are returning to the Sol system as part of Operation Doolittle, under the flag of Vice Admiral Hayes-Hunter herself, and acting both in support of SDF-3, and to hunt the enemy independently. Once we are secured in spacefold, division officers will be fully briefed and they will pass details down through the chain."

"The Gordon P. Samuels has been given the honor of being permitted to participate in the first offensive operation of this war, and not without justification. I have always been demanding of you all in all aspects of proficiency and conduct, I've never accepted excuses for anything but your best performance, and you have never disappointed me. We will now bring that prowess and professionalism to bear on this assignment of great significance. We will acknowledge the unquestionable, historic importance, but we will not allow it to be a distraction. We will all do our jobs with trust in ourselves and our shipmates, and we will prevail. –That's the official pep talk."

"-On a personal level, I invite all of you to look forward with me to sticking a finger in the enemy's eye and giving them the first indication that they picked a fight with the wrong planet. Let's give the enemy a taste of the fight they can expect, and our people at home a reason to know that they have not been abandoned."

"That is all."

"Hey, Opie- you think you have to take additional training when you get a command on giving inspirational speeches?..", asked Tracking Lead, Sensorman 1st Class Thatcher of his friend Petty Officer Orson Cobb, also a "tracking lead", in the row behind him, "-Y'know- Spinning Suicidal Activities in a Heroic Way…."

"Hadn't thought about it, Thatch. Maybe.", Cobb conceded, "Maybe you ought to get a transfer to Doctrine and Training and you can pen that one. At least you'd escape the hum-drum of our everyday…"

The illusion of idle conversation was just that- illusion- as both petty officers monitored the function of the Samuels' sensor systems as well as the activities of the four trackers each man had subordinate to him through the consoles before them. In the soft blue light of the cramped "sensor shack" off of the starboard side of the main CIC suite, it was a auditory jumble of voices speaking over one another as the tracking teams responsible for each of the ship's four quadrant zones announced contacts and began to compile information from the ship's sensors that allowed each contact to be plotted and positively identified.

On screens that represented energy signals from the low band IR through the ultra-high EM as received by the ship's passive sensory arrays as cascading curtains of granular light, patterns could be seen by a trained eye and well-refined analytical software. These vertical ribbons on the waterfall displays could be further isolated and studied by the trackers, allowing the determination of what was a naturally present energy emission of the cosmos, and what was produced by the technology of a mortal species.

As was expected in the thick hash thrown off from the nearby pulsar star cluster PSR B1259-63 / LS 2883, the energy emissions of the REF vessels deployed as part of Operation Doolittle were faint and immediately obscure. Only scrutiny of an area of space where the Samuels' trackers knew the task force's rallying point to be allowed the other vessels to be located.

It was reassuring to Cobb to know by experience the difficulty his own trackers had in identifying and fixing vessels in the supposed emptiness of space. Even in the "nothingness" there was EM clutter that could shroud a vessel or a fleet from an enemy's searching eyes as easily as the concealment provided to a ship of old by a fog bank.

Invisibility was a better protection than even the sturdiness of the GS-95's robust construction in the sensorman's mind.

The enemy lacked that critical information- lacked even a reasonable clue as to where to begin the search for the REF Fleet. –And even if they had information on a position to search for the REF, study of many a Zentraedi space cruiser had revealed that they lacked the refined sensor systems and analytical sophistication to reliably pluck the signals that identified a foe out of the heavier, radiant energy "noise" of the universe.

In the "hide and seek" game that was the onset of any tactical engagement, the REF had a sound upper-hand, and Cobb was satisfied to be a part of that.

…When it came to trading blows however….

That was another, well-understood matter- but also someone else's responsibility.

"Hey, Ope, track over to zero-three-seven mark three-two-.", Thatcher said in a tone that was occupationally inviting, "-Check it out."

Panning outside of his own assigned quadrant of observation, Cobb tracked over to just off the Gordon P. Samuels' starboard bow and high off the center point with the electronic eyes of the ship.

At first, Cobb only saw hash- the pulse of thousands of individual light granules- until...

Relaxing his eyes, Cobb's trained and experienced mind isolated a thin band of vertical light stream that nearly melted into the substantial chaos of the background – nearly.

Switching to the greater focus and scrutiny of a narrow-band analysis of the area, the ribbon presented itself more clearly as something artificial in the void. It was a pattern of reflected and emitted energy that Cobb had not seen before, signifying its identity by the elimination of other possibilities.

"SDF-3?"

"That's her.", Thatcher affirmed, "For a girl with such a big ass, she's still got a nice figure-."

Cobb chuckled at Thatcher's summation of what he saw revealed by the Samuels' highly sensitive detection equipment- a masterpiece of minimalistic art as it applied to a ship's radiant energy emissions. Reflected ambient energy, output through the EM bands, even the IR of waste heat, and the peculiar pattern of "bio-ethereal energy" particular to vessels powered by Protoculture-. All were slender for a ship of SDF-3's dimensions and purported power and abilities.

"-I thought you black guys liked a big ass-?", Cobb replied.

Thatcher hummed his approval, "-And can you see why?"

"-Nice package.", Cobb said with amorous appreciation of technology.

"Hell-to-the-yes.", agreed Thatcher with no less professional lechery.

SDF-3

"Flag, Plot-.", announced the Plotting Officer.

"Final units on station and in fold-jump position, Admiral."

"Copy that.", Vice-Admiral Hayes-Hunter replied from her place at the holographic display table at the center of the Combat Direction Center.

A nearly interchangeable term with Combat Information Center, the term Combat Direction Center was donned to signify that the occupants of the compartment no longer had governance over just the operations of SDF-3, but over the units attached to Hayes-Hunter's flag.

The new vessel's crew at the various duty stations were hand-selected for their skills and were the finest to be found in their disciplines. Pulled from numerous commands, their purpose was to filter and process the torrent of information that flowed to them into the essentials required by Vice-Admiral Hayes-Hunter to manage an engagement, and to then transform her orders into action.

Like the Flag, some of the crew manning the CDC and filling the other billets aboard SDF-3 were legacy from the great ship's predecessors, the legendary SDF-1, and notoriously short-lived SDF-2 and many like Hayes-Hunter had had input to one degree or another into the design of the new flagship. The former association of these crew members was by no means the determining factor of their selection- but it did not weigh against them.

The vast majority of the crew, 2,817 in total, had no affiliation with SDF-3's lineage, but only shared in her predecessors' tradition of unwavering dedication and excellence- and a willingness to risk all to realize the vision of the late Admiral Henry J. Gloval set not so many years before.

SDF-3, after all, had been conceived and constructed with a single purpose in mind.

This was not that purpose, but it was the function that SDF-3 was now being called upon to fill, and she would fill it until she could seize the opportunity to pursue her true destiny.

"Flag, Communications. Text-com received for you encrypted on the Priority VLF band, Admiral."

Captain Hollenkamp gave his superior a puzzled look from across the holographic table, supposing, "-Word that it's all just a big misunderstanding and that the enemy's decided to go home, maybe-?"

Hayes-Hunter laughed dryly, "-If only. Read it, Sparks."

"It says-.", the Communications Officer said clearly, "Good hunting with Fate's favor.- Breetai."

"Well", Hayes-Hunter said to all around her, "We have best wishes from the top, so I guess we can go now."

"Take us to Sol, Hollenkamp."

"Fold Ops, report your status.", Hollenkamp ordered.

"Fold design is locked in, Captain- fold-jump board is green. All stations report ready to execute."

"Start the clock from five.", Hollenkamp said, initiating the final countdown.

"Fold-jump clock counting down from- Five-. Four. Three. Two. One-."

"-Executing fold-jump."

A shimmering orb of pale blue appeared, engulfing entirely the Doolittle Task Force with SDF-3 at the center. The spherical membrane of light intensified in its radiance and reduced in translucence until the vessels within would have no longer been visible to the naked eye of observers without.

Unperceivable to mortal senses, two vastly different points in the universe were being drawn together.

Then, with a blinding strobe-flash of the most vivid neon blue, SDF-3 and all of Task Force Doolittle vanished from the space they had occupied in the void only a moment before.

Ukraine

In the hours before sunrise the winds had risen in advance of a fast-moving storm front that had left an insignificant few centimeters of fresh snow across a broad swath of the steppe. The wind though had been enough to cause the accumulation of a number of previous storms to creep and drift in dunes of white that added texture to the vast, bleak plains for the few eyes that were out in the frozen wilderness of nothing to behold.

As the sun breeched the line of the horizon, not all of the seeing eyes were of the flesh.

A tireless scout and sentry carried its carbon-composite body scarcely larger than most commercial office printers sure-footedly over the rolling terrain of soft powder on broad, independently driven tracks at the end of four shock-absorbing stalk-legs.

A microwave radar dome atop the odd-looking automaton was dormant for reasons of its own safety. It searched a pre-defined area rather by way of keen electronic eyes that fed images to its sophisticated, yet single-minded computer brain- and to others who may or may not have been watching the real-time video feed of the open winter landscape.

As the UGV carried itself swiftly from point to point on an invisible grid that was only real in its micro-processor mind, it searched all points of the horizon with its tireless electronic eyes that swiveled and bobbed on an articulated neck that kept the video/sensory module on the level despite the irregular motion or stance of the chassis.

Nearing the north end of a leg in its search pattern, the UGV ascended the slope of a snow drift, and as its eyes cleared the summit they came across distant forms that caused the vehicle to immediately pause.

Image recognition software immediately and easily interpreted objects some six kilometers distant as "hostile".

Too large to be concealed by even rises and depressions in the Ukrainian steppe, two Zentraedi Re-Entry Transports were visible to the UGV and were partially concealing a third that did not escape the sentry's notice either.

Not simply tasked with observing the presence of hostile forms, but also with the monitoring the activity of those forms- the UGV began to document and report the movements of the Regult Battle Pods disembarking from the landed transports.

-And there was something else as well.

The UGV's flawless memory filled with the exact details and proportions of thousands of objects, structures, and vehicles both friendly and alien came up blank against the image its eyes provided for identification. Sub-routines ran in the CPU mind that were the artificial approximation of "guessing" when the on-board database failed to identify the anthropomorphic form after several attempts.

"Those are not Quadrano power armor-."

Captain Alexander Cherghuliev grunted his agreement with the gunner's quick but accurate assessment of what he, his commander, and the two other men who crewed the Cavalier tank saw on the thin MFD as they crammed together inside of the turret.

By necessity, the gunner had a quick eye for the kind of details that differentiated similar "friendly" and "hostile" mecha forms such as the omnipresent Regults that were prophesized by war games to compose the bulk of any mechanized Zentraedi ground action and the RDF-Army redesign of the same basic mecha known as the "MBP" series.

In the confusion and chaos of battle with all of its distractions inherent, the gunner's eye and his or her ability to distinguish a friend from a foe was the last safety in the prevention of fratricide. While the MBP elements of the Robotech Defense Force- Army were the most likely to fall victim to "friendly fire", the anthropomorphic mecha of the RDF and ASC were not above the possibility. The Gladiator of the Gen-1 Destroids, and even the vastly smaller Battloids fielded by the Army of the Southern Cross could under the right conditions and at a distance appear like the traditional Zentraedi power armor forms.

No gunner wanted to be the one who sent a depleted uranium sabot round downrange and through something he "thought" to be an enemy. For this reason, visual target recognition was a paramount skill taught to and maintained through endless training by RDF personnel charged with the release of ordinance on the battlefield.

"Hardly matters, I think.", Cherghuliev said, "They are not ours."

The video feed from the UGV that was reporting itself to be just under 26 kilometers distant to the southwest jumped as there was a flutter in the InfoLink connectivity that bridged the robot scout to its handlers with the 5th Guards mobile HQ through a high, orbiting UAV.

Under ideal operating conditions, the cadre of intelligence officers supporting the 5th Guards would have already alerted a larger set of their colleagues located somewhere safe and warm of the unanticipated discovery of a new mecha form, and would have been into the preliminary stages of coming up with an observation and information-gathering plan by now.

Cherghuliev knew better than to think that even under the best circumstances that there was anything like ideal conditions- especially in Ukraine in late December.

If he and his men were seeing this, then without a doubt there were countless other units around the world that had seen and had probably been in a better position to document these mysterious additions to a combat force that had been rumored to not have changed in generations.

Cherghuliev knew all that he needed to know already by witness of their presence and their number.

The force being deployed to the southwest was not large enough to be tasked with anything of strategic value, or even of profound significance.

Judging by the fact that all of the swift-footed Regults Cherghuliev was able to see through the field of view afforded by the UGV bore light or heavy missile pods, the captain felt safe in assuming that it was some sort of fast action tactical unit.

There was nothing on the steppes to "act" against though- not for many hundreds of kilometers.

Nothing- with the exception of a mobile Synchro Cannon platform and the units attached to it for its defense.

It was a hunter-killer group, and by definition of his assignment, Cherghuliev was certain that he would become familiar with this enemy by the collision that their conflicting purposes promised.

"Are they here for the cannon, you think?", asked the loader, Avtukhov whose requirement for analytical skill was limited to reading a display that told him the round type desired by the gunner, pulling it, and ramming it home into the gun breech.

– He was brighter than that, of course, but…..

"I'm sure of it.", Cherghuliev replied.

"They must not be able to find us from above.", the driver, Kamkin, guessed as he lifted the crew hatch in the top of the turret just enough to toss out a cigarette he had smoked down to the filter, "Why else land so close and not attack? They can't see us from the sky, so they have to put land forces down to hunt us. –Good luck to them, I say."

"Bad luck, I say.", Cherghuliev countered, "They're going to have the fight they came looking for."

Corporal Kamkin, familiar with the difficulties of navigating the featureless landscape, looked surprised and asked, "You think they'll actually find us in all of this?"

"Yes- someone will find someone. ", affirmed Cherghuliev, "-And as quickly as it can happen, I say. Let's see how they deal with their prey turning to hunt them-."

"I'm blaming you for this, Moyrt.", said Point Lieutenant Hyra as the pricking sensation of extreme cold on her face dulled with numbness brought on by the frigid air.

"Me-?"

"You."

"How can I possibly be at fault for this?", Moyrt asked, the breastplate hatch of his Nacht-Rau combat suit also swung up to experience the dramatic difference in alien climate from the last location on the planet's surface where the two had last drawn breath of indigenous air.

"My record of service is unmarred and distinguished.", Hyra complained, "You must have done something that keeps getting you sent to these choice locations-. …And I'm dragged along, guilty only of association with you."

"It couldn't be that Action Commander Kevtok requested this assignment and you're under his command, could it?", Point Lieutenant Moyrt suggested.

"No.", rejected Hyra, "I'm sure it's your fault somehow."

Having no feeling left in his face with the exception of the sting of the wind, Moyrt closed the chest-plate hatch of his combat suit and waited impatiently for the heater units to return the temperature to something closer to tolerable.

"-If that's what you need to tell yourself to make it through the day, Hyra-."

Action Commander Kevtok was mildly shocked with his own response of relief as the six Re-Entry Transports that had carried the assault company of Regults to the alien planet's surface drew up their ramps and lifted off again to disappear quickly into the cloudless, blue sky.

For three days his Serhot Ran and the warriors of the supporting Regult unit would be alone on this desolate, open sea of white.

Support of both the combat and logistical types were available at any time from any number of ships in orbit. It required only a call on a specified priority frequency and to provide his mission code, and the resources of The Fleet would be rushing to his assistance.

Kevtok had committed the frequency and the mission code to memory, as had all of his officers and sub-officers, but it had been done out of preparatory obligation.

He and his Serhot Ran were operating now as they should be, as Fate intended them to- independently.

-As was Kevtok's enemy, wherever he might be.

Fate had put they two into this proximity with the tools and training of Warriors, and here Fate would stand as an unbiased judge as to who would leave this wasteland.

Kevtok had scarcely been aboard Supreme General Krymina's flagship and his base ship, Artoc, for three days. With combat operations already at an open-throttle pace at the time of his return, he and his surviving warriors of the expeditionary force had barely passed medical inspection, walked through a cleansing station, and had a meal before Kevtok had begun to feel the sharp pangs of separation from his prime mandate.

When he had declined promotion on the flagship's flight deck in the presence of superiors and peers, it had been to Kevtok's shame out of fear more than any rational reservation. He had feared finishing his days directing the actions of Warriors from the side of a holographic table- disconnected from what he knew in his core was his path chosen by Fate.

He had declined ascension in the ranks- possibly ensuring that the offer would never come again- and had asked for a mission as a Warrior.

Jekketh, in his half-witted attempt to torment had actually provided Kevtok with exactly what he sought. What Jekketh saw as exile, Kevtok embraced as opportunity.

He, and another warrior- an alien warrior whom he had not yet met- would soon begin the jabbing, slashing, and grappling that was at the center of their existence until only one remained standing.

Without reservation, Kevtok looked forward to that meeting.

"Let's begin.", Kevtok said to his unit commanders in a way that probably came across and unexpectedly casual, though in truth it was anything but.

"Deploy into a linear-sweep formation- north to south- out to twenty-five atohls, maximum dispersal. Point Lieutenant Brak, I want your unit divided and forming the north and south elements of the line- Serhot Ran will take the center. We'll then sweep east. Report and engage any enemy units upon contact. Move out."

Brak, boldly but not insubordinately asked before obeying, "How do we know they're to the east, Lord?"

"We don't, but we're well west of the general area from which the last beam was fired. East is the direction we should go. I'm either right, or I am not. And I doubt our arrival has been unnoticed. He may even bring the fight to us."

"After their Fleet fled and defenses folded, Lord?- You may be crediting them with too much courage."

Kevtok replied with certainty, "-No… You are not crediting them with enough. Be ready."

"For what, Lord?"

"Anything."

RDF Edwards AFB

The wing briefing room, the largest interiors space on Edwards sanctioned for the open disclosure and discussion of classified information was filled to capacity with pilots and crew whose insignia crossed the entire spectrum of military flight occupational specialties.

The air smelled of strong coffee beneath the prevailing haze of cigarettes whose prohibition in the room had been temporarily waved- ore more accurately was being ignored- under the circumstances. Despite "Go Pills", and the more mainstream stimulants of caffeine and nicotine, fatigue and exhaustion was beginning to peek through cracks in practiced stoic appearances. Relentless sorties (although many flights had not resulted in a shot fired despite an enormous enemy presence) over an area too vast for far too few to cover was showing itself now.

The RDF-AF units represented in the room were at no risk of breaking- far from it- but an understanding of days to come was beginning to settle over all as the initial rush of battle melted away. The air crews understood that there would be many chances to justifiably imperil themselves in the not-so-distant future.

It was going to be a long, grueling war.

Major General Butler, acting NORAMWEST until the rightly anticipated paperwork made his command official, was present and in a rare departure from his many duties was conducting the briefing for this hole-riddled operation himself.

The overhead lighting was dimmed only enough to allow the effective function of holographic displays lest the dark and comfortably maintained climate aide the Sandman in his work on the gathered personnel.

Butler paused in his briefing long enough to allow the map to change and for his pilots to finish jotting down notes on the last navigational details presented.

Basing his judgment of adequate time on his experience during time spent on the receiving end of briefings as a pilot numerous years before, Butler resumed speaking again with his visual aids in step.

The navigational plot projection took the movement of NORAMWEST's forces southeast from Edwards, skirting the fringes of The Outlands before a turn due south, west of Mexicali that would put the composite flight of vastly varied aircraft and their units quickly over the Gulf of California. While far from secure, the indirect path did keep the flight at a distance from population centers that were still and would for some time be in the process of evacuation to the north. As much as possible, what remained of RDF Command did not want to invite confrontations with the enemy in the vicinity of civilian evacuees.

For the same reason, the contingent from the formidable yet more sparsely dispersed ALCANWEST command were being forced to fly a split, less direct, and more tenuous flight plan from their bases to the projected RDF rallying point.

While the composite wings from ALCANWEST's eastern bases would travel exclusively inland until the rallying point, avoiding as NORAMWEST would areas of civilian population- the western commands would have to traverse the open North Pacific for a distance before hugging the California and Mexican coasts to just south of Ensenada before crossing the Baja Peninsula and joining.

It was a plan embraced as much because it would allow the bulk of RDF forces being transferred from the northern commands into ASC territory to the south to begin their movements as soon as possible as being a plan that did not consolidate the forces until late in their movements. Three independent forces in movement were less likely to be fixed upon by the enemy, and if discovered would divide the enemy's attention and forces sent to engage it.

-A good plan, or at least no worse than any other that could be drafted in such a short period of time.

"-Rallying will take place at this point, Pancho, east of Valle de los Cirios. The course from this waypoint will be southwest over the Gulf of California and Sea of Cortez until we reach Waypoint Cisco, west of Sinaloa. At Cisco it is a left turn toward Durango and Waypoint Esperanza- at which point, ladies and gentlemen we are officially in the ASC's sandbox and will receive direction from their flight control."

Butler paused, allowing the grumbles of discontent to pass. He was less than pleased personally to cede control to The Army of the Southern Cross, even though it would be for the shortest leg of transit.

Butler's- the RDF's- obligation was to fight the enemy however, and it was becoming clear that the best place to meet the enemy was within ASC territory.

This necessitated the distasteful bowing to the ASC's authority in some things.

When the pilots had griped enough to feel they had been heard, Butler ended the uniform expression of discontent by continuing with his briefing.

"-We will be under ASC ground control for routing, but we will still retain tactical control for our defense and still be flying under the watch of AWACS. RDF missile batteries are already moving into place as far south on the peninsula as La Paz, so we will have friendly missile support almost the entire way into Durango- or Oasis, as it will be operationally named."

The mass grouse at ASC governance resumed and was punctuated by a few laughs in the darkened region of the audience that Butler knew to be occupied by Knight Hawk Squadron. He had made a point of taking notice of where his motley unit of misanthropes and dystopian prototypes had slumped into seats before the lights had dimmed- anticipating correctly that the loudest protest would come from those with the most recently acquired axe to grind with the Army of the Southern Cross.

"-Am I missing something amusing about this, Jack?", Butler asked, knowing without hearing it directly that the squadron commander was almost certainly the precipitator of the laughter-effect.

"Not at all, sir-.", Winters replied, unaffected by being called out directly, "We're eager and looking forward to another stellar collaboration with our ASC brethren. –In the Cain and Abel tradition, naturally…"

Having drawn out the underlying suspicion he knew his pilots to have because in truth he had them as well, Butler called attention to the elephant in the room.

"Yes, it will be a stellar collaboration, Jack- because we all are going to make it that way."

Butler made use of the nearby briefing podium as a rest for his elbow to speak as a sports team coach might before a difficult game, coming across both earnest and paternal.

"-Okay, we're all thinking it, so we're going to say it. -Get it out in the open, deal with it, and move on-."

"No one here is a huge fan of the Army of the Southern Cross. At best, they've been tense allies. Normally they have been competitors and unashamed empire-builders. And at their worst they've been-."

"Manipulative, murdering assholes-.", Lt Col Dalton volunteered as though Winters' second voice.

"-Yes, we'll go with that- thank you, Buster.", Butler allowed, "-And a week ago I would have more readily believed that we would be fighting them than the war we have to wage now. –But here we are. Them's the breaks."

"The fight in this hemisphere is forming up in the ASC's playground, so that's where we're going, and that for the time-being gives the ASC strategic command under Operational Initiative Gemini. –Also the breaks."

"And I don't think that I have to remind anyone here that as unsure as we're all feeling about this, there are ASC troops, pilots, officers and the civilians in the AO who are equally uncertain."

"This makes the whole proposition a potential powder keg, and we are still going to make it work, people.", Butler asserted with no latitude for misunderstanding, "The REF has been taking the lion's share of military production, and they aren't here right now- so we cannot win this alone. The ASC has been systematically clipped like a weed and kept from growing larger than the borders it occupies, so they cannot win this alone either. And so, that means we're in it together. Again, the breaks. Right now, people, these are the lemons that we have to make lemonade out of."

"Enough of the motivational oratory-.", Butler concluded, transitioning back to the main business of briefing the move to the new AO, "EW units will give us an umbrella from orbiting cruisers. Attack and fighter squadrons will be armed for engagement in all three spheres- long range to knife-fight close. I don't think that I need to point out however that the best hope is that we make this move without having to fire a shot."

"Our primary responsibility is to move ourselves and the transports we'll be escorting to Durango without loss. Everyone and every piece of equipment from this moment on is a mission-critical asset- so there will be no poking of the hornet's nest if a fight can be avoided."

"Specific assignments will be handed down shortly. For now, let's get into review of Intel-projected hot spots and areas of enemy strength-."

Senior Tech Sergeant Lyle DeVeo had supreme confidence in himself that he could glare with the best of them. His mother, a true "fire and brimstone" Baptist had been the reigning Oklahoma champion of "the stare" and a worthy national contender for most of his formative years, and some of the skill had rubbed off by exposure.

An MP charged with standing watch over a closed door was not going to best him.

Of course in hindsight it had been of little goal-oriented value and of questionable wisdom that the Plane Captain for the 623rd Squadron had called the armed corporal a "dim-witted drone" who was "giving his all for the enemy's war effort" -.

But it had been gratifying at the time.

So now, Lyle sat on a couch that was more decorative than functional as the MP stood by the door through which the senior NCO had been denied passage as they glared holes through one another.

As the double-doors to the briefing room flung open much the way the doors of a school might following the dismissal bell on the last day of classes before summer, Lyle was delighted to see the corporal start- caught surprised by the eruption of pilots in his effort to defend them from the support personnel.

Conversations involved every set of lips and ear as the torrent of officers moved with urgency through the hall toward the exit of the command building.

In the flood of pilots, it would have been easy and understandable had Lyle missed his quarry, but with a bird-hunter's eyes it took only a glimpse of Winters bobbing through a sea of other faces for Lyle to acquire and track him.

The plane captain whistled shrilly and powerfully, a skill honed in noisy maintenance hangars and on active flight lines that penetrated easily the din of scores of simultaneous conversations.

Winters, as familiar with the whistle as he was with the voice of anyone under his command acknowledged Lyle with a small nod and began to fight against the current of his peers with a good portion of his squadron in trail.

"We found Roxanna and Rio!..", Lyle said, rising up on his toes to shout in the taller Winters' ear- another habit of communicating on the flight line that was perhaps not as needed in their surroundings.

Winters scowled, almost masking panic with displeasure as he railed back at the plane captain, "What the bloody Christ do you mean, found?.."

Lyle, understanding instantly his grievously poor choice of a normally innocuous word shook his head dismissive of where the squadron leader's mind was clearly going, "Naw, it ain' like that, Jack-. They done popped up under their own steam."

Winters, true to his ability to cling to a foul mood once in it, demanded, "Popped up where?"

"Evacuee collection point, Muroc High School, Roxanna said- or so Ah'm told…", Lyle replied.

"-Or so you're told?.."

"Whell- Foster, the Vigilantes' plane captain got the call because it got routed to the wrong HAS by the coms center from a driver in town who got it from a squad leader who was helpin' to organize-."

Winters nodded his understanding of the complexity in the chain of communication that had brought him the critical message, "-You remember all that and still you're cutting the padlock off your locker twice a month because you've forgotten the combination?- You're amazing, Lyle."

"-But the news's solid.", Lyle countered, "Ah wouldn't'a-."

"No, I trust you-.", Winters said glancing hastily around and his voice sounding now of another kind of panic, "Good man, Lyle-. Off with you- you're prepping us and packing for Mexico."

"No sheeyt?- We're doin' it, huh?"

"No shit.", Winters replied, "Freddy, I've got to step into town for a few minutes-. You have the squadron. See that the chaps pack their toothbrushes and clean socks-."

Winters did not have to push or cut in on the procession of pilots heading out the door to make the pace he wanted- all were hurried, but not all for Winters' reason.

Dalton, who had gone from concerned at the sight of the plane captain waiting outside of the briefing room to relieved at hearing his news was instantly back to concerned, bordering on rattled.

"Jack, are you kidding?- We're wheels-up in like.. five hours, and you want to leave post that's locked down to wade through a city full of civilian evacuees?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Does dereliction of duty ring any bells?"

"Yes, but a derelict is idle- I'm going somewhere."

An almost equal mix of A and B Flights was close on the CO and XO's heels, enthralled with the juiciness of operating regulations and procedures being violated.

Dalton abandoned the argument, "Fine, I'm going with you then."

"No, I need you in command when I'm gone- doing all of those things I'm awful at-."

"Like prioritizing, organizing, and commanding?.."

"See, we're on the same page- that's why we're such a great team-.", Winters said as the command building's entrance gave way to the night air that had grown cold quickly. He was looking for a cigarette before he had reached the walkway from the stairs and found he had none of his own.

"So, I'm in command?", Dalton confirmed, handing Winters the cigarettes he carried for them both habitually.

"That was the general motion- yes."

"Swell.", Dalton conceded, concluding that struggle, "Command call- Vice, you're in charge until Jack and I get back-."

"Me?", Vincenz stammered like the chicken picked from the pen for dinner, "Why me?"

"Because that's how the chain of command works-.", Dalton answered matter-of-factly, "-Jack shrugs responsibility off on me, I shrug it off onto you-. So on and so on. And besides, no one takes Preacher seriously when he gives orders-."

"Hey, I'm right here you know!..", Major Wayne protested without arguing the offensive statement.

Winters had tuned out the back-and-forth that were the diminishing ripples of his original act of delegation. His mind was beyond that now.

Now he needed transportation.

Brasilia

"Perimeter is established and secured, sir-.", Lt Gifford of 1st Platoon reported to Nguyen, "Harris and Fuller are nested topside, OP, and we've got eyes looking off all four courners."

Captain Nguyen nodded his approval as he removed his helmet, signaling to his subordinates that it was permitted for them to do the same.

The steel frame, corrugated aluminum sheet building that Naib Subedar Sri Rawal Singh and his Gurkhas had brought the Rangers to had clearly been some kind of commercial truck terminal in the times when Brasilia had been a functioning city.

The room that had once been a drivers' lounge with a smaller adjoining dormitory was still fairly untouched by conflict and intrusion by the elements. Most alluring of the lounge's attributes were the couches and chairs of industrial-grade construction with their unapologetically ugly cushions of burnt orange that were grouped as to form a large "S" through the room's center.

To the eyes of those who had been either in combat, on the mover, or just out on the land for days the colossal interior decorating faux pas that was this room of tope walls and tropically colored appointments looked to be a deluxe suite in a swanky hotel.

"So", Nguyen said with distinct informality as he indulged in sitting on the padded arm of a couch. Knees worn by years of active service but kept from failing by an iron resolve and tungsten constitution fired off pistol shots as they bent to transfer the load of the captain's weight to the furniture.

"-What can you tell us, Naib Subedar?"

There was no need to be more specific.

The other Rangers under Nguyen's command took his example as permission to similarly rest themselves in the best comfort they had known in what felt to all like an eternity.

Singh drew his full beard through his hand thoughtfully as he spoke.

"I can hardly give you a full report, Captain, but you can imagine-. My platoon was assigned to an OP in the Federal District to monitor for possible malcontent return or residual activity when the orbital attack took place."

"We did not see the first Zentraedi mecha unit until this morning- a reinforced Battle Pod company I would say. We observed a reduced Gladiator unit coming out to engage them, but they were quickly overwhelmed by a combination of Gnerls and power armor of some kind-."

Nguyen, despite obvious weariness from his own ordeals of the preceding 48 hours picked up on the uncertainty in Singh's description of the alien combat suits.

"Male or female? - The suits?"

Singh shook his head as though trying to reconcile the inconsistencies of a memory, but answered with certainty, "Neither. They were of Queadlunn-Rau form, mostly- and demonstrated the same basic operational capabilities- flight mainly-. But they were not standard Quadrano combat suits. They had visible additions to the standard weaponry. –It's a detail that I'm certain has a higher significance- but for the engagement yesterday it just added to the slaughter. Our Destroids were outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and woefully outmatched-."

"..No kill like overkill…", Whilite heard escape his lips before he could catch the recitation of the unit motto he had seen emblazoned on the armored bodies of "Gator" Company's Gladiators.

Disparaging looks from his senior officer, peers and subordinates affirmed his realization of his poor timing.

"-Sorry…"

Corporal Craig, the medic from Echo Company's 1st Platoon, whose soldier's soldier air and physically robust appearance did not quite mesh with the merciful nature of his primary occupation created a slight deviation in topic when he asked-

"What about your men?"

Singh's expression soured visibly as with resignation to some unforgivable failure.

"Fifteen casualties initially- radiation burns and exposure from the orbital attack- all serious. When we had been unable to re-establish communications with Homestead, I sent Havidar Roth with a detachment of three riflemen back to base before first light to arrange for medical extraction for my wounded- or to at least bring back medical supplies. When his squad had not returned by mid-afternoon, I took the Gurkhas you see here to find them if possible and to complete their task if we could not."

Nguyen saw that Craig's interest was with the specifics of his MOS, so he pursued the uncomfortable questions for the corporal lest he sound as though he were interrogating a superior.

"Your wounded are with your medic?"

"My medic is one of my wounded.", Singh stated bleakly, "They are under the care of one of my uninjured riflemen who was being groomed as an unofficial understudy of sorts. There is very little that can be done though, I fear. The radiation exposure was quite severe. Medical treatment beyond making them comfortable may be moot."

Craig interjected, respectfully but willfully, "-Maybe, but I still want to have a look at `em. –Captain?.."

Nguyen nodded his approval, "Take Rodriguez and Fields with you-. Singh, will you detach one of yours to lead my medic back to your OP?"

Singh nodded, "Of course, sir-. Your man should go through the supplies we secured from Homestead- I doubt he has all he might need in his ruck."

Nguyen motioned Craig in the direction of the two Gurkha riflemen who were already opening their packs for the medic's inspection of their contents.

"You did make it onto Homestead then?", Nguyen asked, removing a waterproof cigarette case from a cargo pouch on his carrying rig and offering one to Singh.

"Yes sir.", Singh replied while declining the offered cigarette, "There were a lot of dead, and there was significant structural damage to all of the buildings- but at the time we were on post, there was no Zentraedi presence- malcontent or regulars. On the strong chance that we would be residents of Brasilia for some time, we cached what ammunition, food, and medical supplies we could conceal quickly before starting back for our OP. You know the rest."

Nguyen took in Singh's words without comment, having lit a cigarette for himself. The air in the lounge quickly grew hazy with smoke- smoking being a vice strictly prohibited by regulations and by Captain Nguyen while on the creep. Now though, with a reasonably sound enclosure to prevent the distinctive and pervasive odor of cigarettes from entering the wind- Nguyen allowed a relaxation of the rules.

"Food and medical supplies?", 1st Platoon's Lt Gifford asked, "-That close to a particle beam impact, are you sure you want to be taking chances with putting any of that into your body?"

"The impact wasn't as near to Homestead as you may think-.", Singh informed Gifford and the other Rangers, "Close enough to cause damage, but the base's stores are still intact- if not a little tossed."

"Medical supplies are shipped in NBC-impervious cases.", Gifford's medic Craig pointed out in support of Singh's broader statement, "Same-same with MREs, which also have NBC-resistant outer wrappers. No, so long as the cases aren't broken and the packaging not torn, we should have a mountain of usable medical supplies and food. –What doesn't need to be refrigerated anyway…"

"Well, we can't take a mountain of food or medicine with us.", Gifford noted, "-But we can carry enough to give us the reach to an extraction point- once we've gotten word to someone to extract us, of course-."

Captain Nguyen shot a curious look at his 1st Platoon lieutenant, "Who said we were looking for an extraction?"

Expressions blanked all around the senior Ranger as unconfirmed assumptions were dashed with a single rhetorical question.

Gifford was cautious as he said, "-Sir, I'm not tracking on exactly what you're thinking we're going to be able to do here-. The dittos have been bringing transports down constantly since we've had eyes on the area. By now they've got to have thousands of boots on the ground, plus mecha. We've got a company of Rangers, small arms, and no mecha. At best, that's the very shitty end of the stick, sir."

Nguyen sighed heavily, looking as one coming to grips with the realization of a great burden laying ahead.

"This is our assigned AOR. We are here, and the enemy is here. This is where we enter this war. It would be no better anywhere else we would go. I doubt there is anywhere on the planet where we hold the upper hand today."

"-And you have Gurkhas.", Singh reminded Nguyen, "-We're few, but fierce."

"Amen to that.", Whilite affirmed.

Singh acknowledged the compliment with a nod, continuing at the same time with, "-And we have Cyclones. We can't muster a force to meet their mecha in a head-to-head battle, but used correctly-. Used correctly, can make an impression."

Nguyen's expression was distant and thoughtful, like a chess master who was planning his strategy twenty moves out.

"We don't have the upper hand here, that is for certain- but we do have certain advantages."

"The enemy is landing, but they are failing to adequately secure the area. Naib Subedar Singh has seen it for himself, they've ignored an enormous stockpile of weapons and supplies that could be used to resist them. They're clearly inexperienced with occupation operations. If they're overlooking one threat, who's to say what else they're blind to?"

"-Lieutenant Gifford is right that we're not going to be able to defeat the enemy in Brasilia and drive him out-. But we can harass him, we can disrupt his activities and impede his operations. –We're Rangers, after all- that's what we do."

"H'yup, sir.", Gifford affirmed followed by the same utterance from the other Rangers present.

"H'yup!"

Nguyen tossed his cigarette to the floor and ground it out under his boot toe as he rose, "Good then. I'm taking two men to return to the company and bring them in. Gifford, you are in command until I return. I suggest you begin your reconnoiter now."

"Reconnoiter for what, sir?", Lt Gifford asked for clarification.

"Everything.", Nguyen replied, "-A base of operations and at least one alternate. We'll also need caches for as many supplies as we can move. Naib Subedar Singh should be able to assist greatly with both."

"Once we're situated, then we can begin to bring the fear to the enemy."

At once all were in motion, visibly reinvigorated by a plan of action and the prospect of being on the offensive again.

Nguyen motioned to two of his enlisted to accompany him in retrieving the rest of Echo Company. Putting his helmet back on and shouldering his rifle, Nguyen tapped the microphone to his radio headset saying to Gifford, "Monitor tac-channel 9 on the hour for radio contact. Avoid the enemy when possible- let's not tip our hats until we have to. I don't want them to know we're here in Brasilia- yet."

Yellowstone City

The leaden, pulsing ache of a heartfelt sobbing fit trying to find its way to the surface pressed forcefully against the back of Weitzel's eyes, cheekbones, and temples as it searched relentlessly for a crack to exploit.

The doctor- a young man of vaguely Asian features who looked aged by nonstop activity- stood nearby as Weitzel sifted through the small box of personal effects he had brought her and managed to appear sympathetic to its effects on his patient.

"-For whatever comfort it's worth, I'm told by the team that received the body that there was no sign that he suffered at all.", the doctor said vacantly, "-For what it's worth-."

Weitzel found beneath a crudely removed cloth panel of campaign ribbons a bent pair of ugly, military-issue frame, utility eyeglasses whose acrylic lenses were cracked and clouded by scratches and which had been subjected to some great and unknown brutality.

The pressure behind Weitzel's face found the gap, the hairline fracture it needed to escape, and the cascade of tears began over short catches of breath.

The young doctor, of no fault of his own, appeared instantly uncomfortable and slightly annoyed by the display. He had no doubt had to participate in this exact same scene innumerable times in the past day, and the emotional toll was showing.

A handsome but not ostentatious watch, a cigarette lighter, the brigadier general's stars from Shiloah's uniform, and a man's gold wedding band whose Hebrew inscriptions were faded by years of wear completed the contents of the box.

Weitzel allowed herself a half-dozen deep sobs that shook her frame and renewed the pulsing ache at the stump of her leg- but it was a purging action. It would come again, she knew- it was right that it should come again- but enough of the fog had cleared for her to communicate coherently.

"He has- had- a wife who will want these things back.", Weitzel said, repacking the small box that syringes had been packaged in for shipping and storage. The eyeglasses that had framed bright and penetrating eyes for so long were the last to be returned.

"-I should try to contact her-."

The doctor looked hesitant, saying after a moment's consideration, "That's going to be tough, Commander. Civilian communications are down still, and even if there weren't Zentraedi stomping all over the city, you'd still be in no condition to set out looking for anyone."

It might have been that Weitzel's mind required a distraction from loss and things that she could not control, or perhaps it was the sense of duty that her time in the Service had instilled and that she also carried naturally with her- but the doctor's quashing her inclination to reach out to Paula Shiloah on the sad occasion of her widowing contained other elements that caught her attention.

"How many Zentraedi, and what are they doing?"

The doctor looked puzzled as though the question had come to him in Swahili, but he replied without malice, saying, "-I couldn't really say, I've got a number of irons in the fire here myself, so-."

"Who would know?"

The doctor's expression turned speculative as he indulged in what was also a welcome change to the cycle of thoughts and activities he had been engaged in, "-Well, there's a regular stream of uniforms through here- bringing wounded mostly. One of them might be able to answer your questions better than me."

Weitzel felt her energy begin to desert her- no doubt a direct effect of her amputation and the beginnings of her recovery, and with contributions from the pain medications and psychological traumas-. Even the attempt to understand the exhaustion she was feeling in its onset contributed to the condition. Weitzel was satisfied to let it have its way for now- planning at the same time how she would use her next brief spurt of energy.

She would surrender a little now to gain later- but one more detail was important, and was one that she felt was bringing her full circle.

"Can I hold on to Ephraim's things?- Until I can return them to his wife, I mean."

The doctor nodded his approval, "Sure, I don't see why not. We have more of those little boxes than we know what to do with. –Just too many…."

The doctor noticed mid-lament that Weitzel had already drifted off, leaving him speaking to himself and with a strong and sudden envy.

He had many other patients to attend to, and it would be a good, long time before he could submit to his own urgent need for sleep.

Edwards City

"-Jesus, Jack-.", Dalton muttered in despairing disbelief as the rover "borrowed" from base rolled at length to a halt within sight of Muroc High School whose parking lot was illuminated like a professional sporting event, courtesy of portable flood lights and generators from one of Edwards' resident engineer units.

"-No way are we finding Rio and Roxanna in this madhouse…"

Without admitting as much, Winters saw Dalton's point clearly- it could not be missed.

Beyond the brilliant illumination contrasting starkly the dark, desert night, the likeness to a sporting event was furthered by the dense congregation of people massing on the grounds of one of the small city's two high schools. Congregations swelled on the schools lawns, on its approaching sidewalks, and in its front courtyard, all spilling into one another to form in essence a blanket of milling humanity. Additionally, the outdoor mass of people was being joined in slow and steady progression by a flow exiting the school itself from all of the structure's visible doors.

Though shapeless, the mob had a discernable common direction of movement to it- gradual as it was. A line of wheeled vehicles, military and civilian, of all sizes from school and public transportation buses, troop-transport converted 8/4s, down to commercial vans and shuttles filled the parking lots and stretched back into the street.

"We won't if we don't try, Freddy.", Winters said, his voice sounding aware of the improbability of success as he slid out of the rover's passenger seat .

Dalton found himself losing sight of Winters in the crowd before he could even get his door open. As he took up pursuit of the squadron commander, he made certain that the key to the land rover was secure in the buttoned cargo pocket of his leather aviator's jacket. There was a tense order here, but if there was ever a place where a carelessly unattended vehicle could be taken- this was it.

-And Dalton did not want to have to explain to a motor pool sergeant how he had managed to lose a vehicle he had taken without permission.

Winters pressed through the crowd with much the same kind of constant resistance as he would have faced wading into a slow current of waist-deep water. Even as the crowd closed around him in his immediate wake, he was still cautious to keep Dalton somewhere in trail. Finding the pair they had come here to recover was to be time-consuming enough, Winters knew he did not have the time to find both them and Dalton if they were to become separated.

As he pushed on toward what appeared to be the focal point of all activity, Winters muttered the same pleasantries that courtesy demanded when one moved through a crowd under normal circumstances. Soon the pilot was aware that the civilians around him were paying no more attention to his utterings of "excuse me", and "pardon me", than he was of saying them. He would continue though, lest he shrug past that one individual to whom it would be the final straw that would demand a confrontation.

-And in a crowd this size, that kind of single spark could easily start a blaze.

Winters continued to beg forgiveness for muscling through the throngs ofcivilians patiently waiting for evacuation. As he moved he made an effort to see every face without making eye contact and succeeded in seeing perhaps one face in three.

None of the faces were the two he was looking for.

There were similarities in each face that Winters glimpsed though- a commonality. There was exhaustion, anxiety, and a fear that hovered just beneath the surface of each wearied face. Those who could clearly remember the trauma of losing the world before to the last Robotech War showed it most acutely. It was the fear of horrible Déjà vu, and of the failed promises from Government and selves of never again.

Foreboding gnawed relentlessly at all clearly as it did in times of crisis, but Winters felt a particular kinship and could easily pick out those who actually knew.

The knot in Winters' belly that had formed the moment he'd learned Rio and Roxanna were not among the families of the other pilots was growing and tightening again as the task of finding them began to take on a distinct feeling of futility.

Through a break in the crowd as one in the water might see another through the parting of swells, Winters glimpsed the first uniform he'd seen on site so far. A bewildered enlistedman continued to motion those around him toward the school's front courtyard and was given as much regard as the sign he stood beside that read, ironically, "SCHOOL ZONE- NO STANDING OR LOITERING!"

"Private!-.", Winters yelled with a following, shrill whistle over the general noise and commotion common to any crowd.

The enlisted man's attention was captured and swung to Winters with an air of gratitude. At first the officer thought that he might have been mistaken somehow by the private as some kind of relief or replacement, but with his flight suit and aviator's jacket, and particularly his worn, leather wheel cap with its lieutenant colonel's oak leaves it seemed improbable.

As the young man noticeably less than half Winters' age saluted dutifully, it became clear that his relief came from the distraction that Winters was providing from being completely overwhelmed in whatever task he had been assigned.

Winters returned the salute, saying as he did, "Private, I'm looking for someone who I was told turned up at this evacuation point-. How would I go about finding her?"

Any relief that the enlistedman may have been feeling deserted him as he was confronted by a question whose answer was more complex than the asker had anticipated.

"-You're shittin' me, right, Colonel?"

"Afraid not.", Winters said soberly, "Who's running this detail?"

The private waved vaguely toward the courtyard at the front of Muroc High School, saying, "That'd be Captain Morris, sir-. She's set up with the senior NCOs by the flagpole to get a count and list of civilians so there'd be a tally to compare to when they got to Bakersfield. –No use though-. There are just too many and it was taking too much time to get `em all on the transports. Last I heard, they were just taking names as they got on the vehicles."

"So this Captain Morris is in charge?", Winters clarified, ignoring the details of the chaos he had expected to encounter.

"Yes sir, Colonel- if you can call it that.", the private affirmed, "-If your someone is on a list, that's where you might be able to find out where in this mess to find her-."

"It's that kind of a war, Private- learn to love it.", Winters said making a faint gesture of a salute as he parted company with the young man and began to press forward into the crowd again- only this time with a certain sense of destination.

Winters pause to confer with the private had given Dalton the time to close the distance with him, and now allowed him to move as a wingman of sorts to his equally earthbound element lead.

"What time are they supposed to be pulling out, Jack?- The civvies, I mean-."

"Zero-four hundred, I thought-.", Winters replied, "Or so I seem to remember hearing."

Despite his family being among the lesser number of fortunate civilians who would be evacuated from Edwards, Dalton still sounded horrorstruck as he surveyed the scene about him and said, "-No way they're getting all of these people onto buses and moving by zero-four…"

"A little louder, Freddy-.", Winters growled over his shoulder, "-There might have been a frightened person or two out of the thousands around who didn't hear that-."

"Sorry-.", Dalton said sheepishly, clearly apologetic to both Winters and the mass of civilians through which they were slogging. The apology was lost on the latter though as each face was more or less a copy of the same numbed expression and seemingly oblivious to all around it but to move as one of the crowd.

It took the two pilots an additional three minutes to enter the school's outer courtyard through the crowd of civilians that grew more densely packed with each step and another three before they had eyes on the area around the flagpole that the private had alluded to.

Searching in the general area, Winters did catch a glance of a form in body armor at the center of a cluster of other forms in body armor that had an air of authority about it. Robbed of any clear means of gender identification by the individual's protective gear, Winters was satisfied to trust his instinct.

"Captain Morris!-.", Winters bellowed through cupped hands over the heads and bodies of the hundreds between he and the object of the call.

There was a response- the helmeted head coming around to find the source of the call, revealing finer female facial features that showed recognition of the hail, and more importantly that it was coming from a senior officer.

It was a maddening lapse of time before the two officers could force themselves to a meeting point between them.

Obligatory salutes were traded, and before Winters' hand dropped from his brow the Army officer charged with the impossible task around them was looking both confused and distraught.

"-You're not here to reinforce, I take it, sir?"

"I'm not even good moral support, Captain.", Winters apologized hollowly, "-I'm here to throw you a bit of a poser. I'm looking for two particular civilians-."

Morris's eyes bugged slightly in disbelief, looking very white in contrast to the tanned skin of her face, "-You're shittin' me, right?-."

"-I'm getting that a lot this morning, Captain.", Winters replied with thinning patince, and then continued, "-I'm looking for a young woman, late-twenties, Latina in appearance, long black hair that she's wearing over half of her face-. The other is white, fiftyish, dyed ginger-blonde hair, probably too much make-up, and enough attitude that you'd remember her."

"-They don't sound familiar to me, but look around you, Colonel-.", the Captain explained, "Names?- Maybe one of the-."

"-Captain-.", interrupted a first sergeant wearing the same unit patch as the captain, "-That sounds like crazy cat-lady…"

Winters leapt on the promising lead, "-She didn't talk?"

"From what I told, it didn't sound like she could- but the other one made up for it.", said the sergeant.

"That's them.", Winters said, feeling the knot in his belly relax slightly, "And I'm recommending you for sergeant major, Sergeant-."

"-You get `em with any emergency relocation of people, sir.", explained the sergeant who had acquired the name, Hoyt, as he led Winters and Dalton through a corridor of the school just off of the main entrance.

Classrooms had been set up for those who required transport but who could not be expected to stand in the crowds for a prolonged period- the elderly, mothers with infants or very young children. The school's infirmary had been opened for the most extreme cases of individuals with medical needs who were not hospitalized at the time that the call for evacuation had been made.

Winters and Dalton were led around a corner into another hall where two privates stood guard over closed classroom doors that clearly had people behind them.

"-Troublemakers.", Hoyt continued with his explanation as he motioned to the shut doors, "Some people show up drunk and disorderly, some figure they can run the evacuation better than us and take it upon themselves to form bands of followers…"

Hoyt reached a door that had the unspoken indications of being their destination.

"-Others are just uncooperative."

"You have no idea, Sergeant.", Winters commiserated as the sergeant unlocked the door.

"-They're all going to be evacuated, of course-.", Hoyt explained as though Winters harbored some belief that civilian refugees were intentionally to be left in a hazardous area, "-But the problem cases have to be taken out of general circulation and moved separately. Even minor disruptions can lead to panic when a lot of people are under stress."

As Hoyt opened the classroom door, a human form, slight of build and small in stature exploded with volcanic force from the darkness nearly knocking the far larger Winters off of his feet as arms wrapped around his midsection in a clumsy hug-tackle.

"This is her, I assume, sir?", Hoyt asked, looking more startled than the lieutenant colonel who was still struggling for balance.

Winters felt the shakes coming on as he put hands on the wild mass of hair and the head beneath that was pressing into his ribcage.

"-That's one.", Winters said.

Roxanna sauntered out of the same darkened room in much the same way that the pilots had seen her come out from behind the bar of her own establishment many times- as undisputed and unashamed master of her environment.

"-The cavalry is supposed to show up in the nick of time, you know-."

"That's two.", Dalton said as Roxanna handed him a faded, olive-drab military rucksack that predated the century and was stuffed to the bulging point.

Roxanna did not surrender however another hand-held, plastic case with a wire-cage front to it, from behind which a single cat eye in a gaunt, tabby face peered out meekly.

That was three.

Winters saw the cage carried by Roxanna and immediately understood the sequence of events following his squadron's parting of ways from their families and rush back to base early the morning before.

The relaxing stress knot in his gut turned fiery, and began to blaze-.

"You went back for THE FUCKING CAT?!..", Winters raged, prying Rio's arms off of his middle, perhaps a little too forcefully and opened a space between them with a good shove.

No stranger to violence in her life, Rio stood her ground – her eye that was unobstructed by the constant and strategic veil of hair pleaded for forgiveness, but showed a tough acceptance of whatever might come next.

Winters appeared every bit the disciplinarian as he slashed at the air with an extended hand and forefinger. Clenched teeth clearly held back the torrent of obscenities that were rattling around behind them.

"..For the fucking cat?!.."

Without apology, Roxanna elaborated on the obvious motivations with, "Jack, she-."

Winters turned savagely on the bar owner, spitting flame with, "-And you know better! -Bloody insane women!"

Roxanna fired back with equal force, "Rio was wearing a thin cotton top, jeans, and flats that were coming apart at the seams last night, Jack- remember? Is that the way to go into a refugee camp for God-only-knows how long?.."

Winters, without conceding the point noticed for the first time that Rio was attired in the much less flattering, but admittedly more durable attire of old, pre-RDF military khakis and civilian boots. It was not a fashionable ensemble, but true to what Roxanna had said was a far more intelligent choice for the unrefined conditions of a refugee camp than the casual attire of a barmaid.

"-I have to give it to the quiet one, Colonel.", said the sergeant with grudging respect, "-She was not giving up that critter, I'm told. You might want to save your breath."

Winters continued to wag the forefinger of his right hand, now toward the ground, as he balled tightly the fingers of his left into a fist- both actions to conceal the onset of the shakes.

"-She's on the extreme end of the stubborn scale, that way, Sergeant.", Winters agreed.

"-Jack.", Dalton said, dutifully but cautiously, raising his left wrist to show his classic style, analogue aviator's watch, "-We really ought to take this discussion on the road."

Winters recognized his XO's valid concern.

There was no time for this argument now.

He would exfiltrate the melee- reluctantly.

Without another word of debate, Winters turned and began to plod quickly and heavily back toward the way he had been led in, saying only as he opened the distance between himself and the others.

"Fine- let's go! Including the fucking cat…."

RDF Fairchild Base, Alaska

"Tom, you look like stewed shit and turnips, but I'm glad to see you."

Queffle did his best to maintain an upright posture in bed and hoped that his head was not visibly pulsating in unison with the throbbing he felt.

"I'm mending up quickly, sir.", Queffle assured his friend and superior, Captain Billings who sat looking haggard but noticeably less pummeled than the junior officer. The image on the video phone was jumpy, pixelated, and the audio was not quite in step- but the technology was working.

There was no need to have this conversation by video chat, but at some level both men understood it to be an act of defiance to the enemy. Despite their best efforts, some technology was still working and had not failed while the rest was being restored.

It was a small victory to build on.

"Don't let the bandages and tubes fool you.", Queffle continued, "This place is charging my HMO for everything- and they're raking in the cash."

Clearly tired, Billings still allowed a sound of mild amusement in response to the notion that somewhere billing departments were still in the dedicated business of tallying and itemizing amounts due for supplies and services rendered.

When that moment of fancy was gone though, he returned to the point at hand.

"You've done well, Tom-."

Unexpectedly, Queffle felt a sudden, physically painful pang of guilt that he could not rationalize.

"Greg, I lost my command after ordering an evacuation during a fight, and I still managed to lose-…", Queffle said, searching for a number that he had either forgotten or had not yet learned, "Hell, Greg-. –I don't even know who I've lost right now. I'm not sure how that's doing well."

Billings was sympathetic but blunt, "You have to take it in context, Tom. We're getting our asses handed to us right now, and the only reason it hasn't been our whole ass is because the Te'Dak Tohl seem to be keeping the gloves on while in the process of kicking the shit out of us…"

"Te-What-Who?..", Queffle asked, not sure whether he had actually heard indecipherable words from Billings, or if it was the bruising to his brain acting out.

"Te'Dak Tohl.", Billings repeated clearly and slowly, "-It's what this particular off-shoot of Zentraedi are calling themselves- and it doesn't seem to be a name that carries no weight. Every indoctrinated Zentraedi on base and in uniform looks ready to shit a pineapple."

"They're supposed to be the mythical badest of the Zentraedi bad-asses, skulking around the universe and keeping the rank-and-file fighting for the cause-. For myths though, they're feeling pretty legit right about now."

While Billings' disclosure of recent discoveries about the enemy were captivating to Queffle, he had the strongest sense that Billings was not speaking to the subject for which he had called.

"-But that's not why we're talking-."

"No.", Billings said, looking relieved for having been handed an easy return to his original purpose, "You're being put up for the Navy Diamond-."

With nothing in his mouth or throat, Queffle still nearly choked on the captain's words. Before the REF, the RDF had replaced the "Navy Cross" and its equivalents from other naval services with the "Diamond"- which substituted the non-secular symbol with a benign variation of the United Earth's emblem.

"Not to sound ungrateful, but-.", Queffle began with true humility.

"-But you don't think your actions are quite deserving-.", Billings interjected, "Blah-blah, yada-yada-. Other people have sacrificed more and are more deserving-. Sorry, Tom, deal with it. The problem is that that most of the other people deserving it are also being put up for it posthumously."

"The A.R.M.D. force suffered a seventy-six percent casualty rate in the Earth's defense. You managed to fight the battle until it was untenable and then get your people out with only a few lives lost…"

"-It's deserved, Tom- believe me, it really is- but it's also a PR thing. People need a hero out of this, Tom- a win standing out in the losses. Your name's one of those on that list."

Queffle understood immediately and felt a queer mixture of genuine appreciation and the indignity of being used. A tactician's mind also found an opportunity.

"Well, if the REF is getting something out of me, I don't feel bad about asking something of the REF-. Get me a ship, Greg.", Queffle said, "Or, if I can't have a ship of my own- get me on one. I'll smile for all of the pictures the REF wants, but I'm not spending the rest of this war on a buy more bonds tour."

Billings' expression was blank, mostly caught off guard by Queffle's shrewd play in bargaining, but to a lesser extent by the absurdity of the request.

"-Tom, I couldn't even tell you where the Fleet is, let alone promise you a billet…"

"Consider my end paying it forward, then.", Queffle persisted.

Billings was cautious, "You know I can only promise to try. Every `wog out of basic up to the admiral who retired last week is chomping at the bit to get into that same game and be the next Henry Gloval-."

"-Just get my hat into the ring, Greg.", Queffle said, "Just get my hat into the ring."

"Done.", Billings agreed, "I'll polish you `til Nimitz looks like Popeye by comparison, but that's all I can do."

"Understood.", Queffle acknowledged, "Thanks-."

"Well, don't thank me yet. You made your deal without hearing all of the other side. Your particular case is a two-for-one deal of sorts, it seems. You get to deliver the good news- and some bad news."
"To who?", Queffle asked, "-And what?"

Billings expression was sober as he replied, "-The squadron leader, Kroft."

Queffle's stomach plummeted before Billings had need to explain.

Any real progress was made slowly and in small steps, Staff knew.

Slow progress in small steps was exactly what he had been making with Kroft.

Fairchild Flight Ops was not in a position to refuse volunteers for any sortie requiring fighter pilots as there were abundant CAP and protection tasks to be had, and far too few pilots to adequately support them all. Staff had convinced Flight Ops to stop coming to Kroft soliciting though. She had reached that point of exhaustion where she no longer had the strength to seek out the preoccupation of work, but was not quite at the point where she would decline it.

-And decline it she needed to, her XO knew.

Returning from The Blue Banshees' last escort flight, a six hour wheels-up to chocks-set deal shepherding much needed supplies from a Vancouver depot to a developing transport hub in Oregon, the squadron leader had had to ask for approach and landing instructions four times between crossing the outer marker and final approach.

Her landing had been shaky at best, and would have earned her a serious tongue-lashing from an LSO- had RDF Air Force bases had such things as Landing Signal Officers.

Kroft was just spent, and too spent to maintain the façade of not being spent.

Staff had won some small victories in the battle for his CO's health, having succeeded in getting her to eat a few bites out of a BLT, and drinking more than half a cup of tea.

With any luck, with warmth in her belly and the comfort of the ugliest couch in the Western Hemisphere that just happened to be the pilots' common room- she might even submit to a few hours sleep.

Staff hoped for as much.

"I don't want to sleep, Ramrod.", Kroft said without warning and with a spark of resistance still to her voice. Her argument sounded much like that of an over-tired toddler who would not be put down for a nap. Only this toddler had rank on him.

Staff was taken aback- not sure in his own exhaustion of whether he had actually been mumbling aloud his plot to get the squadron leader to submit to rest.

It was probably only coincidental of course, but a startling coincidence.

"You're slim on options there, Skipper.", Staff told her in a tone that said that it was okay to relent, "You're about to fall over. –If the flight surgeon saw you looking like you do, he'd probably put you in a bag."

"-I'm afraid of nightmares.", Kroft said without shame, "I sound like my kids-. Only these nightmares are about my kids- and Kevin. Isn't that irony or something?"

"Cruel irony, I think ", Staff said convinced of the "cruel" part at least, "-But.."

"-The nightmares are just waiting there-.", Kroft continued as though oblivious to her XO trying to say something more, "-Like bandits massing just outside of range-. You know they're there, waiting- but you can't do a damn thing about it."

Staff was internally grateful that they had shifted to fighter pilot's metaphors. It was an easier topic to speak on than the frailties of the human psyche.

"-Well, rule of thumb still has it that it's better to bring the attack than be attacked. If you know they're there, sometimes you just have to press into them and force it. Besides, don't you tell your kids that nightmares are rough, but they can't hurt you?"

Kroft nodded, knowing that the other pilot was right, "-All the time. Advice is easy to give but hard to apply-. I just don't want the nightmares."

Staff put an arm around Kroft and felt her slump limp against him.

"-Just nightmares-. Hang in there, Amanda-. It's weird, but I believe it- that things tend to work themselves out the way that they should. We just have to bear up while it's all sorting itself out sometimes."

Staff did believe it, as odd as he knew it might sound to others who naturally expected pilots to be the "take control" type.

Sometimes things had a way of working themselves out.

In saying it though, he did not feel as convincing as he was convicted in the belief- which struck him as odd. It was more than not sounding convincing though- there was a twinge he had felt in saying it.

The superstitious part of his pilot's constitution flashed him a single-word warning after the alleged damage had already been done.

Jinx.

No-. Staff willfully dismissed the feeling. He realized that Kroft was not the only one who had gone too long without sleep. The demons that everyone carried made easy sport of those who they found in that condition.

Staff had no notion of how long LCDR Queffle had been present, but the grim look on his face told the pilot that the senior officer was wishing that he had kept his big mouth shut.

"I'm going to need the room here for a minute, Ramrod.", Queffle said evenly but with a hint of guarded discomfort.

Kroft tensed against the other pilot as he gave her a squeeze- all that he had left that he could do for her- and rose from the couch.

Passing the lieutenant commander on the way to the door, he asked the only relevant question that there was to be asked with his eyes.

Queffle mouthed a clear but silent- No.

Sometimes things had a way of working themselves out as they should.

Sometimes though, the way they should was not the way that was hoped for.

RDF Edwards AFB

Colonel Ganyet "Switchblade" Mumuni had many noteworthy traits as an officer, as a pilot, and as a person.

As an officer, she was fair to her people, and well-thought and decisive in her command.

As a pilot, she was cool and quick-thinking under fire.

As a person, she was open, approachable, and in most cases, level-headed.

-In most cases…

Mumuni was also known to have a temper feared in its heat by Satan himself when she had had her fill of whatever was antagonizing her-.

And right now, she was incandescent.

Winters and Dalton stood at attention, upright and rigid as fence posts, as Mumuni circled them like a shark wearing flight gear in the back hallway of the preflight building that was home to 623rd Squadron.

As it had happened, the thought that they would slip off post, locate and retrieve Roxanna and Rio and return them to base for evacuation with other military families, and not be noticed as missing had been five minutes outside of the time envelope of being judged a "complete" success.

Partial success had their cost, and now it was time to pay for the difference.

"-I really don't know what the two of you think sometimes-.", Mumuni pontificated with the simmer still high in her voice as she continued her tight orbit of the two junior officers. The heel of one of her boots must have had a small stone embedded in it as each step with that foot on the polished concrete floor carried with it a horrid grating sound like small fingernails on a small chalkboard.

Winters tightened his jaw with each meeting of stone and concrete, trying his hardest not to wince on the outside.

Clearly his efforts were ineffective as the duration and intensity of each small screech increased as Mumuni dragged her heel with each step. A well-earned, petty torment for her to inflict. Like Ahab's nightly vigil, walking the Pequot's deck- the sound was a reminder that the subordinates were to feel their master's pain.

"-And it's both of you-.", Mumuni said, making her turn on the heel with the stone, "Because neither of you can decide it's time to piss without the other-."

The fighter group commander returned to a point for which she had already yelled at the two senior Knight Hawks for twice already.

"-So, let me walk through the reasoning here-. We're about to relocate our entire wing and escort a large transport element into an active war zone, and you decide that this is the time to slip all of the preparation duties for your squadron to have a jaunt into town?- Did I miss something?"

Sensing that again, Mumuni actually wanted an answer, but knowing that none he could give would be a good one, Winters simply replied, "Well, when you put it that way, it does make us sound a bit off our nut-."

Having received the provocation she had elicited, Mumuni pounced on Winters like a cat on a mouse.

"-But?- ..I heard it even though you didn't say it! You, were going to say- but- as if there was one! There is no, but! That is exactly what you did, and there is no excuse that justifies it!"

Shorter than Winters by a full head's height, Mumuni had to rise up on her toes to approximate putting her face in his.

"You haven't had your wings back a week, and you pull a stunt like this before a major operation? I stuck my neck out for you with Butler to get those wings back on your collar! -And this is how you repay me?!"

The reinforced corridor connecting the preflight building to one of the squadron's HAS buildings shook with the powerful, throaty rumble of Valkyries lifting off from Rogers Lake.

–Or it could have been Mumuni erupting.

Dalton, whom Mumuni must have felt she was neglecting in the dolling out of verbal punishment was trounced upon next.

"-And the only reason you're not on the same express line to be stripped of your commission as your boss is that you at least have the common sense to try to be discrete in your bad behavior!"

"Thank you, ma'am?-.", Dalton said cautiously, not having been cautious enough to remain silent.

"I said, try.", Mumuni snapped, the simmer building into the boil again, "You're not smart enough to pull it off! Your whole, disgraceful squadron is still teetering on the edge after the whole golden car wash incident last New Year's Eve with Butler's car!"

Reflexively, Dalton blurted out in his unit's defense, "-There were like- three hundred people at the O-Club that night!.. It could have been anyone!"

Mumuni allowed herself to be drawn off the main topic just long enough to obliterate Dalton's denials with, "-Butler's wife was in the car…"

"-Really?.. Man, I really was trashed…"

Mumuni's rage was beginning to dissipate as she had stopped her pacing and her nostrils were no longer flaring.

"I need fighter pilots, not fraternity boys in Valkyries. You both get your acts together, and I mean wire tight or so help me God, I'll have you both flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog-shit out of Hong Kong for the rest of this war-."

Dalton snickered before he could catch himself, "-You got that from Top Gun…"

Mumuni turned on him, "Not another word!.. From either of you… -And don't think there's not going to be disciplinary action in regard to this. I just don't have the time for the paperwork right now. There's a war going on, you know! "

Mumuni had said her peace for now- or at least spoken her mind- establishing that the issue was not a dead one. With a final, nerve-grating turn on her heel she strode in commanding form down the corridor in the direction of the HAS.

"Get to your squadron and get them to their planes, if you can find them without help."

"-Does this mean we can still fight in the war?", Winters called after her.

"Go to hell, Jack!"

"I'll see you there."

The heavy door at the HAS end of the corridor closed with a noticeable thud behind Mumuni, leaving the two lieutenant colonels alone and in silence.

A moment passed, still without a word.

"Give her a couple of days, and she'll be fine.", Dalton speculated.

Winters shrugged as he and Dalton doubled back on the way from which they had come, heading back toward the preflight building. They still had yet to don full flight gear, and the H-hour was approaching rapidly. Mumuni might have allowed them to temporarily slip the noose, but she was not going to delay an operational sortie for them.

"I wouldn't worry about it much, Freddy, we'll likely be slaughtered within the week anyway."

"Yeah, that's a relief, Jack- I'll hold that one close."

"-And how in the hell did we miss that Arnie's wife was in the car?-."

"Beats me.", Dalton laughed in retrospect on very fuzzy memories, "I was really trashed that night."

Sunlight was beginning to fringe the eastern horizon of the Antelope Valley with a pencil-thin line of luminosity, giving a fiery foundation to the ascending curtain that flowed seamlessly from orange, to pink, to deepening purple through the apex of the sky that remained star-dotted and inky.

To the southeast the last, minimal details of RDF Edwards AFB, and of Edwards City were lost to the twilight as they fell behind.

Rio sat beside Roxanna on a standard, civilian motor coach that had traded its "luxury" appointments and customized exterior paint scheme that would have marked it as a "tour bus" for capacity seating, utility overhead storage racking, and a flat grey coat of paint. It was one of a dozen that had departed from within the Edwards perimeter, ferrying the precious cargo of military families north toward the ultimate destination of Bakersfield. Somewhere in the kilometers of road northwest of the base the military buses had been joined by their civilian relatives to form a great caravan that moved serpent-like in the direction of "safety".

Aboard the stripped-down motor coach it was strangely quiet with the exception of the low growl of the bus's turbo-diesel engine. Almost as if to match the engine's drone, Lucky the cat purred loudly at the center of a cluster of children who lavished attention on his lanky form with soft strokes of small hands.

There was also a constant rumble- a vibration both heard and felt as an unknown number of RDF Destroids and modified RDF Battle Pods flanked the advancing convoy for the sense of security of the civilians being transferred as much as for their actual protection.

All else was quiet in the soft, dawn light aboard the bus on which Winters had unceremoniously deposited Rio before storming off, still in a funk over Lucky's unannounced and unapproved rescue. Roxanna had assured Rio needlessly that once he cooled his jets, he'd be back to his "normal" self, which had been said with a small chuckle of understanding of the humor in that statement.

-But the message was true.

The bus was quiet now, but tensely so. In the privacy of the fading darkness people sat quietly coping with homes and lives being left behind, and contemplating the vague notion of "safety" that was promised to them at the end of this trip.

-And there were the other thoughts.

From the direction of the now unseen Edwards AFB, the distinctive roar of Valkyrie engines, muted some by distance, rolled over the caravan.

Somewhere several rows ahead of Rio, Catherine Home choked back the first of a string of muffled sobs that were joined quickly by soft, consoling words from the wives of other Knight Hawk Squadron pilots.. With the combination of sounds, the baby too began to fuss.

Rio understood.

Valkyries, along with other jet-propelled aircraft that Rio could identify by their sound (which might have genuinely surprised Nigel Winters had he known) had been taking off since before the buses had left the base's gate- but Rio felt, knew, that this was Knight Hawk Squadron heralding its own departure.

She also knew what every other wife or girlfriend on the bus was now thinking and feeling, and knew what had brought tears from the widowed Catherine Home as well. Minds on the bus were worried about loved ones deliberately going the other way, away from "safety".

Rio did not wear a ring like some of the women, but at the moment she was their equal as she was making herself the same promise that could not be assured.

He would come back, because he had to.

Ukraine

All battles, even the best staged surprise attacks and ambushes, followed the same, basic template.

Contact was made.

Opponents engaged.

Chaos ensued.

This battle was showing every indication of carrying on that rich, military tradition.

The 5th Guards, and the 301st Mobile Planetary Defense Battery they were charged to defend had been engaged in a blind man's bluff game –a deadly version- all late afternoon and into nightfall with a relatively small Zentraedi detachment that had landed on the steppe just after sunrise.

The enemy, under almost immediate and constant surveillance from their landing by the 5th Guards' UGVs and UAVs had shown strong indications that they were working from a combination of intelligence and intuition.

They had scarcely had mecha on the ground for five minutes before the fast assault company of Regults had drawn itself thin in a line stretching north to south. That line, far too thin to effectively engage an enemy had then begun to sweep east at a pace that was a balance between driving and searching.

The Gnerl Fighter Pods had appeared about mid-day.

They had been first spotted flying in four-ship elements, probably having come down from orbiting warships in squadron strength and then breaking into smaller divisions to maximize their search potential.

Though their investment in the operation should have been high- their base ships being potential targets of the Synchro Cannon being hunted- the Gnerl pilots showed only a modest interest in the task of finding their earthbound adversaries, and that interest quickly waned.

The Gnerls had established box-pattern searches of swaths of the steppe in advance of their own ground units, but had been inconsistent in their dedication to thoroughly searching those areas. Over the course of the day, there had been four separate instances in which Gnerl elements had passed close enough to 5th Guard units to allow the tank crews to make out the fine details of Fighter Pod airframes without use of video or telescopic aide. A fifth instance had actually had a pair of Gnerls pass almost directly over the Synchro Cannon platform itself.

None of these low passes by Gnerls had resulted in a closer investigation by the searchers, or a single shot fired by either side however.

Several well-designed and implemented defense mechanisms had protected individual tanks of The 5th Guards and the levitating gun platform that was nearly the length of a city block. Their tortoise shell applique paneling composed of electrochromatic laminated RAM allowed both gun platform and tank alike to virtually disappear into white expanses of the snowy steppe from certain angles and in the correct light conditions. In these same conditions of relative position, aspect, and distance the paneling of radar absorbent material deceived the electronic eyes of the enemy as effectively as the chameleon-like attributes of the panels deceived mortal eyes.

Compounding the Zentraedi fighters' ineffectiveness was their own shortcomings in design for the purpose of performing the search..

Chiefly as was known to Zentraedi pilot and RDF-Army personnel alike, was the fact that the Gnerl was designed primarily as a space-going fighter with atmospheric flight capability. Its razor-thin wings with their small surface area provided enough lift to keep the fighter aloft only at air speeds of around 240 knots. Their pilots were forced to make high-speed passes during which looking in the wrong direction for a few seconds could mean missing a visual inspection of many kilometers of ground.

Even had the Gnerls had a "low and slow" capability, their deep-seated cockpits were not conducive to observing what might lie below the craft.

Random chance had much to do with a Gnerl pilot locating anything on the ground that was not in a fixed and known position.

The fact that neither the commanders of their base ships, nor the Gnerl pilots themselves wanted to become permanently attached to this effort in the frozen wasteland hindered their contribution to the search also. The time to descend from orbit into the correct geographical area, and then the time required to ascend again to rendezvous with a ship in LEO left each Gnerl element under an hour of effective search time.

Coupled with the tedium of searching for an enemy that was content to hide when other micronians all over the world were actively fighting, the interest this assignment commanded in Gnerl pilots was noticeably slim.

To the 5th Guards, the enemy's search effort from the target's perspective had appeared crude from initiation in comparison to similar operations that were exercised by RDF forces- but at the same time they were more refined than what should have been expected from Zentraedi.

Much more refined.

"Random chance" was equal opportunity, and with the moderate sophistication and method applied to the search, and despite the odds being in the favor of the evading 301st and 5th Guards- the Zentraedi, and specifically the Gnerl pilots had gotten two breaks.

The first turn of luck in the favor of the hunters had been when a UGV operator with the 301st's HQ unit had allowed the enemy to draw too close to his sentinel's position. A Regult had come over a hill less than 700 meters distant from the small, semi-autonomous vehicle that had also been observing from atop a hill.

The UGV's first indication that it had been detected was a cloud of steam that had obscured its video feed as particle beams stitched the ground around it.

The Regult's aim had improved before the operator could make his sentry retreat, and the video and sensor feeds from the robot had been lost without expectation of ever being regained.

It had not been direct contact between humans and aliens, but it had been enough to validate the hunters' search.

The second "break" in luck for the Zentraedi had not been a break for all.

This turn of fortune had cost lives.

Captain Alexander Cherghuliev had been witness to this break, as it had happened very near to his tank platoon's dispersed position. It had come at twilight in the last of the failing sun when the electrochromatic camouflage tortoise shells of vehicles offered the least protection from visual detection.

A flight of Gnerls had been moving north, and at the most inopportune moment a pilot must have glanced in the right direction to see the tortoise shell of a tank or support vehicle glow a shade whiter than the snow that had taken on a pale blue tone.

Had the pilots gaze passed over the area two minute earlier or two minutes later, the light conditions would have allowed the camouflage to function as designed.

But seen in that brief window….

Perhaps not quite sure, but with suspicion aroused enough to investigate further, the Gnerl had rolled lazily into a banking turn starboard and turned onto a course that led it directly toward Cherghuliev's platoon. The turn itself was intentional an act enough in itself to spur the instinct of self-preservation in the self-propelled missile launcher crew attached to Cherghuliev's unit.

Four Basilisks in passive, "auto-acquisition mode" had left the launcher with minimal flash and negligible smoke trails, and quickly locked onto a Gnerl apiece. The Fighter Pod that had turned to investigate, thus unknowingly instigating the attack was the first struck out of the sky – taking the missile head-on and shattering into fiery shards.

Three additional flashes followed and lit the steppe in bursts of orange just as the Zentraedi pilots began to react to the loss of their comrade.

Beginning to end, the one-sided fight endured a matter of seconds and without a single shot fired in return at the reinforced tank platoon of the 5th Guards.

The time elapsed was irrelevant though. The flash of the explosions in the low light was visible for a thirty kilometer radius, and certainly the other elements from the downed Gnerls' squadron had heard their panicked calls before dying.

Whether the surviving Gnerls' pilots had seen their squadron mates go down or not, they had been roughly aware of the element's position at the time of their loss and had converged on the area.

With a smaller area for the Gnerls to search, and inspiration for the Zentraedi to search more diligently- Cherghuliev had known what was coming next.

Next had been developing and had been becoming direr for twenty minutes now.

While astonishingly swift for main battle tanks, and able to maintain a remarkable speed of around 140Kmph even over powdery snow, the Cavalier tank was incapable of outrunning the comparatively lightly armed and negligibly armored Regult Combat Pod in open country. Furthermore, running was not the purpose of a main battle tank- and in some practical ways retreat actually defeated a tank's design.

Furthermore and as a matter of both principle and pride, it was not the mission or the nature of The 5th Guards to run from a threat.

Encased in tons of layered steel, depleted uranium, and ceramic armor, Cherghuliev's perspective of the outside world was unique among his tank crew and shared only by the other tank commanders in the unit.

As in any type of warfare, the combatant with the best situational awareness had an inherent edge.

From the first battles decades before where men in iron beasts rode out to clash with other men in other iron beasts, the best situational awareness had always been gained by a tank commander sitting high with his torso through his hatch in order to survey the field freely. It exposed the commander to a higher level of risk, but for the first half century of armored warfare the human eye was the best sensor system.

Even later, when tank commanders had sophisticated optics and image enhancement systems that allowed the world to be seen from inside the turret in multi-spectrum, high resolution- the field of view was still narrow and the preferred method was to again be outside of the hatch when possible.

Cherghuliev and every other Cavalier tank commander enjoyed a fusion of the safety and optical enhancement afforded by the commanders viewer inside of the tank, and the broad field of view formerly only enjoyed above the hatch rim.

An integrated helmet viewing/sighting system closely related in hardware, software, and identical in concept to the external video sensors used by Destroid drivers and Veritech pilots- the Cavalier tank commander controlled the movement of his periscope with the movement of his head. A redundant MFD screen could display images, and a control stick could still direct the periscope like the commander's viewers of the previous tank generation, but this was seldom used in combat.

Cherghuliev surveyed the approaching line of Zentraedi Regults closing head-to-head with his platoon, though the mecha were not yet within line of sight. Either undetected or disregarded, two UAVs continued to orbit this otherwise unremarkable portion of the Ukrainian steppe, transmitting out to the units below a real-time report of enemy mecha positions, direction and speed.

The information was translated for the Russian captain on the inside of his helmet visor as icons indicating not only their "hostile" affiliation, but also their probable classification.

Splitting the view within his helmet visor between a thermal and light-enhanced video image provided by the armored periscope atop the turrret and a map representation of the field provided by InfoLink and the orbiting UAVs- Cherghuliev was able to study and surmise much about his enemy's situational awareness and plan accordingly for the impending first contact.

The Regults were still traveling east in a straight, sweeping line of advance- and not at the top speed that their powerful and tireless mechanical legs could carry them.

-They were still searching and probably unaware of exactly where their enemy lay in wait or traversed the ground.

Silently, Cherghuliev apologized sincerely for comments both drunken and sober he might have made regarding the practical utility of the RAM material tortoise shells that regulation demanded be affixed to the Cavaliers' hulls. The insubstantial paneling, for all of its flimsy feel and the laughable appearance it gave the tank when fully applied was now clearly paying off.

Cherghuliev could only assume with all of the enemy vessels in low-Earth-orbit, that at least one warship commander and a reinforced company of Zentraedi warriors was beginning to sweat at the fact that an enemy was known to be on the prowl, but could not for their collective best efforts be found.

Cherghuliev was not foolish enough to believe however that any apprehension or confusion felt by the Zentraedi would cause them to shy away from an engagement. Similar to his own Russian predilection, Zentraedi were not swayed easily from joining a fight when one was likely.

Knowing that a fight was brewing, Cherghuliev was in the process of making certain that the first blow landed by his platoon would be a devastating one.

By simply placing the cue at the center of his vision on the desired Regult-representing icon and thumbing the "DESIGNATE" button on his commander's yoke, Cherghuliev told his gunner without a word which target he was to engage first.

While the tank commander had the ability to "slave" the turret and main gun to his will, Cherghuliev preferred to trust the training and experience of his gunner, Yurmayev, to train-in and level the Cavalier's 140mm rail-accelerated main gun, and of course to select the correct round for any target.

"Load HEAP!", Yurmayev called over his shoulder.

The gunner could identify the desired round type for the loader by the touch of a toggle switch on his control yoke, but with only the electric drone of the tank's multiple drive wheels, a verbal exchange was as quicker and more efficient.

Cherghuliev heard the flash door to the ammunition compartment slide open and the grating of metal on metal as the round slid out into Avtukhov's waiting hands. A moment later, the High Explosive Armor Piercing "HEAP" round (formerly HEAT whose "AT" for "Anti-Tank" was dropped when an unspoken agreement that the rounds' targets were no longer exclusively "tanks" swept the community) found its way into the gun breech, which then closed with a heavy, metallic click.

"Tube hot!", Avtukhov called as he pressed himself into the starboard side of the turret and tapped the gunner's helmet to signal that he was clear of the recoil action of the gun.

Even though the main gun used magnetic rails rather than chemical propellants to send the round down the barrel's smooth bore length, the Newtonian forces involved in accelerating a 12.2Kg projectile from 0 to 3,100 meters-per-second velocity still applied. The gun breech and roughly a meter of the 5-meter main gun's overall length would recoil back into the turret almost to the ammunition storage compartment, and with the weight two civilian luxury sedans riding with it, the gun's inertia would easily crush anything composed of flesh and bone in its path.

It took Captain Cherghuliev seconds to assign Regults in the advancing Zentraedi line to tanks in his platoon- not even all of the tanks in his platoon. The aliens were still moving in a formation of maximum breadth, seriously reducing their density and ability to carry the fight forward once joined.

To Cherghuliev, the phrase, "wall of tissue paper" came to mind as he predicted without the sin of overconfidence how easily his tanks would move through the Regults.

While the exact action and maneuvers of his tanks could not be directed before the initial melee ensured, Cherghuliev already had a general vision in mind. Going against the conventional wisdom of dividing his own forces, he would split his platoon equally veering south himself with one division while sending the other north to cut into the exposed flanks of the advancing line that they would bisect.

By necessity, if self-preservation was not an instinct trained out of these Zentraedi, their line would have to collapse in on the attack from the center- at least in part- to meet Cherghuliev's tanks.

By the time the second act of violence had begun to play out, additional tank platoons from the 5th Guards that were lagging behind Cherghuliev's line to the north and south would be able to join the action.

Cherghuliev's only concern was the variant Zentraedi power armor he'd seen earlier that day.

They were nowhere to be seen, and he doubted with confidence that they had simply left the field in the middle of the hunt.

Cherghuliev felt with dreadful certainty that they would appear again- and soon.

Sub-Lieutenant Drifk felt his stomach rise high and into his lungs as the slope of yet another of this alien landscape's never-ending hills dropped away from beneath the feet of his Regult.

At just less than a full advance, his squad was keeping pace with the other Regults of the search line to his north and south, and collectively they were devouring the distance.

Distance to what, and how much distance there was left to be traversed were both unknowns- but they were making good time toward the answers.

Drifk was advancing blind, and this was a point of some unease to the sub-officer.

His Regult's sensors were functioning perfectly, as were those of the destroyer that was now approaching the apex of its passage in orbit overhead- but they were showing nothing indicative of anything but ice and snow ahead-a report Drifk knew to be false.

There was a threat somewhere out there.

Four Gnerls destroyed without having fired a single shot in was proof- but where exactly the threat was to be found or the form that would take was not yet known.

Direct contact would illuminate the mystery- and the practice was not unheard of.

Norghil in particular were relegated to this approach when forcing an action by Invid who were known to burrow into a landscape- even in great numbers- in hope and anticipation of an ambush.

Invid, however, were not brilliant tacticians at the individual level where the creatures piloting scout and trooper class mecha were concerned. An ambush laid for a Zentraedi division could as easily be tripped by a squad of probing Regults whose very presence would arouse the same hostile instincts in the primitive Invid mind as the prey for which they were lying in wait.

These micronians- these humans- though, were showing themselves to be much more calculating and far less given to abandoning discipline to the passions of battle. Drifk sensed this, though he had not yet seen a human, or faced one in combat- but they had demonstrated cunning already.

Had this world been occupied by Invid, Drifk had no doubt that the initial assault by the 7th Grand Army would still be ongoing and the opposition both stiffer and more costly for both sides.

The humans though had all but walked away from their home.

This was not cowardice, Drifk knew- not dismissing it as such as some novice Te'Dak Tohl or Norghil might. The humans charged with defending this world were choosing their time to fight.

-As were the humans on this open plain.

And in both instances, this made the humans dangerous.

Drifk's Regult lost little momentum in its long, ostrich-like strides as it ascended the slighter grade of next snow-blanketed hill. As the sensor eye and forward sensor panel came over the crest, Drifk within the snug fit of the mecha's cockpit was presented with a flicker on the viewscreen- a flutter that endured long enough to be recognizable as a target indicator before it was gone.

Drifk's experienced eyes had locked onto that portion of the screen in the span of the occurrence and noticed what he might have otherwise missed. A shape- an irregular, angular shape in the smooth roll of the land at the top of a hill not dissimilar from the summit he was crossing. A spray of snow from its leading edge showed that it was not just a random land form or accumulation of powder, but also that it was in motion.

Micronians.

A flicker that to the naked eye would have been negligible lit up the landscape around the object with the visual aide of the Regult's light-amplification optics system.

An M-910A HEAP round ripped through the frigid, Ukrainian night air traveling the 3.300 meters between the Cavalier tank that had fired it and the Regult that was its target in just over a second.

The driving rings that had engaged the Cavalier's 140mm main gun's magnetic accelerator rails and that were part of the projectile casing had separated and spun free of the round a short distance downrange from the tank leaving only the killing elements of the round to make the entire journey. A short, switch proboscis capped the round's main charge that looked oddly like an American football, only with the addition of a tail boom and fin assembly that kept the projectile in a perfect spin and on the course calculated by the Cavalier's fire control computer.

Had the M-910A simply been a kinetic energy round, the sheer velocity at which it had been thrown downrange would have been enough to pierce the modest frontal armor of the Regult- but it had been designed to defeat thicker-skinned adversaries in a more ingenious way.

A nanosecond after the round's switch spike struck the Regult low and right of the sensor eye, the main charge encasing the aluminum cone that formed the front of the "football" fired, collapsing the cone and redirecting the force of the explosion forward by way of the parabolic dish that formed the main charge's rear half.

Under enormous pressure the solid aluminum finger acted physically as a fluid, the collapsed cone pressed through the surface tension of the Regult's terilium hull leaving an entry hole slightly smaller than a man's fist.

Inside the Regult, the effects were far more ghastly.

The back face of the thin terilium armor exploded inward as super-heated spall, obliterating the pilot's control console and sublimating flesh and bone not shielded by body armor as the temperature in the cockpit instantaneously soared above that of the most powerful industrial blast furnaces.

The surge of internal heat and pressure caused the Regult to split at the reinforced welded seams and blew the access hatch cleanly off of its hinges and multi-point locking frame allowing a fireball to rise lazily skyward.

"Target destroyed!", Cherghuliev announced as the cloud of flame from the toppling Regult wreckage was consumed ravenously in its churning ascension by the bitterly cold night.

Yelps of elation came from the other three men of the captain's crew as young men celebrated an act whose full implications they intentionally avoided. Cherghuliev was in step with them though, not dwelling on thoughts of the living being that had been in the mecha that had just been destroyed.

Instead, and as much by training as by any desire to avoid thoughts of the gristly deed just committed, Cherghuliev scanned the horizon- first due west, then panning south- in search of a next unfortunate target.

There were none to be had within immediate gun range of Cherghuliev's Cavalier.

The center of the Zentraedi line had been swept away like sand sculptures before an incoming tide, and true to the captain's prediction to self the extreme ends of the line to north and south were beginning to turn to the middle.

Cherghuliev was unconcerned by this, judging the remaining Regults being tracked and reported by the orbiting UAVs to be no contest for his yet-unscathed tanks.

Cherghuliev's concerns were elsewhere, and steeping concerns they were.

Where were the unfamiliar power armor suits and their warriors?- A breed that if like Quadranos the way the suits were like the Queadlunn-Rau could be trusted to be of a more highly trained and aggressive nature.

Cherghuliev sent to his subordinate tank commanders by his console the order for a hook maneuver that would swing the unit into a sweeping turn south while reconfiguring into a wedge formation. The staggered line of Cavaliers to his south would almost certainly engage and obliterate toe remaining Regults first- hitting them on their flank as they turned north to meet the threat that they were aware of.

Normally Cherghuliev would have been concentrating by now on optimizing his platoon's role in the fight south that was destined to be fought and decided by another unit of the 5th Guards that was less than a minute out from being in position to attack. His mind was not in that fight though.

Cherghuliev found himself dwelling on the location of the Zentraedi power armor and the rising suspicion he had of where they might appear next.

He would support the platoon to his south as it sprung on the now northbound Regults, but in anticipation of the first moment in which he was no longer obligated to that support role, Cherghuliev had entered with only the need to send the order to his tanks to turn west in the direction of the Synchro Cannon.

A victory too easily won, Cherghuliev reminded himself as the southern 5th Guard units began to engage, had to be judged with a healthy portion of skepticism.

After all, the antithesis of victory was not always defeat.

Sometimes the antithesis was sacrifice.

Sacrifices were made for a greater gain.

Action Commander Kevtok listened with governed outrage to the deaths of Te'Dak Tohl Warriors.

Individually or in groups of rapid succession that overlapped, the chatter of the operational frequency would be torn through by the electronic wail of a Regult's communication system malfunctioning in its last second as it was destroyed. A wavering, shrill tone would ascend over all else, driving with a steely point deep into the ear before dropping away into a growl and then terminal hiss.

The scream of the Warrior was seldom heard, or if heard then only for the briefest of instants before their communications gear faltered to the incalculable forces of intentional violence.

But the mind had a way of filling the gaps, Kevtok found. He was sure that he was not the only Warrior who had heard a comrade's death shriek in that of a communications device, where of course there was none. One was forced to remind one's self of that repeatedly.

Oddly- cruelly to those chosen by Fate to hear- that trick of one part of the mind on the other never completely vacated the active subconscious. It even manifested itself in situations outside of combat- the screech of equipment being dragged over a metal deck- and all the same, one's nerves were on edge and electrified.

Like a strangle-hold on that part of the mind that bonded Warriors to one another and allowed them to imperil self in a comrade's aide or defense- this horrid illusion never completely let go.

At best, it was bound and held in its place.

Kevtok governed the outrage of this indignity and his reaction because the Regult assault company was in conduct of its orders- to draw out, fix, and engage enemy units- and Fate was determining the outcome as it did with every Warrior.

It had been Kevtok's order that had sent them into collision with the enemy, but still it was Fate's judgment.

Fate's judgment was showing itself to be swift and heavy, but as Kevtok had calculated- it was yielding benefit.

A large number of the aliens had been drawn off from the anti-warship weapon in an effort to defend it.

Kevtok could not be certain as to how many, because their returns on sensor sweeps from support ships above and by the Regults at ground level had been negligible at best and far too fleeting to be of analytical use. By the speed at which the Regults had fallen though, a one-for-one approximation was reasonable to assume- and by that assumption it was a substantial enemy force.

The other intended benefit of sending Regults into contact with the alien weapon's defenders had unfortunately been rendered moot. By contact, Kevtok had hoped to reduce the area that he and his Serhot Ran would be forced to search for their primary mission objective, or with luck fix on it with direct contact.

As though Fate was offering compensation for the lives of Warriors lost to the endeavor, the circumstances of the search for the enemy weapon had changed.

Kevtok knew exactly where the weapon was.

His Serhot Ran Warriors were visually tracking it- along with a number of defenders who were stubbornly not detaching to answer the provocation to battle that Kevtok had hoped his Regults would provide.

The enemy anti-warship weapon which Kevtok too was seeing clearly was not dissimilar in size, shape, and design from Tirolian systems he had seen and had been charged with destroying in the not-so-distant past. The weapon, like its Tirolian counterpart, appeared to move on a levitating platform and probably with the ability to do so more swiftly than it was presently.

Unlike the Tirolian weapon, the indigenous vehicle was clad in what appeared to be multiple, interlocking panels that Kevtok took to be the countermeasure that had prevented its easy detection.

The assumption was reasonable as the awkward, "crawling" armored vehicles that Kevtok had seen on the hotter continent and that went by the heavy, and appropriate-sounding micronian word tank were encased in the same type of panels and draping. Even the Regults, which clearly had been adopted and modified by the micronians and whose representation was keeping pace on the flanks of the anti-warship weapon were clad in the same sensor-defeating augmentation.

Together they skulked away from the dwindling fight to the west, cautious but confident in their false security that they moved in stealth.

Kevtok quelled his contempt for the micronians in their underestimation of his Serhot Ran. They would learn shortly how inconsequential their countermeasures against detection had been.

Kevtok's contempt for the unquestioning adherence of his own Fleet to situationally outmoded general orders was allowed to range freely.

"-I have priority operational tasking on this mission, Action Commander…", Kevtok growled, feeling his anger completing its shift from the micronians to the commanding officer of the destroyer in orbit above, "-You are endangering that mission! Again, I'm requesting saturation fire on the coordinate grid identified in my last transmission."

A moment passed before the action commander, a female (the most obstinate Warriors were always female for some reason), replied, "-And again, Action Commander, overarching operational directives forbid me from complying with your request for heavy weapons fire without approval from at least battle group level. I'm seeking that approval. In the meantime, I've fired a full ground assault barrage of tactical missiles with the intercept coordinates adjusted for delay. Those weapons and my entire complement of Gnerls is inbound. I strongly suggest that you not be there when they arrive."

"Understood-.", Kevtok replied, relenting reluctantly. A commanding officer on the bridge of her ship was not going to have her orders questioned or be coerced into reversing an order before her officers and crew.

Kevtok did understand- far better than this Action Commander Iyos who had likely never muddied her boots on an alien world, much less fought on one.

He understood that regardless of the benefit to the campaign that could be achieved in a minor breech of general orders, that the appearance of authority and the preservation of order and discipline was paramount. –To those who were not carrying the weight of the operation.

Kevtok also understood that he had requested such an assignment as this, and that it had been given to him and to his Warriors because Serhot Ran adapted, and always found a way.

It was time to demonstrate this quality.

"Repeat your last transmission, please, Lord-.", Point Lieutenant Moyrt requested over the mission's command frequency.

Kevtok's message had come through clearly- perfectly even, down to the rasp of the commanding officer's breath on the audio pick-ups in his suit.

Moyrt just had to hear it again though- to be sure.

"You heard me, Point Lieutenant.", Kevtok replied with a tone that spoke of determination, and dire consequences for those who questioned or interfered with him.

"Moyrt, Klift, and S'Rhod- you will move your units on the enemy's northern and southern flanks, drawing out the defenders from the center. Hyra will linger with her unit in the rear until my signal and then rally on me at the center on the main target by vertical approach. Make a convincing display of the assault on the flanks. –Execute, now."

Moyrt accepted the second issuance of the order without question or protest- the very act of asking an order clearly transmitted to be repeated was borderline insubordinate in standard Te'Dak Tohl units and near inexcusable for Serhot Ran.

Moyrt understood that he had pushed his luck already and was unwilling to see how far Kevtok's favor extended.

"He was serious, I think-.", Point Lieutenant Hyra said to Moyrt over the coded frequency that they had selected and kept for themselves in this operation- an unsanctioned practice that had served them well.

"Is he ever not?", Moyrt replied, feeling the adrenaline begin to flow as it only did when impending mortal danger loomed.

The potential of action- intense and without quarter- had never been in question both point lieutenants knew. But despite the honed and exercised skill of his Serhot Ran in battle, Action Commander Kevtok always pursued the best option to achieve mission success- even if less glorious.

He also prudently planned for alternative options.

In best keeping to this practice as the circumstances allowed, Kevtok had detached his Regult force early on in an effort to flush and drive the enemy. This having been accomplished, the Regults were now being used to draw off as many of the enemy as they could from defense of the anti-warship weapon. This was to prepare for the possibility that the smaller number of Serhot Ran might have to engage the target directly.

The Serhot Ran had come across the micronian weapon shortly after nightfall and without being detected themselves in the process. Since that time, they had formed two columns of generous intervals between Warriors, shadowing the enemy on his flanks to the north and the south.

The open ground of the steppe by daylight had favored the defenders.

By night though, and as the enemy crossed into terrain that had grown more irregular- the benefit shifted to the hunters.

The micronians had willingly sought out this country, implying their desire in doing so to use it to further assure their false sense of concealment. They showed no indication of the slightest thought that they were being stalked and that the Serhot Ran units assigned to destroy them were slowly closing ranks and the range to striking distance.

Direct assault was the contingency that was being well planned and prepared for.

Per Kevtok's request to the destroyer commander, direct assault on the target had not been the preferred plan- though it was appearing that it would be the plan that would be executed.

"-Just move on them quick and keep the pressure on.", Hyra advised, playing out the next few minutes in her head as though she would be carrying the fight, "Throw everything you have into it- we're not here for long."

"I've done this before, Hyra-.", Moyrt assured her, hearing more of an edgy growl to his voice than he had intended- but knew why.

His tension was coming out for the same reason as Hyra's need to mentally fight the assault for him. With Hyra's unit lingering in the rear to deliver the second blow in Kevtok's revised plan, Moyrt's unit would be attacking the enemy's southern flank with half the strength as the Serhot Ran platoons striking from the north.

If the micronians realized this, or if the action was not executed with shocking speed- they could easily turn in his direction putting him in the path of a panicked and fleeing enemy.

Hyra's Nacht-Rau thumped a fist against Moyrt's shoulder in as assuring a manner as could be transmitted through the separation of two machines.

"Just make sure you're in a condition to do it again, after-."

Point Lieutenant Moyrt did not respond to Hyra and her mandate whose grim alternative was something he'd grown skilled at keeping out of mind in a fight. Thought was not a hindrance in combat- but it had to be directed thought.

"Pair up!", Moyrt ordered to his Warriors who were doubtlessly feeling some of the same reservations as he, "Fast ground-assault line formation, self-covering!.. The Fleet brought plenty of missiles for this campaign, so don't be afraid to use what you have. Sub-Lieutenant Kahl, you're with me!"

Hyra watched as Moyrt and Kahl joined in a loose pair and broke into an immediate sprint north, their Nacht-Rau combat suits quickly accelerating to a full run in just a few paces that carried them away far faster than anything of such mass seemed capable of.

Vaulting the summit of the hill that had been concealing them with Hyra and her unit, Moyrt and his vanished into the night.

Hyra felt a twinge in her spine as Moyrt's platoon disappeared from sight, not completely different from the concern she had for any of her own warriors- but still somehow very pointed.

She stowed it quickly though.

Her own unit would need her focused and on task, and would need her that way very soon.

Battle was a purifying process.

-Of this, Kevtok was certain.

It was one of the few redeeming qualities that it had.

All things that were not essential fell away.

All actions that were not refined or perfected failed.

All things relevant became clear, and all things inconsequential faded into invisibility.

Battle was refinement.

From his position, airborne well above the battle, things had become clear.

What had been a featureless plain of uniform dark was now radiant with visible light and infra-red luminosity. Invisible to the eye but nearly sensible in its intensity, EM energy surged across a broad swath of the band as sensors began to pulse on both sides in a desperate search for and acquisition of targets.

From hunters and defenders the same the zip of particle beam and plasma energy bolts swept broadly in long bursts and then zeroed in on specific targets. Rocket motors punctuated the exchange of energy and solid-state rounds with their slower progression to targets, terminating in stunning high-explosive flashes.

In these dazzling moments of fierce collision and blood-letting, battle also revealed itself to be a source of temptation.

Action Commander Kevtok, from his position aloft felt that temptation to simply dive in to the thickest enemy concentration and test his standing with Fate.

Discipline held firm though, and discipline demanded that Kevtok direct his outlet of violence more judiciously than his lower-ranking Warriors – and for their benefit.

He had known it was about all day, having detected the intermittent sweep of microwave energy it projected from high above. Kevtok had even gotten a brief glimpse from great distance, making out a manufactured form against the backdrop of clouds before it had slipped into concealment within them.

He had been certain that the pilotless winged sentry, or perhaps several, were about as he had seen them used by the micronians many times on a distant continent with a vastly different climate.

Geographical location not being a factor, their function as an observation platform was the same and the drone was the eyes of the micronian commander.

Blinding the eyes would give Kevtok advantage.

As soon as his Serhot Ran had been positioned for the attack and with the benefit of darkness to conceal his ascent- Kevtok had taken his personal support and guard aloft to find the drone which he knew would not stray far from the alien gun platform.

The search had not been easy without benefit of his suit's sensors, kept off-line by necessity for the essential preservation of surprise. But Fate was in a favorable mood and had granted the Serhot Ran a turn of chance.

At a distance, it had been unremarkable in appearance- a thin, tube-like body with disproportionately long yet slender wings and a whirling, bladed propulsion system to drive it. Equally simple and single-minded in purpose, it ran a quickly predictable orbit that shifted progressively east as the micronian force it spied for traveled beneath the sweep of its gaze.

Above, however- the alien sentry was oblivious to all activity.

-As the micronian commander was about to be.

Preoccupied with a machine's single-mindedness, the drone turned on a leg of its patrol circuit very near to where Kevtok expected that it would. The change of direction from east to north was drastic, but not an evasive maneuver and far from being difficult to shadow by any of the Serhot Ran officers in their combat suit.

Matching the crewless craft's speed and heading without difficulty, Kevtok at the same time was drawing down careful aim with his Nador rifle. Unworthy of a missile to dispatch it, the sentry was barely worthy of a plasma bolt from the Nador's limitless supply- but it was expedient.

The single destabilized energy round illuminated the wisps of cloud it passed through with a fiery orange aura before it passed through the UAV's insubstantial carbon fiber body at the wing junction. Even without detonating as would have resulted from the bolt striking something of greater density, the energy bold was still more than sufficient to cause a catastrophic failure in the airframe that nose from tail and left wing from right.

The developing battle beneath Action Commander Kevtok had intensified in the span of seconds it had taken to intercept and destroy the aliens' surveillance drone. He could see by the flash of their energy weapons and the flare of their missile launches the positions of his Warriors closing on the enemy flanks from the north and the south.

Outnumbered heavily, it was still a sight that caused Kevtok to swell as his Warriors held the initiative stubbornly and pressed the attack on micronian defenders who by their lack of cohesion in response were showing themselves as shaken.

"Wedge assault formation, on me!", Kevtok ordered to his officers and guard around him, "Hyra, bring yours in from above to exploit what I open!.."

Before the order was completely given to his detachment, Kevtok dipped his Nacht-Rau's left shoulder into a steep dive and hurled himself earthward.

Major Matvei Grishin of the 221st Light Mecha Assault, 5th Guards was aware that despite extensive redesign and substantial enhancement, the RDF's MBP-1 still had many of the weaknesses of its non-terrestrial relative and forerunner, the Regult Combat (or Battle as it had been sloppily translated into human tongues) Pod.

Operationally it was well suited to a battlespace like the steppe of Ukraine- open and unrestrictive. In this environment, the Regult and the MBP-1 were both able to exploit their best performance characteristic- sustained rapid and agile movement and maneuver.

Deployed in great numbers, as was enjoyed in ideal conditions by the Zentraedi and their Regults, or with coordinated artillery and air support as was the operational standard for the human crews of the MBP-1- the swift mecha was devastating in much the same way that cavalry of old had been for centuries.

What neither the Regult nor the MBP-1 excelled at was static defense, or slow-moving defense. The attachment of the 5th Guards, and by extension the 221st to the 301st Planetary Defense Battery and its centerpiece the Synchro Cannon platform was a millstone that the MBP-1s were forced to carry.

Defense was possible, but best provided in an offensive manner- allowing the light mecha assault units to seek out, to hunt potential threats in an area. The 221st had not been granted permission to detach and hunt under the heavy and correct concern that any contact with the enemy would be further used to fix the position of the Synchro Cannon.

It was gambled that stealth and evasive navigation was the most prudent method to slip the enemy's noose.

Conceptually correct, reality had unfolded quite differently as it often did.

Major Grishin was living that harrowing reality now of fighting a collapsing defense against many enemies- all apparently toting the armament for a standing fight and with the determination, and skill to use them.

The Zentraedi unit of modified Queadlunn-Rau power armor had risen up- no, exploded into the open to the south in a mad charge against the flank that Grishin and his unit were tasked to defend.

A fusillade of short range missiles had streaked out before them, triggering automatically the active ECM systems of the MBP-1s that were designed to defeat just such an attack. The missiles however were by the majority set to reach a position and detonate.

Grishin's MBP-1s had only sustained minor and coincidental damage as Zentraedi missiles threw up plumes of plasma napalm fire and thick, expanding clouds of smoke before them and in their midst. Thick snowfall further obscured visual contact with the enemy as the snow and ice turned instantly into super-heated steam by the enemy's plasma napalm rose a short distance and was crystalized again into fine ice particles that sank to earth in dense clouds.

This was a distraction though, Grishin knew- the cloak thrown up by the enemy to move behind with the dagger.

With the momentary shock that was natural, it was an effective distraction in the classic and literal "smoke screen" sense.

Without hesitation or relent, the Zentraedi charged in at amazing speed in a ground attack- moving by pairs and under effective fire from the noticeably non-standard energy rifles that they carried.

Seeing their advance from the "God's eye" view provided by limited InfoLink, Grishin was reminded in their assault of exercises he had seen performed by legacy Spetsialnogo Naznacheniya, "SPETZNAZ" units. –Fierce, threatening, and lightning paced to throw an enemy on its heels and exploit their confusion.

And also like SPETSNAZ, there was something far more substantial and lethal to their assault than theatricality.

The MBP-1 to Grishin's far right went down heavily as a burst of energy rounds savaged its frontal armor with an effect he might have expected from solid-state armor piercing rounds. A low round from the same burst caught the mecha high on its reinforced left leg, not severing it but inflicting enough damage to cause it to crumple beneath the mecha's weight and sending it to the ground.

Grishin could hear the mecha commander's report that he was down- he and his crew spared by the additional protection offered by the MBP-1's armored crew compartment.

Alive or not though, they were out of the fight in any meaningful way.

An energy round of the same type grazed Grishin's mecha along the more thinly armored right flank- surprisingly shaking the mecha more like the detonation of a missile than an impact from an energy round.

This brought Grishin's mind squarely back into the action.

"Engage with Hellfire!..", Grishin barked, feeling sweat flick off of his upper lip despite the cabin temperature being not significantly higher than freezing.

With the commander's designating reticule placed on the center mass of the Zentraedi power armor that had just taken down the other MBP-1, the Weapons System Operator, Toporkov, had only to select a weapon from the available inventory, enable, and fire.

Grishin watched with hope for the first two seconds of the missile's transit downrange toward target. As other commanders had reported in the short span of battle, the missile track seemed good and true, but the weapon then veered sharply left and plowed without detonating into the snowy terrain.

One weapon, Grishin knew, could have been an unlikely system malfunction in the Hellfire. Several was indicative of effective countermeasure.

Much as Grishin's own MBP-1 had automatically employed its focused-energy active countermeasure system to deflect the track of four missiles in the opening moments of the attack, these Zentraedi combat suits clearly had a similar device with the same purpose.

This was to be a gun duel it seemed.

Grishin was thrown roughly in the restraining harnesses of his seat, above and behind the side-to-side seats and stations of the driver and WSO. His hand was half way to the "zero-zero" ejection seat handle that would have blown the top free of the mecha and fired his crew out in a spine-crushing ascent to hypothetical safety before the company commander realized that the blow had come from the destruction of the MBP-1 positioned to his left, and not a hit on his mecha itself.

Which crew of his unit, all of whom Grishin knew well enough to have been able to have called them acquaintances had the issues of rank not been a factor, had just died- Grishin could not say. Unit-level InfoLink supported through the surveillance UAV was gone now- having vanished in the blink of the eye and almost certainly not coincidentally in the developing battle.

Communications between all elements of the 5th Guards and the 301st Planetary Defense Battery still functioned, but much of the information sharing, the "God's eye" perspective of the battlefield, and the enhanced C2 abilities it allowed were now gone.

With the MFD that had been feeding him the InfoLink Common Operational Picture now dark, Grishin felt an unease that was not just the fear common to battle. Grishin felt a solidifying dread that the enemy knew far more about the fine points of how he and the RDF operated on a tactical level than they should have, and that they were showing themselves adept at stripping away the advantages he'd come to have faith in being there.

Grishin and the 5th Guards were far from crippled- but were feeling the effects of being impaired.

If these were not Quadrano warriors- the female elite- then they were something on the same level. –But there were not supposed to be equivalents to Quadranos, nor were there supposed to be variants of Zentraedi power armor or mecha.

This was fact known through the experiences of The Robotech War- the first one, and by the intelligence gathered from the interrogation of thousands of Zentraedi- hostile and indoctrinated, male and female, warrior grade and officer up to even Breetai himself.

But the reality was not adhering to "the facts".

What other foundational assumptions were false?

As a Russian, Grishin had some experience by heritage in alliances that were not as material or binding as they seemed. Was this a betrayal by so-called, indoctrinated Zentraedi? -Not a second Robotech War, but a delayed second offensive by the enemy in the first?

"Go to guns!", Grishin ordered over his platoon's command frequency, "All mecha go to guns!"

Having seen several more sophisticated anti-armor missiles fail to find their mark on increasingly proximal targets, the major was no longer thinking in the "single shot and kill" mindset, but grappling with the possibility that his still numerically superior force might only be able to slow the enemy's advance.

The order having been given, Grishin knew, would not need to be elaborated upon it. His WSOs knew that while powerful like those of the original Regult, the MBP-1s high-intensity particle beam cannons were known to only be modestly effective against the substantial armor protection of both known forms of Zentraedi combat suits. Gunners knew to aim for legs, arms, and even the missile compartments where a hit or successive number of hits might disable the enemy- taking him or her out of the fight.

The 221st could only hope that the same held true for these Zentraedi and their power armor.

A full two second burst from Grishin's own guns saturated the center mass of a combat suit that turned its lethal attention from an MBP-1 it had just torn down by fire from its energy rifle onto the major's mecha. A dazzling spray of sparks from where terilium alloy was shredded by hyper-accelerated energy particles lit the night- but it was only when the synchronized streams traversed high to penetrate and set off the missile launcher above the left shoulder that the suit and its warrior inside went down.

The major's mind went back almost two full days now to the scramble to deploy the 301st Planetary Defense Battery and its 5th Guards defense units, and to the arming of the MBP-1s. Grishin cursed the recommendation of the intelligence officer and his acceptance of that recommendation to arm heavily with guided ordinance, as opposed to the readily available unguided Hydra rockets.

At the slugging range the enemy had successfully closed to now, the unsophisticated armor-piercing rockets would have been nearly impossible for the Zentraedi power armor to evade, and would have been far more effective than the particle beam cannons of the MBP-1s.

Grishin could only comfort himself slightly with the knowledge that the choice in ordinance had been made with the intent of engaging the enemy as far away as possible- at the proverbial "arm's length".

One could not second-guess decisions that were made based on the experience of repeated simulation and exercise, and founded in the information available. –Though one had to recognize that the foundation of the wrong choice would have no bearing on its outcome.

The powdery snow displaced by the fall of the Zentraedi power armor had not settled again before the machine, its pilot apparently only mildly stunned, began to show signs of righting itself and getting back to its feet. As in humans, adrenaline allowed Zentraedi to shrug off shock and pain so long as their machines protected frail mortality.

Major Grishin was peripherally aware that the fall of the combat suit was likely only to be temporary, his attention like that of his WSO having shifted to the second suit in the fire team pair. Possibly focused on another MBP-1 at the moment Grishin and its counterpart had engaged, the second suit was now no longer distracted.

Protective doors to missile launchers snapped open at both exaggerated shoulders and on the suit's chest, exposing loaded tubes like the gaping mouths of a hundred vipers. The power armor was then enveloped in a shroud of thin smoke created as a large portion of the "ready" load it carried was released in a single, mass volley.

Grishin watched return fire of particle beam bolts zip in from multiple angles as the defending line of MBP-1s responded, but there was no ignoring the squeal of a warning tone that told the occupants of the mecha that the ECM system was overwhelmed.

Grishin braced.

A powerfully violent jolt lifted Grishin in his padded and shock-absorbing seat with the subtlety of an iron boot to the ass and with a similar sensation. Stunned and numbed as he was by the blow though, Grishin could feel his mecha settle heavily on its left leg and then begin to topple right for lack of support.

Strangely, Grishin was seized by a cold panic of the fall far more strongly than he had been by fear of the missiles a moment before.

The major's external video feeds returned from electronic hash a fraction of a second before the MBP-1 crashed to a rest on its right side- showing the world at a tilted angle. The humanoid forms of Zentraedi power armor were filling his field of view, no longer moving by pairs but in a rush under the cover of their own fire.

The mechanized battle was in the final stages of collapsing into a close-quarters brawl that Grishin would be incapable of participating in.

Over the siren-song of shocked eardrums, the major yelled his order to the two men of his crew to abandon the felled MBP-1. With the power still flowing, amazingly, and the red internal illumination still strong, Grishin easily found the handle for the hatch that would normally have been above him and pulled it for the reward of a blast of frigid air.

Point Lieutenant Moyrt witnessed the fall of the micronian Regult Combat Pod before the thin smoke veil left by the firing of half of his ready-use missiles had cleared completely. The micronian variant of the most common of Zentraedi mecha was revealing impressive enhancements in the areas of electronic countermeasures that neither the norghil nor even the Te'Dak Tohl warrior grades could have hoped for- but they were not insurmountable. And once past the electronic shield provided by those countermeasures, the micronian variants demonstrated the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities as the Zentraedi Regults.

As Moyrt swept his immediate engagement area over the barrel of his Nador rifle for both threat and new target opportunity, he caught a glimpse through infra-red augmentation of the micronian crew of the felled alien Regult scrambling franticly into the night. The platoon leader was indifferent to the micronians' escape as the novelty of killing their kind had worn through long ago and many skirmishes before, there was no need to invest energy in doing what the extreme climate of this land would do for him.

Sweeping right to where his Nacht-Rau's combat computer was telling him enemy mecha were to be found, Moyrt's last glimpse of the fleeing micronians was to see a short burst of fire from the Nador of another anonymous member of his platoon stitch and crater the ground beneath and around them. Familiar living forms were thrown by the explosion of destabilized plasma rounds, burning brilliantly in the infra-red infusion of Moyrt's video system before scattering across the snow in unrecognizable pieces and segments.

Moyrt let it go with only minor and fleeting irritation. An unspoken rule of engagement of the Serhot Ran was never to kill all of an enemy force- with the clear exception of Invid. The slaughtered could not convey the horrors of their experiences with their comrades, and could not by doing so project the psychological element of the Serhot Ran that benefitted them as much in combat as any exercised skill or tactic.

There were countless micronians around this wretched world who were learning the lesson of what it meant to challenge or resist the Te'Dak Tohl. Those who survived would lend testimony to the credibility of the tales told by their seditious norghil allies whose worst fears were certainly appearing to manifest around them.

Moyrt's targeting reticule drifted over the form of a second micronian Regult and centered on its center mass- an aiming point that training and experience made the point lieutenant seek almost instinctively..

Three short bursts from Moyrt's Nador tattered and tore away the frontal armor before chewing deep into the mechanical and systemic inner-workings of the mecha, compromising something vital and volatile. Sheets of flame surged from breeches and breaks through the micronian Regult in the instant before it was blown apart at those points.

From the wreckage that tumbled to a rest all around the spot where the mecha had stood, only a single micronian form could be seen escaping the reinforced cockpit and scuttling away on all fours like an Invid at first in retreat from the battle.

Retreat- and moreover defeat is what Moyrt now sensed in his enemy.

It had probably been coming on slowly, like stress fractures in fatiguing metal- but like fatiguing metal it had only become evident when it had reached failing point.

The enemy's cohesion was faltering as quickly as their ability to resist.

Moyrt had destroyed his last target as it had been withdrawing at a measured, reverse-step. It had been withdrawing in this manner to cover the retreat of others with its guns and had simply fallen a second short of seeing Moyrt before he had spotted it.

The crucial fact was that few of the remaining micronian mecha were withdrawing in this manner- most were in flight from the field as quickly as their mechanical legs would carry them in the same fashion that the micronians who had been reduced to escape by foot fled.

Moyrt had grown accustomed to micronians and how they fought- familiar enough to see a pattern common to their fragile species.

Bolstered by their admittedly impressive technology, they would begin the fight courageous and strong. Blows would be traded and if the fight could be made to last long enough for the micronians to experience the loss of some of their warriors and to see the supply of ammunition and ordinance for the survivors dwindle-. Then cracks began to form in their warrior's spirit.

Once seen, cracks could be exploited and the doubts would cascade into collapse.

Unfortunately, Moyrt also had come to recognize that unlike some norghil and a number of other alien species, the micronians could also be expected to resume the fight when the odds and conditions suited them.

Even having suffered a defeat and even after having been forced to shamefully flee a fight, there was a resilience in them that was both admirable and disquieting- and that required crushing utterly.

"Area clear!"

The call was repeated throughout the squads and assault teams of Moyrt's platoon as enemy mecha either fell within or retreated hastily from their spheres of engagement.

"Lord", Sub-Lieutenant Kahl said with moderated enthusiasm, "-Permission to pursue?..."

Moyrt knew the temptation- felt the temptation.

The mission clock was running though with the orbital missile barrage closing ever nearer with each elapsing second.

In the approaching fusillade of missiles, Moyrt did not feel the pressure of escape- but rather the pressure of challenge. Action Commander Kevtok had made a request for an orbital gun bombardment to prevent unnecessary loss of Serhot Ran. When the request had been denied, Kevtok had had no choices but to order his unit in to engage and destroy the objective at ground level.

The warship commander who had elected to reply to Kevtok's initial request for orbital gun fire with the deployment of comparatively slow missiles was in fact- and possibly inadvertently- being more insulting than helpful.

As they were showing to arrive in just under two minutes, the missiles would at best put the final destructive touches on the work that by that time would already have been accomplished by the Serhot Ran.

Insulting.

"Denied.", Moyrt said without hint of the lure he felt to pursue, "Most of them are dead already. Issue orders to the platoon to reassemble and move toward the objective to join with Hyra's and-."

Moyrt had only by chance been looking at his sub-lieutenant when it happened- and only looking at him indirectly.

Turned three-quarters to him as he was, Moyrt saw the puff of ejected ceramic and terilium particles fill the frigid air around Kahl's Nacht-Rau suit, made more visible for an instant in their heat by the fusion of infra-red overlay into Moyrt's video feed.

A squeal of faltering coms-systems – not his own - filled the point lieutenant's ears as Kahl's suit teetered on still structurally sound legs and went down, face-first into the drifting snow.

A thin trail of smoke curled away from a hole that still glowed intensely through infra-red - a tiny hole in the suit's right side just below the arm joint where by necessity the armor was thinner.

Moyrt spun to face west, knowing that Kahl was gone without the need to examine him further. And oddly, in having seen the lethal act committed, Moyrt already knew what had committed it.

Vaulting the irregular ripple of hills to the west and moving faster on their strange, belted means of locomotion than it seemed possible for them to move- the squat, angular, micronian armored vehicles came on. Their large, single gun tubes flashed softly with their discharge and their sending of high-velocity rounds through the air.

"Engage!", Cherghuliev barked.

By now the rush of combat with its electric charge of fear, anger, and aggression had solidly taken hold of the tank crew and even communication came harshly without conscious intent.

His tank had not been the first to engage in this second contact with the enemy this night, but Cherghuliev knew that he was far enough forward in the line of advance to still have abundant targets to choose from. It was his intent to make the most of these options before other commanders and their keen-eyed gunners had the chance to participate in thinning the enemy's numbers.

Beyond the power armor suit that the captain had just designated as Yurmayev's next target, Cherghuliev could see the flames and heat bloom of the Synchro Cannon burning and scattered all around it was the wreckage and carnage of the light mechanized units through which the Zentraedi had waded to reach it.

Not realistically capable of mounting a prolonged defense against heavy mecha, the MBP-1s had clearly made their best effort and had stood their ground until they had been taken by the inevitable.

In seeing the substantial and increasing damage to the Synchro Cannon platform, Cherghuliev knew instantly that the 5th Guards had already failed in their assignment to defend the critical asset.

That fact made this fight that he and the full tank contingent now pursued not so much about duty, but about revenge.

Revenge, however, was a long-established, Russian value- and Russians had been known to fight passionately for les noble causes.

"Sabot!", Yurmayev ordered to the loader as he adjusted with a perfectionist's air the aim on the main gun- wanting the killing action to be deliberate and a signature of his intent.

As Avtukhov rammed into the breach the 50cm depleted uranium dart, Cherghuliev watched a second Zentraedi power armor follow the first to the ground with only a split-second's interval in between.

It was the onset moment of the killing frenzy which would only intensify as the Zentraedi warriors realized exactly how exposed they were despite their formidable armor suits. At that point they would either have to flee, or charge into the threat that the Cavaliers presented.

There was little doubt which option the enemy would take because like Russians, they were not fond of retreat.

Yurmayev was engrossed with his work as the sabot round was rammed into the tube. He, like the other tank gunners, had seen the effect of the kinetic penetrator round on the Queadlunn-Rau variant and was eager to duplicate the moment before he was robbed of the opportunity by either the enemy's move to counterattack or another gunner's quicker trigger finger. It was an ugly and insatiable gluttony particular to gunners that was not dwelled upon nor discussed at length outside of combat, and never during its commission.

The gun breach snapped shut with a heavy, metal-on-metal clap.

Warrior 2nd Grade Lekhra's Nacht-Rau staggered as though pushed by an invisible force of immense strength, but rather than the legs adjust to reassert a stable footing for the great weight of the combat suit- the form of the power armor seemed to convulse and twitch before toppling rigidly.

As seen penetrating Kahl's suit a moment before, Lekhra's suit now also showed a smoking hole along the suit's centerline just above the level of the hip joints. Armor unblemished a moment before showed deep fissures radiating from the entry wound through the fractured terilium and ceramic composite plate.

Not a complete surprise as had been the assault on Kahl, Point Lieutenant Moyrt had heard the metallic thunderclap of the round that had struck and killed Lekhra through his Nacht-Rau's external audio pick-ups.

It had been an insidious sound- malicious and spiteful, smacking of a challenge to reply.

Moyrt had other obligations commanding him and his platoon though, and lacked the time to properly assert and enjoy vengeance.

Before the burden was placed on the point lieutenant to order his Warriors to decline the micronian challenge, he was relieved of the obligation.

"All units withdraw!"

Moyrt heard the order from Action Commander Kevtok as his mind was in the process of finding an argument that would allow him to justify the fight he still wanted with the micronian tanks

"Withdraw and exfiltrate to operational base ship immediately!"

Kevtok's order was specific however, and without any room left for interpretation.

The order was not driven by a lack of commitment to the mission or lack of enthusiasm to see it carried out thoroughly, Moyrt knew. On his sensor display, and also with a quick glance to the southeast he could see the movement of a dense cluster of icons indicating inbound ordinance.

It was the missile attack, and it was now within his suit's sphere of detection.

To not withdraw at this point was as good as doing the enemy's work for him.

It was time to go and to let the missiles do the killing for which they had been fired.

Moyrt half-turned to reaffirm Kevtok's order to withdraw when the most powerful blow he had ever felt struck him at every molecule in his body. More violent than the most solid body blow he had ever taken in a warrior's game of keh, it traveled through Moyrt like electrical current through a conductor as his suit's systems fluttered with an electronic seizure.

The joining flash of stunned and resetting systems and the physical shock that set Moyrt's ears ringing with a piercing pain caused him to think in a nanosecond of odd calm and clarity that he was reliving the last instant experienced by Kahl and Lekhra.

And in a sense, he was.

-But thought persisted beyond the flash of light and the pressure that had seemed to threaten to liquefy the point lieutenant.

Unseen to Moyrt as he in his Nacht-Rau lay flat on their backs, the combat suit's dense frontal armor displayed a spider-web pattern of fractures centered at a deep gouge where a depleted uranium sabot had struck at just the right angle to deflect off of the composite armor rather than penetrate it.

Unaware that a simple matter of a few degrees' angle had saved his life as he was that his platoon had already taken him for dead and were in the process of obeying the order to exfiltrate, the point lieutenant was left with only his most base instincts.

With considerable pain across his whole being, Moyrt righted himself with a tortured groan and a singular thought that did not involve exfiltrating from the field.

Point Lieutenant Hyra felt the great, levitating beast of metal and synthetics buck and convulse in death throws beneath the feet and shock absorbing systems of her Nacht-Rau combat suit.

The deck of the gun platform had already begun to take a noticeable list to its left and had begun to settle aft even before the Serhot Ran officer had leapt with booster assistance to a portion of the vehicle's spine well rear of the midpoint. Now, as internal, secondary explosions caused a violent quaking through the hull beneath her- the magnetic pads of her combat suit's feet were required to maintain purchase on the dying craft.

Flame and debris erupted, geyser-like from the substantial hole that the single round from the destabilized plasma cannon on her suit's left forearm had made through the relatively thin skin of the micronian anti-warship gun. The same escalating chain of internal catastrophes that hemorrhaged fire from the wound she had inflicted were also blowing out panels in the gun platform's skin along its flanks and forcing the micronians who had been posted at stations within unfamiliar to the Serhot Ran to spill out from formerly unseen hatches to tumble a significant distance for creatures so small to the frozen ground below.

Hyra's savagery on the main objective of the unit's mission was being repeated in forms personalized to the warrior inflicting the damage all along the gun platform as Serhot Ran in their combat suits emptied missile launchers and fired their energy weapons to the point of overheating into the micronian weapon- seeking gratification in the results.

Looking forward Hyra could see Action Commander Kevtok's suit, grappling as she was with the anti-warship gun while maintaining a tenuous foothold on the metal surface of the hull that now quaked with the grating of the platform's stern as it now dragged across the field.

The commanding officer was magnificent in her eyes, both directing and participating in the final kill without regard for self as the vehicle continued to disintegrate beneath him.

Until-.

The Nacht-Rau combat suit's threat warning system reasserted itself to Point Lieutenant Hyra, and even her considerable determination to stay at the task at hand was not sufficient cause to ignore it. The machine was advising her of impending destruction for all who did not heed its warning.

"Withdraw!", came Kevtok's order again, clear and as serious as any he had ever given.

The missiles were seconds out now and regardless of what more the Serhot Ran could do to the enemy, they were done – or would share the fate of the enemy whom they had so thoroughly reduced.

Settled snow on the field at all points around Hyra exploded into billows of steam and displaced powder as Nacht-Rau suits fired their boosters to rocket away from the target area as quickly as the engines would carry them. Hyra's fellow elite were experienced enough to know the line between bravery and foolishness as it applied to combat operations. On that level, the point lieutenant was eager stay in their company.

Before egressing skyward, and for no reason in particular, Hyra glanced west.

Unperceivable to her naked eye, and only slightly more distinguishable by the sensitive video system- Hyra was able to see a single Nacht-Rau moving rapidly west rather than ascending.

-She did not require integrated sensor systems or a computer to tell her who it was.

"-They're retreating!..", howled Yurmayev, his normally tenor voice growing shrill with elation as he bellowed his report from behind his gunner's sight.

Cherghuliev was privileged to the same view from his commander's viewer, but not being limited to a single responsibility as the gunner was in combat, the commander had additional information that changed his perspective in seeing the rapid departure of the enemy from the area.

Microwave radar, now fully active in aiding the tank to pinpoint and engage the enemy told Cherghuliev of the multiple objects inbound from the east and moving at high speed.

Scores of them-.

Hundreds.

Cherghuliev knew that by now all of the other tank commanders of his advancing line were seeing the same wave of missiles approaching, and knew that they too were aware of the grave implications.

They would continue to charge though, until he ordered otherwise-.

There was no time nor need to use his commander's console to direct a reversal of course.

"-Retreat!-Retreat!-Retreat!.."

Any fogginess of thought that the blow dealt to him had caused had now lifted fully from Point Lieutenant Moyrt as he closed to within the effective range of his weapons.

Below, the swift yet still lumbering charge of the great metal beasts fielded by the micronians showed a sudden drop in pace and the first indications of turning.

Moyrt, now clear minded, had no delusions that the reversal had anything to do with him or his intent as the enemy was likely not even aware of him slowing into a hover above. To his rear, to the east, the earth began to shake with the arrival and first detonations of missiles.

The leading edge of the wave was first a series of distinct, individual blasts that rapidly doubled, multiplied, and then increased by orders of destructive magnitude until the very environment trembled powerfully with the advancing line of devastation brought on by Zentraedi tactical missiles. The air took on such a vibration that Moyrt was sure his suit would be shaken from it and tumble to the field below.

With the missiles sweeping the area, Moyrt still knew there to be time for just one more shot…

The pounding of Hyra's heart was nearly indistinguishable from the heavy concussions of detonating warheads whose proximity to her seemed to shrink with every blast. She dared not look to her rear or check her sensors as her suit ravenously ate up the distance between herself and Moyrt- she knew the barrage was right at her heels and knowing more would only confirm the stupidity of what she was doing.

Ahead, and in stationary hover- Moyrt's combat suit was drawing down aim on one of the micronian armored vehicles below. His suit auto-trimmed to keep stationary and at the pilot's desired attitude as both the suit's left forearm with its plasma cannon and the right clutching the Nador rifle extended far out from its center of gravity, both tracking the target in unison.

It was a demonstration of malicious intent- an exaggerated execution of an act that Moyrt was fully capable of doing reflexively.

The flash from Moyrt's energy weapons lit the field brilliantly, his plasma cannon's single round striking the rear portion of the armored vehicle's gun turret as smaller rounds of the same variety saturated the deck in a tight pattern that traversed forward to rear.

The vehicles tough hide surrendered itself in deep gouges where the Nador rounds struck, throwing sparks and molten bits in all directions with each radiant burst of the destabilized plasma rounds.

Where the round from the considerably larger and more powerful plasma cannon struck, the result was proportionately more devastating.

As solid as she knew the vehicle to be, Hyra watched the rear third of the turret vanish- consumed by a towering plume of sublimating steel and ceramic particles. Secondary explosions that Hyra could not explain mingled with the main blast, adding an ominously beautiful glitter to this moment of destruction.

Hyra realized also, and nearly too late to react, that she had become so fixated on Moyrt's inexplicably foolish activities that she had nearly forgotten conduct of herself and her own Nacht-Rau suit.

She rolled left, reversing her orientation in a single, practiced and fluid motion until her suit was in a feet-first, mid-air slide that allowed her to use the full power of her boosters to bring herself to a stationary hover just beyond Moyrt's position.

As her suit righted itself in mid-air, Hyra saw what she had been consciously attempting to ignore- the rolling wave of explosions as tactical missiles dove sequentially on the field in an advancing carpet of explosive flash and smoke.

-And it was already almost upon them.

"Moyrt, NOW!..."

In any other situation or context, the two words might have required elaboration.

-In any other situation-.

A final, short burst for spite ripped the air from Moyrt's Nador rifle and further tattered the smoking hull of the tank he had shown so much interest in destroying. Before the last spark's glow had faded however, Moyrt's boosters fired propelling him away from the field with a missile's velocity.

Hyra was slightly ahead of her friend in the ascent, and was certain that she saw the wave of missiles pass just beneath him as his Nacht-Rau soared away. The random wash of explosions that swept west beneath him obscured the sight of the ravaged tank whose destruction had been worth Moyrt's risking his life.

"You idiot!", Hyra hissed as the chill of mortality taunted clung to her skin like the fine sheen of sweat that was in truth a physical part of the sensation she felt, "You IDIOT! -What in the name of Zor were you doing?!"

Moyrt's reply was unapologetic as he said with an even detachment, "Fighting the enemy-. What have you been doing?"

"Saving your Invid-brained, y'het'miash hide!.."

"From what?!"

"From the thousand missiles that were ten seconds behind me! -Did you happen to miss that?"

The field below had already been lost from sight to a low-level deck of clouds through which the secondary explosions and residual fires of the battlefield continued to pulse and glow in muted oranges and reds.

"-That?!.."

"Yes, that!"

Moyrt was dismissive, but around the edges of his words Hyra could hear that the gravity of the danger he had exposed them both to was beginning to take hold.

"We were out of there with time to spare. –You worry too much, Hyra-. You're going to develop a nervous condition."

"Only if I keep trying to protect you from yourself, Moyrt-… Y'het'miash Invid nia-metkhum!.."

"-Do you eat with that mouth?.."

The commander's hatch of the Cavalier opened slightly at first, arrested by a bending in the hinges that normally allowed a perfectly aligned mating with the frame. From within, a profusion of dense smoke poured out like tea overflowing the capacity of a cup.

With a metallic groan commensurate to the physical effort behind the act, the hatch opened further until the armored disc stood at a 45̊ angle to the battered and smoldering line of the turret deck.

A limp form, smoking from an extinguished fire, emerged in three great shoves from below. A fourth push and the unconscious man in his early twenties tumbled down the sloped armor side of the turret and landed with a heavy grunt in the snow.

Captain Alexander Cherghuliev's arms and head emerged from the hatch next, similarly smoldering and wreaking of the hair and eyebrows that the flash of heat into the turret had burned away. His arms and upper body draped over the rim of the hatch, the captain looked more like a man clinging to a life ring in the middle of the ocean than one pulling himself free of a tank in the middle of the Ukrainian steppe.

Cherghuliev's face stung sharply with burns and the sudden exposure to the frigid air, but it was the sharp and radiating pains that stabbed outward from his right leg and lower back that held his attention. His right foot would not accept any weight, making the captain unsure of exactly how he had ever lifted Yurmayev through the hatch like a badly rolled carpet.

A moment's recovery, the mostly-fresh air outside of the turret, and the distinct possibility that the enemy could come back allowed Cherghuliev to muster the strength to pull his thick, Slavic frame through the partially opened hatch with two agonizing movements.

Stars and amorphous clouds of light filled the captain's vision as his own tumble to earth, landed him next to Yurmayev. Additional lightning strikes of pain surged from the injuries he was aware of and served as the self-introduction of others that had been unknown up to this point.

Deep rumbles of distant explosions rolled over the field that glowed luridly and threw soft patterns of infernal light against the clouds above.

To the east, Cherghuliev could just see licks of flame like luminous cathedral spires in the general area that he had last known the Synchro Cannon to be.

As the cold soaked through his utility uniform and with the cloudiness of mild shock- it all hardly seemed important.

There was suddenly the deep roar of Gnerl Fighter Pod engines over the landscape as they swept in delayed trail of the missiles, seeking targets of opportunity.

Cherghuliev knew on some level that lying beside the dead hulk that had been his tank minutes before might expose him and the unconscious gunner to the fire from target-hungry, alien pilots- but his body would not move to heed his brain's warning.

He and Yurmayev would just lay there a little while longer- just until his strength returned again.

Destroyer 2913

"Liege, we are too far out of position to recover the Serhot Ran-.", reported the ship's executive officer, "-however, Destroyer 4427 will be in position to take them aboard as they reach orbit in approximately seven minutes."

"Is Action Commander Kevtok among them?"

There was a pause, followed by a puzzled but firm, "Yes, Liege- he has been coordinating the exfiltration-."

"Very well.", Action Commander Iyos replied, careful to disguise her concerns with a layer of practiced concern.

"Raise Operational Command on a coded frequency and route it to my station."

"Yes, Liege."

Iyos moved back from the acrylic dome that formed the anterior of the command bubble and sat in her chair at its center feeling far heavier than the effect of the ship's artificial gravity produced.

Her orders had not been explicit, however the implied intent had been clear enough. A failure to carry out orders- even unconventional an implied ones- was certainly a mark against her in her new billet as squadron commander, a blemish on her personal record that might hinder future advancement, and a stigma in the eyes of Command on her squadron in general. –And units not favored by Command were known to draw the more perilous assignments.

This was especially true when the unconventional orders and their implications came from so high in the chain of command.

Per her instructions to her executive officer, Iyos had a communications screen open in the air before her within the command bubble. The standard at the center of the screen reflected the rank and billet of the officer to whom Iyos was to speak and did little to improve her outlook on the position she found herself in.

The holographic screen changed without warning, replacing the ensign with the image of Sub-General Jekketh whose expression seemed somehow more implacable than at the first and only time Iyos had ever spoken to him directly, a little more than a day before.

"Report, Action Commander."

Iyos suspected by Jekketh's tone that he already was in possession of the pertinent information he sought, but wished to punish by forcing her to deliver it personally.

"The Serhot Ran operation has been accomplished, Lord. The last alien anti-warship weapon in the region has been destroyed. Te'Dak Tohl casualties from the deployed force have been high."

"-Amongst the Serhot Ran?"

"Some.", Iyos replied, and not wishing to draw out the revelation any longer, said bluntly, "Action Commander Kevtok is returning with his surviving Warriors to an alternate recovery ship at this time."

Jekketh's expression did not change, but did not have to for his displeasure to be felt.

"Understood. See that his needs and those of his unit are attended to. I am certain that another assignment requiring their efforts will not be long in materializing."

"Yes, Lord."

The Sea of Cortez,

Northwest of Sinaloa

"-Well, looks like the free ride is over- they found the soft spot.", Lt Col Fred "Buster" Dalton said with disappointment moderated by expectation, "I guess we have to earn our combat pay today after all."

They- that marvelously nondescript word that had been hung darkly and with contempt by humans in many tongues since the advent of warfare on untold numbers of enemies whom the speakers did not wish to humanize with the use of their true names- in this case, the Zentraedi, had found the "soft spot".

Since it had been known that even the considerable Valkyrie and Adventurer II elements of the aptly named "Sojourner Flight" could not possibly carry adequate armament to fight a running defense for themselves and the unarmed cargo transports for any considerable distance, the RDF Army had scrambled to establish the best ground-based support it could muster in the time allotted.

In this they had done an admirable job, and because of it the enemy air armada that had formed up with the intent of destroying the RDF units transferring south had been held for longer than expected outside of striking distance.

At advantageous points through Southern California, along the Baja Peninsula, and from positions that had already been established in the Sierra Madre inland from the Sea of Cortez- a thin yet overlapping wall of Basilisk batteries had created a corridor of supplemental protection through which Sojourner Flight had traveled for most of the movement toward ASC territory.

As had been probable- so it had happened west of Puerto Penasco at the northern end of the Gulf of California and after the joining of the ALCANWEST elements- Sojourner Flight had been discovered.

EW units, their jammer pods blazing the air with electromagnetic interference to jam all enemy detection methods short of an intentional and systematic scan by an orbiting warship had successfully allowed the RDF aircraft to move under in near-invisible concealment. The C2 AWACS for the movement, "Moses" had with the assistance of a JSTARS guided the flight around the increasing number of Zentraedi air patrols flying top cover for the aliens' own migration south, mostly to the east of the Sierra Madre and of the ground patrols that flanked the main force through and west of the rugged mountain chain.

-But it had happened…

A four ship element of Gnerls, part of a squadron spread thin over a hundred kilometer sweep had elected for no discernable reason to venture just a little further west towards the Gulf of California than the pattern flown by other patrols.

While their sensors had been craftily blinded by EA-9D EW/ES Adventurer II variants, their sophisticated systems worked only on the Gnerls' sensors and not the pilots' "Mk-1 eyeballs".

A Zentraedi pilot had seen a distant shape, a familiar shape and one of many as it had likely been that of an RDF CT-4 transport- the RDF-modified sibling to the Zentraedi Re-Entry Transport. Unaware of Re-Entry Pods operating in the area and with easy confirmation that there were none from whatever command structure the pilot fell under, a closer investigation had quickly been decided upon at the element level.

That particular element of Gnerls had ended their day on a "down note".

Moses, having detected the Gnerls' change of heading and having determined it to be that of an intercepting course had elected to draw the first blood. Unseen by the Zentraedi until the moment that Basilisks had left the rails and had started to track the four investigating Fighter Pods, RDF Army SAM batteries had been ordered into action by the AWACS.

The Gnerls, their fate almost certainly decided at the moment that the Basilisks had begun independent homing upon them had been able to repeatedly report their sighting of the RDF flight and its apparent position to their superiors. They had not been able to close to within engagement range before being obliterated mid-air by the Basilisk missiles, so in this sense the SAM batteries had performed their function flawlessly.

The report of the doomed four-ship element however was to mean that the batteries along the Baja Peninsula and the western slopes of the Sierra Madre range would have to perform this function again.

Multiple times.

Like a wasp's nest disturbed, the response of the Zentraedi to the report of the Gnerl flight was quick and ferocious.

Gnerl squadrons, building up to a strength of several wing-sized units had coalesced from numerous patrols over the desert and swarmed in defense of their ground forces east of the Sierra Madre while also standing poised to attack. As they had been drawing together their strength, multiple patrols from out over the open Pacific had merged and been joined by additional squadrons that dove down from orbiting base ships like raptors.

Basilisk batteries had gone into full action from the first indications of the enemy rallying its air power. Striking out with direction and coordination provided by Moses, the batteries maintained a steady rate and volume of fire punctuated only by the need for battery crews to re-arm their launchers.

Struck by successive and unrelenting waves of Basilisks, the squadrons of Gnerls and lesser numbers of the Queadlunn-Rau power armor variants saw enough of their comrades knocked from the sky to cause the survivors to have a moment of pause. As a result the two Zentraedi fighter groups had formed a bracket on Sojourner Flight's flanks, shadowing it both west and east as successive attempts by smaller detachments to close to engagement range were thwarted by SAMs.

Had the Zentraedi known that the majority of SAM batteries had fired themselves nearly out of combat effectiveness, many having loaded their last Basilisks into their launcher pods- the attack may have persisted until the earthbound defense of Sojourner Flight had broken.

This critical intelligence was not available to the Zentraedi however, and as such the aliens had simply shadowed with purpose.

Correctly, a ranking officer somewhere in the chain of command had surmised that there was no need to rush the attack. Eventually the human force would extend beyond the assistance of their ground cover. It was only a matter of time.

The point where probing Gnerl elements from the group formed over the Pacific had discovered that they could skirt around the reach of the SAM batteries and place themselves in the path of Sojourner Flight had been south of La Paz- a coincidental irony.

The gap having been found, the Pacific force of Zentraedi fighters had quickly divided itself into two- half continuing to pace Sojourner flight while the other half rushed to place itself in an intercept position.

Winters watched as the Zentraedi to his southwest beyond the tip of the Baja Peninsula rounded the SAM barrier, looking in their movement much like time-lapse photography of a typhoon bumping along the coast.

"-Maybe we can coax them down to Cabo San Lucas and smooth things out over a margarita-.", Winters suggested as the Zentraedi force began to pass without interest the celebrated holiday destination.

"As long as I'm not picking up that tab.", Dalton agreed.

"Peace requires investment.", Preacher observed, more seriously than Winters' off-the-cuff remark warranted.

Vice brought the conversation back down to the appropriate gutter level by saying whimsically, "God knows every piece I ever got in Cabo required an investment-."

Winters knew the rise in banter was not his pilots' minds drifting, but rather indicative of nerves being soothed or ignored by the only means available.

The Zentraedi would not be enticed to discuss peaceful resolution at a resort on the sea any more than they were likely to invite the RDF back to their fleet to discuss the same.

On one level though, this suited the pilot just fine.

The bottleneck where the fight would have to come was forming up for all to see.

The Zentraedi aloft over land had only to maintain their presence and contain Sojourner Flight as the immovable object that the RDF did not want to move against- the "anvil" as it were.

The Pacific force then became the "hammer" being raised for a first and powerful strike.

All of Sojourner Flight saw that a fight was inevitable, and Winters suspected strongly that Moses would not allow the enemy the initiative. It was only a question of whether the RDF would try to push through the bottleneck, or attempt a slightly more direct yet riskier drive toward the relative safety of ASC-controlled airspace and Oasis by turning immediately inland and running the gauntlet of Zentraedi air power above a hostile force of thousands.

Winters did not have to wait long to understand Moses's tactical inclination as "kill boxes" for defining a battlespace and directing the offensive actions of forces were designated and displayed remotely from the AWACS onto his console's center MFD.

Game on.

AWACS-EC-33 Aircraft, "Moses"

"Red and Green Bandits, numbering two hundred plus breaking from Bandit Force Two on mean course three-four-oh and ascending through angels ten. –Accelerating through eleven hundred Kmph-. Make closure rate on Sojourner Flight twenty-seven hundred Kmph."

The report by the senior sensor officer was heard by Major General Butler, who like all in the equipment and personnel-crammed section of AWACS fuselage that functioned as "Central C2" sat strapped into a seat. Butler's seat, unlike those of the all-officer crew, had only an MFD with full monitoring access to the platform's functions and no control abilities. The crew around him each performed an Air Battle Management function- those specialized MOS skills particular to the AWACS platform and required, as the name implied, to manage and to provide command and control to RDF forces in air combat.

Despite his rank, being by far the senior-most aboard the AWACS EC-33 aircraft, the report was not actually intended for the purpose of his situational awareness.

Colonel Briggs, a dark-skinned, black officer who despite his perpetually intense expression still looked far too young for the silver bird on his collar had the distinction of tactical command over Sojourner Flight and had been the one who had ordered the initiation of what was promising to be an intense aerial sparring match between the home favorite, RDF, and the visiting contenders.

"Thirty-one seconds to initial missile contact.", announced the senior air weapons officer who had been tracking the progress of the high volume of Reflex AMSLM-4 "Falcon" missiles toward the enemy since they had been uncaged and released at the colonel's orders.

These first shots had been fired by the RDF Air Force's contingent of less-than-glamorous Adventurer IIs whose critical support roles across many military disciplines was too often outshined by the sexier role of the Veritech Fighters and their pilots. The awe-inspiring weapons variety and load that could be carried by the attack variant, A-9C, allowed it to be both the tactical hatchet and if necessary also the scalpel in an engagement and depending upon the commanding ABM's wishes.

Today, in opening the fight, the A-9C Adventurer IIs at over a full wing's strength by themselves were being used as the hatchet.

Briggs had ordered a uniform release of half the Adventures' weapons in the hopes of eliciting a response from the enemy like what was now being seen. They were being provoked into an attack, and moving into the engagement not as the whole force but as a large detachment.

While the combination of Gnerls, designated as "Red Bandits", and the Queadlunn-Rau variants, "Green Bandits", whose exact capabilities were still undetermined were not a force to be underestimated- exceeding a total number of 200 as they were- they were a force that could be realistically managed in a fight.

Briggs had sufficient range between the enemy and the leading guard units of Valkyries to allow a battle damage assessment of the first wave of Reflex missiles on the enemy before deciding on his next course of action. Whether it was the Adventurer II "hatchet" again, their weapons initially targeted through InfoLink and using the AWACS' powerful radar systems, or a "scalpel" solution using the fighters and Adventurer IIs in some combination- these were the options that Briggs had available in his tool box.

The Zentraedi options were more limited, especially as long as the smaller number of EA-9D Adventurer II EW/ES variants maintained a veil of electronic noise through which orbiting warships could not acquire Sojourner Flight as a target for gun or mass missile attack. –But with the forces they had in the air on three sides of Sojourner, they still had a hatchet option of their own- and a much larger hatchet than that carried by the RDF.

And Zentraedi were not known to be shy in the use of the hatchet.

"Move our vanguard fighters up into attack position.", Briggs ordered the senior air crew manager as the collective track of Sojourner Flight began to shift westerly, steering toward the kill boxes where the fight was anticipated to take place and where Briggs clearly intended to breech the Zentraedi force.

"AWOs are to maximize enemy force reduction within the kill boxes using measured, long-range Falcon attacks from our Adventurers. Fighters are authorized weapons-free and to engage on anything that slips the boxes. …Let's see if our war games were worth the cost of the exercises. –And Coms…"

"Sir?!"

"Raise Oasis again-. Where the fuck is the Goddamn cavalry?!.."

Winters did not require the sensor information layers projected into the inside of his helmet visor to see, now at just under two hundred kilometers distance, the position of the approaching Zentraedi interception force.

He could not see the flash of warhead detonations as he and his pilots had been witness to two nights before, but in the uncommonly clear sky of mid-morning, small dots of dirty brown were filling a particular region of the sky. Each blemish against the sapphire blue beyond was the visible indication of a successful missile hit and the resulting smoke of burning combustibles.

It took only seconds for these individual marks of destruction to form a haze of varying densities that smudged the entire region of sky.

Horribly impressive as this sight was, this was not the focus of Winters attention.

Climbing at an astonishing rate that was matching that of the Valkyries, the enemy "Red" and "Green" bandits were clawing for the thinner air where their performance attributes were prime.

This was the prelude to a headlong rush in at Sojourner Flight, Winters knew- and probably a move on their right flank by those units still out over the sea. Moses had forced their hand and despite the withering effect of the Reflex Falcon missiles on their squadrons, the Zentraedi were aware that they had to bring the fight in closer.

Calculating their losses for the attempt or not, they would bring the battle into gun-fighting range if they could. Only then could the aliens stage the kind of air brawl where their numbers would have any tactical significance.

There were disquieting indications though that the Zentraedi had more in mind than the low-brow application of brute force. Only a fraction of the fighters and power armor racing the Valkyries for the altitude advantage had their active sensors on- and none in attack mode.

They had learned the lesson of the first night of the war and were preserving their sensor systems for the moment when they could use them to acquire targets for their missiles.

Winters found himself hating this smarter breed of Zentraedi- they had the annoying tendency to experiment with new tactics.

He was sure that he would hate them more once they inevitably discovered tactics that were effective.

"Use your Basilisks sparingly-.", Colonel Ganyet "Switchblade" Mumuni reminded her pilots, "Once you're bingo, you're on the sidelines until this goes knife fight. Moses wants the work in the kill boxes done by the Adventurers, so focus on the stragglers."

"-And don't run with pointed sticks either…", Winters added, wishing rather he could tell his superior to ignore her responsibilities by shutting up about the obvious and letting everyone get the sweats in peace.

"Shut up, Jack!", Mumuni snapped, probably sweating profusely herself at this moment, "If this turns into a furball, we draw the enemy down to the sea and east toward the coast- away from Sojourner. No one goes lone wolf, wingmen keep with your element leads. Strays get put down."

Winters had stopped listening by this point as a matter of greater interest was unfolding on his cockpit's central MFD, delivered by a fusion of his own fighter's radar and InfoLink.

The Zentraedi group that had positioned itself to intercept and that was now on a course to do so was beginning to segregate itself into successive waves.

Leading the formation were Gnerls, and likely the most novice of the Red Bandits. They were being offered as sacrifice to the Valkyries and their longer reach to preserve the successive waves composed of other Gnerls- likely more experienced pilots- and beyond these, the flight-capable power armor.

Winters and all of the other Valkyrie pilots had seen it in simulation, as even the largest RDF war games lacked a sufficient numbers of indoctrinated Zentraedi playing their former "hostile" role to properly recreate this plausible scenario. The Zentraedi rookies would absorb the bulk of the damage and take the edge off of the RDF's sword, allowing the trailing Gnerls to enter the fight strong and scatter the Valkyries to be exploited by the power armor at even closer and more advantageous range.

Like many Zentraedi tactics, it was unthinkable to all but the most sociopathic human minds.

And also like many Zentraedi tactics, it existed because it was known to be effective for the cost paid in Warrior blood.

Still, it did seem to Winters to be an exceedingly aggressive opening move- even for Zentraedi who already enjoyed a considerable numerical superiority.

The cause became apparent to the Valkyrie pilot along the fringe of the area displayed by his central MFD.

The Army of the Southern Cross Air Force, not nearly as numerous as the Zentraedi air group operating east of and above the Sierra Madre, but still a larger number of aircraft than Winters had thought them capable of deploying in a single sortie were in the opening stages of engagement. With this challenge to the top cover for their migrating ground forces, the Zentraedi had suddenly found themselves no longer performing a simple interception but also mustering a critical defense simultaneously.

The enemy's attention had been split, and as a result Winters expectation of surviving to see the next sunrise had improved.

"Knight Hawk Squadron, Moses- ascend to angels forty and vector one-four-five for intercept. Contain and neutralize Red Bandits in Kill Box Two- leave Green Bandits to Falcon missile intercept. Weapons free, fire upon opportunity-. Be advised, Vigilante and Werewolf Squadrons are on your right and will be on mission in your AO as well. Over."

"Roger that, Moses.", Winters said feeling his stomach knot tightly beneath his waist restraint buckle, "-Always good to have company-. Over. Knight Hawks, you heard the man-. Stay on me."

The Earth seemed to drop away and the canopy of sky take on a darker blue as Winters eased Marilyn's nose up into a more aggressive rate of climb and added power from the ample supply that the Valkyrie's engines had to offer.

To starboard, Vigilante Squadron under Colonel Mumuni was on a similar climb and drifting out and away intentionally for the maneuvering space that would be needed once the fight closed to dogfighting range.

–And at this point, there was no doubt it would.

Mach 1 fell away with a slight bump, barely noticeable- and along with it the whine of the Valkyrie's engines. What remained was coursing of his own blood through his ears which to Winters became immediately deafening.

Whistling would drown it out for the next thirty seconds or so until the boil of the fight demanded full concentration and was given it.

Sub-Commander Niak gripped the control yokes of his Gnerl tightly as the buffering units of norghil-piloted fighters began to absorb the first missiles fired by the micronian fighters. In their simplicity of mind and function, the norghil pilots were performing perfectly and to the full extent that Niak had expected of them- they were wading into enemy fire to preserve Niak's Te'Dak Tohl for the fight that was to come.

Having tested the micronians in battle once already, Sub-Commander Niak was developing a sense of their composition. While they could flare in ferocity, showing comparable aggression to both norghil and Invid- their despicable attribute on the individual level was a demonstration of excellent combat training and doctrine coupled with the equipment that allowed them to employ it.

Yet they were far from perfect.

They demonstrated a shortcoming in prudence- they would risk many in battle to save few who could have been lost without significant consequence. In his limited experience fighting the micronians, Niak had seen this repeatedly.

They also would allow themselves to be drawn into fights that they had no possibility of winning- present circumstances being evidence to this.

Micronian missiles met the leading elements in brutal, supersonic collisions made certain in their lethality by the detonation of high-explosive, fragmenting warheads. Some Gnerls of the leading norghil squadrons had wings or rudders shot away, sending them spinning away toward the expanse of sea below. Densely packed in formation as the norghil were by intent, a number of the Gnerls damaged by the enemy struck comrades in their plunge linking both pilots in misfortune.

Fate's judgment was unwavering, but not always cruel. Some norghil pilots died instantly as micronian missiles destroyed their Gnerls completely with a single strike.

If there was anything that Sub-Commander Niak hoped to share with a norghil, it was this favor of Fate when that judge of all Warriors ultimately decided on the time and method of his demise.

As successive and varied scenarios of death manifested through the norghil fighter elements before Niak and across his entire field of view, the Te'Dak Tohl felt increasingly sharp stabs of fear and regret.

Sub-Commander Niak feared he had not placed sufficient insulation between his Te'Dak Tohl pilots and the enemy, and regretted his initial thought that to requisition more expendables for this purpose was to be wasteful.

Decisions once made and executed could not be remade, and therefore should not be revisited, Niak knew. Fate would have some Te'Dak Tohl die this day no matter how many norghil were thrown at the micronians to offset their risk.

In one respect though, Sub-Commander Niak was comfortable in the correctness of his calculations. The micronians were expending a high volume of missiles to bleed the norghil dry. These were missiles that would not threaten Niak's Te'Dak Tohl.

"Prepare to establish a killing sphere! Squadrons Three and Four, break to flanks on my signal! Squadron One will go high with me, and Two low-.!"

Four Basilisks fired.

Four Gnerls killed.

It had hardly been an accomplishment.

In times when humans had been limited to killing other humans in air duels, pilots had fought entire wars without downing as many of the enemy as Winters had accomplished in a little over two minutes.

As dark flecks had penetrated and left behind the cascading, sooty curtain of their tumbling, destroyed comrades and began to develop distinct shape and character that showed them to be Gnerls- the four missiles fired by the squadron leader felt analogous to a squirt gun against a brush fire.

The sight also reduced substantially the comfort afforded by the four medium-range, multi-purpose missiles that Marilyn still carried on her outer hard-point stations.

There was no way around the fact that it would be a bloody fight fought close enough to get wet.

The Zentraedi were committed to running their strongest play regardless of the cost to their pilots, as Winters had expected they would.

The leading Gnerl elements were tattered and continued to melt away under waning Basilisk attack, while Falcons fired by the Adventurer IIs far astern of the Valkyries continued to penetrate deep to seek out and kill power armor- but the odds were far from evened. And additionally, it was not expected that the aliens would simply crash headlong into Sojourner Flight like the meeting of two great armies in Greek or Roman times.

The losses of the Zentraedi up to this point were payment for a desired position gained.

"Sphere forming!", Winters sang out unnecessarily. His pilots- all Valkyrie pilots- knew the indicative signs of the airborne snare, and knew the response actions that presented the best chance of surviving the encounter.

Winters was obligated to command nonetheless-.

"B-Flight, go high! A-Flight left! Engage by pairs- break, break, break!"

Winters uncaged two of his remaining Basilisks, designated them to the two leading Gnerls traversing from his center to left, and fired- allowing the weapons to separate and clear before he dropped his throttles, applied brakes and snap-rolled into a banking turn to port.

G-forces hit like an invisible wall, flattening the pilot into his seat as he fought the Valkyrie's nose through 45̊ of turn before leveling, retracting his brakes, and firewalling the throttles. Searching the sky to starboard, he found the Gnerls that were maneuvering to form the right hemisphere of the aerial fighter trap to be relatively where he expected them to be and now well within the thirty kilometer mark.

"Call it, Jack-!", Vice request-demanded from a covering position high in trail off of Winters' starboard wing , "-What's next?!"

Vincenz was a gifted and intuitive fighter pilot, fully capable of keeping up with his element lead and equally capable of taking the lead at a moment's notice, Winters knew- but with the right flank of the killing sphere drawing across the sky now in a mesh of Fighter Pods, and A-Flight more or less angled to intercept and pass through the enemy's flight path at a right angle- it was a fair question.

Winters scrambled for an answer as crossing the path of multiple bandits at supersonic speed seemed scarcely safer than staying inside of the forming sphere. But as a "plan" it did have the virtue of possibly rattling the enemy pilots with its sheer lunacy and possibly throw them off their game.

"Punch through and then go high-! Maybe we'll draw some of them away from the group. –We'll come at `em again from the outside... Let them deal with the inside track…"

The "plan" was barely off of Winters lips before he was contesting with the challenge of executing it.

The Gnerls filled the sky and Winters' field of view at measured intervals as they continued to expand the killing sphere they had been ordered to execute. The Valkyrie pilot could now clearly see the fine details of the Gnerls as he and Vincenz made their quasi-suicidal charge.

Had the light conditions been right to see through their canopies, Winters mused antagonistically that he would have been witness to the bulging whites of enemy eyes as he and Vincenz made their aggressive intercept.

"Prang one on your way through, Vice!"

As flight paths converged, Winters flipped his weapons selector into gun mode to enable Marilyn's laser cannons.

A Fury missile fired by Vice streaked by Winters canopy, perhaps a little too close for comfort had Winters had the luxury of considering such things at the moment.

Instead, he was tracking on a Gnerl with the aiming reticule projected inside of his helmet visor- training the cannons by his head motion. At the moment where the reticule crossed the Fighter Pod's center mass, Winters clamped down the trigger and held the target in his sights as laser bolts savaged it.

Before the Gnerl had left the "cone" in the Valkyrie's forward hemisphere through which the lasers could track and engage, the fighter had been mauled beyond recovery. –A gratifying and personal act of malicious intent, Winters recognized as flame engulfed the Gnerl and it dropped from sight.

If he could have carved Alan "Gecko" Home's name into the Gnerl as a means of reckoning, he would have.

-And nothing drew the attention of the enemy as making it known that the act of killing one of theirs was both intentional and personal.

Vengeance was out of mind before the two Valkyries passed through an opening in the path of the Gnerls and had slipped the Zentraedi "killing sphere".

-But with the enemy's attention aroused, they were not alone.

"Two-. No, THREE peeling off and tying on, port side low!", Vice warned, performing the wingman's duties.

Winters searched and quickly found the trio splitting from the main force as Vice had called them. Throttles clearly full-open, the larger alien fighters were having no difficulty closing the vertical gap between themselves and the Valkyrie element they meant to engage, but their rate of turn was less substantial by the Gnerl's performance characteristics weakness and they were clearly slipping to a track outside of their ability to engage.

"Break high and right on me and we'll take them on the overshoot!", Winters ordered as he chopped throttle, raised brake, and unswept his fighter's wings to hemorrhage speed.

Pulling the nose up and right, Winters glimpsed the Gnerl element flash past far to port in a blur- probably realizing the lethality of their tactical miscalculation as they passed.

Dropping the resistance to airflow and throttling up again to maximum to take up pursuit in the vertical, Winters made a wide barrel-roll to port to slip into trail for a low deflection shot.

Three sets of Gnerl pulse jets burned radiantly as targets for Fury dogfighting missiles.
"Vice, peg any splitters!- ..Fox Two!.."

Air combat like any form of warfare was a quick succession of violent actions that intercepted, overlapped, and quite often augmented one another- and despite the best C2 methods and technologies- it took on a life of its own.

Colonel Briggs at the center and aware of all of the command activities going on around him aboard the AWACS, was cognoscenti of this. It was at times like these that the common title in the C2 staff of "Air Battle Manager" seemed its most absurd. Air Battle Consultant seemed more appropriate, or at least less delusional.

The Zentraedi, as it had to be expected, had spilled out of the "Kill Boxes" initially established and had necessitated the formation of new ones that were no longer roughly south of Sojourner Flight, but almost due east of it.

Briggs had ordered the flight out further west, now over the open Pacific in response to his fighters' struggle to maintain footing and hold both position and the enemy in that position. The air battle that had been joined by Terran forces from both Sojourner Flight and the ASC forces of Oasis now sprawled out over nearly three hundred kilometers of airspace and continued to seep in all directions of the compass.

While the fighters remained engaged and were both a distraction to and a holding force on the enemy, Sojourner Flight would only experience an inconvenience in transit by way of skirting the battle.

If the fighters were to falter, however-.

Failure by his fighters was still a real possibility, Briggs understood.

What the colonel also understood by the behavior of the enemy was that they too were having doubts of their own chances at victory.

The force of Gnerls that had originally formed over the Pacific from patrols already in the AO and supplemental squadrons sent down from orbit still loitered out to the west- pacing Sojourner Flight like a predator uncertain of its ability to bring down its prey. This initially substantial force had divided early in the flight, sending a portion of itself to the mouth of the Sea of Cortez to block Sojourner Flight while keeping the rest in apparent reserve.

Had they committed fully Briggs suspected based on the intensity of the battle raging still with only a portion of the original enemy force, the RDF might well have been overrun by now.

The enemy had shown caution though, unable to see clearly beyond the EM smokescreen thrown up by the RDF's EW Adventurer IIs, and now with half the number to commit was showing real hesitation.

Briggs, over the course of fifteen minutes had done all he could to justify the enemy's hesitation in his mind.

He had ordered the few and last of his fighters out west of Sojourner Flight to the cusp of the interference thrown up by his EW birds, giving the enemy glimpses of fighters before drawing them back into the haze. The Valkyries and conventional Falcon fighters drawn in desperation into Robotech-warfare would then shift position before presenting themselves again, appearing to the enemy hopefully as different units of a larger force that did not actually exist.

The bluff was apparently effective though, as the western Zentraedi force continued to decline to commit.

The deception of smoke and mirrors had its limitations, Colonel Briggs realized, and was easily undone by even a single enemy pilot who dared to listen to a hunch.

More immediately perilous was the state of the air battle to Sojourner Flight's east, about which the enemy commander had full situational awareness.

In this fight, the Valkyries Briggs had committed had come out ahead at each stage. They had inflicted grievous losses with their Basilisk missiles at range while losing none of their own, and had disrupted the formation of the killing sphere and slipping the would-be trap with only a handful of Veritechs lost.

Now though, as battle devolved into a massive "furball", and with the weapons carried by the Valkyries quickly dwindling in the face of a still numerically superior Zentraedi force- the initiative was starting to shift to the aliens.

Colonel Briggs was certain that once the alien commander sensed this, he would commit the forces to Sojourner's west and the battle would take a textbook turn toward an RDF loss.

212 kilometers east, Sojourner Flight's best chance of survival was already engaged and pushing west with steady determination.

The Army of the Southern Cross Air Force was making an impression both on the Zentraedi and Colonel Briggs. Showing the clear Eurasian roots of many of their pilots who had fought that side of The Global War, the ASC was giving the Zentraedi force over land and east of Sojourner Flight a fight that the aliens were more accustomed to, but with a slight technological edge on the ASC's part.

This human assault from Oasis and its outlying, supporting bases brought with it the density and edge required to cause the Zentraedi commander to begin a shift in his own forces. Zentraedi units, Gnerl and power armor, were being drawn from the fight with the weakening Valkyries and committed to the one with the ASC.

It was buying time that Briggs knew he needed, and there was the outside chance that it would be enough.

Any "lines" of battle had long since dissolved, as had clear boundaries of the churning melee at stratospheric level. Now there was only the enemy to be found at all points, and the need to destroy him before he did the same to you.

Captain Peter "Dodger" Lindsey of Knight Hawk Squadron's A-Flight was only aware that he was northeast of the original kill boxes established by Moses and had pursued a four-ship Gnerl element with his wingman "Pinball" Ott on a weaving chase between the borders of Kill Boxes Six and Seven.

–Information with limited practical application.

The Gnerls at least demonstrated good sense in maintaining a numerically superior element to the Valkyries with whom they were engaged, the RDF fighters having almost instantly upon engaging separating into pairs. Their streak of genius had ended though as Dodger and Pinball had tied on to them and the Gnerls had elected as an element to attempt escape of the engagement by outrunning the slower Valkyries.

Gnerls could, given the time to accelerate, outrun a Valkyrie at 20,000 meters- but at no altitude could they outrun a Fury dogfighting missile.

Dodger, having only two Furies still on his hard points had handed off the role of element lead to Pinball. Head on ta swivel, Dodger scanned the skies all around repeatedly for threats. There was no way of knowing whether the Gnerls that he and Pinball were in trail of were foolish, as hoped- or crafty as was possible and drawing the Valkyries into straight and level flight that could be exploited by unseen "friends" of the would-be prey.

Two Furies streaked away from Pinball's Valkyrie and ate up the distance between the Valkyrie and the Gnerl element's two trailing ships. Both missiles struck their targets squarely inside the span of two seconds, throwing clouds of debris with the destruction of the Gnerls that the Valkyries were forced to nimbly evade or risk ingesting.

The Gnerl element lead, likely seeing foreshadowing of his own demise in the loss of two of his subordinates committed the cardinal combat sin of panic and followed his initial mistake of attempting a dash-escape with a second one in trying to out-turn his pursuers. To some degree the mistake was lessened by the lead's wingman who elected to split the element and possibly to draw off a Valkyrie by making the opposite turn.

Pulling right with Pinball through a 5-G turn that was superior to the Gnerl's rate and quickly putting their noses ahead of Ott's intended target, Dodger without leaving his lead's wing repeatedly checked the position of the second Gnerl that had split left.

By intuition and calculation, Lindsey knew that Pinball would be poised for the perfect kill seconds before his target's wingman could even bring his nose around into attack posture. He (..or she, Dodger reminded himself…) would then find himself head-on with a pair of Valkyries that would end the fight with a missile shot rather than a riskier head-to-head pass.

"..Six more seconds…", Pinball said for both Dodger's benefit and his flight recorder's. The pilot's focus on positioning his fighter for the kill was clear in his voice- not quite target fixation, but demonstrative evidence of why RDF fighter doctrine stressed so heavily the importance of the wingman.

Being conscious of his responsibility to cover Pinball's tail did nothing to make the practice easier for Lindsey. In the right, banking turn both Valkyries were pulling, Dodger had to fight five times his normal body weight to twist in his seat and visually track the second surviving bandit.

As the Gnerl vanished in its turn from Lindsey's direct line of sight behind the port engine intake of his Valkyrie, the fighter augmented his ability to see by infusing video fed from what in Battloid mode would have been the Veritech's "head" onto the inside of the pilot's visor.

Regrettably, the Valkyrie for all of its abilities could not diminish the G-forces against which the pilot had to strain.

"His friend has about fifteen seconds before he has us in the basket-!"

"Fox Four!", Pinball called out to indicate a gun shot.

Looking forward again, Dodger saw the zip of tracer rounds race out and seem to fall away in an arc from the centerline orientation of Ott's Valkyrie. Why Pinball had felt the need to employ the bore-sighted, kinetic-round firing GU-11 gun pod mounted to his fighter's belly and not the helmet sighted laser cannons was beyond Dodger's immediate comprehension- but he had surrendered the element lead role and was obligated to support Pinball's calls as his wingman.

As the brutal, armor-piercing explosive 55mm rounds struck the Gnerl- intercepting the fighter mid-air in turn as the Valkyrie's lead-calculating gun sight had predicted- Dodger remembered the reason.

Effect.

Dodger had easily downed three Gnerls inside of the past fifteen minutes with his laser cannons and with each had visually been able to confirm hits by the small flashes of bolt strikes and the resulting puffs of vaporized and ejected materials.

Pinball's rounds, probably twenty in all, mutilated the Gnerl- sheering away entire portions of the airframe before a penetrating shell struck a sweet spot that transformed the target into three distinct tumbling balls of flame.

A good choice.

"Scratch one.", Pinball said, content with himself but not boastful-.

Killing a bandit was not an uncommon accomplishment today.

"No doubt on that one, Pinball.", Dodger confirmed as he followed Ott out of the starboard turn and into a reversal to engage the slain Gnerl's wingman.

As the two Valkyries turned through due east heading toward north, Dodger felt a moment's panic in searching the relatively empty sky for the remaining Gnerl.

It was not where he expected.

The panic subsided however as the pilot found the alien fighter again and was able to account for it being out of position.

Higher than it had been in its turn, Dodger caught the shrinking, tail aspect of the Gnerl with its three glowing pulse-thrusters as it climbed and accelerated away. Clearly the pilot had witnessed what had happened to his comrade and had decided to not take his chances with a 2-to-1 disadvantage.

Perhaps not as brave, but definitely smarter than the average Zentraedi.

"Knight Hawk Eight, Knight Hawk Nine- Moses. Task. Vector one-nine-five at angels twelve. Werewolf Four is defensive, and you're the closest."

The call from the AWACS was one that could be expected in any air battle, but in context of this fight, it tickled Dodger with a flash of irony.

Everyone was defensive today, more or less.

Looking southwest and despite the persisting battle further on in that direction, Dodger was able to quickly pick out the lop-sided fight into which he and Pinball were to intervene.

A lone Valkyrie trailing a stream of grey smoke could be seen jinking and corkscrewing with a Veritech's agility around alternating missile and laser cannon shots from three pursuing Gnerls.

The alien pilots had to be of the more experienced variety as they were not crowded upon one another, vying for the kill shot- but rather hanging back at a distance that kept them within range to engage, or to pursue should the Valkyrie attempt escape through a radical change in direction.

These were the ones that Dodger was sure he'd really learn to hate in this war….

"Werewolf Four, Hawk Eight- this is Dodger-. We're turning on intercept now, hold on-!"

"Dodger, Drover- A little help please…."

Sub-Commander Naik was not unaccustomed to such spryness in an enemy.

Invid in particular were known to shift at near right angles to their path of flight to gain advantage on the attack, or to preserve themselves in evasion for the ability to attack. Their thinking was limited in terms of improvisation and predictable once a Warrior knew what to expect.

Norghil were known to be more innovative from time to time, but were limited by the performance parameters of the mecha or fighters they operated.

These humans though-.

He thought no more of killing them than he did killing an Invid or a norghil, but he was appreciative of the exhilaration of a true challenge.

The killing sphere had not materialized the way Niak had planned, but in its failure there had been little gain for the aliens. They had been forced to fight hard, holding nothing back to keep from being completely overwhelmed and now the effort was taking its toll.

The sophisticated and lethal missiles on which the micronians had so heavily depended to do most of their killing were all but gone now, leaving them to contend with Niak's Te'Dak Tohl pilots as combatants should- Warrior to Warrior. –And in that contest of skill and stamina, the micronians were starting to show the toll upon them.

They were still sly, still dangerous- but they were clearly tiring now from the physical rigors.

Their inescapable frailty was beginning to serve the Te'Dak Tohl.

Naik allowed the alien fighter to cross just below his centerline in a snap-roll intended to shake him before he released his missile.

The night before had demonstrated that use of the Gnerl's active sensor target acquisition system was ill advised with these human fighters. Many a Gnerl pilot had found their sensors quickly rendered useless, and the majority of these pilots had not lived to reach ground to recount their experiences in person.

Fired line-of-sight though, the missile went active at leaving the Gnerl's launcher and had a better than fair chance of acquiring the desired target without risking the fighter or its Warrior-pilot.

As Naik was adjusting to stay in trail, the alien fighter reversed its turn and inverted into a steep dive to evade- the same active countermeasure system that had rendered many Gnerls sensor-blind did the same to the sub-commander's missile only a few seconds into its pursuit.

Like others before it, and not having endured as long as some- the missile veered sharply away and was quickly lost from sight.

Naik eased off his throttles and pulled his fighter's nose up slightly allowing his airspeed to drop off as he overshot the mark where the alien fighter had rolled over into a dive. Mimicking the same maneuver as the damaged alien fighter, the world rolled over before him and Niak's windscreen filled with the ocean below as his Gnerl plunged towards it.

A glance to far off his left wing found Point Lieutenant Brillak, arguably the best pilot in his command and very intuitive in the ways of aerial combat, slightly ahead and in a similar dive. Without having to look, Naik also knew that Lieutenant Yitch'kra- no less capable than Brillak, though her prowess being rooted in relentless training and exercise- was somewhere above and coming down in a broad, descending spiral.

This was a tested tactic used against higher caste Invid who entered battle in the company of thousands of their lower-order kin, but who unlike them possessed a sense of self-preservation.

Invid Scouts, Troopers, and the great majority of Shock Troopers reacted to almost every combat scenario with the same response- attack. Higher order Invid, capable of more complex thought and realizing their own mortality were sometimes know to take the option of escape.

If the situation warranted, the pursuit tactic now being executed by Naik and his supporting Gnerls allowed the larger, less agile Zentraedi fighters to remain engaged with the smaller, nimble mecha of higher-order Invid. Two to pursue directly, and the third spiraling Gnerl poised to join the fight as the situation required.

With Invid, it was highly successful.

Naik was curious to discover how it translated to dealing with micronians who individually were proving to be far more….

"Fighters, high left!", Yitch'kra called out in warning as her descending orbit brought her about to an orientation where she was able to spot the approaching threat.

As though synced with Yitch'kra, Naik's head snapped left and he found almost instantly the threat she had called.

Thin and insubstantial by Zentraedi standards, the twin silhouettes against the blue sky were still somehow menacing in their aggressive approach- though not quite so much as the fine dots that were the missiles accelerating out ahead of them.

Pinball watched the track on the last of his missiles as they closed on the two Gnerl Fighter Pods that were on a dive in trail of Drover from Werewolf Squadron.

Fury missiles were advanced in their homing and intercept characteristics as dogfighting missiles went, but they were "fire and forget", and short range to boot. Having fired them at their maximum range, Pinball had thumbed the trigger intending to either splash the bandits or ward them off the outnumbered Valkyrie from "The Land Down Under".

Now as the two Gnerls in the dive half-rolled and pulled hard away from the track of the weapons- a maneuver that Pinball would not have believed possible had he not seen it himself- the Valkyrie pilot found himself wishing he'd delayed loosing the weapons by two or three seconds.

Both Furies, each oblivious to the other's intent, struck the same Gnerl that had pulled into the lead and in doing so was beginning to nose-up and come around into attack posture on the diving Valkyries.

The fragmentation warheads of the missiles tore the Gnerl to pieces, some of which pelted its wingman who in the process of the aggressive course-change had drawn just a little too close to its leader.

"Splash one, dinged one!", Pinball called out as he flipped his weapons selector into gun mode for a laser shot.

"Number Three is coming down at eleven, high!", Dodger warned, "-Pass him down the middle!"

As Pinball rolled off left, Dodger rolled hard right to open a broad void between them through which the descending bandit- the third in the element- could pass.

Too far out of position to manage a respectable shot at either Valkyrie as it dove, the Gnerl simply rushed past through the gap that had opened- safe in that Dodger and Pinball in evading had also moved themselves out of a position to fire.

For his part, Dodger was now willing to let bygones to be bygones and allow the bandit to slip away if he felt the same way. There had already been too many close scrapes for so short a period of time today for Lindsey's liking.

They could always kill one another tomorrow.

But there was the other option too….

Dodger's ears were filled with the nerve-grating tone of the launch warning alarm as the single Gnerl that had survived the Furies moments earlier returned on a radical course reversal.

Had the alien pilot elected to paint his targets first for a weapons lock before firing, the Valkyrie's active ECM systems would have reacted automatically and either impaired or destroyed the Gnerl's attack radar- possibly precluding the launch.

Over the course of this engagement though and not just in this instance Dodger had seen Zentraedi pilots firing their missiles without locking on.

This change in tactics necessitated the firing of more missiles at a closer range to compensate for the possibility that the desired target might not be acquired- but it also shrewdly preserved the attacking Gnerl's sensor systems.

Sadly, the Zentraedi were learning to fight a new fight- and quickly.

Dodger searched for and spotted the salvo of missiles tracking him as the Gnerl that had fired them broke and peeled away from the engagement. The Valkyrie's automatic countermeasures filled the air with chaff, flares, and directed EM energy as the pilot calculated his best moment to actively evade the alien weapons that continued to home stubbornly.

-Wait….

With a reflexive response akin to a fighter blocking a punch, the pilot subconsciously reacted at the optimal moment to snap-roll the fighter out of the path of the incoming missiles.

A flash stunned Dodger's eyes, but his world did not end. A nanosecond later, he did receive a swift kick in the ass that confirmed painfully that he was indeed still living.

A shriek of air escaping through a confined path fought with numerous automated alarms for Dodger's attention.

The pilot leveled his wings and twisted in his seat to check his own tail, noticing fracture lines in his canopy as he searched his rear hemisphere. There was no sign of any of the missiles that had been fired, or of the Gnerl that had fired them- but he was able to see at least one gash torn the dorsal airframe of his fighter.

Tenderly working the control stick and rudder pedals, Dodger found that the control surfaces were responding- a good sign- and that the engines sounded healthy.

Still, multiple system warnings blinked for his attention in the forward console's left MFD and the center MFD's Common Operational Picture contained more inputs from the InfoLink-networked AWACs radar than what was being provided by his fighter's own.

But the Valkyrie was holding together.

"-Bandits are bugging out-.", Pinball announced, his voice sounding as winded as he might have at the end of a 300-meter dash, "Dodger, you still with me?!.."

"-Mostly-.", Dodger replied, noting his own breathless state and the coincidental pounding in both his chest and ears, "-She's handling fine, but my rear hemisphere radar is dark-… -And I've got a minor leak of silicon lubricant in the port engine-…"

"Yeah, and more holes in you then Sonny fuckin' Corleone at that toll plaza-.", Pinball informed him, "-You still have pressure in your cockpit?"

As Pinball's fighter pulled alongside to port, Dodger noticed the extensive spider web of fractures in the acrylic canopy and looked up to find the material directly overhead to be far worse. A missile fragment had probably struck a glancing blow to the canopy and deflected off.

"-Yeah, leaking some pressure- but nothing penetrated."

"You gonna be able to bring `er in to Oasis?"

Dodger silenced the alarms one at a time, seeing that none of them were critical the Veritech's ability to fly- at least in the short-term.

"-I think so.", Dodger said, unnerved by the shaky sound in his voice and by feeling the jitters starting to set in, "I don't think I'm going to be good in the fight anymore though."

"Don't sweat it.", Pinball assured him, "We'll just tip-toe around the heavy stuff and bring you in smooth and easy."

Dodger shook his head slightly as he searched the sky carefully for any other threats.

"Any suggestions on how I'm going to explain this to Lyle?"

"None at all.", Pinball replied, "But we've got some time to figure something out."

"Good luck to us on that.", Dodger continued as low to the starboard side he caught a glimpse of Drover working his way back up to their altitude with a single, good engine. The Knight Hawk wondered if the Werewolf had a Lyle of his own with whom he would have to contend and answer for damage to his aircraft.

"What's this us?..", Pinball laughed, "The way I see it, you're the one who's fucked here."

"Thanks, wingman."

"Well, there's the enemy, and then there's Lyle and his babies…."

"..Maybe plowing in isn't such a bad option…"

"Maybe not."

Looking east toward where the battle had appeared to have picked up tempo again, Pinball saw a grouping of black dots just above the line of the horizon that with a moment's study appeared to be closing quickly.

The heart-stopping moment ended when the Valkyrie pilot's brain accepted what the indicator boxes on the interior of his visor were telling him.

The new bogeys were not hostile- but broadcasting ASC IFF squawk.

Not friendly in Pinball's estimation with an understood and preexisting prejudice, but not hostile.

A more welcome sight than Zentraedi in either case.

"Valkyrie flight of three to my twelve o'clock, this is Python Leader-. Are you receiving me?"

"This is Knight Hawk Eight.", Dodger replied, "Reading you five by five."

"Hi there, Knight Hawk-. We're here to escort you in to Oasis. What's your condition?"

"Two damaged, one nominal. We're all bingo on missiles."

"Copy that, Knight Hawk. We'll pull around in a minute here and you just slip into station in the middle. We'll give you a nice, smooth ride in."

The ASC squadron was now well within visual range and was revealed to be a flight of Phantom fighters. While they lacked the long reach of the Valkyrie in the weapons they carried, and many of the sophisticated features that Veritech pilots took for granted- they were there with apparently good intentions and could do more at the moment for the Valkyries than the Valkyries could do for themselves.

Dodger submitted to an uneasy trust.

Devoid of other options, it was an easy decision.

"Walhalla"

The GS-95 Robotech Factory

President Levin Valterven had assembled in the surrogate executive office the critical military advisors and staff, as well as Ministry representatives in the form of Ministers themselves, as well as the Senior Magistrate from the United Earth's highest legal court. Other official Presidential actions such as the issuance of executive orders and the enacting of laws under Valterven's time in office had been attended by larger audiences, so the scope and composition of this gathering had less to do with fanfare and publicity than it did with disclosure and accountability.

Valterven was demonstrating that the act to be consummated, though wholly legal, was one for which he would assume responsibility alone.

Valterven as a younger man before the Earth had known of hostile extraterrestrials, of Robotechnology, and well before The Global War had studied the disciplines of political science, economics, and finance at university. History had been a lesser interest, but the areas of art and literature he had applied academic energies to had been a matter of obligation per the requirements of his school.

A conscientious and driven student always, Valterven had applied himself to these areas of mild interest all the same, and now many years later he was vindicated in doing so for a simple association that seemed suddenly appropriate. It was the recollection of a literary figure whose tragic predicament had taken on a distinct resonance.

Faust.

Valterven was familiar from years in the vicious arena of politics that even the most carefully planned and outlined agreements carried with them ramifications that just could not be known at the signing of the contract.

In this aspect, the pact he was about to seal was no different.

But one could not argue that there was an unquestionable difference in implications of the act to be done.

All in the office suite felt it- the certainty that to do this thing was the best possibility for the continued survival of the human race and the Zentraedi allies it had come to embrace. However, there was also the horrific certainty of what this act would mean for Zentraedi not even affiliated with the campaign of Supreme General Krymina?

And what of The Invid- the perpetual specter whose manifestation was only offset by their single-minded war against The Robotech Masters and the Zentraedi by extension?

These were the lessons of unpredictability in action that Valterven remembered now from Faust, only now the simplistic solution he'd taken away as a young man that it was best to not make the deal was in this circumstance no solution at all.

President Valterven's Mephistopheles stood beside his desk, devoid of the signs of uncertainty and hesitation that showed to one degree or another on the faces of all others in the office suite. Colonel Nath continued her proposition with the icy exactness that was the signature of her personality and that seemed all that more apathetic given the subject's gravity.

"Per direction given from your Office through the Office of the Military Chief of Staff and the appropriate chain descending, Iago has been configured to attack and impair the operational, manufacturing, support, and resupply portions of the enemy's forces and infrastructure."

"Upon execution, critical flaws in the hardware and software systems that facilitate the enemy's war effort will begin to be introduced into their operational forces in a cascading fashion from their manufacturing centers down to the unit levels."

"Per your direction also, no malicious efforts will be actively undertaken by Iago on enemy personnel directly. Automated cloning activities will be suspended following maturation of the generation under manufacture at the time of Iago's initiation, but clones in stasis will not be terminated."

"The inception process will simply be disabled until we provide the countermand to re-enable it."

"No Zentraedi will be killed in stasis then?", Valterven asked, making clear by his tone his commitment to this point.

"No enemy clone will be harmed by Iago.", Colonel Nath replied, her voice retaining the sterility of one with a neutral stance on the matter.

"-Zentraedi." , Valterven corrected.

"Mr. President?"

Valterven placed his hands, palm down, onto his desk with an audible thud as though engaging in a debate whose escalation was partially dependent upon body language to set the tone and importance of the issue to be disposed.

"I understand that they are the enemy, but they are also sentient beings, Colonel, and members of their race are also our allies and contributing members of our society by choice-."

Whether or not an intentional act to provide example, Breetai took a half-step to his left and closer to where his long-time confidant and now advisor to the President, Exedore sat in one of the office's high-backed chairs.

If she had been oblivious to the fact before, Colonel Nath was now keenly aware that she was being studied with an extra measure of care by the half dozen Zentraedi officers and advisors in the room- though her expressionless face did not change in the least to suggest this.

"I want to hear the architect of a weapon that could potentially kill billions of Zentraedi if it has not been configured correctly or its impact not properly calculated to at least acknowledge the gravity of this undertaking by at the very least referring to the enemy in this instance as Zentraedi."

"Zentraedi.", Nath repeated with no more depth than had she been verbally cataloguing the furniture in the office.

Valterven found no comfort in the officer's concession, but she had obliged him.

"Mr. President", Breetai said unexpectedly and without solicitation, "I have been at war on a galactic scale since before the Earth enjoyed the benefits of electricity, so I have unique perspective on the risks involved in warfare on that scale. The probability of great loss of life is a near certainty, and one can only mitigate that risk but so much. I am satisfied that the proper safeguards to ensure that the loss of life will be no more than what is necessary have been put into place to the best of anyone's abilities."

"Whatever uncertainty remains has to be objectively leveraged against the length of the odds with which we will have to contend to achieve victory without the blunting effect of Iago on the Te'Dak Tohl's war effort."

"My recommendation is firmly with execution."

"As is mine, Mr. President.", Exedore said, providing support but not obligatory support to his former lord's position.

"This is far more than a moral issue. Whether this Iago virus is employed by our forces or not, there is the distinct possibility that the conflict we currently find ourselves in will arouse the attention of The Invid."

"We must consider not only wresting the Earth from the control of the Te'Dak Tohl, but also the possibility of being adequately prepared to defend against The Invid in a timeframe not previously considered."

"We must preserve our strength to preserve ourselves."

Valterven was gratified to receive endorsement from the two in his company who might have been expected to most vehemently oppose the execution of Iago, but in truth he had received this audience of advisors and officials with the decision to move forward already made.

"If there are any objections, reservations, or concerns about executing Iago, I want them voiced now."

Silence prevailed.

"Very well then.", Valterven said simply, "May God forgive me, for I see no other course-."

Valterven opened the plain folder on his desk containing the required order in meticulously drafted form. He uncapped the pen beside it and signed with a scratching of nib and paper that was exaggerated in its volume by the comparative quiet of the room

As President Valterven closed the folder, Colonel Nath reached over his desk and stabbed the keyboard before him with her thin finger until she reached the desired display on the wafer-thin monitor.

"-The command interface has been set up per your request, Mr. President."

The plain text box before Valterven read:

Do You Wish to Execute?

YES NO

Valterven's forefinger glided over the terminal's touch pad moving the cursor easily- too easily- over the desired option.

Click.

682