Robotech Rebirth: The Macross Saga
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universe that I am about to mangle around for my own amusement – sadly all Robotech characters and settings remain the property of Harmony Gold – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.
Authors Note: This is just to let you all know that to tell the story that I wish to tell properly this particular saga will – like my other fic This Isn't Kansas – be split up into a series of interconnected parts. Now without further ado let's get cracking shall we.
Part One: A Celestial Visitor
Chapter One
"Luna Explorer One to Mission Control. Repeat this is Luna Explorer One to Mission Control respond please."
Strapped into the pilot's chair in the cockpit of the largest crewed spacecraft ever built by human hands Commander Elena Horsham hailed mission control back on Earth. While she waited for a response, she quietly mused on the circumstances that had brought about this mission. A mission that after years, decades really, of people talking about it and dreaming about it, would see humanity finally return to the giant airless rock that for billions of years had been Earth's celestial companion. However, unlike before where the Apollo landings on the moon had been fuelled by nationalistic fervour during the height of the Cold War, this mission, and the ship herself were not being funded by any one government or space agency. Instead, all of them had pitched in – as had some of the biggest private commercial space entities like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic - to design, build and crew her.
It had been a unifying factor - not to mention a symbol of peace and hope– in a world that over the last decade had become increasingly polarised. A Second Cold War was brewing, and it looked like it was going to be even more divisive and dangerous than the last one as it wouldn't just be a simple ideological and military standoff between capitalism and communism – despite what the more hawkish politicians and military brass in Washington or Beijing liked to believe – but something infinitely more complex and dangerous. Though hopefully the same kind of unity and desire for peace that built this ship will ensure cooler heads prevail and everyone tones down the rhetoric, Elena thought before the radio came to life as mission control responded to her transmission.
"Luna Explorer One this is Mission Control. Go ahead," a Polish accented male voice responded from their mission control facility, which despite the best efforts of some American politicians to make it otherwise, was not based in the US but was run from an ordinary looking office building in Geneva, Switzerland.
"Mission Control we have entered a stable geostationary orbit around the moon. Request permission to proceed to the decoupling and landing phase."
"Roger that Luna Explorer. Stand by for authorization."
"Standing by."
While they waited for mission control to give authorization to commence the final phase of the first part of their mission Elena thought for a moment just how much of a technological achievement Luna Explorer One was. Like in the old Apollo program the craft consisted of distinct modules however whereas the old Apollo rockets had been a drive module, command module and lander Luna One only had two modules. The largest of the two modules was the sixty-five-meter-long crew section which closely resembled the old space shuttles – the last of which NASA had retired from service in July 2011 – in design though larger and unlike the shuttles was a true spaceplane fully at home both in atmosphere and in space. The other module was the forty-meter-long space drive section which was almost a solid lump of metal containing everything from the first functional magnetoplasmadynamic engine to the nuclear fusion reactor that provided power to the drive system and the docked ship to the crafts four thermal-dump panels that extended a dozen meters out from the hull and which from a distance would appear quite similar to the petals of some gigantic metallic flower.
It was a hugely experimental set up but so far it had worked and if it continued to work as the eggheads said it would well Elena could foresee the next spacecraft to use it being the one that would finally fulfil the long-held dream of landing humans on Mars. Though don't get ahead of yourself Elena, she thought to herself, you have to finish this mission first and return successfully to Earth before anyone will think of adapting this technology to power a Martian mission.
"Mission Control to Luna Explorer One. You are clear to commence the decoupling procedure. Good luck."
"Roger that control and thank you."
Elena signed off and looked over at her co-pilot before glancing back at the other three people in the cockpit with her all of them exchanging excited grins. They had all worked and trained for this for so long that they could hardly believe that this was happening, that if nothing went wrong at the last minute then within half-hour to an hour at the most, they would be the first people to set foot on the moon in fifty-eight years. Then they all turned serious.
"Alright people let's do this," Elena said, "Mitchell, make sure the scientists are all strapped in back there. Steven, please secure all umbilical connections to the drive module. Diana, set the flight computer to decoupling mode."
A chorus of yes ma'am's came from the rest of the command crew as they began executing her commands. Elena for her part began running her own checks, making sure that the main modules own engines were charged and ready, that the control thrusters were ready to go and that the main ship was ready to switch over to its own power source. It would be beyond embarrassing to disengage from the drive module and suddenly lose all power. While redocking wouldn't be difficult – the engineers had thought of that and there was a secondary winch module that would attach magnetic grapples to the ship and tow it back into the docked position – it was something that all of them would like to avoid.
"All the science team are strapped in, Elena," Mitchell reported.
"All umbilical connections are secured and ready to be disengaged."
"The flight computer confirms decoupling mode ready for activation."
"Okay then less do this," Elena said before flicking a few controls on the main control screen, "beginning decoupling sequence."
"Decoupling sequence initiated," the female voice of the computer reported a moment before the deck shivered accompanied by a thudding sound, as the docking clamps holding the two parts of the craft together began disengaging. "Decoupling in ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… decoupling."
At the rear of the spacecraft a series of eight large hydraulic locking clamps slowly opened. For a moment nothing more happened then a series of electromagnetic rails began to gently ease the two parts of the spacecraft apart. A line appeared between the delta-shaped spaceplane section and the cylindrical space-drive section thin at first but growing larger as the two parts moved away from one another. Conduits, carrying power and control input cables, between the two modules separated along specifically designed junctions – the conduits retracted behind protective covers – and cold gas thrusters on the back of the main module fired speeding up the separation sequence.
A minute and a half after the decoupling began the main module was fully detached from the space drive section and moving forward on inertia. At least for a few moments before the main engines came to live with a brilliant flash of yellow chemical flames propelling the plane section away.
"Decoupling sequence completed. All systems online and functioning normally. Main drives nominal."
Elena smiled at the report. "Excellent okay let's get this done," she replied before toggling the radio again. "Luna Explorer One to Mission Control. Decoupling complete, ready to commence landing operations"
"Stand by Luna Explorer we're picking up an unusual disturbance forming near your location," mission control replied almost immediately. "Remain in your current position."
"Roger that control," Elena replied with a puzzled frown before exchanging a confused, and mildly concerned, look with the rest of the cockpit crew. All of them wondering the same thing, what could be causing a disturbance strong enough to have concerned the staff at Mission Control? Her thought was that it was some solar storm that observatories that monitored the sun had somehow missed, a particularly large coronal mass ejection or something like that. Despite what a laymen might have believed, weather existed in space just like it did on Earth and every other planet in the solar system that happened to have an atmosphere. Most of the magnetic and radiation storms that you could encounter – if you weren't careful – came from the giant nuclear reactor that was the sun as it flung off bursts of radiation and superheated plasma. Such space weather could be very damaging and dangerous to spacecraft and satellites hence why the sun was monitored for such things developing, though even then the star could sometimes take them by surprise with a particularly large or unexpected radiation or plasma burp.
"If it's a solar storm some space weather forecaster is going to get some major egg on their face back home," Mitchell commented making all of them chuckle a moment before the ship around them began shaking. "What the?"
Before anyone could respond to his startled exclamation what felt like a massive fist slammed into their craft and sent them all reeling as outside the starfield spun drunkenly. Alarms went off from multiple consoles as the whole ship spun out of control. Swearing under her breath Elena fought with her controls, struggling to bring the craft back under control and to get back into position.
"Everyone emergency procedures now," she ordered as she managed to get them back onto an even keel, a moment before a second, even more powerful, wave struck them. Unlike the last time however this time the impact felt like some giant had grabbed the craft and was using it like some bizarrely shaped frisbee or boomerang. Sparks shot out of numerous junction boxes and console screens flashed with static as the computers were jarred about in a way that had never been anticipated when they'd been designed. The overhead lights flickered but stayed on, barely.
Before anyone could react a third wave, this one the strongest of them all, slammed into the spaceplane and everything in the cockpit went crazy.
Not far from the suddenly floundering Luna Explorer One the cause of the gravitational waves manifested itself. A section of space the size of a quark warped and twisted in upon itself alarmingly, the warp spreading at near superluminal speed as the barriers between the normal four-dimensional universe and the complex, multiple realms of subspace broke down spilling phased gravitons, tachyons, and dozens of other previously only theorised particles into normal space.
At the very heart of the distortion field a sphere of eldritch light appeared. It was small at first, barely the size of a large hen's egg, but rapidly began to expand growing until it was nearly ten kilometres across. Appearing almost like a whirling ball of frosted glass which shimmered and glimmered, throwing off shafts of light and charged particles somewhat like a giant disco ball. For a moment nothing more seemed to happen then a shape began to appear within its core. It was skeletal and indistinct at first but rapidly began to solidify as it completed its integration back into the normal universe. With a gyroscopic flash of blue Cherenkov radiation, the sphere disappeared as it did the surrounding gravitational distortions.
After nearly a decade of wandering the universe, and in the process crossing the vast gulf of intergalactic space between the Greater Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way, Zor's battlefortress had arrived in Sol.
Wrestling with her controls, feeling beads of sweat forming on her head despite the best efforts of her helmet's environmental controls, Elena fought with every bit of strength and skill she possessed to bring the craft back under control. It wasn't easy as the gravitational forces that had slammed into them were doing their best to toss their craft around like it was a piece of flotsam in a hurricane. Warning alarms blared in the cockpit as Luna Explorer One was thrown about like it was toy by the invisible, but undeniably powerful almost beyond measure, waves.
Finally, though the waves began to dissipate, and Elena was able to bring her ship back under control. "What the hell was that? Mitchell what's our systems status," she asked. When her co-pilot didn't reply Elena turned her head to look at him to see that he was looking out the viewports shocked into immobility by whatever it was he was seeing out there. Knowing that was most unlike the man Elena looked out the viewports…
…and froze at what she saw.
Floating there in space, at the very epicentre of the disturbance that had thrown them around so badly, was a ship. A ship that wasn't human by any stretch of the imagination though its vaguely arrowhead design brought to mind images of one of the most iconic of all science fiction spaceships, the Imperial Star Destroyer from the Star Wars franchise. Though it was immediately obvious that initial appearance aside this thing was not a star destroyer somehow brought to life as not only was it noticeably larger and sleeker, but it lacked the massive, towering superstructure at the back of the vessel. Though, like the fictional symbol of Imperial military might, the vessel was obviously a warship as it bristled with gun turrets some of which looked big enough to swallow them whole.
"Holy crap we've got visitors," Diana commented as she appeared between the two of them, floating in the zero gravity, the sound of her voice bringing both pilots out of the shocked state they'd descended into upon seeing an actual, honest to God alien warship. "Look at the size of the cannons on that thing! Hope they're friendly, whoever they are."
Before Elena could open her mouth to reply, or to order the other woman to get back in her seat, the radio came to life again. "Mission Control calling Luna Explorer One come in please. Repeat this is Mission Control calling Luna Explorer One come in please."
"Mission Control this is Luna Explorer One we ready you," Elena replied immediately. For a few moments there was no response due to the factor of light speed delay meaning that radio transmissions took anywhere between two point four to two point seven seconds – depending on where the moon was in its orbit – to reach back to Earth or from Earth to reach them. Then the same polish accented voice that they'd talked to earlier came back over the radio sounding more than a little relieved.
"Good to hear from you Luna Explorer One. Are you all all right up there our telemetry feed showed you getting knocked around pretty badly? We're also now picking up a large radar contact nearby that wasn't there before. Do you see it?"
"Aside from a few bumps and bruises we appear to be fine," Elena replied, "and we can indeed see the anomalous object it's about ten thousand kilometres from us give or take a kilometre or two."
"What is it? A rogue asteroid?"
"Negative control. You're probably not going to believe this, hell we can see it and barely believe it ourselves, but the contact is an alien warship approximately two kilometres long."
This time the delay in the response from mission control was a whopping fifty seconds no doubt due to the controllers – and any watching journalists in the media gallery – gazing at their screens but not seeing them in purely understandable shock. "Confirm that please Luna Explorer you said it's an alien warship," control replied.
"It's moving," Mitchell called out causing Elena to briefly turn her attention to the viewports before glancing at her control readouts. Mitchell was right the alien vessel had indeed begun moving, heading on a course that the flight computer extrapolated would not only pass right over them but see the vessel move into an orbital insertion vector for Earth.
"Confirmed control the contact is an alien warship," Elena answered not at all put out by having to repeat herself. Humanity had long dreamed of first contact and suddenly here it was, she just hoped that the alien crew were not aggressive despite having shown up in a powerful looking space battleship. "Be advised that the alien ship has begun moving towards Earth. No visible propulsion method. At its current rate of speed, it will pass us in twelve seconds and enter planetary orbit within ten minutes."
"Hopefully, they won't destroy us as they pass," Diana commented as the massive vessel drew closer and closer to them.
"They've got no reason to were unarmed and pose no threat," Elena told her. "You've been watching too much alien invasion stuff again, haven't you?"
"Guilty as charged," Diana admitted a moment before a deep shadow fell across the cockpit as the massive alien ship began to pass over them giving them all a clear view of the massive turrets – some of which were larger than anything humanity had ever built in their long, violent history making all of them shiver at the thought of what kind of ordinance could possibly come out of them – ports and other projections, like sensor dishes and communications antennae, that turned the hull of the vessel into a technological cityscape of incredible complexity. Several sections of the hull, especially on the forward edges glowed softly with an ethereal blue light that was quite unlike anything they had ever seen before. Smaller areas on the hull glowed with the same light in a complex but surprisingly logically geometric pattern.
The rear of the ship - which consisted of four nacelle structures that glowed with the same blue light, and which reminded all of them of the warp nacelles on ships in the Star Trek franchise – passed overhead. It was as one of the engine nacelles passed directly over them, bathing the cockpit in its ethereal blue light, that the spaceplane jerked as though it had suddenly gotten snagged on something and began moving of its own accord.
"What the hell? Why are we moving?" Diana exclaimed as Elena and Mitchell frantically began checking their controls for the reason.
"We're caught in some kind of gravitational wake trail," Mitchell exclaimed as he realized exactly what was happening based on what his screens were telling him. "It's coming from the ships main drive units; they must achieve motion by generating and manipulating gravitational fields somehow. The wakes caught us like a magnet snagging an iron filing. It's pulling us back towards Earth."
"However, it happened we need to break free from it," Elena commented. "Diana, get back to your post, Mitchell do you think our engines will be powerful enough to break us free of the wake?"
Mitchell did a few quick calculations while Diana floated back to her post and manoeuvred herself back down into her chair. After a few moments of work, he smiled in relief. The main engines did have the power to break them free of the graviton wake trailing, slipstream-like, behind the alien warship. Though they would have to do it fast before they picked up too much speed. He was about to turn and explain what they needed to do to Elena when the sensors came alive with a warning…
…a second before the world went berserk.
Unaware of the spaceplane that had gotten caught in its graviton particle wake the artificial intelligence guiding Zor's battlefortress focused on the task of getting the vessel into a safe orbit. An orbit where it would stay until all systems had regenerated from the stress put on them by the long voyage and several years of lack of maintenance. Once that process was complete – a process that would take several days as it would also have to refill all the protoculture tanks, which would take time as the matrix could only work so fast – it would be able to resume its long journey through the cosmos, putting ever increasing distance between itself and the endless war its late creator had sent it away from.
Abruptly the AI became aware of a danger in its path. There was a small object, that the sensors confirmed was some type of reusable propulsion and power module, directly in the ships flight path. Impact was only a few seconds away. With a speed only a machine was truly capable of the AI assessed the situation and determined that, due to the crude nature of the modules fusion power source and its deuterium fuel, the AI determined that the module was indeed a threat. Analysis programs cut in and determined that there was no time to go around the module and thus its choice was clear.
It transferred power to the defence systems and aligned one of the defensive laser turrets on the module and fired. A single bolt of supercharged, coherent photons emerged from the cannon and sliced into and thru the crude titanium/aluminium skin of the module to rupture fuel storage cells and the core of the active reactor powering the module. Suddenly freed deuterium instantly reverted to its natural form even as it came into contact with hot plasma suddenly venting from the ruptured core. The result was predictable…
…the module erupted into a fireball of blazing plasma.
It was then that the battlefortress suffered a twist of fate. As by the time the module had begun to explode it had already entered the envelop of the gravitational and anti-gravitational forces of the ships sublight drive field. As the sudden mass of burning plasma erupted into existence it impacted the drive field and was instantly compressed by the mixed forces that alternatively pushed and pulled the battlefortress through space. Forces that now compressed the plasma mass past critical density and instantly a small fusion bomb went off, a fusion blast that went off right above one of the drive field projectors.
The effect was devastating and unlike anything that the ships Tirolian builders had ever encountered before as it had simply never happened, especially as the Tirolians themselves rarely engaged in battle against their Invid enemies. That was after all what they had the Zentraedi for. Instantly the drive field destabilized, the delicate balance of gravitational and anti-gravitational forces that the drive needed to function correctly shattering like brittle glass as the impacted projector suddenly and catastrophically failed itself suddenly turning into a small fireball as it detonated.
The blast and the destabilization of the drive field set off a chain reaction inside the ship as all the power lines to the propulsion system suddenly overloaded. Dozens of conduits – both primary and secondary – instantly blew out triggering numerous electrical fires. Automatic fire suppression kicked in immediately snuffing out the flames but worse was to come as the overload backlashed and jumped to other systems. In nanoseconds the overload reached the ships massive quantum reactors.
Automatic systems, designed specifically to prevent the reactors from such an energy backwash, kicked in shutting the reactors down and initiating an emergency vent of the plasmatic energy masses within the reaction chambers. Thus, as the drive field projectors shut down due to the sudden loss of power and the field dissipated, hatches on the hull opened and massive jets of radiant energy suddenly erupted into space. The jets of superheated plasma, rich in positrons and antiprotons, acted like crude thrusters pushing the suddenly disabled battlefortress off her previous orbital insertion trajectory and onto a new, much more devastating one…
…one that would see it collide with the Earth.
Elena Horsham felt exhaustion starting to pull at her as, for the second time in ten minutes, she fought hard to bring her command back under control. It wasn't as difficult this time as after a few moments of bouncing them around the forces gripping Luna Explorer One disappeared, after that it took her only a minute or two of thruster bursts to bring the spaceplane module back under control.
"What the hell was that" she asked as stability finally returned.
"Our instruments recorded a sizeable explosion," Diana reported as she scanned her screens. "It somehow disrupted the alien ships drive field… oh no… I know what it was that exploded."
"What was it," Elena asked.
"It was our space drive module; it must have gotten caught in the drive field just like we did. Only for the drive field to destabilize it somehow."
"Given how experimental the reactor in the space drive module is, was that is perfectly possible," Elena replied a moment before Mitchell spoke up.
"Elena look at the sensor track of the alien warship. It's changed," Mitchell exclaimed, "it's now… oh my God."
"What, what is it?" Elena demanded.
"The ship," Mitchell stopped and took a deep breath. "She's now on a collision course with Earth. We're picking up a lot of plasma residue near the ship, the blast must have both disabled her and knocked her onto the new trajectory."
Horrified silence filled the cockpit. Given how big it was they all knew just what kind of damage that ship would be able to do when it hit the surface. If it hit a city or some other populated area the casualties could be in the hundreds of thousands or even in the millions. What made it worse was the fact that there was nothing that they could do about it.
"We've got to warn control," Mitchell said at last. "We also have another problem; the ships wake has pulled us halfway back to Earth. Our fuel reserves are at sixty percent, we don't have enough fuel to reach the moon, land and return successfully to Earth without the space drive module."
"We're going to have to return to Earth aren't we," Diana said.
"We've got no choice if we want to live," Elena replied, "Diana head back to the passenger compartment. Check the scientists make sure they're all right after all this upset. Then explain to them exactly what's happened and that we're going to have to return to Earth or at least to the Second International Space Station in orbit. Then I want you to head to the storage bay and make sure all our supplies are intact, get one or two of the scientists to help you."
"On it, ma'am," Diana said releasing her seat restraint again and lifting into the air before beginning to make her way back to the passenger compartment.
"Mitchell, begin plotting the proper course for Earth," Elena continued, "I will help you as soon as I'm done speaking with mission control."
"Yes ma'am."
"Elena, should I go back and help Diana with the scientists as well as checking the supplies?" Steven asked.
"It might make things go faster. Go."
"Yes ma'am."
As Steven began getting up Elena toggled the radio. Only for an error light to appear on her console. "What the?" she exclaimed as the computer explanation for the error light appeared on a side screen. "Oh shit. Long range comms are down, the main communications array must have been damaged in all the shaking."
"So, we can't warn control about the ship or tell them what we have to do," Mitchell commented as Steven left the cockpit, disappearing headfirst through the hatch.
"Not until we get closer and can use the secondary array and that's going to take us at least a day."
"Shit."
"My thoughts exactly. We can only hope they're tracking the alien ship well enough to see the danger and hope the military or someone can do something to stop it crashing into Earth."
"Fingers crossed."
"Agreed. Okay let's get to plotting that course."
"You got it."
As she began working with her co-pilot on plotting their course back to Earth Elena sighed softly. This mission really had gone pear-shaped fast, through a mechanism and an event that nobody could have foreseen. It was just beyond frustrating as she had been so looking forward to being one of the first people to set foot on the moon in over half a century. But the violent arrival of the alien ship had changed all of that, a ship that was now on a collision course with her home planet. And I cannot do a damned thing to stop it, I cannot even warn them of the danger, she thought with a scowl. The utter helplessness in the face of what could easily become the worst disaster since the 2004 boxing day tsunami did not sit well with her, or indeed anyone else on Luna Explorer One.
Not well at all.
Authors Notes: Well, another chapter bites the metaphorical dust. I hope you all enjoyed some of the glimpses into the technology and politics of this Earth, which is only a decade beyond our own, though in their world there has been no coronavirus pandemic. Instead, they've had quite few other things to worry about than a damned virus that refuses to go away.
Now before anyone asks, I have changed the design of the SDF-1/Zor's battlefortress for a reason which is related to the advanced gravity-based propulsion system that the Tirolians use on their spacecraft – especially their capital ships – which requires ships to be designed a certain way. The ship is also considerably larger than the original really as there is no way you would be able to fit so many people on a twelve-hundred-meter-long ship that they did in the show – let alone an entire city – when the entire front third of the vessel is taken up by the main cannon. You might also have noticed that I've ditched the reflex term in favour of quantum though they are fundamentally the same thing. I did this as it personally just makes more sense to me and frankly doesn't sound silly unlike the term used in Robotech canon.
Next chapter we will be heading to Earth both to see an earthside reaction to the events that have taken place in this chapter as well as the impact sequence of the SDF-1 onto the Earth. I will try to get it done before Christmas, but I obviously cannot promise anything as there is a lot to do between now and then. Until next time stay safe everyone.
