Chaotic Space Chapter 9: Transformations are hard, a Ranma + Robotech/Macross Crossover fanfic

Neither Ranma nor Robotech are mine. Not much action in this chapter, more character building and some romance. I saw a review that mentioned some of my numbers were off in earlier chapters and I'll be going back and revising those this weekend, as I am writing more scenes to put in the prologue and flesh out the years in Nerima from two to four, thus changing the age of consent from 18 to 20 (putting Ranma at 20-21 to Lisa and Kasumi's 24 and 25) as well as paint Ranma's relationship with everyone there in a more complete light.

This chapter is dedicated to rdde who gave me the most thoughtful and helpful review for this story I've seen yet, and again I'll be changing the previous chapters to match the info he gave me. I hope he's happy with the amount of drama in this chapter as he was right, I wanted the losses from the asteroid to be as disastrous as I could make them and still leave enough of a force to use as a training cadre. This serves several purposes which will be made apparent in this and future chapters. Ranma won't feel the emotional impact as much as could be expected from him, but this will be explained later.

I will occasionally reference songs, if anyone is interested they are easy to find. The one from near the end of this chapter is called Body and Mind and is from Najica Blitz Tactics, the ending song extended.

Quick questions, should I italicize the types of destroids? And can anyone remember Gloval being really busy at any point during a battle? He acts more like a battleship captain than a carrier captain, so that's how I'm portraying him.

Search for the word Flashback to get to the new scene

Chapter 8 Transformations are more work than you think

Roy looked around the pilot's briefing room, saddened and appalled beyond belief at the number of empty spaces that had just a day ago been filled with pilots. He was also exhausted; this fight had been the toughest and by far the longest he had ever been in. No human air force could have sustained the numbers they had faced, nor kept in the fight for as long. It had been like being slowly ground up by a meat grinder, he was amazed that any of them had survived really. Not only the enemy but the g-forces would, prior to the induction of the Kevlar duranium flight suits, have spelled death for fighter pilots. With the suits the g-forces were lessened, but not totally dampened and as the fight went on the worse the effect n the pilots, forcing them to fight simple pain as well as mental and physical exhaustion.

Now he looked around mentally counting the number of pilots that had lived through it. Purple and Orange were gone completely, Orange having been caught flatfooted by the second surge of enemies that hit the defense on the port side of the ship right before they exited the asteroid belt. Only Skull had enough pilots left to really be called a squadron and all the other squads were somewhere in between Skull and Bronze, which had lost everyone but their captain. The entire Veritech force of the star fortress was a wreck.

Everyone was looking shell-shocked, exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically. Even Ranma looked exhausted, though it appeared more of an emotional thing than a physical. He was pacing the room like a caged animal, growling occasionally under his breath, his blue eyes burning with rage.

Roy was trying to think of something to say, some way to buck everyone up a little, but the words wouldn't come. Never before had he been part of a force that had been so badly decimated, and he couldn't deal with it, he was too tired, too weary himself to find the words that could dent the feeling of defeat in the air. He shared a quick glance with the surviving commanders, wondering if they had an idea of what to say but only saw the same exhausted, defeated look reflected back at him.

It was at that point captain Gloval walked into the room. Roy looked at him and was about to call the pilots to attention but Gloval waved him to silence. He stood at the front of the room and waited until all eyes were on him before speaking. "I have been a soldier my entire life, and it is still hard for me to realize that at times the objective is more important than the lives of those under your command. It was true when the UN was fighting the separatist terrorists, and it's true now. I know you all heard the rumors about how low our supplies were getting, how badly we needed more raw material, and it is only by your sacrifice that we were able to fill our bunkers. I know that does not make the loss of so many comrades easier to bear, but they did not die needlessly."

"I will never throw your lives away like that. The resources we were able to gather will go to building more Veritechs, more defenses. Our escape into the atmosphere of Saturn, an escape bought by your blood, sweat and tears will give us the gift of time. Time we will use to recuperate, to plan, to build. Until the next academy class graduates the pilots of the Carrier Air Group are stood down. Use this time to remember that there are good things in life, and that your sacrifices have allowed those things to continue to be good for everyone on board Macross." He waited a moment to see how they took his little speech. Most of them seemed to have taken it to heart a little, while others just seemed happy with the time off. After looking around a bit longer, he nodded. "Dismissed."

Roy waited until everyone had left then shook his head. "I know we needed the material boss, but Jesus. We are down to something like 45 pilots when we include the wounded, and I bet some of them will be handing us their walking papers after this. Even if we add in the pilots that weren't out there because they didn't have Valkyries, we're going to be barely at a fourth of the strength we were two weeks ago." He shook his head. "Fighting these alien bastards is just damn hard. They really don't care about their own lives, and they just keep coming! We need to figure out some way to even the odds."

Gloval nodded sadly. I know. Hopefully the defensive systems that Dr. Lang is working on will help."

"I hope so, or else we may face more attacks of this size again, and I don't think we'll survive the next time."

Lisa tried to keep calm, tried to maintain her professional demeanor while on duty but it was hard when so many men and women under her command had died today. Oh, the Valkyries were nominally under Fokker's command, and the destroids under Mannstein, but she was the one who thought up the defense strategy, who called the shots on when to fall back, who held the bubble and the entire battlefield in her mind, sending the troops where she wanted them to go, who ordered those men and women out there knowing that many of them would not be coming home.

A gentle hand touched her shoulder and she looked around into Nodoka's face. Instead of the recrimination she feared, she saw understanding and compassion. "It's hard for soldiers to go out there day after day knowing they may die, but it's often harder to send others out to do it. Come Lisa, you need rest."

Lisa hesitated, susceptible to the voice of compassion but she still had her duty. "I-I need to stay until commander Drake relieves me, I…"

"Go on Lisa," Claudia said quietly. "You know I can hold the fort here. It's not like the aliens can get at us now."

Lisa was about to object then she sagged wearily. "Alright." She followed Nodoka off the bridge, nearly falling as her tired feet caught on the lip of the hatch, but she was caught by two strong hands which pulled her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a feather.

She looked up and was caught by the exhausted but still vivid blue eyes of Ranma. "You alright there commander?" She tore her eyes away with an effort of will and nodded mutely. Ranma turned to his mom. "I wanted ta check in with ya mom, make sure ya knew I was alright. That fight was the hardest I've ever been in."

"I'm sorry" Lisa said mournfully, wanting to get the words out to express her sorrow for the pilot's losses.

"Huh, what are ya sorry for? It ain't like ya asked the aliens to attack or something." Ranma answered quizzically, head cocked to one side.

"But it was my plan," Lisa answered sadly. "I knew the fighter squadron's losses would be high, and I still pushed you all far out beyond the Defender's area of fire."

"And if ya hadn't" Ranma said reasonably, steering Lisa down the corridor with a hand on her upper arm to where they could catch a elevator to take them down to the levels that housed living quarters and the connection to the city area "I'd have never thought ta use my ki control to power up the radar enough ta find the aliens. We'd have been caught by surprise and wiped out pretty darn quick after that."

"But it was my plan that had the Valkyries stay so far out making the squadrons unable to cover eachother." Lisa responded stubbornly. She knew it was her fault all those men and women had died, so why couldn't he just let her feel guilty about it?

"Which gave us more room to maneuver, which let us hold off the enemy fer longer than we would have otherwise. It also let the gatherin' continue, which was sort of the whole point for the battle in the first place according ta the captain."

"But-"

"But nothing, look, it's true our losses are horrible but that would have happened regardless o' the plan. Commander Hayes, you're a damn good tactical officer, but ya can't blame yourself when the enemy proves ta be yer match like they did this time. Without their better coordination and numbers we could have smashed the attack for a lot less in terms of losses. It ain't your fault we lost so many." He stopped as the elevator opened before them and the three walked through before continuing. "It's, it's gonna take a long time fer me ta come to terms with losing so many of my squad-mates too when I know I could of done more."

Lisa looked at him sharply. "Bullshit ensign, no, Ranma, you're only one pilot among many and despite your somewhat amazing abilities, you can still only be in one place at a time."

Ranma shook his head stubbornly. "I could only get the one ki attack ta work through the Veritech. If I could have gotten some of the others ta work I coulda been a lot more effective."

"Or" Nodoka countered as she knew something of the experiments Ranma had run in that direction, as well as having more than a passing knowledge about ki in general. "You could have ended up killing yourself for little return. I think that both of you performed your duty as well as you could." They both stared back at her rather rebelliously, and if the discussion hadn't been about something so serious, she would almost have been tempted to laugh as they seemed to mirror one another. Instead she sighed, and pulled them both into a hug.

Lisa resisted at first, but then collapsed against her, while Ranma didn't react at all at first, before gently returned the hug, holding her as if he thought she was made of glass. "It is a problem of the young that you always think that you can do more than you actually can, especially when you know that you are good at your vocation. But you are only human my dears, and can only do as much as humanly possible. Do not berate yourselves for being merely mortal."

Lisa woman-fully stifled her tears. She had never really known her mother, who had left before she was out of diapers but this was what she imagined her mother would be like, and after the emotional and mental rollercoaster of the fight it was a little too much. Nice as hell, but damn embarrassing. Ranma thankfully was in much the same straights and so missed her little moment.

The two young people managed to recover their self-control by the time the elevator brought them down to the city area, but pointedly did not look at one another. Neither of them were really at home with expressing emotions like that, and having shared such a moment however accidentally was something neither were prepared for.

As Lisa was preparing to bid farewell to the two Sugitas she was surprised to be enveloped in another sudden hug. The hug was released almost immediately as the hugger, who she could now see was Kasumi, moved on to hug Ranma with enough force to make the young man wince. The longer haired girl was babbling as she rounded on Lisa again, hugging her hard. "Iwassoworriedweheardaboutthebattleasitwasgoingona reyoubothallright?"

Lisa was surprised and touched by Kasumi's concern for her. She knew how close Kasumi and Ranma were, though the nature of their relationship was something she didn't speculate on. But Kasumi had become one of her own closest friends, second only to Claudia and it was nice to know that someone had been so concerned for her. She instinctively hugged her friend back and the two stood there for a moment before Kasumi pulled away, leaving one arm around Lisa's waist and grabbing Ranma's hand with the other. "Please, come, I made dinner and we can talk."

Lisa was about to make her automatic refusal, not wanting to intrude on what was a family gathering but Kasumi's use of the deadly puppy-dog eye attack killed the words before they could form. She meekly nodded, and Kasumi led her and Ranma away. Nodoka however was able to wave her off. "I'll go see the Lynns. Young Rick was in the fight and Minmei is probably worried about him, and I'll be able to use them to feed the rumor mill some actual information before it can get going too badly. How was he doing anyway Ranma?"

Ranma shrugged, allowing Kasumi to retain control of his arm as he replied quickly before she could drag him away. "He was going ta camp out in Roy's room for the night, he was nearly asleep on his feet by the time I landed."

Nodoka nodded and waved the three young people goodbye, watching fondly as Kasumi, calm, oftentimes meek Kasumi dragged the two soldiers away.

The three friends passed their time after eating Kasumi's magnificent meal going around the city to see the sights, almost as if Kasumi understood their need to get away from anything that could remind them of the battle.

Ranma watched as Lisa and Kasumi ate huge portions of ice cream from a vendor that had opened shop in the city centers park. He smiled suddenly leaning back and looking at the girls and then around the park at the dozen or so civilians that were enjoying the parks paths, even some children enjoying the small swing set despite it being a little late for that. The news of the Veritech losses hadn't trickled down yet, and for now the scene was peaceful.

"This is why I fight y'know." When Lisa and Kasumi looked at Ranma his smile widened. "I don't just fight cause I like it, though I do, I do it fer people like Kasumi and everyone else here. So they can keep living as they want ta." He shook his head. "The captain made a point to talk about us achieving the objective, of holding out long enough to get the asteroids gathered so they could give us more stuff ta fight with but he really should have pointed that out too."

Lisa nodded. "You're right Ranma it does make it easier to see why we put ourselves in danger so often."

Ranma nodded and Kasumi smiled gently, reaching over and touching his cheek. "But don't forget that those of us who you protect would much rather you come back to us alive and whole." Lisa almost blushed at the amount of emotion shown in that exchange, and Ranma did blush but he also raised a hand to take Kasumi's hand in his own. The three spent another hour together, then Lisa was able to bow out and head back to her own quarters, more at peace with herself than she had been before, and wringing a promise from Kasumi to have a cooking lesson the next day at noon.

As soon as her friend had left, Kasumi dragged Ranma back to their rooms in the ship around the city, where most of the military personnel and their friends/significant others/families lived. When the door shut behind them Kasumi pinned Ranma to the door and kissed him hungrily.

It was the first time she had initiated this kind of contact, at least to this extent, little kisses on cheeks and foreheads were the norm, but this was something else entirely. Ranma's eyes widened in shock and at first he tried to get away, but when Kasumi tightened her grip on him almost desperately he closed his eyes and began to return the kiss. When Kasumi slid her tongue out to touch his lips Ranma opened his mouth willingly and met it with his own. His arms moved around her, one hand resting on the small of her back, the other moving down and first rubbing her rear gently then when she began to grind against him he started to fondle her rear more roughly earning as moan in approval.

Ranma started to move the two out of the entranceway and into the main sitting area, bumping off walls and nearly falling several times as Kasumi refused to break their lip lock and Ranma was reluctant to do so. The make out session had awakened something Ranma had forcibly buried when he hit puberty, and it was coming back with a vengeance with the writhing, lithe and utterly desirable form of Kasumi in his arms moaning encouragement.

Using his firm grip on her rear, Ranma lifted Kasumi into the air with one hand the other reaching out to slow their fall onto the sofa. Kasumi moaned in disappointment as he was forced remove the hand that had been on her rear. As they sat down, with her in Ranma's lap she reluctantly broke off their kiss and Ranma leaned back, staring into Kasumi's luminescent brown eyes. Before he could speak she reached up with a gentle hand, covering his mouth. "I love you." She stated simply, and he flushed under her gaze.

"I've loved you for a while now, possibly even before we left Nerima, certainly by the time the aliens attacked. And I know you won't marry me." She said this simply. Knowing what Ranma's objections would be, she had long prepared this speech but the hard fighting, and the fear it made her feel, had prompted her to speed things up. "I was there when you made your oath never to marry anyone from a family who your father had made a pact with, and I know that includes me. And I don't care." (see new portions of the prologue when I add them, a flashback would not do the scene where he made this oath justice)

She chuckled lightly at his gob smacked expression, after all every girl who showed him any interest had simply jumped from being a stranger or acquaintance to fiancé without any stop for any actual courting, so of course Ranma thought that was all any girl would want. Genma made such a mess with his multiple betrothal contracts that Ranma literally had to make that vow to protect himself. "I just want you, as much of you as I can have. I don't want to own you, control you or anything like that, but I refuse to live my life without you by my side. I know you will have to marry someone else to carry along the family name and as long as I get along with the person I won't object to merely being a mistress." Ranma made to speak but she pinched his lips closed. "Let me finish. I know that seems to be far too old fashioned, but I know I could be happy like that. The question, the only question you need to answer right now is 'how do you feel about me'?"

Ranma stared into her eyes for a few minutes before answering but when he did his voice was as firm as she had ever heard it, and she nearly shouted out loud in joy. "I love you; I have for a long time too, way before we left Nerima, you were the only good thing in my life before my mom showed up, and ya just…" He paused before speaking slowly, "You were my rock, the one thing I could count on, the one person who not only said she cared but showed it. At first I thought it was a big sister sort of feeling but the longer I was around ya the more it changed. But I made my oath, and I never go back on my word. I just never thought ya would care for a freak like me in return, or if ya did ya'd want ta marry me, and that was the one thing I couldn't do."

"Baka", Kasumi said affectionately bringing Ranma down to kiss him again by grabbing his pigtail, and this time there was no hesitation in Ranma's kiss, and she bucked up as her libido, which had subsided came back with a vengeance with the feel of his tongue in her mouth spurring her on. She broke off, kissing down the side of his smooth neck between words, shivering as Ranma's hands began to play with her sides and thighs. "Marriage or no, I want to live my life with you, why bother putting labels on it?"

Ranma's voice was husky with barely repressed lust as he answered "No reason I can see." He began to nip at her neck in turn.

They again began to make out, hands roving and mouths never leaving one another until Kasumi had to once more come up for air. "Make love to me Ranma" she moaned. "I could lose you in any battle I want to have that memory at least."

At those words Ranma fought off his lust induced haze enough to actually think about what she had said. After a moment he shook his head slowly. "No, not like this." At her hurt look he hastened to explain. "I want ta, believe me I want ta make love ta you until we both collapse, but not like this, not when a bit of what started this was yer fear of losing me. We'll wait a bit, until I can make it perfect for us and when we both go in with wanting just that, not wanting ta do it 'cause we want the memory in case I die. Besides" he finished, with that smirk that made nearly every girl who saw it go weak at the knees "I'm the best, I ain't gonna die like that."

Kasumi was about to insist when his words registered through her own hormones and she realized he was right. If she hadn't heard how bad the battle was, how many Valkyrie pilots had died in it then she would never have been this forward. Not that she was complaining about how things turned out of course. "All right Ranma but soon? I've wanted this for so long, I'm afraid my self-control will snap if I have to wait much longer."

Ranma's smirk faded into something softer and much more tender causing Kasumi to nearly melt where she sat. "I promise. Just as soon as I can figure out a way to make it perfect for you, us, it'll happen. Till then," and now his smirk was back "It don't mean we can't make out if we want ta."

"Oh well why didn't you say so?" Kasumi answered with a smile of her own and Ranma leaned in to capture her lips with his own again.

The two continued to make out until Ranma pulled back not to take a breath but to yawn, the fatigue of the day catching up to even him. The two reluctantly decided to end it there for the night and after one final, searing kiss and mutual 'I love you's' they went to bed each in their own room. Ranma was so tired he was barely able to take off his clothing before he collapsed on top of the bed, not even bothering to pull the covers over him. He was asleep in moments, but he was smiling when he did. Kasumi in her room across the hall also fell asleep quickly, though her smile was particularly naughty looking in comparison to her normal peaceful expression.

The next morning Gloval called a council session, though he allowed commander's Hayes and Fokker to sit out this time. Claudia took Hayes' place, and he himself would speak for the flight crews. He began the meeting by describing yesterday's action in clipped analytical terms, making certain the civilians knew the severity of their losses but not dwelling on them. After he was done he stated: "I called this meeting for three reasons. One, I want to hear any and all suggestions on ways to cut down losses sustained among our Valkyrie forces. Two, we need to either shorten the academy training regimen, or open them up to more people and thus get more bodies into Valkyries. And three, to ask Dr. Lang and Ms Porter to go over the resources so dearly bought, and what their plans are for them. I am also informing you that the ship will remain in the atmosphere of Saturn until the city is prepared for the modular transformation Dr. Lang informed us of the during the last meeting and our starfighter corps has recovered enough hto be an effective fighting force again."

He held up a hand to forestall Mayor Luan's protests. The other civilian representatives appeared resigned, or perhaps subdued by the losses sustained among the Veritech and destroid forces. After a moment as no one spoke up in support Luan subsided.

Dr. Lang motioned to Sammy, who nodded and began her report. "Sir, we have been able to analyze the amount of asteroid detritus we collected and for the most part it will fill our requirements. We picked up enough heavy metals to completely restock our factories, and our smelters are already at work on it. There doesn't seem to be much super dense metals like uranium or vanadium, but what we do find is being placed aside. Those metals are some of the main ingredients for the batteries that are then filled with reflux energy from the engine. We also seem to have picked up a lot more silicates than we thought, and once we figure out how to change it, will enable us to make microchips and circuit boards, though it will be much slower than the other processes. That is why the decommissioning of the Phalanx companies has continued. We estimate it will take fifteen hours per destroid to reduce it down to the useable parts, but afterward we will have a lot of missile weapon systems to add to our tertiary defense. Um," she faltered and looked at Dr. Lang "Dr. Lang has some ideas about how to use the silicates in other ways, so I'll hand over the report to him."

Dr Lang nodded. "My theories on defense are based off the fact that we now have the ability to create batteries, and we will soon have the parts necessary to build more mobile barriers. With enough of them and enough batteries to power my old concept of a reinforced hull we can make the Macross invulnerable to small arms fire, and incredibly resistant to main battery fire. For offense, rather than add weapons to the fortress itself, as that would take to much metal that could be used to make Veritechs, I have devised two rough and ready unmanned weapon systems that can be shot out into space. The first will be based off the missile arms of the Phalanx destroids. We simply slap on a maneuvering thruster, a communication device and a targeting computer and voila! Simple but effective. My next idea is even more old-fashioned." He grinned at them, like an aging professor who wanted to see if his students were listening. "Now, does anyone know what else besides microchips silicon and sand is used to create?"

Nodoka answered first but her face was still puzzled. "Mirrors I believe, but I fail to see how they could be used as a weapon?"

"Not in atmosphere miss, but in open space, oh yes. You see the mirrors can be used to reflect sunlight. Sunlight is one of the most powerful energies in the universe, every second the sun puts out a million times more energy than the earth consumes in a year, and if we can make artificial sapphire, we can reflect the sun and turn it into laser beams."

Everyone around the table seemed struck by the idea of that kind of a weapon system and Emil shrugged. "Unfortunately, both of these weapons systems would be highly susceptible to AOE and aimed return fire. We would probably have to either pull them in before the enemy battlepods come into their own weapons range, or be forced to replace them after every battle."

"I'm also working on making the barrier system smaller and more portable. As it is, it would weigh down a Valkyrie or destroid so much that they would be unable to move. My other ideas have to do with ways to use reflux energy, and hopefully now that we're safe for a time I'll be able to devote more time to them."

Gloval nodded and looked hopefully at the others. Surprisingly Nodoka was the first to speak. "The first harvest will be coming in soon, and after that my department won't need so much manpower., we've been able to devise robots to tend to most of the crops other than the rice fields. That will free up a large portion of the civilian population for other jobs, well, as long as we can have them back for each harvest, which isn't exactly a set time, but still. I also had a thought about the academy. If we could perhaps offer incentives for their families more young people would be willing to join up."

Captain Conner scowled at that. "We don't want men or women with us that we had to bribe to get there in the first place!"

Gloval disagreed. "We need more manpower in the Veritech forces. Incentives like that is a good idea, as is waiving the physical requirements, which was my thought. Now, what about preparing the city for the modular transformation?" The meeting continued from there.

Even while he was participating Conner watched everything with irritated and worried eyes. He had been worried from the start how much autonomy the captain of the Macross would have from the SDF high command. The more independent from logistical needs and supply the ship became the more that pronounced that autonomy. And now Gloval was summarily dismissing years of tradition and military law in waiving the academy entry requirements. Oh the losses they sustained were bad, but surely not bad enough to let in the riffraff, and as for the idea of letting the civilians know how badly things were and making them part of the decision making process?! As if the civilians could be expected to understand military matters or understand that losses were sometimes unavoidable.

Gloval was known as a radical in military circles but he had also been known as a good diplomat and motivator which were the reasons he had been chosen by the UN Security Council despite the low key disapproval from those in higher command. He was supposed to be only second in command on ship, with an admiral on board to actually make any decisions, but the admiral hadn't been chosen before the aliens attacked, and Gloval had used that as an excuse (an obvious one in Conner's opinion) to get away from Earth before that could be rectified. Now he saw Gloval unilaterally taking more and more authority and it worried him.

He had hoped that taking over command of the destroids from Mannstein would give him enough authority to offset and even challenge Gloval but instead he had failed miserably. Not only had he been unable to understand the maneuvers necessary he had not shown any aptitude in operating a destroid. When he was transferred to the academy he thought it again would give him a power base, his own crew having been completely assimilated into the battleships. But he had found his control of the academy curtailed sharply, so much so he was acting more as an organizer and paper pusher than policy maker. Now he watched through slightly narrowed eyes as Gloval and the others made decisions that should rightly have been made by the admirals back on earth and he frowned in growing concern.

It would have come as a complete shock to him to know that as he was watching everyone else Claudia Grant was watching him.

Having been ordered to take the day off, Lisa Hayes woke up at the luxuriant hour of ten o'clock the next day. Not that she had complained about it, her eyes were still sore from the hours of staring at her screen and her brain from the hours or worry and organizing everything.

She spoiled herself by taking a long bubble bath before she dressed in one of the few civilian outfits she had, which consisted of a long skirt that came to just below the knees and a red blouse. She grabbed an apron she had bought when her cooking lessons had started and then headed over to Kasumi's. Well that was the way she thought of it, anyway. Everyone else thought of it as the Sugita's, but she was closer to Kasumi than she was to Ranma.

As she wasn't in a hurry she decided to walk rather than take one of the robotic jeeps that moved along the hallways of the ship, thus getting a little more exercise. She hadn't been able to exercise as much as she had wanted to for nearly a month now. By the time she arrived it was around twelve, just in time for her cooking lesson with Kasumi.

Kasumi answered the door promptly as she knocked, smiling brightly as she saw her friend. A little too brightly actually, and Lisa looked at her friend oddly as her fellow brunette bowed her inside. "Hello Lisa, how are you this afternoon? I thought we would start with soups and then move on to egg rolls and rice dishes before hitting on pastas next time."

Lisa nodded, one eyebrow cocked, a small smirk appearing on her lips as she thought of possible reasons her friend could be so happy. "I'm fine, somewhat recovered from the fatigue of the battle anyway, but you seem a bit… manic if you don't mind me saying so. Something happen between you and Ranma?"

Kasumi giggled happily as she led the way into the kitchen. "Oh my you could say that." She went on to describe what had occurred and their discussion last night as well as what it meant for them going forward.

Lisa frowned as she put the finishing touches on a simple chicken soup (which she would be taking with her when she left for her dinner) while Kasumi watched. "On the one hand I can understand why you're happy Kasumi, but I just don't understand why you would say you'd be happy as a mistress. That's so bizarre to me, maybe that's just the American in me but I don't think that I could stand being second in someone's affections." Though having any affection at all would be nice she thought wistfully before crushing the thought with her memories of Karl and her desire to remain true to his memory.

Kasumi shook her head as she sipped at the broth, then winced and put the ladle down, motioning toward her still bruised lips and indicating that Lisa should take over taste-testing. "It isn't that I would be second in his affections at all so much that I would be happy to share them. I knew his honor, his word was important to him long before I started to have feelings for him, so I knew that whatever the outcome a formal marriage wouldn't be in the cards. I love him Lisa, and I know that he loves me, so why do I need anything else? And I know how big his heart is, I know he won't try to replace me or that I would ever be crowded out. Besides, love need not only be between one man and a woman, it can grow to include other people."

Lisa shook her head. "It still sounds really wrong to me Kasumi, but congratulations anyway."

"Thank You Lisa, now could you get Ranma up for me? His room is the first one on the left."

Lisa nodded absently her mind still on the conversation they had been having as she walked past the sitting area and into the hallway behind. When she reached the first door on the left she noticed it was open and curious to see what Ranma's room would look like she poked her head inside, thus proving that cats and women are alike in at least one way. She looked inside and gasped aloud, her eyes widening in shock and embarrassment as the rest of her face slowly changed color to resemble a tomato.

Ranma was indeed still sleeping, but what Kasumi had apparently not known was that Ranma liked to sleep in the nude. At present he was sleeping sprawled out on his back, his sharply defined abs rising and falling as he lay there. If he had been fully clothed his pose would have been funny, as it was, it was one of the sexiest things Lisa had ever seen. Her eyes involuntarily tracked downwards, and if possible widened further as they passed his abs and centered on the area below. My god I didn't think real dicks came that large! For some reason she felt a little warm down below as her eyes went back up to Ranma's face then down again, tracing every line of musculature and resting only for a moment on his horse bits.

She didn't know how long she stood there, but eventually she regained control of herself and moved back out of the room, shutting the door silently. She waited until she could keep her voice level and then called in a loud voice "Ranma, lunch is almost ready, Kasumi wants"

She was interrupted by the sound of mad scrambling in the room she had just exited, and suddenly Ranma was there. "Did someone say food?" He asked, wildly, unbound hair sticking out in all directions as he looked at her. His stomach chose that moment to gurgle loudly, and he flushed.

The sight of the young man so embarrassed and so eager for food drove the erotic sight of him from earlier out of her mind and Lisa laughed, shaking her head. "Come on, oh hungry one" she teased, "I promise it won't run away."

Ranma grinned sheepishly and the two joined Kasumi at the table. Ranma sat down and as they began to eat "So how much of this did you make Lisa?"

Lisa smiled. Something she had been worried about before becoming friends with Ranma was how he would handle being friends with a superior officer, but he had turned out to be very good about it, only referring to her rank or call sign on the radio and being very respectful, playful at times, but respectful when on duty.

She was suddenly filled with a desire to tease her friends, and she did so with a smile. "Well I only made the miso soup but I did a lot of taste testing. Kasumi was complaining of her lips hurting, I wonder why?"

Ranma choked on what he was eating, and Kasumi blushed red. "Liiiissaaa" she whined.

Lisa laughed for a moment then said "Seriously though, I'm happy for you both, whatever the long term issues, I think you two make a great couple." She sternly sat on the image of Ranma from a few moments ago, shoving it into the dark of her mind where she could ignore it safely (or so she thought, that night it would come back to haunt her).

The meal continued and Ranma made a point to compliment both of the cooks equally. Kasumi dominated the discussion, telling them how her studies were going and thanking Lisa profusely for her lessons on computers. As the meal ended Ranma asked Lisa a question. "Hey Lisa, who can I talk ta about what we've all learned about the aliens? Especially stuff about the music attack and their language?"

Lisa blinked, having to actually think about the answer before replying. "Lt. Commander Gritel heads our intelligence division, well he is the intelligence division really. We didn't launch with anywhere near a full crew, and his department hadn't been filled out at all yet. I don't think I've seen much from him actually, other than telling us how long and how much a battlepod would take to build at our current industrial level. And something about their communications and that their hearing was probably way better than ours, hence the problem that the music attack caused during the breakout. It isn't like we've really been able to discover much about them."

"Hmm, yeah I wanted ta say something about that actually, I don't think that's the only reason that attack worked. I didn't want ta bring it up at the time, not with Rick mouthing off, I like the kid, but he really needs ta learn ta shut up." Lisa nodded fervent agreement. Rick's mouthing off really irritated her.

Kasumi however smirked. "I heard from Claudia-san that he only mouths off at you though. Unresolved sexual attraction perhaps?"

Lisa blanched, appalled at the thought but Ranma shook his head, saving her sanity. "Nah, he's dating one of the bridge trio, can't remember who. And I think Minmei might like him too. I don't think he's dumb enough to go looking for more trouble." Lisa let loose a deep breath of relief at that.

He deliberately changed the subject back to its original topic, carefully not noticing the gleam in Kasumi's eyes. "But I think that attack didn't work 'cause the aliens couldn't handle the distraction, not just the volume."

"Distraction, combat is full of distractions, why would adding music have so profound an impact?" Lisa asked.

"Don't think it was just music, I think they can't handle anythin' not directly part of the combat. Didn't ya see what I was doing in that battle?"

"Other than your save of the bridge from that missile swarm, no" Lisa said dryly. "Thanks again for that by the way."

Kasumi on the other hand saw the glitter in Ranma's eyes and she groaned. "Ranma, you didn't!"

"Heh yep I did, I found out a way to piss off aliens. It's one of the tenants of my martial arts school" he explained to Lisa about his father and the 'make them mad make them stupid' technique. "And I was able ta find out the aliens react even worse ta distractions and stuff than humans do."

"How in the world did you piss of aliens we can't even communicate with?" Lisa asked, curious despite herself.

"Had my robot bend over and moon them" he said simply and both women surprised themselves by bursting into laughter. "But there's only so much I could do with stuff like that. These aliens don't react well ta that stuff, and when they're attackin' me, they ignored everyone else, making 'em easy ta kill, but I want ta expand my repertoire."

"Well if you think it will help Lt. Cm. Griftel's office is on the fifteenth floor in the forward section, the office should have signs out with directions once you get into that area."

"Cool, I think I'll head there now, since we're stood down and all. I'll see you two around." Ranma popped the last piece of tempura into his mouth and with a jaunty wave and a kiss on Kasumi's cheek he left, leaving behind two giggling girls who decided to make a day of it. After cleaning they headed out themselves up to the cities park and shopping district.

It was nearly two in the afternoon when Roy finally made his way to his office. He and Claudia had spent the night together, and he had just woken up about forty minutes earlier. As he expected he found mountains of paperwork and operational decisions waiting for him but luckily, for him anyway, he had the help (I.E. had roped them in) of the surviving squad commanders. He knew they had all been stood down, but it was best to get some things done as quickly as possible. "So where the hell do we start with this shit?"

Eric looked at him askance and Albert Pike, Robert Malon, Ivan Gregorovich and Zack Fontero, the commanders of Vermillion, Bronze, Gold and Green respectively looked at him with cold eyes through their hangover induced migraines. Pike took it upon himself to express their displeasure to his old friend. "You called us here, pulled us from our nice warm beds or whatever" he carefully did not look at Ivan who had apparently been rousted from someone else's bed, not the one in his own quarters, "and you don't have any idea of where to start?"

Roy ignored their looks with the panache of long acquaintance and sighed. "We might as well start from the beginning I suppose. Do any of you want to recommend someone to fill the empty commander slots?"

Robert scowled angrily. "How many of the squadrons are we going to keep? We don't have enough pilots to fill them all to even half strength." He was the only survivor of his entire squadron, and he was understandably bitter about it. Still Roy made a mental note to make certain Malon made an appointment with one of the shrinks aboard the ship. Hell, he'd better make certain that all the troops knew to head to one of them if they or their commanding officers felt they should.

"Remember that in two more months we'll have the next class form the academy joining us. And we might be hiding here longer than that, remember we're here until the city is prepared for the main cannon transformation."

Zack joined in "that's all well and good, but if we don't find some way to keep our pilots alive we'll always be riding the wrong end of the survival curve." Including him, Green squadron had been reduced to only four effectives.

"Dr. Lang's working on that, he wants to find a way to put a barrier system on a Valkyrie. He can do it already, but the Valkyrie wouldn't be able to move or fly very fast so it needs a lot of work. As for captains, I'd recommend we simply brevet the surviving lt.s, but who are we going to replace them with?" said Ivan, who had a background in engineering.

The commanders all muttered among themselves, discussing the surviving lieutenants, wondering which to bump up to command the remaining squadrons and who they would replace them with. It was decided Lt. Granger from Skull squad would take over White, and Lt Dorain, the surviving lt. from Tan would take over there. He'd done a good job in the retreat into the fortress after his captain went down. The third choice for Silver had too little experience for any of them to be happy about it, but Lt. Foss had the seniority of the remaining Lt.s and thus got the nod. For now that would give them the command structure for nine squads from the eleven they had gone into the battle in the asteroid belt with, and they would fill them up with veterans from the fight. Having lost all their men Orange and Purple would be retired as color designations. Pilots were superstitious and on one would want to fly under a designation that had been wiped out. Every commander but Eric also put forth their choices for new Lt.s for their own squadrons. Roy scowled but acquiesced when Robert tapped Lt Orden, Skull's third officer to be his second.

Decisions for further squads would be made after the academy graduated its second class and they saw who showed leadership abilities from the new Lt.s but Roy waved that conversation of saying the new commanders would pick from the remaining pilots after Vermillion and Skull were filled with veterans from the survivors and the pilots who hadn't been able to participate. "I want those squadrons to be made into elite teams, the type that can be at the forefront of the fighting every time. I'll eventually want three other squads to become like that as well, but for now that'll leave us with a workable training cadre that can be used to bring the newbies up to speed and give us a hardened strike force at the same time. We'll make the other squads training squads and fill them up with newbies and rotate pilots into them but we will keep to nine quads for now." He turned to look at Eric. "You never said who you wanted to make your new Lieutenant."

Eric smirked, "see, here's the thing, I think I want to make Ranma my new second. He showed good leadership skills and situational awareness out there, helping and watching everyone's back. He'd be accepted by all my surviving pilots but I know he's not ready for the organizational aspect or the red tape that comes with it."

Roy nodded. "You're right, he's way too green to be promoted, and you're right about what he needs experience in. So call him in tomorrow and explain the joys of paperwork to him. Make him your batman for a bit until we get everything organized and see how he responds. In return I'll let you keep both him and Rick Hunter until the third academy class graduates even though I could move them both to the elite squadrons right now. They both more than earned it."

Eric nodded but Robert shook his head. "Ensign Sugita needs a lot more seasoning in what it means to be in the military before he's ready to be bumped a rank. He basically ignored a chance to fall back and rearm to stay in the fight. He's effective I'll grant you but he needs to be more of a team player and learn to obey orders much more quickly."

"He was scary even without ammunition and I disagree, I think he's a great team player."

"Alright, that's enough. But for the record I agree with Eric on this one, military protocol be damned, out here it's about survivors, killers and teamwork, those are the only things that matter."

The meeting continued after that as the six of them hammered together their new roster while elsewhere in the ship the topic of that acrimonious discussion was trying to find out enough to do what he did best: piss his enemies off.

It took Ranma more than an hour to traverse the ship to where the intelligence department located. Once there he was not impressed. Paper was strewn everywhere, but most of it from what he could see looked as if it was made of schematics about the battlepods and the triangle fighter planes that he hadn't, come to think of it, seen for a while. Nothing he could use. "Hey, anyone in here?"

A rustling to his left drew his attention to a desk set against the left wall and a pile was pushed aside to show the face of the unremarkable man he had seen on his first day on the battleship. "Er, hello, Sugita right? Can I help you ensign?"

From up close he seemed to be Italian, though Ranma could barely tell. His English had a bit of an accent, and he sounded somewhat dismissive even though he didn't know why Ranma was there, which got the younger man's back up.

"Yeah actually. Have you looked at the records of the dogfight during the breakout, I mean besides the effect of the music attack?" Ranma asked, pushing some paper off a chair and sitting down. When the man shook his head he asked he described what he had done and the major effect it had on his enemies. "I mean, they reacted way worse than any of my old rivals did, even the one that would react badly to me saying 'hi', at least he'd still fight with a brain and be aware of his surroundings, these aliens didn't and weren't. My squad mates," he paused. Of those teammates that had been in Blue for that fight before the Valkyries were reorganized around the academy grades, Prescott was the only one he knew for certain was still alive, and the odds of the others still being alive weren't good. "They all said that the ones I pissed off by mooning 'em ignored them even when my squad mates opened fire."

Griftel blinked. "Honestly that's news to me. I never saw anything like that in the logs. But why do you think that's important, I mean that's something that should only work once, maybe twice before they learn to ignore it. Humans learn to ignore distractions fairly easily, so it would only take a few survivors to tell everyone else and boom there goes that advantage."

"But you're assuming that aliens will be able ta react like humans. What if they can't, or don't? And even if they learn ta ignore one kind of insult what about others? Their bodies are basically ours done large, what if we make scat jokes, what if we insult their hair color, skin color, height? Insutlin' is an art form that evolves as yer enemies react and ya change yer insults ta match. There's only so much I can do with posing in my Veritech though and I was wonderin' if ya had managed to crack their language or make a translator?"

"No I haven't. They haven't made any attempt to communicate with us after all, and the transmissions we've been able to grab aren't enough to give us a starting point. Really Ensign I think that you're barking up the wrong tree here. I'm certain the aliens are far too bright for that kind of thing to work on them more than once." Griftel sounded a little condescending and repressive, and Ranma bristled.

"Alright well, I'm just gonna have ta figure this out myself. Maybe if ya can do yer job from now on you'll come up with yer own idea rather than just shooting mine down." He left behind him a gaping and very angry lt. Cm. Ranma however was frustrated and didn't care at all. He decided to go burn off some energy before he did something he'd get in trouble for later. Before he even left the area however his violent thoughts were broken off when his data-pad beeped at him.

Kasumi and Lisa hooked up with Claudia after the council meeting ended to go shopping and make a girls day out. They had wanted to meet up with the gossip trio as well, but they had all disappeared somewhere as soon as they got off their early morning shift. With the ship safe and in hiding, and with nothing in the way of navigational hazards to look out for, the crew rotation had been changed to an in dock footing, giving most of the crew ten hours off for every four hours on, and this gave the bridge crew more time for their own pursuits. The only exceptions to the rule were the workers in the factories and the smelting areas, but those were also manned almost entirely by civilian workers by this point, freeing up sailors for more important tasks.

The three had just finished buying new cell phones and were now just walking around taking random pictures with them and had decided to go to the lake park area. Mannstein had completely renovated the entire area and opened it to the public using the trainees, making the work an alternative to normal PT, and the area looked great, though it was more closed in than the city's park, and military personnel still used it to exercise.

Claudia was explaining how she and Roy met to an interested Kasumi as Lisa looked around wonderingly, awed all over again that all this was still inside a battleship in space. The artificial sun was still not operational but the lighting was the only way you could tell this area wasn't on some base on Earth. She reached down and felt the now lushly growing grass under her fingers and nearly burst out laughing at the strange dichotomy of her soul. She had always thought space and space exploration was the most fascinating thing that she could ever be a part of, and she loved the view through the screen on the bridge, but she also loved the feeling of nature around her.

Lisa looked up quizzically as she noticed the gossip trio moving through the few trees the area had, looking as if they were trying (and failing) to sneak around. She nudged Claudia. "I wonder what those three are up to." Kasumi looked too, and as the three young ladies moved forward after the younger trio, they began to hear music through the trees in front of the skulking trio.

Sneaking up behind them Lisa said in a whisper "What are you doing?"

Sammy and Vanessa apparently didn't hear her, and instead took out a video recorder and a camera respectively. Kim however did answer. "We're here to get some more pics and maybe a video of 'Hunkma'. The other pics we took sold out last weekend."

Kasumi groaned but Claudia asked "Who's 'Hunkma', and why the hell are you selling pictures of him?"

"Ranma, duh. The guys at the academy had the idea initially when he was there of taking pictures of his female form, and the girls followed it up with pictures of his male form. They sell like hot cakes, even better now that the economy's shifted back to cash rather than meal tickets…" Kim's voice trailed off as she at last turned around to see who she was talking too, and her face paled.

"Oh really?" Lisa said rather coldly. "That sounds like extortion to me, and maybe selling voyeuristic pornography."

Vanessa and Sammy turned at this point and their faces also paled.

Kasumi however spoke up. "I doubt Ranma cares, so long as you don't sneak around into the showers or his room. He's used to the attention, though I'm certain he won't like it if he knows that someone is taking pictures of his female form." She frowned, and as anyone from Nerima could tell you, a frowning Kasumi was a very frightening thing.

"We don't take pictures of his female form, sometimes it's in the video we make of him exercising, but that's it. And we always make certain the pictures are tasteful, nothing, you know, below the belt." Vanessa trialed off.

"I still think it's wrong, but I won't report you so long as you keep everything clean." Lisa looked at Sammy. "I'm surprised at you Sammy, aren't you going out with ensign Hunter? What would he think of you looking at another man like that?"

Now that she knew they weren't going to get into any trouble Sammy's natural insouciance came back to her and she stuck her tongue out playfully. "Just because I already have a boyfriend doesn't mean I can't window shop a little. Besides I know Rick checks out other girls, Minmei in particular and it's not like either of us have made any promises to one another or anything."

Claudia looked at them and shook her head. "I know he's a little handsome but really what the hell is the attraction of Ranma?"

Kim and Vanessa giggled, and their eyes closed dreamily. Sammy just waved Claudia forward to look through the bushes into the clearing beyond. Claudia did so and gulped involuntarily. "Oh my."

At that moment Ranma was going through one his katas while to the side Rick was finishing up a rep of sit ups. This kata was more about balance, grace and precision than anything else and it had been one of the first he ever learned, and it was one of the ones he most enjoyed. It wasn't about power, it was about control, the heart and soul of the art in his mind and he moved through it, mind blank save the movements, like a dancer lost in the moment. He knew other people were watching but he didn't care. Right now all that mattered was his kata. The fact he was doing it shirtless however mattered quite a bit to his watchers.

After a few minutes he finished and turned to look at Rick. "Alright, today were going to work on the speed of yer punches, so I'm gonna show you a kata and yer going to work on it for an hour. After that we'll switch ta leg exercises and then run fer a bit. Before we do though what was it you wanted to ask me?"

Rick stood up and moved to where Ranma indicated. "Its, well it's kind of complicated. I'd ask Roy for advice because he's older but you're the only other male friend I've made here. It's the word friend though that is causing me problems."

Ranma began to move through the kata he wanted Rick to do, going slowly so Rick could watch all the movements as they flowed together. "I'll want ya ta do this at speed but watch it in slow-mo for now. And I'll bite, how can the word 'friend' be causing you problems?"

Rick grunted as he began to move into the kata. "Because Minmei keeps using it! Oh you're such a great friend Rick, I'm so glad to have a friend like you Rick, I don't understand it!"

"Aren't you going out with one of the bridge trio?"

"Well yeah Sammy and I are a couple I guess, but that's more because we both are in it for fun, there really isn't, you know an emotional connection. With Minmei I thought there was one, but now I'm wondering if that was all in my head."

Ranma didn't answer for a moment, reaching over and correcting Rick's stance. "Okay that's a little weird ta me, I ain't the guy you need to ask about 'only in it for the fun' relationships. If ya ask me though, it's always better to be friends too. I think ya need ta do two things: one, figure out why you're in a relationship with Sammy if it's just a short time thing and you think you have feelings for Minmei, that's not fair to either of them. Two, confront Minmei, ask her what she wants, does she want ta keep ya as a friend or would she like ta try and see if there's something more." Ranma was basically paraphrasing some advice he had overheard from a radio talk show, but it sounded good to him.

Rick paused in his kata as he thought about that. "You know, that sounds like a good idea, couldn't hurt anyway."

"Glad I could help. Now get back to work, you've got an hour and a half of that to go." Ranma smirked as he heard Rick's groan, ah, that right there was why he agreed to teach him. Rick went back to work and Ranma moved over to the side, keeping an eye on him even as he once more began his own exercises. This time the kata was a more vigorous one, and he jumped twirled, kicked and generally made a mockery of physics or the next fifteen minutes while the watchers looked on amazed.

Life continued in the fortress, as the city was redistributed and prepared for the transformation necessary for firing the main cannon was prepared and the factories went through the massive amount of raw material that had been collected.

The transformation reconstruction was a nontrivial exercise of the first degree. First several dozen buildings had to be moved to make way for the change, then several surrounding farming teirs had to be emptied, taken apart and moved, then the road grid changed to match the new reality, and finally a series of shelters needed to be made to house the civilian population during the modular transformation.

This work would end up taking nearly two months with all the civilian construction teams working 24/7. The naval teams were busy on breaking down the resources they had gathered and in the factories. It also sparked the first sign of unrest among the civilians in demonstrations against the military and of course in random acts of violence. This was exacerbated as the losses sustained in the asteroid belt sunk home.

While Gloval was correct in that telling the truth was a good way to drive home how serious the situation was, it also made morale among the civilians very haphazard, and the losses pushed that morale down badly. The navy had worse morale for now, but it had built in resources to deal with it, though the loss of ten more pilots, who simply resigned handing in their wings, was keenly felt.

Fortunately for the rule of good order the MP's and police were well up to the task of keeping the peace, and mayor Luan, who was very respected for his work in the re-creation of the city was still behind the military and its decision to remodel the city despite his own protests. In a city wide radio cast he appealed for calm and understanding in this trying time, and bluntly pointed out that any way they could help the military would keep the civilians safe in turn. After that and the arrests of several looters calm was restore and work continued.

While this was going on Ranma learned the joys of paperwork. He did not enjoy the experience but he looked at it as a necessary step toward being a leader. In Ranma's mind the equation went something like this: he could defend people + he was in charge of other people = could train them as much as he could = they lived longer and were better able to defend other people. So he put up with it, though not without complaining to and pranking Commander Prescott as often as he could without hurting his ability to do the work. Kasumi also helped him get rid of some tension. Her massages were amazing, and with those and Lisa giving him pointers on typing and using forms he got by and sometime even had days off for more interesting pursuits.

About a month after the ship had disappeared into the gas giant, Lisa and Kasumi had made plans to go with Nodoka to see the harvest coming in on the first hydroponics areas that had been planted. Lisa hadn't seen her friend in two days, having been busy tracking down a black market ring that had attempted to start making and distributing drugs and Nodoka had been busy for the past week in final arrangements for the harvest and the redistribution of the farming areas. Both women however were quick to notice the goofy grin and odd gait that Kasumi seemed to have developed in those days.

As they walked from their meeting place to a waiting jeep, there to take them to the furthest tiers, Nodoka lost her fight with her curiosity. "Alright Kasumi, what's wrong with you? You look like you're on cloud nine, and those giggles you occasionally let out are a little worrisome." Lisa nodded emphatic agreement, wondering what was wrong with her friend.

"HEHEHEH," Kasumi giggled for a bit. "Ranma…heheheh."

Nodoka began to grin, and she carefully steered Kasumi into one of the seats in the back of the jeep. "What about my son has put that shit eating grin on your face dear?" Kasumi came back from wherever her mind had been dwelling to look at the older woman in shock. "Oh don't give me that Kasumi, give girl, or else I'll be forced to guess."

Kasumi blushed under their stares but began to relate her story.

Flashback:

Kasumi had no idea what Ranma had planned, all she had been told was that she should keep her Thursday night free, and that they would be going out somewhere classy. Somewhere classy in Ranma's opinion could mean a lot of things, but in this case he had been very specific they would be going out to a theatre, as in re, rather than -er. When Ranma had picked her up from her last class at the college he had been strangely determined, focused, almost like he was during combat she supposed, but different. The focus was on her and on the upcoming date and she found that the experience was very nice.

After a shower she put on a cocktail dress with a skirt down to her ankles and a opening on the side, tied together around her waist by a green sash, that came up across her shoulders into an the neck and two straps. It was not something she would normally wear, far too gaudy and unnecessarily dressy for her tastes, but for a night out with her boyfriend it would do nicely.

She walked out of her room and found Ranma waiting for her in a tuxedo! She had never seen him wear anything but his uniform or Chinese silk pants before. Now here he was in a full black tuxedo and a red and gold vest underneath with a stud with a small swirling dragon engraved on it. Even his hair was different, rather than being up in his normal pick tail it was laid down along long the back of his neck actually looked combed!

In his hands he held a small maiden lily, a flower native to Japan, though where he found it onboard ship she had no idea. Reaching out with a gentle hand he carefully put into her hair. "You're beautiful. Kasumi" he said and then smirked. "You're going to make all the other girls there die with envy, and all the other guys want ta kill me ya know."

"I don't think it will be because of how I look that they'll die when the see you Ranma" she giggled, "you clean up very nicely. And as for the other boys i'm certain you can defend yourself form their impotent glares" She said the word impotent with wicked force and Ranma's smirk widened. "Now, where where are we going?"

Not answering he gently took her arm and escorted her out of their apartment and from there into the city. Rather than take the Ranma express™ they took a jeep the few minutes it took them to get into town. And from there they went to what had once been a movie theater, but had been converted into a theatre. Kasumi was surprised, and also amused by the fact that rather than having a normal crew this stage are used only college students.

Of course it was because it had to. The fine arts section of the city was abysmal. As had been mentioned before, Macross, despite its importance to the budding SDF, had been much more of a colonial town then a real city. That included a not having a section devoted to the fine arts, and most of them were interested more in music than art or acting. The college was still coming to grips with that, yet it did have an even thirty or so students interested in theatre and acting in general.

Once they entered Ranma again surprised Kasumi by leading her up to one of the box seats rather than a normal seat. It had taken three day's worth of his paycheck, but it was worth it in his opinion. The less people sitting nearby the less chance of anything going wrong, he'd had more than enough experience to know that he was a waking trouble magnet without looking for it. They talked for a few minutes and then the show began; a rendition of Wicked that really did not do the story justice.

The acting was fine for the most part, but the lead actress, who was some kind of well known star back on Earth, simply did not seem to have the ability to pull off a teenage girl very well. it was obvious she had been given the part because of her experience, but she would've been much better to have played one of the adults in the play rather than one of the two main characters who, after all, were young girls. Kasumi briefly wondered if it was her own hubris that made her want to act the part of a younger girl, or simply because it was the biggest role. In any event, the actress that played Glinda did a good job on everything but the singing. Ranma noticed this too and commented that he'd much rather hear Kasumi or Minmei singing than this girl. Kasumi shushed him with a smile on her face and they continued to watch the play.

After the play let out Ranma again surprised Kasumi. First he led her on a walk across the Park which was very romantic. Then they went home and to her surprise, he brought out an already prepared meal with all her favorite foods. How he had hidden this preparation from her was a mystery to her, but she really appreciated the effort it showed. The two sat down to eat talking about their jobs and were each of them wanted to go from here.

Kasumi hesitantly said that she was still looking into classes about exterior and interior design. Ranma noticed she was hesitant to talk about it and asked "Why so unsure Kas-chan? It isn't like I'm gonna tell you what to do or anything."

She sighed "It's just this an entirely new idea Ranma, and I know you said you think I'd be good at it but were you just saying it?"

"Kasumi" he replied seriously "I'll support you whatever you want, okay I'm not going to try to change you. I'm not gonna try to control you. This is your life and as long as we're together you can live however you wish. You want to be an interior designer? Go for it I'll support you. That's what love is about right?"

Kasumi leaned across the table and kissed Ranma very gently on the lip's murmuring "thank you."

The talk continued not really straying back onto serious subjects until the food was done. During their washing up Ranma's confidence seemed to wane and he from time to time glanced at her then away, blushing hotly.

When she caught him on it for the fifth time she asked "what's wrong?"

"Well I-I was just wondering, I mean if this was, you know, perfect for you?" He said losing his voice halfway through his sentence with nervousness.

It took Kasumi a moment to realize what he was really asking, but after she realized it she smiled wickedly, grasped him by his hair, which he had pulled back up into a pigtail, and pulled him into a searing kiss. After that she grasped one of his hands and now dragged the almost totally, shell-shocked young man behind her towards her room.

Flashback ends

She smiled at the memory, but the memory of what happened after they entered her room threatened to make her break out into giggles again.

Nodoka's grin widened and once again she had to fight herself to keep her victory fans where they were. Lisa also smiled, but she also blushed heavily, the image of Ranma naked on his bed coming back to her from the dark recesses of her mind. No wonder she's walking funny, I'm surprised she can walk at all. Once more she pushed that to the back of her mind, though it didn't stay there for long as Nodoka asked "and how was my son's performance Kasumi?"

Kasumi giggled, and it was obvious her mind really wasn't on the conversation. "Oh my god it was sooo good! More and better than I ever figured it could be! We started out all fumbling you know, neither of us having any experience then we began to learn, and he began to learn where my most tender spots were and…! Oh my, we went at it most of the night and again when we woke up! I still can't walk straight!" She looked at Nodoka with a pout "But I thought it was the guy who is supposed to fall asleep afterward and be exhausted the next day. He looked bright and chipper!"

Nodoka couldn't hold it any longer, her victory fans appeared and she began to dance in her seat as Lisa groaned. Her own lack of a partner was becoming more and more of an issue, and this conversation looked to make that even more painful than normal.

Three weeks after the harvest came in (and thus three weeks after Kasumi's revelation) the city had been modified enough to allow the transformation into the new configuration necessary to fire the gun. The very next day Gloval met with his officers and outlined what he was hoping to do. "This situation calls for speed and brutality, and is only really possible if the main cannon works as you have been saying it will doctor."

"The main gun will work, and it'll work the way I have been saying it will. As I said the ship was designed to transform like this from the beginning, possibly not for the same reasons, but the main cannon will fire a beam that will widen exponentially as it leaves the nacelles and will fire as long as we power it. We won't be able to move very quickly in the new configuration, it seems to be made more for the power it adds to the main gun than anything else. Sort of like a siege or planetary assault mode. But it will work."

"How far above the surface would we need to get before being able to fire?"

Dr Lang took a moment to think before replying. "Given the damage we did to ourselves before when firing the cannon on Earth I would want us to be completely out of the atmosphere captain. The gun creates a tremendous amount of heat and while the atmosphere of Saturn may be better for that than space it also puts more pressure on the ships structure than Earth's gravity, and I don't know how that would influence the transformation."

"Very well. We will randomly choose a direction to leave Saturn's atmosphere and transform into the new form as fast as possible. Then we will fire the main cannon on as wide a radius as possible for as long as possible, hopefully destroying many of their motherships and clearing a path directly through the asteroid field if we come out an angle where we will intersect it. We will then transform back and move swiftly through the gap thus created."

Roy spoke up from where he was leaning against the bulkhead. "Captain, a point. The ship will be vulnerable while it is transforming. It'll be up to my Air Group and we haven't been able to do anything but simulator drills with the new graduates." The second class had graduated a bare week prior. "If it takes too long to clear the asteroid field with the cannon we may face the same type of fight as before."

"Commander Hayes?" Gloval indicated.

Hayes took her place at the front of the room and touch the screens controls. On the screen a brief view of the asteroid ring and Saturn appeared. "Going by this plan we will be in place between the planet's upper atmosphere and the asteroid ring. That should allow us to have enough space between us and the ring so that they cannot get in close without us picking them up on radar. However we will plan as if there will be resistance from enemy battlepods. First we'll launch two elite squadrons from the forward most hangers, your discretion as to which, their job will be to close with the asteroid ring and be our eyes and ears before the main cannon fires. Once we transform however they will need to retreat out of the line of fire swiftly.

"Next out of the ship will be the Defender class Destroids. We will then launch twenty of the new missile satellites and the rest of the Valkyrie squadrons. All combat will happen within the Defender's anti-air envelope. This and the ship not being in the asteroid belt should cut down on losses." Her voice remained clipped and professional throughout, not showing how worried she was about facing combat again, or her own worries about the pilots.

Roy merely nodded. "Are we going to move straight back to Earth captain?"

"That will be determined later, but our long term goal is always to get back home."

Roy nodded again and the meeting broke up. Moments later speakers everywhere in the ship began to go off. "All Veritech pilots report to designated squadron ready rooms, all Destroid operators report to base. All navy personnel prepare for battle in two hours. All civilians be aware modular transformation in three hours. All civilians check in at safe zones." This repeated several times, making certain that everyone on board heard it.

All around the city military personnel stopped what they had been doing and ran off while the civilians took a bit longer to respond, not used to this command and what it entailed. Nodoka, the police commissioner and Mayor Luan however had been thinking about this all along during the remodeling of the city. They immediately took charge, using policemen, construction workers and the military police to direct everyone to safe zones in the city, which were marked out in neon glowing paint on the ground, ceiling and walls at times and from there into shelters. Their plan worked so well that every civilian was gathered up and in a safe place within the allotted time frame. This warning also interrupted a conversation between one civilian and one recalcitrant pilot.

Rick had decided to follow Ranma's advice about Minmei and had asked her to spend some time with him that day. Almost immediately he noticed that he was more attentive and happy with her than with Sammy. It often felt that with Sammy he always had to be doing something interesting to make her happy but with Minmei just being with her made him happy and while she wanted his attention, he didn't need to be doing anything to keep hers.

When it came to talking about his feelings for her however he couldn't force the words out. Instead he asked "You've been humming something most of the time we've been walking, but I can't recognize the tune?"

Minmei blushed. "Oh it's just a song I wrote, nothing serious. You know that I've always wanted to be a singer, part of that is writing my own songs. I call it 'my boyfriends a pilot'."

Ricks blood froze. "O-oh, that's nice, so you're boyfriends a pilot huh, do I know him? Has Ranma given him the big brother speech, he said once that he'd do that if you ever got a boyfriend." He tied to make a joke of it, but any astute listener would have seen how shaken up he was.

For better or worse Minmei wasn't so astute. "Oh don't be silly Rick, I don't have a boyfriend, but two of my best friends are pilots, you and Ranma."

Ricks courage broke again at hearing that hated word. Just friends huh, always saying we're friends, what about the kisses we shared, do you really mean that, you think I'm just a friend?

Thankfully for Rick it was at this point that the emergency alert blared over the speakers. It was with a sigh of relief that Rick said "Look I gotta go, will you be alright by yourself?"

Minmei nodded looking very worried. "I'll find Auntie N" this was her nickname for Nodoka "and stay with her until this is over. Oh Rick, please be careful out there. I don't want to lose you or Ranma okay?" Rick nodded and feeling daring went to kiss her but his courage failed him and he only kissed her on the cheek before running away. Minmei looked after him a moment then turned and ran off, intent on finding either Nodoka or Kasumi.

Skull squadron launched from the forward most hanger bays as soon as they cleared the outer atmosphere and by the time the rest of the ship was out of the atmosphere they had stationed themselves between it and the asteroid belt in a defensive position. Almost as soon as they did, two battlepods made a brief appearance before being destroyed by two well placed blaster rounds.

Breetai was making use of a sleep cycle when he was rudely roused by his flagship captain. "My lord, you wanted to be told immediately when the space fortress came out of the gas giant's atmosphere, it has appeared near the southern pole of the planet. Two battlepods reported being engaged there before going silent."

Breetai threw himself upright, grabbing a stim stick and rushing past the captain barking orders. "Move all the battlepods already in space to that position and engage the space fortress. Move the fleet closer to the asteroid belt."

As soon as the ship was free of the atmosphere, Defenders began to move out and take up position all along the hull of the battleship. At the same time the rest of the Valkyrie squadrons launched and the missile satellites were jettisoned. These pods were incredibly simple devices built around the missile launchers that had been the arms on the Phalanx destroids. Only twenty of the pods had been completed by this point, since the primary goals of the factories was repairing and building more Veritechs as well as constructing more of the mobile barriers. Now they had ten mobile barriers built and hooked up, ready to go and every pilot, all 149 of them, once more had a Valkyrie.

Ranma had been given an entirely new Valkyrie, a VF 1S variant that had four lasers instead of one and a magnetic clip for the blaster on the side of the right arm. As soon as he saw it Ranma somehow knew this machine would be his for the rest of his life. He had felt a connection to his other planes (both of which had been practically demolished under him) but something about this one called to him before he even got into its cockpit. He had ideas about customizing it, and had begun to make a list days before the current operation.

He took up his position with the rest of blue squadron on the port side of the battleship. "Blue 6 on station." He had been moved forward a few flights from all the deaths and reassignments that had happened. Now the only ones he knew from the old squad was Motoko Aoyama, who had begun to badger him about martial arts lesson whenever they saw one another, Rick and Commander Prescott. The Hanrahan twins, the last two survivors had been moved over to Gold to fill that squads veteran requirement.

He didn't even know the new Lt., a former skull pilot, and hadn't bothered learning his or any of the other's names. He'd wait until they survived a month or so before bothering. It might have seemed callous but it was more a defense against the pain of losing more friends. If he didn't know them, it wouldn't hurt if they died.

While he was devoting most of his attention to his sensors and his assigned section he had enough presence of mind to watch in his view screen as the space fortress began to transform. "This should really have some kind of sound effect, like the old transformers sound 'chchhchhck' you know." He continued to watch in something like amused awe as the fortress finished transforming. "Uh, command, you do know you look like a giant robot now right? I mean, this is so damn cool."

He could practically hear Lisa's eyes rolling over the radio as she replied. "yes we know blue 6, now cut the chatter. You need to be concentrating on your section."

"Hai, command, be aware I will be using a variant of the music attack. I want to see if that was a onetime deal or not, and that Intel guy wasn't much help at all."

"Roger that blue 6, keep line 15 free for orders from higher and line 7 for inter-squad communication. And do try to play something tasteful alright? Command out."

"Lines 15 and 7 free aye, something tasteful aye command."

Not two minutes later the first battlepods appeared in his sector but he didn't even bother calling it in, simply killing all three pods with a short burst of his underslung lasers in jet mode. The newbies in the squadron had noticed the action and some of them looked over at him in awe before being called back to the matter at hand by Prescott.

Not two minutes later the main reflux cannon nacelles finished moving into position. A minute later they finished charging and began to fire. Ranma was simply stunned for a moment by the amount of power he felt being used. "Holy fucking god."

Aboard his flagship Breetai's eye widened in recognition but before he could order the fleet to disperse the monstrous beam of power sliced through the asteroid ring and continued out into space before slicing like a scythe through the fleet in position in front of it. Fully forty ships died under that fire in the first few minutes, and then the beam began to move from side to side and up and down, devastating that section of the fleet. BY the time the beam shut down it had claimed over a hundred ships of the line, and the way forward was clear of any ship that could have sent additional battlepods after the space fortress. "It's down to the Regulds stationed in the asteroid ring now. They must slow the space fortress down and let us reposition!" He hoped they were up to the task, but was concerned. Given the Micronian's size, as well as the time spent in the gas giants atmosphere, he was almost certain they would have retrained their forces enough to make good their losses. The question was, how often could they do that in the long run?

Once the beam cut off Lisa's voice rang out again over the radio. "All forces be advised the Macross will be going to full power to engines as soon as the transformation back to normal mode is complete."

Ranma grinned even as more battlepods came out of the remaining asteroid section only to run into the fire of the Destroyers, opening both lines 15 and 7. "Oh come on command, just call it vehicle mode, you know you want to. Be advised that we have incoming, I count at least fifty pods incoming port side, blue one advise?"

"Shut it blue 6," command answered promptly, though Ranma could here giggles and even a chuckle from behind her.

Prescott however was all business. "Blue squad, boost engines and engage. Tan squad stay on station here." As the most senior commander, Prescott was in charge of the defense on this side of the ship.

"Roger Blue one, good hunting," Tan 1 answered.

Ranma double clicked his radio in acknowledgement and he and Rick gunned forward and within a minute were hitting the battlepods alongside the rest of the squad. The battlepods who were already ducking and hopping around the Defender's fire, lost ten of their number before recovering and firing back. The dogfight became hectic immediately and Ranma killed another three pods before deciding it was time to use the music and see what happened. "Command this is blue 6, starting noise attack now."

With that the sound of Body and Mind, a Japanese jazz song rang out over nearly all the channels hammering the battlepods speaker. There was an immediate effect, but one that took Ranma by surprise. As he flew through the battle the enemy mechs began to break away from him, almost running but not quite. They seemed confused and scared, but whatever it was made them easy meat for the Veritechs. "Command, are you seeing this?"

"We're seeing it we're not certain what it means though. Good choice by the way, but why do you think its having a different effect from before?"

"The only differences between the two are this is in another language and the singer is female. Seeing as these are aliens I'd say that it's because the voice is that of a woman command. Maybe they're scared of girls or something" Ranma joked, even as he used his missiles to kill a command pod that was trying to range on the new blue 10, while behind him Rick killed two more. "Be advised the command pods seem to ignore it."

"Roger last blue 6, and I wouldn't point out anyone being afraid of women if I were you. Or do I have to mention Akane?" Commander Haye's voice was serious even though the words were joking and she moved on swiftly, maneuvering reinforcements to the aft section of the defense, where the thrust of the aliens coming out of the asteroid ring was the hardest. The ship finished its transformation and began to move through the space that had previously been occupied by a part of the asteroid ring.

Ranma moved up, changing into robot mode beside Motoko's ship which had lost a wing and her wingman. As he and Rick took up position around her blazing away she transformed slowly and eventually rejoined the battle.

Around the ship other pilots began to hammer out their own songs and the numbers of the enemy, the thing that could have brought them victory despite everything, shattered. Under the music assault ach of them was force to fight alone, the only exception being the command pods and the few pods they could rally around them.

The Defender's fire in particular became far more effective as the enemy lost unit cohesion and the ability to concentrate past what was right in front of them. The Valkyries too had a field day racking up the kills and about halfway through the asteroid ring the alien assault petered out.

Lisa began to pull in the fighters, least experienced squadrons first and then the Destroyers. She left one squadron out there as a CAP, with Skull to start with, but the battle was effectively over. She turned to captain Gloval elation showing on her face. "Sir, the battle seems to be over. We are clear to advance."

Gloval smiled back though inwardly he was certain the battle had only been so easy because they had caught the commander from the previous battle out of position to direct this one. If he had been nearer the music attack would not have worked to the extent it had and they would have paid a far higher price for this escape. Still for now he would count his blessings and let the crew have their happy moment.

trt

End chapter As normal review and tell me what you think!