Robotech II: The Sentinels
Rebirth
(Author's Note: This story takes place in the TV series chronology, not the novels or comics.)
Chapter 1
Praxian Nights
The quest for perfection is an endless journey, but that's life. The reason it hurts is because we know that we can't give up. -Dream Fighter (English version, translated and sung by Lynn Minmei, Neo-Tokyo Dome August 2020)
Jack Baker, hero of the Tirol and Karaba campaigns, recipient of the REF Medal of Valor and Silver Star, was now flying a desk. This is what happens when following orders becomes the exception rather than the rule.
His disobedience on Tirol had lead to the discovery of a hole in the Invid's power shield that had kept the REF from freeing Tiresia; even more important if he hadn't gone off on his own, he and Karen Penn never would've never come across Rem and Cabell hiding in the ruins, and contact would have never been established.
On Karbarra he had deserted his post and ended up saving a group of Karbarran children (the rumors that he had actually sprung them from their prison camp weren't true, Kami the Garudan was responsible for that.)
For his efforts he had been promoted to 2nd Lieutenant, and was made Major General Hunter's secretary. The battle for Praxis was now in its fifth month, and he hadn't seen a second of combat. He'd prepared schedules, he'd answered letters, he'd gotten the General coffee, and he'd taken notes in meetings that the General couldn't be bothered to attend. And there were so many of those...
He currently sat in a darkened room and watched a hologram of Exedore drone on about the history of Tirol. It was a recording which had been transmitted that morning (they were close enough to Tirol that faster-than-light transmissions were possible, even if real time communications weren't.) General Hunter and the other higher-ups couldn't be bothered to listen to the entire presentation so they had sent their secretaries to write a bullet-point summary.
"The term 'Robotech Master' actually dates back to the teams that worked on reverse-engineering Zor's battle fortress, it was used as a placeholder for 'the people who made this'. The group assigned that moniker actually refers to themselves as The Lords of Tiresia," the ghostly image of Exedore said.
"What did you call them?" an icily familiar disembodied voice said.
Colonel Edwards; Jack had hoped he would never have to see or hear him again.
"I'm sorry?" Exedore said.
"You said that they refer to themselves as the Lords of Tiresia. What term did the Zentraedi use for them?" Edwards said in a mocking tone.
After a pensive moment Exedore replied. "We call them The Masters."
There was a murmur of disembodied laughter.
Exedore ignored them and continued with his presentation. "The Lords of Tiresia are the descendants, by way of cloning, of an elite group of Tiresians who developed what you call Robotech which uses biologically-catalyzed nuclear fusion. The fuel source for these reactions has been inaccurately called Protoculture by the Zentraedi due to a misunderstanding of our historical texts."
"What is the power source's proper name, and what is Protoculture?" Dr. Lang asked.
"Translated into English the powersource would be known as Biomatter, the technology that used it as biotechnology. These are not to be confused with the Terran meaning of those words. The Protoculture is a much more interesting story.
"5000 years ago Tirol had a level of technology similar to that of Earth before Zor's battle fortress arrived. One day a large ship appeared out of apparently nowhere in the skies of Tirol. Aboard were the only survivors of a very old technologically advanced race. As they were the first civilization that they knew of, they referred to themselves as a word which can be translated into English as protoculture: the first culture."
Jack sat up in his seat, this was getting interesting.
"The members of the Protoculture taught the people of Tirol the secrets of Biotechnology. The city of Tiresia was an aristocracy, and the experts in that field evolved into The Lords of Tiresia, and within a few years they controlled the entire planet," Exedore said.
"So Zor did not invent it, as we thought?" Dr. Lang asked.
"No, it was Zor's discovery of the Invid Flower of Life that led to an advancement, as you would call it a renaissance, after 4000 years of stagnation," Exedore said.
"It's possible to create Robotechnology without the use of the Flower of Life?" Edwards asked; his tone suddenly no longer mocking.
"Yes, the systems will be very inefficient compared to those which use Biomatter derived from the flower, but it is possible. There is an element, which the Tiresians refer to as Monopole, which is abundant on Fantoma which can be used to create bioreactors capable of working with less potent biomass," Exedore said.
"Are you seriously telling me that we could power a Veritech with trash?" Edward said, some of the mockery back.
"It would have to be substantially refined, but yes," Exedore said.
"Colonel, read your history, we were able to do that at CERN before the launch of the SDF-1. We were able to produce 15 kilowatts of power for two minutes using an exotic matter shell over a sample of protoplasm. But Exedore, whatever became of this Protoculture?" Dr. Lang asked.
"Some of them stayed on Tirol and bred with the local population. The others, led by an individual known as Haydon, boarded their ship and began exploring this area of the galaxy," Exedore said.
Jack heard a harsh word he didn't recognize spoken in a sultry voice he knew all too well. He looked over to Gnea, who looked scandalized. The amazon was wearing ill-fitting REF overalls and taking notes with pen and paper.
They exchanged looks, Jack felt enraptured by her sea green eyes. Gnea looked away, embarrassed. He wasn't sure if that was because of the swearing or the eye contact.
Jack looked back to his glowing tablet and made a few notes with his stylus.
"So are the Lords of Tiresia the descendants of this Protoculture?" Dr. Lang asked.
"No, they are not. The Lords of Tiresia believed that stability was only possible through continuity of leadership, not even allowing for reproduction. The Lords of Tiresia are clones of the original lords. After the discovery of The Flower of Life the Lords trifurcated each clone, creating groups where the individuals had the distinct responsibilities of observation, decision and action," Exedore said.
Jack felt his head swimming, he struggled to keep up; he wished he'd used the voice recorder on his tablet instead of trying to take notes. He'd still have to write the report for General Hunter, though….
"Wait just a second, on this subject of Haydon and the Protoculture that left Tirol. Whatever happened to them?" Dr. Lang asked.
"As the legends have told us, they visited all of the stars in this area of this galaxy and contacted the intelligent species that lived there. They ended up playing an important part in the histories of all these worlds, though curiously only Haydon himself is ever mentioned in these legends,
"These legends are too numerous to go into at this time, and I hadn't prepared notes on them. However they did create the artificial world of Haydon-IV and populated it with a completely artificial species for reasons unknown," Exedore said.
"I'm afraid that's all we have time for today," Exedore said. "If there are any questions-"
Jack closed his tablet and rushed out of the room.
During high noon the sky of Praxis was a dark blue, but as evening rolled around it gradually changed to a majestic purple. Jack stood up on his tiptoes to fully stretch his legs; that had been a very long meeting.
"Not really a scholar, eh, Jack?" Gnea asked.
"Just needed to stretch my legs," Jack said with a smirk, flattening the soles of his feet. He let out a long sigh. "Now I've got to shadow General Hunter for the daily tactical briefing, and that's going to take up the rest of the afternoon."
Gnea frowned. "Is there any hope of a breakthrough?"
"They keep throwing stuff at the wall to see if anything will stick, no luck so far," Jack said. Gnea stared at him blankly. "That's an expression, that means they say whatever comes to mind, no matter how unlikely it is, just in case they don't overlook anything."
"Is this a metaphor? Is there a real activity in your culture where you throw objects at a wall to see if they adhere?" Gnea said.
"No… Wait, we did have these things as kids which were shaped like octopi, and you threw them at the wall and they'd climb down the wall as-"
"Baker, get the lead out!" Vince Grant said as he passed. "If you're late again Hunter will have you hide!"
"Sir, yes sir!" Baker said, with another sigh. "Ah well, it was a stupid story anyway."
"I found it very fascinating, were these crawling idols some sort of cultural tradition?" Gnea said.
"No, it was basically just something to do when we were bored. Sorry, I gotta go," Jack said.
"Wait, before you go, do you know of the Ceapealethel?" Gnea asked.
"No, can't say I have, is it contagious?" Jack said.
"No, it's a.. I think the best translation is 'drinking establishment'. A bunch of us are meeting there this evening, I really wish you'd come along," Gnea said.
"Well sure, I'd never turn down an invitation like that," Jack said. "Where is it?"
"Just ask around, everyone knows where it is, see you then!" Gnea said and slapped his ass as she walked off.
Jack sighed, he'd been excited the first few times she'd done that, but now it was just getting annoying.
"We have been on Praxis for five months, and we have only gained control of one city. I find that unacceptable," Admiral Hayes said.
They were in an elaborate chamber in the palace of Arla-Non, the queen of both this province and the entire world, as well as the mother of their comrade Bella. The walls were paneled with heavy wood with elaborate carvings showing Praxians in battle on many worlds fighting all manner of creatures. Right in Jack's eyeline was a buxom warrior slicing off a Haydonite's head.
Seated around the conference table (again, made of masterfully carved heavy wood) were the Admiral, the General, General Grant, Colonel Wolfe and Bela of the Praxians. The other representatives of the races that made up the Sentinels had long since stopped attending their meetings.
"The trouble is, as I've said before: hearts and minds. Unless we can get the Praxians on our side, we will never destroy the Invid," Wolfe said.
"The trouble being that the only way to get them on our side is to drive the Invid off this world: a catch-22," General Hunter said.
Eallgrenee, the city in which they now sat, was the home of both Bela and her mother; her connections with the leadership of the city had led to them throwing in their lot with the Sentinels. Not one city in the entire world had followed their example.
After Karbarra the Sentinels believed that they had a strategy that would work on all the other worlds. Karbarra was defended almost completely by Inorganics and a handful of hand-picked evolved shock troopers that the Regent left behind. The brains of the operations was literally a slice of the Invid Brain which had been left behind which directly controlled the Inorganics. They had won their battle by locating the Brain and destroying it.
Praxis was a different story though, it had been conquered by the Regess instead of the Regent. Instead of Inorganics the world was protected by shock troopers in power armor, the so-called Enforcers that had failed in the Regent's attempts to take Tiresia.
The Enforcers could have been dealt with easily enough; in fact they were almost entirely autonomous and were built with inferior technology to the Inorganics, so the Sentinels should've had no problem retaking the world.
The trouble came from an unexpected source: the warrior women themselves.
The Praxian people had a code of honor which demanded that they pledge allegiance to anyone who defeated them. As each city fell to the Regees the conquered warriors arose from the wreckage and swore fealty to her.
The Praxians proved far better at conquering their neighbors than the Invid Enforcers had, and very soon the entire world had fallen under the Regess's sway.
The only Praxian who never knelt before the Regess was their queen, Arla-Non, and she had disappeared and was presumed dead. It was Arla-Non's act of defiance that allowed the people of this city to welcome the Sentinels and join their cause.
"I think we should concentrate on finding the queen," General Hunter said. "She would be able to unite the Praxians and drive the Invid out."
"My mother would not have gone into hiding," Bela said. "As much as it pains me to say so, I believe she is dead."
"How do the rules of succession work on your world, would you be the new queen?" Admiral Hayes asked.
"Yes, but without any evidence that she's dead, it would be difficult for the people of Praxis to accept me as their queen. Especially since I was taken prisoner by the Invid, which would just strengthen their claim on this world," Bela said.
"We could take a scorched Earth approach," Wolfe said. "Use strategic weapons to take out several cities. We continue to do this until the Praxians agree to side with this."
Bela looked horrified, and fumbled for words. "You would do something like that?"
"It worked before, on Earth," Wolfe said.
"How well I know it, my mother was Japanese," Admiral Hayes said. "I will never allow this strategy to be used; we will not use fear to gain compliance. Aside from the millions of innocent people who will be killed, we would never be able to enlist their help in freeing other worlds from the Invid. In effect we will have become worse than them."
"So, what do we do then? Nothing? We've been doing a lot of that lately and it doesn't seem to be working," Wolfe said.
"I think reducing their materiel with a series of strike and fade attacks might give us a leg up while we think of how to get the Praxians on our side. We can minimize Praxian casualties by luring them out of the population centers before engaging them," Hunter said.
"We'd deplete our own resources at the same time, though," Grant said.
"We have supplies and replacement parts coming in from Karaba now, and the fleet will stop any supply ships from Optera from getting through," Admiral Hayes said.
"How is the fleet doing?" Wolfe said.
"So far so good, there have been no incursions since we entered orbit five months ago," Admiral Hayes said.
"Those strikes on Karaba are probably taking up most of the Regent's ships, but sooner or later they're going to realize that we're a softer target," Hunter said.
"He might choose to reinforce the other three occupied worlds," Bela said. "After all, Praxis is really still under Invid control."
"It could also be that the Regent doesn't want to help the Regess hold this world. Our intelligence indicates they don't get along," Admiral Hayes said.
Wolfe laughed. "A domestic spat is all that's keeping our fat from the fire!"
"It could very well be," Admiral Hayes said.
"If we do go through with the idea of these strikes, I would suggest we have ground and air forces strike two seperate but adjacent targets. That will prevent pincer attacks from reinforcements," Wolfe said.
"Agreed. If Bela agrees to this plan, of course," Admiral Hunter said. "Some Praxian deaths are unavoidable."
"Our people would be happy to sacrifice their lives if it meant the freedom of their sisters," Bela said.
"All right then, I want a list of possible targets by the end of the day. We'll begin tomorrow evening," Admiral Hayes said.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find the cetacean?" Jack asked the Amazon that was walking past.
"What are you talking about, puny man?" she said.
"The place where you drink, it's called the secam or something like that," Jack said.
"I bet I could break you in half," the Amazon replied, strangely non-threatening.
"Well, there's a lot of sinew and ligaments and intestines that would hold me together, but I definitely wouldn't be able to play the piano anymore," Jack said.
The Amazon laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, Jack almost fell over.
"So could you tell me how to get to the cesna?" Jack said.
"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," the Amazon said.
"It's a place where people drink," Jack said.
"Like a well?" the Amazon said.
"No, where they drink alcohol, and eat," Jack said.
"Ah! The Ceapealethel!" the Amazon said.
"Yes! That's right!" Jack said.
"I don't know if I should tell you, you might drown in one of our cups," the Amazon said, stroking her chin.
Jesus Christ, Jack thought, it was like dealing with the Zentreadi back in his academy days.
"Okay, I could show you, but you're going to have to do something for me first," the Amazon said.
"Sure thing! What do you need?" Jack said.
"Take off your clothes," the Amazon said.
"What?" Jack said, breaking out in a cold sweat.
"I've heard that men have different parts, I want to see you naked," the Amazon said.
"There's lots of people I want to see naked, but I can't just ask them!" Jack said.
"Are you too shy?" the Amazon said.
"It isn't appropriate!" Jack said.
The Amazon began to pull down the straps that were holding her garment on.
"What are you doing?!" Jack said.
"Your culture obviously has some sort of hangup involving nudity, I will make you more comfortable by being naked as well," the Amazon said.
"Stop this right now! That'll just make it worse!" Jack said.
The Amazon shook her head, but pulled the straps back into place. "You humans are such strange creatures. Is sating my curiosity really such a burden to you?"
"Can we go somewhere private at least?" Jack said.
"Your society has prohibitions on public nudity?" the Amazon asked.
Jack nodded, the Amazon sighed.
"You're as bad at the Lords of Tiresia and their billowing shapeless robes," the Amazon said.
They went over to an alley and Jack took his clothes off, the Amazon roughly posed him in various positions so she could get a better look. After a few moments she was satisfied.
"Are you considered attractive among your people?" the Amazon asked as he put his clothes back on.
"I do okay," Jack said.
"Strange, I found nothing aesthetically pleasing about your naked body at all," the Amazon said.
"Could you just show me where the bar is?" Jack said.
"It's right there," the Amazon said, motioning across the street.
Jack's mouth fell open; it had been there the entire time, if he could read Praxian he would've know it.
"Be seeing you, puny human," the Amazon said, slapping him on the ass so hard that he fell over.
Jack had been expecting a bar or tavern, but what he got was something out of Beowulf. Everything was wood, a real firetrap. There were tables a hundred feet long with countless seats on both sides. Many Praxians were gathered in the darkness of the hall, quaffing from wooden steins and eating ungodly amounts of meat and large tubers that looked like potatoes.
Among the revealing garments and armor the REF uniformed Karen, Rem and Janice stood out like Mormon missionaries at an orgy.
"We haven't been together like this since Karbara," Karen said. "It's been far too long!"
"This is the first time I've set foot out of the base," Jack said with a frown.
"That's horrible!" Janice said.
"How long are you going to remain grounded?" Rem said, showing that he had picked up the slang of his Veritech teammates.
Karen laughed. "He was always grounded, he was a groundpounder, remember?"
"The Wolfe Pack is known to everyone, can you say that of Red Squadron?" Jack said.
Karen fumed but said nothing. Jack felt a little bad; even if he was getting some of his own back, he did know that Karen resented being in Miriya's squadron instead of Skull Squadron.
"Red Squadron is filled with mighty warriors!" Gnea said. "And Karen has proven herself as skilled as you, Jack!"
"Then why does Dr. Grant keep trying to have her transferred to the med unit?" Rem asked.
Karen glared at him. Jack, without missing a beat, replied. "Because she's a doctor."
"What?!" Rem, Janice and Gnea said simultaneously.
"Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, in some cultures the honorific for a healer is also used for anyone of great wisdom, is that true in this case?"
"You didn't tell them?" Jack said, Karen didn't reply.
"Tell us what?" Gnea said impatiently.
"Well, you see, Penn didn't start out as a fighter pilot. She actually went to medical school first," Jack said.
"Wait a second, I thought you and Jack were the same age," Janice said. "That would make you at least-"
"Shut it!" Karen shouted.
"I don't understand, if you're a healer why are you fighting?" Rem said.
"In our culture healers are valued for their special skills. Everyone can be taught how to fight, but very few can heal," Gnea said.
"I wasn't going to be a healer, I was going into research. I was going to be a geneticist like my father," Karen said.
"What changed your mind?" Janice asked.
"I wanted to be part of the REF and see the universe, but they had all the geneticists they needed and not enough soldiers, so I enrolled at the academy," Karen said.
"That sounds a lot like what happened to me," Rem said. "I've been a researcher all my life because of my adopted father, but I needed to get off Tirol and see all those places that I've just read about."
"That reminds me," Jack said. "During Exedore's lecture this morning he was mentioning how the Robotech masters all exist in groups of three. But you and Cabell don't seem to have any clones."
"Well, that's easy enough to explain, we're not Lords of Tiresia," Rem said.
"Really?" Karen said. "You aren't a Robotech Master?"
"The Lords of Tiresia are all clones of the aristocracy at the time that Haydon and the Protoculture visited our world. But they're like the Zentraedi in that, over time, they've forgotten how their technology actually worked. They'd also forgotten a lot of history. There have always been researchers among the regular populace who have kept things afloat by learning how to repair their technology. There are a few among those who research the underlying science and try to recreate what has been lost. Cabell and I were dedicated to recreating the lost science of Zor," Rem said.
"How close have you gotten?" Jack asked.
"His most important discovery, the high-energy biomatter present in the Flower of Life, is still widely known. The real problem was that several generations after his death the Lords of Tiresia razed Optera so that the Invid wouldn't have access to the great powers of the Flower. However the Flower will only grow in its natural state on Optera; it mutates when grown anywhere else, and none of those strains have the high-energy biomatter that made them so useful,
"Which reminds me, I was learning about your world from some REF soldiers, I was told that about a decade ago your world was razed by the Zentraedi?" Rem said.
"Yes," Karen said. "We call it Doomsday."
"How did you survive? Were you on the SDF-1?" Rem asked.
"I was living with my father at the time, he was working at a place called Dartmouth. The Zentraedi knew little about Earth so they just targeted the largest population centers and military installations. They managed to wipe out 95% of the population, but a number of small cities survived if they were far enough away from any large cities," Karen said.
"They also didn't target our transportation networks," Jack said. "Our family was actually visiting our grandmother in another state and were on the way back when it happened. Both the city we left and the one we were traveling to were destroyed, but we survived because they didn't think it was worth the trouble to destroy the roadways in-between."
Jack left out one very important detail, that it was General Hunter who had found his family on a reconnaissance mission a month later and brought him to what would become Macross City. When he met Hunter again at the Academy he had been heartbroken that the General hadn't remembered him. But he suspected that General Hunter had saved a lot of families in those years after Doomsday.
"What about you, Janice?" Rem asked.
"Oh, I was on the SDF-1 at the time, I worked in the computer center," Janice said.
"Really? I thought you were our age," Karen said.
"I'm older than I look," Janice said with an enigmatic smile.
A few moments of relative silence (as silent as a Praxian alehouse can be) passed among the young heroes. Jack remembered the old superstition about an uncanny silence that occurred twenty minutes past the hour.
"Do we have any chance of freeing this planet?" Jack asked.
"We must!" Gnea said.
"The longer we are engaged here, the more time the Regent has to tighten his grips on the other worlds, and the harder our task will be," Rem said.
"We will have the resources of Karbara and Praxis behind us when we go to those other worlds, though," Janice said.
"Not that the resources of Karbara have made taking this world any easier," Karen said. "There will always be other kinds of challenges which will frustrate us."
'There's a saying on Earth: none are so blind as those that will not see," Jack said. "The people of Praxis will not be free as long as they are content to be enslaved."
"The people of Praxis are not slaves!" Gnea said.
"You're right," Jack said. "Slaves are not complicit in their servitude."
Gnea slammed down her stein, breaking it to splinters and splashing ale everywhere. She leapt to her feet, leaned across the table and grabbed Jack by the front of his uniform and lifted him out of his chair.
"Do you want to fight me, breadsmith?" Gnea said.
"Breadsmith?" Rem whispered to Karen.
"Literal translation of his surname," Karen said.
Jack didn't know why, but he wouldn't stand down. Maybe it was being chained to a desk for five months. Maybe it was the countless reports and recon photos he looked at day after day where the Invid wouldn't budge and victory got farther and farther away. Or perhaps he just wanted to get beat senseless by a beautiful woman. Whatever it was, it drove Jack to just dig himself deeper and deeper.
"So this is what it takes to get you guys off your asses; the Invid just need to go into alehouses and insult people. I'll make sure to write a report for General Hunter."
"That's all you can do anymore, gelding," Gnea said.
Jack leapt up from the bench and leaned across the table, their noses almost touched and they both sneered at the other.
"I challenge you to scitteandsyn!" Gnea said.
"Accepted!" Jack seethed. "What is that, anyway? Unarmed combat? Arm-wrestling?"
"Server!" Gnea shouted; one of the serving girls appeared at her elbow. "Two steins of cneohtubodig!"
"Of course, a pre-battle drink!" Jack said.
"The drink itself is the battle," Gnea said. "The ceapealethel is a civilized place, no fights take place here. We settle our differences by proving our might through drinking!"
"You've got to be kidding me," Karen said.
The serving girl returned with two steins, which she promptly placed between the two glowering figures. Gnea picked hers and held it up: "This is the royal drink of the Praxians. A warrior such as myself can only stomach about one of them a month. My mother could drink one a week. Only our queen could drink it every day. Despite that, I will drink as much as I need to destroy you, Jack Baker!"
Jack looked down into his stein and saw an angry orange concoction; he could smell the alcohol from where he stood, along with the many spices suspended in the drink. He suspected it was spicier than the vindaloo buffalo wings he used to eat at the Academy.
He needn't have worried, though, after the first couple of swigs all of his taste buds had been killed, or at least rendered comatose. Instead of sipping Gnea preferred one long draw; Jack suspected that was the way to go. He gulped down the cordial, and as he slammed down his stein the room began to spin around him.
"More!" he shouted.
Gnea's eyes widened, but two more steins were brought before them. They clinked glasses, Jack shouted: "To the Sentinels!"
The second stein went quicker, he saw himself slam down two steins and after many moments realized that he had double vision. He'd heard stories of people seeing double while drinking, but never had the experience himself.
His friends looked at him in concern, even Gnea.
"One more, barkeep!" he shouted.
As the steins were slammed before them, Gnea looked at hers wearingly.
Jack slammed his and heard many bells ringing in his ears. He remembered some Japanese book that began with something about the autumn leaves of a teak tea and the ringing of the bells of some temple bearing witness to the truth that the mighty must fall.
"The strong do not last long," he sang out. "They vanish like a spring dream. The brave perish as well, like dust before the wind. All we are is dust in the wind, and we're knocking on heaven's door! Mama, bury these steins in the ground, I don't need them anymore!"
Now it wasn't just his friends looking at him in concern, there seemed to be hundreds of amazons behind them, looking at him in concern.
"How much did he drink?" a redhead asked Gnea.
"Three steinfuls," Gnea said. Jack noticed that her stein was still full.
"Hey, uh, did I… Did I win?" Jack asked.
"If you survive this night, you have definitely won," Gnea said. "I didn't think that you'd last even one stein!"
Karen shoved the bread basket his way. "Here, eat some of this, it'll soak up the alcohol."
Janice was digging around in her purse, and finally came up with a white bottle, she handed it to Karen. Jack recognized it from his academy days: Oxy pills. They were a combination of an oxygen salt with a catalyst which broke alcohol down into carbon dioxide and water.
He fought valiantly, but in the end they managed to shove three of the pills down his throat.
Half an hour later he was still the most drunk he had ever been, but he could feel that he was coming down, and he was belching like nobody's business.
"You could've just let me puke it out," Jack said.
"When you're that inebriated you can't rely on the body's reflexes," Karen said.
The entire hall was filled with a horrible din that was hell on Jack's newborn headache. He looked around and saw that pretty much everyone in the hallway was banging their steins on the tables.
"Wha-What the hell's going on?" Jack asked.
"It's the turn of the hour," Gnea said. "Time for a song. We bang our steins on the table until someone is brave enough to take the challenge."
Jack noticed a blur of movement, which was pretty good since he usually had no peripheral vision when he was drunk, he turned his head and saw that Janice had taken out her communicator. She was pressing buttons on its touchscreen.
Suddenly the audio system of the hall began to shake with a technobeat; the steins stopped slamming and everyone looked around perplexed..
"I feel I've heard this before, a long time ago," Karen said. "Isn't this a Minmei song?"
The lightbulb went off in Jack's head. "Not Minmei; Perfume!"
"What?" Karen said.
On Earth, before Doomsday there had been a girl band in Japan called Perfume. They had died on Doomsday when the Zentraedi wiped Hiroshima off the map for good. But their music lived on; they had been Minmei's favorite group growing up, and she had not allowed the human race to forget their music.
Janice leapt on the table and began to sing into the communicator, her voice was amplified by the sound system.
"Little by little, I fall in love, I get tempted, I fall in love. Little by little, I fall in love, I get tempted," Janice sang.
Jack blinked in surprise; she was singing in Praxian. The amazon began banging their steins on the table in time with the music.
"Pop a clip, fall in love, set a trap," Janice sung.
Jack and Karen exchanged an uncomfortable look. The Praxians continued to keep the beat, and some even began to sing along since the verse echoed five or six times.
"Little by little, I fall in love, I get tempted, I fall in love," Janice sang, the Praxians joining in.
"Yeah it's just like that, I feel it, I say "Oh yeah," I love you!" Janice sang.
Another round of falling in love, popping clips and setting traps later, a new verse appeared.
"Well it's true we're all going to die some day," Janice sang.
Jack and Karen again exchanged uncomfortable looks.
"But before we do, throw yourself on the hardest and sharpest part of me, and we'll be in a new world, Yeah!" Janice sang.
"Is that what they call it these days?" Karen yelled to Jack.
"This song is a lot better in the original Japanese," Jack yelled back. Janice shot him a dirty look.
"Yeah it's jus tlike that, I feel it, I say…" Jancie said, and then held the communicator down, motioning for the crowd to finish.
"I LOVE YOU!" they shouted and the song came to an end.
The Praxians all cheered and slammed their steins down repeatedly in appreciation.
Janice leapt down off the table and took her seat. Rem smiled and patted her on the back, but Janice wrapped her arms around him and he embarrassedly returned the embrace.
Jack turned to Karen. "When did they, uh…"
Karen let out a long sigh. "For cripes sake Baker, don't you ever see past the end of your Hovertank turret?"
"I've been stuck in an office for five months!" Jack seethed.
"What are you two talking about?" Gnea asked.
"Romance, love, that sort of thing," Karen said.
"I bet this is the first time a love song has been sung in this hall," Jack said. "I'm surprised your sisters reacted so well, it didn't seem very warrior-like."
"Come to think of it, does romance exist here on Praxis?" Karen said.
"There are some among us who enter into what you would call a relationship," Gnea said.
"Really?" Jack said, sitting up. Karen kicked him under the table.
"However the ones that do are seen as submissive and weak. They prefer to collect flowers and galavant around the bedroom instead of forging themselves in the flames of battle," Gnea said.
"Actually I've been wondering about something… Where do new Praxians come from? If it isn't a personal question," Jack asked.
"If it isn't a personal question?" Karen said with a sneer.
"There is a place, in fact it is just north of this city, called the Whaashi," Gnea said. "Every year…" she said, and Jack thought he caught a sob in her throat. "Every year a million new Praxian children are released from it, and are raised to adulthood and taught in the ways of battle by warriors of a certain age who are chosen by lot."
Jack couldn't remember seeing any Praxian children in Eallgrenee; there was a tickle in the back of his brain, but he couldn't elucidate the thought.
"But where do they actually come from?" Jack said.
"The mysteries of the Whaashi are not known to me, and I would not reveal them to an outsider if I did know," Gnea said.
"Well, putting that aside for a moment, why are there no male Praxians?" Jack said. "I thought maybe your species might be asexual, but the farm and pack animals we've seen have male and female, and I assume you evolved from common ancestors."
"We once had men on Praxis, but not anymore," Gnea said. "Many years ago the women and men of Praxis went to war."
"With who?" Jack asked.
"With each other, you idiot!" Karen said.
Jack glared at Karen. "I guess I can see that."
"In the end the women triumphed, but they were left in a wrecked world with no future; unable to reproduce, they had nothing to do but wait until the race went extinct. But then Haydon and his crew arrived."
Suddenly Rem turned from his lover and started listening to their conversation.
"They built the Whaashi and created the first generation of Praxians warriors. However they were all women. This was not because they were afraid of the war restarting, in the years since the destruction the women of Praxis began to appreciate the men they had driven to extinction. They understood that the reason they went to war, something involving a commode hatch, was not worth the devastation it had caused.
"In the war with the men something had been lost which made it impossible for men to be created by the Whaashi. For that reason a few children would be created and released every day, and the people of Praxis lost the ability to reproduce naturally."
"That thing that was lost," Karen said. "It must be something like humanity's y-chromosome," Karen said.
"I assume so," Gnea said.
The five of them all sat in silence for a long time, contemplating what they had heard.
Jack felt that tickle in his brain again; an idea which refused to take shape, probably because of the damage he'd done to his brain with alcohol.
Despite all the drinking Jack actually got back to the barracks early that night. He went to his room (a private one, one of the advantages of his promotion), puked in the toilet and rolled into bed. He didn't dream.
Jack had grown up in a quiet town in the midwest where he was often woken by the sounds of birds chirping. In Macross City and the Academy he had been woken by the monotone of a digital alarm clock. On Praxis the day was greeted with the call of Praxian prairie fowl. These fowl roamed the prairies and fed on the vermin that hid in the high grasses. They caught their prey by paralyzing them with their scream.
So it is that Jack Baker was woken by a 150 decibel screech; he slammed his hands to his ears and felt his head throbbing like a church bell on Sunday morning.
As the fowl took a breath between screeches, Jack grabbed the earmuffs he'd taken from the firing range and clamped them over his ears. When the second screech came, it was still annoying but not nearly as deafening.
After a quick shower Jack walked down to the mess hall. He'd slept in until almost 8 so the place was almost empty.
Jack stared at all the empty tables and wondered what he should do on his day off. Karen, Janice and Rem were on duty today, and Gnea never took days off.
He thought back to the previous night and something he'd been trying to figure out. Something Gnea had said… something about the way that the Praxians reproduces, and how there were tears in her eyes when she was talking about it.
It was amazing how much better his mind worked when he was sober, even when he was hung over. The gears moved, the circuits closed, and he had the answer.
He dropped his fork in awe; if he was right, then he had the key to the Praxian campaign; he could free this world.
Jack left his food and rushed out the door. He had to talk to someone; someone who would know. Gnea was on patrol, and the only other Praxians he'd be able to confide in was Bela… who was basically mayor.
He checked out a flashclapper from the motor pool and headed off towards the palace.