I do not own Ranma or Robotech

Ranma is introduced to space combat and space combat is introduced to his fists.

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Chapter 4 a horse in space

Captain Gloval looked around at what had been dubbed the Macross Council at the second meeting of that body with an air of complacency. While no one here had imagined working so close together or under such trying circumstances, everything was moving as smoothly as could be expected, and it was in large part to the individuals in front of him that it had. As the last person, CAG Fokker this time took his seat he stood, gaining everyone's attention. "Ladies and gentlemen, while I know the past week since our first meeting has been hectic and trying, I feel that everyone here has done a remarkable job and for that I thank you all. Now, without further ado I would like to hand this over to Mayor Luan to bring us up to speed on the construction projects."

Mayor Luan rose out of his chair his round face beaming. "I am happy to say that construction of the city center has been completed entirely, and practically everything is up and running. The two high schools are having problems finding enough teachers because several of them signed up for the military in the mean time, and the two may be combined into one, but I am leaving that decision up to the principals and education committee. The college is up and running, though of course the campus isn't what it once was, but it has already had over a hundred students signing up. Most of the shops and restaurants are open and doing a brisk business, though construction in the outer area of the city arte still ongoing and many of the entertainment centers are not yet fully online. And I am most pleased to announce the farms are up and running as well. The idea of using terraces and double tiers saved us a lot of space as well as time. Practically the entire city is ringed now with farms and hydroponic areas. Of course it will be months before the farms yield a harvest, but Nodoka-san" he nodded at her on his left "tells me that the yield will be able to make up nearly all the food used in that time. The military academy and putting the parks back in working order is next on the agenda, and after that Dr. Lang has informed me that he will have jobs for us, especially welders, pipe layers and metal workers, so I'll turn the meeting over to him now."

Dr. Lang rose in turn and moved to the front of the room where there was a large screen. He pushed a button and a side schematic of Macrossappeared. "As you all know my science team and I are researching several ways to better defend the ship against attack, and we have narrowed our fields of study to three, two passive, one aggressive." He pressed a button and the schematic enlarged showing a section of the outer hull as everyone leaned forward interestedly. After all, while it had been nearly two weeks since the space fold disaster, they all knew the aliens were out there somewhere, and that eventually they would find the Macross again. The piece of hull turned around showing the interior portion. Whereas before it would have been a simple slab of metal nearly two yards thick this slab was connected to several large wires, themselves housed in pipes. Some kind of energy traveled along these wires into the metal. "This is an idea that alas is not very viable for a ship wide defense. Thanks to certain new avenues of exploration being opened about the use of reflux energy, I have devised a method in which that energy can be used to toughen and strengthen the outer hull on the atomic astronomically. My teams estimate that it would allow the metal to absorb about twenty times more damage before failing."

The hospital manager raised his hand immediately. "Why is it not a viable ship-wide defense?"

"Power and installation" Dr. Lang said bluntly. "The reflux generator has more than enough energy to power this system, we simply can't run lines from the engine into every single piece of armor, we don't have the wiring and the generator is not set up to allow it in the first place. Furthermore we used five destroid batteries and were only able to power a mile square section of hull for two hours before they ran dry, and we don't have that many batteries to spare. As there's no way to tell how long we would need to power the hull for, I cannot recommend this for a ship wide defense. Certain areas of the ship can have this new power defense in place and I would recommend it for the bridge and the area nearest the generator once tests are completed. I'm afraid the area above the city is too large for us to protect in this manner, and with as deep as the city is into the ship's superstructure it really doesn't need it." The civilian's nodded reluctant agreement and Dr Lang went on with his presentation, pushing another button and the ship schematic appeared, this time with three small half circles moving around the outer hull.

"This is another defense concept that one of my aids has thought of but is not quite ready to go yet. I'd estimate another few months of research and experimentation before its ready. When it is however the system will be based around an energy barrier, much like the shields so often talked about in science fiction. These barriers will be composed of energy and not let anything through. Unfortunately they will be a static defense exactly like the armor strengthening method and again the problem comes down to power. If we had a way to get more power to them we could possibly figure out a way to cover the entire ship, but at present it is simply not going to happen."

"The last one is the aggressive defense." Again the screen changed, and this time it showed the schematic of the top of one of the engine thrusters. As they watched the surface seemed to change, sporting several new small gun ports, twenty to a side. "These anti-aircraft guns are being designed to counteract the heavy use the aliens seem to make of their fighter class, the battlepods and triangle fighters. Each gun port will house the same beam armament as a Defender-class destroid. The problems with this are based on design and structural issues rather than power. For one, studies have shown that having too many of these gun ports would weaken the ship structurally, weakening both the exterior armor and the interior's ability to survive blowback damage. The design is held up as we are wondering how to mount these gun balls in the first place." He concluded his presentation by turning off the screen and sighing. "So there you have it, a lot of progress but nothing definite just yet." He sat down, looking at captain Gloval. "I have actually turned over all my chief engineer's duties to Lt. Hibiki. He may have a directional problem but he has by far the most experience and his performance is well above any of the other engineer team heads."

Captain Gloval nodded as Nodoka twitched at the name, then resolutely put it aside. "Commandant Mannstein, I believe you had a report you wanted to share about the academy?"

Mannstein nodded. "Lt. Prescott has been performing amazingly with the trainees, though I have noticed that our re-training program has not been going nearly as well as the training of the civilian recruits. It just seems as if the civilians are more flexible, they don't have any prior training to unlearn. The sailors and few marines that volunteered are performing far better than the fifty destroid operators that wanted to change over. Right now out of a class of a hundred civilians and eighty soldiers I estimate possibly as many as a hundred-and-twenty-five total will be acceptable to join the Valkyrie squadrons in three months. One of whom" he grimaced, "I could probably give graduation papers right now. Your son madam" he nodded at Nodoka "has the most insane learning curve for anything physical I have ever seen. He has already mastered the fighter and guardian controls and I doubt he will need more than a day to master the soldier mode controls, especially with the mind interlink helmet helping him."

Lisa spoke up hesitantly. "But you won't will you?" Everyone's eyes turned to her, most held questioning glances but Nodoka's was almost accusing and she hastened to explain himself. "I'm not saying he isn't good enough, if Commandant Mannstein says he is then he is but I'm worried about accusations of favoritism. Despite what he accomplished in the battle on Earth, most people don't know about it, and we've already given Ensign Sugita preferred treatment."

Nodoka's glare lessened and Mannstein nodded his head acknowledging her point but then chuckled. "With anyone else I would wholeheartedly agree with you Commander Hayes, but not Ranma. He doesn't go out of his way to show it, but he is simply in another category altogether when it comes to anything physical. Not only is he up and at the academy before anyone else, he exercises by himself far longer and harder than the other trainees and doesn't show it nearly as much. And while again he doesn't go out of his way to show it, he is simply better than anyone else at the simulators, and works longer at it. Lt. Prescott has reported he's had to kick him out at night and after every free time the trainees have. It's getting to the point where we are starting to have morale issues with the other trainees. Couple that with a few incidents with his curse form and Ranma causes problems."

Lisa mouthed 'curse form' to herself, not having heard of that before but Nodoka nodded thoughtfully. "He's complained a time or two about the trainees being as perverted as the boys back at his high school back in Japan. Nothing he can't handle of course but it's definitely fraying his nerves. If it doesn't stop soon he may do something permanent about it." She noticed Lisa's look of confusion but didn't say anything. Even if she was told about the curse from several sources there was no way she would believe it until she saw it, something that might not happen for a while as Ranma's water-magnet status seemed to have abated since leaving earth.

"That would be slightly disastrous to anyone who was on the receiving end" Gloval said blandly, and everyone around the table nodded, even the civilians. Mayor Luan and the police commissioner had been told of Ranma's abilities and the hospital director had been among those civilians saved by him in the fighting back on earth.

Roy steered the discussion back to the matter at hand. "Would he cause problems if he's suddenly graduated before the rest of his class? Because I can't tell a lie, the fighter group needs the help big time. We've got 28 pilots at the moment. That'll get better when the walking wounded are fit for duty but even then we'll be barely at barely ten percent our total allotted strength. Even one pilot can make a difference."

"No," Mannstein said bluntly "he may have been a discipline problem if he was commissioned right away, but Lt Prescott seems to have had a profound effect on him. He is never going to be a blind respecter of authority but he respects those who have shown him they earned it."

"Then I say boot him up this weekend, if he's good enough in a real Veritech. Like I said we need the help, we have barely two and a half squads available, right now we just need bodies." Captain Connor looked as if he wanted to object, but stayed silent.

Everyone looked at Captain Gloval, who would have to sign off on such a breach of protocol. After a moment he asked Mannstein "How would the other trainees take it?"

Mannstein shrugged. "Relief, as I said there's already a lot of grumbling and muttering and what's worse a lot of them are no longer trying their best, certain they can't match his skill. It's the same reason why back on earth Special Forces are never trained with regular infantry trainees. They just can't keep up and they know it and resent it."

"Then I agree. You'll have a private ceremony to inaugurate it, but make it clear this is as much about the other trainees as it is his own ability. I want him to know that just because he's good does not mean he will always be getting preferential treatment, is that understood?"

Mannstein nodded and the meeting continued. After two more hours of discussion centered around ongoing integration issues and infrastructure problems Gloval brought the meeting to a close. "I think we've worked through as many problems as we can for now, and I think we should call it a night. As a final announcement however I feel that we have accomplished as much as we can for now. Everything else needs more time to be solved, but I feel that we are as prepared to begin our journey back to earth as possible. With that said, Macross will break orbit around Pluto and begin to advance into the star system at best speed. As of this moment we will be going for a straight shot, but that plan will change according to when we see the enemy and his actions." This statement was met with nods of approval from the military side of the table but the civilians were much more reluctant about it as they knew it would heighten the threat of enemy attack, but they nodded anyway.

As everyone walked out into the corridor Nodoka smiled seeing her son waiting for her. "Hey mom, ready to go?" He had made plans with Nodoka and Kasumi to treat them to dinner with his first check as a trainee, and he had come to walk escort her. He looked at the others as they exited and stiffened to attention as the military officers. "Sirs!"

Gloval smiled slightly behind his mustache, already seeing a difference in the independent, somewhat angry young man he had first met. Now he seemed, happier, more centered, and even a little more mature. "At ease ensign." He paused wondering what to say at this point, after all, did Ranma know that Nodoka and he were in a relationship, should he hint about what was going to happen later this week? Gloval opted to address neither point, merely returning the salute and walking away.

The others followed suit save for Lisa, who Ranma hailed by name. "Hey Commander Hayes, um, sorry about not saluting ya last time and all, um here's the book list I promised ta get ya."

Lisa smiled. "When an officer's out of uniform it isn't necessary to salute him or her ensign Sugita. And thank you for the book list I'm certain it will come in handy. Now don't let me keep you." Ranma nodded, handed over the list and took his mother's arm. With a final salute he led the way back to the city. Lisa stood looking down at the list of books for a moment before nodding to herself and moving away. She had watch in fifteen minutes, after which she had a date with the library.

Kasumi, dressed in a black dress with spaghetti straps that subtly accented her curves waited at a table set for three in an Italian restaurant that Nodoka had found during her time in the city before the fold accident. She was anxious to see if it made as good a use of the rations as White Dragon. Normally the three would have eaten there but none of them wanted to be roped into working, which often occurred when they ate at the Lynn's restaurant. Ranma in particular could only spend a few minutes there before being guilt-tripped into changing forms and waitressing.

Alas the Italian restaurant had its own issues and one of them appeared once more at her table. "See babe if I was your boyfriend I would never make you wait for me. Come on, why don't you come with me when I get off work in a few minutes? I could show you a really good time you know."

Kasumi sighed, looking up at the admittedly handsome waiter for the second time. His rather arrogant smarmy attitude was beginning to grate on her nerves but she kept a firm grip on her temper as she replied. "I assure you that the people I am waiting for have not stood me up, nor is it their fault that I was early. And your idea of a good time would almost certainly not be mine. With that said could you please leave me alone?"

The waiter's smile faded at the direct smack down, and he was about to reply when a voice behind him interrupted his thoughts. "Hey Kas-chan, sorry to keep ya waiting, mom wanted to walk rather than get a cab or roof-hop so it took a lot longer ta get here. Ya look great though, not that ya don't always look good, but well…"

As the waiter turned around and sneered at the awkward attempt at flattery Kasumi's face lit up with a genuine smile, her face blushing slightly at the heartfelt compliment. "Thank you Ran-chan, and you look very nice too." It was true, Ranma was dressed in a silk shirt like normal, but this one was skin tight, with a Chinese dragon going up one side, and loose silk pants. The shirt laid on him like a second skin, showing off his rippling muscles, gaining him many an appreciative glance from the other women in the restaurant though Kasumi giggled internally at how blind he was to it.

Nodoka nodded, moving around the now furious and somewhat embarrassed waiter to kiss Kasumi on the cheek and slide into the booth across from her. "How are you Kasumi-chan, I haven't seen you for a few days now. You're always gone by the time I wake up."

Kasumi smiled across at her as Ranma sat down next to her, and the waiter who had been bothering her left in a huff, more than a little intimidated by the younger man but not wanting to show it. "I've been very busy taking tests to test out of and into classes at the college auntie. It's a pity their computer records didn't survive the fold, but I've finished signing up for courses now."

Ranma looked at her as another waiter, this time a woman who nearly drooled at the hunk in front of her but refrained from flirting seeing the two women he was with, brought out their menus. "So have you decided what you wanted to go for? I know ya were a little torn about it."

Kasumi nodded, looking at him closely, wondering how he was going to react to her news. After all, while most of the chauvinist crap Genma had hammered into him had faded, he still sometimes backslid and she wanted to see his honest reaction to her news. "Yes, I've decided to go for a structural design degree."

Ranma's eyes widened in surprise, "Really, but what about all the times back in Nerima when you read those medical texts and stuff? You'd make a great doctor ya know, you've got the whole caring thing down pat. I mean you can go for anythin' ya want and I'll support ya, but it just seems weird to me."

Kasumi looked a little embarrassed, though she was very happy at his unequivocal support. After all without the meal tickets Ranma was earning as a trainee she couldn't afford the classes. "I did at one point want to be a nurse Ranma-kun but it was… well I realize that despite turning into one you have never understood the female mind, but one of the things girls do to become closer to a man they like is to try and share his interests. When we moved to Macross I found my desire to care for other people greatly decreased, and my desire to make a career out of it gone. I'm good at math and spatial problems, I like designing things and I think this will lead to a fulfilling career."

Ranma shrugged. "Well as long as yer certain it's what ya wanna do, then it's all good to me. I know you'll do great at whatever ya set your mind to."

Kasumi blushed and kissed Ranma on the cheek, causing him to blush in turn. "Thank you Ranma-kun." Nodoka grinned wildly at the two blushing no-longer-teens fighting the urge to break out her victory fans. Kasumi looked over at her and coughed before changing the subject to what Ranma had been doing at the academy. The night continued and while there was nothing overtly romantic about it to the people involved it was still a fun night for all.

Roy looked over at Ranma standing at attention in the hanger bay before his newly assigned Valkyrie. "Hey kid ready to go?"

Ranma dropped into the at ease position and grinned at him. "Yeah I guess I am, though I never thought I'd get into one of these so quick."

"Yeah well, just don't let it go to your head okay? Like Mannstein told you it was just as much for the other trainees as it was because you were ready. Now get in that thing and lets see what you got."

Ranma grinned and jumped up onto the star fighter's wing and from there into the cockpit. The canopy closed behind him and Roy walked over and got into his own Skull-1. Once he was strapped in and his helmet on his head he ran through the pre flight check up and then started the engine, feeling the ki field of the battery surround him like a huge blanket. As the helmet linked his thoughts to the plane he reached out with his senses and merged his ki with that of the plane.

Over the radio he could hear Roy begin talking to the bridge. "This is skull-1, requesting flight clearance for scheduled training flight, designate trainee Orange 12."

Lisa's voice answered, her tone professional and precise. Her worries about this move aside she would do her job to the best of her ability as always. "Roger skull-1, you and orange-12 are cleared for takeoff out of hatch 3. Be aware that Vermilion is acting CAP and is currently in sectors 1-14." Recommend you head to sector 22 for your training flight."

"Roger that, over and out. Come on kid, let's go." The two fighters taxed around one after the other until they faced the appropriate hatch. Hatch three was one of four that was set into the top of the Macross about halfway down its body, before it raised into the central ship dominated by the tower and bridge.

Ranma followed Roy's plane into space and around in a loop. He took in the vista outside his canopy and gasped.

Roy heard this over his radio and smiled. "Yeah, it takes everyone like that the first time. Take a few seconds kid, soak it in, we've got time."

Ranma nodded absentmindedly, his eyes devouring the view. All around him on nearly every side was blackness interspersed with the white of stars with nothing between him and them but distance. He felt the gravity Macross created fall away beneath and it was all he could do not to start crying. "This, this is…. Y'know, this was my dream for so long! I hid it y'know, from everyone, even Kasumi and my mom at first, I didn't think they'd understand. But this, this right here is my dream! Ta leave gravity behind, ta fly unimpeded out into the black, to go to the stars! And here I am, living it! Wow."

Roy's eyebrows rose in surprise. Strangely poetic he thought then got down to business. "Alright kid what we're going to do is play a little follow the leader. We don't have any handy targets out here, but we can still see how well you fly. Stay on my tail just like a wingman would and let's go."

"Roger." Ranma answered and the two took off. Roy at first was taking it easy, this was after all Ranma's first time flying and he didn't want to freak him out. After a half hour of this though Ranma hadn't even said anything, just following him like a leach. Alright, lets up the ante a little. Roy grinned and began more elaborate maneuvers. Again after a half hour he found he was still being shadowed by Ranma. Alright let's take this to the max.

Before he could however a call came in over his radio, Lisa still sounding professional but even more clipped. "Skull-1, be advised ships radar has detected a large unidentified mass at long range. Vermillion is being moved to investigate. Recommend you cut your training flight short. We may need you and Skull squadron out there soon. I've already ordered your squadron to scramble, they'll meet you out there

"Roger bridge. You heard the lady kid, afraid it's back to the barn for you."

Ranma was about to protest, but he paused, training given by Lt. Prescott cutting his protest off. "Roger."

As they were closing on the fortress however Ranma paused, something tickling his senses. "Command, this is orange 12, where away was that radar reading?"

Lisa answered, "It was directly in front of us about 50 klicks out, at the very edge of our range. Why the question orange 12?"

"I don't know, but I just, I just felt something. My danger sense is going through the roof. I can't describe it any better. It's like, like something's about to" He cursed as suddenly something just appeared out of nowhere on his radar and of course on the radar of the fortress and Roy's fighter. "Like something's about to jump us!"

A large green mountain of a ship, about half the size of Macross, appeared directly abaft and above the space fortress and began to deluge a veritable landslide of battlepods. Roy began to yell into his mike frantically even as he directed his fighter in for an attack run on the incoming battlepods. "Vampire Vampire, large number of incoming battlepods directly above the fortress! Recommend moving all Veritech launches to bay 6 and the hatches there, they'll be sitting ducks as they launch if they come out of the top deck hangers!"

Lisa sighed in irritation. With her being the most senior officer on the bridge, she was forced to stay at her station alert for anything that could happen, but when something wasn't happening it was utterly boring. She spent a few minutes watching what she could see of Commander Fokker and ensign Sugita until they were out of visual range and then she went back to looking at the radar screen and the blackness of space.

Even Claudia wasn't on the bridge, off working with a few teams of civilians to redesign the internal emergency sound system, so she didn't have anyone to talk to, unless she wanted to break rank and talk to the gossip trio but that probably wasn't a good idea. Behind Lisa the three younger girls were clustered around Vanessa's console looking at something on the screen that she couldn't see, but judging from the giggling she'd probably have to put a stop to whatever they were doing, and right now there was no need to.

The three girls in question were actually looking at a picture, an example of what was becoming called the 'Hunkma market' by the girls and women on the ship. While there were countless young men onboard, there was just something about Ranma, something that the girls of Nerima, the amazons and all his fiancés couldn't name but knew was there, something that set him apart. None of the three bridge girls could name it either all they knew was that, like several girls at the academy had discovered, seeing pictures of him in tight exercise wear or even better shirtless was fast becoming a nightly ritual.

Like Nabiki back in Nerima, pictures of Ranma in both forms sold very well to members of the opposite sex (and sometimes not), but unlike with Nabiki, no one person had cornered the market. The boys who tried to take pictures of Ranma in his female form all stopped after he retaliated and put several of them in the hospital, but the few pictures taken in that time sold for huge amounts. After all, the short redhead could give any model or actress a run for her money in the looks department. Pictures of his boy body however were a growing market and all three of the gossip trio was wondering how to get in on it and incidentally get close to Ranma.

"Maybe we should try to get some videos rather than more pictures. I bet some action scenes would sell really well." Vanessa said softly, trying to keep her voice down even as she smiled, the idea of having a video of Ranma exercising giving her a little thrill inside. Her glasses fogged up at the mere thought of it.

"Great idea, I've got a video camera we can use, what about advertising though? I don't think Hunkma will mind pictures but videos are a little more invasive, especially when we're planning ahead like this rather than taking pictures of opportunity" said Kim. That, she thought, and how we will be… using them, it might make him uncomfortable, judging from what his mom has mentioned anyway. Most men would like to be the jilling fantasy of hundreds of women, but Ranma apparently doesn't think like that.

"Advertizing are you kidding? Once word gets around word of mouth will be more than enough. How are we going to do this though, I mean, we need to plan." Sammy muttered, playing with her long auburn hair.

The conversation was interrupted at this point by a smacking sound and a muffled curse coming from their right. The trio of plotters and Lisa turned around in surprise to see captain Gloval in the entranceway, rubbing his head as he bent down slightly to come through the hatch. Lisa saluted intoning ritually "Captain on the bridge."

Gloval walked in, muttering curses under his breath but to the surprise of all four younger women did not look irritable. Rather he looked tense, alert, eyes fixed on the overhead screen which showed the radar zone of the space fortress. Sammy and Kim quietly returned to their duties as Vanessa turned back to her screen, all three wondering why the captain was on the bridge when he wasn't scheduled to be and there was nothing going on.

Lisa made her way over to Gloval as he sat down in the captain's chair, his eyes flickering between the visual shown on his personal screen, the radar on the overhead and the viewport. This close Lisa could see he was even more on edge than had been apparent before, and she asked softly "Sir is there something wrong?"

Gloval smirked, but there was no humor in it. "Old soldier's instincts you could say. I just feel something is going to happen. Order the ready squadrons up, both destroids and Veritechs." At her look his smirk widened a little, but the lack of humor was still prevalent. "If I'm wrong, we can simply say it was an exercise, but for now indulge me commander."

Despite the wording it was obviously an order and Lisa nodded and turned back to her console to issue the orders. One eyebrow rose in surprise as rather than his second she got Mannstein himself, still in charge of the destroids as well as running the academy while Captain Connor, the former captain of the Prometheus, worked up on destroid operation. She turned back to the captain eyebrow still raised "Commodore Mannstein reports he has the ready companies of Defender, Phalanx and Spartans ready to go." Behind them the younger girls all blinked, then turned back to their own consoles as Gloval nodded as if he had expected that response. Mannstein had instincts as well of course. Lisa looked past the captain for a moment, looking at Kim, the gunner, who nodded and turned back to her console, relaying commands for the secondary weapons systems to start powering up and for the tertiary weapons operators to go to alert mode as well.

About ten minutes later Vanessa looked up from her console abruptly. "I have something on radar starboard and down 30 degrees it's at the outer edge of our radar zone, but coming closer I…." Even as the data was transmitted to the overhead, she shook her head. "It just disappeared."

Gloval nodded. "Battle stations." Lisa nodded and relayed the order before recalling the training flight.

As the two Valkyrie's came back towards the ship the universe was suddenly torn asunder in a very localized sense of the word, as 'above' the ship where there had been only space was no filled with a massive ship, about half the size of the space fortress.

It was painted green from end to end, was only marginally aerodynamic and there was nothing the humans looking out the viewport (that was how close the other ship had come, it was literally in sight of the command spire, only about a kilometer above the main section of the ship) could identify as gun emplacements, but fire began to rain down from strange spike-like objects on the outer shell of the ship, equivalent to the tertiary weapons on the space fortress and doing little to no damage to the larger ships armor. Worse though was the number of battlepods the ship immediately began to disgorge.

"Fire as you bear with secondary weapons, rotate the ship if necessary." Even as he said this, the secondary cannons of the space fortress traversed and began to riddle the enemy ship with fire, but the damage had been done. The battle would now be decided by the Veritechs and the ready companies of destroids.

Ranma and Roy streaked into the mass of almost two hundred battlepods doing their best to disrupt their attack. Roy used a combination of blaster fire and missiles to good effect, killing four pods in quick succession before changing to guardian mode and skewing around another, blowing it in half and taking out another on its far side a moment later. He glanced to the side to see how Ranma was coping with this trial by fire and whistled, impressed.

Ranma came in right behind Roy then veered off as Roy changed to Guardian mode. Picking his own targets he shot two pods out of the sky dodging down toward the hull only to change into robot mode and swiftly turning gunning down all five of the pods that had tried to follow him. Pushing off with his legs he changed to fighter mode and ignited his afterburners immediately, dodging incoming fire and flying between two more pods, both of which he nailed with a quick missile. He hit another that attempted to get the drop on Roy and then was back into soldier mode, blasting away with his rifle at a few more.

Roy shook himself, the kid was even better than he thought he would be but Roy still had to do his part. "Orange 12 come to heading 122 from current position, let's see if we can lead these buggers off a little."

Ranma killed another battlepod even as he transformed into guardian mode. "Roger that, heading 122, mind telling me where we're leading them to?"

Roy and Ranma rocketed over the edge of the fortress leading about fifty of the battlepods who immediately came under fire from below as Skull squadron joined the fray, having launched from bay 3 set below the fortress. Roy and Ranma whooped then pulled around to rejoin the main fight.

Skull squadron fell upon the battlepods that had landed on the surface of the fortress gleefully, ramming missiles home before closing with lasers. Even with this reinforcement however the defenders were facing odds of twelve to one. Despite their far better teamwork, armor and weapons that was a tall order.

Ranma was soon running out of ammo, and on a whim transformed to soldier mode reached out and grabbed the leg of a battlepod that had gotten above him. Flipping the pod around he was able to tear the leg off then used his head lasers to kill the pod. Dropping his blaster and letting it float away he grabbed the pods other leg and ripped it off as well. That done, Ranma shot forward, dodging more incoming fire and hammering pods to slag with his makeshift weapon. At each blow he felt his Valkyrie shudder, but he still destroyed the pod he struck.

Commander Hayes' voice crackled over his radio "Orange 12, six battlepods working at a weak spot in our armor behind the left nacelle to your left and down. Get in there and break up their attack." She went on to give orders to some of the other pilots, bringing their attention to comrades that were in danger or directing them to other hot points.

"Roger." Ranma descended to the surface of the fortress, taking the fight to those pods that were blasting holes in the fortress armor, trying to get inside. In close battlepods were woefully overmatched by a Veritech, and he made short work of them. He raced from position to position, dodging incoming fire often by the skin of his teeth as again and again his makeshift weapons rose and fell.

The battle continued, and despite the defenders best efforts began to turn against them. None of the other pilots had Ranma's gift for improvisation and when their weapons ran dry they were forced to return to rearm, leaving them vulnerable. Two fighters went down, and then another, before relief arrived in the form of Vermillion, returning from its patrols at the outer edge of the fortresses radar bubble.

While Vermillion may have not been as good individually as the elite skull members they were still decent and they had full load outs. Missiles once more began to flash out and the tide of battle turned again but it was still a long bloody hour before the last pod was destroyed.

By the end of it Ranma was gasping, having expended his ki and the battery of his Valkyrie to strengthen his weapons. His soldier mode Veritech mirrored his thoughts falling to one knee on the fortresses plating as Lisa's voice rang out with the all clear. "All fighters, all fighters battle over repeat battle over. Radar is clear. Good job everyone. All fighters return to the barn best entrance."

Ranma dropped his makeshift weapons, the fifth set he had made since running out of ammo. He whirled, his/his Veritechs arms coming up into a fighting position as he felt something tap its/his shoulder. The image of Roy's Skull 1 standing there in soldier mode itself, blaster gone and two of its' secondary lasers missing from his head stopped him as much as Roy's voice coming in over the radio. "Not the first flight I organized Ranma but it'll have to do. So what did you think of fighting in space?"

Ranma paused for a moment letting his body come out of battle mode and grinned. "Not bad, but what the hell are ya going ta do for an encore?"

end chapter