Me no own
Like in the origirnal Robotech universe music will have a major role in my story, though it sure as hell won't be the all powerful weapon it was. I mean besides love (i'm looking at you JKR!) can anyone name a lamer super weapon than music? However it will still have an effect both on and off the battlefield. On the battlefield it will be a surprise weapon at times, and off the battlefield, well morale is to the physical as ten is to the one.
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Chapter 5 Blitzkriegs and Sing-along's
Lord Admiral Breetai, leader of the Zentraedi fleets searching for the renegade Robotech master Zor's ship, shook his head angrily as his aide, the deformed Exedore, finished his report. "A bold move by captain Lortree but I would have had him shot for endangering the Space Fortress had he lived." Space folding was not an exact science and trying to fold that close to their target could have destroyed both ships. Indeed, Breetai was surprised the Micronians had survived their absolutely insane decision to jump inside a gravity well. That they had was something he was truly grateful for, though there seemed to have been additions added to the space fortress since the last time he saw it, and it had taken his forces far too long to find the ship and even longer to fold out to be in a position to attack it.
"Maneuver the fleet into a siege position around the fortress. Once all ships are in place we will send in flights of battlepods to test their defenses, and see if they will jump away again, if they do not we will close and capture them. See if you can analyze the purpose of the two additions to the sides of the fortress. We must take the ship intact, that is our orders, am I clear Exedore?"
Exedore was very short for a Zentraedi and his short almost twisted body looked particularly out of place next to the towering and ramrod straight Breetai, who wore his history of warfare proudly in the form of a metal mask covering half his face. Breetai was one of the tallest Zentraedi in existence, indeed the only one taller was Supreme Commander Dolza, and he was easily the most experienced admiral the Zentraedi had. His professional irritation at his inflexible orders was clear but he would follow them to the letter. He knew all too well of the need to regain the proto-culture generator.
"Yes admiral."
Breetai nodded, looking back at the video montage Exedore had created from the video cameras of the attacking battlepods of Lortree's forces and snorted. "Say what you will about their decision making, these Micronians fight well. We cannot underestimate them." Exedore nodded again and went to pass Breetai's orders to the ship captains.
Roy slowly drank from his lukewarm coffee mug going over the list of repairs his flight needed after the battle on a data-pad in front of him. He was so tired he couldn't even get up the energy to get a drink, let alone get back to his room. Fighting other humans was one thing, he thought, fighting these aliens is a whole other ball game. Humans would break off the attack, try to surrender or just run away, once they knew they were losing. The aliens didn't do anything like that and they were forced to kill every one of them. That and the numbers they keep hitting us with are just crazy. Nearly two full brigades of mechanized infantry had been thrown away in the last two assaults and if these were just probing attacks, what that told him about the numbers they were facing was sobering.
He looked up momentarily as Ranma dropped down into a squat in front of him. "You okay commander?"
Roy scowled at the younger man's cheerful tone and bright eyes. The kid just had monstrous amounts of endurance and other than saying he had drained his ki again seemed fine after the dust up with just a few rations bars something that he couldn't say himself. "Yeah kid just peachy. I'm just gonna crash here for a bit, and don't worry, you passed your last test with flying colors. I don't know yet where we'll slot you in though. We'll page you when we decide what flight to put you in. Until then enjoy your last few hours of freedom."
Ranma nodded. "Alright Commander, see ya later." With a jaunty wave Ranma walked out of the mess on a search for food, leaving behind a man who suddenly realized he was far too close to middle age for comfort, a horrible thought for someone barely 27.
It took only a day to slot Ranma into the half strength Blue squadron. On his first day there he was greeted by the temporary leader of the flight, a Lt. junior grade who along with Ranma and two others made up the total of blue squadron. "That doesn't mean" the Lt. hastened to point out "That we're not expected to pull a full squadrons weight around here. We still get sent up on CAP, and we are still expected to take part in any dust ball that occurs. Now, I know that you've had combat experience" that was putting it mildly, Ranma's exploits in the last fight were the talk of the fighter wing. His kills had only been exceeded by Roy Fokker, a two time ace before the aliens showed up. "But I will say this only once so you better listen up. Flying by yourself like you did in this last battle is one thing, flying as part of a flight is another thing entirely. No grandstanding, and watch eachother's back. If I see you even once go haring off in one direction and leaving your wingman alone, I will ground your ass. Am I clear?"
"Clear sir!" Ranma answered, standing to attention.
"Good. Now, we work an eight hour off eight hour on shift, that'll get better once the walking wounded return in larger numbers and we can graduate some pilots from the academy, but for right now, that's the breaks. Problems?"
"None sir!"
"Good. We've got CAP duty in thirty minutes, taking over from two flights from Vermillion. Get your flight suit, and meet us in hanger 2."
"Yes Sir!"
Two hours later Ranma had discovered one of the downsides of being in the military: boredom. He sighed as he turned his plane to match his wingmen on their patrol around the star fortress. The idea of these patrols was to have fighters out and patrolling at the far range of the fortress's radar, adding their own radar to it and giving the ship an even earlier warning of approaching trouble. However with the way the enemy battleship had simply folded in right near the Macross it had been decided not to push out the patrols that far. He sighed and looked around his cockpit for something to take his mind off his boredom. Finding a little USB port he smiled, and reached into one of his pockets.
Soon the song of Firefly rang out and he began to swoop one way and the other, though still following the flight plan, as he tried to sing along. Ranma had heard about it, and had watched one of the episodes during his time in Nerima (then Akane had smashed him into the DVD player when he agreed with Nabiki about how cute Summer was). The song had quickly become his favorite. "Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand, I don't care I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me."
He was interrupted by a voice coming in over his helmet radio and he paused the song automatically. "Ensign Sugita what the hell're you doing! Shut that caterwauling off!" Commander Hayes sounded irritable and he winced but answered gamely.
"Ah c'mon Commander, it's boring as hell out here and I don't do boring well. Besides, it's not against regs to listen to music when you fly. Not even in combat situations. Please, I'd turn off the radio but that's against regs."
On the bridge Lisa sighed. I guess he hasn't really learned that hurry up and wait is a part of military life. But he's right about it not being against the rules. It just seems it should be, given how tense the situation is; one ship against the unknown. Still I know a lot of the older pilots do it so… "Alright, you can play your music if you promise not to sing along! You voice could peel paint."
Ranma's voice came back sounded rather irritated. "Yeah, and I bet your voice is any better? I won't sing along, but in return I want to hear you sing."
Lisa's back went ramrod straight at the mere thought, the idea Ranma was just teasing her never occurred to her and she growled. "You're in no position to make demands ensign!" She would've continued but for being interrupted from behind her.
"Oh, let's do it Lisa! I'm bored too!" Vanessa said at her station.
"Oooh me too" Kim chimed in, and Sammy added her voice.
She looked around for support but the only other person on the bridge was Claudia who grinned impishly at her. "I think it's a great idea to break the monotony. I'll even start Lisa, you and the others join in on the chorus if you know it." Sammy gave her a thumbs up and the words of 'Firefly' appeared on their screens. Most of them knew it already however, the show had been extremely popular while it aired.
Lisa sighed knowing when she was beaten. "Alright, fine. I'll join in on the chorus but that's it."
The younger girls cheered and Ranma restarted the song. Claudia's voice rang out with a soft contralto. "Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand. I don't care I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me." Lisa reluctantly joined in on the chorus and as the song went on the others switched off the main lines.
Sammy was next "Take me out to the black tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." Surprisingly Lisa's reluctance had faded as she got into the lyrics and the meaning behind them. The meaning of the words touched all the girls there and Lisa didn't even object as Ranma and the other Valkyries began to sway to the tune.
"I feel the black reaching out, I hear its song without a doubt, I still hear and I still see that you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I'd rather be since I've found serenity. You can't take the sky from me."
As the last note rang out a cough got the attention of everyone on the bridge and the turned to see that captain Gloval had entered as they were singing. "As much as I enjoy music I think that's enough for now." Everyone said 'yes sir' rather sheepishly and he continued as he sat down in his chair. "Ensign Sugita please stop corrupting my bridge crew. There are times for such things and this is not one of them. Lt. Lafferty, prepare to receive orders."
"Er yes sir." Ranma sounded sheepish but unrepentant as he replied at the same time as the Lt., he had been bored damn it!
"Good. Your orders are to spread out in a cross formation in front of us at the distance of a hundred klicks and at vectors of fifty degrees between you. Your orders are to keep moving out until you are barely on our radar and use your own radar to see in front of us, much like a standard CAP. You are not however allowed to engage any enemy units you see, merely report their location."
He held up a hand to stall Lisa's protest, after all there was a reason they hadn't been pushing their CAP out, including the fact they didn't have that many pilots to spare. "All my instincts are telling me that they are out there, and we need to know where and in what strength. We still have little idea on what we're dealing with here in terms of numbers and disposition. I am afraid that means putting your troops in harm's way." Lisa shut her mouth, thinking about it and then reluctantly nodded.
They could hear the nervousness in the lieutenant's voice as he responded. "Er, yes sir. Moving ahead of the fortress, aye, taking up position fifty degrees apart aye."
Gloval settled back in his chair. "Bring the ship's crew to ready stations. Order all Veritech pilots to their ready rooms. And now" he mused. "We will see what we will see." Claudia nodded and relayed the orders as Lisa enlarged he radar screen and put it on the main screen, then they stood back and waited.
Lt. Lafferty relayed the orders, even though all of the other pilots had heard the orders. Some of them made no bones about how they felt about it over the squad channel. "Man this sucks, the captain's sticking us out here like bait for a fish. Oh yeah if anything happens to us out here they'll know the aliens are out here! This is bullshit!"
Ranma cut in before the Lieutenant could. "Shut it. The captain's right, we need to know where the aliens are. I got the same feeling the captain has. It ain't as bad as yesterday, but it's still there. Besides if ya have time to complain about doing yer jobs then you have more time ta look around." The others grumbled but agreed.
The four pilots spread out, staying within maximum visual range and pushed outward. It took them two more hours to get out to the maximum radar range of the space fortress the refrain of the song coming back into Ranma's mind as he flew along.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the space fortress's radar bubble he was brought out of his reverie by his jet's radar going off, signaling unknown objects at long range. Ranma halted his flight, laying doggo for a moment watching as the mass came toward him, soon resolving itself into several large blips on his radar. Still too far away for the radar to give him any definition he took a chance and revved his engines, moving forward once more. Soon other blips showed up, a veritable wall in space going up down and to both sides. Ranma gulped. If all those ships are the same class as the one we tangled with earlier…
That question was resolved as several of the large blips suddenly regurgitated smaller ones heading towards them. "Shit, shit, shit, Macross are you getting our tele-what's it?" He turned his Valkyrie around, heading to the side where he knew one of his squad mates was.
Claudia, who handled long range communications, the only system that could pick the fighter's radio up at the distance they were at, answered him. "That's affirmative, and its 'telemetry' blue 4. Blue squadron fall back to the barn, we've got what we wanted to see."
Ranma nodded, having joined up with one of his flight-mates, they both fell back joining up with the Lt. and his wingman. Ranma glanced at his radar and saw that they were thankfully leaving the battlepods behind. The triangle fighters though were catching up. "Lt, we're not going to get back unless we discourage these bastards somehow."
The Lt. was now much more calm, the worst having happened and the wait over. "Roger that, everyone turn and engage with missiles only, repeat missiles only, keep the range open! Make certain you have solid lock one target each before skew turn. Clear?"
Everyone answered in the affirmative and when the Lt. shouted "Now!" three of the fighters turned around at speed, their arcs large to bleed off speed, but Ranma transformed first into guardian, braked hard, flipped so that he was upside down and shot off his missiles. Seeing he had time before the others finished their turns he started taking potshots at long range with his rifle, killing three more green triangle shaped starfighters before the missiles of the others hit. As they came about and passed him Ranma changed back into fighter mode and rocketed off, still pulling up the rear. The triangle fighters had almost all been wiped out, and those that survived were at the back of the swarm and no longer had the legs to catch the fleeing Veritechs.
Pushing their engines to the max the four fighters arrived back at Macross. "Welcome home Blue flight. Hanger three is open. CAP missions are canceled for now. Get some rest, you'll probably need it."
"Roger commander. We'll bunk down in one of the ready rooms."
Ranma nodded, that sounded like a good idea, though he doubted that they were going to be allowed to sleep for very long.
On the bridge the tension had ratcheted higher upon receiving the fighters radar information, and now everyone looked at Captain Gloval who sat calm and silent in the middle of the bridge. "Call Captain Connor, Commander Drake and Commander Fokker." Drake had been second in command of the Prometheus, and had taken the lead on the project to find ways to somehow use the sub's store of ICBM's. "Have them meet us in the conference room in two hours. Commander Hayes you as well. Extrapolate enemy positions with the supposition that we are surrounded with similar enemy units on all sides. But for now, Claudia get me Dr. Lang."
The orders went out and Gloval took a moment to collect himself before looking at his com-screen. Dr, I have a few questions for you and your engine teams."
"A blitzkrieg?" questioned Captain Connor. "What do you mean sir?"
"Commander Hayes." Ordered Gloval, and she nodded, keying the large radar board at the front of the room on, showing the information blue squad had been able to get.
The number of large red blips caught everyone's attention as she went on. "Our fighter screen was able to pick up this information before being forced to retreat. We estimate that what they saw was fifteen carrier classes or their equivalent judging from the number of ships that disgorged fighters in an attempt to catch our own. We would estimate the other forty ships they saw were of varied classes, their equivalent of battleships and their equivalent. While none of these ships can take on the Macross alone, together they could massacre us if they can get in range. However, captain Gloval wanted me to extrapolate their numbers if this amount of ships was continuous in a sphere around us."
The screen changed now showing a huge globe of ominous red dots surrounding the besieged Macross. "We estimate it would take upwards of three hundred thousand ships to completely encircle us at that distance. Against such a force we would have no chance at all."
Conner looked at the screen then at Hayes incredulously. "You can't be serious, there's no way they have that many ships! If they did why are they taking so long to attack us? If they all attacked us like the ship from two days ago they could overwhelm us within seconds!"
"We don't know why they aren't attacking us en masse though Dr. Lang has told us how extremely dangerous it would be to attempt that accurate a fold space jump. They would probably lose dozens if not hundreds of ships on intrapolation if they tried that." Gloval said. "And I don't think their long range lasers can match our own. The main objective however, and our long term goals must be to not allow them to fully encircle us. If they do that and simply launch waves of battlepods they will overwhelm us in short order. Therefore, operation Blitzkrieg, we will take them at a run."
Gloval stood up and took the controls form Commander Hayes. "Dr. Lang tells us that the main problem with the reflux cannon was firing it in atmosphere, it wasn't able to vent enough heat outside the hull. In space there is no such problem. We will send a remote controlled spy eye forward and begin long range bombardment of the enemy ships with our gun. At the same time Dr. Lang and his team will attempt to goose the engine output to fifty times its maximum. We will rush forward through the hole thus created." He smacked the globe of enemy ships with a pointer, and the view changed, showing the Macross going forward into a whole its fire had created. "When in range our secondary weapons will fire. Our fighter screen will launch at the same time, and our Defender class destroids will take to the surface of the fortress to provide anti fighter fire. Our goal will be to break out of the encirclement and move at a heading to take us toward Neptune. We will be using the planet to slingshot further in system, building our speed heading in-system. Our target destination will be determined when we get there. Questions, comments?"
Roy raised a hand, "More a point of discussion. You're putting a lot of pressure on our Veritechs and other anti-fighter defenses. It would only take their fighters doing enough damage to the engines to slow us down for us to lose badly against even the ships within that part of the encirclement."
"That is why you're fighters had better protect our engines. Let me make it more clear commander. Your Valkyries are to do everything in their power to protect the engines. The rest of the fortress is to be left to the destroids and tertiary weapon systems."
Roy gulped, but nodded. Against that avalanche of firepower there really was no way but to risk all to win all. It was the kind of gamble a fighter pilot could get behind.
Commander Drake broke in. "I think we can help in blasting a hole through the enemy. My teams have devised proximity fuses and attached them to a little over half our nukes and ICBMs. They'll explode when the fuse program computes that an enemy is near enough to kill with the explosion rather than on contact. We have others rigged to be left behind us as mines but I don't think using them here would be useful."
Gloval nodded sharply. "Excellent, we will use the normal ICBM's first to wipe out their initial fighter screen. That will allow our fighters to be hoarded until we are passing through their formations. We'll give your fighters as much time before going in as possible, but it will be up to you and your men, as it will be on you where the hammer falls the hardest."
Roy nodded grimly. "Permission to bring in the walking wounded? If I do that I can nearly double our strength."
"Granted. Operation Blitzkrieg will commence in two hours. After that main cannon bombardment will begin as soon as possible. After that it is all up to luck on when the main battle will begin." Everyone nodded and the conference broke up without a word. Everyone knew this was going to be the hardest trial they had ever faced. Those who survived would look back on it though and remember it as only one of many.
Roy looked around the assembled pilots as the last of the walking wounded walked in. None of these pilots would be as good as an uninjured man, but this looked to be a monstrous fight, and they needed all the help they could get. As they shuffled in he noticed that Ranma was in the back of the room with his head against the wall and looked to be asleep. "Alright settle down people, I know you've all got questions and hopefully I'll give you some answers. Suffice it to say" he was interrupted by Ranma snorting in his sleep and turning over "What I'm going to tell you" again Ranma snorted and now all eyes in the room were on sleeping martial artist and Roy sighed. "Someone wake that idiot up please."
One of the pilots reached over to shake Ranma's shoulder only to watch as Ranma rolled onto his side against the wall, still sleeping. Another pilot on Ranma's other side made to punch his other shoulder only to find his fist grabbed before being tossed into the air and against another wall. Now all the pilots backed away from the mysterious power of sleep-fu, though some were chuckling at their friend's face-plant.
Lt. Prescott, who was there as part of the call-up of the walking wounded sighed. "You're never gonna wake up the bloody git that way, this is the only way to wake him up." And with that Eric took his water bottle and splashed Ranma in the face with it. He still kept his distance though; the instructor who had done this to Ranma the first time (and incidentally introduced his curse to the entire academy) was smashed by an errant flailing hand so hard into one of the classroom walls his body left a dent.
Ranma-chan woke up sputtering "What'd ya do that for!" Then she nearly screeched in pain. "Ah too tight!" She grabbed her flight jacket and ripped it open, as well as the airtight shock absorbing shirt underneath. This had two results: one, it allowed her to breathe again now that her chest was no longer constricted to the point of asphyxiation, and two it showed everyone there that Ranma-chan was of course not wearing a bra, that her chest was at least in the D range and that her small nipples were almost as bright a red color as her hair.
The pilots all looked at this and gulped, then gulped for an entirely different reason as the view was cut off by Ranma-chan pulling her shirt around her while the other fist of the enraged red-head began to blaze with a corona of blue-gold fire. "You lot have precisely a second before we get to see if pilots can fly without their eyeballs! One!"
Every fighter looked away hurriedly save for one leering ensign who screamed as Ranma-chan punched him so hard he flew into and through a wall on the other side of the meeting room. Roy coughed, a large sweat drop forming on the back of his head as he tried to regain everyone's attention to mutters of 'freaking perverts', 'damn curse' and other less mentionable comments from the back of the room while Ranma-chan found the hot water dispenser and poured a glass over herself.
"Okay, we'll just ignore Ensign Saurez for the moment. I realize you're all probably wondering why you're all here including the wounded, and I gotta tell you this is a doozy." He went on to describe the upcoming operation, and moreover why it was so important to break out of the cordon before the sphere tightened around them. The tension, which had evaporated with the attempts to wake Ranma up came back in spades. He finished by saying "As such our primary, hell our only objective is to ensure that the engines take no damage during this assault. Any other consideration is not only secondary but is to be utterly ignored. Any questions, comments?"
The room was silent for a moment then Ranma, once more male said in a thoughtful tone "Make them mad, make them stupid."
"What do you mean ensign?"
"It's one of the main tenants of my martial arts school," Ranma explained. "In a fight if ya make an opponent mad he stops thinking, starts to become predictable. If you can do that the battle becomes a lot easier. It's even better when it's a crowd of enemies 'cause the first thing to go away is group coordination, they start to get in each other's way in their eagerness ta smash you."
"You're talking smack talk right? Ground pounders and infantrymen use it all the time to rile up themselves and the other side." One of the lieutenants said. "But how would we get that to work against aliens?"
Wait, wait," said the commander of Vermilion, a man named Pike, "You said that's a tenant of your martial arts school? You mean you actually took lessons in smack talk? And this is a serious martial arts school?"
Ranma grinned. "hell yeah, my old man may be a runner up for the bastard-parent of the millennium award, and even then only if you count fictional characters, but he was a past master at pissin' people off. He got so good at it he could say a single line and piss his opponent off enough ta let him either win or more often get away. I learned all his tricks." Though I wish I had learned when not to use it against my opponents too. It might've made my time in Nerima better.
"So how would you get that to work against aliens?" Asked Roy, intrigued despite his better judgment. After all despite the fact that it was never officially sanctioned, smack talk was as time honored a tradition between pilots as it was in the land forces. "I know that Claudia, I mean Commander Grant" he corrected himself ignoring the grins on more than a few faces, all the pilots knew of his ongoing relationship with the communications specialist. "Has tried to use electronic warfare against them in both battles up to now and it hasn't worked. Even jamming doesn't get though."
"Jamming might not get through 'cause it's a recognized tactic. I mean, everyone does it right?" answered Ranma. "What if we use something else that ain't so recognizably military? Like the audio of those stupid old American cartoons, or infomercials or something."
"How about music?" said one ensign with a scar over his right eye. "We all listen to the stuff anyway, why not flood their channels with as much music as they can handle and see what happens? It certainly couldn't hurt could it? We could turn the volume way down in our Veritechs and way up on the radio."
"All different music or just one band? Because if I have to listen to your heavy metal crap I'll go spare" Eric said dryly.
"Switching from different styles may have the best effect," Ranma answered, the authority on pissing people off. "Keep 'em guessing as to the meaning. Songs with cultural messages would be the best, heavy metal too, though I don't know much about that style. And the only non-Japanese artist I listen to is Heather Alexander."
Several of the pilots agreed with him one even going so far as to say "Heather rocks man, she's the goddess of war." Others argued back that their own favorite bands were better, and soon the whole room was one giant argument on the merits of different musical styles.
Roy let it go on for a while grinning. Happy argumentative pilots were a lot better than worried morose ones and far more combat effective too. After about fifteen minutes when the educational debate showed no sign of stopping anytime soon he brought a hand to his mouth and whistled for attention. "All right, I see this might be a good idea, so I'll leave you lot to vote on the variety we use while I go tell the higher ups about our addition to their plan. If you all haven't voted on a theme by the time we have to launch we'll go with a mishmash. I'll see you all in hanger deck one ready to kick alien ass and sound good doing it!" He was met with a cheer and he left the compartment grinning.
Captain Gloval waited as the spy eye flew out to take position ahead of them. He wondered idly how long the plane would last before the aliens figured out what they were doing but it really didn't matter. He turned to Lt. Young, who handled the weapons systems of the space fortress. "Once we have confirmed enemy sighting I want the reflux cannon to go to full speed firing. Take as many of their capital ships out as you can. Secondary will fire as they bear." Kim nodded nervously, this was going to be the biggest battle she had ever been a part of. Nodoka, who had come onto the bridge as if she had a right to be there reached out a hand and gave the young girl's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, which seemed to drain some of her tension away.
Vanessa switched the view on her console to the main screen as enemy ships began to appear on the spy eye radar. The bridge crew all looked at captain Gloval who slowly nodded. "Operation Blitzkrieg begins now. Boost engines, lock on enemy ships with the main cannon."
Sammy nodded, and relayed the command. "Engines boosted aye."
Kim nodded a second later. "I have a lock on an enemy ship sir."
"Fire." Kim hit the button and the main canon, which really made up the forward two portions of the ship, crackled to life and fired out a gigantic beam of star fire. The beam shot out down range and a second later on of the blips on the screen disappeared. "Acquire new target and fire, keep it up guns, hammer them!" For the next fifteen minutes the main gun kept firing, shards of actinic fire lancing out to destroy targets that couldn't be seen with the naked eye.
Vanessa cursed as her radar lock on the alien ships went down. "Spy eye destroyed. Last telemetry reading show incoming fighters."
Gloval nodded. Lisa looked back at him. "Should we scramble the Valkryies?"
The captain shook his head. "No. Order Commander Drake to launch the ICBM's he's rigged as mines out in front of us. Slow the ship to normal speed for a few minutes then back to boosted output at the first detonation."
As Lisa passed on the order Vanessa spoke up again. "Sir long range radar reports the enemy sphere is closing in behind us and to both sides. Estimate seven hours until they close with our current position enough to launch battlepods."
Gloval nodded calmly, though inwardly he was cursing. The enemy now knew what they were trying to do and were attempting to close their trap on them anyway. It showed the enemy was intelligent enough to respond but also had a certain inflexibility of thought. What they should have down was to shrink the cordon towards the front of the ship to bring more power to bear at the point of the fortress' attack. Instead they were still trying to envelope Macross from all sides. A quick response, but it would only work if the battleship slowed down. If they could keep going, they could escape and put the enemies into a stern chase, whichMacross would win.
Aboard his flagship Breetai listened to reports of the ongoing battle cursing the fact that he had chosen to place his starship directly on the straight line to earth, and thus out of the action. Getting second hand reports was just not the same. Still, this does tell me something. If they had still had space-fold ability, even to micro-jump, they would have done so to evade our cordon. That they are not means they cannot, the jump from within the gravity well of their home planet may have destroyed the fold-space engine entirely. Order all ships to advance at best possible speed, we need to close the distance and keep the Micronians from escaping."
Back on the bridge, the tension had ratcheted higher as the swarm of incoming fighters came into range of the Macross's own radar. Lisa looked down at her console then said "Enemy entering the ICBM mine field in five, four, three, two, one now!"
Through the glass of the main viewport explosions could be seen in the distance, visible at first then dwindling rapidly as the mines went off. In their wake they left only a few dozen battlepods from what had been an attack hundreds strong. Gloval nodded in satisfaction and Lisa ordered the engine to boost power again. The Macross drove forward, and soon they were able to see the alien motherships on radar again. Gloval looked over at Kim who began to fire the main gun as fast as she could re-target. Another fifteen enemy ships died under her fire as the Macross sailed closer.
Another ten minutes went by as the thump, hum, thump of the main cannon was the only sound that was heard. Then "Incoming fire!" yelled Lisa, and beams of varicolored light lit up space for a moment on all sides, only one of them impacting the Prometheus on the side of the sub with little damage. "Damage to the Prometheus, minimal internal damage, outer hull pared away in sections 1-16. Repair robots already on the way."
Gloval nodded. "Secondary's acquire targets and fire." Now the battle was a little more hectic, with the secondary weapons of the space fortress, the equivalent of their enemy's main guns, fired rapidly as possible, trading blows with the enemy motherships who had disgorged another wave of fighters but kept them close, waiting for the Macross to come to them.
As they came closer and closer the radar began to paint a more detailed image of the enemy fleet and Gloval studied it carefully. As the radar identified which ships were the battleships and which the carriers he pondered for a few seconds. Looking at the still inaccurate fire he nodded, punched some buttons and the tactical computer changed, showing the alien ships in two different colors now, one dark purple and the other red. "Prioritize fire on the battleships we've identified so far."
Lisa looked up from her own console where she was trying to estimate the optimum moment for her to order the destroids onto the hull and the Veritechs to launch. "Sir, shouldn't we concentrate on knocking out the carriers? We don't know how many battlepods they carry after all, and with the inaccuracy of their laser systems that makes the pods the more viable threat."
Gloval nodded. "It would if they were going to continue missing us but I think their reach far exceeds their ability to aim, and once we get into their firing envelope for real we will be overmatched. I refuse to believe that an alien species that can traverse the stars has main guns on their ships that are that inaccurate at close range."
Lisa nodded, looked down at her board and saw that the enemy battlepods had begun to advance. "All destroids take your positions along the hulls. All Veritech fighters wait for further orders." Captain Connor acknowledged, sounding a little nervous as his Monster class-command destroid, which he had inherited from Mannstein, moved out to take position directly beneath the front of the command spire and she moved on smoothly. "Commander Drake launch three proximity activated ICBMS on my mark." A lucky shot went through scoring along the side of the command spire, taking out long range communications gear and one of the tertiary laser turrets. Lisa didn't even flinch as the bridge set, rather stupidly in her opinion, near the top of the command spire shook with the impact. As soon as the advancing wave of fighters, the second in this fight and mostly composed of the remaining triangle fighters and a smattering of battlepods, entered her engagement envelope she yelled "Mark!"
From the submarine fused into the right docking clamp of the space fortress three intercontinental ballistic missiles shot out. Not five minutes later, they exploded sweeping the enemies second fighter screen with a deluge of nuclear fire. Unfortunately explosions do not propagate well in space and the enemy had learned, spreading their fighters out. A little over a third of the fighters in the second wave survived to close with the fortress. Thedestroids opened up as they entered range, the battleship's tertiary weapons opening up in turn.
Five minutes after that, Vanessa motioned to the main viewport. "Enemy vessels now in visual range."
On the heel of her words the enemy fire became much more accurate, scoring a direct hit on the Daedalus and two on the main gun nacelles. The damage, while not critical was still worrisome. "Rotate the ship 180 degrees along its axis, continue fire." He marked out the largest ship remaining and nodded at Kim. "Hit this ship with the next shot from the reflux cannon, and the fellows on either side with the secondary guns." Kim nodded and not a second later those enemies ceased to exist, but the return fire had smashed two of the secondary guns and four more tertiary batteries. "Go to continuous rotation but vary the speed to keep their targeting computers guessing," Gloval said calmly. And everyone around him soaked in that calm like it was a lifeline and responded accordingly.
Lisa saw that they were now almost within the enemy fleet and the remaining battlepods of this portion of the enemy fleet were even now forming up to hit the battleship from behind. It was time to commit the Valkryies and she did so promptly. "All Veritech fighters clear for launch out of all hanger bays! Engage the incoming fighter swarm behind us!" Roy acknowledged the order sounding positively gleeful, and the Veritechs zoomed out one after another form every hanger on the fortress to take up position in front of it. Gloval nodded approval even as the ship rocked from another grazing blow to its underbelly. This battle was far from over, but it had entered the end game.
With the walking wounded included, blue flight had become blue squadron once more and Lt. Prescott found himself acting commander Prescott. They formed up right below Vermilion, forming a wall of 48 fighters streaking toward the enemy whose numbers Roy didn't bother counting. He knew it was pointless. As the distance between the two forces closed he spoke into the radio. "This is Skull-1, carrier croup is starting sonic warfare now! All flights begin broadcasting!"
The great music debate back in the briefing room had come to a reluctant compromise. The fighter pilots decided to let the aliens decide which musical style was the best. After all if it made the aliens angry or unable to concentrate, then it must be good. This rather simple cognitive connection tells you all you need to know about fighter pilots.
The order of styles had been decided via popular vote. First would be hard rock, the kind of music, as one pilot put it, you could fight too. The next would be pop, then new age, techno and finally classic rock. No rap. While there had been several proponents of this style Ranma had bluntly told them he would hurt them if they forced him to listen to it. Ranma might not know much about music but he knew what he didn't like. With the example of their friend still lying in an adjoining room, they acquiesced graciously.
So as the fighter groups came into missile range of one another the Veritechs began to broadcast the heavy metal song 'just another way to die' by disturbed on every channel they could, drowning their opponents communication channels and blanketing many of their own.
Those fighters had been given very explicit instructions from Lord Admiral Breetai himself. They were to ignore the enemy fighters and concentrate fire on the engines of the space fortress. Those engines had to be taken out, or at least damaged enough to slow the enemy vessel down enough to allow the rest of the fleet to concentrate on their position. They should have come on as a mailed fist.
That fist shattered as the noise attack struck home. The Zentraedi were ill prepared to deal with caterwauling like that. It was obviously information of some kind, words could be heard in it, rising and falling in cadence but the cacophony in the background was something they had never heard before. Worse they blanketed every channel, and the anti-ECM measures were not working to filter it out.
The entire fighter group shuddered, paused and then collapsed into confusion as groups centered around the few be-armed versions of the battlepod in the group continued to move forward while the majority of them milled around in space.
Roy whistled. "Holy shit. That worked way better than I expected. Command you seeing this?"
Lisa's voice answered. "Affirmative skull-1, we see it. Maybe the aliens have better hearing than us and they can't deal with the volume or something. In any case there are still some coming on."
Roger that. "Okay, Vermilion, Skull, Green and Blue, take up assigned sectors. Keep in contact and remember our primary objective here is to keep them away from the engines, not get kills. Keep 'em disorganized and rock their worlds!" That said he fired his first two missiles and they streaked ahead, impacting on one of the tentatively tagged command pods. Hitting at the same time they obliterated the pod and he closed in transforming into guardian mode his blaster rifle blazing.
Ranma had three things going for him when it came to being a good fighter pilot. One was the obvious one, as a master level martial artist he had insane reflexes, much like the furry little demons of hell that he hated and feared above anything else. These reflexes were made even better in a Veritech than normal due to his ability to merge his body's ki with that of the Veritech. Two, he had a danger sense even more honed than most professional soldiers. This allowed him to anticipate and feel when he was being targeted and to respond accordingly. And three thanks to his school being primarily aerial based he was able to think in three dimensional terms. There was another reason however that was not from being a martial artist or from training it was part of who he was.
He thrived on chaos. His whole life had been chaotic, and he had created as much as he had been the center of it in Nerima. Any battle was chaotic in the extreme, and none more so than space battles, where danger could come at you from all sides. Ranma made to emphasize it. He moved in and out of the battlefield, killing any command pods he saw, moving through the formations of the pods so that their own fire hit their enemies, and using a few as living shields, sowing chaos and confusion. He also watched out for his wingmen, killing any battlepod that tried to get into their kill lane.
He noticed several of the pods had been able to come together despite the sonic attack and had fallen down and out of the growing dogfight before arching up in an effort to attack Macross from below. "Blue-1 this is blue 8, going after some pods that look smarter than the average alien."
He sent the route he was going to take and then dived out of the main battle, aiming back at the ones going around it even as Prescott answered. "Roger that Sugita, blue seven link up with blue six and five you don't have the angle your wingmen has. Ranma get back here as quick as you can."
Roger." With that order Ranma changed his angle to go through the space between the giant engine thrusters of the fortress instead of around, cutting the distance down by half and opening fire before the enemy pods even knew he was there. Six died under his missiles and he took out the last two at the run.
Roy's voice crackled over the radio urgently. "Ranma, several incoming missiles aimed at the command deck. None of the anti missile turrets can turn enough to the aft to hit them."
Ranma cursed and changed into guardian mode, breaking his forward momentum with a blast of his thrusters before shooting back the way he had come. He saw the missiles almost immediately and he wondered at the nature of luck as they had completely missed the engines but were on a direct course for the bridge from behind. Ranma lined up and aimed his shots carefully. He was able to take out all but one and he cursed, gunning his engines hard and diving down before transforming into soldier mode placing his Veritech between it and the command spire. Reaching deep he pushed his ki out until it covered the surface of the Veritech, adding a level to shield it from damage. The missile hit and rather than exploding Ranma's Veritech was pushed back violently crashing with enough force to leave a dent in the side of the spire right in the back of the bridge. "Ooow! You lot all right in there?"
"I would say we should be asking you that question ensign" Lisa said drolly, though her voice sounded a little shaky. The armor at that particular point was not very thick and if those missiles had all struck it they may have opened the bridge to space, and none of the bridge crew had spacesuits.
"Yeah I'm okay. Enough to get back in the fight anyway. After all" he joked "If we all don't get through this fight how am I going to talk ya'll into another sing-along?"
"Get back in the fight or I'll kill you myself" Lisa growled, though behind her he could hear some relieved giggles and even a chuckle from the captain.
"Hai hai." Ranma transformed back into plane mode and rocketed back into the main fight, which was much easier as the dogfight had almost come close enough to include the aft part of the engines.
Ranma had a sudden idea and he grinned before transforming into soldier mode and using his momentum to close with a battlepod that was firing at one of green squadron. He was so fast the pod didn't even know he was there before he kicked it in the back of the pod. The momentum thus imparted knocked the battlepod forward and Ranma grabbed it by the legs, crushing the thrusters on its feet. "A one and a two" he intoned, twirling in place before letting go, the pod rocketing out and slamming into two other pods, which hit three other pods which hit six more pods including one command pod. The lot of them banged and rattled together, some even flipping entierely over in space due to the momentum. All of them righted themselves and turned to look around for him.
Ranma laughed and decided to see if body insults carried over to these giant bastards. He turned his soldier mode robot around and bent over, then smacked his robot's ass with one hand. Turning around he saw over fifty battlepods coming after him and he laughed again rocketing towards them, almost absentmindedly killing two that tried to gun down a Veritech with blue markings. Behind him the other Valkryies of Blue squadron regrouped and began to fire into the melee around him.
Roy looked on with shock. "Did, did ensign Sugita just moon the aliens?"
His wingmen took out a battlepod that would have nailed Roy for his inattention. "Yeah, well it seems to have worked. That kid's keeping a fourth of the remaining battlepods occupied over there. They've all got a mad on for him, completely ignoring everyone else. I guess you really can make a science, or as he puts it a martial art out of pissing people off."
Roy came back to himself and transformed into guardian mode, jumping up and dodging incoming cannon fire while returning fire to the side. "Yeah, well that makes it easier for the rest of us."
Not that the rest of the fight was going as well as Ranma's little portion. Several Valkyries went down, and the destroids were being pressed hard by the more mobile, jump and flight capable battlepods attacking the front portion of the ship. Still the Macross was nearly through the enemy's lines and Gloval nodded slightly as ships at the back of the enemy fleet began to fire at them, scoring several glancing hits despite the fortress' rotation. "Keep firing ahead, keep plowing the road."
"Captain!" Dr. Lang's worried face appeared on his com screen. "The converter in the reflux cannon is in danger of overheating. If you don't stop firing the cannon for at least a few minutes, it's going to meld down!"
A single blast from forward rocked the ship as it impacted on the base of the command spire, right above where the rebuilt city that gave the ship its name and Gloval growled. "Dr. I'm afraid at this point I don't care. If it melts down that's a problem for the future, if we slow down, if we stop firing the reflux cannon, we will be overwhelmed now. Do what you can, but that is all. We will not stop firing for anything." As if to emphasize his point a sliver of fire shot out and immolated a battleship that was so close that the ship and the resulting explosion was visible to the naked eye through the viewscreen. "Contact commander Drake, I think it's time for the final act. Launch all the remaining ICBM's the ones that are proximity detonated and direct."
A moment later the silos of Prometheus opened, and spewed out over twenty missiles in every direction. Several of them were blown apart before impact, but others blew up close enough to immolate their targets, and others got through and slammed home against shields, bringing them down and opening them up for the secondary cannons on the Macross. Six more battleships died under their fire while a further three disappeared under fire from the reflex cannon. With that the Macross had blown a hole through the fleet, and was even now moving out the other side.
The Macross charged forward out of the encirclement and away. Gloval nodded. "Recall all fighters, repair crews to start work immediately. Route all power to the engines get us out of here as fast as you can."
Lisa nearly slumped at her console while behind her Sammy went to work directing her crews with the help of Kim and Vanessa watched her sensors closely to make certain the confused fleet behind them couldn't catch up. "Roger sir." She hit her com button and tried to sound less exhausted then she was. "All destroids, battle over, return to your hangers. Commander Fokker, pull your flights back in the following order: green…."
Fokker slammed his last missile into a battlepod and then looked at his sensors, letting lose an explosive breath. The only remaining battlepods were those around the monstrous melee that Ranma had created. You had to hand it to the kid, he had angered those battlepods so badly that some of them, even the ones with arms had completely forgotten everything but the need to destroy him. Roy wasn't certain how he'd done it, but he had. "Er, roger that carrier-2, um be aware there is still a fight going on out here. I'll pull Green and Vermillion back but we need to destroy the fighters still mixing it up with Blue." That said he and his squadron broke form their positions and raced to help out Blue.
Ranma's Veritech looked as if someone had taken a hammer and beaten on practically every surface. His wings were gone, and his Valkyrie's head had been almost blown off, one of his feet was missing but he was still fighting, and he brought down his robot hands onto the top of a battlepod, crushing it and using the momentum to push himself back dodging more cannon fire. As he did the two battlepods that had attempted to kill him blew up under the fire of five Valkryies in guardian mode. He looked at his radar and saw no more battlepods nearby and he looked around. "Oh, it's over?"
Lt. Prescott's voice was dry as dust as he answered. "Yes it's over we're going back to the barn now. That is if you can stop yourself from insulting us to the point we want to leave you out here."
"No I'm good. Um, but seriously, I don't think I can even transform back to guardian mode, let alone jet mode."
Roy answered him. "Don't worry kid we'll give ya a tow. Blue 2, skull 5 you two have the most battery power left, you're on tow duty. Everyone else surround them, we'll all go home together. Though I got to say kid you do have a gift for pissing people off don't ya?"
"Heh. Yeah but I think we all made our axe's flash this time."
Prescott smiled and sang out in a broken baritone "'How many of them can we make die'?"
To Roy's surprise a few of the others broke in and began to sing along. The singing may have been sub-par but the emotion was not and the survivors of the two squadrons of Valkyries flew back to Macross singing the March of Cambreadth the entire way.
end chapter.