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.

9. A Collision of Mighty Opponents

Chapter Eight

A Collision of Mighty Opponents

"It is inaccurate to say that to defeat one's enemy that one must know one's enemy.

To defeat one's enemy, you should know what your enemy fears.

I know what the micronians fear, or what they should fear- even if they do not yet know it themselves.

The micronians should fear me, and as an extension of me as much as is my right arm, they should fear Hesthira.

They will learn this fear and they will then be mine.

I have no need to know the micronians.

When they have exhausted their usefulness to the Te'Dak Tohl and we have eradicated them from their own homeworld, we will fabricate what suits us for history to remember them by.

-If, that is, we choose to remember them at all."

Sub-General Jekketh

Commander- Ground Forces,

7th Grand Army of The Te'Dak Tohl

RDF-AF Base Salamanca, Spain

You're in it now, Andy Johnson.

What Andy now had come to internally refer to as "The Cedric Prophecy" had never seemed more relevant or more true.

He was definitely in it, and with it only being Day Two at RDF Salamanca- it seemed he was in it up to his eyeballs.

As Major Branch (or Twig as he insisted upon being called and which the training squadron was learning they could call him without fear of repercussion) had promised within the first three minutes of the first day, there were fewer candidates in the classroom this morning than there had been the day before. Two, perhaps three- but there were fewer.

Oddly, Andy Johnson could not picture in his mind who exactly it was that was missing, though he had made a point of trying to at least meet everyone else the day before.

It seemed now like a frivolous expenditure of energy to commit the names of all around him to memory, especially as the day's progression yesterday had revealed true and more urgent applications of memory and energy.

Basic Flight 1…

Applied Mathematics 1…

Military Air Power: Theory & Doctrine 1…

Command and Leadership Principles 1...

-Each course element to the dual officer/fighter pilot track on which Andy and the remaining candidates were on had been 150 minutes of intense, fast-paced classroom instruction- punctuated by a short lunch recess, followed by two hours of PT, an assigned and brief dinner seating time, followed by study and CEA, or "Classroom-External Assignments"- homework.

Each course of study had had associated with it after the first day nearly 100 pages of reading before the CEA practicums- all of which Andy had managed with frenzied reading and work and had left him with just over an hour and a half to sleep before waking, preparing for morning inspection, and readying himself for Day Two.

He was in it now.

If there were any consolations, they were that the candidates surrounding Airman Andy Johnson were scarcely doing any better under the yoke of study, and that Twig was demonstrating an unspoken sympathy for those who had shown up for the second day of the classroom section he was instructing.

A coffee pot and hot water dispenser with tea bags beside had appeared, and as the major plowed through his oration of course content he made a practice of walking the rows of desks silently offering from a pack of cigarettes as he went.

Andy had partaken of two by the second hour of Basic Flight 1 under the unblinking glare of the "No Smoking" sign, and having disposed of the butts burned down to the filters in his half-emptied mug of tea.

Normally, he might have considered this a waste of tea in a time when no one had the luxury to waste anything- but Andy and the other candidates around him had consumed liters of coffee and tea over the span of the previous night while riding the avalanche of study in the barracks common area.

Andy was, for the moment, sick of tea- and the cigarettes had a more immediate and potent rallying effect on him.

"…Soooooo-.", Twig continued, "-If you reduce air density for reasons of temperature, altitude, or even baseline atmospheric pressure, you have to account for it in your reckoning of lift…"

Icy needles sank into Andy's neck, chilling down his spine, and across the backs of his arms as he realized he had been mentally drifting and had missed an untold portion of what Twig had been saying. In his state, Andy was fairly certain that he had read these things the night before and had made a concerted effort to commit the various equations that applied to the subject to memory- but that memory was failing him now.

-And by Twig's abrupt pause, it seemed that he had noticed.

Branch had been at the front of the classroom at the time he had paused in his monologue on calculating lift factors with common variables, standing very near to the speaking podium where the worn tennis ball had made a second appearance at the beginning of class.

Twig snatched the ball from the podium and hurled it overhand, like a Yank at baseball, across the room.

All the candidates started in their seats at the sudden display of aggression, with the exception of its target.

Andy anticipated the terminal point of the tennis ball's flight and found its target to be slumped in his chair, chin resting in light slumber on his chest. The young Dane, whose name Andy had learned but now struggled to remember in the fog of only ninety minutes sleep, exploded from his chair as the ball struck him soundly in the sternum. His feet tangled beneath him and he tumbled to the floor over them as the rest of the candidates sat in muted disbelief.

"-Now, humidity is a variable as well in this equation, but let's deal with the basics first.", Twig continued as the Dane slid once again into his seat, crestfallen with governed shame.

Twig reached into the satchel of materials he had brought with him into class and retrieved a baseball that he set with a pronounced thud onto the podium to emphasize without comment its greater weight and density.

Note to self, Andy- DON'T FALL ASLEEP!

"-As I was saying-.", Twig progressed, "Baseline atmospheric pressure, altitude, and temperature-. Assuming an atmospheric composition such as the one we're used to here on good ole', Ma Dirt we're going to run the equation a few times for an aircraft with a gross take-off weight of fifteen thousand kilos-. Volunteers?"

None.

Without missing a beat, Twig rattled off, "Aunt Moggie, Vittles, and What's-Your-Name with the freckles-. To the board please- you've been voluntold for action."

Pamela Dunn, sitting the next seat over from Andy arched her back to stretch stiff muscles earned from sitting hunched over books for six hours and in doing so stretched delightfully the front of her utilities with their contents.

Those were a fond, but fading memory- and Andy found he didn't have the energy for that stroll down Memory (or was it "mammary"?..) Lane.

..Focus, focus, focus… DON'T DRIFT!

At the front of the classroom equations began to be worked based on the variables that Twig was providing.

Styluses clicked softly on the smart board as the airmen worked their task, and a faint odor of overwrought brain synapses starting to burn with the strain could be smelled across the room.

Medellin, Columbia

All about there were clear indications of organized and regimented agricultural practices that gave the air of industrial production rather than oversight of a biological process.

Machines that at a glance were obviously designed, built, and used for the specific purpose of maintaining a very specific crop smoldered in their shelters having been set aflame in the not-so-distant past by their operators. Similarly, a portion of the "crop" itself had been put to the torch- but hastily and without the effect that a more carefully executed scorched earth tactic would have achieved.

Given the probable saboteurs though, this was expected.

Darius saw many things that he expected here, on this alien world- the first he had ever set foot upon. The air to him was hot, though it was still hours from sunrise, and heavy with moisture that had caused beads of perspiration to stand out on his skin the moment he and Philisto had left the climate-controlled cabin of the shuttlecraft that had borne them to the planet in the carrier that was becoming more of a mobile home.

It was a minor discomfort though, and one that Darius accepted with only a mild grudge. He had asked Supreme General Krymina to quickly seek out such places as this, and to secure them with a sense of urgency. Without ever having visited this world, or knowing anything of its inhabitants other than the rudimentary and military-oriented reports of Dolza's forces (mostly derived from Breetai's observations in his campaign to capture Zor's Battle Fortress) and to a greater extent the more focused reports from Kevtok's expedition- Darius had still been confident that he would find this.

And here it was.

Rows of The Invid Flower of Life stood all about him like fruit trees in a great orchard, stretching farther than could be seen in the darkness and through a thinning haze of smoke from the ineffective attempt of their former caretakers to burn them.

"This operational sector has eight plots such as this, some even larger.", said Action Commander Kroy as she surveyed her uncontested conquest from within the unnecessary armored protection of her Nacht-Rau combat suit.

The Serhot Ran officer, in addition to her entire company of Te'Dak Tohl elite, had been ordered by Supreme General Krymina personally to provide an escort and protection Darius and Philisto in their brief separation from Artoc.

Darius had no illusions nor did he mistake the precaution as caring for their safety. Krymina was guarding an asset.

Nothing more.

"Are the other fields in a similar state?", Philisto asked, looking less worn than was his norm- perhaps invigorated by the feeling of soil beneath his feet and unprocessed air in his lungs.

"Yes.", Kroy responded, "Those are the fields in this sector. Across the region, where there are far more- I have no knowledge. It is reasonable to assume that their condition will average out to the same."

"We should know, though- not assume.", Darius said, perhaps a little too sharply for his position relative to the Serhot Ran officer. He quickly added, "-Meaning that Supreme General Krymina demands a higher degree of solidity in what is reported to her than assumption."

Kroy, sounding only mildly irritated by the impertinence of the Tirolian, replied, "I am aware of that. Our first responsibility was to identify and secure these sites. We have done that. Survey parties of science technicians are being deployed as we speak to assess the condition of the fields."

Darius was visibly taken aback, "I was not aware of that. Why was I not told?"

"There was no need to tell you.", Kroy replied with simple military certainty, "The decision was outside of your scope to make."

"I see.", Darius replied, not concerned that the indignation carried through clearly with his words, "-And beyond the survey teams' assessment of the standing crop?"

It was now Action Commander Kroy's turn to be caught off guard, "I do not understand your meaning, Tirolian."

"I mean, once they have assessed the condition of this crop of The Flower of Life, they are prepared to harvest it? -Process it? Tend to the next crop? Future crops for as long as Supreme General Krymina cares to hold this repugnant, backwards world?"

"I could not say.", Kroy replied, saying in her lack of response to the series of questions that she had in fact no answer to them.

"And I doubt Krymina could, nor could your survey teams of science technicians."

"Isn't that your purpose?"

"No.", Darius said without apology, "I have no more knowledge in the care of The Flower of Life than I do in conducting your duties, Action Commander."

Kroy's irritation was showing clearly now, and causing Philisto visible distress as her subordinates were beginning to take notice as well and gather.

"Then why are you here?"

"To think of such things, clearly.", Darius said- his voice thick with superiority, "May I offer a suggestion, Action Commander?"

"There seems to be no stopping you.", Kroy said harshly.

"This farm clearly required a cadre of specialists and trained workers, not unlike one of your combat units- would you agree?"

"That follows reasonable thought.", Kroy said, her voice cautious at the risk of being made fool of by the sharp-tongued Tirolian.

"-And it would also follow that in laboring here, they would have to reside in some proximity. -Correct?"

"I agree."

"-And as your attack smashed much of the transportation infrastructure in the area, I would suspect that these specialized workers cannot have traveled far in the time since this area was secured."

"That is likely.", Kroy agreed, now following Darius's path of thought.

"Then", Darius said with confidence of the foundation he had just verbally built, "-I would strongly suggest beginning to locate these specialized workers before they slip anonymously into the wild. This whole invasion will be for nothing if The Flower of Life cannot be harvested and goes sallow in the field."

"Your recommendation is noted.", Kroy said, the thought having clearly set in her mind that was now building upon it.

"-And Action Commander-.", Darius added.

"Yes?"

"Feel free to claim that idea as your own. Supreme General Krymina rewards forward thinking that benefits her causes."

"Noted.", Kroy replied, the irritation having returned strongly to her voice, "Is there any additional wisdom that you care to impart on us on how to identify and enlist these specialized workers? I'm confident that volunteerism will not be at a high rate."

"I haven't a clue.", Darius said, admitting ignorance in a necessary area for the second time freely, "-But I strongly suspect that I do know someone who may have insight."

"Oasis"- ASC Durango Base,

Mexico

From the shaking of the earth and the omnipresent thunder that gave the air its own pulse, one could have been forgiven for believing that ASC Durango Base was the epicenter of some developing cataclysm of Biblical proportion.

The truth was not far from this, though the cataclysm to come was not a matter of Divine wrath or originating in any sense from The Almighty-.

There was a cataclysm to come- this much was certain and unavoidable at this point, but its making was equal part Terran and extraterrestrial- and neither was in the least interested in avoiding the violence that the preparations all around ASC Durango Base were building toward.

The vibrations of the air rose and fell in intensity and volume like the movements of a symphony whose orchestra was the engines of the aircraft arriving at and departing from the base's aerodrome and airfields that formed the western and southern fringes of the immense post with their interconnected facilities and infrastructure.

What would have been improbable if not unimaginable to see weeks or even days before, even under the RDF/ASC agreements of Operational Initiative: Gemini - the sight of multitudes of RDF-AF and ASC-AF fighters and ground attack aircraft taking off in composite flights was now regular to the point of being mistaken for routine.

Less hurried in their lumbering nature, but as constant in their movement as the fighters and ground attack aircraft leaving runways were the cargo aircraft. From the RDF-AF's CT-4 variants of the Zentraedi Re-Entry Transport Pods, to C-5s, C-17s, a pair of Soviet-era Antonov 124s – still the largest cargo aircraft ever designed and built by Man- and even a showing of venerable C-130 Hercules whose 60-year old and prop-driven design did not deter them from contributing to the movement of critical supplies to Durango Base.

The effort was warranted.

Durango was receiving war supplies of countless description at a pace that the combined efforts of the ASC and hosted RDF logisticians and the general labor pulled from the other MOS sets on post were having difficulties matching. Ordinance and munitions, critical parts, equipment, and tools were piled high with the unloading of every transport and somehow, miraculously trundled away in time for the next cargo plane to be serviced. The raw materials needed by engineers to construct the facilities to house, store, and support were frequently found beside the material that was to be sheltered. Field generators to augment the base's own power generation facilities were arranged in rows and columns beside the enormous spools of wire and mobile sub-station nodes that would be required to improvise power grids. Coms gear, C4I equipment, mobile field hospitals, mobile mess, wash and latrine facilities, along with supplies and consumables required to make them viable accumulated to support the flood-like influx of personnel.

-And there was a constant flood of both ASC and RDF personnel arriving.

From maintenance crews and engineers to cooks and payroll clerks, every MOS in the catalog of military professions was being provided for and all with the single, common goal of supporting the relative few who would actually carry the fight to the enemy.

The hardware of war was present and massing as well at Durango Base.

Machines of every kind, from conventional armor that dated back to The Global War to the latest generations of RDF and ASC mecha arrived by transport or under its own power for brief stays on the base's assembly areas and marshalling yards before being moved out to positions best suited for their roles in the order of battle.

All of these simultaneous operations were analogous to not a single dance of equipment, personnel, material, and activities, but rather multiple dances to different tempos that had to come together and mesh like the gear wheels of a precision stopwatch if there was to be a reasonable chance of victory.

It was a daunting challenge that was the foundation for the cooperative fight to be carried forward by the RDF and ASC, and one that rightfully would have caused a healthy dose of concern for anyone who stopped to think about all of the possible points of failure for too long. The saving grace however was that no one on ASC Durango Base was blessed with an abundance of time to pause and think about anything outside of their own job.

Lieutenant Colonel Winters was no different in the respect that he was aware of all of the activities going on around him, but gave them only the energy and attention to notice. One could too easily get distracted by or lost in any of the multitude of duties being executed all about- and he, as commanding officer of 623rd "Knight Hawk" Squadron had his own concerns.

He had last seen the Valkyries of his squadron, including his own, parked unflatteringly and in regulation-violating proximity to one another on the side of a runway apron whose designation he had been forced to scribble onto a scrap of paper lest he forget and lose his aircraft in this boiling sea of operations. Lyle- like a mother hen watching over her clutch of eggs- had naturally and dutifully stayed with the Veritechs- four of which would require servicing and repair before they were fit again for action.

Though this assured that the Valkyries of Knight Hawk Squadron would be well shepherded, it did not promise that they or Lyle's support team watching over them would be easily found again- especially if moved as was possible if not likely.

Even where the squadron was to call "home" for the duration of their time at Durango was questionable. An open field behind a hangar complex had been identified, but at a glance had revealed that the engineers had not even prepared the site for the tent city that would be raised there judging by the semi-organized stacks of building materials and shipping crates that could be seen in a corner of the plot.

These were not problems to Winters though, merely minor and distant considerations of comfort in the context of the purpose that had brought him and his squadron again into ASC territory.

Winters' immediate concern was accounting for all of his pilots- which was a task that had him now traversing the constantly changing landscape of Durango Base with Vice and Captain Israel "Isn't" Cohen in search of the heliport complex.

General directions from an RDF-AF captain whose information had prompted the jaunt the three Knight Hawks were on, and three separate interactions with ASC personnel to confirm and augment those directions had not gotten the Valkyrie pilots to their intended destination as directly or as quickly as they had wanted. Only the increasing number of helicopters flying over- Lakotas, Aztecs, and seen by the Valkyrie pilots personally for the first time, a number of the ASC-Army AJACS- gave a clear indication that they were headed in the right direction.

"Look at that-.", Cohen said as a flight of the transformable mecha flew overhead in their helicopter form, "- Rotary-wing tanks. Leave it to the ASC, eh?"

With the muted light conditions being kept on the base for operational security concerns, the AJACS flight had been identifiable by distinctive, deep sound of their rotors only as they had passed over. At best the Valkyrie pilots had gotten only glimpses of their bulky airframes by the strobe of their running lights that were kept on per safety regulation while overflying the post.

"-Yeah-.", scoffed "Vice" Vincenz, "-The ASC and whoever taught `em how to actually make that shit work-."

"Still don't think the ASC boys could pull it out of their asses themselves, Vice?", Cohen asked, resuming a debate that he and Vincenz had joined several times in moments when nothing more pressing demanded their attention.. With his family heritage rooted soundly in and intertwined with Israel and the Israeli military services from the time of that state's conception to the time of its dissolution of sovereignty to become part of The United Earth- it had been Cohen's position that a people driven by issues of survival could accomplish seemingly impossible things.

"Isn't", Vice replied with equal certainty, "-I think they could have more easily pulled flying unicorns out of their own asses."

Clearly Vincenz hadn't budged on his position.

"-They went from being a minimum of thirty-six months from having their neural interface systems ready for initial testing to fielding operational mecha overnight-. No one is that good, Isn't. They stole the shit from us, or bought it from someone who stole it for them."

Ever the fan of pulp fiction crime novels, Cohen seized upon the moment with equal parts jubilation and intrigue in his voice, "-Ah, a mystery then!.."

Vincenz forced a laugh, "Sure, in our abundant spare time let's figure out who sold the ASC the secret Wonka Bar recipes…."

"Everyone needs a hobby, Vice-."

"-Take up needlepoint!..", Winters snapped, his voice saturated with irritation as he stopped on a plot of baked earth short of a cluster of hangars that was no different in its rows of hastily deposited, crate-laden transport pallets and scrubby desert plants than the last four hanger clusters and plots of baked earth that the Valkyrie pilots had already traversed.

"-I swear to God, the two of you are going to drive me to drink- more- if you don't stop prattling on about nothing like two old women on line at market!"

Vincenz and Cohen both recognized immediately that this was one of those "delicate" situations to be dealt with carefully and with great caution.

Beside the inconvenience of the errand the three pilots were on, despite the relief to the squadron it had followed, the sun had been down for nearly three hours and the air was still humid and hot enough to broil steaks

All had been without a wink of sleep or a moment's pause for coming up on eighteen hours, "Go Pills" were long since worn off-.

…And worst of all, Winters was without his cigarettes.

The squadron commander had left his executive officer, Dalton, behind to tend to the multitude of details involved in settling the squadron in at Durango and in doing so had left behind without thinking his ready supply of nicotine-delivering smokes.

Vincenz and Cohen had from their place in trail seen Winters come to this realization some three hundred meters into their trek across the unending expanse of the ASC Air Force component of Durango Base. He had said nothing, but from that moment they could see the demon begin to work with increasing torment upon the CO.

The blow-up had been inevitable.

"Want a cigarette, Jack?", Vincenz said, offering up the pack he was carrying and the contents that he too had started to crave some minutes before but had abstained for fear of an eruption of Mt Winters- as had just happened.

Winters snatched the pack, opting not to comment on the brand favored by his wingman.

"Yes, I want a fucking cigarette… please."

Cohen had his silver Zippo, emblazoned with a winking smiley face, lit before Winters had extracted a filtered tranquilizer from the pack offered by Vincenz.

And with that, the angry bear was soothed.

Mostly-.

"Where in the name of mercy is this place anyway?..", Winters snarled with the frustration of the directions he had been given to their destination having more to them than what had been told.

Another flight of helicopters flew over, concealed in darkness and in the direction of the hangars towards which the pilots had been moving.

"-I'm guessing that way, Jack.", Cohen said, sounding more patronizing in speaking than the words had sounded first in his head.

Winters expression soured further.

"You know that I've never liked you, right?.. Never."

God, Winters found often when he most needed the reminding, had odd and subtle ways of showing His infinite love and benevolence.

Case in point, it was sometimes a cigarette when one was most needed, or to find that the helipads that had been sought for what had seemed an eternity were indeed just beyond one last set of hangars.

Other times, God showed His love with a small display of humor in the form of other souls whose day had been far worse than Winters'.

The wash from the rotor blades of the Lakota "slick" transport hit the Valkyrie squadron commander with the first breath of moving air he had felt since his fighter had rolled to a stop on the tarmac hours earlier. As refreshing as a large dog's breath, it was still an improvement as it was at least moving.

From within the dark recesses of the slick's crew compartment, uniformed men and women mostly carrying duffles tumbled out and were quickly met by various other uniformed personnel who like Winters and his pilots had come to the heliport with the intention of meeting someone.

Then appeared and dismounted the individual that the Knight Hawks had come seeking.

Captain Hamilton "Piglet" Vought from Dalton's B-Flight, and Cohen's wingman hit the ground- wincing slightly and looking as though he'd picked a fight with a professional boxer- twice. Some physical discomfort, to say the least, could be expected following an ejection seat egress from a Valkyrie fighter followed by a parachute ride into the sea.

With the squadron's assistance, Vought's pride could be expected to smart for much longer.

Overall it had not been a bad day, the loss of Vought's Valkyrie not withstanding.

One Valkyrie lost, four damaged and in need of service before they could be allowed back into action- but no one had been killed.

Not yet.

The melee over the Sea of Cortez however had only been a fight to get to the fight.

Winters was not going to dwell on it though- not while sweeter work was presently at hand.

Lieutenant Colonel Neil "Dingo" Duggan tumbled out of the Lakota next, looking as equally beaten and disheveled as Piglet- but with a more brooding aura about him. The 1017th Werewolves were not known to be as gentle with their teasing of pilots whose performance gave reason for ridicule. –And a squadron leader was a particular treat.

Duggan, normally easy-going in that rough and tumble, Australian way wore a stormy look that said that he was not in the mood to be trifled with, and also that he knew that the abuse would come regardless.

"Well, I guess pigs don't fly-.", Winters said with wry amusement as Vought approached his fellow pilots to submit to the inevitable.

"Up yours, Jack-.", Vought growled back, overlooking the matter of rank in the exchange, "I've had a shitty day… I got shot down, kicked in the nuts by a parachute harness, dropped in the drink, was almost fucked by a dolphin, and to boot it turns out I'm now two centimeters shorter."

"-Well, just two centimeters isn't awful..", Cohen said, trying to be inconspicuous in his attempt to verify that the ejection seat ride had indeed reduced Vought in height.

Vought, who had consistently been able to make good eye contact with Cohen's chin snapped back, "Easy for you to say, beanpole. –And by the f'in' way, I'm blaming you for this! Wingman, my ass!"

Cohen went defensive, "Hey, I'd just cleared three dittos off your ass- I missed the fourth. –And technically speaking, he was a stray- he came out of nowhere. That doesn't really count."

"No, that does count-.", Vought steamed, "-Counts to the tune of two centimeters-."

"Are you okay otherwise, Piglet?", Vice asked offering a cigarette and having it taken without hesitation.

Vought glared at Vincenz, his eyes appropriately reflecting the flame from Cohen's lighter as lit the cigarette for him.
"-What part of the description I just gave of my day sounds okay, Vice?"

Vincenz shook his head, disengaging without further comment.

Cohen relented as well from his meager attempts to make nice, "There's just going to be no discussing this with you rationally, is there?"

"No."

Winters intervened, mostly wanting to save some torment for later.

"The important thing is that you're not too banged up, Piglet. And you can't blame Isn't- his faith demands that he keep the skies kosher."

"Fist yourself, Jack."

Winters looked to Duggan who had time to brace up, and who actually beat him to the punch.

"Double fist yourself, Jack."

"I didn't say anything to you-."

"-Yet… It was coming.", Duggan said astutely.

"-I thought dingoes liked water-."

Duggan scowled bitterly, "-And there it is-."

Winters knew the point at which to back down- and having passed it decided that now was actually a good time to ease off. There were levels of torment, and a semi-good natured razzing had its limits.

"Come on then, SAR did their part, let's get you chaps back the rest of the way. Peckish at all?"

Duggan waited for the roar of multiple jet engines from the airfields to subside enough for conversation to resume before saying, "-All that going on, and you're saying we have time to stop by the mess?"

Winters shrugged, "It's going to be a bit before they can put us into the shuffle. –And it's not like the two of you have planes to fly anyway- not until the replacements arrive at any rate."

"You know you're an asshole, Jack- you know that, right?"

Winters accepted truth as truth, "Don't knock it- it's a fantastic job. The hours are flexible and there's no heavy lifting involved."

Lyle kicked at the dense, sun-hardened earth near the scattering of cigarette butts- mostly his own- that had accumulated there over the past three hours. Another drag on his Marlboro Red rewarded him with a flash of heat at his fingertips and lips telling him he'd reached the end of that cigarette as well. Blowing out the smoke into the haze of his own creation, he flicked the butt to the ground to join its friends.

There was little else to do.

"-What unit did you say you were with again, Colonel?-.", asked the flustered voice on the other end the encrypted cell phone that Dalton had received with a three-page printout of RDF-AF support contacts.

Dalton understood the frustration, there were multiple moving parts in motion upon multiple other moving parts, and the necessary pieces were going to need time to come together. Dalton had sympathy, but did not have the luxury of time to allow the critical support he needed now to gel and normalize.

"I'm XO of the 623rd Squadron, 304th Composite Wing-.", Dalton repeated, "-Look, Captain, I'm not asking you to set me up on a date with Playmate of the Year- I've had four damaged Valkyries sitting on a tarmac awaiting routing orders for service and repair for three hours. On top of that, I've got a plane captain whose going to smoke himself into emphysema because he and his crew have been standing around with their thumbs up their asses waiting for the opportunity to do their damn jobs. What we're waiting on is to find out is where to pull in-."

"Yes, sir- I got that, Colonel, it's just that we've got a lot of birds needing the dings knocked out and the ASC is being stingy with garage space-."

"Make it happen for me, Captain…", Dalton said, his voice not quite a growl.

"-I've got you sheltered in Hangars Twenty-Two Five, and Twenty-Two Six, is that correct, sir?"

Dalton glanced back to the occupied hangars joined to the tarmac on which Knight Hawk Squadron's Valkyries stood, confirming the numbers, "Yeah, we'll go with that answer."

"Then I can get you into the queue at Repair 16- but there's a line."

Dalton shook his head, anticipating a long and generally restless night, "Done- I'll take it. Any chance of a tow?"

There was a pause from the captain on the other end of the line, "Valkyries, right?"

"Yeah, that's us."

"Better walk `em, sir- until we can get more RDF handling equipment on the ground."

"Right-.", Dalton said, relieved at least to have established a line to enter, and remembering what Winters had said much earlier that morning, added, "It's that kind of war-."

"-Anythang?..", Lyle asked, hope clinging stubbornly to him.

"We're in the queue for Repair 16- but it ain't gonna happen fast."

"Sheeyt-.", Lyle said, ignoring the urge to have another cigarette- more out of conservation than concern for his own health, "What `round here does?"

"Yeah, I'm getting the sense that the ASC's hospitality only goes so far."

"Ah think y'could call it sure money in a bet-."

Dalton conceded the point without comment and scratched his head in thought on the more pressing topic.

"Lyle, what can you do with the facilities at hand?"

The plane captain snorted, thinking for a half-moment that the executive officer was joking- but after an additional moment's thought responded, "Whell, figurin' we could run over `n draw the parts we need fer Skinny `n Pinball's birds, we could probably get ta work on `em right here-. But Reaper `n Scooter's-. Naw, that's engine `n mechanical work. I wouldn' wanna even try that out here without the right equipment unlessin' Ah had ta-."

"Well, Lyle- I'd start thinking about how you would if you had to because you can never tell when that day will come.", Dalton warned before returning to the original exchange, "In the meantime though, my grasp of basic math still tells me that working on two to get them back into the fight is still better than working on none. Can you swing it?"

Mildly insulted, Lyle replied with a scoffing laugh, "Like it was mah own proud pecker."

"I don't even want to know the context of that last comment."

Winters in the company of Vincenz, Cohen, and sullen-looking Vought and Duggan had somehow made his approach without being noticed. It did not surprise Dalton in the least as between his own mounting weariness, the noise, and the ambient swelter of Durango Base- a Destroid could have probably crept up on him over a carpet of broken glass.

"-Jack…", Dalton said, feigning relief, "Just in time to hear me finishing up those details associated with running a squadron-."

"What can I say, Freddy- you complete me. Look who I found though-."

Dalton had taken notice of the two SAR-recovered pilots whose generally whipped appearance had caused him to hold on immediately acknowledging them.

"Piglet, Dingo- glad you're still with us. You okay?- More or less?.."

Duggan motioned back and forth between Winters and Dalton in a physical demonstration of contrasts.

"See- at least someone on this scorpion-infested post can lead off with a word or two of concern-."

"Freddy's slow to warm up.", Winters countered, "-Don't worry about them Freddy, they're fine- they've been griping the whole walk back. I was going to find a working mess or field kitchen and get them a nibble. They've had two helpings of crow and half a jellyfish between them since before wheels-up this morning."

"I could see that being the cherry, Jack-. Anyone would be a little short-."

Vought rolled his eyes in disgust, "You two are a regular Martin and Lewis, you know that?-."

Winters interjected, "Nevermind him, Freddy- I'll explain later. Tag along? Give the ASC cooks a chance to kill you before the dittos?-."

"Sure- I'll take the time to bring you up to speed on repairs. I thought I smelled something like coffee coming from that way over there-.", Dalton accepted, motioning vaguely to an area of hastily raised tents by permanent structures that soon would be the model for a number of facilities on Durango.

"Whell, Ah'm gonna stay `n do work-.", Lyle muttered bitterly, "`N you…."

Vought registered that he was being spoken to by the plane captain and had not escaped the hell he knew to be coming.

Lyle raised his right foot and slapped the side of the western boot's cracked and faded brown leather, "See this?.. This boot, `n yer ass- they got an `pointment later to talk `bout a plane. Ya hear?"

Vought gave a two-fingered, half-hearted salute, "Right- boot, ass, later."

Winters stepped in to clear Piglet's tail figuratively, "Lyle, haven't you patched my squadron back together yet? You've had three hours…"

"Workin' on it-.", Lyle replied, shaking his head, "Think ya can at least geyt someone ta watch our backs as we're stitchin' mah babies back t`gether?"

"Watch your backs from what?"

Lyle nodded across the tarmac, "From them-."

Winters followed the direction of Lyle's nod and started slightly with genuine surprise.

When he, Cohen, and Vincenz had left to recover Vought from the base's heliport complex, the half of the tarmac opposite from where Knight Hawk Squadron's Valkyries had been parked had been empty and the doors to the three hangars closed.

Now that portion of the tarmac was alive with activity surrounding what at a glance was a reduced squadron of ASC "Logan" Veritechs.

Winters had of course seen video and photographs of the ASC's experiment into transformable aircraft/mecha, had read the intelligence reports that had yielded little about the alarming surge in development from early prototypes to functioning, fielded combat platforms- and had scratched his head with others in the RDF.

Seeing them in the "flesh" however, and being in such proximity was an entirely different experience.

Winters first impression was the same as when he had first seen a photograph.

There was nothing elegant about the Logan- nothing that took him with awe and a schoolboy's infatuation the way the sleek lines and thoroughbred aura of a Valkyrie still did.

The Logan, from its blunt, broad, rounded snout with its bulbous bubble canopy and projecting its centerline-mounted ion cannon to the twin-humps of its compact but reportedly powerful engines that rode atop the airframe astern- it looked brutish and unrefined.

-At the same time though, each physical characteristic reflected what the ASC had become renown for in the design of first its mecha, and now its transformable mecha- functionality. There was nothing inspiring about the Logan to Winters, but there was no aspect of the compact brute that he could see from a distance that did not clearly state a purpose.

One day, Winters found himself fearing, he might even have to grant the midget attack aircraft a level of respect-.

One day.

An abundance of ASC technicians and mechanics were at work on a pair of Logans within the ample space of one of the hangars on that side of the tarmac. Though the details of their repair activities were concealed by the number of technicians at work within the hangar in the background, and by those performing more routine maintenance and servicing on the aircraft on the tarmac in the foreground- it was clear that removal and replacement of the Logan's modular parts and components where it was needed could be done without use of some of the equipment that analogous work on a Valkyrie would have required. Winters recognized instantly that with trained support, a minimal set of tools, and a level area of field, the Logan could be brought back from minor to moderate repair into a fully serviceable condition. It was a quality that had been incorporated into Valkyries in their design and development- a contribution from the Russian MiG family- but it had been a quality with limits and qualifications.

Winters in his few moments of observation also sensed that the ASC personnel were allowing this glimpse of one of their new accomplishments- boastfully even.

Their gloating would be made at a distance though-. The line of body armor clad and fully armed guards who stood post beyond the servicing activities on the Logans, and between them and the RDF representation on the other side of the tarmac were assurance of that.

"Stand tall, chaps-.", Winters said, twirling his cane head swagger stick into the crook of his armpit, "It's the competition-."

"Think they'd let me borrow that hangar fer a few hours?..", Lyle asked speculatively.

"Don't give them the satisfaction of asking, Lyle.", Winters said.

Dalton added, sounding distant in recollection, "-Yeah, remember when you were a kid and someone else on the block got a new, shiny, red wagon?- They're just waiting for us to come over to ask for a see-."

Lyle grunted distastefully at the thought of his children being upstaged by anything, "Mah solution was ta wait fer tha li'l bastard to leave his precious wagon out overnight `n I took it apart."

Amused, Winters laughed, "That was rather ungracious of you, old boy-. I like your thinking though. Freddy, let's go before they get to thinking that we're somehow jealous."

The walk from the tarmac to one of the many field kitchens that had popped up literally under the cover of tents around post was not a lengthy one and was considerably more pleasant for all since with the addition of Dalton to the group, Winters had access again to his cigarettes. The mess tent itself was nothing special or different from any of the others with its aluminum and plastic bench-seating tables packed into tight columns and rows beneath harsh, white LED lighting fixtures. Not even fully established yet, the serving line of gleaming stainless steel and aluminum did not even have heated or chilled Type B rations in the serving tray slots, but MREs kept replenished from an open box within sight in the back.

While Vought and Duggan were quick to flip through the offerings of complete meals sealed in their NBC-resistant plastic envelopes driven understandably by hunger, Winters and Dalton gravitated more quickly to the beverages further down the line.

Dalton paused by the heated coffee urn, weighing the virtues of caffeine versus taking in hot liquid and then having to leave the moderately cooled environment of the mess tent for the sultry air outside. After visible thought, he instead moved to the urn of "iced" tea- actually only cooled to just noticeably below room temperature where like Winters, and Cohen before him he drew a paper cup full as Vincenz struggled with the decision between similarly offered "red" and "purple" powdered fruit punches.

"Any word from Wing or Ganyet on when we might see action?", Winters asked sitting at table in the mix indiscriminately and by doing so prompting his subordinates to do the same.

Sitting beside him, Dalton shrugged, "No word. Short of a scramble situation, they've got a checklist they're having to run to gear us up for the fight."

"Checklist? Such as?"

"Software upload for one thing.", Dalton replied, "Supposed to let us tie into the ASC C2 to a limited extent."

"They can keep it.", Winters said dismissively, unconcerned by the fact that he was sitting in an ASC-provided mess tent with a half dozen ASC-AF support personnel seated also at tables nearby.

"Yeah, well word has it that they're working on the same thing to let the ASC tie into InfoLink- in a limited way, of course.", Dalton added.

"Ballocks."

"No shit.", Dalton said, "But the thinking of course is that we need to be reading off of the same playbook to fight this thing. I suppose there's some legitimacy to that."

"And why not hasten the ASC's next technological leap forward at the same time?", Winters observed.

"Yeah, kinda funny how the hardware on their side is readily adaptable, isn't it?"

"Hysterical.", Winters said flatly.

Vought and Duggan had found their way to the table opposite Winters and the other pilots who had arrived at Durango by their own means. Pocket knives had opened the outer packaging of MREs, and had allowed their contents to be spilled out onto the table to be sorted through and consumed with gusto that only hunger could inspire with field rations.

Both pilots ate something resembling "beef" stew out of plastic entrée envelopes, pausing periodically for sips of their drinks or to punctuate the entrée with bites of saltine crackers that were roughly the size and consistency of drink coasters.

"Think Lyle'll have us wired and glued back together by the time Wing gets orders for us?", Vought asked- not letting on whether he was forgetting that his Valkyrie was far beyond what even DeVeo and his team could do for it, and on the bottom of The Sea of Cortez to boot.

Dalton reminded him, "Well, until we get into flying rotations or the replacement Valkyries arrive, I'd say it doesn't matter much to you, Piglet."

A mirthful expression came over Duggan's face as he said, "The benefit of being a squadron leader though is that I get to make flight assignments, isn't that right, Jack-O?... The first bastard that gives me guff-. I'm not missing the fight, I'll tell you that now."

Understanding completely the source of Duggan's amusement, Winters agreed, "It's one of the perks, isn't it, Dingo? The wanton abuse of power-."

"Well, I'm glad the two of you find it all so gratifying-.", Vought began, building in his voice toward something caustic.

Then he stopped mid-chew and mid-sentence.

Winters felt a flutter of panic for a moment, suspecting by the sudden, distressed look that came over Vought's face that he was in the opening moments of some sort of episode that the SAR medics who had cleared him following his rescue had not been able to anticipate.

Unfortunately, it was worse than that.

Vought was looking up and beyond Winters to behind the squadron CO- to where the voice came from next.

"Kemosabe and Tanto-! Welcome back to Southern Cross turf, boys!.."

The fluid in Winters' spine iced as he rose from the table, drawing his .44 revolver as he turned.

Lt Col Warren "Mojo" Mathias didn't flinch as the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson grazed the tip of his nose and the cylinder rotated with the heavy click of the hammer being thumbed back.

Artoc

The great flagship's command deck rose up on all sides like an enormous cavern of martial technology. Holographic displays, both two-dimensional screens and three-dimensional images mostly relaying navigational or tactical information hovered in suspense in the air over the stations requiring them at various points across the deck. The significant chirps and tones of systems functioning merged with a base murmur of voices and provided a chorus to ongoing operations.

At the moment, the tone, volume, and tempo of sounds reflected the nominal progression of activities both aboard Artoc and in the multiple areas of operation on the alien world some light-minutes away.

By any quantifiable or measurable standard, it could be said that things were going well.

Not all things were quantifiable however, and the fact of present conditions and activities being well and within the parameters of what was expected was not an assurance of what was to come.

Sub-General Caldettas understood this and was acutely aware that the successes of careful planning and execution could be rapidly undone by giving action to urgent whim.

And this was what had Caldettas walking the command deck- the frail effort to monitor for signs that obedience to a whim might show the beginnings of the unravelling of plans and their execution.

"Lord, Action General Grul's battle group has departed. All search elements are now deployed."

Caldettas received the report with a silent nod from the action commander overseeing fleet operations. It was an expected report furthering the reaching of an ends, but not necessarily an ends with priority or very much benefit in Caldettas's mind.

"-Lord", added the action commander, "At the risk of questioning Supreme General Krymina's orders, I am obligated to point out that as the Fleet remaining in this system stands deployed now, we are putting ourselves at a tactical risk."

"A risk such as what, Action Commander?", Caldettas asked.

Momentarily looking uncomfortable with the prospect of standing apart from the direction and flow of operations, the action commander did relent.

"Lord, we have deployed the majority of our heavy battle groups to numerous positions in an effort to search for Breetai and Zor's Battle Fortress. If they were to be needed, they could not be recalled to this system quickly for action."

"We still have a sizable force of destroyers, Action Commander-.", Caldettas pointed out with hollow confidence, "A larger force than the alien micronians could possibly have. At worst, that puts us on even odds with our enemy."

"Numerically, yes.", the action commander agreed, "But our force is divided between running picket and support operations around the alien world, running patrols of this system, and acting as screen for our landing and supply ships. This weakens us somewhat."

"Somewhat.", Caldettas reminded the action commander, "Duty often requires risk, both calculated risks and unknown ones. It's Supreme General Krymina's tolerance for risk that determines our operational threshold. Be mindful of that."

"I obey, Lord- even when I do not understand.", the action commander replied, breaking in his pursuit of answers.

"As we all must, from time to time.", Caldettas assured him, glancing briefly at the command bubble at the rear of the chamber that he knew to be occupied.

Parting company with the action commander, Caldettas continued on his random walk between the duty stations but was unable to let the exchange slip from his mind.

The action commander had been correct.

Caldettas had known that the main objective of the campaign was being put in danger- minimal as it was- by Supreme General Krymina's decision to apply substantial resources to the search for Breetai the moment that she had made it.

Over four hundred areas had been identified by the intelligence staff as feasible locations to where Breetai and his alien allies might have taken refuge. These areas scattered throughout a1.5 kiloparsec sphere were identified with the clear caveat that they were candidates because they possessed advantageous qualities suited to hide a force the size of the one the aliens were known to have. Nothing was assured. Nothing was promised as certain.

Caldettas understood that Breetai could have elected to move his forces to none of these locations- opting instead to hide by jumping from random point to random point in the void. And furthermore, this could be done outside of the 1.5 kiloparsec sphere as easily as within.

Krymina, however, was determined to search.

So search they would.

And when nothing was found, as Caldettas knew it would be, Krymina would expand her search in the effort to catch Breetai before he had the opportunity to counterattack with a plan that only he knew for certain.

It was this imperative that Krymina would use to justify her hunt for the seditious warlord, but Caldettas was too versed in Krymina's ways, too familiar as to what lay at her Warrior's Core to accept that an offensive mode of defense is what drove the hunt.

Others could believe- or not- but Caldettas was bound by knowing the truth of the matter.

Breetai would counterattack-.

Caldettas knew this also. The timing, means, and method were not known right now, but the legendary norghil commander was bound, like Krymina, to what was at his Warrior's Core.

-And everything that Caldettas knew about Breetai, by documented history and by reputation said to him that Breetai would not be idle for long, or reserved in his response.

Yet Krymina had stripped the 7th Grand Army, a force that Caldettas had toiled endlessly over the past several seasons to augment to unparalleled might for her, of all of its heaviest units for the thin hope of landing the first blow in the next stage of this war and choosing where that battle would be fought.

Krymina had the vision and aggression to fan out across the void seeking to draw first blood in this impending confrontation with Breetai, but Caldettas was more comfortable with the math of odds and probabilities.

The fight would be here.

Breetai would make certain of this as surely as Krymina would drive her commanders and warriors into exhaustion for the boasting rights of taking the fight to him.

Did she not see this?

Duty sometimes also requires obeying orders with which one did not agree.

Darius had considered the mobile domicile that he and Philisto resided in to be an achievement worthy of some pride. Though he had not raised a single blister handling a tool in its construction- the Trendok 145 Robotech Factory having provided all of the effortless labor required- it was a creation of his mind down to the finest detail of the tile in the flooring and the art that ornamented the rooms.

-Mostly a creation of his mind anyway.

The domicile was inspired at least by the home of a provincial magistrate that his family had known on Tirol when he was a boy- and that home having long since been destroyed by neglect and exposure to the elements, Darius had no qualms in recreating it for himself.

When the requisite ugliness of subduing the alien planet's population was done and the logical place for Philisto and him to be was on the conquered world, Darius would have the domicile and its self-sustaining infrastructure and amenities moved to a plot of fertile land where a carefully selected and screened body of indigenous laborers could transform the grounds into an estate. Gardens, orchards, perhaps even a real Tirolian vineyard with transplanted trees and fruits would all be part of Darius's reward to self and a place to end his days as the Te'Dak Tohl busied themselves for an ultimate confrontation with The Robotech Masters that Darius himself had ensured would at best end for them with a fleeting victory.

For now though, the domicile was an exquisitely appointed, gilded cage- a plush cell in the prison that was Artoc under the guard of servants of the self-elevating potentate, Krymina. Swelling with artificial benevolence and calculated generosity, she had granted the two Tirolians accommodation in a minor briefing room near to the area of the flagship in which the senior officers were quartered. A "view" had even been bestowed on them- a holographic viewscreen left up and displaying the drift of space outside of the ship was visible from the windows of the front rooms of the domicile.

Darius suspected that the choice of images was a thinly veiled reminder from Krymina of exactly where they were, despite Darius's recreation of the comforts of home, and upon whom they depended for continued survival.

Darius accepted the unspoken and constant proclamation of social order with only mild resentment. He, after all, already had his hands around the throats of Krymina and her entire caste.

They just did not know it- yet.

The Te'Dak Tohl schemed and planned- scrambling to position themselves for what they saw as their place in the future which at best was still only scraps from the table of The Robotech Masters.

Darius was content to stand by, idle in direct action but knowing with the certainty of a prophet to what exact end all of the slave race's toil would lead.

Darius knew also that his future was to be no more remarkable, his name not to endure or even be remembered as he who ended the race that ended The Masters.

But unlike the Te'Dak Tohl who were now advancing at full charge toward their end seeing only the possibility of the position that they saw for themselves, Darius governed his own fate.

There were many days between this and that however, and while Darius was aware that his lavish domicile was still only a cage- he preferred it to the location he had visited on the alien world's surface.

Even the short, pre-dawn span of time that Darius and Philisto had spent in the world's tropical region visually confirming that The Flower of Life had indeed taken root and was being systematically grown and harvested by the aliens had been enough to saturate the aged Tirolians' robes and tunics with sweat. The tacky, unwashed sensation had stayed with Darius even after they had returned to the climate controlled shuttle that had in turn transported them back to the scout vessel that had hastily ferried them to Artoc.

A visit to the wading bath, a treatment of body powders and colognes, and a fresh change of clothing had restored Darius to vitality and ready to exalt in the uncommon occasion of a guest calling.

Philisto, despite having gone through the same restorative cleansing and grooming activities as Darius in his own private suite of the domicile had managed only to recover to his normal, haggard-looking state.

The guest by comparison though made Philisto seem a specimen of vigor and health.

Unrestored from his micronized state imposed by the alien beings, the male norghil sat slumped and heavy on a couch identical to those occupied by Darius and Philisto in the domicile's formal receiving salon. Even in his micronized state, the defeated creature dwarfed the two average-statured Tirolians and made the couch look as though it had been intended for children. His disproportionate and out-of-place appearance was only made more mock-worthy by his attire which consisted of what appeared to be scrap cloth lashed into a feeble approximation of a uniform tunic.

Darius suspected that this would be the state, at best, that he and Philisto would plummet to if Krymina were ever to cease to require their knowledge and skill in all things to which Zentraedi were ignorant.

In this regard at least, the Tirolians had an assurance of a secure and comfortable future.

There was something broken in this pitiable creature, Fral, who Action Commander Kevtok had brought with him back to Artoc like a beaten pet, and in doing so unwittingly delivered him from one form of exile into another.

Fral's defeat was beyond his state of physical decline, deeper than the grotesque evidence of extreme burns treated improperly, and could not be accounted for by the subtle but almost constant tremor of dependency that Darius had noticed days earlier when they had briefly met for the first time at the occasion of Kevtok's triumphant return.

Something within had fractured and invited reassembly by Darius- in whatever form he chose.

"Action Commander Kevtok and I spoke briefly about you, Fral.", Darius said without an effort to extend pleasantries that would have been considered customary when dealing with Tirolians. These social refinements were lost on Zentraedi.

"-He said both to me and in his report to Supreme General Krymina and her staff that you were a skilled organizer of Zentraedi, and that your network of contacts and resources had been critical to destabilizing key strategic regions in preparation for invasion."

As though undergoing an interrogation, Fral responded with neither boast nor modesty, "That is correct."

"-And that you held the rank of sub-commander at one point.", Darius continued, not avoiding the trappings of debriefing, or perhaps more accurately an inquest.

"I am a sub-commander-.", Fral corrected, his physical trembling worsening somewhat.

"Of course-.", Darius conceded, "But my interest- my purpose in talking to you- lies in the understanding of the aliens that you acquired during your imprisonment on their world."

"What of it?", Fral replied with disgust upon reflection, "Their way of being is dizzying and crippled with disorganization and inconsistency."

Darius sensed accumulated hostility seeking to be purged, and instead aimed to summon it.

"How so?"

Fral was quick to oblige as one who had compiled and given order to his protests by degree of the offense, "Their non-warrior caste serves itself in gluttonous and non-productive ways while commanding the warrior caste, who kneel and submit to their weakness with obedience. They have many factions based on things as meaningless as appearance, and they fail to fight to satisfactory resolution the quarrels and conflicts that they begin with one another.

-And despite all of this, they somehow have managed to achieve things that we have not."

Darius fought the urge that he might not have resisted in a debate with Krymina or Caldettas to remind Fral that Zentraedi had accomplished very little with the exception of conquest by their own means. Even the tools of conquest and the hierarchy of their bleak and unadorned society was provided for them by design of The Robotech Masters.

Darius let it pass.

"Speaking from a background of biological study", Darius explained with care not to patronize, "Assuming an accommodating environment, disorder can exist for some time without failing, Fral. Entropy is a natural progression- order is an act of will."

"I want no part of their ways.", Fral said grimly, "That was the entire motivation behind Yeshta's faction. We did not have the resources to fight the micronians, but we as Warriors would not submit to their ways. We toiled with the single goal of escape."

Darius nodded, "-Yes, and remind me- you were a sub-commander, were you not?"

"I am a sub-commander.", Fral repeated, irritation coming through more clearly in his voice.

"Yes, of course- forgive an aged mind.", Darius apologized vacantly, "But fortunately, the Te'Dak Tohl campaign has freed you in a way that your own failed efforts could not."

Fral's eyes narrowed, "We did not fail, Tirolian-. We were cheated at multiple points in our attempts to escape that wretched world by the micronians. They lack the spine and the strength to destroy us physically, but have the frame of mind to slowly destroy what we are…. To try to corrupt us and separate us from The Warrior's Code."

Though Philisto's eyes warned against it, Darius probed the wound eagerly with concerted effort at sounding anything but eager.

"Many Warriors did surrender themselves to that seduction-. They abandoned your Code."

Scar tissue layered thickly over facial muscles twisted bitterly into a mask of resentment and loathing, "A lapse of strength that they are beginning to regret uniformly, I hope. They will be burned to ashes and swept away with the wind like their feeble micronian allies if Fate has any sense of justice."

"Perhaps this afflicts you so particularly, Fral, because you were a sub-commander once."

Fral erupted as though fired from the couch where he had been sitting and steadily building tension with the gradual provocation of Darius's words.

"I AM A SUB-COMMANDER, TIROLIAN!.."

Darius felt his face flush as a ripple of panic swept through him.

Though he felt the quake of Te'Dak Tohl guards- fully sized- entering the briefing room where the domicile resided with haste to defend not him and Philisto so much as the services they had not yet performed for Supreme General Krymina, Darius was certain that the micronized norghil towering over him with fists clenched could have easily ended him before the eavesdropping guards could have hoped to tear through the domicile's structure to intervene.

Had Fral been the kind of warrior that he would have had his tirades lead others to believe, it was possible that that was the outcome that Darius's baiting would have yielded.

Fral relented though- his fists loosening to mockeries of the oldest tools of aggression from the tools themselves that they had been only moments earlier.

Having reached the verge only to shrink away from it- perhaps as he had done many times before- Fral returned and dropped heavily onto the couch, repeating his protest to incredulous ears.

"I am a sub-commander, Tirolian."

Visible indications of movement outside of the domicile and the briefing table to which it had been anchored told Darius that the Te'Dak Tohl guards were withdrawing from the chamber. At this moment, he was strangely grateful that his strong suspicions of being observed and monitored were indeed well-founded.

Still, Darius exercised greater caution and restraint as he continued- not only against arousing the anger of the micronized norghil past the boiling point, but also in the words he chose and how they might resonate in the ears he now knew to be listening.

"No, Fral- you're not a sub-commander. Not now. You haven't been a sub-commander for some time, and the Te'Dak Tohl have no reason to see you restored to that station.", Darius said cautious and outwardly sympathetic in removing the last of Fral's pillars of inner-strength, "-And Fate, has only whim-. Though I have a refined sense of justice. I seek justice for my family and my people against The Robotech Masters- that is why I am here. I can give you justice against the aliens. I can make you a sub-commander, again, and I can help you achieve justice for those Warriors who followed you. They can be Warriors again, Fral-."

Zentraedi, Darius had found, despite their limited mental faculties were not oblivious to the attempts of others to manipulate them. The more gifted were even capable of manipulation- sometimes skilled manipulation themselves. Fral was not one of these, but Darius recognized that he would make easier use of Fral if the norghil felt he understood the terms of their relationship.

Whether he grasped its true nature was irrelevant, so long as he felt he did.

"Speak your mind, Tirolian.", Fral said with the weight of one making the best selection from distasteful options.

"The Te'Dak Tohl are too confident in their exploits, and too sure of their eventual governance of a species that they neither know nor understand.", Darius said, speaking in honesty to establish his case, "They have planned for every element of this campaign except for perhaps the most important one. They have a need for The Flower of Life, but have no concept of how to gather or harness its power- only how to seize the world on which it's found."

"And you do?", Fral asked with justifiable skepticism.

"I know how to tap into its power.", Darius replied, "But to cultivate it, harvest it, and bring it to processing-. I do not have any of the required knowledge."

"You believe I do?", Fral asked with an unspoken admission of his ignorance in such matters in his words.

Darius drove to the point, providing the service to Fral by which he could again rejoin the purpose of Service outlined in The Warrior's Code to which he so stubbornly seemed to cling.

"No, but I believe the micronians do. I have already set into motion the gathering of the necessary specialists and laborers, but to make their forced effort viable, I need oversight."

"And that's me?"

"You and your Warriors who are looking to perform Service again, Fral.", Darius lured enticingly, "Your Warriors are languishing- you are languishing on the periphery of this war when you have the knowledge of these aliens to make it a success. The Te'Dak Tohl will never allow you fight at their side or in their ranks as equals- their pride will not allow it. But you and your Warriors can prove your worth, prove them mistaken, and with that footing demand your rightful place as Warriors again in this war."

"-By overseeing micronians in forced labor?.."

"By doing effectively what the Te'Dak Tohl cannot.", Darius corrected, "Beside Kevtok and his handful of Serhot Ran, the actual experience any Te'Dak Tohl has with these aliens is measured in hours. You and your Warriors have the experience of years. You are perfectly suited to govern them-. You know their character, their slyness and cunning in a way that the Te'Dak Tohl have yet to learn. Your administration of their labor will forego the learning process the Te'Dak Tohl would have to experience and the inevitable mistakes that they would make. You would bring a high, and almost immediate level of efficiency to what under the Te'Dak Tohl would be an initial and prolonged period of chaos."

"And then Service, as Warriors?", Fral confirmed.

"As Warriors.", Darius assured him, "How could the Te'Dak Tohl deny you that right at that point?"

Fral was his, Darius sensed- he had no option but to be.

The reward still had to be sweetened with something gratifying in the short term, but this was easily enough surmised by the Tirolian.

"And consider the reciprocity you will be able to exact. Revenge can be yours and your Warriors' until you've drank your fill of it. They tried to break you and remold you to be like them. Show them their failure, and let them understand what it is to be remade against one's will."

"You, Tirolian, sound like a creature who wants revenge himself.", Fral noted, showing perceptiveness that Darius had not suspected, "Are you certain that it's justice that you want against The Masters?"

"Sometimes justice and revenge walk the same path for a distance.", Darius said without excuse, "The difference lies in whether your motivation is real change or self-gratification. As it applies here, Fral, and for my part- that matter touches my soul alone and is not your concern."

Fral seemed genuinely uninterested in Darius's motivations beyond the questioning of them.

"Then, Tirolian- let's speak of our cooperation-."

"He's masterful.", Sub-General Caldettas said with a hint of admiration.

The executive officer sat opposite Supreme General Krymina at a table in a briefing room nearly identical to that in which the conversation that they were monitoring was taking place. Audio rendered from sensitive microphone pick-ups were filtered to remove the extraneous noises that they also captured to provide sound for the infrared image that was provided in real-time.

"It's no mystery how The Robotech Masters rose from that race.", Krymina said thoughtfully, "And even less of one as to how they've all but destroyed themselves."

Reflecting on Darius's brief conversation with the norghil, Fral, Caldettas observed, "-And he is rather brazen, assuming that he's aware that we're listening."

"He knows.", Krymina said with certainty, "He knows and is comfortable with it. I think he would be more suspicious of us if we were not listening."

"Then he believes that he knows you, Liege. Believes he can anticipate you. That extends beyond healthy mistrust into something more- adversarial. We're right to watch this one…"

Krymina was unconcerned.

"He's capable of only the treachery I allow him. As long as he is able to deliver what he promises, let him slight us to his ego's contentment. He can build whatever empire he likes in the box I allow him- but it will always be inside that box."

"Everything outside of it is ours."

RDF-AF Base Salamanca, Spain

You're in it now, Andy Johnson.

Cedric might have repeated his prophetic utterance, except he was showing every indication of grappling with maintaining consciousness.

Everyone was.

Everyone was in it.

There was no denying at this point that despite cigarettes and strong coffee that was nearly sludge in its concentration, the Nuggets (as Twig insisted on referring to them collectively as) needed sleep.

Sleep, however was a time-consuming luxury for which there was no time.

Reading and study devoured every minute that was not occupied by necessity by other exclusive activities.

The Nuggets read and studied after preparing for and while awaiting morning inspection.

The Nuggets read and studied on the serving line at the mess, and then while they ate.

The Nuggets read and studied while walking between instruction sessions, and while waiting for exercise stations to open during PT.

The Nuggets read and studied while in the latrine.

-And as always, the Nuggets read and studied long after retreat had sounded over post and into the morning hours.

There were three hours remaining until revelry sounded and the Nuggets would have fifteen minutes to prepare for assembly and inspection.

At least, Andy knew without deriving joy from the knowledge, that the inspection portion would go smoothly. He had been in the small room he shared with three other Nuggets twice since the last inspection, and his rack had not been disturbed by the act of sleeping in the interval.

As he jerked his head up, not having realized that it had drooped with the stealthy assault of sleep until his forehead had touched the open book propped up on his knees, Andy suspected that the ordeal would soon be over with the deplorable act of washing out.

Sitting on the floor of the common area of the dormitory-style barracks with the other Nuggets, already six fewer than had begun the dual-track pursuit of officer/fighter pilot, it was becoming abundantly clear why Veritech pilots were the elite few.

Mere mortals could not hope to survive the training.

Andy strayed into a moment of darkness to wonder if he would endure into the second week.

His chance, he resolved was as good as anyone's.

They all faced the same challenge.

Three hours before the daily cycle began again, and still nearly three hundred pages from four different subject areas to commit to memory.

Signs of physical exhaustion such as nodding off during classroom instruction meant a Yank baseball to the chest.

Failure to meet academic standards meant dismissal from the program.

Several slumped forms started slightly as Cattermole slammed a textbook onto the polished floor without regard for marking the page and place where he had stopped pretending to read.

"-Cancer call.", he said loudly to penetrate the haze of waking slumber that fogged all around him, "Who wants to burn one?"

Andy laid his own book down, open face to the floor to preserve his place in a chapter that he was having difficulty remembering. He was at least committed to going through the motions until they carted him away a drooling vegetable.

Cedric, sitting beside him did not respond at all, but continued to stare blankly at his own open book without registering what was before him.

As they had done for one another many times on the football or rugby field, Andy gave Cedric a solid shove to bring him back into focus.

Whether he knew what he was acknowledging or not, Cedric's head bobbed to show he was in on the play.

"Pamela?", Andy asked as he and Cedric competed to reach their feet first with similar cracking and popping of every stiff joint involved in the process.

Pamela Dunn, whose forehead was resting on her crooked, right knee in a contortionist's take on a power nap, grunted, "I'll skip the fag and go right to the cancer if it doesn't take any effort-."

"Next time then.", Andy said, wondering how many next times they had left before being rotated back to a less demanding MOS pursuit.

The early morning air was chilly and bit slightly at the skin, waking the three pilot candidates with its briskness.

The rejuvenating qualities of the temperature change were short-lived though, and all three young men were soon at the activity for which they had come outside.

As the still air filled with cigarette smoke, Cattermole said whimsically, "-Well, infantry training shouldn't be so bad-. We'll get to see old Kingsley again, won't we?"

"If the infantry would have us.", Cedric muttered bitterly, "Face it- we're headed to cook's school."

Cattermole rolled his head side-to-side pondering the possibility and then said, "Not how I envisioned killing, but bugger it-."

"Well, I'm not done yet.", Johnson said, mustering some defiance, "I'm not tapping out to some God-awful, well you gave it your best- speech."

"What was the last thing you read?", Cedric asked.

"What?"

"You were reading like two minutes ago-.", Cedric elaborated, "What were you reading?"

Despair gripped Andy tightly about the throat as he realized he honestly could not remember."

"Ahhhhhh…", Cedric gloated.

"Piss off, Cedric.", Andy growled, still working at remembering.

"So, I suppose I can't just ask you for the short version, then eh, Andy?"

"How do you still have the energy to be a prick?", Andy asked, drawing on his cigarette, "Can you tell me that?"

"Selective application of my remaining strength, I guess.", Cedric answered, the energy already dropping off from his voice again.

"-Oh, you miserable cunts-."

Collins and Johnson both looked to Cattermole for an explanation of the unwarranted outburst.

"Come again?", Cedric asked.

Cattermole shook his head, saying, "We're all a lot of dense, miserable cunts-."

"Alright, we've established that.", Andy said, "Any particular facet of our miserable cuntnes that you wish to expand on?"

Cattermole said with the self-loathing of one only now grasping the obvious, "We're never going to be able to cover all of the reading we're given-."

Cedric snorted, "That was inspiring- thanks."

Cattermole's meaning clicked with Johnson, spurring his own self-loathing for not seeing.

"No, Cedric- he means we can't do it if we're all going at it alone. We've got to break it down a little. Divide and conquer, right?-."

"I don't think that's what that means-.", Cedric pointed out.

"-Still-.", Andy continued, "Like when my Da's company puts up a block of flats-. You've got special teams for each trade- right? It'd be a bloody hole in the ground forever if everyone went at the same thing at once."

"Smart bloke, your da'.", Cedric conceded.

"What's this about your father?", Cattermole asked with mild and unveiled indignation, "I seem to remember me bringing it up. –Still, you're smarter than I gave you credit for."

"Thanks, I think..."

"I didn't set the bar that high-."

"We've got to break it down into teams.", Johnson continued, ignoring the last comment, "Each team brushes up on something and then briefs it out for everyone else."

Collins' mind was turning now and the path- the only path- was becoming clear.

"Well, I wish we would have thought of this five hours ago-."

Cattermole was immediately defensive of his ownership of the epiphany, "What's this we?"

"Get bent, Aunt Moggie- it's everyone's now.", Cedric said sounding every bit the football team captain that Andy had played under what seemed centuries ago now, "Let's get back in there and start to work it out now. Won't get us a wink of sleep tonight, but if we don't gruel first, we might make it through tomorrow and get some sleep to boot."

Andy raised his cigarette to his lips, saying, "We really should smoke more often, the three of us."

"Yes", agreed Cattermole, "You inspire me to be less like you-. Miserable cunts…"

Brasilia

"Sri, my friend, I don't think these boys mean to move on anytime soon.", Whilite said raising a pair of field glasses up to his eyes.

With the aid of the image intensification system built into the compact, ruggedized binoculars, Whilite was able to see clearly in green hues details that the dark had concealed from his naked eyes.

From he and Naib Subedar Singh's observation position atop a fire and weather gutted office mid-rise, the two officers could see the ongoing cycle that had continued all throughout the day and again into darkness, late night, and now early morning.

As though part of a conveyer belt with invisible linkages, Zentraedi Re-Entry Transport Pods continued to arrive from the north and vanish below the darkened city skyline in the area where Brasilia's airport still stood semi-intact and continued apparently to service new traffic.

Earlier in the day, there had been a substantial Gnerl presence in the sky, flaying guard for the transports and then lingering for a short while in the skies over the city like birds of prey scouring the world below. When none of the indigenous air forces had contested them, and with nothing moving overland that had captured or held their attention- the concentration of Gnerls lingering over Brasilia had dwindled significantly.

Like most if not all fighter pilots, the Zentraedi variety appeared also to be easily bored and quick to seek out action if none presented itself.

"They do not.", Singh agreed to Whilite's comment, "But that could play to our advantage when the time is right."

"The sooner the better.", Whilite said, not hearing the eagerness he felt to cut into the enemy conveyed in his voice.

Payback was in and of itself not a good operational objective, but it was a great motivator.

An axle squealed from the rubble-strewn street below, protesting shrilly having to bear a heavy load in a damaged state.

Whilite's pulse raced for a moment and then dropped back to a resting rate as he reassured himself with the experience of the day that if the Zentraedi were even aware of human activity in Brasilia, they were not concerned. The lieutenant hoped that it would be an extremely painful mistake for them.

On the street below, an abandoned, flatbed truck trailer, damaged noticeably by fire, and riding on the steel rims of its ruined tires was being towed by two of Singh's Gurkha Riflemen in their Cyclone Battloids.

The two power armor clad men bore the front hitching platform of the trailer on their shoulders and applied their mechanically augmented strength against a crossbeam that had been welded into place for the purpose. With crates and bundles lasted to the long flatbed, the sight was bizarre at first glance but strangely reminiscent of how one might picture medieval peasants trundling their goods to market by open cart.

In some ways, it was not a completely inaccurate analogy- as for the time being, the Earth had been bludgeoned back to an earlier time of less technological sophistication.

Whilite accepted the analogy however, as medieval times were far more savage and accepting of bloody deeds like those that he, the Rangers and Gurkhas were looking forward to committing.

Not yet though.

Rangers were not thugs given to surrendering to their first whims of violence.

Rangers were expertly trained, supremely resourceful, and highly disciplined soldiers who planned and prepared before acting on their whims of violence.

This latest transfer of equipment and supplies from Homestead, one of an impressive half dozen this day, was evidence that preparedness was a core value adhered to by both Ranger and Gurkha alike.

Receiving only a small portion of the stockpile of supplies from the shattered and now lifeless Homestead Base was Echo Company's adopted lair- the 511-Sul Station of the Brasilia Metro mass transit system.

On the "new" subway line that had begun construction prior to The Robotech War, 511-Sul Station had never reached a state of completion like the other intended points of access on the line.

There was the form and structural elements of a station connected partially or completely by the shells of tunnels, but these were arrested steps of construction that had been superseded by greater human needs for the skills required to create them and left to slumber until the time came around when that attention could again be dedicated their way.

For now though, it was a den and means of movement that the Rangers could have sworn had been dug out of the earth for their specific purpose- had the real purpose of the subway line not already been clearly defined. Still, the tunnels and stations on both the existing subway lines and on those under construction had been areas of conflict and contention between the malcontent Zentraedi and the rotating forces of Homestead Base since Brasilia had descended into chaos some three months before.

The malcontents, never quite comfortable with the thought of dwelling or moving exclusively below the streets had nonetheless established niches of refuge and resupply that RDF and ASC forces had been obliged to root out and destroy so the same conveniences could be established again by the malcontents in other areas of the city.

The struggle had not been unending though. When secured, regular probes and patrols of captured subway tunnels and stations by the combined Terran forces had managed to keep them malcontent-free with only periodic and relatively minor skirmishes as the Zentraedi had chosen to move their stores to the basements of the abundant abandoned buildings rather than engage in the close-quarters combat that their conditioning and experience made them ill-suited for to preserve the subways as their own. It left the diminished but still serviceable network of transit lines and all of the supporting infrastructure for the poor remnants of Homestead's garrison, whose training made the dank labyrinth of concrete and steel a subterranean world of opportunity.

With the proper preparation of course.

The stockpiling of the supplies needed to sustain an isolated combat unit the size of Echo Company and the surviving Gurkhas was a major step in that direction. Once that step was completed, then the work for which Ranger and Gurkha alike had come to Brasilia for originally would resume- just under different terms.

Singh's Gurkhas in their Cyclone power armor hauled the flatbed trailer the last thirty meters on its grating and squealing axles to the same point that it had been drawn to a half dozen times already that day before setting the load down and immediately going into "unload mode". The reduced, composite squad from 3rd Platoon that Whilite had hand-selected nearly a day and a half before to participate in the probe of Brasilia rushed out to participate again in the moving of the supplies that would sustain them from their conveyance to their underground cache like small mammals of the forest storing food for winter.

Whilite and Singh's soldiers were bearing up, benefitting on the Rangers' side at least from brief opportunities to rest as supplies were shuttled from Homestead to the improvised FOB only several kilometers distant. There were moments to rest, but the fatigue was beginning to show.

With no end in sight to the detail however, Whilite knew that the unit would just have to muscle through- and was confident that they would. Supplies would be trundled in until every available space was over-packed or Zentraedi discovery precluded their gathering. And once the immediate spaces of the FOB were filled, then secondary and emergency caches would be established elsewhere.

Only the promise that an entire company would soon be in the AO allowed Whilite to realistically expect that the task could be accomplished in an acceptable timeframe.

"Man, Sri-.", Whilite commented as the unloading of the flatbed went immediately into full swing and the labors of a pair of Rangers to move a single storage crate were diminished in comparison by the lifting and movement of a pallet by a single Gurkha in power armor, "-A dozen more guys in those things would make this go a lot quicker."

Singh was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then replied, "A request I can't help you with, I'm afraid. A dozen more Cyclone riders would benefit us manifold in the days to come I think. A week ago, I could have offered you a company of them-."

The glaringly obvious struck Whilite at a near physical level.

"You know, Sri- Captain Nguyen could offer you a company today-. Minus the training, of course…"

Singh's expression turned from doubtful to speculative in the time it took him to turn his head to fully face Whilite.

"We haven't the facilities for the formal Cyclone training regime, you know."

"School's overrated.", Whilite replied, "I've always been a big believer in on-the-job-training."

"I'm not much in the way of an experienced instructor-.", Singh stipulated.

"Great", Whilite countered, "I'm a consistently lousy student- ask my high school French teachers… We're a natural pair."

Singh returned to thought a moment longer.

"It could work."

"That it could.", Whilite agreed.

There was a soft crackle in the earpiece of Whilite's radio headset as a mike went live on the same tactical frequency, and as the channel had been reserved for command communications, there was little doubt in Whilite's mind as whose voice he would hear.

The lieutenant was not disappointed as Captain Nguyen's voice followed a moment later.

"Echo Three, Echo Actual- do you copy?"

"Echo Three here.", Whilite replied, adjusting the mike stem before his mouth, "Five by five, Actual."

"Three, Actual. SitRep?"

"Actual, Three. FOB identified and fortifying. –Found a good deal on real estate. It's cozy and well situated with room for a family to grow. Bit of a fix `er upper though."

Whilite could hear Nguyen's grin of amusement through his words, "That's good, Three- we've got a growing family. Send your position and we'll come home."

"Happy to hear it, Actual. Stand by to receive."

"Oasis"- ASC Durango Base,

Mexico

"-Jack, this is really starting to fuck with my buzz-.", Dalton said, sounding understandably like he could have been happier anywhere but where he was.

"We're not drinking, Freddy.", Winters replied finding the balance of his pistol to keep the muzzle squarely between Mathias's eyes.

"-I know-. It's fucking with a buzz I don't even have yet, Jack- and that's just weird."

There was a series of rapid, metallic clicks as the half dozen pilots of Mathias's squadron who had accompanied him on whatever business had brought them to cross paths with the RDF pilots drew, leveled, and readied their side arms- interlaced with the sound of Vincenz and Cohen doing the same. Exposed gun metal glinted in the naked LED lighting as all other movement in the mess tent ceased.

"You remember me!", Mathias chuckled, unperturbed by the possibility of a magnum facial, "-I guess that means we bonded or something…"

The trigger beneath Winters finger felt especially light and easy to pull as he said, "You and me, and the devil makes three, Mathias. You here to settle up?- because I can help you with that this very instant."

Duggan, on his feet but unarmed as was Vought by virtue of having lost their side arms to sea water emersion was nonetheless ready to participate in whatever came next.

"You know this Yank, Jack?"

"We've met.", Winters replied as the rush of impulse began to subside and the reality of why Mathias should seem so unconcerned began to penetrate. In the span of the confrontation, what appeared to be the bulk of Mathias's squadron had joined their CO inside of the mess and had followed in the drawing and pointing of their weapons.

"-He's a less than model host, let's say."

Winters with considerable effort returned the hammer of his revolver forward and lowered the chromed length of steel to his side, holstering it.

On both sides, others who had drawn their weapons did the same.

It had been silently agreed that there would be no blood-letting – for now.

"Well, in all honesty, you're a shitty guest, Winters.", Mathias replied, dots of fresh sweat unrelated to the heat appearing on his face, "You blew up half of my base on your way out the door. Not quite the gung ho spirit that gets you invited back."

"Bill me.", Winters said flatly, "-And if you haven't noticed, I am back- sorry to say… By the way, that wasn't you who parked those VW Bugs with wings on the same tarmac as my fighter plane, was it?"

"Oh, you mean those sagging relics that are leaking oil all over my base?..", Mathias fired back.

Winters was grateful that Lyle had not joined them.

There would have been violence at this point.

"Valkyries don't leak oil.", Winters replied, "They're just marking their territory."

"Still quick with a comeback, Winters- I'll give you that.", Mathias acknowledged, "Gotten any better at sticking around for the fight?"

"We've been at it for three days, you uppity little shit.", Duggan joined in, right fist still clenched in case he was given occasion to use it.

"And you've done a bang-up job so far-.", Mathias replied, "-It's gratifying to see that all of those resources that went to planetary defense didn't go to waste. –But hey, what do I know? I'm just down here in the back waters slugging it out like I always have."

Winters was slowly recognizing faces, though not names, of Mathias's pilots from months before with the exception of several.

"Where's your XO?"

Mathias shook his head with sincere regret, "Billy didn't make it, I'm afraid. One of those sad cases of someone who sacrificed all on Day One."

"Sad.", agreed Winters, "Should have been you."

Mathias chuckled again, unaffected other than by amusement, "Well, the war is young, isn't it?- And I mean, we all have it coming eventually, don't we? Even you, Winters."

"Then I'll save you a seat in Hell?"

"It's a date.", Mathias said.

The ASC-AF squadron commander glanced around at his pilots, and then at the smaller RDF representation.

"Well, fellas- maybe we ought to try the chow somewhere else. This place will serve anyone."

The Crimson Cavaliers began to file out of the mess tent with parting, hateful glances made over the shoulders of each as they exited the tent with Mathias taking up the rear of the procession.

"See you out there, Winters. Be sure to watch your six."

As the flimsy plastic door to the tent swung closed behind the Southern Cross pilots, the air in the tent began to move again as all- those involved in the confrontation as well as those who had simply been by-standers resumed the act of breathing.

"Congratulations, Jack.", Vought groused, breaking the silence that had hung for seconds and had lingered too long to be comfortable, "You found a way to make my day worse than it already was. I think I just pissed myself through my goddamn pores…"

"He's still an asshole.", Dalton said, referring clearly to Mathias, "-At least the war hasn't changed him."

"Isn't consistency a virtue, Freddy?", Winters asked, taking a seat on the same table bench where he'd been sitting previously, though this time out of the faint feeling that naturally followed a close scrape as they had just had.

"So are good judgment and self-control.", Cohen said with his eyes locked on the tent door as though expecting the Crimson Cavaliers to come bursting in again.

"Well, we're all fucked then, aren't we?", Dalton observed, "-I really didn't like that."

Duggan, looking completely excluded inserted himself into the conversations of those around him who were in the know.

"So, is someone going to let me in on what just happened, or should we do this twenty questions style?"

Winters removed his beaten leather wheel cap to find his hair slick with sweat.

"Sure, what are you doing for the next two hours?"

"Before we dive into history", Vincenz cut in, "I'd like to take a moment on the here and now. –I didn't like that whole thing about watching our sixes."

"Like the man said, Vice- we've all got it coming eventually, don't we?", Winters mused darkly.

"One usually doesn't have to worry about it coming from your own side though.", Vincenz countered, "I mean, that was a pretty clear threat- or did I just hear Mathias wrong?"

"No, you didn't.", Dalton affirmed, "But it doesn't change anything really-. We watch our sixes regardless, don't we?"

"But it does change things.", Winters said heavily, "It does, and we can't have it that way."

Dalton looked genuinely confused, "What are you saying, Jack?"

"What needs to be said.", Winters replied, "We hate the bastards, and they hate us-. But we can't have it out with the bloody Zentraedi and settle vendettas at the same time. –We just can't."

Vincenz paled.

"Aw, shit-. Jack's talking like a grown-up. It is the End of Days…"

"Any thoughts on how to achieve this Kumbaya moment of reconciliation, Jack?", Dalton asked.

Winters shook his head, "Not a clue-. But I need to figure it out."

"And we just forgive and forget what he did to Wang?", Vought asked, invoking the martyr whose name was still not easily spoken in the squadron.

"No", Winters said, "-But we put it behind us. Or put it aside for now. Preacher would say that it's the right thing to do, or that Wang would have wanted it that way."

"Well, we left our conscience back with the rest of the squadron.", Cohen said, observing Wayne's absence from the company of pilots.

"Maybe you should have just shot the fucker.", Duggan suggested, referring back to Mathias, "-Gotten all of the bad blood out in one scrap-."

"Yeah", conceded Winters, "-Maybe I should have just shot the fucker."

Topia, Mexico

The town of Topia had stood in one form or another stretching back far beyond living memory of any of its inhabitants, farther back than the national memory of Mexico, to its establishment sometime during the period of Spanish rule over the region.

Like many towns and settlements in many mountain chains around the globe, Topia had most likely taken root originally as it presented a waypoint between nowhere and nowhere along a poorly maintained road winding its way through rugged and plunging canyons and passes. It had been founded to accommodate travelers passing through, and lived because some in the course of their travels had decided to establish roots.

Common to settlements of its type in remote areas of the world, Topia had little in the way of modern infrastructure and occupied a geographical footprint that a grown man could walk north to south in under an hour and east to west at its broadest point in a quarter of that.

Also, like many remote settlements of the world, it had boasting rights to claim that it had been virtually unchanged by Earth's surge in technological evolution driven by Robotechnology, and its near collapse following The Zentraedi Holocaust.

Topia's exclusion from the benefits and detriments of the Earth joining the galactic community was nearing its end this night however. The same geographical qualities that had made it a logical place for a settlement supporting the movement of travelers made it also a site of strategic importance in the Sierra Madre chain.

Colonel Marco Antonio Mejia of the 94th Composite Armored Regiment had been briefed hastily by his superior, General Vargas, on the criticality of his unit's assignment. Though Mejia had grown up much farther north and east- far away from the mountains- his formal military training made it clear beyond the readily apparent as to why paths through the Sierra Madre were of significance. Beyond that, Mejia did have family history in the area. Tio Rafael, his father's brother, had made something of a name for himself in this region in a less than legal occupation during the times before Robotechnology.

Mejia understood clearly how even in a time of advanced technologies and sophisticated war machines, that simple topography could be the determining factor in military victory or defeat in a region.

Mejia also understood why Vargas had chosen Topia as the bottleneck into which to insert the cork of the 94th Composite Armored Regiment. Topia stood flush against a "hill" to its northeast with no other name of significance than "1405", that indicated its peak height above sea level. Along Hill 1405's east face, a road that was paved to two lanes in some stretches but that was scarcely more than a dirt path and little more than the width of a pick-up truck clung and wound with the contours of the steep mountainside. Of particular interest was what had aptly come to be known by the staff as "The Angle" where the road switched back and forth on itself in extreme turns no less than four times inside of a footprint of 500 square meters.

It was a location where a minimal few could effectively stop and hold back a force many times its own size, and was the reason for which Mejia and the 94th found themselves hurried to garrison Topia.

As Mejia stood atop his command vehicle in an opening that passed as a "plaza" in the relative terms of Topia, he could not see The Angle, but could still visualize where the road came around the southern end of Hill 1405 to enter Topia from the east. It was along this road to almost within sight of The Angle that Mejia had placed at bends and areas where cover presented itself two companies of his MB-1A Heavy Battloids.

Ill-suited for facing Zentraedi mecha in on an open battlefield, and with armament that relegated them to little more than the role of mechanized infantry defending the flanks of more substantial mecha from infantry-level threats, the MB-1A in terms of the mountain pass that wound its way into Topia was ideal. Each mecha at just under six meters in height was small enough to take advantage of the cover provided by the irregular mountain terrain, while carrying sufficient firepower to slow the advance of Zentraedi light mecha through the valley.

General Vargas had likened Topia to Thermopolis- implying the position was defensible by few from many, while at the same time ignoring the more dire connotations of the analogies for the defenders.

In the first element, Mejia was in total agreement with his superior.

And should the Zentraedi ever reach the mouth of the pass opening into Topia, they would find themselves facing down 80 of the 94th Composite Armored Regiment's centerpieces- the VHT-1 Veritech Hover Tank.

Only outwardly comparable to the nimble transformable fighter that first carried the name "Veritech" by the fact that the VHT-1 could change physical forms depending on the requirements of combat- the heavily armored mecha was quietly rumored to be more closely related to its RDF Valkyrie and REF Alpha cousins by technologies that may or may not have been borrowed.

The possibility that RDF "intellectual property" may have been adopted and modified to bring the VHT-1s to fully operational status was not cause for Col Mejia to lose sleep. For over a year the hardware portion of the VHT-1s had been in finalized form awaiting refinement of the sophisticated software required to make a transformable, multi-form, combat platform viable.

In guarded secrecy, "Hover Tankers" had trained rigorously in simulation in anticipation of technical blockages being cleared, and of one day being able to button-up in an actual VHT to conduct true field exercises.

And it had happened- though the breaking-in period of the VHT had been far shorter than even the sourest pessimist could have predicted.

The hover tankers under Mejia's command all had substantial mecha experience, some even going back so far as service in the RDF through the days of The First Robotech War, and all had stood up under the pressures of combat. Introducing a new machine into the equation of combat however, with such limited field testing though was ill-advised by any calculation.

At the same time though and as was the present circumstance, baptism by fire was sometimes the only option.

Mejia had more reasons for confidence than for concern though.

The terrain and positioning of his men were advantageous to him, and the defense of the mountain pass was layered with air support and indirect artillery support to supplement the 94th CAR.

Even the substantial presence of the combat untested VHTs was offset by the standard assortment of conventional, anti-mecha fighting vehicles and even two token RDF platoons apiece of Gen-1 Gladiators and Excalibur Destroids.

Still, with extreme hills towering to all sides of Topia and the only plausible means of withdrawal being through a bottleneck pass to the south over a road identical in every meaningful way to the one that Mejia looked to use tactically against the Zentraedi-.

Mejia couldn't help but think in brief moments of darkness that General Vargas's comparison of Topia to Thermopolis might be more appropriate than he was outwardly willing to admit.

"Colonel, sir-."

Mejia looked down to where Martinez from his operational staff leaned out of the open rear hatch of the converted APC.

"Sir, OP Three has visual contact with the enemy. They're coming, sir."

"Time to get to work then.", Mejia replied, pausing to take in one last breath of the night air and to feel a last moment of serenity that the rustic surroundings had to offer.

It would change all too soon.

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt had been involved in numerous exercises since his Awakening, and though none were quite the same as this they had provided him with a sense of where danger lay- even when it could not be seen. This limited experience too was built atop intuition that he could not as easily explain.

It had just always been there since the moment his eyes had fluttered open and his ears taken in the sounds of his own sputtering and gagging in the effort to expel stasis fluid from his lungs.

In the same way he had known words spoken to him and how to speak back, along with the multitude of things and symbols he had recognized immediately upon Awakening- this sense for impending peril had been with him.

Though the routine of unit movement and the sudden sense that something was not right came to Tahlt as it had in exercise, this was not exactly the same. There was a biting edge to this sensation now, and it did not require great perception to understand why.

The path, set flush and without margin between the steeply ascending wall of these heavily jungled mountains and the plummeting drop to the chasm floor far below was adequate to support the weight of his Regult and the others of his platoon- but it was a slender trail that necessitated traveling in column as it was and had been too narrow for one Regult to even pass another for some distance now. As the trail cut sharply right and west in toward a pocket formed in the natural contours of the mountain, Tahlt was certain enough that this would be the place where danger would spring itself that his Warrior's Core urged him to halt the advance.

This, his conditioning also told him, was not his decision to make.

"Lieutenant Pizkhra, Lord-.", Tahlt called by secure frequency a considerable distance to the rear to where his Te'Dak Tohl superior and the vastly greater firepower of his Glaug Officer's Pod were nestled into the column. Too far to the rear to assist in any contact made on the column's point, but able to direct action.

"-Lord, I am concerned about the trail immediately ahead. I request permission to halt the column while I take a reduced squad forward to clear the path."

Tahlt's response was immediate- almost without pause for thought.

"Negative- the column will not halt. You are to detach a reduced squad and advance ahead of the column, but our progress is not to slow. We are falling behind on the advance."

"Understood, Lord.", Tahlt acknowledged.

And he did understand- far better than the platoon leader might have suspected.

-But beyond the conditioning that Tahlt had Awakened with, he had acquired the sense not to speak such thoughts and suspicions openly.

The days following his Awakening had been an overwhelming time for Tahlt, as it had been for the thousands who had emerged from stasis in the span of several days bracketing him before and after. There was the grappling with knowledge and skills that they had no memory of acquiring, but of the greatest struggles was forming units under their Te'Dak Tohl superiors.

Pizkhra had been there from almost the onset of consciousness, Tahlt remembered, and had performed his functions as unit leader as Tahlt had known automatically to expect.

-But there was something about Pizkhra's conduct that went beyond the understood segregation of officer-grade and the sub-officer and warrior grades.

He rarely performed inspections himself, and had only three times to Tahlt's memory- normally leaving the duty to his sub-officers. And for sub-officer and warrior grade alike, he identified them only by grade and never name.

There was also the way that Pizkhra referred to the warriors of the unit only as regulars- and always with a hint of something in his tone that Tahlt had initially lacked the experience to identify, but now felt confident in calling it contempt.

Pizkhra had never, over the expansive period of training and exercise that the 7th Grand Army had exposed its "regulars" to, executed his command in such a way as to intentionally imperil his subordinates whose names he knew perhaps one in six. There was no sense either however that he had pride in their maturation as Warriors, or that he saw the polished result of training as something worth guarding.

There had been accidents and losses in training, particularly in live fire exercises that with the benefit of hindsight could have been avoided with only the most minimal care in orders given. Consistently though, Pizkhra had always chosen the quickest route to accomplishing the objective with the responsibility for his warriors' individual safety being their own. All, Tahlt also had noticed quickly, while Pizkhra led from as far in the rear as he could while still claiming leadership.

This was not uncommon, Tahlt had discovered in talking to other Warriors as warriors did. Some, whose Te'Dak Tohl officers had seen fit to explain had imparted the justification that the regulars needed exposure to Fate's unpredictable whim as part of seasoning. Some explained this more benignly than a number of known others who more often used the more abrasive term norghil in referring to their warriors.

Some Te'Dak Tohl officers left it to their regulars to comprehend themselves- putting those who questioned command practice into the most immediate danger regularly until even the thought of questioning had ceased, or Fate had claimed the warrior.

Pizkhra was a less extreme model in that category.

Tahlt had not ascended to the position of ranking sub-lieutenant by virtue of his Warrior's skills alone though. There had been a number who had occupied the position before him who had not mastered the ability to govern thought and to keep it from becoming spoken words.

Tahlt thought often the same things his predecessors had spoken to their lieutenant, but Tahlt gave these thoughts voice seldom and only in the company of Warriors whom he knew had mastered the same control.

Whether his words had somehow found their way to the Te'Dak Tohl lieutenant, or whether Pizkhra was demonstrating his normal level of concern for his subordinates- Tahlt and his Warriors were here- as was the enemy he knew.

They were just as yet unseen.

Lieutenant Pizkhra was at least providing a measure of consistency.

With only a single Light Artillery Regult ahead of him in column, and the path being traveled too narrow to trade positions, the choice of other Warriors to join him in advancing was simple for Tahlt.

"Clote, Almit, and Geha- increase pace to quick advance and close your intervals to ten paces. –Be alert-. There are micronians here-."

The weathered outcropping of rock on the southwest slope of Hill 1121with its central depression that formed a "cup" deep enough to shelter in was an ideal location for an observation post- and one that Lieutenant Saenz of the 27th ASC Mountain Regiment could not have surpassed without custom-ordering it. To his northwest, he had a nearly unobstructed view of a fourteen kilometer stretch of the Topia Road (a name given for lack of anything "official") winding north along the western edge of valley, while to the southwest there was an equally unhindered view of the road's entry into Topia itself.

He and his platoon spread out over a kilometer and a half and three other such OPs along the slope and ridge of Hill 1121 had been monitoring the progress of the Zentraedi probe for nearly a half hour through a series of potential kill boxes. An attack could have been initiated at any time, but by wise order of the tactical commander, Colonel Mejia, Saenz was obliged to not "pull the trigger" until there was a level of certainty about the enemy and the nature of his advance.

Was this simply a probe, exploring the pass as a means to move a more massive force south through the cover of the mountains in order to strike at Durango from its left flank- or was it the vanguard of a force already in motion?

Intelligence from other units and from civilians questioned about alien movements that they had observed spoke of Zentraedi numbering somewhere between several companies' strength up to two regiments moving through the extreme hills and valleys of the central and southern Sierra Madre.

Without the benefit of satellite surveillance that had been lost with the initial planetary assault by the Zentraedi and before it had ever been put to its intended use, or the dedication of RDF JSTARS aircraft to provide an accurate assessment of activity within the chain, there was no telling except for trained observers putting eyes on target.

The satellites had been an unfortunate, but in terms of the conflict an understandable loss of capability. Why the RDF would not commit just one JSTARS to such a critical intelligence activity was not as easily understood.

As Saenz's first sergeant, Olguin, had observed bitterly, why risk an expensive airplane and thirty RDF lives for something that two hundred ASC and a thousand Mexican civilians can do without cost?

Indignation aside, Saenz could not help but bring himself to strongly disagree with his sergeant. The Zentraedi in their travels south through the mountains had not stopped to attack the sparse and relatively small pockets of civilian population that lay in their path- but they had done an admirable job of destroying and killing as they went.

Still, the blame was not completely shouldered by the RDF and the latest chapter in its history of indifference to the non-UE population of the world-.

Under the conditions of Joint Operational Initiative Gemini, and the implications of that pact that could not have been known at the time of its signing- General Leonard actually had theater-level command of operations, and by extent was no less guilty than the RDF for the lack JSTARS in establishing the ground situation in the Sierra Madre.

So Saenz rationalized that Leonard had to have both faith in his own men in the region to make an accurate report, and also had other plans requiring those RDF assets.

Regardless, Lt Saenz was here to perform a job- and he was determined to do so.

Much of the Zentraedi unit had passed through the first four into the fifth kill box without being aware that they had done so. By composition it appeared to be a medium assault platoon that even without the attachment of a Scout/Recon Pod was ideally suited for probing operations and able to skirmish with enemy mecha it might meet along the way.

The problem, and one that the alien commander had no way of knowing, was that Colonel Mejia had no intent of skirmishing with his mecha if he could avoid it.

"They smell something, Lieutenant-.", Olguin noted as both he and Saenz peered through night vision binoculars across the valley at the Topia Road and the Zentraedi moving along it, "They're suspicious of The Angle…"

Saenz saw exactly what Olguin was speaking of and had been thinking the same thing as he had said it. Where the road rounded a corner to nearly double back on itself before coming around with the shape of the mountain to continue southward- a spot that had almost instantaneously taken on the name of "The Angle"- a group of four Battle Pods including a Light Artillery Pod on point had doubled its speed to move through the pinch in advance of their comrades. They were offering themselves up to trip an ambush they suspected of lying in wait.

Wise, Saenz granted the platoon commander, not considering that the idea had come from lower in the chain of command- but futile.

Colonel Mejia and General Vargas above him had other ideas of how to initiate contact with the enemy, and unlike with the JSTARS, the RDF had willingly done its part to oblige.

"Rainmaker, Shaman One-.", Saenz said into his radio that was set to the encrypted command frequency, " Fire mission… Target Kill Box Five for saturation fire. Bring the rain- bring it hard…"

"Roger that, Shaman One- keep your head down, here comes the storm…"

Fire directors were instant messaging encrypted orders to the batteries of the 71st Heavy Artillery as the commander stepped out the side door of the modified APC command vehicle for a glimpse of his unit's first action in this war.

Spread out along a north-to-south running ridge whose winning attribute had been enough level or near-level surfaces to host thirty-six 155mm artillery pieces, the elevation and direction of the pieces was being adjusted ever so slightly to match the pre-determined aim for the desired target area a solid twenty kilometers west. This position allowed the firebase the ability to cover any of a half dozen passes and valleys in which observer teams were positioned to monitor for enemy movement. This was just the first call for indirect fire support in what could be reasonably assumed to be many.

As Battery 3, the nearest by chance to the north began to fire and reload in quick succession, bleaching the darkness of night with long tongues of flame from the end of artillery piece muzzles and shocking the eardrums of all with their heavy report- a distinguishable and more powerful tremor could be felt to shake the air. Between the boom of 155mm pieces, there was a roar of the passage of larger, heavier shells from further to the east that shook the ridge win their Doppler-warbling passage overhead.

These were the 16-ingh projectiles thrown by the RDF firebase and its six MAC-II Destroids from ten kilometers east of 71st Artillery. It had been a great feat of transportation to move the mechanical dinosaurs with their immense weight and four imposing main guns by CT-4 transport into the rugged terrain that would have otherwise been impassible to the lumbering, bipedal machines.

As the air displaced by the first passing salvo stabilized again, the 71st's commander understood in a very real way that the required effort was about to pay off.

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt was at the tightest point of the sharp bend in the mountainside path turning south when the ground beneath his Regult's broad feet began to tremble noticeably and with a rapidly increasing violence.

The only sensation he could compare it to was a large number of Regults on a full-charge advance where there was the perpetual feeling that the ground would liquefy beneath him and swallow both he and his mecha whole. The mountain was bucking now, far beyond that, and as large stones and clumps of plants carrying in their roots balls of dislodged earth tumbled down the slope all around Tahlt and his squad- there could be no mistake that this was not a natural event.

Sounds of panic and chaos from the platoon with whom Tahlt had lost visual contact to the fold in the mountain that now surrounded him on three sides was punctuated with the unmistakable squeal of communications systems being destroyed and screams being abruptly cut off.

The danger being behind, Tahlt was two paces into the mad charge to flee that he only had to join rather than order when the path before him and beneath Clote's Light Artillery Regult vanished into a great cloud of rising dirt and rock and sloughed away into the valley below.

Tahlt felt the left foot of his own Regult continue to descend well below where it should have found purchase on solid earth again and he braced as the world before him began to tumble through the aspect of his viewscreen.

Sergeant Olguin and Lieutenant Saenz clung to the edge of the depression in which they were covering as they dared to peer over the edge.

As the mountains continued to shake as though they would collapse into one another, the detached squad of Regults that had advanced forward of the rest of their platoon into the hairpin of The Angle could be seen vanishing into the cascade of rock and earth that had been the road beneath them moments earlier on their way to the valley floor hundreds of meters below.

As punishment being received went, these Zentraedi were amongst the lucky ones.

Along the stretch of mountainside road that was Kill Box 5, the face of Hill 1405 was exploding in violent plumes of earth and rock and the evaporating numbers of Zentraedi left to the probing platoon were being forced into decisions of dire consequence as the world continued to disintegrate around them. Unaccustomed to mass, indirect projectile fire- the Zentraedi were nonetheless quick studies. Roughly half of the platoon opted to leap into the maw of the chasm as those who were indecisive, or hesitated a fractional-second too long were obliterated indiscriminately.

In artillery terminology, what was devastating the eastern face of Hill 1405 was known as "MRSI"- Multiple Rounds Simultaneous Impact- pronounced ironically but probably not accidentally as, "Mercy". Artillery commanders knowing the positions of their pieces, the location of their targets, the distance between each, and the time required for a projectile to traverse the distance calculated the precise moment at which each battery would have to fire in a fire mission to bring the maximum number of projectiles down on the target area at precisely the same moment.

MRSI required computers calculating trajectories, velocities and physical forces coldly and swiftly.

What resulted was what Saenz and his men saw across the valley through thickening smoke and dust along the slope of Hill 1405.

Brilliant dots of light rippled in clusters through the murk of smoke and displaced earth as the sub-munitions carried to the kill box by 155mm artillery shells either found ground or found a target in the form of Zentraedi mecha.

Where a shaped-charge bomblet met a terilium hull, a finger of aluminum under ultra-high pressure pierced easily the thin armor of the Regult killing the giant occupant within with the sudden and massive spike in cabin temperature and pressure that the relatively small penetrator caused.

As the steady barrage of 155mm shells and their sub-munitions made steady work of pock-marking the extreme slopes of Hill 1405, the first 16" salvos arrived- a mixture of sub-munitions carrying and high-explosive projectiles. What nature in its steady and unrelenting process might have taken decades or centuries to accomplish, the M.A.C. IIs and their long rifles accomplished in seconds. Earth and rock was gouged out of the hill, leaving swimming pool sized wounds and changing the contours of the terrain with each heaven-shaking blast.

In this manner, Lieutenant Saenz watched a Zentraedi platoon evaporate before him in a matter of only seconds. As the focused barrage continued on what was now an empty kill box and gravity continued to carry entire sections of the Topia Road down into the valley, he fought to overcome the horrific and paralyzing awe of the spectacle.

His eardrums shocked and dulled by the constant waves of concussions that rolled over him and Hill 1121, Saenz was still in enough possession of his faculties to make a necessary call.

"Rainmaker, Rainmaker- Shaman One-. Cease fire! …Repeat, cease fire!.. Kill box is secure! Do you copy? Over!"

Saenz heard something in reply through his headset, but at the moment his hearing was too far gone for it to be intelligible. The proof that his instruction to cease fire had been received came nearly fifteen seconds later as the last of the incoming shells found their mark and the bombardment ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Hill 1405 was a dark shape hunched beneath a shroud of swirling inkiness that was only slightly darker than the jungle night.

"Nothing survived that.", Sgt. Olguin yelled at the top of his voice into his lieutenant's ear to be heard over the shrill ringing that plagued them both now.

Saenz had heard him, barely, and was in agreement.

Nothing could have survived the destruction that he and his men had just witnessed.

-But what gave Saenz apprehensive pause was the distinct feeling that somewhere not too distant there was someone else watching whose concern had not been the survival of the platoon that had had just been obliterated.

And then there was the question of what that someone was planning to do next in reply.

Action Commander Vulch felt a measure of grim satisfaction as the last squealing transmissions from the vanguard platoon went silent. He did not need the magnification features of his Nacht Rau suit's optics systems to see the cloud of smoke that was rising at a distance in the pass at one of several points that he himself would have chosen to mount a defense of this, the only passible valley along the course of this mountain chain for some distance either east or west.

The micronians had chosen an ideal choke point in the valley to defend, and based on the brevity and effectiveness of the indirect fire attack on Vulch's sacrificial unit- suitable if not primitive weapons with which to do it.

And yet, the micronian commander was holding back.

Vulch knew as much.

There was a broadening to the valley to the southwest of the hill he had just pulverized, and the enemy was holding a number of mecha there.

Vulch had received intelligence of this from distant orbiting warships that could have, had standing general orders not forbade it, cleared the path for Vulch easily with only the limited use of their guns.

The general order was in place though, and therefore it was primarily Vulch's burden to press through.

Two medium-assault regiments of regulars under Te'Dak Tohl officers stretched atohls and atohls back along the twisting and winding valley of this buckled, alien landscape in an exaggerated column that could not be helped.

With his company of Serhot Ran supporting, and priority tasking to Gnerls from warships in low orbit as they passed this region at his disposal, Vulch knew he had the forces required to press through the choke point and roll over his opponent who had no reason to come to him. But this was not an excuse to be hasty or wasteful in the use of the units placed under his command. Improved norghil as many of them were, there was no benefit in their deaths if they did not have the chance to similarly threaten their micronian counterparts.

"Enemy battery positions have been calculated by the trajectory of their fire, Lord.", Sub-Commander Ramij, Vulch's executive officer reported having stood in quiet study of the opening of the battle with his superior.

"-We could call in Gnerls to deal with this swiftly, Lord."

"Hold the Gnerls in reserve.", Vulch replied, rejecting the suggestion without scorn, "They are an asset we may yet need and one made more effective if they are a surprise to the enemy. –No, we can deal with the enemy gun positions ourselves."

"Detach all but a squad of our Serhot Ran and take personal command, Ramij. Move under the cover of terrain on the guns. I will oversee the advance of the regulars through the pass. When you are nearing your objective, I'll have our Artillery Regults saturate the target areas with missile fire. You should find your objectives softened and easily dealt with then."

"You will reveal the assault force, Lord.", Ramij warned, "-And with a good distance to cover through the confines of these valleys."

"Yes, it is a risk.", Vulch agreed, "But it will be mine. The micronians must suspect by now that the probe was not operating alone. I prefer to have their suspicion confirmed on our terms."

"Agreed, Lord- but guard yourself- this war has many days to come.", Ramij said, moving his Nacht Rau combat suit toward the edge of the sheer drop to the valley below where much of the Serhot Ran company covered in concealment.

"As with you.", Vulch replied.

The mixed odors of rich earth, sharply bitter expended synthetic explosives, and wood smoke from secondary fires had reached Lt Saenz in his observation post as the visible, residual signs of the artillery strike continued to settle into the valley floor below between Hill 1405 and Hill 1121. A stillness draped itself over the landscape and felt ominously to the ASC officer more like a pause than an ending.

His intuition was not long standing before it was confirmed.

"Shaman One, Shaman Four-.", came the call from the farthest OP north along the spine of Hill1121. Corporal Ralston, a conspicuous yet welcome gringo transplant from the predominantly RDF-loyal lands north of the Rio Grande, spoke with hushed urgency into the radio for his superior to hear.

"-Eyes on hostile mecha- moving south along the ravine floor-."

"Shaman Four, Shaman One-.", replied Saenz taking advantage in the drop-off of Ralston's voice, "-How many?!..."

"Lots!"

Lt Saenz rose from the depression in the rock outcropping that had provided a ready observation post and raised his binoculars to his eyes, facing northwest. His OP did not have the field of view that the northern OP enjoyed, allowing Ralston to see around the bend of 1405 and into the northwesterly progression of the valley- but he could see up to the turn.

Amplified by the light intensification of his binoculars, the valley floor was illuminated by what to the naked eye would have been the soft, red glow of Zentraedi sensor eyes belonging one apiece to four power armor suits leading on foot an Officer's Pod and twice as many Regults. Moments later the valley glowed with the illumination of scores of sensor eyes building toward hundreds as the Regults that they were components of moved with impressive speed and agility over broken and rocky ground.

"Rainmaker, Rainmaker- Shaman Four- Fire mission- Grid reference Delta Romeo Three-four-seven…."

Saenz heard Ralston calling in the co-ordinates for the artillery attack, but as Regults in depth began to sweep the breadth of the valley in their onslaught the way summer rain storms could suddenly fill a gully, the lieutenant felt a seed of panic begin to germinate deep in his gut.

Commander Hircna took some comfort now in the snugness of the seat harnesses he had pulled uncomfortably tight minutes earlier before the order had been given for the full advance. Te'Dak Tohl, and a well-seasoned veteran of many campaigns and more battles than could easily be remembered with the 7th Grand Army- the officer had known from quick glance at the uneven heavily foliaged ground of the valley before him could be negotiated and traversed without significant difficulty by his Glaug- but that the ride would do his enemy's work for him if he were not properly secured to his seat by the five-way strap system.

Now, on the advance, his experience and intuition was proving right.

Even the ground of this dank, alien world seemed to resist. Hircna could feel the articulated pads of the combat pod's feet tangle and snag with each reaching stride, and struggle to find stable purchase with each footfall.

The Glaug did not stumble, nor would it so long as its master was not foolish in the elected path he set it on- but it was not able to reach its full, bi-pedal advancing speed either. The commander would have been slowed regardless by the advance of his regiment's Regults even if his Glaug could have achieved a better, sure-footed pace as they enjoyed slightly less stability afoot.

Commander Hircna was not concerned about the speed with which he could close with the enemy- the micronians by all estimation had placed themselves in a position suited for fighting and with the intention to do so. They would wait patiently for the fight to come to them.

The regiment's commanding officer was more concerned about clearing the enclosed space of this chasm. A probe platoon had been oblitterated already- sacrificed specifically to assess the micronians' methods and effectiveness in using this ground to their advantage- and they had not disappointed.

Regrettably, there was every reason to think that they could repeat the effect and on a larger scale if the opportunity presented itself.

Two regiments was certainly such an opportunity.

Commander Hircna had been silently appalled some seasons earlier as his cohesive unit of Te'Dak Tohl regulars had been diluted with what had been promised to him to be improved norghil made suitable to serve with his Warriors by additional subconscious conditioning and skill set implantation during their pre-Awakening stasis. His doubts had withered quickly during exercises when they had performed admirably, or at least no worse than Te'Dak Tohl regulars wet from the tubes.

But actual combat was different- and this would be their first experience with it. And what made the proposition worse was that there was no measure of conditioning or training that gave his norghil regulars any better chance of surviving what was to be their first taste of the Warrior's reason for being. They would see not only others of their kind but also Te'Dak Tohl regulars, whom they'd come to regard with understandable admiration, fall to the random whim of Fate.

This would be the moment when the theory of the "improved" norghil was either validated or dashed.

Vulch, the Serhot Ran action commander with whom Hircna had shared a battlefield before knew this as well and had detached a large portion of his company to neutralize the threat of the micronians indirect-fire projectile guns in conjunction with a counterstrike still being made by rear elements of missile-bearing artillery Regults in the regiment trailing Hircna's.

As explosions to the rear of Hircna's unit in the order of advance rippled the air and shook the ground marking returned counter-battery fire, it was clear that Vulch had not been able to preclude the attack.

The best hope now as that he could minimize the damage it would do.

A salvo of six M344-B 155mm shells plunged at a steep trajectory into a span of the valley between Hill 1405 and Hill 1121 that narrowed to less than 200 meters. Timed by their rotations in flight, the six shells were nearer to valley floor than hilltop before their burster charges fired, splitting the shell housings and scattering the 20 anti-mecha sub-munitions carried by each shell out over the target area below. Nylon streamers stabilized each convex-faced disc to present its shaped charge as it plummeted, unguided toward the churning torrent of Regults passing below.

The low-bursting pattern of sub-munitions cascaded down to intercept randomly the leading edge of a Regult platoon advancing in the best approximation of a box formation that the irregular terrain allowed.

Glancing hits from sub-munitions staggered some Regults, sheering away modular sections of external hull and light armor, and without exception sending each of the seven Regults struck in this manner to the rocky ground.

A half dozen more of the standard Zentraedi light mecha were struck in a more lethal manner, the sub-munitions hitting them atop their bulbous main bodies, permitting the shaped-charges of the sub-munitions to penetrate the pilots' compartments at the point of the most minimal armor protection and uniformly killing the warrior occupants.

None of the felled mecha had yet come to a stop in the churning clouds of smoke, displaced dirt and foliage thrown up by sub-munitions that had not intercepted mecha and that had gone straight to ground when the trailing squads of Regults trampled their stricken and dead comrades under. Spacing intervals between the advancing lines was more cause than indifference. Though the desire of each warrior whose Regult trampled a fallen unit-member to clear the danger area and not join their slain comrades in their fate was also a great, unacknowledged factor.

In seconds, the damaged or destroyed Regults that had gone to ground were crumpled and barely recognizable masses of twisted, dull-grey metal weeping from torn component seams the blue-green blood of their dead occupants.

Lieutenant Saenz watched along the length of the valley floor that he was able to observe as smoke and dust rose in an even cloud like the water level rising in a quickly-filling bathtub. 155mm shells continued to scream in, no longer in the coordinated fashion of MRSI but as quickly as the artillery crews could load and fire.

Dots of light above the valley showed where shells burst, and were followed at several second intervals by clusters of explosive flashes within cloud of dirt and smoke below. Sound, traveling as it did, would reach the lieutenant's observation post moments later and out of sync with the explosions that had generated it. Disembodied drumrolls of sharp cracks sounding more like children's strings of firecrackers set off at Cinco de Mayo celebrations than killing instruments echoed off the hillsides as the same infernal scene copied itself all along the valley floor over and over.

The heavier roar of displaced air accompanying the arrival of massive 16-inch projectiles drowned out the explosions of the 155mm sub-munitions and seemed to suck the air out of the valley itself in the instant before the high-explosive rounds struck.

Great strobe flashes in salvo groupings of two or four illuminated the valley brightly through the murk, showing in the instant of their brilliance the silhouettes of Regults- both whole and fragmented- being thrown with the force of the shells' detonations.

Beneath and around Lieutenant Saenz, Hill 1121 threatened to shake apart as dirt and small stones from the slope above his OP danced down the steep grade in a thin flowing blanket to shower him and his men.

In the bursts of light, Saenz could see the face of the private in his OP, eyes clamped firmly shut and the words of The Lord's Prayer flying from his lips as quickly as breath would carry them.

As Lieutenant Saenz felt the sledge-hammer concussive blow of another 16-inch projectile strike his ribcage, he doubted whether The Almighty could hear the private's supplications.

No doubt, the Zentraedi were appealing in whatever approximation of faith they held as they pressed with fool-bravery through the hell-storm that was battering the ASC observation posts at a "safe distance".

A thin curl of smoke smelling strongly of ammonia-rich propellant twisted and rose away from the 155mm artillery piece's breech as the gun returned from recoil and the casing was ejected out into a dimple dug into the earth by casings that had been ejected before.

As the casing was snatched away and discarded to a growing pile by a member of the crew, a loader with powerful arms and shoulders made so by his occupation rammed another round into the open breech- drawing his right hand back an instant before the breech door snapped shut.

The commander of Gun 4, Battery 3 was aware of the intricate sequence of interactions between the four enlistedman crew and their 155mm artillery piece, but trusted in the rigorous training that allowed them to move as though parts of the gun itself. He was focused however on cross-checking the angle and direction for the piece itself sent to him by the firing director's computer. Working independently on a tablet computer, factors for range, target elevation, wind, and even the heat of and wear un the piece's barrel were plugged in. When the returned settings matched those of the director's computer, assurance of a valid shooting solution was achieved. Even if the settings did not precisely match- at this moment the battery was involved in a saturation fire mission that relied on volume of fire on the target area rather than pinpoint precision in the fall of each round.

As the lanyard was being set to fire the 155mm piece and the commander was verifying that his crew was clear of the path of the recoil, a sound of warning pierced the air and the dulled hearing of the crew.

A shrill wail from the automated M-407 anti-aircraft pulse laser called out its alarm.

The gun that had been methodically sweeping the sky with microwave radar for signs of danger had now detected it, and automatic IFF hails not being answered by the radar targets- the gun and its modestly sophisticated programing considered the threat valid.

"Take cover!", bellowed the gun commander at the top of his voice, knowing that the threat that the AA-gun had detected was not to itself but more than likely to the guns in Battery 3.

The darkness of night was swept away in strobe effect by the rapid discharge of the anti-aircraft automated gun sentry's laser that stitched a distant "box" of sky containing an inbound missile with lasers before assessing its effect and determining whether to stand down, re-engage the same target, or move on to another, if any.

All along the ridge where 71st Artillery was deployed, the M-407s distributed evenly amongst the gun batteries were now all firing. West, downrange of the guns, and at a slight angle above level there were sparks and bursts of flame as "the threat"- Zentraedi missiles were shredded mid-flight by dense fusillades of laser bolts.

As the battery commander reached and dove over the deep wall of sandbags filled with the earth from the hole he tumbled into with his crew- he realized that not only were the AA guns not ceasing fire, but that the squad of MB-1A Heavy Battloids that had been standing post nearby to his gun were hastily falling back as well.

This was not good.

Sub-Lieutenant Dahr was just outside of the range of the weapons he would have considered using on such an insignificant target as a fixed gun position and on a steep, plunging decent when the micronian anti-missile weapon swept the last of the dozen or more missiles fired by distant Regult Artillery Pods as a counterbattery attack from the sky. The counterbattery attack had been an attempt in earnest to silence the primitive, micronian projectile guns that despite their lack of sophistication had dealt a stinging blow to the mixed assault force of Serhot Ran, Te'Dak Tohl and norghil regulars. The counterbattery fire had failed however against this particular gun position simply for insufficient density of the missile attack.

This was of little surprise to Dahr, whose short experience with this alien species and from the information that had been briefed to him all throughout preparation for this campaign had suggested an enemy of limited numbers and resources- but one well prepared and inclined to defend themselves within their limitations.

In this instance, it was of little matter even as Dahr's threat warning system informed him that the anti-missile weapon had now begun tracking him as a target. The missiles fired by the Regult units had provided all the distraction Dahr, and Warrior 1st Grade N'Rhyi required to close and finish the work for which the missiles had actually been launched.

A tightly patterned storm of laser bolts whose power was insufficient against the heavily armored Nacht Rau stitched Dahr's suit's center mass in the split second before the power armor crushed it underfoot in landing. The sub-lieutenant had barely felt the insignificant strikes, his attention being fixed on the marginally more threatening micronian mecha that had retreated a short distance before unwisely opting to stand and fight.

Three pairs formed a staggered line, firing their energy rifles in mass.

Dahr did feel the more pronounced hits of ion bolts that were still not powerful enough to penetrate his armor, but caused the sub-lieutenant concern that they might strike a lucky enough blow to reduce his Nacht Rau's combat readiness before the real fight had even been joined.

"Put them down!", Dahr ordered, bringing his Nador rifle to bear in reply.

Warrant Officer Juarez felt the dread of the inevitable in the moment as the four, short range armor piercing weapons that had been provided for him in his MB-1A's non-standard, external missile rig struck the center mass of one of the two towering Zentraedi war machines with an impressive flash, but little other damage than a spray of fragments from the suit's outer layer of armor. The alien was knocked back on its heels slightly, but showed no indication of significant damage.

Its heels Juarez reminded himself grimly, remembering a report that seemed odd but otherwise inconsequential at the time that there were reports that female variant power armor was being operated by non-Quadranos – males.

At the time he'd read the brief, three-sentence report, Juarez had taken it as an advisory on one of what he was sure would be many oddities and revelations in the war. Now there was an element that cut deep into generations of Guatemalan machismo.

There was the real possibility of being killed by a woman without having inflicted so much as a scratch on her in return.

But things being as they were, it could also be a male.

In the context of the moment where the gender of the aliens was totally irrelevant, Juarez recognized with grim humor that somehow it did to him.

"Cover and withdraw by two!", Juarez ordered only moments after the two Zentraedi mecha had reached ground. It took only that long for the last missiles from his Battloid squad to hit their marks and prove equally ineffective as the missiles he'd led the attack with. The EU-11s, which were now Juarez's squad's last resort, packed an impressive punch for a rapid-fire, particle beam weapon against light and moderately armored targets.

In this instance, Juarez hoped only that they would provide enough of a distraction for his unit to disengage and enough of a deterrent to keep the more formidable Zentraedi power armor from pursuing.

Firebase "Rainmaker" was folding rapidly at its dispersed gun positions along the ridge crest of Hill 1377. Warrant Officer Juarez and his squad had the unnerving fortune of hearing the plight of other gun positions similar to theirs as they too fought a controlled retreat down the steep slopes and into the nearly unnavigable terrain.

Juarez felt the concussive jolt of an explosion through the armored insulation of his Battloid as one of the Zentraedi power armor suits maintained a slow, almost leisurely pursuit of the warrant officer's retreating squad and replied in kind to their combined fire with an energy rifle nearly the size of the MB-1As it was firing upon. The explosion rocked Juarez violently within the snug fit of his pilot's compartment that rang about him like a church bell as dismembered segments of another Battloid in the squad bludgeoned Juarez's machine with their explosive scattering..

The heavy work of dealing with these Zentraedi would have to go to others better suited for it. And those support provisions had already been made.

"94 Alpha, 77 India- WHERE THE HELL IS MY AIR SUPPORT?!.."

It was now a matter of principle.

Warrior N'Rhyi had effectively destroyed the micronian projectile gun on his descent to earth with a single round from his Nador rifle that both pierced the breechblock and cracked with its detonation the recuperator cylinder of the recoil system. As Dahr had used the automated anti-missile gun as his landing target- obliterating it with the weight of his combat suit- so did N'Rhyi with the 155mm piece, delivering the final and unnecessary blow as the telephone pole length barrel bent mid-tube under the fool of the warrior's Nacht-Rau.

With equal parts wisdom and cowardice, the micronians including six in frail approximations of mecha had fled their position before either combat suit had even touched ground. Less wise, the mecha while reversing downhill had made challenge with a full assault of the limited weapons they carried- amounting to little more than cratered frontal armor on the two Nacht Rau suits and a ringing in the ears for Dahr whose suit had taken the brunt of a minimally effective missile strike.

At least the micronians had preserved for him the more elevated distinction in action of not being forced to shoot the enemy in the back as they fled.

A salvo of missiles could have ended the micronians swiftly, but Dahr resisted with the knowledge that this minor, impromptu tasking was far from the last action he could expect this night and that more formidable adversaries may still lay in the path that Fate had set him on. –And there was also a gratification in the intentional act of aiming and firing his suit's Nador rifle. It was a moment of connection between two warriors in which the target realized he had been singled out to be ended.

A second alien mecha disintegrated in a spray of burning components as another short burst from Dahr's Nador easily penetrated the Battloid's comparatively thin armor. The high-velocity sweep of metal shards and mechanical fragments did its worst to the handful of micronians who had been fleeing without benefit of mecha or armor of any real substance. The force of the blast had knocked them down uniformly, and only half the number that had been flung to ground rose again to continue their tumble downhill.

With N'Rhyi now freed of the task of destroying the projectile weapon and able to join in on the lop-sided fight against the micronian mecha, the skirmish was growing tiresome and tedious for Dahr. Turning his Nador randomly to one of the four remaining micronian mecha that were in full, cowardly flight downhill from the engagement, he hoped to end this and return west to join the promise of real combat.

Real combat found Dahr and N'Rhyi first.

It was a matter of mere seconds between when the threat warning systems of the two Nacht Rau combat suits began to scream and when the threat was upon them- scarcely enough time for the warriors' minds to shift from the offensive to the defensive and act accordingly.

Two Jaguar missiles struck N'Rhyi's suit, center mass, piercing its thick, composite armor with a warhead designed for devastating overkill of lesser mecha and by coincidence having the adequate destructive force to kill an armor system the designers had not encountered or actively conceived of.

The Nacht Rau fractured violently at the points of articulation, scattering itself at high velocity and pelting its surviving counterpart with its flaming contents both mechanical and organic.

Sub-Lieutenant Dahr followed the path of the missiles back along their track to the east and almost instantly found the horizon to be full of attackers that had not been there moments before.

Micronian airships of a category he'd been briefed on during pre-operational preparation, but a variant he'd never seen before were now vaulting the summit of the hill immediately east- levitating on the lift generated by a primitive rotary wing. Like other craft of its kind that Dahr had become familiar with through video, images, and reports- these craft retained an aerodynamic if not angular shape and were clearly laden heavily with weapons across their low-fixed sponsons wings.

Dahr's study of the odd-looking craft was cut short by their pressing of their attack on the advance.

The Nacht Rau's warning system screeched and its focused energy defense system auto-engaged as a guided weapons' launch was detected and determined to be directed at the combat suit. Faster than conscious decision, Dahr activated the suit's shield system a fraction of a second before three Jaguar missiles like those that had ended N'Rhyi moments before found him through a veil of EM and IR thrown up by his suit in its own defense.

The triple-detonation of warheads against the energy shield were powerful enough to stagger the Nacht Rau but not topple it, and focused Dahr where others may have been stunned.

His suit's shield had prevented the Nacht-Rau's probable destruction, but was now drastically weakened and in need of reintegration. Dahr had intentions along more offensive lines.

The micronians had numbers as their advantage, but did not have the experience to know that against Serhot Ran, they would need those numbers.

Duty that Dahr had lived by demanded this lesson be taught, and if necessary it would be by that Duty that he died.

"..Good hit, negative effect!..", Chief Warrant Officer Santiago, 4th Air Assault Regiment, Army of the Southern Cross, both reported to the Oasis JOC and documented to his AJACS' flight recorder for review and debriefing later, "-It has some kind of energy shielding system like an Officer's Pod, or something-."

Unaware of how accurate his assessment had been, Santiago was cognoscenti of how immediately unimportant the observation was. It was still functional enemy mecha, and therefore a threat to be dealt with- but quickly. Santiago's mission was still a distance west and involved many more than a single Zentraedi.

"A-Flight, First Section loiter with me to secure the area-. Rodrigo, take the squadron on to the main objective and we'll join up!"

Nestled shoulder-deep in the armor-encased, single seat cockpit, Santiago could never be sure whether he felt more like an attack pilot or a tanker- the bubble canopy leaning him in one direction and the solid bulk of the AJACS leaning him in the other.

As the filmy aura of the Zentraedi armor suit's shield dissipated about it as it steadied itself on its feet after surviving the strike of three Jaguars, Santiago was hopeful that he AJACS justified a little of both.

Three quarters of his squadron peeled off from his flight by his command, transitioning to conventional flight as their rotors and rotor hubs dropped into a dorsal storage space. Now operating as conventional, fixed-wing aircraft the bulk of the AJACS squadron accelerated quickly out of sight to support a developing fight farther west.

Santiago wondered as they left and the sole Zentraedi whom his flight outnumbered by three seemed to stare him down hatefully, whether it might have been a better idea to let them stay until this fight was over.

A blast of thrust flattened the vegetation all about the power armor's feet and propelled it skyward at an incredible rate of climb. Shoulder missile compartments snapped open and the flash and initial billow of smoke signifying launches was followed by the diverging trails of twenty freed weapons.

"Break!", Santiago called in needless warning as his threat warning system squealed its report of missiles tracking.

The section of four AJACS split their loose formation down to single ships as the electronic countermeasures of each augmented the automatic dispensing of chaff and flares with EM hash powerful enough to be felt as the raising of hairs on the pilots' forearms.

Mindful of the hilltop that had been occupied by an ASC artillery battery and that had been approaching rapidly when the surviving Zentraedi had taken to the air, Santiago employed a characteristic of rotary-winged flight not enjoyed by conventional, fixed wing aviators. As the missiles directed at him went wide to starboard, passing through the same void space that the Zentraedi who had fired them passed a moment later, Santiago stomped the right rudder pedal bringing the AJACS's nose about as inertia kept the airframe's motion and direction constant.

Skidding sideways through the air, Santiago drew down on the ascending alien, directing the weapons of his mecha with the targeting reticule of his IHSS-integrated helmet. A fusillade of Hydra rockets, 40mm cannon shells from the two pylon-mounted gun pods, and the ship's last Jaguar lit the night as they traversed the distance to target- and then illuminated it brilliantly as a portion of the weapons found their mark.

Sub-Lieutenant Dahr bit back a scream as the sensation of a hundred searing knifepoints sinking into his flesh racked his right side, accompanying the most violent full body blow he had ever experienced. Through multiple caution and warning alarms and their associated visual cues, the warrior was aware of the tumble his Nacht Rau had been set into on its ascent to what Dahr had hoped to be a tactically superior position.

Familiarity with the machine and honed instinct allowed Dahr to stabilize his suit as the pilot fought through alternating waves of pain and disorientation from his micronian-inflicted wounds- but even in his dazed state he could tell that he was not long for the air. The smooth, shrill whine of the Nacht Rau's boosters had changed to a coarse, labored grind that cut and faltered in repeated and increasing catches. Without need of the Nacht Rau's imbedded diagnostic systems, Dahr knew the boosters would fail and that this fight was to go to ground.

Sub-Lieutenant Dahr had no objection to this as he had no intention of going to ground alone.

Chief Warrant Officer Santiago marveled as the Zentraedi power armor suit emerged intact, but streaming a trail of smoke and debris from the cloud created at the point of contact and detonation of the weapons he had fired. For a horrific moment, the vague and quickly circulating rumors of an unstoppable juggernaut of Zentraedi mecha seemed to be confirmed as the ascending combat suit appeared to shrug off the heaviest punishment that Santiago was able to deal it.

Like almost all rumors though, it faded quickly under scrutiny.

The rocketing ascent of the combat suit began to slow with signs of mechanical and possibly biological distress as gravity quickly overwhelmed momentum and failing engines, dragging down the suit's velocity until it teetered on stalling.

Santiago watched through the fluttering optical disruptions of his AJACS's rotor blades as the power armor wobbled at the apex of its flight, half-turned, and began to drop into a semi controlled dive-.

-Diving with unmistakable intent at Santiago…

For reasons of desperation and impulse, and not logic or training, Santiago flipped the transformation control of his AJACS.

Warrant Officer Perez eased off the left rudder of his AJACs gradually as the spin that the strike of a missile from the Zentraedi power armor was brought under control and nulled. Over the wail of his ship's warning systems, Perez retained the sense of his surroundings enough to recognize that while not mortal, the damage to his AJACS was significant. The ship felt unbalanced and heavy to starboard following the hit to port, and a vibration rode down through the rotor mast and transmission to be felt by the pilot as a quiver through his lower back and spine- likely damage to the rotor blades from the explosive scattering of missile and AJACS fragments.

A quick glance to port over the craft's bulky, armored airframe showed Perez exactly what he had suspected he would see-. The port sponson-wing of the AJACS, whose tip should have been visible and still laden with ordinance was gone- likely sheered away at the wing root.

The AJACS was shaky and unstable, but still aloft- and for Perez, that was just fine for now.

A blur of motion just at the edge of his sight to the right side of his field of vision caused Perez's head to come about with adrenaline-fueled reflex.

Though not a threat to him, Perez was shocked to see another AJACS, likely from the squadron leader Santiago's element rapidly transform, mid-air, into the non-flightworthy Battloid mode an instant before the wounded Zentraedi power armor caught it in a mechanical approximation of a flying tackle as it plummeted toward the hilltop nearly 200 meters below-.

Nearly 40 metric tons of grappling machine and occupant slammed into the already decimated artillery fire base with the groan and squeal of metals meeting with unimaginable force. A deep furrow was left stretching many meters as the Nacht Rau plowed the earth with the prone AJACS Battloid in a violent parody of a toboggan ride that swept destroyed 155mm artillery pieces before the pair like children's toys and carried with them as their slide reached the western slope of Hill 1377 and became a tumble down the steep grade to the valley floor below.

Chief Warrant Officer Santiago was unable to differentiate up from down, strikes against rock versus with the Zentraedi power armor, and was only aware of the violent descent of his mecha while his body threatened to liquefy with the brutality of the fall.

A final body slam delivered by invisible hands expert in dealing out physical discomfort rattled Santiago's bones against one another and left him wheezing for the breath that had been knocked out of him. –But with the exception of the spinning he knew only to be in his own head, he and his Battloid had come to a rest.

-And unfortunately, it occurred to him in the following instant, it meant that the Zentraedi had as well….

Ears ringing and instrumentation flickering all about him, Santiago was amazed to find that his AJACS Battloid, now sadistically baptized into combat, was answering to the neural control system and his direction to right itself.

Sluggish but doggedly, like a boxer rising from an unexpected cross-cut to the jaw, the Battloid got its feet beneath it again and rose with a cascade of dislodged earth and vegetation falling free of it as mechanical legs again supported the vehicle's substantial, armored weight.

Santiago's next critical order of business, finding the enemy, took less time.

As the video on the inside of his helmet visor fluttered back into a stable image, the chief warrant officer's heartrate surged to find the Zentraedi power armor less than ten meters off, propped up on its right elbow in a half-sitting position, and drawing down on him with the largest energy weapon he had ever seen mounted on a mecha.

But nothing happened…

Strangely, and perhaps fueled by too many action films in his formative years, Santiago thought he could hear the impotent click of a trigger being closed without the desired result.

Santiago understood for a moment the associated, inexplicable pause of the action film hero after the failure of an adversary's weapon as the realization that he would not be obliterated sent a rejuvenating surge through him.

Weapons sponsons torn away and his AJACS's standard EP-20 gun pod lost somewhere along 400meters of steep hillside, Santiago raised the right forearm-mounted pulse laser cannon at the Zentraedi power armor.

There was another, very real, impotent click as Santiago closed the trigger without the desired result.

With all weapons systems showing as damaged and off-line, and the copper taste of his own blood in his mouth and the smell of it in his nostrils, Sub-Lieutenant Dahr sensed his micronian enemy to be in a similar state as the ugly, angular mecha continued its hollow threat with a non-functional weapon.

This was to be decided hand-to-hand.

Dahr relished the opportunity to personalize the micronian's end and only regretted that he would not be able to lengthen the process.

Battered and smoking from the extensive damage inflicted upon it, the Nacht Rau nonetheless rolled into a partially upright stance before it was caught in a tackle by the AJACS Battloid with as much force as could be built in closing the short distance between them.

With a crashing of metal whose sound rolled up the valley's sides, the two mecha tumbled over one another, both finding purchase with grasping mechanical hands on one another in a struggle to come to rest on top of the other.

Significantly more massive, the Nacht Rau quickly gained control of the grapple, coming out of the thrashing roll with a knee and a foot solidly planted in the ground to support it. Motors strained and the frame of the Nacht Rau groaned as it rose, carrying the Battloid by the shoulder and groin, bringing it above the Zentraedi pilot's head like a gross approximation of a power lifter's final stance, before hurling it into an exposed rock face.

Seemingly unharmed, the Battloid was up, on good footing, and ready to defend as the Nacht Rau continued its assault with a lunging grab for the smaller mecha.

Santiago was able to sidestep the Nacht Rau barely, and find its balance point at the waist to use its own motion against it and hurl the power armor headlong into the same rock face it had used seconds earlier to try to break him.

As the Battloid had, the Nacht Rau rose again without pause, but with its left shoulder-mounted missile launcher bent and crushed in hopelessly beyond repair. With a malicious air of calculated intent, it closed on the Battloid unhurried and conscious of its last mistake. The first two steps, slow and deliberate were followed by two more intended to build force and terminating in a flying kick that the Battloid caught and absorbed in the chest.

The smaller machine toppled like a pin struck squarely by a bowling ball until Santiago came to rest face down in earth upturned by the brief but fierce melee. Only in this minor defeat and through his video system that somehow was still functional, Santiago found his first real advantage in the brawl.

The slightly bent, but unmistakable shape of a 155mm gun barrel could be seen partially covered in dirt and dislodged foliage from its fall with the two mecha down the plunging hillside.

Sub-Lieutenant Dahr could feel Fate pulling him inescapably toward his end, and knew without knowing how he knew that his time was short. His body felt dulled with indications of distant pain that somehow he felt but at the same time did not seem connected to him. He could hear the gurgling of blood in his lungs as he breathed and had already been humiliated, if only to himself, with hacking fits that filled his mouth with froth that he could only spit into the confines of his suit.

He was dying-.

But he would finish this micronian first.

Even now, as the smaller mecha fought its way back onto its feet, it remained hunched and stooped. It would not take much to send it over onto its back again for the gratification of stomping its rugged, little body until Dahr was rewarded by the feeling of its body caving in on the fragile creature at the controls-.

The Battloid suddenly came up, lashing out with the length of an artillery piece held at the muzzle end. Swung with all of the power the Battloid could generate, the breech block connected solidly with the Nacht Rau's left knee- separating from the barrel with the force of the blow landed.

The power armor's knee buckled along an axis of normal articulation, causing the pilot to pinwheel his arms as he staggered for balance.

Santiago drew the barrel back in the same way as he'd learned to swing a baseball bat as a boy and stepped into a second swing.

The Nacht Rau, almost squarely on its feet again caught the other end of the improvised weapon and between the two war machines the multi-ton gun barrel twisted and bent like a plastic drinking straw.

Santiago felt the tremendous force transmitted through the solid structures of his Battloid as the Nacht Rau replied to the insult of attack in kind and with a kick from the leg whose knee the ASC AJACS pilot had failed to break.

As the Battloid skidded on its back and tore open earth that up to this moment had been virgin to the fight, it cleared an open path.

Santiago saw the flicker in their passing over of a fusillade of eight Hydra rockets fired in rapid, successive pairs from an unseen point down the path of the valley.

Weakened already by the damage that had brought it to ground and to a lesser extent by the fight that had followed, the Nacht Rau and Sub-Lieutenant Dahr were torn to pieces above the waist by multiple, armor-piercing rocket warheads.

"Jefe, you look like shit…", said Warrant Officer Perez as his AJACS, still in helicopter mode, swept over and then came around into a stationary hover.

"-I wish I felt that good.", Santiago replied suddenly aware of the pain he felt across his whole body, and not even sure if Perez was receiving his reply.

"You're not going to fly that thing out of here-.", Perez observed astutely- the frame and modular components of Santiago's AJACS being visibly bent beyond any hope of transformation back into helicopter mode- let alone flight.

"I'll cover for you while you walk it back to base-."

Santiago remembered back an eternity to before this diversion and recalled the reason his squadron had been in the AO. There were ASC boots on the ground and squarely in the path of danger who needed close air support.

An AJACS, missing its port weapons sponson even as Perez's ship was, had better occupation this night than overseeing a lame Battloid make the walk to a forward base nearly sixty kilometers away.

"No- join up with the squadron. You're more needed there. Go now!"

Perez, though clearly eager to join the larger fight that the squadron was almost certainly now supporting also sounded hesitant-.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?"

"Yes! Go!"

"Con Dios, jefe…", Perez said, rapidly lifting away to rejoin the other ships of Santiago's element that were now orbiting above.

Forming up, the flightworthy AJACS quickly turned west and vanished into the night leaving Santiago and bits of his enemy alone in the darkness.

Finding that his Battloid was somehow still able to stand and walk with a slightly debilitated gait, Santiago began to follow the valley south hoping for a cut in the hills that would allow him to begin to backtrack east, and with any luck without any contact with the enemy.

Despite what he had said to Perez- what he had been obligated to say, Santiago found himself truly unsure as to whether he would be alright.

Major Rafael Rivera, "Caballero" Company, 94th Composite Armored Regiment, Army of The Southern Cross was certain that all Hell manifested as Zentraedi was coming right at him and the 35 VHT-1 hover tanks under his command.

The thunder of artillery's "steel rain" could be heard echoing and felt rolling down the narrow valley formed between Hill 1405 and Hill 1121, though the torrent of destruction had waned somewhat with the loss of several fire bases to enemy action. Flights of AJACS and conventional helicopter gunships were arriving on station, and an untold number of ASC-AF attack aircraft were rumored to be rushing in to support.

Still, from where Rivera's VHT stood in its awkward looking, bipedal, "Tank" mode at the southern end of perhaps the longest stretch of straight road leading toward Topia, it felt very much like his company was to shoulder the fight alone.

This of course was not the case.

Colonel Mejia was both a shrewd tactician and a fair man, knowing that ordering a single company to hold a length of road against a force many times its size would not only provide any guarantee that The Topia Road would remain under ASC control, but would also likely result in the loss of a valued company of Hover Tanks.

No, Mejia's orders had been reasonable and sound.

Rivera and his hover tankers would hold the enemy at this point as long as their position remained tenable, before collapsing in a fighting withdrawal through several switchbacks in the road into Topia itself.

And for this final act of measured, direct resistance against the Zentraedi whose numbers were now proving to exceed that of a simple probing force, this stretch of The Topia Road was ideal.

At the southern extreme where Caballero Company was situated, the pass was broader, even affording space along either side of the road for modest low-rise buildings and dwellings. VHT-1s stood in and amongst this cover that would provide no substantial protection once the fighting began, but that did provide a measure of concealment from the enemy that was an age-old military advantage dating back to when high military technology was a stone spearhead.

The other benefit to Rivera's unit and detriment to the Zentraedi of this 700 meter stretch of road was that to enter it, the aliens would have to round a tight turn at the north and travel a distance of nearly 200 meters through the confines of the steep canyon walls to either side of the narrow road.

A natural choke point.

Had the enemy been human, Rivera was certain that the approach to Topia would be deterrence enough to prevent the battle that was now inevitable. The enemy was Zentraedi however, and not given to the same convictions regarding the sanctity of life- their enemies' or their own. The threat was not enough.

There would be blood.

Beyond the northern switchback on The Topia Road, and high on the slope of Hill 1121, Rivera saw the first glow of battle in the rising and falling of light cast by explosions and fire. The boom of detonating artillery shells and ordinance now also seemed less distant- heralding what was just out of sight.

Rivera drew deep one last, deep breath of fresh air, relishing the rich tones of earth and lush vegetation that gave it a nourishing character that the HEPA filtered, temperature and humidity regulated air supplied by his VHT-1 did not provide. The smell of home filling hm, the major toggled the switch to close the hatch, "buttoning" him up in the sophisticated war machine.

"All platoons, all tanks are authorized to fire at will on contact.", Rivera said, keeping his orders simple to the same level as the situation, "There are no friendly ground units downrange- so consider anything making a left turn around that corner- hostile."

As though validating Rivera's edict, there was a sudden disturbance at the north end of this stretch of The Topia Road that by naked eye might have been missed in its initial moments. With optical enhancement and integrated microwave radar, the Caballero tankers were all able to see the rapid ascent of Zentraedi, short range missiles from positions unseen far back in the twisting valley beyond the blind of the overlapping hill slopes that created the twists in the road.

High the missiles rose, fanning out with no discernable concentration before arcing and returning to earth in a pattern that was at best random, but deep in the length of road upon which ordinance began to fall.

The flash of high explosives illuminated the tossing of dirt, rock, and vegetation skyward with a mix of the more angular debris associated with human construction where a missile had by chance found an abandoned dwelling along the road. Other missiles burst in brilliant displays of plasma-napalm heat made more spectacular by the hover tankers' thermal imaging systems as they consumed both conventionally flammable and also naturally inflammable matter in the intensity of their burn.

It was blind covering fire thrown up by the Zentraedi in the path of their own advance, Rivera recognized. Knowing that opposition was before them, but not necessarily exactly where- the aliens were executing whatever they called their version of the Hail Mary pass in hopes of improving their chances of surviving first contact.

It was as the third variety of Zentraedi missiles made their arrival known by the billow and rapid spread of harmless but effectively blinding smoke that the contact came.

Amazing to Rivera, the first Regult he had ever seen in action appeared by mounting the steep grade of the hill that formed part of the left turn in the road downrange. Its powerful legs that had allowed the single leap to the crest of the rise that was well above the rooftop level of many of the squat buildings along the roadside somehow in conjunction with the machine's large, articulated feet allowed the Battle Pod to find purchase and maintain footing.

Its ambulatory agility and stability did not however garner any protection from the guns of the tank company whose VHT-1s had not even been scratched by the short fall of Zentraedi missiles.

The stretch of Topia Road erupted in the joined and layering reports of hover tank ion cannons as focused, particle beam salvos ripped through the air before similarly ripping through the lightly armored Regult whose appearance had marked the arrival of the enemy.

Rivera's last glimpse of what remained of the Battle Pod was that of a dismembered leg flipping end over end back beyond the hill the Regult had mounted before the curtain of the smoke screen its comrades had created closed.

The center of the pass was now visually impenetrable, preventing the naked eye from comprehending the volume of Zentraedi rushing to contest the path to Topia.

Microwave radar was functioning though, and had no difficulties with the smokescreen the precluded visual contact.

Robbed of form, Regults appeared to the hover tankers as target indicator boxes thrown up onto the interior of their helmet visors. These boxes appeared and multiplied rapidly, filling the tankers' view with their onslaught.

Any semblance of tactical execution evaporated as the engagement instantaneously became a brawl. ASC hover tankers found no need nor time to aim at individual Regults as they glutted the narrow, northern end to the pass. It was only necessary to maintain the correct gun elevation and fire.

As Rivera fired his ion cannon repeatedly into the leading Regult elements as quickly as the weapon would recharge, his mind still found the bandwidth to recognize a great irony in this first exchange with the alien enemy. His training- the training of all of the VHT drivers- had been predicated on the controlled and disciplined employment of weapons as the final step of a process that involved tactical assessment and decision, maneuver, and position. As it was now, the fight was little more than pouring fire into a shooting gallery that just happened to be returning fire in kind.

The major's tank bucked and shuddered powerfully as an anonymous Zentraedi mecha of unknown configuration scored a hit on Rivera with a short fusillade of particle beams. While to be taken seriously, a burst of fire with such short endurance from the main weapons of the Regult series of Zentraedi mecha was of only modest effect against the Veritech Hover Tank's thick, sloped frontal armor. It was jarring enough however to end Rivera's few meandering thoughts.

The Topia Road was aglow with the rapid exchange of energy weapons fire from both contesting sides, reminding Rivera of the phenomenon of cloud lightning as electricity leapt from thunderhead to thunderhead. With the smokescreen that stubbornly clung to the hillsides and pass floor, there was only the diluted suggestion of the violence taking place as both the zip of energy bolt and the resulting explosions of hits were distorted.

Though the smokescreen laid down by the Zentraedi had been intended to rob Major Rivera and his hover tankers of their situational awareness in the fight, the VHT-1s they were at the controls of were superbly designed to keep them aware.

What Rivera was aware of without visually absorbing the carnage being inflicted by his company downrange was that despite their unrelenting fire and the Zentraedi's ghastly and rapidly mounting casualties, Caballero Company was slowly losing the pass. Each indicator box that appeared to identify for a hover tanker an enemy target, there was a range scale displayed as and integrated into the fringe of the box.

In the opening moments of battle, the first Regults had been taken down at a range of over 500 meters. This margin between sides had shrunk to 450 meters quickly and had seemed to stabilize momentarily as the exchange of fire balanced. It had not been long in lasting though and Rivera was seeing ranges of less than 400 meters become the mean along the Zentraedi force's advancing edge.

With all of his hover tanks engaged along with a lesser number of supporting fighting vehicles, it was a simple, irrefutable fact that Rivera recognized that he could not hold the enemy back by his own means.

"Nine-Four Alpha, Caballero Actual- request immediate gunship and fast-mover support… Overrun of my position is imminent- Over!..."

Smaller indicator boxes projected within Rivera's helmet visor began to clutter his field of view- smaller boxes flickering with urgency to be seen and accompanied by the song of warning sirens that announced missiles.

Some of the Zentraedi weapons fired by Artillery Regults somewhere in the leading swell of the advancing wave came at the Caballeros at a flat trajectory, engaging specific Veritech Hover Tanks. Others came plunging down, fired from further in the enemy's rear lines to saturate areas with plasma napalm warheads.

The effect was immediate and unnerving to Rivera as the Zentraedi bit back viciously. VHT hover tankers and fighting vehicle commanders called out reports of damage sustained and their combat-worthiness in many cases. In other instances, Rivera was aware of an explosion within the smokescreen coinciding with the dying squelch of an ASC radio.

Silhouetted by the explosion of others of their kind, Major Rivera was able to make out the distorted forms of Regults as they pressed the attack unflinchingly through their own smokescreen and the hail of ion bolts and ASC missiles that was still being thrown downrange at them. Less precise either by intent or ability, fusillades of Zentraedi missiles swept out before the aliens onto the ASC defenders in reply shattering civilian structures and mecha alike with their detonations.

"-Caballero Actual, Nine-four Actual-.", began the reply that to Rivera had seemed an eternity in coming. It was Colonel Mejia himself, and to the major the sound of his superior's voice promised only direst news.

"Major, fast-movers are inbound- ninety seconds to your position. The confines of the pass and your proximity to hostiles may preclude a strike-."

Rivera was aware that Mejia's statement of the obvious had continued, but a missile striking the lower left quarter of his VHT's sloped, frontal armor which in turn shook him about the cockpit like a pair of dice in a cup at a craps tournament governed his attention more forcefully.

The literal fog of war was lit all about him and in the midst of his forward-most hover tank positions. The lines had met, and while the intermingling of Zentraedi and human was limited at the moment to a few desperate exchanges of energy fire between Regult and VHT, the forces were in the opening stages of merging into a close-quarters fight.

Rivera centered the aiming reticule on the body mass of a Regult that had apparently the same intent for him. The VHT-1 shook with multiple particle beam strikes from the Battle Pod which bolted quickly into an advance following the path of its fire. A single, far more powerful ion bolt from the hover tank's gun sheered away all of the Regult above the leg junction assembly in a scattering of recognizable and unidentifiable pieces. The ungoverned legs remaining loped on for four additional, unsteady paces before simply arresting in a freeze-frame pose of a step.

"Bring the strike Nine-Four Actual!..", Rivera barked, realizing at once that he was contesting with the sound of system warning sirens and the ringing of his own ears, "We're more likely to survive our friendlies' good aim than the Dittos!.. My call! Bring the strike, danger close!.."

"Roger that, Caballero Actual. Fast-movers inbound…. Get your heads down."

Bad times are coming...

So said the motto of The Stormy Petrels and so was emblazoned beneath the squadron emblem of The Grim Reaper mounted atop a fearsome rendering of the inky-black bird as it dove, exaggerated talons extended, on unseen prey.

The motto, Lieutenant Commander Mochitsura "Takeo" Kusunoki knew, had been intended as a warning and a threat to those who might face his Valkyrie squadron. The prophetic phrase it seemed had a dual meaning, as prophetic phrases often did.

What had been a dark landscape of rugged, densely foliated hills and plunging valleys and passes minutes before was now alight with the business of combat.

Reduced artillery and rocket support from ASC and more distant RDF batteries continued to rain in horribly impressive flashes along the uneven topography. Each burst of light revealed more and more that the Zentraedi "probing" forces expected to be moving through the region was a far more significant element.

Satisfied to move before their discovery along the meandering but concealed floors of passes and valleys, the Zentraedi mecha were now demonstrating the ability to do what had been considered impossible by fanning out to negotiate the steep rise of hills- finding traversable paths and maintaining respectable forward movement.

By the integrated image enhancement provided by his Valkyrie, Kusunoki could see where some Regults, overzealous with the craze of the charge into battle would find poor or insufficient footing and tumble wildly back down the slopes of hills like the characters out of that popular children's limerick and often bowling down comrades in the process.

-But enough were finding sure purchase in their climb up impossibly steep hillsides to be nearing the crests in mass, and these were being followed by their less pioneering comrades and also by those capable of mounting follow-on attempts after an epic "Jack and Jill" tumble.

As the Zentraedi Regults reached hill summits all around the now-fortified town of Topia, the scene took on less of a benign, children's limerick air and looked more to Kusunoki like the nature documentaries he enjoyed as a child where seemingly impossible numbers of ants swarmed in a clamor over all in their path when angered into action.

Bad times were not coming- they were here.

-And with the limited ships under his command in his role as "top cover" support, there was little that Kusunoki could do about it. The hard-point stations on his Valkyrie's wings, like those of his squadron were loaded to capacity with Basilisks, Furies, and Asp missile pods- all suitable for both air-to-air and anti-mecha work-. But at best, were he to violate his operational orders and engage ground targets- even Takeo's best efforts would buy but a moment's relief for the ASC regiment below.

"Archangel, Petrel One-.", Kusunoki called to the RDF AWACS well east of the battle developing below, but charged with monitoring the airspace above it, "Repeating my request for air support reinforcement. I have eyes on hostiles well in excess of operational estimates-. Our friendlies are about to get spanked in a legendary fashion-. Over."

Archangel's response was immediate, and Kusunoki knew that a reply that quick was never a good sign.

"Request received, understood, and denied, Takeo. No additional RDF air resources are available for the AO at this time. ASC fast-movers are inbound- thirty seconds out to your east. They're just going to have to manage. Over."

Kusunoki, watching as particle beam enfilade from Regult guns initiated and then began to stream from elevated positions atop the hill northeast of Topia into the town below upon ASC hover tanks whose positioning and training of guns had been established to meet the enemy from a specific avenue of approach. Initially unprepared, but far from stunned into impotence, the VHTs and their supporting fighting vehicles mounted a quick response and the Zentraedi enfilade became a slugging match exchange from both sides.

Regults were struck by ion bolts from VHT cannons that sent them tumbling, pierced cleanly through their center masses, back down the steep slope they had just ascended. Others, struck by surface-to-surface tactical missiles, or shot through critical power systems by ion bolts, simply exploded into gruesome scatterings of mechanical components and the butchered remains of their Zentraedi occupants.

Kusunoki could see damage being done broadly in Topia as well from the Zentraedi side of the exchange. As particle beams focused on identified ASC targets and stitched broadly areas that were likely thought to be concealments for mecha or support vehicles, dots of flame from the aged timber of civilian structures appeared. Quickly in the areas where the trade in weapons fire was heaviest the flames grew from isolated dots to towering plumes and sheets giving the valley town a lurid, underworld appearance.

From the east, as Archangel had advised Kusunoki, the dark shape of ASC-AF fast-movers, FA-1B Spector multi-role fighters, swept in over the hilltops in four ship elements to strike at the Zentraedi most proximal to their earthbound comrades. The flicker of autocannon fire was joined with the zip of tracer round, rocket and missile burn on their approach to which the Zentraedi aggressors could be seen to lose Regults individually and in small clusters.

Surprised by the sudden appearance of this air cover, the aliens were only beginning to react and return fire wildly into the air when the Spectors screamed over at low altitude with malicious purpose.

Unseen in their release, ASC cluster bombs and plasma-napalm canisters carpeted the northeast slope of the hill most densely occupied by advancing Zentraedi with cataclysmic effect. The rapid-flash detonations of anti-mecha cluster bomb munitions that ravaged individual Regults as they advanced were dwarfed by the area-saturating, luminous bloom of plasma-napalm strikes that flashed momentarily green before exploding into the broad and brilliant orange wash of sun-hot flame that sublimated everything organic instantly, dissolved all metal forms almost as quickly, and rapidly heated rock and the rock components of soil into a molten state.

From two thousand meters above, there was still a noticeable chop to the air as the convectional updraft of battle began to disturb the otherwise stable air mass.

Kusunoki, still looking down on the blazes on the approach to and within Topia was amazed to see flights of the ASC's AJACS transformable attack choppers following the Spector strike so closely when at the distance his squadron was keeping focus had to be applied to control their Valkyries.

The immediate and fierce trade of fire between the AJACS and the surviving Regults, approaching the burning summit of the hill seemed to promise for a moment a stalemate of some kind. Fluid-like however, the rising numbers of Regults met the obstruction by finding the path of least resistance around it to maintain their general direction of flow.

"Petrel One, Archangel-. Tally-ho, Red Bandits, sixty plus, on the descent. Bull's eye zero-four-zero at two-twenty. Angels forty and descending. Engage and destroy!"

The worsening plight of the ASC ground forces below was suddenly distant from Kusunoki's mind as he was offered trade in his profession by his C2 AWACS.

Shoveled to him in the lingo of fighter pilots and air-intercept controllers uniformly across the RDF and REF, Kusunoki was already scanning the skies northeast of Topia, his CAP's "bull's eye", for Gnerl "red bandits", descending on the attack from forty-thousand meters at arrange of 220 kilometers.

True to Archangel's report, a cluster of target indicator boxes appeared within Kusunoki's helmet visor as he gazed over the area. They were diving hard, but fanning out as they soon would have to begin a weaving, deceleration maneuver as they approached the denser air of the mid and lower atmosphere, and while numerically superior to Kusunoki's single Valkyrie squadron returned only a day before to full strength by orphans from other Valkyrie squadrons, the enemy was tactically vulnerable- for the moment.

"Archangel, Petrel One- give us an intercept vector.", Kusunoki replied, "-Who's up for a little pay-back?..."

All of the pilots in his now patchwork squadron were, Kusunoki was certain. For him, it would be the first installment for the Hyperion and friends under his command whom he'd lost in the same instant.

It would be the first payment of many installments…

Colonel Mejia spilled out of his converted command APC's rear hatch through a cloud of dense, smothering smoke and found that the outside air was little better. Of the eight staff and techs that crewed the command compartment with Mejia, Only three followed him out the rear hatch on their own feet, and two of those carried a fourth man despite wounds and burns received when the vehicle had taken a missile strike forward. The unconscious 2nd Lieutenant was bloodied and charred over his exposed skin and tattered uniform, and was the member of Mejia's staff sitting most forward in the compartment who had not been killed outright.

Though his survival was far from certain, and bordering on unlikely, he was breathing- obligating the others to see to his safety and care as best as could be managed.

As best as could be managed was a relative term that suddenly applied to a multitude of concerns.

No complex array of integrated sensors, or extensive analysis of enemy movements was required to see what was happening and the direction the battle for Topia was taking. The hill forming the northern topographical border of the town still glowed along the crest and down its reverse face from where the ASC Air Force had laid down a thick carpet of plasma napalm to staunch the flow of Zentraedi into the town. By the same rapidly fading light, it was clear that the effort had been of only modest effectiveness and short-lived in addition. Solitary Regults and also those in reduced units scrambled over the hill summit, triumphant in the sheer act of surviving, and without ceremony began their fighting descent into the battle that was still building.

Mejia was in certain that in minutes the Zentraedi would be storming over the smoldering hill as though the air strike had never happened and would continue to do so until the next flight of attack aircraft arrived to repeat the attack.

It was the Zentraedi who had flanked right of Hill 1405 apparently and who were now cascading down the hill that created Topia's western border under cover from their own guns that concerned the colonel the most.

Cabello Company, or more accurately what remained of it, was also collapsing back from The Topia Road into the heavy fighting that was consuming the north end of town. Far from finding sanctuary in Topia, these elements found themselves wading into the thickest of the fighting with the enemy still close on their heels.

As solid lines between ASC and Zentraedi dissolved to the north and west, it was easy for Mejia to imagine a Zentraedi officer or ranking NCO plotting at this very moment to open action on Mejia's right to further overwhelm him with the numbers that they could afford to throw into the fight.

Topia was lost.

Mejia knew this-. He had just not yet lost sufficient numbers in his depressed position to clinch it.

At the same time, Mejia knew, he was not cut off from escape and condemned to slaughter- yet.

Distasteful as retreat was, it was still preferable to annihilation in defense of a position whose significance had been negated the moment the movement and size of enemy forces through the region had been confirmed, and especially as they circumvented Topia- nullifying it as a blockage.

If he and his people were to die in this war, Mejia was determined that it would be for something grander than the claim that they had tried to hold Topia.

Three VHT Battloids were squared off against three times as many Regults less than two hundred meters from where Mejia and his surviving command staff covered behind the wreck of their vehicle. Outnumbered as they were the hover tankers opted for the greater speed and agility of their VHT-1s' Battloid mode, trading also the heavier punch of the tank's ion cannon for the rapid-fire qualities of the E-20 gun pods that each carried.

Actually pressing forward into the Zentraedi attack, covering one another as best as they could against superior numbers, they waded into the fire of Regult particle beams that saturated their heavily armored hides.

Three Regults fell, one occupant only emerging from his downed machine, before the first Battloid folded under the intense punishment. The explosion resulting from a compromised Protoculture reactor nearly knocked the two surviving Battloids off their feet, but they recovered to continue the fight for what short time they had left.

"Order a covering retreat while we still have units left to pull out!", Mejia ordered loudly over the roar of the battle that was sweeping over the town.

As his communications officer began to carry out his order on a mere field radio, the level of sophistication that command and control of the 94th Composite Armored Regiment had been reduced to, Mejia saw the Regults who fought the two Battloids that had caught his attention reinforced and their numbers doubled.

With a single, frontal charge from the standing gun battle they had been participating in, the Regults literally overran the Battloids- knocking them to ground with ostrich-like kicks that laid the ASC mecha out prone.

The new arrivals to the skirmish continued on the advance into Topia as the Regults that had initiated the fight, identifiable by the damage they had received, gathered around the fallen Battloids to deliver death blows with their particle beam cannons at point-blank range.

Colonel Mejia saw the collapse of a nearby structure as an RDF Army Gen-1 Gladiator trudged through it toward the fight at labored pace that spoke of damage received elsewhere in the fight and unseen. It clutched a battered but functional GU-11 gun pod in its right arm, firing in short bursts as it advanced and shredding a Regult with each burst of 55mm shells.

It was as the Regults returned fire, now finished with the two Battloids that presumably the Gladiator had entered the fight in an attempt to save, that Mejia noticed the Gladiator was missing its left arm.

The wounded rushing to the aide of the slain….

This was the substance of battlefield legends that the survivors could never celebrate with the relish of those who only heard and repeated the tales.

Sub-Lieutenant Tahlt advanced along the floor of the pass he'd awaken to find himself in, cautiously and outside of the path of unit after unit of Regults that charged by at nearly full attack speed. His guarded and deliberate movement was not driven by fear of combat, that by traffic on all of the communications bands seemed to be going at full force now- but rather by his desire to reach the battle in a condition in which he could still participate in it.

He had awaken with his Regult half-buried in loose earth and stone at the base of a nearly sheer drop- neither his sensors nor his weapons functioning. The combat pod had struggled with the effort of righting itself and rising on legs and feet whose stability was adequate for a walking pace at best.

Tahlt counted himself fortunate in Fate's favor though, as his squad of Warriors Clote, Almit, and Geha he had left dead where he had come to consciousness.

Of the three, it was only Geha who had clearly been killed in the fall. Not by the fall itself, as a fall of some distance was survivable in a Regult given the proper use of the restraining harnesses- Tahlt was living proof. No, it had been a large slab of stone that had joined Tahlt's squad in the plummet from above and crushed Geha's Regult beneath its weight at the fall's end that had ended the warrior.

Clote and Almit's circumstances of death had been less random- but clear. Their Regults had been crushed into near the same unrecognizable state as Geha's, only it was beneath the feet of other Regults who had followed on the charge to battle that they had reached that condition. Whether Clote and Almit had been alive at the time was uncertain.

It did not matter.

These turns in Fate's whim were expected to happen in battle.

Only to Tahlt, in the short distance he had covered in his damaged Regult as scores- hundreds- had charged by him within an arm's reach, it did not settle.

With each flutter in the step of his mecha, each threat of faltering as the world around him shook and thundered with the full charge of other Regults- he felt the panic of being trampled under. It was possible that this had been the terminal experience of Clote and Almit, and try as he did in focusing on the safe navigation of the valley floor, this was something that Tahlt just could not put out of mind.

Tahlt continued to concentrate on reaching open ground and thought ahead as to how he would find and rejoin his unit.

Another step by his Regult and the machine dropped slightly beneath him as a leg nearly failed, caught itself, and recovered.

Tahlt became aware of cold sweat on his face and the pounding of his own heart against his ribs as his breathing began to come labored.

Tahlt's head was now throbbing as his body continued to ache all over.

It was not this discomfort that the sub-lieutenant could not put out of his mind, but rather the burn of anger that rose with each crushed Regult he passed.

-And the anger's edge cut, he found, in a direction that he knew he dare not speak of.

Perhaps he too had been damaged in the fall?

Action General 1st Grade Hesthira stood atop a hill as the leading elements of his 9th Mechanized Corps' right flank continued to pass, making acceptable progress south through terrain that was more formidable than the micronian resistance scattered throughout it.

More slight in build and shorter in stature than his closest ranking command staff gathered about him, Hesthira did not carry with him the aura of a leader of Te'Dak Tohl Warriors.

In conduct of Duty, and over the course of that conduct Hesthira had recognized early and noted many an instance where that misperception of others had been a benefit to him.

Soil and rocks fell free of Hesthira's loose grasp as he rolled a handful of this alien world's substance between his palm and fingers- gaining a feel for it and the land through which his warriors now traversed. It was a habit that his staff had seen repeated in many campaigns on many worlds, and they accepted it as a small eccentricity that was part of a greater package.

"We are on schedule then?", Hesthira asked- knowing well the answer already.

"Ahead of schedule, Lord.", Action Commander Grom, his trusted functionary who saw to the implementing details of Hesthira's greater and often rapidly evolving plans.

Knowing also the manner in which his commander's mind worked, if not always the direction in which it would go, Grom added, "Barring a sudden reallocation of enemy forces, Lord- we should reach our operational initiation point at or before the appointed time. There is no indication that the micronians are in a position to make such a redirection of forces in the time available. It appears they still expect the main thrust to be coming from the north and with Action General Bren's corps."

"And correctly so.", Hesthira noted, "Jekketh has put the weight of an entire army behind Bren's spearhead. There is little the aliens can do to stop him, though they will try."

"Our participation at this juncture is strategically inconsequential. We are merely here to block, fix, and hold the micronians by the flank as Bren rolls over them."

"Hardly complementary of your known skills.", Action General 2nd Grade Naku, Hesthira's executive officer and tactical advisor was quick to point out- defending his commanding officer from the implied slight- as well as his self.

"Not complementary at all.", Hesthira agreed, "But Sub-General Jekketh and Bren are of the same type. Jekketh understands Bren and approves of his methods. He's a known variable."

"I suspect this means that you have other ideas beside holding the enemy's flank then, Lord?", Naku surmised, already knowing himself to be correct in his estimation.

"I plan on being at the enemy's center when Bren reaches it. That is why Sub-General Jekketh has assigned me as he has with this element of the operation."

"This will not improve your standing with Bren.", Naku advised, "It could be another Kuhl-Nar Six Campaign over again."

"A cost that Jekketh is prepared for, no doubt-.", Hesthira speculated, "-And one he has the resources to afford. But, it may not come to that."

"No, possibly not.", Naku agreed knowing that there was no knowing what was not yet to be known.

Hesthira turned, dropping what soil remained from his hand before using both to place his helmet back on his head. He moved toward his Glaug Officer's Pod that squatted patiently in wait for his return, and in doing so indicated to his staff that they should be returning to theirs.

"There is much ground and peril between this point and that, Naku. Let us get there first."

"Agreed, Lord.", Naku said, and then suggested, "Since our movement has been discovered, shall I call for more robust air cover from the Fleet?"

"Not yet.", Hesthira said, mounting his mecha and settling into the familiar embrace of the cockpit, "They only know of our presence at this moment- likely not our size and thereby our function. Let Bren drape himself in threat and menace."

"Attention on him is attention away from us."

Brasilia

"It doesn't look like much now, Captain, but walk with me for a sec and you'll see the potential.", Whilite said, justifying 511-Sul Station to his commanding officer as CP and base camp for Echo Company and for Naib Subedar Singh and his handful of Gurkhas for however long it was that Nguyen intended to stay in the Brasilia AO.

Admittedly, from the concrete rail bed that was only partially fitted out with footings to have its rails laid down the subway station did not look like much in its unfinished state. To get to this lowest point of construction Whilite and Singh had had to first lead the other officers and senior NCOs belaying down the 60̊ slope of a broad concrete shaft that would have been 511-Sul Station's escalator access to street level had construction not been interrupted and halted. A similarly unfinished mezzanine then led down to the main platform level still strewn with vandal-toppled scaffolding and heaps of construction supplies too invaluable to steal but more than suitable for subjection to anarchists' whims as evident in their violated state.

Whilite could feel the skepticism in Nguyen, 1st Platoon's Lt Gifford, and Sergeant Major MacDonald whose opinion carried more sway perhaps than any other in the company with the CO. As he and Singh had quickly been won over by the dank shell of a subway station illuminated now only by flashlight that smelled of wet concrete, abandoned construction, and rat droppings- Whilite hoped to as quickly win over Nguyen.

"Storage.", Whilite said, abruptly identifying 511-Sul Station's first virtue that he planned to elaborate upon.

Shining his light up the line in the downtown direction, he used the beam to move his audience's attention toward the twin tunnel openings that had never seen the passage of a subway train.

"This station must have been intended as some kind of storage or staging area for trains on the line, because there are branches in the tunnels about thirty meters in from the end of the platform and sidetracks. That end we're setting up as an ammo dump- and we're well on the way to stockpiling tons."

"What were you able to salvage from Homestead's storage?", Nguyen asked.

"What's your pleasure, sir?..", Whilite replied with intentional ambiguity, "Naib Subedar Singh was dead-on in his assessment – the dittos haven't touched anything-."

Sergeant Major MacDonald grunted bitterly, "Of course not-. Too damn busy taking the rest of the planet to care much about what's laying around a smashed FOB."

"8mm RDF caseless, pistol ammunition, rifle grenades, hand grenades, plastic explosives, anti-personnel mines, line-of-sight anti-tank rockets, mini-missiles, mortars-. Rambo's Candyland, Captain, and it's all just for the taking.", Whilite reported.

"For now.", Gifford observed, "So we should make it a priority to grab mucho y rapido…"

"-And as important, if not more", added Singh, speaking unsolicited but without imposing himself unduly, "we are recovering the equipment needed to make this position operationally viable for some time. We have already secured portable generators, coms, C2 systems-. In twenty-four hours, we can be tied into theater command with the same functionality as the Homestead JOC."

"If there is still a theater-level command structure.", Lt Hall of 2nd Platoon pointed out, "We could just as easily be on our own for a while."

"-If needs be.", Nguyen said with simple determination, "How are we set on provisions and supplies?"

Whilite continued, "Same-same for the time being as ammunition and weapons, sir- the only limitation we have right now is being able to move the stuff. I think the dittos either don't realize it's just lying around, or like Mac said, they just don't care. We've already got enough MREs moved to feed the company for a month, and enough medical supplies to start our own field hospital. Which brings me to my next point-."

Whilite's flashlight had dropped at arm's length to his side, but he now shone it in the opposite direction as before, down the line leading away from Brasilia's center and at the tunnel openings at that end of the platform.

"The tunnels in that direction also have sidetracks a little further in, which I recommend we use for storage of everything else. More importantly for us, there are niches of some kind- spaces off the main line that look like they were intended to be stood up as electrical or mechanical spaces- whatever it takes to make a subway system run. –But like the station itself, they were never finished. We can set them up as barracks, an infirmary, a CP- whatever we want. It's got plenty of space for everyone and all the toys we can carry off of Homestead. Once we get power, we can even make it cozy…"

"-Maybe set up a bar?", suggested Gifford to a few laughs in response.

"First we achieve something to celebrate, then we can talk about a bar.", Nguyen said, not outright dismissing the suggestion.

"This is a good position.", Captain Nguyen said without having seen the spaces that Whilite had just described, "We're concealed and the location is defendable with all avenues of approach easily monitored. It's also a quick and easy movement to the airport and the enemy LZ and staging area-."

The passive quiet of the Echo Company officers and NCOs turned uneasy at the mention of the airport that was well within sight when above ground and elevated over the visual obstruction of Brasilia's crumbling outer skyline.

Nguyen sensed this and addressed it bluntly, "I said we would be entering this war here. Did anyone misunderstand me? Does anyone have any objections?.."

"..No, sir.", Gifford said, volunteering to speak, "I just think we were expecting a lot of surveillance and intelligence gathering with some raids and ambushes in the mix. It sounds like you want to go after Ditto Base Brasilia-."

"I do, Lieutenant.", Nguyen replied, "Perhaps you've forgotten, but to fight a war, one must go to where the enemy can be found."

"I haven't forgotten, sir.", Gifford replied, affirming his superior's thinking with his tone, "-It just kinda makes you feel like the flea looking at the whole hound- it's a lot to eat."

"We'll eat what we can.", Nguyen stated as a matter not up for discussion, "And remember, the little flea also served up The Black Plague."

4th Platoon's Lt Fenton said cheerfully, "Well, sir- I for one have always wanted to be compared to a global epidemic-. I say we do it."

"We're going to do it.", Nguyen said, "Starting tonight-. Mac, I want you to assume command of the foraging and supply recovery details with the platoon sergeants. Identify critical supplies and hardware, and haul in as much as you can as quickly as you can. Be sure to get input from the medics- many supplies they're going to want on hand may be perishable and will need to be secured immediately."

"There will be a hard stop on this detail at 1800 tonight for mission briefing and gear-up. I want to be Oscar Tango Mike by 2100 and into the enemy ASAP thereafter."

"Yes, sir.", MacDonald replied.

Whilite motioned to the sergeant major and then down the tunnel whose layout he'd just been describing, "Sergeant Byerly is up that way, Top, and is overseeing the detail. She can bring you up to speed and show you the maintenance access point we've been using to move things down to tunnel level."

MacDonald shifted the weight of his combat rig and rifle as he motioned for the platoon sergeants in the officers' company to join him, "Thank you, sir. –We're on it."

Confident in the abilities of his senior NCO to continue establishment of base camp, Nguyen turned his attention to his officers and his command responsibilities.

"Now, let's talk about starting to hurt the enemy."

Medellin, Columbia

Point Lieutenant Quen'Hoht took a last rearward glance at the light composite regiment whose charge he'd been given in anticipation of a new commanding officer. Word had come down to the Te'Dak Tohl officer that his superior would be arriving in the company of his superior's superior- and that the regiment should be assembled for inspection and address.

Accordingly, infantry stood assembled in full battle gear grouped neatly by platoon as similarly Regult pilots stood beside their machines that squatted in wait to be mounted and deploy.

Quen'Hoht's Glaug was front and center to the rest of the company, waiting like the lesser Regults for its master who stood before it- waiting.

The waiting was almost over though.

The regiment had been overflown by an escorted shuttlecraft that was now making its final approach to land amongst the abandoned micronian facilities tied to the fields in which The Invid Flower of Life was growing in cultivated order.

Quen'Hoht was not certain of what was to come next, but knowing what he already knew, he suspected that he was not to like it.

How could he? His orders had subjugated him to a Tirolian- and not even a warrior.

Was this campaign not at its core about wresting the means from these aliens to free the Te'Dak Tohl from Robotech Master rule?

It was as puzzling as it was distasteful.

But Quen'Hoht had his orders- from a Te'Dak Tohl superior.

The shuttle settled to ground with the delicate touch-down of an experienced pilot and as the engines powered down, the side hatch opened and the gangway extended without hesitation or ceremony.

The Tirolian, Darius, was quick to descend the gangway in the company of a dozen or more Zentraedi in micronized state.

All were clothed appropriately in uniform and badge of norghil rank, though Quen'Hoht was unsure where they would have acquired the garb of warriors to fit their bodies scaled down to such a shameful size.

More disturbing was the fact that the norghil who followed Darius most closely while at the same time towering over him in comparative size wore the rank of sub-commander.

"Point Lieutenant- eh?...", the Tirolian said, addressing Quen'Hoht in perfect mastery of the Zentraedi dialect of Tirolian, but with a disquieting lack of respect in his apparent shortness of memory as it applied to retaining the names of those who could easily squash him.

"Quen'Hoht, Citizen Darius-."

Recollection flashed across Darius's face, whether real or feigned, as he said, "Ah yes, that's right."

Motioning to the norghil on his heels, Darius continued, unperturbed, "This is my military chief for this operation and your new commanding officer, Sub-Commander Fral."

Quen'Hoht felt his breath catch inadvertently in his throat, removing the need to voice the protest it conveyed. The scowl that appeared on Fral's face said as much.

"You disapprove?", Darius asked, noting the obvious, "I'd say that I was sympathetic, but I actually don't care, Point-Lieutenant. I have a single concern for this farm, its facilities, and the many like it in this region. That is the resumption of operation and the production of viable Protoculture for use by the Te'Dak Tohl. Supreme General Krymina has granted me broad authority in execution of this task, answering only to her."

"Sub-Commander Fral, his staff in our company, and those whom he will be bringing on as it suits him are familiar with these humans in a way that you and your warriors are not, and with an ease that I do not have time to allow you to acquire."

"I need these aliens to execute my assigned task, so I need Sub-Commander Fral's experience to facilitate it, and that makes you and your warriors his subordinates. –I suggest you find a way to deal with this perceived slight quickly, or to convince Supreme General Krymina that you are able to achieve my assignment without me."

For now, Quen'Hoht resigned to the immediately inescapable circumstances of his assignment.

For now.

"Your orders, and Sub-Commander Fral's will be obeyed dutifully by my Warriors, Citizen Darius."

Darius ushered Fral forward with a broad and dramatic sweeping motion of his arm.

"Your Te'Dak Tohl subordinates, Fral."

Fral, as Darius had expected, spoke with less venom to his words and more of the order and authority that he had been accustomed to as a staff officer of the warrior caste and before he'd been subjected to the comparative social anarchy of this wretched, alien world.

The return nearer to normalcy seemed to be doing the officer well.

As was the synthesized approximation of the indigenous plant derivative to which Fral had become chemically dependent.

Fral would have to raise and keep himself up as it applied to the Zentraedi social order, and with the added challenge of maintaining status over the smug, perceived superiority of the Te'Dak Tohl unit that Krymina had assigned to support Darius- likely anticipating just the friction being seen.

Darius would manage Fral's biochemical needs- allowing the Zentraedi officer to focus…

-And if needs be, would use it as masterful a leash as was required.

But for now, they two were of a single mind if not a single purpose.

"Warriors, sub-offices, and officers", Fral bellowed out at the top of his voice so that his words would be heard through the ranks now under his charge, "Shortly, transports will arrive with warriors of my selection who will accompany you on your first assignment under my command."

"The transports will take platoons out to a radius from this point equal to two days travel by the micronians on foot. Your assignment will be to sweep all paths of transit, all population concentrations- no matter how small-, all structures and all naturally occurring land forms that could afford shelter to the micronians."

"The micronians you find will be returned here where they will be categorized and divided into specialized and unskilled labor pools for the purpose of resuming the harvesting and processing of The Invid Flower of Life for Protoculture production."

"While out on the sweep and gather of micronians, you will defer to the situational direction of my warriors who will be embedded with your units. There is no doubt that you are capable warriors, but you are unfamiliar with the micronians and the intricacies of their society. Killing these aliens indiscriminately or without understanding of those social implications can have serious repercussions"

"For that reason, lethal force- force beyond that required to gather and drive the micronians- is forbidden except in cases of defense with no alternative. Violation of this general order will carry harsh consequences."

"Fall out for specific assignment by unit, and remember that the chain of events that will ensure meaningful victory in this campaign begins here, today. Dismissed!"

"That was quite impressive, Fral-.", Darius said with some genuine praise infused into the complement, "They may yet see themselves as fortunate in having you in command for this duty."

Fral, feeling his skin begin to itch already and the edge of the sickness whose remedy Darius now provided to him returning, replied through a forced mask of mastery and dominance, "They would kill us both this moment if the order to obey had not come through only a few steps from Supreme General Krymina herself."

Unconcerned, Darius replied with a sincere version of the expression feigned by Fral, "And they will continue to obey, Fral, so long as Supreme General Krymina is properly compelled."

"-And you feel you are capable of doing this?", Fral asked, incredulous of the sway held by a creature who even in his diminished state he could easily break.

"I am doing exactly that, Fral."

The Trendok 145 Robotech Factory, Deep Space

The great machine in all of its components, systems, and subsystems maintained its routine despite the unsolicited and unnecessary presence of the sizable Zentraedi garrison aboard.

Had the Hypercomp main computer at the center of all of the Factory's billions of simultaneously occurring processes and activities been inclined to apply its regimented thought to the matter, it is possible that it would have found their being aboard to be agreeable as it involved systems and resources that were normally dormant to be monitored and regulated- thus increasing the Hypercomp's scope of responsibility and providing it more areas in which to perform as it always did- flawlessly.

But self-edification was not a vanity of the computer whose achievements were both impressive and many.

Sustaining the lives of the creatures who had been produced in Factories similar to the one that this Hypercomp administrated was just another set of sub-processes within processes to be run.

Sophisticated as it was, and separated from being true artificial intelligence only by the harnesses applied to it by its creators ages before, Hypercomp was still limited to the restrictions of input and output that yoked even the most advanced computers.

It was not aware of the flaws it had ingested through a simple, unthreatening transmission of valid format it had received properly encoded and over secure communications freqeuency.

Similarly Hypercomp was oblivious to the fact that it was spreading innumerable, calculated flaws through its production and storage facilities through the very routines designed to make these systems perfect.

It was unaware because of the carefully loomed veil that was a part of the degenerative and detrimental viruses that it had received in the guise of normal interactions with The Network, but crafted with great care and malice by creatures that Hypercomp had never encountered.

In ways both subtle and gross machines, mecha, munitions, hardware, software, and even information itself normally made unwaveringly reliable by Hypercomp began to corrupt- awaiting only circumstance to manifest.

Iago had gained access.

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